Never attribute to malice etc., etc.,

I got kicked out of a bar once for throwing my gum at the bartender. He was ignoring me and trying to piss me off and, well, he did. Because I was in my early 20s and awesome. Yeah, I kinda sucked. So they literally bounced me. I mean, I didn’t get carried out thrashing around like a crazy person. They just asked me to leave, and so I did. And the folks with me at the time followed and, as they left, the bartender told a girl in my cohort: “You know, people judge you by your associations.” Man, I was devastated. Especially since that girl was kind of weird and had some major daddy issues and had a tendency to hook up with wannabe skinheads. We grew up together but we were never really friends. She was all into the shock factor you see and I never quite got that. It always seemed to me to be the flipside of the bubble-headed cheerleader who wore too much make-up and slept with every guy she could: gotta give em something sparkly or attention-grabbing to look at or talk about because there’s really not much there. Anyway, have never forgotten that and occasionally am reminded of it because I encounter another amateur provocateur and I flash back. What’s nice is that now, as a grown up, there are plenty of other people in the world who also recognize it as a silly game that they too stopped playing or even trying to understand when they grew up. When you’re young it can seem like everyone MUST play or risk ostracism. Because peer pressure is a bitch. Score one for adulthood. But it always amuses me when someone tries to drag me back to high school. Especially since the game is dependent upon the fact that the game is never discovered to be a game. (If that makes any sense…) Fortunately (?) for me, I was trained in my home by a f*cking Jedi Master in such things (Hey Mom) who also understood that, silly rabbit, trix are for kids — but it’s good to know when you’re the mark. Anyway, as an aside, it occurs to me that some people never stop playing, which is why I assume there are so many people in therapy trying to deal with their relationships, and why there are so many people bailing on their loved ones, and why there are so many kids trying to figure out if it’s their fault that mommy and daddy “just don’t love each other anymore.” It always reminds me of that play/movie Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. George and Martha like that game a lot. And their misery and alcohol binds them tight. When I was in my teens I thought this was actually a beautiful love story of sorts. Heh. Score two for adulthood.

Anyway, I had an interesting conversation yesterday about this and I always find it so fascinating when men take a strong stance in mandating that a woman have the choice of abortion (yes, I recognize the paradox). This particular man is generally a thoughtful and good person and I think what interested him particularly was this notion that the man plays a role in pregnancy as well. Which kind of opens up the whole “choice” issue in a new direction, doesn’t it? It was a long talk and much of it is necessarily private but the take-away for me came when I asked him if he were in this situation and was told by the woman that she wanted an abortion, and this was something he didn’t want and he did all he could to convince her otherwise and she still insisted, would he still say that the choice was hers alone? To my disappointment, he backtracked to the standard left-of-center position and said, “It’s absolutely her choice unless he cedes some part of his anatomy to her.” But hasn’t he already? I guess what I’m saying here is that we shouldn’t forget the guys in this debate. And I appreciate that this man reminded me of that.

That said, without taking a position on the subject — because this is one that’s pretty personal to me and you people just don’t need to know everything — ladies, being cavalier about pregnancy and easily bought and sold when it comes to the idea that you can just terminate a pregnancy without feeling or regard for the life growing inside you — even my challenger had to admit that life does indeed begin at conception. He just wasn’t willing to call it more important than the mother’s choice. Which is not an unreasonable thought process — gives rise to this kind of dude. If you can stomach the whole thing, feel free. But most relevant is the last entry titled “abortion.” Over 11,000 people like this site on Facebook. So, seriously, people, stop playing in to these douchebags. You make it harder for the whole world, man.

Also, sometimes it is about malice.

Here’s your Friday music straight from the skate rats I grew up with. Slam dance.