I know it is lame to apologize about the lack of posting, because that presumes that I am so important in your minds that you might have noticed. It is just that some of my blog friends are such excellent post-a-dayers and usually I am too.
But I'm tired. Long week of classes and meetings and volunteer things after work. Today I did a freelance job that took most of the day.
The carpet is filthy, the car is dirty, and the shower looks like the Creature from the Black Lagoon bathed there and left part of the black lagoon behind himself.
Here's the problem with housework: when I get home at night (on the nights I get home early enough not to just fall into bed), I want to relax and entertain myself, not clean. In the morning, I am too rushed just trying to feed and clothe myself somewhat appropriately for work. On weekends, I do freelance girl reporter jobs or, you know, try to have the fun that I work so hard all week to deserve.
Which leaves when? Never!!
Do any of you have this problem too?
20 October 2007
17 October 2007
Proud to be an American?
Dear God: Please do not fool me with this Attorney General candidate. Please let him follow the things he said today about the Constitution. My hopes are up. Please do not crush them. Amen.
The thing I hate about the Bush administration most is not that they have involved us in an endless war. It is not the lies, the crimes, the tax breaks for the very rich, the fact that they are on the wrong side of almost every issue. No.
The thing I hate MOST is that I am no longer proud to be an American. That kills me. It honestly brings tears to my eyes.
I have always been a dissenter, a protester, a screamer. But I was a PROUD dissenter. When I marched in a parade protesting the first Iraq war, my sign said "Protest - it is the American way." I was proud of my right to protest.
As an Amnesty International supporter, I knew that there were so many countries in the world where people didn't have basic human rights. The right to speak freely. The right to cast a meaningful vote. To be free from torture and detention without charge or trial.
I wrote hundreds of letters to dictators and other bad folks urging them to release people who were being tortured or held for expressing basic human rights. I was SO proud that the US didn't do these things.
Well, pride comes before a downfall, as they say.
Now we torture.
Now we hold people without charge.
Now we hold people without trial.
We have mercenaries (we call them "contractors") who are apparently above the law, and who can kill innocent people without being subject to any laws whatsoever.
I feel hopeless and helpless and sad. Not at all proud. I have an empty flagpole on my front porch. I haven't flown a flag since the "Patriot Act" was passed, and at this point I can't imagine flying one again.
Please, someone, step forward. Do the right thing. Make me, and America, proud. I miss that feeling.
The thing I hate about the Bush administration most is not that they have involved us in an endless war. It is not the lies, the crimes, the tax breaks for the very rich, the fact that they are on the wrong side of almost every issue. No.
The thing I hate MOST is that I am no longer proud to be an American. That kills me. It honestly brings tears to my eyes.
I have always been a dissenter, a protester, a screamer. But I was a PROUD dissenter. When I marched in a parade protesting the first Iraq war, my sign said "Protest - it is the American way." I was proud of my right to protest.
As an Amnesty International supporter, I knew that there were so many countries in the world where people didn't have basic human rights. The right to speak freely. The right to cast a meaningful vote. To be free from torture and detention without charge or trial.
I wrote hundreds of letters to dictators and other bad folks urging them to release people who were being tortured or held for expressing basic human rights. I was SO proud that the US didn't do these things.
Well, pride comes before a downfall, as they say.
Now we torture.
Now we hold people without charge.
Now we hold people without trial.
We have mercenaries (we call them "contractors") who are apparently above the law, and who can kill innocent people without being subject to any laws whatsoever.
I feel hopeless and helpless and sad. Not at all proud. I have an empty flagpole on my front porch. I haven't flown a flag since the "Patriot Act" was passed, and at this point I can't imagine flying one again.
Please, someone, step forward. Do the right thing. Make me, and America, proud. I miss that feeling.
16 October 2007
I'm not taking the drugs
I love my gynie doc. She is one of those women that you just KNOW were the smartest girl in every class she ever took, but not in an annoying way. In an "I'm so damn smart I can't help it" way.
She has cute blonde curls and always changes the subject right before she is about to insert fingers where fingers don't normally belong. "Hey look over there? Is that a condor?" "No, it is your latexed fingers AGAIN! Every year we go through this." And yet I forgive her. She wants the best for me.
We had a brief, intense conversation about what a shit year it has been for me. Breakup, death, death, stroke. She was honestly moved. Spilled her guts about how hard losing her dad was.
