When Did Committing A Crime Stop Being Illegal?

When did the word illegal stop meaning bad? I mean, illegal possession or illegal distribution or illegal production are all terms which imply crime, and with it the possibility of prosecution. But somehow it has become racist to argue that illegal immigration is bad. Why?

Very few people I know, although there are some out there, are against immigration. After all, this nation was built on immigration. Well, that and the genocidal destruction of the Native Americans but that's a bit off-topic. But this country also has laws, like other countries do, about how to go about immigrating. Maybe the laws are ridiculous and overly restrictive, but they are the law. And breaking a law USED to mean committing a crime, and committing a crime USED to mean becoming a criminal. But these days you get into a lot of trouble for calling an illegal immigrant a criminal. There are huge demonstrations protesting the prosecution of illegal immigrants and people who try to point out that breaking the law = criminal activity = being a criminal are called racists. But, aren't illegal immigrants from Europe, though not as common, also criminals? Aren't they all, regardless of race, breaking the law? And wouldn't they be prosecuted as well?

Illegal immigration isn't just about Mexicans running through the desert. It's also Asians arriving in California on cargo ships and Haitians sneaking into Florida and countless others from all over the world. And the one thing they all have in common is that they want to be here and don't want to follow the laws to do it. Now why should any country welcome people who demonstrate from the very beginning that they have no intention of following the laws? If I were a landlord and my new renter refused to pay his deposit, why would I let him stay? How would I be expected to assume that he would pay the rent after that?

I read about this town and I wonder why they are in trouble? As far as I can tell, they're just trying to pass local laws to enforce federal ones. People aren't supposed to employ illegal immigrants anyway; why not have a business license depend on it? Why not make it harder for the criminals to get away with the crime? If it's illegal for them to live here, why not make it harder for them to find a place to live? As for making English the official language, I don't know if they can actually do that, but I can see why they'd want to. It would at least make it easier for people to communicate, English being what most of the country has historically spoken.

See, what people often don't understand is that the U.S. doesn't have an official language. Canada has two, in some places anyway, but we have none. There is no policy stating that America is an English speaking country; it just tends to be one. And it used to be that immigrants came her to become Americans, to live the American Dream as they saw it. No one waved a flag as proudly as an immigrant on the Fourth of July. Sure, people talked about the old country and taught their children to cook the food from back home. But they came to be Americans and they devoted a lot of energy to speaking the language of their new home. But now it is possible for a child to be born in the U.S. and live a long life never learning English and face very little inconvenience. There's a division now between Americans who want to BE American and people who just want to live here but not claim the country as their own.

The funny thing is, other countries don't see us this way. No matter what language you speak or where your family came from to get here, if you travel to another country they will call you an American. Over here you may be Irish, but in Ireland you're an American and by definition NOT Irish. The rest of the world can see us in a way we can't seem to see ourselves anymore, as one unified group.

We should be one unified group. We should be one nation together and regardless of ancestry or origin we should identify as Americans regardless of what country our last name came from. For a lot of us, our ancestors traveled to this country from Europe in terrible conditions, on crowded boats with few belongings just for the chance to become Americans. What would they think if they could see what immigration is like now? Refusing to even enter the country by the law, stealing social security numbers, self-segregating into communities like tiny foreign countries where only the native language and customs are followed.

Now I (admittedly) can't speak for blacks. Those crowded boats were a whole different story. But after all of the sacrifice and determination it took over so many years to be recognized as full American citizens, I would imagine it to be difficult not to resent a little the migrant worker bitching about being treated like a criminal for trying to circumvent any immigration processes at all. Paperwork? Red tape? Waiting? I can only assume that to see someone complaining about those hardships would sting a bit to someone whose family was, only a few generations back, fighting to make the jump, to be ALLOWED to make the jump, from American property to American citizen.

I don't believe we should wall off our country and never let another immigrant in. Like I said, this country was built on immigration. But let's start calling it what it is when people break the laws: a crime.

Why Protect The Guilty

I've noticed a lot of news blurbs about sex offender registry lists, and the websites they're posted on, being unfair to the offenders, even violating their civil rights.

Do you know any sex offenders? I've gone through the state site here and found a few acquaintances and most of them didn't, in my mind, do much wrong. See, according to Illinois law, if a guy is seventeen and his girlfriend is fifteen they can have all the sex they want because they are presumed to be at about the same maturity level. In other words, they're both teens so neither one is really taking advantage of the other's naivete. But once the guy turns eighteen then the sex they've already been having becomes a criminal act, punishable by jail time and lifelong registration. The problem is that the legal terms listed on the offender lists don't make much sense to the average person. What is the difference between Criminal Sexual Abuse and Criminal Sexual Assault? And even if a person is able to decipher that the "abuse" charge is the current wording of what used to be called Statutory Rape, the registry often doesn't list the victim's age, or only lists it in a vague categorical sense (Victim between the ages of 13 and 17). Well if you're nineteen there's a bit of a difference between sex with a thirteen year old and sex with a seventeen year old. So I have my problems with the list as it stands; I think it should somehow differentiate between predatory offenders and college kids who kept their high school girlfriends. But I understand why we have the online registry lists, while apparently some people don't.

We have the list so that parents, like myself, can check every once in a while to see if maybe there's a pedophile living down the block, or to make sure that this weekend's sleep-over party isn't being held at the home of a rapist. Yeah, I know; the registry only shows the ones who've been caught so the chance is still there regardless. But it gives me a chance to at least keep my daughter away from a portion of the perverts out there and it bothers me when people get upset that it exists. I'm sure that it must be difficult to be a registered sex offender, to have your name and crime on a website anyone can look up at will. I'm sure it comes with some pretty extreme prejudice and even the threat of violence. But although I'm sure many pedophiles and rapists are fine upstanding people I also believe that all people are judged by their past behavior and actions and no one will ever convince me that sex offenders are the one group who should be exempt from that universal truth. And does the threat facing registered offenders from the general public even come close to the threat these people may POSE to the general public? My daughter is young; she can't help but look young and it is readily apparent to anyone who sets eyes on her that she is young. What is not readily apparent to anyone is whether or not the guy on the bench at the park wants to violate her. See, the predators want a level of anonymity their victims don't have, and I don't buy that.

It must be a bitch to have the cops at your door every time a kid goes missing or a woman is raped. It must be a hassle when your kids' friends aren't allowed to come over and play. And getting dirty looks at the grocery store when all you want to do it buy your food and leave must be pretty humiliating. But that's the price you pay for your sins. Having the urges is not a crime, and no matter how offensive those urges may be to the rest of society it shouldn't be a crime. Thoughts are not criminal acts; actions are. And once a person chooses to act on the urge to grope a kid or force someone into having sex with them, they take on the risk of getting caught and paying the price. All the dirty looks and restrictions are part of that price. And if it's hard to see your kids being told that their friends can't come over then do the right thing and move out of the family home. It's probably best that the children not live with a sex offender anyway.

Why The Little Guy Should Quit, And Other Thoughts

I'm a democrat, but even more so, I'm a Bush-hater. I laugh at anti-Bush bumper stickers, I felt the suffocating weight of despair after the 2004 elections, and I seriously wonder who besides the theocrats could possibly believe that the man is anything but dangerous to the future of this nation. He has proclaimed himself to be the voice of God, has proposed a constitutional amendment not only legalizing but forcing discrimination against law-abiding tax-paying U.S. citizens because his interpretation of his religion endorses it (Doesn't that same bible say that unmarried sexually active women should be stoned to death? I wonder then, about the fate of his own daughters.), has picked apart the meaning and intent of the Geneva Convention more than Clinton ever did with the word sex, and has managed to start not one but two wars (and then effectively abandoned the one against the people who actually attacked us). So yes, I'm a Bush-hater. And if anyone can tell me one thing he has done that may actually benefit this country, without throwing religious beliefs at me, I welcome and encourage your comments. And for the record, the war in Iraq doesn't count. Yes Saddam was a bad man and we got him. But the world is full of bad men and it's not worth, in my opinion, 2000+ American lives per villain to run around and dig them all out of holes. Kill Saddam, kill 2000+ American troops, kill Saddam, kill 2000+ American troops. The scales aren't even close on that one, sorry.

So imagine my joy when the Democratic party shows promise with not one but two promising presidential hopefuls. Yes, there are going to be people who will vote against them rather than for the name beside the hole they do punch, but for the most part it's Obama vs. Clinton in the primary. I know it; everybody knows it. But now the other democratic hopefuls are running around pouting that they're being left out of the spotlight. Hey! We finally have the spotlight! As far as I'm concerned the rest of the dems should take a cue from Vilsack and drop out and leave the primary to the main two. Then whoever wins should put the other on their ticket. Obama Clinton 08 or Clinton Obama 08. Either way it's the best chance we have of keeping this country out of the Bush followers' hands.

This country is fighting theocracies around the world, yet the conservative Christian right wants to make us one as well. When we fought the "Godless Communists" we didn't denounce religion, so why should we live by a centuries-old book while fighting injustices which are clear evidence of what happens when a nation lives by a centuries-old book? Islamic law or Christian law. They both boil down to interpretations of words translated over and over again and then twisted to mean whatever people want them to mean or think they should mean. Yes, there are passages in the bible warning of the evils of homosexual sex. But there are warnings just as stern against premarital sex and against adultery whether or not you're the one cheating (coveting ring a bell?), yet no one tries to push constitutional bans on single people having sex, or against allowing people to marry their former mistresses or male equivalent. And why? Because even though the bible mentions a lot of places you should not stick a penis, as well as times when not to stick it there, unless it grosses out the straight white male elite it gets kind of downplayed. According to the bible it's a sin to even jerk off about another man's wife. And yet, most of the sex symbols today are married and no congressman rallies against that. We all know that when you put Halle Berry in a catsuit and tell her to crawl around and purr with her back arched, very few male audience member are going to go home raving about how well she mimicked a siamese. No, those men are going to go home, pre-order the DVD, and stock up on tissues, even though she was married at the time of the filming. Well BAM, you're going to hell. You just coveted another man's wife; that's a commandment you're breaking and even the fags didn't make it into the top ten. But the Republicans want to jerk off about married women, and even the single ones want to get laid. But for the most part, they don't want to suck dick or take it in the bum so they pounce all over that as being an Abomination.

