A Household Divided

"I wish it was my birthday coming up instead of yours," I announced to StereoNinja on Sunday, "because then I could just whine until you bought me that rug." StereoNinja and I generally have similar taste in decorating. In particular we both for the most part hate rugs. Rugs do not go on carpet - that is what CARPET is for, and if you have beautiful hardwood floors anywhere in your home, why on earth would you cover them up with some kind of crappy rug?

Be that as it may, currently I do not live in a house with beautiful hardwood floors, I live in a house with crappy plastic "wood looking" floors because that is what happens when you rent. AND, a couple of weeks ago, I noticed this. For those of you too lazy to click on the link, Think Geek is currently selling a floor rug that looks exactly like Han Solo trapped in carbonite and it's only $50 and IT WOULD FIT PERFECTLY IN OUR FRONT HALLWAY. And StereoNinja won't let me get it because his hatred of rugs apparently trumps my happiness. I even tried appealing to his sense of geekery by pointing out that we NEED this rug in order to enhance our nerd credentials and he PRETENDED LIKE THAT WASN'T EVEN A THING. But it is. It is a thing and not having this rug will come to represent an epic failure of my nerdcoreness that I may never recover from. All this because I got into a serious relationship. I knew Admiral Ackbar was right.

UPDATE: A key tenet of StereoNinja's objection to the rug (other than the mere fact that it is a rug) is that we can't put a Star Wars rug in the front hallway because we have prints of Batman characters hanging in that same hallway and you can't mix genres because reasons. However, he said this whilst walking past the bookcase in our stairway on which are displayed toys from Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, books with the art of H.R. Giger, and two knitted dinosaurs, which I maintain COMPLETELY invalidates his entire argument. I NEED THIS RUG YOU GUYS.

50 Shades Furious

I read and review Fifty Shades Freed so you don't have to.

The hardest thing about reviewing this book, more so than the first two books, is the fact that nearly every scene has multiple things wrong with it, or shouldn't have happened at all, but most often both. It is getting increasingly hard to not write five paragraphs for any one of hers and explain both why the event would never have occurred at all, AND all the overlapping things that were ridiculous once it did. Also, since Christian and Ana are always both wrong for different reasons, I feel like I should maybe start keeping score of who was the least wrong in every argument so we can see who wins at the end (spoiler: it won't be ME). Keeping score of who is "winning" tends to be extremely harmful to relationships, but this relationship is going nowhere anyway, and frankly I just need something else to do besides scribble notes in all caps and do all the research the author should have done but didn't, otherwise I'm going to hurt someone and I don't want it to be me.

We start off Chapter 7 with Ana explaining that the mysterious saboteur in the server room is Jack Hyde, followed by Christian being pissy with her for knowing what her FORMER BOSS WHO TRIED TO RAPE HER looks like. Though in his defense, the way she describes that she knows it's him - the "line of his jaw", the "shape of his shoulders" - does make me wonder why she was examining him in such minute detail. But hey, maybe she was trying to memorize his build so she could give an accurate description of her assaulter to the police, and she just never got to because her idiot husband never bothered to tell the police. Advantage Ana. Anywhore, Barney in security positively identifies Jack Hyde using facial recognition software (in no universe does a company in Christian's line of work need any such thing unless he's secretly running a casino) and then assures Christian he will "also scan the city CCTV and see if I can track his movements." I almost wanted to give this one to James since she does live in a country that has CCTV everywhere, but it took me 5 whole minutes to do the research so no dice. Seattle has no city wide CCTV coverage. The state of Washington has traffic cameras on major roadways throughout the state, and I found a mention on Boing Boing about someone protesting the CCTV cameras that had been installed at four public parks in the city, but it was from 2008 and there hasn't been a word about it since. This is a good example of what I was talking about above: He can't check the city CCTV because it doesn't exist, but EVEN IF IT DID, you still can't (legally anyway) just hack into the city's CCTV system to track the movements of one specific person. You would need to inform the police who would then either use the CCTV or not at their discretion to find him IF they felt it was warranted. Knock it the fuck off, James, Christian isn't the goddamn Batman.

Ana then goes off to make sandwiches for them (sub sandwiches because HAHA GET IT?), which is where Christian finds her and makes some dumb comment about her being barefoot in the kitchen. Ana asks if he meant to add "and pregnant" and this is the first time it dawns on them to discuss whether either of them wants to have children and when. Three weeks AFTER the wedding. This discussion is short, and then they move on to the much more important topic of the plans for the new house. Fab, guys, you will make awesome parents. Ana asks if Christian wants to put in a playroom and he is completely taken aback by the question. Not because his sexually ignorant wife made such a bold suggestion, but because "this will be a family home." And god in heaven knows, you simply can't have kinks AND children at the same time. You know what? I'm actually fine with that particular stupidism, it just gives me one more fabulous reason to avoid breeding.

The next day, Ana goes to work ("You know you don't have to do this," Christian reminds her for the 423,346,348,936th time) and everyone but her assistant and the moron at the door are treating her with barely disguised hostility, which for once she has enough social awareness to know is because she was handed a job she didn't earn and isn't qualified for because her husband owns the company. Speaking of her husband, an hour after dropping her off he emails her to complain that his first email bounced back to him because she hasn't changed her email address yet. Which is because she didn't want to change her name and hasn't told him, but that doesn't make it any more reasonable to expect that the first thing she would do after three weeks away from a job she's only just learning how to do is to make fucking sure her email has her magic new married name attached to it. She responds to his email telling him she doesn't want to change her name at work and she will explain why later on at home. She doesn't get an email back and assumes this means he's ok. Honest to fuck, I don't understand how she can be the one married to him yet I know him about a trillion times better. You are in so much trouble, Ana.

The reason for his lack of a response becomes clear a couple hours later, when Christian (I am fucking serious, you guys, what in the shit does this man actually DO?) storms into the office to chew her out over this point. In the course of this, he manages to refer to her as an "asset" in need of "rebranding" and that he likes to stop by the companies he owns to keep management sharp and "wives in their place." IN THEIR PLACE. IN THEIR MOTHERFUCKING PLACE. I honestly don't give a shit whether Ana's argument is stupid or not, she has won this contest already (my contest, she has no hope of winning autonomy from her husband at her job). Not that I'm not angry with her. Because oh no, not wanting to change her name has hurt Christian right in his tender little feelings! She never wants to hurt his feelings! He just showed up to your job to put you in your place and call you an asset as if you were actual property that could be owned. FUCK his feelings. Fuck his feelings with an entire goddamn rose bush. Other completely retarded statements he makes during this argument:

• "I want everyone to know that you're mine."/"It's not enough." That she MARRIED him. She married him and it is NOT GOOD ENOUGH. MAYBE YOU SHOULD JUST SEW HER TO YOUR SHIRT LIKE A MERIT BADGE SO EVERYONE WILL KNOW.
• "I want your world to begin and end with me." Followed almost immediately by genuine shock that she feels suffocated. You could not be more suffocating if you held a plastic bag against her face with a pillow on top of it and a rope around her neck and you are underwater AND ALSO IN SPACE.

He goes on to explain that in addition to coming by to "deal with my errant wife" (Jesus fucking fuck), he also wanted to tell her that he was planning to change the name of the company to Grey Publishing (presumably because he just likes to see his name written on things since there is no real marketing reason to do this) and that in a year's time he's going to give it to Ana - as a wedding present. By the way, this is a wedding present she's going to spend the rest of this chapter and the next one repeatedly trying to explain to him she doesn't want. She has her dream job now, she doesn't know how to run a company, she doesn't WANT to run a company, she doesn't want anything at all to do with this plan. None of which matters, because Christian is on a roll now, trying to bribe her to do something she doesn't want to do by insisting that she do ANOTHER thing she doesn't want to do. But he's sure it will all be fine and here's why: "You are also the most well-read person I know." Because CLEARLY having read several books makes a person with no business experience and who couldn't find her head if it wasn't attached to her neck qualified to run a fucking company. How in the name of Lindsay Lohan's skidmarked underpants have you had any success in business EVER if these are the sort of business decisions you make? Where did you acquire these amazing skills, Christian, Enron? Why do I get the feeling that if anyone took a look at how your companies actually operate they would find nothing but fraud and waste and breathtaking corruption? Because I have not seen you make one single sound decision about anything business related AND you have time to STALK YOUR WIFE ALL DAY LONG EVERY SINGLE DAY, so it seems like the only way you could have built an empire like this is through fraud, crime, or suspiciously good luck (which is likely to turn out to be fraud or crime).

Sorry, I got a little off track there. Anyway, she eventually gives in to all his demands, but she's still angry about it when they get home  ("I thought we had sorted all this in your office." CHOKE ON A DICK) so they fight some more even though the outcome will ultimately be the same, mainly because James wants to have Christian say more misogynistic and patronizing things since SEXISM IS SUPER FUCKING ROMANTIC: "Don't be mad. You're so precious to me. Like a priceless asset, like a child." FUCK YOU CHRISTIAN, I HOPE YOU GET TEABAGGED BY A GANG OF ELEPHANTS.

