The Bean Blog (currently on hiatus)

The Long Goodnight

2005-11-22T12:50:00.000-05:00

Last August, when I started the "Middle Aged Women Like to Confide in Me" series, I knew it would be three parts because, well, there are three interesting stories of middle aged women confiding in me. My devotion to blogging had already been shifting from this blog to the Baby Bean Blog. It wasn't so much that I had more to say about my pregnancy. It was more that I wanted to preserve what I had to say for the actual baby bean. My ramblings here are (I hope) interesting and all that. Perhaps my offspring will also be interested in what I had to say here. But I know that I would love to have a window into my mother's head as she was carrying me. What she thought about, worried about, hoped for herself and me. We're all basically self-centered, and I would like to read something centered around me. I think that Ella will, too.

I thought I could keep both blogs going, but I wasn't having a lot of success. June 2005 featured exactly one post. July featured two. When August rolled around, I decided that if I was going to do this, I needed to do it. I fancy myself something of a writer, and when other people tell me they "want to be a writer," I always say the same thing to them: "Then write!" A writer writes, by definition. People who "want to be writers" but are afraid to write anything confuse me. So I said to myself, "I want to write on the Bean Blog, so dammit, I'm going to write on it." And so I came up with this three part series about these interesting/bizarre conversations I'd had, and I set to writing about it. It seemed that if I could get something out there once a week, that would be good enough.

I wrote Part 1 on a Monday. The next week, Part 2 came in on a Wednesday. I was going to write Part 3 when my daughter arrived. I got home from the hospital after 4 days, and I didn't have the energy for anything except figuring out how to recover from surgery (a c-section) and take care of my baby at the same time. When I did finally have a moment, two weeks later, I wanted to create a record of what had happened for this new being who was now the center of my world.

In other words, yes, I became that kind of woman. You know, the kind of woman who is first and foremost a mother and everything else falls by the wayside. In that wayside was this blog.

I wasn't sure I wouldn't pick it up again. Maybe I'd have some time for it. It wasn't that Bean Blog post ideas didn't pop up in my head. They did. But who has the time to sit down and write them? Not me. Or when I did have time, what was I going to write about? The mispronounciation of the word "hyperbole" by pop star Natasha Bedingfield or my partner adopting Ella? It was hard to leave my thoughts unwritten about Natasha's inability to hide behind some energetic bowl, but I had choices to make, and I made them.

Months went by without a post here on the Bean Blog.

I knew it was time to throw in the towel. At least for now.

But I had one bit of unfinished business to do, and that was Part 3 of my middle aged women posts. It was hanging over my head, and I had to write it before I could put the Bean Blog to rest. I did that this past weekend, and now I've gotten the time to write this, a goodbye to this blog.... No, not a goodbye. Rather a goodnight. I hope to waken this blog one day, probably years from now.

It will be fresh from a long slumbler. Hopefully, some old friends will find it again. If not, perhaps it will find a new audience. I want to thank all of you who've stopped by over the year or so that I've been here. I've enjoyed you and your blogs. But I'm putting my energy somewhere else now. First to my daughter, then to creating a record for her and for our next child already on the way.

I am one of those women. A mother. And I don't feel bad about it.

Goodnight, Bean Blog. Sleep tight. I'll be back for you....

Middle Aged Women Like to Confide in Me, Part 3: My Hairdresser

2005-11-18T20:03:00.000-05:00

I had been using the same hairdresser for almost 10 years. When I started going to her, she was young, about my age, and had just moved to a fancy-schmancy salon. She was expensive but reasonable, and the haircuts were so good that I could go for 4-6 months without getting another haircut, so it seemed worthwhile to pay a little extra but to pay it less often. But as the years wore on, her prices went up and up and up, and eventually, she was out of my price range.

I was hanging out with my friend Beth Marie one day when she mentioned that her hairdresser had recently moved out on her own to start her own salon. I thought, What the heck? I made an appointment there--not with the owner/hairdresser but one of the hairdressers who worked there, Lydia.

I was five months pregnant at the time, and as I sat in Lydia's chair, we got to talking. She was middle-aged, probably in her late 40s or early 50s. She was very excited about my pregnancy and wanted to hear all about it. We also talked about her life, too. This salon was down in Delaware where my friend lives. Lydia grew up in Delaware but then moved out to California and lived in San Francisco for most of her adult life before recently moving back to Delaware. Perhaps we got to talking about that because the sperm donor we used currently lives in the San Francisco area. Anyway, we got to talking about her life there, and that was all wrapped up in my life and my pregnancy.

"I don't have any children myself," she told me," and I regret that. I got pregnant once, but I was with this guy, and I knew the relationship wasn't going anywhere. I wanted to have children, but I thought that he wasn't the right guy, and I could always do it later."

I sat there with my chin to my chest as she worked on the hair on the back of my head, and my brain began to calculate what she was saying without saying it. And then she actually said it.

"If I knew then what I know now--that was my chance to have a child--I would have kept it." She paused what she was doing, and her eyes caught mine in the mirror. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. This isn't something I tell people."

I wasn't sure what to say. Honestly, no one had ever told me that they'd had an abortion before. I'm pro-choice, and I don't judge her for what she did. I tried to get that out--my political leanings, my views on the abstract concept of abortion, and also some reassurance that I was okay with what she was saying, with the reality of abortion. I remember stuttering through that varied landscape of ideas, finally ending by saying, "We all have to try to make the best decisions that we can with the information that we have. I know that's what you did, but I'm sorry that you feel regret now."

There was a bit of silence between us, and then I noticed a mug with a Siamese cat on it sitting on her table. I had Siamese cats when I was growing up, and soon we were talking about cats and dogs and what our pets have meant to us.

I've been back to her twice since that first haircut. The haircuts aren't as good as my super-expensive hairdresser, but at half the price, I'm not complaining. We haven't broached such heavy topics on our recent encounters. We both seem happy to keep the conversation to pets and vacations.

Middle Aged Women Like to Confide in Me, Part 2: My Neighbor's Mother

2005-08-10T08:08:00.000-04:00

A year or two ago, my old car was in the shop but ready to be picked up. The shop wasn't far away. I could have walked or ridden my bike, but it was drizzling, and so I didn't want to. I went next door to see if one of my neighbors, a nice couple named Craig and Tara, could give me a lift. When I went inside, I saw that Tara's mother was visiting. I think I might have met her briefly before, but I'm not sure. That might have been the first time.

As it turns out, she was getting ready to leave, so she said that she would give me the ride to the mechanic's. I said great, and we got into her car and headed off. She told me that she'd actually grown up right in this neighborhood and had gone to high school at the school that's about three blocks from our house. So it was strange, but nice, that Tara had somehow landed right here. (Tara had grown up in the suburbs, where her mother currently lived, and was in the neighborhood now because she moved in with Craig, who already lived here.)

The East Falls section of Philadelphia is quite stratisfied. Philadelphia's former mayor, now Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell, has a beautiful house in East Falls, set amoung other beautiful, old, stone houses with ancient ivy growing up their walls, which are set back from brick streets, overflowing gardens between the houses and the street. The house that Grace Kelly grew up in is also in this area of East Falls.

Then there's my part of East Falls, literally two blocks from this beautiful area I just described. My neighborhood used to be blue collar rowhomes, nicely maintained, but rowhomes nonetheless. Retirees occupied 30-50% of the houses, having lived here their whole lives and more likely than not, being second or third generation here. Another 20-30% of the rowhomes were rented to students from the nearby medical college or students from Philadelphia University. And the rest of the houses were bought by newcomers to the area, like me. This is all changing, however, as East Falls has found itself a hot commodity in the crazy real estate boom that's gripped the country for the past couple of years. The old timers, the retirees, have left in droves to be replaced by yuppies. On my block alone, half of the houses have sold in the past two years, and the prices keep going up, up, up....

Finally, another two blocks from my house, in the opposite direction of the beautiful houses, is subsidized, section 8 housing. This section of East Falls borders another, less savory Philadelphia neighborhood, and that's where my mechanic had his shop. Right on the border between East Falls and Allegheny.

As we headed that way, Tara's mom started talking about how the neighborhood had been when she was growing up. As we left East Falls, she said, "This part of Philadelphia has always been like this." I nodded, unsurprised, while we passed poorly dressed people just hanging out in front of little, dark stores with iron grates in front of their windows.

"I remember once when I was about 11," she continued. "I had this friend who was a year or two older than I was. She was troubled, had a bad family life, you know?"

"Mm-hmm," I answered, curious about where this story would take us. I love hearing stories about people's lives.

"But like I said," she went on, "I was 11, so I didn't realize that she had problems." Tara's mom pointed to a grassy area over the way. "One day, I was looking for her so that we could play, and I came over that little hill, and on the other side, there she was with three or four guys around her, guys a couple of years older than her. I didn't know what was really happening, but I do now: They were taking turns with her."

I felt a silence descend over us--or maybe just me--as the story had taken a turn I would never have forseen. The sound of the car engine changing gears, and the jingling of her keys hanging from the ignition, sounded distinct in my ears as she turned a corner, and we headed away from the grass she had pointed at.

"I was scared, you know?" she said. "Even though I didn't know exactly what was going on, I knew that it was bad."

I nodded cautiously as she spared a glance in my direction. We were only a few blocks from the mechanic's now.

"One of the guys noticed me standing there," she told me. "I was just frozen. The other guys noticed me too, and I don't know what would have happened if the first guy hadn't said, 'No, forget about her. She doesn't have anything yet.'" Turning to me again, she explained, "He meant I wasn't developed at all. I developed a little late, thank god."

"Oh," I said. By this time, we were stopped in front of the mechanic's shop. The drizzle had turned to rain, and it bounced off the glass of the windshield. The rhythmic noise of the windshield wipers sounded loud as they went back and forth.

Tara's mom looked straight ahead, but I could tell she wasn't looking ahead. She was looking into the past. Maybe she was wondering what would have happened to her if she had developed early instead of late. But that's not what had happened. I sat in the car with her. My hand was on the door handle, but the intimacy of the rain and the gray kept me there until she finished her story.

Still looking ahead, she finally continued, "So they turned away from me. I stared at my friend, just laying there in the grass, looking at nothing, and then I turned and I ran all the way home. I told my mother what had happened, and she told me that I wasn't to play with that girl again. And I never did. But sometimes I wonder what happened to her."

I nodded sympathetically. I tried to come up with something to say. It seemed like I should say something. I think I came up with something along the lines of, "That must have been scary for you."

Whatever I said, it broke her out of her reverie. She turned towards me, blilnked her eyes, and I could feel her inflate with the persona of Person Giving Ride to Friend of Daughter. "Okay then," she said, looking at my hand on the door of the car.

This was clearly my cue to go. "Thanks for the ride," I told her. "Have a nice evening."

I stepped out of the car and into the gray, rainy evening. I watched her drive off before seeking cover. She turned the corner and was out of my sight within a few seconds.

Days later, I would tell Tara about the ride her mother had given me. Her mother was sort of hippy-ish, so I assumed that she told everybody and anybody stories like that. I assumed that Tara had heard that tale, and many other tales, countless times. Apparently not. Tara was shocked that her mother had spoken to me like that. "My mother would never talk to me about anything having to do with sex," she said.

Middle Aged Women Like to Confide in Me, Part 1: My Mother-in-Law

2005-08-01T15:52:00.000-04:00

I met my then-future, now-current mother-in-law, Kay, after the Bread Winner and I had been going out for close to a year. This was a little more than five years ago. It was the Bread Winner's college graduation, which is the reason that Kay, who lived in Texas at the time, was out east. In addition to my mother-in-law, other family members were in attendance, including my future father-in-law, Fred, and the Bread Winner's twin sister. Like most people's parents (that I know anyway), the Bread Winner's mother and father had divorced some time ago. Both of them were remarried. Kay had recently moved onto husband #3, and Fred was married to his second wife, whom he'd been with for about 15 years.

Kay arrived the day before the graduation, and she, the Bread Winner, and I had dinner together. The next day, the Bread Winner was busy running around in her cute little graduation outfit and doing graduation things, and I found myself walking side by side with Kay, about 30 feet or so behind the Bread Winner's father and step-mother.

Kay and Fred had both been into folk dancing when they were in college. Fred was not a tall man, probably around 5'8" or 5'9", and Kay, like her daughter, was a small woman. They naturally paired together as dance partners, and one thing led to another.

As we walked behind Fred and his current wife, Kay said to me, "She's too big for him," referring to his wife's size as a dance partner. I hadn't thought of it before, but a quick glance at them revealed to me that she was right. Fred's wife was not a huge woman by any stretch of the imagination, but she was just about his size, and as a dance partner, the woman should be smaller than the man. So I nodded in agreement with Kay.

"Sometimes I can't believe they've managed to stay together all this time," Kay continued as we walked through the green grass and shady trees of the beautiful spring day. "You know, he went directly from me to her."

"Really? I'm not sure I did know that," I said. The information didn't sound completely unfamiliar to me, but neither did it ring a bell in my head.

Reminescing, she said, almost as if to no one in particular, "I never understood why he was so interested in sex. He wanted to have sex, what seemed like all the time to me, and I just did not understand what the big deal was. Now with Sean," she said, referring to her new husband, "I finally get it."

I missed a step as I walked beside her. Shaking my head slightly, I tried to think of a way to respond and finally came up with, "Oh."

"I don't know what it is," she went on, "but ever since I turned 50 and have been with Sean, sex is just so much fun. And now I understand: That's why Fred wanted it so much!"

I searched for another response, one better than "oh." I came up with, "Hmmm."

"And you know something else?" she asked. "My breasts have gotten bigger!"

I knew I could respond with actual words if I really set my mind to it, and finally, victory! "Is that so?"

She laughed. "Isn't that strange? At 50, my breasts have gotten bigger! And I like sex!"

Strange? Oh yes. Yes, indeed.

Who Told You Not to Poop in Public?

2005-07-25T13:46:00.000-04:00

I was at Borders bookstore on Saturday, and as much as I would rather not have, it became apparent that I must use the bathroom for "number 2." I went in, hoping no one else would be there, but someone else was in a stall. I assumed the position on the toilet, and by looking at the foot action of the person next to me, I began to suspect that she was probably wrapping things up, so to speak. Maybe I could get the bathroom to myself if I could hold out for another minute or two.

I was right, and she left. Actually, with the noise created from the flushing of her toilet and then the running of water as she washed her hands, I was able to get things underway before she was all the way out of the bathroom. I wasn't experiencing any kind of catastrophe or anything like that. Just normal stuff needed to come out, and it came out in a timely manner, and then I was done. But as I sat there for about a minute or so, feeling the time crunch of not knowing when someone else might enter the bathroom, I had a flashback.

I was about 10 years old, and I was at a Bob's Big Boy restaurant with my mother and one of her friends. I had to use the bathroom, so I excused myself and went. I don't think I knew until I was sitting on the toilet that I could poop. But from that position, it became apparent that I could. It wasn't like the above experience from Saturday where I knew going in that the stuff was at the gate and ready to come out. It was more like my body said, "Oh, it's a toilet. Let's see what we can come up with." I remember sitting there, and I contemplated just getting up and returning to the table, but then I thought, "Nah, I'll just stay here and wait it out." As things took a bit of time to work their way down, I remember vaguely feeling the time crunch, but dismissing it by thinking about how long my mother could be in the bathroom at home. The woman took a book in there and it could be 20-30 minutes until she exited. So I decided that I would just stay there until things were done.

When I returned to the table 10 or 15 minutes later, my mother joked, "I was about to go see if you fell in!" Her friend laughed. I felt that I should be embarassed, but I wasn't sure why. I said, "You spend lots and lots of time in the bathroom sometimes." The smile slipped a bit from my mother's face as she glanced sideways at her friend, and then she said, "Yes, but that's at home."

And that was basically how I learned that one should not poop in public. As I washed my hands last Saturday (the bathroom still thankfully empty except for me), I wondered if everyone had an experience like the one I'd had at age 10. Did everyone need to be told? Or did most figure this out without a somewhat explicit social tip like the one I got from my mother?

Wondering

2005-07-20T08:51:00.000-04:00

Is it wrong to covet the closest parking space to the door at the gym? Really, you have no idea how much satisfaction I get, the sense of victory that overcomes me, when I get that parking space. And then I think, "I'm at the gym. Isn't the point to get some exercise? Shouldn't I be happy to walk from one end of the parking lot to the other?" But no. That spot, next to the door. That's the one that I want. And when I get it, I often cannot restrain myself from doing a fist pump and uttering a gutteral, "Yes!"

Why Are There Different Strokes for Different Folks?

2005-06-20T17:10:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned before, I joined a gym, and the main purpose of joining was to be able to swim to my heart's content. When I joined, I got two free sessons with a personal trainer, and I elected to do my personal training in the pool. At my second session, we did different swim strokes. The one that I found particularly confusing was the side stroke. I've swam sideways here and there for as long as I can remember. My version of the side stroke involves basically doing the doggy paddle at a slant. Little did I know that I was supposed to be scissoring my legs in rhythm with my arms, and oh my, it was confusing.

Today I was at the pool, just sort of floating around (it's not a pool with lanes for doing laps), and I tried half-heartedly to do the leg scissor thing of the side stroke, just for fun. I still can't really get it all to work out right. And it got me thinking: why are there different swimming strokes anyway? Why isn't there just the best one/fastest one? I assume that would be free style.

Actually, I'm willing to make room for two types of swim strokes. I'll allow the doggy paddle, too. That's what kids (and most grown-ups) do naturally. But do we really need the side stroke? The back stroke? The breast stroke? The butterfly? And who came up with these? Especially the butterfly. That is the most bizarre looking mode of swimming ever. What purpose does it possibly serve?

Think about it. Some guy (or woman) had to come up with the butterfly. First, I'm going to hoist my shoulders up out of the water, then pull my arms around and dunk my head under the water, and at the same time, I'm going to throw my ass in the air, then slam my crotch down into the water, throwing my head back up to start the process all over again. Yeah! That's cool! It just baffles me. I can sort of see the side stroke and the back stroke being created. Hey, let me see how fast I can go swimming sideways (or on my back). But the butterfly? Why, dear lord, why?

But even the side stroke and the back stroke are a bit confusing. Or their world wide acceptance is, at least. I mean, you do see people running sideways in the Olympics? Or backwards? And why not? It doesn't make sense. The goal is to be the fastest. PERIOD. Not the fastest going sideways or the fastest going backwards. I'm sure some idiots out there have had running races where people ran sideways or backwards, but it's just for a joke. These aren't events sanctioned by the NCAA. So how did swimming work all these wacky ways of swimming into local and international events?

Just curious.

If I Could Be

2005-05-31T15:54:00.000-04:00

Whimsy Chick has tagged me to play a "if I could be" type of game. As she wrote in her post that played the game, "The rules are choose five from the list and write a description, then add one to the list and pass it along."

If I could be a scientist . . .

If I could be a farmer . . . I would have goats and chickens and horses. I wouldn't want to make my living as a farmer. Rather, I'd be a "gentleman" farmer. I'd have enough money to just do the things I like and not worry about making a profit. With my goats, I would get fresh milk and learn how to make cheese. With my chickens, I would get eggs of course. And would I breed some in order to eat? Hmm, I don't know about that. The horses would be purely for pleasure. I'd have only fat, pinto ponies who would live outside all year long and eat grass. My farm would be maybe 40 acres, and it would be somewhere with rolling hills and a cute, little tiny town nearby where the houses are made of stone, and my children would go to school in a one room school house.

If I could be a musician . . .
If I could be a doctor . . .

If I could be a painter . . . I would live in a seaside village that had existed for centuries. The weather would not be perfect nor the climate, and because of that, it would not be a mega resort area. Rather, people whose families had been there for generations would live there, probably making their living from fishing. I would paint scenes from the town like Sue McDonald and there would never be people in any of my paintings, and there would always be the ocean.

If I could be a gardener . . .
If I could be a missionary . . .

If I could be a chef . . . I would have a little, tiny restaurant that just me and my partner would work at (until our children were old enough to be forced into labor). Our restaurant would be in a small town, much like the one I mentioned in "If I could be a farmer," and it would be the only one there. Some people would come from out of town to eat there, but we'd basically be a well kept secret. We'd have theme nights once a week, where we would make Chinese food or Indian food or Mexican food, etc. etc., and everyone in the town would look forward to those nights and we'd have to draw a lottery to see which townspeople would get to come. Our normal menu would be comfort food, although we'd always have a tofu dish that the farmers would shake their heads at and their teenage daughters would order just to spite them.

If I could be an architect . . . I would only design buildings that were under 200 square feet. I would work closely with whomever was commissioning my work. Almost always, these would be people building a getaway cabin in the woods, either on their property or on some plot of land that they bought for a weekend retreat. The little houses I would design would blend in with the scenery around them so that you might not even see it there unless you were looking for it. I would always try to convince my clients to go for a stone fireplace, and then I would spend months combing the area that the little house would be, finding stones and carrying them back to the site, and by the time I had enough, months later, I would know that patch of land so well that I would be able to walk amongst the trees blindfolded.

If I could be a linguist . . .
If I could be a psychologist . . .
If I could be a librarian . . .
If I could be an athlete . . .
If I could be a lawyer . . .
If I could be an inn-keeper . . .

If I could be a professor . . . I would teach in a small, private college that had no set majors. Each student would arrive and start taking classes that they liked, and after two years, they would have to design their own major. I would teach folklore, and no one would ever want to major in folklore, because what could you do with such a major? But everyone would take my class in that first year or two, and that would make them think about real people and real lives, and the research for their final paper would almost always lead them to whatever their major would end up being, and they would say, "Now I know why everyone takes this class." And I would not give out letter grades, only pass/fail. And in the fall, I would wander around the campus with a little leather notebook in my hand and a twead jacket with leather elbow pads, and I would smell the air, and watch the golden, orange, and red leaves fall down, and I would wonder about all the students I would meet that year and what I would learn from them.

If I could be a writer . . .
If I could be a llama-rider . . .
If I could be a bonnie pirate . . .
If I could be an astronaut . . .
If I could be a world famous blogger . . .
If I could be a justice on any one court in the world . . .
If I could be married to any current famous political figure . . .
If I could be a show dog owner. . .
If I could be a fictional character. . .

If I could be a species other than human . . .

I added that last one. And to fulfill my final obligation to the game, I tag Foxy Mama. I can't wait to see what she comes up with!

Happy Birthday, Bean Blog

2005-05-26T13:03:00.000-04:00

There's been a rash of blog birthdays lately. I find it a bit odd that so many of the blogs I regularly read came into existence at the same time as mine. With all of the blogs out there, how did I become attracted to so many that were born in May 2004? Some of these blogs, like the Moxie Blog, are still going strong, maybe even stronger than ever. Other blogs, like Diary-A, have lost their steam and I wonder what the future holds for them.

On my blog's birthday, I have to wonder where it stands in the spectrum from Moxie to Diary-A. No doubt, my entries have been slowing and possibly becoming less interesting. My will to blog has abated a bit. But I still feel compelled to do it. Out of obligation? Responsibility? Or a realization that this is a good thing, cyclical in nature, and if I stick with it, my joy in it will return?

As I look back over my first posts, I find it amusing to see my blog's personality evolve. It has become something that is me and yet not me. Reading those posts, I can only imagine that I started out thinking I would write something literary, a bit dark, full of the depression I was feeling at the time. And then somewhere along the line, my blog changed into something more Seinfeld-esque as I questioned the bizarre and the ordinary, hopefully in an interesting way. Both of those facets are parts of me, although neither give a complete picture of who I am.

Reading my depression posts from last May and June, I can't help but notice that I've been depressed again lately. And this is something a bit...odd...to realize. Why on earth would I fall into depression in May and June? Aren't people supposed to awake from depression as the days get longer and warmer? Isn't the winter for the depressed?

And seeing this possible pattern makes me look at my blog in a new light. Of course I hoped/expected that it would be a record of what I was doing and thinking and feeling--that it would give me some insight down the road as I looked back on it. But I guess I wasn't expecting insight quite so quickly.

Looking back naturally leads to looking forward. Will the Bean Blog exist next year? Will the other blogs that I read that are struggling still be around? Or even the strong ones? This next year, my life will change like never before. I wonder what kind of record I will have of it.

My Kind of Show

2005-05-23T16:36:00.000-04:00

I wrote about a show I went to see a few weeks ago. Mostly, I complained about how I was old and required creature comforts. This past Saturday, my requirements were met.

The Bread Winner and I went to see Vanida Gail perform at The Point. She used to be one of the two lead singers of one of Philadelphia's best local bands ever, June Rich. They broke up six or seven years ago. Very sad. But finally, Vanida Gail has put out her first solo CD, and last Saturday was the release party.

But enough about her. Let's talk about me. First of all, the show started at 7pm. 7PM. It was still light outside. Which, I have to admit, was a little weird. But also quite nice and relaxing. 10pm is my bedtime, and when shows start then, I'm already anticipating my own tiredness. But 7pm, that's more like it.

There was no opening act. And she was on the stage by 7:15 or so. Perfect.

There were chairs. We got to sit down and enjoy the show.

The Point is a non-smoking venue.

It's also primarily a cafe that also serves food. So I got to eat and drink an iced chai tea while I enjoyed the music.

Around 8:30pm, it was over. I was back at home before my bedtime.

All in all, it was a great experience. I know this is further validation of my oldness, but c'est la vie. As many reviewers have said about the Point, I have to agree. It is one of the Best Places to See Live Music. And I'm sure someone old wrote that.

Termination: Family Member

2005-05-10T21:21:00.000-04:00

While visiting my in-laws in Wisconsin last week, I bought the most fabulous thing. It’s called Multiple-Choice Correspondence. It has a collection of some 48 “letters” with different subjects, organized into six categories. The categories are “Thanks,” “Staying in Touch,” “Congratulations,” “Regrets,” “Complaints,” “Termination,” and “Love.” Each “letter” contains an open-ended statement followed by five multiple choice options. Instead of writing a letter, you check off the appropriate choices and mail it.

Here’s the “letter” that is on my mind tonight:

CATEGORY: Termination
SUBJECT: Family Member

DEAR_______________

For many years now you’ve

made me the black sheep of the family.
been an unrepentant narcissist.
taken little notice of my accomplishments.
pissed me off.
_______________

It’s been incredibly difficult for me to

realize that I actually am a black sheep.
develop my own narcissism.
stop excusing your behavior.
access my anger through the self-protective veil of denial.
_______________

As you know, I’ve tried to

alert the humane society.
look in the mirror.
overachieve to gain your love.
lash out at you in every way possible.
_______________

Despite my best efforts, however, you

turned my room into a stable the second I left home.
continue to criticize the way I dress.
failed to congratulate me even when I was awarded the Nobel Prize.
are still an asshole.
_______________

Though blood may be thicker than water, I now must

inform everybody that I was a clone.
share all your dirty secrets with my therapist.
begin failing in order to merit your attention.
give you the finger.
_______________

Have a nice life,
Regretfully,
Sincerely,
Signed,
_______________

I’m quite tempted to send this out to my sister-in-law. Who would you like to send it to?

When Drugs Come Between Brothers

2005-05-04T09:18:00.000-04:00

I write about my dogs somewhat frequently, but my cats, by and large, haven't made much of an appearance on this blog. It's time to rectify that situation. Here goes. I have two cats. They are brothers, littermates. I took in the three kittens that made up a litter because I felt bad for them. And I had just started dating the Bread Winner, and she likes cats, so I thought I could score some points...and do some other scoring as well...if I had three adorable kittens in my house. (Worked like a charm.) I never really intended to keep the three kittens. Just save them from an animal shelter and then try to find homes for them. Well, I found a home for one of them. But I was stuck with the other two, Sam and Gouda (don't ask). It's been almost six years now. I think they are officially my cats now (or mine and the Bread Winner's).

