Interesting Quote

From Stephen King, in his 1981 non-fiction book Danse Macabre, wherein he assures us that the horror writer is a

"human being, mortal man or woman, just another passenger in the boat, another pilgrim on the way to whatever there is. And we hope that if he sees another pilgrim fall down that he will write about it - but not before he or she has helped the fallen one off (sic) his or her feet, brushed off his or her clothes, and seen if he or she is all right, and able to go on. If such behavior is to be, it cannot be as a result of an intellectual moral stance; it is because there is such a thing as love, merely a practical fact, a practical force in human affairs.

"Morality, is, after all, a codification of those things which the heart understands to be true and those things which the heart understands to be the demands of a life lived among others ... civilization, in a word.

"...If we say that morality proceeds simply from a good heart -- which has little to do with ridiculous posturings and happily-ever-afterings -- and immorality proceeds from a lack of care, from shoddy observation, and from the prostitution of drama or melodrama for some sort of gain, monetary or otherwise, then we may realize that we have arrived at a critical stance which is both workable and humane."

He has a lot more to say in the book, which is his examination of the pop-culture genres of horror, fantasy and sci-fi from 1950 to 1980. Not sure if it's still in print, but used copies can be found in second-hand shops and Ebay.

And I emphasized that little bit in the last paragraph because I could not resist thinking about the actions of certain individuals residing at top levels of our government for the last 7 or 8 years...

Hmm, hmm, hmm. Click Here to Read More..

Okay, it's Friday and as usual I'm really tired, so...

...I'll make this simple.

What do you think of



Chocolate Skittles? Click Here to Read More..

Integrity, I Haz It, Part 2

Wow, I'm getting really good at this "saying no" stuff.

Today, a friend asked me to sign a petition to get a particular candidate on the ballot for the political party he represents.

I actually said no, even though I felt guilty because he's my friend and a good guy.

If the candidate had been Jo Schmo, I might have given in.

But he specified the individual, whose very sorry history I happen to know all too well from 20 years in Georgia. I just couldn't. I would have felt irredeemably dirty.

Yeah, I feel a little guilty on his behalf, but the upside far outweighs that.

So I smile... Click Here to Read More..

Well, this pretty much says it all.

52 As a 1930s wife, I am Average Take the test!

A'right, it's a slow day.

There were 100 questions on this quiz, and many of them served to point up the slightly unconventional character of my marriage to Carl.

I drive, he doesn't.
I pay most of the bills (at least the big ones).
I manage the overall finances (probably not very well).
Carl does the housework.
Carl does most of the cooking.

So, yeah I flunked questions about having dinner ready on time and keeping the house neat. But I passed the ones having to do with being friendly, considerate, affectionate, etc. because I love the guy. I was just born without the June Cleaver gene. Click Here to Read More..

There's This Guy

He's a single dad, apparently not at all well-off financially, and he's in my neighborhood. Talking to him briefly, he seemed like the sort of person who might feel comfortable at my church. Since this is a small city and people tend to know who's who, even when someone's been here a short time, I mentioned him to one of the ladies I went to the Florida church conference with.

Sure 'nough, she knew him. She knew all about him. She warned me to keep a distance.

According to her, he had come to church a few times and brought his child. He had raised a huge fuss with the religious education people because they offered his child a snack, as is customary. It was the opinion of my church friend that the guy was borderline abusive toward his child.

From her observation, it wasn't the fact that the child had a food allergy or dietary restriction of any kind -- it was because the food wasn't home made -- it was store-bought and therefore had ingredients that came from factories or non-union corporations, where workers are exploited, etc.

It's not clear whether he notified the staff beforehand that no snacks were allowed; my impression is that he landed on them with both feet, as though the idea of giving kids snacks is so "out there" he couldn't believe it.

Now, I know perfectly well that N.D. (Neighborhood Dad) is hardly alone in his ideology. But here in this li'l corner of the world, he's more alone than he would be in, say, Seattle or Portland or some parts of New England. Not only is this very much the South, but our neighborhood isn't exactly known for its vegan population! I recycle, vote Democrat and attend a liberal church and I'm sure some people around here would consider me kind of fringe-y, despite my otherwise conventional ways.

At this evening's neighborhood meeting, N.D. and the youngun were on hand. We discussed an upcoming outdoor event and one of the organizers said "We'll have a crew there ahead of time to spray for mosquitoes so we won't all suffer." N.D. spoke up as if on cue, asking if she was talking about bug repellent or bug killer. "I don't like poisons," he said. A perfectly admirable sentiment, but again, this is the kind of place where people drive cars that rolled off the line when Iaccocca was actually president of Chrysler; they dump motor oil down the sewers and throw old pork bones out in the yard for the "dawg." Most of the folks 'round here would agree that "the only good bug is a dead one." I wager that N.D.'s anti-poison stance is the first such thing many people in the room had ever heard.

Finally, the meeting adjourned and we were invited to collect our food to either eat on-site or take home. They had box lunches which were probably either fried chicken or BBQ, and grilled chicken salads in plastic clamshell boxes (along with cookies & chips). N.D. steered his child out the door quickly; when someone invited him to at least take a salad, he informed them that he was vegetarian, and left. I heard someone say, "Well, what's the big deal? You get a salad, throw out the meat and eat the rest." Again, these are people who believe that to be fussy about food is to reject God's bounty -- which is why so many are obese, hypertense, and/or diabetic.

So what we've got here is two very different cultures trying to speak to each other. I see N.D. as someone who strives to make a political statement at every possible opportunity. I'm not sure he's looking to "convert" others to his way of thinking, but he holds his worldview so very sacred that he will not compromise one iota, ever, and feels compelled to spell it out whenever the question arises. On the other side you've got your basic salt-of-the-earth people who believe that if something was good enough for their great-grandparents it's good enough for them and their great-grandchildren.

And of course, there's me in the middle, Ms. Go Along to Get Along. I see the validity of both sides. I love the environment; hate the mass-production consumer culture we're in, yet understand that when you don't have a lot of money, you tend to buy cheap stuff and settle for convenience over principle.

Being in the middle has been the story of my life. Click Here to Read More..

Women on the street

Here in the small city where I live, there are various crime problems. Gangs, drugs and prostitution are the ones people talk about constantly. My work with the neighborhood association brings me into contact with law enforcement and groups that work with law enforcement to minimize the crime stats.

Every city, I think, has a block or two known for the sex trade. Atlanta had "Stewart Avenue," which was renamed "Metropolitan Parkway" in the hopes that somehow a name change would bring about an attitude change. Naturally, it didn't. People make the same jokes about the place for the same reason.

This town has Willow Street. Willow stretches along for 2 miles or so, starting near the access to the interstate and continuing up to about where I live. Willow is home to a lot of poor people. All ethnicities are represented.

Characteristics of a "poor" neighborhood include minimal or no home improvements; little or no greenery; noticeable litter; a preponderance of billboards, liquor stores and pawn shops; homes and businesses standing vacant for long periods, and a large amount of foot traffic.

A lot of poor people can't afford to be drivers. Because there's an excess of alcohol and drug addiction among the poor, there are more DUIs that keep people from getting behind the wheel. Their cars get impounded and they can't pay to get them back, or their cars get repossessed. Or stolen. Or they break down for the hundredth time and that's the end of the line. So you have people who walk where they need to go. Or they take a bus, which still involves walking from home to the bus stop.

That's Willow Street. A lot of people walking.

A lot of women walking.

As you drive along Willow, you're likely to see women between the ages of, say, 15 and 55. They may be walking alone, or standing and talking to a group of other people. Most often, they're not wearing much.

This is the South, and we have really cold weather, where you need to wear a jacket, for maybe 5 months. Of course, some people have different heat tolerances. I know plenty of people who can go outside where the temperature is 45 degrees Fahrenheit and not need a jacket of any kind. They consider 45 to be a pleasant, moderate temperature; they suffer in the heat. So it's not unreasonable, in the American South, to see a woman walking along in shorts and a sleeveless top, even when the weather is relatively cool.

Most women carry handbags. Some don't. They may use their pockets, or just carry a clutch.

In the course of walking along, a woman may see a friend driving; the driver stops to talk and a conversation ensues. Or a woman may stop walking periodically to look around and survey the surroundings.

All of these factors (walking alone, scanty dress, no handbag, stopping to talk or look around) can either be characteristics of a normal woman walking on the street, or a prostitute.

I've walked along the street many times in a futile attempt to get some exercise and lose weight; I dress comfortably, and try not to carry a bag when I'm just out walking and not shopping.

So where do you make the distinction? I think plenty of people don't. They see a woman walking along and assume she's a hooker.

I have a problem with this.

In high school, our Spanish teacher told us about countries in Latin America where a woman walking alone or going into an establishment without an escort is immediately branded a prostitute and thrown in jail.

I was outraged. How awful to stereotype women and restrict their movements for such a stupid-ass reason. Obviously, the same type of mentality exists in the Middle East, but even more so -- actual laws on the books prohibit women from going about their business in public. They are required to stay inside their homes unless they have a male escort.

Okay, so we know about Muslim countries and Latin American countries. But this is the United States of America. Land of the free, and also land of capitalism, where you're not considered "normal" unless you're "productive" and occupied in some way. Supposedly, it's also a land where women have equal rights. We vote, we're theoretically free to do whatever job we're qualified to do, regardless of gender.

