STERKWORKS | Ex-Mormon Lesbian Rocking Utah

Yes my Atheist friends, I finally have proof that God doesn’t exist. I discovered the proof in my backyard BBQ this afternoon. Obviously I have not been cooking outdoors enough this summer.

If God is all wise, all knowing, and all of everything else, he surely wouldn’t have invented hornets. Not a wise move. Hornets suck. I hate hornets. Bees are cute and useful. Hornets are ugly and annoying and a nuiscance. So God wouldn’t have invented hornets, so there must be no God.

Then again, I hate grasshoppers and a wise God wouldn’t have invented them either. Maybe I am wrong, because I haven’t seen a grasshopper in probably ten years. Maybe God smite them with AIDS and killed them off after he realized the error of his ways. A flip flopping God. I can handle that. Now just flip flop on the hornets and get rid of them too.

Filed under: Humor | 4 Comments »

I have no desire to watch the Olympics this year. I usually catch a bit of them, but nah, not interested. But it is kind of cool that the Olympics are starting in China on 08/08/08.

Eight is considered a lucky number in China because it sounds like the word for “prosper.” How do I know? My company’s VP of Finance is Chinese. I don’t mean of Chinese descent, I mean Chinese. A citizen of China who moved here, works here, and will one day return to China.

I really like our Chinese VP. She cracks me up. She will go on for hours about the virtues of China and the lazy Americans, as she drives her Mercedes SUV into the company parking garage. Excellent. Her daughter is very smart and has been on the Oprah show. Excellent. Very Chinese events.

So in honor of the Chinese Olympics, here are my life events that have any connection to China.

• I own a piece of the Great Wall of China. A printer/vendor friend of mine brought it back from a trip a decade ago. I have no idea where it is. It is little. I am surprised she was not caught, skinned alive, and then thrown in prison.
• Growing up, I always wondered what was in my Mormon father’s copy of “The Little Red Book” by Chairman Mao Zedong. I never read it. I would like to now. Shouldn’t the Mormon church have ex-communicated him for owning a communist book?
• I loved the movie, “The Red Violin.”
• I was offered $25,000 to marry a Chinese man so he could stay in the country with his gay lover. I considered it for a month, just to pay for a sprinkler system for my yard, then said no.
• My daughter and I ate Chinese food yesterday, and as she unwrapped her cookie, I read “made in the USA” on the wrapper. Irony?
• I saw the third version of The Mummy last weekend. One star. Yawn.
• And as my final China memory, we go back to the VP of Finance at my company. About eight years ago, the Dalai Lama came to Salt Lake City. I organized a group of coworkers to take the afternoon off and go hear him speak. When the VP of Finance found out, she was disgusted. She then proceeded to tell me that the Dalai Lama killed children, boiled their skin off, and then made that skin into drums. She was serious.

So here is to China, a successful Olympics, and the country that will soon be our financial overlords.

Filed under: gay, Life Lessons, Miscellany, Place d'employ, Normalcy | 4 Comments »

Yogurt is an interesting marketing study, as it is repackaged every two or so years depending on what the latest diet trend is. Currently, it is being marketed to help digestive conditions. Well duh, that is how it was being marketed in the 70s when I first tasted it.

I try to do no sugar. And I purchase my regular food items knowing what does and doesn’t work for me. So on my last trip to the grocery store, I didn’t find my regular yogurt brand. I saw Yoplait Light Fat Free. On the left of the front panel, the label said “With Aspartame …” Great. I buy a six-pack.

The first suck of yogurt, (one doesn’t take a bite of yogurt, really), and I knew something was wrong. I looked at the front of the yogurt container again. “With Aspartame &” then on the next line, “Other Sweetener.” Notice the singular tense. I flipped the container over to read the nutritional info (which I do on all new products I buy, but hell, this one was sweetened with Aspartame so I didn’t think I needed to).

First ingredient: nonfat milk. Second ingredient: HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP. Those ass sucking sons of Yoplait bitches. Aspartame was the tenth ingredient listed, right above the food colorings.

They promote this product as sweetened with Aspartame when it is really sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. Misleading, dishonest, immoral, and possibly deadly product labeling.

I called the Yoplait 800 number to complain and the customer service rep said she would pass along my sentiments. Then she said she would give me a refund. I didn’t care about a refund. I was pissed at their misleading labeling.

“What did you spend on the product and we’ll send you a check.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well take a guess.”

So I told her $500.

I am to expect a $3 check in the mail within the week. In the meantime, it looks like I have a little letter writing to do to the Utah department of agriculture, among other agencies. Fuckin French.

Filed under: Ranting, Health, Life Lessons, Am I Bad?, Marketing | 5 Comments »

I am obsessed with Chap Stick. I need it. I love it. I must have it. I must have it in many places and in great quantity.

I counted this morning. I have four tubes on top of my nightstand, two tubes in my nightstand drawer. One in my pocket (at all times), two in my purse, two in my desk at work. And I live if dread that I will run out. It didn’t used to be this way.

There was a time decades ago that I used tubes of Blistex. But as I always had to have a tube in my pocket, I found that when I retrieved a tube and took off the cap during the summer months, the product consistency was mushy. Too much body heat. So in those early years of obsession, I switched to Chap Stick for the summer months, and Blistex for the winter months. At some point, I realized I liked the Chap Stick better and took the plunge.

Yes, there are Chap Stick rules. It must be in a blue tube. The standard is Chap Stick Moisturizer with SPF15. If that isn’t available, I will settle for Chap Stick Medicated. If those aren’t available, as a last resort, the old fashioned plain Chap Stick in the black tube. Sorry Katy Perry, but if “I Kissed A Girl,” she wouldn’t taste cherry Chap Stick. No flavors. Yuck.

My lips need this obsession in this low humidity state of Utah, but it comes in handy for so many other things. While sitting on the freeway, rub some into my cuticles. Nice. Can’t get marks off of trade show booth graphics? Chap Stick works. Your five year old daughter’s feet go to sleep and she needs immediate relief? Rub on Chap Stick (this was just a total psych out, but it worked and sometimes my now 12 year old still asks for Chap Stick to rub on her feet when they go to sleep).

I have become comfortable knowing that I am, and always will be, a Chap Stick lesbian.

Filed under: gay, Humor, Lesbian, Normalcy | 6 Comments »

I had no deadlines. I had no projects. I didn’t give a shit that my house was a mess. It was a perfect evening.

My commute home from work was event free. I ordered pizza from the freeway and it arrived at my home as I pulled into my garage.

My daughter was thrilled to see me (or maybe it was really the pizza). We turned off all the lights, closed the blinds, ate pizza on the couch huddled under a blanket (we have to freeze out the downstairs before bedtime or it is too hot upstairs to sleep), and watched 10,000 BC on DVD.

We then retired to the bat cave (my bedroom) to watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report. While doing so, I implemented some computer ideas Photogirl66 gave me to get my daughter reconnected to her school email account. She hasn’t been able to communicate with her friends for three weeks. The ideas worked, and when I showed my daughter she could be online with her friends again, she burst into tears of joy.

A glass of red wine, a valium, and into bed I went. My daughter shut off everything later when she turned in, as it should be during the summer.

A perfect evening. They are too rare.

Filed under: Family, Normalcy | 3 Comments »