reflecting my reasoning

So many moral qualities are encompassed in the character of Atticus Finch.  He embodies what I hope my son will aspire to be.  That's a lot to wish on a four-year old, much less when he was a newborn baby.  


As the blogger says, "that is the man I wish him to be."  There are several reasons listed here that mirror why I named my son Atticus:


http://artofmanliness.com/2011/02/02/lessons-in-manliness-from-atticus-finch/

A chaotic mind

"Yoga means union; it is waking up to the beauty both within ourselves and realizing the sacredness of all life. And it is the expression of love: loving yourself and others, which frees us from a chaotic mind, negativity and neurosis."  What a great quote from a blog entry via Ed and Deb Shapiro (http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/11/why-your-intellect-is-an-obstacle-in-yoga/).

I wish I could fully experience that union without my thoughts constantly trailing off.  Last night my mind wondered to feet ... yes, feet.  I even made notes ... yes, notes ... about what intrigues me about feet at yoga.  It was as bad as the two college students I saw texting during inversions not too long ago.

The intimacy of feet during yoga class fascinates me.  It's such a personal thing to reveal yourself to other adults you don't know by baring your feet, and I believe, your "self" in the process.  You can assume a lot about a person from her or his feet.  Part of it is the texture.  Are they cracked?  If they're dry and worn, the people emits the feeling of being tired.  If they're quaffed, smooth and look soft, the person is likely to be young and less tired as a result.  Taking good care of your tootsies, polishing your nails, that all spells youth to me.

Another issue is normality.  Alas, I regress to freaky feet.  It's embarrassing to admit I look at the length of women's toes in hopes to see some asymmetry there.  And the feet that are totally, exceedingly cracked make me feel sad for the person.  I imagine them having corns, bunions, or even (gag) hammer toes.

The last thing is care.  It kind of scares me to be beside someone like this, the funky feet person, as if their flakes will slough off and reach my mat or something.  What a control freak and germaphobe!  I hardly ever walk across that floor without my flip flops because of all the icky stuff there from craft class (and the Y's bugs, ew).  It's not as if I have the most perfect, loofa-ed, beautiful feet in the room either.  My heels are slightly cracked (I'm working on it) and my toes soak in the lotion every day.  Not to mention, my own nails have carried no shiny color since at least September.  The yellow tinge of post-summer polishing doesn't count.

Mine have carried me over years and years, not to mention miles and miles.  They've not been pampered, with only occasional attention and a half-assed effort with a pumice stone.  If it's not sandal season, they are usually worse for the wear.  So why am I such a foot snob?  Are you kidding -- why am I even thinking about this sort of thing in yoga?  At least I'm there, tackling these OCD tics one at a time.

"Contained" play list

Thanks to my co-conspirator and friend, Lanea (http://rockblocks3.blogspot.com/), for the idea of what music would go along with my novella, "Contained."  The scene is listed to the left and so on.  Can't you just see/hear it???


Open – "Breakaway," Kelly Clarkson
Check on neighbors – "Perfect Day," Lou Reed
Chapter 2 (Keith intro) – "Rehab," Amy Winehouse 
First drive – "Rose Garden," Lynn Anderson
Blank scenery – "Angel from Montgomery," John Prine & Bonnie Raitt
Picking up convict – "Chain Gang," Sam Cooke
Leaving convenience store – "Trouble," P!nk
Driving into town – "Lord Protect My Child," Susan Tedeschi (Dylan cover)
Café scene -- "Requiem for a Dream," Clint Mansell
Sheriff station – "Sabotage," Beastie Boys
Chapter 7 Burning trees – "Welcome to the Jungle," GNR (at its mention)
then "Goodbye Blue Sky," Pink Floyd
Driving to barn – "Mother," Pink Floyd
morning meeting Ol’ Joe – "Hurt," Johnny Cash
Amish barn – "Hallelujah," KD Lang (Leonard Cohen cover)
Chapter 9 Girl running – "Helter Skelter," The Beatles
Assorted scenery driving – "Lullaby," The Dixie Chicks
Dog shelter – "Freedom," George Michael 
Chapter 10 Base alert – "Holiday," Green Day
Car wash – "I Will Build You a New Life" chorus, Everclear
In the church – "Evanescence," My Immortal
Outside church against guys – "Man Down," Rihanna
Leaving there – "MIA," Paper Planes
Chapter 13 (at the mention) – "For Whom the Bell Tolls," Metallica
Ending chase scene – "William Tell Overture," Rossini
End credits – "Beauty in the World," Macy Gray