So I have a problem with the "woman walking alone on the street must be a hooker" mentality.

Yes. Prostitution is an undesirable pursuit for a variety of reasons.

It visibly labels communities as "bad" places.

Most street prostitutes are injection drug users.

Street prostitution leaves behind distasteful and dangerous trash such as used condoms and used syringes discarded on the streets.

There is a high incidence of HIV among injection drug users, and a high incidence of sexually transmitted diseases among street prostitutes.

Prostitution is associated with gang activity.

But a poor woman who has to walk where she's going, or even just a woman who wants to walk for exercise, risks being labeled a prostitute for this reason alone. When this attitude becomes prevalent, it leads to false arrests and harassment, and has a chilling effect on freedom of movement for women.

We need to use the Middle East and Latin America as cautionary examples and prevent this regressive mindset from becoming pervasive here. Click Here to Read More..

The Most Annoying Person I Have Ever Known

[This is a continuation of a topic from my previous post.]

Q. Who is the most annoying person you know? Why?

Her name is Pam. I met her in 7th grade when she moved to our town. She is the product of a couple of people who didn't want her. She has no boundaries, no manners, no class, and thinks nothing of pushing her way into someone's life.

She pushed her way into mine when I was being raised to "be nice to people." That, to me, meant having to put up with them. Pam had no radar to tell when she wasn't wanted. Unless someone got downright violent and threatened her, she'd keep coming around, trying to be friends.

With the kind of home atmosphere she lived in, it was very easy to feel sorry for Pam. And so, I dealt with her all through high school, tolerating her tendency to be my "shadow" and copy everything from my clothes to my taste in music. I had no way to explain what introversion felt like, so every waking moment during the summer I could expect her at my house.

Senior year of high school she pushed my last button by openly rejoicing in the fact that I had broken up with a guy she didn't like. I completely blew my stack at her in front of practically the entire school and enjoyed a blissful 3 years or so without her presence. However, time took the edge off the irritation and when I heard she'd gotten married I naively thought she'd grown up and would be easier to deal with.

Pam, however, was not wired for maturity. At this writing, she is a few months shy of her 50th birthday. She is still boy crazy. Her first marriage ended, to be followed by about 10 years' worth of promiscuous sex that would have boggled the mind of Howard Stern. Her parents openly rejected her, so she went through a series of rented rooms, low-paying jobs and boyfriends.

Then she met Ed. She and Ed have been married now for nearly 17 years. She managed to stay faithful to him for exactly one year, and then I started getting the calls again from her about "this guy at work." She has not slowed down or stopped since then. She and Ed went through a phase in which he tried to "put his foot down" about her playing around, but the fact that they're still together tells me that he's every bit as dysfunctional as she is. She is openly active in “swingers’ clubs,” and though she will fixate on one guy or another, sometimes for years, especially if they keep her at a distance, she has also admitted that sticking to one guy will never work for her. She is always hungry, never satisfied. I would conservatively estimate that she has had something in the neighborhood of 500 sexual partners.

Pam is simply from another dimension. She has a compelling, sexual quality to her that really draws people (especially men). Many people are initially convinced that what she does is "put on a dumb blonde act." After awhile it becomes clear that it's no act. But her other compelling quality is the ability to inspire pity, and soft-hearted, well-meaning souls find her very hard to shake loose of.

About 4 years ago I was going through a fairly bad patch, financially. Carl was having medical problems and we were in the midst of getting him tested at various facilities. My car was dying and my remedy was to stay home as much as possible and not take the car anywhere except work and the occasional shopping trip. Pam decided she wanted to visit me (we lived about 850 miles apart). Despite telling her it was not a good time, she pushed and pushed and pushed, then finally bought a plane ticket and informed me she was coming. She was convinced that a visit from her would be "helpful" to me. She said she'd bring lots of money and pay for anything we did.

She arrived and promptly started asking to be taken to various stores (especially wig shops, her favorite). Predictably the car died. I ended up having to rent a car to squire her around. My mood was foul and unfriendly, and still she never noticed a thing. When she got back on the plane a few days later, I called everyone I knew and hysterically told them "I'm free!"

It was The Voice of Reason, better known as my cousin Pat, who finally got my head turned around straight with regard to Pam.

"Tell me," she said, "do you get anything out of this relationship at all, or are you the one doing all the giving, while she does all the taking?"

It was so simple. And the remedy was equally obvious. Pam had already told me about another friend who "out of nowhere" stopped picking up the phone or returning calls. "What was I to do?" Pam said, "She kept ignoring me so finally I quit calling her."

Once she was back home, I simply declined to return her calls or to answer the phone when she called. Thus ensued about four months' worth of harangues and threats, such as "Don't be too surprised if what goes around comes around and you start having bad luck because of the way you've treated me." Pam often bragged about "lighting black candles" against people who had "wronged" her. However, eventually she realized her efforts were fruitless and closed with a short note saying "Don't ever call me again." That was one request I'd have no trouble complying with.

Fast forward about 19 months. I had just moved to my current residence and the phone rang. Caller ID gave me no information. And there was that awful, Brooklyn-accented, whiny voice of hers, half crying about how nothing was going well in her life and she really needed me there to talk to, and she really missed our friendship. How, she wanted to know, could I possibly be able to close the door on a relationship of over 30 years?

I was not about to get sucked in again, under any circumstances. I told her that plenty of married couples stay together for more than 30 years only to split because there was no happiness left in the relationship. I told her I never really liked her but merely put up with her from a sense of obligation. I enumerated every fault, every shortcoming, every annoying habit I could recall, from 7th grade to our last time together. And still she argued: "But ... but ... but ..." She was determined to wear me down.

Finally, I said "I don't want to talk to you anymore, don't call me anymore, and I'm hanging up. Goodbye."

That, to date, was the last contact. I hope she has finally gotten it through her head that she'd better do what she can to improve the relationships she still has, because I'm out of her life and determined to keep her out of mine. Click Here to Read More..

What Annoys Me

I am seriously desperate for a blog topic; when my faves don't post for several days it's aggravating and I don't want to be guilty of the same thing.

So, I googled "topics for discussion" and landed on an ESOL site that lists various topics, intended for students to use in practicing their English skills.

My English skills could occasionally use a workout, so I'm listing as many as I can answer. The basic topic is "What Annoys You."

Sorry if this is a bit too much like a "meme."

1. What annoys you about living where you live now?
Aside from people "sympathizing" with me about the neighborhood (they would faint if a non-white moved within 5 miles of them), my pet peeves include
-unnecessary noise;
-people who don't take proper care of their pets and either leave them to bark all night or roam all day and cause trouble;
-graffiti and vandalism
-Chronically unkempt property
-lack of decent restaurants and stores within walking distance

2. What annoys you about driving a car?
Ooh, good question.
-Other drivers in general would have to lead this particular list
-The constant need for upkeep -- just when you've spent a fortune on one type of repair, another crops up, and it's often something you just finished paying off from 2 or 3 years before.

3. What annoys you most about living at home with your family?
-Well, my "family" at home is now down to one other than myself. He is a Felix Unger type, obsessively neat. Watching him move my shoes from one room to the next is exasperating, but when I think of how this place would look without his vigilance, I'm less inclined to complain.
-Actually, our other family member is our destructive, intrusive cat. I have an entire blog dedicated to him already.

4. Do you think you have habits that annoy other people?
-Well, my husband would cite the above-referenced tendencies toward disorderliness...
-I'm not terribly sociable, so others have to do more work to maintain the relationship (starting conversations, calling me, etc.)
...ever notice how introversion is rarely if ever viewed as a positive trait?

5. Does it annoy you when people kiss in public?
-Are you talking about kiss-goodbye-at-the-train-station or a 20-minute tonguefest, for which tickets could be sold?

6. Do you get annoyed when someone cuts in front of you when you are waiting in line?
-Generally, I consider myself out of kindergarten for a long time and don't let it bother me, but if many others are behind me, then I get it for letting them in.

7. What are some new pet peeves you have as a result of recent technology (i.e. cell phone use)?
-I could do without cell phone text messages that are little more than rehashes of junk e-mails ("U R my bff -- send this to 10 of your bffs in the next 10 minutes and Jesus will bless you!")
-In my opinion, the more often your cell phone rings, the more quiet and unobtrusive your ringtone should be.
-Advanced technology has done little or nothing to boost basic levels of intelligence, especially judgment. Hence the proliferation of urban legends.

8. What annoying habits does your best friend have?
-She's a bigot
-She's sometimes too tough for her own good and demonstrates a regrettable lack of sensitivity.
-She's a talented writer but still insists on reading James Patterson and V.C. Andrews.

9. Does smoking bother you?
-My parents were chain-smokers and as a result I had a cold throughout my entire childhood, right up until I moved in with Doug, who didn't smoke. Carl is a smoker, but he confines it to outdoors and therefore, it's manageable. I sympathize with smokers' addiction and wish more could be done about it.

