My son and I just got back from the store. As I was carrying a twenty five pound bag of bird seed in one hand and a whole pile of shit in the other, my son suddenly groaned and smacked his hand to his head dramatically. He is SUCH a thespian. Don't know where he gets it. *cough*
I looked at him with my armfuls of shoulder wrenching crapola and said, "What is it?" He told me, "I just thought of this awful joke my friend told me today." We kept walking towards the door and I said, "What is it?" He looked at me oddly and said, "You're supposed to look down your shirt and spell the word 'attic'". Then he waited, expectantly. So I said, "A-T-T-I-C?" He just looked at me, waiting for the punchline to hit me. I spelled it again. It was so stupid I actually had to stop on the sidewalk and say, "Tell your friend he's a RETARD. A-T-T-I-C does NOT sounds like, 'A titty I see.' Does 'tee tee' sound like 'titty'? Really? Come on. What an asshat."
My son just kept looking at me, waiting for for me to eventually express my shock that a nine year old would come up with a joke involving titties. Instead I just reiterated, "Really. Tell him he's a retard. Anyone who can enunciate their letters would think that was stupid." As it is, I enunciate quite well, despite having lived for eleven years in the mountains of Western North Carolina. I did pick up one hell of a twang, but seemed to have lost it as soon as I moved to Virginia. I don't hear that same mountain-folk speak that I heard there. It seems my good old Midwestern accent returned as soon as I left those hills. Besides, I had a lot of vocal training with one very serious choir teacher when I was young. She would hound on us while pounding her fist on the top of the piano, "YOU ARE NOT A YAM!" anytime anyone pronounced "I am" as "Iyam".
I want to go into my son's school, find this dork of a kid and look down my shirt, say, "Oh look! Tee-tees!" and then grab him and shake him while shouting, "YOU ARE NOT A YAM!" The point would be lost on him, but it would make ME feel better.
Ugh. What a stupid joke. Even for a nine year old.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
I think dogs are smarter than us.
My mom sent this to me as an e-mail, and I liked it so much I'm reprinting it here.
If a dog was the teacher you would learn stuff like:
When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.
Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
When it's in your best interest, practice obedience.
Let others know when they've invaded your territory.
Take naps.
Stretch before rising.
Run, romp, and play daily.
Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
On warm days, stop to lie on your back in the grass.
On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.
When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
No matter how often you're scolded, don't buy into the guilt thing and pout. Run right back and make friends.
Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.
Eat with gusto and enthusiasm. Stop when you have had enough.
Be loyal. Never pretend to be something you're not.
If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.
If a dog was the teacher you would learn stuff like:
When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.
Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
When it's in your best interest, practice obedience.
Let others know when they've invaded your territory.
Take naps.
Stretch before rising.
Run, romp, and play daily.
Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
On warm days, stop to lie on your back in the grass.
On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.
When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
No matter how often you're scolded, don't buy into the guilt thing and pout. Run right back and make friends.
Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.
Eat with gusto and enthusiasm. Stop when you have had enough.
Be loyal. Never pretend to be something you're not.
If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
*click*
You may notice that I haven't been writing with my usual frequency, but that doesn't mean I won't be back at it. Right now I'm working at getting a project off of the ground, one that can potentially have me earning a nice income while I sit at home and write.
I love photography, and have had quite a few readers write in to tell me that I really should look into trying to make money off of my photographs. I finally listened and have been looking at sites like istockphoto, Shutterstock, BigStockPhoto, and LuckyOliver. There's more, but you get the idea.
Anyway, I'm here and slaving away taking photographs, learning about digital compression and artifacting, and just what is unacceptable levels of chromatic aberration, and GIMPing my own pictures (it's an open source software version of Photoshop) until my eyes water, all in the effort to get my submissions accepted and start making some money.
So, I'm here, just busy, busy, busy.
It's not as much fun as taking pictures just for the fun of it (click on my Flickr pictures in the sidebar), but it's still a hell of a lot better than a nine to five job.
I love photography, and have had quite a few readers write in to tell me that I really should look into trying to make money off of my photographs. I finally listened and have been looking at sites like istockphoto, Shutterstock, BigStockPhoto, and LuckyOliver. There's more, but you get the idea.
Anyway, I'm here and slaving away taking photographs, learning about digital compression and artifacting, and just what is unacceptable levels of chromatic aberration, and GIMPing my own pictures (it's an open source software version of Photoshop) until my eyes water, all in the effort to get my submissions accepted and start making some money.
So, I'm here, just busy, busy, busy.
It's not as much fun as taking pictures just for the fun of it (click on my Flickr pictures in the sidebar), but it's still a hell of a lot better than a nine to five job.
consequence: when teacher and parent do not agree
Lately, I've been taking my son quite frequently back to school to fetch the homework out of his desk that he had forgotten there. While I find it extremely annoying, I am somewhat sedated by the fact that I know he's not doing it on purpose, it really is just another symptom of his ADD. His doctor has been wanting to up his dosage of medication and I've put it off for a long time, but it's become apparent to me that he's right: my son has put on almost ten pounds in the last year and I'm sure the amount of medicine that worked ten pounds ago is not working now. We've had to buy him all new clothes (due to his rising height) three times in the past year.
I know he needs more medicine for it to be effective, but I hate to do it. I hate that he's on it in the first place, but I will be the first to admit that the difference between him being on it and him being off of it is night and day. Please understand that I say this with total love and respect for my child: without his medicine, he acts like a blundering retard. I'm not kidding. He walks in front of cars, swings, into walls, doors, trips over things, can't remember what you said two seconds after you said it, tends to stare at nothing, mumbles or sings the same phrase over and over and over and over (this one really drives us batshit). He acts like a kid with no self control, and even at times like a child with mental retardation. And then came Adderall. Suddenly he was focused and coherent, within two months he was on the honor roll and principals list, won first place at the karate tournament, and while all of that makes him proud of himself, I must selfishly note that he was far more bearable to be around. But now it is less effective, due to his growth spurt, and he really is trying his damnedest to do good, but he honestly lacks the attention span to do it. And it makes him so sad... it's heartbreaking.
So I'm taking him back to the doctor to see what we should do. In the meantime, I've been taking him back up to school at least a few times a week to grab the homework he forgot. *sigh* That in itself is a pain in the butt, but even worse is being forced to converse with his teacher, who I despise. She's one of those pretend nice people. You know the type: she will give you that sickly sweet smile and cock her head to the side while she says something that she thinks is proving her mastery of both the subject being discussed and the situation itself, but in reality, she's a total bitch who is as transparent as Saran Wrap. And usually wrong, to boot.
I have butted heads with this woman so many times that my husband and I have already decided that next year, as soon as we meet the teacher, if either of us feels the slightest feeling of "ick" we're going to immediately ask that my son be switched into another classroom. To hell with this, "Let's wait and see" attitude that we've taken on the last two years, only to suffer through two years of asshat teachers. Ugh.
My case in point was this: yesterday my son and I came in to grab his homework. Now, I know that the teacher frowns on this. She feels that if a child forgets their homework, tough titties. She views it as an excellent opportunity for them to learn the consequence of forgetting their homework and therefore, she reasons, the child will learn to make sure they have it. In most cases, she would be correct. The problem is that she's so stuck in her righteousness that she has a very difficult time thinking of any possible explanation for why that might NOT be a good idea. I can think of quite a few, actually.
Although children need to learn to be responsible for their own schoolwork, the fact is that a lot of children don't even CARE. For those kids, "forgetting" it at school is never going to have any consequence, other than failing the grade and taking it over. But if they are already so far behind that they've given up, what difference is that going to make, other than further imprint the false notion that they are miserable failures in life and turn out to be the sewer rats of society? Is that a consequence or enabling their poor attitudes out of stubbornness and perhaps even laziness on the teachers (and parents) part?
In the case of my son, his limited ability to focus is the problem. He WANTS to do good and is very distraught when he forgets something. So when I walked in there AGAIN yesterday to retrieve the forgotten homework, I was in no mood to listen to her narrow minded diatribe.
"You know," she said in her slow, patient, aren't-I-the-sweetest-bitch-you've-ever-met voice that makes me want to slap the shit out of her, "I tell parents at the beginning of the year that I firmly believe children should NOT be allowed to come back after school and retrieve their homework after they've forgotten it. I think it's a bad habit and teaches them that they don't have to be responsible for themselves at all, which is a very destructive thing to have a child believe."
I cocked my head sideways and just looked at her for a moment. No smile, no I'll-play-your-little-niceties-game bullshit, then straightened my head back up and said to her point blank, "Which is more destructive: letting them come back and get it when they've forgotten it but WANT to do it, or making them go without it and then fail the grade because they have difficulty remembering to grab it before they leave? I fail to see how punishing a gifted child with ADD by making them repeat a grade is going to be to their benefit." I just looked at her, waiting, but that shut her stupid mouth. I explained to her, as patiently as I could, that he needs to be on more medication and hasn't been back to the doctor yet. I pointed out that this is a recent occurrence, coinciding with his growth spurt. I pointed out that he doesn't forget it on purpose, and I refuse to punish my child by holding him back a grade because of something he honestly cannot control. She told me he does really good at school all day, and is very sweet. I said, "I know. And then his medication wears off by the end of the day, and he forgets to take his homework with him." We then grabbed his stuff and walked out. She didn't say another word.
One of my best friends teaches fifth graders, and I frequently tell her the tales of my sons teacher. She becomes irate (being his godmother, she's biased, but still..) and always says the same thing: "That woman is just a bitch. Teachers get like that. They get old and pissed off and can't wait for retirement and just don't really give a shit about their jobs anymore. She could help him, but she just WON'T. I see that shit all the time. IT MAKES ME SO MAD!!!"
I bet it does. For a woman who spent the last I don't even remember how many years of her life getting her Masters Degree so she could get a shitty paying job and have to bust her ass to pay off her student loans until she dies, that's dedication. Maybe some day she will get burnt out, too. But when that day comes I'll be there to remind her that she's a bitchy old teacher, just the kind she hated when she was younger, and she won't like it but she'll know it's true.