They were kind of cute, weren't they?

(The ones I still have are the one on the right--Gouda--and the middle one--Sam.)

I can't recommend getting littermates highly enough. As far back as I can remember, I've always had two cats, but they were always gotten as adults at different times. And they just put up with each other. Usually, both cats were not to be found in the same room. Not these two boys. They sleep together constantly. They groom each other. They're very sweet.

Then this past weekend, I bought this cardboard scratching thing, and it came with catnip to encourage the cats to investigate it. I put the catnip on it, per the instructions, and all of a sudden, it was World War III. Gouda looked at Sam and hissed. Ears pinned back, he swatted at his brother in between rubbing his head against the cardboard. When Gouda stumbled away in a drug induced stupor, Sam had his turn. When Gouda approached, he received the same treatment: hissing, physical violence, a low gutteral growl thrown in here and there.

My good, sweet boys! Torn apart by drugs. Such a sad sight.

The Post Where I Admit to Wearing T-Shirt Shorts in Public

2005-04-26T12:41:00.000-04:00

The Bread Winner and I have joined a gym. The idea of the Bread Winner joining a gym makes sense to everyone who knows her. Me, on the other hand, provides a response more along the lines of, "Really?" But it's happened. I want to exercise this summer, and I want to do it in air-conditioned comfort. And I want to swim. I love to swim, but I very rarely get to do so because I don't make it to the beach very often, and I've never belonged to a pool or gym. But as of last night, I do. So this morning I went to swim.

I walked into the pool room with some flip-flop type things on and then stood next to this bench to take them off and put them onto a shelf. As I did so, I sort of lost my balance a bit, and I was forced to step out to the left side to keep from falling. The ball of my left foot landed squarely on top of a rusty bolt protruding from the floor to hold down the bench. OUCH. That's what I thought. Along with, THIS CAN'T BE GOOD.

I immediately sat down on the bench and looked at the bottom of my left foot. By putting my thumbs on either side of the cut, the calloused skin seperated to reveal quite a deep gash. I looked down at the bench and saw the rusty bolt. Decision time. To swim anyway or not? Well, I swam anyway. Probably not the best idea, but goddammit, I wanted to swim. So I hobbled over to the pool and got in.

About 45 minutes later, I was in the locker room taking a shower. I'd decided that I would tell the guy who signed me up to the gym about the injury and the rusty bolt. I mean, how smart is it to have rusty bolts sticking up from the floor of an area where people are bound to be walking around barefoot? Even more or less beneath a bench, it's not smart. I got out of the shower and was drying off, thinking about the bandaid in my near future. Then I rumaged through my gym bag for my clothes. That's when I realized what I had done. Instead of bringing a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, I HAD BROUGHT TWO T-SHIRTS.

Well, shit, what was I supposed to do? I could have put my swimming bottoms back on, which are mens swimming shorts. But then were soaked (of course) with chlorine water, and I didn't want to wear them in the beautiful black leather upholstry that was in my car. That's when I contemplated yet another bad idea. Perhaps, I reasoned, I could wear one of the t-shirts as shorts? Let's find out.

My legs did fit into the arm holes about up to my knees. I could pull the bottom of the t-shirt up to my waist. Full coverage had been accomplished. I'm not going to lie to you. It looked a little odd. The neck hole sort of hung down oddly between my knees. But the t-shirt was dry. And maybe people would think it was some sort of strange hippy skirt. I'm not really a strange hippy skirt kind of a girl, but no one here knows me. So maybe I could be that kind of girl. All I had to do was walk out the door, get in the car, and make my get away.

Except that I wanted to talk about the rusty bolt. And I wanted a bandaid for my foot, which hurt. That would mean getting someone's attention directed towards me while I talked to them about the rusty bolt WHILE WEARING T-SHIRT SHORTS. I decided to risk it. (No, I hadn't made best series of decisions in the past hour, but oh well--why stop now?)

So I wandered out of the locker room and to the front office area where I sat down in front of Chip (only guys who work at gyms should be named Chip) and said, "I cut my foot in the pool room." Then, to prove that this was significant, I held up my foot so that he could see the bottom of it and the gash. I saw my t-shirt shorts move as I adjusted my legs, but I hoped against hope that visions of lawsuits were dancing in Chip's head instead of logical questions like, "Is this woman wearing a t-shirt as shorts?"

Never saying anything about my t-shirt shorts, Chip got me antiseptic, bandaids, and a promise to do something about the rusty bolt. Then I left, convincing myself out of necessity that the t-shirt shorts had gone unnoticed. I got to the car and realized that I had left my lock on the locker instead of taking it with me. Would I go back into the gym again, wearing t-shirt shorts, to get it? Why the hell not?

As I recounted this story to the Bread Winner, her response was, "Wait. You did what?" Upon confirmation, I was greeted with stunned silence.

The Perfect Score

2005-04-21T09:28:00.000-04:00

Last night I got back the paper that I wrote for my sociology class. I got a perfect score: 100. This is the second 100 I've gotten this semester. The other 100 was for a revision of a French composition.

When I told a friend/teacher about my 100 on the French comp, she got very, very indignant. She was of the opinion that for a written assignment, 100 should be unobtainable. It was not, she said, a math test. There was always room for improvement. Ergo, 100 is not an option.

I disagreed with her. Perhaps, perhaps (yes, I do like to repeat words and then italicize the second appearance), if one was writing a short story or something like that. But for a language learning class, I think that one can write a perfect paper. One's work should not be compared to "French literature." That should never be the expectation. So if you've met all the goals of the composition (and done them brilliantly, I might add), shouldn't you be able to get a 100?

I feel the same way about my sociology paper. I did a very good job on that. The teacher provided us with goals. I met each and every one of them. And you know my writing was flawless and entertaining, even though it was about the decline in the American Jewish population between 1990-2000. But boy, I tell you, I made that topic HOP. So again, why shouldn't I get 100 for that paper?

My final argument on the whole 100 debate concludes with this: Why have a possible score of 100 if it is impossible to achieve? Doesn't make any sense.

I'm interested to hear what you think, as long as you realize that if you don't think the same exact thing that I think, you're wrong. So if you're okay with that, leave a comment daring to contradict me. Or leave one so we can bask together in our mutual rightness and point and laugh at how wrong my other friend is for her opinion.

The Show Friday Night: or I'm Old

2005-04-17T10:56:00.000-04:00

Tim asked me to tell him how the Amy Ray show went on Friday night. I was going to email him, then I thought, Nah, I'll make it an exciting post for everyone. You can thank me in the comments.

First of all, I'm old. I must preface this story with that fact. Back when I was young, frisky, and in my 20s, I would not have been as annoyed as I was, but those days are gone as my 30s loom before me.

So the show was at the North Star Bar, which is a good sized bar that often has local musicians and small national bands (I saw Joan Osbourne there before she hit it big). There's a room with a bar, a room with billiards, and a room for music. The room for music has no chairs.

The ticket said that the show started at 9pm. I wasn't interested in the opening band, Cordero, so I wanted to arrive around 9:30, but the Bread Winner and a friend who came with us wanted to be there at 9. Okay, who am I to argue? So we got there at 9. And waited. And waited. And waited. Around 9:30, I decided to sit on the floor, because like I said at the beginning, I'm old. So I sat on the floor with my friend. And waited. And waited. And waited.

At 10:30pm, Cordero takes the stage. By this point, I'm pissed. I mean, AN HOUR AND A HALF? What is that about? (I refer again to the fact that I am old.) My friend and I had a debate about what they were doing before coming on. Did they have a legitmate excuse? Late bus? Fiddling with equipment? Something like that? Or were they just hanging around backstage for no reason? My guess is that the last option is true.

I had listened to a couple of their songs online, and I was actually prepared to like them. Until they made me wait FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF. Then I hated them. And then, THEN, they had the nerve to play for 40 MINUTES. They left the stage at 11:10pm, and I said, "Good riddance." By the way, I remained sitting on the floor for their entire set and booed between songs. That's just the kind of sport I am.

In the meantime, my friend and I made a bet between us about how long it would take between Cordero leaving and Amy Ray taking the state. We went for an over/under 30 minutes. She instantly took "over." I took "under." I could not believe that, with it being AFTER 11PM AND ALL, the equipment change would take longer than 30 minutes. I said we bet, and you might be wondering what the bet was for. Just rightness. That's the kind of girls we are. Being right, and being able to lord it over your friend, is more than reward enough.

AND I WON. Amy was playing the first song of her set in around 24 minutes. WAHOO! The only thing that I was happy about that night.

And her set was good. She's a great performer. I like her solo stuff. I was happy. Except that I was tired. It was smokey. My feet hurt. My back was starting to hurt. At first I was like, What's wrong with me? Then I remembered, Oh yeah, it's fucking after midnight and I've been here for over 3 goddamn hours. Around 12:15am, I told the Bread Winner that I was going to the bar room to sit down and get off my feet.

This annoyed me. First of all, I realized that when I was younger, I used to be able to do shit like this without complaining. Secondly, the whole point of coming to the show was to see Amy Ray, and now I was going to duck out during her set. C'est la vie.

I settled myself at the bar with a cranberry and orange juice and read the subtitles to Fraiser. It felt so goddamn good to be sitting down on a chair with a television in close proximity that I basically didn't care that I was missing Amy's set. And then another friend of ours joined me there, so we started talking and hanging out. I was rather content (mostly due to the fact that I'd had a wonderful nap that afternoon).

After about 15 minutes, the Bread Winner came into the bar and told us that Amy Ray said that the band only knew two more of her songs, so they were going to play them, and then that would be it, no encore. I was a bit surprised at this. I went back into the music room, and Amy was true to her word. Two more songs and that was it. She played for just over an hour. In other words, I waited two and a half hours for one hour of entertainment, and I missed 15 minutes of that because of the long ass wait.

In conclusion, I'm old. And I won't be doing that again. It was great to see Amy play in such a small venue, but screw it. In the future, if there aren't chairs, I'm not going. The end.

Wondering

2005-04-14T10:13:00.000-04:00

I wrote a paper yesterday. Is it really necessary that I write another today?

Really?

Well, I'll Be Damned

2005-04-11T17:44:00.000-04:00

For those of you who remember Life at TJ's Place, "Kevin" posted something new on Sunday, April 10.

I'd always liked Life at TJ's Place, and for some reason, I couldn't delete it from my list of favorites. And I had a suspicion that Kevin might return one day and post again, once he felt like all the crazies (i.e. his fans/commenters) had left the building, so to speak. And now it's happened.

The new post is not about "life at TJ's Place." By that, I mean it's not about strippers. It's mostly a short story that he decided to post for whatever reason. It was actually a pretty good little short story but.... I really liked his posts about all the characters at the strip club. So for me, I have to wonder, will Kevin return to posting about strippers? I kind of doubt it. But I guess time will tell. And who knows? Maybe there won't be another post for eight more months.

Cool Auction

2005-04-07T15:08:00.000-04:00

I haven't seen one of my good blog friends around these parts in some time now. Rumor has it that he's busy renovating a building and turning it into an independent movie theater in Springfield, Missouri. When his budget fell a bit short, he decided to try to raise funds by auctioning off the naming rights to the concession stand, aka Cinebar.

The question becomes, do you want to have a concession stand named after you? Your blog? Your dog? Your dog's blog? All of these are possible, if you just check it out. There's no reserve and the bidding started at $1.00. The auction ends April 17, 2005 12:00:00 PDT. Go for it!!!!

Death of a Neighbor

2005-04-04T11:27:00.000-04:00

There's only one neighbor on my street that I've ever had any run-ins with, and now she's dead. Actually, our run-ins used to include her husband, but he's dead too.

It all started four or five years ago. Something was happening that generated excitement and caused the neighborhood to empty out of their houses and stare. I think it was a fire on the railroad tracks. I'd walked down closer to the corner and happened to stop in front of my neighbor's house. Our neighborhood is made up of rowhomes, and some of them have trees planted in front that grow out of little squares of dirt in the sidewalk. This neighbor had such a tree.

I was with one of my dogs, Will, a little shih-tzu. When we paused in front of this woman's house, Will understandably started to sniff the tree and then he lifted a leg to pee on it. The woman and her husband started yelling at me, telling me to get the dog away, that what he was doing was disgusting. I looked at them in confusion for two reasons.

1) The tree was growing from the sidewalk. Sidewalks are communitty property. They do not "belong" to individual property.

2) Will was peeing. Little bitty Will (11 pounds) was peeing a little bitty urine. If he had been pooping, of course I would have picked it up. But peeing? One is under no obligation to do anything about peeing.

I was honestly confused at their reaction, so I started out by saying, "He's just peeing." They continued to be verbally abusive to me. So I came right back at them and said things along the lines of, "This tree doesn't belong to you," and "I'll let me dog pee here anytime I want, you mean, old assholes."

Now, I'd like to point out that if they had nicely said to me, "Hey, would you mind not letting your dog pee on that tree in the future? We'd really appreciate it." I would have said, "Oh, I'm sorry. Sure, not a problem." But because they were yelling at me, I yelled back.

The old man died shortly afterwards.

The old woman remained, and I kept true to my word. I walked by her house regularly with my dogs because the house I was renting (at the time) didn't have a backyard, and I took the dogs out four times a day to "do their business." When one of them wanted to pee on her tree, I let them. Oftentimes, the old woman would come to the door and stare at me, trying to intimidate me. I would stare right back at her with a little smile as if to say, "Oh yeah? And what are you going to do about it?" Sometimes she would start yelling at me again. I would happily taunt her with remarks like, "I love it when one of my dogs pees here. I try to stop them from peeing other places just so they'll have something saved up for this tree."

I asked other people in the neighborhood why this woman was such a nasty cow. They shrugged their shoulders and said that she could be a little prickly. Everyone else seemed to get along with her. One time, when I was discussing this topic with a neighbor from a few streets over, she said, "You know she has cancer." And I said, "Good. I hope she dies."

I don't regret many things that I've said in my life, but that's one that I do.

Things between us didn't change until the Bread Winner and I bought the house we now live in, which has a backyard. We rennovated the inside first, which took about two and a half months, from mid-May to August 1st in 2003. We worked on the house and worked on the house, every day, doing everything ourselves (with some help from family and friends). This house is directly across the street from the mean old woman's house, and she liked to sit outside in the summers in a chair and watch who was coming and who was going and generally what was going on. She couldn't help but notice all the work that we were putting into the house, how we were making it better.

She started being...almost...friendly. More so to the Bread Winner than to me. Her daughter and grandson had moved in with her after the death of her husband, and the daughter was nice to us. Once she even helped us as we were pushing either the refrigerator or a big filing cabinet up the three stairs that led to our front door. Another time, the old woman offered to give us some trim she had in her basement that she had no use for.

It seemed that a truce had been called.

She made it through chemotheraphy. She was doing fine, as far as I knew. I haven't seen her much, but then again, it's been winter. There hasn't been an opportunity to observe her sitting out in her chair, gossiping with the other retirees in the neighborhood.

The Bread Winner and I came home from having breakfast with a friend on Saturday morning, and a few of the neighbors that we are good friends with were standing out in front of the (formerly mean) old woman's house. One of them said to me, "She died this morning."

What? I didn't know she'd been sick again. I didn't know she'd relapsed. Apparently, she'd been in the hospital for a month and had just come home...to die.

Back when I'd said, "Good. I hope she dies," I'd never really experienced a death before. I didn't know what that meant to the people who survived. And somehow, without knowing that, I didn't have a good understanding of life. I wish I had never said those words. I guess we live and learn, and one of the hardest lessons to learn is how to live through a death.

Most Bizarre Blog Ever

2005-03-23T21:12:00.000-05:00

I've got a hotmail account that I still check periodically even though I've switched allegiance to gmail. When you log onto hotmail, it has this screen where there's often some celebrity gossip on the lefthand sidebar. I saw something that caught my eye (I think it was about that hottie Lindsay Lohan), so I checked it out. Of course one link led to another, and I found myself reading about Rosie O'Donnell. In her bit, it said something about her having a blog. Naturally, I searched for this on the web and quickly found it.

The first thing I noticed was that Rosie was using a standard blogger template. Really, I know she's out of work, but I expected some custom work. I then directed my attention to the address bar. She was using a blogspot.com address. Is that the most bizarre thing you've ever heard or what? I mean, she can't afford her own server space somewhere? Can't buy a domain name? Really?

These things made me suspect that someone must be pretending to be Rosie O'Donnell. I decided to search a bit more on the web, and I again quickly found her personal webpage, complete with an actual domain name and everything....and a link to the blogspot.com blog. Therefore, it must really be her. Bad poetry and all.

The Ivy League Rocks the NCAA!!!!

2005-03-17T16:56:00.000-05:00

Okay, that title was completely untrue in every way, but what the heck. I'm watching my university's basketball team get smacked down by Boston College. It's quite amusing, actually. I remember when I first heard that Penn would be in the NCAA tournament. I was like, "We've got a basketball team here? Really?" We're in only because Penn won the Ivy League conference (impressive, I know) and therefore got an automatic in to the tournament. Even after I heard the news, I would still look at the brackets and see "Pennsylvania" and be like, "They probably mean Penn State." Especially when I saw the number 14 seed next to Penn.

As I was checking out who was playing today, I saw that the Penn/Boston College (a 4 seed) game was starting around 2:30pm this afternoon. I thought, What the heck? so I've been watching it. Those first few minutes we stayed within 5 points. I took a shower towards the end of the first half so I missed the end of it. When I turned it back on, I saw we were getting it handed to us directly up our backsides to the tune of 20 points. Now as I watch the end of the second half, when we pull to within 15 points, I'm like, "Go team! Penn rocks!"

Oh yeah, I'm feeling the school spirit. Can you feel me feeling it?

(We just lost by 20 points: 65-85. Go team!)

Raring to Go?

2005-03-15T14:37:00.000-05:00

Now that spring break is over, I'm rested, relaxed, and full of vim and vigor. Yes, I'm ready to take on the second half of the semester. The burn out is gone! A thing of the past! I'm, why yes, excited to go to class tonight, to work on that paper that's due on Friday, to drink up knowledge!!!!!

Or....maybe not.

That's how I thought it would happen, anyway. The break would do me good, and all that. Unfortunately, I'm no more interested in going to school tonight than I was the last time I turned up at Penn, almost two weeks ago. The funny thing is that it's not like I have something better to do. I guess that's how I should look at. Why not go to class? I certainly benefit from it, as I crawl painfully and slowly two steps/classes closer to that damn degree. And what would I do if I stayed home? Watch TV?

Ah, I feel the motivation return, now that I put it that way.

Ramblings

2005-03-07T10:06:00.000-05:00

I don't have much to say, but I'd like to manage a post at least every week, so here goes.

I'm off to Connecticut today to lounge around in a hotel while the Bread Winner goes to some sort of training for her job. I've done this several times, and I love it. Something about staying in a hotel appeals to me. Especially when there's a pool around that I can swim in. I like being in water. Unfortunately, it's not something I get to do that often.

Of course, going away for a few days means one thing: dealing with dogs! Thus far, my mother has watched three of our dogs (the two little ones and Chester) while Blue stays with a friend of mine who worked with him while he was at the shelter. I met her the same day I met him actually.

As my mother has four dogs of her own (yes, my whole family is crazy) adding three more to the mix makes for a crazy house. Blue gets the best deal staying with Beth Marie and her three dogs. Even though he makes four dogs, trust me when I tell you that four dogs is far and away a drastically smaller number when compared to seven dogs. Plus, Beth Marie's dogs are all older, so it's pretty quiet there.

I've been keeping my eye out for a good place for Chester to stay. He doesn't get along well with one of my mother's dogs, and all the craziness of the house really stresses him out. So I managed to get another friend of mine, Hope, to agree to watch him for this trip. She only has one dog (can you imagine!). Last week was spent 1) being sick 2) dealing with mid-terms and 3) running Chester back and forth to Hope's house to acclimate him to her place and get used to her and her dog.

I really hope that this works out well. For one, it makes my mother's life easier not to have to deal with seven dogs at once. Secondly, it should be a lot better for Chester...once he settles down at least.

The other thing on the agenda is a rush to make my first DVD. I have a few hours of video of my grandmother talking about her life, and I want to be able to give it to her children (my mother and an aunt and an uncle) in time for my grandmother's birthday, which is this Friday. Since I'm going away, I need to do this now. As I have zero experience with iMovie or iDVD, it's proving to be a little more difficult than I had imagined. I'm burning....something right now. I hope it's what I think it is! And it looks like it's going to take a while. I hope it doesn't take as long as the video is. If it does, I'm going to run out of time...or I'm going to have to pack up my iMac and bring it with me to Connecticut.

And that's pretty much what I've got going on right now. I'll try to post something more interesting next week.

How Is It Possible that Hillary Swank Has Two Oscars?!

2005-02-28T12:55:00.000-05:00

Jodie Foster, Sally Field, Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh.....HILLARY SWANK?!

I never saw Boys Don't Cry, and I'll never see Million Dollar Baby either. Because I hate Hillary Swank. I remember her from her Beverly Hills 90210 days. She was Steve's single-mom, Peach Pit waitress girlfriend. She was so frickin' annoying. And stupid. I couldn't stand her. I did a little happy dance when she and her kid went back to North Dakota or wherever they were supposed to be from. Thank God, I said.

As it turns out, it was her firing from 90210 that left her free to take the role in Boys Don't Cry. I was intrigued by the movie because it deals with a transgender person, and for whatever reason, transgender people are generally included with the gay, lesbian, and bisexual community. But Hillary Swank? No. I had just gotten rid of her from 90210. I would not endure her stupidity nor her gigantic jaw again. I heard the movie was good, but I just couldn't bring myself to see it. When she won the Oscar, I thought, "She just got that because she took such a difficult, controversial role." I let it go. Hey, even Cher won an Oscar.

But two Oscars? That's putting her in some rarified air. I can't believe it. I cannot believe it. What is going on in this world that Hillary Swank has two Oscars?

Wait, Didn't You Know We Were Fighting?

2005-02-22T11:29:00.000-05:00

Ever been in a big fight with someone, only they knew nothing about it? That sort of happened to me this past week with my best friend Emily. Last Wednesday night, I started this ill-advised discussion/disagreement about an assignment for my French class. It was an assignment generated by Emily (although she is not my teacher). So obviously, she was emotionally invested in its "rightness," if you will. The conversation never became mean or nasty or anything like that. But it was a bit on the unpleasant side. I hung up the phone and thought, "Well, that wasn't fun, but it's no big deal."

Then I called her the next day to ask her for some help with a French project I was working on. Emily has been nice enough to tutor me this semester. Without her, I would probably be passing the class, but I wouldn't be doing nearly as well. So I called her on Thursday to ask her some questions, and she seemed quite annoyed...and a little short with me. I asked her what was wrong, and she said that it was all this stuff she had to do for work, she was busy, etc. etc.

I wasn't convinced. I suspected that she was actually mad at me for our disagreement the night before. I decided to back off. I'd been doing most of the phone calling to her. So I decided I'd let her call me.

And then she didn't. Emily and I talk every other day, if not every day. Friday came and went without a phone call. Then Saturday. Then Sunday. As the days clicked by without hearing from her, our disagreement changed in my mind into an actual fight. She was punishing me for questioning her decision about this assignment. Well, screw her!

By the time Monday rolled by, I was P-I-S-S-E-D. We'd been friends for over 10 years! And she'd agreed to tutor me this semester! I had an other assignment due this week, and she was leaving me high and dry. That French bitch! Well, if she wanted to fight, no problem! I could give as good as I got!

The Bread Winner and I went out for dinner with my mother last night, and when we returned...there was a message from Emily on the answering machine. From the content of the message and the tone of her voice, it was readily apparent to me that she did not know that we'd been in a big fight for the past 5 days. I called her back. We chit-chatted about the weekend. All is fine.

I wish I could say this was the first time I've been in such a "fight." Unfortunately, it's all too common.

Pop Me Up!

2005-02-15T09:30:00.000-05:00

While commenting on WhimsyChick this morning, I saw that she seemed to have blogger sponsored pop-up comments. I was very intrigued. As you commenters out there already know, the whole blogger comment situation has been over-hauled. But I didn't know about the pop-up option.

I have to admit that, in the past, I have felt inferior due to my standard commenting. I wanted the pop-up commenting thing, but alas, I was one of the very, very few who was not bright enough to figure out how to insert the haloscan code into my template correctly. I tried and failed, so I hung my head in shame and said nothing about it. A sad story, I know. But now I can have pop-up comments with just a quick change of commenting settings!

Those google folk. Clever, I tell you.

UPDATE
So I was just playing around with my comments link, and it's only halfway working. When you go to look at the comments, you don't get a pop-up window. It's only when you go to post a new comment that the pop-up window shows up. That's no fun. I want total pop-up! Have I failed again?

UPDATE 2
This just in! Kerrie, aka WhimsyChick, rocks! She sent me an email with the code all nicely displayed. Even I could understand what to do! My comments are poppin' up like crazy! Woot woot!

What? No Fair!

2005-02-07T13:37:00.000-05:00

As you might already know from reading my blog, I love the girl-on-girl action on television. That is the reason that I watch All My Children--for the lesbian character, Bianca Montgomery. Of course, she rarely does "lesbian" things, like have a girlfriend, hold hands with a girl, or kiss a girl, but every now and then, the writers throw us a bone, and it's enough to satisfy me for months at a time. For instance, Bianca's girlfriend left the show last April. They shared a brief kiss...and that was pretty much it for any lesbian activity since then...and that was what? Eight months ago? Nine? But that was okay because I knew that it could happen again...sometime. And I could wait.

Then on January 31, my prayers were answered and Bianca kissed another girl, Maggie. Yippee! And this was a good kiss, too. Better than the ones she'd had with girlfriend #1. Although I knew that any physical displays of affection would be spaced far apart, I was nonetheless very excited about this development. So this morning, I decided to do a little research into the actresses who play Bianca and Maggie. Mostly looking to see if they'd been interviewed about their characters' romance, etc. And what did I discover? Both actresses are leaving the show on February 24!

Will I keep watching AMC? I just don't know. I really, really, really liked watching a lesbian character. Even one who went for eight months at a time without glancing at another girl. I wouldn't have started watching this show if it wasn't for Bianca, and now that she's going...will I bother?

Honestly, I feel cheated and betrayed by AMC, even though it seems like the actress who plays Bianca has decided to leave and has not been fired. I guess it's the contrast of emotions. I was so happy about the new romance, only to learn that it has a maximum shelf life of what? Less than four weeks? No fair. No fair at all.

Here I Am Again

2005-02-03T13:29:00.000-05:00

My theme song should really be "Authority Song" by John Mellencamp. I always know I'm in trouble when I find myself in a situation and that song starts playing in the back of my head:

I fight authority, Authority always wins
Well, I fight authority, Authority always wins
Well, I've been doing it since I was a young kid
I come out grinnin'
Well, I fight authority, Authority always wins

I got my second French composition back. The way this composition deal works is that you write a draft and turn it in, then the teacher indicates any problems and gives it back to you to revise. Then you turn in the final version, and your draft grade and final version grade are averaged.

The corrections for composition #1 were fine. I mean, you know, I messed some stuff up. But this second composition...she corrected word choice. As a writer I hate that. For instance, I wrote, Avant il a été a l'abri, une vieille femme le possédait. I'm writing about one of my dogs here, my Blue dog. This sentence translates as such, "Before he was at the shelter, an old woman owned him." Here is the sentence my teacher would prefer: Avant d'être à l'abri, une vieille femme était sa maîtresse. This sentence translates as, "Before being at the shelter, an old woman was his mistress/owner." Okay, folks, what's the difference between these two sentences? Not a goddamn thing. It's word choice. And sentence structure choice. In other words, a matter of opinion. There was nothing wrong with the first sentence. Nothing.