10. Do you get annoyed when other people display bad manners? Give some examples.
-I think lack of awareness of personal space is my number one pet peeve in this area. The person who parks him or herself (and the shopping cart) in front of the freezer case at the store and stands there for 10 minutes reading labels -- oblivious to other shoppers who would like to grab the box of Hot Pockets and be on their way.
-Related to this is people who are unnecessarily loud and boisterous in public. Those who don't keep their voices down in the library or a movie, or who get into mock fights with their friends while waiting in line and then say "Oh, excuse me!" after they've knocked into you.

11. What is something that your parents do that annoy you?
-Well, my folks are long gone, but I suppose their drinking gave rise to nearly anything I could think of that annoyed me. The loud fights in public; the eccentric behavior when friends came over; the reckless driving, and tendency to be unreliable, to name but a few.

12. Can annoying someone be a good thing?
-If the main goal is just to get their attention, it may work if you then have a plan to appeal to something they want so they'll become an ally.

13. If something is annoying you, what do you usually do?
-I am much more likely to "put up and shut up," or to vent about it to someone else later on.
-However, if I know that many other people are equally annoyed about the same thing, I may then find it easier to speak up to the offender.

14. How do you change annoying habits?
-I guess the most effective thing for me is feedback. I can be utterly oblivious to the impression I'm making ... though more recently I've developed the ability to take a hint. A direct approach ("Don't start talking when the weather report is on, please") usually works best.
-Once I know about an annoying habit, I then look for triggers. For example, I get snippy with people if I sense both pressure and frustration at the same time (Must make 100 copies right now but copier is out of order...). When this happens I just need to tell myself "Okay Volly, this is one of those pressure-and-frustration type scenarios, so keep smiling and mind your manners. It won't kill you."

15. What are some things other drivers do that annoy you?
-Tailgating when they're behind me
-Driving too slowly when they're in front of me
-Not moving when the light turns green and then sliding away from the light when it's turned yellow, leaving me to wait through the next red.
-Forgetting to turn off their blinker
-Blasting the stereo
-Not staying in their lane
-Barreling up to a stop sign when you're approaching, so that you have to wonder if they plan to stop at all
-Loud mufflers or belching exhaust
-Driving too slowly in the left lane
-Not knowing what "yield" means
-Making unnecessarily slow right turns (seems to be especially prevalent in the South; no idea why)
-Stopping in the middle of the street to have a long conversation with another driver

16. Can you think of some things children do that annoy adults around them?
-I think being too loud or "running amok" is the main one, and that's really up to their parents to fix. Kids are kids. They don't shape up until someone tells them to.

17. Does it annoy you when people don't use the right punctuation?
-A great deal.

18. What kind of people annoy you?
-Ignorant
-Bigoted
-Opinionated in a bullying way
-Those who use crude language all the time

19. How do you inform someone they are being annoying?
-Whenever possible, I prefer an oblique approach. For example, I once lived in an apartment complex and one young lady would come home late at night and wake me up talking loudly to her friends. The next day at the pool I saw her and we got into a conversation. When she asked me how I was doing, I told her I felt ill because I hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep -- "someone" was right outside my window going on in a loud voice about "99-cent Taco Bells." The girl got very quiet, then finally said "That really must be hard to deal with when you're trying to sleep -- people should be quieter at night." After that she was much more courteous.

However, most people I spend time with don't annoy me that much.

20. Who is the most annoying celebrity?
-Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, sports figures who are more "players" than players, and people with no discernible talent but great publicists.


21. Which is more annoying, being caught in the rain without an umbrella, or finding out you don't have enough money to pay for something you really need?
-It doesn't rain that much where I live, but the latter situation arises all too frequently.

22. Who is the most annoying person you know? Why?
-See next post. Click Here to Read More..

Had a bad weekend? Somehow I doubt it.

If I'm dead wrong, let me know, but by comparison to a friend of mine, it's been bliss.

This friend often shows up at gatherings with her two big ol' dogs. Both well-behaved and friendly. She travels a lot and takes them both with her whenever possible. She keeps us all posted on their adventures.

One has been progressively ill for awhile and over the last year it had become clear that her ability to live a normal dog life was getting difficult.

Early Saturday my friend let us know that the end of the road had come. The second dog knew something was wrong; my friend was trying to keep him busy, taking him on runs, etc. so he wouldn't wander around the house looking for his missing companion.

Then, Saturday evening came a terse message that the surviving dog had been admitted to the emergency vet with bloat, a condition common to larger dogs that involves stomach torsion -- it's massively painful and calls for immediate treatment if the dog is to be saved. Surgery was performed to remove the spleen; the dog needed plasma transfusions and was put on morphine IV's. My friend was hoping that with each hour that passed, his chances for survival would increase, but he was in such pain he had to be kept under almost all the time.

Early Tuesday morning he went into cardiac arrest and that was the end.

I know she's strong, but damn.

And then you read about human parents who leave their infants alone in cars. Click Here to Read More..

The truth really will set me free

I got sort of shunted into a slot on the governing board at my church that I am 100% completely unsuited for. They needed someone to fill a secondary position and because I was a new member, they figured (rightly) that I'd be reluctant to say no. I also knew that the next year I'd be expected to move up to a position with more authority and responsibility.

The responsibility part is fine, except for the fact that I am woefully lacking in the know-how that's necessary to do the job right. So I waited out the year that just ended, patiently hoping that I'd somehow catch on. Everybody was sweet, nice and encouraging, so I kept waiting.

But last night we had our first board meeting and when people asked me questions, assuming there was more to me than my title, I got this deer-in-the-headlights look and fumbled around trying to fake it.

So this afternoon I e-mailed three of the individuals involved in such matters and told them straight out that I'd really appreciate keeping the position I had last year and letting someone else take over the reins. This person is simply waiting in the wings, but is far more qualified than I. It would not bother me in the least to see her move up while I stay put. These are not paid positions so it shouldn't make any real difference. I can do as much good, or more good, as 2nd banana than if I sat there in my glorious cluelessness while things went to that place that doesn't exist in a handbasket. Click Here to Read More..

Wow, I Actually Heard From My Son

For those of you who don't know, don't care, or don't remember, my son Wally and I have been more or less estranged for the past month and a half. This (in my view) due to him allowing himself to be drawn into the soap opera that plays in an endless loop in his father's head.

All contact has been extremely brief, mostly in the form of text messages. Well, he called me out of the blue this evening. Because I was right in the middle of a meeting, it was hard to talk, and it wasn't really a social call anyway. He wanted to (I guess) remind me that college would be starting soon and there are certain administrative tasks that have been assigned to me in this regard. I acknowledged the message and called him back after the meeting was done. I was trying to think up conversation starters on the fly; he answered a few questions and then told me had to go.

Needless to say, this situation is painful, but I'm trying to be philosophical. Wally is the same emotional & social age at nearly 19 that I was at about 24, and I remember clearly how much I wanted to distance myself from my parents. They've been gone almost 20 years and I miss them and appreciate them more than I ever expected to ... but I have to ask myself quite honestly whether these feelings would be here if they were still alive. I don't know if it's the loss or the natural development of maturity that causes us to appreciate our parents more. Most likely it's a combination of both, and it's not the same for everybody.

So I try to see the relationship with Wally through his eyes, and content myself with knowing that one day he will be in a very different place than he is now. He'll have a solid career, good earning potential, be in control of his own life, not dependent upon Doug or me, and able to see the humor and irony in some of the events of his still-young life.

I hope he will get to understand the truth -- about his father, about me, about Carl, about life in general.

And I accept that it may take a very long time. Click Here to Read More..

Integrity. I Haz It.

One of the traits I admire least about myself is wishy-washiness. I have plenty of strong opinions, but am often not willing to really stand behind them.

The local online group I frequent has one member named "Elizabeth." People either love her or hate her. She has been castigated, reviled, and compared to the Shelly Long character on "Cheers" - kind of snooty and pompous in some of the opinions she expresses. There's also a rather sharp division among this group between the liberals and the conservatives, and she has lined up time and again with the conservatives, all the while disclaiming any particular ideology. Some of her remarks have cut too close to the bone for forgiveness in the case of several other members. Elizabeth apparently sensed this because she went and created her own forum. One of the first people she contacted and invited to join was me, and this made me feel really strange because as far as I knew, I hadn't extended the hand of friendship to her. I remained noncommittal ("Gee, I'm so busy, I can't imagine when I might find time," etc.), but she was rather persistent, so I went and checked out the site, registered with a username and posted a few comments. A few others from the original forum have been active there. With all of this, Elizabeth has also maintained a presence on the original site. A few weeks ago I went head-to-head with one of the more reactionary personalities on there, who answered a straightforward question with sarcasm. Elizabeth spoke up in her insistent fashion and I thanked her publicly for defending me.

But recently, I shared lunch with two of the members that Elizabeth provoked the most hostility in. I admitted that I'd participated in her site, and realized I felt guilty, ashamed and uncomfortable about this because I genuinely care about the two people I was sitting there with, and overall had little or no regard for Elizabeth. So what was it that compelled me to accept her invitation in the first place? Basic wimpiness is the answer I come up with. I guess I like forums. Hers isn't terribly different from the one she spun off and there's really, truly no reason for me to be there.

