I have long been a fan of Lennon Murphy, a chick rocker who, yes, is named after that Lennon. She had a solo career, and I discovered her on MTV Rock (remember when that was a thing?!) in high school. I bought her first album and a few later, but she never achieved that same success.

I would eventually go on to start a Lennon fanlisting, which I deleted when I removed the rest of my fanlistings shortly before I switched Web hosts. But her career didn’t keep up. I was sad because I like chicks who rock. It’s also the same reason that I had a Pat Benatar fanlisting — and tattoo!

I had created a Google alert to be updated whenever Lennon popped up because I needed to update my fanlisting, and I must have forgotten to delete it when I deleted my fanlisting. You can imagine my surprise today when I signed in to my email to see that alert, which I had completely forgotten.

But it was awesome!

Lennon is back with a new band and this is their first single and I love it!

So I’ll post about it so you can love it, too!

When I am happy, I feel as though it would be okay if the world ended in this moment. Because I am happy. I am home. Nothing more need happen.

I don’t want to top it. I don’t want to relive it. I want to stay in that moment forever — some part of my conscious existing in the ether even though my life has been cut short.

But it’s not short. It’s perfectly timed if it ends during those moments when I am completely and utterly happy. And I know that the longer I live, the further apart those moments will be, the greater the divide between happy and everything-else will be.

So I’d rather just let go.

Love is a constant. It is your first thoughts in the morning and your last through before falling asleep, where love will visit you in dreamland.

Love is sometimes relentless in its pursuit to dominate your every thought.

Love is in your fantasies and daydreams.

It is gentle sometimes, but it is also fervent, making it difficult for you to think.

Sometimes, you drown in love. Even when you are in the desert, looking for that love oasis, all you can think about is love.

It is not love if it isn’t experienced with passion that makes you feel alive — or on the verge of death.

Love courses, but it also trickles, shaping you as it moves. There is no one or nothing strong enough to resist love’s influence. No one is left untouched by love, least of all me.

I mean, I guess I kinda am, but this isn’t about that.

This post is about my new phone, the HTC Desire. Or Desiree as Facebook calls it because I can’t type “desire” without it tagging her.

I ordered the phone on Thursday morning and it showed up on Friday, Valentine’s Day. What a very sweet gift. I was worried that I wouldn’t love it because the specs aren’t necessarily amazing. They’re not even on par with the Galaxy S III, which V Mo also sells. But at $160, this phone was affordable and an upgrade.

And even if the numbers didn’t seem that impressive, the performance really is nicer. It’s not laggy. Multitasking works better. Many apps that didn’t work well on my One V do now, and it’s compatible with more apps. The smoothness is just so refreshing. NFC, the font-facing cam and dual front speakers are also awesome.

I actually wasn’t super impressed with the app drawer/launcher. HTC has focused on other things, so I went back to Smart Launcher. I just discovered it, and it is smart. It’s intuitive. I love it.

I’ve just completed a workaround to use Android emoticons, which HTC doesn’t seem to like. In the process, I discovered that I’ll get the update for KitKat, which is awesome!

I wish I could take a picture, but the only camera I have is my phone.

Which I will love forever and ever and you can’t stop me so nyeh.

Many moons ago, I wrote a post entitled “7 Truths About Women.” I don’t think many people read the piece because the very first item on the list is something that people don’t understand. But let me back up for a bit.

I am signed up for the ChickAdvisor newsletter. I once won some makeup from the site, actually. It’s a Canadian-based site with a community, reviews and giveaways every week. This week’s newsletter features a giveaway that you can enter by commenting on a post entitled: I Hide This Beauty Routine from the BF – What Do You Keep Secret?

I didn’t even realize this was a giveaway post until now — see how much I pay attention? However, I was curious about the things that other women answered. Indeed, the author herself shared the same “secret” as most commenters.

Hair.

Hair on toes. Hair above the upper lip. Peach fuzz on the body and face. Hair that’s thicker or more coarse than we’re comfortable with. As a whole, the comments talked about all sorts of hair removal and camouflage

• Bleaching
  

  I’d rather be having fun than removing hair.

• Shaving
• Depilatory creams
• Plucking
• Trimming
• Wax
• and more

If you’re a man — or even a woman — and you didn’t realize there were this many ways to deal with hair, consider yourself lucky. No, really.

In reality, women are not fair-free creatures dropped from heaven with skin as soft as a baby’s bottom. We’re not. But we’re expected to achieve this so we invest all sorts of moneys into cosmetics and makeup to try to achieve to these standards, which might just be impossible.

Who’s feeding us these ideas, which so often make us insecure? It’s not men. Men, as it turns out, are not that damned picky. Really.

It’s the media. The media that’s fueled by pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies. The reason they tell us we aren’t enough. We aren’t good enough, thin enough, tall enough or what-have-you enough is because if we believe that, we’ll buy whatever those companies are selling. Magazines exist for the ads. Everything in between those is filler.

It’s not just about hair removal. Lips should be full and red, eyebrows arched, hair perfectly coiffed, skin tanned, nails filed and painted, breasts full and bouncing, skin clear and without imperfections, and we should always look fresh and dewy no matter what real life demands of us. In some ways, men face some of the same expectations. I don’t deny this. This post is not about you, men.

This post is about women who see images on the TV, on billboards, in magazines and online that suggest there are ways to be.  These ways do not typically come naturally. Sure, not every woman deals with toe hair, but if you ask among your friends, you’ll find that many do. Yet, everywhere we look, we’re told these things are not womanly or feminine.

The way we naturally are is not feminine, we are told.

And if we care about that, we spend countless hours trying to obtain the unobtainable. Some people care more than others, and some women care not at all. I envy them. I cannot go a day without shaving, moisturizing and donning expensive underwear. I often wear CC cream because I am so opposed to the natural appearance of my skin. The list of beauty items I’ve reviewed is far smaller than the list of things I’ve tried.

I once wrote this on a forum:

Shaved, waxed, plucked, lotioned, oiled, moisturized, pumiced and scrubbed.. and I still feel kinda icky. Being feminine is so fucking hard.

So when a woman spends more time in front of the mirror or in the shower than her partner likes, it’s because she cares enough about what the media has told her is wrong with herself. Things that are natural but that which she has come to belief are unnatural, perhaps even ugly or making her undesirable. She pays an inordinate amount of time concentrating on herself, sometimes to the point of not being able to enjoy herself, because she’s been taught that everything about her is wrong.

And if you ever made an offhand comment abut how her feet were too rough, the hair on her toes gross or point out the peach fuzz above her lip, you’re contributing to this way. She may spend half of her life in the bathroom with her secret routines because she’s afraid to show you the real, natural her because you buy into this bullshit.

No, you’re not the only one. Actresses, models and singers, pretty much everyone in the public eye goes through these routines. The only difference between those women and myself is they have personal stylists, makeup artists and other helpers to get the work done. I don’t have those people or any of the education and experience they have. So I’m sorry if I don’t measure up.

Wait, no I’m not.

I think it’s ridiculous that a woman’s worth is connected so much to achieving an appearance that is so time consuming. And when she puts in the time? She’s judged for that to.

I think I shall wrap up this rant.

Dear men: understand what’s going on and give women a break.

Dear media: go die in a fire, you fuck faces.

Dear you: you’re beautiful naturally. Nothing is wrong with you, but if you like a little powder and rouge or enjoy the way your legs feel after shaving, go ahead and do it!