At another point in the composition, I used the word ainsi. She circled this word and wrote: "vocab- utilise plutôt 'donc.'" (Translation: "vocab- use rather 'donc.'") Only ainsi and donc ARE FRICKIN' SYNONYMS! They mean, "so" or "therefore." My sentence (translated) was, "She couldn't tell me, "No," therefore we adopted him [Chester] too." And my teacher is going to cross out "therefore" in favor of "so"?! Are you kidding me? I mean, am I a master of the French language? Am I so good that we need to be this picky?!

And besides that, it's not even about being picky! It's about personal preference. And I hate it when my writing is graded based on the personal preference of my professor. I mean, listen buddy, I'm not you, I'm not in your head. I cannot write it the way you would write it! I am a completely separate person! It is not fair (and I hate using that word) to grade me based on your preference for "so" versus mine for "therefore." It just isn't!

So now what to do? I want to set up a meeting with my teacher and say, "What is this about? I mean, are you penalizing me for using a synonym?!" But then I hear that song in my head. I fight authority, Authority always wins. It's early in the game here. Should I just suck it up and make the arbitrary changes she requests? Or do I state my case? Naturally, I want to state my case...but is that the wisest thing to do? Only, it'll kill me to keep my mouth shut.

You Are Asking Me for Money?

2005-01-31T19:31:00.000-05:00

I have been quite annoyed with a fellow blogger. Many of you might remember Caliblog from a ways back when it was a "Blog of Note." It was/is a group blog, supposedly about four friends (now three--one left) who move from Michigan to California to "make it" in the movie industry. One of the bloggers, Mike, is trying to raise money to make an independent documentary about a bicycle trip across the USA. He has started a new blog, Project Pedal, to document this process. He's gotten three of his four necessary crewmen. But he's only gotten $189 of the $8000 that he needs to finance the film. Apparently, he expected his devoted readers to foot the bill for this film.

I was actually quite excited by his project. I'm not a film maker, of course, but like most, I am a film watcher and getting "an extensive and personal 'behind the scenes' look at the making of an independent film" sounded very cool to me. Mike made it clear right from the beginning that he was hoping to get his readership to donate money. And I thought about it. Seriously. I'm not rolling in cash. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But I have very seriously contemplated giving him about $100. Not a lot, I know, but something to show him that I support him and his goal. And if 80 people each gave him $100, well, that would be the $8000, wouldn't it?

At first, I showed my support of his blog and his idea by posting comments to his posts. He only responded to one of my comments. That sort of annoyed me. I mean, he wants me to give him money, but he doesn't have time to respond to me (and the others) who take time to comment on what he's doing? It was off-putting. And then, suddenly, the option to comment at all disappeared. Instead, if you have questions or comments, you were forced to post them on a "forum."

My first forum posting (now deleted, I noticed) was about this lack of the ability to comment. Mike says that he wants to share this experience with his readers. And I can't hammer this point home enough--he wants his readers to care enough about his project to give him some of their money--but he doesn't encourage us to ask questions? He doesn't respond to the questions and comments we do make? Huh? His response was that he hadn't intended that at all. He said that the comments link became an obsession to him as he kept checking back repeatedly to see how many comments there were. Okay, I can understand that. But if that's so, why the hell didn't he respond to these comments he was so "obsessed" about?

As time wore on, and he wasn't making any strides to get the needed $8000, I posted another question in his forum: What if you don't get the 8 grand? From his response, it seemed like he had no plan to get the money except for us readers to give it to him. However, he responded quickly and politely to my questions...until he didn't anymore. Again, I was left wondering, Do I want to give my money to someone who doesn't have time to answer my questions?

Mike has started getting a little desperate about getting this money. He wants to start his trip/documentary in May. That's about four and a half months from now. And he's got less than $200. Just last week (Jan 25,2005) he posted about "getting the word out." He noted that the web-stats "could be worse - but not by much" and formulated a plan to get the word out via stickers, since he can't afford anything more expensive. I ventured to the forum yet again and asked him if he had considered using cafe press, which could possibly raise awareness and generate money for him. I asked the question on Friday. Has he bothered to respond? No.

I guess I just have to stop reading this blog. It pisses me off too much. I keep feeling the urge to help him, but everytime I reach out to try to form a connection--you know, give myself a reason to hand over my money--he just ignores me. And then he seems so desperate and confused about why his readers aren't forking over the dollars. Maybe if you weren't such an inaccessable asshole, people would give you money. Oh, and the funny thing about the comments, which were "too much for him to handle," is that now he double posts his project:pedal posts on caliblog...which has comments. And then he doesn't even respond to the comments made there! I mean, what is with this guy? Does he really think he's just going to get this cash handed over to him while ignoring the very people who would give it to him?

Well, I'm done with project:pedal. And just to think, last week I almost went to get a money order to send to him. Forget it. I don't exactly hope that he doesn't get the money, but if he keeps going along this way, I would be shocked if he did. At least from his readership. Maybe some great-aunt will die and leave it to him.

Words That Describe Me

2005-01-26T08:32:00.000-05:00

I don't often let my mind travel down this path, because it is a train of thought that bothers me. But sometimes I find myself thinking about these words anyway. I feel my irritation grow, and I shake my fist at the sky, and then I distract myself with something else because there is nothing I can do about it. I'm talking about the nouns that indicate who I am at my most basic. Namely, a human. A closer look at that word will reveal that the dominant part of it is man. Are men the only true representatives of our species? Another word, person. This word is broken down quite obviously to per son. Are men the only ones who count? And of course there is history. Are mens lives the only ones worth remembering? Worth telling?

When I move away from these basic indicators of life and to the subdivision that I belong to, I still find no relief. I am a woman. I am female. Even my identity as other only puts me squarely under the thumb as being part of what a man is. My words, woman, female, cannot exist independently of man and male.

I would like to pause here and let you all know not to be concerned. I am not a femi-nazi who pleads with the powers that be to change the spelling of woman to womyn or wommin. These thoughts do not consume me nor keep me up at night. And yes, yes, I know the arguments of social context and modern usage. But on the surface, for me, those arguments seem a little...defensive. A little, "Okay, you caught me, I am oppressing you. But come on. You know that I don't really mean it!"

As there's nothing I can really do about it, apart from the aforementioned petition for womyn (which just seems silly to me), I take what solace I can get in words like girl and lady. I am not a linguist, but these words do not seem to depend on a male-indentified words to me. We can exist outside of that sphere, although in a very imited capacity.

I am usually drawn down this path of thought when I am confronted not with the English words I have been writing about here, but rather when I am confronted with French. French is much, much worse than English. In French, the word for girl is fille. This is also the word for daughter. The word for woman is femme. This is also the word for wife. The implication here is staggering. Girls and women are only daughters and wives, both roles that implicitly connote a dependence and identity based on their relation to men. You cannot be a daughter without a father. You cannot be a wife without a husband. Even if these men are dead, they are still identifying who you are as a person.

On the other hand, the French word for boy is garçon and the word for son is fils. The word for man is homme and the word for husband is mari. Boys and men are not only sons and husbands. They have lives, identities, separate from those that tie them to women. If French men were in the same boat with French women, if they too were only boys/sons and men/husbands, I would think that the words reflected an archaic time, but at least there was parity. Alas no. The truth is that the French could not be bothered to come up with another word for girl, another word for woman. Who cares? You're some man's daughter; you're some man's wife. That is who you are. And why would you want more?

I guess what I'm getting at here is that French makes me think that English isn't so bad after all.

I Really Do Hate School

2005-01-19T09:29:00.000-05:00

It's only the second week and already I'm sinking into a depression. Ug. I have to write a composition in French every week. This is the first week, and I'm about ready to poke out my eyes with the hard plastic corner of my dictionary cover. If someone came up to me right now and said, "How about I just jam toothpicks underneath your fingernails, and then you can just forget about that whole composition thing?" I would offer my hands immediately.

This friggin' composition only needs to be 25 lines long! That's not much! Except when you need to up every other goddamn word. I've pretty much got the articles down. You know, words that translate to "the," "a," and "some." Those words I'm all set with. And pronouns. Got those as well. It's all those other words. Even words that I know, like the word for "clothes." I know what that word is. But how, exactly, does one spell it? Isn't there that weird hat shaped accent on one of those E's? Better look it up. AGHHHHHHH! Toothpicks, please.

And then there is the online board that is taking over education. That evil entity called, innocuously, Blackboard. Oh, how I've hated you from the beginning. But you won't go away. Instead, you spread. The most amazing thing about Blackboard is that teachers think that students love it. Uh, no. All it does is make it impossible to leave school at school, because now it has infilitrated my house via my innocent iBook G4! Bastard. I would describe the excrutiating pain I went through with Blackboard when I only had a dial-up connection, but there might be children reading this, and I won't subject them to such descriptions of violence.

In the year and a half since I've taken a class, I've gotten high speed access. I thought, "Maybe it won't be so bad this time." Foolish, foolish woman. Blackboard sensed that I was making advances and has decided, arbitrarily, to refuse to allow me to logon to it at all. When I saw the message, Could not login. The specified user name does not exist in the system, all I could think to ask was, "Is this because I'm a lesbian?" And of course, because Blackboard is so wonderful, my teacher for tonight's class has put three out of the four readings for tonight on Blackboard. I mean, why spend time reading from the textbook she made us buy? That's too convenient!

I took that long break from school because school was about to break me. I'm not ashamed to admit that I just couldn't take it anymore. I had to step away. Time has gone by and softened my memory. School wasn't that bad. I was just a little overwhelmed by a lot of things. School was just a small part of it. Right? WRONG! I really hate school. I just don't have the will to put up with all this crap anymore. Unfortunately, I've got two semesters left.

Is This Because I'm a Lesbian?

2005-01-13T09:37:00.000-05:00

All of you Law & Order fans won't have any trouble picking up on this not-so-clever post title as a line stolen right out of last night's episode. It might be the most bizarre non-sequitur ever uttered on Law & Order, possibly on television in general.

I find it particularly amusing because, although many Law & Order fans hated Elizabeth Rohm, aka A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn, I actually came back to the show once I saw her on it because I thought she was hot.

She did it for me. I'd had a big crush on Jill Hennessy when she was the A.D.A., but the two women who followed didn't get my juices flowing. For whatever reason, Elizabeth Rohm did. So while I was displeased that Rohm was leaving the show--and getting fired at that--I was giddy with delight at her next to last line: "Is this because I'm a lesbian?"

Okay, first of all, it's completely unbelievable that "Serena Southerlyn" was a lesbian. Secondly, the timing of the line was a bit far fetched. I mean, if someone fires you, someone like an attorney general--you know, an elected official, a politician--do you really expect them to say, "Yeah, I did fire you because you're a lesbian." I'm not saying that's why she was fired. Not at all. I'm just commenting that her asking the question is a little silly. There's only one possible answer: No.

But like I said, although it was unbelievable, I was still happy to hear it. I've heard a rumor that Television Without Pity (a great fan sit of all things TV) might come out with Law & Order t-shirts with "Is this because I'm a lesbian?" emblazoned upon them. While browsing the Law & Order forum this morning (now renamed "Original Law & Order: Is this because I'm a lesbian?"), I picked up a great idea from a poster whose handle is "add_duck":

Those last 45 seconds almost made up for four crappy years, if for no other reason than I now have the greatest all-purpose line with which to stun unsuspecting bystanders.

Overworked Airline Employee: I'm sorry, there are no seats left on this flight.
add_duck: Is that because I'm a lesbian???!!!
Overworked Airline Employee: ...

Unless, of course, the OAE is also an L&O fan, in which case we'll share a mighty chuckle at [Elizabeth Rohm]'s expense. I predict that this will also be useful with waiters, teachers, and telemarketers. I also hope to con my father and/or male roommate into using this line.

I Support the Little Guy...To a Point

2005-01-12T10:02:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned before, I am returning to school this semester. Last night was my first night. It is weird being back. It's been almost two years since I've taken a class, and as I walked through the familiar hallways, I couldn't help but feel like I'd stepped back in time.

Two years isn't that long, so I was surprised at what I remembered and what I didn't. For instance, I am taking two classes, so I went to the Penn bookstore, which doubles as a standard Barnes & Noble on the first floor, university bookstore on the second floor. I got the books for my French class, which I've been dreading, but I couldn't find the course number for my other class, a sociology class. That was a bit strange considering that the class starts tonight. I was thinking, Maybe there's just a bullpack or something, and then I had one of those forehead slapping moments were I remembered the screwy bookstore situation at Penn. Some professors shun the nice, large, adequately staffed Barnes & Noble because they don't want to support a corporation. So instead of ordering the books from Penn's official bookstore, they order them from one of two other, independent bookstores.

They are both much smaller, but at least one of them, named Penn Book Center, has some room inside of it and during the crunch to get books at the beginning of the semester, they have three registers open and a staff person at each one. The other bookstore, A Room of One's Own (I think), is tiny. They've got two registers but only one credit card machine, and of course everyone is using a credit card. The average cost of books is $120 per class. Now, most kids, even Ivy League kids, aren't carrying $300 or more in cash (if you're buying for more than one class). And this place has these narrow aisles, and you end up being wrapped around the tiny store with 50 or more kids actually standing in line outside the store.

Now, I understand the desire to support the little guy. I really do. But I expect the little guy to make arrangements for the mass traffic descending upon him predictably at the beginning of each semester. How hard would it be, how much money would it cost, to at least up the credit card machines to two? Is that unreasonable? From what I can tell, professors have no idea what it is like at that place. I tell them, "Please, just order from Penn Book Center. It's also independent, but at least they can handle the crowds a little better than A Room of One's Own. Please! Do it for the kids!" When I tell my professors about it, how it's packed full of students, how we're climbing over bodies, pushing and shoving, just to find the damn books in the first place, and then there's the massive wait. Miserable!

I guess it makes sense that I would have forgotten all that. That's just the sort of thing that a girl likes to block from her memory. Tonight, I will go to the Penn Book Center and hope that the sociology book(s) is/are there, and that I will not have to make the dreaded trip to A Room of One's Own.

The Night the Lights Went Out... Halfway

2005-01-10T13:48:00.000-05:00

The Bread Winner and I have been experiencing a bizarre electrical malfunction of late. It happened, as far as I can see, because of a Christmas present that my mother gave us--a present we had specifically asked for, I will add so that it does not seem as if I am laying the blame at her doorstep.

We have many pets, and we'd asked for two of those new-fangled air purifier thingis. You know, "ionic" this or that. They work silently, and you just wipe down the metal bar thing in the middle to clean it. Anyway, we'd asked for two, and lo and behold, this Christmas, what should be under the Christmas tree?

We plugged one in downstairs in our living room. All was fine. A few days later we got around to plugging one in upstairs in the bedroom. And that's when it happened. Some of the lights started to flicker, flicker, and then they went off. Not all of the lights, but about half of the lights in the house, more or less. Naturally, I assumed that the air purifier had blown a fuse. Knowing the (somewhat screwy) way the electrical lines run in this house, I mentally made a note to plug the purifier into another outlet in the bedroom that ran to a seperate fuse. Meanwhile, the Bread Winner went into the basement to flick the fuse back on. But it wasn't off.

Really? Really.

She came back upstairs, and we kind of stared up at the ceiling (we were in the kitchen, and the overhead light there had been affected). We were confused. And then, magically, a few minutes later, the lights came back on, as well as the power to various electronic devices plugged into the affected lines. We turned to each other, said, "That was weird," shrugged our shoulders, and went about our day.

The air purifier has been unplugged upstairs since then....but this weird power outtage keeps happening. It happens for hours at a time, and then voila! Let there be light! Let the telephone work! And the answering machine! (which, of course, are plugged into unhappy lines.)

What is particularly weird about all this that it's not just the line that the air purifier was plugged into that has been acting weird. It's four separate lines. They all go out simultaneously. And none of the fuses gets tripped. Weird. Really weird.

We were about to leave the house yesterday for a few hours, and I just started thinking about how dangerous whatever was happening might be. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I do a lot of home improvements myself. One realm I've stayed out of is electrical. I started thinking about a fire being started by some sort of electric high jinks, so I decided that the best thing to do was to go down to the electrical box and actually turn off all the lines that seemed to be affected by whatever has happened.

Strangely enough, although this is somewhat inconvenient and annoying, it's prefectly manageable. The power still works to the heater and the water heater. The line that the refrigerator and microwave are plugged into is also fine. As is the line that the television is plugged into (thank god!). The phone is out, but we've got cell phones, so it's not a big deal.

Now I've got to call an electrician, and for the first time since we bought this house in May 2003, we will pay someone to fix it.

The 2005 Bloggies

2005-01-06T08:39:00.000-05:00

Hey kids. Through the comments section on this blog, I heard of the Bloggies. It's a little award thing-a-ma-gig where some people will feel special at the end of it by having their blog win in some category or another. So all of you blog affectionados out there, go ahead a nominate your favorite blogs! And I know this seems like a shameless plug for my blog, but it really isn't. There's a slew of categories: Best blog from various countries/regions of the world. Best food blog. Best political blog. Best writing. Best photography. Best topical blog. The list goes on and on. So if there's a blog or two out there that you know and love, give it a nod at the Bloggies. Why the hell not?

Bathroom Procedure

2005-01-04T09:28:00.000-05:00

The Bread Winner and I have been together for five and a half years now. Although it is true that I still learn new things about her all the time, those new things are rarely what you would call surprising. They are more of the, "I didn't know you like peanut butter on your apples," type of thing. But this past Sunday, I was confronted with something I had never contemplated from anyone before.

Let me start out this story by saying that the Bread Winner and I have a strict bathroom door closed policy for elimination purposes. I know that many couples forgo this social norm after they have been together for a little while. Not us. For me, when I am sitting on the toilet, that is personal, alone time. I still find myself shocked and slightly offended when I hear people talking on their cell phones while peeing in a public rest room. "Oh, I'm in the bathroom. I'm peeing! Heh heh heh." Really people, can't you wait two minutes to make that call? But that is neither here nor there. Back to the story.

Having a one bathroom house, on Sunday I saw that the door was open a crack and then heard the toilet flush, so I opened up the bathroom door the rest of the way so that I could get in to get something I needed. That's when I saw her. She was standing beside the toilet with her pants down around her ankles, her hand just leaving the lever that flushes the toilet. She looked at me with surprise, considering that I'd violated our mutual bathroom privacy policy, and then said, "You're lucky that I was done, missy."

But I couldn't feel chastised at that moment because I was confused. I had assumed that the toilet flush meant that, well, everything was done, including re-dressing. My bathroom procedure, and I had just assumed that this was universal, is that when I am done with the process of elimination and wiping, I put my hands on the waistline of my pants. As I stand up from the toilet, my pants are brought up simultaneously. Generally I zip up and button and then flush the toilet, although occassionally I'll flush first before zipping.

So as I stared at her, I asked, "Don't you pull your pants up before you flush?"

"What?" she asked, "And just leave stuff sitting there in the toilet? No!"

I didn't know what to do with this information. I had never considered that flushing would be the priority. Hours later, still mulling it over, I asked her if she did things differently in a public bathroom. There, did she also flush first and then re-dress? She thought about it for a minute and then said, "Usually, yes."

Are there other people out there who flush first? If you flush first, let me know. Then I won't think that the Bread Winner is such a freak.

Playing the Field

2005-01-02T11:30:00.000-05:00

Thinking About

2004-12-23T10:45:00.000-05:00

"The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America. The confidence, that we have always had as a people, is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July. It is the idea which founded our nation and has guided our development as a people. Confidence in the future has supported everything else... We’ve always believed in something called progress... We’ve always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own. Our people are losing that faith. For the first time in the history of our country, a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years...

"We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam. We respected the presidency as a place of honor, until the shock of Watergate... We believed that our Nation's resources were limitless until 1973 when we had to face a growing dependence on foreign oil...

"First of all, we must face the truth, and then we can change our course. We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this Nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face. It is a true challenge of this generation of Americans."

--Jimmy Carter, July 15, 1979

Persuasive Argument for Fidelity

2004-12-15T11:52:00.000-05:00

Earlier this month, a curious little story flitted across the sporting news world. I laughed a bit when I heard it and thought, "If anything will keep your partner faithful, that should do it." Then I forgot about it until it was brought up again on my favorite sports talk show, Pardon the Interruption. So I thought I'd go ahead and blog about it.

Apparently, the wife of New York Mets' pitcher Kris Benson has figured out how to keep her husband's jewels in her pocket. She told him that if she ever caught him cheating on her, she would have sex with everyone on his team. Not an empty threat, either, as I think that few would turn down an opportunity to bed this woman, recently named FHM's hottest wife. Anna Benson made her proclamation on Howard Stern's syndicated radio morning show. After announcing that she would screw everyone on his team, she went on to state that she'd also have sex with all the coaches, trainers, even the groundskeepers. That not enough? She made a pledge to follow the Mets around for a while and have sex with everybody from the opposing teams as well. That sounds like quite an undertaking, if you ask me, but I bet Kris Benson will think twice before he cheats on his wife.

Tainted Ring

2004-12-13T10:02:00.000-05:00

Preface

My father was an alcoholic who beat my mother. I don't know how bad it was for two reasons: 1) she left him when I was about one year old, and 2) she doesn't like to talk about the unpleasant aspects of her past.

The Post

Years ago, and I can't remember exactly how it came up, but my mother showed me the engagement ring my father had given to her. It's not obstentatious. My father never had much money. But it's a nice diamond solitaire (1/3rd of a carat) set into a simple white gold band. My mother showed it to me because she said that she'd planned on giving it to me someday. She didn't exactly say, "Here, take it," but I think that if I had said, "Here, give it to me," she would have.

But I didn't say that. The ring made me feel a little odd. It seemed to be a symbol of bad times and bad things. Not something I would want to wear on my hand nor something I would like to place on someone else's.

I could try to see it as a symbol of the love they felt for each other once, the love that made me. Only, I wasn't made out of love. Around Christmas in 1974, she just gave him what he wanted because it was so much easier than arguing the point with him. She's sure of when she conceived me because she hadn't had sex with him for months leading up to that Christmastime favor, and she wouldn't have sex with him again for months to come...or maybe forever as far as I know. So I could never look at the ring and think, "I was made out of love."

But I guess I could look at it as a symbol of a love that once existed between my parents. She did love him at one point, and I assume that he loved her in his own fucked up way. So at best, the ring could be a cautionary tale. I could look down at it on my finger and think. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," or maybe just, "Shit happens."

Even though my mother and I have not talked about the ring for a few years, it's come into my mind again because she talked to the Bread Winner this past weekend about having it reset for me. And I'm not sure what to make of it. Why has she held onto it for all these 29 years? Why wasn't it hocked ages ago when we were going through some lean times? And mostly, is it important to her that I have it? What does giving it to me mean to her?

I thought my mother's desire was an odd, unusual one until, as the Bread Winner and I were talking about my mother's ring, she revealed that her older sister's engagement ring is none other than her mother's engagement ring reset. My in-laws marital story isn't quite as bad (in my opinion), but it's hardly one to shout out as an example. Her father cheated on her mother--pretty regularly from what I can tell--and they split when the Bread Winner was three (and her older sister was six). Add into the mix some other unsavory actions on her father's part, and the fact that her older sister can't stand him, and I wonder what she thinks seeing that ring on her finger.

A diamond is forever. That seems to be the consensous. Only, what kind of forever?

Confession

2004-12-10T08:05:00.000-05:00

Much like Usher, I too have a confession. I like the "Chris Gaines" album. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, let me explain it to you...or refresh your memory. You might have heard of this curious little album by a recording super star.

For reasons unknown, country singer Garth Brooks decided to take on another persona, i.e. pop star Chris Gaines, and then proceeded to make up an entire history for Gaines, including a massively successful recording career up to that point. He even got VH1 to make a mockumentary Behind the Music about Chris Gaines' life. This was all supposed to lead up to a movie about Chris Gaines' life, called The Lamb. The movie was in the works, as evidenced by article on CNN.com, but it never happened because Chris Gaines' Greatest Hits failed horribly on the charts.

Time and time again, the famous try to branch away from what they are successful at. Musicians try to be actors. Actors try to become musicians. Professional atheletes try to be actors or musicians. With very few exceptions, they all fail. Garth Brooks didn't leave the music industry, but he still went away from his money-maker: country music.

His country music fans liked....well, country music. Perhaps they felt a bit betrayed by the man they had made into the most successful solo recording artist of all time. For whatever reason, they didn't by his pop album. And people who liked pop had no interest in seeing Garth Brooks as some bizarre made up character named Chris Gaines. Especially not a Garth Brooks (yes, that's him) made up to look like a Chris Gaines who looked like this:

And this:

And lord help us all, like this:

Even more bizarre to me than the fact that Brooks made up this person was that he made up parts of music history. To me, I can imagine putting a character into the real world and creating a biography for him. Perhaps because that is what novels and movies do: they put fake people into the "real" world, more or less. But Brooks took it a step further. One of the songs on the CD is called, "It Don't Matter to the Sun," and in the linear notes (where "Chris Gaines" explains why he "wrote" all of these songs), it is revealed that "It Don't Matter to the Sun" is supposed to be a "re-make of the Ramsey Sellers 1972 classic." Huh? I mean, what is the point of that? Why not just re-make a real 1972 classic? Or just include the song as one written by Gaines?

But despite all the strangeness and oddity of this album, I must confess that....I like it. I really, really like it. I bought it back in 1999 when it first came out. I don't know why. I'm not a Garth Brooks fan. I guess I was just drawn to the preposterousness of the Chris Gaines concept. I bought it for a lark. And then I fell in love with it.

I have a rather extensive music collection, and CDs cycle in and out of my rotation. I'm always buying music and listening to music, and I forget about some of the albums that I loved as new infatuations replace them. Because of this, every now and then, I take a look over my CD collection and pull out and oldie, but a goodie, and re-introduce it into my current listening mix. I did this a couple of weeks ago, but to my horror, the Chris Gaines CD was not in its jewel case. After looking for it for a while, I had to really question myself. Did I like it enough to buy it twice? This outrageous CD? I decided that I did, and I ordered it from amazon.com.

It arrived last week, and as I removed its plastic wrapping, I noticed that the cover seemed to be holographic. That was weird. My original CD cover was not that way. I turned the CD around in my hand, wondering at it, and that's when I saw it. Written on the spine were words to the effect of "Limited First Edition Holographic Cover." Oh, poor Garth/Chris. It's been five years, and amazon.com still has first edition copies....

Greedy Little Girl

2004-12-09T10:23:00.000-05:00

Yeah, you're right, the subject title of this post is referring to me. Everybody sing! It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere I go.... And that puts on thing in my mind: presents FOR ME!

I am asking for a lot of camera stuff that is geared towards my little wedding photography business. I was going to more or less leave it at that, which is reasonable considering that what I'm asking for adds up to about two grand (yikes!). And then yesterday, I saw it. A super cool jacket.

I have a thing about jackets. I don't know why. Some people like shoes or hats or whatever. I love jackets.

I saw this jacket a few months ago at the Gap. Yes, I am that lesbian. I won't deny it. Anyway, I saw it there, and it was so cool. Black leather. Chinese collar. Looked a little beaten up. Looked about 25 years old...exactly. It's part of the Gap's 1969 collection. Oh, I wanted it. But I didn't have $379 on me at the time, and even if I had, that's a lot for one item of clothing.

Then yesterday, I couldn't help myself, I went back to the Gap. I felt for sure that it wouldn't still be there. It had been months! Surely all those cool jackets were sold out! On top of that, it's not even on the Gap's website, so I thought it was probably left over from a season ago or something like that. So of course it wouldn't still be there!

