10 things that should be illegal

1. Truck nuts


2. Blaming natural disasters on something the locals did to piss God off.

3. Talking on the phone in the checkout line. At very least, the cashier should be permitted to wait, hands on hips, staring at you, until you hang up.

4. Cutting off dogs' ears and tails and declawing cats. How would you like YOUR ears cut into shapes?

5. Fox "News"

6. Using pink to represent femininity. Enough already.

7. Veterans having to fight for benefits

8. Real housewives of anywhere

9. Inescapable flash website intros

10. Calling anyone who has not actually laid their life down for another "heroic."

The befoulment of the Jacuzzi

My gym's jacuzzi is broken. No big deal to me - I never go in it for the following reasons:
1) Eeew sweaty gym dudes
2) Enough chlorine to strip paint
3) The only time I went in, it ruined my swimsuit in 15 minutes. Really.

At the front desk there is a big sign "The jacuzzi is closed til further notice. We regret blah blah blah..."

Each locker room door and each locker room ALSO have signs.

And the jacuzzi itself has the steps cordoned off with yellow caution tape and a sawhorse-thingy with a sign saying the jacuzzi is closed BY ORDER OF THE HEALTH DEPARTMENT.

AND the jacuzzi is streaked with brown clods of diatomaceous earth from the filter system, which is why it is closed. It looks disgusting.

Are you getting the picture? The jacuzzi is very firmly, completely and utterly closed.

So.

Last night during aqua aerobics class, a guy with a mullet and board shorts strolled out of the locker room, apparently looked at the closed sign, walked over to the button that turns on the jets, punched the button and went and put his legs in the jacuzzi.

Nancy and I looked at each other.

"Eeeeew," I said. "Can he not read?"

"Male dumbass syndrome," said Nancy.

Next thing we knew, Mullethead had submerged himself in the jacuzzi.

Then another guy came out of the locker room. HE got in the jacuzzi.

Between telling us to keep moving and breathe (I dunno why aerobics instructors tell us to breathe. I am always breathing), our instructor Deb called the front desk to get someone to boot the losers out.

They were sitting there in water filled with filth from the filter system, water that had not been cleaned or chlorinated in at least a week. I guess it is still warm for some reason.

The desk staff reacted with their usual aplomb and efficiency, which meant not at all.

By now, the whole class was hooting and catcalling at the jacuzzi losers. If you don't want to be bothered in life, don't do stupid stuff in front of a class of older women. Just don't.

Finally Mullethead realized something was up (!) and looked around with The Look of the Terminally Dim. He got out of the jacuzzi and walked over and GOT IN THE POOL.

"Eeeeew," the class moaned. The only thing worse than seeing someone soak in filth is to have the filthy person bring their ook into your clean swimming pool.

But you know how they say there's someone for everyone?

Soon enough, Mullethead had struck up a conversation with Iris, the Fox-News-loving, Glenn-Beck-worshiping woman who thinks Sarah Palin should be president because she is "so pretty."

I think they might make a Love Connection! (And next thing you know, they will probably be breeding. So it goes.)

The list

My friends Spike, Lucky Spud and Doodle went to Vegas on an ill-fated trip and had so many bad things happen that they finally started a bulleted list, just so they could remember them all, lest they leave anything out of the tale of woe.

It is in this spirit of marinating in the badness that I bring you: My Week, The List of Horror

1. Mom got chest pains


2. Poor Swine Flu baby spewing germs all over ER waiting room


3. Blessedly short Swine Flu emergency waiting room wait


4. Followed by all-day in Swine Flu Emergency Room


5. Noisy, horrible, uncomfortable ER packed to capacity


6. Dad such a mess he didn't recognize a restaurant where he had eaten literally hundreds of times


7. No water or bedpan for mom for hours at a time


8. No food offered for mom from 7 am to 9 pm


9. Angioplasty


10. My last day at work cut to 2 hours squeezed in


11. Cleaning my cubicle


12. Saying goodbye to beloved co-workers in a rush


13. 3 day old dishes rotting at home


14. Not able to spend any time at home because landlord was sealing driveway and Goldie was trapped in hot car


15. Standing in hospital hallway for 90 minutes with 91-year-old dad and sis because no one knew where mom was


16. 3 nights on my folks' "block of cement" guest room bed


17. Return of sciatic pain in my legs due to #16


18. Saturday spent at medical labs, with Medicare nurse and doing a freelance job


19. Sunday morning flat tire


20. Tire store closed on Sunday

Ok, it wasn't ALL bad.

