While it might seem intuitive to some, others are epic fucktards about the etiquette of the referral process. While Snarketing entries are usually reserved for visual representations of poor marketing, this installment is a little Miss Manners for the referral impaired.

How to Not be a Fucktard in the Referral Process

1. When making a referral to someone, it would be nice if the party receiving the referral hit you up with a “Yo – thanks!” They do not OWE you anything. They do not OWE you a reciprocal referral. They do not OWE you lunch. Hell, they don’t even OWE you thanks. Making a referral involves grabbing Karma by the balls. What comes around goes around.
2. Understand the protocol of the referral. If you’re referring a client to a strategic partner, outline how the relationship will flow. Will YOU manage the relationship? Is it an “open white label” situation? Whose responsibility is billing? Be clear.
3. If someone gives you a referral to a strategic partner, it’s incredibly douchy to go around the person who referred you and ask this new person if you can “deal with them directly.” What you’re saying is, “Wow – this is awesome and I’m glad to have met this person! I’d sure love to ass rape the person who referred me by seeing if I can cut them out of the deal! YEAH!”
4. If you ever find a strategic partner with whom you have a referral arrangement cutting you out of the deal or working some side magic/discount pricing on their own, here’s the easiest way to deal:
   1. Let them know that YOU know what they’ve done.
   2. Hire a shady PI to take compromising pictures of that person with a hooker.
   3. Never do business with them again.
   4. Kicking in the nuts/clam is optional (yet highly rewarding).
5. Karma is a cold hearted bitch, and if you doubt me, go ahead and indulge in any of the asshattery outlined above. 98 pigeons will shit on your freshly-washed car inside of 48 hours.

Here endeth the snark.

So I tweeted @sprint and @sprintcare asking how to get in touch with someone from their marketing department.

Apparently @sprintcare is a bit of a misnomer. No response, even 12 hours later. Their Twitter stream is filled with @ replies to account holders.

What about a potential new one?

My ponder this morning is this: are there ANY good cell service providers out there? We all know that the only reason AT&T has ANY client retention is the iPhone and our propensity for suckling Apple’s technological teat. I want to hear who MY readers have as a cell provider:

• Who you have or had
• What you love/hate
• Why  you’d build a statue in your front lawn to memorialize them or throw them in a room of Sarah Palin fans and a tank of piranhas.

Lay it on me. And maybe @sprintcare really does care and they’re working on getting back to a tech-savvy redhead who’s curious about engaging in a cell provider/client relationship that doesn’t land me in a Utah compound begging for divorce.

I’m headed to a meeting, but hey – I’ll dig into your comments when I’m back. Lay it on me.

Uncharacteristic confusions of it’s and its. Blink-inducing substitutions for shirt and shit. Time becomes tome. Hell is strangely mutated to he’ll (and for this, I blame my iPhone). I’m issuing a shout-out to Microsoft and Apple: the world needs an Idiot Check function (<<which was “cunction” until I corrected it) in any and all word processing applications.

This goes for WordPress’s Spell Check, Mac Mail, Outlook, Entourage, Pages, Word and whatever the hell else you might be using to scrawl your digital correspondence.

Thank god for my readers, as they gently send me DMs and emails with every goddamn typo I make. It’s like having a full-time copyeditor on staff (I’ve even threatened to hire @ShellyKramer for the job). And I love all of you for the proofreading love you so openly give. But if I can have a “phone” (term used loosely, especially given my current disdain for Apple) that allows me to check the weather, complete PayPal transactions and check 93 email accounts, why can’t someone come up with an actual Idiot Check for any application that involves TYPING? Yeah, yeah – I know about the “grammar check” function in Word. Have you SEEN its version of a well-constructed English sentence? Christ. Snoop Dogg has a better grasp on English than the grammar check function.

Just a rant. Weigh in as you always do. And by the way, I’ve been so busy the last two days that my iPad showed up yesterday. It’s still in the box. Total. Fail.

PS: if you find a typo above, lemme know. FML.

While tomorrow might have a Snarketing post waiting for you (and I’m not tooting my own horn by saying it’s a doozy), today, I’d like you to tell me a story.

On Monday, I’ll post MY story about this image. And I have a feeling it’ll be personal. You’re welcome to post stories up until next Thursday. I’ll then close the comments and put the best up for vote. You won’t be sorry you submitted one if you’re in the finals.

That’s all: spin your tale.