But it was. And it was marked down to $249. Oh, I want it. I really, really want it.

I'm such a greedy little girl....

French, French, French, French, French

2004-12-07T10:09:00.000-05:00

The French language and I have had a long and mostly difficult relationship. Like most people I know, I took Spanish in high school, and I continued with it when I went to a community college after high school. Then one summer a friend of mine got a job placing French university students with American families for the month of August. She got paid per student placed. Naturally, she hit up all of her friends and family members to host a French person. I was living in Delaware with my mother at the time, and she quickly agreed to take one...and then another right at the last minute. Neither one of us spoke a word of French, but that was okay because both of the girls--well, young women--spoke English. That was why they were coming to visit in the first place. They wanted to spend some time in an English speaking country.

One of the girls was wonderful, Emily. And the other...well, not so much. We invited both of them to come back the next summer and told them they didn't have to go through the program again. They could just buy plane tickets and save the cost of being part of the program. Emily took us up on our offer and returned the next summer. And then she returned the summer after that. And she offered time and time again for me to come and visit her in France.

All those years of Spanish. And now it was French that I needed to know! My community college (Delaware Technical & Community College) did not offer any language besides Spanish (and American Sign Language--if that counts as a "foreign" language), so if I wanted to learn French, that meant going to the Fucking University of Delaware. It cost more to take one class there than it did to take four classes at Del Tech. And the University was far, far away from where I lived in north Wilmington. But I asked for the money as a birthday present, and I schlepped all the way down to Newark for the classes five days a week.

At first it went okay. I did something that I did a lot at the time and have since learned not to do: I befriended the teacher. This always turns on me in the end, because I don't like authority, and since the teacher now knows me personally, they can see that, and they end up hating me. Such is my history. During the semester, I got into a bad car accident and my car was in the shop for about three weeks. I couldn't make the trip all the way down to Newark every day. By the time I got the car back, I'd missed 15 classes. Since you got a percentage point taken away from your final grade for each class you missed, and I was a B student (at that time), I was down to about a 70. Of course, missing three weeks of classes put me at a severe disadvantage. My car was ready right around the time of the mid-term. I knew I would fail it, and by failing the mid-term, I would effectively fail the class because I would not be able to recover those 15 missing percentage points. I tried to get an incomplete, but my teacher had decided to hate me by this time, and she wouldn't give me one. When I appealed to the dean of the romance languages department, the dean refused to give me the incomplete and then said something along the lines of, "I understand that you're a community college student. You know, some people just aren't cut out to go to a university." Hey bitch, I'm going to an ivy league university now and carrying a 3.87 GPA, so suck my dick, you whore!

But I digress.

By the time I went to visit Emily in France, years later, I didn't remember any of the few weeks of French I'd taken. And Emily's parents didn't speak a word of English. But it was okay. I liked it there, and I decided that I wanted to take French again and then go back, able to communicate better.

Right after I returned from France, I moved to Philadephia. The Community College of Philadelphia (much larger than Del Tech) did offer French, and I took four semesters of it there. And then I decided to finally get my bachelor's degree, so I applied to and was accepted at the University of Pennsylvania. Now, I should have taken the placement test right there and then. But I didn't. Some time went by, and I still didn't. I was steadily losing my French.

Around the time I was applying to Penn, Emily had applied to become an exchange student of sorts through her university in France. This program was for graduate students, and it allowed French graduate students to go to an American university to take classes and to teach elementary French. And of course American graduate students did the same in France (except they taught English, obviously). Emily wanted to go to a university in Boston or California, but she was placed.....at the University of Pennsylvania! She started teach elementary French, and she allowed me to audit her class without having to pay the auditors fee (which is actually the same as if you were taking the class for credit--what a rip-off!).

But since I was auditing, I didn't feel that compelled to go to all of the classes (again, five days a week). And my French never got good enough to place me out of Penn's language requirement. Now I am making a compromise: I'm going to only transfer 3 of my classes from CCP and take the last one at Penn. Next semester. And I've barely looked at French in well over a year. And I need to get up to speed. And I need to be working very hard so that come January 10, I won't die in French 140. And four days have gone by, and I haven't done a goddamn thing. Not good. Not good at all.

Missing 100

2004-12-06T08:12:00.000-05:00

I've been looking forward to my 100th post. Seems many bloggers take a moment to commemorate the event. 100. A milestone. I was going to wax poetic about how I started blogging. I was going to talk about how my blog has found its voice...and maybe I have found my voice along the way, too. Lots of things. And I was getting close to it. My post counter on the blogger dashboard read 92.

Then I noticed, sort of offhand, that my post counter had read 92 for about a week. At least, that's how long I had noticed that it read 92. During a week, I post 3, 4, 5 entires. Shouldn't the counter read somewhere around 97? Then I started to think back. How long had it read 92? Could it have been for even longer than a week? And if it was stuck at 92 now, couldn't it have been stuck at some other number previously, and I just hadn't noticed?

And that's when I did it. I actually counted my posts. This one, anti-climatically, is number 105.

105. Well, it's a nice number, I guess. But it doesn't have the panache of 100! My muse is not speaking to me, not driving me to put up something reflective and commemorative for post 105. As it turns out, post 100 was Shoot the Messenger: a long, rambling account of my failures as a friend. Shit, does that have a deeper meaning? Is the (blog) world trying to tell me something? My centennial post topic: Oz is a loser and a bad friend! Wonderful.

One Foot in Stirrup, Into the Saddle Soon

2004-12-03T13:43:00.000-05:00

I'm going back to school, boys and girls. In just about six weeks, I will be attending classes...again. I've written about my school woes once before, and now I can proudly say that, only a mere four months after that post, I've gotten off my ass and done something about my situation.

My major (probably all majors) has an end of the semester party, and the comparative literature party was this past Wednesday. I put on my party clothes (you know--sparkly vest, spandex pants, and a cowboy hat), and I headed back to campus. I needed to see a certain professor, although I wasn't sure if she would be there since she is no longer the chair of the undergrad department anymore. But alas, she was there.

She looked at me as I walked into the room and said, "So you're coming back." I said, "That's up to you, isn't it?" I said it in a nice, subservient way--not the bitchy, scarcastic way you might have expected. No, I approached humble, (cowboy) hat in hand. I was finally ready to deal with the consequences of my actions...or, er, inactions as they were.

But essentially, there are no consequences. She was nice and friendly, and we both pretended that the Argument from Spring 2003 had never happened. She says she will write the email that will allow me to take classes this spring. She also said that she would let me finish my honor's thesis over the summer and into next fall. Yippee skippy! Can't ask for anything more than that.

I met with my regular college advisor this morning, and I basically heard from him what I expected to hear. I'm taking two classes this spring: my last French class and some sociology class that will fill a requirement.

It's hard to fathom that I will finally be back in school next semester. Finally finishing up these last classes. I'm a student again. Or just about.

The Best Laid Plans

2004-12-01T11:28:00.000-05:00

The fine, up-standing police officers that control traffic at the Philadelphia International Airport do not allow lolly-gagging around the pick-up lane for arriving flights. Actually, they don't allow a full stop. You can slow your car down to about 3 miles per hour, and the person who needs to be picked-up must accurately throw their luggage into your car and then jump in themselves. If you attempt to fully stop your car, you will be chastized publicly by a police officer, blowing his whistle, pointing at you, jumping up and down, and waving his arms.

Because of this, if you find yourself driving to PHL, you'll see cars parked on the shoulder of the exit ramp leading to the airport. In the current cell phone age, people wait in their cars for the call that tells them that the person who needs picking-up is standing in the median, ready and waiting. If you do not do this, you will drive by the pick-up location, not see said person, and have to circle the entire airport. Not fun.

This Thanksgiving, the Bread Winner's mother came to town. Through the Bread Winner, I relayed all of this information. I told her to call me when she was standing on the curb and then I would show up minutes later and retrieve her. "Call when I get off the plane to let you know I've landed?" No, when you are standing on the curb. "Call when I get to baggage claim?" No, when you are standing on the curb. "Call when the baggage starts appearing at baggage claim?" No, when you are standing on the curb. I swear to you, it will take longer if I have to drive around the airport, and I will have to drive around the airport if you are not standing on the goddamn curb.

So what does she do? Why, she calls me when they get off the plane. This is my mother-in-law, and although I was tempted to say, "Weren't you listening when we went over this a few weeks ago? Call me when you're standing on the curb!" I bit my tongue and said, "Okay."

I found myself having to guess how long it would take her to walk from her gate to baggage claim (she ended up not checking baggage, but she still needed to go to baggage claim to leave from the doors that would place her in the pick-up location). I decided to give her five minutes. Then, with a feeling in my stomach that said, You'll soon be driving around the airport, I pulled off from the shoulder and followed the signs for Arriving Flights.

Naturally, she wasn't standing on the curb. Naturally, as I attempted to stop my car to wait for her, a police officer ran at me and with his eyes he accused me of committing a crime worse than mass murder. So off I went. As I was winding my way around the airport, she called again to tell me that she was, in fact, standing on the curb. I asked her to tell me what terminal she was at. She said she couldn't see any signs. I asked her to tell me what signs she could see. Then I told her to be sure to be standing on the median and not the curb next to the airport (the curb next to the airport is for buses and such, while the median is for car pick-up). She said, "There's no median." What do you mean, There's no median? "There's no median." Ah, thanks for the clarification. Only, there is a median in the pick-up area, so you see why I'm confused.

I heard her turn away from the phone and say to one of those aforementioned police officers, "The person who is trying to pick me up can't fine me." Oh, so now this is my fault?

There I hear the police officer say over the traffic noise, "You're on the wrong side of the airport. This is for departing flights, for drop off. You need to go to the baggage claim area and exit from that door. That's the pick up area."

Once I drove around, this time following the Departing Flights signs, I picked up my dear mother-in-law. "Oh," she said, "that's why all these people are being dropped off here."

Yes, indeed.

Modern Hebrew

2004-11-29T11:21:00.000-05:00

I read something recently that I haven't been able to get out of my mind. It was about the history of Israel. For instance, did you know that Jews started buying land in Palestine in 1897 and they also started settling there from that point on? I didn't think the Jews returned to Israel until 1947 when the United Nations voted Israel into existence. Au contraire.

But that wasn't what I wanted to blog about. As you might know. Hebrew is the official language of Israel. However, you might not know that "modern" Hebrew was virtually created by one man, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858-1922). When he and his wife moved to what was then Brittish controlled Paslestine, they made a vow only to speak Hebrew. One problem. No one spoke Hebrew anymore. It was a holy language and primarily only read although prayers were spoken. In other words, there were no words for anything that didn't exist in Biblical times. For conversation, Ashkenazi Jews spoke Yiddish, while Sephardic Jews spoke Ladino. They created these other languages because of the belief that one should not talk to God with the same words that one would talk to their dog.

For whatever reason, Ben-Yehuda decided that a return to the holy land mandated a return to the holy language, so he took it upon himself to create new words for items not named in the Bible. He didn't just make them up out of thin air, but rather he used the roots of existing Hebrew words so that the new words would be based on linguistic principles. And then he compiled a dictionary that combined the new and old words--and modern Hebrew was born.

I always think of language as an organically grown system. I can't get my mind around the idea that one man said to himself, "I'm going create thousands of new words and revive a dead language"...and then that language and his words became the official language of a country! It's amazing.

Say It Isn't So

2004-11-24T08:35:00.000-05:00

My grandma got me hooked on Days of Our Lives when I was just a tyke and I would spend my summers with my grandparents. I actually wanted to watch The Young and the Restless. At the age of about 10, I'd got it into my head that watching soap operas was "adult," so I endeavored to do so. I picked The Young and the Restless because I liked the name. Only, it's hard to start watching a soap cold. My grandma indulged me in just about everything, but she put her foot down on this matter. The Young and the Restless was on from 12:30pm to 1:30pm (at the time), and Days of Our Lives ran from 1pm to 2pm (at the time). Once the clock struck 1pm, the big TV in the living room switched to Days and I was forced into the kitchen if I wanted to watch the rest of The Young and the Restless on the little TV there.

For a while, I did just that. I watched YR until 1:30pm, not really understanding what was happening, and then re-joined my grandmother in the living room and watched the end of Days of Our Lives. With Days, I could ask questions and get answers: Why was Kim sleeping with Shane? What was up with Bo and Hope? She explained everything to me, and soon I forgot all about The Young and the Restless and just watched Days.

I watched Days of Our Lives for another 15 years. I expanded my soap opera watching schedule to include all of the NBC soaps, which at the time were Days of Our Lives, Another World, and Santa Barbara. As I got older, I swung in and out of watching soaps, but with such a solid foundation in these characters' lives (and nothing much really happens anyway), I was able to step away from the NBC soaps for as much as a year or two at a time and come back without missing a beat.

Once, while I was away from soaps, Santa Barbara disappeared from the scene to be replaced by Passions. I never bothered picking that soap up. Days got pretty ridiculous, but I found myself really enjoying Another World, which previously had been the soap I was least interested in. When NBC cancelled Another World in favor of Sunset Beach, I made a vow never to watch an NBC soap again. Sunset Beach was horrible and Another World was wonderful. And it had been on for over 20 years! How could they do that? They did, and it was a mistake. Sunset Beach was so bad that it didn't last long.

Some of the characters from Another World actually went across network lines and appeared on another soap (I can't remember which one now). I tried to watch it, but again found myself in the same predicament I had been in 15 years before--watching a soap cold. The Another World characters didn't feature prominently in the new soap, and I quickly lost interest. I found myself without a soap to watch.

I didn't miss it much, really. I had no intention of going back, and I wouldn't have except....for Daytime's first girl-on-girl kiss. It happened on All My Children in April 2003. The media was all over it, and the Bread Winner instructed me to tape the episode for her (as it turns out, All My Children had been the soap opera of her youth).

The kiss happened between Erica Kane's daughter Bianca, who had "come out" years before but had never had much of an on-screen dating life, and the character of Lena, a hot sexy Polish woman who was supposed to seduce Bianca to get information, but then of course she falls in love with her.

I was hooked. I started watching All My Children. I didn't know what the hell was going on except that two women had kissed and maybe, maybe they would kiss again. At first, I just fast-forwarded to the scenes that involved either Bianca (the least lesbian name of all time) and/or Lena. But gradually, I started watching more of it. Again, it was hard watching it cold, but luckily for me, the neighborhood housewives watched All My Children, and I found myself knocking on my neighbors' doors with questions like, What is Kendall so mad about? and What's the deal with Aidan?

Eventually, I filled in all the holes, and now I claim All My Children as my own. I was devastated when Lena left the show on April 28th, 2004. The actress who played her, Olga Sosnovska, got another job on a BBC drama and left for greener pastures. Honestly, Lena/Ogla was the hot one of the two women. And the better actress. Although I believe that A&E shows her new series, called MI-5, I haven't bothered to watch it. I still have her last scenes with Bianca (which featured another kiss) in my mind.

Imagine my surprise to see Ms. Sosnovska appear last night on a commercial. One of those "A Diamond is Forever" deals. In it, some guy is chasing her around a fountain, and he catches her and says, "You know, I think I'd marry you again." And then he whips out a diamond ring, and the people sitting around turn out to be the woman's parents, etc. A diamond is forever. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The happiness of seeing "Lena" again quickly faded as I thought, How could she do this to Bianca! That thought was directly followed by, How could she do this to me! I mean, I know the actress is straight and everything, but couldn't she at least play gay for the rest of her life just to make me happy? Is that too much to ask? Must she parade her heterosexuality in front of me? Oh, Lena, say it isn't so.....

Shoot the Messenger

2004-11-23T08:20:00.000-05:00

The mind is a weird thing. Or maybe just mine is. I remember the turning points in my life almost in a revolving circle. One such turnng point involved my (then) best friend Jake.

We met in 1995. I was 20 and just foraying into the same sex dating scene. I'd been on my first date, then my second, and then--inexplicably--I was dumped. I couldn't understand why this had happened, because it didn't make any sense (it wasn't until years later that I got the whole story). I was just becoming good friends with a guy named Ned, and when I was complaining about my girl troubles, he suggested that I spend some time with Jake, who was also going through girl trouble.

And that's how our friendship started. I remember the first time I hung out with Jake. He lived in Delaware, as did I, just a few blocks up from my mother's house (where I lived at the time). Jake knew that Ned had orchestrated our meeting to discuss our mutual problems, so he asked me to tell him what was going on with me and this girl. I told him about the two wonderful dates followed by the inexplicable dumping. Then I asked him to tell me about his girl trouble. He launched into this long, tortured story about the love of his life, who he'd been with for over a year, and how every day Jake wondered why he was getting out of bed now that "she" was gone. Needless to say, our situations were far, far apart. I don't know what Jake got out of it, but I firmly put my predicament in perspective.

What brought us together was filmsy, but in each other, we found a good friend, someone to verbally spar with, an intelligent conversationalist, a person with the same sense of humor, a kindred spirit, and, yes, a confidant. I told Jake everything, and he did the same with me. He knew things about me that I didn't tell anyone else, and I knew the same things about him. For years, our friendship was strong and one of the most wonderful things in my life.

When Jake moved to Philadelphia in 1997, we didn't miss a beat. We saw each other less frequently, but we talked on the phone for hours every week. He saw me through two break-ups (from real, substantial relationships), and I was there for him as he slowly put his life back together--that girl had really rocked his world. Jake found a circle of friends in Philadelphia, and as I visited him every week or so, I too became a member of this tight-knit group.

Jake didn't date seriously, even though a wonderful girl in our circle of friends, Kate, clearly had a crush on him. Well, it was clear to everyone but him. He claimed that they were just good friends, and that's all they felt for one another. It was all he felt for Kate, certainly, but it was not all she felt for him. Meanwhile, Jake had several casual affairs. He still wasn't ready for another serious relationship.

A girl named Kathy Green joined our little group in 1998. I don't know why, but no one ever just called her Kathy. She was always Kathy Green. Kathy Green moved to Philadelphia from Texas. She was a friend of a Kate's (Kate was also from Texas), and she had a boyfriend, Alan.

During one of our phone calls one night, Jake confided in me that he thought Kathy Green was really hot, and he thought that she was attracted to him, too. I wasn't certain, but he was, and he was right. Soon, the two of them were sleeping together, and I was the only one who knew about it.

Kathy Green kept it a secret because she didn't want it to get back to her boyfriend. Jake said he was keeping it a secret for the same reason. Of course, there was another person who they were both keeping it from--Kate. Kathy Green certainly knew how Kate felt about Jake, and although Jake wouldn't admit it, he knew it too. Kate had been carrying a torch for him for well over a year now, and if she found out that Kathy Green and he were sleeping together, she would have felt betrayed by them both.

I, on the otherhand, knew all about Jake's sexcapades with Kathy Green. He told me the details of her giving him head in a parking garage, of how she had multiple orgasms, and they had sex in every room of his house. It was great, juicy gossip. The very best kind, and it went on for months. Kathy Green and her boyfriend split up almost as soon as they moved here, but neither Kathy nor Jake made their relationship more serious nor moved it into the light of day. No, it was still on the down-low in order to spare Kate's feelings.

Kathy Green ended up moving to New York, and that put an end to her affair with Jake. Meanwhile, I moved from Delaware to Philadelphia, and I never told a soul about their relationship...until I did.

It was 2000, and the affair had been over between Jake and Kathy Green for over two years. I was talking to a member of the aforementioned group of friends, a girl named Susan. Just so happened that Susan was now dating Alan, Kathy Green's old boyfriend! As we were re-hashing our memories of Kathy Green and Alan and their move to Philadelphia, I of course remembered that Kathy Green and Jake were having an affair during that entire time. As all of the dirty little secrets and sexual positions flitted through my mind, Susan read me like a book. It wasn't long before I spilled the beans and told her about Jake and Kathy's little "relationship."

Oh, it was wrong. I was wrong. It was a secret, and I should have taken it to my grave with me. Granted. Now that I'd told the thing I'd been instructed never to tell--being a person of integrity, rather than pretending that it hadn't happened--I called Jake immediately and told him that Susan knew about him and Kathy Green.

He was a little mad at me...at first. I apologized profusely and admitted that I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Which I was. I had some hope that Susan would keep the secret--as she'd also sworn to do--but before long, Susan told everybody. Only Jake didn't know that the secret was well and truly out, and again I was the one to let him know that everyone knew...and by everyone, I really meant Kate. She knew, and she wasn't happy. She was hurt. All these years, and she was still carrying that torch for Jake.

His friendship with Kate--an important one for him--fell apart. My relationship with him also faded further and further into the background of his life. He never got steaming, yelling at me mad. It simmered there, under the surface. I tried to keep the friendship going, to get it back on track. I tried to prove myself to him, but it was impossible. He felt betrayed by me--and he was--and it was something that he could never get over.

I'm not a part of that circle of friends anymore. Actually, the circle is more or less defunct. Two things happened around the same time which lead to my leaving the group. First was the growing distance between myself and Jake. Secondly, my relationship with the Bread Winner was going fast and furious, and I found myself spending most of my time with her. I wasn't really eager to spend time with my other friends going out to see a movie or some such thing when I could be at home having great sex all night.

But I still think about my relationship with Jake. He moved to California for a few years, but now he's back in Philadelphia. We hardly speak although we're still casual friends. I miss our old friendship, although I know now that we can never go back to it. I've tried for years and years. It's hopeless. I know he still blames me for the loss of his friendships with both Kate and Kathy Green. I know that Kathy Green blames me for the loss of her friendship with Kate as well.

For a long time, I beat myself up about that. Heck, I still do to some extent. It's still my default reaction when I think about those people: It's my fault. But then I think that's only the surface reason. Yeah, there's a good chance Kate would never have found out if I hadn't told Susan. Then maybe she'd still be friends with Jake and Kathy Green. Maybe the group would still be together. The truth is that there are many reasons the group fell apart. The secret I revealed, while definitely a major reason, was not the only one. But it might have been the one that left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

Now I'm just beginning to see beneath the surface. Yes, I should have kept Jake's secret. But the truth is that Kate was (is?) mad because she was betrayed by two of her best friends--Kathy Green and Jake. They slept together, and they knew it was wrong. They knew it would hurt Kate. And if they hadn't done it, there would have been no dirty little secret to tell. Or if they'd been honest about it at the time it was happening, Kate would have been upset, but she would have gotten over it.

So when I feel guilty about it all now, I remind myself that while I was wrong, I was covering up someone else's bad deed. It was a bad deed, and the bad deed is what got Jake into trouble. In my life, I try to live by a code: If I can't stand the consequences of people knowing what I did, I shouldn't do it. Sure, there are some things I don't go out of my way to publicize, like my feelings of envy over my friend's pregnancy (now her baby) and my sister-in-law's pregnancy. I don't tell them about my feelings of envy and jealousy, and I ask that the Bread Winner not tell them either. But if they did confront me about it, I would say, "Yep, it's true. And if you can't be friends with me anymore, I accept that. I'm doing the best I can, and that's all I can do. If it's not enough for you, then it's not enough."

That's what it comes down to for me. Would I feel angry at someone for revealing my "secret," whatever that would be? Yeah, I would...a little. But the truth is that I did it. I have to accept the consequences of my actions. And I don't know that Jake has done that. So, after about four years, I'm trying to let myself off of the hook for this one.

Oddly Familiar

2004-11-19T09:59:00.000-05:00

I've been seeing a lot of ads lately for the Schick Quattro. For those of you who live under a rock, this is a razor blade, designed for men, and it's big selling point is....it's got four blades! I remember the first ads. They went something like this, "First there was one blade, then two, then three....but four blades? That's overkill....right? Wrong. Introducing the Power of Four: the Schick Quattro."

Anyone else suspect that a Schick executive caught a re-run of There's Something About Mary before he came up with this idea?

Hitchhiker: I'm going to start my own company.
Ted: Really?
Hitchhiker: You want in?
Ted: Nah...I'm not...I don't....I don't really have any money....or....
Hitchhiker: You heard of this thing, the 8 Minute Abs?
Ted: Yeah, sure, 8 Minute Abs. Yeah, the exercise video.
Hitchhiker: This is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7 Minute Abs.
Ted: Right. Yes. Okay, alright. I see where you're going.
Hitchhiker: Think about it. You walk into a video store. You see 8 Minute Abs sitting there. There's 7 Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you going to pick?
Ted: I would go for the 7....yeah....
Hitchhiker: Bingo, man! Bingo! 7 Minute Abs! And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8 Minute folk.
Ted: You guarantee it? How do you do that?
Hitchhiker: If you're not happy with the first seven minutes, we're going to send you the extra minute...free! See, that's it! That's our motto. That's where we're coming from. That's from A to B!
Ted: That's right. That's good, that's good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 6 Minute Abs. Then you're in trouble, huh?
Hitchhiker: No, not six. I said seven! Nobody's coming up with six! Who works out in six minutes? You won't even get your heart going! Not even a mouse on a wheel.
Ted: Good point. Yeah...
Hitchhiker: Seven's the key number here, think about it. Seven elevens. Seven doors. Seven, man, that's the number.

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe this was the conversation between the guys who came up with the three blade system. Surely no one would come out with four blades! How ridiculous would that be?

How Bad Do You Want It?

2004-11-18T09:32:00.000-05:00

When I started this blog, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I didn't know what I would write about. I didn't know if I would like blogging. I just sort of flopped around for a while until I found the groove I'm in right now. I like this groove. I like what I'm doing. I like the idea of writing every week and having something that I can look back on later in life. I like the idea of my kids maybe reading this stuff 15 years from now, and maybe through reading this blog they'll realize that I'm more than the lady who makes them do their homework or sets their curfew. Yes, I've started to see my blog as a sort of legacy I can leave behind.

But that means I have to be able to leave it behind. Since this blog is online in the care of the blogger system, I just assumed that it was protected. I wouldn't have to worry about printing it out or backing it up or any of that stuff. Blogger was taking care of it. Then I read this post from Wheelson. In it, Wheelson says, "Does Blogger maintain backups of everyone's Blogger data? Doubtful, and even if they did they sure as hell aren't going to restore just your blog for you." That's a good point. What if something did happen to just my blog? Or maybe to just 10 or 15 blogs? How far out of their way would blogger go to restore such a tiny amount of data?

Wheelson wrote that post last week, and I still haven't been able to get it out of my mind. Wheelson advised, "Take the time soon to take stock of your data, and determine its worth to you." I've done just that. It is worth something to me. Wheelson also linked to blogger's backup process and commented that blogger "does not make it easy for you to back up." I checked the link out, and he's right. Blogger does not make it easy. I'm probably going to go through all ten steps anyway. I've grown attached to this blog. I've grown attached to what I've said. I don't want to lose it.

It's occured to me that there's an easier way to back-up, and I'm going to try this method, too. The only problem here is that you lose the comments. But here goes. This is easiest for those who do monthly archiving as opposed to weekly. Open up a month's worth of your blog by clicking on the link in your sidebar. From your view menu, select "view source" or "page source" or whatever it is that will allow you to see the source code. Voila, there's everything in html code. Copy it. Paste it into a document and save it. Repeat for each month's worth of your blog. There's a back-up. It ain't pretty, but it's there, and it's quick, and it's easy.

Are You Ready for a Naked Lady? I Sure Am

2004-11-17T09:17:00.000-05:00

Monday Night Football featured none other than my Philadelphia Eagles playing the hapless Dallas Cowboys. But not many people are talking about the game--except a few well-deserved mentions of Donovan McNabb's incredible 14.1 second scramble which ended with a 60 yard throw down the field for a completion (Go Eagles!). No, people are talking about the intro bit before the game.

