have you seen the bigger piggies, in their starched white shirts?

I got a comment on the milk post this morning from PJ, and she said something that rings true for most of us in some way.  She said that she would "love to write something funny, but the subject is really close to my heart.  When I was a kid, most girls were 12 or 13 before they got their periods and about the same age before they wore their first training bras. Now girls are 9 when they menstruate and 9 when they wear their first bras - and many of those are not the training variety! Why? Because of all the freakin' hormones given to animals, cows in particular...and because of all the freakin' fast food places that serve the crap and all of the overbooked children and parents who don't have time to sit down to dinner at home and eat healthy food.
The milk issue is part of that.  And of course that's just one example of what hormones will do for you. As people begin to drop dead from new and more virulent strains of cancer, maybe then we'll wise up?
Where does the buck stop? With the consumer. I wish people would think of the long term ramifications to their daily actions."
I wrote back to her, telling her something about that the only reason that I can say something remotely funny about it is so I don't cry.  It's how I deal.  We are doing something terrible to our children.

I'm not sure how old my mom was when she started her period, and honestly, I don't even know how old I was.  It was a rough time for me during those years.  I've blocked most of it out.  I think I was about 13.  Normal, I guess, but it was the end of that normal.  I remember most of my friends had it for years before I had mine.  I remember our mothers and teachers and doctors being shocked that girls were starting their periods at 11 and 12 years old.  There was some talk that it might be the food.  The air.  The way we danced.  The rocking and the rolling we were doing, that our mothers did.  I remember feeling left out.  I also remember feeling like the other kids were lucky because they got to eat lots of junk for lunch.  And me and my brown bread and peanut butter sandwiches and thermoses full of tomato soup and juiceboxes of 100% orange juice and baggies of carrot sticks were so damned geeky compareds to their Lunchables and pink meat on white bread.  Now I want to send an embossed thank you note to my dad who was probably wholly responsible for my "delayed" menses.

My body doesn't look anything like my mom's body.  My mom is what they call in the business "a string bean".  I'm what is affectionately known as "a brick shithouse".  That doesn't happen by accident.  There is nothing about my silouette that looks like her silouette.
I'm not complaining about my body now.  What's to complain about, really?  That it's hard to find a shirt that fits both my waspish waist and my giant breasts?  That I have to shop for hours to find pants that both go all the way down to my ankles and keep the men's eyes off my hypnotic midsection?  Poor me. 
But I've looked like this since I was a child. 
Garanimals doesn't market overalls for this type of thing. 
How my father must have felt sending me to seventh grade with a women's sized bra I have no idea.  I was 5'7 and weighed 105 pounds.  Luckily I was ugly as sin or there might have been trouble.
I have three neices, two on Dave's side and my brother's daughter.  Extreme obesity runs in those little girl's families.  Extreme What's Eating Gilbert Grape kinda fatness.  What of that?  What happens when you mix obesity and hormones and today's societal eating habits and the pressure to be thin and the outward expression of sexuality and the drive to suceed in school and business and life and eventually motherhood or adulthood?  Are these girls going to be okay?  I grew up wondering if I'd ever fill out or if I'd be damned to be as skinny as my mom and dad for the rest of my life and if anyone would ever love a girl that looks like a boy with big boobs.  What will their struggle be?  What will any child born today's struggle be?  How will the human body cope with something it isn't designed to battle?

I said to PJ no wonder girls are getting pregnant at 10 years old.  First of all they can.  They have their periods.  Their bodies are developed.  Breasts are large and pubics are hairy and penises are bigger and the stuff that comes out of them is potent.  Hormones are out of control thanks to the hormones pumped into the foods that thse kids are eating every day.  Foods that are being placed on the table by the mothers and fathers that love their families.  It is scary.  It is real.  When there are hormones in your body, and your body is developed, you are hormonal.  Can you say that, class?  Hor-mon-al.  Good. 
Remember how you felt in high school?  This is the way children are feeling in middle school.  Elementary school.  Fifth graders who are hormonal.  Ovulating.  Developed.  Horny.  Ready.  Willing.  Able.

Add to that there are 12 and 13 year olds in fifth grade classrooms.  There because they got a late start in school, or who may have been held back a grade or two.  There are 9 and 10 year olds who skipped grades because they are so smart or because their birthdays fall right on the cut off date for early enrollment.  Mary Menses who belongs to Mensa is in the fifth grade at 9 years old.  Her neighbor Timmy Testosterone is a bit Thickskulled and is in the fifth grade at 13.  That's like a recipe for disaster.  It's happening everywhere.  The age where it used to be okay to play doctor is now the age of useful erections and vaginal lubrication and the knowledge that "this" can go in "there" is wide-spread but not wide-educated.  In some schools, sex education doesn't start until seventh grade.  In some homes, it never starts. 

This all comes together, folks.  The food we are feeding our children (yes we.  I don't do organic or hormone free- there can be a difference- shopping other than milk, eggs, and random stuff like nuts and spices and rice.  I don't buy any meat to fix at home.  We eat out a lot.  A lot a lot.  In the summer I do as much produce shopping at farmers markets and the Reading Terminal but in the winter it's anything goes.) is changing their bodies at an alarming rate.  It's fucking with their genetics.  The family traits aren't being passed down correctly anymore.  Everything is mutating.  Things we can see, things we can't.  Things we can measure, things we can't.  Think about it.
Your special Sunday morning omelet might be making your daughter pregnant.
That secret recipe casserole might be giving your son a boner. 
And acne. 
And cancer.

PJ mentioned the phrase "where does the buck stop?".   Where does it stop indeed.  Start speaking with your wallets.  If you have a problem with something, stop buying it.
Don't like what goes in the food?  Don't buy it.  Don't eat it. 
It's not rocket science. 
We all have the choice.
Make the right one.
The smart one.
The informed one.

In that same vein:
Don't like gas prices?  Stop filling your tank.  Stop driving everywhere.  Stop buying vehicles that use lots of gasoline.
Dave and I share a car.  Granted that's very do-able here in the city where we can walk or take public trans most places, but we save hundreds of dollars a month.  Thousands a year.  That's money we can use to...  Dammit!  Dammit all.  That's money we can use to buy food that is slowly killing our boy.  Gah!  We are the worst frigging parents EVER!  We should just buy another stupid car and allow the emissions to go out over the world and into the lungs of babies and kill everyone's kids instead of just killing our own.

Don't like how McDonald's makes you feel/targets a certain ethnicity/raises beef/uses a clown as its mascot? Don't buy it.
Not happy with how expensive ____ is getting?  Don't buy it until prices go down.
Not happy with how ____ is advertising?  Don't buy it until they stop.
Not happy with how _____ is treating it's workers?  Don't shop there until they change their practices.
Not happy with how _____ is killing African children in the mining of it's products?  Find a new way to show the world you are getting married.
Not happy with how _____ is _____.  Don't buy it.
Get it?
Speak with your wallet.
Until you do, you are killing babies and exploiting workers and mistreating animals and targeting blacks and using clowns and importing oil and supporting terrorists and polluting streams and and and.
You.  Me.  You and I.  You and I are doing all these things with our dollars.
Where does the buck stop?

