the xanax really does help

I get it, Dr Oz did a show on how there's arsenic in the apple juice and now you're scared to give your kids apple juice. But then someone (me) gave you like 4 quick links to various sites explaining how there's inorganic arsenic (the bad kind) and organic arsenic (a not-so-much bad kind) and how Dr Oz's show only tested for total arsenic so they deliberately skewed the results (and then verbally explained it to you as well) because panic = ratings. And then you said you didn't care and didn't want to know what he did; you were just going to panic anyway. Because willful ignorance is a goal we should all strive to achieve.

I understand that a school is a machine. I get it that your job is to assign redundant homework, collect it, flog the kids who don't do it, and then bitch about "uncooperative" parents who encourage independent thought and all. But my kid is sleeping on the floor while her cancer-ridden unable-to-bath grandmother snores the sleep of the Oxycontin in the bed next to her, spending more than her fair share of homeowrk time babysitting her brothers so I can shuttle her grandmother to appointments and back and forth from her house to collect mail and pay bills.  So maybe you just cut her some fucking slack this one time on some of the bullshit.

I appreciate that you don't consider work to be "a break from the house". I love that.  But as someone who has been a working mom and a stay at home mom, I can tell you that it is a break from the house, whether you see it that way or not.  There have been days where I would have gladly held a soldering iron in a poorly ventilated factory for ten hours for free just to get away from kids who only eat one color of the multi-colored goldfish crackers, or who scream when you put their milk in the fridge after they throw the sippy cup over the baby gate 3 times.  Some days I would like to get to take a break from the house. If only got to do it enough to have the luxury of not even thinking of them as breaks from the house. Ahhhhh, to dream.....

by definition, an idiot

Can I just give in to my cynicism and point out that suffixing words with "ers" pretty much just tattoos your IQ on your forehead, and it's not a 3 digit number? If you're expecting a baby and you announce that you're "preggers", you're auditioning for Teen Mom, regardless of your age. And if you do it with your name? Oh my God, you're now about to be court-ordered into a group home somewhere! Aimers, Jenners, Vickers. All of those girls drive 97 Toyotas with pink squiggly pin striping, and wear frosted pink lip gloss. I just had to throw that out there.

I'm having a bad day, alright?

I am a stay at home mom, and no matter how many catchy little emails get forwarded into my inbox telling me that my job costs $100,000 a year to hire out (nannies, cab service, maid, etc) I still bring nothing in. I may very well save money, but I do not earn money. And I am accutely aware of this fact. My husband provides for the family, I just clean up after it.

Some part of me, no matter how feminist I try to get about marriage being an equal partnership and me being a stay at home mother, not a housewife, still feels like I have to be a martyr in order to earn my keep. I mean, let's face it, emotional pain and trauma aside, the family could survive a lot better without me than without Tom. I could be replaced with a case of baby formula and a day care; Tom pays the bills and he parents. So, to defend my existence and expense, I over compensate. I bake and I (at least attempt to) cook, I sew, I wear old clothes with holes and I don't ask for new. Part of this is because I actually like baking and sewing, but part of it is because if I'm not going to earn money the least I can do is try not to hemorrhage it either. To tell the truth, the bra I'm wearing right now is 13 years old and expense is a big part of the reason I decided to let my hair color go natural. But also, I hold out eternal hope that one day somebody will appreciate all that I did that went unappreciated. Sadly, the thing about being an unsung hero is that you often remain unsung. How many early Christians were crucified and they're not the ones we think of when we see a cross. Not all martyrs are remembered.

Best blog post ever, just sayin. And yours all suck, no offense.

Remember about ten years ago when you could say anything horrible and insulting as long as you said "no offense" too? Yeah, that was fun. No wait, it was horrible! A bunch of self-important assholes running around spouting off any old opinion they wanted with no concern for other people's feelings and following it up with "no offense" to show that it was just a simple observation and therefor you were being over-sensitive if you did take offense. "Hey you're getting really really fat, no offense." "No offense but your mom is a giant bitch." Thank God that fad passed. Except it's back.

"Just sayin" is the new "no offense" and I hate it! I have a friend who does that all the time and it drives me nuts. She does it as a way, intentional or not, of shutting down conversation and ensuring that she has the last word. And if I try to respond anyway, she cuts in with "Hey, I'm just sayin!" It doesn't help that we are on opposite sides of the political spectrum and often debate things anyway, but the "just sayin" fad in general bothers me (I see it a lot on facebook) and this is just a quick example of it that springs to mind right now. But it will be something like this, in regards to the Navy commander who made sexually charged homophobic videos "Well if you're going to punish him for morality then what about Bill Clinton sticking cigars in people under him in the Oval Office? Just sayin." Now, I see a difference there. I see that the Navy Commander did these things publicly, showed the videos to everyone else on the ship, and insulted and denigrated an entire populace, while Bill Clinton cheated on his wife privately and then got caught. I see one as a workplace issue and the other as a private moral issue (since no one ever complained that his relationship with Monica was less than consensual or that he was harassing her). But when I tried to say this she said, "Hey, I'm just sayin."

Just sayin is the new no offense. It's a way of saying argumentative things and then shutting down the response. "Starbucks is evil and so are people who go there. Just sayin." :I hate all Will Ferrell movies. Just sayin." Or, "Will Ferrell is the greatest actor of all time. Just sayin." Anyone who disagrees has basically just been told not to bother trying to get into a discourse because hey, it's just an opinion. And as we all know, in America, every person's opinion on everything is valid and sacrosanct and not to be argued with at all. And also, that there is no difference between belief and opinion, that the words are synonymous. But that's a rant for another blog post. Probably soon.

Old people piss me off

When I was a kid you could tell who the old people on the road were. They drove what we liked to call boats. Big 1970s Impalas, or Cadillacs. Four door cars with trunks longer than their vinyl-covered roofs. You knew they were old and you drove accordingly. Now they drive everything. I once saw a blue-hair in a PT Cruiser with flame graphics. It's like the baby boomers are getting old and they can't accept that so they run out and buy new cars. Just. To. Fuck. With. Us. How about this, Elderly Woodstock Survivor, how about you deny your aging by getting lasik surgery so you can see the road and then driving the actual speed limit instead of ten miles under it? It's got to work at least as well as buying a2 door Intrepid and using it to block traffic.