Chapter 8 consists of three things: Ana behaves like a psycho, Ana gets off playing Tune In Tokyo, and Christian gets a haircut. Or if you look at it another way, one thing: Amber wonders if jumping out her third floor bedroom window will kill her or at least put her in a prolonged coma. Gia Matteo is the architect Christian and Ana have chosen to remodel their new house. She is, of course, one of the finest architects in all of Seattle if not the world. Ana despises her because she is obviously trying to steal Christian, but she doesn't want to fire her because her drawings are breathtaking. Even in terms of first world problems this isn't a problem. Guess what, Ana? There are other architects, and you have enough money to hire any or probably ALL of them. Fuck, you could probably afford to have Frank Lloyd Wright exhumed and have his body reanimated so he can build you a pretty house. HIRE SOMEONE ELSE. She's not going to consider the most obvious option though. No, instead when Gia comes over to discuss the drawings, Ana is going to dress like a tart, because hey lady, two can play the "I am a desperate slut with no self esteem" game! Certainly the most mature way to deal with people who dare think you have an attractive husband. This scene is one of the finest examples of "everything is wrong with it" I have ever seen. James has really outdone herself with this one. Because for starters what's about to happen would never actually happen. I don't care how good an architect you are, if you behave grossly inappropriately toward your clients, let alone right in front of their wives' faces, you will no longer have any clients. So when Gia comes in and virtually ignores Ana while getting uncomfortably close to Christian and flirtatiously touches his arm, I am once again reminded that E.L. James isn't going to let plausibility get in the way of writing the soap opera she wants to write. But even if you can suspend disbelief that the scene even exists, what happens in it STILL doesn't make sense. When Gia touches Christian, who we know from two and a half books worth of nauseatingly frequent reminders HATES TO BE TOUCHED and must CONTROL ALL THE THINGS, his response is to timidly take a step away from her, say nothing at all about it, and wait for Ana to come stand in between them, giving her a relieved look at being "rescued". THEN, when Christian leaves the room for some urgent matter with Taylor, Ana goes into full on jealous psychopath mode and threatens Gia several times to stay away from her man OR ELSE. And then another thing that would never happen happens: Gia becomes terrified of Ana and suddenly starts to treat her with respect. In real life, no commission is worth having to deal with an unhinged crazy bitch who has hallucinated some sort of threat to her marriage, and certainly not the greatest architect since god, and a real life Gia Matteo would have said "fuck this shit" and walked away from the job. The only thing that could have made this scene any more preposterous is if they got into an actual Jerry Springer style cat fight (it comes close though - Ana thinks to herself at one point "Yeah bitch, mine" which is exactly the kind of thing you would hear on Springer, but she doesn't say it out loud).

After that debacle and another several pages of the same argument about her name they've had twice already, Ana decides that Christian needs a haircut so she's going to do it all super romantic-like and drags him in the bathroom to sensuously wash his hair, which is when I make a horrified choking noise in my throat and write "please god no, don't do this." The haircut doesn't go so well at first because they haven't fucked in FIVE WHOLE MINUTES. The hair washing is interrupted by Christian who is overwhelmed with lust over it, so he ties Ana's hands behind her back with her underwear and more or less gives her a titty twister until she comes everywhere. While this is happening he tells her how beautiful her breasts are and how he's going to fuck them someday. I'm not sure why that day isn't today and actually right now, but I'm in better shape than Ana is over that statement: What the hell does that mean? she wonders. Oh my god, I hate you. Ok, fine, you've never done that before, but you are having sex ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE, you must understand the mechanics by now, you should be able to sort this one out yourself without breaking all three of your brain cells. When Ana comes (the second time) while sitting on Christian's magical Boner of Ecstasy, she starts crying, which she does pretty much every single time she has an orgasm, and frankly I hope she drowns in her emo, emo tears. Especially after she thinks "After all our arguing today, my frustration with him, his with me - we still have this." Holy bananas do you suck at life. Hey, at least we have sex since the rest of our relationship is fucking terrible!

Once Ana's teargasm has subsided, she remembers that the whole point of this exercise was to cut Christian's hair, so she goes down the hall to his study to get some scissors and two things happen. The first is that she happens to see Taylor and Mrs. Jones kissing and HOLY SHIT IT IS EXPLOSIVE NEWS. Just to Ana, though - Christian already knows and points out that they are both adults and single and free to do whatever the fuck they want. But Ana just can't wrap her head around this because - no, for real this is her ACTUAL reason - "I always thought Mrs. Jones was older than Taylor." The woman ALWAYS has to be younger, how else will the man be able to romantically treat her like a helpless child? YOU ARE SUCH AN ASSHOLE ANA. The second thing that happens is while going through Christian's desk looking for scissors she finds a gun. Fully loaded. In an unlocked drawer. Despite multiple attempts on his life, a high speed car chase, and a mentally unstable ex stalking them, Ana is totally perplexed about why Christian would have a gun. I am only perplexed by the fact that every other sentence out of Christian's mouth hole is about how he is so afraid of anything ever happening to Ana, and keeping a loaded weapon in an unlocked drawer in an unlocked room in an apartment housing at least two other people besides Christian and Ana that has already had its security breached once by a woman who was so disoriented she couldn't even wash herself is pretty much the definition of asking for an accident to happen in which Ana gets killed. In fact, the only law of gun safety he hasn't violated right here is that he apparently doesn't sleep with a loaded gun under his fucking pillow. YET. P.S. This is the second gun you've mentioned in this alleged love story, Ms. James...you DO know that the stereotype of "every single American owns a gun" is not actually true, right? Right? Ana doesn't mention the gun to Christian when she goes back to finish cutting his hair, because if there's one thing they are both good at, it's never ever discussing anything important until it becomes a fucking crisis. Instead the chapter ends with her cutting his hair, another argument about her running a company, her fundamentally misunderstanding something he said earlier in a way that makes him panic, and frantic, desperate sex that solves everything. So, basically EXACTLY THE SAME FUCKING THING AS EVERY OTHER SHITTY PAGE OF THIS SHITTY ASS BOOK OF SHIT. SHIT.

Oh, the tally for these two chapters is Ana - 2, Christian - nil (I am counting the half dozen fights about the same fucking thing as just one long extra stupid thing).

50 Shades Tedious

I read and review Fifty Shades Freed so you won't have to.

Reading this book is absolutely draining. I am four chapters in and I'm still waiting for there to be any kind of plot at all. So far it's been nothing but stupid fights, boring fucks, and Ana reciting the monetary value of every fucking thing Christian touches. Also I've become a terrible person, because despite Christian's terrible and blatantly abusive behavior, I find myself constantly engaging in victim blaming. 

The book opens with the now obligatory prologue in which Christian has a nightmare/flashback about hanging out with the corpse of his dead mother, then wakes up and tells Ana that she's the only one who can save him from his epic sad, which is basically the same thing as saying "if you ever leave me I'll kill myself". So, you know, off to fun, abusey start.

Chapter 1 starts (depending on which estimate of time you want to use, since James couldn't decide and had Ana make several contradictory statements) either a month or six weeks after the last book ended, meaning Ana and Christian have known each other roughly three months. THEY ARE ON THEIR HONEYMOON. Lest you think (as I did before all my hopes were crushed) we get to skip all the inane melodrama we know ensued in between, James has adopted a new writing style that involves constant flashbacks preceded by terribly contrived set ups. In the present, though, Ana and Christian are on a beach in the south of France, having a scream inducing conversation about whether Christian would be ok with Ana taking her top off on the beach. Surprising no one, he would not. In fact, he is not particularly happy with her being dressed only in a bikini as it is. ON THE BEACH. Ana thinks to herself "Oh, Christian...my possessive, jealous, control freak Christian." because it is SO ROMANTIC to be threatened and controlled constantly. I write in my notes "I hope he kills you."

They decide to go for a swim, during which Christian jokes that they should fuck in the water in full view of everyone. Ana gets very excited at this prospect. Apparently she just met her husband five minutes ago - the idea that he would allow anyone else to view her having sex is absolutely ludicrous and it is proof of Ana's monumental stupidity that she thinks this is something that could actually occur. The entire point of the scene is to set up a situation where Ana feels she needs to do something childish because she didn't get exactly what she wanted: "...what can I do to get him back?" she thinks, before deciding the obvious thing to do is take her top off exactly the way he just told her not to.

Before we get to the fight scene though, it's time for a flashback to their wedding, at which every single person she knows warns her that she's making a huge mistake, including herself: "Marry in haste, repent at leisure. The saying haunts me." Oh everyone, except her mother that is. Carla's well reasoned parental advice is to remind Ana that men are from a different planet. Excellent, I'm sure that hyperbolic and vague statement will solve all their problems.

After the wedding, Ana and Christian are driven to the airport by Taylor so they can leave on their honeymoon. Here James inserts one of her most utterly stupid details to date when she has Taylor drive Ana and Christian right onto the tarmac at the airport without having to stop and prove to a single person who they are or that they belong there. Clearly James was visiting Mars on the day people decided to fly planes into the tallest buildings on the planet 11 years ago. It's the only excuse for thinking it would be possible to do anything like what she wrote.

Ana and Christian get on his private plane and meet the flight crew. We've been to this party before: Ana is out of her element because ermigerd a private plane! and is instantly jealous of every damn person they'll be flying with because every one of them is eyefucking the shit out of Christian. Christian finally condescends to tell her where they are going on their honeymoon (a decision in which she had no input whatsoever). They are going to London, and then Paris, and then the south of France. But before they get to London they have to stop to refuel. In Ireland. Which, if you have enough fuel to get to Ireland I imagine you probably have enough to get to England. I checked the commercial airlines and you can fly non-stop from Seattle to London, but even the one stop flights all stopped somewhere near the middle of the trip like in Vancouver or New York. Refueling 8 hours into your 9 hour flight is ridiculous. After dinner it's time to fuck, but not before Ana is astonished to find out that you can, in fact, fuck in an airplane ("oh...here?") and then three sentences later remembering that that is actually a thing ("...the mile high club. I've heard about this.") Awful sex happens, and then he makes a comment about touching down in the Emerald Isle and Ana thinks "Oh my...I'd forgotten. Europe." Which he told her about five fucking minutes ago and she was SO EXCITED as she has always wanted to go to Europe. You didn't forget Ana. Your creator is just a terrible writer.