There is nothing that most of us need so much that we have to go out and buy it.  Most of us have running water, a decent roof, enough clothes to get us through til laundry day, a way to get to work, something to eat.  The rest is fringe. 
Sparkley, tassley, glittery, yummy, status symbolly, garlandy, fuzzy, wonderful, i love it, i want it, i'm addicted, i really want more, please just a little bit, i promise to be good, shiny, pretty, precious, fringe.

That's how they get us.

Lets get them back.

Remember milk?  When you were little and your mom would pour you a cold glass of milk and it was actually good for you?

And the only kind of mustache it would give you could be taken care of with a napkin?  And when someone said "drink up so your boobs will get big/your chest will get hairy" it was just a way for you to get you finish what you were given and not the gadshonest truth?

What?  Your parents didn't tell you that milk made your boobs big or your chest hairy?  I guess you didn't grow up in the seventies.

Now milk can be scary.  Long time listeners know the battle I have with milk.  How every time I give non-organic cow's milk to Jake I gag because I know what's in there.  Udder pus.  Because I know it's responsible for filling out kids and giving them 16 year old bodies when they are nine.  Boobs and mustaches and hips and butts and and and worse.  We did the Almond milk for a year or so, but I hated how you couldn't recycle the containers and that made me feel low class. 
I don't get to a real grocery store very often so I was constantly buying udder pus. 
Real grocery stores just don't happen much in my life. 
And it's not like my corner store is stocking organic. 
I mean for who?
Joey an' his cuzzin 'rounda way?

Yo bo.  I takea bagga chips.  The 25cent one, not no 99cent one.  I ain't dat hungry an' my momz is cookin' tanite.  A packa Marberreds.  Some gum.  I'm meetin' my girl afferdis.  An ice cream samwich.  A hamsamwich wit' 'merican cheese'n bof mayo n oil. Saltpepperegano. Gimme a packa dem Jokah papers.  Anna lighter.  No wait.  Matches.  I gettem free wit da papers an da marbers, right?  Oh, and I'll take a gallon of milk, but only if you carry organic.  Nonna dem hormonal shits in der, grass fed, free range, an' it betta be from a farms in delco or somewheres close, yo. 

As if.

Enter my new corner store, Green Aisle Grocery.  Two local boys who know what a girl like me needs in a neighborhood like ours.

I'm not a complete (insert adjective of choice here) about organics and local foods and all that.  But I think dairy matters.  If it comes out of a boob or a vagina and I'm going to eat it, I want it to come out of the cleanest, closest boob or vagina possible.  Simple as that.

And the best part of it all?

The milk comes in glass bottles (no plastic!) that I can return to the store.  Or keep and fill with flowers and rainbows.  Either way, how adorable does it look next to my sugarbowl and coffee tin and VoGs even when photographed with a camera phone at 6am? 

The whole thing helps me perpetuate my Betty Draper fantasy.

I don't know if I want to be Betty Draper or (insert verb of choice here) Betty Draper.  I mean, I've never seen the show or anything, so I don't know what she's like in pretend life, but that girl is a looker for sure.

Green Aisle carries all sorts of stuff, not just dairy and not just hairy armpit calico jamband overpriced hippie dharma annoying crunchy opentoed granola bongo stuff.  If you live nearby, stop in and feel free to ask questions and stick your nose in the jars and read the labels and poke around for as long as you want.  It's encouraged.
They deliver all over South Philly and beyond, but there is really no reason NOT to be in the neighborhood.  Everyone knows it's the hotspot. 
Also, free cocktails Mondays from 6-8.  Hear that?  FREE COCKTAILS, MONDAYS FROM 6-8.

Just saying.  And saying it loudly.

Green Aisle in no way endorses me or this blog.  However, both me and this blog endorse Green Aisle.

good night

I remember when Jake was very small and I was certain that there had been some sort of mistake. When I held him with his head in the bend of my left arm, I just knew he was never going to grow. He would always be incredibly helpless and small and I would forever be unbelievably tired and needed.

It is funny to see him sprawled across my body when I try to hold him like that now. When he was born he was only 20 inches long and he was usually curled into a ball half that size. Now he is less than 30 inches shorter than I. He was 30 inches tall on his first birthday, nearly two years ago.

I sneak into his room every night to watch him breathe and I whisper all of the things I know about life in hope that part of him hears and I spare him a bit of heartache somewhere along the line.
Maybe I will.
Probably not.

He sleeps like a man.
On his back with his right hand either deep in his waistband or up the bottom of his shirt with his fingers spread across the left side of his chest. It's funny what men protect. It's funny that my boy does it without knowing why. His other hand is usually holding his bear. I wonder how long that will last. Not long enough. Nothing good ever lasts long enough.

I can't decide whether I'm grateful or resentful of the way he changed my life. It doesn't matter because I love him so much that it breaks me and makes me whole in the same instant. He didn't ask to be here but he demands that I be here for him and I do so without question.

Late at night, I hold him as best I can without disturbing him. Sometimes he will turn to me and sleepily tell me he loves me or that I look beautiful in his bed. When he is my age he will say that to someone else, and I hope it means as much to the person he chooses to begin and end his days with as it does to me.

When we are awake I can't comfortably make space for him in my lap anymore. He is too long to cradle on the tops of my legs so we sit face to face and too tall to fit on my lap without hitting my face with his head when he turns to talk to me. I can't curl around him anymore nor hold him against my belly when we lie down together. I can't pretend we are still vitally connected. He is too big to melt himself into me the way he was able to do his entire life but too small to stop trying.

Today.

(I wrote this last January, but I'm reposting today it because I want to.)

Dearest Readers,

If you would be so kind, over the next few days please point your feed readers and sidebar links and bookmarks to http://www.afever.com/
Traffic should automatically re-direct, but since I'm a total techtard, I may have screwed that function up royally.

Unfortunately, I don't have billions of dollars to buy out plain old fever.com, so don't mind the tiny little "a" up there in front of the word "fever".  Someday when I'm rich and famous I'll drop it, but for now, I'll make do.

Many thanks and much love,
Lora

All the education in the world and it's the waitressing skills I use the most. Go figure.

I grew up in Erie, PA.

I've described it here as a beach town in the middle of the snow belt.  That's pretty much what it is.  It snows a lot.  A lot a lot.  I think it's something like the twelfth or thirteenth snowiest place in the United States.  But, it has boating and beaches and local legend has it that Erie has the second best sunsets in the entire world.  It's a beautiful town, if you know where to look.  Please click on those last three links, especially if you are from Erie.

My work blocks me from goerie.com, where I used to keep up with the news.  Now I get it from Erie Blogs and a weekly email newsletter that I get sent to my work email because if work doesn't let me keep up with my hometown on company time, dammit, I'm going to find a way to keep up with my hometown on company time, dammit.

Usually they are feel good stories.  Recipes and puppies and first days of school and golden olden time remembery stuff.  Every once in awhile you'll hear of something closing down.  Forges and plants and factories mostly.  Stuff that you knew was going to go.  Places where our dads and grandads worked when we were little.  Restaurants where our moms used to take us or stores where we got squeaky saddle shoes.  Sad, but expected.  That kind of stuff happens in towns that are dying.  Towns that have been dying since before I was born.