It bothers me that these people may once again choose the president. And it bothers me even more that the little guys, the Chris Dodds and Bill Richardsons, might actually take some votes away from the Big Two. Sure, it's just the primary now. But what if one of them decides to go Lieberman and run anyway? Independents don't win the presidency. This country may be ready to elect a woman or a black man president, but not an independent. Perot, Nader, they just took votes away from the other candidates. And the Democrats can't afford to lose any votes; didn't 2000 teach us that already?

Of course, the biggest fear would be that somehow one of these guys could actually win the primary. Hillary (although I still question her electability) has the closest thing to presidential experience a person can get without having been President or VP, and Obama has some sort of other-worldly charisma that fills stadiums and generates Beatlemania screams. Those two might be able to win over some swing voters, but an unknown senator from Delaware? I don't think so. My money is on an Obama - Clinton ticket.

And as for the whole "Obama isn't black because he's not a slave's descendant" thing that seems to have gripped the media lately: WTF does black mean anyway? I don't seem to recall too many black Americans arguing whenever Nelson Mandella was referred to as being black. And thirty years ago the black community was wearing African inspired clothing and Afros and naming their daughters Shaniqua. Why is an African man (second generation notwithstanding) suddenly not black? If you want to argue that he's not black, argue that his mother's white. That at least makes sense.

The Sweet Smell Of Nostalgia

Okay, so I live in the middle of nowhere. Imagine the town from Footloose and you're pretty close. Fifteen miles of US highway to the closest McDonald's, three bars and six churches, and not a single store or gas station stays open past midnight on weekends. Not a lot of opportunity for a kid around here to do much but dream of more exciting places, places not surrounded by corn and soybean fields. Places where the newest songs on the radio haven't been played out already everywhere else. So at nineteen, instead of hanging around with other equally bored kids getting drunk or high, I listened to the radio: syndicated radio.

Z-Rock was a nationally syndicated radio station out of Dallas and it actually played music from the current calendar year. I'm sure plenty of people out in internet-land remember Z-Rock and its famous DJs: Wipeout in the evening, Jim Coda overnight, and of course Loud Debbie Dowd the token news-chick. (Piece of inside news: not many of the jocks liked her much). Anyway, being syndicated they had a toll-free line (but of course THAT was always busy and I've always been impatient) but they also had a direct line: the warp line. So I started calling the warp line late at night and talking to Jim Coda. Maybe I was bright and articulate and had a sparkling personality at the time or maybe, and much more likely, it was a pretty boring shift and I didn't ask him to screw up his play list with requests all the time. Either way, we talked. He was a decent guy, kind of a WKRP Johnny Fever type of guy, and we chatted for months about music and news and his kids, stuff like that. But with my looks and sense of humor, I fell in love with the idea of radio INSTANTLY. After all, if Debbie could do it...

Anyway, after talking to Coda for a while, I started calling Wipeout and talking to him. By then, of course, I'd already mailed my photo off to Jim and gotten his promo shot back in return, and apparently he'd left it on the deck or something because Wipeout knew who I was by name. Seems I looked just like some girl who broke his watch in a bar one night. My doppelganger just hates timepieces. So now I had two friends at the station, plus Debbie but she didn't count because I had her convinced I was a militant New York lesbian with a crush on her and that I was planning a vacation to visit her at the station. I was mean.

My job at the time was in retail, all sorts of screwed up hours, and after a week of early bedtimes I finally got the chance to call Jim for a late-night chat. I dialed, got the familiar burst of static followed by a curt "Z-Rock" but alas, it was not Jim. Turns out the new guy had gotten let go from a station upstairs (ABC Radio, lots of stations in one huge building) but had worked for Z-Rock years ago. And (follow closely here) Jim was looking for a change of scenery so they'd traded. But despite giving me all this info, the new guy wouldn't give me the number to the booth upstairs! So he called Jim and then I called him back and he, with Jim's okay, finally gave me the number. And that is how I made friend number three at Z-Rock. But then Jim got fired a month later and took his old job back and Bladerunner, as he was known on-air, was out on the street after all. But I had his home number so we kept chatting and when he planned a cross-country road-trip I offered him a break from hotel fare and roadside rest stops if he needed it. Plans were made and I was excited.

Why was I excited? (Get your mind out of the gutter; I didn't even know the guy!) Because here was a nationwide celebrity, albeit a midnight radio host for only a month, and he would be visiting me. Keep in mind I live in an area where police scanners are used as entertainment and the mall sighting of a local TV news anchor is considered paparazzi-worthy. Oh well, the day came and it was cool. He said my hometown looked like the town out of Needful Things, said that if he lived here he would open a store by that name and sell exotic fruit and import CDs. Basically, he showed up, took a shower, cleaned his contacts, took a nap, and we went out for KFC fifteen miles away. He was going to get a good night's sleep but he called his next stop and plans had been made sooner than he'd thought so he had to leave. I never heard from him again. My brief brush with minor-league fame was over. But my brief brush with notoriety was coming.

While he was at my place, he called his old friends at the station in Dallas. He told them he was visiting his fans one by one like the Snapple van (remember that dumb promotion?). Sadly, he never called them back. Half the guys thought I'd slept with him and the other half thought I'd killed him! (As if I weren't talented enough to do both.) So suddenly I went from being Chuck, the girl who'll keep you company during a boring shift, to being Chuck, the girl who may have killed one of our own. Things were never the same after that, and I could never reach him at home to tell him of this damage to my good name. I finally left a message on his machine and I guess he did stop by the booth and let himself be seen alive, but the station got shut down, replaced by Radio Disney, that New Year's Eve and I lost touch with all of my DJs.

Fast forward a decade or so later. I am no longer nineteen, no longer able to stay up all night or afford phone bills like that, and going through some physical aging issues. To be fair, I pine for my youth. (Insert wistful sigh here.) And it wasn't so long ago that I wrote up a big long post wherein I mentioned being a radio groupie back in the day. So imagine my surprise when I find this on imdb. What does this mean, you ask? Well if you click on the actor who plays Evan enough, you get this! My Bladerunner! Okay, not exactly mine, but I did eat chicken with him once and he used my shower. So I google his real name and his on-air name and a whole lot of false leads later I find his myspace page! I set up an account (Tom is my only friend :( ) and sent him a message.

He remembered me and said very polite things and that was that. I'm not delusional enough to think I was ever anything more than a groupie to a DJ naive enough to give out his home number but it's always nice to be remembered by someone who has no doubt had many many groupies since me. I guess it's the same reason my husband, in Al Bundy fashion, feels the need to relate high school football stories, and also the entire premise of Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion. We all like to relive our youth now and then. And we all miss our youth sometimes too, no matter how happy we are in the present. I miss late night calls to Z-Rock, and being subtly referred to on the air, and scaring that uppity news chick, and it's a huge ego boost to know that the days I so fondly remember are also remembered by someone who has probably had a lot more exciting times since then than I have.

Now I just hope that movie is stocked in these hick little video shops so i don't have to drive fifteen miles to rent it.

Women Have Pores Too

Ever watch a TV show or a movie and notice that when they close in on a man's face, he has pores and whiskers and laugh-lines, all the little imperfections that make him real and human? But when they close in on a woman's face, there better not be a pore or stray unplucked eyebrow to be seen! No way, women must be perfect poreless creatures at all times; how else will the rest of us feel inadequate?

I'm serious. Watch any drama or romance, anything that shows close-ups of people. Women can't have pores on-screen. Unless, of course, it's porn. In porn, women can have all sorts of pores and cellulite and stretch marks, as long as they have no boundaries and no dignity. Apparently, in the world of showbiz, it's pores or dignity, but never both.

But what about those of us who have pores, or even the occasional clogged pore, and yet still have dignity? What about the women out there with real teeth and skin and maybe even boobs that wander uninvited into our armpits, searching I assume, for warmth in a cold cruel world? There are men out there, real semi-intelligent men, who believe what they see on television. Men who have never seen the photos of celebrities without make-up, and who feel that women should be hairless, and poreless, and flawless, at all times. These are men who actively try to find meaningful relationships, but don't understand why women don't have permanent make-up, or might go a day or two without shaving, even during the flu! These are also, coincidentally, men who don't shave their own faces daily; go figure.

Why has the media set such an unattainable standard for women? I have watched two Diane Keaton films in the past week and in both, she actually looks her age. Sure she's trim and muscular and that's almost too perfect. But she has teeth that aren't bonded together permanently, and she has wrinkles. She shows her age! She shows it well, but the 50+ actresses all botoxed and lifted are sickening and she's not one of them. But does she have pores? Nope. Jack Nicholson can have pores, Keanu Reeves can have pores, even the dad from Seventh Heaven can have pores. But not Diane Keaton. She is female so she must have a plasticized poreless face, even with the laugh-lines and crow's feet.

Still, whatever calcified wrinkle cream it is she sells; I want it. I want to look like her when I get older. I know I won't, but I want to. Like her, but with pores. I am human, after all.