The intro bit this past Monday featured Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens and Nicollette Sheridan, one of the stars of ABC's new drama, Desperate Housewives. In the intro, Sheridan's character "Edie" appears wearing only a towel and she tries to entice T.O. to skip the game and, uh, well, I think you know what she'd rather do with him. He says no and starts to walk away, but then "Edie" drops the towel. The television viewing audience sees her naked back exposed and T.O.'s smile of appreciation. He decides to skip the game, and "Edie" jumps--naked--into his arms.

Apparently, all the red state people are up in arms about this. Naked ladies! On a wholesome sports show! After all, this occurred at 7pm mountain time! During the dinner hour when little Timmy was innocently eating mashed potatoes! How could they do this to THE CHILDREN?!

ABC and the NFL promptly issued apologies all around.

What I love about this whole thing is that I have seen that scene between Terrell Owens and Nicollette Sheridan replayed at least ten times since Monday night. I've seen it replayed at 9 o'clock in the morning. I've seen it re-played at 5 o'clock in the evening. I've seen it in the afternoon, and I've even seen it re-played just about the same exact time it was played in the first place. Yes, I do watch a lot of ESPN. But that's not the point.

I think you know the point, and I really and truly don't understand it. If it is too shocking and violating of children to be shown at 9pm EST, then how come it's okay to show it every hour of the day since then? Obviously, this isn't the first time this has happened. Yesterday on a sports talk show I watch, they re-played some football player saying the word fuck on what had been live TV. Of course, they bleeped the word fuck, but they'd already told you what he said, "the f word," and then re-played the scene. Alrighty, I don't watch college football, and I would never, ever have known about this...except it's getting re-played so that I can be sure not to miss it. And while you're at it, can you explain the difference between hearing someone say the word fuck vs. being told that someone said the "f word" and then re-playing him saying it while bleeping the word fuck? Is it just me, or is there really no difference at all between these two occurrences?

I know, I know, they have to report something. It just seems like there wouldn't really be an uproar about much at all if it wasn't for news people intentionally stirring the pot.

There, She's Gone

2004-11-16T08:20:00.000-05:00

I think about my grandmother every day. Most days, I come close to tears, and some days, I actually cry. Memories of her are all around me, in the most unlikeliest of places. A few days ago, I was burning CDs to give to my clients, and I noticed I was running low on my 50 pack. I was mentally making plans to buy more CDs when I realized that my grandmother had bought me these CDs. We were at a store, probably six months ago or so, and I wanted to get these blank CDs. I was going to pay for them, but she added them to her purchases and said, "I'll get them for you." I think these remaining CDs are the last thing she bought for me, the last present from her.

Sometimes it's an item, like the CDs, or the large serving bowl on top of our kitchen cabinets that my partner pointed to yesterday and said, "We can use that for Thanksgiving." My grandmother gave that to me as a Christmas present six or seven years ago. Other times, it's an action, like a month ago when I was making raman noodles. I open the package, and then I break the hard square of noodles in half, and then each half in half so that I have four pieces the same size (more or less). I started doing that 10 or 15 years ago when I saw my grandma do it, and I asked her, and she said that she did it because it made the noodles easier to eat because they weren't so long. And I was breaking up the square of noodles a month ago, without thinking anything at all, until that memory came back to me.

It's times like these, when I think about my grandma, that I can usually keep myself from crying. It's another type of thinking about my grandmother that almost always gets me. When something that I've never experienced makes me think about her.

I was watching the episode of Crossing Jordan from Sunday night. It was about a plane crash. At the end of the show, one of the characters is standing at the crash site, and he reads from a book. I don't know if it was a poem or a paragraph, but he was reading it, and I couldn't stop the tears.

As I stand on a mountain top, as the great bird approaches, she is small in my sight but grows larger on approach until I am blessed with the full sight of her graceful wings, proud countenance and good company. All too quickly, she grows small again on the horizon and disappears from view, and I call out, “There, she’s gone.” But there are other mountain tops, beyond me, and at the precise moment when I note the great bird’s departure from my view, I know there are new eyes, taking up the sight of her, and fresh voices calling out, “Here she comes.”

The Impractical Nature of Candles

2004-11-15T10:00:00.000-05:00

I saw Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason yesterday. Please, I implore you, DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE. For those of you who are in the process of buying/starting movie theaters, DO NOT SHOW THIS MOVIE. It is truly horrible in every way. There's even a girl-on-girl kiss towards the end, which normally I would love, but it was so ridiculous and so obviously put in there just to give guys something to be excited about, that I almost didn't want to watch it. And one of those chicks was hot!

But that is neither here nor there. No, the purpose of this post is to write about hotel rooms in movies and television. In Bridget Jones, at one point in the plot, she decides to go to a man's hotel room with him. There are literally about 100 candles lit in this room. Tea lights and candles everywhere. Yes, it looks very romantic. But hello, who lit all the frickin' candles? Did they get to the room, and then the guy said, "Hold on a second while I light ONE THOUSAND CANDLES. Actually, it'll be more like 20 minutes. You don't mind, do you?"

Maybe, maybe if you had enough money, you could arrange to have the hotel prepare the room for your arrival beforehand. I read a blog entry once where the woman enters the hotel room and there are candles, etc., everywhere. But if you wanted to pull this off, you'd need A) a lot of money, and B) a plan. In other words, you'd have to know when you were arriving so that the candles wouldn't be all burned down, etc. And you'd also have to know that you would have a sex partner when you arrived. Yes? Yes.

Back in my courting days with the Bread Winner, when she would come over, I would light some candles, etc. Of course, she was already there when I did this. And I think my maximum candle lighting topped out somewhere around five. Hey, candles aren't cheap (although tea lights are). And candles get dusty. And you need some place for them to be where they won't light anything else on fire. Having a hundred candles lit is just not practical--let alone the time-consuming part of it I already mentioned.

It's funny that I love watching television, but the more I see of it, the more critical I get of it. Or maybe it's not more television that is making me critical. Maybe it is more life.

Propaganda

2004-11-12T13:22:00.000-05:00

I started working with a wedding pro a couple of weeks ago. He's a very nice man and a very religious Christian. I don't have a problem with that--or any very religious person--as long as they keep it to themselves, by and large. Sure, it's a part of his life, so it will come up from time to time, and that's fine. I sort of expect the same respect I give to people--especially people I don't know particularly well--about my sexual orientation. I do not avoid the topic. I will answer questions honestly. And I don't mean sex questions (although I'll answer them honestly, too). I mean questions like, "What did you do last weekend?" My weekends include my partner, so I'll say, "My partner and I did X, and then we did Y." You asked. I told. And in that same exact situation, if I asked the wedding pro what he did last weekend, I imagine he'd say something about going to church on Sunday and maybe other activities surrounding his church involvement. No problem.

But today he sent me a forwarded email with the subject line, "The Interview with God." I draw the line there. What is it with people?

Here's another example: One morning I was out shooting some hoops nearby my house. A man approached me and asked if he could join me. I said, "Yes, I'll shoot with you, but I don't play basketball." This has happened to me a number of times, and it's normally fine. The guy shoots hoops with me until either he or I am ready to go, and that's it. So this one guy was shooting hoops with me, and we were having a fine time--talking about the basketball play-offs that were going on at the time. And then he says he has to leave. But wait. He wants to ask me something: "Have you accepted Jesus as your personal savior?"

And they can't just ask you, and when you say no (like I do), then just say, "Too bad. Bye." No, then they launch into this big long thing about Jesus blah blah blah. I mean, give me a break. You found Jesus! Good for you! I couldn't be happier for you! Now leave me the fuck alone! Do I run around trying to get people not to believe in Jesus? Of course not!

And they just don't seem to understand. As you try to extricate yourself from the situation, a glazed look comes over their face, and they talk on and on and on about Jesus. And the whole time, I'm rolling my eyes. Right, right, he died on the cross to save me, I get it, can you leave now?

Now that I think about it, it's very similar to people who forward email. I hate that too. When people start forwarding me stuff, I write back and say nicely, "Please don't forward email to me. I love hearing from YOU when YOU have something to say to ME, but I'm not interested in forwards." You'd think that would be fine with people...BUT IT'S NOT. I've practically had knock down, drag out fights with people about sending me (what I call) personal spam. "No, no," they say, "but this one is really funny!" Not to me, you dim wit! Especially since I read that goddamn email 20 times over five years ago!

So here I am confronted with this guy that I work with who wants to spread the word of Jesus via forwarded email. Yikes! I'm not looking forward to the conversation I'll have with him tomorrow, I can tell you that.

Beer? No. Lambic? Oh yeah.

2004-11-11T07:29:00.000-05:00

One of the good things about not being pregnant is that I can drink alcohol guilt-free. Giving up alcohol is not a big deal for me, as there is actually very little alcohol that I like. The reason for this twofold. First of all, my father was an alcoholic (I would say is an alcoholic, but he's dead, so he was one). Because of that, I've always been wary of alcohol. From a young age, I was of the opinion that alcohol was bad, and that it could possibly lead you down a destructive and dangerous road. And that leads to the second reason: I just don't like the taste of much of it.

So while kids generally feel excitement at their first taste of beer, I felt cynical and apprehensive. Most will agree with me on this point: When you first tasted beer, it tasted nasty. I've asked many people why they seem to enjoy it when it tastes so bad, and they all answer the same thing: "Drink enough of it, and it starts to taste good." That logic never worked for me. In my mind, alcohol was a bad thing. So if it tastes bad anyway, why would you want to keep drinking it and drinking it until it tasted good if it was inherently bad? Didn't make any sense.

Other versions of alcohol didn't do anything for me either. I don't like the taste of bitter beverages or foods, and alcohol is rather bitter...except for mixed drinks, etc., which basically hide the taste of the alcohol. By far, however, beer is the worst tasting of them all. It smells like urine, so I always imagined that it must taste like urine as well. Then a professor of mine told me that urine is composed of almost the exact same things as sweat. He pointed out that armpit sweat stains in white shirts are...the same color as urine. He then asked me if I'd ever tasted sweat on my lip. Yes, of course. And it wasn't bad. Mostly salty. That's when I realized that BEER ACTUALLY TASTES WORSE THAN URINE.

This was the same professor who, when I confided in him that I was quite depressed about school, told me I should start drinking. A serving of alcohol has been reported to be good for your health, after all. He recommended beer. Eck. When he found out that I'd only had cheap beer like Budweiser, Coors and the like, he said, "No, no, no. You must try a good beer." And he then proceeded to recommend Samuel Smith beer to me--in particular, the Oatmeal Stout and the Nut Brown Ale.

Here's my review of these beverages: like beer, only thicker and nastier. Oh, and let's not forget that Sam Smith beer is about 20 times more expensive than the aforementioned Budweiser and Coors.

I felt despondent. Clearly, the answer to my troubles laid with consuming more alcohol--preferably beer. And yet, I couldn't stand it.

And then the Bread Winner introduced another "beer" into my life. A wonderful beverage classified as Lambic. This "beer" (it is so much better than any other beer that I have a hard time labeling it with such a degrading term, but I guess I must) comes from the tiny country of Belgium. I won't go into all the details of what makes Lambic better than other beer, but if you're curious, you can check it out yourself. Basically, two things set it aside. First of all, lambic is made using "aged hops" (three years aged) so it is not as bitter as other beer (which is usually made using "young hops"). Secondly, it is fermented twice: once traditionally, and a second time with a fruit.

Many people have not heard of lambic. I can't recommend it enough. It is pricey, and therefore not something you are likely to consume every day. Yesterday, I picked up six 750ml bottles of it for our Thanksgiving meal. Actually, five are for Thanksgiving, and the other one was enjoyed by the Bread Winner and I last night. It was a flavor I hadn't tried before: Kriek (or black cherry). It was quite tasty, but I'd have to say that I still prefer the framboise (raspberry), and there certainly isn't anything wrong with the cassis (black currant) either. We've got two bottles of each of these (one more of the Kriek), so Thanksgiving this year should be a fun affair indeed.

(As an aside, I also got two 12oz bottles of beer from Dogfish Head, a local Delaware brewery. I got their fall season beer, Punkin' Ale. Have to see if we get any takers on that around dessert time. I'm all set with the lambic.)

Hotmail Feels the Heat

2004-11-10T08:07:00.000-05:00

Just about everyone I know that had a hotmail email account has made the switch to gmail, myself included. My main reason--heck, my only reason--was because of hotmail's pitiful 2mb storage limit. Gmail offers 1000mb. So I made the switch and I haven't look back.

Okay, that's a big lie. I have trouble letting go, especially of things I've had for 8 years or so, like my hotmail email account. So I do look back. I've got a lot of stuff stored there, and I still get a random email there from someone I forgot to tell about my gmail account, so I check in every day or so to clear out the junk mail and see if I've got any new email.

I logged in yesterday, and the status bar that shows how much storage space you've used is all white. With a 2mb limit, it usually has a green line indicating that I'm using 70% of my storage space. I open up the inbox, and what do I see? They've upped the limit from 2mb to 250mb! I guess they were losing too many customers to gmail now that gmail invites are flooding the market (I've got six myself, if anyone wants one).

I'm in a little of a quandry now. I've basically made the switch all the way over to gmail. But I feel some loyalty to hotmail, since I've been with them for so long. I was with hotmail before it was owned by MSN, even before there were such things as spam filters. I actually have an account name with no numbers in it!

But I guess I should put it behind. I have made the switch, and gmail is still offering four times the storage. Plus, I do like the whole "conversation" thing that gmail has, as well as the stripped down text advertisements and overall easy to load minimal graphics. It's still hard to let an old relationship go, especially when the other entity has changed the things that made you leave them in the first place....

A Little Confused About Two Things

2004-11-09T07:05:00.000-05:00

First

I was editing some photos yesterday, and I had the tv on in the background. I heard the music of a commercial--it sounded nice--and I looked up occasionally, not consciously taking note. But eventually, through my disinterest, it registered: The commercial was for the United States Postal Service.

Does the Post Office need to advertise? Are there other options? Sure, maybe for mailing packages, or sending stuff "express" or "priority" or whatever. Then, yes, you've got a bunch of choices, and I've seen Post Office commercials for that sort of thing, and that makes sense. But this ad had people getting Christmas cards and letters. Now, if you're sending a letter, is there another realistic option? Is this why they keep raising the price of stamps? To run stupid, unnecessary ads?

Secondly

A couple of weeks ago, I went out to have lunch with a friend. It was a rather large restuarant that has the internal stylings of a diner. (I can't actually call it a diner, because to me, a diner is small, and this place is huge.) When our waitress came up to take our order, I could not help but notice that she had a rather large mole--about a quarter inch or so in diameter--on her right cheek. Growing from the mole were three long hairs.

And I mean long. They were like an inch long. They grew out of the mole and then curled back in a long arc until the tips touched the woman's cheek.

Why on earth had the woman not plucked these hairs? I just don't understand that. Is there a cultural or religious prohibition against plucking mole hairs?

I grow a hair or two on my chin. As soon as I can even feel it there with my finger--when it's maybe a couple of milimeters long and not even distinguishable from the peach fuzz type hairs that are normally found on anyone's face--as soon as I sense it there, I get the tweezers and pull the hair out. Sure, from time to time, it sneaks up on me and it might be a little longer than that. Luckily, its location beneath my chin does a good job of hiding it anyway, and it's not black either.

I cannot imagine having a long ass, black hair growing out of a huge mole on my cheek, and not relentless plucking it. I just don't get it.

Inconceivable Joy in the Open Field

2004-11-06T10:10:00.000-05:00

He jumped out of the house and down the two stairs into the cool fall morning. He felt the air, brisk and strange, on the patches of his skin that had been made bare by a vet tech, preparing the areas for surgery. He blocked the cold air on his skin from his mind. He was very capable of blocking discomfort and pain from his mind.

There was a place where, months ago, he had gone every other day. It was two blocks from the house, and he pulled the woman behind him eagerly in that direction. Flashes of memories entered his mind. He remembered chasing the ball endlessly. He remembered hoping that it would never end, that the ball would keep going and going, and he would keep chasing it through soft grassy fields. Vaguely, he also remembered experiencing incredible pain in his right knee one time and another time in his left knee. Those events had not dampened his desire to chase the ball, and he remembered bringing it back to the woman, running on three legs. He remembered putting the ball at her feet and getting ready to chase it again. He remembered that she'd taken the ball, put on his leash, and said, "This can't be good."

After that, he'd been taken on walks, past the beautiful open field where his dream had been realized so often. He'd pulled on the leash, trying to go to the open field. He hadn't seen the woman pick up the ball, but surely there must be a ball there in his dream field. What was the point of the field without the ball? "No," the woman had said, resisting his pull. "We can't go there for a long time." And he had whined in his confusion and sadness.

As he got closer to the field this morning, the woman said, "I hope they're not really ticketing people for having their dogs off the leash now." He didn't understand her words, but he understood the slight anxiety in her voice. He felt anxious too. He felt anxious to start the game, and at the same time, he felt anxious that they would walk by the field as they had so many times in the past months and the game would not start at all.

As they turned up the driveway towards the field, the anxiety that they might not play the game faded away. He started raising his front legs up off the ground, nosing towards the little canvas bag on the woman's waist. That little bag held happiness in the shape of a yellow tennis ball.

And then they were there. They were at the field. It was open and wide and long. Its sole destiny was to have a ball sail over it, to have a ball bounce along its surface, to have a dog run on its soft grass and the leaves that had fallen from the trees.

The woman opened up the little canvas bag and pulled the yellow ball out of it. "You want this, do you?" she asked. He sat and quivered, his eyes locked on the ball. Trees could have fallen down around him. The earth could have opened up beneath him. Anything could have happened, but nothing could have shaken his focus on the ball.

She took the plastic thing and put the ball in it. His eyes raised 18 inches from her hand to where the ball now resided, yellow contained in purple. Then it was pulled back, and he turned and ran as fast as he could away from the woman. Seconds later, his eyes turned heavenward, he saw the ball descending in a beautiful arc 20 feet in front of him. The ball landed on the ground--bounce--and then it was up in the air again, and he was there, jumping, grabbing it in mid-air, and pleasure filled his body as he held the ball in his mouth.

His entire body relaxed, basking the in the joy that emanated from his heart. He turned around and headed back towards the woman. He still went at a good pace, but now that he had the ball safely in his mouth, he was not so frantic as before. When he arrived at the woman's location, he ran around her in a victory lap, sharing his profound happiness at having the ball again, before doing what he must do.

After a few seconds of thought, he put the ball down. He always looked up at the woman after that. He wanted the ball so much. He loved to chase it and get it and have it. But the only way to chase it and get it was to let someone else have it for a short time, and that was hard. After he placed the ball on the ground, he always looked the woman straight in the eye and he asked for her promise that she would throw the ball again. The game would go on forever, as long as she kept her promise. Experience had taught him that eventually, the woman--just like every ball-thrower he'd ever known--would break her promise and take the ball without throwing it.

He exacted the promise from her and then backed up a few steps, in the ready position. He watched her pick the ball up with that plastic thing, and then he felt anxiety overcome him as he waited to find out if she would, in fact, keep her promise this time.

Her arm went back, and his heart rejoiced as he turned to start running towards the ball. When he saw it again in front of him, descending from heaven, his tongue rolled out of his mouth, and he was thankful to be alive.

Inconceivable Tragedy in the Backyard

2004-11-02T08:41:00.000-05:00

Chester had not gotten to play fetch in several days, so last night, he spent a lot of time looking pointedly at me and then standing in front of the refrigerator and looking pointedly at the ball, which lives on top of the fridge, out of his grasp. Finally, around 7:30pm, I relented, and we headed out to the backyard for a little game of fetch.

Chester and I used to play fetch every other day or so at an open field nearby our house where dogs were often seen off leash. We haven't been able to go there in quite some time because of Chester's injuries. Now, he's ready, but I'd heard that in our six month absence, they started ticketing for dogs off the leash, so I haven't ventured back there.

So our meager backyard has become the location of recent games of fetch. It is small--only about 20 feet deep by about 12 feet wide. The backyards of my neighbors run the length of our backyard in our row home neighborhood.

We had not been playing long--maybe 10 or 15 minutes--when it happened. Chester jumped up to catch the ball, but in the darkness of the new time change, he misjudged the grab. Rather than securing the ball in his mouth, he snapped his jaws shut too quickly, and the ball was shot upwards and outwards with force. It sailed high into the night sky, 15 feet or more, and it landed in my next door neighbor's yard.

This was not the first time this had happened. I have climbed the fence between my yard and my neighbor's yard on many occassions. But not tonight. I was not in the mood. Instead, I told Chester, "Too bad," and I went into the house, holding the back door open for him to follow.

But he could not. He could only stand at the fence, at the exact location where the ball had sailed over, and stare at its resting place. It wasn't so much that he didn't want to come inside. It was more that every part of his body was refusing to allow him to. He was a retreiver, and the ball was not retrieved. He could no sooner abandon it there than a mother could abandon her child.

Whining, he urgently tried to enlist me to help him get the ball. No game of fetch between us had ever ended this way, with his failure to return the ball to me. I must do something, but somehow I didn't. My heart was hardened, and eventually, he had to do the unthinkable. He had to leave the ball behind.

Are You Ready for Some Football...and Political Predictions?

2004-11-01T09:31:00.000-05:00

For those of you who love sports, love football, or love Sportscenter like I do, you've probably already heard this curious little stat: For the past 15 presidential elections the performance of an NFL football team has accurately predicted the outcome of the election. That team is the Washington Redskins. If the Redskins lose on the Sunday before the election, the incumbant party loses the presidential election. If the Redskins win, the incumbant party wins the election. Four years ago, the Redskins lost to the Tennessee Titans two days before the election, and Al Gore lost as well...sort of. This year, the Redskins lost again, this time to the Green Bay Packers. I guess we'll find out tomorrow if this trend holds true.

Another Memorial for Life at TJ's Place or My Life as a Blogger

2004-10-28T09:40:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking of writing a post about the end of Kevin's blog, Life at TJ's Place, and now seems like as good a time as any. However, I can't write this memorial without writing about my own beginnings as a blogger, so here goes.

I started blogging not too long ago in May. Strangely enough, I heard of blogging through Jones Soda. How I managed not to have heard of blogging before, I can only blame on my advancing years and the fact that I still like to play Super Mario Bros. But anyway, I was exploring the Jones Soda website because they accept photo submissions for their labels. A photo of mine on a label would be cool, don't you think? So I did that and then started sniffing around the rest of the site, and that's how I discovered Jones Blogs, with this text at the top: "At JonesSoda.com we're happy to feature blogs and stories from around the web. Think of it as instant messages on the web. Read about blogs, how to get your own blog started, and how to get your blog listed here for others to read." Beneath a listing of their blogs, they had a link to Blogger, and that's how I ended up with a blog of my own.

At the time, Life at TJ's Place was a "Blog of Note" (as was the Moxie Blog, then known as Cinema24). Like many others, once I was exposed to Life at TJ's Place, I was sucked in. It was fascinating reading. Strippers and drunkards and losers, oh my! I know there is some debate about whether or not "Kevin" even worked at a strip club, but that doesn't matter to me. Kevin's way of writing about a strip club was what was important, and if he pulled all his stories out of his ass, I couldn't care less.

I commented on his blog initially, but only a few times. He got 50+ comments to each post, and it seemed like the comments I did make got lost in the mix. I tend to comment for two reasons: one is to let a blogger know that someone out there is reading their writing and enjoying it; the other reason is because comments allow an exchange between the writer of the post and its readership. When someone is getting 50+ comments, they know people are reading their stuff. I only regularly comment on one blog that gets 50+ comments to each post: Vadergrrrl's Rant Page, and I comment there because she responds to my comments and she comments on my blog. Kevin did neither of those things, so I just read what he wrote and enjoyed it without commenting.

As the summer wore on, posts on Life at TJ's Place got less and less frequent. Honestly, they started being less and less interesting as well. He seemed to spend more time writing about his golf game than the strip club, and as far as I know, the only thing more boring than watching golf being played is reading about a man practicing his chip shot in his backyarrd. But Kevin's was the first blog I ever started checking daily. It was the first blog that I bookmarked. I kept coming back for more, even when the more was "I need to work on my putting."

Since I wasn't leaving comments, I didn't tend to read them much either. But when weeks would go by without a post from Kevin, I would satiate my desire for more posts by checking out what others were saying. I noticed that a debate would start up about whether or not Kevin was alive. The thought that he might be dead never crossed my mind. I just thought that he was out of town or busy. I also noticed that as more time went by, the comments would get more demanding and angry: "Where are you?" "We want a new post!" and "I'm angry that you haven't posted anything." Those comments, along with comments like, "I live for your blog," and "My life has no meaning without your blog," freaked me out. I can only imagine that Kevin read that shit and wondered, "What have I gotten myself into here?"

On August 29, 2004, Kevin wrote his last post. The comments got out of hand again. Read them for yourself if you don't believe me. Again, people wondered if Kevin was dead, but I felt certain that it was his crazy fans that drove him away. I've noticed some comments like these on Diary-a from time to time as Rita tells her story. Perhaps I was out of line, but once I cautioned her fans in the comments section to Part 44, "Hey people, chill out. If you go over to Life at TJ's Place, you'll find out what happens [when] readers get demanding. Rita is giving us a gift. We just have to appreciate it, no matter how much or how little she chooses to give us..."

Kevin had a dedicated fanbase. Some of them worshipped him and some seemed to hate him. I guess that's the way it always goes. I wonder what makes someone keep going, even thrive on the attention (both good and bad) and someone who says, "Holy shit!" and packs it in. For instance, Dooce has so many fans that she doesn't even open up her posts to comments very often, and when she does, she gets about 200 comments in a few hours. By the time she'll close comments two days later, she has over 500. On top of that, she gets tons of email, and some of it is hate mail. But she keeps her blog going. She hasn't been thrown off her game.

Kevin and Dooce. Two people, two different reactions. Makes me wonder what I would do if I were in that situation. Like most people, I would love to get 50+ comments to each and every post I write. Who doesn't want to be adored by the masses? But there's a downside, apparently. It isn't all adoration, and for some people, the downside is too great.

Ulrich Haarbürste: A Great Storyteller

2004-10-25T15:04:00.000-04:00

First of all, I must give credit where it is due. I never would have stumbled across Haarbürste's stories if it had not been for Rita's blog, Diary-a. That being said, this is the greatest fucking site I've ever visited.

Rita seemed disturbed by Haarbürste's work. In her post where she shares the link, she writes, "It has to be one of the most fucked up things I have ever read." True, perhaps. But it's also brilliant.

Ulrich Haarbürste writes about one topic and one topic alone: Roy Orbison being completely wrapped in clingfilm (saran wrap). As if that topic is not enough, I have compiled the top six things I love about these very strange stories.

The cast of characters. There's always Roy Orbison, of course. Not surprising. Then there's Ulli, the author. Again, not surprising. But then there's Jetta the terrapin. Okay, this is bizarre and genius. A man with a pet turtle is one thing. But then to name the turtle Jetta. I frickin' love that.

After Roy Orbison is completely wrapped in clingfilm, Ulli always makes the announcement, "Roy Orbison is completely wrapped in clingfilm." The act of wrapping Roy Orbison in clingfilm is not enough. No, it is not complete until Ulli says it out loud. That is great.

The ease with which Ulli convinces whomever is in control of the situation that Roy Orbison must be wrapped in clingfilm. In Roy in Clingfilm Story 1, Roy himself agrees to be wrapped in clingfilm to settle a bet. In Roy in Clingfilm Story 2, Ulli instantly convinces Roy's tour manager to let Ulli wrap up Roy's unconscious body as a way to save Roy's life. In Roy in Clingflim Story 3, Ulli and Roy are held at gunpoint, and Ulli convinces the gunmen to allow him to wrap up Roy in clingfilm. (I won't mention the other scenarios--I don't want to wreck the stories for you.) The beauty of all of this is that Ulli need only to make the suggestion, and the course of action--wrapping Roy in clingfilm--is instantly agreed upon. It should also be noted that Roy Orbison is never wrapped against his will. He always agrees to the wrapping.