In the meantime, we are counting the months till summer vacation and the end of purgatory with this wretched teacher. And every time my son forgets his homework, she's going to see my face appear to come and get it, because I don't believe that a child who forgets their homework should be taught that it's just ok, shit happens, oh well. No. We will go back there, no matter how much it sucks to face that bitch down, and that is punishment enough.
Ugh.
I know he needs more medicine for it to be effective, but I hate to do it. I hate that he's on it in the first place, but I will be the first to admit that the difference between him being on it and him being off of it is night and day. Please understand that I say this with total love and respect for my child: without his medicine, he acts like a blundering retard. I'm not kidding. He walks in front of cars, swings, into walls, doors, trips over things, can't remember what you said two seconds after you said it, tends to stare at nothing, mumbles or sings the same phrase over and over and over and over (this one really drives us batshit). He acts like a kid with no self control, and even at times like a child with mental retardation. And then came Adderall. Suddenly he was focused and coherent, within two months he was on the honor roll and principals list, won first place at the karate tournament, and while all of that makes him proud of himself, I must selfishly note that he was far more bearable to be around. But now it is less effective, due to his growth spurt, and he really is trying his damnedest to do good, but he honestly lacks the attention span to do it. And it makes him so sad... it's heartbreaking.
So I'm taking him back to the doctor to see what we should do. In the meantime, I've been taking him back up to school at least a few times a week to grab the homework he forgot. *sigh* That in itself is a pain in the butt, but even worse is being forced to converse with his teacher, who I despise. She's one of those pretend nice people. You know the type: she will give you that sickly sweet smile and cock her head to the side while she says something that she thinks is proving her mastery of both the subject being discussed and the situation itself, but in reality, she's a total bitch who is as transparent as Saran Wrap. And usually wrong, to boot.
I have butted heads with this woman so many times that my husband and I have already decided that next year, as soon as we meet the teacher, if either of us feels the slightest feeling of "ick" we're going to immediately ask that my son be switched into another classroom. To hell with this, "Let's wait and see" attitude that we've taken on the last two years, only to suffer through two years of asshat teachers. Ugh.
My case in point was this: yesterday my son and I came in to grab his homework. Now, I know that the teacher frowns on this. She feels that if a child forgets their homework, tough titties. She views it as an excellent opportunity for them to learn the consequence of forgetting their homework and therefore, she reasons, the child will learn to make sure they have it. In most cases, she would be correct. The problem is that she's so stuck in her righteousness that she has a very difficult time thinking of any possible explanation for why that might NOT be a good idea. I can think of quite a few, actually.
Although children need to learn to be responsible for their own schoolwork, the fact is that a lot of children don't even CARE. For those kids, "forgetting" it at school is never going to have any consequence, other than failing the grade and taking it over. But if they are already so far behind that they've given up, what difference is that going to make, other than further imprint the false notion that they are miserable failures in life and turn out to be the sewer rats of society? Is that a consequence or enabling their poor attitudes out of stubbornness and perhaps even laziness on the teachers (and parents) part?
In the case of my son, his limited ability to focus is the problem. He WANTS to do good and is very distraught when he forgets something. So when I walked in there AGAIN yesterday to retrieve the forgotten homework, I was in no mood to listen to her narrow minded diatribe.
"You know," she said in her slow, patient, aren't-I-the-sweetest-bitch-you've-ever-met voice that makes me want to slap the shit out of her, "I tell parents at the beginning of the year that I firmly believe children should NOT be allowed to come back after school and retrieve their homework after they've forgotten it. I think it's a bad habit and teaches them that they don't have to be responsible for themselves at all, which is a very destructive thing to have a child believe."
I cocked my head sideways and just looked at her for a moment. No smile, no I'll-play-your-little-niceties-game bullshit, then straightened my head back up and said to her point blank, "Which is more destructive: letting them come back and get it when they've forgotten it but WANT to do it, or making them go without it and then fail the grade because they have difficulty remembering to grab it before they leave? I fail to see how punishing a gifted child with ADD by making them repeat a grade is going to be to their benefit." I just looked at her, waiting, but that shut her stupid mouth. I explained to her, as patiently as I could, that he needs to be on more medication and hasn't been back to the doctor yet. I pointed out that this is a recent occurrence, coinciding with his growth spurt. I pointed out that he doesn't forget it on purpose, and I refuse to punish my child by holding him back a grade because of something he honestly cannot control. She told me he does really good at school all day, and is very sweet. I said, "I know. And then his medication wears off by the end of the day, and he forgets to take his homework with him." We then grabbed his stuff and walked out. She didn't say another word.
One of my best friends teaches fifth graders, and I frequently tell her the tales of my sons teacher. She becomes irate (being his godmother, she's biased, but still..) and always says the same thing: "That woman is just a bitch. Teachers get like that. They get old and pissed off and can't wait for retirement and just don't really give a shit about their jobs anymore. She could help him, but she just WON'T. I see that shit all the time. IT MAKES ME SO MAD!!!"
I bet it does. For a woman who spent the last I don't even remember how many years of her life getting her Masters Degree so she could get a shitty paying job and have to bust her ass to pay off her student loans until she dies, that's dedication. Maybe some day she will get burnt out, too. But when that day comes I'll be there to remind her that she's a bitchy old teacher, just the kind she hated when she was younger, and she won't like it but she'll know it's true.
In the meantime, we are counting the months till summer vacation and the end of purgatory with this wretched teacher. And every time my son forgets his homework, she's going to see my face appear to come and get it, because I don't believe that a child who forgets their homework should be taught that it's just ok, shit happens, oh well. No. We will go back there, no matter how much it sucks to face that bitch down, and that is punishment enough.
Ugh.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
162, size 12
While I feel compelled to note that obesity carries with it a multitude of health risks, it also carries with it some stupid stigmas. This woman has some damn good points that I want to share, the most important being NOW is the only moment there is. Right now.
...And the whole modeling industry and the pushers of size 0 can kiss my 162 pound fabulous ass.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
forget the rapture, there's a shortcut!
My son is hilarious. As I was driving him to school this morning he looked out the window and saw a guy wearing a crucifix necklace, smoking a cigarette. My son, ever observant, snorted disdainfully and said, "That Christian was SMOKING!" I just shrugged and said, "Yah, some of them do." He paused for a moment and said in a perfect deadpan delivery, "Huh. I guess he's trying to get to heaven faster." It actually took me a minute to catch what he meant and I burst out laughing.
Out of the mouths of babes...
Out of the mouths of babes...
sounds familiar
"Attachment is the mind stuck to an object."
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche, The Door to Satisfaction
Monday, March 19, 2007
ass and feet: totally different things
This should be obvious, people. But in case it is not, let its differences be noted in this rather amusing post by Mist1.
I totally want to see her commercial for Febreze.
I totally want to see her commercial for Febreze.
you can't touch this
I have been known, on many occasions, to completely spaz out and act ridiculous. It makes my friends laugh, and I have no qualms about providing humor at my own expense. Frankly, I find that far funnier than humor at someone else's expense (the show "Crank Yankers", for example, is absolutely hideous, in my opinion). I even find the company of people who enjoy laughing at the expense of the others to be intolerable. Cruelly humiliating someone isn't funny to me, that's why my blogs are anonymous and renamed to protect the innocent and not so innocent alike. I might write about people I consider to be almighty asshats at times, but I won't tell you who they are. That's not my style.
No, my style is more along the lines of acting like a total dork in public just to make you crack up. This past weekend I was telling my husband about the ridiculous things my friends and I used to do in high school. We lived close enough to Detroit to be considered "in the Metro area" but just far enough away to have nothing nearby but strip malls and restaurants. There was no "downtown" to hang out in, no teen friendly hangouts. If you wanted to go downtown that meant Detroit, and that wasn't always the safest place to be. (Thank you! I will be happy to accept my Understatement Of The Day Award! Thank you! How kind!) So, if we wanted to have fun without being arrested for being in the park after hours (a frequent occurrence), we were pretty much limited to Driving Around.
Good old Driving Around. Driving, as in we were in someone's car, and Around, as in, we had nowhere to go so we just drove to various places to see if anyone was there and most of the time they were not. The inside of the car WAS the place to be, especially when it was twenty degrees. How many ways can one amuse oneself while inside a motor vehicle? As I found out, there were actually quite a few ways.
Being high always helped, of course. But those were The Old Days, not my current state, just so we're clear about that.
I really enjoyed acting stupid in a car. Usually not while driving, I've always been a rather responsible driver, but I have been known to roll down my window and shriek sheepish things at other drivers now and then.
The story I was telling my husband about was when my friend Matt had a large fuzzy pink blanket in his car. I was baffled as to why it was that a teenage guy would posses such an item, but that didn't stop me from grabbing it out of the backseat and using it as a fuzzy pink ghostly wrap. I threw it over my head and started waving my arms around while Matt laughed and told me other drivers were staring at us. "Awesome," I said, "tell me when someone stops next to us at a light." Within a few minutes we were stopped at a red light and Matt said, "Um, there's a car full of people next to us..." I proceeded to thrash arms and head about, like some giant pink fuzzy nightmare wearing a seatbelt and Matt howled with laughter. Gasping for breath as the light turned green and we drove off, he said, "Oh! Oh! The whole car was full of Chinese people who were CRACKING THE FUCK UP watching you! Oh! Ohgod! Oh!" I thought he was going to start crying. I whipped the blanket off of my head and grinned at him, hair sticking up in all directions, "Let's find somebody else!"
When I told my husband the story he laughed too and said, "Yah, I bet they DID laugh. Asian humor is so much different than ours." I thought about a few of the Asian TV shows I've seen and realized he was right, then started laughing, too. "Oh, man! All I needed were two giant eyes! I could've been a freakin' Pokemon!"
We continued driving home and listening to the radio when the song, "U Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer came on. Oh. It's ON now.
"Yo, sound the bell, school is in, sucka! You can't touch this."