Image of the main Cohere workspace ripped-off without apology from their website.

It was 6:30am. I looked in the mirror and thought:

“Are those the Falkland Islands?”

I was referring to the acne installation that has cropped-up on my 37-year-old face overnight. Life’s been kicking me in the ass lately and while I’m always up for a good ass kicking, this one was apparently leaving me looking as if I’d stuck my face in the Burger King deep fryer. More on the deep fryer later.

As a solopreneur with a rapidly growing business, I act solo. I take conference calls on my sofa, wander around the backyard with the dogs while chatting about SEO and move sprinklers while hashing things out with web developers. I have essentially ZERO human interaction. I’m a goddamn hermitpreneur. Yesterday, that changed.

Two weeks ago, I’d received an invite to haul ass up to Ft. Collins for the day to co-work at Cohere Community. Angel (Cohere founder) was apparently shocked when I said “yes.” While she had no idea as to the reclusive and depraved work day that IS RedheadWriting, all I could think was: what the fuck am I going to do with OTHER PEOPLE?!? While it was possible I’d explode and leave a nasty stain on Cohere’s walls, I said hells yeah. The Toaster and I were going to The Fort. And thanks to the acne, we could use the HOV lane to get there.

I’d never heard of co-working before. Apparently it was an office you can go to if you don’t have an office. Given that I’ve never wanted an office since starting my business, I didn’t really know how it would all work out. But I’m here to tell you that co-working is the schiz. Da bomb. The hizzy. It’s awesome with a J.

Once I perched at my workspace, I followed the tale of a gal who had just had a buyer back-out on buying her home because his prized 10′ elk antler wouldn’t fit in her living room. (Weigh-in, darlin’ – I suck with names but very much enjoyed the conversation on IUDs!)

Jeremiah professed his belief that Steve Jobs and the CEO of AT&T had killed a hobo together and that was the only explanation for the ongoing bad relationship between the ossum hardware and shitty network. And in the process of laughing, I met a pretty cool WordPress developer.

When I needed to buckle-down and generate some content, I went into a nifty “quiet room” with a door, jammed out two blog posts and then promptly landed back at my workspace when ready for more stimulus. Stimulus is apparently a giant sandwich and I ate the hell out of it when it arrived for lunch – an added perk of the free co-working day at Cohere. In fine Redhead style, I did decorate my sandwich with Annie’s organic bunny crackers and truly regret that I don’t have a picture of the 100 Acre Woods I created deli-style.

Angel wanted me to share with those who were there some details about my brand – essentially, how I’ve come to be an unapologetic brand and the challenges it brings me. At the tail end of a fucked-up journey I can only assume put half the folks to sleep or in a state of mind to want to stab me with the blunt ends of their piece of the giant sandwich, Pul Hummer (heh-I said “hummer”) (yes, I’m really a twelve-year-old boy) comes through the door and offers that he’s just met the Coolest Guy in Ft. Collins. Realizing this was vitally more important than anything I could conjure, we all direct our attention to his animated account. We ask: was meeting this guy ossum with an O or awesome with an A?

Alex replied that it was Awesome with a J. How the fuck do you argue with that?

After lunch, Cali and I went on an jawesome trip over to The Fort’s local cupcake shop. Apparently evil lurks, even in small-town America. On the bottom right-hand shelf, there was a little sign that said, “Frosting Shots: $1.”

I gasped. Pointed. Inhaled. Gasped again.

Little known fact about The Redhead: I fucking LOVE frosting. You can keep the cupcake, cut off the top and turn it into some twisted Seinfeld muffin top episode – just give me the frosting. Taco Bell has Fourth Meal, I have frosting. I would use it as thigh cream, gladly generating mounds of lemon-flavored buttercream cellulite. I’d wrestle a small child for a Frosting Shot and use dirty tactics to take them down – with their mother looking.

So, I bought two frosting shots – one for me and one for Cali – and a cupcake, as it’s a moral imperative to QC cupcakes within a 2 hour radius of the Denver metro area. Cali gave me the old town tour of The Fort, which is quaint in a Pearl Street/Boulder kind of way and…relaxed. I liked it. When back at Cohere, it was promptly offered that I’d likely die from a diabetic coma right there on the hardwood if I ingested the frosting shot. Granted, this was offered as I raised my spoonful of buttercream porn to my lips and accompanied by, “You’re just gonna eat it with a SPOON!?!?”

Why yes. Yes, I am. But I digress.