I left Erie at 18.  Most educated people do.  Not because they are smarter, but because they need to pay off the student loans.  The ones who stay, the Doctors and Lawyers and Indian Chiefs are a lucky few.  You can have a good life there if you have a good job that makes good money.  There aren't many jobs up there for college graduates.  There aren't many jobs up there for anyone.  Tens of thousands of people have left since I have.  I only have three friends living there now.  One is leaving this summer, moving to the Sandusky area with her boys and her new husband.  It's a better life.
My brother is up there.  Definitely not by choice.  He hates it up there.  Hates his life because he is there.  He is up there to be near his daughter.  A daughter he would rather raise somewhere else.  My mom is there, but I wonder if she stays there long after she retires.  I'll still visit, I think, even if she goes.  But not as often.  Maybe rent a house on the beach once every few years and drive Jake around town and make him go all the places I used to go when I was little.  Once my grandma and aunts and uncles are gone I'll stop visiting.  I can't imagine what it will be like up there in twenty years.  Fifty.

A ghost town.
Something out of the wild west.

When I was little, my grandfather used to say that the phrase "Go west, young man" was penned for Erie.  He was so proud to have grown up there, behind the Hammermill plant.  Back when Erie was something else.  Shipbuilding and railroading and papermaking and forging and metalworking and boilermaking and and and it was all there when he was a kid.  Even when I was little, you could turn over just about anything plastic and it would be stamped with Erie Pa.  Most things metal.  Lots of steel would be mined in Pittsburgh and stamped out in Erie.  It was fun to think that everything was made where I was when I was a girl.  My world view didn't need to be very big. 
I remember once when my dog bit my friend's (the one who is moving to Sandusky) face apart here in Philadelphia, we took her down to the emergency room and her now-ex-husband owned the tool and die shop that made the needle that sewed her nose and eye and lip back together.  We all had a good laugh over that.  Ha ha.  The whole thing was so hilarious.  Not.

***

Today's newsletter was particularly disturbing.  Pat Howard did the piece, and here are some highlights from the article:

One in four city of Erie residents is poor, which adds up to the highest poverty rate of any major metropolitan area in Pennsylvania and one that sharply exceeds the national average.  It scares me to think that the rate of poverty is higher in Erie than it is here.  Of course, the living conditions are probably worse here because there are generations and generations of people used to living in poverty and the houses have been ramshackle for a half a century and there is a culture of violence that pervades through several census tracts and drugs are everywhere and I'm sure that the mental health and physical health levels are worse but gootgotdam.  The highest?  Pennsylvania has always been poorer than the national average.  We are a commonwealth of extremes.  Including extreme urban areas and extreme rural areas.   I don't know which is worse for poverty, I think they are equally bad in their own ways.  Erie is an extremely run down urban area with rural outskirts.  That's a bad combination any way you look at it.

Ever see, like, a thugged out black dude in one of those real expensive leather Nascar jackets and you don't know whether to cross the street in fear or laugh in his face?
That's kinda how Erie is.

17.5 percent of the population (is) receiving food stamps.

Erie County’s percentage of population receiving food stamps is third highest of Pennsylvania's 67 counties.  I'm guessing we're- gah- they're behind Allegheny and Philadelphia counties, but maybe not.  A lot of the farming counties are in trouble too.  And I'm not sure how this is calculated.  Here in Philadelphia, we do foodstamp counts by families.  So I'm not sure if this is 17.5% of the families in Erie, or of adults.  It changes the numbers a bit, even taking into account single parent households and blended homes.  Either way, it's staggering.

Homelessness in the city of Erie has more than doubled in the past 18 months.
Close your eyes and think of a homeless person.  And another word for homeless.
I worked with the homeless years ago.  It was my first job out of grad school.  I was hesitant, but I needed a job.  I thought I would be on the streets with crusty nasty stinky stabby crazy begging bums.
I thought I would be in shelters.  In health clinics.  I worried about lice.
I didn't realize what "homeless" actually meant.
Of course some of them stank to the high heavens.
And crazy?  Child!  You ain't never seen no crazy like I've seen crazy.
And the crust?  There was some.
Not much, but some.
I got ringworm once.
Most of the homeless people I've encountered were people like you and me, but people who didn't have any place to live.  People who's houses burned down.  People who lost their jobs.  Once your home forecloses, you are SOL.  When your sister lost her house first and she got to your mother's house first, there is no room for you and your kids at mom's house.  When your husband dies and he was the one with the job but there was not much life insurance?  The mortgage company doesn't care that you moved across the country because you needed a change of scenery and you don't have any familial support in town.  Or remember the girl who fell off the motorcycle? A friend of mine lived with us for awhile because her roommate died and she couldn't afford the rent by herself.  Another stayed at our house awhile because of a terrible situation at home.  And another because she was pregnant and didn't think that her boyfriend's shoulda-been-condemned house was healthy for her and needed to get some money together to get a place of her own.  Under Philadelphia standards, my friends were defined as homeless.  They had jobs and degrees and clothes and furniture and beds and family and friends and showered every day.  But they were, for all accounts and purposes, homeless.  And lots of my clients were just like them except they didn't have a place to crash.

When I hear that homelessness has doubled in Erie in the last year, who are those people?  Are they my old classmates?  People with whom I spent summers at the YWCA?  Women who were in my ballet classes?  Likely some of them are.  We are all in our thirties now.  How old do you think the average homeless person is?
When I go back, I see people I grew up with and I want to hold them ask them what happened during the last 20 years.  Where did their looks go?  Their teeth?  Their dignity?

Hard living happens up there in that corner of Pennsylvania.  Let me tell you.

Pat goes on to say;

So how do we fight poverty?

I'm told by many welfare officials that jobs, whether bringing back old ones or creating new ones, are a big part of the answer.

I'm also told by some economic experts that the poor need to be more proactive in seeking out work, any work, and not be content with staying home and drawing federal assistance, be it money, food stamps, or both.
Bring back old jobs?
Is GE going to come back?  International paper?  Are we ever going to need ships again?  Giant metal things now that we can do the job with tiny silicone things?  Plastics are on their way out in so many markets.  One robot does the job of fourteen men.  My dad works for Lord, Corp.  He and just about everyone else has been shipped out and down and around the world.  Out of Erie, where it started.  Those companies aren't coming back any sooner than people like me are coming back.
Create new ones.  Possibly.  Like what?  I'm guessing that the biotech market isn't looking to settle in Dreary Erie.  Pharmaceuticals are probably staying where they are, which is not in Erie.  Aerospace Science already moved out.  That whole fiberoptic thing never really panned out anywhere on the east coast.  I guess maybe a new "college" could go up there.  Another beauty school maybe?  Set up another tech school that trains for obsolete jobs and hire professors that can't get hired at "real" universities?  Maybe the mall can expand.  Millcreek Mall, home of tax free shopping, mecca to Canadians and moms from New  York and Ohio!  Another chain restaurant on Upper Peach that the college kids can work at and the locals can eat at?  A third Wal*mart?
There are industries that Erie could steal from another town (auto industry, anyone?), but then what of that other town?  That hardly seems like an answer.
Tourism might work.  It is a fun town to visit.
I don't know the answer.  I really don't.
I gave up hope decades ago, when I resolved to get the eff outta that place as soon as I graduated high school.

