Pet Peeves - October, Sarah Palin and Banned Books

I was sitting with my usual group between my classes and one of the guys was like 'October is the worst month of the year'. It was nice to hear that I was not the only one who felt this way. October sucks. If it's your birthday month or if you enjoy fall, then you're like "OMG Ruth i luvz fall!!1! Da treez r purty LOLZ."

What sucks about October:
1) There are (usually) no significant holidays in October, which means no significant days off of school or work.
2) There's Halloween. At age 22, it's not cool anymore. It went from getting a shit ton of candy to another excuse to get drunk (except this time we dress like sluts! YES! Well everyone except me.).
3) It's cold. It starts off being in the 60s-70s and by the end of the month you're wearing your winter coat. That sucks.
4) The leaves are everywhere. Yeah, they're nice when they're on the trees. They're not so nice when you park your car under one and it rains so wet leaves cover your car and you have to shovel your car out of leaves.
5) It's too far from Christmas. And Christmas is B.A. Even though that too isn't as glamorous as it used to be, it's still better than Halloween ever will be.
6) Candy corn is GROSS. Listen to Lewis Black's bit on candy corn. I swear it's true. (News blog thing on Top 10 Most Disappointing Treats for Trick-or-Treaters.)

Sarah Palin. Do I need to say anymore? The Republican National Committee reportedly spent $150,000 on her makeover, trying to make her look like an expensive soccer mom, not like the sweatshirt-and-New-Balance-wearer that the rest are. Way to go, guys. She's become a punch line and a popular Halloween costume. I thought about being her for Halloween. It's not difficult. Glasses, hair up with bangs chilling, prop baby, power suit, constant winking and references to 'Joe the Plumber'. Not too shabby...either her or my mom. Either one is pretty fucking scary. Me as the Republican VP nominee...or as my mother?! Barf barf barf.

So the book 'King and King' is stirring up some controversy in Massachusetts. The story goes like this: there's a prince that isn't married yet so his bitchy Queen mom goes 'Damn it, we'll bring your some princesses.' He's like 'I don't care much for princesses.' She doesn't care and so these awesome ladies come to visit and he's like 'Yawn.' One day a princess comes with a male escort and he's like 'Hell yeah, let me jump on his dick!' (Well, not really, because it's a child's book, but you know he was thinking it.) So they fall in love and decide to get married. And the last illustration of the book is of them kissing. A little boy goes home and goes "Mom, today I learned that a prince can marry a prince and a princess can marry a princess." His parents were like 'Oh fuck no.' Insert controversy here.

I took a literature for children class (elementary education, fucking winning program!) and we went over LGBT children's books. They're not saying "GAY IS GREAT OMGZZZ. BE GAY LIKE US!" They're like "It's cool, bro, if you're different or if your parents are different. Accept everyone." I read 'The Sissy Duckling' in this class and it was so cute! Parents need to chill the f out. Just because they read a book, they're not going to be homosexual. People like this exist all around them and they need to be exposed to it so they're not hating on everyone. It's civil rights all over again. The N-word is sooo 1960s. Now it's the F-word (fag). They're humans just like everyone else. You don't have to be gay (it's not a choice anyway, apparently) but we do need to respect homosexuals and teach our children that it's okay to be different. (steps off soapbox) "Damn, Ruth, could you get any more liberal up in here? Want to talk aborted fetuses next?" No thanks.

Maybe it's old news but "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" is considered a banned book too? Why? It was banned "during a healthy eating campaign due to their interpretation of it promoting over-consumption and obesity". Really? That's what caterpillars fucking DO! They eat a SHIT ton, then poop out a cocoon, sleep in their poop cocoon and come out a butterfly (or something like that). How badass is that? Well, aside from sleeping in turds. You are genetically pre-destined to eat everything in sight. Eric Carle made this sweet kids' book and parents are like 'Oh noooo, the children think it's okay because the caterpillar did it.' No. It's your responsibility to be like "That's what caterpillars do. You're not a caterpillar. Now eat your McDonald's Happy Meal because I'm a lazy parent who doesn't know how to cook meals." When I think banned books, I think gratuitous sex or vulgar language. (I also think stupid because writing is a freedom of expression thing and if you tell them not to read it, guess what, they're going to want to fucking read it even more.) But I definitely don't think 'Fat ass caterpillar'. People who wanted to ban this book should wear a sign that says "Caution: Idiot Crossing."