1. Mom made a good recovery. They caught it just in time.


2. My sis PK came far to rescue us when I was freaking out because the angioplasty fell on my last day at work and I needed to go clean out my cubicle and say goodbye. She really, really saved the day.


3. A nice hospital employee named Devin very kindly walked me and my lost dad around the hospital when we couldn't find mom, and his sweet gesture swept the rest of the staff's cluelessness and rudeness right away.


4. Mom promised to go back on her heart meds.


5. If nothing else, it kept me from thinking about my last week at work


6. I had an understanding manager who said "Of course family comes first" when I needed to take time off

Tell me about the FUN thing you did this week.

Helter skelter

How often do you think to yourself "There is something seriously wrong with me?"

Often? Please say often. That way I won't feel so alone.

Today I was walked Goldie at my old community college and parked over by the swimming pool. I used to spend an hour a day there doing laps, back and forth in the glassy blue water, composing poetry as I listened to the bubbles in my ears.

I walked up to the fence and looked in and suddenly felt like I had been dropped down an elevator shaft. Darkness zoomed up around me.

I was instantly nauseous and reeling. I grabbed the chain link fence to keep from toppling over.

The pool was empty. It wasn't the sight of my beloved swimming pool empty that got to me. It was just...oh, here it goes - empty swimming pools horrify me in a way that I can't even explain.

It is not rational. It is blown out of proportion. It is more than a bit ridiculous. And it happens every single time.

I staggered back from the fence and kept walking Goldie around the campus for about half an hour, but I couldn't get that gaping empty swimming pool out of my mind.

I felt sick and weak and bad. I just limped on, propelled by the force of a determined 65-pound mutt on a squirrel hunt.

Toward the end of the walk, Goldie sat down suddenly and began madly licking a back foot. I looked at her paw and saw what looked like a moderate gash, like she had stepped on something.

I urged her on because there was nothing I could do to help her. In the middle of the street, she sat down and began licking and chewing and would not move. Fortunately, it wasn't a busy street, but finally a car came along and I kind of dragged her over to the edge.

"Is he ok?" the man in the car asked.

God bless him. I told him she was ok, just had a little cut. I really appreciated him asking - just one human letting another know that they cared. I love people like that.

I sat down on the sidewalk and inspected Goldie's paw more closely and found a big thorn. I pulled it out and we waited a bit and she recovered enough to start rooting in the bushes again.

Then I realized my fear and nausea was all gone. Funny how sometimes a small crisis can return our focus, bring us back into ourselves and make everything ok again.

So make me feel better and tell me about your irrational weirdnesses. Come on. You know you want to.

In which I swear a lot and talk about tits

So marketers have decided to target men's interest in breasts as a way to get them to care about breast cancer. Gah.

The best way we can get men to care about breast cancer is to remind them that it is all about much-beloved boobies, those soft and lovely objects of desire? Lord help me.



These ads make me sick. Yeah, titties are great fun for everyone but holy cats, give me a break already. To get a few more dollars for the cause, we further objectify women and, in the process, play into the idea that men are hopeless, sex-crazed goons who can't get their heads out of their asses unless a woman is shaking her boobs in their face. (Mixed metaphors our specialty).

Here's a hint for the marketers: breast cancer is a deadly, serious disease that affects a WHOLE WOMAN, not just her fun-sacks.

And another hint: most people - women included - don't give breast cancer much of a thought unless it has affected someone they know or unless they are in the radiology office for their yearly boob-smashing. And making it all about their lovely lady lumps isn't going to help.

"I pledge allegiance to my girls, to my chi-chis, to my hooters, to my ta-tas, to my gazongas. . . ."

Gah. I pledge allegiance to a worldview that represents women as whole humans, not just collections of sexually appealing parts.

Screw you, Susan G. Komen Foundation. Go take a 3-day walk and maybe when you get back I will be over hating your stupid ideas.

"The only people who could object to such ads are advocates for other kinds of cancer awareness." Really, Dan Neil? I don't think so. This is one woman who thinks that people can act like mature adults when they are discussing serious, life-threatening diseases instead of Hugh Hefner after he has had his Viagra prescription refilled.

What is next? Oh, I know! "Donate to help prevent Female Genital Mutilation and you might get laid by some hot African babe!"