FLASHBACK OVER and TIME TO FIGHT! Chapter 2 starts with Christian in the blindest rage we've seen from him yet standing over a topless Ana, screaming at her about the fact that she can be seen by both the security crew that trails them everywhere (seriously) AND the paparazzi, because Christian is so famous and important. Mind you they are on a topless beach and Ana points out rightly that wearing her bikini top makes her stand out even more since she's the only person wearing one. However, I have sided with her abuser and I hate myself for it. Should Christian dictate what she does and doesn't wear 100% of the time and fly into a blind rage every time she is disobedient? Of course not, but she knows perfectly well who the fuck she married, in fact she finds it FUCKING ADORABLE, so if she's going to DELIBERATELY FUCKING ANTAGONIZE HIM on a near CONSTANT basis, I'm sorry, but she does not get to act surprised when he flies of the handle and she ESPECIALLY doesn't get to say things like "I thought Christian would see the funny side..." NO YOU FUCKING DIDN'T. YOU FUCKING KNEW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN YOU BRAINLESS FUCKING FUCK.

Christian decrees that they are going back to the boat they are staying on. He and Ana are taking the jet ski, the security crew (Taylor, and a couple French guys named Philippe and Gaston because of course they are) are following in the motorboat. There is no explanation given at any time of why they can't just all go in the motorboat. Back at the boat Christian outwardly appears to calm down when Ana asks if she's going to be punished. I, however, do not calm down, because his answer to that question is "Anastasia, you're my wife, not my sub." I write "Those aren't mutually exclusive things you judgemental prick." He goes on to talk about the boat they are on and how unfathomably rich he is. The boat belongs to a British knight, whose daughter is married to "one of the crown princes of Europe." It is apropos of nothing really, but James hasn't worked out how to be subtle about her new found literary device, so this conversation has to happen so that Ana can ask if the knight is rich like Christian because he needs to respond "and like you" because it's time for another flashback about the prenup argument. The wavy lines and "doo-doo-ly-doo, doo-doo-ly-doo" from Wayne's World is much more subtle than this.

In the flashback, Ana and Christian are sitting around with his parents and siblings, chilling and reading the paper, when Mia finds an article about the engagement which contains the joking line "Bet she's reading one helluva prenup." Christian obviously has no intention of there being any prenup because HE'S IN LOVE, even though he is a billionaire and she is drowning in student loan debt, not to mention the fact that they barely know each other and fight fucking constantly. His father is not a fan of this plan, and his entire family proceeds to argue about this with him as though Ana were not sitting right there in the same fucking room, proving that money buys neither tact nor class. I hate all these fucking people.

FLASHBACK OVER and ALMOST TIME TO FUCK. But first two things happen: Ana begins her obnoxious litany of narrating the cost of every single thing Christian buys her, and she escalates the descriptions of what her subconscious is doing to heretofore unseen heights of absurdity. In case you were wondering (I was not), her bikini that she only bothered to wear half of cost what Ana believes to be the obscene amount of $540. In the glamorous world of Hollywood, that would be considered a bargain. To her multi-billionaire husband it's the equivalent of a nickel. On the way to fuck, Christian tells her not to pee and "My subconscious looks up from her book - The Complete Works of Charles Dickens, Volume One - with alarm." No. Goddamn it, James, NO. YOU DID NOT JUST SPECIFY THE TITLE OF THE BOOK HER SUBCONSCIOUS IS READING. THAT IS FUCKING RETARDED. Why is is this being allowed? Why hasn't every keyboard and writing implement in her home been confiscated?

During fuck time, Christian handcuffs Ana's wrists to her ankles. It's a good thing he's her husband and not her Dom (you can NEVER be both), because he puts these handcuffs on way too tight for anything remotely resembling safe play. Later when he takes them off he will have to rub feeling back into all her extremities, and she will wind up with deep bruising from it. She is very lucky she didn't have permanent nerve damage. For anyone who is still foolish enough to be reading this book for sex advice, I beg of you to ignore this entire scene, it is extremely dangerous.

After the sex (and an orgasm that leaves her sobbing. SOBBING), she heads to the bathroom for that piss she wasn't allowed to take earlier, and is incensed to discover that Christian has left hickeys all over her chest. How she managed to not notice this while it was happening is anybody's guess. It is obvious that Christian has marked her like this ON PURPOSE in order to prevent her from ever sunbathing again. Her reaction to this temporary problem, which actually could easily be fixed except for the fact that Ana has apparently never heard of MAKE UP, is on par with how a normal person would react to being chloroformed and waking up to find their entire body has been covered in tattoos depicting their mom fucking various farm animals. She throws a hairbrush at him and runs out of the room where they proceed to have a massive screaming match on the deck. I honestly can't remember what makes her finally calm down, but then they fuck and everything is fine.

The next day they go into town and everything out of Ana's mouth irritates the living fuck out of me. Christian  wants to buy some art for the new house, and Ana is totally freaked out because she doesn't "know how" to buy art. Let me help you with that difficult procedure, Ana. The best way to buy art is to go look at some art, pick out something that you like, and then FUCKING BUY IT. You aren't running a fucking gallery, you twat, you are decorating your own goddamn house. Jesus Christ. Eventually she picks out some paintings of peppers that she likes and is shocked, SHOCKED at their astronomical cost of 5 thousand euros each. Again, for Christian this is pocket change, but the fact that her plan is to hang this fine art in her kitchen leads me to kind of agree with her - if you are going to ruin your pepper paintings with grease and smoke, you can probably find paintings of peppers for about 5 euros each at a nearby IKEA. All day long Christian has been fretting about the bruises on her wrists from the handcuffs he doesn't know how to safely use. He decides to solve the problem by buying her a bracelet to cover them up. The bracelet cost him 30 thousand euros. I want to liquefy Ana's eyeballs with my thumbs.

On the way back from super expensive shopping day, Christian gets a call from Seattle - there has been a fire in the server room at Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc. headquarters. Despite suspecting it's arson, Christian inexplicably instructs his people not to call the police or the fire department. This is the same thing he did when a deranged woman with a gun was running around town trying to kill Ana, and short of his company being a secret criminal enterprise or Christian having delusions that he is some kind of vigilante superhero it makes no fucking sense. There's no serious damage thanks to the argon gas fire suppression system. When Ana hears the word argon she thinks "It rings a distant bell from chemistry class - an element, I think." Congratulations, Einstein, argon IS an element! One of the noble gases on the right hand side of your periodic table, a fact I know without looking it up because it's a common element everyfuckingbody has heard of, and which is commonly used as a fire suppressant in server rooms because it doesn't damage the equipment like a water suppression system would. Ana's a girl, you guys! Science is hard! I hate this book worse than E.L. James hates her own gender. Incidentally, if Jack Hyde spent half as much time looking for work as he did trying to kill Christian he'd have another job by now.

So that's the first three chapters. Much like the other book, I took a shit ton of notes about things I hated that I haven't addressed in this review because if I did my reviews would literally be longer than the actual books.  What I'm going to do instead is make some videos as I go along where I talk about some of the other terrible stuff that bothers me, usually things that happen again and again on every page and do nothing to advance the plot. I'll post them as supplemental material on my YouTube channel. There is also a video up of me reading and reacting to the first chapter I read, which StereoNinja was kind enough to sift through a half hour of footage and edit together about five minutes of me yelling into an empty room. I hope you enjoy it:

Maryland, My Maryland

I have not stopped crying all day today.

The Fifty Shades readers are probably familiar with my best friend H-Town, but in case anyone is not, let me tell you about her. H-Town and I have known each other more than 16 years since we started college together at Ohio University. We were pretty much instant friends because we are both ridiculous, and also because once you've met her it is almost impossible to not be friends with her. She is intelligent, hysterically funny, loving, loyal, creative, talented, spontaneous, thoughtful - really everything you could possibly ever want in a friend. These days, H-Town is a journalist living in Maryland. She works for a company that does work she truly believes in, and when she's not doing that, she's usually volunteering or doing stuff with the church she recently helped found, or on stage doing improv and killing audiences with her incredible gift for both general humor and physical comedy. She is a devoted wife and a brilliant mother to her two year old daughter. She is also a lesbian.

When H-Town and her (also amazing) wife A-Town got married ten years ago, the government was not in the business of high-fiving gay people on their life choices (a line I've stolen from another awesome lesbian I know). They only got to do it legally a few years ago when it became possible in DC. They did it just before their daughter was born and got to have both their names on her birth certificate. Today they could do it in the state where they live.

It's a subject that is hard for me to discuss with people. It's important to be a good advocate for what is right, but every time someone tries to explain to me why my best friend and one of the best people I've ever known should be treated as a second class citizen in this country using "facts", the first thing that pops into my head to say is "Are you high? What the fuck is wrong with you?" which is neither helpful nor a cogent argument. But I really and truly can't wrap my head around the idea that this is a political issue or even that it should be open for discussion. To me it's very simple: does Citizen A have exactly the same rights and protections under the law as Citizen B? No? THEN FIX IT BECAUSE THAT IS BULLSHIT. Either that or go back and cross out that part where it says "All men are created equal" because clearly you don't actually mean it and it's not particularly funny when it's being used as a punchline.

