Essa Alroc's Blog, page 16

How to Not Wind Up With Naked Pictures of You All Over the Internet

I learned a new phrase today. It’s called ‘Revenge Porn.’

In initially thought it was referring to the movie “I Spit on Your Grave”, however, it’s actually referring to when an ex, or anyone else, posts naked pictures of you online without your consent.  I learned about it because of a bill that was passed in California, making it illegal.

Weirdly, I thought something like this would already be illegal, but no. So people, if you don’t want to see your naked ass in someone else’s Facebook stream, there are a few things you all need to consider.

Your iPhone is not secure

The iPhone seems to be the biggest partner in crime when it comes to revenge porn. In some cases, these pictures are obtained by someone sending them to someone else. However, you don’t need to send the photo anywhere for it to get snatched. Even if you just took a picture of your junk when you were wasted, giggled and never sent it anywhere, it’s still not safe. As long as that picture is in that phone, someone can get it.

Whenever you talk on the phone, surf the web or text your friends, you are sending out a wave of data. This wave of data can be ridden backwards to get into your phone. Most times, you won’t even notice anything is happening until you’re staring at that mole on your ass on Google. This doesn’t just apply to phones either. This also applies to laptops and iPads.

Hot spot aren’t just hot spots for you. They are hotspots for hackers. For god sakes, learn what a VPN is and use it.

That person you love will eventually be the asshole you hate.

No one in the history of digital pornography has ever said the following sentence. “Gee, I’m so glad that my ex has those naked pictures of me.” Keep in mind that the cute nudie shot you sent could eventually become something much worse; leverage.  If you absolutely must send a naked shot, do what Craigslist NSA browsers have been doing for years and take the shot from your neck down. If they can’t see your face, they can’t prove shit.

Web cams can get hacked

You know where my webcam is right now? Face down on my desk. My webcam on my mac has a little thimble cover I designed that I can pop into place. That way, if someone were to get access to my web cam remotely, they’re not getting shots of me sitting topless in front of my computer. They are getting shots of the surface of my desk or the inside of a thimble.   

Know your rights

Just because this does not rise to the level of criminal activity does not mean it is not a civil infraction. If someone wants to display your pictures in a public place for money or advertising, even if you’re wearing a burqa in the fucking thing, they need a release. If they don’t there are a wide range of complaints you could file. This only applies to pictures taken with your consent. I hear a lot of bullshit about how if you gave someone the pictures, they’re that person’s property and they can do what they want with them. Not true. You still own your image and you are allowed to tell people what they may and may not do with that image. This specifically applies when the photo is uploaded to a commercial site. Private pictures can not be used for commercial purposes.

Also, this is not defamation or libel. I hear people throw those words around way too much. Defamation is a false, inflammatory statement made about one person to a third party. Libel is writing that statement down for viewing of a third party. Neither of these have anything to do with nude pics, unless your head is getting pasted onto a nude body that isn’t yours.

Finally, if someone takes a nude photo without your consent, this is a crime in every state in the nation. If the way they gained access to those photos falls under the definition of hacking across state lines, this is a federal crime.

I hate to be the one to blame the victim, I really do, but people, operate a little common sense. If you don’t want it on the internet, don’t put it on your computer. I have to admit, I do have a bit more sympathy for those who have been hacked, over those who handed over nude pictures. Either way, treat your computer and your devices with suspicion. They are not your friends. They are stupid machines that can be easily manipulated. Remember that, and chances are, you’ll make it through life without having to worry about getting posted on amateurdirtysluts.com.

Pullin’ The Race Card

It tried to watch Key & Peel tonight. I really did. FYI comedy writers out there, if you want to make a shitty sketch show that never gets canceled, no matter how bad the ratings, focus it around one thing; the race card.

I’m all for stereotypical humor. I’m all for inappropriate humor. What I’m not for is focusing on race as the entire premise of a show.

In Key & Peel, they might as well call the show, “Hey, Look…We’re Black. Now Watch People Treat Us Badly Because of That.”

You know what Key & Peel, fuck that and fuck you. I’m tired of feeling a little bit guilty every time I tune into your show because of something people I never met…did something bad to people you never met…50 years ago. I’m letting go of my liberal guilt because I’m not a liberal. I’m a Libertarian and I consume enough marijuana to never feel guilty again.

I’ve had everyone from 20 year old Native Americans; to 50 year old black people say to me “Essa, usually I don’t like white people. But I like you.”

To that, I respond every single fucking time, “Fuck off racist.”

I’ve called out feminists. I’ve called out manosphereists. I’ve called out everyone in between, but I rarely call out people that pull the race card. I rarely call out people who respond to one of my posts ‘well, I’m Hispanic, so I think I have a better grasp…”

You know what? Fuck your race. It would be widely inappropriate for me to go to a Republican convention and say, “well, because I’m white, I think I have a better understanding of deficit control and fiscal responsibility.”

Your race doesn’t give you knowledge and intelligence. Your genetics and your schooling give you knowledge and intelligence.

Also, in regards to statements like; “I’m (insert race here). You don’t know the struggles my people have faced.” You know what assholes? You didn’t work in the cotton fields. Harriet Tubman did. You didn’t get assassinated for your beliefs. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King did. You do not get to take credit for their works, and take advantage of their suffering because you share the same skin color.

So you have faced issues in your past because of how you look? Welcome to the club.

Every time I go to an auto shop, everyone in the room thinks ‘trophy wife’. It doesn’t matter that I have never been married. It doesn’t matter that I am lower-middle class at best and I grew up in a place where most of the time, I was lucky to have running water.

Instead, they see ‘trophy wife’ because I have blonde hair and blue eyes. They see that and they think ‘some well-to-do husband is paying her bills”. When I say what the problem is, they pat me on the head (not joke, this happens regularly) and treat me like a child

I’m not a trophy wife. I grew up poor in a small town where everyone was poor. I wore my brother’s hand-me-downs. I had a choice between being a welfare mom and a convenience store cashier. Writing a novel was beyond my realm. Gaining a Masters was beyond my realm. They were beyond my realm because I was born poor white trash. I was trailer park girl. I was dirty. I was the girl that wore her brother’s hand-me-downs. But I would not let those labels define my future.

