Trout Nation Posts

As I might have mentioned before, I am an atheist. But I wasn’t always. I was once a true, not-fucking-around-even-a-little-bit Catholic. And when I got my very first tattoos, they were Catholic in nature. My very first tattoo was a sacred heart, which is now covered by an in-progress sleeve that has been halted while I figure out why I can’t heal a tattoo to save my life anymore. The last remnant of my devotion to G-d through body modification is a faded little Virgin Mary on my right upper arm. She looks like this:

See? She ain’t hurting anybody there. She (intentionally) looks like the bathtub Mary we had on our side yard when I was growing up. If anything, I’ll keep her for the childhood memory.

Whenever I’ve gotten a tattoo, well-meaning jerks have said, “You’re going to regret that when you’re older!” Which is fucking preposterous, because whenever I see an old lady with tattoos, looking rode hard and put away wet, usually working in a bowling alley bar, I’m like… that. That is what I want my golden years to be. That lady led a rad life.

Anyway, I don’t regret my Catholic tattoos, even though I’m not Catholic anymore. I don’t even feel silly about them; people change, and it’s okay to have a visual reminder of that.

Also, she’s lots of fun to dress up. For example, here we have Pirate (or Nick Fury) Mary:

Occasionally, Pirate Mary holds a sword or a bottle of rum, but if you want her to be interchangeable with Nick Fury Mary, you leave those deets out. Also, if no one is home to do the drawing for you, because drawing on the outside of your own right arm, when you are right-handed, is very difficult.

Another fun variation? Horatio Caine Mary:

You have to write “YEEEAAAAHH” beneath her, though, otherwise she just looks like Tom Cruise In Risky Business Mary.

Sometimes, if I’m going to a birthday party or something, I like to get her dressed up for the occasion:

I gave her a little glass of wine in this one, because Mary knows how to have a good time. Look how worried she was about running out of wine in that story in the Bible.

Yes, tattoos are permanent. But only until you die. In the meantime, you can still have a lot of fun with them, even if you’ve outgrown the reason you got them. You just need a marker and a steady hand.

Ugh.

Ana has just found out she’s pregnant. And it’s unexpected:

A baby. I don’t want a baby… not yet. Fuck. And I know deep down that Christian is going to freak.

Okay, so, unplanned pregnancies are the worst. Believe me on this one. I know. I got pregnant with my son three months into my relationship with my husband. So… wait… just a hair under the length of time Ana has been with Chedward. And when I found out I was pregnant, I really did think, Joe is going to freak. But I never thought half the things Ana is going to think in this chapter.

I nod mutely at the good doctor as she hands me a glass of water from her conveniently placed water cooler.

It matches all the conveniently placed plot elements.

“We could do an ultrasound to see how advanced the pregnancy is. Judging by your reaction, I suspect you’re just a couple of weeks or so from conception – four or five weeks pregnant. […]”

Okay, first of all, is a patient’s shocked reaction really a reliable indicator of gestational age? I’d hate to be the lady having a baby on the toilet because I didn’t know I was pregnant, only to show up at the hospital and have Dr. Greene say, “Well, judging from your reaction, you’re very newly pregnant!” Second, I know that pregnancy “weeks” are determined from the first date of your last menstrual period, ergo you could have conceived two weeks ago and be five weeks pregnant, but then Dr. Greene asks Ana if she’s been having her period, and she says no… so how does the doctor come up with this estimate?

I nod, bewildered, and Dr. Greene directs me toward a black leather exam table behind a screen.

This isn’t how doctors’ offices in America are set up. Most of the time, exam rooms are separate from where the doctor’s desk is. But since Dr. Greene was cool with just sticking a cup of pee on her desk in the last chapter, I guess she’s into open floor plan medicine or something.

“This is a transvaginal ultrasound. If you’re only just pregnant, we should be able to find the baby with this.” She holds up a long white probe.

Oh, you have got to be kidding!

Then Doctor Greene tells Ana to relax and…

Slowly and gently she inserts the probe.

Holy fuck!

Leaving aside the fact that this scene reads like lesbian gynecological fetish porn, I’m dying at the idea of this probe being so scary and big and awful. This is a transvaginal ultrasound probe:

I love that I had to click “Insert into post” to put this picture here.

Only about four inches of the probe is insertable, and it’s about as big around as a super absorbent tampon. So, you know. Let’s make an unkind correlation here between Chedward’s dick size the giant, terrifying 4″ probe as big around as a thumb.

So, Ana sees the “little blip” on the ultrasound screen and she’s immediately like, “It’s a baby!” just like in every Anti-Choice midwestern grandmother’s fantasy of how forced ultrasounds prevent abortion, and Dr. Greene says:

“It’s too early to see the heartbeat, but yes, you’re definitely pregnant. Four or five weeks, I would say.” She frowns. “Looks like the shot ran out early. Oh well, that happens sometimes.”

What in the actual fuck, lady?! Did they teach you that at med school? Pro-tip: if you’re doing a transvaginal ultrasound on a woman who isn’t happy about her unplanned pregnancy, “Oh well” should not be in your fucking vocabulary. “Oh well, that happens sometimes,” is what you tell a kid who’s favorite tv program is preempted by breaking news. It’s not what you say to someone who is pregnant with an unwanted baby.

Dr. People Skills prints out a photo for Ana, then tells her to come back in four weeks so they can figure out the age of the fetus and assign a due date. Okay… so what was the ultrasound for, if not to do all of that? You can set a due date right now. She’s either four or five weeks pregnant. You can give her a ballpark, and besides, even when you give her the due date, it will probably change when Chedward demands that she not go into labor until his security team has finished moving room to room through the hospital, neutralizing perceived threats.

Ana is freaking out about having a baby before thirty, and as she leaves the office she thinks:

Christian is going to freak, I know, but how much and how far, I have no idea. His words haunt me. “I’m not ready to share you yet.” I pull my jacket tighter around me, trying to shake off the cold.

Hey, remember that whole “Let’s look at a checklist of abusive relationship symptoms” game we all played during the first book? Wasn’t that fun? Let’s do it again. In this one tiny excerpt, we have:

• Do you feel afraid of your partner much of the time?
• Does your partner have a bad and unpredictable temper?
• Does your partner act excessively jealous and possessive?
• Does your partner see you as property or a sex object, rather than as a person?

That’s in three sentences. Ana is afraid because she doesn’t know “how far” Christian is going to go when she tells him she’s pregnant. When she tells her husband, who has stated on numerous occasions that he wants to someday have a family, that she’s pregnant, he might go “too far.” WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH WOMEN WHO FEEL THIS IS ROMANTIC?

Just in case you were worried this was going to go unpredictably feminist or anything, E.L. throws in some anti-choice bullshit:

Perhaps I shouldn’t tell Christian. Perhaps I… perhaps I should end this. I halt my thoughts on that dark path, alarmed at the direction they’re taking. Instinctively my hand sweeps down to rest protectively over my belly. No. My little Blip. Tears spring to my eyes. What am I going to do?

I’m trying hard to be sympathetic to Ana as a woman getting hit with the bombshell of unintended pregnancy while she’s in an abusive relationship. But it’s difficult when her internal monologue has certain adjectives and adverbs in it. Like “dark.” And “instinctively,” and “protectively.” E.L. James is trying to show the reader than Ana is already a mother – a protective mother with good motherly instincts – and therefore she can’t even think of abortion as an option. She can’t even say “abortion” in her head. That word is the end of a “dark path” a good mother wouldn’t go down. This doesn’t even make me angry. It makes me really sad. Because sometimes, the best way to protect the child is to have an abortion.