I cried. She checked on my depression level. I denied everything.
"If it gets really bad, call me - I can get you the meds," she said.
I asked her for a referral to a general practitioner.
"I can take care of you," she said. "You're really healthy and most anything that comes up, I can help you with."
Of the two offers, the second was the one that made me feel more comforted and whole. She can take care of me. She knows me. That is something that actually makes me feel better.
She has cute blonde curls and always changes the subject right before she is about to insert fingers where fingers don't normally belong. "Hey look over there? Is that a condor?" "No, it is your latexed fingers AGAIN! Every year we go through this." And yet I forgive her. She wants the best for me.
We had a brief, intense conversation about what a shit year it has been for me. Breakup, death, death, stroke. She was honestly moved. Spilled her guts about how hard losing her dad was.
I cried. She checked on my depression level. I denied everything.
"If it gets really bad, call me - I can get you the meds," she said.
I asked her for a referral to a general practitioner.
"I can take care of you," she said. "You're really healthy and most anything that comes up, I can help you with."
Of the two offers, the second was the one that made me feel more comforted and whole. She can take care of me. She knows me. That is something that actually makes me feel better.
15 October 2007
All eyes on me
I hear the same birth order stories over and over. The super-responsible oldest child. The middle children who feel ignored and unfairly treated. And then the people like me, the babies of the family who never manage to outgrow being "the little one."
Every position has its blessing and its curse, I imagine.
The blessing of the baby? Being the center of attention. Thinking that everyone should always love you and approve of you just for being.
The curse? Feeling like everyone is always watching your every move. Self-importance, and the inevitable depression that follows when you realize that maybe you aren't All That.
Where are you in the birth order?
Every position has its blessing and its curse, I imagine.
The blessing of the baby? Being the center of attention. Thinking that everyone should always love you and approve of you just for being.
The curse? Feeling like everyone is always watching your every move. Self-importance, and the inevitable depression that follows when you realize that maybe you aren't All That.
Where are you in the birth order?
14 October 2007
Product placement
I just took the BlogHer ads survey that is popping up in sidebars everywhere.
Some of the questions dealt with getting product recommendations from other bloggers and recommending products on your own blog.
I wish I could have answered something stronger than yes, maybe "HELL YES." I take product recommendations from people I like because at least one such suggestion has made my life - or at least my skin condition - so much better.
Amalah recommended Curel in the blue bottle for people with dry skin.
I had suffered for years with nasty horrible scaly skin on my lower legs and elbows. Honestly, my elbows were as hard and dry as those plastic dish scrubbies. It hurt to lean on them sometimes. Eeew. But Curel, ah, Curel. I had some wenches I met the other day kind of sneer when I told them about my Curel crush, because it is a drugstore brand and therefor not good enough for People Like Them, but my skin has never felt nicer.
Jonniker recommended Secret Platinum anti-perspirant. I didn't think much about it because I had been a Speed Stick unscented gal for 30 years. Then Speed Stick changed their formulation and I got an intensely itchy underarm rash that lasted for about 10 days. Oh, THAT was fun.
I tried the Secret and now I am hooked. The best part is that my underarms have a nice platinum shine (not really, but wouldn't that be weird?)
So now it is time for me to pay it back.
Suebob's amazing product recommendations:
If you wear contact lenses and have dry eyes, OMG get the Acuvue Oasys lenses. They are the most comfortable lenses I have ever worn, hands down, far and away, insert other cliches here - they are just amazing.
And since I have wacky willful curly hair, I use (warning, site has Baaaad music)Rusk Str8 "product". I SO love it when stylists call the crap they slap on your hair "product." I don't know why it amuses me so. It is so perfectly generic. "Product." Snort.
It does not make my hair straight - that would take an act of Congress or a flatiron or something else that I am unwilling to torture myself with - but it does keep it from getting all Krusty the Clown on me AND it makes my hair nice and shiny. Ever since I bought the bottle about 3 weeks ago, people have been telling me how great my hair looks.
There you have it. Go forth and purchase in my name, people, forsooth I have seen the products and called them good.
Do YOU have any products I should try?
********
Neglect not your Linkateria. This edition contains a cute kitty story AND oral sex. Who can pass that up?
Some of the questions dealt with getting product recommendations from other bloggers and recommending products on your own blog.
I wish I could have answered something stronger than yes, maybe "HELL YES." I take product recommendations from people I like because at least one such suggestion has made my life - or at least my skin condition - so much better.