One of my heroines!

Goddess bless Gloria Steinem!


I especially love her quote about plastic surgery and what I've heard called the "frankengina:"

"It is part of an obsession with youth, but it is also pushed – and this is much more reprehensible to me – by pornography, in which women are made to look like children. What has sent me over the edge is this operation in which the labia minora is tucked in. That's what they think women should look like. It's horrifying. It normalises abnormality." Ms. Steinem

Her mention of the bunny suit's fit made me think of my own Spanx swim suit.  Why do I care so much about my weight gain that I find it necessary to push all my fat upwards out of the top of a one-piece suit that take 10 minutes to squeeze my fleshidy flesh into?  


And I appreciate her articulation of, ""The idea that women are supposed to be the means of reproduction. If they – I mean 'they' in the larger sense: patriarchy, nationalism, whatever you want to call the mega-structure – didn't want to control reproduction, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in."


I can never quite explain my feminist view on reproduction to others who question where feminism fits into having babies (aka "haters").  We should never be made to feel like it's the inevitable goal for all women. We have that inner "shit detector" she mentions, and some of us are prepared to use it.


Seeing Gloria interviewed recently on "Chelsea, Lately" renews my hope that younger women will know who she is and learn from these pioneering women's actions for our collective future.  

On old friends and the best of times ...

Some of the best things in my memory are from the way-back-when of grade school.  There are so many of us who were classmates then and have remained in some degree of touch to this day.  It's the old pack, the ones from the north side, including the ones from the "wrong" side of the tracks like me.  We could walk home from Eastwood and never fear for the worst.  Every few streets there was a "safe-house" picture in the window of someone's home, usually that of an extra-protective mom who wanted the neighbor kids to know where to go in case of trouble.  A bicycle was our easy transportation to the school, where a free bus took us to the swimming pool in summer months.  Our moms knew the two-hour route intrevals, and 10-minute whistle breaks made us rest on the hour, but we were pretty much on our own beyond that. The small-town world was our oyster, and we were free to roam it.  But those were the '70s.

I remember Girl Scouts and sleep-overs. Maybe the girls didn't get invited to my house so much, but I cherished going to their homes.  It was an escape from the confines of a middle-child existence, with parental attention usually elsewhere, and not enough left out of the weekly paycheck to go around.  It was an event to go to those bunking parties, as we called them.  No way would my mom let me have more than one person over at a time.  She was pulled to opposing ends with four of her own kids as it was. 

My friends had the scoop on each party.  We knew which hosting mom was friendly and who was strict, who would yell up (or down) the stairs for us to be quiet past midnight.  Some parents were willing to pick me up for the party, but I think the consistency of the inconvenience wore out my welcome with others.  Regardless, we knew what house had the most fun in store.  Many nights were spent with Ouija Boards, Magic 8 Ball, and "light as a feather, stiff as a board." If only I still had my vintage red-white-n-blue sneaker sleeping bag!

My friend, Lanea, is and was awesome!  She introduced us all to a crazy band our young minds tried to absorb.  She was the most die-hard KISS fan you could ever encounter, and her mom was the coolest about letting her immerse herself in that fandom.  Every inch of her bedroom walls was covered in magazine pages of Ace Freely, Peter Kriss, and Gene Simmons.  Who was that other guy?  Lanea's room was the coolest out of every one of us.  I don't think she ever heard, "Don't put a tack through that plaster!" or "You better not use Scotch tape on that panelling!" (It was, after all, the '70s.)  Lanea decked her walls with her love of music, and she carried that tradition into adulthood.