Ana has a very cliche daydream about a little boy who looks just like Christian cavorting in a meadow while she and Christian hold hands. And then she thinks about this happening:

My vision morphs into Christian turning away from me in disgust. I’m fat and awkward, heavy with child. He paces the long hall of mirrors, away from me, the sound of his footsteps echoing off the silvered glass, walls, and floor. Christian…

I. Cannot. Wait. To see this sequence on film. I want to fly to L.A. to attend the goddamned premier just to see this scene. It is literally all I have ever wanted, without knowing it. It’s going to be worse than the wedding nightmare Bella had in Breaking Dawn pt. 1. I’m actually crying a little imagining the joy I’m going to have watching those words transform into visuals.

Ana goes back to the office, where she accepts her responsibility in her birth control screw up:

“Ana, great to see you. How’s your dad?” Hannah asks as soon as I reach my office. I regard her coolly.

“He’s better, thank you. Can I see you in my office?”

“Sure.” She looks surprised as she follows me in. “Is everything okay?”

“I need to know if you’ve moved or canceled any appointments with Dr. Greene.”

“Dr. Greene? Yes, I have. About two or three of them. Mostly because you were in other meetings or running late. Why?”

Because now I’m fucking pregnant! I scream at her in my head. I take a deep, steadying breath. “If you move any appointments, will you make sure I know? I don’t always check my calendar.”

“Sure,” Hannah says quietly. “I’m sorry. Have I done something wrong?”

I shake my head and sigh loudly.

Everyone has had that boss that tells you to do something and later yells at you for doing it. Ana is that boss. She has told Hannah to move appointments. Hannah has tried to tell Ana about appointments she’s moved. And now Ana is blaming her pregnancy on her assistant, because Ana is too stubborn to just look at her damned calendar like a grown-up.

“You see that woman?” I talk quietly to the blip. “She might be the reason you’re here.”

No. You switched birth control methods three times in four months, from condoms to the pill to Depo, without using a backup, because your spoiled man-child husband doesn’t like using condoms. This is why you’re pregnant.

I shake my head, exasperated at myself and Hannah… though deep down I know I can’t really blame Hannah.

And knowing that makes everything you just scolded her about go magically away, right? No need at all to apologize. Oh, and spoiler alert, she doesn’t apologize for the way she just treated Hannah. She gets on her computer and emails Christian with one-word replies so he’ll sense something is wrong, but she doesn’t tell him what.

Hey, ready for the domestic violence warning sign funtimes again?

When will I tell him? Tonight? Maybe after sex? Maybe during sex. No, that might be dangerous for both of us. When he’s asleep? I put my head in my hands. What the hell am I going to do?

• Does your partner hurt you, or threaten to hurt or kill you?

Ana believes it will be dangerous to tell her husband she’s pregnant, because in the past he’s admitted that he enjoys hurting her.

Let’s really sit and meditate on that thought a minute. I read a forum thread yesterday that a tweep passed on to me. Women were specifically discussing this chapter, and Christian’s reaction to the pregnancy. Many of them said that when Ana found out she was pregnant, they cried because they knew Christian was going to freak out and possibly hurt her. But the running theme through most of the discussion was that Ana is a strong woman, and she can handle Christian, and they so admired her for this. So, this whole time I’ve been thinking that women who love these books have been brainwashed by society into not recognizing abuse. I was wrong. They recognize that Christian is abusive. They just apparently think a “strong woman” can change an abuser.

If you were waiting for a good reason to drink yourself to death, well. Merry fucking Christmas in July.

Christian picks up Ana after work – hey, what happened to the R8 he just bought her?

• Does your partner limit your access to money, the phone, or the car?

So, she’s still getting picked up by Christian like this is preschool. Christian knows stuff is wrong, and Ana thinks:

Maybe now? I could tell him now when we’re in a contained space and Taylor is with us.

She wants to tell him when Taylor, the armed bodyguard, is there to protect her. BUT THIS IS ALL OKAY AND TOTALLY ROMANTIC.

“Ana, what’s wrong?” His tone is a little more forceful, and I chicken out.

• Do you avoid certain topics out of fear of angering your partner?

Plus, Chedward, you’re on the way to visit her dad in the hospital. Like, less than a week ago he experienced cardiac arrest due to massive internal bleeding caused by a traumatic and violent car crash. You should definitely yell at Ana until she tells you what’s wrong, because there’s no possible way you could figure it out on your own.

Christian notices that Ana’s hand is cold, and he asks her if she’s eaten:

Well, I haven’t eaten because I know you’re going to go bat-shit crazy when I tell you I’m pregnant.

Several smarty-pants commenters have pointed out ways that Ana seems like she could have an eating disorder. You can add this one to your list. She’s afraid of his reaction, so she exerts control over her life the only way she can.

“Do you want me to add ‘feed my wife’ to the security detail’s list of duties?”

“I’m sorry. I’ll eat. It’s just been a weird day. You know, moving Dad and all.”

His lips press into a hard line, but he says nothing.

Your dad nearly dying, then being airlifted unnecessarily to a different city for my convenience is no excuse for you to buck my total, authoritarian control, Ana. And this is all boding super well for my parenting skills later, for I am the great Chedward, and all I do is just and true.

Christian interrupts my reverie. “I may have to go to Taiwan.”

“Oh. When?”

“Later this week. Maybe next week.”

“Okay.”

“I want you to come with me.”

I swallow. “Christian, please. I have my job. Let’s not rehash this argument again.”

He sighs and pouts like a sulky teenager. “Thought I’d ask,” he mutters petulantly.

That’s not asking. That’s telling her, “I want you to come with me.”

• Does your partner control where you go or what you do?
• Does your partner  ignore or put down your opinions or accomplishments?

Oh, Ana. You and your “job” I so graciously let you keep. Chedward doesn’t want a wife. He wants a fucking pet he can dope up for the flight to Taiwan.

Ray is much brighter and a lot less grumpy when we see him. I’m touched by his quiet gratitude to Christian, and for a moment I forget about my impending news as I sit and listen to them talk fishing and the Mariners. But he tires easily.

If I had to talk about the same two subjects every time I got a moment of page time, I’d tire easily, too. Doesn’t Ray have any interests besides fishing and sports? Oh, of course not! He’s a man! And more importantly, he’s a man who isn’t Christian Grey, so he doesn’t need layers.

When they leave, Ana has this stomach-turning goodbye with her father:

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” I kiss him. My subconscious purses her lips. That’s provided Christian hasn’t locked you away… or worse. My spirits take a nosedive.

“Come.” Christian holds out his hand, frowning at me. I take it and we leave the hospital.

You know, I’ve had my differences with that stuck-up b-word in the past, but now I’m Team Subconscious. She’s straight up telling Ana she’s going to get murdered and never see her dad again, because Christian is just that fucking scary.

This is how I’m imagining Ana’s subconscious right now:

So, at home, over dinner, Ana tells Christian she’s pregnant. And it goes… not great. He asks her how, and bypassing the obvious answer, he jumps to:

“Your shot?” he snarls.

Oh shit.

“Did you forget your shot?”

Did she forget it? Or was she too busy dealing with all the drama and bullshit that goes along with be Mrs. Grey that she got too fucking busy to go get her shot? I mean, would she have even been allowed out of the house, or is it too dangerous?

“Christ, Ana!” He bangs his fist on the table, making me jump, and stands so abruptly he almost knocks the dining chair over. “You have one thing, one thing to remember. Shit! I don’t fucking believe it. How could you be so stupid?”

Apart from the fact that Ana being stupid isn’t a new development here,

Stupid! I gasp. Shit. I want to tell him that the shot was ineffective, but words fail me.

Okay, but the shot wasn’t ineffective, Ana. You never got the follow up shot.

“I know the timing’s not very good.”

“Not very good!” he shouts. “We’ve known each other five fucking minutes! I wanted to show you the fucking world and now… Fuck. Diapers and vomit and shit!”

