One little-known fact about me is that I carry my home around me on my back like a hermit crab. Yep, that’s me with dishes, pots, pans, tampons, and a Wii strapped to my back. Purty sight, ain’t it? After all, its not like I’m pushing around a rusty shopping cart filled with random plastic bags or anything. Swearsies! And my stuff keeps the rain off.

But once in awhile I like a roof over my head and to shower the bugs off, so I check into the Marriott or the W or sometimes even the Ritz-Carlton, because I like a place where the maids look you in the eye like they’re people, too. Plus they know your name.

Good evening, Ms. Bitch! they say as I waltz past in my 4-inch red stilettos. I stare at a place on the wallpaper until the maid passes. Nobody’s going to suck out my brains by looking me in the eye, nossir!

But hotels are teh awesome. Let’s elaborate, shall we?

1. Archaeology. I got my degrees in rocket science and brain surgery with archaeology well down the list, but I still maintain a layman’s interest. What better way to study Early Man than with the stains on the never-washed bedspreads? Admittedly, some are difficult to identify, which is why I carry a blacklight with me. Makes every stain glow vividly, especially the ones from bodily fluids. Which is most of them. Sometimes I amuse myself by playing Connect The Dots. Or conducting an impromptu Rorschach test.

2. Psychology. In addition to enhancing my personal self-awareness through staring at the stains on the bedspread (they’re never washed. Have I mentioned that?), I also study other people. I start by dialing random room numbers in the hotel, informing my next-door neighbor, for instance, that there’s a package awaiting him at the front desk. Then while he’s out I go in his room and steal everything in the minibar. Or carry a universal TV remote with you while you slowly walk the halls and and punch on/off repeatedly.

3. Statistics. Hotels are a guessing game. When was the carpet last cleaned? How many long black hairs will I find in the sink? Was my non-smoking room last used by a pack of chain smokers? These are fun and enlightening questions to ask yourself whenever you check in to a hotel. Keep track of your score and win prizes!

4. Location, location, location. My last hotel was situated next to an adult store, I kid you not. Score! I’d go back there in a heartbeat.

5. Paying extra for things. Like Wi-Fi. $12.00 PER COMPUTER? Sure, no prob. Or the whole minibar thing. I love a $4 pack of M&M’s. Pretty soon you’ll be paying for air. Not air conditioning. Actual air.

6. Things that smell like… Chlorine-bleached sheets. The aforementioned bedspreads (I warned you, did I not?). Skanky slivers of soap the exact size and usefulness of your tongue. Generic Hotel Cleaner Stuff, the kind that is in use by hotels worldwide and also in prisons (not that I would know, cough). Last night’s pizza-delivery grease-fest wafting through the elevator. The cologne-soaked loser in the hotel bar with a badly-fitting rug up top and a gold chain the size of his penis draped around his neck.

7. Surly desk clerks. You know, the 17-year olds with acne explosions like pink grapefruit hanging off their cheeks? Yeah, them. The ones who dare to claim trumped up charges for in-room porn. What? Me? I make porn, honey, I don’t watch it.

8. It’s Motel 6, dammit, not Motel $139.99. Whatever happened to the 6?

Wanna come stay at my house? I promise I’ll only charge you 3 bucks for the M&M’s.

Oh, fuck. Might as well stay home.

Well well, so another calendar page blew off the wall and it’s December again. Do you care? Except for all the stress you feel when it’s December? Too bad you can’t enjoy it, but no, you’re too busy waiting in line at Wal-Mart, or trampling poor scrawny temp workers who just wanted to make some extra Xmas dough to save up and buy that set of matching NASCAR towels they’ve been coveting all year, or tick tick tick clicking away making Cyber Monday deals and sending your credit card balances spiraling upwards. Fun, eh?

So whatever. Christmas. let’s put the Christ back in Christmas, shall we? Or better yet, let’s not and say we did. Because frankly, that’s another good idea that’s been twisted way out of recognition. But again, whatever.

No, I want to talk about me.

Looks like my last post was a bit of a bust. What, put off by the talk of masturbation? See, it’s something everyone does but won’t admit to and doesn’t want to talk about. Whatever. There were comments but I saved them from your tender ears. Eyes. Whatever. Because it’s slightly creepy when there’s someone who really DOES want to talk about masturbation. In detail. So…no. But hey, no skin off my nose because The Bitch didn’t actually write that post. If you look carefully you can see that the magic codes usually embedded that hypnotize you and make you think I’m a genius and sleep like a baby the night after reading my posts were missing. See? Yeah, those. So whatever.