She combined the joy she gained from music and a knack for cooking into a joint labor of love with her best friend, Maggie. Their story is heart-warming and amazing.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/recipe-records-lanea-stagg/1101065709?ean=9780615374826&itm=1&usri=recipe%252brecords

Maggie's legacy lives on at http://rockblocks3.blogspot.com/.  Rock on, ya'll.

What’s wrong with this publishing picture?

Amazon’s top 20 free best-sellers (10/31/11)

1.       Mormon love story – female author

2.       Mystery – female

3.       Thriller – uknown

4.       Romance – female

5.       Religious fiction – males

6.       Game

7.       Romance – female

8.       Cookbook

9.       Romantic suspense – female

10.   Romantic suspense – female

11.   Romance – female

12.   Action – male

13.   Romance – female

14.   Romance – female

15.   Romantic suspense – female

16.   Romantic comedy – male

17.   Suspense – female

18.   Reference – male

19.   Suspense – female

20.   Paranormal romance – female

Here’s a big assumption – there are a helluva lot of bored housewives with Kindles out there who are looking for a freebie (probably in more ways than one).  I'd hate to see the closeted Harlequin collections that never sold in their garage sales.  Surrender the fantasy, and give that crap to the thrift store, ladies.  As for your e-reader, I'd say "remove from device" and join goodreads for better reading recommendations.  Damn.

Yoga Fight Club.

Yoga Fight Club.

What a hilariously funny little blog post I stumbled across today. Gives me all the more incentive to go into Karate Kid crane position and bitch-kick that ol' skinny farting woman who played on my sympathy to get me to move out of "her spot" last week. All that to listen to her awkward non-oogi-obscene-caller breathing. Made me want to fling my sweat and sloughed heel skin on her. How very unyogic of me!

"Contained" now available on the electronic market!

Self-published through Amazon Kindle Publishing is better than not being published at all!

http://www.amazon.com/Contained-ebook/dp/B005ZEMQOE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319729991&sr=1-1

How do you know when it's Halloween time?

You see Dolly Parton in a Mrs. Santa suit on television in a "Christmas at Dixie" commercial for her Dixie Stampede restaurant.  Gotta love living in the Ozarks. (http://www.dixiestampede.com/christmas2.php#)

Happy Halloween!

My sand pail list (in lieu of a bucket)

In case the bucket never gets filled before I kick it:


1)  see my son graduate from high school/college & maybe marry one day 

2) go to Hawaii - don't know if I'll ever make all 50 states

3) publish a real novel

4) make as many young women as possible realize they really are feminists*

5) finally be able to do king pigeon

6) meet my college friends' children - Young & her daughters in Seoul, Korea & Jill & kids in LA,CA

7) go zip-lining

8) accomplish one tangible truly selfless improvement for society

9) drive a motorcycle

10) get back to pre-baby weight


*see the greatest cartoon at: 
http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4051
& great new book at: 
"Englightened Sexism"



Thanks to Becky from BBC (http://driftinback.blogspot.com/) for this idea.

What the hell is wrong with people?

Last year after Halloween I read about a woman who was pretty much Salem Witch Trialed for letting her son wear a Daphne costume (from Scooby Doo) for his costume.   (http://nerdyapplebottom.com/2010/11/02/my-son-is-gay/)

Having a nearly five-year old son brings this all up to me again.  Why are parents so damned scared of what other people think?  Who appointed the other parents as the costume police for anybody else's kid? He's not going to "catch the gay" from wearing a girl costume.  He won't become a cross-dresser, and it certainly doesn't mean he's transgendered.  Even so, would any of those things be so bad in the grand scheme???  

My own husband would probably fall into the same bunch of bigots that would pass judgment onto some innocent little kid trying to be a kid.  Such parents can't seem to look inward at what caused them to worry so much about what other people think.  Such parenting is what leads to kids bullying others in school for being different.