I joined the military. If you can believe it, I never experienced even one iota of sexism while in. My fellow soldiers respected me in a way that my small town neighbors hadn’t. I grew into someone better than my appearance.  I fought for this country. While you were all watching the news regarding 9/11, I was there. I was an enlisted soldier dealing with terrorism. I fought and killed for this country. Many of you, black and white alike, watched it on your televisions and never truly understood the absolutely desperate significance of that day. I did. I saw it all. I saw how racism could twist the mind. Then, I saw how people of all races could come together for a common good.

And people choose to treat me like a child because of how I fucking look.

So yeah, I don’t know your struggles. Maybe a cabbie refused to pick you up one time because of the color of your skin. Maybe you get pulled over because of the color of your skin.

But I am not that racist cabbie. Nor am I that racist cop. I am a simple white girl, with blond hair, and blue eyes. The world should be mine on a silver platter, right?

Not so much. Most people treat me normally because normal people are not nearly as racist as you all make them out to be. For those who don’t, I deal with men twice my age or triple my weight hitting on me. I deal with creepy dudes following me until I turn around and show them what I have in my waistband. I deal with having to send four idiots on their way when they try to give manly advice on my car troubles, when I already know what’s wrong.

Simply stated, I deal with ignorant people who think I am stupid and helpless because of the way I look…when all I really want is to be left alone.

We all have our struggles. We all have to make people accept us at more than face value. Part of the human condition is finding acceptance somewhere. When you choose to hang that acceptance on the color of your skin, you’ve already lost the battle.

When someone pats me on the head, I gently remove their hand and warn them that the next time they touch me without permission; they will pull back a bloody stump. When idiots come racing to my rescue on the side of the road, I wave them away and handle my own shit. When predators think I’m weak (FYI white girls are the most common targets of serial killers), I make it clear I could take them in a fight.

I don’t get bitter. I don’t pull the race card. I move on with my life and smirk at the small minded idiots who think I can’t take care of myself, simply because of the way I look. I make those people out there that think they can take advantage of me reconsider their actions. I rise above how I look, to who I really am.

Race card pullers out there, you don’t get to pull the race card with me. You don’t get to email me that “you’re the one white person I like” and think that I am flattered. Slavery ended a long time ago and I had nothing to do with it. We all have to deal with preconceived notions. We all have to accept that some assholes out there will see us on the surface and nothing more. Your color doesn’t matter. Either, you can assume that the racist person you meet was an anomaly, or you can assume that everyone you meet of that race will be the same.

Just a hint; when you take the second option, you miss out on a lot.

“Get busy living, or get busy dying.” Those are your choices. You can confront the world like an adversary. You can assume that everyone is going to think about you in a certain way because of the way the you look. Your goal in this life isn’t to yell at the ignorant assholes that do that. Your goal in this life is to change the way they think entirely.

You can’t do that when you’re pulling the race card.

 

 

Essa’s Adventures – Give Me a Reason

I’m driving home from Phoenix. This time, for the 400th time, me and Joe are through.

Our fight started out innocently enough. We were playing poker with his friends and one of his buddies, Dan, complained. He complained that I have no ‘tell’.

Joe doesn’t like it when I’m better at things than him and he was quick to jump on his buddy’s side when he started an argument. At 33 I would have dumped his ass in a heartbeat. But unfortunately, I’m 20 in this story.

Joe glares at me over his cards and talks about me like I’m not even in the room. “Yeah, she’s got a thousand yard stare. It’s kind of a pain in the ass.” He smirks in my direction. “It’s like she’s got nothing going on inside.”

“Excuse me?” I’m offended.

“I’m just saying, you’re kind of cold.”

“Why the fuck are you dating me then?” I’ll show this asshole cold.

Our conversation quickly deteriorates into one of those fights where neither party is wrong, and neither party is right, because both their arguments are fucking stupid.

I storm out the door and get into my car. I’ll show this bastard. I’ll strand his ass! I slide behind the wheel of my 1999 Dodge Neon with bald tires. I turn the ignition and step on the accelerator.

I’m driving for about 20 minutes, on a deserted stretch of highway the locals call the Yuma dessert. Suddenly, white smoke fills the inside of my car.

20 year old Essa was mystified. 33 year old Essa knows it was the radiator and could have easily been fixed with some distilled water.

My car stalls out on the side of the road. There is nothing. It is the dead of night but it’s still over 100 degrees. For 20 miles in either direction, I am alone.

I get out of the car and pop the hood. Steam flies out from underneath it.

“You need some help Ma’am?”

I spin around. A man stands 20 feet away from me. He’s old and nondescript looking, with a doughy middle aged face.  He’s driving a tow truck and has pulled up behind me, on this lonely desolate highway. I should be relived. Instead, for some strange reason, all I feel is a cold tingle of foreboding running up my spine.

At 33 years of age, I still know it was a damn good thing that I trusted those 20 year old instincts.

I cross my arms over my chest. “It overheated. I don’t know why.”

The man looks at my engine. “You’ll need a tow. I can bring you to my shop.”

33 year old Essa is knows this is bullshit. All I needed was distilled water. Any decent tow truck driver has distilled water. But this is 20 year old Essa we’re dealing with, not the new and improved Essa 33.

“Ok, let me get my purse.”

I pop open the glove compartment to get my triple A card, knowing that tows are covered under my plan. I’m still sitting in the passenger seat when I hear this.

“Ok, Essa.”

I freeze in my seat. I never told him my name.

“Essa?”

His saying my name makes me jerk again, but I hide it. Instead, I reach for something else in my glove compartment.

The Beretta 9mm Joe got me for my birthday.

I wrap my hand around the gun and instantly feel a bit more secure. However, that security is wrapped in second guesses.

“Will I offend him?” My inborn level of politeness, from being a woman and a New Englander is starting to take over.

“I need to confirm the order.” My dependence on authority, from being a 20 year old soldier, is starting to take over.

I get out of the passenger seat, the Beretta 9 hidden in the small of my back. “You know what, I think I’m ok.”

