This Herald article (“Greer attacks abortion pill instead of backing it”) makes it sound like Germaine Greer suddenly went all anti-choice. Instead she just points out that it’s a procedure nobody wants to go through and therefore the best action is to try to reduce the number of women wanting/needing one. Sounds pretty sensible to me.

Gym Weirdness
Ahh, I knew the gym would distract me from that mess. Today’s observations:

• I counted three people wearing jeans. THREE! People who wear jeans to work out always remind me of the stupid kids that would forget their gym clothes in junior high. Please, just go to Kmart and buy some $3 cotton shorts.
• Of course, what’s acceptable workout wear to one person might not go over so well with everyone else… like the little old Asian man’s sweatpants that read “SHIT HAPPENS” really big down the leg.
• Sometimes people have obsessions with particular parts of their bodies that you just can’t help notice. Today’s exhibit was “Tricep Man”. This guy worked just his triceps for, like, half an hour straight. He wasn’t a big bodybuilder either, just a normal skinny-ish guy. Granted, he had huge freakin’ triceps, but coupled with his scrawny legs he looked like an alien. (Another common obsessive type are the girls who do nothing but work on their abs.)
• The reincarnated Mahatma Gandhi goes to my gym, which is cool. He wears big yellow Hawaiian-print jams, which is not.
• Personal space is a very tricky issue at the gym. In the early evenings, it can get pretty crowded in there. I try to maintain my distance, though, given how little some people wear, how little I know them, and how much I (or they) smell. Most everybody else seems to follow the same unwritten guidelines. Today, however, I was on the floor doing my crunches and stretches, and when I stood up I noticed that this girl was sitting right behind me. She didn’t have her back to me either; she was facing me. Like one foot away. With lots of other space around. I don’t even know how long she was there. She could’ve reached out and given me a massage. It was really creepy.
• Question: do guys get naked in the locker room? I mean, I know they shower and stuff so they must get naked at some point, but do they make a big show out of it? I swear, both gyms I’ve belonged to (here and in London) have been full of women who just love to walk around the locker room in the buff. I just don’t have that level of comfort with public nudity. Maybe it’s an “outside-the-U.S.” thing. Is it?

I feel so much better now!

Oh my gosh. This Cornfusion Corn Maze looks like the funnest thing ever! I’m seriously going to try to do this the next time I go home to the Midwest. Who wouldn’t want to run around in a maze of corn that’s the size of six football fields?! (Link courtesy of TD, who’s already been there.)

Were you offended by the 9-11 inspired “Tumbling Woman” sculpture? Then wait’ll you see the fruit cake.

I am a raving feminist. Go back me up, girls.

Tears of joy, folks.
Tonight we went out to dinner to the little Mexican place around the corner. I wore my favorite black skirt, the one that’s been too tight to button for the past year. Now it fits with room to spare. I don’t care if I’m a pod person; I want to have Dr. Atkins‘s baby. (Well, not really, ’cause that’d make me all fat again. But I’d make him a quilt.)

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: “That’s the ugliest baby that I’ve ever seen. Ugh!” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “The driver just insulted me!” The man says: “You go right up there and tell him off – go ahead, I’ll hold your monkey for you.”

And that, my friends, is the official funniest joke in the UK. Hey, it made me laugh. This site collected jokes from people for over a year and asked visitors to rate how funny they were. Personally, I thought the overall winner sucked, but your mileage may vary. Oh, and some of their statistics are interesting. (Tara D, you gotta work a duck into your act, I’m tellin’ ya!)

Tricia’s trying to find out the origin of the word “spendy” (slang for expensive). Have you heard this term used? Where? Let her know.

Wow! I just found out that our neighborhood, Newtown, has a website! It’s mostly crap, but I love the home page. The information about the history of the community is pretty good too.

As if that game weren’t bad enough, Snookums just sent me this optical illusion. My mind is officially blown for the day.