Amalah recommended Curel in the blue bottle for people with dry skin.
I had suffered for years with nasty horrible scaly skin on my lower legs and elbows. Honestly, my elbows were as hard and dry as those plastic dish scrubbies. It hurt to lean on them sometimes. Eeew. But Curel, ah, Curel. I had some wenches I met the other day kind of sneer when I told them about my Curel crush, because it is a drugstore brand and therefor not good enough for People Like Them, but my skin has never felt nicer.
Jonniker recommended Secret Platinum anti-perspirant. I didn't think much about it because I had been a Speed Stick unscented gal for 30 years. Then Speed Stick changed their formulation and I got an intensely itchy underarm rash that lasted for about 10 days. Oh, THAT was fun.
I tried the Secret and now I am hooked. The best part is that my underarms have a nice platinum shine (not really, but wouldn't that be weird?)
So now it is time for me to pay it back.
Suebob's amazing product recommendations:
If you wear contact lenses and have dry eyes, OMG get the Acuvue Oasys lenses. They are the most comfortable lenses I have ever worn, hands down, far and away, insert other cliches here - they are just amazing.
And since I have wacky willful curly hair, I use (warning, site has Baaaad music)Rusk Str8 "product". I SO love it when stylists call the crap they slap on your hair "product." I don't know why it amuses me so. It is so perfectly generic. "Product." Snort.
It does not make my hair straight - that would take an act of Congress or a flatiron or something else that I am unwilling to torture myself with - but it does keep it from getting all Krusty the Clown on me AND it makes my hair nice and shiny. Ever since I bought the bottle about 3 weeks ago, people have been telling me how great my hair looks.
There you have it. Go forth and purchase in my name, people, forsooth I have seen the products and called them good.
Do YOU have any products I should try?
********
Neglect not your Linkateria. This edition contains a cute kitty story AND oral sex. Who can pass that up?
Old friends are the best friends
Stacy did not show me her Red Sox red socks today, though I have no doubt she had them on. She is cool that way.
We go way back. We met when we were in college the first time. Her first words to me were "I have a big bottle of tequila and I live about 3 blocks from here." We were standing in line for an Eddie Money concert, and he was washed up even way back then. We were bored with standing in line after about five minutes. So we went and did some tequila shots. She snuck us back into the very front of the line without anyone noticing, and my admiration was sealed forever.
Today we met in my hometown, Santa Barbara, the most beautiful town on earth today for some tamales and rajas de chile at the famous La Super Rica restaurant. You order at the counter and sit on plastic chairs, but the food is so good that you forgive all that.
Later we went to the art museum and enjoyed the 3 Monets and I fell in that special kind of achy art love with a sculpture by Isamu Noguchi (sorry, you have to see it in person to understand).
Finally, we walked over to the SB Courthouse, quite possibly the world's most beautiful municipal building. My mom used to play there in the 1930's, pretending it was her Spanish castle.
Today, there was an art festival there, with weird inflatable sculptures on the lawn. We looked at them, then went up in the tower to see the view.
Time spent with old friends is so precious and special in a really great way. No pressure, no demands. Just a piled up, shared history of jokes and stories and love.
We go way back. We met when we were in college the first time. Her first words to me were "I have a big bottle of tequila and I live about 3 blocks from here." We were standing in line for an Eddie Money concert, and he was washed up even way back then. We were bored with standing in line after about five minutes. So we went and did some tequila shots. She snuck us back into the very front of the line without anyone noticing, and my admiration was sealed forever.
Today we met in my hometown, Santa Barbara, the most beautiful town on earth today for some tamales and rajas de chile at the famous La Super Rica restaurant. You order at the counter and sit on plastic chairs, but the food is so good that you forgive all that.
Later we went to the art museum and enjoyed the 3 Monets and I fell in that special kind of achy art love with a sculpture by Isamu Noguchi (sorry, you have to see it in person to understand).
Finally, we walked over to the SB Courthouse, quite possibly the world's most beautiful municipal building. My mom used to play there in the 1930's, pretending it was her Spanish castle.
Today, there was an art festival there, with weird inflatable sculptures on the lawn. We looked at them, then went up in the tower to see the view.
Time spent with old friends is so precious and special in a really great way. No pressure, no demands. Just a piled up, shared history of jokes and stories and love.
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