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.

So The Bitch was talking to one of her minions Fellow Brilliant Blog-Type Persons recently, and this Blog-Type Person* is sort of brilliant and totally let the phrase “Stop Global Whining” slip out all unintentionally and of course The Bitch was naturally intrigued.  It’s an awesome phrase and any time The Bitch can steal someone else’s idea give credit where credit is due, she’s all up in that.

So let’s talking about whining, shall we?

Ugh, already I’m feeling that little edge of disgust, the one you get when you’re talking to somebody with LOTS of extra drool in their mouth, when you feel like if you only watched long enough, a big wet glob of that drool would ooze its way out of their mouth while they talk and you’d watch it plop wetly and silently right onto their collar, where it would slowly sink in, leaving a wet snail-trail slime spot of shiny mouth-ooze.  And you Can’t.Look.Away.  You are mesmerized by that mouthful of slobbery wetness.  And you’re totally disgusted at the same time, not only at what you’re watching, but at yourself for watching it.

That’s what fucking whining does to me.

And people whine All The Fucking Time.

Hello!  Whiners!  Instead of TALKING about it, why don’t you DO something about it?  Or just do SOMETHING period!

But no.  It’s far easier to just complain about stuff than it is to own it.  Owning your shit takes guts.  Owning your shit takes the courage to LOOK at your shit to begin with.  And who wants to do that?  No, it’s far easier just to sit on that couch holding the remote in one hand and your dick in the other, picking your nose with your other [and magically manifested] hand, yelling at whoever’s in the kitchen to HURRY IT UP FOR CRYING OUT LOUD THE SHOW’S ABOUT TO START GODDAMMIT, than it is to put your dick away and put down the fucking remote, get up, and walk into the goddamn kitchen yourself.

But the Wal-Mart generation has bred a bunch of illbred inbreeds who find it far easier to complain about the smell of everybody else’s shit than to notice that they’re sitting in a pile of their own.

The other day was Blog Action Day.  More than 12,000 bloggers wrote about poverty.  Many of them solicited donations for the Global Fund, Feeding America, Donors Choose, Project Peanut Butter, and others (how can you not give money to support the development of peanut butter?).  Others banded together and made microloans to people in need of a helping hand all over the world through Kiva.

And while on the one hand you can make the case that each of those 12,000+ bloggers was whining about poverty, the idea was to make the whining count for something.  So much mass whining all on the same day has an effect.  If you read blogs, and you read on Blog A about Blog Action Day and on Blog B something else about Blog Action Day and on Blog C something yet again about Blog Action Day, then either:

a) You unsubscribe from blogs A, B, and C because who wants to hear about poverty? Especially when it’s not mine! Bring on the LOLcats!

or

b) You fucking Get The Point, and like everyone else you are affected by what you read and decide to get up off that couch and go Do Something, like maybe donate that jar of pennies or something, or maybe make a microloan of your own (they’re an excellent return and change people’s lives, one sad shitty life at a time.  What’s better than that?).

But that’s about the only example of Whining For Good that The Bitch knows about.  All other forms of whining are shit and need to be eradicated from the planet.  Immediately.  Before they do more harm.  In fact, The Bitch can make a case for the theory that global whining is the CAUSE of global warming.  All that fucking hot air.

So next time you hear some fuckwit droning on about the gum-snapping woman in the airplane seat next to him, or about the guy in front of him at the supermarket who had ELEVEN items in a 10-and-under lane, do something.  Because all that whining is seriously using up all our air. Tell him to either quit his bleating and shut the fuck up or stop breathing up all our air.

It’s us or them, people.  Global whining is a serious matter.

*Fellow Brilliant Blog-Type person is Christa who wrote some funny shit about the time she rear-ended a dwarf (oh get your fucking mind out of the gutter! Not THAT kind of rear-ended!) and also some serious shit about, well, go see for yourself.  You need to.

(Fuck, Bitch, where have you been?)

Well, have you looked here?  That’s right, people, The Bitch does guest posts.  Call me if you want things shaken up over at your place.  Have a quick look at my blog standards first, just in case.

Okay, moving on here.  We need to talk about something that’s been cluttering up the internets for far too long, taking up space that could be useful.  You know what I’m talking about:  self-deprecating humor.

The next time you laugh at, say, Amalah the Mommyblogger, ask yourself, “What the fuck am I laughing at?  How is this shit funny?”  Oh, sure, we laugh at people poking fun at themselves.  And here’s why:  Better them than me.

