Wrap your head with this material...

I was going to quit blogging but I suck at quitting stuff. I decided to quit, thinking I'd make some decisions about my professional life or possibly put some energy toward attempting to get paid for writing, but I didn't do either of those things. Also, I missed blogging. So hopefully someone will still read this because otherwise I'm just talking to myself in written form. Which is not all that far from crazy. So, you ready for a ramblingly, random post of shit-I-haven't-spouted-since-I-haven't-blogged-in-weeks? Good. Here we go. At a training recently, the girl sitting next to me also had a 7 month old. What're the odds? Anyway, at one point she said, "Can I ask you something personal?" I held my breath preparing for a very personal question. "Are you nursing?" Really? That's personal? Since when? Last I checked I'm the girl you tell that you keep a dildo in your glovebox and like to be called "bitch" during sex. I'm ...

Do you have some days that are mentally stimulating? Where you just have all these interesting and seemingly novel ideas pop in your head? Like a muse has been playing songs in there all day. I always think "oh, I should toss that in a blog" on days like that. "ooh and that too." And it'll go on all day and I'll have enough for one of those vomit-mouth mishmesh blog entries I'm so fond of. But then, half the time by the time I open the lap top to write it, I can't remember a damned thing. Its like the muse is really a children's book character that I only I can see. "I swear I had a fascinating epiphany to share! No, really, I did." Anyway, since the really interesting ideas are probably being hoarded by that tooth fairy, muse bitch, I'll share what's left. I was watching a documentary last night about this guy who was at a party when he was 16 and someone was murdered. He was falsely accused and lumped into a group with the act...

Know what's awesome about birthdays? Um, everything. I went for a morning swim today. For my birthday, I allowed myself to be late to work and staff meeting so that I could be weightless and wonderful for a half an hour. It was worth it. I thought about all the birthdays I've swam on. Which is most of them. (My birthday's at the end of freakin July. Its hot. And I love swimming.) The year I swam hard and fast laps in St. Louis before I ended up getting drunk enough to ask my husband out. Before he was my husband I mean. Before he was anything but my friend. And being my friend was huge. But friend crushes are scary. I remember I heard a song in the gym pool that morning that made me think of him. I had planned to out myself and my crush and the morning swim helped me fortify myself in my plan. Or the years when I was a kid and would go to the town pool. I remembered the year I went with girlfriends to a water park. Its been a lot of good birthdays. I have s...

Ever think about what rules you follow and why? I do. Sometimes I really want to break rules just because I'm in that sort of fuck-the-system mood. Which is weird since I work for the system. Sometimes anyway. I generally follow driving rules because I think they're based on safety and I'm scared of dying in the car. It seems like a really likely place for death. It certainly factored in to my decision to have a homebirth. I didn't want to put my 10-minute old child whose bones haven't calcified into a deathtrap and drive home. Just seems like dangerous to me. But then other people feel like its dangerous to have a baby at home. As in NOT in a hospital. Its such an assumption. Everyone just assumes they'll have a baby there. And that you'll have your baby at a hospital and that I'll have my baby at a hospital. But I'm not really planning on going to the hospital. I'm planning on pacing my house and listening to music and cutting up vegetables and...

Ever lay on the couch and watch crap for so long that when you stand up, your perception is all off and it makes your eyeballs feel funny? Like they're on sideways. I was at the police station today watching an interrogation and it was kinda like that. Only with more nausea involved. On account of the angle of the cameras and the weird way the digital images didn't flow but jerked. And the echo. En espanol. It was a little surreal. And nauseating. But I mentioned that. The deal is the guy was accused of touching a four year old. Which is why I was watching the interrogation. He denied it of course. Its no fair being four. Or three or two. You can't tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Its like your stories have their eyes on sideways and can't get out the whole in your throat. And none of us can be sure of your story when its all Alice-in-wonderlandy. The story's true, its just hard to see how the parts fit together. Cops want me to have t...