Fortunately, a major news story broke a few days ago and when I read her take on it, it reaffirmed most emphatically how WRONG it would be for me to continue having any association with her whatsoever. Talk about wanting to take a shower -- hoo-wee, especially after my weekend in Ft. Lauderdale, getting back in touch with my liberal self. I did, in fact, take a shower, because I read her post first thing in the morning over coffee. I curtailed my usual perusal of news sites for the sole purpose of going onto my profile page and deleting my membership. No comments or anything; I just got out once and for all.

And then reached for the soap. Click Here to Read More..

Restless and Dissatisfied

Not a bad weekend overall; just not feeling content.

As always, stressed about my work with the community. I've got the minutes from two recent meetings in front of me; they need to be transcribed before they get too stale to remember what the scribbles represent. Also need to organize the big binder to hold minutes and other documents, months by month. So all the paperwork I've accumulated so far is spread out on the floor.

I'm going to be leading a church service next month. No doubt I can put it together -- actually, it's one of those sink-or-swim, do-or-die situations where I can worry about it all I want but bottom line, I have to make it work.

I'm also worried about the role I play at church, for which I have always felt unqualified, and now I have an entire year to find out if that's true or not.

I worry about my job. Just a couple of months ago (and I should have known better than to ever do this) I was blogging about how it's such a great gig, best ever, etc etc. Earlier this month the entire job description was changed, and I don't know where it leaves me. And my annual review is coming up next month. My boss has a long memory. You make one mistake and she pins the whole review on that. Of course, I'm not that naive. Companies do this all the time in an effort to minimize the amount of money they have to pay you. And so I'm updating my resume on the major job search sites.

And then, of course, there's everything else. Like, the economy. The upcoming election. Which ties in with my job. If I lose this job, I'm probably going to be in some serious trouble.

Missing my cell phone and sunglasses, both of which were lost on the trip. Tomorrow I have to get over to the cell store and see how much this deal is going to cost me. Can't do anything about the glasses right now because my insurance is only good at eye doctors that have bankers' hours. First available day I can get an appointment will be Tuesday the 15th.

My health. I'm probably about 40 lbs overweight and it's really starting to have an effect. I have heartburn and acid reflux nearly all the time now -- it went a long way toward ruining this weekend for me. I lose sleep at night and find myself making it up at odd times during the day. This afternoon I sacked out on the couch and had a really vivid dream about my mother. Carl called to be picked up from work and after I hung up I just sat there blinking, trying to figure out what day it was and what planet I was on.

I started using St. John's Wort earlier in the month, recognizing that the depression was starting to creep back. It seems to have made a difference; I have more energy. But with the trip last week I got out of the habit of using it, and I think this gloomy little post is evidence. Better get back on track or my worries are going to turn into self-fulfilling prophecies. Click Here to Read More..

OK, I got inspired. It happens sometimes.

I attended a church conference this past weekend. This humanist attends church and this was the first time I'd gone to General Assembly. It's something everyone in our denomination ought to do at least once -- kind of like making the pilgrimage to Mecca...now if THAT isn't a warped little analogy!!

It was exhausting but there were a number of very profound moments. I half expected to find myself surrounded by ideological extremists ... and quite possibly 5 or 10 years ago, it would have seemed that way. The political shift that's occurring now just continues to build momentum like a tsunami, whereas previously it was just random gusts blowing over the water. And so, the feminists, the environmentalists, the BGLQT and everybody else who sees an urgent need for a massive overhaul of our society now seem a lot more mainstream to me.

I've mainly stayed in the moderate-to-left group most of my life, but truth be told, I have nary an edgy bone in my body. I've strayed to the right a couple of times, but I now realize that the years I spent in the evangelical Christian realm were akin to time put in by an investigative reporter looking for the inside scoop.

One of the many things I like about this group I'm in now is that they're a WYSIWYG bunch, and they are more likely than any other kind of people to reach out to other generations. We had a bridging ceremony, in which high school age kids were welcomed into the adult community. The Good Asian Drivers were among the featured performers, and if you ever longed for a dash of pure glacier water right in the face to wake you up to what's in people's heads RIGHT NOW, you must check them out.. I have a choice here -- I can give in to the urge to feel "old," to say I'm past the point of being able to relate to 20-somethings, and in doing so become old overnight, or I can put the brakes on the age thing and drink it in until it makes a real difference in my life. Which brings me to another little factoid: Of the 8 people from my church on this jaunt, I was the youngest ... and quite possibly the one most in need of growing down a bit.

Then there was Van Jones. Check out his message. He didn't say one thing in his lecture last night that didn't resonate with me -- especially in the last couple of years that I've been working with my neighborhood association. The far right's rapidly dying paradigm -- the Strict Father model -- doesn't help anyone. It doesn't work. The world around me now -- not just me, but the whole world, all of life, the life I read about on cnn.com every day -- feels like a plant that hasn't been watered lately and is on the brink of turning yellow and dry and folding in on itself.

This political crystallization has been working in me for the past six years -- this weekend helped speed the process. Click Here to Read More..

'pologies

...for not posting much recently. There's just not much to complain about.

I'm going out of town for the weekend. I'm hoping to run into some psychotic flight attendants, or obnoxious fellow passengers, or maybe even a bumbling terrorist.

Please wish me luck - I really need inspiration. Click Here to Read More..

I Had Almost Forgotten

Carl came home from work early, having been slightly injured in a mishap. Yes, it's a legitimate, visible injury. This is an improvement over previous occurrences, where on his first day back at work after two days off he'd be almost frantic to find some reason not to go in. Ever since I've known him, the first day back at work has been the day when he's most likely to get up feeling sick, or to spend an hour at work and then go home not feeling well. Re-entry after 2 days off is really, really difficult for him.

Today was the first time in a long time he'd come home early on the first day; hope he's not getting back into that habit. The last place he worked, it was almost a weekly thing. Click Here to Read More..

Anti-Nostalgia

There's a commercial on the radio for Blue Bell Ice Cream - you've probably heard it - where a man sings soulfully about "our old swimmin' hole" and "Mama called through the porch screen door, would y'all like some home-made ice cream?" etc.

That made me think of my mother, who grew up in such an atmosphere in upstate NY - as rural as you could get, right down to the outdoor plumbing, which I'm sure her family had, at least until the late 1920s or early 1930s.

My father, on the other hand, grew up in Brooklyn, about as far from rural as you could get. They both felt they'd been launched out into the world at too young an age. Mom, in particular, recalled childhood as full of trauma.

When they met, it was in the city, just at the beginning of World War II. They married, got an apartment, and later moved to the 'burbs.

The furniture and decor in our house bore no traces of Mom's "pastoral" country background. While many of my friends' homes had kind of "antique" looking furniture and windmill prints on the walls, our home was very "1950s-modern." The furniture was quite spare and basic; Dad's only requirement was that a sofa be at least 6 inches off the floor "to make it easy to vacuum under." No frilly stuff in our home. Everything was straight-line in form, single color, urban in style.

Dad loved the suburbs. He respected "rural values," but I think a country environment would have been too chaotic for him. He hated the city and could not fathom why I was always wanting to go there and later talked about wanting to move there. As Paul Simon said, "One man's ceiling is another man's floor," and Dad found that abhorrent. The suburbs were just the right amount of "nature," tempered by a reasonable amount of concrete to make good streets and parks.

Both my parents were quite happy to leave their original environments behind and start over with something completely different. I guess that's why the suburbs appealed to them; it was different from her "country" and his "city."

I had another friend, much later, named Sara, who had grown up in rural Mississippi. At the time we met, we had both just moved into a suburb in Atlanta. It was one of those "add-water-and-stir" subdivisions that ATL has become famous for: Just buy somebody's farm, knock down all the trees, put in a few curvy streets and some "charming" lookalike homes. When this happened, part of the farm was usually left intact, including the livestock. So on a quiet day you could still hear cows lowing and roosters crowing. Not having grown up with any of that, I thought it was wonderful!

Sara hated it. Her home was decorated mostly in white, with those clean, spare, unadorned lines. Any touches of "country" were there to accommodate her husband, whose decorating style could probably be called "Early NRA." But she, too, wanted to be as far away from her origins as possible. Give her a condo in the city; she'd have been fine. The suburban split-level was there for the kids' sake, and true to her word, as soon as the kids were grown and gone, they were gone too.

They stayed in their house about 10 years. By the time they moved, all the farms had been paved over. Click Here to Read More..

Stagefright

We did a dress rehearsal today, with a small audience. I blew my first cue ... but immediately realized that it wasn't radically noticeable. However, I don't want it to happen again, so I've already gone over the place in the script where I need to come in with my line. I also need to project more, but then again, most of us do. I understand the room where we're to do this is huge. And no mikes. A few other people flubbed here and there, but overall I think we've got it. Click Here to Read More..

The World Loves a Curmudgeon

Here's a link to a great interview in the Sunday NY Times Magazine with Gore Vidal

Best question & answer:
--

Are you a supporter of gay marriage? I know nothing about it. I don’t follow that.

Why doesn’t it interest you? The same reason heterosexual marriage doesn’t seem to interest me.

--

SLAM DUNK!!!

~

[Later - another funny one, this also in the Magazine, the second question in Randy Cohen's The Ethicist]

My son and daughter-in-law belong to a church with different beliefs from mine, and thus my new grandchildren, a few months old, were not going to be baptized. My 1950s Catholic background would not let me sleep, so I snuck them off to the laundry and performed private rites. Do I get eternal reward or damnation? — NAME WITHHELD

Cohen replies:
By convening in the laundry you may have taken too literally the idea of baptism as the washing away of sin. I only hope your “private rites” did not include the spin cycle.