Sure, it’s easy to laugh at someone falling all over their ass or imagining that they were going to fall all over their ass and wondering what other people are thinking about them or would think if they actually did fall all over their ass, and then writing about it in a charmingly self-deprecatory way.  That’s fucking funny, we think.  Because it’s 1.) Not us, and 2.) Laughing at the stupid shit we do has become socially acceptable, and socially expected.

So when did it become passe to talk about ourselves in a positive way?  To say things like, “Hey look, I am fucking-A awesome!”  People who do that are thought of as assholes, even if they’re sort of right.  (Or they’re worshiped, the way you worship The Bitch, but that’s WHY you love me.  Because I am so different.  Plus I’m totally hot.)

I’m tired of this fakery shit, though.  Sure, people are capitalizing on their feelings of inner inadequacy by processing them in a highly public manner, and The Bitch is all about going public with inner shit, but this stuff feeds on itself and creates more.  One person writing about the time they fell down a hill because their fucking heel broke but they had a glass of wine so people thought they were drunk off their ass and never believed the story about the breaking heel and OMG they are soooo embarrassed by this and can never never never show their face in public again (never mind all the hundreds of Flickr sets devoted to said blogger and blogger’s drunkblogging and drunkblogging blogfriends)* just creates this giant sucking VACUUM that other people rush in to fill.  But people, you cannot possibly fill the void of someone else’s feeling of inadequacy by writing about your own.  Just because this shit is popular does not mean it’s even remotely useful except as a global communal catharsis tool.  And rushing in to fill that fucking vacuum only makes the holes in yourself appear bigger.

Instead, I want people to write about the great stuff they do.  Everybody has successes; when did they become something to hide?  Hey, you made toast this morning?  WAY TO GO!  YOU ARE AWESOME!  At least, if it was superior toast.  None of this bread-no-warmer-than-if-I-stuck-the-slice-under-my-arm shit.  I want REAL toast.  Toast-colored toast.  THAT is something to be proud of.

And let’s take this a step further:  don’t limit your anti-trash talk about yourself to what you put on the internet.  Is it a crime to say “I am wonderful!” and actually mean it?  I mean, who among you is truly NOT wonderful?  Why can’t you just SAY IT, for fuck’s sake?