Am I serious? Serious as cancer. Which, as you know, may affect my beautiful, bouncy boobs which I have right here on the front of my chest, because I happen to be a woman.

I am going to go beat my couch into stuffing with a tennis racquet. Good night.

One love

My sister lay there, intubated, paralyzed, her lips cracked and dry around the plastic tube that had been forced down her throat.

I sat there alone with her, listening to the machines beep and hum, the air being forced in and out of her body.

"I wish we were at a Neville Brothers concert instead of doing this," I said.

Her eyes widened. She turned her head toward me. Around the tube, she mouthed, "No shit."

Both of us sat there in silence, tears leaking from our eyes.

"Oh, god, this sucks," I said. That was the last thing I remember saying to her. Doctors came in, the bustle of the hospital started, and she died the next morning.

*******

Yesterday I sat in the shade on a hillside on a perfect warm day, thousands of people in beach chairs crowding the hill below me, a open-air stage at the bottom.

When the Neville Brothers took the stage, I burst into tears again, remembering. CC and Jim comforted me as I spilled my story.

Then I went down and bounced around like a dancing fool on the lawn in front of the stage.

When Aaron sang a medley of "Amazing Grace," "One Love" and "Train to Jordan," my heart was stretched wide open with joy. I know she was there with me. She had to be.

One of my more unbelievable posts, if you know me

CC got me to go see a small community production of "Tommy" last night.

I KNOW.

Those who know me are aware of how much I hate musicals. And of how much I hate psychedelic-era anything beyond tie-dyed t-shirts.

(A note on why I hate musicals and why I love opera: in opera, the people can sing and they sing everything, so it is all of a piece. In musicals, you get action, then the action is interrupted with song and dance in such a weird phony way. Plus they do that yelly singing. Ick. No, I do NOT want to go see "Wicked," with you.)

So CC kind of had to drag me to see Tommy. My friend Jim went too, also reluctantly.

We had a great time.

It was fun in a "Let's Put on a Show," kind of way. These local people, mostly young, all talented, found a performance space, rehearsed, made costumes, put together a multi-media kind of thing...and it was really great. The place was packed and everyone in the audience knew someone who was performing.

At the end, there were flowers tossed and lighters and cell phones waved á la a real rock concert, and goodwill flowed like wine.

It's always interesting to me, the things we need almost as much as food and water to keep us alive. Art. Drama. Literature. Music. Beauty. People will die for these things, literally. Something in us is fed by these crazy, abstract things we do. What feeds you?

How we treat each other

Some fans from the parade yesterday. Couldn't we all use a cheering section?

I've been thinking about the effects people have on each other lately. How different energies make us feel.

This line of thought was inspired by some of the coolest people on the internet: Jen Lemen, Tracey Clark, and Andrea Scher.

Even though I don't know these women well, I see their influence everywhere in the blog world. It is like ripples in a pond. The people who come closest to them become more creative, braver, more filled with life.

And then there are other people. The opposites. Those who suck your life energy, who drag you down, who leave the world a little darker each day. They aren't necessarily evil. In most cases, it just seems like they can't help themselves.

Imagine this: you are given an award. Some random award from work or an organization you belong to. You are probably going to tell people you know. There are those you can't wait to tell, because they say things like:

• That is great! You so deserve it!
  
• I know you have worked hard and I love seeing you get rewarded
  
• This is just the beginning of good things for you
  

Their eyes shine, they hug you, they want to make you do more.

There are others who you don't feel so good about telling. You hope that they will share your happiness, that they will, for once, be able to be there for you, to cheer you on. But once again you are disappointed as you hear them say:

• Oh, I bet they give lots of those awards
  
• That's what they give you instead of money
  
• Awards don't really mean much
  

The black cloud descends. Your energy level sinks. It's like they can't wait for you to climb up a little so they can knock you back down. Like they take your happiness and feed the endless black hole they have inside themselves.

If you call the dark people out about their negativity, they counter with something like "I'm just being realistic," meaning it is YOU who is wrong, not them.

I don't know what it is in me that gets me so pulled in to the darkness and so dismissive of the light. But I am going to work on believing the supportive people and in keeping away from the others.

I have already come a long way. I have had to work like hell to climb out of some of the holes I have let myself be pushed down into - places where I doubted my purpose, my talents, my very reason for existing. I have been there and I'm not going back.

Anyone want to join me in jumping up toward the light?