"The poor need to be more proactive about seeking out work".
Of course!
Yes!
Perfect!
And the companies need to be more proactive about hiring them.
Set up daycares in all places of business because a lot of poor parents have kids.  And a drop off/pick up service because some of those kids have to go to school and who's job is it to drop off and pick up?  Mommy's!!!  There is a reason that a lot of parents can only work from 9-3.  Because they take care of their children.  Their children are a priority.  Shoot them.
And why are so many parents single?  It's hard to be a single parent!  They should get married!  That will solve all the problems.  Two parent families!  No, sometimes they shouldn't.  Sometimes you get pregnant by the wrong man and he is better out than in the family's life.  This marriage initiative is cute, but it's unreal.  Sometimes a woman doesn't know (or care) who the father is.  Sometimes he is married to someone else.  Or in jail.  Or dead.  It's reality.
And we should overlook the way a person looks/smells/acts.  No teeth?  So what!  Bad hair?  Big deal.  Facial tattoos?  Dirty clothes?  Underarm odor? Mental health issues?  Physical disabilities? Speech impediment? Shouldn't matter.   They are poor/sick.  They can't help it.  Duh.

I've said it a million times here, I'll say it again.
I know about two thousand single mothers who have various mental health/physical health/family situation/education/transportation/housing barriers.  They are dying to work.  Will you hire them?  Most of them don't have a washer or dryer in their house.  Nor do they have a lot of clothing, but they will buy some once they save up some money and take care of more important things.  Most of them have children who have various mental health/physical health/family situation/education/transportation/housing barriers too.  And some of them have their parents living with them, who also have various mental health/physical health/family situation/education/transportation/housing barriers.  They are dying to work.  They are not content staying at home and drawing down funds.  Who are these "economic experts"?  Have they ever taken the time to sit down with someone on welfare and ask them how they feel about all this?  Spend a day with them?  With their children?  In their home?

This is so frustrating.  So sad.  So local.  So global.
What is the answer?

How do you feel about this stuff?  How is it hitting you?  Your town?

Most of you have all been around long enough to probably guess how I feel about the healthcare reform, I don't want to blog about it. 
It's not a secret that I lean toward liberal policies.
That I'm okay with giving up certain things if my fellow countrymen can live a bit more comfortably.
That I'm okay with being taxed, because I want a better community for my son to grow up in and for me to enjoy.
That I'm...  you know what?  It's all right here.  My politico manifesto that I wrote a year and some months ago, before the election.  I didn't re-read it, but I'm pretty steadfast in my opinions.

And I respect that you are probably pretty steadfast in yours.

I don't ever try to sway someone, I think that's a horrible thing to do.  I don't like it when people try to sway me.

I do like to discuss differences.  Some people don't.  Some people get very yelly and defensey when discussing differences.  (To quote Dave, "just because you are louder, doesn't make you more right".  I love when he says that.  Except when he says it to me.).  I like to know what else is out there.  What I might be missing because I've got my blinders on.  Learning about others makes me more compassionate and empathetic and respectful. 

Sometimes.

I'm having a little bit of difficulty with Rush's view that we shouldn't support the Haitians nor Pat's theory that natural disasters are God's way of punishing sinners (and all the innocents that surround them).  If someone can explain these to me, please do.  Because I'm a bit tired of being all riled up about it.  It takes a lot of my energy to understand radicals like these two or Michael Moore or Hitler.  Imagine if Pat was Muslim (there are lots of them, and as good Amerikans, we hate Muslim extremists.  Why we are okay with Christian ones, I'll never understand)  Charismatic people scare me. 
Did you ever see that Pink Floyd spot where everyone files in line and falls into the meat grinder and everyone turns into sausage?
I think people who fall in line with radical thinking are sausages.  It's easy to be a sausage. 
There are things that I'm sausagey about too.
I'm guessing there are things that you are sausagey about?

So what makes us feel and follow and think what we do?

If you line me up with 1000 girls who look just like me and were raised just like me and were educated just like me and have paychecks just like me and live just like me?  I'm guessing most of them wouldn't think just like me.  I meet people who I think will be just like me, and they aren't. 
Some of them are more liberal.  Seemingly selfless but I see them as bleeding hearts.
Some of them are on the same page I am.
Most girls like me are more conservative.  Most of my friends and most of my family and a good number of people I blog with/against/around.  More, jeez, I don't even know what to say.  Protected?  Sheltered?  Ignorant has too negative a connotation.  But sheltered works.
I guess that's what it is.  There aren't a lot of middle class white girls tromping through the ghetto on a regular basis, seeing what I see and feeling what I feel and doing what I do.

Holding the children who suffer at the hands of the current healthcare system.  Holding the mothers who fight those hands with their own.  Sitting across a table from a man who most "sensible" people would run from.  Laughing with him, crying with him, crying for him. 

It doesn't make me a better person.  But it certainly makes me a different person.  I'm different than a lot of the girls I grew up with, went to school with, worked with at different jobs.  I'm different than my mom.  Than my dad.  I think that's neat.  I hope Jake grows up to be different than me.

I know the names of some people living in poverty.  I've sat at their tables, in their living rooms.
That changes a person.  That changes me.
Not poverty like, "oops the electric bill's gonna be late this month and the gas bill envelope is stamped Final Notice", but poverty like "there are no viable wires in the house for electricity to flow through, and come to think of it, there's no water here either.  So if you have to poop, go in the tub and someone will clean it out later.  And mind you don't fall in the hole that will take you from the kitchen to the basement in three seconds.  Is there a cleanish t-shirt around somewhere?  Because the baby peed through the last one I tied around her.".

Most people living in poverty aren't addicted to drugs.  Or alcohol.
Most people living in poverty have found Jesus.
Most people living in poverty aren't retarded.
Or mean.  Or criminals.
Or ____
Most of us could wind up living much worse than we are now if luck doesn't stick to our sides.
One mishap and our health is gone.  Another and our job disappears. 
A lot of people I've met over the years used to be just like you and me.
But for one day in their lives we might know each other as friends, and not through a funded program.
Scary.

I was observing a Parenting Class a few months ago, and had the chance to talk to a 42 year old woman.  Her grandmother raised her because her mother was a drug addict.  Her aunts and uncles were drug addicts too, and every time one of them had a baby, it got dumped with Grandma.  She said at any given time there were a dozen children in the house, so Grandma pulled her (let's call her Sally) pulled Sally out of school after she finished the fifth grade.  No one from the school district ever called to see what happened to her.  Why would they?  They have bigger problems than one little girl.
Sally was in charge of going to the store, where the clerk started having sex with her.  She was ten.  She had her first baby at 11.  She labored and delivered at home, and the baby was just lumped in with the rest of them.  She was up and around a few hours after popping.  Next baby came at 13, and the one she had at 16 (she's almost sure that one came from her cousin.  Or maybe her uncle) was birthed at a hospital.  When the doctor asked her what she wants to do about birth control, she laughed and said "nothing".  Why would she need to control the birth, when she already gave birth?, she thought.  Silly doctor!, she thought. 

