I have a confession to make. I’m a celebrity rag-aholic. I check out the entertainment news daily. In fact sometimes you can find me surfing to TMZ.com and Perez Hilton a couple times a day. I’m a junkie. However, I only head to CNN maybe once a week. And I rarely catch my local news. I know. I’m pathetic.

So I’m a little ashamed to admit I found out Iowa began allowing same sex marriages today from Perez. But then tonight I was taking a little rest on the couch while preparing dinner [which meant I was napping while waiting for the pizza man to arrive] and the news came on. Of course the top story was this whole gay marriage thing.

Yesterday a judge struck down Iowa’s law against gay marriage stating it “violated the constitutional rights of due process and equal protection of six gay couples who had sued.” The ruling was in Polk county so that was the only county that would give couples a marriage license today. Which pretty much sucked for couples not in the Des Moines area, including some of the six couples who sued.

But the ruling was short lived. By late morning the Recorder announced she was told to stop accepting applications. And later that day the judge ordered an official stay on his decision while the attorneys worked on their appeal.

But one couple, two Iowa State undergrads, was able to get their marriage license AND get married before the stay. They got a judge to waive the three day waiting period. Then they enlisted friends and family to call around to find a judge or minister who would perform the ceremony immediately. After a brief search they found a pastor who married the couple on his front lawn.

As you can imagine the couple and their friends and family are thrilled. But some people aren’t so excited about it. Some moron named Chuck Hurley from the Iowa Family Policy Center said,

I’m deeply saddened that a judge would foist that experiment on all of Iowa. It’s judicial malpractice. It’s cultural malpractice.

Those are big words he’s throwing around there.

“Foist that experiment?” This judge isn’t forcing anything “on all of Iowa.” He allowed [albeit briefly] same sex couples who love each other and are committed to each other to take the step that heterosexual couples have had the right to do for centuries; get married. Allowing marriage and forcing marriage are two very different things.

And “experiment?” You do an experiment to test a hypothesis or to prove something. A marriage is not an experiment. It’s a commitment. It doesn’t matter if you’re marrying a same sex partner or a opposite sex partner. It’s about the level of commitment and love you offer to your partner.

“Judicial malpractice?” I guess that depends on who you ask. I’m sure the gay couples who aren’t allowed to marry consider it judicial malpractice that past judges have trampled all over their rights and spit on their commitment by ruling that marriage is only between a man and a woman. And I don’t believe this judge is gay so it’s not like he was just ruling in favor of whatever benefits him.

“Cultural malpractice?” Now he’s just making shit up.

Then he continued to spout more nonsense.

To experiment on children for the wants and desires of a few adults isn’t loving. That isn’t good. That isn’t something that we want to do. To experiment on children.

WTF? Can anybody decipher what this lunatic is talking about? Experiment on children? Who the hell is experimenting on children?

Denying same sex marriage isn’t stopping people from being gay. Gay people are out there. I’ve seen public displays of affection between two men or two women. And I don’t live in a big city or anything. My children will see it too. Keaton already has when we went to London and hung out with my mom’s friend and her girlfriend. All of my kids have had conversations with their friends about gay people or heard about it on TV. And when they tell me about that or ask me questions about it I use it as an opportunity to educate my children about the different types of relationships there are in the world. I use it as opportunity to teach my children to be open-minded and accept people for who they are instead of being bigoted and judgmental.

Obviously I’m on the side of allowing same sex marriages. I don’t understand why the government feels they have the right to tell people who to love. Or to allow people who are in committed, loving relationships that they have no legal rights to make decisions for the person they’ve spent their life with or to that partner’s estate. The government has no problem sending children to war or spying on people in the name of the Patriot Act, but God forbid two men marry.

And I’m so sick of people using children as their excuse for denying people a right to marriage. Kids don’t know if they’re married or not. I’ve met plenty of people who are with their significant other. Sometimes it’s a spouse. Sometimes it’s a boyfriend/girlfriend. I can’t tell if they are married unless they tell me. I work with a guy who has been with his partner for over 10 years and refers to him as his husband. Obviously they aren’t married, but they’ve been in a committed relationship for so long they refer to each other as such.

Just because it makes you uncomfortable doesn’t give you the right to dictate the decisions they make with their life. It makes me uncomfortable to see people picking their nose or scratching their butt, but I’m not asking the government to deny them their right to do so. [I know. I always come out of left field with these comparisons, but you get my point.]

I guarantee same sex marriages will be legal some day. The younger generation is more tolerant then the old fuddy duddies. It will happen. So, psycho, you can go ahead and get your panties in a wad now about how we are “experimenting on children,” but eventually you are going to lose this battle. And you’ll have to shove your Iowa Family Policy Center up your tightly wound ass.

Whenever Caleb goes in to the bathroom to poop he removes every stitch of his clothing. I’ve never really understood why. It’s just his thing.