I leaned over and turned it up, singing along and dancing like a total ass in the passenger seat while my husbands jaw dropped and he started to laugh. We pulled up to a light, but did that stop my mighty stupid groove? Goodness, no! I got even more spastic about it, bouncing around and doing various dance moves that were either MC Hammer from the waist up, choreographed dance moves from the movie Grease, or some kind of combination of moves that resembled the Queen of Disco if she were a fish recently strapped into a car seat and suddenly realizing she must flap mightily to get back into the water to breath.
My husband was laughing so hard he could barely drive. My son was in the back seat cracking up at his mothers ridiculous antics. The people in the vehicles next to us were mostly looking at us with a kind of amused bewilderment.
"Stop. Hammer time!
Every time you see me
The Hammer's just so hyped
I'm dope on the floor
And I'm magic on the mike
Now why would I ever
Stop doing this?
When others making records
That just don't hit
I've toured around the world
From London to the Bay
It's Hammer, go Hammer, M.C.Hammer, Yo Hammer
And the rest can go and play
Can't touch this
U can't touch this
U can't touch this
U can't touch this
Yeah, U can't touch this
I told you, U can't touch this
Too hype, can't touch this
Yo, we outta here, can't touch this"
Later that day my neck hurt like bloody hell, but hearing my husband laugh that hard, for the first time in a long time, was worth every painful second. Absolutely priceless.
No, my style is more along the lines of acting like a total dork in public just to make you crack up. This past weekend I was telling my husband about the ridiculous things my friends and I used to do in high school. We lived close enough to Detroit to be considered "in the Metro area" but just far enough away to have nothing nearby but strip malls and restaurants. There was no "downtown" to hang out in, no teen friendly hangouts. If you wanted to go downtown that meant Detroit, and that wasn't always the safest place to be. (Thank you! I will be happy to accept my Understatement Of The Day Award! Thank you! How kind!) So, if we wanted to have fun without being arrested for being in the park after hours (a frequent occurrence), we were pretty much limited to Driving Around.
Good old Driving Around. Driving, as in we were in someone's car, and Around, as in, we had nowhere to go so we just drove to various places to see if anyone was there and most of the time they were not. The inside of the car WAS the place to be, especially when it was twenty degrees. How many ways can one amuse oneself while inside a motor vehicle? As I found out, there were actually quite a few ways.
Being high always helped, of course. But those were The Old Days, not my current state, just so we're clear about that.
I really enjoyed acting stupid in a car. Usually not while driving, I've always been a rather responsible driver, but I have been known to roll down my window and shriek sheepish things at other drivers now and then.
The story I was telling my husband about was when my friend Matt had a large fuzzy pink blanket in his car. I was baffled as to why it was that a teenage guy would posses such an item, but that didn't stop me from grabbing it out of the backseat and using it as a fuzzy pink ghostly wrap. I threw it over my head and started waving my arms around while Matt laughed and told me other drivers were staring at us. "Awesome," I said, "tell me when someone stops next to us at a light." Within a few minutes we were stopped at a red light and Matt said, "Um, there's a car full of people next to us..." I proceeded to thrash arms and head about, like some giant pink fuzzy nightmare wearing a seatbelt and Matt howled with laughter. Gasping for breath as the light turned green and we drove off, he said, "Oh! Oh! The whole car was full of Chinese people who were CRACKING THE FUCK UP watching you! Oh! Ohgod! Oh!" I thought he was going to start crying. I whipped the blanket off of my head and grinned at him, hair sticking up in all directions, "Let's find somebody else!"
When I told my husband the story he laughed too and said, "Yah, I bet they DID laugh. Asian humor is so much different than ours." I thought about a few of the Asian TV shows I've seen and realized he was right, then started laughing, too. "Oh, man! All I needed were two giant eyes! I could've been a freakin' Pokemon!"
We continued driving home and listening to the radio when the song, "U Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer came on. Oh. It's ON now.
"Yo, sound the bell, school is in, sucka! You can't touch this."
I leaned over and turned it up, singing along and dancing like a total ass in the passenger seat while my husbands jaw dropped and he started to laugh. We pulled up to a light, but did that stop my mighty stupid groove? Goodness, no! I got even more spastic about it, bouncing around and doing various dance moves that were either MC Hammer from the waist up, choreographed dance moves from the movie Grease, or some kind of combination of moves that resembled the Queen of Disco if she were a fish recently strapped into a car seat and suddenly realizing she must flap mightily to get back into the water to breath.
My husband was laughing so hard he could barely drive. My son was in the back seat cracking up at his mothers ridiculous antics. The people in the vehicles next to us were mostly looking at us with a kind of amused bewilderment.
"Stop. Hammer time!
Every time you see me
The Hammer's just so hyped
I'm dope on the floor
And I'm magic on the mike
Now why would I ever
Stop doing this?
When others making records
That just don't hit
I've toured around the world
From London to the Bay
It's Hammer, go Hammer, M.C.Hammer, Yo Hammer
And the rest can go and play
Can't touch this
U can't touch this
U can't touch this
U can't touch this
Yeah, U can't touch this
I told you, U can't touch this
Too hype, can't touch this
Yo, we outta here, can't touch this"
Later that day my neck hurt like bloody hell, but hearing my husband laugh that hard, for the first time in a long time, was worth every painful second. Absolutely priceless.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
green Grinch doesn't feel so lonely
I felt bad for being such a shit about posting my cranky little rant about St. Patrick's Day, but it's so hard to feel joyful (for me) about any holiday that glorifies drunkenness.
As I told my husband, "I don't see people going out on drinking binges for Black History Month, you know? That's about pride. How the hell is this holiday supposed to make me feel proud of my Irish heritage?"
Sometimes, when it's about drinking, this cheese feels like it is standing very much alone.
And then I found this video and laughed. That leprechaun has a damn good point. Preach it, over sized leprechaun with your silly fake sideburns. I bow to your wisdom and humor.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
green Grinch
Oh huzzah, huzzah, one of the stupidest holidays of the year is coming! It's time to drink green beer, get drunk and act like a jackass! Because you mistakenly think some guy drove some snakes away, hooray!
Before you open your drunken Irish pie holes, let me state this now: I am partly Irish. I am also sober. And I researched this retarded holiday that I think makes a complete and total mockery of my (partial) Irish heritage, so listen up:
St. Patrick may have been born in Roman Britain, although maybe it was Scotland Either way, he's not Irish. No, he was captured and taken to be a slave in Ireland. And while he was there, he prayed a lot and then came back to be a missionary. The bit about driving the snakes from Ireland is thought to be referring to the Druids. I'm guessing St. Patrick didn't like the Druids very much since his slave master was a chieftan named Milchu in Dalriada, a territory of the present county of Antrim in Ireland, oh yes...and a a druidical high priest. As he became familiar with all the details of Druidism from whose bondage he was destined to liberate the Irish race.
The Catholic Encyclopedia says:
"In the ways of a benign Providence the six years of Patrick's captivity became a remote preparation for his future apostolate. He acquired a perfect knowledge of the Celtic tongue in which he would one day announce the glad tidings of Redemption, and, as his master Milchu was a druidical high priest, he became familiar with all the details of Druidism from whose bondage he was destined to liberate the Irish race."
Were the Irish held captive by the Druids, or just St. Patrick? Well, no matter, he came back and shoved Christianity down Ireland's throat like all good missionaries do. He wasn't the first to bring Christianity to Ireland, but he was supposed to have defeated the Druids. History seems to be lacking in explaining HOW exactly.
The Shamrock is said to have been his symbol to show those heathen Irish the trinity of Christ, one for each petal. I think if God were going to display His glory it would be in something a bit more magnificent than something that grows in the grass and gets trampled and possibly eaten by sheep, but that's my opinion. Lightning is pretty impressive, I'm just saying.
Anyway, St. Patrick fills the Irish people with Christianity, they make him a saint, and the first St. Patrick's Day parade occurs in the United States, and gains popularity after American candidates realize how many Irish there are and what political power they posses.
So, be proud of being Irish, and for those of you that aren't, who cares? Just get out there and dye your rivers green, get trashed, and act like fools just because you can. Do you really need a reason?
And hey, don't let me be a killjoy.
These Irish eyes aren't smiling at drunk drivers.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Finish the sentence (a meme from MySpace).
Finish each sentence as if you wrote it yourself.
1. I've come to realize that my last kiss...
wasn't long enough.
2. I am listening to ....
background noise from things I'm not paying attention to, and the birds that I am paying attention to.
3. I talk ...
so much I'm amazed my husbands ears don't bleed; I need more friends.
5. My best friend(s) ...
probably don't know how much I love them; I'm not terribly good at showing it, but I'm working on it.
6. My first real kiss ...
wasn't very memorable- I'm not sure which was the first "real" one.
8. I hate it when people ask...
"Can I ask you a question?" You just did, duh.
9. Love is ...
everything.
10. Marriage is ...
complex, but...there's something incredibly soothing about the sense of security and safety it brings; I know all the hard work isn't just for nothing.
11. Somewhere, someone is thinking ...
how to make their life better.
12. I'll always ...
worry about my child.
13. I have a secret crush ...
I don't, I'm an open book, really.
14. The last time I cried was because .....
I heard "The Cats In The Cradle" on the radio this morning and thought how apt it was for my sons father, and how sad it is that my son is growing to hate him. I don't blame him, shit, but it's still sad.
15. My house phone is ...
usually turned to the ringer off.
16. When I wake up in the morning ...
I hurt.
17. Before I go to bed ...
I work hard on thinking about positive things in the hopes that I will have pleasant dreams and sleep through the night.
18. Right now I am thinking about ...
the birds on my back porch. Mourning doves are so cute it's retarded. I like their fat bellies.
20. I go on MySpace ...
in the hopes that there's a little niblet of love waiting for me.
21. Today I ...
felt more energetic than I have in a while, but I'm guessing that's actually the Adderall I finally took (it's been a few days).
22. Tonight I will ...
stare at the ironing board and wonder why I didn't iron, again. I hate ironing.