Click Here to Read More..

A Little Gripe

Just a little one ...

I'm in this group that's doing a play -- not a theatre group, 'cause that's not what what we are, but just a group of people that will be putting on 2 plays later this month for educational purposes. We've been working on this for about 3 months now.

I think the director was skeptical that I'd be any good at this. She didn't invite me, someone else did, so sensing her doubts, I worked very hard and enthusiastically to put them to rest. So far, I've done really well and she's given me good feedback. Both my parts are pretty small, and reading the script, I've been able to fine-tune a few lines and gestures, and I think she's been impressed with my innovations.

Well, last night we rehearsed for the first time in awhile. She was not critical, but the other leader of the group, who first invited me to do this, was in a snarky mood because a lot of people were doing other things in the building and kind of straggled in late, and our start was delayed. So I guess he was gunning for everybody, but when he threw a criticism at me, it hurt. The reason: I have this one particular line that needs to be read a certain way -- and I KNOW it has to be read a certain way. In fact, my script has the notation to throw a double-entendre tone into the line. It's MY notation and I've been reading it that way right from the get-go. However, the line comes immediately after a moment where there's going to be a loud audience reaction. I've never gotten any kind of feedback on how to time this line. If I wait for things to settle down, the person next to me is "nudging" me as though she thinks I've forgotten the line; I found myself mouthing "I know, I know," out the corner of my mouth the first time she did that. So last night, by the time I actually got to say the line, it was all I could do just to get the damn words out of my mouth, and all the inflection had basically been left in the dust. And what do you think they zero in on? "Oh, you have to put a lot more 'umph' into that line -- you can't just say the words because it's obvious that there's a double meaning there," yadda yadda yadda.

It's a measure of my new-found maturity that I didn't stamp my foot and say "Haven't you been listening all this time? I was the one who injected the tone into it in the first place and I've never once heard a word of approval from you about it!!! Grrrr!"

But I didn't. I merely said that I did have it highlighted -- and finally they gave me some support in how and when to come in with the line so it wouldn't get drowned out by the audience.

It just irritated me. Or I should say, it irritated my insecure little ego.... Click Here to Read More..

"G" - It's the New "F"

I love how people just dismiss the whole notion of "government," turning it into a dirty word.

"Government schools"..."government health"...

Today on a local message board (heavily populated by law-enforcement folks) there was a post about a state-wide Criminal Injury Compensation Fund that is a resource of last resort for victims of crimes who cannot pay for medical care, funeral or burial costs or who are not covered by insurance. Ironically, about 20% of the recipients of the funds have criminal records - but the people who run the fund clarify that the cases in which funds are received are unrelated to the previous cases. So, if you are a convicted felon and have served out your sentence, and then, for example, five years later you are walking down the street and are struck by a hit and run driver and are destitute, you can apply for funds.

First, the local paper runs this silly article, where the facts are spelled out, but the headline is written to make it sound to the casual reader as though convicts are standing with their arms extended through the bars, waiting for a handout. That is not the case at all, and the person who posted it knows that perfectly well ... but the next person, another LE dude, responds with:

Government at work.

Now, these people who claim to hate "government" so much, and bandy it about as though it were a 4-letter word, are they really thinking?

What do they want?

Do they want NO government?

These are law-enforcement officers, aka "public servants."

Would they prefer private militia? Vigilante groups?

Probably.

I already know how they feel about the public schools. In this neck of the woods, about a quarter of school-age kids are either home schooled or go to private schools that the parents can't afford without taking out a second mortgage or getting a second job or being sponsored in some way.

Anyone whose home base is the North, the Northeast, or the West Coast can get an incredible eye-opening experience by observing the workings of education in the south. It's like no other place in this country. Education as it is is quite substandard in many places, wracked by continual conflict about whether or not to teach evolution. Wally attended a local public high school for a year. The 10 commandments were on the walls of many classrooms; preachers came in to give lectures, and one of his teachers routinely filled class time by showing videotapes of her preacher's sermons. My son complained to the principal after he left the area, knowing better than to rock the boat during the school year.

But back to this "government" thing. Yes, absolutely, there are a lot of problems with government programs, but this has not always been the case. People who grumble about FDR and the New Deal weren't even alive during his administration! They have had decades to reap the benefits, but then they stand back and dismiss "government" as though it were some sort of hippie fad! Public entities can be mismanaged just as much as private ones. A good program, whatever it may be, requires leadership and a dedication to serving the customer. To just say "Oh, government, phooey" does not address the problem.


Click Here to Read More..

Child-Abusing Religious Nutters

Seems like there's no getting away from them, anywhere you go

Sex predators operate with ease among the ultra-orthodox communities because female victims often keep quiet, knowing that to speak out will damage their prospects of finding a husband. "The families all want their girls to have a AAA marriage to a religious scholar from a good family, and nobody's going to marry a girl who gets raped," says Ragen. In Bnei Brak, a predominately Haredi city near Tel Aviv, social worker Doron Agasi says one young Haredi man told him that he had molested more than a hundred girls. Agasi, director of the Shlom Banaich Fellowship, the only organization in Israel that treats pedophiles and their victims, convinced the young man to confess to the police. But, says Agasi, the authorities refused to bring charges because none of the parents of the alleged victims had filed complaints. Agasi says the rapist is now roaming free. Click Here to Read More..

The Threshold of Adversity

Quick reference:
Wally's my son.
Doug is his father (my ex)
Carl is my husband now.
That's all you get.
---
In the midst of all the current drama with Doug & Wally, I've gained an even sharper insight into Doug.

Of the three of us, Wally for certain has come closest to experiencing true adversity. He had to live in his car for a couple of weeks. He was injured in a car wreck and hospitalized with salmonella some years back. And, most obviously, he's experienced the divorce of his parents. Add to that his level of stress at age 18 and I'd definitely give him the highest score for true adversity.

Neither Doug nor I had parents who divorced. However, I lived through 22 years of violence and alcoholic chaos in my formative years and have struggled monetarily.

For a very long time, I was convinced that my childhood was the definition of "dysfunctional." I've gradually come to understand that it wasn't a perfect existence, but by and large, my parents were decent folks with redeeming qualities, and things could have been a great deal worse. My parents shielded me from a lot of common realities of life, the main one being money. As the cliche goes, we were poor, but I didn't know it. At least not until maybe the last couple of years of high school.

Doug had two parents who were absolutely nuts about each other. They were kind toward Doug and his brother Frank -- not indulgent, but certainly not hostile or malicious. Those people just didn't know the meaning of, well, mean. It wasn't in their nature. But at worst, they included Frank, the first-born, in their little circle, and when Doug came along it was sort of a "been there/done that" experience for them. Or to put it a different way, Frank was The Heir. Doug was The Spare. It wasn't glaringly apparent to the casual observer, but Doug was treated as a fairly limp second to Frank. I witnessed this a few times myself, in the way his parents reacted when there was a dilemma. Anything Frank suggested was greeted with smiles and receptive attitudes, while Doug's ideas were looked upon with skepticism. As Doug tells it, Frank got into a bit of trouble in his teens and the parents remained determinedly oblivious to all of it ... only to become belatedly suspicious once Doug reached that age, and begin scrutinizing everything he did, even when he was a young Mr. Clean. Both brothers were pretty bright, but as different as two people could be. Frank was a hippie; Doug was a yuppie, right from the get-go. Frank was, and still is, quite non-materialistic. Doug, however, was IMO hard-wired to lust after money and to take the Scarlett O'Hara attitude that money is the only thing you can depend upon in this world.

Side note: I've been keeping a running list of traits held in common by Doug and my mother -- there are over a dozen of them, and this "money is the only thing that matters in this world" is yet another sentiment that they seem to have shared.

So Doug grew up with the sneaking suspicion that he wasn't loved much for himself. He was the odd man out, physically, in his family, looking like some of his mother's relatives, but not much like his mother, father or brother. He would often bitterly recount how his parents would leave him to get to and from sporting events on his own, either by bus or on foot if he didn't have bus fare, in the dead of winter. His mother had a falling-out with her mother and sisters. Not a violent one, just a decision to avoid each other as much as possible. Doug thought this, too, was some sort of psychic nightmare.

But in truth, he didn't understand real adversity. The family was never anywhere near poor. I applaud Doug and his parents for having what appears to be a natural, Depression-era sense of thrift and money-management. My parents did not have this. I've had to learn it very much the hard way, and have to admit that rather than graduating from The School of Hard Knocks, I've been left back a few times. Right now I'm still in the Remedial program.

I take it somewhat in stride when the money falls short. Since the divorce, I haven't lived in anything approaching an upscale environment. Possibly the last place we lived would be termed lower-middle class, while this neighborhood and others over the last 13 years would be "upper-lower class," with a more intense police presence and an aura of seediness.

The thing about Doug that led to this current battle is, he's been whining his head off about money, and I hear echoes of the guy I was married to for 13 years -- wailing about his idea of poverty, all the while I very much doubt he's ever seen dollar figures in red in his personal ledger. And then I shared my e-mail back to him with the same people he originally wrote to, and he's just outraged. He has enlisted Wally in his efforts to condemn my "bad manners."