You ever notice how much we downplay fun? If someone's talking about a really good time they had, their eyes crease with joy and they get all lit up about it but if there's something serious going on, they'll excuse themselves for talking about something trivial. I wonder if the trivial thing isn't the serious one. If focusing on the whimsy and joy of the little things is really what makes for the spread of benevolence and joy. And isn't that meaningful? Is there anything more meaningful? Next time you throw a water balloon or see a funny movie or go sledding or play a joke on a friend or make a child giggle, tell me what's really important.

Know how I know? I don't know why, but whenever I see shoes like this I think, "I want to kick her/his ankle." Its sort of like sticking your finger in someone's mouth while they're in the middle of a yawn, or pushing your index finger into the middle of a person's bruise, or when someone's squatting on their haunches pushing them over. And I do all those things. I guess, I'm just an asshole. Although, for the record, I've never kicked anyone's ankle. We all have certain destructive thoughts. Most of us want to knock down a tower of blocks, and have thought of smashing someone's face into a cake or smashing our computer monitor. The ankle kicking thing is like a cross between the yawn-thing and the desire to drive into the median. We just have destructive, mean thoughts sometimes, I guess. Or at least, I do. I get a cheshirecat grin thinking about it too. That's prolly where it crosses the line into me being an asshole.

I was listening to a story on NPR this morning. They were talking about rape on college campuses and talking about how it came about that it became the college's responsibility to deal with the issue. Essentially what happened was that this 19 year old girl was raped and killed her in dorm room around 20-25 years ago. Her parents lobbyed for and got a law passed that requires college campuses to disclose to parents and prospective students all reports of crime that occurs on campus. The thought is that no one will go to school at the violent schools and it puts it on the schools to make their college safe. When I first turned it on, they were talking about this young woman who had been drunk at a party and had 2 guys walk her home who then raped her. She passed in and out of consciousness throughout the act. Prior to this incident, she had been a virgin in a 4 year relationship. The girl talked about how she hadn't intially thought of it as rape. Until, she was in a lecture one...

I work with this really kickass lawyer. She's been all crazy over this guy lately. He worked for probation. Past tense. Did you see it? Over the weekend he killed himself. Enter past tense, the unwelcome jerk. And I feel soooo terrible. And guilty. Because I tried it to. I talked about it a little in this post . Try #17 and on. That's where I talk about it. A little. And now when someone kills themselves, I feel guilty. Like what I did when I was 17 somehow makes me responsible for everyone who ever does it. Like because I tried it, I should know how to fix it. But there are tons of recovering drug addicts that can't tell you how to get sober. There are great thinkers that can't explain their ideas. And the fact is, no one can explain suicide.

I wonder sometimes if anything ever really changes. I mean really . Sometimes it feels like we take two steps forward and eighteen million steps sideways and who can even perceive how many backwards and then when you account for orbital, the earth spinning, relative position to the sun and whatnot, did we move at all? Did we get anywhere? I'm not much for New Year's resolutions. I think its bunk. If you need to change something in your life, you need to change it now. Not quit smoking by the time you're 30 or lose weight after the holidays, or stop drinking after Mardi Gras. Do what you have to do now because you know you need to do it. And even though I'm not much for resolutions, I've been thinking a lot about progress and change and the movement of time since New Year's. They have this new chip that's maybe gonna get tested on folks that would detect if cancer had metastacized llooooonngg before it was ever visible as tumors or masses or tissues i...

STOP FUCKING SPAMMING ME! Ok, I'm sorry. I know spammers don't know how to read. I know that CAPTCHA is close to being as annoying as spam. But I'm enabling it again on comments for at least a brief time in order to stop reading Chinese characters in my inbox and then trying to find it in the actual post and delete. Grrrrrr. In other news, I just finished reading the book Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex and have to tell you: fascinating. There's info on a study of spinal cord injured patients and their orgasms... yeah, they can have orgasms. There's also a study of rats wearing polyester pants to see what it does to their sex experience (wear cotton- just friendly advice.) Every page has something that makes my eyes pop. So yeah, sorry again about the comments change. Please comment anyway. Or don't. Whatever. I appreciate readers either way.