The preface to Roy in Clingfilm in Space: "This tale was specially commissioned by the 'Zoo Nation' science-fiction fanzine. Hitherto I have kept my tales of Roy in clingfilm strictly within the realms of plausibility but this scenario may be more fantastic than usual. Then again - who can say? - Ulli" Do you understand the many implications in this statement? First of all, someone commissioned Ulli to write a "Roy in Clingfilm" story. OH. MY. GOD. Secondly, Ulli considers the other stories to be plausible. I'm giggling right now.

The presense of clingfilm everywhere. In Story 2, Ulli has clingfilm in the trunk of his car. In Story 3, while in a pet store, Ulli "happens" to have clingfilm with him. In Space, there is a "Clingfilm Stowage Compartment where several hundred of the translucent rolls of joy glint softly in the cabin lights" on the spaceship. And best of all, in Roy in Clingfilm at Christmas, Ulli reveals the true extent of his clingfilm capacities. We have gotten to the point where Roy agrees to be wrapped in clingfilm. I will now allow Ulli's words to speak for themselves: "I bow my assent and make to the kitchen. But when I open the cupboard I turn ashen and begin to quiver. For the cupboard is bare. The cling-film has been used, all the rolls of it. In alarm, I return to the living-room and open the other clingfilm cupboards but it is the same story. I check the cache in my bedroom wardrobe and again there is none. I ransack the entire house from top to bottom. I look for the emergency rolls I keep hidden in the toilet cistern and inside lampshades. Everywhere there is the same horrible dearth of cling-film. My palms sweat. I wish to die." Do you see the beauty of this passage? Ulli goes to the kitchen to get clingfilm. Of course. That's where anyone would keep clingfilm. But then he goes to the "other clingfilm cupboards." That's some fucking good shit.

These stories stay relentlessly in the moment. However, we get one glimpse of Ulli's past in Story 2: "I studied at a catering college for some years but was forced to leave for reasons I prefer not to disclose." The implications here are staggering.

As a writer myself, I am humbled by Haarbürste's storytelling ability. I feel that I have much to learn from him. His mixture of the truly bizarre with the completely mundane is wonderful. I also appreciate his ability to keep his stories focused on the topic at hand. He does not concern himself with explaining every little thing. For instance, why would Roy Orbison be walking around residential Dusseldorf, Germany? Who cares? If the story is going to happen, he needs to be doing just that, and that's enough for Haarbürste.

I have some lessons to learn from this genius. I will do my best to absorb them.

Post-Op

2004-10-23T20:19:00.000-04:00

My little puppy (ha!) looks like Frankenstein...if Frankenstein's ass and side had been where his seams were.

Here's the base of Chester's tail:

Apparently, this was the result of some sort of gland gone wrong. When the vet was explaining it to me, it sounded like something that happens pretty often. The vet wasn't worried about it.

And here's the site of the scary egg lump:

This one was just full of fluid. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to pop this thing like a zit. It just seemed like we could stick a pin in it and deflate it ourselves. But I suppose it was better for Chester to go to a medical professional, eh?

The good news is that neither of the lumps looked cancerous. The vet didn't even think that they needed to be biopsied, which was great because it saved us $100 ($50 for each lump). I feel so relieved. That huge lump on his side has scared me for a long time. Since I'd asked the vet about it so often, I intellectually thought that it was probably okay. But emotionally, when I saw that thing there, I just wanted it to be gone.

Then I felt that hard lump at the base of his tail last weekend, and I got even more scared. The hardness of it somehow seemed more ominous. That, and the fact that it was hidden. You couldn't see it, but when you felt it, it was so solid and substantial.

A weight has been lifted off my shoulders. As I was leaving my vet's office with Chester, one of the vet techs who knew how much money we'd put into Chester in the last six months said, "We're hoping we won't see Chester for a long time now." You and me both, sister.

The Lump

2004-10-22T11:13:00.000-04:00

Today that lemon of a dog, Chester, is going under the knife again. This time to remove two lumps. One of the lumps is hard and can only be felt (it's at the base of his tail). The other lump looks like it might be his unborn twin brother about to sprout from his ribcage like Eve from Adam. The thing is huge, and I'm not kidding. Don't believe me? Take a look at this:

It looks like an egg hanging off of his side. We got Chester in August of 2003, and it was there then, although not quite as big. Older dogs tend to get fatty tumors, which are generally benign. It was big already when we got him, but over the last six months, it's gotten bigger.

I've asked our vet about it several times when I've brought Chester in for other things. (And if you know Chester's history, you know this has happened often.) They always say the same thing: They can remove it if I want them to, but fatty tumors are harmless, and the only reason to remove them is for cosmetic purposes.

But the thing is so fucking big that we decided we could no longer stomach looking at it anymore. We'd wanted to wait until the winter when we finally come into some money, but when I found a second, harder lump at the base of Chester's tail, we decided to just do it now. The Bread Winner just had a birthday a few weeks back, and her mother and my mother both gave her some money, so why not spend it on Chester? It's been at least a month since he's cost us anything.

Post-Sex Notes

2004-10-21T11:02:00.000-04:00

I love Dawson's Creek. Think of me what you will, but it's the truth. I own seasons 1-4 on DVD. I've bought each of them as they've been released, and I can't wait for the 5th and 6th seasons to come out. Now that I've made my confessions, I can go on with this post.

Today's re-run on TBS is from the 6th season. It's the season premiere where Dawson and Joey finally have sex. They start banging shortly after midnight. Next time you see them (the next episode), they're waking up and they decide to go for it again. Fade out. Fade in. Joey is alone in the bed and Dawson has left her a note. She's surprised. What? Dawson got out of bed?

Okay, kiddies, when you are sleeping in a twin sized bed with a person you have never slept with before, there is no way in hell that person got out of the bed without your knowledge. Hell, I've been sleeping in a full sized bed with the Bread Winner for over five years, and when she gets up in the middle of the night to tinkle, chop onions, or go out hooking, I wake up a little.

So what is the deal with this scenario? You see it time and time again on tv shows and in movies. Seems like whenever someone has sex with someone else, Partner A wakes up to a note left by Partner B. I haven't had sex and spent the night with all that many people, but there have been a few, and this just seems proposterus to me. Most of the night is spent sleeping fitfully, because every time you wake up to roll over or change position, there's someone in the bed with you who has never been in the bed before. And it's not just me. My partners have been the same way. I get up to use the bathroom--their eyes open.

And who are all these note leaving people anyway? I've never gotten up after a first time sexual encounter and left a note for a sleeping person. Frankly, it has never occured to me. If I have to go, I say, "Hey, thanks, gotta run," and usually, "How does a booty-call next Saturday strike you?" Have any of you woken up to a note? Or have any of you left one?

Maybe the reason I've never left a note (besides the impossibility of leaving unnoticed) is that I have a television and I go to the movies. 99% of the time, the note leaver really likes/loves the note receiver. So why did s/he leave the note? "I didn't want to wake you up." But the note receiver never appreciates that sentiment. Can't say that I would either. So why do they do it on tv? Because all of their tv friends have done it? And even though they exist only on tv, don't they have tvs in their tv world to realize that the note receiver would much rather that the note leaver actually just wake them up instead of leaving the note?

Maybe I'm expecting too much from television and movies. Reality is for those of us who are real, after all. And maybe it's a good trade off. What do you get in first time television sex? No fumbling. No confusion. And simultaneous orgasms. All on the first go! Plus you get a deep, coma-like sleep afterwards. Sounds great. I guess back in my single days, given the choice, I would have been happy to wake up to a note as a trade off for all that.

Over 30? Over Stressed? Over Weight?

2004-10-20T10:20:00.000-04:00

If you have cable, you can't help but see the pleathora of ads out there for the new breed of diet pills which supposedly target belly fat. CortiSlim was the first of these drugs that I saw advertised, although Relacore has been making up for lost time by relentlessly running ads every 15 minutes it seems.

Both the CortiSlim and Relacore ads follow the same formula. First, they "ask" the questions about age, stress, and that you are at least 30 pounds overweight. It's the next part of the commericial that just kills me. Relacore does it this way, verbatim: "Take a look in the mirror. You've got excess body fat around your waist, hips, and belly."

They say it like it could be a relevation to you. "The fat is around my waist, hips, and belly! I've never noticed that before!" With the first questions, you may or may not be "over 30, over stressed, and overweight" (although if you live in America, there's a good chance you are). But come on people, if you are 30 pounds or more overweight, THERE IS FAT AROUND YOUR WAIST, HIPS AND BELLY.

However, these commercials act like there's a chance the fat could be located somewhere else. As if a person 30 pounds or more overweight will get up, go to the mirror, and say, "No, I have abs of steel--the six pack still looks good. And my ass. Well, you could bounce a quarter off of that bad boy. My waist? Yep, I can still touch my fingers and my thumbs together when I span it. Oh well, I guess CortiSilm/Relacore isn't for me. Now, if only they could come up with a drug to target the thirty extra pounds of fat around my wrists and ears!"

Do people really fall for this bullshit? Do they really imagine that there are fat people over the age of 30 who are stress-free and therefore carry their fat in places other than their waist, hips and belly? I mean, is there someone out there in a cornfield in Iowa going, "If only I was happier, my extra fat would be stored in my toes!"

But there must be. I can only imagine that before they ran these ads, they did focus groups, etc. I can only imagine that they keep running these ads because they are working. I just can't imagine that there are people out there who are stupid enough to think that 30+ pounds of fat could be stored in some other area of the body if you are under 30 and/or not under stress. I guess I'm just naive that way.

More Pictures of Blue

2004-10-19T11:03:00.000-04:00

Here is a picture of Blue in his customary spot on the doormat. I wonder if he appreciates the symbolism.

Here he is wondering why the food-giving human has a scary black, clicking, blinding light producing box in front of her face.

Here Blue is outside, looking happy, but in fact he’s terrified because he is outside and being required to stay about three feet from the human, and on top of that the human is making loud noises. None of this is good. I tried to explain that we were outside for the light and that he needed to stay that far away from me in order to get his body in the shot, but his ability to grasp complex grammatical sentences (longer than one word) is rather lacking. And on top of that, when he’s scared he presses his ears back, and he’s so cute with his pointy ears with the one that bends down at the tip, and the only way to get him to put up his ears was to make loud noises, and I know that scares him even more, but is it my fault he’s cute with the pointy ears?

Broken Blue Dog

2004-10-18T09:50:00.000-04:00

I write a lot about Chester, but he is not the only dog I have. I think I've mentioned Blue once or twice before. He has issues. Many, many issues. I got him a few months before I got Chester. The Bread Winner had agreed to let me get another dog--a dog that would fetch because I'd always wanted one. Then I saw Blue, a big, black shepard mix (about 70 pounds). And he had a blue eye. I fell in love with that blue eye, and soon, he'd found a new home with us even though he did not fetch (which is why we ended up getting Chester a few months later).

He was six when we got him from the shelter. He'd been there for over six months. Before that, he'd spent the first 5.5 years of his life living in a basement. That can mess up a dog, and he's the proof. He follows me around wherever I go in the house. He panics--and I mean panics if a door is closed between us. This means I have to stand at the back door, with the door wide open, while he's in the backyard doing his "business." Otherwise, he won't do it. He'll just stand at the door and shriek. I've never heard a dog make a noise like the noise this dog makes.

He doesn't like thunderstorms or any loud noises. He crams himself into the smallest spaces you can imagine. He even climbs up on our laps, if you can imagine a 70 pound dog on a lap.

For a long time, he wouldn't come upstairs to the second floor. He slept downstairs by himself. The last six months, he's been coming upstairs to sleep in the bedroom with us. But he only comes up after we're in bed and have turned off the lights. Then we hear his footsteps coming up the stairs. It's like he doesn't want us to know he's there because he's afraid he'll get in trouble.

When he does sleep downstairs, and I come downstairs in the morning, most times, I'll see him curled up on the sofa. He is welcome to be there. But he does not get onto the sofa when I am in the living room. He usually curls up on the doormat in front of the front door. We have a dog bed in the living room, and Chester generally sleeps there, but even when Chester is not there, Blue will not sleep on it.

The Bread Winner and I look at him often as he's doing something odd (which is just about all the time), and we say to each other, "He's broken." Chester has been broken physically, but Blue is broken inside his head and his heart. We're trying to fix him. Or rather, we're trying to give him a good place to live and hope that time will fix him. He's got six years of damage to undo. We figure it will take at least three years, and we've had him for a year and a half.

He's made progress. I mentioned that he will come upstairs at night now--even if he does it on the sly. And sometimes, he'll let me go into the next room without following me. Lately, he's started doing something new. He still won't sleep on the couch while I'm in the living room, but he's moved away from the doormat and has started to sleeping on an animal bed:

Of course, this is a bed for a cat or small dog. Cramming his 70 body into it is only partially successful at best. But at least he's starting to think that he's worthy of it.

It's Getting Cold In Here, So Put On All Your Clothes

2004-10-11T16:54:00.000-04:00

Yes, the weather is changing--at least here in the mid-Atlantic states. I find it ironic that the Bread Winner and I are confronting the same exact issue we were dealing with this time last year. Namely, we have no heat. How's that? Here's how.

When the Bread Winner and I first looked at this house in the spring of 2003, there was faux wood paneling and shag carpet as far as the eye could see, plus the added bonus of styrofoam drop ceilings in the downstairs rooms. The Bread Winner looked at this and said, "I don't want to live here." But the price was right, and I had a vision. I said, "Yes, it's horribly unattractive. But that's just surface stuff! Picture hardwood floors, drywall on the walls and ceilings! We'll move the kitchen from that tiny room into this other bigger room! It'll be cute! And it's cheap!" She was skeptical, but she put her faith in me and my vision. We bought the house.

First we tore out all the carpeting, all the wood paneling, and all of the ceiling tiles. Next, we hung the drywall. Finally, it was time to re-do the floors.

This house has given us one gift: it had hardwood floors beneath the carpeting. All we had to do (ha, ha, "all we had to do," oh that's funny) was pull up all the old stuff, sand the floors, polyurethene them, and ta-da, beautiful floors. I would go into the details of this back-breaking work, but that's not the point of this post. The point is the radiators.

The house is heated via radiators. In order to re-finish the floors, we had to move the radiators here and there. This also meant that we had to drain them and disconnect them. We did all that. We did the floors. We moved the radiators back into their positions. But we did not re-attach them or fill them back up. Believe me, we had other pressing issues on our minds, and as it was summertime, providing heat to the house was not important. So we didn't deal with it.

Then it started to get cold. Rather than do something about it immediately, we--okay, I--didn't. It started to get cold. I started wearing a jacket, knit hat, and scarf in the house. It took a while, but towards late October, I'd been cold long enough, so I got off my ass and hooked up the radiators. That was also an adventure, as one of the pipes decided to break, but that's another story for another day. What's important is the fact that we had no heat and it got cold.

Now, a year later, you'd think that everything was ready to go. Wrong. We finally got the kitchen relocated this winter, and we decided to swap one radiator for another in what will become my office. The same cycle repeats. We drain the radiators. We disconnect the radiator to be replaced by another. We do not set up the new radiator. Now it's getting cold. Now we're bundling up in the house.

I'd meant to work on the new radiator this past weekend (I need to move a pipe), but I didn't get to it. So I'd meant to do it today. But I didn't get to it. Will tomorrow be the day I finally do the work? Or will it be another day of multiple layers and goose down slippers?

The Last Swim

2004-10-08T18:01:00.000-04:00

Don’t you want to throw the ball for me?

That’s it--right there!

You could pick it up and throw it that way!

Okay, you’ve got the ball. You’re going to throw it. I’m ready. I’m ready. I’m ready.

Here I go!

Splashing is fun!

Time to work. Must get ball.

MUST GET BALL.

Got it! I’VE GOT THE BALL!

Must bring ball back!

Here it is! I’ve brought it back!

Don’t you want to throw the ball for me?

Do Your Job, Asshole

2004-10-08T08:39:00.000-04:00

Two experiences I have had over the past week have worked me into a frenzy. You know, the type of frenzy that involves sitting on your ass, watching Sportscenter and blogging. That type of frenzy. With me?

But back to the situation at hand. My blogging friend Newell and I have been having a little "argument" in the comments section of his post of Wednesday, October 06, 2004, about the expections of retail/customer service employees vs. the expectations of customers.

Let me preface my opinion with my own history working retail and/or customer service. I do this because I have a feeling that my brothers and sisters in retail bondage around the globe will strong disagree with me, but what the fuck.

Anyway, I started working at a McDonald's at the tender age of 14. I moved on from there to a Baskin & Robbins and then a drug store. After graduating from high school, I ended up working very briefly at a gas station and then for a very extended time at a little bookstore, where I would work for 4 years (my longest stint with one job). During the bookstore job, I finished getting an associate's degree and got a "real" job, i.e. fulltime non-retail employment working for the state of Delaware as a computer network specialist. Although this was a foray out of retail, at least 50% of the job was customer service: "I can't log in!" "My computer won't do X!" I can't tell you how many times I said, "Let's try rebooting first." A move to Pennsylvania also meant a change in employment, and I ended up working for a community center. This job was also at least 50% of what I would call "customer service" although a community center doesn't really have "customers." I answered all sorts of questions and helped all sorts of people do all sorts of things. That's customer service.

All of this is my very long and drawn out way of saying, "I've been there, retail bondage brothers and sisters." I've answered the stupidest questions by the stupidest person. I've had someone say, "Where are the napkins?" when the napkins were literally about six inches from them. I've had people ask questions like, "When is the June 6th parade?" I also remember this one time when a charming gentleman came up to me and started yelling about how there was no toilet paper in the bathroom, so he had to "hang his ass over the sink and clean it that way," and what was I going to do about it? (Stay far, far away from that sink, if you're curious.)

So I've been there. I know what it's like. Have I always been the model of good behavior in these situations? No, of course not. I've said things I shouldn't. I've done things I shouldn't. And I've been chewed out by my boss for saying and doing those things. I deserved it.

I know that I've deserved it because I've also been on the other side of it. I've been the customer who has been treated rudely by the person behind the cash register or on the other end of the phone line. For instance, my street recently got permit parking, so I had to get a permit for my car. I've never had a city issued parking permit. I didn't know the drill. So I called the number I was supposed to call and asked, "What do I need to do?" The woman started rambling off this list of items I needed to bring to get my permit. One of them was the car's registration card. I still have the temporary registration for my car since it's new, so I said, "I just bought a car, so I only have a temporary registration. Is that okay?" She just repeated, "Bring your registration card in with you," and sounded completely annoyed by me. I said, "Excuse me, I must have the wrong person. I was under the impression that this number would connect me with someone who was supposed to answer my questions. Could you transfer me to that person, bitch?"* When I wanted her to clarify what I could use for proof of residence, she gave me attitude again.

What the fuck is up with that? I mean, does she have somewhere else to be? She's stuck there for eight fucking hours to answer these types of--perhaps--stupid questions. And I know they are stupid, but I want to make sure because I don't want to go through the hassle of going downtown, parking, going into the Philadelphia Parking Authority building, waiting in line, only to get up to the window and have the person on the other side say, "Oh, I'm sorry, a water bill isn't good enough. We need the electric bill." I'd rather spend two mintues asking stupid questions of a person who is paid to answer stupid questions. Just do it bitch! Tell me the goddamn water bill is fine! What the fuck else do you have to do?!

My friendly (I hope :) argument with Newell is along the same lines. He posted that a customer at a gas station should know the number of the pump they want gas from. Yes, they should know it. I give you that. But if they don't, isn't it the GAS STATION ATTENDANT's job to know just that type of information? I've had that exact experience, both as a gas station attendant and as a customer. When customers approached me and didn't know their pump number, it was no big deal. I spent about 20 seconds ascertaining which car was theirs, and then I put the pump number in the computer. After all, what else do I have to do? Even if there's a line of people, what difference does it make? I'll be there until my shift ends whether or not people are in line. I help the customer in front of me as quickly and politely as I can, and then I help the next one. Doesn't make one speck of difference to me whether or not I spend 30 seconds or 10 minutes with one person.

That's why I get so annoyed when I'm the customer, and I get treated like I'm a hindrance. I am a polite, reasonably intelligent person, as long as you are the same to me. I know that, as a customer myself, I've been in the same exact situation I described above: I've not know the pump number. When I get attitude from the gas station attendant about it, I say, "Hey, asshole, do you work here? Okay then, WHAT FUCKING PUMP NUMBER IS THE BLACK SUBARU PARKED AT? Four? Thank you. Put $20 on pump four."*

*Okay, I've never actually said these things because I'm not clever enough to come up with them on the spot. I'm more shocked that I'm being treated badly for no apparent reason. But in the future, watch out!

At Least I Still Look Young and Fabulous

2004-10-01T11:14:00.000-04:00

As some of you might remember, I have been half-heartedly trying to make some money as a wedding photographer. I've been a little commitment phobic about it, so when I met a real wedding photographer--someone who has a studio and makes a liviing from wedding photography--and he said he'd like to meet with me to discuss if I would be interested in being a second photographer to him, I jumped at the chance. Okay, you got me. I waited over a month before getting back to him on it. But I did get back to him, and I'm going on a trial run with him tomorrow, Saturday.

All this is not the point of this post, however. I'm just setting the scene. I met the guy at his studio to talk about the details, and while we were discussing things, he asked if I was serious about this. He wanted to know whether or not I was just in it for a few weekends and then I would drop off the face of the earth. The implication, understandably, was that he didn't want to waste time training me only to have things not work out. I will now pick up the conversation from that point:

ME: Yes, I am serious about this. But since you've raised this point, I feel like I should let you know that I am trying to get pregnant right now. Therefore, it is quite possible that eight months down the road or so, I might not be able to work for a period of many months.

Wedding Pro: Oh! So you're married!

ME (A few seconds go by while I contemplate the question and all of its implications--first of all, it's now clear that he does not realize that I am a lesbian, and I wonder if I should come out to him now or later and whether or not that will be a problem for him. I also go over a familiar debate I have with myself about the word "marriage" as it relates to me as a lesbian--no, I am not legally married, however, I am in my heart and in the eyes of my family and friends. But I do know of people, both gay and straight who, for different reasons, object to the word "marriage" for same sex couples. All of these thoughts go through my head in under three seconds and then I just give the easy answer): Yes.

WP: How long have you been married for?

ME: It's been two years now.

WP: How old are you?

ME: Oh boy. If you must know, I just turned 30 this month [September].

WP: What?

ME: Yes, I'm 30. It's depressing.

WP: I can't believe it.

ME: Me neither.

WP: No, I mean, I thought you were 19.

ME: 19?!

WP: Yes. 20, maybe 22, at the oldest.

ME: Thank you. Thank you very much.

In hindsight, knowing that he thought I was 19 makes some sense out of the conversation. Not many 19 year olds are actively trying to get pregnant, and fewer still have been married for two years.

I told the Bread Winner this story afterwards, and she laughed with me. I mean, I might not look 30, but 19? That's a bit extreme. I was wearing a t-shirt, jean jacket, and a baseball hat, but still. I'm not complaining about it. I'm definitely at that point in my life where when I order a drink and I am asked for ID, I say, "Thank you," much as I did with this wedding pro. The Bread Winner said to me, "See? It's a good thing. Now that he knows you're 30, he takes you more seriously." But no, really, that's not a good thing. I am not ready to be taken more seriously. The wedding pro might not have figured out my physical age, but he pretty much hit the nail on the head otherwise.

Around This Corner

2004-09-30T09:42:00.000-04:00

I was cruising along with my friend Beth Marie yesterday evening. We'd just been at Longwood Gardens because I had to do a little research there for the book I'm editing about Philadelphia (I managed to get myself and Beth Marie in for free--cool). Beth Marie's car was parked at the house of one of her friends in Hockessin, Delaware (Beth Marie lives in Delaware). Hockessin is a rather upscale little town where the roads are small, the houses are big, and there are rich folks as far as the eye can see. As we were driving along in my fabulous new car through the narrow, winding roads, I turned on my cd player, and out popped the tune "Around This Corner" by Sarah Harmer--one of my all time favorite artists (her cd You Were Here is just outstanding).

"Around This Corner" is a song about wondering what you will feel like when you bump into your ex for the first time after you break-up. Not the first time when you're still going back and forth or giving him/her their T-Shirt and picking up your CDs. But the first time when you haven't seen them or talked to them in a long time. The first time when you had left things hurting and raw and disappeared into a cocoon to heal yourself. And now you are healed, and it really is over, but you live in the same city with your ex, and one of these days...

I'll be coming around this corner
One day real slow
And I'll see myself reflected
In someone I used to know
And I may look away
And keep going home
And try to forget it before I get to the door

But how can I say when I don't know
If I'll feel loving or if I'll feel low

I really relate to this song because I have an ex where we left things raw and hurting, and I haven't seen her or talked to her since the "final" break-up (there were about 20 break-ups before that one). She lives in Delaware (as did I), and whenever I'm down there--which is quite frequently since my mother lives there as do several of my friends--I always wonder if one day "I'll be coming around this corner" and there she'll be. Strangely enough, in six years, it hasn't happened yet. I've only seen her once--and she was driving her car, and I was driving mine, and I don't think she saw me, but I saw her, and it just gripped me with panic. But that's the only time. Not really much of an encounter anyway.

But back to the story--I was driving in Hockessin, and the song comes on, and as I'm telling my friend Beth Marie all that I've just told you about the song, we come up to this four way stop of these two little roads in the middle of nowhere, and I think to myself, "I know this intersection." Instantly, my mind trips back to driving my ex's six year old son, William (not Bill or Billy--William), to karate lessons. The dojo was somewhere out in, yes, Hockessin, and we used to come through this four way stop on our way there and back.

I remember this one time we were driving back from his karate lesson, and he was talking about something that had happened to him at school. Somehow "gay" had come up. I was just listening to him ramble, saying, "Mm-hmm," and watching the road or listening to the radio, and then he said, "That's what you and my mom are, isn't it?"

The way he said it was almost like an accusation. There was anger in his voice, which was just covering up fear (he was a very angry/afraid child). His mother and I had never hid our relationship from him. We'd explained to him that we loved each other, etc. etc. etc., but I don't know that we'd ever used the term "gay" or "lesbian."

When he said that to me, I felt this great, momentous aura descending upon us. Here's where, just like in the sitcoms, William and I would have a profound discussion. I would be the wise, sage adult, and he the inquisitive child. We'd have, why yes, a heart-to-heart. Because of William's defensiveness, heart-to-hearts weren't easy to come by. I took a deep, satisfied breath, and said, "Yes, William, we are gay. Do you want to talk about that?"

He was silent, so I took my cue to continue the momentous heart-to-heart. I can't remember what I said, but something along the lines of "We love each other, and that's blah blah blah." I was blabbering on, filled with the light of imparting knowledge, of sharing this moment with him, and then he cut me off. To talk about something like action figures or Rugrats. Needless to say, my bubble burst, and I realized that this moment was only deep and profound to me. I took William's cue--the right one this time--and offered my commentary on whether or not Cartoon Network was better than Nickelodeon (a hotbed of discussion amongst William and his friends).

My cheerful chit-chat with Beth Marie tappered off as I relived this memory. After I dropped her off at her car, I followed her out of Hockessin towards her house, along the same roads that I used to drive back home with William from karate class. I realized that even though I didn't see the physical form of my ex, I had nonetheless run into her "around this corner." And this time, I felt loving. Not towards her, but to her son. He's 14 now. I wonder what kind of man he is becoming.