And sure, lots of us have this fucked-up inner voice inside us telling us how shitty we are.  But that stuff is NOT TRUE, so you have my permission to stop listening to it, RIGHT NOW.  In fact, every time you hear that voice, I want you to tell it to go fuck itself, that YOU are in charge, and that YOU MAKE AWESOME TOAST.

~~~~~

From the this-would-be-fucked-up-if-it-wasn’t-so-funny department, The Bitch received a death threat in response to her post about vigilante vegetarians.  So if you laughed at that post, I have to assume you’re included in the threat.  Watch out for people wielding fur coats and tomato stakes.

*This is a TOTALLY hypothetical blogstory, but if it wasn’t TOTALLY hypothetical you could probably read about something very similar to it here.

“Sorry.”

I hate that word.

It’s a beautiful word, when said in sincerity, but frankly the meaning has become fucked up.  No one means what they say.  It’s rote, routine.  Meaningless.

I no longer accept it.  I am done, finished, finito, kaput.  C’est tout.

Instead, you can just say what you mean:  “Fuck you, bitch!  I totally meant to pull out in front of you in traffic today because YOU SUCK!  And I’m just generally pissed off!  For no apparent reason!  And apologizing seems to placate you!  And saying it makes me socially acceptable instead of being seen as the fucktard asshat I really am!”

There.  Doesn’t that feel better?  Say what you mean.  It’s all there anyway, why hide it?

You know what REALLY pisses me off?  Parents who forcibly make their kids apologize.  “Johnny, tell Aunt Mimi you’re sorry for scuffing her floor with your shoe!”

Johnny’s not sorry because Johnny had no idea he did anything wrong.  Even if he had asked Aunt Mimi why she is so fat he was doing nothing more than being a kid.   A curious kid.  A kid who wasn’t issued a copy of the Holier-than-Thou Manual of Grownup Social Mores and is clueless about having done something wrong.  And even if he did something that he knows is wrong, like, say, breaking one of Aunt Mimi’s 12,000 Precious Moments figurines, why humiliate the kid?

True Story?

Try to imagine The Bitch at age 4.  Tiny Bitch.  Like most really really smart kids, Tiny Bitch is a little socially retarded.  Not a lot of friends at age 4.

So Tiny Bitch is out front in the driveway washing her tricycle, the green one that was a step up from the tiny red one.  Its almost time for a two-wheeler with training wheels, but not quite.  All Tiny Bitch has is her tricycle, and she’s fucking proud of it.  Mom and Dad wash their car, so why not wash that tricycle?  The garden hose is handy for that sort of thing.

Here comes Prissy, the 3-year old baby next door.  Tiny Bitch knows Prissy is a bit of a weenie and a baby, so she doesn’t usually do more than ignore her.  But Prissy is interested in the tricycle-washing process.  It’s fascinating, really, this idea of washing one’s tricycle.

So Prissy comes back over pushing her own tricycle.

Tiny Bitch has warmed up a bit to Prissy by this point and is feeling magnanimous.  Handling a garden hose in the warm sunshine can have that effect.  Tiny Bitch is feeling so magnanimous, in fact, that she wants to help Prissy wash her tricycle.  Tiny Bitch and Prissy, they’re bonding now.  Over tricycles.  And a garden hose.  It’s really quite a beautiful thing, this thing they’ve got going.

Prissy isn’t very good with the hose.  She accidentally sprays Tiny Bitch a tiny, wee bit.  Tiny Bitch thinks this is funny.  After all, she’s the one who makes real pies out of dirt and mud sometimes; why wouldn’t playing with water out there in the warm sunshine also be fun?

Tiny Bitch takes the hose.

She sprays Prissy with it, a lot.  Tiny Bitch is laughing because she knows Prissy knows how much fun this is.  It’s warm outside and they have bonded in the sunshine.  With the tricycles.  And the hose.

Prissy’s laughter stops.  Her face gets red and twisted.  She looks funny.  She runs away.

Tiny Bitch finishes washing her tricycle, alone.  She wonders where Prissy went.

Mom comes out, her lips pressed in a white line.  She grabs Tiny Bitch by the arm, just above the elbow.  It almost hurts.  She makes Tiny Bitch walk up to the door of Prissy’s house, the house next door.  Tiny Bitch has never been to that door and she is feeling scared, a little.  The door opens.  An angry lady stands there, waiting for something.  Mom tells Tiny Bitch to say some words and she says them.  Robot.  A scared robot.

Then Tiny Bitch has to put her tricycle away, and the hose.  She knows she will never be washing her tricycle again.  But what happened?  They were having fun.

And yeah, The Bitch has gotten over it, thanks for asking.

“Sorry?”  Nine times out of ten, maybe more, it means shit.

Someone dies?  We say “sorry.”  As if that could possibly convey the enormous amount of grief and pain people feel at such times.  And hell, maybe we’re not actually sorry, maybe the guy was an asshole and there’s this sense of relief (mixed with shock, dismay, and a distorted reminder of one’s own mortality) that he’s not going to be telling his stupid blonde jokes in the office anymore, but we can’t say that.  It isn’t “done.”

We also say sorry for running out of potato chips.  Or for stepping on someone’s foot accidentally.  Or for running over their cat.  See any problem with this meaningless one-size-fits-all word?

I do.  And I’m over it.