In my experience, bad manners take the form of rocks thrown through windows.

Doug just doesn't get it. His threshold of adversity is so low, it's laughable.

Wally is showing tendencies toward ruthlessness, but at least I understand where it comes from. His aforementioned experience with true adversity has brought him out of it with no intentions of living his life on the edge of disaster, and preferring not to have anyone around him (such as his mama) that would tolerate living in such a state.

Adding Carl into the mix, as much adversity as Wally has seen, Carl beats him by many a mile. As I've written here more than once, his family was truly poor. Single mom, six kids, one bathroom, clothes donated or patched (with duct tape in the case of their shoes).

As for me, I don't know whether I'm "complacent," as Doug describes me, or just sufficiently at peace with my place in the world not to frantically fight to attain higher ground. Click Here to Read More..

A Planned Catastrophe

Yes, it did indeed hit the fan, last night and then today. Wally was the most obvious victim, and Doug laid it on as thick as he could. He is reveling in dumping all the crap there ever was between him and me onto our son. And Wally is falling right for it. I encouraged him to step back and not be sucked into this, but he is very confused and upset right now and feels he should be in it, since this distinguishes him as an adult rather than "a little kid who has to be protected."

So, why do I call this a "planned catastrophe?" Because I thought carefully about what I was going to say and how, beforehand, and then anticipated what the fallout would be. Though I'm not happy that all my dire predictions came true, it's certainly an improvement over my previous patterns of striking out in a disorganized, unprepared fashion and then being truly astonished at the backlash. None of this has taken me by any sort of surprise. I think that's why I can be so calm about all of this. And why there were so many bad moments for me in years past. Click Here to Read More..

On the Offensive

Doug and I are sparring again. This time I am not backing down. I have told both him and Wally that it is no use pressing me for money, since such a commodity is virtually non-existent for me at this time. It should get better gradually over the summer, but no one knows my situation better than I do, and I've been up-front about it.

Doug sent a letter to various parties, outlining his "need for help" in supporting Wally, and after consulting with a friend who has a lot of expertise in communication, as well as a son the same age as Wally, I sent back an e-mail (and copied the other parties he sent the first one to), explaining how my lack of funds is at least partly a result of some actions on his part and Wally's. I had sat on this e-mail for awhile, knowing that to send it would not increase his level of favorable regard toward me, and finally let it fly after getting a couple of "I-want, gimme gimme" e-mails from Wally.

This too shall pass, but realistically, I foresee a period of some estrangement from my son on the horizon. It won't be forever, but it hurts. Click Here to Read More..

Burnout: I Has It.

Well, this morning I got "scolded" by the lady from the foundation that's working with our neighborhood association.

She doesn't know it yet, and it may take awhile (if ever) before she finds out, but that was NOT the right approach.

There's an event coming up in a few days that someone else planned, and someone decided that I would be in charge of.

I have never planned an event like this, so there was no way I was going to assume the leadership of it. It's become clearer and clearer over the last few months that I got in WAY over my head without even realizing, back in January when I consented to be on this committee. I AM the committee. And now I'm being told that in order not to be on the committee any more, I have to go and find some other people to be on the committee..

Um...no.

I have only lived in this neighborhood for 2 years (exactly two years, as of today). I have a passing acquaintance with the people who come to the meetings and events, but that's quite different from those who grew up here and see a lot of each other. I don't mind getting involved, but there are limits, and I have reached mine. I am not going door to door, especially in order to ASK people to do work that I am unwilling to do. I don't feel like I know these folks well enough. Throwing me into the deep end of the pool and expecting Diana Nyad to emerge just isn't going to happen. I'm fine with taking the minutes of the meetings, making a few phone calls, filling out forms, stuff like that, but no more. And I will not be scolded and told I'm "not doing enough" when I do a lot more than many people in this group. For one thing, I remember what frickin day it is and show up at meetings. I know how to use "reply all" so that when person A sends me an e-mail with a cc: to person B, they both get my response. This is better than a lot of people do. Over the last month or two, I've hosted several members of the committee at my workplace; I've met 3 different times with the group doing this event (though a bunch of them never showed for the first meeting). The pattern I see is, the second I do something that isn't quite up to par (like not reminding everyone of the executive committee meeting), I hear it loud and clear that I fucked up. And despite my presence at the planning sessions, my inability to attend the actual event (which takes place mid-day) has me in the doghouse again.

I work full-time. I cannot do the kind of community work that SAHM's do. It just isn't going to happen.

I took this position purely from a sense of obligation. They sent me on a nice weekend outing with a large group;I feel I contributed very nicely, and thought it would be a decent gesture to agree to this position. But I think (nearly) everyone would agree that I have been fulfilling my obligation as well as possible and should not be asked to do more. Especially if I'm going to get scolded.

I do my best work for those who pay me. My job comes first; the church comes (a distant) second. And this group is something I do in my "spare time," whatever that is.

I am so tempted right now to dash off an indignant e-mail, but I've decided to respond with silence. It will be as if I never got that phone call. Click Here to Read More..

Proof That I Am a Good Person

Today, after taking care of the cell phone thang, I proceeded to the local big-box and splurged. Got Carl a little fan for his bedside table that will hopefully make enough noise to drown out the barking of the beagle next door (we're such wimps, not wanting to confront his owner, our neighbor, with whom we're on good terms). The rest of it went toward miscellaneous cosmetics, Band-Aids and OTC remedies for pain and heartburn. About half of what I bought was generic or store-brand, but there were a few things more on the "premium," or name-brand side, and it felt good to indulge that way.

I didn't spend a penny on this little spree (other than petrol)! I whipped out my rather fat collection of gift cards that I've accumulated since December, and covered the whole thing, with $1.60 to spare. At least two of these were from the neighborhood association; one or two were from work, and one was a Christmas gift.

Sometimes I feel showered with gifts... Click Here to Read More..

Free

Wally came up with a good idea for me a few days ago, and I (like to) think that if I weren't already so stressed out, I might have figured this out for myself eventually.

But one of my lingering money problems has now eased. I took out a cell phone account for him in early '07, but within 8 months he had lost the phone and switched over to Doug's account. Before he could do that, he ran up an enormous bill for the month, for which I was stuck. Not being able to afford the outlay to cancel his 2-year contract, I just slogged along, paying the damn thing month by month and being quite vexed by the situation.

Wally (probably by way of Doug, but my willingness to give credit extends only as far as Wally) suggested that, since my number, unlike his, was not under a contract, I could just cancel it and transfer my number to the one he was using. Doing this was only as complicated as a brief phone call to the provider and a quick trip to the local brick & mortar to have them switch out the SIM card. I now have a few added bonuses: More minutes, unlimited text messaging (like I really need that) and a phone number with a local area code. There are a few people from our former city who liked calling me on the cell because it wasn't long-distance, but they are simply going to have to suffer :)

I've also been enjoying a bank balance that's (barely) sufficient for me to start putting money back into savings again, something I haven't been able to do for a very long time. So things are looking up.

There's also some "stuff" brewing with Doug, but that's for another post.
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I Quit Liking Dentists When They Quit Giving Me Nitrous

This is the truth. Dr. K, my childhood dentist, was a hack and a crook, but at least I had something to look forward to when I went for a visit.

[by the way, if dentist stories aren't your cup of mouthwash, you might want to go read a different blog, K?]

Dr. E., the guy I go to now, is acceptable. He is very liberal with the Novocaine and can tell when I'm trying to be stoic. When I had the root canal he gave me over half a dozen shots.

I was never afraid of dentists growing up. Dr. K used to say I was "a wonderful patient."

But in spite of all the dough my parents (who couldn't really afford it) spent on my teeth, I am still falling victim to maladies of the mouth.

I had my first root canal when I was about 23-24. I've had several others since then. The guy I saw today (because Dr. E was not available) said I have "a lot of crowns."

One of them came out yesterday while I was eating something chewy. I tried putting it back in, as Dr. G once recommended, but it really hurt in there. Everything hurt. Air coming in, hot liquids, cold liquids, tongue, you name it. I was not a happy camper yesterday, especially when Dr. E's office said they had no openings. What, they don't know what an "emergency" is? Anyway, they gave me the number for their "other" location, and they said I could come in today.

I didn't have to wait *too* long, but I could tell the place was in a fair amount of chaos. It doesn't do any good to think the dental office needs more employees. That won't help anything. All they do is get in each other's way. This particular crew was composed of loud talkin' young ladies. Lots of them.

Dental offices are a lot more stripped-down than they used to be when I was a kid. Remember the spit sink? I haven't seen one of those in years. Did people stop salivating and forget to tell me?

OK, so the assistant came in, checked my teeth (making me flinch when the air hit), took the crown I gave her and said she was going to sanitize it. Then the dentist, Dr. W, came in. He reminded me of Marcus Welby. But Welby was an MD, not a DDS, and I've decided I like my dentists younger. I prefer quick reflexes, sharp eyes and steady hands.

But anyway. Dr. W gave me the bad news - the reason I was having so much pain after the crown fell out is that there isn't much of my original tooth left. This means that if the crown won't stay in long-term, my next options would be either an implant or a partial. Lovely.