Don't get me wrong, I advocate when I can. But I feel like I start way too many sentences "Well, my best friend is a lesbian" and it would be great if I didn't need to step in and try to change people's minds every time I mention her to strangers and I got to say "My best friend is a journalist" or "My best friend is a mom" just as often because I don't have to keep explaining to people what "civil rights" means. We're getting there.

Yesterday, the people of Maryland got it right.
The people of Maine got it right.
The people of Washington State got it right.

I have never been happier or more proud. Look how happy they have made my best friend:

50 Heaves Drier

H-Town and amberance read and review 50 Shades Darker so you don't have to.

me: How can a book as ridiculous as this one have jumped the shark?
 it should not have been able to get more stupid
AND YET

H-Town: IT IS SO DUMB
I am running out of ways to describe how much I hate it

Chapter 13 opens with Ana facing down Leila who is standing there in Ana's kitchen pointing a gun at her. To Ana's credit, she does repeatedly wonder if Ethan is ok. It is the only thing I'm willing to give her credit for in this entire chapter. Ana asks Leila if she's alone, touching off a repetition of the word "alone" from Leila as though the record is skipping, then asks for the gun causing a disturbing gollumesque scene of Leila petting it and insisting it's all she has left. Leila's movements are described as "unnatural" and James would have us believe she's never heard of the word inadequate: "'In-ad-e-quate.' She tests the word, sounding it out, seeing how it feels on her tongue." Leila is one very sad android.

Suddenly, Christian and Taylor burst through the door to save the day like knights in shining douche water. BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY DID. I can't even be mad anymore. It's like I have battle fatigue. When Christian comes in the room, Leila goes into automated submissive mode. She immediately puts down the gun, drops to her knees, puts her hand on her thighs, and points her eyes at the floor. I am actually still naive enough to think this is a good thing - the threat is eliminated, everyone can relax. Everyone, that is, except Ana: "Christian's expression is raw, full of some unnamed emotion. It could be pity, fear, affection...or is it love? No, please, not love!" Good god, the word you are looking for is COMPASSION. It should be in the thesaurus you have shoved up your snatch, right next to pity in fact. But no, everything in this universe and in every unseen parallel universe revolves around ANA, so instead we are treated to NINE PAGES worth of Ana thinking, both to herself and out loud, that Christian doesn't want her anymore because he is in love with a filthy waif on the floor of her apartment who ANYONE can see is in desperate need of someone to help her. EXCEPT FOR ANA.

me: really, all i have to say about the entire chapter is exactly what christian said to her
"This is not about you, Ana"
because OH MY FUCK WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER

H-Town: dumb stupid crap

me: some of my notes:
HOLY ASS SPACKLE you know what she means.
YOU SELF CENTERED TURD POPSICLE
I LOATHE YOU YOU STUPID ASSHOLE CUNTWAD BITCH TACO

H-Town: those are epic

me: I wanted to take the gun and shoot Ana myself

H-Town: yes, I was thinking, "Shoot! Hurry, shoot!"

me: get out of the apartment! no! get out of the apartment! no! get out of the apartment!
"I think he's trying to convey some sort of message"
ACTUAL FUCKING LINE (Christian tells Ana to leave the apartment FOUR TIMES before that sentence appeared. And in the end, Taylor had to pick her up and carry her outside.)

Downstairs, Ana finds out to her relief that Ethan had just got there and had never been in the apartment. She promptly bursts into tears (because Christian might love Leila, not because she narrowly escaped being shot). She tells Taylor, she TELLS Taylor - I'm repeating this because you'll need it later - that she and Ethan are going to go get a drink. Conveniently there is a bar directly across the street, and they sit, we are told, "by the window". They proceed to get drunk whilst Ana tells Ethan all about Leila and how sad she is that Christian is probably about to leave her. Once she is good and loaded (alcohol being the perfect balm for the "hideous blossoming pain" in her heart), Ethan walks her home, where she finds Christian has worked himself into a frenzy wondering where she was because she'd left her purse in the car.

H-Town:he couldn't find her
IN A BAR ACROSS THE STREET FROM HER APT
yet he can stalk her in every other way?

me:oh that was a great line
"I couldn't even track you!"
Tomorrow they will be installing a GPS locator inside her head to fix that problem

H-Town: well, he's tried installing himself into her vagina enough times
HEY-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

me: BOOM

After Ana breaks down, they go through another insane round of co-dependant bullshit showing us once again that they both are entirely too insecure for an adult relationship and also that they never, ever listen to what the other has to say. Please don't leave me! No, you don't leave! No YOU don't leave! Which goes on until finally, inexplicably, Christian gets down in the same submissive posture Leila had been in earlier.

me: So I'm very confused at the end of 13/beginning of 14 what submissive Christian was all about

H-Town: desperation?
not a clue

me: she's not in the lifestyle. that reaction would make no sense to her. and didn't

H-Town: well, no one said Christian was smart
besides Ana, anyway
a pencil would seem smart to Ana

Chapter 14 consists entirely of a conversation that is so bizarre and goes absolutely nowhere, I wound up taking almost no notes for the entire first half of it. But eventually we find out this: the reason Christian is so afraid Ana will leave, and the reason all his submissives have looked just like Ana, is because that is what his mother looked like, and as a sadist, he needs them to look that way so he can pretend he's whipping his terrible, terrible mother. And then apparently fucking her afterward. I don't even know anymore.

me:let's see, blah blah blah melodrama
this entire chapter needs to die in a fire.
every single word of it
oh right, after pages and pages of oh my poor broken damaged christian i must save him! then she's like "You're a fucking sicko!"
MAKE UP YOUR DAMN MIND

H-Town: "i screw little girls who look like my crackwhore mom"
nice, real nice

me: i can't even process that. as a participant in the lifestyle, that she would even fucking go there is too insulting for me to think about it

H-Town: and then she closes it out with a cherry on top "deviant sexual life style"
FUCKING FUCKITY FUCK FUCK HAMMER
Eat a bowl of whale dicks, EL

me: Mommy issues is not a some kind of common problem in this community
but H-Town, there is only one way he can be sure that she won't run away from him

H-Town: mawwiage

Seriously, he proposes. And the reason he proposes is so that he'll stop being afraid that Ana might run away now that she knows he has mommy issues and doesn't understand the term sadist.

H-Town: no one ever runs from marriage, Amber
NO ONE (this is funnier if you know that I have planned to get married three times in my life, and then turned around and decided NOT to do that three times.)

me: FIVE GODDAMN WEEKS, first of all
and yeah

H-Town: because they are teens

me: Christian lives in a magical fantasyland where no one has ever gotten divorced
Then more eating
I'm hungry, but you said something i don't like so now I'm not hungry

H-Town: and then THEY FIGHT AGAIN
SUCK A BAG OF SHIT

me: oh AND
James calls macaroni and cheese "nursery food"
I took personal exception to that
and it proves that she's never met a live American in her entire life
because ALL AMERICANS love mac and cheese FOREVER
we DEEP FRY that noise and call it a delicacy

The fight starts when Ana tells Christian that she was having a drink with Ethan that whole time she was "missing", and Christian immediately turns into a jealous rage monster. It continues with her asking in an accusatory tone what he'd been doing with Leila that whole time, and then gets an answer for which she is legitimately upset.

me: i liked the part where she was all "two can play at this game"
and tries to make him jealous about Ethan
I wrote in my notes "everyone is blindingly jealous all the time because love should make you feel angry and paranoid constantly"
in that fight though, i do have to say
seriously, you gave her a bath?

H-Town: BUT SHE WAS SO DIRTY AND IN NEED OF HELP!
whatever Christian, you just wanted to see her boobs and cootch again
just be honest

me: i hope you don't mind i GAVE HER YOUR CLOTHES
has he even met Ana?

H-Town: I ogled and touched her in the tub, then gave her your clothes
Now, suck my dick because it's dreamy and covered in Mac n Cheese and I'm Christian Grey

me: she freaks out when total strangers eye fuck him from 100 yards away, but no, go ahead and dress your ex lover that almost just killed me in my clothes, I'm cool with it

H-Town: oh, earlier she had a sentence about "whipping and caning and shit"
and I thought she'd said "Whipping and canning.'
And I thought, now there's a pastime
whipping, while canning some veggies for the winter
pleasure and pain

me: hang on I'll hit you again in a minute, i just have to finish canning these apricot preserves

H-Town: "Smells delicious! NOW HIT ME AGAIN, BITCH."
aaaand scene

me: S and Martha Stewart

After the fight, Ana storms off to go to bed and winds up in a Lifetime Movie Network special.

me: So much to process!
here let me just crumple up dramatically on the bathroom floor and sob like they do in the movies
I've cried on the bathroom floor too, but not over an abusive boyfriend playing happy tub time with a crazy broad and them asking me to marry him right after
usually it's just because i drank too much
sob sob "why did i drink 9 margaritas?"
for example
so, Chapter 15
sad sad christian has a scary dream because Ana was thirsty (Ana gets up to get a drink, and in the 5 minutes it takes her to do this, Christian somehow magically knows in his sleep that she has left the bed and therefore starts having a nightmare.)