I Am The Meanest Mom Alive

It's the general consensus; I am the meanest mom alive. My kid thinks so, the neighborhood kids agree, other parents say "Ooooh," with evil glee when they hear how I punish my kid. Even her teacher reacted with shock upon learning my misbehaving daughter's fate. I am mean, and inventive.

I don't spank. I ground my kid when she messes up, but I ground her with no finite sentence. And I ground her from everything. No TV, no toys, no playing with friends, no leaving the house. She's stuck, either in bed or at school or planted firmly in the computer chair researching her paper. Yep, I assign papers. Sometimes they're on random subjects (biographies of the Mythbusters, anyone?), and sometimes they're topical. Nine days ago I got a call from the teacher to inform me that my lovely daughter had gotten caught lying in class. It's a common enough offense, but one I have to teach her not to do. So she was promptly assigned a paper on Richard Nixon, with emphasis on Watergate. I only asked for one page, but that's a lot to a kid who doesn't seem to believe in adjectives.

So now, making its debut on the world wide web, I present Richard Nixon from an eight year old's point of view:

Richard Nixon by XXXX XXXXXXX

Richard Nixon was born on January 9, 1913 in Yorba Linda, California. He died on April 22, 1994 in Park Ridge, New Jersey from a stroke. His great-grandfather was killed in The Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War. Nixon was a republican. Nixon was vice-president for Eisenhower. His nickname was “tricky dick”. Nixon was president from 1969-1974. He married Thelma Catherine Ryan, but she went by Pat and her grave says Patricia. They had two daughters, Tricia and Julie. Nixon’s religion was Quaker. He was the thirty-seventh president of the United States. He resigned because he didn’t want to be impeached. Watergate was the name of a hotel where the democrats’ office was. Gerald Ford took over when Nixon resigned, in 1974. He took over because he was vice-president when Spiro Agnew resigned, and took over vice-president then president. Nixon is the only president to have resigned. President Ford pardoned him, so he wasn’t put in prison. G. Gordon Liddy isn’t Gordon Gordon Liddy, as my dumb mom said. His real name is George Gordon Liddy. G. Gordon Liddy went to prison for what he did at Watergate. The Watergate scandal happened in 1972. Watergate was a break-in on June 17. They broke in to fix the phone-bugs of the chairman Larry O’Brien that they had put there on May 27 and 28. The plan originated on February 4, 1972. G. Gordon Liddy was the one who made the plan. It was called the GEMSTONE plan. The movie about it was called “All The President’s Men.” Frank Wills discovered the Watergate scandal. There were many people, including John Sirica. There was a group called “the plumbers unit” to “plug leaks”. There was also another group called CREEP: the committee to re-elect the president, also called CRP. Nixon ran for president twice. Two reporters who broke the story were Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Watergate made his approval rating even lower than George W. Bush’s is. Nixon got in trouble for lying to Congress. They discovered tapes of conversations between Nixon and his advisors, so that was how they discovered that he lied. I do not want to do a report like this again, so I will not lie!


By the way, I'm sure plenty of people get G. Gordon Liddy's name wrong, and I swear I read that somewhere when E. Howard Hunt died a while back.

Update On Thirty

Longtime readers of this blog, if any exist, will remember that I had a hard time turning thirty last summer. It wasn't that I thought it would be the end of my youth, or the beginning of old age, just that I thought that thirty would mean putting aside that search for identity I had been on for twenty-nine years and I wasn't sure what to replace it with. I have never really known who I was, or what, or where I fit in.

See, from sexuality (lesbian, hetero, bi, pan) to religion (Buddhist, Wiccan, Pantheist) I have never really worn labels well. I have rejected labels, denounced labels, and loudly protested people's need for labels, but I have never had one that really stuck. I am human, female, and Caucasian, and that's as far as my concrete knowledge goes. I don't cling to any of those with any sense of pride, and I don't consider any to be a source of personal identity per se, but I acknowledge that they're accurate when asked. (Why is it that spell-check capitalizes Caucasian? Is it really important enough to denounce lower-case?)

I have hung out with ( and keep in mind that these titles were all embraced by the individuals they were describing at the time) stoners, art-fags, white trash, jocks, gear-heads, garage bands, bar bands, D.J.s, metal heads, rednecks, and many more I can't compartmentalize right off the top of my head, and I somehow managed to fit in, for a time, with all of them. I learned quickly, for instance, that all it took to fit in with the art-fags, was a great disdain for anything industrial, the ability to quote (and spell) Nietzsche, and a heavy dose of Kerouac worship. The white trash taught me the importance of driving an American vehicle (even if it is twelve years older than you are and covered in rust) and that the greatest social skill a woman can ever acquire is the ability to sing, from memory, anything Sandy sang in Grease.

Each group had it's own vital knowledge, which any group member was expected to know, and which I was always able to easily figure out. I was somehow able to be "one of the guys" to just about any group of guys. For the gear-heads it was the difference between pearl and metal-flake; for the garage band guys it was how to tighten a snare and never to laugh at the term "plastic wood block". However, for the bar band guys, it was more important to be able to accurately critique the lights and to be able to decipher the screamed lyrics of any popular song.

These were talents I cultivated, bits of knowledge I amassed to be appreciated. I can tell you what churban means and also explain why that DJ at the oldies station got fired (yes, "He sounded too AC" is a valid reason). I can recite amazingly anti-establishment poetry, insincerely, off the top of my head, and tell you how Kerouac met Burroughs (after college, but at the dorm). I have lived for months on just beer and pizza, or cheese and wine and apples, or microwave macaroni and cheese (Michelina's is the best). But I have never been without some outside influence telling me who to be. It's not that I have chosen to spend time with people who demand I be like them. Quite the contrary, I have always been myself with them all. I simply have over-played certain aspects of my psyche to reflect their interests. I suppose that's why I find my marriage so intriguing; I don't have to repress any interests or personality quirks around Tom. I have the opportunity, now, to discover myself, to find out in what ratios these aspects of myself exist. Thirty was a milestone that scared me because I thought it meant the end of that time of self-discovery.

But it doesn't. Tom may be a blue-collar Republican jock farm-boy but I don't have to be, and he will still buy me copies of Dorian Gray and biographies of the beat poets. And I'm free to express an interest in history, or politics, or anything else I enjoy, without fear of judgment. I now see that thirty means not caring if I fit in, not worrying about what others expect from me. I have the next fifty years to find out who I am, and if I'm lucky my tombstone will read, "She finally knew herself." Thirty is good. Thirty is comfortable. Thirty is not to be feared anymore.

Wrinkles, on the other hand, are to be feared and respected in the same way one both fears and respects nuclear weapons. They possess the ability to destroy life as I know it and therefor must be eradicated from the planet, or at least from my face.

Only Respect Intelligence Where You Find It

I have seen headlines all over the net lately about the Boston Bomb Scare. Here's one if you want to read it. I think the lesson to be learned by this is that people in Seattle are far far more intelligent than people in Boston.

This reminds me of the 2000 Florida voting snafu, where a bunch of people accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan because they were too stupid to see his name a half inch from the hole. I can only assume that the large population of retirees in Florida all had cataracts blocking that area of their vision.

Of course, Ted Turner has apologized for the threatening Lite-Brites in Boston, and we now get to vote on electronic machines (great for the retirees, because the elderly are so adept at mastering electronics), but my question is why. Why does Ted Turner have to apologize? Why do we all need to vote with a child's LeapPad? Is there nothing to be said for simply allowing life to punish the stupid the way it always has?

Of course, if Ted Turner had released a statement which read, "After hearing of the fear and panic our advertisers' actions have caused in Boston, I would like to personally apologize for having grossly overestimated the average intelligence of that city's population. You can rest assured that from now on all advertising to be done in the city of Boston by Turner Broadcasting Systems or its affiliates will be in bold printed billboards using only monosyllabic words," the public would be outraged and the ratings for Friends re-runs on TBS would have declined sharply. But come on, it's about time we stop catering to the lowest common denominator. Do we really need to arrest advertisers for trying to catch viewers' attention with bright and shiny signs? This country is filled with people who, like seagulls, become enthralled by anything bright and shiny. That is the Cartoon Network target audience. Who else watches cartoons at ten p.m.?

The people worthy of the least respect in this country seem to be the ones demanding it the loudest. Can't make the Florida voters feel stupid for poking the wrong holes; no, we have to revamp the entire system because stabbing a circle with an arrow a millimeter away telling them what it signifies is far too complex. Well why can't we make the Florida voters feel stupid? The arrow practically touches the dot they punched, and it leads directly to the prominently displayed names of the candidates it represents. If they are too dumb to see that then they probably shouldn't be deciding who runs the country anyway. Maybe if we stopped assuring them that it was in fact a reasonable mistake that could have been made by anyone, they would attempt to become more intelligent. Stupidity should have consequences.

Maybe if we stopped acting like anyone could mistake a sign advertising cartoons for a terrorist act and asked these people out loud why they shut down half of Boston, they would be forced to at least admit that they overreacted. But no, any illuminated sign that doesn't advertise beer or gasoline must be explosive. And they really truly believe that anyone else would have made the same mistake, despite the fact that other cities with the same ad campaign in place hadn't.

Stupid people are demanding not to be condescended to, to be respected for their lacking intelligence and to be catered to specifically for that lack. I believe everyone should be treated with respect, and I'm also all in favor of making public policies as accommodating to people as possible, including making cash easier for the blind to use and making alarms in public buildings recognizable to the deaf. But when some idiot calls up city hall and requests a bomb squad shut down a major highway because a sign has "batteries and wires", I believe that the idiots should be inconvenienced before those possessing common sense.