The tow truck driver spins to look at me and for just an instant, his face changes entirely. The placid “just trying to help, Ma’am” look is gone. Instead, he is annoyed.  “Ma’am, it’s like 103 out here. I can’t in good conscious…”

“I’m fine.” My finger touches the trigger behind my back while a million voices scream ‘you’re being impolite” and ‘you don’t have orders.”

“Look lady,” he is walking towards me rapidly now and his face is weirdly furious, considering the circumstances. He gets to the trunk of my car. “I’ll drive you to my shop. It will only take a few minutes. You can call your boyfriend from there.”

His words don’t reassure me. Instead, I’m wondering how he knew I had a boyfriend. “I said I’m fine.” Let him say one more thing, I tell myself. I don’t want to be impolite. I don’t want to pull a gun on a stranger. Just let him give me a reason.

“Listen!” he barks the order at me, sounding entirely too desperate for a tow truck driver.

I pull the gun. My hand doesn’t shake when I pull it. I’m surprised. I thought my hand would shake. I’ve always had such shaky hands.  He is surprised to see a gun, but not entirely fearful.

He puts up his hands. “I’m just trying to help.”

“I don’t need help.”

Instead of running away, he takes a step forward. He doesn’t think I will use it. “Look…”

He starts to try to explain himself, but all I can think is one thing. No good Samaritan would hang out after a gun had been pulled on him. None. I don’t need orders and I don’t need to be polite, everything in me is telling me that something is wrong with this guy.

I fire one shot into the sky, not caring about PSA commercials about the dangers of firing bullets into the sky that always come out around this time of year. I fire one shot into the sky, not caring about offending a stranger.

If I am forced to choose between offending a stranger and defending my life, I will choose ‘offending a stranger’ every single time.

He uncovers his ears from the sound of my bullet escaping the chamber. He opens his mouth to speak, but I don’t give him the chance.

“The next warning shot goes in your chest.”

Here’s the sick part; at this point, I didn’t want him to walk away. I wanted him to try and attack. I wanted him to give me a reason. As he was standing there, indecision plastered across his doughy face, I wanted him to be wrong. I wanted him to make the wrong decision. Some instinct inside of me told me that it would be better that his life ended right there, on that lonely stretch of Yuma highway. I wanted him to give me a reason.

Instead, he walked away, got into his tow truck and drove off.

By this time, my car has cooled down enough to limp to the next exit. I tell my problem to the cashier, and he dumps a gallon of distilled water in my radiator. I drive home, to Tucson, still wondering if I had been wrong. If I had wrongly attacked some random dude on the highway that night.

The next morning, I wake up. I call the cops, just to report the incident in case it’s important.

I learn during that call, the tow truck company listed on the side of his truck doesn’t exist. I learn he matches the description of a suspect in 4 rapes. I learn that more than a few women have gone missing along that lonely stretch of Yuma highway that summer.

I learn that sometimes, being right is a bit more important than being polite.

The Two Color Contact Method

Hey people, surprisingly, after last nights post, I’ve stopped getting emails from Manosphere idiots!  However, I have gotten a few messages, and one comment, from people who were intrigued by the two color contact manipulation method.

Because I am an all around wonderful human being, I’m going to explain it in more detail right here.

Have you ever seen an old hypnosis movie, where the hypnotist was waving a watch back and forth in front of someone? That’s not just a prop. It’s actually based in science.

The goal is to force the subject’s eyes to move back in forth, to eventually bring on something called REM (rapid eye movement). REM usually only happens when you are deeply asleep and dreaming. REM is a point where the human mind is at its most vulnerable, because the subconscious is wide open and has taken over the conscious.

When REM is induced while someone is awake, they are very vulnerable to manipulation. It’s easy to implant suggestions in them and make them believe what you want them to believe.

Of course, you can’t just go around waving a watch in front of a girl’s face at a club. Instead, you need to be more subtle. That’s where the two different color eyes come in. Once someone notices that they are looking into two different color eyes, they will start to focus on one over the other. They’ll realize what they are doing and try to make direct eye contact again, but they’ll actually just start switching their gaze from one eye to another.

In many cases, this is enough to trigger REM, making the subject vulnerable to manipulation.

Now how much to you all want to bet that the next time I go to a club, it’s going to be filled with guys sporting two different color eyes?

 

Dear Manosphere Retards…In Answer to Your Questions

In the past, I’ve been a pretty big critic of the manoshpere. I’ve written a couple of articles on the manosphere, which makes these douches just foam at the mouth when they read them. I would say, aside from Christian fundamentalists, Westboro Baptist Church Members and Rush Limbaugh fan clubbers, they are probably my biggest haters. Despite the fact that they are only forth in line for my biggest haters, they seem to send me the most repeat emails.

In case you’re wondering what the manosphere is, it’s mainly a group of lonely internet douche bags who hate feminism and think women are everything that is wrong with the world.

Guaranteed, the pussy that made this will send me a DMCA notice in weeks.

Here’s the thing, I’m not a feminist. I’ve never really considered myself a feminist because I think once you start supporting the interest of one group of over another, you become the thing that you were complaining about in the first place. I don’t believe in ‘women’s rights’. I believe in ‘human’ rights.

But, because I am an angry, outspoken writer who just happens to have a vagina, I attracted their attention at one point. To be fair, I did call them retards on several occasions, so I can’t pretend I’m an innocent party here. In fact, I might have entirely started the fight.

Yeah, I’ll do that. Must be my emotional feminine nature.

Look, douches who keep emailing me, I’m not a feminist. I’m an individualist. Get it right if you’re going to insult me.

I believe that some people have more value to the world than other people. What they have dangling (or not) between their legs doesn’t matter to me. I believe in the power of the person, not the striations of statistics. You all don’t seem to get that, which is why you are part of the problem in the world. Not part of the solution.

And most of you fuckers seem to have a lot of time on your hands, because you keep emailing me. Well, you might have a lot of time on your hands, but I don’t. So I’m going to answer all your questions in bulk, rather than spend the time emailing you. Consider this the first and last time I will respond to your arguments.

Question 1 – You have to admit that (insert bullshit statistic) is true.