23. Tomorrow I will be ...
alive.
24. I really don't want to be ...
afraid of so many things.
25. Someone who will most likely repost this is ...
yah..I don't know.
1. I've come to realize that my last kiss...
wasn't long enough.
2. I am listening to ....
background noise from things I'm not paying attention to, and the birds that I am paying attention to.
3. I talk ...
so much I'm amazed my husbands ears don't bleed; I need more friends.
5. My best friend(s) ...
probably don't know how much I love them; I'm not terribly good at showing it, but I'm working on it.
6. My first real kiss ...
wasn't very memorable- I'm not sure which was the first "real" one.
8. I hate it when people ask...
"Can I ask you a question?" You just did, duh.
9. Love is ...
everything.
10. Marriage is ...
complex, but...there's something incredibly soothing about the sense of security and safety it brings; I know all the hard work isn't just for nothing.
11. Somewhere, someone is thinking ...
how to make their life better.
12. I'll always ...
worry about my child.
13. I have a secret crush ...
I don't, I'm an open book, really.
14. The last time I cried was because .....
I heard "The Cats In The Cradle" on the radio this morning and thought how apt it was for my sons father, and how sad it is that my son is growing to hate him. I don't blame him, shit, but it's still sad.
15. My house phone is ...
usually turned to the ringer off.
16. When I wake up in the morning ...
I hurt.
17. Before I go to bed ...
I work hard on thinking about positive things in the hopes that I will have pleasant dreams and sleep through the night.
18. Right now I am thinking about ...
the birds on my back porch. Mourning doves are so cute it's retarded. I like their fat bellies.
20. I go on MySpace ...
in the hopes that there's a little niblet of love waiting for me.
21. Today I ...
felt more energetic than I have in a while, but I'm guessing that's actually the Adderall I finally took (it's been a few days).
22. Tonight I will ...
stare at the ironing board and wonder why I didn't iron, again. I hate ironing.
23. Tomorrow I will be ...
alive.
24. I really don't want to be ...
afraid of so many things.
25. Someone who will most likely repost this is ...
yah..I don't know.
that's just shitty
I decided my hair looked like crap this morning so I dyed it. When it came time to finish it through to the ends I looked over and happened to notice that the toilet was clogged.
Eh, what the hell, I thought, I'll just fix it real quick and finish my hair...only to realize that there's a poop down there somewhere and the toilet began to overflow ALL OVER THE FLOOR. Nothing like a bathroom floor covered in shit water to make your day.
So now I've got dye still in my hair while I wait for the floor to disinfect, because there's no way in hell I'm walking back in there and standing on a contaminated floor while I finish dying my hair.
Here's to hoping my hair doesn't fry in the meantime. Cheers.
Later that day: My house is sterilized, my hair looks great, and nothing washes off the putrid feeling of cleaning up poop better than a nice trip to Bath and Body Works. I smell GOOD.
Eh, what the hell, I thought, I'll just fix it real quick and finish my hair...only to realize that there's a poop down there somewhere and the toilet began to overflow ALL OVER THE FLOOR. Nothing like a bathroom floor covered in shit water to make your day.
So now I've got dye still in my hair while I wait for the floor to disinfect, because there's no way in hell I'm walking back in there and standing on a contaminated floor while I finish dying my hair.
Here's to hoping my hair doesn't fry in the meantime. Cheers.
Later that day: My house is sterilized, my hair looks great, and nothing washes off the putrid feeling of cleaning up poop better than a nice trip to Bath and Body Works. I smell GOOD.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
I am 36% bitchy
I got this as a meme in MySpace and thought I'd just do it here, instead. The parenthesis are mine.
[ ] I think I'm gonna have a high score on this
[x] I don't talk to one or both of my parents that much
[x] I have cursed/said horrible things to someones face (they deserved it.)
[x] I give people disgusting looks (in traffic, I'm bad with the road rage)
[x] I've been known to have an attitude (if the shoe fits...use it to stomp on the brakes when people tailgate you)
total: 4
[x] I took heads off dolls or action figures when I was little (I DID put them back on, geez)
[x] I have destroyed something valuable on purpose (what, I don't know, but I'm fairly certain I've done it during my childhood)
[ ] I love to insult people
[x] most people suck (I do believe that "suck" is in the eye of the beholder)
total: 3
[x] I get mad easily (in traffic or when dealing with idiocy)
[ ] I have no clue when I'm doing it, too
[x] sometimes I order people around (I'm a mom, come on!)
[ ] I am/was known around my neighborhood as the kid everyone else doesn't want their kids hanging out with
[x] I've argued with a teacher (even teachers can be wrong, that doesn't make me a bitch)
total: 3
[ ] I love messing with other people's heads
[x] I've been told I'm conceited (by jealous people, whateveh!)
[ ] I joke around meanly
[ ] I yell daily
total: 1
[ ] I seem to always be in a fight with someone
[ ] I don't like smiling
[ ] I know at least 3 people I would like to kill
[ ] I love pranking people
[ ] I strongly dislike almost everyone
total: 0
[ ] ALL people annoy me very easily
[x] I think a lot of people are just flat out immature (so am I, at times)
[ ] I always have to get the last word
[ ] People tell me I'm good at fighting
[ ] I always have the perfect comeback
total: 1
Grand total: 12
Add up all the X's and multiply by 3, then repost this as "I AM _% BITCHY"
PS) I think I might get bonus points for correcting most of the spelling and grammatical errors in the meme, however.
[ ] I think I'm gonna have a high score on this
[x] I don't talk to one or both of my parents that much
[x] I have cursed/said horrible things to someones face (they deserved it.)
[x] I give people disgusting looks (in traffic, I'm bad with the road rage)
[x] I've been known to have an attitude (if the shoe fits...use it to stomp on the brakes when people tailgate you)
total: 4
[x] I took heads off dolls or action figures when I was little (I DID put them back on, geez)
[x] I have destroyed something valuable on purpose (what, I don't know, but I'm fairly certain I've done it during my childhood)
[ ] I love to insult people
[x] most people suck (I do believe that "suck" is in the eye of the beholder)
total: 3
[x] I get mad easily (in traffic or when dealing with idiocy)
[ ] I have no clue when I'm doing it, too
[x] sometimes I order people around (I'm a mom, come on!)
[ ] I am/was known around my neighborhood as the kid everyone else doesn't want their kids hanging out with
[x] I've argued with a teacher (even teachers can be wrong, that doesn't make me a bitch)
total: 3
[ ] I love messing with other people's heads
[x] I've been told I'm conceited (by jealous people, whateveh!)
[ ] I joke around meanly
[ ] I yell daily
total: 1
[ ] I seem to always be in a fight with someone
[ ] I don't like smiling
[ ] I know at least 3 people I would like to kill
[ ] I love pranking people
[ ] I strongly dislike almost everyone
total: 0
[ ] ALL people annoy me very easily
[x] I think a lot of people are just flat out immature (so am I, at times)
[ ] I always have to get the last word
[ ] People tell me I'm good at fighting
[ ] I always have the perfect comeback
total: 1
Grand total: 12
Add up all the X's and multiply by 3, then repost this as "I AM _% BITCHY"
PS) I think I might get bonus points for correcting most of the spelling and grammatical errors in the meme, however.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Friday, March 09, 2007
to cut or not to cut: that is not a question.
(This is the sort of post that usually would only be posted in my sex blog, due to it's content. For those of you who find a frank discussion about circumcision offensive, you might want to skip this one. The rest of you, read on.)
Let it be known, although to many of you it is known already: I am NOT pro-circumcision. This is not to say I am anti-circumcision; I think it has it's time and it's place. I think the time and place is when a male is old enough to decide it for himself. I will not step on the toes of you whose religion demands it: I just won't. So, religious reasons aside, I see no reason for having it done.
My son and my husband are both uncircumcised males. The first being my choice, the second being my affirmation of the first. Before I met my husband, the only uncut male I had any close connection to was my son, and he didn't have much to say about being uncut, other than, "Thank you, you're the best Mommy EVER!" when I explained why his penis looked different than the other boys in swim class.
I knew if I had a boy I would refuse circumcision, come hell or high water, which is about how it went in the hospital. His father approved, even though he himself is a circumcised man, and lucky for him that he did agree, because I would have beat him down if it came to that. It seemed to be one of the few things we agreed on. And I had informed my midwife, the surgeon, and anyone else who asked that I did not, under any circumstances, want my child mutilated, thank you very much. So when a different surgeon strolled into my hospital room one morning and cheerily announced that it was time to circumcise my son, a cheery greeting he did not receive in return. I was ENRAGED.
People, you do not want to see a bloated and drugged woman, who just suffered through nine and a half months of pregnancy, to be followed by two days of labor, only to end up having a C-section at the end of it, get angry at you. It's not pretty.
As far as I was concerned, in my muddy haze, that surgeon was His Satanic Majesty In A White Coat And Smiling, and I had to restrain myself from screaming him out of my room. How could he enjoy that job? What's with the cheerfulness? You're about to cut off part of my child's penis while he screams, and you're SMILING about it? You freaky sadistic BASTARD! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! Don't you even TOUCH my baby! I will kill you.
For some reason, I don't think that man liked me very much. *cough* At any rate, after I informed him that it would be a cold day in hell before he laid hands on my child, he indignantly informed me that I would "just have to come back in a few days. You might as well have it done now." There was not enough Percocet in that hospital to make me agree, and certainly not enough in my system to have me nod at the vampire bastard who liked chopping off the sexual organs of innocent babies. I really cannot stress this enough: I know I was drugged to the freaking gills; I've seen the pictures of me, glassy eyed and cramming food in my mouth, looking like a bloated whale carcass in pajamas. I know narcotics can make some people (including me) hallucinate in a most unpleasant way. Knowing these things did not stop me from firmly believing that this man was totally evil. I TOLD the staff my child was not to be circumcised, and that man came in anyway. Did he not read the chart, or did he just ignore it in the hopes that he could hack off one more foreskin, hooray! And after I told him there was no way in hell he was touching my child, he still tried to talk me into it by telling me I would HAVE to come back, so I might as well do it then! All I could think of was that he had a collection of little baby foreskins in his house on display, some Hannibal Lector of baby foreskins, maybe makes them into a necklace, shit I don't know. What I did know was that my impression of him was pure evil, and I coldly informed him that I would not, in all actuality, HAVE to come back AT ALL, because I was NEVER coming back, he was NEVER going to cut up my child, and GET OUT OF MY HOSPITAL ROOM.