Five fucking minutes is long enough to get married, though? And what’s this about wanting to show her the world, but now he has to deal with vomit and shit? Do people not vomit and shit in the parts of the world he’s going to show her?

“Did you forget? Tell me. Or did you do this on purpose?” His eyes blaze and anger emanates off him like a force field.

“No,” I whisper. I can’t tell him about Hannah – he’d fire her.

HANNAH DIDN’T DO ANYTHING! THIS IS YOUR FAULT, BOTH OF YOU, YOU FUCKING CHILDREN! TAKE RESPONSIBILITY! IF YOU HAVE SEX, SOMETIMES PREGNANCY HAPPENS! YOU KNOW THIS! TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS!

“This is why. This is why I like control. So shit like this doesn’t come along and fuck everything up.”

Guys who really like control and don’t want this to happen? Use condoms.

No… Little Blip. “Christian, please don’t shout at me.” Tears start to slip down my face.

“Don’t start with waterworks now,” he snaps. “Fuck.”

• Does your partner humiliate or yell at you?
• Does your partner criticize you and put you down?

He runs a hand through his hair, pulling at it as he does. “You think I’m ready to be a father?” His voice catches, and it’s a mixture of rage and panic.

And it all becomes clear, the fear and loathing writ large in his eyes – his rage is that of a powerless adolescent. Oh, Fifty, I am so sorry. It’s a shock for me, too.

So, as long as we can blame his shitty behavior on past abuse, that totally justifies it. Good. Glad we cleared that up.

Christian gets pissed off and storms out of the apartment, and Mrs. Jones comes in to comfort Ana:

“I heard. I’m sorry,” she says gently. “Would you like an herbal tea or something?”

My abusive husband just walked out on me after throwing a temper tantrum about the fact that I’m pregnant. Yeah, bitch, get me a Snapple, that should fix everything.

“I’d like a glass of white wine.”

Mrs. Jones pauses for a fraction of a second, and I remember Blip. Now I can’t drink alcohol. Can I? I must study the dos and don’ts Dr. Greene gave me.

I thought “no alcohol” was a pretty obvious one in this day and age, but a less obvious one? No herbal teas, unless they’re mommy safe. I was going through a tea phase when I was pregnant with my daughter, and I learned to my horror that many herbal tea bags you can buy in the grocery store contain herbs that are known abortificants.

Holy crap. Double Jeez. No alcohol? For Ana? She’s never going to make it.

Mrs. Jones tries to get Ana to eat something, but she won’t. She goes to the library and reads the pamphlets Dr. Greene gave her while justifying and rationalizing staying with a man who is clearly abusive and unstable:

I can’t concentrate. Christian’s never walked out on me before. He’s been so thoughtful and kind over the last few days, so loving and now… Suppose he never comes back? Shit! Perhaps I should call Flynn. I don’t know what to do. I’m at a loss. He’s so fragile in so many ways, and I knew he’d react badly to the news.

• Do you  feel that you can’t do anything right for your partner?

Also, apparently Dr. Flynn is so fragile in so many ways. Pronoun agreement, yo.

He was so sweet this weekend. All those circumstances way beyond his control, yet he managed  fine. But this news was too much.

Ever since I met him, my life has been complicated. Is it him? Is it the two of us together? Suppose he doesn’t get past this? Suppose he wants a divorce?

That would be the best thing that ever happened to you, Ana.

He’ll be back. I know he will. I know, regardless of the shouting and his harsh words, that he loves me… yes. And he’ll love you, too, Little Blip.

Yeah, the best fix for an abusive man is to make him a father. That fixes everything, in 100% of all cases.

Ana falls asleep in her chair, and when she wakes up, Christian still isn’t back, so she texts him to see where he is.

I head into the bathroom and run myself a bath. I am so cold.

• Do you feel emotionally numb or helpless?

In fairness, she could be cold from not eating, as that was Christian’s tip-off in the car that she hadn’t eaten anything. Which means that Ana is so close to the verge of starvation that she can’t maintain her body temperature if she misses a couple meals. This pregnancy thing might just sort itself out, and then we can all go home.

After her bath, Christian still isn’t back, so Ana puts on a nightgown and wanders the apartment.

On my way, I pop into the spare bedroom. Perhaps this could be Little Blip’s room. I am started by the thought and stand in the doorway, contemplating this reality.

The reality in which you forget about the whole “we’re building a house with a sexually aggressive architect” subplot? Or the reality in which your bundle of joy will sleep in a room one used by your husband’s contracted conquests?

Ana is asleep in the great room when Christian stumbles in:

Shit, Christian drunk? I know how much he hates drunks.

Unless he’s coercing them into sex.

So, he’s home, he’s sloppy drunk and trying to get Ana to fuck him, and a thought occurs to me… where was Taylor? I thought Christian and Ana led such an exotic and dangerous life that to even step a single foot out the door of their apartment without a fully armed staff of trained killers was to invite death at the hands of the many nefarious villains all twiddling their mustaches and trying to murder them. If Ana goes out for a drink with friends while accompanied by two bodyguards, the narrative threatens her with rape and kidnapping. If the author were making both characters play by the rules, Christian should be dead now. Since he isn’t, we must then assume that Ana isn’t in any danger from these supposed threats at all.

“Christian, I think you need some sleep.”

“And so it begins. I’ve heard about this.”

I frown. “Heard about what?”

“Babies mean no sex.”

Yup. It’s the baby’s fault. Not the fact that you had a violent outburst, terrified your wife, then left and came home crazy drunk. It’s the baby.

Christian has another one of those haunted expressions that remind Ana that he was abused as a child, so it must be a day ending in Y. Ana gets him undressed while he talks in an exaggerated drunk dialect not unlike Otis on Mayberry RFD:

“I like the feel of this fabric on you, Anastay-shia,” he says, slurring his words. “You should always be in satin or silk.”

“And we have an invader in here.”

I stop breathing. Holy cow. He’s talking to Little Blip.

“You’re going to keep me awake, aren’t you?” he says to my belly.

Oh my. Christian looks up at me through his long dark lashes, gray eyes blurred and cloudy. My heart constricts.

“You’ll choose him over me,” he says sadly.

So, Chedward is already jealous of the baby. That’s a good sign.

“Christian, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t be ridiculous – I am not choosing anyone over anyone. And he might be a she.”

I hope she is, for her sake. Because if she’s a he, and his penis touches the inside of Ana’s vagina during delivery, Christian will have to murder him. And Ana, of course, since she cheated on him.

I have managed to loosen his tie.

I have managed to loosen strangle him with his tie. There, I fixed it for you, Ana.

Ana looks at Christian and realizes that he’s handsome, so obviously, that goes a long way toward excusing his behavior. Also, he has a happy trail and she kisses it, because gosh, it’s so sexy when a guy treats you like a fucking dog who should wait at home until he gets back.

While Ana picks up his clothes, she finds his BlackBerry, and a text that reads:

It was good to see you. I understand now.

Don’t fret, you’ll make a wonderful father.

It’s from her. Mrs. Elena Bitch Troll Robinson.

Shit. That’s where he went. He’s been to see her.

Phew, I’m so glad Ana has someone to shift the focus of her anger onto. For a second, I thought she might have to be upset with Chedward. Thank god for Bitch Trolls.

The other day, I live-tweeted Mary Poppins While I prepare the next 50 Shades Freed recap, you should watch Mary Poppins with me.

[View the story “Jenny Watches Mary Poppins” on Storify]

You’ll have to click the link to actually see the tweets. Apparently, embedding content from other sites is one of those WordPress privileges you have to pay for, then jump through plug-in hoops to use.

I CANNOT BELIEVE IT’S ACTUALLY READY, GUYS.