Americans are such a judgmental lot.  No wonder we have such an international reputation of being ugly self-absorbed ass hats.  For fuck's sake, people, put it in perspective.  I think Daphne and the Mystery crew would say the same thing.

memories

"I've never drunk a case of Tab and told a cop to blow me."  Bobcat Goldthwait  

(Damn, I miss him!)

Innocence is gone.

The period on the end of that sentence represents the finality of it all.  My little guy is four-years old (okay, on his way to five) and has brought home a lot of new ideas from daycare.  He's learned words and concepts I wanted to shield him from for as long as possible.  Alas, I am powerless to protect him from the shit of the world.

In the first week another little kid bit him.  This kid's home life probably sucks, but that does not excuse him from inflicting pain on my kid.  Then a year and a half later the same kid bit him again.  We have been so lucky that our child has never been a serious biter (just my shoulder once and Granny once).  Since then, there have been two other bullies-in-the-making.  One of them is still there and continues to have reckless influence ... ugh.

Said boy has also introduced Atticus to several monikers I wish he'd never hear or at least until he was in school.  He got the "n" word exposure from this kid who happens to be black himself.  The kid also felt it necessary to use the slur "faggot," which I also vehemently hate.  I took both of these back to the daycare director, for what it was worth, because I didn't want them to think he brings this crap from home.  She was at least sympathetic, knowing where it came from, and assured me she realized the source.  This kid apparently gets it from his older brother, but I'm super pissed that little shit is a compelling force on my son from afar!  It really sucks that Little Brother Ratbag also hits on the other daycare kids.  I never imagined I'd tell my son to first yell "STOP" or "back off" to another kid before hauling off and clocking the kid one himself if he doesn't quit!

This tirade leads to the current problem that A got in the car last night asking why the middle finger is bad.  A 10-minute explanation ensued, nine minutes of which he probably ignored, about how gestures and words some times have meanings that are confusing.  There are no inherent meaning themselves, but what society constructs them to mean.  Of course, I tried the four-year old version, "If by showing that finger you mean to be rude and hateful, then you shouldn't do that to anyone."  He was apparently using it on the playground somehow, and I'm not naive to think my kid never does anything wrong, but I seriously don't think he had any idea it could be perceived that way.  His teacher told him, "That is bad."  The inevitable question came, "But why, Mom?"  What do you say to that?

I told him it's just like how the words "shut" and "up" aren't necessarily bad, but you shouldn't say them loudly to someone else in a mean way.  It's too much for a little guy to absorb, I think.  He used to point at things with that finger with no intent or purpose whatsoever.  He's not seen his dad and me doing it.  I swear he's never seen me use it in traffic per chance this situation come up.  Now he knows it has some kind of magical power that brings attention, negative or not.  And this wasn't supposed to happen until later, damn it!  I'm afraid it's all down hill from here.

Feminism defined (thanks Cezanne)

This is the most amazing feminist blog post I have read all year.  I wish everyone who has ever questioned feminism in any way would read it. 

http://hellogiggles.com/im-not-a-feminist-but#comment-87165

If only anyone followed my blog, they'd see it, too.  Damn.

Do your feet hurt?

Last weekend I tried on platform heels for the first time.  It was a ridiculous experience.  And they weren't even that wild or outlandish.  How can you get that crazy at TJ Maxx?  In fact, they were pretty plain considering.

  So how do normal women wear these things?  Younger women walk around in shoes like this who look like they're one half-step away from a face plant.  They're walking on the balls of their feet, putting pressure on every tiny tarsal (metatarsal?) that can scarcely stand a person's weight, no matter how much it is.  Ever heard of a stress fracture?

I know I'm getting old. There is a bit of pre-judgment here from just getting too damn old and critical.  Yet there's simply no way to grasp why women choose fashion over function to this extreme.  Is it really to look good, or is it to catch the male eye?  And wearing them to work is a special form of nonsense, unless you're working the corner.  You're not so cute all bent over trying to keep your balance.  It's really not so important to conform to style to this degree.