H-Town: She was SO FAR AWAY

me: how did his body know she left while he was still sleeping?

H-Town: his penis went on a journey to Great Vagina Cave, but it wasn't there so he freaked out

me: "she's gone! quick! START THE HORROR SHOW BEFORE SHE COMES BACK!"
also apparently she has to lay in bed all night long no matter what so christian can find his happy place until the end of time i guess?
she's going to have to start wearing Depends to bed

All is forgotten from the fight earlier because you see guys? He NEEDS her. So they fuck first and then talk about their feelings. They stay up so long talking about them that she winds up being late to work in the morning.

me: before she left for work
he says she should marry him because "we can get to know each other then"

H-Town: oh my god yes
Because that's how marriage works
I met A-Town two days before we got married
We like excitement and awkward discussion

me: that's totally the best order for that to happen
you should have had the baby first, then met her, then got married immediately, then got to know each other
you failed

H-Town: She's late to work and Jack is an angryface and he wants her to type up a letter he wrote.
W T F
He actually wrote a letter by hand despite having a computer then he wants her to type it up

me: this dude is allegedly in publishing?

H-Town: COMPUTERZ R HARD

me: also, make 100 copies of that and snail mail them to all our authors.
don't send them an email or anything, they'd never see that because writers don't use computers either
I like how we're supposed to think Jack is an asshole because he expects her to show up on time and do her job

H-Town: and she still fucks away with time emailing Christian

me: whatevs, i was only 15 minutes late, why can't i email my boyfriend all day and constantly take personal calls? (In the course of the day, after she was already late to work on her 8th day at this job, she takes calls from Jose, Ethan and Mia. In the conversation with Ethan, she calls her boss "nasty and ugly", then realizes he's looking right at her. Classy.)

H-Town: We all know work is for working, and for gchatting about stupid books.

me: he wants me to get coffee and bring him lunch? what am I, his assistant?
signed,
Ana Steele, assistant to Jack Rapist Hyde
also, she won't use her blackberry no matter how many fucking times Christian tells her, therefore TIME TO FIGHT
this line was awesome "I make my way to the copy machine - which, of course, is suffering from a paper jam - and when I've fixed it, I find it's out of paper."
must have been jammed with that fancy imaginary paper i guess

H-Town: "Oh hey, there's my hairbrush!"

me: "christian must have left my underwear in there"
it's suffering from a jam jam.
never do whipping and canning in the copy room

Ana spends the entirety of the day complaining that her angry boss is asking her to do things, every single one of which is part of her job description. We are supposed to feel that her boss is unreasonable, and that this is because he is angry at her not for being late and then refusing to work, but for having a boyfriend. Because she actually has to do some work for once, several of Christian's emails go unanswered. He panics that something terrible must have happened to her because no one in this book understands how working works. And then, of course, James ends the chapter with something terrible about to happen to her. After hours when the office is deserted, her creepy boss corners her in the kitchen, closes the door behind him and: "His lips twitch into a grotesque smile, and his eyes gleam deep, dark cobalt. 'At last, I have you on your own,' he says, and he slowly licks his lower lip."

H-Town: did you read chapter 16? with Jack McCreepy RapeHyde

me: no not yet
I am looking forward to that because at the end of 15 I wrote "Rapist boss is rapey"

H-Town: yeah, wait til you read that chapter you will want to set something else on fire

me: one other thing, from when she's zoning out at lunch wondering if she should marry an abusive stalker who wants to fuck his dead mom

H-Town: i skimmed that section SO HARD

me: he needs to learn little things, like empathy and boundaries
LITTLE THINGS
he needs to learn little things, like how to be a HUMAN BEING
he's completely out of control and can't relate to other people at all, but hey, no big whoop
even now I'm still stunned that people think this is a romance

H-Town: I saw someone reading it on a Kindle the other day and I wanted to knock it out of their hands like I was blocking them from a bullet or something all slo-mo
NOOOOOOOOO *slap*
then the crowd nearby applauds

me: you should get a medal for that
maybe this is why i suck at relationships.
because i keep forgetting the rules
abuse is romantic and being rich excuses you from being a douchebag

H-Town: "Oh Amber, I love you."
"I'm stalking you."
"LET'S BANG."
that's how it always is

me: in all fairness, that last part is basically true
"Hi Amber, I have a pulse!"
"Well then do me!"

H-Town: You're not like that
You're much more nuanced.
"Hi Amber, I have a pulse. Wanna do it?"
"Sure!"
see?

me: you caught me. I just wanted to use "do me" in a sentence

50 Bags of Douche

I read and review Fifty Shades of Grey so you don't have to.

You know what's good about this book? Nothing. Except that I am three chapters away from finishing it.

Chapter 21 opens with Ana waking up alone in Christian's bed. She goes looking for him and finds him in his study, on the phone, brusquely saying a bunch of businessy sounding words so we will know he is a busy and important man. When he gets off the phone he fucks her on his desk. Wait, scratch that. When he gets off the phone they have a ridiculous conversation that is meant to be coy but isn't, and then he DRAMATICALLY SWEEPS ALL THE PAPERS OFF HIS DESK ONTO THE FLOOR and then fucks her on the desk. HE IS SO DASHING AND IMPULSIVE OH MY GOD. I'm pretty sure this exact scene is in every romance novel written ever, but without the stupefyingly florid language: "Pushing me higher, higher to the castle in the air."/"...as I touch the sun and burn, falling around him, falling down, to a breathless, bright summit on Earth." I don't even kn....WHAT? Everyone is all happy until he asks her if she really needs to go to Georgia, and when she says she does he turns all cold and pissy. IT'S NOT COOL IF YOU VISIT YOUR MOM WITHOUT ME. IT GIVES ME AN ANGRY. I feel like I should put the list of signs a person is being abused up here and cite all the examples of Christian exhibiting those signs, but we'd be here all fucking day, and this is only five pages into the three chapters I plan to cover today.

After she showers, they have breakfast and argue about how she's going to get to Georgia. She says she can buy a plane ticket, on her own, because she's sick of him buying her crap. He says, out loud, "I have a jet." I say, out loud, "I have a migraine." They also argue about her not telling him which publishing houses she's planning on interviewing with that day. I have no idea how this is even a plot point. I get that she wants to achieve something on her own, but he has magical cell phone tracking/future shopping/super stalker powers, it's not like he can't easily find this out and I find it highly unlikely given everything else he's pulled so far that he hasn't done it already. They end the conversation by playing schmoopie and promising to miss each other terribly while she is away. I already know where this is going and so do you. I'm setting the over/under on when he will show up in Georgia at 2.5 days.

Ana has two interviews today: one with a large conglomerate in which she fears she will be just one of many in a sea of editorial assistants, next to which I write "Welcome to real life", the other at a small boutique firm she is much more excited about. She goes into enormous detail about the second interview. She is interviewed by two people: a woman called Elizabeth who has what Ana describes as "pre-Raphaelite hair" as if the audience for this book were the same as the audience for classical paintings (I was just barely able to restrain myself from immediately getting up and shaving my head) and a man called Jack who is way hip, which you can tell because he has a ponytail and earrings and he doesn't even wear a tie! She spends much more time describing Jack than she does Elizabeth and feels unsettled after the interview despite it seeming to have gone well. I have several theories:

• He is going to heart her and be creepy like almost every other man she knows.
• He is going to not be creepy and turn out to be a good boss and mentor, but Christian is going to ruin everything with irrational jealousy.
• Christian has already gotten to him and he feels like he has to hire her OR ELSE.

When she gets home, she confronts Kate about constantly winding Christian up, and Kate again admits to doing this intentionally and insists that creating jealousy is the key to a long and happy commitment, while at the exact same time warning her that Christian might be dangerous and questioning whether she is running to her mother to escape from him. Hey Kate, if you're worried your friend might be in a relationship she feels she needs to escape from maybe INCITING JEALOUSY in this potentially abusive monster is NOT THE BEST OPTION. Moreover, whether Christian does or doesn't have commitment issues is NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS. Ana admits that the only time they seem to get along is when they're screwing, to which Kate replies "If that's going well, then that's half the battle." Now, I'm the last person who is going to argue that satisfying sex isn't vital to a relationship, but this seems to imply that satisfying sex is pretty much how you know you ARE in a good relationship and that...that just isn't true. Kate apparently has yet to experience the glory of hate fucking someone you otherwise can't stand. I'm kind of sad for her.

Ana heads to her room to email Christian and then sits there staring at the screen waiting for him to reply. That's not me being sarcastic, that is actually in the book: "I sit and glare at the screen. Christian's responses are usually instantaneous. I wait...and wait, and finally I hear the welcome ping from my inbox." She sat there and did nothing but stare at her inbox for 14 fucking minutes. I'm not sure what's more idiotic, that, or that fact that usually Christian is doing the exact same thing yet we are expected to believe that he is a very busy and important man. INSTANT. MESSENGER. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

That evening, Kate drops her off at the airport, where she discovers that once again Christian can't help himself from meddling in her affairs and has upgraded her to first class. And I realize that that is a very nice thing to do on the surface, but the way I'm seeing it is that she is constantly telling him that those sorts of behaviors make her uncomfortable, and he is repeatedly ignoring her wishes. Therefore, this isn't a nice thing to do, it's just another way he's attempting to control her entire life and another reason why he doesn't deserve any of the trust she's given him. Also, this is more of the stalking: she never told him what flight she was on. He's got to be either hacking her email or tracking keystrokes, right? Because otherwise he's hacked into the booking systems of every airline that flies out of Seattle and I don't even want to think about that.