An Actual Wardrobe (Department) Malfunction

Television watching requires a person to suspend disbelief a little. I get that. I watch a lot of sitcoms and some sci-fi and I know that not everything makes sense, that artistic license comes into play a lot for the sake of the plot-line. But there are some things I see that consistently drive me nuts because they don't benefit the plotlines.

I think the biggest peeve I have relating to any television show I watch, is with Medium. I realize that it's a program about a psychic woman solving murders. I don't have a problem at all with this woman speaking to the dead, getting visions while shaking hands, or even occasionally seeing the future. What I have the problem with is the fault of the wardrobe department. I have to ask, why on Earth does Allison Dubois sleep in a support bra? What woman sleeps every night in a support bra? At least three times every episode they show the woman in bed, either waking up from a bad dream or going to sleep to have one, and every time she ends up lying on her back with her boobs pushed into her chin. The character is a mother of three, in her (probably) mid-thirties, and thankfully has the figure of an average healthy woman her age with three kids. But full-time mothers in their mid-thirties do not, without surgical anhancement that has never been implied in the show, possess breasts that defy gravity to such an extent as to stick straight upwards like cantelopes glued into place. I'm not saying it would be better for them to fall into her armpits, as boobs always do, but maybe she could sleep in something a little looser, with a sport bra underneath. I doubt even Heidi Klum sleeps in a Victoria's Secret push-up bra. I am almost to the point of blaming Mrs. Dubois' constant nightmares on poking underwire.

This doesn't bother me all the time, only when I'm watching the show, which I am right now. Thank the gods for the DVR; it makes it easier to pause a show to rant about unrealistic breasts. I mean, really though, sometimes her chin doesn't even make it into the shot.

God Save The Queens

Check this out. I love that fourth paragraph quote. "...unreasonable, unnecessary and unjust discrimination against Catholics..." To use a discrimination defense in an attempt to circumvent anti-discrimination laws! That takes balls. Big shiny smoking incense filled balls. Well, it either takes balls or it shows an incredibly huge amount of self-righteous stupidity: self-righteous to believe it's fine to treat others poorly but that it's a moral tragedy for the world not to bend to your rules, and stupid to be unable to see the complete irony to the whole "It's discrimination not to allow us to discriminate!" statement.

Yes I feel bad for the kids who may not be adopted if the Catholics close their agencies. But the Catholics are closing their own doors; nobody else is. The anger over the closings, when it hits, should be aimed at the diocese, not at the government or the gay community.

If Jesus preached love and judging not, then the Church leaders are going to have a lot to try to justify when they die. With hypocrisy like this, I wonder why church attendance is down.

Is Abandonment Abortion?

Can this be seen as anything but pro-life? (I happen to be pro-life, but I'm not too sure life begins at conception. I just think that most of the behaviors that lead to abortion deserve some consequence, and that too many abortions are performed a little late. I am for Plan B and stem-cell research, but against the 12 week abortion. Maybe not entirely pro-life, but not entirely pro-choice either. Nasty political comments will be deleted.) What makes me laugh about this column is that it bills a frozen embryo as Katrina's Tiniest Survivor. Never mind all of the living people who could have been rescued in those flat-bottomed boats, the fact is that it is implied that these parents are deeply religious and see their baby and the frozen embryo it once was as being the same person. They then go on to say that they're not sure they will use the remaining three embryos, in part because their toddler now takes up so much attention, and also because pregnancy is hard on the mother.

So let me get this straight. The embryo that became Noah can be viewed as a child which needed to be rescued, but the other three can't? And viewing such embryos as conceived children already in existence is fine until you realize that a) pregnancy takes a lot out of you, and b) once thawed, children actually require parenting. It's a lot easier to defend all unborn human life when it's either frozen or somebody else's problem, isn't it? And it's a lot easier to decide to put off carrying an already-conceived child when you can hide behind the thin line between destruction and suspended animation in an ice tray. These people make me sick with their short-sighted views. Maybe it's just the reporter who wrote the article injecting his own views into the narrative. But either way, it's a very narrow way of looking at the world. Would abortion be legal if they could freeze the embryo rather than destroy it? Even if the parents had no intention of ever implanting it?

Twenty-Four Hell

It's back. I don't know when it was exactly that networks decided to start seasons in both September and January, but my DVR has started working overtime in the last week or so. I record shows for Tom and he (usually) watches them in the mornings before I wake up. But since he's home during the week this time, and since I wake up to get my daughter off to school, I have spent the last four hours in 24 Hell.

bink bonk bink bonk

I hate Kiefer Sutherland, and I most definitely hate Jack Bauer. Not only am I incredibly bored by real-time filming (The Johnny Depp movie a few years ago bugged me too) but I also find the whole topical terrorism plot trend to be highly irritating, especially when viewed through bureaucratic red-tape, complete with incompetent presidential advisors and overshadowing sub-plots.

bink bonk bink bonk

The entire show, regardless of "hour" or season, can be summed up in one blog entry, in case any of you are lucky enough to have escaped this unworthy cultural phenomenon. Jack, the unshaven, brave, heroic lead character, who seems to be the only one in the entire U.S. Government to know how to stop terrorists, is assigned by the highly secretive Counter-Terrorism Unit (CTU) to fight bad guys before they enact a huge plot to kill the president/blow up America/suicide bomb strip malls/ poison the water supply/ taint the froot loops/or whatever else the invariably Muslim and brown-skinned bad guys want to do. CTU only finds out about these plots about (duh) 24 hours before they happen, but always with a wealth of details such as who, what, where, when, and how. The average discovery is made via a bat-phone like direct line to the oval office.

President who may or may not be corrupt and/or incompetent and/or the leader of an elite squad of Army "clerks" called The Unit and/or an insurance salesman hawking accident forgiveness and/or the brother of a former president who took over for an incompetent president, who then got killed as part of a corrupt advisor's plot to discredit Jack Bauer: We have received information that Musharref Al Saminadabab may be plotting to put stolen Russian warheads into the water supply at the froot loops plant, thereby killing himself and dozens of strip-mall shoppers. CTU, your nation needs your help.
Leader of CTU, who may or may not be incompetent, having an affair with Jack, a former lover of Jack's, or Sean Astin: There's only one man on my team I would trust with the job. Sir, I'm sending in Jack Bauer!
Presidential advisor who may or may not be corrupt, actively on the side of the terrorists, aiding in a future presidential assassination plot, or recently ejected into orbit on a completely separate prime-time drama: Mr. President I highly discourage you from trusting Jack Bauer with such an important and crucial mission. He's spent the entire series hiatus in Mexico faking his death/in a Chinese prison/cosmetically removing all of the scars he wore in previous seasons that the writers don't think viewers are smart enough to remember! His judgement is questionable at best.
***President looks pensive***
Jack Bauer, piped into the conversation via a series of cell-phones, bat-phones, military satellites and Chloe (the shy and bucktoothed computer whiz who somehow manages to subvert military security systems to get to the truth, yet seems to spend half of each season either crying or waiting for permission to establish satellite links.): Mr President! I don't have time to explain but I am right here with the terrorists and if you don't LET ME DO MY JOB I won't be held responsible for the DEATHS OF MILLIONS OF AMERICANS.
President who may or may not be married to a schizophrenic who despite a lifetime of psychiatric commitments managed to survive a presidential election without costing her husband the election or having a breakdown but who now knows exactly who is to blame for this crisis and therefor must be locked up again to keep her quiet: I trust you Jack. Do what you have to do.

bink bonk bink bonk
(see how annoying that gets?)

Well, "what he has to do" invariably involves just about every single unconstitutional thing our president is doing now, plus getting hit by shrapnel strategically over one temple so that the blood manages to look dashing and heroic without impeding his vision. He tortures people with only a shred of circumstantial evidence, he violates direct congressional orders, he shoots up populated civilian gathering spots, and he all-but-verbatim, declares himself to be the Decider. He is everything bad with the Patriot Act and Homeland Security. The problem? His torture sessions invariably result in the very information he wanted. More people watch this drivel than can name the Speaker Of The House. This is why people vote Republican. I think the thinking goes somewhat like this: "Torture works when Jack Bauer does it, so what can be wrong with Gitmo?" Substitute the term 'racial profiling' for torture and the thinking remains the same.

bink bonk bink bonk

I really hate that show. I can't wait until Jack dies, or the dems have him tried for war crimes.

The Pursuit of Forgiveness

Tom is right now somewhere in New Mexico, online, trying to find me a shrink. Why, you ask. Is it because of his magnificent powers of observation? No, he is doing it because I am having a bad day and because I asked if it would be financially possible for us to go to counseling together before trying to get pregnant...a year from now.

Why am I having a bad day and suggesting marriage counseling? Because, without giving too many intimate details, I'm having trouble forgiving Tom. Maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing; maybe it is a big deal and I made a mistake by dropping it when I did. But at the time I felt that bitching and ranting and crying and beating the subject into the ground would be counter-productive and of no help to my marriage. So when he came home with a tattoo of both my and my daughter's names (a symbol of both his intentions of permanence and his dedication to our family, etc. etc.) I let it drop. But really, it's not completely let go. It's dangling on a yo-yo string, an ugly blob (I picture it kind of brown and fecal in appearance) of hurt and resentment and fear. I keep it to myself mostly; but occasionally it unrolls and just hangs there, reminding me of it's presence and making me cry.

Today it was a pop-up ad that brought it all to the surface. Last time it was a comment made in the heat of passion. I suppose I could blame advertisers or Tom himself, but the fact is, it's my problem. Forgiveness is a lot harder than I thought it was when I closed the door on this topic. Tom said everything he should have. He told me ugly truths I never wanted to hear; he apologized profusely and repeatedly, he accepted all the blame and fault, and he invited me to yell without consequence. Now somehow it's up to me to turn all of that into peace. And that's hard to do. It's harder, anyway, than trying to hide the resentment and smile no matter what.