But it’s here. The Boss is available in paperback. I got the first copy today. After agonizing over format (“Is this too hard to read? Is the print too big now? Why is there practically no spacing?! Why is there too much spacing? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME I AM A GOOD PERSON?!”), it’s ready to go!

The only thing I’m not happy with is the price I have to offer it for. I’d wanted to price it at fifteen bucks, but I would have had to spend money per copy sold to do that. So, it’s coming off the line as a $20.00 USD purchase. I felt all guilty about that for a second, and then I was like, “Uh… this is actually just sitting around for free on the internet, so…” So, if you’re unhappy with the price of it, keep in mind that I am, as well, and I’m going to see what I can do to change that when it’s time for The Girlfriend to hit shelves. But also that you can still read it for free if you don’t want to shell out.

In the meantime, here’s the buy link for the paperback:

The Boss

Abigail Barnette

$20.00

And then check out these amazing running shoes I received as a birthday present from a wonderful friend who wants to remain nameless to avoid the wrath of her husband, but who I think we pretty much all know who she is, right? Having only run barefoot – until that caught up with me in the form of an achilles tendon injury last year – I had never shopped for running shoes before. Cut to me running up and down an alley in 91 degree heat while a very earnest sales person watches me and considers whether the shoes are working for me or not. Pro-tip, the pair that fly off the moment you take a single step are just a tad too big.

Thanks, nameless cousin-friend! I can’t wait to go running! Oh shit, yes I can, because it’s like NINETY FUCKING DEGREES OUT.

I better just stay in and stroke the fuck out of this paperback I wrote, formatted, covered, and crafted without the help of a big six publisher SO NOW I FEEL LIKE A FUCKING GOD.

It’s become a bit of a tradition, since about the time that I could pick out my own birthday cake, that I celebrate another year without dying with a big, gooey slab of my grandma Z’s German chocolate cake. This year, however, that didn’t work out, because my poor grandma is super sick with shingles and some other nasty stuff. Poor grandma!

Left to my own devices, I considered how to make this birthday just as good without German chocolate cake and rockin’ amazing goulash. I meditated carefully over the dilemma before me. At first, I settled on making my own German chocolate cake, but then I realized that if I did that, maybe German chocolate cake would cease being special. I should leave that to the professionals. I thought about making a Texas sheet cake, but I do that for my husband’s birthday in August, as it is his favorite cake.

What would make a cake special for me? Perhaps one that reflects my interests? I’ve made my kids a Lego Jack Sparrow cake, a Dora cake, a Tangled cake… what could I do for me? What do I love just as much as my kids love all that crap?

OF COURSE! Why didn’t I think of that sooner?

Using one of the many Kit Kat cakes as a template for greatness. This is the end result:

But I noticed that the recipes for most of those Kit Kat cakes call for you to use a chocolate cake and chocolate frosting. And here’s the thing… I love chocolate. But that sounds a little bit over the top. Like, waaaaay too much chocolate. Also, when you cut into a pile of joy like the one pictured above, the inside should be as beautiful as the outside. Like this:

You wanna make a cake like this? It’s ridiculously easy. Here’s what I used:

I do make the occasional cake from scratch. Things like caramel cake or yellow cake or my sacred chunk of moist and yummy joy, red velvet cake. But this was my fucking birthday and I didn’t feel like making a huge production of it. So, I used:

• 1 box white cake mix and the oil, eggs and water to bring it into being.
• 2 cans Duncan Hines Frosting Creations starter
• 2 packets Duncan Hines Frosting Creations flavoring in White Chocolate Raspberry
• 1 big bag of M&Ms
• 9 Kit Kats (and the cashier is totally going to give you side eye when you’re grabbing them from beside the register)

You’re going to prepare 2 9″ round pans. If you use a larger or different sized pan, you’re going to need a different number of Kit Kats, and you’re on your own. Prepare your batter and color it like I did for my rainbow cupcakes, but this time, you’re going to put the batter into the two 9″ round pans. It should look something like this:

The best technique for this, I’ve found, is to spread a thin layer of the first color with a spatula across the bottom of the pan. Then pour on the next color and roll the pan around. If you use a spatula on the next layer, you’ll accidentally mix the colors and it will all be gray-brown and disappointing. It helps when you’re pouring it on to do it in a sort of wide circle. If that makes sense.

When your cake is baked and cool, whip up the frosting. My general rule for all canned frosting is that you should take it out of the can and put it in your mixing bowl and hit it with the electric mixer for a while, to fluff it up. Unfortunately, halfway through the making of this cake, my power went out. So I had to mix the frosting and the flavor packets by hand.

Quick review of Duncan Hines Frosting Creations: Just put a teaspoon of Jell-O powder into regular frosting, it’s the same damn thing.

Once the frosting was mixed up, I frosted the cake. By the by, if you do try out the Frosting Creations racket, the color of the white chocolate raspberry flavor is Grurple:

The lack of electric lighting is really doing the color a favor there.

When that’s all done, you just break apart all the Kit Kats and start pushing them into the frosting around the cake. I didn’t get a photo of this stage, because I was working quickly in an un-air conditioned house. If this happens to do you, do what I did and just stick the cake in the freezer for a few minutes so the Kit Kats don’t slide everywhere. Then pour in the M&M’s, stick on your candles, and serve it.

Getting the blog transferred and The Boss ready for publication has really taken a bite out of my regular blogging, but I’ll be back with another 50 Shades recap at the end of this week!

I am turning 29 + 4 today, and I thought, “Well, you know you’re switching your blog around… why not start off with a bang?” Or, many bangs, that is, because today The Boss goes live in its official ebook version, available at jennytrout.com!

Sophie Scaife almost ran away once, trading her ticket to college for a ticket to Tokyo. But a delayed flight and a hot one-night stand with a stranger changed her mind, putting her firmly on track to a coveted position at a New York fashion magazine.

When the irresistible stranger from that one incredible night turns out to be her new boss – billionaire and publishing magnate Neil Elwood – Sophie can’t resist the chance to rekindle the spark between them, and the opportunity to explore her submissive side with the most Dominant man she’s ever known.

Neil is the only man who has ever understood Sophie’s need to submit in the bedroom, and the only man who has ever satisfied those desires. When their scorching, no-strings-attached sexual relationship becomes something more, Sophie must choose between her career and heart, or risk losing them both.

Now, I know a lot of you were looking forward to ordering the print-on-demand paperback of The Boss today, but unfortunately, it’s slightly delayed. This is because I want to make sure that you get a good quality paperback, so I’m not going to release it until I’m absolutely satisfied that it’s right. I’m hoping that’ll be as soon as next week, but stay tuned.

But in the meantime, enjoy the final version of The Boss, and the one chapter preview of The Girlfriend stuck on the end of it!

Also, enjoy the fuck out of this new WordPress blog, which is a freaking dream to use and I should have just switched earlier this year. Now, I’m going to celebrate turning twenty-nine for the fourth time with this Doctor Who Waldorf baby doll my friend Bronwyn Green made me!

It’s freakin’ adorable!

In the links department, today we’ve got two from Thea K. The first is an entry from her own blog, The Editor’s Notes, highlighting 44 Reasons Twilight is Better Than 50 Shades.

“That’s understandable. Now that he’s awake, I want to get him moved to Seattle. Then we can go home, and my mom can keep an eye on him.”

“I’m not sure he’s well enough to be moved.”

“I’ll talk to Dr. Sluder. Get her opinion.”

“You miss home?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

I’m sorry, did my phrasing mislead you guys? I should have been clearer. What I meant to say was, “To Ana’s credit, she doesn’t just roll over this time. It’s more like a barrel roll as she spirals toward the ground, possibly slamming through a barn or a windmill or a fireworks factory. Anything flammable, really.” Damn what Ray wants, Christian wants to go home! That means Ray is going to be moved, even if it’s medically unsafe.