Sally had no idea where these babies were coming from.  Everyone around her was having babies, so she thought it was just something that happened to grown ups.  Like pooping or something.  Grandma sure never talked about sex.  Grandma didn't talk about things like that.  When Sally asked her about men touching her "down there", Grandma told her to go pray about it.  Sally had sex with her cousins and neighbors and brothers and uncles.  She said that she slept with the man who she later found out to be her father.  Neither one of them knew that was her daddy while they were doing it.  She didn't know it was wrong.  It felt good.  How could it be wrong?  Nothing else in her life felt good.  She didn't drink or smoke or eat fast food.  She didn't have any friends, because she was only allowed to run errands and go to church.  She wasn't allowed to go to Youth Group.  She had to go home and take care of all those babies. More babies came.  One at 18 and a few in her twenties.  Sally caught STDs, but she also caught colds.  Same thing, kinda sorta.  Right?  Nothing that a bit of antibiotic couldn't cure, so every time she was diagnosed (which was on par with every time she was pregnant) the doctor fixed her with a pill and sent her along.  Her babies started having babies.  The oldest had a baby when she was in sixth grade.  Another one had one when she was in seventh.  Sally just thought they "grew up quick and matured young".  She never thought to talk to her daughters or their doctors, and they never thought to talk to her.  And then when Sally turned 42, one of her daughters was brutally raped and the police got involved.  Sally landed herself in a Parenting Class that targets parents who have children that were sexually abused.  The class includes sex education.  At 42 years old, Sally, a woman of reasonable intellegence but limited education and experience, learned how babies are made.
She learned that right in front of me.
She never even questioned where they come from.

Sally lives right here in Philadelphia, a few blocks away from my cushy little house.

There were so many mouths to feed that she never had time for television.  Not that there really was television in the house.  Grandma didn't allow music unless they were singing Gospel.  Church didn't talk about sex during the sermons.  The men that were taking advantage of Sally never told her what could happen, what would happen.  The cousins and sisters and brothers she was helping her Grandma raise never had much to do with her other than let her do their laundry and cook their food.

Sally had welfare of course, and the medical care that went with it.  She was cared for at a hospital that takes reasonable care of their patients.  A hospital in a bad neighborhood.  Hospitals that focused on both curing patients of and preventing doctors from gunshots and stab wounds, and not so much the lady with all the babies.  (50% of all doctors graduated at the bottom half of their class.  What do you call a doctor who graduated last in his class?  Doctor.  Where do you think these doctors are working?)
She's just another one of them.  One of those idiots who keeps spitting the babies out.  You know them.  Right?  One of those.
Sally is a bad joke to a lot of people
I hear those jokes.  I've told those jokes.  I've laughed at those jokes.
One of those poor women.  One of those Point Breezers.  One of those Catholics.  One of those ___.
Sally is also a mother to eight children.  She became a grandmother right around the time she could legally buy a beer.  She has lotsa grandbabies.  She raised a lot of kids.  Twenty five?  Thirty?  She forgets.  Those kids have kids.  Probably 100 give or take some.  Families come big in Sally's family.  As a result, Sally is quite influential in her family.  In her community.
She is about as smart as a third grader.  She doesn't know how to divide or multiply.  Mathematically I mean.  Sally can't read the word mathematically, I'll guess.  She was having trouble with some of the big words on her intake form.  Sally has three shirts and one pair of shoes.  There isn't enough hot water for everyone to wash up on the same day in Sally's house.  Sally's house is owned by her grandmother.  They don't have money to fix the roof or the busted out windows.  The taxes are in arrears, so they don't qualify for improvement grants.  The taxes are probably about $300 a year, if they are on the higher end of the neighborhood. 

I've been guilty of pissing $300 in a two hour Target and Trader Joe's spree and never thinking twice about it.

Round the time I met Sally, I was having a little problem with Jake.  I tried everything in the book and nothing worked.  I'm a Professional in the field of Parenting.  I have all the books and tricks and secrets and I'm surrounded by therapists and social workers and other parenting professionals.  I called everyone I knew and no one could help.  Weeks went by.  I was beginning to lose patience and hope.  "Just one of those things". "They all go through it".
Sally solved my problem in thirty seconds.  And she gave me a big hug and a huge toothless smile and said that my life will be changed in 48 hours.

And it was.

People like Sally change my life.
Make it better.  Make it harder.  Make it easier.  Make it worthwhile.

I really don't want to turn this into a healthblog or a pityparty, but sometimes the follies of my healthcare adventures are just too, I don't know... major I guess, to let fade away into the back of my brain.

I guess when I was getting my head MRI'ed today, I should've given the techs a disclaimer.  An MRI of my head looks a hot mess.  I had my face dug apart a couple years ago and I only have about 10% of a sinus cavity on the right side and there are a few implants keeping my eyeball in place on that side and parts of my nose are missing and there is tissue where tissue shouldn't be and no tisssue where tissue should be.  Needless to say, it doesn't look normal at all on the inside of my head.

But, I wasn't there for that nonsense.  I am finally taking responsibility in getting the care I probably should have gotten twenty some years ago.  I've never really been able to turn my head to the left very well, and I get blinding and bloody headaches on a pretty regular basis.  Blinding like I can't see anything and bloody like blood comes out of my throat and nose and ears.  It's happened almost my whole life, and my parents took me to a neurologist almost 30 years ago when these headaches started right around the time my grandma died of a brain tumor and they didn't find anything wrong so I was just sort of convinced that there was nothing wrong and it was just part of Being Me to have all those gross headaches and I never went back to the doctor.  Until now.

Anyway, I had the MRI (have you ever had an MRI?  On your head?  Let's discuss privately.  Because dudes?  That effing blows.  And I swear the pounding that happens in that tube?  Is the devil talking to me.  I hear words like "tumor" and "polyps" and "die bitch" every time the machine booms) today and when I got out of the machine, the tech, who was about 300 years old and the sweetest little thing I've ever run across in the healthcare industry, held my hands and got all teared up when she told me it was going to be okay, no matter what.  Then she touched my face and gave me a twice over and kept her hand on my back as I walked down the hall to go put my bra and earrings back on.

I'm assuming it was because behind all the gorgeousness you see on the outside, I look like John Merrick on the inside.

I'm hoping it was because behind all the gorgeousness you see on the outside, I look like John (his real name is Joseph) Merrick on the inside.

And not like, she happened upon a tumor or a polyp or anything.
Cause I don't want to die, bitch.

Delurking Day!

I feel like Blog Comments are a dying breed.  Lots of people read blogs from a Feed Reader or from their high tech telephones and commenting from there is just about impossible.  Here at work, I'm blocked from several blogs and lots of comment forms because the Barracuda filter sees them as social media outlets.  Basically, if you have a password protected comment section, I can't get to it.  There are some exceptions, but very few.  It sucks.  I hate working at work.  My Blackberry doesn't format a lot of comment boxes to mobile, so that's out too.

I know I'm a terrible commenter.  I mark posts as "unread" in my Google Reader all the time because I want to go back and comment on something that was was mentioned but then by the time I get to a real computer and get all my real work and blogging work and email work caught up on, the post is eight months old.