He left, and by golly, he was pissed. I kept my son next to me at all times after that, afraid Doctor Foreskin Snatcher might sneak in while I was sleeping, circumcise my son and just tell the staff that I had agreed to it. The nurses told me I wasn't allowed to have my son in bed with me. I just looked at them and they said, "Well, I suppose we could overlook it, just this once." Damn straight. And if you see Doctor Vampire, will you please stab him through the heart for me? Thanks so much, you're a dear. And yes, I would like an extra Jell-o with my lunch!
Over the years, I've put up with a lot of crap from various doctors who informed me that my son would have to be circumcised eventually, because how else will he be able to keep his penis clean? It will become infected, they said. Stupid ass American doctors, for the love of god! I told them, "He'll clean it the same way that girls can clean themselves. Cleaning a vulva is not a simple procedure, either, but somehow little girls manage to do it without us cutting them all up. I'm sure he'll be fine. If a four year old girl can manage to not die of an infected vagina, I'm pretty sure he can figure it out, too."
*rolls eyes* It's so asinine. To think that doctors, in this day and age, are still so medieval in their medical training- that's frightening. We DO have running water and bathing devices now, you know. I'm not planning on washing my child in a polluted river, for pete's sake. COME ON.
This was recently demonstrated to me again. My son is now nine, and the foreskin still hasn't retracted. It has, but just the tiniest bit, so when we went for a check up recently I made sure that the doctor checked that, too. My son wasn't particularly happy about it, but he understood why we had to do it, so he put on a brave face and suffered through the indignities of having a stranger handling his privates. After I explained what happens in a gynecological exam, and even showed him the stirrups in the table to prove it, he agreed that he definitely had it pretty easy, by comparison.
So the doctor looked. And then there was a pause. "Um..." she said. "I'm not sure," she said. "Let me consult with another doctor. I'll be right back." She walked out, came back, and told me she wasn't really sure but that she was referring us to see a urologist to be certain.
Jack backed up my suspicions by later saying, "I bet she's never even SEEN an uncircumcised penis before! Geez- if this were Europe she would have just looked at him and been like, 'Yep, he's fine.'" I nodded, glumly. I wasn't really in the mood to take my son to an expensive specialist to have him poked at again. Oh well.
We went to the urologist a few weeks later, and it was the most ridiculous thing I've seen, in the sense that it was the first person who WASN'T ridiculous. Well, minus the nursing staff, who read the description of why we were there and asked, "So, do you want to have him circumcised?" It was all I could do to not answer, "No, you freaking asshat. That's why I wrote on the paper: 'Coming in to make sure his foreskin is retracting properly.' It clearly does not say 'Bring on the scalpel!' FUCKING DUH!" What is WITH this We Fear The Foreskin culture?
(Note to self: that would be a hilarious name of a rock band.)
The urologist came in, put my son at ease, pushed and prodded him for all of ten seconds, max, and told me he was just fine, not a thing in the world wrong with him. Oh. My. God. Did we just meet the first doctor who actually KNOWS something about a foreskin? Holy shit.
While I was relieved for my son, I was annoyed as all hell that we had to go see a freaking specialist to be told in under ten seconds, "No problem. Have a nice day." Really. He was in the exam room for less than three minutes, including introductions, writing on a piece of paper, and goodbyes. I even asked him a few questions about when we should be concerned, that sort of thing.
I thought about driving ten hours back to that evil vampire doctor that was in the hospital where my son was born and just smacking him upside the head with the largest dildo ever made. Let THAT be the headline in the local paper: "Doctor Gets Beat Down By Irate Mother Wielding Freakishly Large Dildo." The article would go on to say "Mother claims doctor is an evil vampire who wears mutilated baby foreskins as a necklace. Investigations are pending." Pssshtt. I told him I wasn't coming back, but that would be a good enough reason. I would go back for that, totally.
At least we can put all this silly wondering-about-the-wiener business behind us. According to the only doctor we've met that knows anything at all about an uncut penis and what it's supposed to look like, if it doesn't retract in his early teens, just come back and we'll have another look at it then to make sure there isn't a problem, but, and I quote, "There is nothing wrong with him, at all." It's hard, but I'm trying to view that forty dollar co-pay as forty dollars worth of piece of mind, but it still would have been nicer if the doctor I asked first could have had a freaking clue.
I think I'm going to start shopping around for a doctor with a nice European accent.
Let it be known, although to many of you it is known already: I am NOT pro-circumcision. This is not to say I am anti-circumcision; I think it has it's time and it's place. I think the time and place is when a male is old enough to decide it for himself. I will not step on the toes of you whose religion demands it: I just won't. So, religious reasons aside, I see no reason for having it done.
My son and my husband are both uncircumcised males. The first being my choice, the second being my affirmation of the first. Before I met my husband, the only uncut male I had any close connection to was my son, and he didn't have much to say about being uncut, other than, "Thank you, you're the best Mommy EVER!" when I explained why his penis looked different than the other boys in swim class.
I knew if I had a boy I would refuse circumcision, come hell or high water, which is about how it went in the hospital. His father approved, even though he himself is a circumcised man, and lucky for him that he did agree, because I would have beat him down if it came to that. It seemed to be one of the few things we agreed on. And I had informed my midwife, the surgeon, and anyone else who asked that I did not, under any circumstances, want my child mutilated, thank you very much. So when a different surgeon strolled into my hospital room one morning and cheerily announced that it was time to circumcise my son, a cheery greeting he did not receive in return. I was ENRAGED.
People, you do not want to see a bloated and drugged woman, who just suffered through nine and a half months of pregnancy, to be followed by two days of labor, only to end up having a C-section at the end of it, get angry at you. It's not pretty.
As far as I was concerned, in my muddy haze, that surgeon was His Satanic Majesty In A White Coat And Smiling, and I had to restrain myself from screaming him out of my room. How could he enjoy that job? What's with the cheerfulness? You're about to cut off part of my child's penis while he screams, and you're SMILING about it? You freaky sadistic BASTARD! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! Don't you even TOUCH my baby! I will kill you.
For some reason, I don't think that man liked me very much. *cough* At any rate, after I informed him that it would be a cold day in hell before he laid hands on my child, he indignantly informed me that I would "just have to come back in a few days. You might as well have it done now." There was not enough Percocet in that hospital to make me agree, and certainly not enough in my system to have me nod at the vampire bastard who liked chopping off the sexual organs of innocent babies. I really cannot stress this enough: I know I was drugged to the freaking gills; I've seen the pictures of me, glassy eyed and cramming food in my mouth, looking like a bloated whale carcass in pajamas. I know narcotics can make some people (including me) hallucinate in a most unpleasant way. Knowing these things did not stop me from firmly believing that this man was totally evil. I TOLD the staff my child was not to be circumcised, and that man came in anyway. Did he not read the chart, or did he just ignore it in the hopes that he could hack off one more foreskin, hooray! And after I told him there was no way in hell he was touching my child, he still tried to talk me into it by telling me I would HAVE to come back, so I might as well do it then! All I could think of was that he had a collection of little baby foreskins in his house on display, some Hannibal Lector of baby foreskins, maybe makes them into a necklace, shit I don't know. What I did know was that my impression of him was pure evil, and I coldly informed him that I would not, in all actuality, HAVE to come back AT ALL, because I was NEVER coming back, he was NEVER going to cut up my child, and GET OUT OF MY HOSPITAL ROOM.
He left, and by golly, he was pissed. I kept my son next to me at all times after that, afraid Doctor Foreskin Snatcher might sneak in while I was sleeping, circumcise my son and just tell the staff that I had agreed to it. The nurses told me I wasn't allowed to have my son in bed with me. I just looked at them and they said, "Well, I suppose we could overlook it, just this once." Damn straight. And if you see Doctor Vampire, will you please stab him through the heart for me? Thanks so much, you're a dear. And yes, I would like an extra Jell-o with my lunch!
Over the years, I've put up with a lot of crap from various doctors who informed me that my son would have to be circumcised eventually, because how else will he be able to keep his penis clean? It will become infected, they said. Stupid ass American doctors, for the love of god! I told them, "He'll clean it the same way that girls can clean themselves. Cleaning a vulva is not a simple procedure, either, but somehow little girls manage to do it without us cutting them all up. I'm sure he'll be fine. If a four year old girl can manage to not die of an infected vagina, I'm pretty sure he can figure it out, too."
*rolls eyes* It's so asinine. To think that doctors, in this day and age, are still so medieval in their medical training- that's frightening. We DO have running water and bathing devices now, you know. I'm not planning on washing my child in a polluted river, for pete's sake. COME ON.
This was recently demonstrated to me again. My son is now nine, and the foreskin still hasn't retracted. It has, but just the tiniest bit, so when we went for a check up recently I made sure that the doctor checked that, too. My son wasn't particularly happy about it, but he understood why we had to do it, so he put on a brave face and suffered through the indignities of having a stranger handling his privates. After I explained what happens in a gynecological exam, and even showed him the stirrups in the table to prove it, he agreed that he definitely had it pretty easy, by comparison.
So the doctor looked. And then there was a pause. "Um..." she said. "I'm not sure," she said. "Let me consult with another doctor. I'll be right back." She walked out, came back, and told me she wasn't really sure but that she was referring us to see a urologist to be certain.
Jack backed up my suspicions by later saying, "I bet she's never even SEEN an uncircumcised penis before! Geez- if this were Europe she would have just looked at him and been like, 'Yep, he's fine.'" I nodded, glumly. I wasn't really in the mood to take my son to an expensive specialist to have him poked at again. Oh well.