I mentioned before that The Bitch has been busy and that doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. It’s not that I don’t love you, because I don’t, at least not THAT way, but some of us have a life. Maybe even you. Most assuredly YOU, anyway. But you can all look forward to more Bitchposts in the future. That could be an empty promise but you’ll either have to keep coming back repeatedly or subscribe to be sure, won’t you?

Oh, and I’m taking requests. Because I’m out of original ideas and may as well use yours. So put them in the comments.

Chances are you see this every day:

I made that one up. So what. But guess what it is?  If you know me, you’ve probably already guessed.  Masturbation.  Using, of course, my amazing, new, tried-and-true technique! (Only available if you visit my alter-ego porn site and subscribe for $119.95 a month. I guarantee it’ll help you more than seeing your shrink. Because, guys, it WON’T make you shrink.)

Politics, like a lot of life, is filled with this shit.  I will not lower your taxes!  Through me you’ll have jobs! Security! Wealth! A winning side! A scapegoat! You’re the “best country in the world”! I’ll tell you anything you want!

Why do you fall for this, time and time again? Obviously, because you know it’s true.  I have something you don’t have that you absolutely NEED. The Bitch is self-assured, relaxed, all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful, and I can give you all you ever need. Just suck up to me.

Wait … not *that* way. (Your mind is totally in the gutter. Get it OUT of there and listen up.)

Remember a short while ago we talked about what you really want?  You still don’t know what you want if any of this appealed to you in the slightest.  Because I just told you what you do want, what you’re missing, and how to fill that huge hole in your soul that I just told you you have.  And a part of you still believed me.

So what’s the problem here? What am I venting about?

We are raised to be good, upstanding members of society.  Put in other terms: we’re raised to be disconnected from our Self and each other. We’re expected to be unquestioning, to be totally believing of others’ bullshit, and to be bowled over by peer pressure.  If we have to make a tough decision – like in the photo – chances are we whine, “what should I dooo?” Not what we WANT, but what we should do. If you’re really fucked up, which means you’re “normal”, you’ll be translating “should” into “want” in everything you do so as not to appear like the indoctrinated mush of putty that you are.  What you want is exactly what you’re told that you should want. No need to listen to that silent inner voice; it’s already muzzled.

All this sales shit is geared towards that gnawing emptiness you believe is you. It supports it and creates it.  No matter how “enlightened” someone is, if they’re trying to get you to improve, there’s some of that crap there.

If you pick up a New Age magazine, what you’ll see is more of the same: advertisements, solutions to your problems, products, more happy-sounding thoughts and shit to fill that empty hole that is your soul.  But it will only connect you to Who You Are if you stop believing you’re that pile of mush.

I’ll tell you what the Bitch likes: being treated like I’m already enlightened. Because I am. Yes, I still have pain, angst, anger (like that doesn’t show), and a hell of a lot of estrogen. And balls. My idea of enlightenment includes that. And you’re enlightened too. Even without the masturbation (or with, because dude—whatever blows your skirt up).

Oh yes, and I go for the penguins.  Not the bus.

Oprah totally screwed me over once.  Damn her.

It was the Gratitude Journal.  Are you familiar with this concept?  Let me tell you how it works.  Every day, before you go to bed, you write down in a special little book all the stuff you are grateful for that day.  You write and write and write every day, filling page after page with all the stuff that happens to you each and every day that you are grateful for.  If you do this, the idea is that you’ll be concentrating on all the “good” stuff in your life. Your friend Mr. Law of Attraction says that as ye sow, so shall ye reap (which loosely translated means “you get what you put out”), so if you are squinching your eyes tight shut and repeating “I am grateful for my shitty life I am grateful for my shitty life I am grateful for my shitty life” then guess what?  You get exactly what you ask for.  Yes!  More shitty life for you!

When you finally gather the strength to admit to yourself that you’re not really all that happy about some of the elements of your shitty life, and you’re not particularly grateful for your shitty life (in fact you might even be a little pissed off about it), then all you really have left is to feel guilt for not feeling grateful for your shitty life.  Not only are you forced to admit to yourself that you indeed have a shitty life, but you now get to feel guilty about not feeling gratitude for your own shit.

Double whammy.

Thanks, Oprah.  Here’s a double dish of my shitty life* for you.

The Bitch made it through two pages of her own personal Gratitude Journal, pages which still reek of denial and hypocrisy even today, years and years later.  Two pages before she gave it up.

Gratitude.  It’s great in concept, but it really sucks when it’s used as something to create even more guilt.  Like you need more guilt.