Oh, you’re right, he’s going to talk to the doctor first. You know, the doctor he’s paying, the one who’s chummy with his mom. He’ll talk to Dr. Sluder and tell her what her opinion is, and then Charlie Ray will get moved.

Ana and Christian go back to the Heathman, where she immediately forgets about her father, who has just come out of a coma that she was super duper worried about:

“Shall we celebrate?” he asks as we enter the foyer.

“Celebrate?”

“Your dad.”

I giggle. “Oh, him.”

I just… what? Your father just woke up from a coma and you forgot on the drive back to the hotel? I… what? Or is it just that you don’t feel it’s something worth celebrating?

They do celebrate, in the creepiest way someone possibly can celebrate the emergence of their father from a medically induced coma. They have sex.

But first they have dinner, and I have to pointlessly snipe about this:

“That was delicious,” I murmur with satisfaction as I push my plate away, replete for the first time in ages. “They sure know how to make a fine tarte tatin here.”

I read that line and suddenly had an image of Laura Prepon’s character from How I Met Your Mother in my mind. Also, I have a theory that tarte tatin was invented on the spot by a cook who dropped an apple tart on the floor.

“That’s the most I’ve seen you eat the entire time we’ve been here,” he says.

Her father has been in the fucking hospital in a fucking coma, remember? I mean, I know she doesn’t remember, but you surely must? That shit affects your appetite.

“I was hungry.”

He leans back in his chair with a self-satisfied smirk and takes a sip of his white wine.

Why is he self-satisfied? Was he in the coma? Did he put Charlie Ray in a coma to make Ana want to eat for the first time in three goddamn books? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad she’s eating so we won’t have to continually hear about how alarmingly thin she is from not wanting to eat as some kind of last grasp at anorexia as an escape from your overwhelming need for control, but seriously, how are you taking credit for this shit?

Unless he’s read the last page of this chapter, and he knows what’s up.

The plot thickens.

So now it’s kind of a watery broth.

Christian asks Ana what she wants to do now that she’s stuffed herself with fancy dessert:

Reaching across the table, I grasp his hand, turn it over, and skim my index finger over his palm. “I’d like you to touch me with this.”

Keep that line in mind as we continue.

Christian pulls Ana into his lap and says:

“I like having unfettered access to you.”

Unfettered is a weird word choice, considering he ties her up all the time. He ties her up in this scene, too, which makes it even stranger.

“Don’t bite your lip,” he whispers, then rises suddenly with me in his arms. I gasp and grab his biceps, fearful that he’ll drop me.

That would be hilariously extreme BDSM right there. But why is he still telling her not to bite her lip? I’m starting to believe she has Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, and he’s seriously concerned about it.

Christian uses belts from the hotel bathrobes to tie Ana’s legs to the sofa, so she’s sitting up and spread-eagle.

“You have no idea how hot you look right now,” he murmurs and rubs his nose against mine.

I feel like I should write E.L. James a thank you note for improving my writing. I’m sure I’ve had a hero tell a heroine that she has no idea how hot she looks before, and after these books, I’ll never do it again. Because every time Chedward says that to Ana, I think, “How do you know what she knows, bitch?”

Christian changes the music:

Immediately, a sweet, almost childlike female voice starts to sing about watching me.

Oh, I like this song.

Just in case you missed the author’s habit of infantilizing Ana, now Ana is doing it herself during sex scenes. “Oooh, we’re going to listen to a child-like voice while fucking! That’s so hot, because I’m a fucking child myself!” But I looked up E.L.’s YouTube playlist, and this song… it doesn’t really match the description. If you want to listen to it, it’s here. And it’s pretty good. But the chick has a voice like Amy Winehouse at 7:30 in the morning. It’s not child-like at all. Which kind of makes the description of the song against the context of the scene more disturbing.

Remember when Ana asked Christian to touch her? Now that he’s got her legs all tied open, he wants her to touch herself. I’m torn on this scene. On the one hand, it’s not all that unusual for a Dom to tell a sub to do it her/himself, especially if the Dom is making the sub wait as part of the game. But this just seems like another instance in which Ana wants something, sexually, and Christian doesn’t deliver because his ideas are better.

On top of that, we have to remember that Ana has never masturbated before. When she first has sex with Christian, she’s never done anything sexual, ever, including getting herself off. She touches herself with his body wash in the shower once, but she doesn’t come. I can’t remember a single scene of her just getting off without his help or command in any part of these books so far. So it bugs me that when she finally does touch herself, she makes like, two circles around her clit with her fingers, then this happens:

Grabbing my hands, he bends down, running his nose and then his tongue back and forth at the apex of my thighs.

and when she tries to touch him, he says:

“I’ll restrain these, too. Keep still.”

And then he makes her come by fingering her and telling her “surrender,” which obviously she does, because with no orgasm training at all, she comes at his command. The “child-like” song, Ana’s reluctance to masturbate in front of him or at all, ever, and the fact that when she does finally touch herself down there, he restrains her hands and makes her come on command, makes this entire scene just… it’s fucking gross.

After Christian does her doggy-style over the couch, this conversation happens:

“I think we should go again. No clothes for you this time.”

“Christ, Ana. Give a man a chance.”

I giggle and he chuckles. “I’m glad Ray’s conscious. Seems all your appetites are back,” he says, not disguising the smile in his voice.

Swoon. Amirite or amirite, ladies?

Then they talk about stupid bullshit I don’t care about:

“And I think there’s a lot that’s sweet about you,” I murmur, referring to the song still playing on repeat. His smile fades.

Oh no.

“You are,” I whisper.

“I am going to fuck you with my mouth.”

And then after the section break, she’s all:

“Good morning,” I murmur shyly from the doorway.

How do we get from “I am going to fuck you with my mouth” to “shyly?” Timidity born of shame over one’s sexuality is NOT ATTRACTIVE. I don’t care how many copies of these books sold to women who believe that. They are fucking WRONG. It’s not cute and adorable. It’s gross.

Christian tells Ana that a detective wants to come to talk to her about Jack Hyde. Then there’s a section break, and Ana is visiting Ray in the hospital:

“Dad, you’ve been in a major car accident. It will take time to heal. Christian and I want to move you to Seattle.”

No, Christian wanted to move him to Seattle, Ana. You didn’t.

“I don’t know why you’re bothering with me. I’ll be fine here on my own.”

So, Charlie Ray doesn’t want to move to a different hospital. Glad that’s settled.

Charlie wants coffee and donuts, so after a break, Ana tells Christian they need to go get coffee and donuts.

This chapter is gripping, y’all.

Christian tells Ana that detective Clark will be in Portland at four to talk to her, and to take Taylor on the donut run. Ana rolls her eyes, so you know what that means:

“There’s no one here.” His voice is deliciously low, and I know he’s threatening to spank me.

In the ICU waiting room. Which is, of course, the perfect venue for D/s spanking games. Way to know when shit is appropriate, you two.

The spanking doesn’t go down, though, because:

I am about to dare him, when a young couple enters the room. She is weeping softly.

She, singular, is a couple, two people, and both of them are weeping from their giant, fused eye.

“Anything you wish to say to my wife, you can say in front of me.” Christian’s voice is cool and businesslike. Detective Clark turns to me.

“Are you sure you’d like your husband to be present?”

I frown at him. “Of course. I have nothing to hide. You are just interviewing me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’d like my husband to stay.”

Christian sits beside me, radiating tension.

All that’s missing is the detective asking if anyone “helped” her walk into the door.

Detective Clark tells Ana that Hyde is alleging she made “lewd advances” toward him while she worked for him at SIP.

Oh! I almost burst out laughing, but put my hand on Christian’s thigh to restrain him as he shifts forward in his seat.

I really, really want Christian Grey to punch a cop.