Look, whenever you send me a fucking statistic, I think this; “statistics don’t lie, but only liars use statistics.” Depending on where you choose to conduct your study, you can make statistics say whatever you want. For example, Essa wants to prove that women are actually taller than men.

In my apartment block, I have me, Essa. I’m about 5’5” tall. Above me, I have four women who are professional models. Their heights are 5’9”, 5’11”, 6’2” and 5’8”.

Average women’s height = 5’9 inches

Onto the men. I have Mr. Washington and his son; 5’8” and 5’9” respectively. I have college student Kevin; 6’4”. I have insurance guy Mike; 5’7”. Finally, I have little guy Carl; 3’11”.

Average men’s height = 5’6 inches

There you go. Women are officially taller than men.

In short, fuck your statistics. Statistics will say whatever you want them to say, as long as you do the math right.

Question 2 – Women are emotional

Yeah, that’s what makes us different and kind of makes the world work. If it weren’t for emotional women, the world would just be full of dudes punching each other in the arms and working for no reason.

Emotions drive human beings. Having emotions outside of the desire to fuck, eat and sleep is what separates us from animals. Experiencing the full spectrum of emotions out there is what makes us special. My dog doesn’t get to experience the full spectrum of emotions. She’s happy, bored, and having sex with one of my couch cushions. Those are her levels. It might sound nice, but she will never find a cure for cancer.

Why? Because she doesn‘t care about cancer. She cares about fulfilling her most basic urges. If it weren’t for emotions, we would all still be grunting in caves and fucking rocks. Emotions are what make us special. Stop treating them like a bad thing.

Questions 3 – Why do women keep trading up?

One of the biggest complaints I hear from these men that email me is that women ‘trade up’. They marry starter husbands and then leave them as soon as they find something better.

But these men never seem to consider their own culpability in the situation. No, they were all behaving like perfect saints when their girls left them. They never cheated, so that means they are angels who are completely blameless in the process.

Um, no. How would you feel if you married a woman who was 5’4” and 100 pounds, and then 6 months later, became 5’4” and 200 pounds? How would you feel if she was active when she married you, but became a lazy asshole 3 months in?

Here’s the thing dudes; women don’t randomly change. We don’t suddenly fall out of love. Personally, I think whenever someone cheats in a relationship, both parties are to blame. If they were fulfilled at home, they wouldn’t have cheated.

So here are your choices dudes. Either you married an evil gold digger, who was an evil gold digger from the beginning, but you were too fucking stupid to notice. Or you married a chick, started ignoring her because you had her locked down, and she strayed out of boredom.

You’re not an innocent victim. You’re either a moron, or a lazy douche. Now stop bitching about it. You being dumb and marrying without a prenup is not the world’s problem. It’s yours.

Question 4 – Not really a questions but …”I’m never getting married because of bitches like you.” 

Who gives a fuck? Die alone. No one cares and no one will ever love you. Ride that self pity train all the way to your grave, loser.

Question 4 – You talk all tough, but I bet you would totally fall for one of my lines.

I’m getting ready to share a deep dark secret here people.

Since 2006, I have been a professional ghostwriter. I didn’t go full time professional until about 1 year ago. However, in the time that I was ghostwriting part time, I wrote about 75 non-fiction, self help style books.

The majority of my ghostwriting projects focused on relationships, mental manipulation, emotional cues, body language and a little something called kenos.

That book that you read, those tips that you read, that you think I’m going to fall for because you are such a master manipulator? Yeah, I wrote those books.

I know about acting uninterested. I know about throwing out subtle insults. I know about deep eye contact. I know about light touching. Hell, I even know that advanced level shit about wearing one contact lens that is a little bit darker than the other. I know about it because I wrote it. And you did it.

You did it because I fucking told you to. Who’s the master manipulator here? Dance, puppets dance.

Question 5 – I bet you only act this way because you’re a lonely bitter old bitch who can’t get laid.

Let’s just get this out of the way; I can get laid any time I want. Just to make sure, I just went outside and screamed “hey, I’m a reasonably attractive women with no STDs, who needs some dick.” Approximately 7000 men and 4 women invited me into their apartments.

I know this might sound hard to believe, but women can be smart. We can be depressingly smart. The sad fact is, when a chick is really, really smart, most men are uncomfortable around her. It’s not the same way for chicks and dudes. A girl can hook up with a guy a lot smarter than her and feel completely ok with it. She’ll have smart babies. Things are wonderful.

Smart girls don’t work quite the same way.  Guys get threatened. They don’t like it when we can name all the elements in the periodic table, and they have to Google what the periodic table is in the first place.

I got handed 40 more IQ points than I actually needed and now it’s my responsibility to figure out what I need to do with them. I have two choices.

I can dumb myself down so I’m nice and non-threatening. I could meet a nice man and pretend to be an average intelligence girl. I could laugh at his jokes, even when they’re dumb. I could let him talk down to me, to keep him from feeling threatened.  I could pretend to not know he’s fucking around on me, while I tolerate his family, clean his house and pick his socks up off the floor.

Or I can fuck a bunch of really stupid, really attractive guys who mainly want to get into my pants because I flashed a shiny key ring.

So I go ahead and I buy shiny key rings in bulk. Boys, it isn’t 1953 anymore.  I accepted the fact that I’m a trade off kind of girl a long time ago. I can be who I am, get laid on a regular basis, and go back to being me. Or I can fake something I’m not in order to fit an outdated custom.

I’m not the only girl who feels like this. Marriage and family isn’t the golden ring for us anymore. Sacrificing who we are to start a family isn’t what drives us anymore. We have bigger dreams than a nice house in the suburbs.

In short, somewhere between 1953 and now, women became people. We started having real experiences and living real lives. I get it when you send me messages telling me that children ‘do better in a nuclear family’. I really do.

But those children grow up to be adults, and half of those adults are female.

Look manosphere dudes, the reason you and me don’t get along isn’t because you’re manly men and I’m a feminist (meaning I’m a chick with an opinion, in your world).

The reason we don’t get along is because I hate hypocrites. And you fuckers, you are the worst kind of hypocrites there are. Because you refuse to see your own hypocrisy.

You bitch that women are only after men for their financial value.

Then you call women with kids or women over 35 ‘low value.’