Say what you mean and mean what you say.  Simple.  And don’t fucking apologize to me unless you mean it.

Vigilante vegetarians fucking crack me up.

They’re all, “I don’t eat anything with eyelashes!” and then they force-feed us pictures of sad Bambi-eyed creatures destined for the slaughterhouse.  These people claim they believe in non-violence, yet have you seen how violently they thrust those dangerous pamphlets at you?  Dude!  Those things are dangerous!  A corner could put somebody’s eye out.  Or cause a paper cut.  Non-violence MY ASS.

Another thing.  Vegetarians, veg-what are they called?  Oh.  Vegans (whatEVERR).  Those people.  The ones who patronizingly refuse to eat the food “God”* clearly put here for us to dominate and exploit?  They seem to be missing the larger point.

Everything is alive.

That means that salad you’re so condescendingly consuming, thinking you’re doing a Good Deed for Mother Gaia by only eating non-animal things, is alive.  Alive and has a consciousness.  Are you okay with that?  Can you live with yourself?  You’re okay with killing the potential grandchildren of heads of lettuce?  Ew!  You eat HEADS??!  EWWWW!

There are two options:

1.  Become a breatharian.

Come on, it’s fucking real.  You could live on air and light if you were enlightened enough.  Not yet ready to give up Krispy Kremes?  Read on.

2.  Do what the Bitch does.

Don’t give a fuck.

Everything is alive and everything has a consciousness.  So what?  For centuries people killed stuff and ate it.  They were grateful.  They acknowledged that they were taking a life, taking the energy of what they ate.  They knew they were taking the energy of whatever they consumed into their bodies.  Or they killed stuff and ate it and weren’t grateful.  It didn’t make a difference. Everything is alive and everything is energy.  Energy is energy is energy.

Sue, you’ll probably FEEL a whole lot better if you eat real food, acknowledge its aliveness, and hold that in gratitude.  Animals do.  We don’t see them on their knees praying, but who decided what gratitude looks like?  Being present is one of the highest forms of gratitude there is.

And if you want to stalk your neighborhood with a crossbow so you can bag your neighbor’s cat (or better yet that yapping little ankle-biter dog-in-a-handbag-thing next door), so be it.  I’ll look the other way.  As long as you’re grateful.

The important thing is to be at peace with your hypocrisy.  The Bitch is.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking about extrapolating this and talking about war and shit.  For the record, war sucks.  It ruins lives, kills people needlessly, and just, well, sucks.  In the larger scheme though it’s no big deal.  We live, we die, sometimes peacefully, sometimes horribly, but we always die.  And then we get to do it again.  That’s a sort-of comforting thought for those who believe it, but if you’re into thinking this is an existentialist one-shot deal, One Life to Live and then BANG you’re dead and cold and decomposing, well, then life sort of sucks for you.  It also sucks if you think it’s all angels and fucking harps and virgins all day, because dude.  BORING.  One virgin, you’ve fucked them all, basically.  Who wants that all day long, every day, into eternity?  It’s WAY more fun thinking life is a fucking GAME and we’re here to PLAY and shit.

So taking that further, animals and bugs don’t really much care when you kill them either.  Sure, what bug LIKES getting squished, but if you’re tapped into Bug Central you pretty much know you’re part of the oneness of everything and eventually it all sorts out again.  No big deal.  Again, that’s in the Big Picture, and though meanwhile Bambi’s there looking at you and your shotgun with liquid, imploring eyes, thinking about how much it’s going to fucking HURT when you shoot him and Thumper, you can ignore that.  Bambi does that to fuck with you.  Can you live with the memory of his accusing eyes burned into your retinas?

Then go ahead and shoot.

P.S. The Bitch is a vegetarian.

*we are all “God”, so this is moot, but whatever.

Ever have one of those panicky moments when you realize that whatever crappy previous post you wrote not only truly sucks about as much ass as anything you’ve ever written but also it’s ZOMG on the FRONT PAGE, deterring THOUSANDS OF POTENTIAL PRESHUSS SUBSCRIBERS?!!!!!

Yeah.  Me neither.

Listen.  What we need around here is a little good old-fashioned handholding.  I know, I know, it’s not what you’ve come to expect from me, but … We are the world.  All the world’s a Coke.  This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius.  Free to be you and me!  I’m OK, you’re OK.

Group. Hug.

Okay, shake it off.  That’s enough.  Hey!  You there, with the woody:  that was NOT the intent of our hug.  You therefore are BANNED from all future and subsequent group hugs and huglike events.  We may even have to completely redo the t-shirts.  We can’t have people going around wearing THAT!  Somebody text Cafe Press!

Sorry, folks.  I’m afraid we’re going to have to cancel all future and subsequent hugs because SOMEbody couldn’t keep his hand out of his pants.  We may even have to cancel CommentLuv.  Wouldn’t want to spread some nasty VIRUS or anything just because there may have been inappropriate…contact [shudder].

People.

(You know, there are people who think I’m a misanthrope just because I hate people.  I seriously don’t get that.)

Oh, who am I kidding?  All that love-and-light free-to-be crap?  Not me.  I can’t pretend, sorry.