Well, not really. Because he would just buy the police force and fire the cop for letting his face get in the way of Christian’s golden fists. I should rephrase: I want Christian Grey to punch a cop in the real world. And then I want real world consequences to ensue.

Shit, he could just buy his way out of that, too.

Jack told the police that Ana sexually harassed him and was after his job. And Christian responds to this news in the guiltiest-sounding way possible:

“Detective, please don’t tell me you have driven all this way to harass my wife with these ridiculous accusations.”

That sounds like something the murderer would say on Midsommer Murders.

Detective Clark tells them that they’ve spoken to some of Jack Hyde’s past personal assistants, but they only had good things to say about him.

“We’ve had that problem, too,” Christian murmurs.

Oh? I gape at Christian, as does Detective Clark.

“My security chief. He’s interviewed Hyde’s past five PAs.”

“And why’s that?”

Christian gives him a steely glare. “Because my wife worked for him, and I run security checks on anyone my wife works with.”

She wasn’t your wife at the time, Captain Fucko. You ran security checks on your girlfriend’s new boss and then bought the company because you couldn’t stand the thought of not being in completely control of yet another aspect of her life. But I’m sure the police are totally cool with you having an investigation of your own going on. Especially when you’re acting all suspicious and weird toward the cops when they’re just doing their job.

Christian wants to know why Jack hasn’t been charged with attempted murder in the helicopter sabotage. Ana thinks:

What?

But I thought she already knew that Jack was suspected in the Charlie Tango crash. I’m pretty sure they talked about it before.

“We’re hoping to find more evidence in regard to the sabotage of your aircraft, Mr. Grey. We need more than a partial print, and while he’s in custody, we can build a case.”

“Is this all you came down here for?”

 Clark bristles. “Yes, Mr. Grey, it is, unless you’ve had any further thoughts about the note?”

Note? What note?

“No. I told you. It means nothing to me.” Christian cannot hide his irritation. “And I don’t see why we couldn’t have done this over the phone.”

You know, so Ana wouldn’t overhear any other details she didn’t know about the case against the guy who broke into her home to try and kidnap and rape her. If I were detective Clark, I would be suspecting that Christian hired Jack to murder Ana. He’s acting like a total lunatic and hiding a lot of shit from her.

After Clark leaves, Christian suggests they go see her father and arrange the move to Seattle for the next day. Yup. Two days out of a coma after internal bleeding, brain swelling, and cardiac arrest, still in the ICU, let’s move this patient for convenience.

“He was adamant that he wanted to stay in Portland and not be a bother.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

Section break.

The follow day Ray is examining his new surroundings- an airy, light room in the rehabilitation center of Northwest Hospital in Seattle. It’s noon, and he looks sleepy. The journey, via helicopter no less, has exhausted him.

NO SHIT. YOU THINK MOVING A GUY WHO HAS JUST HAD MASSIVE INJURIES FOR WHICH HE HAD TO BE PUT INTO A MEDICATED COMA MIGHT BE WORN OUT BY AN UNNECESSARY TRANSFER VIA AIRLIFT? WHO COULD HAVE POSSIBLY GUESSED THIS?

But it all works out, because Charlie Ray has seen the way, the truth, and the light of the Gospel of 50 Shades, which is that Christian Grey is always right about everything, all the time:

“Tell Christian I appreciate this,” he says quietly.

“Hey, Christian, I really appreciate you forcing me to switch hospitals against my wishes after my nearly fatal traumatic injuries.”

Ana tells her dad she’s going back to work, and she leaves him some newspapers to read. So, “Hey, dad, we’re moving you to a totally different city so we can be close to you. Now that you’re here, I’m leaving! See ya!”

As she leaves the hospital, she runs into Dr. Greene, her gynecologist.

“Mrs. Grey, how are you? Did you get my message? I called earlier.”

“No.” My scalp prickles.

“Well, I was wondering why you’d canceled four appointments.”

Four appointments? I gape at her. I’ve missed four appointments! How?

Because you keep canceling all of your appointments. Forget visiting the doctor, how are you even doing your job?

Dr. Greene is going to give Ana her birth control shot, but first Ana has to take a pregnancy test.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

In case you didn’t get it the first four times, shit.

How could I have let this happen… again?

WHOA. HOLD THE FUCK UP.

What does she mean, AGAIN? Did they get pregnant before and we just skipped over it? What the hell does this mean?

And then Ana finds out she’s pregnant, and the chapter is over.

Roadhouse is back! And we’ve got a show for you: dumb stuff from movies and tv shows that we believed as children… and also how I believed that Bob Hoskins was American until about three years ago…

Last night, I was birthday party ambushed.

In hindsight, I should have put two and two together and realized that I was going to be birthday party ambushed. My friend Cristin had called me up to see if she and our friends Adele and Jill could come out to my house and visit, and the visit was planned the night before Cristin’s birthday on July 6th. In the past, because so many of my friends have July birthdays, I’ve held a group birthday party, but my health lately has been not so great, so I haven’t done that in a few years. I’m off my birthday game considerably. So I didn’t even make the connection that this might be a birthday thing, even though my birthday is on July 15th, and Cristin asked me what kind of cake I liked.

Obviously, I should not have been surprised when it turned into a birthday party ambush.

They came bearing a beautiful cake, and gifts.

Adele brought me this t-shirt:

Which matched the beautiful flower lei that Cristin brought me. Being a Fannibal, I knew just what to do with it:

See, isn’t that much more festive?

Said Cristin of buying me a plastic pineapple and a barrel of dollar store monkeys for my birthday: “Usually, if I bought that for someone, they would just look at it and go, ‘that’s funny,’ but I know Jen is actually going to use the items.”

Jill is also giving me a present, a human finger bone she nicked from a biology skeleton. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to own that, by law. But it was from a skeleton, so… you know, it’s for science. It’ll go well with my collection of non-human bones, and it’ll creep the hell out of visitors I show it to.

Then, because we’re nerds, we cracked out my copies of Weird Michigan, Weird Pennsylvania, Weird U.S.A., and The Dictionary of Hauntings, sat around the dining room table, and red quietly to ourselves.

Because we’re party animals.

But it was a really amazing night. I’d spent the whole day in a really bad Fibromyalgia flare-up (you can probably tell from the picture that I was definitely not feeling my best), but my friends came over and gave me the best birthday I could have hoped for, that was exactly my speed. My friends are awesome.

In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will ignore the “Do Not Consume Raw” warning on the side of the pre-made cookie dough. She will also recap every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer with an eye to the following themes:

1. Sex is the real villain of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe.
2. Giles is totally in love with Buffy.
3. Joyce is a fucking terrible parent.
4. Willow’s magic is utterly useless (this one won’t be an issue until season 2, when she gets a chance to become a witch)
5. Xander is a textbook Nice Guy.
6. The show isn’t as feminist as people claim.
7. All the monsters look like wieners.
8. If ambivalence to possible danger were an Olympic sport, Team Sunnydale would take the gold.
9. Angel is a dick.
10. Harmony is the strongest female character on the show.
11. Team sports are portrayed in an extremely negative light.
12. Some of this shit is racist as fuck.
13. Science and technology are not to be trusted.

WARNING: Some people have mentioned they’re watching along with me, and that’s awesome, but I’ve seen the entire series already and I’ll probably mention things that happen in later seasons. So… you know, take that under consideration, if you’re a person who can’t enjoy something if you know future details about it.

Ah, season two. Season two starts out with a “Last season, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer” intro that sums up everything a viewer needs to know to jump on board, and then…

Hold up, does that say “Cray?” It might say “Gray,” but I think it could also say “Cray.” Which is what will no doubt be on my tombstone. That, or my last words, “I can probably climb that.”