You bitch that matriarchies ruin the world.

But you blindly refuse to see the damage patriarchies already cause (Taliban, cough, Taliban).

You bitch that feminists only want to do the easy, high paying jobs.

Then you bitch when women in the coal mining, welding and automotive industries file lawsuits because they are harassed while they’re just trying to do their low paying jobs.

You talk about how patriarchies are better for making children happy.

But you don’t seem to give a fuck how happy those children are when they grow up.

Simply stated manosphere, I don’t like you because you treat women like accessories and not people. You catalog our faults, while ignoring your own. You complain because we don’t want to fill the roles you’ve predefined for us. You complain because we leave you when you treat us like shit.

Nope, I’m not a feminist. I believe in the power of the people. I believe that some people are smarter than other people. But I believe in something else too. I believe that I am smarter than you. That has nothing to do with gender. That’s just a fucking fact.  I get annoyed when you send me emails because I think “why the hell should I have to explain myself to someone who is not as smart as me?”

Seriously manosphere douches, I didn’t make you stupid. God did. Take it up with him (or her, whatever).

What I don’t believe in is separating the world by gender lines. I will never believe in doing that. Today, it would be wildly unacceptable for our military to separate ranks into ‘black soldiers’ and ‘white soldiers’. But it’s totally kosher to separate us into ‘male soldiers’ and ‘female soldiers’?

Fuck that. Manosphere boys, accept the fact that there are women out there that are just as smart as you. We are just as strong as you. According to my statistics, we are just as tall as you.

You keep emailing on a regular basis. Now you can stop, because I have answered all your questions.  Now go fuck yourself, and I hope your testosterone overload gives you cancer (hey, I never claimed to be nice).

 

How to Pass a Drug Test…The Right Way

One of the biggest site hits that I get from organic searches is ‘how to pass a drug test’. I find this ironic, because I have never actually addressed that issue. However, in the interest of helping out poor Googlers out there, who are looking for a job or ducking their probation officer, I’ve decided to help.

As an open marijuana user who has worked in a wide range of jobs that require background and drug tests, I have become an expert in one thing. Passing the urinalysis.

If you are here looking for information on how to pass a hair tests, I can’t help you. In fact, stop Googling right now and go smoke a joint instead. You might as well, because if you’ve smoked any time in the past 90 days, you are probably going to fail. There is no method that will allow you to clean drugs from a hair follicle. Bleaching won’t help. Special shampoos won’t help. Your only hope is to shave every single hair from your body.  Trust me, when you show up as smooth as an Olympic swimmer, questions will be asked.

On the upside, hair tests aren’t standard. They are extremely expensive. Same goes for blood tests. To this day, the most prevalent form of drug testing in the United States is the 10 panel urinalysis.

The 10 panel urinalysis tests for the following drugs;

cocaine
amphetamines (speed)
methamphetamines (meth)
tetrahydrocannabinol (marijuana)
methadone
opiates (opium, heroine, morphine, fentanyl, hydrocodone and oxycodone)
phencyclidine (PCP, Angel Dust)
barbiturates (downers)
benzodiazepines (benzos, downers, nerve pills, tranks)
tricyclic antidepressants

Unless you party pretty fucking hard, chances are, you don’t have to worry about all ten. For the most part, if you lay off the pills and coke 2 – 5 days before your drug test, you’ll be just fine. The biggest problem people have with passing the test isn’t coke or PCP. It’s marijuana.

First, understand that the 30 day rule is a complete fucking myth. While weed sticks around for a bit longer than other drugs, 30 days is a huge overestimation that was probably made up by a paranoid pot smoker.

Shocker.

For many people, the average time weed is detectable in their system is usually less than a couple of weeks. There are several factors to consider, like body weight, activity level, and how much you smoke. By if you weight 110 pounds, and smoked one joint three weeks ago, you can stop emailing me in a panic. You’re going to be just fine.

But what if you’re not? What if you’re a regular pot user? Well then, you’re going to need to follow the steps below.

1. Drink water until you are ready to explode…then drink more. Usually, the marijuana level is considered a failure if it reaches above 50ng/mL. Then, the test is sent off for verification and if it tests above the lower threshold of 15ng GC/MS, it is considered an absolute fail. Your goal is to pass the 50 level, so you never have to undergo the scrutiny of the higher level test. For this, all you really need is water. Lots of water. Don’t be retarded and give yourself water toxicity, but you do want to drink a ton of water before the test.

Your goal, the day before the test is to drink so much water that you pee like 10 times. The more water you drink, the less likely that water is going to spend it’s time sitting in your system and picking up pesky metabolites. When you do take the test, and you pee out a virtually drinkable glass of Evian, you’re pretty much guaranteed a pass.

2. Take Niacin. Niacin is Vitamin B. Contrary to popular belief; Niacin does nothing to ‘mask’ marijuana in your system. It’s not going to hide the drugs.

So why the fuck are you taking it then? Simple, Niacin is going to make your pee yellow again!

Drug test technicians check for dilution by noting the color of the urine, as well as the creatine level in the urine. Urine that is as clear as a beautiful spring day is getting flagged for more rigorous testing. Urine that has abnormally low levels of creatine is getting flagged for more testing. Niacin colors urine, and replaces the creatine, ensuring your urine sample doesn’t get flagged

3. More water. It’s all about dilution people. Those two days before you take your test are going to be the most important days. The more water you drink, the more your pee is diluted.

4. Take an aspirin. You probably have a headache from spending all week peeing and worrying anyway, so an aspirin won’t hurt. Aspirin is a noted blood thinner and has been shown in studies to increase the likelihood of you passing your drug test. Take it 4 to 6 hours prior to your test.

5. Never put your first pee of the day in the cup.  Wake up on the morning of your drug test and pee. Drink more water and pee again. Pick up a Gatorade on your way to the drug test and chug it.

6. Fill the cup mid stream. Pee into the toilet first and then, put the cup in during mid stream. Mid stream is where your most diluted urine is. Use it.

7. As an extra security measure, drop a pube in it. That right, yank out a public hair and drop it in there. If you pass the test, no harm, no foul. If you fail, then there is a good chance that you will get an automatic retest because a ‘foreign body’ was found in your sample.