I meant for this post to talk about how ossum Cohere is and how in love I am with the concept of co-working. I never realized I was a recluse. I mean, Christ – I “talk” to hundreds of people each day on Twitter and my Fan page or blog. I’d become The Guy in a Van, Down By the River and not even realized it. <insert sad Huey Lewis and the News song here> Co-working at Cohere yesterday made me realize a metric ass ton of things, elk antlers and insulin comas aside:

• Being around people is a release – when I needed stimulus, I got it in spades. When I needed to buckle down, I could go hide. I worked better after the release. WIN.
• I need people – while masturbating is a guilty, private pleasure, career masturbation is…well, it’s just sad. I’d been diddling myself day in, day out and never stopped to realize: people rock.
• OOOOH, SHINY! I learned stuff. From the girl with bicycle wheels on her boobs who made ossum t-shirts to finding new web developers and potential new copywriters, the day was an epic WIN filled with things I needed that I could only get from other people.
• People read my shit – while terrifying, I was confronted with a room full of people at Cohere who…ummm…apparently like what I write. So thank you. More importantly, thank you for not serving me with a restraining order when you heard I was coming to town. Now, sadly, you know that it’s not just an act – I really AM this fucked-up.
• I’ll be back – driving for an hour and ten minutes is easy. Working alone all day – that’s hard. I loved the people, the environment and the vibe. I indulged in a rare gluten treat and loved the sammich and mini diet soda, too. While I will not single-handledly support the cupcake establishment (though I could, don’t get me wrong), you’ve earned a paying customer from a simple invite that you thought I wouldn’t accept for some reason. Silly wabbit – I was tickled to be asked to join you.
• Solutions – we came up with a killer solution for the BP oil spill: turn the Gulf into a big-ass wok or deep-fryer! Chinese food for everyone! (This is how shit gets done, people.)

If you’re a solo soul and haven’t checked out co-working options in your area, please do. It’s soul food and the ideal anti-office solution. What went on at Cohere yesterday was any HR specialist’s nightmare and the fodder for many-a-lawsuit. Not all working environments have to have a stick up their ass. Sticks hurt. Laughter is much more pleasing to perch on if you’ve gotta get some work done – it lives at Cohere. Check it out. Denver co-working, Boulder co-working, Ft. Collins co-working…it’s all accessible at Cohere. With cupcakes.

“I love you.” — Goodnight.

“I’ll miss you.” — I’ll be back before you know it.

“I like spending time with you.” — Good.

“Could you review the attached and let me know your preference?” — Are you coming to the meeting on Thursday?

The art of the non-topical response. Some people have it down pat while others answer your questions with the meticulousness of an OCD CPA with a 1040 in his hands. I’ve been thinking about this a lot as of late (and not alot…definitely a lot, though).

When people don’t or won’t respond to what you say and tend to deflect the conversation, I really think it says one of three things:

I don’t care what you just said – I’m going to talk about what I want to talk about. It’s the egocentric response. ME ME ME. Admit it – they completely ignored you and went off on a one-way trip to MeVille and left you on the pier wondering why you didn’t bring any luggage. We’ve all done it and it’s a pretty asshole move.

I’m not listening to you. That’s right, I’m not listening. I’m in my own head and for whatever reason it is, I can’t even hear you right now. So there. Hey – is that Elvis?

I heard you loud and clear and don’t have the balls to respond. Awwyeah. This is a common one. When something scares us, freaks our shit out, or in some cases, delights us, we can’t bring ourselves to utter the truth in return. So we say something that’s kinda what we think the other person wants us to hear. It’s a total Hail Mary move, saving our ass and the feelings of the person in front of us because we’re too chicken shit to say whatever it is we’re thinking, good or bad.

They all have something in common, however.

Hurt and frustration.

Tell me, my monkeys – how annoying is it to have to have three conversations in order to get someone to answer your question? How much time does it waste to send 4 emails on one subject when you can’t get the other person to focus? It’s like the world has ADD and we’re chasing it down with Ritalin.

How hurtful it is to sit in front of someone who professes to love you who can’t bring themselves to speak the words? Who responds with “goodnight” instead of “I love you, too?” Granted, words are precious and shouldn’t be wasted. There’s a certain sweetness that accompanies the knowledge that the person in front of you, whether lover, colleague or friend, is saying exactly what they mean and it’s genuine. But the non-topical response hurts and leaves room for question.