Like I said, I'm having a bad day. But it's almost over now and Tom, ever the distractible male, has moved on to pondering the meanings of several Latin-derived medical specialties. No, I don't need a nephrologist; I'll let you know if I do.

How I Rot My Brain

It has been suggested that I write a post about what television shows I watch. Personally, I don't know why anyone would care what other people watch, unless they worked for Nielson or were fighting to keep their own programming on the air. But, anything for a fan, so here goes nothing.

On Mondays I watch How I Met Your Mother, because I like how Ted is written; Two and a Half Men, because the kid is funny; and The New Adventures Of Old Christine because sadly, I can relate to Old Christine, and also because Mathew is funny. I hate myself for watching the sitcoms, but on Mondays I let myself. I also watch What About Brian, mainly because I was too young to appreciate Thirtysomething the first time it came around.

Tuesdays are devoted to Law And Order CI, but only if it's a Bobby Goren episode; I don't like the other guy so much. Then comes House MD, if it's actually on and hasn't been preempted by American Idol or The World Series or something equally useless, and I watch that for the same reason everyone else does; House is cool and I keep waiting for the British accent to sneak through. Hmmm, Eureka when the new episodes come, because I love the town it portrays and the sheriff's reactions to it. And finally, one of the high points of my television week: Boston Legal. You know a show is great when the theme music gets you smiling. Denny Crane is the Stephen Colbert of prime time, and although I couldn't look at him in the beginning, Alan Shore is a great character. Dry humor, irony, sarcasm, he has it all. And when I saw Jeffrey Coho the first time, I knew he was a character of Crane/Shore caliber, but one who looks like Bruce Campbell too. Yum!

Wednesday is dedicated to Medium and CSI NY. Medium because of the mystery and the realistic portrayal of a) the body type of a standard mother of three, and b) the married life of a happy couple with three children. And CSI NY because I like forensics (Scarpetta novels and The Bone Collector, the book NOT the movie) and I watch all the CSIs except Miami, mainly because I hate that redheaded guy and I don't care much about drug smugglers and crocodiles.

Thursday nights I watch My Name Is Earl, because I like the concept of actually trying to correct bad karma, and because I can relate in a way, since this hick town I live in is full of people like Earl and Joy.

Fridays are devoted to Monk (one of my daughter's favorite shows), Psych, and Numb3rs. I love how Monk figures things out while avoiding the dirty nasty frightening world he perceives. And I happen to think the guy on Numb3rs is hot, which when added to smart makes for compelling television, at least to this often lonely thirty year old woman. I don't suppose Rob Morrow looks too bad either, but he named his daughter Tu, and any grown man who actually names his child Tu Morrow is too stupid to appreciate in any carnal way. Psych is just way too funny. It's been a long time since Moonlighting and we needed a detective agency comedy; the market demanded it.

Somewhere in there is CSI, the original, but I can't remember what night it's on. Thursday, maybe? I happen to think Grissom is sexy as hell (smart, full of obscure facts and literary references, and that salt and pepper hair drives me nuts) and again, the forensics angle. Also, Monday through Thursday nights I watch the news: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. And I try to squeeze in any Monk and Law And Order CI reruns I can find that I haven't seen before, as well as various documentaries and biographies which spark my interest.

Weekend nights are when I catch up on whatever's left in the DVR from the week before. I know it seems like I watch a lot of television, and I do watch more than I should. But aside from catching Project Runway and Queer Eye every once in a while, I don't watch reality shows. I tend to see most reality shows as catering to the lowest common denominator. Humiliate yourself for fifteen minutes of fame and a one in a million shot of winning some cash. I'd rather pick briefcases with Howie Mandel or identify strangers with Penn Gillette to win my cash.

Tom has shows I record for him: 24, The Unit, Smallville, Heroes, Prison Break, etc. Basically anything with a) a good chance of blowing things up, or b) a cheerleader in the tag-line. And of course, any televised event featuring more than five men in matching outfits trying desperately to blow each other's kneecaps out. He likes all sports, except wrestling because, "That shit's kinda gay". Typical male.

So there you have it, graffiti knight. That's what I watch. My kid throws some Food Network and Animal Planet programming in there, and Tom's always willing to pause his channel surfing for anything in a bikini, but basically I run the TV and so this is what we watch, and why. But please, don't try to engage me in conversations about television shows. I probably haven't even watched the thing yet and I don't want it spoiled for me.

Dieting Again. Ugh.

I'm back on my diet. I hate diets, all the worry and guilt and deprivation. That's probably why I've only ever been on one in my life, that and a fast metabolism. But I'm thirty now, and a mother, and I'm planning on having more children in the next year or so, so I should try to keep small rather than get huge and then try to shrink myself back. At least, that's what I tell myself; the truth is, my jeans are getting a bit tight and the new parts of my ass seem to be growing. Women thirty and older should all know what I mean by "new parts"; they're the bubbles that form on your hips when you bend over, the bulges at the end of the crease between thigh and abdomen. I hate them and they're ability to appear from out of nowhere in one day.

Anyway, back to the diet. As I've said, I've only been on one diet before, and since it worked I'm going back on it. It's probably not one anyone has heard of before, as it has no medical or celebrity endorsements, as I invented it out of spite about three years ago. I was tired of hearing all the women I worked with bitching about the no-carb diet, so just to shut them up I decided to go on an all-carb diet. I ate nothing but carbs for two months, stuffing my face with carbs right n front of them, just to be evil. Of course, my diet wasn't ALL carbs, but it was mostly grains so I pissed them off enough to make myself happy. After a couple months, though, I discovered a pleasant bonus to my spite diet. I had gone from a size 9 to a size 5! Well, now that my 6's are getting tight in the waist, I'm back to the carbs.

Since I realize that there is no nutritional evidence to back up an all-carb diet, or more accurately, a heavy-on-the-carbs diet, I feel the need to reiterate:
THE ALL-CARB DIET IS NOT PROVEN AND MAY KILL YOU.
That being said, here's how the diet goes. Eat as much bread, potatoes, cereal, and rice as you can. Not to the exclusion of everything else, but something with every meal is good, according to the plan if not medical science. But, eat whole grains. Whole wheat breads, brown rice, boring adult cereal with no cartoons on the box or colors not in the brown family. The theory here, invented again by me only after being asked to explain how on earth eating tons of carbs can work when Dr Atkins said different, is that sugar is not fattening. It might be, but my theory says it isn't so we'll go with that. Sugar isn't fattening; fat is fattening. Sugar is only bad when it is a source of empty calories. And since most people in this culture think sugar is white, it makes sense that sugar is empty. But sugar is only white when it has been refined, reduced, and bleached by man into nothingness. And the sugar that your body makes from carbohydrates has not been refined, reduced, or bleached. It is energy sugar, and can speed up metabolism and provide energy to exercise, if you exercise. Now, the motivation to exercise is a difficult thing to find, unless you have spent the entire day eating foods that your body has turned into sugar. Carbs give you the calories needed to exercise, but they aren't empty calories because they are natural. Like I said, this is my own theory and it is no more scientific than the theory that I know what the hell I'm talking about. Because I don't. But I know that lunch today is brown rice with soy sauce (butter is fat, so it's off the diet), and supper will be whole wheat spaghetti drizzled in olive oil, diced tomatoes, and basil. Sound dull? Well it's diet food so it is dull. But my jeans will fit again soon and I will have the wallpaper stripped from the bathroom walls in no time.








Disclaimer: I have never claimed to have any medical training or knowledge and do not even pretend to know what is good for me. This diet is not a balanced diet and no one should go on it, ever. Unless, of course, science ends up discovering that it is good, in which case I thought of it first. I know nothing of nutrition so there is a very good chance that following this diet could result in some form of vitamin deficiency and or malnutrition. If you want to lose weight, visit a nutritionist, not a blog.

How To Annoy Me...Even More!

I did this a while back, and it was fun, but society at large has found new and inventive ways to annoy me since then, so I'm doing it again.

Decide to write a book as though it were no big deal, when I've been struggling with it for twelve freaking years!!! (yeah, I know. it's getting old.)

Make fun of my use of the word Dude. It's a word!

Insist that "funner" is a word. Ehhhh, no.

Start a sentence with "Speaking of trailer trash, your brother said something about you the other day..." it doesn't matter at that point how flattering the compliment was, you've ruined it now, Mom!

Ask me to proofread your book and include sex you had with other women in it. I'm skipping that part and you'll get no feedback!

Introduce your girlfriend as Jenny Jamieson, and NOT expect a smirk. Come on!

Hide vibrators in my Christmas stocking and then not warn me before I empty the damn thing in front of my kid. That was a close call, and not at all amusing!

Tell me specifically NOT to buy you a router if I'm going to buy you a Dremel, and then put down the Dremel on Dec 26 to go buy yourself a router!

Roll away from me just to fart in your sleep. I know you're aiming at my ass on purpose!

Eat tater tots while playing Sims and leave my mouse all greasy. Again.

Tell me they don't sell orange Windex at Wal*Mart. That's where I buy it and I know they have it.

Try to say I snore, and somehow convince everyone else in the room to say it too. I would know if I snored.

Roll your eyes at me when I get "that look" holding someone else's baby. Wanna get rid of "that look"? Knock me up.

Force me to download a toolbar just to run spellcheck.

Criticize me for drinking at Christmas celebrations. Christmas is a time for family; family necessitates drinking.

Tell me I haven't changed a bit since high school, and expect me to take it as a compliment. I remember what I looked like in high school, do you?