Here’s what not to do.

Don’t be stupid and keep smoking right up until the test, depending on my tips to help you out. If you stay up all night smoking weed, then take the test, you’re going to fail.

Don’t waste money on ‘cleansers’. The majority of cleansers are nothing more than diuretics. Goldenseal, cranberry juice and other shit like that are nothing more than stuff that makes you pee a lot. They don’t have any magic properties that mask drugs in them. Some cleansers are even screened for during the test, making you more likely to get pulled for a higher scrutiny drug screen.

Don’t post sanctimonious shit in my comment section about how ‘people shouldn’t do drugs in the first place”. I’ve made my feelings on marijuana use and its legalization clear on more than one occasion. I’m not just some lazy pothead. I’m politically involved in the legislation designed to decriminalize both the recreational and medicinal use of marijuana. Your half formed opinion about how marijuana is a “gateway drug” or some other such bullshit, is usually based on biased statistics anyway. The only thing marijuana use is a gateway to is a gateway to Funions and Doritos.

Ladies…Just Stop

Most of the time, I like being a girl. When I get around to prettying myself up, I actually enjoy the makeup, the clothes, the shoes, ect. I like having girlfriends who are super open, and super supportive.  However, there are a few things that make me ashamed of my gender sometimes. So, in an effort to help out my fellow women, here are some things I am going to need you all to think about.

Not being able to cook is not an accomplishment.

 “Oh, you know how to cook? I’m such a terrible cook. One time I (insert culinary horror story here).”

The reason this pisses me off is I always feel just a little bit of condescension coming from the lady telling me what a shitty cook she is. Like she’s too busy being a modern businesswomen, climbing her way up the corporate ladder to learn how to cook. Like me knowing how to make a friggen pie means I’m sitting at home, knitting doilies for my hope chest and waiting for the men folk to come home.

Look bitches, you know why I know how to cook? Because I have a reading comprehension level above the fourth grade and I know how to turn on a stove without killing myself. Yup, I can follow a recipe because I am not 100% fucktarded. Even when you do it wrong, most of the time, it comes out right anyway. Shit, I once made bread out of rice…fucking rice.

Also, I like cooking. My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving, because it combines my two favorite pastimes. Cooking and drinking.

Anyway, when you’re telling me what a shitty cook you are, just know that I think you’re retarded. This is not to be confused with not liking to cook. If you don’t like it, say you don’t like it. But to me, saying “I don’t know how to cook” is the equivalent of saying “I don’t know how to send an attachment by email.”

Either way, poke around and stop being a lazy bitch. You’ll figure it out.

Hating on strippers makes you look like a bitch.

I was never a stripper. I’ve never taken my clothes off for money because honestly, I doubt there are any strip clubs out there that advertise for strippers with stretch marks and bullet wounds. However, when it comes to girls who do that for a living, I am a 100% judgment free zone. Ladies out there, if you look good enough to take off your clothes and have someone pay you for it, more power to you.

Unfortunately, a lot of my gender doesn’t seem to have the same mindset. This is because of what I like to call ‘the mean girl mentality’. Girls who hate on strippers do it for one reason; jealousy. But instead of being upfront that they are jealous because some girl might be prettier than them, they try to hide that jealousy behind something else. Morality.

They use their own ‘morality’ clause as an excuse to call other women sluts and whores. While their doing that, they pretend that they’re being moral. They pretend they’re taking a stand for feminism.

They’re doing the exact opposite. Feminism is fighting for the right for women to be allowed to make their own choices.  You can’t fight for the right for someone to make their own choice, and then flip around and get pissed because you think that choice is wrong. It doesn’t work that way.

When you try to back up that argument and say ‘these women were being taken advantage of’ what you’re really saying is ‘these women are unable to make choices for themselves.” You undermine your entire fucking argument, and you do it out of jealousy.

I’ve known more than a few strippers in my time, and a couple of girls who did a quick titty flash for “Girls Gone Wild”. These girls were smart, sensible and normal. Most of them didn’t even come close to being as promiscuous as me. They were girls that did what they wanted with what they had.

And you calling them sluts and whores about it makes you look like a cunt…And yes, I just said cunt. Which brings me to my next point.

Stop telling people how much the word ‘cunt’ bothers you.

While you’re at it, why don’t you give them a listing of your fears and a street map to your house? When you tell someone what bothers you, eventually, they will use that information against you. That isn’t my statement by the way. That is a statement from one of my favorite books “The Art of War.”

Women telling people the only slur that bothers them is ’cunt’ is the reason internet trolls use ‘cunt’ to excess. One time, I got a 78 word email that was just the word ‘cunt’ written over and over again. It’s hanging on my wall right now.

The word ‘cunt’ doesn’t bother me. To me, it’s no more offensive than any other word you can’t say on cable. Personally, I like making up my own swear words. I’m super good at it and I’m fluent in four profanities.

Stop telling other people how to parent their children.

This is especially true for those of you out there who have no fucking children, but still feel qualified to discuss your opinion because you watched an episode of Dr. Phil one time. Yeah, I get it. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. The problem is, for you childless parenters out there (most often women) your opinion is shit.

Let me give you an anecdote to explain. I love the movie “Groundhog Day”. I particularly like the scene where Bill Murray is carving an ice sculpture with a chainsaw.  He made it look so easy…which is why I have a scar from the fourteen stitches I received on my arm when attempting to do my own ice sculpture.

My point here is you never know how hard something is until you actually do it yourself. So no, if you don’t have kids, your opinion on parenting means shit to me. Just because you have a vagina doesn’t make you qualified to give parenting advice.

Stop posting 75 pictures of yourself a day

We get it, you’re pretty. Do we really need yet another self photo taken from an iPhone to prove it? Whenever I see one of these, I’m always immediately annoyed by the statements that follow. “You’re sooo beautiful!!!!” or “What a great picture!”

My post would be “stop encouraging these bitches.”

If you need validation on how you look from 400 Facebook strangers, then you need the kind of help for your self esteem that only therapy can provide. Stop posting pictures of yourself and book an appointment with a shrink.