We went to the urologist a few weeks later, and it was the most ridiculous thing I've seen, in the sense that it was the first person who WASN'T ridiculous. Well, minus the nursing staff, who read the description of why we were there and asked, "So, do you want to have him circumcised?" It was all I could do to not answer, "No, you freaking asshat. That's why I wrote on the paper: 'Coming in to make sure his foreskin is retracting properly.' It clearly does not say 'Bring on the scalpel!' FUCKING DUH!" What is WITH this We Fear The Foreskin culture?
(Note to self: that would be a hilarious name of a rock band.)
The urologist came in, put my son at ease, pushed and prodded him for all of ten seconds, max, and told me he was just fine, not a thing in the world wrong with him. Oh. My. God. Did we just meet the first doctor who actually KNOWS something about a foreskin? Holy shit.
While I was relieved for my son, I was annoyed as all hell that we had to go see a freaking specialist to be told in under ten seconds, "No problem. Have a nice day." Really. He was in the exam room for less than three minutes, including introductions, writing on a piece of paper, and goodbyes. I even asked him a few questions about when we should be concerned, that sort of thing.
I thought about driving ten hours back to that evil vampire doctor that was in the hospital where my son was born and just smacking him upside the head with the largest dildo ever made. Let THAT be the headline in the local paper: "Doctor Gets Beat Down By Irate Mother Wielding Freakishly Large Dildo." The article would go on to say "Mother claims doctor is an evil vampire who wears mutilated baby foreskins as a necklace. Investigations are pending." Pssshtt. I told him I wasn't coming back, but that would be a good enough reason. I would go back for that, totally.
At least we can put all this silly wondering-about-the-wiener business behind us. According to the only doctor we've met that knows anything at all about an uncut penis and what it's supposed to look like, if it doesn't retract in his early teens, just come back and we'll have another look at it then to make sure there isn't a problem, but, and I quote, "There is nothing wrong with him, at all." It's hard, but I'm trying to view that forty dollar co-pay as forty dollars worth of piece of mind, but it still would have been nicer if the doctor I asked first could have had a freaking clue.
I think I'm going to start shopping around for a doctor with a nice European accent.
Men? Oh. Pause... (and withdrawal) Good times!
Something has recently been brought to my attention, something I find both thrilling, horrifying, and rather baffling to boot. I do believe, although I haven't been tested by my gynecologist yet, that I appear to have entered into the stages of menopause.
Oh Jill! The hell you say! No, really. Minus the affirmation from my girlie parts doctor, I can safely say I'm about 99% certain. Although my mother is shocked, since both her and my grandmother didn't enter into it until their fifties, it appears I'm going through it in my thirties. I suspect I've been going through it for a while now and just didn't put two and two together. Why would I? I'm thirty two. And frankly, with all the other bodily weirdness I have going on (chemical imbalance, physical therapy, etc), who could tell?
It was my shrink who pointed it out to me, last week. Last week, after I had posted my joy and confusion at not being pregnant the week before, I went into my shrinks office and just went bonkers. I was full tilt hormonal, my period had been going off and on all month, then REALLY started, and much heavier than usual, a week before it was supposed to. I remind you: I'm on the pill. I have always been like clockwork. Over the last year it's been off by a few days, but I assumed that was due to my best friend here being so close to my schedule that we were just setting each other off. (For anyone unaware, women tend to align with each others cycles when they spend a lot of time together. I don't know why, but I've seen it happen over and over again, so I can attest to it, personally.)
Last month my period just went all to hell, clockwork be damned, and I freaked and thought I was pregnant. I could not think of a single plausible reason why I would be so incredibly OFF. Then my period started for real about a week early, and that was the time I went into my shrinks.
I actually had an appointment with the psychiatrist and then the psychologist. I came in the psychiatrists door with hormones a'blazin'. I told her I was sick of being on so many drugs, thank you very much (it wasn't her fault, it was the asshat shrink I had before her, who I fired, that put me on them), and I want off of them NOW. She just blinked a bit and nodded, fully agreeing with me that all these stupid meds have got to go. Ok, technically not all of them, I won't try to tell you I'm the Queen of Mental Stability (ha!), but the ones the old shrink put me on were just piling up and still not getting rid of the panic attacks I've had since I was thirteen. So, fuck all that. I was a hormonal mess and just flamingly pissed off.
"Why am I taking all these drugs?" I demanded, rhetorically, "they aren't fixing the problem, so what's the damn point? If anything, I want off of these stupid things and try something completely different. You told me to try Xanax XR, I want to try that. But every shrink I've seen tells me I shouldn't be on sedatives, even though sedatives are the only think I've ever found that work! So I get bounced around on different medication, who cares what it is as long as it isn't a freaking sedative, right? I feel like a goddamn lab rat for this place. I'm over it. I want off of this shit, now." And I burst into tears.
She just looked at me, calm as could be, and I apologized. I told her I was really hormonal and not dealing with it very well. It wasn't her fault I was put on all this crap. I'm on so many different medications I call them my Fruity Pebbles, because that's what the shit looks like piled up in my hand when I take it. It's ridiculous. When I had first come to the offices my shrink works in, I was put with her and she doing a damn fine job with me, but then she kept getting sick and had to leave the practice for a year. I ended up getting bounced to an asshole shrink I hated immediately, then the asshat shrink I tried to put up with for the rest of the year. Once I heard my old shrink was back, I fired the stupid one and went back to my original doctor. She's not into the whole, "Let's play lab rat!" shit the other ones seemed all too happy to do. If anything, she told me once, she tends to have people drop her because she is "too slow", meaning, she tends to be very conservative about medication and changing them all willy nilly. For someone with anxiety, that's a GOOD thing.
We got to talking, and came up with a plan to get me off of the Fruity Pebbles. I told her that all of my symptoms stemmed from anxiety, and with sedatives all the other shit goes away. I don't need crap to make me sleep, cure an constant ulcer, fix hives and whatever the hell else I forgot to list. It's all anxiety. Fix the constant state of anxiety and the other shit will go away. I don't need a medication for each symptom, I need ONE for the root of the problem. She looked thoughtfully at me and nodded again, and I wondered (not for the first time) if she was the only psychiatrist I might ever know that actually is on the same page as me. Ugh! She told me to quit taking Klonopin and wrote me a prescription for Xanax XR. Ok, I said, but shouldn't I taper off the Klonopin? That's what I've read....No, she said, you should be fine just switching to the Xanax XR. It's the same family of benzo(whatever the hell they're called) and shouldn't have any withdrawal symptoms. Oh hell, was she wrong, but that comes later...
I was very pleased to hear I would soon be off of all this shit and just taking one or two meds a day instead of the piles of various crap that isn't working, and made my way down the hall to my appointment with my psychologist. I plopped down on the couch and she said, "So. How's it going?" I blinked, speechless for a moment, then took a deep breath and *blam!* I was off and running again. I told her about how I was sick of being on stupid medications that didn't work, how I'm hormonal as hell, my periods all fucked up and the various bullshit things that were irritating me.
She finally stopped me and said, "Jill? Why do you keep taking your sweater on and off?" I stopped, mid-spaz, and said, "Wait..what?" She asked me again, "Why do you keep taking your sweater on and off?" I took a deep breath and said, "Oh. I uh, keep having, like, hot flashes. Then I am cold. Really cold. It's weird. This usually only happens when I have my migraine, but my periods been all messed up this month and the hot and cold thing just hasn't stopped yet, either. I can't figure out what's wrong. I'm going to go back to my gyno and have them test me for some kind of hormonal imbalance, because this is just crazy."
That's the pot calling the kettle black, eh? Well, I suppose I am both the pot AND the kettle, so it's rather irrelevant.
She cocked her head to the side and said, "Have you considered the possibility that it's menopause?" It was all I could do to just blink at her stupidly, while my brain did what felt like a star imploding and collapsing upon itself inside my head.
Of course. The irregular periods. The hormonal imbalance that seems to be getting steadily worse. The PMS that isn't like PMS anymore, it's like some really fucked up hormonal voodoo priestess in my head, jabbing pins into my brain. The migraines that are steadily getting worse, and erratic. The hot and cold flashes that come with my migraines...I thought back and realized that those haven't always been there, those have only been there for the last year or so, and progressively have gotten worse. And now the hot flashes are not staying with the migraines, they're coming at any time...
Oh shit! All of these things are related and I never put them together like that before. Why would I? At thirty two, I wasn't expecting to hit menopause for another twenty years! What in the hell? At the same time, I was so relieved to think there was actually a REASON for all of these things, and not only that, there was actually an end in sight. It wasn't that I'm just getting crazier, I'm likely just going through menopause! Well, fuck a duck. I hadn't even thought of that.
I finally managed to figure out where my mouth was and operate it again. "That...Oh! I, ah...Gee..."
I said I figured out how to operate it, I didn't say I made any sense.
We started talking about menopause and the more my shrink asked me questions, the more I answered them with a "yes", the more she smiled and nodded. I was freaked out, but really relieved. Of course! Menopause!
I've had friends go through it and when I think back to the experiences they had...shit. Of course. One of them would grab me to stand outside in the snow in her short sleeve shirt while I froze next to her in my winter coat, saying she was on fire, "Damn hot flashes!" Another one locked herself in her house for a year (maybe two) and I only figured out what happened to her by asking her son, who is my age, "Dude, where's your mom? I haven't seen her in months. Is she ok?" He just nodded gravely and told me she was in her "change of life" and not handling it so well. As a matter of fact, she was having such a bad time of it she just decided to stay home until it was over, for the sake of the rest of the world, and had her son bring her bags of weed and groceries, which he did. When I finally saw her again I hugged her joyously and said, "(Your son) told me what was going on. How are you? Are you ok?" She gave me a look I might never forget, like someone who has spent the last year sucking on the barrel of a gun and doing some heavy thinking. She said, "Yah. I'm ok...now. But for a while there..." and just left it hanging in mid-air. We both just stood silently and nothing more was said about it.