Correct me when I say I like the ladybugs. They're round spotted flying bugs. Orange, red, yellow, or black, they're ladybugs, even if they are from Asia. And they've never pinched me before so I can damn well like them if I want!

Ask why I insist upon eating chocolate even though I know it will hurt my teeth. I'm female, it's chocolate, enough said.

Try to initiate conversation while I foodgasm. If I'm chewing slowly with my eyes closed, I'm not up for chit-chat, okay?

Poop on the steps to the pen, thereby forcing the other dogs to walk in it and smear it around like some grotesque finger painting. I have better things to do than douse the back porch with dishwater.

Give me your email address, make me promise to keep in touch, and then never write back. I thought I was done with that "I'll call you," bullshit when I got married!

Spend over $1000 on me for Christmas and then complain that what I spend on gifts is too much, thereby forcing me to cut back and look cheap Christmas morning.

Tell me that Christmas isn't a competition. I know it isn't but come on! I wasn't even allowed to buy you the stupid router!

Suggest we get the kid an iguana for Christmas. Easy for you to say, you'll be in a truck while I take care of it. I don't think so!

Tell me my gay nativity is blasphemous. Number One, DUH, that was the point. And Number Two, the guys from Brokeback Mountain were shepherds, Liza does have the voice of an angel, if Ellen ever births a child it will probably be without the touch of a man (and it may end up being Bowie's, who knows?), and a Tinky Winky doll was the only gay icon small enough to fit in the basket! And don't tell me Carson isn't a perfect "Star In The East". Queer Eye is filmed in New York, on the east coast.

Say James Blunt is "gay". He isn't and you obviously don't mean it literally because you say nothing when I listen to Rufus Wainwright, Mr Expert Of All Gay Music!

Insist that you're right and then offer as proof your status as a man. That thing between your legs is not a fount of wisdom, no matter what you say, and I was being sarcastic when I said that means wisdom tastes like salt and smells like bleach.

Put off a colonoscopy because it sounds uncomfortable. Go through 16 years of paps and nine months of pregnancy, not to mention childbirth during shift-change, and then complain to me about personal dignity and comfort.

Pluck the gray hairs from your chest. You look like you have mange when you do that, and I LIKE the gray.

Tell me The Daily Show isn't accurate or impartial. You watch Fox News, for gods' sakes!

Et Tu, Thomas Part Two

Apparently I now have three loyal readers, as it seems my husband decided just once to read my blog. Of course, he read the last post and got very upset. Not upset in a silent sullen way, but more in an insulting kind of way. So, deciding to be nice enough to set the record straight, I will attempt to clarify my last post.

Since I was twelve years old, I have wanted to write. From coffee groups full of old ladies discussing how best to word memoirs written for their grandchildren to classes taught on Saturday afternoons by "published writers!" whose names bring up no results on either google or amazon.com, I have studied the craft. I have read hundreds of novels, short stories, plays, and articles and studied them all for tips on writing style and form. I have felt an absolutely undeniable conviction that somewhere in my mind, waiting to come to the forefront, was the one story which needed to be told, the one character who needed to tell his story through me.

Before I was out of high school I had written stories, plays, and poems. But since then, I have hit a wall. Easily blamed on being too busy, too distracted by life, I let it slide sure that one day I would have the time to sit down and write the Great American Novel, or at least the Great American Short Story. But now I have that time, and the character still hides among the folds of my brain, and only mediocre plots fight for prominence in my mind. But still, despite not writing anything of consequence in over ten years, I somehow consider myself a writer.

Now along comes someone who considers himself to be many things, but never a writer that I know of, and he decides to write a book. Just like that, as if it were nothing. I don't question that he has a story to tell; interesting people have interesting histories. But how did he know at what point to start? How did he know what was needless preamble and what was the point at which his story actually began? And why, if I may be allowed a brief moment to cry to the heavens. Why did the story needing to be told come to a man who never claimed story-telling as his craft, instead of to me who always has? Why is it so easy for him and so damned hard for me? I have spent years studying where to use 'who' and where to use 'whom', learning the difference between affect and effect. I know when to use a colon and when to use a semicolon instead. I understand the perils of head-hopping and why it's important to avoid the temptation to speed through in narrative what can best be explained in dialogue. And he decides, seemingly on a whim, to write a book! The ease with which he made the decision, and is actually carrying it out, seems almost designed to belittle my own difficulty, to show me how easy it really is for anyone but me.

To breeze effortlessly through a task while your mate struggles with it inevitably fosters a resentment born of envy. I'm jealous; I admit it! I'm jealous in the same way that I get jealous when Jame loses weight with no struggle, or when I hear of women going through labor with no drugs. But the worst, the absolute most painful part of this, is the creeping suspicion that I'm not destined to be a writer, that I just don't have the talent for it. Because, if that's the case, what do I dream of now? It's always been my lifelong goal, my attempt at immortality. Some people want their names in the history books, some people write or record music to live on after them, some design massive buildings. I just want to write. I have no other career aspirations, just this. I don't dream of being the next JK Rowling, but I'd like to be able to write one thing I could be proud of. And it's sad to see someone else doing it so effortlessly, right in front of me.

It's envy, and self-pity I suppose. But it's certainly no reason to be insulted by one's own husband. It's especially no reason to have one's worst fears thrown in their face by their own husband!

Et Tu, Thomas?

My husband is writing. Yesterday he declared himself to be writing a story; today it is a book. The problem here? I cannot think of a thing to write, and he cannot write a thing. He writes in sentence fragments, and switches tenses, and puts the word 'you' into narrative. It's a literary mess! And I, who have studied the craft, taken classes devoted to it, joined writers' groups before I was old enough to have a subject to write about, have writer's block. Fifteen years of writer's block, to be exact.

I do fine with assignments. Tell me what to write about and I can whip up a story in five minutes flat. But leave me to my own devices and I struggle for hours with characters and genres. It's miserable. I envy painters; they never have to look at white canvas. Just paint the whole thing black and then add color over that! But a writer can't paint the screen, or the journal, black before writing. We are left with either blank and unforgiving pages, or pale blue lines underscoring words we haven't penned yet.

And here is my husband, grammatically challenged as he is, showing me how easy it is to come up with a subject, characters, settings, plot-twists! It's unfair. How can a man who doesn't know a semi-colon from an apostrophe come up with a story to tell? How does he tell it? And I, who should probably limit myself to editing others' prose, cannot come up with one opening line.

Even the computer is against me! My spellcheck won't open. I apologize to the two readers I know I have, as well as the ones my ego tells me I must have. Now if you'll excuse me, this has-been has three chapters left in Dorian Gray to finish. Good night.

Wishing You A Fabulous Christmas

(from left: Tim Curry as Dr. Frank N. Furter, Cher, Rupaul, Liza Minelli, Ellen DeGeneres, Tinky Winky, David Bowie, Carson Kressley, Heath Ledger as Ennis Del Mar, and Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack Twist.)

Remember, Christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of a child born from a woman without the touch of a man.

The Christmas Newsletter

Hasn't everyone, at one time or another, gotten one of these godawful things in the mail? Who does this anyway? The letters are almost always from the most annoyingly religious people who don't realize that if the person on the receiving end cares so little that in an entire year they haven't heard that Johnny made the baseball team or Susie's taking dance classes, then they don't care if you tell them at Christmas. And the letters are never accurate either. I got a mass-mailing newsletter a couple weeks ago from a family that I happen to know has had suicide attempts and restraining orders this year, but none of that got mentioned. So today I will type out what an accurate newsletter would be like. And no, it's not based on my family, just inspired by many families I know.

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Merry Christmas!

Boy has this year gone by fast. It's hard to imagine it was a full twelve months ago that Grandpa got frostbite sitting drunk on the lawn waiting to catch the neighbor stealing the newspaper. But he's been blessed this year, with the good lord guiding him through his surgeries and Jesus holding him up as he learned to walk without pinky toes.

This has certainly been a busy year for us. Angie's in chemo again, but the doctors are telling us she may be able to keep the leg this time. And after months of exhaustive testing, we have finally learned who the father of Judy's baby is and are expecting the first child-support check any day now. I suppose most of you already know that a combine fell on Bert last November, but he is expected to regain the use of his arms again by spring, and may even be able to get off disability if the ACLU lawyers can convince the local McDonald's to lower the fryer to a wheel-chair accessible height.

We thank all of you who came to Sherry's wedding this spring, and who supported her in the divorce the month before. She seems to have finally found the right man in Jim, and we hope that with his love and support that she will be able to stay clean for good this time. She plans to get the help she needs just as soon as she can find a qualified clinic more than 500 feet from any schools or daycares so that her new husband can come visit her on weekends.

Yes, we certainly have been blessed this year. And we thank all of you who continue to keep us in their prayers. Let's all ask for the strength we will certainly need to drive cross-country to visit Jordan in Leavenworth, since we still can't get Shawn's name off the no-fly list.

Wishing you all a blessed Christmas Season,
The Smith Family

'Cause Wisdom Doesn't Taste Like Salt Or Smell Like Bleach

I am making an announcement now, to the three or so people whom I know read this blog. I am putting myself in the advice business. I will answer any and all requests for advice on any subject if asked. I will post the question, as well as my advice, and I will leave out the name of the wisdom-seeker and replace it with a catchy little nickname, to protect the writer's identity from my other two fans. If you want to control your catchy nickname, make one up yourself, and then hope I decide to keep it.

To ask a question, post it as a comment to this or any future advice-related post. I will answer all posts no matter how stupid or insignificant the question, so anything from "How do I get crayon off the walls?" (toothpaste and a toothbrush) to "How do I come out to my parents?" (just tell them, but have a back-up place to crash if you'll need it) is okay to ask. I may not have the answers to everything, but then again if you're willing to ask advice over the internet, neither do you. I do have, however, an endless supply of opinions, as well as tons of trivial facts stored away. And I of course have plenty of free time and a google homepage.