Do you know why there are almost no pictures of me on this site? It’s not because I’m ashamed of how I look. It’s not even because I don’t care how I look. It’s because when it comes to looks, I’ve satisfied with the only person’s opinion that matters. My own. I look in the mirror and am extremely satisfied with the reflection I see. That’s why when a stranger tells me I’m pretty, I don’t say “thanks”. I say “I know.”

I don’t need to post 75 self portraits a day to get validation and neither do you. Until you start liking what you see, how the hell can you expect someone else to like it?

That’s all for today ladies, but I’m glad we got a chance to have this talk. In the future, I’m expecting to see a lot less girl on girl hate and cries for validation, and a little more actual opinion on things that really matter.

Until then, I’ll be here, baking pies, hanging with my kid and  being smoking hot…and not needing anyone else to tell me how great I am.

Stupid Platitudes

I hate platitudes.

This is not to be confused with Platypuses. Platypuses are awesome.  It’s a mammal that lays eggs and spews venom. As far as I’m concerned, Platypuses are the most highly evolved of all creatures and if we’re lucky, someday, we’ll all get to be Platypuses.

No, what I hate is platitudes. Platitudes are inspirational bullshit that is supposed to make your life better, but in reality, just highlights how shitty it is. Usually, a platitude comes in the form of a Facebook post, superimposed over a beach. Kind of like this;

People love quoting Gandhi in some attempt to sound smart and deep. Maybe Gandhi’s sayings make them feel better about their own shitty lives. But if you’re looking to Gandhi as a way to improve your life, I have something sad to tell you. Gandhi actually had a pretty shitty life that most of us wouldn’t wish on their worst enemy.

Gandhi was forced into an arranged child marriage at the age of 13. He had his first child when he was 15 and it died 2 days later. He spent the majority of his teenage years abstaining from meat, promiscuous sex and alcohol. He never got to grieve for his mother’s death, because his family kept the news from him because they thought it would keep him from passing the bar. He got the shit beat out of him on a train when he was 24, because he refused to change seats. That beating wouldn’t be the first beating he would take. Gandhi spent his life getting the shit beat out of him, while at the same time, preaching love for his fellow man. He lived a simple life. He never had a 401k or drove a Lexus. For all his hard work, he was assassinated at the age of 78.

Listen, people who keep sending me fucking Gandhi memes; Gandhi’s statements were not about your own individual selfishness. Gandhi wasn’t trying to make you feel better because your 401k went down 5% or your car broke down. Gandhi’s statements were about you sacrificing your own creature comforts for the benefit of the whole.

In short, Gandhi’s life was meaningful, but it sure as hell wasn’t enjoyable. Stop taking the man’s work and turning it into some dumb fucking meme on the internet so you can feel better that those skinny jeans didn’t fit you at Forever 21.

While we’re at it with the stupid platitudes, stop with the ‘___ saved my life”. Like “Yoga saved my life” or “Music saved my life”.  I’ve been guilty of this one myself and I just head butted myself in my own face for it. Yoga and music don’t save your life. Chemotherapy and defibrillators save lives. Yanni playing the jazz flute does nothing to save your life. You either decide to off yourself, or you don’t. Personally, I’m still on the fence…especially when I think about Yanni.

Also, ‘money can’t buy you happiness.” You know a rich motherfucker made that one up. One time, when I was uber-poor, I didn’t even know how I would get through the weekend. I was getting ready to do my laundry with dish detergent, when I pulled out an old pair of jeans. In the back pocket of those jeans was a $20.

That probably is going in my memory book as one of the top 10 happiest moments of my life. The fucktards who say ‘money can’t buy you happiness’ will never understand the joy that unfolds when you unfold a $20 you forgot about.

As I’m writing this, approximately 40 people are sending me idiot platitudes on Facebook. I’ll probably get forty more platitudes in the comments. It’s only a matter of time before I get an ‘it’s only a matter of time’ or ‘time heals all wounds’.

Well, today, I’m announcing my own new platitude. Feel free to paste it on a meme…preferably of Platypuses.

“It’s only a matter of time before an idiot who has nothing important to say claims that everyone is entitled to their opinion.”

Maybe It’s Time for a Change

For two years, I worked on my first novel. When I first completed Strangely Sober, it was actually a 45,000 word short work of fiction about a woman tortured by eidetic memory. It was called ‘Unforgettable.”

I did what many writers do. I put the book away for 3 months, so I could read it again with fresh eyes. In the time I did, NBC released a new 1 hour drama called “Unforgettable”. It was about a cop tortured with eidetic memory.

I have to say NBC, my version was way better.

Anyway, after the show came out, I retooled my novel. Sal went from being a school teacher with eidetic memory, to a paranoid genius with schizophrenia and a Gary Busey hallucination. While the book might seem like standard candy fluff, I spent a lot of time on it. I researched schizophrenia. I wrote up character profiles. I mapped out timelines.  “Unforgettable” was no longer an appropriate name, so I renamed it.

For all of those who wonder where “Strangely Sober” came from, I actually came up with the term about 12 years ago. It was summer in Mannheim, Germany. Me and my buddy Mark had just gotten back from a drug scavenging trip in Amsterdam and we got our hands on some seriously psychedelic mushrooms. After downing half an eighth of those  things, and heading down to party in Mannheim, I realized I had no desire for anything stronger than the mushrooms. I didn’t need booze and I didn’t want pot.

I just wanted to sit in a club and soak up how fucking beautiful everything was. I didn’t lose control and I didn’t act impulsively. I felt sober, but I also felt connected to the universe in a way I never had before. Everything was beautiful and everything was interesting.

I described the feeling to my buddy Mark as “strangely sober” and he agreed (because he was on the same mushrooms) that it was the perfect way to describe what we were feeling.

So the bar in my novel became “Strangely Sober” and the name of the novel became “Strangely Sober”.

My point here is that 2 years of my life went into the first novel. I researched; I based things on person experience. I came up with memorable characters that brought back that serious, but slightly psychedelic feeling. I worked my ass off. By the time Strangely was done, it was 111,000 words and it could have gone longer.