Caleb and Spencer both had soccer practice tonight. After practice we headed over to the golf course to pick up Justis from golf practice. When we got there Justis was on the sixth hole which is way in the back of the course. So we waited for him in the car.

After about ten minutes Caleb announced he had to go to the bathroom really bad as he clapped his knees together in to the potty dance. I’m sure there was a bathroom in the clubhouse, but I could finally see Justis walking up to the car. It was already 7pm and we hadn’t eaten supper yet. Plus it was bath night. So I just wanted to get home.

All the way Caleb kept saying, “I gotta go potty. I gotta go potty.” So I expected him to run right to the bathroom as soon as we stepped in the door. But to my surprise he stopped to take off his shin guards. He then begged me to take of his shoes…quick.

Of course this meant he had to poop and he needed to take off all his clothes. And we all know, you can’t get your jean shorts off when your shoes are still on.

When he was done going potty I asked, “Why do you take all your clothes off to go potty?”

“Because I don’t want them to get dirty.” Duh, Mom!

“Do you take all your clothes off at school?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because we aren’t allowed to take off our shoes at school.”

Ok, makes sense.

“So what do you do instead,” I asked.

“I just lift up my shirt.” And he lifted his shirt to his armpits for demonstration.

“Then why don’t you just do that at home?”

“Because I don’t want to get poop on my clothes.”

“But you don’t take off your clothes at school and you don’t get poop on your clothes.”

“Yeah, cause I can’t take off my shoes.”

It went back and forth like that for a couple round before I finally gave up. You just can’t beat five year old logic. But you better believe we’ll be discussing this again at his high school graduation party. I’m so mean.

Wanna know how to really annoy me?

IM me with “Can you call me please?”

Seriously?!? How lame is that? If you want to talk to me on the phone then call me. Don’t IM me to tell me to call you.

And then, when I totally ignore your IM because you’re a damn fool and I don’t have time for your silly games, definitely DO NOT send me an email that says “Please call me.”

Imagine the effort it took to first send me an IM AND THEN send me an email. Wouldn’t it have just been easier to pick up your fucking phone and call me?

And then, when I do call you and say, “Why didn’t you just call me?” definitely, and I mean DEFINITELY, DO NOT answer with “Because it was easier.” Because that will just piss me off more. You know I just live to make life easier for you’re lazy ass. Never mind the fact that I had to stop what I was doing during the last week of the month (which happens to be my super duper busy time of the month), go to email, look up your number, dial the phone all while trying to remain calm so I didn’t rip your fucking head off when you answered because you’re too damn lazy to call me.

All that effort because YOU wanted to talk to me. I didn’t want to talk to you. If I did I WOULD HAVE CALLED YOU.

I’m just saying.

Tonight was my first night of Fall classes. This term I’m taking Direct Marketing. I have the same teacher I had for last term’s Ad Theory class. That’s good in that he’s a nice guy and he doesn’t make us buy a book because he thinks textbooks are too expensive. [I can't tell you how much I appreciate that.] But it’s bad in that he requires us to get in to groups and give a final presentation at the end of the term. If you’re new I totally suck at public speaking. I’d rather have my wisdom teeth pulled without Novocaine then give a speech. I’d rather hang from the ceiling, upside-down, by my toe nails, naked then give a speech. I really do not enjoy speeches.

But I have three months before I have to worry about that.

Today our assignment was to form groups of five or six people and come up with a team name. I could see the kids next to me were already friends and were an instant group, so I turned around to the girls behind me. Back there were three girls who obviously knew each other before class even started. They asked the girl sitting next to them if she wanted to be in their group. So they had four as far as I could tell. We had to have a minimum of five people in each group. So I asked, “Do you already have five?” Two of girls looked at me with glazed eyes like I had just grown wings out of my butt. They didn’t respond. They just continued to look at me as if I had spoken some foreign old lady language they didn’t understand.

I was a little taken aback. We’ve had to form groups in just about every class I’ve had at the university, but this was the first time I’ve ever had anybody reject me. I was immediately transformed back to junior high and I just found out I didn’t get invited to the cool people party. And then I remember I’m not 13. I’m 33. And I don’t put up with catty little bitches. So I leaped over the table and pulled all their hair out.

Ok, so I didn’t really do that. Instead I looked around to see if any other groups were in need of a member. I found a group of four in the back of the room. It looked like they were looking for another partner so I gave them the international sign for please let me be in your group or I’ll cry ’cause nobody wants me. Which meant I awkwardly threw up my arms and raised my eyebrows while pointing at them and mouthing, “Do you need a fifth?” I thought for sure after that ungraceful move they would look away and pretend like they didn’t see me. But, to my surprise, they accepted me with open arms. Then we all made out.

Ok, maybe not. But we did exchange email addresses and come up with a name. Assignment #1 was complete.