The sad part about it all is I don't get to tell anyone that I'm lurking on their blogs, reading all about their lives.  I'm guessing there are people lurking here, reading all about my life but never saying hello.

So, here's the chance.  Whether you are a regular commenter or not, say hello!  Let me know who you are and where you blog so I can come over and check you out.
And feel free to steal the Delurking Badge up there and put it on your own blog.

Thanks to Chris Cactus and Aimee Greeblemonkey for putting this together once again.

I have a few deepish things that I want to get down in words, but it's going to have to wait.  Things I've learned at work, mostly.

Winter itch has set in.  My skin is on fire from the dryness.  My brain is on fire from the dullness.  This time of year is the pits.

American Idol has started, and despite my sheer apathy toward this show I always get sucked in.  It's like some sort of marker that time is actually passing.  If I can just make it to the next episode, I'm going to be okay.  I seriously have no idea how I've made it through 33.5 winters.  Every year seems to be the first and the worst.  I'm just not made for the cold, and I'm certainly not the type who is happy in the house. 

I have Cabin Fever.

So, American Idol. Tonight they are in Atlanta and just like those people I was talking about the other day who don the Southern Accent to act kinda dumb, I'm pretty sure American Idol holds auditions in the Southland just so they can make fun of the people who live here.  It's not funny.  It's mean.
Mary J Blige is laughing in people's faces.  It's sickening.  Her fans are so excited to meet her, and then they start singing in somesorta twangy way and she laughs right at them.  And the rednecky kid, clearly there is something wrong with him.  But it's okay to make fun of him, because he's Southern.  And the girl who buys her clothes at the dollar store.  She's going to be adorable if she makes it far enough and they clean her up.  But they did this huge spot on her and her bridgejumping self and her porchswinging mom.  I could almost hear the neighbors laughing.  Mean mean mean.

If you watch the show, maybe you've noticed that when they are making fun of how bad the performance is, they never show the judges and the contestant in the same shot.  I have an ounce of faith that they edit in the eyerolling and laughing and arm punching and table slapping after the person auditioning leaves.  So it seems that they are just as big of jerks as the rest of us are at home, but really they are being professionals while the camera is rolling on the singer.

Also, you know how I'm really psycho concerned with the products I use in my home and on my body? 
I think it's important that we read the labels of things that we touch just like it's important to read the labels of things that we eat. 
Just saying. 
Anyway, someone asked me the other day what I thought of Dove soap.  I know lots of people swear by it, but I never thought it was all that great on my skin, and it's so melty that it didn't seem worth it.  I hate how it gets all over the soap dish.  All I knew is that it made a big mess and it is distributed by Unilever, and there are some questions about the palm oil they were using.  So, I googled it and really had to laugh at the anti-Dove stuff that's on the internet.
First let me say that Unilever is changing up their palm oil suppliers.  Good for them.
But if you have time to dig around, you have to read the Dove dissention.  I didn't bookmark any of it, and I'm not going back but I usually just Google things like "insert-product-here controversy".  Basically, they were slamming Dove for brutally raping the earth and her people of palm trees then appealing to overweight women with that Real Beauty campaign because overweight women have more skin surface area than normal and under weight women so they would use up more Dove and use it up faster.
Then of course the PETAers jumped in with how if overweight women would just stop eating meat and dairy, they would slim down and that would be the best Eff You to Dove and Unilever and everyone would be happier and healthier except for the Corporate Suits and then they would be poor and the earth would join forces with Greenpeace and they would seek revenge by doing something awful and terrible. 
I love the internet. 
It's the only place where you can almost understand how those extra twenty pounds you are carrying around are wholly responsible for deforestation.

Speaking of extra pounds, Ise gottem and I thought that I could step up my Wii Fitting with the Wii Fit Plus.  It's totally worth the $20 that it costs, because they show you how many calories you are burning with the hula hooping and whatnot, including the four ill-measured yoga poses you might do.

Twenty seven.  Ish.

I can burn 27 calories by skipping to the fridge instead of walking.

So while I never thought it was a great aerobic activity but I do like it because it works weird muscles that otherwise wouldn't be used, the calorie counter is a great reminder that I really do need to get to the gym if I want to make any serious changes.

How is your post-holiday deep-freeze slump going?  What are you watching/reading/doing to get through?

I have a stack of books three feet high waiting for me, but getting to them means getting out from under the blanket and walking across the room.
Did anyone get a Kindle for Christmas?  Do you love it?  Can you get something like that online?  Is there a website where I can read entire books?  Not because I want to be green or anything, but because I don't want to get up from the warm spot. 
I just wrote a few sentences that I deleted because it is such an awesome idea that I think I might write a few letters and see if I can make some dollars off it.  Holy crap, it's a good one.
Just ask me.
I'll let you know how it turns out.

You know those Fish Pedicures? Old news, I know.  But bear with me.

You know those Fish Pedicures?  I think they are gross.  I don't think the grossest part about it is that fish eat the skin off your feet.  In fact, I think that's sort of the nice part.

I hate getting pedicures.  I've gotten three.  I've given it a chance.  My feet always look and feel great afterwards, and the ickiness I get about someone touching my feet passed after the first one.  I hate my feet touched, and really don't like the feeling of someone digging at them, but it's not the worst part.

The worst part is that feeling I get when I'm sitting in a vibrating chair while another human being is knelt down before me, servicing my nastyassed hooves for her cut of the $30 or so that I'm going to pay the salon.  It's so dehumanizing and degrading and debasing.  Who the hell do I think I am?  I'm such an asshole.  I don't even let dogs sit at my feet.  When I had dogs, if it laid down at my feet I'd pat my lap and make a kissy noise until it dragged himself up on the couch with me.  I've never had small dogs.  I'd let a 100 pound shepherd on my lap but I pay a human woman to dig out the rough spots and pull out the sock fuzz and nail jam and ingrowns.

I hate myself.

(I also don't like my hair washed.  Am I supposed to close my eyes?  Make conversation?  The feel good factor is non existent for me.  I think about what is under the girl's fingernails.  Does she pick her nose?  Have lesions that scab up and get itchy and is she a scratcher?  Is there poop under there?)

That said, I'll have you know that I prefer it if you get some sort of pedidealy done, because I don't want to see your cloven paws come May.  I do my own, and have gotten quite good at it.  Sometimes in the middle of it, while I'm gagging over something that I pulled off/dug out of my big toe, I say to myself "I'm too good for this, I should just pay someone".

So Fish Pedicures.  I am way more comfortable with the idea of fish eating my callouses than I am the alternative.  I know the salons are supposed to change the water each time, so that helps.

But the other day I was in an office and looking at a fish tank that was placed there by The Management to keep The Clients at bay and I noticed how often the fish were pooping.  Long strands of poop followed almost all the fish almost all the time.  So I thought about how the ocean is full of fish waste.  And mine.  I love to pee in the ocean (and the woods and the shower and anywhere else that isn't the toilet but I can still get away with it).  And probably yours too.

And I swim in your pee and you swim in my pee and the more we swim together the happier we'll be.