What’s so scary about actually telling the truth in life? Do we spare feelings more through pure honesty or through the little tango dances we do around issues that make us uncomfortable? Why can’t we say the GOOD things that scare us? Not saying them makes them…well, bad. Something to fear.

I don’t know about you, but I like to be uncomfortable. I relish that itchy feeling in my pants (and NOT the one that requires a trip to the free clinic). I want to be challenged. I want to say what no one else is willing to. I want to throw myself under love’s bus and get run over (repeatedly). When you’re uncomfortable, you offer yourself the greatest possible outcome: joy.

I went to a baseball game last night for the first time in over a year with Ryan, Elisa and her wife, Meg. I sat there watching a field full of players who make millions of dollars each year to be uncomfortable. They slide through dirt, they make moves that have no guarantee of success…they steal home base.

God, I want to steal home base. I want the people I work with to slide into that fucker and pray to whatever god they know that they didn’t just get tagged-out…and if they did, be ready to take that same risk again next game. Those players are paid well for their topical responses and you never see the second base man sitting down with a coloring book when a line drive comes his way with a runner on first.

Here are my thoughts on the bullshit art of the non-topical response:

• If you can’t say it, find a way.
• If you can’t say it, perhaps you don’t mean it.
• If you can’t say it and need to find the inspiration to say it, think of how you’d feel if you never again got the opportunity to say it (as many people each day never do).
• Understand what the person in front of you needs. Don’t assume anything and no one’s a mind reader. Ask.
• You can’t expect anyone to read your mind, so open your pretty little mouth and SAY WHAT YOU NEED.
• If you’ve said what you need and still can’t get what you want or need…maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your audience.

Time is precious, and non-topical responses waste time. They make us wonder why we wasted our breath and our bandwidth. Stop wasting people’s time and answer the damn question already. Don’t be cruel – be present. People deserve our attention because we demand it from them without even knowing it.

Yippee-kay-yay

Sent from an iPhone that wishes it were an iPad so it wouldn’t have to worry about dropping calls.

I do love it (in a domestic violence/beat me/bring me flowers kind of way). I would love it more if the damned PHONE part of the iPhone actually worked and I didn’t have what I refer to as “AT&T moments” where it takes me 4 calls to complete one call. It makes me look like a tool when I’m on client calls, advocating technology and the crap I buy doesn’t even work. I recently reactivated my land line.

But Erin over at TimeforCake sent me a link on Twitter yesterday, poking my sore spot and asking me if this faboo new device from Cisco would ease my woes.

It LOOKS sleek. The review SAYS it works. But here’s my argument:

Why do I have to buy frosting to put on a crap cake?

AT&T should be giving one of these away for free with every iPhone purchase.

Not so long ago, I got into a heated discussion with an AT&T service rep who explained to me that, per my contract, my phone service on my iPhone may “not always be available.” I explained the following: if I subscribe to cable TV, they prorate my bill when the service is “unavailable.” The gas, water and electric companies charge me for the resources I consume. My land line phone provider doesn’t charge me for days where phone lines are down.

Why the everliving fuckadoolah do I have to pay for phone service on a phone that doesn’t complete calls? And if you know there’s a problem with your phone service, why not address the issue up front and offer me a snazzy little Cisco 3G Microcell? If you have the advertising budget to put up billboards all across the planet saying how you connect over 90% of all Americans, I think you have the budget to send me a $150 signal booster for your highly mediocre 3G network. Especially in light of the fact that Sprint is purported to be launching 4G this year and Verizon has the world’s largest 3G network, AT&T is drastically behind.

I wanted cake when I got my iPhone. Sweet, melt-in-my-mouth technology that I could loving stroke with my fingers. I have that. And I would have been better off buying an iPod Touch or the new iPad and getting an old school flip phone to use as a phone. It’s sad that there’s really a market for a $150 “add on” for the iPhone to make the phone function actually WORK. It’s frosting on a crap cake. A huge fail in the AT&T arena and one that doesn’t seem to interest Apple in the slightest.

She says as she counts down the days until her two-year contract is up…

On a mid-day shuffle to the bank yesterday, I caught an earful on a story affecting the local Denver community (and Colorado as a whole): there’s a proposed law on the slate to make it mandatory for kids to wear helmets. Scooters, bikes, skateboards, in-line skates…yup. Put a lid on it, kids. And some folks are crying “nannyism,” that it’s the government stepping into the role of parent.

