Tyler Durden says… “You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your f**king khakis.” And he’s right. I watched Fight Club this weekend, and Brad Pitt’s character, with his harsh assessment of those who live their lives through the things they own, really opened my eyes to how much materialism bothers me. I live in a generation of pretty boys and glamour girls, all obsessed with the latest shoe, shirt, skirt or sweater. Young people walk around with these little abbreviations emblazoned across chests, butts, watches and wallets. I really could not care less if your purse is the latest $600 Louis Vuitton straight off the arm of some Parisian model – it’s probably a cheap knock-off anyway. You can’t eat it; you can’t sleep in it; it can’t shelter you from the rain. You’re lucky if you get your $40 Juicy Couture lip gloss to fit in it.

Bitch. According to any reputable dictionary, it’s the English word for female dog.  In popular culture, it’s taken on an entirely different meaning – bitch = woman. In earlier use, a bitch was a woman who needed an attitude adjustment. Now, depending on the tone, context or adjective placed in front of it, it can be a term of endearment just as much as it can be an insult. I won’t deny that I sometimes jokingly call my close girl friends “bitch” but it’s hit me that I really shouldn’t do that. The word, no matter how we twist it, is a derogatory term. It isn’t endearing, it isn’t cute and it really shouldn’t be funny. Bitch implies that women are animals, to be trained to follow simple commands and kept on a leash til the owner feels otherwise. But as far as I know, unless she was raised by savages or was forced into a very abusive situation, no woman shits in the yard, sleeps in a kennel or feasts on Kibble and Bits for dinner. Women are not pets, but that’s what calling them “bitch” suggests.

I have a ton of little pet peeves. A lot of them come out of social interaction, or more accurately, people’s inability to interact with others properly. There are people out there with no understanding of common courtesy whatsoever. It drives me crazy; crazy enough to want to pack my bags, and head for the hills.