Back when I still pretended that I had the aesthetic talent to be a photographer - and the proverbial balls to be a photojournalist for National Geographic - I died over Ansel Adam’s photos. 

I thought, now here’s a man who understood! Understood what? Who knows, I was 13 at the time and saying “He just understands!” sounded big and important and right. The places in his pictures are the kind of places that make me want to crack my computer screen and go live in Montana on a ranch with three dogs. The only man more amazing to me at the time was Galen Rowell.

Now HERE was a photographer! Look at that picture. Fucking look at that picture. If you’re anything like shitty 13-year old Kaylee who bitterly thought “well black and white makes everything look cool,” just take a fucking look at that picture.

Never in my life will I be articulate enough to explain how that picture makes me feel. Find me a blind man asking about a Galen Rowell photo and you will see me disappointing a blind man. 

Later that year, of course, we watched a video of National Geographic journalists return back from a day of squatting in the dirt have to pull giant burrowing worms out of their thighs and butts and I officially burned those dreams.

• Am I Cool Yet
• Am I Cool Yet Part 2
• BOOTY TAPE
• Good “Ol” Times
• gurl work
• Happy Podcastmas
• merry jewmas
• merry jokemas
• now that’s what I, Kaylee Grubbs, call music
• Pixar’s CAR playlist
• Pixar’s CAR 2 playlist
• songs to murder to
• Sex can be Sad if you want it to be
• white kids can’t be cool

These posts were to be two, but I figure since they both center around ‘ol Billy Jojobeans, I’d just condense them into one.

POST THE FIRST:

I’ve yet to decide if my first dance will be to this song, or I will just seduce a musician long enough so that they record me my very own version, but Vienna Waits for You “speaks to me” and “I like it a lot” and “really connect with it.” But then I remember my first dance is going to be a Star Trek/Twilight Zone theme music medley and I can’t seduce anyone unless “seducing” really means “trying to open up a jar of marshmallow paste then crying for two hours when you can’t.”

POST THE SECOND:

I have not written this movie nor will I probably ever write a movie, and I certainly will never be able to afford rights to the song, but imagine just one scene? ? of? a woman (late 20’s, say) in a bar dancing - really into it - with Only the Good Die Young blasting from the jukebox, and she gets everyone into it and people are laughing and dancing but the camera goes back to focus on her spinning and spinning then the next scene, silent, she’s sitting in the rain at a funeral with an overly emotional woman to one side and an ambivalent Blackberry checker on the other and she sits there just completely stoic.

WELL THAT’S ALL FOR TONIGHT GOODNIGHT/GOODLUCK

Every once in awhile I’ll find myself spiraling down the rabbit hole that is the internet. Usually it indulges some part of me I’ll never express myself but am glad other people are out there expressing the shit out of it (girls in DIY collars, homemade star wars collectibles, things made out of too many toothpicks). Lately it’s been a lot “Riot Grrl”/Rookie contributors/various lalalalaladies doin cool thangs. And this will invariably lead to a post or two about women and feminism in a show or movie or even maybe in the outside place (what I call the land beyond my room). And every time I read one I get all uppity and angry and defensive for my fellow fallopian-tubers and think about all the things I’d like to say or write or yell and how much I just want to unleash a little bit of this pent up vadge rage on my guy friends who are MOST underserving as they are nice and hygienic and good people.

Then suddenly I get embarrassed for having been so self-righteous however many seconds ago. I imagine a guy reacting to some SERIOUS RANT by me and kind of agreeing with the hypothetical dude when he’s just sort of like “yeah, I’m sorry that sucks but calm down.” Because I don’t want guys to think I go around 100% of the time with weird pent-up hostility towards any penis-owner. I love penises! And their owners! And 99% of the time I walk around completely oblivious to the fact that I’m not one. So when something just really fucking misogynistic goes down, it hits hard. Firing-at-the-Death-Star-once-Han-and-Leia-deactivate-the-shields hard.

The next time a lady gets all uppity about women’s rights, remember that she would love to just “calm down and enjoy it” - whatever (book, movie, show, event) “it” happens to be. But just because women don’t factor in their own gender at every turn doesn’t mean the rest of the world won’t. And it’s hard to just relax as a person when there are constant and clear reminders that you are not a person - you are a woman and that is bad. We’re either forced to be on edge, forced to ignore or accept mistreatment, or forced to be “normal” which lets our guard down - making each blow a suckerpunch. It all just kind of sucks. Sucks dick. 

I’d love to to write something serious but all that ever comes out are exhausted cliches and strings of words I would have read if I ever studied for the SATs.

Do whatever you want guys! That’s my life philosophy! If it doesn’t hurt anyone, then go ahead and do it! Wanna eat ice cream? Do it! Wanna fuck some random dude? Do him! Wanna run around your neighborhood screaming? Do it! Just don’t rape, murder, or steal! Don’t abuse someone! That’s it! That’s all the rules! Don’t hurt anyone and you can do whatever! We’re all gonna die so do what you want! Just don’t fuck up anyone else’s chance to live!

