Grown Ups Talking

The only way men will ever get sex is by giving women highly refined minerals.

Evolution has spoken.

Or at least the advertising community has spoken.

I’m probably the only woman in America to admit this, but I’m happy to wear cheap jewelry. If the slipper blew thousands of dollars on jewels, I’d just wonder why he didn’t use the money to pay down the mortgage.

On the rare occasions that I wear expensive stuff, I spend the whole time petrified that I will lose it. Or someone will steal it.

I inherited some diamonds from a relative, I haven’t looked at them in years. I worry so much about hiding them that I actually forget where they are.

Where does this perception that you are only a real woman if you get a man to buy you expensive stuff come from? It’s a kind of insanity. And though I am not always the most sympathetic to men’s situations, it’s not fair. Especially these days when the kind of middle class gal that seems to expect this kind of treatment probably makes as much if not more money than the sap who is supposed to pay off the price of last year’s present by next year.

If you have to prove to your neighbors that your husband loves you by wearing the really over the top stuff, he’s probably screwing his secretary anyway.

Merry Christmas, or which-ever-religeous-or-secular-excuse-you-give-at-this- time-of-year-for-giving-each-other-presents-. —Pomerol

Under P. Bush’s administration the Environmental Protection Agency has become the Investment Protection Agency. Only under a government as cynical as this could something called the EPA actually work against the environment.

For years California has tried to impose fuel emissions standards on automobiles. The EPA and the Department of Transportation have the authority to set fuel emissions standards. California requested a waiver, the “EPA” blocked it.

Now U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Ishii ruled in California’s favor.

Duh.

Now California is allowed to create major legislation to curtail fossil fuel emissions.

I know, I know, the whole global warming thing is getting boring to hear about and tedious to repeat. But it’ll get a lot more than boring if no one does anything. This is what our government and tax dollars should be doing, saving our lives, not killing us. As far as I know, most automobiles do not function under water.

The subprime lending debacle is crippling international financial markets (as the Boston Globe reported two years ago). The all-American double-talkers, who sold poor saps the kind of mortgages that would make a loan shark ashamed, have spread financial paranoia throughout the global economy creating widespread panic, the breakdown of democracy, and guaranteed failure of solving global warming.

Yes, it’s Christmas season again here at GrownUpsTalking, and a jolly happy wonderful time of the year it is. For some reason all this doom and gloom has resulted in more work for freelance designers (for those of you who don’t know, I, Pomerol, am an FD). Weird! Does impending disaster mean more advertising/powerpoint presentations/press kits need to be designed? Apparently yes.

While the economy teetered on a knife edge of success, buoyed up no doubt by large Halliburton contracts and Katrina relief rip-offs, I struggled to find work. Now that we’re really up the river, I’m finally thriving.

What’s that all about? Of course, don’t tell anyone or it won’t last.

Merry Christmas, and a slow economy to you all.—Pomerol