Older Than Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin is surprisingly endearing for a woman I agree with on very few issues. If I ever meet her, I expect to have a polite and interesting conversation about the death penalty and the abundant natural beauty of this, our glorious country.

She is, however, about sixteen years old.

Without further ado, and with a nod to the Younger than McCain people, and with the understanding that someone has probably already done this, here is a list of 44 things younger than Sarah Palin, est. February 11, 1964:

1. Belize (1981)

2. East Timor (1975 / 2002)

3. Bangladesh (1971)

4. The author (1984)

5. Every pet dog or cat in the world (answers will vary)

6. The Ebola virus (as far as Western medecine knows) (1976)

7. Grandy's Restaurants (1973)

8. The Internet (no one agrees, but all the dates are after 1964)

9. Residents of Washington, D.C. voting for President (November 1964)

10.... this isn't as funny as I hoped it would be.

Things Older Than Sarah Palin

1. the Hammurabi code

2. English

3. Orthodox Christianity

This isn't funny either, which I guess proves that early middle age isn't inherently an amusing time of life.

I hope she keeps rocking the fur coat, though. I hate anti-fur activists. I want to tie them all up in raw, bloody pelts and release them into wolverine country. If you're a vegan, you can make that argument. If you're a vegetarian, you kind of can. But saying "we can eat them, we just can't wear their skin, and you're mean if you do!" pisses me off. For years, I've fantasized about getting famous enough to do a parody of those fucking PETA "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" advertisements in which I'm naked, except for a huge fucking fur. I won't feel fulfilled until a hippie photoshops my face on Cruella de Vil's body and puts it on his LiveJournal.

(Does that joke work? Are LiveJournals still, you know... extant?)

Coming Out Day

National coming out day is October 11. I fucking hate bandwagons, so I came out to my dad two days ago. My dad was the only major figure in my life I hadn't talked about it with yet; my mom outed me to herself while I was living in New Zealand last year via a surreal series of phone conversations.

Mom: I was watching Oprah the other day...

Me: Oh, God. (I respect Oprah enormously, but anything that gives my mother ideas is dangerous.)

Mom:... and they had this thing on about transgender, I mean transsexual, anyway people unhappy with their sex, and their parents, and then I had a nap, and I had a dream, and anyway if you're not happy with your gender you can tell me. How's your gender? How's your sexual orientation?

Me: ...Fine?

Mom: You can tell me.

Me: I'm thrilled to death to be a man. Couldn't be happier. Me and my penis against the world.

Mom: Well. I'm sorry to have lost another warrior for women's rights.

Me: What the hell does that mean? I'm all for skirts having the vote.

Mom: Nevermind.

Eventually, I bargained her down to gay from tranny. She immediately asked me if I'd ever been in love, which is an appalling question in any context.

Whereas my dad took it in stride, and then the next day told me to tell my friend that it had gone like this:

Me: Dad, I'm gay.

Dad: That's okay, I'm not your real father. Let's go get drunk.

My dad is awesome.

Full Disclosure.

So, I set this blog up in a fit of pique in May, when my former blog co-writer (may his name and memory be erased except in the context of "Roses are red, violets are blue, YOU'RE A PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE PRETENTIOUS PERSON AND I HATE YOU" poems) locked me out of our old co-blog. It was the end of an era; granted, an era of crudely photoshopping the King of Jordan's head onto gay porn and posting barely coherent AIM logs when we had mental blocks, but an era nonetheless. We were one of two blogs that forced the Jewish-Israeli Blog Awards to institute an adult content filter, and I was proud of that.

Anyway. It's over, and I'm striking out on my own (and by "my own," I mean with the creative input of the lovely and talented "Eddie," my dysgraphic radical lesbian ivy league burlesque queen friend.)

Without further ado, let's get right down to the primary topic addressed by most humor blogs: the dawning realization of my own mortality. The other week, I found my first bodily sign of aging (I'm 23)...

A grey chest hair. More specifically, a half-grey chest hair. My chest hair is fairly sparse to begin with, so it's extra disturbing - if I had thousands, the loss of one of my guys wouldn't be as disturbing, but since I'm working with a Thermopylae level of about 300 chest hairs, every man counts. To add insult to injury, the damn thing is tu-tone. You (I) can clearly see the spot, midway down the hair, where the pigment cells gave up the ghost. They just gave up after roughly seven years, much like a president or a tetanus booster. I'm tempted to pluck it, but I'm leaving it be for know on the off chance my chest hair will hurry up and salt-and-pepper so that I look distinguished.

Sigh. I'm going to die. With grey chest hair.