In Chapter 22, Ana gets a manicure and a massage in the first class lounge, which makes me wonder why she's at the airport so fucking early, and that is saying something because I am pretty insane about making sure I get to the airport early. She's also drinking a shit ton of champagne again, causing her "to forgive Christian and his intervention" or make excuses for him to justify his behavior, depending on how you look at it. She then gets on her magical FutureBook "hoping to test the theory that it works anywhere on the planet." Holy fuck, Ana, let me help you with that. It DOESN'T work anywhere on the planet. It works anywhere that has WI-FI. Places such as FUCKING AIRPORTS. Even my boss understands this and without going into too much detail, the man is NOT GOOD with computers and the internet (OK, one example: "Do you know how to get a Facebook?"). She emails him about her first class lounge activities and gets an immediate reply. See if you can guess which one of these lines was in his response:

• I'm glad you are enjoying yourself.
• I hope you have a safe flight.
• I bet your nails look as lovely as the rest of your beautiful hands.
• Who was massaging your back?

She replies that a very nice and attractive young man massaged her back and she enjoyed it thoroughly. She leaves out the part where she thinks he's gay (incidentally, she has made this assumption based on the fact that he has a tan - I did not realize this was the universal sign for "queer"). And then she thinks to herself "Oh, he's going to flip out". I would like to take this opportunity to remind you than only a few hours ago she was yelling at Kate for doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING SHE JUST DID, and to point out that this is the kind of behavior you would normally expect to see from a girl in junior high. She then continues being a complete asshole by being on her Blackberry after being told to put it the fuck away. SHE IS IN LOVE, THE RULES DO NOT APPLY TO HER. Her idiotic plan works - he goes into a rage and threatens to lock her in a crate. She is all, oh gee whiz, I'm super sorry that I made you all mad 'n stuff, which she absolutely is not because it was her stated intention to do so, and then he tells her to get the motherfuck off her Blackberry, saving me the trouble of screaming that out loud at no one. HAVE I MENTIONED THAT I HATE THIS FUCKING BOOK?

Arriving in Georgia, she meets her mother at the airport and predictably bursts into tears again. Here the author throws in a paragraph that has nothing to do with anything else about whether Ana should invite Christian to Jose's art show the following week (hint: NO). She has not brought this up again through the rest of the chapter and a half I've finished so far. I want to club a baby seal. Ana and her mother go to the beach, where her mom asks her what's up with this guy who has her so upset. Ana is amazed by this insightful question: "How can she tell?" Who knows, Ana? It could be maternal intuition...or it could be the fact that you are CONSTANTLY FUCKING CRYING OVER HIM. Her mother's advice, which for some reason isn't RUN THE FUCK AWAY, is that men are "simple, literal creatures." E. L. James does not appear to think much more of men as a gender than she does of women. Ana finds this to be sound advice: "She is on her fourth marriage. Maybe she does know something about men after all." I can't figure out a way to spin this observation in any way that would make it seem sensible, even to someone as crushingly illogical as Ana.

Ana gets back to her iMpossible to find an extremely long email from Christian, highlighting the intended dynamics of a D/s relationship, which would make absolute sense if not for the fact that Christian is the one saying it and he is constantly violating every single tenet he mentions. The email makes her realize how much she loves him and misses him. They have been apart for less than 24 hours. She emails him back some fucking nonsense while she gets dressed to have dinner with her parents. It takes him two whole minutes to respond to it, and the conversation devolves into frighteningly juvenile cybersex before her mother calls her because they are leaving for dinner. When she gets back, they continue this idiotic exchange until he sends her a final email for the night: "I am having dinner with an old friend now so I will be driving."

On reading that, Ana immediately FREAKS THE FUCK OUT because the only friend he has that she's aware of is the woman who was his Domme, and not only is Ana rabidly jealous of her for no legitimate reason, she is wholly convinced that she is nothing but a predatory child molester who preyed on his horrific early childhood in order to manipulate him and ruin his entire life. I won't debate the appropriateness of seducing a 15 year old, but I would like to point out that this relationship went on for six years, meaning that for half of it he was a legal and consenting adult, and that when it ended he was the exact same age that Ana is now. In a rage she starts googling him looking for photos of him with this woman, which she doesn't find because there aren't any, because nothing sinister is going on here at all - they are FRIENDS. After paging through eighteen pages of search results (who is the crazy stalker now?) she emails him the extremely loaded question of who was he having dinner with and then goes to sleep in despair.

After spending the next day shopping and whatnot with her mother, they decide to go for cocktails. They are drowning themselves in Cosmopolitans. Christian has uncharacteristically not replied to her email all day. When her mother goes to the bathroom, she checks and finds the email she's been dreading, confirming that he did have dinner with THAT EVIL WOMAN and also pointing out (again) that they are just friends. Ana shits a canary. ALL HER FEARS ARE COMING TRUE. She went away for two days and he immediately "runs off to that evil bitch." She unleashes the crazy in a frantic email: "She's not just an old friend. Has she found another adolescent boy to sink her teeth into? Did you get too old for her? Is that the reason your relationship finished?"(Which, by the way, if that were the reason, I can't figure out what she's afraid of - it's not like he's going to suddenly age backwards and become acceptably barely legal to her again.) Seeing as she's so unbelievably upset, she does the reasonable thing and orders another Cosmo. When she gets his reply I find it half reasonable, half terrifying, and 100% what I predicted earlier. Reasonable: I'm not having this conversation with you in an email. Terrifying: BTW, how many cocktails do you plan to have you fucking lush? Wait, can he see her? Holy shit, y'all, THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE. Predictable: GUESS WHO THE FUCK IS IN GEORGIA AT PRECISELY THE BAR SHE AND HER MOTHER HAVE GONE TO FOR DRINKS?

He walks over to them to start the next chapter, and she temporarily forgets how angry she was five seconds ago. She is now ecstatic because he came to Georgia for her. She introduces him to her mother. Now, I don't have any children, but if I did, and my impossibly naive daughter's boyfriend who makes her cry ALL THE FUCKING TIME decided to STALK HER ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE CONTINENT, at the very least I would be pointedly polishing my gun and staring at him, assuming I didn't just immediately stab him in the throat by way of introduction. Not Ana's mother, though. Carla is at first speechless, due to his being so breathtakingly handsome, and when she recovers from her awe over the existence of such a beautiful creature, she invites him to sit down for a drink, and then later invites him to have dinner with them the following evening. She then excuses herself so they can have some privacy.

Once she's gone, Ana resumes her anger and she and Christian have a heated conversation about this woman. She insists to him that this woman molested him, abused him, and forced him into a BDSM lifestyle he didn't actually want. Because she knows absolutely everything since she was THERE and SHE SAW IT ALL and he just DOESN'T UNDERSTAND how horrible it was for him. Christian has a different opinion: the relationship was entirely consensual from the beginning. She was never abusive to him in any way - in fact, she saved him from the destructive path he was headed down. She has never been anything but good and kind to him and that is why despite having no sexual relationship any longer, they are still close friends and business partners. Ana's not having any of it. And not only is she unable to accept that this woman isn't a depraved sexual predator, but she's worried there might be an even bigger problem: "Did you love her?" Because, she tells us, if he ever loved her at some point in the distant past BEFORE ANA EVER FUCKING MET HIM, then EVERYTHING WILL BE RUINED. HOW DARE HE HAVE HAD A LIFE AND HAVE FELT FEELINGS BEFORE SHE CAME ALONG? THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.

He doesn't get a chance to answer this before her mother comes back. When she does, he heads back to his room. Her mother is completely fucking smitten with him. Mother of the fucking year Carla encourages Ana to go to him - he is obviously in love with her if he flew all the way there for her on his private plane. All will be well. They just need to talk it out. And, you know, if she needs to spend the night with him, it's all cool. But, you know, let's finish our Cosmos first because that will be excellent for your judgement.

WHAT IN THE ZEBRA RAPING FUCK?

