Posts (page 2)
This goes out to all my Voxland perimenopausal girlfriends out there. Read this and then give yourself a snack and or a nap in honor of Who You Are Right Now!
Yesterday I was "talking" with my dearly beloved about the kids, and some of the issues we face as a blended family. Quotation marks are needed because you and I both know it was more like we were fighting like a couple of tipsy seagulls. Skawking. Lotsa pecking and flapping about.
Yes. Some harsh words were spoken. Yes. I did indulge in a crying jag. Yes. A few social drinks had been had by all. Beers and tears...one usually follows the other in my world. But at one point I do recall wailing, and rightly so............"I am doing the best I can."
So feeling like a Clinically Depressed Giant Pile of Ass this morning...I did some thinking and some reading. And this is what I have decided on the subject (and so it shall be):
1. We are always doing the best we can based on the totality of who we are and what we believe at each moment.
2. Because as creatures, we are hard-wired to shrink from pain and move toward feeling good.
3. However, though sometimes our choices are mistakes, the choosing was not.
4. Therefore, let it now be resolved that doing the "best we can" ought to be good enough for us all.
And so today I declare that everyone (even those we really don't like at all for various very obviously solid or not so solid reasons) just very well may be doing the best they can for today.
I have been on a hiatus from Vox and feeling badly about it too. But now I am back...too much work related hysteria, and a bit of a dry spell in terms of writing. Will post something soon.
Lately, kids, I have been taking stock. Mainly because sometimes when I am sitting across from someone who barely knows me, or thinks they know me, or tells me something about myself that they think they have figured out, I am tempted to reach across the divide, take their hand and say, "Do you know who you are trifling with?" See I have a motherly veneer, a generous spirit and it fools certain fools into thinking they can put me into a category or dismiss my power.
I have earned every scar, every gold star and every reason to sing off-key or laugh too loudly or bare my life for others if I want to. I have seen things. I have been places. I have walked long miles into some harsh winds. You think you know me? Try again.
I have been a cheerleader, a waitress, a protester, an abused woman. I have been a stay-at-home mom and a working mom. I have experienced abortion, miscarriage and the death of a son. I have gotten into the New York Times news room on sheer persistance and Midwestern niceness. I have feared for my life. I have been arrested. I have faced my own arrested development. I have played on the first varsity girls soccer team in the state. I have appeared in an after-school movie. I have raised three sons alone. I have lost my shoe while stinking drunk. I have lost financial security. I have won awards as a journalist. I have been hounded by lawyers and creditors. I have been given hundreds of thousands of dollars from the people who love me most. I have failed and had to try again as a parent. I lived for 18 years with another's mental illness. I have filed a restraining order. I have climbed mountains. I have written books. I have had great love. I have had long years with none. I have believed and I have doubted. I have built things with my own hands. I have broken things out of rage and necessity. I have been a good and trusted friend. I have been robbed. I have stolen. I have been fucked over and well-fucked.
And that's just the short list.
WHEW, PEOPLE!
I just came up for air after a week and a half of being caught in the swirling vortex that was the introduction of a controversial proposed piece of new legislation.
Press conference, media blitz, scheduling nightmare, phone 'n email answering melee.
My boss introduced a new bill he authored that would require all child sex offenders convicted of first or second degree assault to have bright green license plates on their cars.
Every news outlet from here to the UK (Joel did an interview today with Irish National Radio) picked it up including CNN, Fox News and everyone else in between and including local news outlets everywhere. Plus "folks" from all over the country called (ME...the phone monkey) to discuss, express concern for the offenders, tell me their tales of woe, swap recipes and or ideas for harming said offenders and or corraling them all, suggest more bills for plates for everyhting from drunk driving to puting on makeup while driving, etc., etc......blahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Do I sound like I am babbling and repeating myself (or possibly could?)...cuz I am.
Hey everyone! Here's a self-revelation sure to make everyone cringe....I am a selectively and illogically jealous person.
Yes. I know it's hard to imagine. Bear with me tho whilst I bare my decaying inner moral fibers. Most of my worst moments in this department spring from certain things the Numister does or says. Things a better adjusted person, who is say less of a tyranical sensitive tooth, might just casually and lightly shrug off as the jackassery or insensitivity of men/people in general. None of that easy breezy Covergirl crap for this girl. Oh no.
Let me share an example. I have a long and burning hatred of Jennifer Love Hewitt (you know, the "My jugs hear dead people" girl on tv's Ghost Whisperer show). My friend Donna helpfully brings all tidbits she sees on the internet of her bland mediocrity and limited intelligence to me like small gifts. She doesn't understand this hatred, but finds it endearing. I don't hate her because she has no acting talent. I don't despise her because she can't sing. I don't want to hold a pillow over face because she has made a career out of two giant glands....though all of that certainly contributes to my disdain. I hate her because on occasion the Numister likes to point out to me how hot he thinks she is.
Another example. Rachael Ray. The hideously overhyped Food Network chipmunk with the voice like two bricks hitting together. I could despise this woman because she is not fit to be a sous chef at an IHOP, let alone allowed on tv. Because she schlepps cookbooks full of unappetizing slop. Because she has whored herself onto every box of Ritz crackers I ever hafta see in grocery aisles nationwide. Nope. I hate her because the Numister points out how cute he thinks she is whenever we run across her show. Ug.
As for real people, like that we actually know....not so much. Miniscule incidents. But I fully blame him for those. Not the women. And I don't hate on them or want to do them bodily injury.
I know I do not deal with loss well (if at all) and so I am surmising that losing something I think should be mine (as in the hotness and or cuteness rankings) is part of my inner beast. Why he says what he says is one of the world's greatest mysteries and surmising what is going on in the male melon is pretty much useless.