There comes a time to surrender the fantasy of how wonderful you think you look as being directly proportional to how wonderful everyone else thinks you look (sadly, for you, even the males whom you must be hoping to attract) when you are inching along with you ass out behind you because your platforms do not allow otherwise. Don't feed into the patriarchal expectations set out for you (and all women) of what is "beautiful."

As Naomi Wolf says, it's all a myth.  (http://www.amazon.com/The-Beauty-Myth-ebook/dp/B0014H32D0/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1315424037&sr=8-1)

Apathy

I hope to always have human compassion, no matter how desolate the world/economy/people seem to be.  I want to always care about problems that vary from our own microcosm to international turmoil.  Feeling bad for other human beings, even if their drug/alcohol/rage/fucked-up-ness addled brains confuse the hell out of me, is what ultimately shows my own humanity.

My parents weren't rich, but I learned the value of working hard.  I didn't have a college fund, and school administrators ignored the "likes" of me (& other so-called "vocational" kids), because our parents did not have the house or friends that made them important enough to be on their radar.  But I made my own way, even if it was late in coming, and funded my own schooling with very little dependence on student loans or anyone else giving me anything.  Is that the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mentality that is the American dream?  No, it's my own sense of self-reliance, and thank the universe I had it in me to do it.

That education is what I hope opened my eyes to suffering (self-induced or otherwise) and still allows me to keep giving them, strangers and family alike, the benefit of the doubt.  If their shit doesn't affect me, I hope to let it go.  And I want to keep discerning the difference between letting it go by realizing when it's none of my business and when I should sense the need to offer help.  By the law of averages, I should also be at least alcohol-dependent and living in a trailer in Marshall while scraping by while working at a convenience story.  But I am not.  Others are there or stuck in that mindset and way of thinking.  I can't pity them, but I need to have peace with them being complacent at where they are. 

Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance.

And the winner is ...

I love the response my son gave my semi-religious sister when she asked him to identify the caucasian artist rendering of Jesus (in front of my very religious mother).  His response:

Qui Gon Jinn


None other than Liam Neeson.  You must admit there's a striking resemblence!  He was completely serious until we burst out laughing, he realized he was funny, and he continued to repeat his answer over and over.  This comes from a kid who attends daycare in a southern Baptist church.

http://jediknight960.tripod.com/jinnQpictures.html

They never burned them!

It amazes me how many women to this day unabashedly say, "I'm not a feminist but ..."  Yes, if you give half a shit about a woman's place in the world then you are a feminist.  If you think it's okay to be treated as a slave or a punching bag and that your right to vote needs to be taken away, then may you are not. 

There are at least hundreds of thousands of men who also proudly say they are feminists.  If they love women and don't want to see lots of them die in back-alley abortions, then for f's sake, I hope they claim to be feminists.  However, I still don't get why so many people think feminists are bra-burning ball busters.  All that is a myth.  True, there are fractions of factions of femi-nazis still out there.  I think they're hiding in the basement of the gender studies department at some secret university somewhere, though, because I certainly don't know where that is.  Hell, I had never heard of Andrea Dworkin until last week and only then learned who Ti-Grace Atkinson is (kind of).  Why would anyone want such a radical change in society as to separate women and men? 

I do, however, believe in the Equal Rights Amendment, and Gloria Steinem is one of my personal heroines.  Mine is a kinder, gentler feminist view of seeking the equality of women and men through political and legal reform.    