So while I was mulling that over (and freezing - the A/C must have been set at about 64 degrees), he came back in with my crown liberally cemented and said "Ready?" Then he very quickly put the crown in place.

Not quick enough. That SOB hurt! I let out a loud, long yell; I couldn't help it. He apologized and gave me the cotton roll to bite on until the cement cured. It wasn't too long a wait.

Then the assistant came back in and took the cotton out. Right away, I knew there was a problem. She tried to brush it off as "just some cement left -- I'll get it."

Nope. It wasn't cement.

It was the crown. It wasn't fitting flush the way it had before.

This is very typical of my experience with the dentist. Every time I've had to get a crown I go through this. They place it and it feels like I'm biting down on a BB. I tell them; they go get their stupid little piece of black carbon paper, tell me to "bite down, now tap-tap-tap and grind back and forth and side to side." Then they examine their stupid little piece of paper and tell me it "looks fine."

So I grit my teeth some more (for a different reason this time) and tell them "But I can feel it!!" Generally, they give in grudgingly; they all think I'm some sort of flaky dental hypochondriac who gets her jollies by making the poor dears work oh so hard. I've been told previously that I have a "funky little bite." Whatever the hell that means. Sorry, dahlinks, but it's MY bite and I'm the one who has to live with it.

Not to mention -- the damn thing fit fine before!

Today, however, I really wanted to get out of there and get back to work. I was cold, tired and very hungry. Dr. Welby came back in and said because the crown had been out of place for over 24 hours there's a "period of adjustment" and it should start to feel normal in a couple of hours.

That was 7 hours ago. There is no difference. I've had dinner but had to chew very carefully.

I'm going to have to go back, and I'm going to have to make them work. It will probably take about 10 tries before they get it ground/filed down to where I can't feel it.

We're all going to have SO much fun!

[much later: The tooth did get back into line by itself, but it took DAYS, not "a couple of hours."] Click Here to Read More..

The Continung Saga of Wally's Car

After several months of paralysis, I decided on a course of action regarding Wally's car.

I mentioned this in my long posts about Wally in Feb and March, but there's this car sitting in the parking lot of a gas station many hundreds of miles away from where I live - I think it has a tarp over it but can't recall. All 4 tires are flat, and one of the windows doesn't work.

It's the car I bought for him about a year ago, which has been sitting at that gas station for about 6 or 7 months now. When I say "bought," I mean I signed the agreement to pay for it in installments.

The warranty coverage ends at the close of this month and I don't have the funds to renew it, even for 3 months. I've sent the gas station guy a certified letter informing him that I will pay only the repair charges that I previously agreed to, which come to $250 ($150 of which I've already paid). All he had to do was call the warranty company -- an (800) number, for Pete's sake. But he never did. Why, I have no idea. Perhaps he was holding out for the other $100. The guy who sold me the car thinks he's holding out so he can slap somebody with a mechanic's lien. Frankly my dear, I don't give a shite. The only thing I can afford to do right now is keep making those little bitty weekly payments until I get it done, and that should take less than 4 months. Then I'll get the title, and I don't know what will come next. But at least I'm doing something. If the moron wants to take me to small claims court somewhere down the line, I sez, Bring it On!!!

In other car news, Carl got a mailing from AARP, describing their auto club coverage, which is a lot cheaper than Triple-A. My AAA expires at the end of this month also and I think I'll make the switch. My warehouse club membership expires also. I really have to renew that.
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The No-Mooch Zone

Took the evening off from church meetings because I would have felt awkward. There were 2 meetings scheduled back to back, starting immediately after work. This has been a problem for me, since it leaves little or no time for any kind of dinner. However, recently people have been bringing food. One person works in a hospitality capacity so he usually brings something good. Another person often brings decent wine.

I started worrying about this as soon as people started talking about it. I know what my finances are, and they didn't allow for much culinary creativity. Me, I can subsist on Spam with no difficulty, but this ain't a Spam crowd. I didn't even think I'd have time to stop somewhere ... all in all, I just felt completely unequipped to join in with the food-bringing and it just bothered the hell out of me to think I'd be taking advantage of someone else's hospitality without contributing.

So this morning I just decided to absent myself from the proceedings altogether. I don't think I've missed a single monthly meeting since last July, and I don't play any vital role. I just enjoy the people and the chance to see the inner workings of things.

I'd be getting home just about now, normally, and I could certainly use the extra sleep. So all in all, no regrets. There's always next month. Click Here to Read More..

Down, down, then a little up

Went to the church after work to try and straighten out a task that will be my responsibility after the turn of the fiscal year in a couple of months. So far, I've been assisting and trying to learn it, but my memory fails me when a whole month goes by. They were having a dinner there, and then I was scheduled for a show rehearsal afterward. So my time to devote to this task was very limited.

My favorite [not] combination: Pressure and frustration. I simply couldn't remember how to do the damn task, despite all my notes. I just couldn't figure out how to start! So there I am at the desk, slogging away, people stopping by to say hi and "whatcha doin?" and then the person who did this job 2-3 years ago and considers himself an expert (on this and many, many other things) showed up with a big grin on his face and I thought, oh, shit, I'm never gonna get it done now. Sure enough, he said "Oh, great, the computer's on, I need to check something." And I'm trying to tell him, in a nice way, that I have to be here right now, it's the only chance I'll have to TRY and get this procedure down, and he sat right down in my chair, looked at what I'd done so far and basically told me I was doing it wrong. YES, DEAR, I FUCKING KNOW THAT. All I wanted was for him to get his skinny ass out of there and leave me to my private failure. Finally, I think he got the hint, but by then it was just too late. I sent my "partner" a quick e-mail to tell him I'd gotten absolutely nowhere, sorry, maybe we can try this again tomorrow night...

Then I never really got to eat dinner because the main course wasn't ready. They put some food out; the kids got first crack, which is fine because once you get them settled at a table to eat, they are out of the way, but time was tick-tick-ticking by and I only had until 7. All the other people in the show had dinner elsewhere; I was the only one who was still unfed. Pressure, frustration and hunger. Great combo. Finally I just took the bun with lettuce, tomato, a little onion and a few slabs of cheddar and ate it meatless. It held me, at least, but I had PAID for that dinner and kind of thought maybe I could steal a bit of my money back out of the basket. But by the time we got done at 9-ish, the food was long gone and so was the money, so maybe at the next dinner I'll only throw in half.

However, show rehearsal went well and was quite enjoyable. It lifted my spirits almost to the point that I could laugh at everything that had led up to it.

And I did get a nap after work so that helped.

I dunno...my life feels like a garment that was sewed together in haste by an unskilled laborer and pulls at the seams...
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Fading away

No, not me. I'm talking about two entities that are being pre-mourned by conservative pundits.

The first is persons of European descent (i.e. white people).

Pat Buchanan says:

"Recent reports suggest God has another end in store for us.

An Augusta, Ga., group, The National Policy Institute, has meshed the figures on fertility rates with the continents and races on Planet Earth -- to visualize what the world will look like in 2060.

In 1950, whites were 28 percent of world population and Africans 9 percent, a ratio of three-to-one. In 2060, the ratio will remain the same. But the colors will be reversed. People of African ancestry will be 25 percent of the world's population. People of European descent will have fallen to 9.8 percent.

More arresting is that the white population is shrinking not only in relative but in real terms. Two hundred million white people, one in every six on earth -- a number equal to the entire population of France, Britain, Holland and Germany -- will vanish by 2060.

The Caucasian race is going the way of the Mohicans.

Sixty-two percent of Americans told Pew we should do more to protect our way of life. Three-fourths of Americans wanted more restrictions on immigration. Yet all three presidential candidates voted amnesty for the 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens.

Hopefully, the peoples of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, who are about to inherit the earth as we pass away, will treat us better than our ancestors treated them in the five centuries that Western Man ruled the world.

Otherwise, we all go out with a bang.

--

Yo, Pat, I love the "we" and "us." How do your conservative fellows Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams and Larry Elder like that "we?" Don't yo u think they, too, are concerned about preserving "The American Way of Life?"

I love the USA; I do believe English should be our official language, and I do believe that people should go through established legal channels to become citizens. I am also concerned that Islam is morphing into a horrible, primitive, murderous belief system, when it didn't start out that way. I think if the PM (you know who I mean) came back, he'd look at his descendants and give them a Cosby-esque talking-to. It's class and worldview that concern me, not the color of people's skin.

What strikes me most about this little screed is that Buchanan takes it for granted that this "fading away" of the white race is a terrible thing -- because it pertains to the group that HE identifies with! Can you imagine if black people or Asian people were facing a similar crisis of numbers -- would Buchanan be lamenting their existence? Well, maybe... "Where ever will we find people to run our convenience stores???"

Then you've got good ol' Dr. Dobson, writing this in 2003:

It is with great concern that I share with you our considered belief that the institution of marriage is about to descend into a state of turmoil unlike any other in human history. The homosexual activist movement, which has achieved virtually every goal and objective it set out to accomplish more than 50 years ago, is poised to administer a devastating and potentially fatal blow to the traditional family. And sadly, there is hardly a politician who has the courage to utter a word of alarm or protest in response. Indeed, there are very few Christians in positions of responsibility who are willing to use their influence to help combat it.