Willow and Xander are strolling past one of Sunnydale’s dozen cemeteries. Even though it’s night, and even though they are fully aware of the existence of vampires, witches, and demons who hang out in these places. #8, right off the bat. They’re rattling off movie quotes to each other and guessing which movies the quotes are from, a game they abandon when Willow says it’s dumb:

Xander: “What else do you wanna do? We already played Rock/Paper/Scissors, my hands cramped up.”

Willow: “Well yes, if you’re always scissors, of course your tendons are going to stretch.”

Xander declares the summer the most boring summer ever. There has apparently been a lack of monsters around, as well as a lack of Buffy. Awfully convenient, I think, that nothing supernatural happens on the Hellmouth while the Slayer isn’t there to stop it. Willow accuses Xander of looking forward to the end of summer break because Buffy will be coming back, and Xander insists he’s completely over Buffy. And then he asks when she’s going to be coming back. Because he’s so over her. He boops Willow’s nose with his ice cream cone to act out a scene from Witness, and then they almost kiss, until this dumb vampire totally c-blocks Willow:

Willow: “Giles buried the bones, and we poured holy water and we got to wear robes.”

Xander: “Very intense. You should have been.” 

Willow: “Have you seen Giles?”

Buffy: “Why would I do that? I’ll see him at school.”

Remember, in the last episode of the first season, Buffy is willing to go to the Master and die to stop Giles from… going to the Master and dying, there’s no real good way to keep that sentence from word repping. So, right away, the viewer who watched the first season will know that something isn’t right with Buffy. She’s not this callous toward her friends.

Meanwhile, in Buffy’s room, Joyce and Manly are unpacking Buffy’s suitcases. When I was a kid and I went somewhere, my mom never did that for me. This is some BULLSHIT, mom. Joyce makes a lighthearted but slightly admonishing comment on the number of clothes Almanzo bought Buffy over the summer, and he says he was trying to help with back-to-school shopping. They discuss Buffy’s behavior over the break, and her father says that he noticed she was distant. This is a really awesome scene, because it’s showing two divorced people parenting their child together without animosity. That’s far more realistic, I think, than some of the depictions of divorced parents we’ve seen in media; Buffy’s father admits to “overcompensating” by buying Buffy a lot of stuff, and he doesn’t bristle when Joyce accuses him of doing it. These are people who are actually committed to raising their child together, and who are despairing at being unable to do so effectively.

On the first day of school for Sunnydale High, Cordelia is telling her friends about her many troubles and hardships over the summer:

Cordelia: “It was a nightmare, a total nightmare. I mean, they promised me they’d take me to St. Croix, and then they just decide to go to Tuscany. Art and buildings? I was totally beachless for a month and a half. No one has suffered like I have suffered.”

I’m pretty sure those are lyrics from Kanye’s new album.

Snyder and Giles are strolling through campus while Snyder waxes poetic about how awesome the school is when the kids aren’t there. He also compares the students to locusts, so we’re right on track for the first day. Snyder makes a comment about boys turning into idiots when a pretty girl walks by, and then Giles sees Jenny Calendar and turns into an idiot who can’t get a sentence out. They leave Snyder talking to himself, and Giles asks Jenny how her summer was:

Jenny: “I did Burning Man in Black Rock. Oh, such a great festival. You should have been there. They had drum rituals, mobile sculptures, raves, naked mud dances, you would have just… hated it with a fiery passion.”

Giles: “I can’t imagine finding any redeeming, uh, naked?”

Oooh, librarian gonna get some. Until the kids appear at the top of the stairs and are all super excited to see him. Well, all except Buffy, who hangs back. She gives a pithy answer to Giles’s “how are you?” and then Willow loudly announces that Buffy killed a vampire the night before. Jenny is confused, because she thought the Hellmouth was closed:

Giles: “Well, it’s closed, but not gone. The mystical energy that emanates from it is still concentrated in this area.”

Okay. So… where were they all summer, Mr. Smarty Exposition Pants?

Giles says he needs to consult his books to figure out if there is any reason the vampires are back in Sunnydale, and Xander wins a bet he and Willow had over how long it would take Giles to consult his books. It’s under ten minutes. Giles suggests Buffy could wait a few days to get back into training, but she insists she’s ready. So ready, in fact, that we cut to this:

Buffy: “Is that it? Is that everything? You know, ’cause you woke me up from a really good dream.”

I know, right? I wish I would have dreams about Giles choking me. Or The Master. He’s got that creepy, evil vampire hotness about him, even if he does look kind of like a wiener.

Or maybe because he looks kind of like a wiener. *Scribbles note for therapist*

Angel tells Buffy he missed her, and when Buffy decides to return the sentiment, an Allison Krause song starts playing, and Angel is gone. He must really, really not like country.

In the car, Joyce asks Buffy how her classes are going, and then asks Buffy to tell her what’s wrong. People all around Buffy are noticing that something is wrong with her, but they can’t do anything about it.

As Xander invites Buffy and Willow to a Cibo Matto concert at the Bronze (OMG CIBO MATTO!), Cordelia comes up and says:

Cordelia: “Oh look, it’s the Three Musketeers.”

Buffy: “Was that an insult?”

Xander: “Kind of a light punch.”

Willow: “The Three Musketeers were cool.”

Cordelia: “I see your point.” 

Xander: “I would have gone with Stooges.”

But Cordelia wasn’t trying to insult them, just making an observation. She’s genuinely excited to hear about their demon fighting adventures, and she’s not quite understanding that there is a secrecy component to the whole Slayer thing. Luckily, Cordelia hasn’t been talking about demons and vampires to everyone, because she doesn’t want anyone to know that she was hanging out with them in the first place. She tells Buffy that she’ll keep her secret, and Buffy snipes at her. Even Cordelia can see that something bad is going on with Buffy.

At the Bronze, ungrateful bastard children Willow and Xander are not fully appreciating the awesomeness of Cibo Matto and how fucking rad it was to be a teenager in the 90’s. They’re discussing how weird Buffy has been lately, and then Willow tries to force another near-kiss moment.

1. Vampires are bad at prepping for yard work, and
2. a council-trained Watcher’s best plan can be defeated with shovels.

Buffy: “Xander… did I ever thank you for saving my life?”

Xander: “No.”

Buffy: “Don’t you wish I would?” 

And then she’s just gone.

This scene sticks out to me (like Xander’s erection, ZING!) on two levels. One, I’m glad that Buffy doesn’t overtly promise sex to Xander as a reward for saving her life. In fact, she’s kind of addressing the whole Nice Guy issue we had in the first season by pointing out, “I know you think I should fuck you because you saved my life.” But I dislike seeing Buffy trying to make Angel jealous by making Xander an object, I hate the cocktease element, and I hate that her betrayal of Willow is just kind of a side note to the scene. It’s clear that we’re supposed to think of her effect on the two male characters before we even consider what she’s done to Willow, when really, all Buffy has done to Angel and Xander is make it clear that she’s not a bone to fight over. #6.

Buffy leaves the Bronze and a wake of hurt friends behind her, and Cordelia follows her into the alley.

Cordelia: “You’re really campaigning for bitch of the year, aren’t you?”

Buffy: “As defending champion, you nervous?

Cordelia: “I can hold my own. You know, we’ve never really been close, which is nice ’cause I don’t really like you that much, but… you have, on occasion, saved the world and stuff, so I’m gonna do you a favor.”

Buffy: “And this great favor is?”

Cordelia: “I’m gonna give you some advice. Get over it.”

Buffy: “Excuse me?”

Cordelia: “Whatever is causing the Joan Collins ‘tude, deal with it. Embrace the pain, spank your inner moppet, whatever. But get over it. ‘Cause pretty soon you’re not gonna even have the loser friends you’ve got now.”

Charisma Carpenter had some kind of awful cold when they filmed this episode. My nose is stuffy just from listening to her.