Anyway, all that to take me to this article:

"Going Bra-less"

And I just wanted to say that even though I am an ancient 43-year old neo-rocker, I did not wear a bra to the Sheryl Crow concert this past weekend.  Granted, I had on a cami under my outer tank top.  Although I can't claim to have been totally unselfconscious, it was quite liberating to do so. 

the wonders of 2011 technology

Back in May, my husband found a sonogram print in our yard.  Initially I found that to be pretty gross but wondered if it could possibly be from the May 22 tornado in Joplin.  Sure enough, they belonged to someone there, and I found her on FB.  Our exchange is listed below, although her name is "xxxx" here:

May 29 "Hi! A friend of mine said you found my ultrasound pictures from January of last year, is there any way you could mail it to me? The address I am at is xxx x xxxx."

July 3 "Hi, xxxx! I'm not sure why I didn't get this message from you. Sorry about that. Your sonogram pics will be in the mail to you on Tuesday.
I hope your family is doing well and that you all didn't lose a lot in the tornado. It is so bizarre that we found your print all the way over here by Fair Grove.  Take care! Me"

July 3  "Hi Katy!! I really appreciate you sending it to me, unfortunately we lost everything in the tornado, we managed to find a few baby pictures and sonograms of my daughter but none of my son and the strange thing is the envelopes of sonograms were sitting right next to each other on my computer desk. My family is doing well, we are getting back on our feet with the support of friends and family. I'm blessed that you found the sonogram since it will be the only baby picture I will have of my son. Its a miracle that we survived the tornado, but I am thankful we did. My son turned 1 year old May 27th and I thank God every day we all lived through it when so many of our neighbors did not. Thank you again and I will let you know when I receive it! XXXX"

July 5 "I am so sorry to know you all lost your home. It's wonderful that you all are safe and healthy. It is simply unbelievable so many families were struck by this catastrophe.
You all made it through that, so you can make it through anything! Your sonogram pictures will get to you very soon. Take care, Me"

July 12 "I received the pictures Saturday! Thank you sooooo much for them and the gift card!!! I can't believe they made it that far and still look as great as they do. My daughter's ultrasound pictures were laying right next to those and were still in the house, I have them but they don't look as good as my son's. Thank you and your husband for finding them and returning them to me. I'm going to frame them and hang them up in our house when we move in and put your letter with them so we will never forget how far they traveled or the kindness of a stranger. It will be a great story for the kids when they get older.
Take care and thanks again!"


How freakin' cool is that?  I don't know how I would have found her way back when.

It's the subleties of the Saga ...

Oh, the nuances of Star Wars.  Our house is all about it these days.  It is very surreal to debate your kid on George Lucas' seemingly never-ending storyline.  The irony really hit home when Atticus started saying, "In a galaxy far, far away ... " in the car this morning.  To add to this unexpected blast back to 1977, I had to FB message my friend, Coye, in Chicago this morning as follows:

"Please tell me, in your opinion, who is the best Jedi of all time? My 4-year old and I had a very heated argument about the subject this morning on the way to daycare. I vehemently defended Yoda, while he claimed Anakin Skywalker to be the best. His reasoning is that Anakin is the only one who could defeat Count Dookoo. Is he correct in this assumption? My defense was that Yoda is the beginning of all things Jedi. He taught Obi Wan, who in turn taught Anakin. He also trained Luke Skywalker. And Anakin turned to the dark side anyway, so he doesn't count. I don't think Dookoo even comes into the scenario.
What say you?"

I can imagine having this conversation with my brother, now 40 years old, when he was 6 years old.  My sister read him the opening credits back in the day and was delighted to do the same for her son when the time came.  It was actually kind of weird to do so now for Atticus.  Giving him pneumatic devices to remember the name Boba Fett (Bubble Helmet, Boba Fett, Bubble Helmet, Boba Fett) is just kinda trippy.  My "out" when I fall short with enlightening about the narrative is my "go to" that we'll have to ask his cousin Dawson, another resident expert.

We watch marathons on Spike t.v. on a regular basis now (yes, they repeat ALL the freakin' time).  We'll have to watch Episode I sometime to find out how Darth Maul comes about.  I still don't know exactly how General Greivous fits into the storyline either.  No, I don't know why Dookoo had so much evil influence, and I don't know why Emperor Palpatine was so creepy all along and turned Anakin to the dark side (besides being quite an ugly bastard).  In fact, I can't quite understand the whole Sith role.  