Ana goes to Christian's room, where he is stupid enough to be surprised to see her, and is also on the phone saying more buzzwords because he is super important. When he gets off the phone she is all set to have this out with him, but she can't because he is so overwhelmingly sexy she has to bang him right now. Oh by the way, she mentions a few pages earlier that she's started her period. I find it interesting that the same author who absolutely cannot use the word vagina in a sentence is completely comfortable writing two different scenes of period sex. I am also shocked to find out that Ana uses tampons and not pads, since that would involve putting her hands down there which I would have imagined she would find terrifying. (Oh, side note, I was talking to H-Town today and we've decided that every time she uses the phrase "down there" we are going to replace it in our heads with the phrase "special purpose" from The Jerk.) In between the two sex scenes, Ana realizes FINALLY that if the scars on his chest AREN'T chicken pox...it must mean that someone was probably using him as an ashtray at some point. Her immediate reaction is to assume that the person who did this was the woman who was his consensual lover for six years rather than the much more likely candidate of his crack whore birth mother (who by the way, has not been mentioned or wondered about since the GO TO SLEEP part, which is absolutely fucking insane. She did not outline this story before she wrote the book. There's no way. This makes no fucking sense). She is also upset because she thinks if he hadn't met this woman he would totes be "normal" and not a freak: "I just wonder what you would be like if you hadn't met her. If she hadn't introduced you to your...um, lifestyle." Now, I don't have any scientific studies to back this up, but my personal opinion born of my own experience and of other people I know in real life is that he probably wouldn't be any different sexually. He may have come to it later in life, or he may have gotten into a relationship with someone who wasn't compatible in that way and it would have remained just a fantasy forever (many, many people are in exactly this situation), but nevertheless, the interest in bondage and domination was probably always lurking there somewhere. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong and most people get into this lifestyle by first being dragged kicking and screaming by someone else. But somehow I doubt it, and if they could talk, so would all of my Barbie dolls who used to get tied up when I was young. I really can't stress this enough: BDSM sex is something people gravitate toward because they like it, not because someone fucked them up. Anyway, he does his best to disabuse her of the notion that his former lover is the cause of his overall fucked upedness. She was a grounding influence that kept him from becoming a person just like his birth mother and she most certainly did not put out cigarettes on his chest. She is a trusted friend he goes to for advice when he can't talk to anyone else. Ana still can't (and I suspect never will) accept this, and continues referring to her as "Mrs. Pedo" until Christian forces her to drop it. He instead goes for a much lighter subject: all those times when he was still learning the ropes when he paid for sex. She is predictably judgmental about it and idiotically upset that she can't say or do anything that would shock him in a similar way, because the goal of every healthy relationship is to constantly one up each other about things the other person finds appalling. But wait! As it turns out she's wrong! She's done plenty of things that shocked him to the core! Why, she wore his underwear once when hers was in the wash OH EM GEE! And she calls him by his first name like she's some kind of equal! Once she even went to dinner at his parents house without wearing any panties! GOOD LORD THIS WOMAN IS OUT OF FUCKING CONTROL HOW WILL HE EVER KEEP UP? This abomination of a chapter ends with them going to sleep together once again, and despite the fact that basically everything he's said to her the entire night is upsetting and the exact opposite of the traits she appears to be looking for in a mate SHE HAS NEVER BEEN SO FUCKING HAPPY.

Three more chapters, you guys. Just three chapters left for me to get through without committing murder or permanently destroying my vision with some sort of sharp implement. I better get a fucking medal for this.

50 Gasps of Horror

I read and review Fifty Shades of Grey so you don't have to.

Hey you guys, remember that one time when I was all "I'm going to read a horrible book for you so that you won't have to read it yourself"? I will not be doing that again. This book is making me question our collective worth as a species.

Chapter 14 opens with Ana waking up with a start from a wet dream about Christian Grey. She is shocked by this and says: "I didn't know I could dream sex." Holy hell, Ana. Welcome to what EVERYONE ELSE has been doing since puberty. When she imagines whether real life will be like what she dreamed, her inner goddess becomes a cheerleader and starts jumping around with pom poms. I want to say you can't make this stuff up, but obviously you can because E.L. James did.

Today is graduation day for Ana and Kate, or as I like to call it, the day earning a college degree became a fucking joke. I know I haven't mentioned how perfect Kate is in a while (though Ana certainly fucking has) because I'd gotten tired of it, but I feel like I ought to tell you that she's valedictorian because of course she is. Ana's dad arrives and the two of them head for the graduation ceremony. I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but again, so many other things sucked worse that I skipped it: Christian Grey is the commencement speaker at Ana's graduation. This is something I was annoyed to notice in the first chapter, when he says "until we meet again" as Ana's leaving his office and she thinks "When will I ever see him again?" after they JUST DISCUSSED the fact that he was giving the commencement address when she walks. Ana sits in a sea of hundreds of other people who are wearing the exact same outfit as she is, but since this story in no way resembles real life, when Christian walks out onto the stage he notices her immediately. Ana notices that he's wearing a tie. The tie. Another small part of my heart dies. I will be a soulless husk by the time I've finished reading this book.

As the head of the school begins his speech, Christian stops looking at her and she has a full blown panic attack. Why won't he look at her? Has she made him wait too long for an answer? Did he change his mind about her? HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS, SHE'S OBVIOUSLY RUINED EVERYTHING. It can't possibly have anything to do with, oh, I don't know, HE'S ABOUT TO GIVE A COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS. Surely that's an easy thing to do without mentally preparing for it - simple as taking a shit! HE SHOULD BE LOOKING RIGHT AT HER THE ENTIRE TIME SO SHE CAN TELL US HOW UNCOMFORTABLE IT MAKES HER. Jesus Christ, this character could not possibly be any more self-absorbed.

Kate's speech is next and her theme is "What Next After College?" - the most brilliant and original topic ever covered in a valedictory speech. That Kate is AMAZEBALLS, y'all. Whatever will she think of next? Afterwards, the chancellor rises to introduce Christian. Ana thinks: "Holy shit...Christian's going to give a speech." HENCE THE TERM "COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER", ANA. It's what a commencement speaker does: GIVE A SPEECH. Ana also claims that the chancellor talks about Christian's extraordinary accomplishments, and then lists CEO of his own company, self-made man, and exactly nothing else. Wow, I am BLOWN AWAY by that impressively long list of superhero level brilliant accomplishments. You should jump up and yell "HE CAN ALSO FLY A HELICOPTER! AT NIGHT!" Christian begins to speak and every woman in the entire pacific northwest is enraptured (her word, not mine). He thanks the university for the opportunity to address the graduates and gives an awe inspiring speech about their bright future and following their dreams and how the world is their oyster. Just kidding - he gives a speech about how people around the globe are starving and how the university (with funding from his charity) is trying to develop sustainable methods of farming. Which is very nice and all, but a commencement speech is meant to address and inspire the graduates, not trumpet your own charitable endeavors. But of course if he'd done that, we wouldn't have found out this: "I have known what it's like to be profoundly hungry." WHAT THE FUCK YOU GUYS? DID YOU EVEN SEE THAT COMING? THIS IS EXPLOSIVE NEWS. Ana is, as always, thrown for a fucking loop because no matter how many times she foreshadows something by wondering about it, she's always surprised by the glaringly obvious.

After the degrees are conferred, Kate comes to find Ana to tell her that Christian would like to speak to her. Ana heads back stage and as soon as Christian sees her he grabs her by the arm, propels her into an empty locker room, locks the door behind them, and begins to interrogate her about why she hasn't answered any of his multiple texts and e-mails that he's been frantically sending since last night. Nevermind that she's been busy all day, you know, GRADUATING and probably spending time with her family, who I have been made to understand usually come around for things like watching you graduate (I didn't actually bother to go to mine, but I've heard this is how it works), she SHOULD HAVE been checking her e-mail every three minutes in case he sent her something. By the way, he's not locking her in rooms with him and interrogating her on her whereabouts for the last 12 hours because he's an obsessed fucking psycho, he was merely worried about her because she'd driven home in her death trap of a car (the one that got her to his hotel that is only five miles away from her home perfectly fine). She takes exception to this because it's not a death trap: "Jose regularly services it for me." OH SHIT Y'ALL. JOSE FIXES HER CAR. FOR THIS TRANSGRESSION HE MUST DIE. She tells him she needs to get back to her stepdad, who she thinks is helpless and wandering around aimlessly for some reason.

She goes and finds her dad, and the next thing you know, someone has scooped her up off the ground and is twirling her around. It is Ethan, Kate's older brother, who presumably is affectionate with Ana because he thinks of her as a little sister as well, given that the author doesn't take pains to point out any creepy vibe about him like she does with every other man Ana knows. The three of them chat a bit, and the next thing you know, Kate is standing there, and Christian is standing right next to her. Now, throughout the whole book Kate has gone back and forth between not liking or trusting Christian Grey, and inexplicably encouraging Ana to pursue him. I have no idea what game Kate is playing here, but after she greets Ana's dad, she takes it upon herself to introduce him to Christian like this: "Have you met Ana's boyfriend? Christian Grey." I don't know who the fuck would do something like that, especially knowing that Ana hasn't told her family she's seeing anyone at all. It's just a dick move. She also introduces Christian and her brother. Christian stares Ethan right the fuck down because he was touching Ana when he first walked over AND FOR THIS HE MUST ALSO DIE. Ana's father, Ray, is understandably wary of the multi-billionaire media magnate and his inexplicable interest in Ray's naive, clueless, airhead of a daughter. He asks how they met and Christian explains that it was when she interviewed him for the school paper. Ray is skeptical. "Didn't know you worked on the student newspaper, Ana." EXACTLY. RIGHT ON, RAY. Nail this stalker motherfucker to the wall! But no. Christian is too smart for that. He distracts Ray from this abomination of a relationship by changing the subject to fly fishing. Seriously. After that, everything is all good. Christian is a fisherman! Obviously his intentions are pure! He's a fine upstanding young man! This relationship is CLEARLY all on the up and up. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

You guys know who else is a fisherman? My dad. You know who would never in a million years fall for bullshit as transparent as that? MY DAD. Also, probably your dad. Also, probably any dad on the fucking planet that didn't have his head shoved up his own ass.

In the meantime, Kate is explaining to Ana that she did what she just did because she "wanted to help" with Christian's "commitment issues". I'm fucking baffled. WHAT commitment issues? HE IS CONSTANTLY FUCKING STALKING HER. Kate maintains that she's just done Ana a favor. She'd have actually been right about that if Ray had punched him in the face and told him to stay the fuck away from her as he should have. Ana gives up on her and goes back to the table where she'd left Ray and his new BFF Christian. When Ray excuses himself to use the bathroom, Christian takes the opportunity to pounce on her and badger her for an answer about whether she will sign the contract. She finally tells him she wants more than that, a real relationship, he more or less tells her that isn't going to happen...and then immediately after that she agrees to be his sub anyway. To me, this entire conversation reads like this:

"You should do what I want."
"But what about what I want?"
"You? You can go fuck yourself."
"In that case, sure, I'll do whatever you want."

