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(Guest Posted By Miss Britt)

Whenever an election year rolls around, there is one stereotype that gets lobbed across the aisle that angers me the most.

Republicans have money and want to keep it, and Democrats want to take it.

And also?  Welfare is for lazy people.

It seems that much of America believes that the only excuse for poverty is laziness.  Or, possibly, stuipidity.  It amazes me to rediscover every few years how many Americans have not been up close and personal with financial hardship.

I grew up amidst The Working Poor.

I don’t remember a day that my mom stayed home with me unless she was on maternity leave with one of my brothers.  Even if I was sick I would often spend it in the sick bay unit at the hospital – where they store the ill children of nurses and hospital staff.

And yet, despite how hard she worked, we lived well below the poverty line for most of my childhood.  Well, well below.

I have eaten foodbank cheese.  For dinner.
I have purchased Juicy Juice with WIC coupons.
I have seen, first hand, what churches give to needy families for those Christmas Angel programs.

We always had a roof over our heads and food in our bellies.  Sometimes it wasn’t our own roof and once in a while the food was crap – but we survived.  Actually, we did better than that.  We thrived.

We loved and laughed and made memories with one another just like any other family did.  We talked about right and wrong and hopes and dreams and first loves and lost loves – just like other families did.

We were not less than anyone else because we were broke.

We were, however, constantly caught between worlds.  Despite how hard my mom worked – or how many jobs she held down at once – the bills always came in faster than the income.  A flat tire would set us back for months.

I’m sure it didn’t help that we had to leave everything behind and start from scratch several times as we tried to escape my abusive stepfather.  It’s hard to build financial momentum when you’re kicked back to ground zero every few months.

We did, eventually, get out.  Thanks to government programs that made it possible for my mom to go back to school and my brothers and I to grow up in safe neighborhoods around alternate realities, we were able to break the cycle.

And that’s why I’m a Democrat. :-)

I am guest posting over on Avitable’s blog today.  I am making it to the big time now! Go and read it, then comment.  Read the rest of his blog too. It’s great!

Dallas vs. Florida

Hi, everyone. My name is Karl and I write a little blog called SecondHand Tryptophan. When Gina asked for guest bloggers, I don’t think she was thinking straight. After all, the other day there was Avitable writing about pussies and masturbation. She must have caught him on a tame day.

I live in Florida, but right now I’m visiting my old stomping grounds in Dallas, Texas. I lived here for 10 years and miss it a lot. Here now are my Top Ten Things I Love About Dallas.

10. Florida has sharks in the oceans and alligators in the lakes. In Texas, if you want to see sharks you have to go to Sea World in San Antonio, or maybe the Dallas County Courthouse. If you want to see alligators you have to go to the zoo, preferably the Fort Worth Zoo, since it’s tons better than the one in Dallas.

9. The humidity in Texas is around 45% right now. In the summer the temperatures frequently go into the triple digits. That’s hot, but nowhere nearly as hot as Florida at 90 degrees and 1,286% humidity.

8. They have REAL pubs in Dallas. My favorite is the Tipperary Inn, where they have Guinness on tap and know how to pour a Guinness, holding the glass at a 45-degree angle while pouring. In Sebring, Florida, while they actually DO have a bar with Guinness on tap, they pretty much just fill it and slap it in front of you. On lingerie night, however, I really don’t notice the glass so much.

7. Movie theaters with stadium seating. There are TONS of movie theaters in Dallas, most of them with stadium seating. I love stadium seating because I’m not a very tall guy and if someone with big Texas hair sits in front of me, it’s not an issue, unless they happen to be Marge Simpson. In Sebring, we have two theaters with flat, sloping floors. Crappy sound systems, too.

6. There are plenty of places to sing karaoke in Dallas. In fact, you could easily find them out by Googling. In Sebring, you have two choices: The Why Not Lounge or Duffers. Duffers sucks at the karaoke because they intersperse the singing with music from the DJ for dancing. I came to SING, not dance, dammit.

5. Dallas has the DFW airport, which is pretty easy to navigate and fairly well-organized. Sebring has a little regional airport, which I’ve never been to. Whenever I fly anywhere, I have to drive 90 minutes to Orlando airport. Ugh.

4. Florida has fire ants, which are nasty little buggers that bite you and leave red welts all over the place. Texas has…oh, wait, Texas has fire ants, too. Never mind.

3. Dallas has lots of churches to choose from. You don’t like one, you can simply go to another to try that one out for size. Sebring has one Catholic church. No choice. And I have a hard time understanding the priest because he has a very thick Hispanic accent.

2. Dallas has all sorts of fun things to do. There’s the Dallas Arboretum, museums, theaters, shows, lots of concerts both big and small, and many hot Dallas women. Sebring has Circuit City and Books a Million. Oh, and a coffee bar. The average age in Sebring is 54 so the women are pretty much all wearing Depends adult diapers.

1. Radio in Dallas rocks. I love JACK-FM, a formatless station that¬† plays Robert Plant, then Tears for Fears, then Depeche Mode, and then Motley Crue. Radio in Sebring twangs. Hard. I’m thinking about satellite radio, but I’ll wait until after Sirius and XM complete their merger and work out the details.

–
http://www.secondhandkarl.com/

(Guest post by Wavybrains)

In keeping with Gina’s love of documentaries, I bring you: How to feel smart, The Wavybrains Way (TM), now with added Netflix

STEP ONE: Get Netflix subscription. No they are not paying me. Yet. One can always dream.

STEP TWO: Avoid urge to add only Grey’s Anatomy, Gilmore Girls, and John Cusak Movies to your queue.