So line up, send me your questions, and eagerly await my wisdom and advice. I expect exactly no comments to this post, but I will answer them if I get them.

The War On Hanukkah

Last year we saw the headlines, we heard the evangelists, we all learned about the War On Christmas. I believe my most vivid wartime memory will remain Bill O'Reilly explaining this most offensive of wars to David Letterman, and then being told that about sixty percent of what he said sounded like total crap. But this year, the Psycho-Christians are rejoicing because the enemy, the secular insurgents of this "war", have backed down. Wal*Mart says Merry Christmas again.

The problem with declaring "Happy Holidays" and "Season's Greetings" a war on Christmas, is that no one is actually aiming at Christmas. A war is when one side shoots at the other, not when one side refuses to throw flowers at the other. The "holidays" part of "Happy Holidays" includes Christmas. It just doesn't exclude Hanukkah or Kwanza or any other seasonal winter holiday. Refusing to exclude a large portion of their customer base does not constitute declaring war on Christianity, Christians, or Christmas. It's just common business sense. And more, it's common courtesy, something the religious right seems to have abandoned long ago. Which brings me to the next, and probably oldest, battle in the current War On Hanukkah.

Jesus Is The Reason For The Season! Oh that's arrogant on so many levels. For one thing, the season is winter. And it's more the Earth's orbit than Jesus that causes that. Another thing, this was considered the holiday season by many people long before Christ. It was Hanukkah in the Jewish world, which happens to come on December 16 this year (and will actually begin on December 25 in ten years), and it was Yule in most of Europe. In fact, the modern date of December 25 was only declared to be Christ's birthday by Christians trying to convert the European pagans. Let them have their winter holiday; just change the purpose to one we like better. That's where the tree and the garlands of berries and the yule log come from: a holiday celebrating Nature. One more arcane piece of trivia: That Heavenly glow around the Virgin Mary's head showed up in paintings coincidentally when Christian iconicism started to replace paintings of an equally glowing sun-god. But the point is this: Jesus is NOT the reason for the season, not for everyone. And even to those who celebrate Christmas it's not always about Jesus. I celebrate Christmas. I have a tree and stockings and I put out cookies for Santa. But despite the heirloom nativity, I do not celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. Christmas to me means so much more than that. It is a time for family and giving, peace on Earth, goodwill towards man, and hope. Christmas to me is red-faced babies gumming sugar cookies. It's the look on someone's face when they open that one perfect gift. It's watching my eight year old daughter carefully choose what she wants to buy her Dad based only on what she thinks he will like best. It's spending two hours boiling cream and sugar down to caramel with her, and then tying ribbons around jars of the candies for teachers. Christmas to me is about togetherness, a break from our differences, a time to relax and celebrate life and hope.

Maybe if the Bill O'Reillys of the world would be willing to try that, maybe if they would make a batch of caramels or a plate of cookies instead of a political statement one year, they may actually get it. Happy Holidays isn't a code for anything, and it's not a passive aggressive attack on Christmas. It's just wishing people, all people, happiness on whatever holiday they might have. And wishing others happiness regardless of their religion, is what I always thought Christians were supposed to do.

Told You So!

Hillary Clinton's electability is in question, or so say the headlines. No, not the front page headlines, those are reserved for Lance Bass and his boyfriend breaking up. The smaller ones, in the corner under the fold. Gee, I wonder who might have blogged that very thought.



*For a hint, scroll down to my very last post.

"Oh no you di-int!"

I have a confession to make. I think the democrats' winning the House and Senate may be a bad thing. This isn't necessarily an out-of-date topic, just one I've been thinking about a lot. But please, bear with me.

See, Bush is bad for the country. I firmly believe that and have never seen any evidence to the contrary. But Bush was good for the Democratic party. Bush did more for the democrats than Kennedy ever could have. And so we won. But now, Bush seems to be conceding a lot. Rumsfeld got canned, Bush has been playing nice with Pelosi, all in all he's a better president now than he was. And that's unfortunate, because this nation has a short memory and in two years, the hatred for his party that got the dems into Congress won't be as intense. And that increases the chance of another Republican president. If he would just keep equating valuing soldiers' lives with siding with terrorists, if he would just keep spouting bullshit about Stay the Course vs. Cut and Run, if he would only consider continuing to mindlessly bash all democrats, liberals, gays, non-Christians, etc, for another two years, we might have it made. But no, now he will have to tone down the stupidity and limit himself to Borat-like idiocy in speeches. He's not going to declare himself The Decider anymore, and that hurts the Democrats.

I'll admit it, I voted almost exclusively for Democrats, the only exception being a local election where I knew the candidate (what party ties can the Regional Superintendant Of Schools have anyway?) so I am to blame too. But what choice did I have? Vote for Republicans? No way. And that's obviously how voters across the country felt as well. But Bush seems to have some reasonably intelligent advisors now, and he seems to be listening to them. History may even end up remembering him in a full-length bus, against all evidence. I believe it is important in the long run for Bush to "stay the course" in his own view of Iraq. Two more years in Iraq under Bush could get us out of there six months after the inauguration. If he starts to waver though, we may end up with another Republican who would probably keep us there throughout another term.

I support taking action against North Korea; they actually have the bomb, and they shoot it at us. Sure, they miss, but they shoot it. But we had to be in Iraq, because maybe Saddam had some kind of weapon. But when Kim admits that he has nuclear weapons, and he tries to blow up Hawaii for fun, The Decider, now sharing his toys with the Democrats, decided to take swift action, and cut off Kim's supply of iPods.

The problem is the Republican defense philosophy, which is somewhat similar to that of a drunk chick in a trailer park. Saddam pissed off Bush Sr, so Bush Jr runs out screaming "My name is Inigo Montoya!" and starts pulling down statues all over Iraq. I believe the war cry was "Oh no he di-int!" (possibly with some sort of Zorro-like finger snapping). George Bush took to war like a woman in a Rikki Lake audience. And the rest of the Republican party seemed to eat it up like a Jerry Springer audience. Basically, in the world of talk show metaphors, I place the Republicans in with the paternity test and cheating husbands programs, while the democrats are somewhere between Dr Phil helping a dysfunctional family and Tony Danza interviewing Emeril. We're not as violent, but also not as bold at times.

I believe in diplomacy, and if that really doesn't work, I feel there is a time when troop deployment should be swiftly employed. I feel that getting soldiers killed should (gasp) be the last resort, not the first. War seems to be nothing more these days than a contest to see who will let more of their own people die. It's not technology; I'm not sure when the last time was that we didn't have a picture of our enemy shaking hands with a former US president. Our enemies are killing us with weapons we supplied them with. It's all very Orwellian. They're our allies! Uh...We hate them now, always have.

I will no doubt vote democrat in the next presidential election. But the primaries will be tough. Hillary may be the best for the job. I don't know since I'm pretty far from New York and New York senators aren't really publicized much here. But if we run Hillary against some handsome guy in a suit, I fear we'll have no chance. The female thing will screw her a little, sure. But having Bill standing behind her at the podium? Having every smear add focusing on her judgment in just staying married? Without Bush on our team I don't think Hillary can win. And make no mistake, Bush is on our team, in a strategy sense. He's the kid the coach puts on the field after betting on the other side. He's the guy who runs the ball into the wrong end zone. He's the best asset the DNC has.

Caught With My Head In A Mannequin's Pants

When Tom woke me up at 3:15 am the day after Thanksgiving to buy DVD players for his twins, I had no idea it would lead to a new level of self-esteem, and also a new awareness of mannequin anatomy. Hell, I didn't even know that you got $5 Kohl's Kash for every $50 spent. But I did appreciate the $50 certificate they handed me.

The problem is, I don't shop at Kohl's very often. I'm not even sure there's supposed to be an apostrophe in the word Kohl's. So what would I do with $50 store credit? I called Jame. I figured, what single mother of three couldn't use some extra money during the holidays? So yesterday, we went to Kohl's.

The local Kohl's has the men's department up by the check-out counters, and Jame and I happened to spend quite a while deciphering men's jeans. Relaxed fit. Straight leg. Boot-cut. Straight boot-cut?!? We were working our way to the checkout lines when out of the corner of my eye a figure on a mannequin stand moved. I screamed.

Me "AAAAGGGGHHHH!"

Jame "What the hell?!"

At this point the lady on the mannequin stand (actually a big wood block with carpet nailed to it) jumped and stared at me.

Me "Um, I thought I saw a mannequin move, but it was just her."

I turned to the lady, who had already un-screwed the poor manequin's arms and stripped "him" to the waist, and asked the burning question.

Me "If the mannequins have molded hair the same color as their 'skin', why do they have nipples? I mean, it's not like the designer was going for realism." (You thought I was going to ask something else, didn't you.)

Mannequin lady I don't know. Why do they have privates?

Me They don't! Really? They have privates?

ML Yeah, sort of.

Now who could resist know what "sort of" means? So I did the only logical thing. I hopped up on the little carpeted wood block, pulled the waist of 'his' Dockers back, and peered into the shadowy depths of the mannequins pants.

As yet unnoticed high school science teacher only four feet away in the checkout line Charlene?

Uh oh. No one calls me that.

Jame Mr Buikema. Hi!

I felt my face grow hot and slowly stepped down off the mannequin stand, humiliated, and turned around. Sure enough, my old science teacher, and his wife, were trying not to laugh. And for the first time in years, I was blushing.