In contrast, both my mom and grandma had a real easy time of it, so I haven't really been worried about it. (laughs) I guess that was rather optimistic of me, wasn't it? We may be blood, but small breasts seem to be about all we have in common as far as genetics are concerned. My grandmother has, on many occasions, said to me, "Jill? I just can't understand how so damn many things can be wrong with one person. I just can't. I've never even heard of such a thing." I didn't bother to explain that if I'd spent my life inside a liqueur bottle like she did, I probably wouldn't be so stressed out, either. I'm sure if I was drinking Screwdrivers with breakfast I'd feel damn skippy, too. But, due to the predisposition to turn into drunks that runs on both sides of my family (my mom seems to be the only one who broke the chain), I have always steered away from alcohol. That didn't stop me from trying piles of other drugs during my teenage years, but those days are behind me now. Now I take my drugs legally, in the hopes that they are the actual cures for my ill-firing neurons, and not just random street bought band-aids to cover it up. No more pot smoking for the hormonal voodoo priestess in my head, it tends to make her whisper things like, "Let's clean everything. You should be able to eat off your floor or you're not a real woman. Besides, things aren't as scary when they're clean, you know. BOO! See?" I should stick an OCD pin in her ass. But I digress...
After my appointment with the shrink I told Jack what she said, and he was empathic in his agreement. "That makes so much sense," he said. Indeed.
I spent the day busy, but letting it simmer in the back of my head. Of course...I have sweaters in nearly every room, for those hot flashes. I even went out and bought a larger blanket for the couch. That tiny "throw" was ridiculous, and not enough to keep me warm during the cold flashes that follow the hot flashes. I've been trying to convince myself to wear things other than jeans and a T-shirt, but that's all I ever want to wear. Everything else is too hot, too cold, too uncomfortable, too synthetic, and jeans and a T-shirt are damn easy to dress in layers, take them on, take them off. Very simple. Even my joy at winters arrival this year and my anxiety about summer coming makes sense now. I remember being particularly sensitive to the temperature changes last summer, mainly the heat. There were times I would be outside and just think, "I'm going to die. How can any place be so freaking HOT?" and either jump in the pool with my son or go back inside where the sweet air conditioning was. I suspect I was having very minor hot flashes for almost a year now and hadn't realized it. I have frequently brushed them off by shrugging and saying, "Eh, I'm a mutant" in a dismissive and joking tone when anyone would ask.
And OH MY GOD am I spacey. It's ridiculous. Most days I can't leave the house without an actual list in my purse (today will be no exception) telling me what I need to do and remember for the day, because otherwise...(sighs) I don't remember shit. The doctors put me on Adderall this year, assuming my spaceyness was the Inattentive version of ADD, and while I tend to agree, it has helped a lot, I seem to be getting more and more loopy. When I read that it was a common side effect of menopause I could have wept with relief. I thought I was just getting stupid. And despite the last shrinks attempt to up my dosage of Adderall, I didn't want it. It makes the panic attacks worse sometimes. Not all the time, but when it does, it's REALLY bad. I'd rather have a piece of paper than more drugs. Alas, since I'm the one writing the list, I, ah, tend to leave a lot out. Hopefully this, too, shall pass.
Then the weekend came, and with it, total bodily chaos. My hot flashes went all to hell, everything did. A hot flash would hit and I would rip off my clothes, nearly passing out, panting and nauseous, ready to puke at a moments notice, but never actually doing it. Poor Jack would just look at me, helpless to do anything about it, just stand there with a look of deep concern. It seemed like they would get better as the day went on, then hit again as night came, and I'd have them all night, too.
I've had hot flashes at night before, but nothing like this. After the weekend, things seemed to get better for a day or two, but then went all to hell again. I woke up one morning feeling like half of my face was numb. My neck and back were killing me. I kept hearing things that weren't there, and felt like I was vaguely hallucinating. I started to freak out, thinking something must be very, VERY wrong with me. Like, this isn't menopause anymore. This is a stroke. A brain tumor. Oh my god, what's wrong with me?
Yesterday was the breaking point. I haven't slept for more than five hours a night since Friday, and when I got up yesterday my skin was tingling- everywhere. I could barely feel my arms, my heart was racing, and I was exhausted. When Jack finally got up, he found me sitting in the dining room, flexing my hands over and over and grimacing over a bowl of mostly uneaten cereal. Every time I looked at it I wanted to puke. I tried to play it off like I was ok because I didn't want to worry him, and told him about the crazy dream I had, but after awhile I just couldn't fake it. I was freaking out. I thought I should go to the hospital.
After much talk and questioning and brain storming, we finally decided it had to be the Klonopin my doctor took me off of. I went online and researched withdrawal symptoms and shit hell and damn- I had every one. Then I was pissed, even in the midst of being relieved that I wasn't actually having a stroke. That last doctor I had put me on the shit because she didn't want me on Xanax, because, "Xanax is bad for you, it's addictive. You need to be on Klonopin instead." I wanted to go in there and smack her upside her stupid little head and scream, "I thought I was dying, you stupid bitch! What do you mean, it's not addictive!?! You're a fucking retard!" And I was pissed off at my favorite shrink, too, for assuming I would be fine just switching meds and not tapering off like every freaking article I've ever read about it tells you to do. (sigh) I finally broke down and just decided to take a tiny bit of it to see if that fixed it. And whaddya know? I felt a million times better. Damn it!
Now, that's not to say I'm not going through menopause. That stuff started way before I came off of the Klonopin. But hell's bells, that didn't help! I was freaked out last weekend, thinking the hot flashes I was having were normal, but most people don't want to vomit and pass out from having a hot flash. THAT part was the Klonopin withdrawal.
Needless to say, it's been an interesting week. I haven't been able to write much except for little tidbits here and there, because nothing made much sense anyway. So now you know. Your little Jilly-puff isn't just crazy, I'm extra special crazy! And I'm feeling better now, so let's get back to our regularly scheduled programming, shall we?
Indeed.
vanishing anger
A man was rowing his boat upstream on a very misty morning. Suddenly, he saw another boat coming downstream, not trying to avoid him. It was coming straight at him. He shouted, "Be careful! Be careful!" but the boat came right into him, and his boat was almost sunk. The man became very angry, and began to shout at the other person, to give him a piece of his mind. But when he looked closely, he saw that there was no one in the other boat. It turned out that the boat just got loose and went downstream. All his anger vanished, and he laughed and he laughed.
-Thich Nhat Nanh, "Being Peace"
(Photo property of Sacha Fernandez.)
-Thich Nhat Nanh, "Being Peace"
(Photo property of Sacha Fernandez.)
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
opinions run rampant
Personally, I like the conflict going on between the stickers. All the heavily stated opinions and then one that says, "RELAX!" And, of course, E=MC Spongebob.
thoughtful
More for listening to, not so much for watching, unless you just like to see someone play a piano.
the emotional tides
Last weekend my husband was listening to various songs on Rhapsody, and played a song I hadn't heard before. I was washing dishes, listening, and by the time it got to the end of the first chorus I was crying.
Her face is a map of the world
Is a map of the world
You can see she's a beautiful girl
She's a beautiful girl
And everything around her is a silver pool of light
The people who surround her feel the benefit of it
It makes you calm
She holds you captivated in her palm
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
I feel like walking the world
Like walking the world
You can hear she's a beautiful girl
She's a beautiful girl
She fills up every corner like she's born in black and white
Makes you feel warmer when you're trying to remember
What you heard
She likes to leave you hanging on a word
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
And she's taller than most
And she's looking at me
I can see her eyes looking from the page in a magazine
She makes me feel like I could be a tower
A big strong tower, yah
The power to be
The power to give
The power to see, yah, yah...
(suddenly I see)
She got the power to be
The power to give
The power to see, yah, yah...
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
~KT Tunstall, Suddenly I See
It hit me like a ton a bricks, and I had to laugh at little at the irony of the title...because suddenly I saw it was a perfect metaphor for the difference between the polarities I feel within myself. Sometimes I feel powerful, magical, and strong, and other times I feel beaten down and run ragged by the daily grinding process of just getting up every morning and dragging myself through another day. When I heard the song, I was definitely feeling dragged down and trying to snap myself out of it. It's not what I want to be...
I've had quite a few shrinks, over the years, ask me if I thought perhaps... I might be manic depressive? I always tell them no, I don't think that's it. My moods shifts seem to run directly with whatever is happening at the moment, and become even more pronounced with the rise of fall of my hormone cycle. I tell them it doesn't feel like what I've read about bi-polar disorder. It changes with whatever is happening...
I've broken down and cried when an ambulance drives by, sirens blaring.
Seeing old people cuddling or holding hands fills me with warmth and hope.
I can wake up from a dream, whether good or bad, and it hangs on me for hours sometimes.
I don't watch horror movies because they fill me with sorrow and apprehension- not at the movie itself, but the fact that so many people spent so much time and energy to make something so emotionally battering, and so many more people spend their time and money watching it, and enjoying the evil and gore. I can't comprehend it.
Sometimes I can just hear a song playing and be filled with emotions, images, and just as suddenly, another song can come on and change my own emotional landscape.
It's rather extreme. It's overwhelming. That is, it's overwhelmingly wonderful when it's something good, and vice versa. I am an intensely emotional person.
Because of my tendency to soak up whatever is in my environment, I've learned to keep my environment tightly controlled. While this is helpful at times, it also restricts me from seeing and experiencing a lot of potentially beautiful moments because I'm blinded by the anxiety of the potentially bad ones. This is not how I want to live my life.
Sometimes I get down, and it feels like an abyss that I might never crawl out of. Too much at once can slam me face first into darkness, and just as suddenly, I can have the barest glimpse of something inspiring and feel on top of the world, but...when I'm down, and there's a lot of heavy shit on my mind, it's hard to hold on to those uplifting moments. I think of it like surfing, not that I know how to surf... I feel like my own inner emotional environment is an ocean, with it's swells and crests and tumbling waves. Sometimes I can stay up, sometimes I fall. And when I fall, it's a struggle with the tidal pull, or the ever present winds of change.