But … there’s something awfully compelling about it, isn’t there?  The siren’s call of sweetness and light?  If I just hold my breath and cross my fingers and don’t step on cracks and wish really really really hard, I’ll get a pony!  And unicorns!  A rainbow unicorn! Seven of them!  One to match each day of my day-of-the-week panties!

Unicorns my ass.

Oh, don’t get me wrong:  unicorns are TOTALLY real.  They just prefer not to be associated with rainbows and little girl’s panties.

Unicorns, REAL ones, are total bitches.

I am constantly astounded by the amazing hubris exhibited by the human race.  We are a breed apart, aren’t we?  Thinking we own the entire goddamn world and everything on it and that everything revolves around us, a smelly and quarrelsome lot of ridiculous semi-upright hairless apes?

Take the whole global warming concept, for instance.  A group of classic British tight-assed mutual masturbators calling themselves the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London has decided to rename our present geological epoch to reflect the huge impact we ridiculous hairless apes have wreaked upon this doomed planet.  That’s right, this is now the “Anthropocene” Epoch.

(Points if you can name what it used to be called.)

So why is this worth talking about?

Because the Global Warming concept is a SHAM, people!  You are being fucked over yet again by the slavering media and all you do is roll over meekly and murmur, “Thank you sir, may I have another.”  Do you LIKE being the media’s fuck-bitch?  Really?  And do you LIKE thinking of yourself, a smelly and quarrelsome ridiculous hairless ape, as being so self-important that the entire world revolves around you?

That last part I can’t help you with, but let’s get something straight here:  as a species we are trashing our planet.  There’s no question about that.  And it needs to stop, simply because it’s incredibly stupid not to.  But this trashing of the planet is not the cause of the temperature shifts that are occurring.

(I know!  That’s treehugging liberal blasphemy!  But I mock people on all sides of the party line, so don’t worry, your time will come.)

When we carried clubs and ran screaming after our food, we were too busy to keep temperature records.  Basing “trends” that are occurring now on the relatively short time we’ve actually been keeping such records is like choosing a President based on who gets the most media time closest to the election.  Which explains some of our abysmal choices.

So sure, it’s getting hotter.  Global hot flashes are not your imagination.   But that would have happened anyway. The Earth is just going through menopause, that’s all.  Soon we can expect dryness in sensitive areas and constant PMS.  Get used to it.

And get over yourself.  Then go turn off that fucking light you left on in the other room.  And while you’re at it, get a bicycle, recycle your shit and stop buying so much stuff, stop peeing in my drinking water, turn your Escalade into a home for illegal immigrants, and pick up some fucking trash.  And if we’re gonna rename this geological epoch, we might as well come up with a useful name.  Go on, make a suggestion.  I’m listening.

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.

Not long ago I was seated in the very back row of an airplane.  You know the row I mean:  next to the line of sweaty people who need to pee, in the way of wayward crash carts, and with seats that do not lean back. I need my two inches of seat-lean, y’know?  I knew it was going to be an interminable flight.

I looked to the right for help.  Maybe my right-hand seatmate would provide interesting conversation fodder.  She was a heavily pregnant returnee from visiting her family in Costa Rica.  Looked at her book.  Nora Roberts.  Uh, no thanks.

Looked left:  a 40-something frantic disheveled woman carrying multiple bags, totes, and assorted je ne sais quoi, carefully arranging books, iPod, journal, pens, etc.  Uh, not there either.  But wait.  Her book:  Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth. Probably an Oprah convert, but there were possibilities.  We engaged.

This Broadway choreographer was thrilled to meet a Real Psychic-Person.  So we talked shop.  And it came out that she was hugely judgmental of Marianne Williamson because of the rumor going round that Ms. Williamson’d had a facelift.  Apparently spiritual people are supposed to be above such things, she says.

I nearly spit out my club soda.

Sure, there’s such a thing as “walk the walk,” but that’s in how lives are lived.  Since when does this apply to one’s appearance?  Pardon me, but how I look and what it takes to get there is my business.  If I want to wear mile-long eyelashes like the lovely Esther Hicks or ‘fro out my hair like Sai Baba then la-di-fucking-da, people.  Appearance does not affect the message.

Why is it that people who touch lives in this intrinsic way are held to a higher standard regarding their appearance?  Sure, Gandhi made an effort to always appear clean and in clean, neat clothing, but this was an outward reflection of his inner self.  A choice he made.  Not a requirement to meet someone else’s standard.

So let it go.  Let Marianne have her facelift and leave her alone.  She looks fabulous no matter how she got there.

The message stands alone.  No matter how it is delivered.

*”Spirituality” also anagrams to “a pity I slur it.”  Something you ought to know.