Mr Buikema was a good teacher, and a great guy. I flunked his class for two years writing poems during lectures, and he got me into a writing class. I never turned in homework, and filled out computer-graded test forms in Morse code, but he let me run my own experiments in the back room after class (I made elemental crystals). He understood that not everyone was passionate about the same subject he was, but he encouraged a thirst for knowledge no matter the subject. He cared about students, not scores. And he was always willing to demonstrate the answer to "Does sulfur melt?" by setting it on fire, thus enabling the entire third floor of the school to evacuate for the afternoon.

Jame and I explained as best we could just why I had been peering down the front of a male mannequin's pants, and as Jame started handing her purchases to a clerk Mr Buikema asked me how my daughter was doing. I told him about her, and her problems in school (due to being advanced), and he said she sounded like me. I believe his words were "What else could you expect when her mother has a 140 IQ?"

I don't remember being tested, I really don't. But I was always being tested for one thing or another. Remedial classes because of my grades, advanced classes because of my standardized test scores, and of course the California tests they made you take every two years. I always scored high (except for math; I suck at math), and eventually quit paying attention to whatever they said the test was for. I liked tests. I liked scoring so high while flunking school. It infuriated my mother, which was a pretty major goal back then. But a hundred and forty? That's pretty high. I think Mensa only requires 135. So I called my mom last night and asked her.

Me Did you ever have the school test my IQ?

Mom Yeah. I think it was your freshman year. I can still remember getting the call from Mrs. Armstrong (evil incarnate guidance counselor) that you got one of the highest scores the school had ever seen.

Me Huh? I what? You never told me this before.

Mom Well it didn't matter; you were flunking anyway. Besides, scores are subjective. They don't mean anything.

Me Yes they do. They mean I was smart!

Mom I always told you you were smart. I said all the time that if you just applied yourself.... (at this point I tuned her out, a rather rude habit developed by hearing the 'potential' lecture so many times in my life.)

So basically, I am a freaking genius and nobody told me. I'm kind of pissed. I mean, every kid gets the "you have so much potential, if only you'd just apply yourself" talk. Hell, even my brain-damaged little cousin gets that talk, and she's 16 with a first grade reading level and no memory skills. But the highest score the school had ever seen?! I think that might have motivated me a bit, had I known. It definitely would have provided me with some self-esteem. Probably would have kept me from dating so many future felons.

I wonder if I can get those test results now. Maybe I could join Mensa. Maybe I could finally realize my potential. Maybe I could discover why mannequins have those nipples after all. As for what "sort of" privates are, you'll have to figure that out on your own. There's no shame in peeping a mannequin; even geniuses do it from time to time.

THIS POST DELETED UPON REQUEST

Neurons Are Not To Be Messed With

In 2001 I went to my doctor for depression. I was given prozac samples, but after a month I was a stumbling, slurring, uncoordinated wreck. Prozac, it seemed, affected me like a stroke. So I was put on Effexor XR (venlafaxine), which I stayed on for about two years with no problem. I finally ended up seeing an actual psychiatrist, who weaned me off of Effexor and put me on a mood stabilizer instead. That worked great until I lost my job and of course, my insurance.
But lately, I have been back to my regular MD, and I have, sort of, chronicled my stints with Straterra and then Effexor again. Well, Effexor ended up giving me a new side-effect this time, one I decided real quick was a deal-breaker. So I again called my doctor, after only a month of taking 75 milligrams a day, and asked to be switched. He put me on Wellbutrin and told me I could switch right over from the Effexor with no tapering off. I specifically asked him and that's what he said. All was well for two days. The side-effect from Hell even went away on the second night without Effexor. But the next day...

It was Friday, and Jame came over like she does most Fridays. (It just works out that she's in town those days so we have our girl-time then.) But after about three hours of trying to understand our men and our children and the sock-kleptomania of most major brands of dryers, I started to feel odd. I had already spent a good fifteen minutes relating to her a dream I'd had the night before that just wouldn't leave me once I'd woke up, and I had decided too that perhaps three cans of Mt Dew were too much as I could NOT sit still and felt incredibly jittery and anxious. And she had also commented that during a brief visit the day before, I had become violently angry while retelling a petty argument I'd had with Tom, an over-reaction I hadn't even been aware of. But now, I felt like I was having a heart attack. I was nauseous, but only when I moved. (Imagine motion sickness from walking.) And I had the most distressing feeling I have ever had. I felt like my heart and possibly my lungs were vibrating. Jame took my pulse and it was fine, but I felt this sensation of having nervous organs. I later described it as having restless leg syndrome behind my sternum. I was laying on the couch motionless and trying to describe to Jame how I felt (not so much sick as just weird) when for no reason I burst into tears. Horrible sobbing for maybe three minutes, and then done, like driving into and then out of a torrential storm. But I didn't feel sad at all. My emotions didn't cry, just my head.

I tried to call the doctor's office, after Jame googled "Effexor withdrawal" and found hundreds of horror stories, but I kept getting a busy signal. So Jame drove me to the clinic and demanded I see a nurse. The nurse had never even heard of Effexor withdrawal (I told her to just google it someday) and looked it up in her PDR: not much mentioned there but dizziness and nausea. I told her of all of my symptoms, some of which, like the dream, I would never have linked to medicine if I hadn't read about it online. Seems dopamine floods can cause incredibly intense and vivid dreams and nightmares. So now, I have orders to spend the next five weeks tapering off of the effexor, almost as long as I was on it in the first place.

The moral to this story? Don't take Effexor. There are dozens of anti-depressant and anti-anxiety meds out there; you don't have to take this one. And research online before you fill any psychiatric prescription. I have read in the last 24 hours that Cymbalta and Paxil withdrawal can be just as bad. Regular MDs aren't trained very much in the use of these drugs, and the drug companies aren't all that eager to share the details of how awful their drugs can be, so these doctors don't even know about all the risks. They are almost as much a victim as the patients are.

One bright side, though. Uncontrollable nausea makes it easy to quit drinking, a task I've undertaken for the sake of my marriage.

What is sexy?

When I got married, I thought I would settle happily into a life of contentment, security, and structure. I thought marriage would remove the pursuit of a soul-mate from my life and leave me the time to live my life with less pressure. No need to impress other people, no need to attempt to turn heads, just the freedom to be me, and the confidence of knowing that someone loved me and the great search was over. Leave all of that primping and polishing to the single girls. Let them worry about finding the one outfit that will strategically hide flaws while spotlighting attributes. I would be sexy in a Jill Taylor (Home Improvement) sort of way.

But I was naive. While it's true that I no longer strive to attract attention from strangers, that I don't scan the room anymore when I enter a bar, I have discovered what so many wives before me have learned. Keeping attention may be more difficult than attracting it. Once a man has seen you face down in the toilet, once he has watched you climb into bed in ratty period panties (You girls know what I'm talking about), once he's seen the goop you put on your face, it's hard to imagine him forgetting it all, no matter how much make-up you put on to go out.

I know it's possible; it's how I see Tom. He walks around the house in his boxers, expelling air from every orifice as though he were an untied balloon, but when he puts on those tight jeans, or that black t-shirt that's just a bit too tight in the shoulders, or when he grows his beard just because I like it, all of the farting and belching and genital-scratching is forgotten: he is the sexiest man alive.

So I try. I try to do all the little things you read about in women's magazines. Wearing nothing but his white suit shirt with the sleeves rolled up? Did it. Yawn without baring any teeth? Did it. Wear perfume to bed? Did it. But none of these generalized strategies worked. In fact, the suit shirt thing was so cliche it made him laugh. What an ego boost that was! The fact is, I didn't marry any of the guys who answer Cosmo's "What Is Sexy?" surveys. I married a Nebraska farmboy turned trucker, with his own fantasies. And finding out what they are has, and no doubt will continue to be, a long and surprising process.

I wear contacts. I have for ten years now. But my eye doctor told me that because my prescription is so strong I need to have a back-up pair of glasses. The basic gist of it is that if I were to get an infection and be unable to wear my contacts, I would be too blind to do anything unless I had a pair of glasses. So I went and spent the $200 and then, in some pathetic attempt to justify the price, wore them for about a week. When Tom came home unexpectedly and found me in a pair of square black plastic frames, with my hair piled on my head in a clip because it wouldn't do anything else that day, I was mortified. I looked like crap and I knew it. But he grabbed me and kissed me, and then looked down at me and said "Hello Teacher." For a full decade I'd been wearing contacts because glasses hid my cheekbones, and striving for long thick Cindy Crawford hair, and this was what turned him on? I filed it under "Men make no sense" and went back to reading articles on how to keep a man's interest.

So yesterday, when I went to pick Tom up at the truck, I deliberately wore a blue blouse (the color he says I look best in) and my tightest pair of jeans. (The magazines do say to pay attention to what your man compliments you on, and Tom is an ass-man.) But I was a little surprised when Tom told me he had a shirt he wanted to see me in, and tossed me something from his backpack; his old high school football jersey. It must be some teenage fantasy to see his girl in his jersey (he never really had a high school girlfriend: too shy). The funny thing is, I'd never dated an athlete back in school; I'd never even wanted to. But part of me must have been jealous of the cheerleaders in their boyfriends' huge letterman jackets, because wearing Tom's football jersey almost made me feel like a schoolgirl dating the football star.

I'm not going to stop reading the articles and I'm not going to stop trying to replace images of flu-ridden me with ones of sexy me. But maybe someday I will finally figure out what makes Tom tick, and then I can stop wasting money on thongs ("They always seem to come up too high") and low-rider jeans ("They make everyone's ass look short and wide") and start buying things that work for him. Until then, does anyone know where I can find a schoolgirl outfit that won't expose a thirty year old too-soft belly?