Dude, fuck movies for making it seem ok to stop someone mid-rant with a kiss. If I was yelling at a boy for being a douchebag and he grabbed my face and KISSED me? Oh no. No fucking way. I would be livid. Right? Who does that? That’s not an answer, young adult fiction authors. That is face rape. And if they showed a girl doing that? People would be all “crazy bitch.” 

I’m watching The Little Mermaid. There’s a point where, after the King signs the contract with Ursula, Ariel and Eric are on the surface. She clings to him and says “You have to get away from here!” to which he replies “I’m not leaving you again!” ( or something). But for the two sentences he’s talking, his mouth isn’t animated at all.

This blog has officially become worthless.

Also the timeline of Beauty and the Beast makes no sense. The rose will mature until his 21st birthday, when the last petal falls and he remains a beast forever. But it also says, in the opening lines, “as the years wore on, he fell into despair.” So either the eternity of the despair he’s feeling is really only, like, 18 months, or the enchantress cursed him when he was 15 or 16. Even then, Belle (who I assume is in the range of 17-19, Ariel was 16 after all) lives in the castle with him for at least 8 months - it’s maybe fall or late summer at the beginning, and it snows during her stay with the beast. So then he may have only been 13 or 14 when he was enchanted, for enough years to despair would have passed. 

Two more problems come from that. To begin, they show the beast tearing up his portrait, and he looks the exact same in it as when he transforms back, like some Tuck Everlasting/Dorian Gray bullshit. In addition, if he was only 14 when he was cursed, that means he’s spent all of his formative years as the beast. How could he possibly be normally adjusted to life? 

Also when Gaston takes her book, he says “how can you read this? There’s no pictures!” When Belle had just pointed out a picture in the book to some passing sheep. 

In related news, I’ve got nothing going on in my life.

I read a post recently about how obnoxious “How to not get raped” info videos and pamphlets are. They do nothing but instill the idea that the rape can somehow, in some way, be blamed on the victim. I believe the gist of the post was: Hey, How about we just stop raping girls?

Its the same thing with prostitution. I absolutely hate the mentality of “well, prostitution is going to happen no matter what, so we should legalize it.” But how about we just teach each and every young man that no woman should be seen as an object you can buy. 

Until then, fine, legalize it. The girls’ quality of life would probably be improved immeasurably if they could go to the cops without fear of repercussion. But don’t fucking say its because of the taxes. A woman, subjecting herself to sex with a stranger, should not be seen the same way purchasing a carton of milk is.

Now that I’ve gotten the all important inflammatory title out of the way, let me say I DO NOT BELIEVE PORN IS WRONG. Or, at least, not in the way you might automatically think.

First and foremost, I am not one to rail against the immorality of porn. I know it exists, I know it’s always going to exist, and even though I don’t really watch it (too obnoxious) I would never judge any one who does. Honestly, how could I? And same goes for people in the porn industry. I would never look down on you for what you do, or think you were a slut, and I can even get behind (heheh) all the usual reasons why people do it: money, chance to have a career, they like sex etc etc.

So why, and I hate to admit, do I still at my core think “NO,” the second I hear of someone who “does” porn? I can’t help it, it’s just always there, beneath my rational mind. Not that I’m grossed out, per se, because I’d have no problem with the actually person. But the choice still weirds me out. Why?

I already said I don’t have a problem with porn. However, our society, for the most part, does. That’s just undeniable - whether it be a priest, parent, friend, or tv show, our society tells us that porn is not a good thing. That it is not upstanding or above the surface or something we can openly talk about. And I am not saying this is wrong or right. I honestly have no opinion either way. On the one hand, I think sex shouldn’t be treated like a secret, but on the other I wouldn’t want every television show to be replaced with VaNs XXX or whatever.

Just to reiterate: I am not saying whether porn is good or bad, but that as a general rule in society, it is seen as bad.

So then, not really feeling that way myself, why do I have a negative reaction to people in porn? I finally realized it’s not porn, it’s the fact that these people grew up in the same society as I did, with more or less the same outside influences, and 9/10 must have grown up seeing society’s reaction to porn (porn is bad), and still chose to do it anyways.

Let’s completely take porn out of the picture for a second, say we all think peeling apples is bad. Stupid, sure, and many see porn as just as harmless. But what if for all your life, everyone, everywhere told you peelings apples was bad, wrong even: a sin. The people who still grow up and choose to peel apples are going against society. They are saying “I don’t care about the stigma” and doing it. That sounds pretty valiant, and I’m sure there are women and men in the porn industry who are doing what they do for feminism or sexuality or another thought out reason, but most are probably just choosing to go against the rules for whatever other reasons. And it just so happens (psychologically speaking) those reasons are probably less idealistic, and little more fucked (heh) up. And I love punk music, teenage angst, etc etc. But to choose a life based around what is essentially rebelling, is just something I don’t necessarily understand and therefore makes me uneasy. It just seems too much like something one of the obnoxious girls in my English class, or “bros” from History would do.

As always I remind you I’m just a stupid kid who doesn’t really know anything, but it was enough of a relief to realize this today to warrant a post. I realized that I’m not uncomfortable with porn, I’m uncomfortable with people who feel compelled to to do something that society has deemed “bad.” Which may make me close minded, but at least I’m cool with people doing it in a van for money.