What I do know, or at least feel in my heart (lol), is that Yoda is the end all be all of Jedis.  I know my heart also fluttered to watch Mark Hammill on the big screen when I was a pre-teen and it still kind of does now (pre- and post-car wreck disfigurement).  It makes me feel good to only now even mention Darth Vader.  What a disappoint in the good-versus-evil sense.  I also know it was an assault on my indie-loving soul to see Ewan McGregor go from the likes of Shallow Grave and his full frontal in Velvet Goldmine to gracing Pizza Hut boxes and McDonald's cups as Obi Wan when he became known to the rest of the world.  And I sure miss Alec Guiness. 

It's gone from enjoying what I consider to be classic indie films to "which episode is this in which order" weekend marathons.  Wow.

Now, can't wait to hear back from Coye.    

So many channels, so little time - a couple thoughts.

In a blogpost by someone I've recently started to read (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/delia-lloyd/summer-reading-bums-me-out_b_877759.html), I came across a mention of an NPR article I want to read:

 http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/04/21/135508305/the-sad-beautiful-fact-that-were-all-going-to-miss-almost-everything?sc=tw&cc=share

Basically the author of the NPR article says, "There is so much to read without enough time to read it."  I totally agree.  And not enough time for all the other stories I want to enjoy (movies, tv, you name it).  Hell, I can't even divvy up the time to finish Lloyd's Huff Post article, and there are certainly other things I should be doing.  She's talking summer reading list time, another luxury I would relish having!

Instead, I read inane crap on the websites I frequent.  These are online communities that I enjoy but loath at the same time because of some of the content post by mainly radical, outspoken conservatives that drive me nuts.  I mean, FFS, there was an awesome feel-good story about Pres Obama quieting a crying baby.  It made me smile, which says a lot considering my cynicism.  Then all these crazy women had to flame him out on the BBC post on FB.  Come on, that much hate for one tiny act of kindness?  It is amazing how much energy is thrown at such nonsensical things, and it scares me to fathom how many young females out there in the general population sound like crazy ass Bachman and Palin.  Leave Barack alone!  (He and I are on a first-name basis, ya know? *fingers crossed in emphasis*)

My Visualbookshelf currently has 335 titles listed that I want to read (http://apps.facebook.com/facebookshelf/people/1700647150).  So maybe less time on copying these links, and more time reading all the narratives I think I'm missing?  Starting on the ten books piled on the bedroom dresser and numerous freebies acquired on my Kindle in an attempt to read classics would be a start.  Three hundred thirty-five, ya right!

And on a totally unrelated note, you know you're old when FB friend suggestions start popping up for the kids you used to babysit in your teens.  Whoa.  Oh, and I guess less time on FB would also help. 

She's so inspirational!

Who knew a narcissist could be so "groundbreaking and extraordinary," just like she claims?  My co-worker friend, Desiree, unknowingly gave me the final push to actually create a blog (http://desireebelezoskeepcalmcarryon.blogspot.com).  I've thought about it for quite awhile now, thanks to my cousin, Maria (http://dicksondiary.blogspot.com/). The right time never seemed to come.

So many people talk of bloggers of being just what Desiree's jokes about being, narcissistic.  Alas, I chose to wait until after all the mommy newness wore off, especially at my "advanced maternal age," so that it wasn't a complete look-at-me-I've-procreated babyfest.  Sure, it's inevitably going to go there from time to time, but let's hope I can make it more.

I don't claim to be witty or particularly astute, but it's fun to add my own social commentary ever now and then.  It's not just limited to Yahoo's OMG! page now.  Although, mine are very sound pop culture ramblings there, if I must say so myself.  Since I'm always on my soapbox about something anyway, I find blogspot to be yet another venue for imposing my opinions on the world.  Let the self-absorption commence (like it wasn't there before?)!