But back on topic, Cordelia is telling Buffy that she’s too mean to her friends. Buffy tells Cordy to mind her own business and walks off in a huff, and Cordelia tries one last ditch attempt to make Buffy get mad and confront her demons by saying she’s going to ask Angel to dance, but Buffy doesn’t give her a backward glance. Which is super inconvenient for Cordy, as she is immediately carried off by vampires as if to punctuate her sentence.

After a fade out and back in from commercial, we rejoin Cordelia in some kind of abandoned industrial room, where she finds Jenny Calendar unconscious on the floor.

As Buffy walks through the cemetery, she finds The Master’s bones have been dug up. Look how fucking shallow that hole is:

Willow: “I mean, why else would she be acting like such a B-I-T-C-H?”

Giles: “Willow, I think we’re a little too old to be spelling things out.”

Xander: “A bitka?”

Giles tries to explain to Willow and Xander that Buffy is probably just not coping with the whole “Hey, you were dead for a few minutes” thing, and that she’s not handling it well. But as he’s explaining it, Buffy walks up behind him, and he’s totally clueless as Willow and Xander try to warn him. Buffy, pissed at being talked about behind her back, casually tells them that The Master’s bones are gone, which is basically the biggest conversational mic drop that has ever happened in Sunnydale. She lays into Giles about what a shitty job he did burying The Master and tells him to crack open his wallet and rent a fucking backhoe next time. No, not really. But she does lay into him about not warning her that The Master could possibly be raised from the dead. When Willow tries to smooth things over, Buffy snaps at her that this is private Slayer business, sub-heading: none of yours, and Xander says he’s had enough. So has Snyder, who drops by the table to tell the kids to get to class. He makes a comment about Buffy being a troublemaker, re-establishing that Snyder is taking a personal interest in the Scoobies. In a bad way.

In the library, Giles tells the kids that whoever wants to raise The Master has to also have the blood of a person who was close to The Master, and Buffy is pretty sure that means her, since they killed each other. A rock flies through the library window, with Cordelia’s bracelet and a note wrapped around it. The note says that Buffy has to come to the Bronze, or Cordelia will get eaten. Buffy decides she’s going to go to the Bronze, and it’s like someone rang a bell to signal the beginning of the next round:

Buffy: “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t look after the three of you guys while I’m fighting.”

Willow: “Well, what about the rest of the note?”

Buffy: “The rest of the note?”

Willow: “The part that says ‘P.S. This is a trap!'”

Giles: “You’ll be playing straight into their hands.”

Buffy: “I can handle this.”

Willow: “Stop saying that! God, what’s wrong with you?”

Buffy storms out of the library to go fight and save the day all on her own.

On her way to the Bronze, Angel walks up behind her, and Buffy delivers this zinger:

Xander: “Vampires. The ones you could handle yourself.”

Buffy: “Where are the others?”

Xander: “I don’t know. I don’t know what your problem is, what your issues are. But as of now, I officially don’t care. If you’d worked with us for five seconds, you could have stopped this.”

Oh snap. Xander also threatens to kill Buffy if the vampires hurt Willow, a line I’ve never been comfortable with. You’ll kill her? Really? The girl you were supposedly in love with? You’re going to literally kill her if she doesn’t deliver and save the girl you keep throwing under the wheels of the heartbreak truck? Because you don’t like the way she handled a situation you have absolutely no experience with or right to criticize? Also, um, SLAYER MUCH? There goes Xander again, thinking he’s so strong and brave and shit when Buffy has proven time and again that she would be able to rip him in half like Marshall ripped the phone book in half after he drank all that Tantrum.

That is a bad line, and Joss Whedon should feel bad about it.

I have to note here that most of the episodes I find really, intensely problematic wind up being the ones written by Joss himself. And that makes me feel awful for everyone else who wrote on the show. Except Marti Noxon, because Spuffy was a fucking train derailment. But for the most part, the episodes that refreshingly turn tropes on their heads aren’t written by the Sci-Fi/Fantasy Feminism Messiah. Yet he gets all the credit, while writing episodes that go like this. That makes me surious, which is sad and furious at the same time.

Back at the Bronze, Buffy tortures the lady vamp. Lezzbehonest here. Violence as sex has already been set up in the scene with Angel, and now Buffy is beating on this vamp who purrs and moans through the whole thing like goddamned Julie Newmar. This is more violence-against-women = sex here. Did I mention that Joss Whedon also directed this episode? Just in case it wasn’t clear. #6

Here’s the thing: A lot of people made that connection when the vampire genre exploded back in the day. I know I had a lot of sexually-charged violence toward women in my first series of vampire books (mea culpa). Somehow, it became a convention of the genre: Buffy, Anita Blake, Sookie Stackhouse, it seemed like every heroine who was written to appeal to a female audience was in constant danger of violence, sex, and violent sex from these alpha male vamps who made readers swoon. I wish that back then, I would have thought a little more deeply about why this appealed to readers, and what kind of a world we’re living in that it ever would. It’s almost like some weird, back door (lol) way of getting BDSM into the stories without admitting that was what was going on. Which meant that we were all fully comfortable with violence against women, so long as she wasn’t meant to get off on it.

But I digress.

Back at The Anointed One’s world headquarters, Jenny, Cordelia, Giles, and Willow are all hanging out with The Master.

Buffy, Angel, and Xander creep in. Buffy tells Angel and Xander to rescue the others while she murders the vampire cult. Like you do. Angel and Xander accomplish this by reeling them in on their chains at the most painfully slow pace possible, but the vampires are all so busy getting their asses kicked that none of them can interfere too much. Well, except for one, so Angel can put on his vamp face and kick some ass.

At the end of the fight, when all the vamps are dead, Buffy has an emotional breakdown moment. She tearfully smashes The Master’s bones with a hammer, while her friends watch, stunned. Then Angel comes over to put his hand on her shoulder and give her emotional support.

Giles: “Buffy, you acted wrongly, I admit that, but believe me, that was hardly the worst mistake you’ll ever make. That wasn’t quite as comforting as it was meant to be.” 

Buffy goes to class, where Xander and Willow pretend nothing ever happened, and they make plans to go to the Bronze.

Xander: “Well, we could grind our enemies into talcum powder with a sledge hammer, but gosh, we did that last night.”

The intro music to a commercial for your local credit union starts, and the scene ends with an unnecessarily long shot of the three making conversation and healing their relationship, before cutting to The Anointed One, who has apparently just come back from the bathroom to find everyone dead.

Overall, this is a pretty good episode, in that it tries to show us the mental toll of Buffy’s sacred duties. It’s a really bad episode, however, in that it uses only the tired, anti-feminist cliches of the bitch, the tease, the sexually aggressive bad girl and the helpless, not-as-strong-as-I-thought-I-was emotional wreck to display it.

Another issue I have with this episode is the title. When She Was Bad. Not When She Was Different, or When She Wasn’t Really Herself. Are her actions in the episode really bad? She tells Angel to stop stalking her and becomes annoyed when he enters her room uninvited in the middle of the night to watch her sleep. She dances with Xander and doesn’t have sex with him even though she knows he wants to have sex with her. Yes, these actions are all committed while actively trying to push her friends away and be mean to them, but are they bad? Buffy is definitely not being a nice person in this storyline, but there’s a pretty wide range of adjectives between “nice” and “bad.” The title tries to subtly steer us toward our idea of Buffy in this episode as a “bad girl,” a trope that was overdone long before 1997.

I’ve always found this episode a bit of a missed opportunity. Imagine if Buffy really was possessed, and her friends had to save her from it. That would prove to the audience that no Slayer is an island, especially if the possession is revealed gradually, the way her emotional stress was revealed in this script. Or, if there wasn’t any possession at all, and Buffy acted just fine, but her friends noticed something was up and stepped in to help her without all the bad-girl acting-out bullshit.

Just sayin’.