Because you can believe anything you find in print these days, you probably already know this, but there’s been an actual outcry to bring back The Bitch.

Why, thank you!  But I’ve never left, people.

Neither have a whole lot of other bitches.  You can probably think of at least one right now.

Being a bitch is more about acknowledging your own perfection in whatever state you happen to be in than it is about backbiting and catfights.  I’ve never gone in for that stuff myself; I’d much rather have it out in a public fair fight than hang out in virtual backrooms and alleys.  Being a bitch means knowing yourself and being completely okay with that.  Being a bitch means calling people on their shit, even if that person sometimes is yourself.  Being a bitch means telling it like it is.  Not to hurt feelings, but realizing that sometimes people’s feelings do get hurt and it’s far worse to hold your breath and walk around on eggshells and sit on something unspoken but obvious than it is to just let it out and let the chips fall around your cankles.

So how can you let out your own Inner Bitch?  I’m here to help, people, here to help.

1. Get clear on who you are.  The rest pretty much follows from there.
2. Stop judging.  Yourself, other people, whatever.  Just stop.  Now.  Life is too fucking short for that shit.
3. Take a deep breath and hold your head up a little higher.  I swear this works.  Trust me.  Plus it’s what gets Dooce through the day (that and a good stiff handful of meds, and blogging, and a bunch of stuff.  Being Dooce is complicated).
4. Just say it.  You know you want to.  Whatever it is you’ve been holding in, it’s time to let it go.  Now.
5. At least once a day, utter this sacred mantra loud and proud:  “WHAT THE FUCK!”

There.  Again I’ve done my duty by you.  Now go forth and multiply!

Yesterday the news of comedian Bernie Mac’s untimely death was all over the Twittersphere, which because I only use Alternet, BBCNews and CBC as my sources for news is the only place I would have heard about such an event.  From the comments about him, a middle-aged black comic probably somewhat past his prime and never meteorically popular, you would think he had been sainted as he died.

I could be wrong but I am fairly sure he was not.

But read this tripe:  [Bernie Mac was] the most compelling stage performer of the past 20 years of comedy … A truly amazing, unmatchable presence on stage and on screen. Uh, no, sorry people.  Did I miss something?  If he was that hot I would have known about it.  I’m not sure I could pick him out of a lineup, actually, so he couldn’t have been that great a performer.

So why all the misplaced grief over a man nobody’s thought about since 2006?

This is why:  we are fucking afraid to die. That’s right, dead people scare us.  So it’s better to tread lightly once they die rather than run the risk of being thought uncharitable about a dead person.  GASP!  Dead people are sacred, didn’t you know that?

True.  Think about it:  Heath Ledger.  Princess Di.  Elvis.  Marilyn Monroe.  JFK.  Were they gods or people?  Fucked-up people, I might add, every one of them.  Oh sure, they were talented.  And loved.  But would we still be revering them if they aged like the rest of us, got fat(ter), older, uglier, and more wrinkled?  Or does dying young magically grant one mythical status?  I’d hate to imagine the blimp Elvis would have become had he not conveniently OD’d.  Or the sloppy drunken hag Marilyn would have been in ten more years.  Or the pathetic skirt-chaser JFK was becoming.  Ugh.

I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, “C’mon, Heath Ledger?  Really?”  And you’re right.  He didn’t hold a candle in the wind to the fucked-up mess Princess Di made of her life, but because he’s being mentioned in the same hushed breath lately as “Oscar” and “posthumous” I have to bring it up.  Sure, he’s not bad in The Dark Knight but you have to admit that there’s no way to tell now whether or not you would have thought he totally sucked if he hadn’t had the forethought to go and die first.  But because he’s dead we can’t offend him.  We have to think nice thoughts about him and feel sad for him.

Gah.  You people are pathetic.  Scared of a dead pile of decaying flesh.  Ooh!  Dead man’s gonna come and getcha!  Better talk nice about him!

When people die we should tell the truth.  All the truth.  Stop sugar-coating it.  People are fucked up.  They make mistakes.  They’re, well, human.  We all know this.  It’s not like it’s a secret or anything.  We’re born, we live grand, eloquent, pathetic, fucked-up lives, and then we die.  Boom.  Some of us are sort of famous for some of the fucked-up stuff we do.  So what?  In the end the famous people are just as dead as the rest of us.

So give Bernie Mac a rest.  Being somewhat famous didn’t make him any better or worse than you.  He was a guy, not that notable a guy to me, and now he’s dead.  People loved him, some of them anyway, and likely some people didn’t.  He lived his life and now he’s dead.  The end.

It’s summer, and people’s feet are visible again.  There’s a reason that shoes and socks were invented.  It’s to cover up the unbelievable grotesque ugliness that is some people’s feet.

I’ve been making an unofficial survey regarding feet by observing my clients.  These are people with money, most of them, or enough money anyway.  I’ve noticed something:  the more money people have, the more disgusting their feet are. You would think these people would spring for the odd mani-pedi, or maybe just have all that thick dirty-gray heel callous shaved off somehow, or retain someone to manage those lumpy, dirt-encrusted toenails, but no.

I may insist on a footbath before all my sessions in the future.  Not for me, for them.

You’d think this is something people might notice when they’re dressing for the day:  Hey, I’m putting on sandals here and my feet will be exposed.  Someone might see them! But no, sadly no.

It’s my corollary observation that the more fucked-up a person is, also the more skanky their feet.  This seems obvious, don’t you think?  Attention to feet = attention to reality?

(You’re checking out your feet right now, aren’t you?)

Here’s something else:  reflexologists believe that for every part of the human body there is a corresponding part of the feet.  Press on a certain place and you can stimulate your liver, for instance, or your … I did mean every part.  I’ll wait here while there’s a mad rush to Google “reflexology chart” and find your genitalia.  There.  Are you back with me now?  Good.  Because you can elicit profound effects on your sense of well-being just by getting someone to rub your feet.

I’ll just leave you with that.  My duty to humanity is done for today.