Maybe it is just safer for both us to play out this particular wrinkle in our relationship with tv personalities who really only amount to little moving pictures on the front of a screen.
I have been jonesing for something to carp about...and as if the Powers That Be ("Satan?...Is that you?") have been listening, my application to bitch has been granted. Aaaahhhh.
In the news....the DePauw University sorority flap. This is over the dumping of the so-called ugly Betty's, the supposedly overweight and under-accessorized members of Krappa Krappa Kri (in your warm beer). According to the scorned women, they were asked to sex themselves up....suck up more liquor.....whore about.....slap on A BIT MORE makeup OR else stay upstairs behind closed doors during rush week. Thank you very much.
Then in a REALLY obvious move they were given alumni status (also known as the bum's rush) and told to move their ample behinds outta the sorority house under the guise of a lack of "committment" to recruitment. Begone real girls...we only want Girls Gone Wild and their skinny little pink behinds around these here parts.
M'kay.
The savvy young women went to the media and tearily, outragily, told their tales of Imagism. Prettyism. Slender slander.
First thought I had: sororities sound like one of the seven levels of hell to me, but what the hey. If you wanna do the Greek thing...go sister. Still. What do I know, except if you were my daughter, my baby girl, I might tell you that these places are, shall we say, made for these kinds of situations.
Second thought: I hope the university throws the craptastic sorority off the fucking campus. (Sorry for the french...I've had a couple of Chardonnays...what of it? I'm not drivin'!)
Third thought: To the deliciously plump, bespeckled, beautiful Asian American young thing on CNN getting all teary over having been asked to leave the KKK....screw them! Raise your fist girl. Keep getting your straight A's and kicking most of the boys' asses in your trig class. Keep achieving. Keep speaking the truth no matter if it makes your makeup run a bit on CNN. Make them all bow. You will someday be a lawyer or a chemist or a SMART woman raising smart kids. Not a silicone stuffed, empty-headed, trout-pouted, tarted up, pretending not to be whip-smart drunk-girl-so-the-guys-will-like-you-slash-take-advantage-of-you-party-doll-whore.
Darn, I wanna play more, but the Numister has made his red ass chicken wings and is starting to get disgruntled because I am not eating them......all right already, I'm coming! Can't you see I'm making ART here? Sheesh!
And so it goes...the letting go. I will try to post a picture this evening. Or tomorrow.
And now for a report. Things about going gray you all may wish to consider for someday....
1. It effects skin tone...thus new makeup is needed. Cha-ching.
2. Gray (or in my case silver and white) hair is much drier. WHOA NELLIE is it much drier. Again, new products are suddenly needed as well as boatloads of conditioner, glossing, spray on shine etc.Cha-Cha-Ching.
3. It effects color choices in clothing. All the warm colors (mostly rusts and golds) I used to be able to pull off...mmmm, not so much. Cha-Cha-Cha-Chingaling.
So, in effect, the only category missing here for All the New Spending That Must Be Done is in the shoe department. I don't think I can successfully convince the Numister all my shoes are JUST SO WRONG for the new me. Dayum.
A Valentine's Day shout out to all my Vox people....may you find little bits of nourishment on every corner of your day and know that at least one living thing in your life finds you simply irresistable on a regular basis. And now...a love poem and picture...
Marriage
for Hannah
“Your feet
smell like
grass and pumpkins,”
she tells the dog,
who clearly needs
to bathe,
whose hairy face
smells like a fish bowl
left to its own devices.
She loves him and his stink
like the wife and mother
she already is at 6.
We should not disdain her for it.
To us he reeks
of dirty feet and old dog.
To her, he is a garden.
JLClark c2004
I wish it were 78 degrees outside and I could ask you over after work to sit on my stoop for a beer and a confab. We could swap the latest gossip, put our feet up and share memorable beauty disasters and successes we have had or personally witnessed. We could title the theme of our discussion, "When Beauty Goes Bad: Recidivism Rates and the Cost to Societal Infrastructures."
For example, we could generally agree that we hate it when ladies color outside the lines with their lipstick or lip pencils and how WE ARE NOT fooled into thinking they have fuller lips than the ones The Good Lord gave them. We would also join hands and sing kum-bi-ya in mournful tones to mark our mutual distaste for the practice of pairing really dark lipliner with lighter lipstick or gloss.
We might talk about the wrongful use of foundations. Both color-wise and amount. Of course we would reminisce about Missus Orange Head...the lady who worked at the Kmart since time began (or since we moved here) whose foundation was, okay yes, you guessed...orange. Coppery orange. Inhumanly orange. Like, "I didn't know they even made a foundation that orange," orange. And how you fondly referred to her as Orange Head on occasion and everyone in the room immediately knew who you were talking about. She also wore a wig with a headband (talk about gilding the tiger lily)...but that is another story for another day.
We would definitely raise our fists against racoonesque black eyeliner for daytime wear (or anytime it ain't applied with restraint after 6 pm). We'd have to discuss the tragedy of hair dyed and fried to heinous troll doll crispy whisps (try saying that fast after a few social drinks). And we would most likely tell a story or two on ourselves, admitting the time we cut our own hair with a manicure scissors in college for reasons that are still unclear. Or that unfortunate time period in our pasts when we got suckered into attempting to "sculpt" cheekbones by "shading" with brownish products and or bronzers that ran us all amuck.
I'm just sure we would debate and rank the horrors of overplucked eyebrows, feathery lispstick, wily facial hair and gals that definitely need to wax but don't and laugh and throw empties over our shoulders with perfect aim into the recycling bin.....if only (heavy sigh)