STEP THREE: Choose from the following list of Wavybrains-Approved DVD’s:
Bowling for Colombine
Supersize Me
An Inconvenient Truth
Walmart: The High Price of Low Cost
Sicko
Roger & Me
The Business of Being Born
Common Threads
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Eyes on the Prize (the entire series)
Band of Brothers
Woodrow Wilson (no really, this is surprisingly good)

STEP FOUR: Watch. Pizza, Ice cream, knitting, and snuggle partners all optional, but highly recommended.

STEP FIVE: Rate it.

STEP SIX: Now see which other documentaries are suggested for you.

STEP SEVEN: Commence giddily tripping through the wild, weird, and wacky ride that is Netflix reviews and suggestions. Note that the same 10 people seem to review all the documentaries. Don’t let them have a monopoly!

STEP EIGHT: Return to the above list when in doubt of what to watch.

STEP NINE: Brag to friends, “I don’t watch TV. Really.”

STEP TEN: When said “friends” point out the telltale red envelopes all over your house, reveal your plan for self improvement. Practice saying, “This is education, NOT TV,” to your mirror. Snotty nose twitch optional.

There you have, ten easy steps to a better you, all thanks to miracle of TV (and Netflix). For more inspired writing on documentaries, check out Gina’s reviews!

Hi, I’m Avitable, from Avitable.com.¬† When Gina asked me to guest post, I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to say.¬† I think our audiences are a bit different – she writes in a pithy, smart way, and I write about dolphin porn, masturbation, and my unhealthy obsession with teenage girl celebrities.¬† Her blog is minimalist, and mine has 48 pictures of my face on it.¬† She has class, I’m just crass.¬† What could I possibly bring to the table that would enlighten her readers and maybe steal a few of them for myself?

The only thing I could think of was a top ten list showing the similarities between Gina and Avitable. So, without further ado . . .

10.¬† Neither Gina nor I have ever made love to an Englishman.¬† I’ve had sex with a hot buttered English muffin, but that scarred me emotionally and penisally.

9.¬† Gina lives in the Midwest.¬† I lived in Saint Louis for a few years during law school, but I was able to escape as quickly as possible and move back to the real states (the ones on the coasts).¬† My time in the flyover state has become faded and jumbled, but I remember some type of arch.¬† Half of a McDonald’s?¬† We’ll never know.

8.  Gina is very cute, with blonde hair and hot sexy glasses.  I subscribe to alt.sex.cuteblondeswithglasses and masturbate to pictures of girls who look like her on a daily basis.

7.¬† Gina finds that it melts her heart if her partner moans her name during sex.¬† I find that my dog likes me better if I moan her name when she’s licking the peanut butter off of my taint.

6.¬† Gina is a fan of Michael Moore’s films.¬† I’m a fan of Michael Myers’s films.

5.  Gina likes Dane Cook.  I also like to turn around after pooping and look at the shit in the toilet before it goes down the drain.

4.¬† We’re both environmentalists.¬† Gina is very conscientious, and I try to aim carefully for the trash can on the side of the road when I drive by with my McDonald’s wrappers.

3.  Gina loves to post pictures of her pussy.  She calls it Jasper.  I like to look at pictures of pussies.

2.¬† Gina’s dad taught her that strangers are merely friends you haven’t met yet.¬† My dad taught me that the sheep wouldn’t have dressed in that wool all sexy-like if it didn’t want to get fucked.

1.¬† Gina is 31 (I think) and looks like she’s 20.¬† I’m 31 (I think) and look like I’m 140!

Now that I look at it, it looks like we have a lot in common – I think we might be soulmates

(Guest posted by my cousin, Tanya Roth)

Once upon a time there was a young woman who loved to read. She read books incessantly, voraciously. She could devour them, mostly because she read really really fast. Then, one day not long ago, she took her love of reading and learning and joined a cult PhD program.

And the reading took on a new level of insanity.

…..

At this time three years ago, I was just an average twenty-something with an average job, average house, and average life. I was (and am) pretty boring: In addition to reading for fun, my hobbies pretty much extend from book pages to television, movies, and taking my dog for walks.

Enter graduate school. When I visited the spring before my program started, one of the current graduate students told me that weekly reading loads? Oh, 1,500 pages per week. No, that’s not a typo. Across three classes each semester, you could expect a book per class per week…which could easily meet (or surpass) 1,500 pages.

Of course, there are strategies for this, even if you’re a fast reader. You learn, in time, how to “gut a book” and pull out the information you need, such as the argument, main themes, and the key points.

For the past three years, then, reading has been my life. On top of reading for classes, I had additional reading in each of my subject specialties. I kept track of the reading in 2007: more than 300 books that year (since I knew I had all that reading to do, my new year’s resolution was 365 books. I’m not really upset that I didn’t make the goal, although it would’ve been cool. In that extremely nerdy way, of course).

My reading-for-fun, sadly, has been relegated to occasional summertime flings with non-academic authors, furtive peeks at fun books in a precious few minutes before bedtime, and (only rarely) a few instances in which I ditched the assigned reading for more light-hearted fare. Reading-for-fun, these past few years, has been like an illicit love affair.

But now – now all that can change. Although I still have a dissertation to write over the next few years, I’ve completed coursework requirements. I passed qualifying exams – so now the required-reading element of my PhD program consists only of books and articles I locate to help me with the dissertation. Translation? Free time! Fun reading time! .

There’s only one small problem. How do I rewire my brain to remember that reading does not have to be a job?

There’s the rub. So many books that look so fun, and so little desire to crack any of them. (I think the only thing worse would be if I suddenly discovered I no longer wanted chocolate.) Crap. I knew this grad school thing might be a problem one day…