The Hits Keep Coming

2004-09-28T21:19:00.000-04:00

I swear to you, if I was reading someone else's blog and it went the way my blog has gone, I would get out a stack of bibles, raise my right hand and say, "This person must be full of shit." I might retell the age old story of the little boy who cried wolf, or simply delete the offending blog from my bookmarks and never visit again. But alas, this is my blog, I know it's all true, and I don't think I've said wolf once, let alone cried it.

For those who already read my long list of complaints about this summer, I won't repeat them here. Suffice it to say that the list was long, and it was appended to in other posts like this one and this one.

I said I wasn't going to recap, but I do feel like I should mention the financial impact of two of these items: my dog's two surgeries and my car's three major repairs. These two added up to something approximating $7,000.

With that in mind, I'll now back track to my pre-blogging days. The Bread Winner and I bought this house in May 2003. That summer, I noticed water damage on the ceiling when I pulled down a drop ceiling in what would become our future kitchen. I decided to believe that the damage was old and the problem had been taken care of. I had no reason to believe these to be facts, but I wanted to believe them, so I did. We put new drywall over the damaged area and that was that.

In the fall, while remodeling the bathroom (the only bathroom, I might add), I noticed that the plywood around the toilet was completely soaked beneath the old linoleum I was pulling up. Uh oh. With my mother's help (she's very handy), we ended up removing the toilet (the wax ring was completely non-existent) and then removing about 5-6 square feet of flooring which was all destroyed. This, of course, was just above the portion of the ceiling below that showed water damage. After we replaced the portion of flooring and the wax ring, we crossed our fingers and declared the problem solved.

Two days ago, I looked up in that corner of the ceiling of my kitchen, and I saw it: water damage starting to make its way through the new drywall. Uh oh. As this bathroom is our only bathroom, there is nothing I can do about it before the weekend, so I did my best to put it from my mind. This Sunday, we'll be pulling the toilet up again to see what the hell is going on.

But that's not it. Oh no. As (now tropical storm?) Jeanne made her way over Philadelphia, dumping what I can only imagine to be inches of rain on my little house, another problem revealed itself. Now I will share with you details of my life that you never expected or wanted to know.

I went up to my bathroom this evening to commence activities that occur in the bathroom. I didn't close the door nor did I turn on the light. I know where the toilet and toilet paper are, and the Bread Winner was safely downstairs and not likely to see me perched on the porcelain throne. As I sat there, I heard a sound. A drop, drop, drop sound. And no, it wasn't coming from me. However, one of the other problems of our house is that the faucet in the bathtub drips, so at first I thought it could be that. But the drop, drop, drop sound was not the high, tinny noise that the bathtub produces. It was a deeper, hollower, almost thumping sound.

I sat there in the dark and pivoted this way and that. The bathroom is small, and all the pipes (to the sink and the toilet) are within reaching distance from that position. Nothing. Then my eyes drew forward from beneath the sink where I had been looking for a puddle to the threshold of the open door. There was the puddle. Only, there's no pipes there. The water was coming from above. And above is the roof.

Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

I would say that when it rains it pours, or some kind of pun like when it rains it leaks, but that would be a bit too trite, don't you think? Suffice it to say, I see a second mortgage in our future.

The Waiting Game

2004-09-27T16:32:00.000-04:00

There's a suburb of Philadelphia called the Main Line. I'm not sure what, exactly, the Main Line is. I used to think it ran along City Line Avenue, but that doesn't make much sense. It must be Lancaster Ave or Montgomery Ave. Well, my musings are neither here nor there. Suffice it to say that the Main Line is very hoity-toity, and as you may have guessed, I am not.

My regular readers know two things about me: 1) I am trying to get pregnant and 2) my grandmother died this summer. My grandmother's death has had a profound effect on me, and I decided that I would wear black--and sometimes gray--so that my outside appearance reflects my inner feelings. Honestly, I can't imagine wearing a cute t-shirt with some type of quip on it right now. Black suits me fine.

In order to get pregnant, I have enlisted the help of a doctor, and this doctor's office is on the Main Line. When I sit in the waiting room, I am surrounded by wealthy looking white women. They are surprisingly young (or have had very good plastic surgery--definitely a possibility on the Main Line) and invariably have blond hair that is pulled back into a ponytail. Their make-up is tasteful, and their clothes are oftentimes shades of pastels displayed on fitted, collared shirts and capri pants.

When I walk in there with my shaggy hair (I really need a haircut), loose-fitting black pants and t-shirt, I feel a bit like the anti-Christ...or maybe just Marilyn Manson.

My fashion choice is all but unnoticeable in most of the places I spend my time. Just about every place has some other person all dressed in black--simply because it looks good--so I don't feel like I stand out. But in this lobby, in this suburb, I feel rather conspicuous.

You would also think that there might be a number of lesbians in the waiting room with me, as we are the people without sperm in house. But I don't think I've seen a lesbian yet. About 50% of the women there will have men with them, and I can't help but look at the couple and wonder, "Who's got the problem here?" Sometimes, a woman will be in the waiting room alone, and then she'll be joined by a man holding a small, brown paper bag. I know what's in there....

Men must not always bring their "boys" with them. Some of them must live too far away for that. As I sat in one of the "inner" waiting rooms (there are two inside the office and one in the lobby), I found myself looking at all of the closed doors along the hallway. I've been in several of the rooms myself at this point, but not all. I can't help but think, One of these rooms has a stack of porn in it.

There's a sign in the lobby of my doctor's office asking that women with children not bring their children with them out of respect for the women who do not have children yet. Yet. That's a nice touch. Implies that all of us will have children someday. The reality is that some of us won't.

It's a Family Affair

2004-09-24T15:22:00.000-04:00

As some of you might have noticed, I've added another blog to my little blog family. I've spent the last two days trying to make my three blogs look related. It's been quite interesting, as I don't have much experience writing code for the web. I've dabbled here and there with writing code for MS Word and MS Access, but online stuff....well, not so much. Digging into the blogger provided templates and bowing them to my will (more or less) has been quite an experience. Frustrating, yes, but also rewarding.

Am I Evil Now?

2004-09-23T17:04:00.000-04:00

Prepare yourselves for yet another follow-up about the old car.

In my post the other day, I mentioned that I was going to try one more thing to get Loki running. Although I could go through that comedy of errors, I'll skip ahead to where I finally ended up at the one store that would have the thing I needed only to find out that it had closed 15 minutes earlier. However, right across the street from this closed store was a car dealership.

I sat in my fabulous new car and I thought, Fuck it. I give up. So I went across the street and I said, "Here's what's wrong with my car--the alternator/water pump belt is broken. How much will it cost to fix it and tow it?" The nice man behind the counter said that it would cost about $200 to fix what I said was broken and tow it. Then he went into this long spiel that we've all heard before, "But once we get inside there, it could be that something made that belt break, so if we just replaced the belt, it might break again, so it might end up that...."

"Hold on there, partner," I said. "I could care less about this car. I just want to get it running and then sell it."

"Oh," he said. "In that case, we'll just replace the belt."

But I started thinking about what he'd said before. What if he was right, and the belt was rubbing against something, or something was loose and wobbly, and that caused it to break? What if I sold it, and it just broke right away again? Wouldn't that be wrong of me? And could I get in trouble for it? I asked these questions of the service guy.

He said, "Well, it would be wrong if you knew there was a problem with the car, and you didn't disclose it. But you won't know if there's something wrong with it, because we won't look for anything else wrong with it, and so that will be fine. Just make sure you tell a buyer that you're selling it AS-IS."

That seems a little sketchy. Technically, I suppose he's right. But morally, things are a little trickier. On the other hand, it's a 15 year old car with 150,000 miles on it, and I'll be selling it for about $1000. If you're buying a car like that, you have to accept the fact that it might, in fact, breakdown on you. Even if I had the mechanic check it out completely until they could say to me, "It's 100% fine," what would that really mean? I just had the car inspected about two weeks ago. My mechanic put a sticker on it saying that it was fine. Two weeks before that, I had it at a shop when it broke down the last time, and that mechanic also said it was fine. So "fine" from a mechanic on a 15 year old car with 150,000 miles on it doesn't really amount to much.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm not going to sell that car to some unsuspecting soul out there. But what do you guys think? How wrong am I to do it?

Dog Guard: the Most Beautiful Thing in the World

2004-09-22T13:58:00.000-04:00

I took Chester to the park for a swim this afternoon for the first time in over a week. When we bought our new baby, uh, I mean car, it didn't have a dog guard installed. We had to wait until this past Monday for that. There was no way in hell that I was going that big, mangy, drooling, wet, anxious beast known as Chester anywhere near my fabulous new car without a dog guard in it, so no going to the park, no swimming, no fetching for him.

I've seen dog guards before in plenty of cars, especially Subarus like mine, but I've never had one myself. Previously, Chester used to pace around in the back of the old car, falling backwards, forwards, or sideways depending on the speed and direction in which the car was going. In addition, he would pant. He would stick his head between the two front seats or between the driver's seat and the window and pant. Hot, wet dog breath with strings of drool spinning away from his jaw in the wind (no AC in the old car, so the windows were always open). He also whined. A sort of breathing whine, almost in cadense with his slobbering panting. I didn't realize how tense and anxious all that was making me until all that was safely kept away from me.

It happened today, with this firmly in place:

(Just so you know, that's not Chester. This is just an image from the web)

I drove to the park and back in complete comfort and, well, happiness. All of his anxiety, panic, frantic pacing, panting, drooling and whining were kept away from me. Like a good four feet away. He was all the way in the back, behind the back seats even, and there was nothing he could do about it.

This was, by far, the best driving with Chester experience I've ever had. The dog guard cost us an extra $300. It was worth every penny.

Old Car Adventures

2004-09-20T14:40:00.000-04:00

As you might remember, my old car died on my last Sunday, 9/12. It had been hanging out at a motel near the Philadelphia airport. I decided that the Bread Winner and I should try to get it home, find out what was wrong with it, and if it was something minor, fix it and sell it. The other alternative was to donate it to charity. Since we'd just spent so much money on it, recouping some of our losses was understandably an attractive idea. We decided to try to nurse the car back home on Sunday.

The problem (as it's always been) was over heating. The car was over heating really quickly, like in five minutes or less. You can't get far in five minutes. And since it over heated in five minutes, that meant we had to stop on the shoulder of the highway and wait 10-15 minutes for it to cool down before starting it and driving another five minutes. I drove the car in this leap frog manner with the Bread Winner following behind in our fabulous, new, problem-free car.

During one of our lay overs, I decided to look at the engine and see if I noticed anything obviously wrong with the car. Although I am interested in auto mechanics and have a dream where someday I learn how to fix cars, I really don't know much about them. But it couldn't hurt to look, so I did. And I noticed that a belt was just hanging loosely near the engine. Even I know that is not good. I looked around some more to try to figure out where it should have been and noticed some pulleys that were, in fact, naked. One of the pulleys appeared to be attached to the alternator.

Of course we tried to muscle the belt back onto the alternator and other pulleys (I've later discovered that this belt goes from the alternator to the water pump and the harmonic balancer), but we couldn't.

Like I said, I don't know much about cars, but I do know that the alternator has something to do with the electrical system, and one of the things that it has to do with it is that it re-charges the battery. Your car uses the battery to start (you knew that) and then as the car is running, the alternator re-charges it so that it can start your car next time. It occured to me that if the belt was no longer attached to the alternator, it probably was not recharging the battery, which meant that eventually, the battery would run out of juice and no longer start the car.

Lo and behold, that's exactly what happened. So now the car is stuck under an overpass in Villanova. I thought that maybe I could replace the belt, as that's not supposed to be too hard in general principal. However, because of where the belt is, I'd have to remove two other belts to replace this one. Anyway, I had given up again, but now I'm thinking that there still might be a way to get it home. I'll keep you posted.

I Am Evil

2004-09-17T08:15:00.000-04:00

As you may know, yesterday was Rosh Hashana. Rosh Hashana is the beginning of the Jewish new year--supposedly the day that God either created the world or the day that God created Adam and Eve. Depends on who you ask. Rosh Hashana is followed ten days later by Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The ten days in the middle are called the Days of Awe. You are supposed to spend these ten days thinking about all the ways you've screwed up over the past year and, of course, trying to fix all of that. Dented your neighbor's car around 2am in February? Go find him, confess, and say you're sorry. Got change for a $20 when you gave the cashier a $10? Make it right. The stakes are high. God is giving you one last chance to get your name into the Book of Life and Blessings. The alternative is the Book of Death and Misfortunes. I think the choice here is clear.

Although I am not Jewish, I can't help thinking about all the ways that I've been bad this past year. Two big ones stand out. The first is the way I treated my mother after my grandmother's death. I wasn't mean to her, but I kept my distance. I could tell that she wanted to grieve with me. She wanted to comfort me, and she wanted me to comfort her. But I didn't want that. I can't explain to you my history with my mother, but I do not look to her for those things. In fact, I empathetically do not want them from her. After my grandmother's death, I felt like I was walking a tight rope between what she needed and what I needed. I like to think that I did the best I could for her, but a part of me thinks that I was selfish. And let's not forget that commandment: Honor your mother and father.

My next big sin is the way I've treated my friends, Angel and Carrie--Carrie in particular. You may remember them. Carrie was trying to get pregnant the same time I was, only she managed to do so. She's now in her seventh month of pregnancy. Her little boy is due on 10/31. Ever since I found out that she was pregnant, I've pulled sharply away from the friendship. It is so hard for me to be around her. Obviously, she hasn't done a damn thing wrong. But I just can't take seeing her. Again, I've tried to do a tight rope walk. I've tried to spend as much time with her and Angel as I can in order to maintain the friendship, but "as much time as I can" is not very much. We saw them last night, and that was the first time since June or July. I'm messing up another commandment here: You shall not covet anything that is your neighbor's.

Even though, again, I am not Jewish, I've thought about going to my mother and my friend and confessing my sins to them, asking for forgiveness, but I don't think I have it in me. I'm not sure what can come out of it anyway. Will I be fundamentally changed by that experience? Will I turn a corner so that I can care for my mother in that way? Will I stop hurting when I see Carrie because she has what I want? I don't think so. I am inclined to do nothing, except realize that I am a bad person, and I am not willing to do anything about it.

The New Girl in My Life

2004-09-15T10:05:00.000-04:00

We did it. Many thanks to those of you who happened to read my post yesterday and give me some quick advice. I think I got a good deal on the car. Knowing the numbers is great. Otherwise, I might have wondered if I got screwed or not. This way, I feel good about the whole thing.

My new baby is a 2005 Subaru Legacy Outback 2.5 Limited GT Wagon with leather interior, a 6 CD changer, a moon roof, power everything, sportshift, turbo charged engine, and oh yeah, the piece de la resistance, heated seats. I love heated seats. A former friend of mine has always had expensive cars, so I've experienced the heated seats in his cars, and they are a little slice of heaven. I am so happy about the heated seats. That was one of the things about Loki that always rankled me: she had heated seats--they just didn't work. But enough about her. Wanna see my new girl? Here she is

Before you ask, why yes, we did spend more than we had anticipated. I drove a regular Legacy Outback first--normal engine, normal radio, no moonroof, just the basics. And it was nice. There was nothing at all wrong with it. I remember thinking, This car would be fine. We needed leather interior because of the dogs (18,000 hairs get inbedded in cloth seats in about 2 nano-seconds) but other than that, we could have gone with just the regular car.

But then I thought, Why not just try the turbo charged version? Just for kicks. And that was it. I had to have it. That car has some get up and go, let me tell you. Sure, we could have still gotten the regular Legacy Outback, but whatever car we were going to get we were going to be stuck with for about 10 years, and I knew that with the regular Legacy Outback, I would have spent the whole time thinking, I wish I had the other car. What's the point in that? So we spent a few extra K's and got the car we both liked better.

I couldn't be happier. This wasn't the best time for us to do this, financially, but it's done, and that's one less thing to get fucked up. Having to make these payments for the next few months will suck, but at least we know what's ahead of us, unlike with the old car, which broke down randomly so that we could not brace ourselves.

I'm taking my new girl out for a spin today. It's going to be fun.

New Car Negotiating

2004-09-14T14:04:00.000-04:00

I've never bought a new car before. How does one go about haggling? Well, I know how to haggle, but how much should I expect to see come off the sticker price? 10%? More? Less? And if 10% is the magic number, where do I start haggling? Around 15% off?

Anyone with any tips on this, let me know. I've test driven the cars already, and tonight the Bread Winner and I are going back so that she can test drive and then we can start hammering out a price. So that means that you've got about four hours to tell me what you think.

Goodbye, Loki

2004-09-13T18:50:00.000-04:00

It's over with my car. It's been a difficult month for us, my car and I. I've tried to make it work. I don't think anyone can argue that point. I really feel that my car has not put as much into the relationship as I have. It let me down on the way to my grandmother's viewing. I mean, what kind of time is that to pick a fight? Rude. Very rude. But nonetheless, I forgave Loki (my car). I went so far as to invest $700 into a car that was worth $1,500 - $2,000. Then, less than two weeks later, I had to put another $600 into it. I hear you, my readers, saying, "What?! Are you crazy?" Yes, I was. I was in a bad relationship, but I kept trying to make it work. I thought, if I do this one more thing, it will make everything okay, and we'll go back to how happy we were before.

Now, this seems very one sided, like I was a perfect person who was treated badly. Okay, Loki has a point of view too. She knew that I was, in all probability, going to ditch her in about three months. I was going to callously find a younger, prettier, peppier car, a car that would make her look old and tired, a car that would, most likely, make me forget that Loki herself had ever existed. That's not a very nice way to treat someone (some car) that you've been with for two years. So okay, maybe she had a reason to do this to me. Maybe I had it coming. But it still didn't feel good.

On my way home from my grandfather's house yesterday, my car revealed her continuing displeasure with me via a red warning light on the dashboard. Immediately thereafter, the engine temperature indicator climbed to the nasty red line. I pulled over to the side of the road, popped the hood, and saw the radiator fluid boiling.

As you know if you've been reading, this is not the first time. Last time, I was able to let the engine cool and then drive for about ten minutes before pulling over to again let the engine cool. Not the best way to travel, but you can still get where you need to go. Only, Loki wasn't going for it this time. I let the engine cool, and when I started the car up, the engine temperature light climbed directly to red.

By stopping every two minutes, I managed to get the car off the highway and into a motel parking lot. And that's it. We're done. We're giving it away to a charity that will come and tow it. We've put $1,300 into this car in the past month, and now we're going to get nothing for it. On top of that, we'll be getting a new car earlier than we had wanted and before we really have the money to do so.

Goodbye, Loki. I'm sorry we couldn't make it work. I was even considering keeping you and paying Philly's unbelievably high insurance rates for you. I know the other car would have been number 1, but I still had some love in my heart for you. Not anymore. You've let me down for the last time.

You're in on My Secret

2004-09-09T14:32:00.000-04:00

I know this will shock you, but I am not a particularly secretive person. I tend to tell anybody anything they want to know. Actually, I don't limit it to what they want to know--rather, I like to just share every little thought wandering through my mind. Those who can take my almost non-stop verbiage become my friends. Those who can't retreat into silence.

When I was trying to get pregnant last fall, I told everybody everything. No detail was spared. Sometimes I would be talking to my older friends, like Beth-Marie, or my mother, and I would say, "Do you want to hear about how a woman's cervical fluid is indicative of whether or not she's ovulating?" They of course would shudder and say, "God, please, no." I'd say, "Okay, I won't tell you." I'd wait a beat and then say, "But it's really cool--you see, first...." All the details--every last one of them--were forced down the throats of my friends and family. I told them in great detail about my menstrual cycle, about the consistency and color of my friend's semen, about the adventure the Bread Winner and I had at Grand Central Station picking out porn for him (the clerk looked from the porn to the Bread Winner [who looks about 12 even though she's almost 27] and asked, "Are you sure about this?"). They were good times; they were bad times; they were times that shouldn't have been talked about over lunch. None of that deterred me in the least. I had to share. I was completely obsessed and I could think of nothing else to talk about.

Then I went a little crazy. You keep hearing how I went a little crazy because of this and that, so you probably think either A) I am exaggerating or B) I have a severe psychological disorder. I like to think it's neither. The truth is that I've had two mini-breakdowns in my life. One was over the whole school thing I wrote about yesterday. The second was last winter when I discovered I wasn't pregnant again. This summer, although it has sucked big time, has yet to drive me to another mini-breakdown.

Last winter, it got to the point where I wanted to talk about how I was feeling and what was going on, but when I did, it made me crazier and more obsessed than ever. But I'd started it, and I couldn't stop it. People, so used to getting all the details, now steeled themselves when they saw me and said, "Lay it on me." So I did. But it seemed to lay on me more than anyone else.

Then there was the Big Break from trying to conceive, which has lasted from last February until today. In about three or four weeks, I should be trying to get pregnant. And I haven't told anyone the details about it. I actually even went so far as to lie to someone and say that we weren't going to start now for financial reasons. I hate to lie. It bothers me even now that I did it. But I had to. For my sanity this time around.

Obviously, the Bread Winner knows everything. And then there's you--my blog friends. You are my only outlet during this time. And I'm scared that I won't be able to handle it again. That's why I'm not telling the people in my life. I can't handle their hopes, which soar with my hopes and push my hopes higher and higher. And then there's the disappointment which I can't handle from them either. The way they look at me and what they tell me makes me feel even worse.

So this experience will exist between you and I, for better or worse, in pregnancy or infertility....

School Daze

2004-09-08T08:11:00.002-04:00

Since Dan took time off from looking for his hat to ask about my school woes, I feel compelled to give him what he desires. It could be a case of "be careful what you wish for," but only Dan can answer that.

While writing my last post in which I mentioned some of my school issues, I thought briefly that I probably hadn't hit upon that topic before in this blog. The reasons for that are twofold. First, I've been doing my best to live in a state of denial about school, and secondly, part of that deal is that I don't think, talk, or blog about it. But no matter how much I would like to continue on that path, I also feel like I must complete this degree. I'm tens of thousands of dollars in debt for school loans, and it turns my stomach to think that I could end up with the debt but no degree. As the mean boss guy in the Bourne movie franchaise would say, "This is not acceptable, soldier."

Some of you may or may not know that I am about to turn 30 (depends on whether or not you commit all these posts to memory like good little readers). So you're probably thinking, "Wow, she must be going for some sort of doctoral degree, like philosophy or something. That Oz is so wise, it must be that!" Thank you, thank you, but no. I'm still trying to finish a bachelor's degree. I've got four classes left.

Four classes?! I hear you exclaim. Just do it then! Not quite so easy. I've managed to get myself into something of a difficult situation. Somehow (this news will be shocking to you, so sit down and prepare) I managed to piss off one of my professors in the Spring of 2003. We had this big fight during class, towards the end of that semenster, and I was so shaken by it that I didn't complete the final paper for that class.

I was in a really weird space that semester, and the class was called "Women and Literature." I thought, This class sounds perfect! I like women; I like literature; what could be better? For whatever reason, I didn't think deeper than that. Now that I have taken the class, I understand that I didn't think about this quite hard enough. Women and literature. At the college level, this generally means a bunch of really, really depressing books where women either are abused by their husbands, boyfriends, father, or society in general. By the end of the book, they invariably end up dead or maybe just with their spirits crushed. If death is the option, at least 50% of the time, it comes at their own hand, but sometimes someone else (usually one of the male figures mentioned previously) does the deed. I particularly remember reading this book called The Story of Zahra and hoping, almost praying, that at the end of the book, the pregnant Zahra would please, please, please not be gunned down by her sniper boyfriend. Of course she was. I don't mind ruining the end of the novel for you because it was so horribly depressing that I would never recommend it.

So anyway, I was depressed already, and the books I was reading were not helping, and then I got into this argument with my teacher which, to this day, I don't really understand what happened. She just seemed really mad at me, but I wasn't acting any differently than I had before, so I don't know what was going on with her. Anyway, it was sort of the last straw, and I kind of had a mini-breakdown and didn't finish the last paper. She gave me an incomplete.

This situation might not be such a big deal if that professor did not also happen to be the undergraduate chair of my major department and my major advisor. It might also not be so bad if she wasn't also the professor on record for overseeing my honor's thesis (feel free to laugh), which I also did not complete. So I have three incompletes hanging over me (the honor's thesis counts for 2 classes), all with the same woman, and she and I have not spoken since the Day of the Argument in Spring 2003.

To complicate matters a little bit further, my university has a policy that you cannot continue to take more classes if you have two or more incompletes on your record for more than six months. Obviously, I have three. That means that I have been barred from taking the remaining four classes until I either A) finish my incompletes or B) get permission from the teacher who gave me the incompletes, allowing me to take other classes.

Oz, why don't you just talk to her? Yes, I should. However, I feel that it would be better if I could at least approach her with that one, little 10 page paper in hand and say, "Hey there, I finished this paper. Thanks for being so patient. Will you let me take other classes?" As opposed to, "I haven't done jack shit in the past year and a half--not even written a stupid 10 page paper. How about letting me take other classes anyway?" So I've got it in my head that I should finish the one paper first. Hence the list, hence the schedule, hence it all.

(I've omitted the French language part of this because, like I said in the previous post, it's an entire saga of its own.)

There you have it, in a nutshell. A nutshell that once housed a very big nut.

A Schedule? What Was I Thinking?

2004-09-07T15:33:00.000-04:00

There's a lot of things that I would like to do, but I never do them. There's also a lot of things that I don't want to do, but yet I should be doing them anyway. An example of the first is to play the guitar. I really enjoy that, and I get into a groove of practising every day for a month or two, then something unavoidable comes up and I miss a day, then two days, then a week, and now it's been six months since I've touched the thing. An example of the second is writing a paper for school. I got an incomplete in two classes in Spring 2003. Yep, 2003. One of the papers is a major deal--about 40 pages. I'm sure you can understand why I'm not jumping into that. The other paper, however, is only a 10 page affair, something I used to grind out in one night. But it's just been sitting there, not getting done, for close to a year and a half. Oppsie.

So I decided last night to make a list of all the things I should be doing. Oh, you should have seen the Bread Winner! She clapped with delight. That woman loves lists. But anyway, back to me. I made a list and put the items into categories: there's Home Improvement, School, Photo Work, and Miscellaneous. The list got to be quite long--over 20 items. The next step was to prioritize them and then create a schedule for my days.

I divided the schedule into hours (duh), and I ended up putting 5 items on the schedule. Five seemed completely reasonable. The morning consisted of two items, one hour each: playing guitar and working on my French (another school thing that could be a post in itself--or a play of a comedy of errors). There were three items for the afternoon: exercise Chester, work on aforementioned 10 page paper, and photo work.

Well, I was supposed to make it through the morning items by 11am and then have free time until 1pm. Didn't work out that way. I was doing this and that and I didn't get my morning stuff done until after noontime. Then I was late taking Chester to the park, and I didn't get back from that until after 3pm. The idea of starting to work on that paper is laughable. Perhaps I'll do some photo work tonight. I need to do that.

This schedule thing might be a good idea, but I think I need to pace myself. Maybe I should limit my activities to only three per day at first. Ease my way in. And how pathetic is that?

Quick Lemon Update

2004-09-05T16:04:00.000-04:00

The Bread Winner and I took Chester swimming again today. No, we don't have a death wish for him--at this point, we've spent far too much money on him to wish him dead. Yesterday, we bought him a lifejacket. Yes, you heard right, a lifejacket. This lifejacket, as a matter of fact:

Without having to worry about him drowning, I hoped he would figure out how to swim. It's the only way for him to be able to fetch during his recovery--and frankly, swimming is the best exercise for him, period. It worked like a charm. He still splashed around some, but he was kept afloat. Therefore, he didn't seem to get scared. After a short time, he looked totally relaxed, and he was having a great time. Towards the end of it, he was leaping into the water from the river bank. My dream was finally realized, and Chester was reunited with his true love--a tennis ball.

