2004-03-25

http://ofb.diaryland.com/032304.html [edited to add: that entry has since been moved here], and wanted to invite you to please put your thoughts into a letter for consideration for the August issue. Thanks for your interest in Playboy. [name deleted] for the Playboy Advisor Ain’t it always the way that when you call someone names in your journal, secure in the knowledge that they’ll never see it, they always do?

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Did you know that if you live in Georgia and are a woman, your right to pierce your genitals is in jeopardy! It almost makes me want to go have my genitals pierced in protest. ::cringe::
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Hey, reader Martha has a niece who is unbearably adorable. Her name is JoJo, and she’s a singer. A piece of her video along with a short interview was on MTV’s TRL yesterday, and I voted for her. You can hear her song on her site, here. I’m addicted to her song (It’s got a good beat and I can dance to it!) and have to listen to it every day. I’ll be buying her CD when it comes out.
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Speaking of music, I think that I may have – my god, this is hard to admit – developed the tiniest little crush on Clay Aiken. I KNOW! Don’t look at me like that, I’m embarrassed enough already! Look, I’ve always liked Clay’s songs and everything, but I saw his new video yesterday while I was waiting for JoJo to come on (or maybe he was on after JoJo, it’s all a blur now) and whoo! Just, whoo! Skinny little boys have never been my thing – and that eye-flutter thing Clay used to do while he was singing sure did creep me out – but I’m thinking I could make an exception. Heh. Be afraid, Clay. Be very afraid!
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So last year I had a couple of planters filled with Million Bells plants by the front door. As the weather got colder I had the idea that I might move the planters into the garage for the winter, with an eye toward reviving them in the spring, so I wouldn’t have to order more Million Bells and put them in the planter and all that. I never quite got around to moving the planters, though, and they stayed by the front door all winter long, brown and dead. Yesterday I went out to get the mail and glanced down at one of the planters to find that not only had green leaves started to appear…
But a couple of blooms had appeared, too! My plan is to cut the plants in both of the planters back drastically, and hit them with a dose of fertilizer. Hopefully they can be salvaged to bloom for another summer. And this fall, really. I’ll bring the planters into the garage. I will!
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28 thoughts on “2004-03-25”

  1. Ok. You can have a cruch on Clay (even though I suspect he might be gay) if you will forgive me my crush on John Stevens. K? K.

  4. Ugh, the Georgia legislature. I think that the bill probably started out innocently enough as a ban on female circumcision. There was a lot of public outcry about a year ago when an immigrant father was accused of using scissors to circumcise his then 2-year old daughter. Methinks that some conservative legislator decided to “expand” the genital mutilation to include piercings.
    Although I’m not a personal fan of genital piercing, and I certainly have not, nor will I ever, have it done on myself, I don’t think it’s right to prohibit a consenting adult from adorning themselves thusly. I think the chaffing factor would be extreme.
    Ick.
    ~Aly (hey, I only live here, I don’t run the place!)

  5. I think, for the record, that if any of Robyn’s readers been pierced, they should send me pictures posthaste, so I can see what all the hullabaloo is about.

  6. Kate – I don’t blame you. He’s a cutie. 🙂
    Kathy – “Dear Penthouse, I thought it could never happen to me…” 🙂
    Cheryl – Ugh. I had forgotten about that!
    Aly – Amen. 🙂
    Frank – hush up, you.

  7. Well, as one that is pierced down there, it aint that bad, and it’s all good! Ha.
    Read your entry about Playboy the day it was up, and loved it. Really, you should send them something telling them they’re morons.
    Clay Aiken, Ugh!

  8. Thanks for linking to your OFB entry; I hadn’t read it, but I’m glad I did. You did an eloquent job of putting my thoughts into words.
    P.S. They deserved all the names you called them, and then some.

  9. Robyn, I think you should just print out that commentary and send it to playboy, don’t edit or fancy it up and keep an eye out to see if they print it as is. I completely agree with what you said, and it would be interesting to see if they had the guts to print something that counters their opinion.

  10. OMG… I thought I was the only person who had a crush on Clay. My husband thinks I am a fruit loop, but hes just sooo, uh cute?! LOL

  13. As far as the playboy forum goes…don’t write them back. I made the mistake of writting in to a magazine about my views on a certain topic and they cut and pasted the parts that would make me look like the biggest dumbass. I was so embarrassed, I was glad I didn’t use my whole name. Conniving media Bastards!