When I released it, the book got a reasonable amount of attention. I made it to mid-list status a few times, and even bestseller status in genres that actually matter (humor and suspense). To date, my book has been picked up by a couple of highly respected book blogs. Most have loved the story, though more than a few have called me out on mixing up ‘then’ and ‘than’ on occasion, and well as ‘bring’ and ‘take’ (fuck it, I’m Irish. We use ‘take’ for whatever we want).

Nitpicking aside, the book has been very well received but it’s never going to make me a millionaire. I accepted that a long time ago. I know that if I’m going to get any real recognition as an author, I am going to release tons of books before people start paying attention. I’m ok with that…well, I was.

Until I learned that I was being outsold by dinosaur porn. Yeah, you read that right. Fucking dinosaur porn. Namely, some chicks are writing books about ladies getting fucked by dinosaurs. Each of these books averages about 5000 words long and involves some cavewomen huntress getting fucked by a pterodactyl or a T-Rex.

Every single one of these 5000 word novels is outselling mine by the thousands.

Apparently, I’m doing something wrong. Namely, I’m not putting nearly enough screwing between human females and non-human entities in my novels. So I’m moving on.

Fuck researching plot lines, creating timelines and character profiles. Fuck paying for proofreaders and having covers custom designed. Fuck spending months and years on a single novel.

I’m going to start churning out ridiculous erotica instead. My first erotic novels will involve innocent, beautiful 22 year old virgins being forced to mate with automobiles. You guys can expect “Fucked by a Ford” and “Sodomized by a Saab” on shelves within a few weeks.

For a few minutes today, I actually thought that. I was like “why the hell am I trying so hard?” I’m not going to sit here and pretend that it doesn’t matter to me if I never make money from a single one of my novels. I’m not going to say “as long as I get to write, it’s ok.”

That’s bullshit. I hear so many writers say that. “Oh, I don’t care about sales. I just want to write.” If they didn’t care about sales, they would never have published in the first place. They would have written their stories down in a journal and forgotten about them.

I care about sales…but I also care about the books that are associated with my name. I care about my future in this industry. I care about the characters in my novels and I care about creating a readable story.

I don’t want to be the chicks writing dinosaur porn. I don’t want to be a writer who writes up an outline and has ghostwriters fill in the rest. I want to be Elmore Leonard. I want to be Chuck Palahniuk. I want to write my novels in a way that makes me memorable, but I don’t want to die of starvation while I’m doing it.

So yeah, I could probably stoop to writing shitty 5000 word erotica. God knows I have the writing skills and the life experiences to fill up an Encyclopedia Britannica worth of erotica. But I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to sell out, and I’m sincerely hoping that my refusal to sell out isn’t going to cost me in the long run.

But in the meantime, fuck dinosaur erotica. I thought you were smarter than that America.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs

On any given day, when I choose to leave the house, I run into hundreds of different signs. Street signs, flyers, advertisements, notices and more. For the most part, I barely even notice them. But sometimes I do. Why? Because what they say either pisses me off or confuses me.

“You can’t win if you don’t play”

I hate this sign. It hangs over the lotto machine at the convenience store that I go to. First off, I hate the lottery period. Not only is it a system designed for completely fucktarded morons, it also wastes my time. I always manage to get stuck behind the fucker who puts more thought into picking their god damn Powerball numbers than they did filling out their last job application. As I stand behind these assholes in line, getting nipple frostbite from the 6-pack I’m holding, they waste 20 minutes of my day waiting for their dead aunt Edna to tell them whether to pick a 3 or a 27 for the last number.

Look, assholes who do this shit; It doesn’t fucking matter! Your odds of winning, regardless of what combination of numbers you pick, are 1 in 175,223,510.

Whenever I point out this statistic, I always get some asshole who says (usually with a dippy as fuck smile on their face) “Well, you can’t win if you don’t play!” Listen fucktards, that logic is about as valid as me saying “If I don’t move to Hollywood, I can’t fuck Zac Efron.”

Actually, that isn’t even comparable, because the population of Hollywood California is around 150,000. At worst, my odds would be 1 in 150,000, and that’s assuming Efron swings both ways. I’m not even accounting for weird Hollywood orgies in there, which would bring the number way down.

Zac Efron tossing me a pity lay is actually 1000 times more likely than you winning the lottery. I wonder if the dudes at Gas Station would be willing to put that on their sign?

“Premises are for Banking Business Only”

This sign is located on the door of my bank and it completely mystifies me. Why is it necessary to point out to banking customers that the bank is for banking purposes? Are people really that stupid that they don’t get that? Did some asshole show up with 20 alpacas one day and try to start a petting zoo in the lobby?

Are they trying to tell us what they do? Look, Bank of America, I get that you’re a bank. If I ever show up there trying to buy squash, you can just show me the door. We don’t need to preempt this action with a sign. Seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse.

“Breast Cancer Doesn’t Discriminate”

I saw this on a flyer at my supermarket this morning and I couldn’t help but disagree. Breast Cancer absolutely discriminates. Women have a 1 in 8 chance of getting breast cancer in their lives. Men have a 1 in 1000 chance. 88.6% of breast cancer cases are diagnosed in women over the age of 45. Finally, black and white women are far more likely to get breast cancer than Asian, Hispanic or Native American woman.

So what I can see here is breast cancer discriminates against men, people under 45, and Asian, Hispanic and Native American women. Also, why are we trying to give a horrible disease a positive attribute? Not discriminating is a good thing. Maybe, if we started calling breast cancer a racist, sexist, ageist disease, they’d finally fucking cure it.

Or the ACLU would sue it.

“Restricted to Unauthorized Personnel”

I drive by this sign when I go past the airport in Sanford. It’s hung on the chain link fence that surrounds the runway.

What I see here is that only people that aren’t allowed to be on the runway…are allowed on the runway. But, if they are allowed on the runway…than they’re not allowed on the runway.

So no one is allowed on the runway? Guess they’ll have to start landing their planes on the interstate instead. That will certainly spice up rush hour.

 

There we go. The signs that confuse me every day. Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I need to go to my bank so I can take money out, so I can buy a bunch of lottery tickets. I need to leave before 7, because a 747 is coming in from Boston and I’m sure it will cause a traffic jam on I-4