The Lemon Strikes Again

2004-09-03T15:58:00.000-04:00

As you might remember, my dog Chester, aka the Lemon, aka the Five Thousand Dollar Dog, has had knee surgery on both of his knees this past spring/summer. He's supposed to be getting certain amounts of exercise per day during the recovery process--all walking. As you may know, Chester lives to fetch. I cannot stress that enough. The dog lives for the ball, getting it, being with it, bringing it back, getting it again, the whole deal. That's one of the things that has been so hard during all this--knowing that Chester's true love has been taken away from him.

When Chester's cast got taken off this last time, I asked the vet if he could swim. I figured that this would be a way for him to fetch. The vet said that swimming was great and encouraged me to take Chester swimming. I thought, Good. I had every intention of getting right on that. Then I didn't. I'd been looking for a good place for him to swim--and by looking, I'm sure you all understand I mean thinking about it in my head but not actively doing anything. Then I heard my neighbor talking about taking her dog swimming. I found out where the swimming location was, and a mere three or four weeks later, Chester and I went. Today. That day was today.

It was a perfect swimming location. A little slow-moving river, about 30 feet wide. It didn't look too deep, but it was certainly deep enough for Chester to swim.

Let me back this story up a little bit. I spent a lot of time with Chester at the shelter I got him from. I would go and play fetch with him in one of the big fields they had. Each field had a little, round, plastic swimming pool. You know, the kind you might have had as a baby. They hold about 8-12 inches of water and have a diameter of about five feet. Anyway, this was during the summertime, and I would throw the ball and Chester would fetch it and then jump into the pool and lay down. He just loved being in that water. The shelter even let me take him out to the park (they knew me because I had adopted from them before and I was a volunteer). I would take Chester to this little park with a little creek in it--not really deep enough for Chester to swim. But he loved, loved being in the water. Have I mentioned that he is a lab? These dogs are bred for the water. Have you gotten the point by now? Do I have to relentlessly drill it into your head any further? All indications were that Chester knew how to handle himself in water.

I will now resume our originally scheduled program. I took Chester to the river, and I had a water kong with me. I hadn't used it much, but I'd always wanted to, and that's why I'd bought it. I had this vision of myself standing on the banks of a river, my feet being cooled by the water lapping against my ankles. As the sun sparkled off of the stream, my dog would look at me, lolling his tongue, his eyes happy. Joyfully, he would wait for me to throw a fetch toy. At my throw, he would smoothly enter the water and swim towards the toy, his tail wagging slightly in the water behind him. When he came back with the toy, he would pant happily around the toy in his mouth, feeling the exhileration of the exercise and the comfort of the cool water. He'd deposit the toy at me feet, waiting to repeat the cycle again.

So there we were at the river. Chester was being obnoxious, but in a way I chose to see as cute. He was flinging himself against the leash, eager to enter the water. I had a feeling that he had the same vision I just shared with you. Finally, I let him go, and he ran into the water. It deepened quickly, so that within five feet of the shore, he was swimming. He hovered near the shoreline. He knew that he would get to fetch, and it had been well over a month since he'd had this opportunity.

I threw the kong, but just about 10 feet in so that he'd get a feel for the game. I watched as he swam towards the toy. There seemed to be an awful lot of splashing going on. But I didn't think much of it. Before I knew it, the toy was at my feet again. I picked it up, and threw it into the water again, this time about 15 out. Chester started after it, and this time, the splashing was unmistakable. It was the flailing around of a dog (or any creature, really) that did not know how to swim.

Let me describe what I saw. Well, first I'll describe what I should have seen. A swimming dog basically has his entire body in the water with only his head showing. His legs paddle in the water, and by keeping his body submerged, he saves energy. As you know if you've ever swam, it takes a lot of energy to keep your shoulders or more above the surface of the water. The dog should be basically horizontal and move the way he would if he were on land.

Chester, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to climb on top of the water. His body was at a definite angle, with his head and shoulders above the water. His front legs came all the way out of the water, down to the elbow (the joint where the front leg joins the body). And then he slammed the leg back down into the water, creating a huge splash up into his face. To avoid the splashing water, he tried to pull his head back further and further, thereby tipping his body more and more vertical. I watched him and thought, What the hell is he doing? It really seemed as if he thought that if he pulled his front legs out of the water, he would put them down on a solid surface and climb on top. Maybe he has a Jesus complex that I don't know about, and he believed that he could, in fact, walk on water.

It looked iffy out there, I have to tell you. There were a few seconds when I thought I was going to have to go in after him. He had gotten himself perfectly vertical and he was sinking. I actually had my hands in my pockets, ready to pull out my wallet and keys and lay them on the river bank so that I could swim in there after him. Honestly, this was not something I wanted to do, so I waited to see if the dog would go completely under before I charged in. Luckily, he righted himself enough to flail his way back to the river bank.

He made it back to terra firma, and I watched as the kong, never retrieved, floated slowly down the river. I looked at Chester, hurt and confusion plain in my eyes. I was asking him, What about the dream? What about our dream? He looked from me to the river and back again, accusation plain in his eyes as if to say, "What dream, you crazy lady? You keep me from my true love for months at a time, and then you just throw it out there, of all places, where there's no ground, no floor, no nothing. Are you trying to kill me? Trying to kill my true love? It's all screwed up now, so tell me--what, exactly, are you going to do to fix this? IIIIIIIIIII'm waaaiiiiiiting...."

Which Sperm is THE Sperm for Me?

2004-09-02T09:18:00.000-04:00

Two days ago, I came to a realization. I did some math, and I figured out that it was possible that I could still try to get pregnant during my next cycle. The sperm bank would have to let me send in my application now and sort of "pre-approve" me pending the final lab test stating that I am negative for myco-ureaplasma. I'll be getting re-cultured again for that on 9/9 and should get the results on or around 9/16. So much for my post where I thought that would be the last time I spread my legs. Anyway, my next cycle should start somewhere around 9/17, which means I would be inseminating sometime around October 1. (That's a lot of "sometime around"s...welcome to the hell that is trying to conceive.) The point of all this is that it's possible to get all the shit in and approved and that I can try next cycle. Yay!

What's next, Oz? I'm glad you asked. Why, it's time to choose a donor. Being white folk, we're choosing from the "Caucasian" list. This is a very small sperm bank, and there's only 18 white guys available. Actually, I shouldn't say only. Obviously, if I were Jewish I would only have two choices. If I were Chinese or Latino, I would only have one choice. And if I were African-American, I would have no choices at all. (Assuming that I wanted a donor who was of the same ethnicity as myself.) So 18 is pretty good in that context, but it is certainly not the hundreds and hundreds that my friends have had to choose from with other sperm banks.

Why so few donors, Oz? Yet another good question. You see, I am using this sperm bank--not because it actively recruits gay donors--but because it is a known donor sperm bank. When the baby is 3 months old, I'll find out the donor's name, and then my child can know his/her father right from the beginning. This is important to me and to the Bread Winner. Most lesbians do not want to know who the daddy is because they want to have their family unit (two mommies and the baby) be the only family unit the child knows. They don't want anyone else with a "parental" tie to the child. I don't feel that way. I think that it is more important for my child to know who his/her father is than for me to selfishly keep the child all to myself. So this sperm bank that I am using is the only sperm bank which releases the donor's name at such an early age (some will release when the child is 18 or 21). Because this issue is important to us, we are using this bank, and that means we have 18 white men to choose from.

So who's the lucky guy, Oz? Wow, I can't answer that question for you yet. We have orderd 7 donor profiles, and we've narrowed it down to 4. Not very impressive, I know. We particularly like 3 of them, and frankly, I do have a favorite. We're going to look over their profiles a bit longer, and then next week, we're going to ask the sperm bank some more questions about them. For instance, has their sperm produced pregnancies/babies for other women? I want to know how many half-siblings my child will have out there, especially considering that there is a very real possibility that they could get to know these other little creatures. I am a little selfish in that I don't want my guy to have children all over the place (although the sperm bank does limit each donor to five families). But at the same time, I do want to know that their sperm is good and can make some babies! We also want to know how many specimens that guy still has available. We want this sperm to get me pregnant, and then in a year or two, we want it to get the Bread Winner pregnant so that our children will have a biological connection through their daddy. As there is only a 15% chance (15%!) of pregnancy with each attempt, that means that the guy has to have a lot of swimmers there, ready and waiting. As you can see, there are a few issues out there that we need answers to.

But it's exciting. Hopefully this time next month, I'll be trying to create a life....

Gmail, Anyone?

2004-08-31T15:18:00.000-04:00

I've got six gmail invites, and everyone I know who wants gmail already has it. If you want gmail, leave a comment with your current email address, and I'll happily send one your way.

Since everyone might not know what gmail is, let me explain as well as I know. Gmail is google's foray into offering free email accounts, ala hotmail, yahoo!, etc. There's a few things that make gmail different from hotmail and yahoo. One is good, one is different, and one is slightly concerning.

Good: Gmail gives you 1000mb of storage space. Until I got my gmail account, I used hotmail. Hotmail gives you 2mb. I've had my hotmail account for years and years, and being the packrat that I am, it's getting kind of full with only 2mb of storage available. That 2mb limit is also a pain in the ass when it comes to receiving large attachments. Basically, I couldn't because the hotmail account would bounce the email before it got to me because it was too big. I don't expect this problem with gmail since they are offering 500 times the amount of storage space.

Different: Rather than arranging email in a strictly chronological order, gmail has grouped the emails into "conversations." For instance, if you send me an email, then I respond, then you respond back, all of these emails will be grouped together. Hotmail (and most other email accounts) do it on a first come, first gets listed order. In other words, gmail will group all the emails in a "conversation" together no matter how much time has elapsed or how many other people have emailed in between. Hotmail (and most other email accounts) receives each email as a new entity--i.e. if I get an email and then respond and then ten other people send me emails, and then you respond to my emailed response (got that?) your response will come in after all the other emails and in no way be clearly linked to the original message (except by subject line if that has not changed). This is good in some ways, but I'm used to a chronological order, and I'm not sure if this is better or worse than that. I was happy with the way it was.

Concerning: Just like hotmail and yahoo! (and other free email services) gmail has ads associated with it. However, instead of just running random ads, gmail uses google (its parent) to search the content of your email and then display topic specific ads. So let's say you were writing about wanting to go to a Brittany Spears concert (I'm sure we've all written that email), the ads to go along with your email might be for Brittany Spears merchandise or for Tickemaster, etc. This creeped me out, the idea that the content of all of my email was being scanned. However, it's not a person scanning the email--it's the google search engine. And considering the no one's email is actually secure (how much spam do you get offering ways to get passwords?), I'm over it. The 1000mb is just too good to pass up.

And that's the deal with gmail for those who didn't know. If you did know, you probably didn't read all this, but if you did and you're annoyed that I explained something you already knew, tough luck. I'm doing this for me peeps at their request.

This post was originally about three sentences long. Thank you, foxymama, for forcing me to turn it into a long, drawn out affair (the best kind :)

More Bad News

2004-08-30T20:10:00.000-04:00

As some of you might remember from an earlier post, I've been having a crappy summer. Everything seems to be going wrong. When I went to San Diego, I'd had hopes that I was putting my bad luck behind me. I was so desperate to believe that to be true that I even brushed off catching a 24 hour bug while in San Diego as no big deal.

Among my lengthy list of things that have gone wrong were my car breaking down and having to put off trying to get pregnant. Well, I got the car back two Fridays ago after turning over $700 to the mechanic--ouch. Especialy considering that we are planning on getting rid of this 15 year old car with 150,000 miles on it this winter (when we'll come into a little money). But until December or January, we're stuck with this car. The car's Pennsylvania inspection runs out at the end of August, so I took the car to my local mechanic (not the guy who fixed it two weeks ago) and found out that the crack in the windshield is not longer passable. This means that we need a new windshield. Did you just hear the cha-ching of a cash register? I know I did.

As if that wasn't bad enough, I heard from my doctor about the last, final lab test I needed to have run before being cleared to buy sperm. And guess what--it came back positive! So it looks like I have myco/ureaplasma, whatever the hell that is. I'm still not entirely sure. Apparently, it's something that a lot of women have, and it doesn't amount to much unless you want to get pregnant, and then it can cause infertility and/or miscarriage. It's not a big deal to get rid of. I just need to go on a 7 day course of antibiotics. However, that effectively means that I will not be able to try to get pregnant next cycle like I had been hoping. First, the 7 days of the antibiotic, then re-do the labwork and wait 7 more days for the results to come back, then finally send the completed application to the sperm bank and wait 7 more days for them to process it. Obviously, by this time I am well into the next cycle and it's too late, which means waiting AGAIN.

This might not seem like much to you, but it's killing me. I thought I was taking a four month break last February, which means I would have been trying again in June. Well, June turned into July, and then I really thought I could try in August. Then my gynocologist messed up my test, and August turned into September. Now I'm positive for this weird thing that my GYN had never even heard of before, so September is becoming October. Have I mentioned that I'm not getting any younger?

I know I asked this same question in the previous post I mentioned earlier, but seriously, when is the world going to stop shitting all over me? Enough already! Back in early August, people told me that I was sure to have good fortune smile upon me since I'd gone through such a bad time. Where is that goddamn smile?

To Advertise or Not to Advertise, That Is the Question

2004-08-29T11:09:00.000-04:00

Normally when I log onto Blogger, I go straight to my dashboard and start blogging. This morning, I decided to take a look at the "Blogs of Note" to see if there was anything interesting. After scrolling down the list, my eye was drawn to the left, and I saw this sentence: "Read There's AdSense in My Blog! to find out more about how to start blogging for dollars." Like a dutiful child, I did what I was told.

I found out a couple of things. For one, when I first started blogging (way back in May), there were Google driven ads at the top of my blog. I was amused by these content derived ads, and even mentioned the ads in a blog entry. Then I noticed a couple of weeks ago that the ads were gone and seemed to have been replaced by the Blogger NavBar, although how Blogger was making money off of that, I had no idea. On top of noticing that the ads were gone, I then noticed that they seemed to have re-appeared (in a new format) on one of my favorite blogs. I wasn't really sure why that blog had them and others did not. Well, the above mentioned article explained all.

We bloggers are now welcomed and encouraged to authorize the use of ads on our blogs. Blogger.com has done the good deed of offering to share the profits from our blogging with us, the bloggers. If we want ads in our blogs, we set up an AdSense account, and I guess every time someone clicks on an ad from our blog, we get some money (as does blogger.com). How much, I haven't bothered to find out yet, but I can't imagine that it's more than a few cents. However, to increase how many cents you make, blogger.com offers some helpful hints from someone named Haughey:

Haughey's Hints for AdSense Bloggers

1. Focus, and be as specific as you can.
2. Write content related to real products.
3. Don't start a blog just for money.
4. Use a professionally designed template.

I find these hints distrubing. The idea that some of my favorite bloggers might start writing about Diet Coke in order to be product specific and thereby make some money is upsetting. I kind of thought of blogging as a way to just speak what was on your mind--a utopian state of free speech. I thought of blogging as something simple and pure. Maybe I'm being too melodramatic here, but I think you know what I mean. Can it be that this is behind us now? Can it be that my favorite bloggers will just start doing it for the money? They will no longer write what is in their heads and hearts but about Nike shoes instead because that might lead to extra change in their pockets? And even if they did do so, could I blame someone who was just trying to make an extra buck? And most terrifying of all, is this in my future? Like everyone else, I could use more money.

The blog I mentioned earlier that already seems to have enlisted in AdSense does not appear to be influenced by Haughey's Hints. I hope that she does not become so....

Fine: the Word that Means Nothing, but Everyone Wants to Hear

2004-08-27T09:02:00.000-04:00

Many people have me how my grandfather is doing since my grandmother died. I tell them honestly, "Well, he's really depressed and lonely." Then they say something like, "Well, is he okay, though? Is he functioning?"

These are two very different questions. Is he okay? No. No, he's not. None of us are. People ask me how I'm doing, and I tell them I'm depressed, and they say, "You're doing okay." When I ask them what they mean, they point out that I can get up in the morning, feed myself, clean myself, have a conversation, etc. etc. Being able to fulfill these requirements does not add up to "okay" in my book. Yes, I do all of these things. So does my grandfather and my mother and my aunt. But we are not okay. We are in pain. We are sad. We are hurting. We miss the matriarch of our family, the woman who held us all together.

I understand the function of asking someone "How are you?" simply as a part of the social contract. You see someone you know, and our culture dictates that the exchange of communication begins in a set pattern: "Hello." "Hi." "How are you?" "Fine, and you?" "Good." That's the script. From there on out, it can go anyway you to take it, but you are expected to follow that script, almost to the letter, for the first ten seconds or so. And I'm willing to follow it. In fact, I like it. What pisses me off is when people try to interject that script into something serious, like inquiring about how someone is doing following the death of a family member.

When I am confronted with that script at the beginning of an encounter with someone, I still follow it, even though I am not doing "fine." Nonetheless, I will take part in the social contract. However, when I have been spending time with someone, and the subject of my grandmother's passing comes up, and then I am asked again how I am doing within that context, I am going to give an honest answer. And I hate the way people dismiss what I have to say. "You're depressed? But you can still get around and do things? Oh, then you're fine." Clearly, they don't want to know how I'm doing. They just want to hear that magic, meaningless word, "Fine."

Maybe I should just give them what they want in the future. I just won't talk about my grandmother and how I am grieving. I like to let people share in my life and what's going on, but as it turns out, they only seem to want to hear me tell my funny stories, and this story is not a funny one.

Over the River and Through the Woods, to Grandmother's House I Go

2004-08-25T09:27:00.000-04:00

My grandmother died on July 24th. The last time I was down at my grandparents' house was for her funeral on July 29. I had been meaning to get down there since then, but when both my car and my grandfather's borrowed truck broke down (the car on July 28, the truck on 8/3), I had no way of getting there. Not exactly true. I have a motorcycle, but the week of 8/2 threatened rain, and it didn't seem like a good idea. The week of 8/9, I was in San Diego. The week of 8/16 was too busy dealing with getting the car and the truck dealt with. Now the car is back ($700 later) and so is the truck. I'm heading down there this morning.

It feels like the first time that I'll be going there, and she won't be there. I was there almost every day after she died and through the day of her funeral, but that period of time almost seems like it existed in a parallel dimension. All of my family was there--my mother, my aunt, my uncle, my cousin, and so many local friends of my grandparents. We were all so raw. We were in a haze, where we just tried to get through one hour and then the next.

So now it's been one month and one day since she died. Enough time has passed that when I go down there today, it will be "normal," except that she won't be there. She won't give me that fierce hug and that kiss on the cheek that almost felt like a jab with a pointed finger. My grandmother was soft and caring and happy to sit in the background and smile at you, except when it came to physical displays of affection. Then, she grabbed a hold of you so that you knew you were in the grip of something strong and real. Even a pat on the hand held the connotation, "Take that, take this love I have for you, it's yours, here."

I'm going to miss that today. I do already.

Spreading My Legs Again

2004-08-23T13:44:00.000-04:00

I think I should invent a reverse thigh master. Instead of creating a work out designed to increase your strength in putting your knees together, I should come up with an aparatus designed to increase your strength spreading your knees apart. I'm sure that tons of men would buy them and set them under the Christmas tree for their girlfriends, wives, or fuck-buddies. And then there's people like me who need the practice for going to the doctor.

I was thinking about this because I was at the doctor again to get another vaginal culture. The last test to be performed in my race to conception. Actually, it's more like a decathalon as opposed to just a race. You need an entire skill set to get pregnant as a lesbian, but hopefully I have finally finished phase one: getting all the shit together to send to the sperm bank so that they will sell me millions of spermies.

As I walked out of the doctor's office, I felt a sense of relief. I thought, Whew, that's over. The last test. The last time I'll be spreading my legs to strangers in white lab coats. Then I realized that rather than that being the last time, I've barely scratched the surface of my leg spreading opportunities. Getting pregnant through artificial insemination means that I'll be spreading my legs probably 3-5 times a month from here on out until I get a little Oz in the oven.

You see now how valuable the reverse thigh master would be for me. I could start my leg spreading work outs and be prepared next cycle.

Kids Today

2004-08-22T16:53:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I attended the wedding of a friend of a friend with an eye towards expanding my portfolio. They'd agreed to let me attend and give me a free dinner and access to the open bar in exchange for handing over all the pictures I took afterwards. Sounded like an arrangment made in heaven to me. I started out the day in the salon with the bride and her bridesmaids plus some mothers and grandmothers thrown in. One conversation I overheard was particularly inspiring, and it went a little something like this:

Bride: Yeah, one of my friends of mine got married two years ago and she got pregnant right away after the wedding and had a baby like nine and a half months later.
Random Bridesmaid: Wow, that's really quick.
Bride: Yeah, they're Catholic, so I guess they decided to quit the birth control after the wedding.
Random Bridesmaid: Oh, I guess that makes sense.
Bride: Or it could be because my friend was older, so they had to start right away.
Random Bridesmaid: How old was she?
Bride: 27.

Yikes. Talk about cutting to the bone. Yours truly will turn 30 in less than a month.

I've always had older friends, and I still do, but because the Bread Winner is younger than I am (26 going on 27), I've gotten a younger group of friends through her. It's very strange to be the oldest person in a group. Very strange indeed. Especially when the difference seems to be so big between the 20s and the 30s. Just a few years ago, I wouldn't have been that much different than those girls. Okay, that's a lie. I was different because I had older friends. But I did see the age of 30 as somehow more significant that 26, 27, 28, and 29. 30 denoted a level of maturity. And end of youth, sort of. Maybe the word I'm looking for is wisdom. I always thought I'd feel different at 30 than at, let's say, 28. But 30 is closing in fast, and nothing much has changed. If anything, I've gotten less mature, responsible and wise. But I guess I'm still older, no matter what else changes or doesn't change.

Dedicated to a Brave Hosta

2004-08-21T13:40:00.000-04:00

The Bread Winner and I have many dogs and a rather small backyard. Last summer we noticed that the backyard had a certain odor. Our neighbors, whose backyards bordered ours, would step outside and say, "What is that smell? Is there something dead somewhere?" You might be thinking that the Bread Winner and I had failed to pick up after our dogs, and the odor was nothing more than shit baking in the sun. Au contraire. We do pick up the doo-doo. The odor was, in fact, the urine soaked earth itself. And what to do about that?

The Bread Winner turned to her favoirte magazine for advice: Martha Stewart Living. Martha recommended planting mint and peonies. Apparently, mint, if allowed to, will grow rampant and become ground cover. Every time the dogs' paws tread over it, they crinkle the leaves, releasing a refreshing mint scent into the air. And peonies produce fragrent blossoms and are, according to Martha, dog urine resistent. (I joked to the Bread Winner, Maybe they should be called "pee-on-me's", heh-heh. She didn't laugh.)

Taking Martha's advice, we decided to plant mint and peonies this past spring. We knew mint would be easy to find, but it seemed that peonies would have to be ordered. We checked out the White Flower Farm Catalog and discovered that they were around $40 a pop. That seemed like a lot. We thought, Maybe we'll get one this year and see how it goes. Then my friend Beth-Marie said that she had peonies in her backyard that she would be happy to part with since she had so many. She pointed them out to me, and I proceeded to dig up six plants in early spring when they were nothing more than stalks a few inches out of the ground. I brought them home and planted them along our fence lines--two on one side, four on the other--hoping to create a pleasant scent buffer between our backyard and those of our neighbors.

Funny thing happened when the peonies started to grow in. Two of them were hostas. Who knew? Not I, clearly. The hostas had managed to organize themselves well--they were in with what I had thought were four peonies, and which were actually peony, hosta, peony, hosta.

While the peonies and hostas were growing in, we stuck cheap, little, white wire fences around them to keep the dogs from drenching them in urine while they were still adjusting to their new environment. But since we'd specifically wanted peonies because we understood them to be dog urine resistant, once they got to a respectable size, we removed the fence.

Then another strange thing happened: once the fence was down, both of our big dogs made a beeline for the first hosta and just pissed all over it. They did this time and time again. Every time they were let out into the yard, they headed for this one poor hosta and drenched it. I watched as they went so far as to strandle the hosta, positioning their penises directly in its middle, and letting it rip. Needless to say, it didn't take long (less than a week) for the hosta to wilt and turn yellow--not unlike the yellow urine raining down on it several times a day.

At first we thought it was just a quirk and they would move on, but when it was clear that the hosta was on death's door, we put the fence back around the plants and hoped it would make a recovery. It didn't.

Recently, we took the fence back down. The hosta is dead and has been for months. But the dogs still love to piss there. I don't know what it is about that spot, but we've learned our lesson. No future plant will be placed there. That space will remain a urine soaked memorial to the hosta that didn't make it.

It's a Girl! The Bean Blog Gets a Sister

2004-08-20T12:06:00.000-04:00

Well, I decided to do it. Who knows? It might go the way of my tarot forum and be gone tomorrow, but we shall see. I guess what I decided was that I had a lot to say about other topics, but they seemed too involved to just dump in the middle of everything else going on in my life. Now that I think about it, it's more that they seemed too involved to just dump in the middle of the nothing else going on in my life. We'll just have to wait and see how the wedding photography blog does on its own.

I know what you're thinking: "Damn you, Oz. I have enough on my plate reading the Bean Blog and the twenty other blogs I read daily. You're sadly mistaken if you think I'm going to read two of your blogs. You're just not that interesting." I hear you, and really, I can't argue. I'm practically the least interesting person I know with the least interesting blog. So I have no expectation that anyone will read Weddings by Oz. Frankly, I'm still stunned that people read the Bean Blog with any regularity.

My first responsibility is, and always will be, to the Bean Blog. I would never let down my hundreds, no dozens, no pairs of loyal readers. I will never post anything on the Bean Blog that would force you to also read Weddings by Oz in order to know what's going on. They will be separate, but equal blogs. Well, no, actually, Weddings by Oz will be slightly less loved. Now I know how I'll be if I have two children--I'll pick a favorite and make sure she gets the best candy.

Grand Central or Multiple Streams of Information?

2004-08-19T12:09:00.000-04:00

I am a big fan of a couple of blogs dedicated to one topic, Retail Blog and Where's My Hat? I love the dependability of checking in on those sites and always getting an entry about a familiar topic. What type of customer will annoy Tim today? Where is Dan's hat? Even though, very occasionally, these blogs veer slightly off course, by and large, they are always about their chosen topic, and I think that's cool. Okay, I'm not being very articulate here, but you know what I mean.

Now, I also like blogs like mine that don't have much linking one entry to the next except that they all have one author. Finding out what's on people's minds from day to day is very satisfying and sometimes surprising. Frankly, I think that it's the easier way to blog. I can usually come up with something to say, whereas many days can go by between posts from Tim or Dan because, I imagine, they don't have anything to say about their topic on some days.

I have been toying with the idea of creating sister-blogs to the Bean Blog (how'd you like that? now you have two windows of the same exact thing, mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha) which would be topic dedicated as opposed to Whatever Piece of Crap Enters the Mind of Oz. I thought I might have a blog that was just about my Herculean efforts to get pregnant. I also thought about having a wedding photography blog, as weird shit always happens at weddings.

We have now arrived at my Question of the Day. Is this too much? Would I be stretching the genius of Oz too thin? Is it better just to have everything here, at Grand Central so to speak? Or would you, my loyal readers, like to have the storylines of my life separated into multiple streams of information? I would still keep and update daily (or as close to it as I can manage) the Bean Blog (he he, I did it again). But there would be one or two other topic dedicated blogs to compliment my random musings. Hmmm, it's a thought.