Holy hell – it’s no different than parents do when they pack their kids away for 8 hours of babysitting each day at school, right?

I don’t have children (but do hope to in some fashion one day), so I have my opinions. What I’m unwavering about is my steadfast belief that if I spent 9 months and however many hours of labor to get that kid into the world, a helmet is the least I can do for their head.

Now, until law is passed, do what you will with your own head and your kids’. But I’ll offer you a perspective that might change your mind about the inherent wisdom of placing your brain in a bucket:

Look to the pros.

It’s nice that you live in a safe neighborhood. It’s lovely you are always there to keep an eye on your kids. Last I checked, however, you’re not a superhero and you lack frickin’ matter-controlling laser beams that shoot our of your frickin’ eyes.

Look to the pros.

Imagine the dedication it takes to become a professional athlete. Time, energy, sacrifice. Professional athletes wear helmets.

Cyclists: helmets.

Skateboarders: helmets.

Football and Baseball players: helmets.

Motocross riders: helmets.

Motorcycle racers: helmets.

Snowboarders: helmets.

Skiiers: helmets.

Ice Climbers: helmets.

Speed Skaters: helmets.

Are you catchin’ my drift? If your brain is on the concrete, you don’t get a second chance to improve your skills…in sports, life or business. Next time you think you know better, consider the practice of perhaps looking a little uncool and acting more like the people who are cooler than we will ever be because of their dedication and hard work to a discipline they love.

But why do pros wear helmets? Aside from most sports governing bodies requiring the practice, they understand that safety is a key aspect of becoming successful at what they love. Most of the time, you’re not worries about your mistakes – you’re worried about the mistakes of others that can send you crashing down. Flukes, bad timing, plain old bad luck. Whether you’re working on becoming proficient and the best you can ever be or simply trying to get through another day of the rigors, the understanding of safety allows you to take chances. Experience the moments of greatness where you exceed your own bounds. Be a kid, in essence. Push yourself beyond your limits with glee. And if you slip – you’ve got a backup plan that will give you a better opportunity of trying again than facing the end game.

Get proud. Shoot your eye out. Be your very own Ralphie – I really don’t care. But each day, I learn more and more the value of wearing a helmet (both actual and hypothetical).

I can indulge in wild opportunity. Take chances. I can give something a wing ding and while I might get my bell rung, it’s less likely I’ll get my brain scrambled by something that shouldn’t have done so.

I don’t feel out of place because everyone around me in a sporting atmosphere is wearing a helmet. It’s just what you do.

So look to the pros. If you think you’re so bad ass that you don’t need a helmet, don’t wear one. But consider that there are people out there that know better than you, are better than you. And no matter how good you are, your actual and hypothetical brains all look the same when life sneaks up on you and rings your bell. It’s your choice on whether it’ll be your last ring-a-ding.

I wish I could say it’s with great difficulty I write this letter, but it’s not. As a matter of fact, what follows is purely stream-of-consciousness frustration that’s putting on a blog suit and gloves. Complete with two middle fingers.

I love my Redhead Writing Facebook Fan Page. My fans do, too. My fans and readers can always get ahold of me: Twitter, contact form on my website, Facebook message, carrier pigeon…But what I simply can’t fathom is how you have 400 million users to-date and lack a CONTACT US tab on your site. How is it that you’ve grown into the social networking behemoth you have without one iota of consideration for those who actively use your site and need help doing so?

Your customer service is apathetic if not entirely absent, yet you profess to know what your users want every goddamn time you change your UI. But I understand – you’re BIG. B-I-G. Being BIG apparently grants you a level of untouchability accompanied by a lack of accountability to your users. If we don’t like it, we can go to MySpace, right? Or Google Buzz. Let’s sit down and dish in this pretend letter of mine that I doubt anyone from your business team will ever read. After all, you’re too busy to respond to user-generated questions on:

How to transfer ownership of a Facebook Fan Page (because businesses NEVER change ownership in Facebookland)

How to remove a permanent “admin” on a Facebook Fan Page (another 8 pages of unanswered user questions)

Changing the name of your Facebook Fan Page (whoa – 163 unanswered posts)

I’m going to give you a lesson in Customer Service, Redhead-Style. Sit down, stop changing your UI for a minute and listen to what we have to say (since you don’t even do that on your own site in the forums).