  14. EXCELLENT letter, Robyn.
    What the hell is wrong with the people at Playboy? (and countless others, I must say).
    There are dozens of shades of grey between being “fat” and “thin” and in many cases it is in the eye of the beholder.
    I’m a size 10 or 12. Although I am obese by Playboy’s/Hollywood’s standards, I have neither a “pot belly” or a “double chin”. I have boobs, a butt, and a small waist. But it is just now, at age 36, that I am learning to celebrate my curves and dress to flatter them, rather than hide them. I only wish I had figured this out 15 years ago when I was a size 6/8 and thought I was the fattest person on the planet …

  15. To clarify an above comment:
    “There’s nothing worse to me than a house cat. When I was about sixteen, I had a kitten and ran over it. Seeing that cat die, I actually think that its spirit has haunted me. I wasn’t afraid of cats before. But now they scare me to death,” Aiken told Rolling Stone.
    And I think it’s rather cool that Playboy would consider publishing your thoughts, although the fact that they apparently stumbled across OFB at random is rather creepy. Was someone Googling?

  16. Can’t blame you for the Clay crush. Me and my sister has teensy ones too.
    What else can the USA come up with to ban?
    My god it is our bodies. Just because I don’t want to do it doesn’t mean someone else can’t have the choice.
    And I really have to quit this ADD speed reading thing of mine. I had to go back over when you were talking about the planters.
    I thought you had planted Milton Berle’s!
    HEH!

  17. Meant to add
    Don’t be surprised if Roberta in Australia gets her letter published a month or so later.
    I think we should all send Fred pictures of our pierced ears!

  18. Thanks for hooking us up to Jo Jo -she’s sounding great! : )
    I came home to some yellow flowers, similar to yours, blooming on a vine on my house yesterday. The plant is called cat’s claw, and like, all the flowers just decided that yesterday was the day to bloom!
    I love flowers! : )

  19. Ummmm….baby. I too love you. Come on over here, darlin’ so’s I can flutter my lashes all OVER your naked self. Ahhh yeah!

  21. Your entry of 3/23/04 on your OFB.diaryland blog is AWESOME. One of the most spectacularly-written, articulate pieces I’ve ever read. Very cool. … Your kitty is also really cool. ;0)

  22. This isn’t going to be very popular, but I don’t see a problem with the answer that Playboy gave JS. She got exactly what she asked for. I’ve been reading Playboy for at least ten years now (I bought the subscription as a gift for my husband) and when I was looking for inspiration to lose weight, Playboy didn’t help me at all. If anything, it made me so depressed that I’d go into the kitchen and eat some more, thinking that it was hopeless and that I was just a fat freak. Now I look at those centerfolds and pictorials with amusement, wondering how I could have thought that I was a freak. Perhaps women who have perfectly good breasts and then go and get saline-filled silicone bags bolted on are the freaks. 😉 Pamela Anderson is a prime example. She looked fine in her “Home Improvement” days and now she just looks hard and plastic. I’m sure she’s a nice person and all, but she didn’t need to alter herself because she was naturally beautiful.
    Now that I’ve dropped almost all the weight I wanted to lose — I was actually a size 16 as well for most of the time that I was fat and since I’m short, size 16 is too big for me. I hope that JS is smart enough to realize that most men — who read Playboy, anyway — don’t like fat women, but there are lots of men out there who do like ’em. My husband loved me no less when I was fat (got married in a size 20 gown and when he met me, I think I was wearing size 6 clothes), but he does admit that he likes my new body better. And I’ve gotta admit that I like his body better now that he’s losing his gut, love handles and double chin. Based on looks alone and not taking into account personality, sense of humor, intelligence, etc., I’d choose a lean guy over a fat guy. Again, based on looks alone. Of course we all know that there is more to people than their looks. I think that fat women who can’t get dates must have shitty attitudes or lousy personalities, or they’re just fishing in the wrong spots. I know lots of fat chicks who have good men. Most men are looking for a woman who is real and who has a good attitude, not fat bitches with chips on their shoulders. (Speaking for myself as a former fat bitch with a chip on her shoulder.)

  23. i wonder how come they can’t use your letter till august? does it really take 5 months to publish one magazine? by that time, regular readers will have forgotten the original letter completely. Or perhaps that’s what playboy wants…

  24. I just want to know how old JoJo is… couldn’t find it on the site anywhere. Google it is.
    Frank is funny. HAR HAR. And I want to know why there’s no law against male genital piercings here… double standard, anyone?

  25. “The 13-year-old R&B singer is collaborating with some heavyweights …” Mystery solved.

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