Researchers have been warning about this looming cultural storm for the past decade. The most prominent among them, sociologists David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead at Rutgers University, conducted a longitudinal study of the family between 1960 and 1999, and concluded that the institution of marriage appeared to be dying.There is accumulating evidence now that they were right. A handful of power-obsessed judges is determined to impose the homosexual agenda on the nation and thereby change forever the legal definition of marriage.

The dire ramifications of what is happening in the United States and other western nations cannot be overstated. For millennia, traditional marriage has been celebrated by every culture on earth as the cornerstone of society. But in the late 1960s and early 1970s, no-fault divorce laws, radical feminism and a sweeping sexual revolution combined here in the United States to rip open the fabric of the family. They left it shaken and wounded. It was a growing apprehension about this situation that led me to resign from my academic position in 1977 and start a fledgling new organization called Focus on the Family. In the 26 years since, we have been working tirelessly to bolster and preserve traditional marriage and parenthood. There have been times of hope and times of despair during this struggle, but overall, the family has been steadily losing ground. Now, the institution of marriage is on the ropes and western civilization itself appears to hang in the balance.

~

Dobson goes on at considerable length, describing how Canada, the Netherlands and Belgium have all made gay marriage legal. He says "...the legal acceptance of homosexual marriage was little more than a pipe dream just a few years ago, but it has become a tidal wave that is sweeping around the globe."

Maybe there's a reason for this, Jimbo!! Maybe people are starting to wise up; they realize it's all we can do to keep ourselves going, and our own lives on track, without staying up even later to try getting laws passed that would keep a certain group of people on a lower social tier.

If Dobson were a divorced man, or someone who had personally experienced some of the issues that gay or unmarried people do every day, he might not be so quick to throw around the we's and us's. Being a white male heterosexual married man works for him. And so he assumes that the structure with which he is most familiar and comfortable should work for everyone.

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I am a liar

In yesterday's post I said I had "no idea" what the problem is, and of course that's a dirty lie. I know perfectly well what the problem is.

Every time Carl or Wally gets some emotional twitch they go and make some drastic change in their lives that ends up COSTING ME MONEY!!!

• 1999: Carl and I visit NYC. Carl's never been there; he is in awe and sees muchos opportunidades for employment in his field. Conclusion: We have to move to NY ASAP. Sure, sez me. I always wanted to live there anyway. So I quit a nice, secure, good-paying job and sell the condo that I could actually afford, and pack up like a Gypsy and move to NYC. Get an apartment that costs me a ridiculous amount per month, take a job I hate, and meanwhile, Carl never gets off the ground with this dream job he thinks he'll get. He can never see past the short-term. The extremely short-term. As in, somebody pisses him off today, and he's outa there. At least that's what he did in NY. I suppose that would have been a good time to break off the marriage altogether, but having just been through a divorce a few years before, I couldn't get my head around doing that again.
  
• Similar impulse a year later. Carl is miserable at work, as am I. The only one of us who was happy was Wally. But Carl gets upset because someone makes a disparaging remark about the place we moved from. He misses his family - the one that makes him miserable. At any rate, we buy a house "back home" and move there a year after moving to NYC. I didn't have a job; I didn't even have the reasonably nice car I'd sold before moving to NY. I finally found a used one I could barely afford and it lasted three and a half years before finally dying. I was so despondent during the first month or two, I began to think about killing myself.
  
• On 9/11 I was at least working. It was a temp job but permanent hire was a certainty. But I was very preoccupied. Wonder why? So I applied myself very little to my job, even after getting the permanent gig. My performance was truly crappy and I got fired. It was the first time in my life that had ever happened. Not the first time I'd left a job with less than favorable reviews, but certainly the first time I'd been flat-out fired. That led to more than a year of temp work, and it wasn't always steady. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, later in the year I ditched religion and things started looking up the tiniest bit. I got a long-term temp job that did me pretty well. But it wasn't the answer to everything. The depression started to lift just enough to get me out there on the job hunt again. Finally - a good break, and that led to the job I had from '03 to '06. Great benefits (even though I had to ultimately take Carl off my coverage because the minute I got insurance coverage he started having his phantom stomach and chest pains that no doctor could ever find a diagnosis for).
  
• Since I've known Carl, he's worked for: OHH, S&S, TB, RHG, TMG, CPRV, PH, a couple of other places in NYC, back to RHG, GC, BSP, CCD and now CB. That's at least 14 different jobs, and we've only been together for 10 years. My track record isn't great either: JRA when we met, then BHRV, BHRNP, CPUN, temp jobs, PST, PH and the place where I am now.
  
• Together, we've lived in 4 different places. If it weren't for Carl, most likely I'd have stayed in the condo and might even still be there, who knows? The BHRV job might or might not have lasted. I can't blame Carl - entirely - for my less than stellar work ethic over the years. But without some of the strife between him & Wally, and the money worries, I might possibly have been less preoccupied and scattered, and may have done a better job. Thank the ordered universe I've finally gotten it together to the point where I'm not late for work all the time and have the ability to assess the consequences of an action before I commit to it.
  
• But it's still difficult to buckle down and move ahead because of all these constant changes that cost me money.
  
• As for Wally, I can't blame him directly for a lot of that. Much of the situation we're in right now is because of Doug. Doug, who kicked Wally out when he could have hung in for another year or two until Wally finished high school. But no, he sent Wally back to Carl and me, just as things were going pretty well. Then he cuts off the child support, which I don't have the time or energy to go after. And at about the same time, Carl gets another of his "let's move to a better place" impulses, and as usual, I go along. I don't regret moving to this town. It's much better suited to me; I feel like I've flourished, at least socially. I like the job I do and the company I work for. But bottom line, we should be doing better, rather than struggling. We wouldn't be struggling so much if Carl had just behaved like a grownup. He was making good money and all he had to do was ignore the owner and the manager of the company. He knows he had a good thing going and was better off there, but doesn't want to admit it yet. True, the place could go under; they were in trouble with regard to taxes and other issues, but other than a late paycheck once in awhile, that didn't affect Carl directly. Week to week, he made GOOD money. True, the place he's at now has benefits. But here's the thing: Carl NEVER stays in one place long enough to make insurance a reality. He's had insurance twice and either dropped the coverage or quit the job shortly after getting it. If he dies, I'll have to go to his family to afford the funeral. If something happens to me, Carl and Wally will be substantially enriched. Of course, Wally would blow the money immediately; Carl would save it but not find any way to invest or supplement it.
  

Enough bitching (for now, anyway...). I have decided, while writing this, that I am going to do one thing. I'm going to hand Carl the bill for the carpeting at the old house, the carpeting we bought to make the house sellable, and tell him I want him to take care of it, and I don't care how he does it. I just want it done. Maybe it will spur him to do something about his income. Click Here to Read More..

Burnout? Fatigue? Depression? Whaaaaat?

I have no idea what the problem is, so don't even ask. All I know is, I feel less buoyant than I did a year ago. Last year was such a GOOD year, and almost as soon as this one started, I felt things going downhill.

Mainly it's the money (or lack thereof). I have been so drained, so sapped, mainly by Wally, since last Memorial Day. It's been one thing after another.

Now Carl has this new job, and OF COURSE he's making much less money. I haven't yet heard him say he regrets changing jobs. I know the last place was awful. He's faced with a choice: Endure interpersonal strife and a feeling of being beaten about the head daily while still making more money than ever in his life, vs. working in a place where co-workers help each other out, treat each other with respect, and the corporation has a structure ... all the while making much less money (and getting fewer breaks, which leaves him feeling very exhausted at day's end). At least he understands the dilemma. He always asks me, "Would you be mad at me if I got a different job?" I always say no. It's his life. Just as I wouldn't want him to be overbearing with me about my life choices. And he isn't -- he puts up with my never-ending whirwind of social activities. I know he wishes I'd go back to the way things used to be, where I'd get off work at 3:30, get home by 4, change into pajamas and just sit around until it was time for bed.

I still get such a kick out of this small city we live in. I love how you can walk into a restaurant or store and see people you actually know. I love how you can turn on the TV and see people you know on the news. I can't say why exactly, but it's so different from other places I've lived.

But -- this year, I find myself getting little flurries in my stomach whenever a new situation comes up. I'm seeing the negative in things a lot more. Last year I bought 3 new pairs of shoes all at the same time, something I'd never done before. I bought capris, tops, jewelry and makeup. Now I look forward with dread to going shopping. I guess because the money is so tight. And I owe so many people!

And I do worry about this neighborhood. There's been an increase in crime. We've been hit something like 4 separate times, just property crime but still. Too many druggies with guns around here.

Church is great, but I'm starting to see what one of the guys was saying about burnout. A year ago, no way.

I'm needing to buy myself a weekly-format calendar instead of the little monthly one I have now.

Underneath it all is money - that sense of doom, like the whole house of cards is going to come tumbling down.

I know there's a remedy for it, and it's ENTIRELY about attitude. Yes, my claim to fame on this blog is having a bad one, and I play it up for laughs, really. However, in the last couple of years, I've learned ways to really banish negativity and force through a positive affirming mindset. And it really does work. Even when I work on it for a minute at a time, I see instant results.

This too shall pass. Things will be good again, and meanwhile, I can build on what I know. Click Here to Read More..