Dear Frasier, you suck

I was reading a March issue of New York Magazine when I stumbled upon an article about Kelsey Grammer in which he says of Sarah Palin, "I don't like that so many women are willing to beat up on an attractive woman." There's no way to respond to a comment like that: it sends you straight back to seventh grade, when you realized that boys only cared about what hot girls thought. You can say, "I don't hate her because she's attractive, I hate her because she's an idiot," but if you aren't hot, Kelsey Grammer is not listening. (And even if you are hot, chances are, he's not listening.) You can do the knee-jerk thing and shout, "She's not that hot!" but that would only prove his point, which is that you hate Sarah Palin because you are ugly and she is beautiful. Saying that it troubles him to see women speaking out against a pretty woman is a great debate strategy.

But I think that despite his assholery, Kelsey Grammer has hit upon an important point: women are jealous of Sarah Palin. He thinks it's about looks, because what else would women care about? If he observed the day-to-day lives of the women who criticize Palin, he might find another reason for them to envy her.

Here's how a typical day in the life of a working mother of multiple children goes:

She wakes up and groggily gets out of bed to prepare breakfast, a good portion of which gets thrown on the floor. The kids whine: "You're giving me cereal again?" "Why isn't my shirt clean?" "I don't wanna go to school." She may or may not have someone helping her; if she is anything like my mother, her husband is busy watching the morning news.

She heads to work, where her boss, like all bosses, is a total dick. She is passed over for promotions and raises because her superiors say, Oh, all she cares about is her kids, she can't really commit to this job.

She comes home exhausted. Her kids whine: "I hate this dinner." "Why aren't you paying any attention to me?" If she is anything like my mother, her husband is busy watching the evening news; if he hears the children whining, he asks her, "Why are the children making so much noise?"

She goes to bed, having spent no time on herself all day. Her kids, her bosses, and her husband have barely noticed any of the work she has done for them.

Here's a typical day in the life of Sarah Palin:

She holds her baby for a magazine cover. She is fawned over because she didn't get an abortion. She is held up as an example of a great mom, despite her children's very public fuckups.

She is complimented as a modern working woman despite having quit her one actual job as governor.

People throw money at her for doing absolutely nothing, because listening to her speak is simply so dazzling.

I'm not saying Sarah Palin doesn't work hard as a mother. I have no idea what kind of parent she is. What I'm saying is that zillions of women are hardworking mothers and nobody pats them on the back, not their kids, not their bosses, not their partners, and definitely not any major news outlets, which are still wary of mothers in the workplace. These women don't have the option of quitting their jobs just because "only dead fish go with the flow." While Sarah Palin quits her job and gets attention and praise for everything she does and says, no matter how idiotic, most other women are *actually* doing their jobs and being ignored. So, if women are jealous of Sarah Palin, trust me, Kelsey, it's not about her looks.

While I'm writing posts directly to Kelsey Grammer, let me also say this: The show "Hank" failed because you are not believable as the father of anyone under thirty. It really skeeved me out to see you pretending otherwise, which is why I did not watch your show.

They can get...smarter?

I got into [another] fight with my boss today. He’s the kind of dick who says things like “you know, Farah, running your mouth doesn’t count as exercise” and “it’s so easy a girl can do it”. Fortunately, we have such a casual work relationship that I can basically walk up to him and be like “you are an ignorant bastard and your hair is stupid” and he won’t do anything about it because he knows I’m awesome and firing me would be a poor life decision.

Today, his beef with me was that I was playing my like omg totally insanely highly inaccessible and super-duper way obscure no-wave, lo-fi, tribalcore, shitgaze music too loud and it was hurting his ear feelings or some whiney bullshit. He started yelling at me to turn the noise down so I started yelling at him something about how this is my favorite song in the universe [this week] and to turn it down would be an insult to the artist and he’d be better off taking his complaints to someone who’d actually give a damn.

Well eventually, he gave up and left me alone because I seem pretty alright most of the time, but when I get riled up about something, I tend not to calm down until I get MY WAY (youngest child syndrome), and he’s well aware of that by now. So he disappeared out of my line of vision, and I got back to work after giving myself a figurative pat on the back for winning yet another one when not five minutes later, that dumb fucking asshole started blasting Rush from the other room. RUSH!! How did he know?! I think it’s time I start keeping my pet-peeves to myself, lest they be used against me in such unethical ways.

Screw you guys, I'm going home

I like kids. I like them a lot. They're funny, they're cute, and they provide insight into your own development. I like talking to them, I like watching them do kid things, I like running around with them at the park. That stuff is all fun.

What isn't fun is playing games with them. They're always changing the rules, first of all ("No, I'm not out. The couch is base.") and if you argue, you feel petty. After all, why do I care if kids change the rules in the middle of the game? But I do care, because it's not fucking fair, dammit.

Second, their games are boring. Do you know what Store is? It's a game where you pick up stuff in their basement, pretend to buy it, and then put it in a pile. Over and over and over. Why do they want to play Store? Or School? Why do they want to play School if they already spent eight hours in school? I don't know. They're kids.

Third, sometimes their games get weird. Cops and Robbers is not a game I want to play with a child. I don't want a child to tie me up. And you can argue that it's not at all sexual, but I remember how fun it was to be chased by the boys when I was a little girl. I remember wanting to be caught.

Frankly, I don't think it's healthy for kids to play pretend games with adults. They should be playing with other kids. You know why they like playing with adults? Because adults never change the rules in the middle of a game and adults go along with basically whatever the kid decides to do and adults don't give a shit who gets the red scooter. When you're playing a game with a kid, you're a prop. And that's kind of bullshit, like, why am I the prop when I've done so much more than you? I can read. I can do long division. I survived to adulthood. You think you're better than me? Fine. I'll just sit in the corner and read a book until my mom comes to pick me up.