Waste elimination is the global equalizer, isn't it?  Everybody does it.
When I was younger, my dad told me that when Jesus was on earth, he had to poop and pee just like the rest of us, and it humbled him.  I think that Jesus was probably pretty humble to begin with, and pooping and peeing was probably the least of his problems.  Then one time in Sunday School the teacher made a boy go up to the board and he had a raging hard on.  I told him (and the class) that it's okay, even Jesus had boners when he was a kid, because he was human, and sometimes that happens to human boys.

I wonder what the Sunday School teachers thought was going on in my house. (There was also this, and this(#16), and this, which is probably my favorite of all)

I think that's actually in the bible somewhere.  Luke, I'm guessing.  I'm pretty sure that's where the few mentions of Jesus' childhood is.  Anyway, it's the passage that really speaks to sixth grade boys everywhere.
It went something like (bear in mind this is not a direct quote from the bible):  And lo, as Jesus rose to approach the abacus that stood in front of the adolescent scholars, his robes rose with him.  And thus, his face reddened and he ran from the temple and fell to his knees. "Why, Father?  Why did you give me full functioning manhood and then commandeth unto me not to use it as the other village men doth? Could you not have just given me a small concealed hole so that I might perform the humbling task of peeing?"

So fish poop a lot, and I'm guessing that the pedifish eat so much foot that they don't get so much to eat when they aren't working.  So even though the water is clean, the fish are still pooping and their poop?

Their poop is made of human feet.
Nasty human feet.

And people pay to soak their feet in a sinkful of it.

I start Level 2 Improv tonight.  (For you Improv-types, it's 8 weeks of The Harold.)  I'm more nervous about starting this class than I was Level 1.  I've said it here before, but it merits repeating: starting Level 1 was easier because if I didn't like it or I wasn't good at it I could just write it off as something new that I tried.  Starting Level 2 is tantamount to saying that I think I'm good at this.  Good enough to go on with it.

I'm not ever comfortable saying that I'm naturally good at something.

Also, I've been told that I'm probably going to have to do a lot of things in this class that I'm not comfortable doing but if I can get past this I'll be okay with what comes next.

I'm not going to like changing my voice or making weird noises.

I absolutely hate accents and strange noises.  No one should ever fake an accent unless they are spot on about it.  Very few people are spot on about it.  Hearing them is tantamount to driving toothpicks under my fingernails.
There are three in particular that I hate:
Southern
Valley girl
Boston down to Baltimore
Unfortunately, they are the easiest to do so you hear them all the time anytime someone is trying to be funny.
Want to portray a borderline retarded person?  Hey y'all!
A ditzy chick?  Like, gag me with a spoon.
A meathead (not to be confused with but closely related to the borderline retarded person)  Yo, bo.  Watter yous dune tanite?  Wanna hit up Jersee? Mebee gowon downnalanniksidi?
Then there are the ones that are just offensive.  Think Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's.  That kind of stuff.

This is seriously a problem for me.  We'll see how it goes.  I'm sure I'm over reacting, just like I do about everything in life.

What sounds or behaviors annoy you most?

"There are a lotta things about me that you just don't understand. Things you wouldn't understand. Things you couldn't understand. Things you... shouldn't understand."

You know what makes me feel really good about myself? Jeans fresh out of the dryer. Nice and warm and so tight I can't even sit down.

I'm almost 100% certain that I have the only three year old Nascar fan in the world who refuses to eat anything but edamame and hummus while taking in a race.

I've written before about how children absorb commercials.

It's nuts.  Every day Jake tries his best to convince me that we need something like a toothpaste dispenser or sneakers that light up or blankets that we can wear like robes.

A good bit of the television he watches is On Demand, so there aren't any (many, Comcast has resorted to opening shows with an ad) commercials. 
Most of the regular television viewing he does at home is between 7 and 8 am or, now that it's winter and there's nothing to do, between 6 and 7 pm. 
Most of the commercials during those time slots are for toys or brightly colored dairy-based products that pass as yogurts.  Stuff that the kids can report back to parents during tuck-ins and teeth brushing because the television stations know that the moms and dads are busy with themselves and the house during those time slots.

I've had the luxury of a few sick days lately, so we've been sitting around and watching way too much television and holy crap! have you seen the commercials that are on during the day on Nick and PBS and regular networks that show children's stuff?
They are almost entirely geared towards grown women.

It's like the suits at Proctor and Gamble and Unilever and Merck got together over cigars and whiskeys and said "my wife does nothing but watch television with the kids all day" (because that's what men think women do all day, am I right ladies?  Am I right?) "my wife does nothing but watch television all day and spend my dollars on the weekend and it's high time we start implanting our products in their little brains so they start putting our earnings back in our pockets.".

Commercials for underpinnings and face washes and hormone replacements (for the old girls who stay at home with the grandlets) and painkillers and household cleaners pepper cartoons and educational programming.  It's creepy.

Yesterday Jake asked me:
"you know those things like diapers?"
me: pull ups?
him: no, they are like diapers but they are for grown up girls.  Girls like your size.
me (knowing full well what he meant): oh yeah.  Diaper things for grown up girls.  I know them.
him: why do you guys need them?  Why are you peeing your pants?  Do you have any here?  I don't want you accidently peeing in your pants.  Are you peeing right now?  What's the problem that you can't pee in the potty?  Can the wings make you fly?
me: I'm fine.  Sometimes grownups need them
him: yeah like in the commercials.  The top stays dry so your pee doesn't get all over your vagina.
me: good for that, right?
him: yeah, that's gross.

Why does my three year old boy know about maxi pads?
And pregnancy tests? (mom, did you know First Response can tell you if you're having a baby five days ago?)
And wrinkle creams? (mom, you can put alpha hydroxy  and vitamins on your face cracks)
And dish soap (some soaps make your hands dry.  You should buy the one with the power of Dove.  Are doves powerful?)
And and and.

I don't mind that my boy watches television because he only watches kids shows that I approve.  I really don't mind.  I'm not one of those moms.  I like a lot of the shows he watches.  SpongeBob, Sesame Street, Phineas and Ferb, Fanboy and Chum Chum.  There are shows that he watches that I don't like but I let him watch them because they are appropriate.  Imagination Movers being top at the list.  There are shows I don't let him watch because they send bad messages.  Calliou and Thomas are jerks who act like little assholes in the first third of the show, and that's all Jake has attention span for.  He doesn't make it long enough to learn the moral of the story.  I'm glad he's outgrown Diego and Dora, because they make him want to sneak out of the house and go on adventures without parental supervision. 
None of those shows are geared toward grownups, but a lot of the advertising that plays in the commercial breaks is.  So weird and annoying.  I wish commercials were rated the same way that shows are.

Whatever happened to the good old days, when adults didn't watch tv with the kids and all the ads were for fast food and toys and neon clothing?

And don't even start me on the R-rated movie ads and the scary and violent video game commercials that play during the day.  I saw a Mortal Kombat spot during Wheel of Fortune this week.  And that vampire movie with the grandma climbing up the walls?  Shouldn't have a trailer run during Saturday morning cartoons.

Madness!

The adorable Miss Smidge has passed along the Happy 101 award, all the way from across the pond.

I started stalking Miss Smidge back when I had twitter, and then I began reading her blog and leaving WAY too much information in her comment section and somehow I didn't creep her out and she eventually stopped over here and we became internets together.  It's classic girl stalks girl but doesn't scare her away.  Pretty soon there is going to be a Hollywood movie.  Or something.