Your User Interface Sucks, the Concept of Service and Budgets

Frankly, as someone who deals with UIs as a large component of her day-to-day, you suck. Suck, suck, suck. If you sucked any more, you’d be on the street corner in the shady part of town, doling out hummers for $10. In the past year, I’ve logged in no fewer than three times and found all my schizzle in a hizzle. There is not other successful business that keeps dicking with its UI to the extent that you do and no one’s amused. We have no choice but to accept what you lay down (especially since you don’t listen to any of your users or have a Customer Service department to take complaints or help resolve important issues. Here’s a quote I find amusing:

“Thanks again for making Facebook a part of your life. Happy sixth birthday to Facebook and our whole community. We look forward to building more things and continuing to serve you for many more years to come.” – Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook to the UK Telegraph

Really, Mark? How is it possible for you to “continue to serve” when you haven’t even begun? Your users speak on your very own Facebook Forums and you don’t reply. There’s no Contact Us page (like any other website on the planet…even plumbers have a Contact Us page with a phone number…so do Adult Novelty Stores – OMG they have a PHONE NUMBER, TOO…so does Twitter). And here’s the mind-boggling spaghetti that is your “Help Center.” It’s like one of those outsourced-to India automated phone systems where I’m always told “0″ is an invalid entry.

Speaking to a human, being serviced by a human…it would be a novel concept on this site designed to connect human beings. How you’re above it all is beyond me. I’m wondering if somewhere you’ve teamed up with AT&T on masterminding the Shitty Customer Service Model – I own an iPhone and would throw it out the window if I weren’t so in love with the damned thing. AT&T’s customer service is maddening and I’ve never paid so dearly for such a high level of frustration. While I get the frustration for free with Facebook, I’d think that you could find $1.25 million in your estimated $550 million in revenue to hire 50 customer service reps at a whopping $25k per year to handle some customer service emails and calls. Customer service has been called an unaffordable budget cut in today’s economy, yet somehow Facebook lacks it entirely. Kudos for being ahead of the curve on saving money, but you’re saving it in the wrong place.

Maybe stop fucking around with your UI and save the money on design and coding. Just an idea. Reallocate those funds to serving those who promote you, use you and need help in maximizing their use of the services you provide.

Stop Acting Like Frat Boys

We get it – you started Facebook as a roommate thing and are oh-so-proud of where it’s gone and excited about where it can go. We are, too. But you need to stop acting like frat boys looking to nail the Google sorority girl. Your users and their content are what make you so attractive for partnerships. If you keep pissing us off, we’re going to gradually go away. We left MySpace, we shirked Plurk. We’ll do an about-face on Facebook as well. Start remembering who brought the beer and hot wings to your kegger and quit looking at Google’s tits long enough to communicate with those who got you where you are. We’re telling you what we need and what we want. All you have to do it engage. It IS “social” networking, right?

Enough With the Ad Whoring

It’s great that your ad network is a cost-effective means for businesses and individuals to promote services, causes and brand awareness. But I don’t want to see Jennifer Aniston’s unauthorized picture whoring some weight loss program or scam ads for “debt relief” services. I’m in Facebook to connect with people. People do business with people. How about some QA for these crap ads we’ve seen as of late and screw the user rating feature for ads. YOU are the network. Start taking control of your content. I could always hook you up with Focus on the Family and Tim Tebow if you want to learn more about bait-and-switch marketing tactics, y’know.

…and that’s all I’ve got for now, dear Facebook, but I’m sure my readers have more. We’ll see what they have to say about your shenanigans as I know the problems and views expressed above aren’t exclusively mine. I may be an outspoken redhead ranting out of Denver, Colorado, but I have clients who rely on me for answers about Facebook and you…make it difficult to say anything other than, “Well, that’s just the way it is. Facebook said so.”

And THAT is a crappy answer to have to give with the obligatory shrug.

I write. For a living. Glory be – people pay to hear what I have to say. Today, I take on Proposition 8 in my weekly column at ToyWithMe.com.

Perhaps I’ll lose some fans. Perhaps I’ll gain some. This is how I feel, and if you know me, I have no problem telling you how I feel. The GLBT community isn’t asking for better or different treatment from the U.S. Government. Rather, they’re asking to be included in the system that their taxpayer dollars support day in, day out.

Enjoy the post…or not. If you like it, share it with your network and leave a comment. Your thoughts are what earn me a living. Otherwise, I’m a crazy gal on the corner with a megaphone that people point and laugh at as they drive by.

Thank you.