What the Christ.

When Ana gets home later, she finally gets around to looking at all the missed e-mails and text messages from Christian. He offers to talk more about the soft limits in the contract. She responds and tells him she can come over tonight. He instantly writes back to tell her he's coming to her instead. When he shows up at the beginning of the next chapter, he's wearing a leather jacket which makes him appear EVEN HOTTER, and is carrying a bottle of champagne. They immediately get into an argument about whether or not she's going to keep the $14,000 books. She thinks they're too expensive to accept, he thinks she's overthinking it and orders her not to. Think that is.  "How can I not think?" she asks herself and is answered by her subconscious: "You can pretend to be a car, like his other possessions." What. The Fuck. Does that even mean. I don't even...

Christian opens the bottle of champagne thusly: "He picks up the champagne, takes off the the foil top and cage, twists the bottle rather than the cork, and opens it with a small pop and a practiced flourish that doesn't spill a drop." This is how EVERYONE opens a bottle of champagne. Not only has everyone seen this done before, but it does absolutely nothing to advance the plot of this story at all. She could have summed this up with "Christian opens the champagne." There! Done and done. You have got to stop it with this shit, James.

Christian sets about chit chatting about mostly random crap. He is doing this to buy time - he is trying to get her drunk off the champagne before they talk about the soft limits so that she won't give it any real thought when they go through them. He is going to freely admit this to her later on and pretend this is somehow for her own good. It isn't, it's simply more manipulation on his part that shouldn't really be going on in any sort of relationship, but particularly not a D/s one. One of the things they chat about is what she's going to do now that she's graduated. She has interviews with several publishing houses for internships, because that's what she wants to do - "something" in publishing. I write in my notes: "Step 1 - DO NOT PUBLISH THIS BOOK." Once she's downed most of the bottle of champagne on her own, they discuss the soft limits - anal, sex toys, bondage, punishment, safewords, pain. He keeps laughing at her because she's never heard of any of these things. Not only is this a jerkstore thing to do, but (and I really can't say this enough) this whole conversation should be proof to him that she is not in any way able to give consent because she has NO IDEA WHAT SHE IS CONSENTING TO. No dice. What he does do is tell her that he'd be willing to "try" something more. Which probably won't work. But he'll try. Even though it won't work. Like, maybe, say, one night a week. So, once a week he will grudgingly attempt to be her boyfriend. YAAAAYYYY ALL HER DREAMS ARE COMING TRUE! OH BUT WAIT..."I have one condition...You graciously accept my graduation present to you." Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, have you guys guessed what it is yet? I'll give you a hint: it's outside in the driveway. He's bought her...A NEW CAR! (you just read that in a game show announcer voice, right?) It's an Audi. I was so close, you guys. I should have known, he's got about nine other Audis. She says she can't accept it except as a loan, which pisses him off, so he takes her in her room and fucks her. It's awful and doesn't need to be recounted except for this part when she's undressing him: "...sliding my fingers under the waistband, feeling the hair in his oh-so-happy trail." OH NO YOU DIDN'T. OH NO YOU DID NOT.

Chapter 17 is the part where he admits to deliberately getting her drunk before discussing the contract and in the same breath, the very same breath, goes on to lecture HER about the need for complete honesty. He also makes a joke about kidnapping her, causing me to write in letters large enough to fill half a sheet of paper "YOU ALREADY DID KIDNAP HER." How the fuck are grown women swooning over this douche canoe? She rolls her eyes at this joke. Now, earlier she'd rolled her eyes at him about food and he'd threatened her that if she did it again he'd take her over his knee. So he insists she needs to be spanked for this. She's CLEARLY fucking terrified, and points out, rightfully I might add, that she hasn't signed the contract, to which he responds "I told you what I'd do" as if this were how life actually works. Once again, I find myself translating what she's written as an attempt to be romantic with what she's actually saying, which is not:

"I'm going to do something you don't like or want against your will."
"But it's against my will. You just said that."
"Not important. I already said I was going to do it, so that's what's happening."

THIS IS NOT OK, THIS IS SO NOT OK, WHY WHY WHY IS THIS HAPPENING OVER AND OVER AGAIN? WHY ARE SO MANY WOMEN READING THIS BOOK AND NOT NOTICING THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THIS?

Right, so, spanking that she doesn't want, followed by more fucking because in all fairness to the book, that's generally what happens after a spanking, followed by Christian goes home, followed by Ana fucking falls apart, one of the few reactions she's had to anything that made sense. She calls her mom crying, who tells her DTMFA (this is Dan Savage speak for "dump the motherfucker already"), then Kate comes home and finds her crying and tells her DTMFA, then she has another stupid IM e-mail conversation with Christian that ends with her telling him she's upset that he always leaves, and then she starts sobbing uncontrollably. Oh my god, Ana, how many signs do you need? Dump the motherfucker already.

She begins to hear some yelling from outside. Kate is screaming at someone to get the fuck out of their house. Christian comes busting through the door and finds Ana sobbing, followed by Kate still threatening to throw the asshole out of the house. Christian is not a fan of being yelled at. "Christian raises his eyebrows at her, no doubt surprised by her flattering epithet and her feral antagonism." Oh, come ON. Again with the "look at all the big words I found in my thesaurus" bullshit? FLORID DOES NOT EQUAL CLEVER. CUT IT OUT.

Obviously Ana doesn't want him to go, so after more stupid dialogue, he climbs in bed with her to spend the night, since he never ever ever ever ever does anything like that, but this is the third time now, and of course, despite everything that's gone on today - the holding her captive in a locker room, the insanely jealous reactions to every other man she's ever so much as passed on the street, the deliberately impairing her judgement before discussing something important so he will get his way, the buying her a car after she'd specifically asked him not to, the spanking that she had never consented to and didn't want - after all that, he's there, and it's all forgiven, all of it, because he's spending the night sleeping next to her in a bed.

Please, please let me wake up and find out that this was all a terrible nightmare. I can already see the blog post, "You guys would not BELIEVE this insane dream I had last night about this terrible rapey book that half the women in the world thought was so sexy and brilliant. I mean, can you imagine? Man, dreams are so fucked up sometimes. At least there wasn't a clown for once."

Amberance: Hopeless Romantic

on why I won't be the one to walk away from my pseudo-relationship first:

I could tolerate you for decades if I only have to see you twice a year.

Evidently My Marital Status Is The Correct One

Here's a bit of Valentine related amusement at my expense for the benefit of all you lovers out there - and by "at my expense" I mean "laughed out loud at myself on a crowded train and everyone turned around to look at the cackling crazy woman":

Last week on my way to work, I was doing the crossword that can be found in the back of the morning red paper as I do nearly every day on my way to work. It's generally a pretty simple crossword puzzle - no strange words no one would ever actually use, straightforward clues that don't try to trick you - I can usually complete that and the sudoku puzzle before I get to my stop assuming there were seats when I got on the train or I snagged one when everyone changed trains at Belmont.

Last week though, I found I was stuck almost immediately. The second clue down was a four letter word beginning with "L". The clue read "reason to wed". I stared at the puzzle blankly because I was deeply confused: I was certain that I knew of no word starting with "L" and consisting of four letters that would be a reason to get married. I started thinking of all the reasons I knew to get married in the hopes that it would jog my memory. Pregnancy? Money? Seriously, because I'm sure you all figured it out immediately, but those were really the first two things that popped into my head. Why do people get married? 1. Pregnancy. 2. Money. 3...I couldn't think of a third. I moved on and did some other clues. It wasn't until I got the next across clue which gave me the "O" that the light bulb clicked on in my head. "Love." Love is a reason that people get married. There I sat, my mind having immediately turned to reasons for marriage that were coercive, not even pausing to consider that some people actually get married ON PURPOSE. It summed me up so perfectly. It was a mistake only I could make. Thus making me the hysterical woman on the train jump starting everyone's day with a dose of concentrated crazy. I love being me.

31 Days and Counting

It is one month until my birthday, the most joyous day of the year. Just ask these happy couples.

Death Star: Episode Three

BrownsFan was not a fan of my post critiquing her "nice Death Star" comment. She tried to support her comment by telling me that the Death Star didn't HAVE TO blow up planets, and could instead be used for, say, low income housing (suggestion, BrownsFan: giant homeless animal shelter?). I pointed out that while that sounded nice, the Death Star was designed and built for the express purpose of blowing up planets, and re-engineering it after the fact doesn't make the original idea a good thing. She is determined to justify her position, and has been searching the Internet for material to back up her "nice Death Star" idea. She is not having much luck so far. But in her quest she came across something else and sent me an e-mail the other day that contained this link. It is clearly extremely awesome, though not for justifying the Death Star as a cuddly happy space station. In fact the only way I've found to pair "nice" with "Death Star" in a way that makes sense is a conversation like this.

"Check it out, bro, I carved my pumpkin into the Death Star!"

"Nice."


This would be a reasonable and likely conversation, but not for the original argument. Here is the same conversation, but subbing out the word pumpkin:

"Check it out bro, I carved my marriage into the Death Star!"

"Wait, what?"

Several other responses would work here such as "Dude, that sucks" or "Bummer" or "To hell with that bitch, let's get a beer", but "nice"... it just doesn't fit.