The thing is, we get sucked into feeling like we should be grateful for the stuff in our lives, even the stuff we’re sort of on the fence about.  Maybe it’s not outright shitty, but it smells a little.  We trick ourselves into thinking that if only we felt grateful enough for it, this ambivalence would magically clear itself up and we could feel good about this maybe-shitty-maybe-not stuff in our lives.

“But Bitch,” I can hear you whining in the background, a persistent little drone of uncertainty, “I really DO feel grateful for a lot of the stuff in my life, really I do!  Maybe not all of it, but some!  Can’t I be grateful for that?  Don’t I get Jebus Points for all my good stuff that I really feel good about?”

Sure you do.

But how do you know the difference between the truly good stuff and all that other stuff that you’ve been training yourself to feel good about?

How do you tell the difference? Especially when you’ve taught yourself to feel guilty when you doubt your own inner voice?

Yo.  I told you before that The Bitch has access to the Eternal Book of Everything, so here’s a little wee page from that book, just for you:

If it feels good, it is good.

See?  Simple.

The trick (and there’s always a trick, isn’t there?) is knowing what is “good.”

Here’s what good is not:

1.  Good is not what your mother told you it was.

2.  Good is not what you read in a book.

3.  Good is not what your friend told you.

4.  Good is not what the Dead Ghost of Baby Jebus rose up from the foot of your bed one night and told you.

5.  Good is what you yourself know it to be.  What you examine inside and out, what you doubt all the ways you know how, what you take a good hard look at any way you can just inside yourself and consulting no one else, not even The Bitch, and come out the other side still feeling really good about.

That is good.

And you are, each of you, capable of knowing what good is, and what to be grateful for, and what not to be.  Each of you knows this if you only stop asking around, asking Oprah and asking your next-door neighbor who you suspect may be getting Oxycontin in the mail and asking your dentist with the slightly oniony breath and smooth firm fingers and asking your spouse lying there making an impression on the pillow next to you and asking your kids your dog your brother your shaman your Eckhart Tolle your Twitter your reflection in the mirror asking anybody except you. Because you are the only one who knows what good is and what to be grateful for.

So fucking trust yourself.

The end.

P.S. When and if you are truly sure that there is something in your life that is good and you feel truly good about feeling grateful for that thing, go ahead and write it down if you still feel like you need to.  Frankly, though, after getting to that point of knowing what’s good, you’ve already done all the “work” and a silly little Gratitude Journal isn’t going to make it any better than you’ve already made it all by yourself.

You didn’t need Oprah after all.

*The Bitch does not have a shitty life.  Not any more.  Matter of perspective.  The Bitch has created every inch and centimeter of her life and it’s very, very good except when dealing with a technical crisis, in which case The Bitch allows a slight tinge of whine to come into her voice before consulting her cat.

Well, this is a bitch-slap in the face.  This personality test is clearly fucked.  Turns out it thinks I am a fucking Hippie.  There’s no way.  Sociopath, maybe.  Smartass, for sure.  Bitch-slap?  But of course.  But … Hippie?  Here:

[I]t stands to reason that you, as well, are terribly gentle and humble, almost to the point of revulsion. Your carefree attitude of peace and harmony is probably very, very sickening to realists or cynics or anyone who isn’t a hippie, to tell the truth. In short, your personality is defective because you are overly emotional, extroverted, gentle, and humble–thus making you an annoying hippie.

Fuck.  “Gentle”?  Blowing my cover here.  But surely an online personality quiz is far more meaningful than self-knowledge.  I can base my whole life path on online quizzes.

Now take the fucking test and report back.

*Yes, I do mean literally.  What else would I mean?

If I were most bloggers, I could throw a stupid fucking little lolcat link up here and call it a post.

But The Bitch has a little thing called blogtegrity.  So, no fluff posts here.

Instead I’ll tell you more about myself.  You may have noticed that I’ve been somewhat-intentionally coy about revealing too much about myself so far.  Well, that’s about to change.  But rather than tell you who I am, I’ll tell you a little teaser-taste of who I am not.

I’m not gender-confused; I am most decidedly a woman.

I’m not afraid to talk about how I feel, even if that has consequences.

I’m not going to manage your feelings; I have enough to do managing my own.  I do believe in tact and kindness, though.

I’m not fat, or ugly, or stupid.  If you are any of those things I’ll be glad to tell you, but you probably already know.

I am not likely in this or any other lifetime to run for political office.  Though if I did I’d be way bigger than Colbert.

I’m not at all immune to those who require compassion, but I realize that those who desire it the most are those who lack the ability to be compassionate to themselves.

I’m not like anyone you know, and I am like everyone you know.

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.