Sometimes I scare people away.

I envision using the proceeds from our movie to fly over and eat marmalade and drink Balvenie for days and days together because we would have no problem doing that, I'm sure.

So, Happy 101.
10 things that are sure to make me happy in the New Year:

1  I am aiming to use this decade to reclaim things I've lost in the last decade.  I was so busy going to school and getting a job and birthing the boy that I kind of let go of things that I worked so hard to build up in my teens and early twenties.  I want some of those things back.
Leah wrote about Janus the other day.  He's the God of Gates, and has the power to look forward and backwards at the same time.
Janus is my new best friend whether he likes it or not.  We are going to be spending a good amount of time together, I hope his calendar is clear.
I am at a point in my life where I can look to the future and not be afraid to recall the past.  That took a lot of work.


2  I was listening to a Rabbi speak the other day, and he was saying (you'll have to excuse me because I'm not as eloquent as he) something about how he believes that families are God's/life's way of teaching you to live with people you don't necessarily like.  He spoke about how we aren't supposed to like all of our family members (and if we did there would be something gravely wrong and strange about us, because honestly?  some of them are Total Freaks), and how we can't pick our family members any more than we can pick the other people that pass over this Earth.  He feels that we are supposed to develop ways to live with and love our families in peace, despite our differences and use those ways out in the world to live with and love people who we can't find it in ourselves to like. 
Something to think about, no?
It really struck a chord with me because while I have no problem loving babyrapers and Muslim extremists who chant "death to America", there are people in my own family and at my job who I can't stomach to be in the same room with.  I don't like babyrapers and Americakillers, but I love them because despite our differences we are all somehow brethren and I believe I am my brother's keeper, no matter what.
Why I can't transfer that unconditional love to people who are in my life, I don't know.  But that will be changing, and hopefully soon.
Why I wish death on my able-bodied young neighbor who hangs an expired handicapped tag in the handicapped space originally marked for her handicapped brother who lives in (handicapped) New Jersey I can't imagine.  Actually I can.  Parking is at a premium in my neighborhood and that spot should be undesignated as handicapped and returned to the general public.  I deal with parking more than I deal with people who would have no problem slitting my throat and broadcasting it on Al Jazeera. 

3  My body.  It may not look as good as it did in the past, but boy howdy! let me tell you that there comes a time in every girl's life when things happen that have rarely happened before.  And these things usually happen after age 30.  I'm going to take the old bones out for a spin and see what they can handle.

4  Technology.  I've never touched an iPod.  Can you believe it?  I just feel like I have no use for it.  But I probably do.  Maybe I'll save up and buy one for my birthday.  I'm sure that there are other things out there that I never knew I needed but are worth looking into.  It's time. 

5  Neti potting. I'm totally addicted to the pot.  Have you tried it?  It took me years to work up the nerve to pour water up my face.  I thought I was doing wonders with saline nasal sprays and Sudafed. 
I was doing nothing.
NOTHING.
Seriously, if you can bring yourself to it, try it.  You'll never believe the crap that will come out of  your head.  Raccoons and shit, sweardagod.
It doesn't hurt or burn or feel bad.  There is a little bit of weirdness while your sinuses fill up, but it's totally worth it.

6  Food.  I'm going to try new things.  I'm stuck on this pasta, taco, pho, burrito, pad thai, tomato soup, and salad diet.  I eat other things, sure, but not if I can help it.  There is a lot of variation in pasta and tacos and burritos and salads, so it's not like I'm eating the same thing all the time.  I only like tofu pad thai and Campbell's tomato soup, doctored up.
I can't eat things that stink or taste bad.  No sharp stank assed cheeses and I can't stand olives and most fish smells like the dumpster outside of Planned Parenthood.  I don't like chicken, and I prefer not to eat beef very often, veal is out.  I like lamb, but think it's cruel.  I'm okay with crab, as long as it is caked well, no filler.  Shrimp is what happens if a cockroach and your thumb have a baby.  I want to cut down on the bread.  I eat lots of vegetables, most fruit is too sweet for my taste.
Suggestions?

7  Nature.  I'm reconnecting.  I'm one of those Earth Worshipper types, and I'm way out of practice.  I kinda keep it off the blog, I know that stuff creeps people out.  So much so that people have been burned at the stake for it.  So crazy.  I bought a guide at EMS that details 50 Eastern Pennsylvania hikes.  I want to get through them all in ten years.
Standing on top of Heavenly inspired me beyond words and I really want Jake to appreciate the world the same way I do.

8  Exercise.  I want it to be less of a chore and more of a lifestyle.  This is damned hard to do, but worth it.  I used to be in shape, and then life happened.  Now that it is officially the New Year (the first is still "the holidays", the second fell on a Saturday.  No use starting anything on a Sunday, and everyone knows you can't do anything big on a Monday.  Tuesday was the official recovery day from the holidays and the weekend and Monday, so today's the day.  Not that I make resolutions, but) it's time to get off my arse and go.

9  Jake, of course.  He's not responsible in any way for my happiness, but he sure does bring it on the regular.


10  Me.  Because I am responsible in every way for my happiness, and it's time to start bringing it on the regular.

I have to preface by saying that I'm not a Biblical Scholar.

So, I'm not sure if Jesus is supposed to come back man-sized or if he is supposed to be huge.  Like Son of God -zilla or something.

But sometimes I find myself in situations that are a bit compromising, and I always think, what if Jesus were to come down and hover outside my window/tear the roof off my house and all of a sudden the rapture would come to a grinding halt and the fireballs would fizzle out mid-air and the horses would skid out and the cracks in the earth would stop opening up all because Jesus would be all like, "Seriously, Lora?  What the blazes are you doing, my child?".
And I'd jump up really quick and be all like "nothing!"

I have this chest cold, and last night every time I breathed out it was like a death rattle.  So gross and wet and guttural.  It was like 3 am and I tried just about everything and then I remembered this book that I read in middle school about Cystic Fibrosis, and how this kid who had it had to hang upside down while his mom shook him and pounded on his back to get all the mucus out.

So I tried hanging upside down and jumping and coughing but it didn't work.

So then I thought that if maybe I laid down on my belly, with my top half hanging off my bed I could find a way to hit myself on the back and shake my lungs around and all the phlegm would come up.

(this is where it gets awkward)

So, the best idea I could come up with is to beat myself about the back and chest with a sex toy turned all the way up while I hung upside down.  It worked best to press it in really hard after every good whack.

Slap press cough.  Slap press gag.  Slap press spit.
Repeat.
Push it in really good in the places that you would put Vicks Vaporub.

Dammit if all that crap in my lungs didn't come up in about 30 seconds.

Good thing, because I was really worried about getting caught.

Or what if I died?  What if whatever the hell was in my lungs got stuck in my airways and I choked to death and they found me in the morning half fallen out of bed, one hundred and four balled up used kleenexes under my head and a vibrator flopping around all over the place.

So embarrassing.

Yet effective.

Just trying to help you out in case you have the same chest cold that I have.

Not really a remedy you can use on the kiddies or anything, but a good one nonetheless.

New Year, Baby!

also 2007 and 2008