Variety is the Spice of Life. Except when it Blows Donkey Chunks.

I was a happy third wheel on a date with my friends Janet and Dave tonight. First they said they were taking me out for Indian food because it's my birthday month and Janet said she was too lazy to buy a card (to which I say, if any of my other friends want to substitute beef vindaloo and yellow dal for some overpriced Hallmark slogan, have at it!), then we saw Splice. Overall I thought it was really good -- smart, well-written, affecting and effective. Janet and Dave didn't like it nearly as much. Janet and I often don't like the same movies, although we have a large slice of overlap. Dave asked her how this one was on a scale of one to Passchendaele (the 'war movie with a locket') which she loved, and continues to profess her love for in the face of much mockery, and really, you have to respect that.

I'm fine agreeing to disagree about movies. Different people like different stuff. It's what makes the world go around, right? Except then people go around liking stuff like having women covered up head to toe because a glimpse of ankle or elbow or (DEAR GOD FORBID) nursing breast might strike some poor helpless man BLIND with lust or fear or disgust or well, who can really tell the difference at this point? Wouldn't it save a LOT of fabric if we just blindfolded all the men instead of wrapping all the women in curtains?

And then, as my good friend Tracy unleashed her wrath on yesterday (and thanks, because I needed that aneurysm right before bed, it helped me sleep better), this sublime example of manly manliness Rabbi Shmuley holds forth on the notion that women should make sure breastfeeding and childbirthing don't spoil the allure of their various assorted woman parts for their men. How could I have been so self-centered, focusing on the bleeding nipples and the pain of engorgement, the sixty-two hours of labour, the c-section pain and then the stitching up of my feminine bits -- I was making it all about ME. I should have been thinking of my poor husband and the fact that seeing my vagina and breasts delivering a whole NEW PERSON and PRODUCING SUSTENANCE SOLELY FROM MY OWN BODY might have made it less of a mindless midway of fun and frolic for HIM! Would it help if I told him I could dispense cotton candy from my nipples too?

To quote the good Rabbi: "This is not to say that breast-feeding should not be practiced. It is instead to say that it should always remain subordinate to the romantic and passionate needs of a marriage." Okay, I agree that once you have kids you need to pay attention to your marriage. When we took our marriage course, there was one really good speaker who said "You give your kids everything... except your marriage". Fine. Could not this Rabbi person have thought of a way to phrase that that makes him sound like a little less of an asshole?

It makes me tired. It makes me really tired. Because you know when someone has his head this far up his ass (I hope he realizes that the fact that he defecates might make his butt-hole less of a wonderland for his wife and never forces her to witness that) there's no pulling it out, no matter how long we talk. You know you could sit there till doomsday arguing persuasively about objectifying women and men having to take some responsibility for their own feelings (I mean really -- if they're such delicate little flowers maybe they shouldn't be out running companies and drilling oil wells -- something disastrous could happen -- oh wait...)

Anyway -- if you're easily offended, don't see Splice. It'll put you off sex with human-animal-abominations-of-nature forever. I'm going to bed. If I remind my husband that I breastfed our kids with these puppies five years ago maybe he won't ask to play with them and I can get some sleep.