When I was about nineteen I had my astrological chart read. The woman was good, and nailed all kinds of quirks that I have without even knowing me. One of the things she mentioned has stuck with me ever since. She said, "Oh! You have a grand water trine. You must be like an emotional sponge." I just blinked at her, because that was the exact morning that I had first cried as an ambulance went by. It was such a powerful emotion I actually had to get off of my bike and just sob on the sidewalk for a minute. I told her that and she just nodded sagely. "Yah. That sounds about right," she said, as if this were a normal thing to be expected.
I've wondered many times what it's like to experience life without so much... color. I decided long ago that I wouldn't care to live it any other way, because the beautiful moments are so glorious. I feel misunderstood and sad sometimes, but also I feel a sense of pity for someone who can't shed tears of spontaneous joy at a child's smile, the wag of a dogs tail, some positive message seen in graffiti, or something as seemingly inconsequential as a beautiful day or the way the light shines off of water. Those are the moments I have felt the closest to anything spiritual. Those are the moments I feel touched by what many people refer to as God.
The thing is, I can't hold on to that indefinitely. Sooner or later I fall back down and think longingly of that sweeter place that I would rather occupy. But such is life.
Two rivers run too deep
The seasons change and so do I
The light that strikes the tallest trees
Will light a way for I
Will light a way
Up toward the sky
It's a blue sky...
~U2, Indian Summer Sky
The trick is in finding the balance.
(shakes head and chuckles ruefully)
It's always all about finding the balance.
Her face is a map of the world
Is a map of the world
You can see she's a beautiful girl
She's a beautiful girl
And everything around her is a silver pool of light
The people who surround her feel the benefit of it
It makes you calm
She holds you captivated in her palm
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
I feel like walking the world
Like walking the world
You can hear she's a beautiful girl
She's a beautiful girl
She fills up every corner like she's born in black and white
Makes you feel warmer when you're trying to remember
What you heard
She likes to leave you hanging on a word
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
And she's taller than most
And she's looking at me
I can see her eyes looking from the page in a magazine
She makes me feel like I could be a tower
A big strong tower, yah
The power to be
The power to give
The power to see, yah, yah...
(suddenly I see)
She got the power to be
The power to give
The power to see, yah, yah...
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
~KT Tunstall, Suddenly I See
It hit me like a ton a bricks, and I had to laugh at little at the irony of the title...because suddenly I saw it was a perfect metaphor for the difference between the polarities I feel within myself. Sometimes I feel powerful, magical, and strong, and other times I feel beaten down and run ragged by the daily grinding process of just getting up every morning and dragging myself through another day. When I heard the song, I was definitely feeling dragged down and trying to snap myself out of it. It's not what I want to be...
I've had quite a few shrinks, over the years, ask me if I thought perhaps... I might be manic depressive? I always tell them no, I don't think that's it. My moods shifts seem to run directly with whatever is happening at the moment, and become even more pronounced with the rise of fall of my hormone cycle. I tell them it doesn't feel like what I've read about bi-polar disorder. It changes with whatever is happening...
I've broken down and cried when an ambulance drives by, sirens blaring.
Seeing old people cuddling or holding hands fills me with warmth and hope.
I can wake up from a dream, whether good or bad, and it hangs on me for hours sometimes.
I don't watch horror movies because they fill me with sorrow and apprehension- not at the movie itself, but the fact that so many people spent so much time and energy to make something so emotionally battering, and so many more people spend their time and money watching it, and enjoying the evil and gore. I can't comprehend it.
Sometimes I can just hear a song playing and be filled with emotions, images, and just as suddenly, another song can come on and change my own emotional landscape.
It's rather extreme. It's overwhelming. That is, it's overwhelmingly wonderful when it's something good, and vice versa. I am an intensely emotional person.
Because of my tendency to soak up whatever is in my environment, I've learned to keep my environment tightly controlled. While this is helpful at times, it also restricts me from seeing and experiencing a lot of potentially beautiful moments because I'm blinded by the anxiety of the potentially bad ones. This is not how I want to live my life.
Sometimes I get down, and it feels like an abyss that I might never crawl out of. Too much at once can slam me face first into darkness, and just as suddenly, I can have the barest glimpse of something inspiring and feel on top of the world, but...when I'm down, and there's a lot of heavy shit on my mind, it's hard to hold on to those uplifting moments. I think of it like surfing, not that I know how to surf... I feel like my own inner emotional environment is an ocean, with it's swells and crests and tumbling waves. Sometimes I can stay up, sometimes I fall. And when I fall, it's a struggle with the tidal pull, or the ever present winds of change.
When I was about nineteen I had my astrological chart read. The woman was good, and nailed all kinds of quirks that I have without even knowing me. One of the things she mentioned has stuck with me ever since. She said, "Oh! You have a grand water trine. You must be like an emotional sponge." I just blinked at her, because that was the exact morning that I had first cried as an ambulance went by. It was such a powerful emotion I actually had to get off of my bike and just sob on the sidewalk for a minute. I told her that and she just nodded sagely. "Yah. That sounds about right," she said, as if this were a normal thing to be expected.
I've wondered many times what it's like to experience life without so much... color. I decided long ago that I wouldn't care to live it any other way, because the beautiful moments are so glorious. I feel misunderstood and sad sometimes, but also I feel a sense of pity for someone who can't shed tears of spontaneous joy at a child's smile, the wag of a dogs tail, some positive message seen in graffiti, or something as seemingly inconsequential as a beautiful day or the way the light shines off of water. Those are the moments I have felt the closest to anything spiritual. Those are the moments I feel touched by what many people refer to as God.
The thing is, I can't hold on to that indefinitely. Sooner or later I fall back down and think longingly of that sweeter place that I would rather occupy. But such is life.
Two rivers run too deep
The seasons change and so do I
The light that strikes the tallest trees
Will light a way for I
Will light a way
Up toward the sky
It's a blue sky...
~U2, Indian Summer Sky
The trick is in finding the balance.
(shakes head and chuckles ruefully)
It's always all about finding the balance.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
answering the obvious
I keep seeing an ad in MySpace that asks "Are You Stupid?"
It's one of those quizzes, I'm guessing. The thing is, I can't click on it because it's TOO stupid to click on. I have to confess I am horribly curious to know if leads to a page that just says, "Evidently." If I made up that quiz, that's what I would do. I mean, if you have to ask...
Really.
It's one of those quizzes, I'm guessing. The thing is, I can't click on it because it's TOO stupid to click on. I have to confess I am horribly curious to know if leads to a page that just says, "Evidently." If I made up that quiz, that's what I would do. I mean, if you have to ask...
Really.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
"Here comes the sun...and I say, it's all right..."
Yesterday was gorgeous. Today was gorgeous. Both days we went down to the beach and walked around. Yesterday was a wee bit bittersweet because our neighbors were moving away, so I asked them if they minded if I took their daughter with us on some Last Day Adventure, full of pictures that I could send them, of course. They smiled and said it would be wonderful, which I don't doubt since they had to finish packing the moving truck.
So off we went, and it was her choice where we went on her Last Day Adventure here in town, and she wanted to go to the beach. So be it, the little queen had spoken. I had my camera and we just went nuts running all over, playing in the sand, checking out ladybugs, petting the horses, scoping out sculptures and people watching.
Oh, there was quite a bit of petting every dog possible as well. And a bit of bird watching, since some guy was feeding them the birds were going absolutely bonkers, and both kids screamed and laughed and made various comments about hoping the seagulls wouldn't poop on them. It was a good time had by all, topped off by some ridiculously overpriced Blizzards at the Dairy Queen down at the beach (note to self: food at the boardwalk is stupidly expensive, please remember for future reference).
We came back to the house and they played until her parents came to scoop her up, and I asked her if she was going to be our pen pal. I realized I was old then, because she had no clue what a pen pal was, and neither did my son. (rolls eyes) Oh, geez. Once I told her she brightened up. I could see she was sad to leave, but I told her I would send her all her pictures of playing on her last day here, and she left with a smile. She's a very sweet girl. Georgia, you're lucky to have her, I can tell you that. Be good to her, or I'll kick your peachy ass.
Today was another fantastic day, so we packed our selves up and went for a walk. I was hoping to show my husband the horse I fell in love with, but they were out riding.
When I was there the day before, some lady walked up and said, "Oh...he's got a glass eye." I looked at her, baffled. It was a beautiful blue color, and I was quite sure it wasn't made of glass. She explained, "The Native Americans called horses with one blue eye a 'glass eye'. They were considered mystical." I don't know if that's true or not, but I can tell you that I stood there and petted that beautiful creature for a long time. He did indeed have one blue and one brown eye, and was softer than the other horses. I had to pet them all, of course. Even the kids finally were brave enough after awhile.
I've decided: it is good to come home at the end of the day with gritty sand in your ears, shoes, and even underwear. These are the signs of a day well spent, in my opinion. I think we all ended up with a tad of a sunburn, even, which is a funny thing in the beginning of March.
I wish the whole year was this weather. But tomorrow will be colder again, and in just a few months it'll be hot as blazing hell. In the meantime, I'll be soaking up the perfect days when I can get them. And the last two days were definitely that.
Friday, March 02, 2007
a beautiful day
It's an INCREDIBLY gorgeous day here, after a tornado watch this morning, and I had planned on sitting and writing things but I really just can't. It would be close to sacrilege. Instead, I'm grabbing my camera and heading out. I'm not sure where I'm even going yet. Jack might take a walk with me at lunch today if he isn't too busy. If not, it's a big beautiful world, and seventy degrees and windy is EXACTLY my perfect temperature. Today is the kind of day that you just want to reach out and take a bite out of. For those of you in colder places, I'm sorry. I promise to enjoy it for both of us, ok? The big blogs I had planned will have to wait until next week, or maybe this weekend. I don't know, it's supposed to be gorgeous tomorrow, too. Maybe I'll just get all kinds of crazy and go for the roller blades. With this kind of weather, who knows? And really, who cares?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