Just as a follow up to this post : You should watch this, cuz its awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSfFa44p96o&feature=player_embedded

For those of you who don't know, my dad's gay. When I was 14, days before beginning my freshman year of high school, my dad came out. We were all sitting in the basement of our house in St. Louis having a family discussion. You see, my dad was moving out. He was moving to Chicago and what my brother and I knew, was that my parents were divorcing. Things just weren't working out. We thought my mom was acting crazy. She frequently flew into rages which seemed unreasonable given the circumstances we were aware of. So my mom finally said "You have to talk to them." And to the basement we went. "A few years ago, when you're mother and I split up, I had an affair." "And it wasn't with a woman." It was the most unexpected thing he could have said. We were utterly stunned. No one said anything for an interminable series of moments. Tears streamed down my father's cheeks. Finally, he couldn't take the fear of us hating him an...

Yesterday in the parking lot of the grocery store I closed my door at the exact same time as another car. Do you think that's fate? Or maybe a sign? Maybe the universe is trying to tell me that I'm just a piece of tickertape, part of the machine. And I can try and break out. I can die my hair pink or cuss up a storm. I can live on a platform at the top of a redwood tree, or camp out in an old mining shack. And if I could break out of the mold, the system, then I would just need to be strong in my broken places. Then, would things be right? There are so many places where there just isn't sense. A senator that doesn't get reelected because he's labelled unpatriotic. Did I mention he was in Vietnam and lost 3 of 4 limbs to a granade? And the guy he lost to? He avoided the draft. It was all very proper, deferrments and a trick knee. What is going on that this is what happens because of spin and media and pictures and sounds? But maybe its a lesson. Ther...

I went to a DNC watch party last night. These parties are a chance to get together with a group to watch the speeches. The stories in these speeches were incredible. Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts, spoke about coming from a home where he, his sister and his mother slept on bunk beds and the floor and rotated nightly who slept where. He talked about the changes accomplished with the support of his family in 1 generation. As many amazing political speeches as there were though, it was really all about the women last night. Last night was the anniversary of the day women got the vote and some of the speeches reflected that. Lily Ledbetter talked about her attempts to get equal pay for equal work by filing a claim against her employer Goodyear Tires. She had worked her entire career for that company through to retirement making less money than her male counterparts. Every raise for her was smaller and it affected not only her ability to raise her children, but also her le...

There are so many annoying pet names, Sugar lump, snugglepuss, snaggly poo, and oh yes, the old “my little cumquat.” Have you ever had a cumquat? If not, try one and rethink that ole nickname. Cumquats are like the quickest burst of flavor, its so intense its like an activity of sourness in your mouth. The only thing better than trying these crazy fuckin things is watching someone else try one. Bring on the sour faces! The sensation is addictive, especially if you like sour things like sour patch kids, sour skittles. They’ve got nothing on cumquats with their punch packing insides and the sweet peel. When you eat a cumquat you anticipate the tartness like a jack in the box about to burst. The tension is building building and then wham! Scares the fuck outa you. What a fuckin sadistic toy that is. It goes, “I’m scared, I’m scared, but the pleasant song, I must hear the end of pop goes the weasel but oh shit its going to pop out eeek, I can feel the tension in the...

What would happen if while I went camping there was a revolution? Would I be able to buy an electric car? Would the salesman and the mayor still be the same guy? Would there be so many beautiful empty houses, while we sat huddled in tents? Would doctors give you options and let you make your own decisions? Would we strengthen our squeeky voices to sing solutions together? What would happen, if there was a revolution?

This past Saturday I attended Colorado's 2 nd District's Assembly and Convention. There are two state conventions: Congressional District, and State Convention. They take place over back to back weekends. Delegates and alternates attend both. Also, elections for national delegate as well as elections to the Electoral College take place at these events. More importantly, elections for the democratic candidates for State Congress, Regent, and Democratic Presidential Candidates are held. As we all know, this is an energetic time in politics and people are turning out in droves, tripling expected turnouts. These people want to be involved, desperately. Many of them want to be involved by going to the National Convention for their candidate and that's great. Our district is comprised of mostly mountain areas but also includes parts of Boulder County, and Jefferson County (both in the Front Range metropolitan area.) Boulder county of course is where CU's main campus...

While watching "Sicko," the Michael Moore film last night I got to thinking about why it is that we don't have a Universal Health Care system. I thought of the nationalism and our pride in our own ways of doing things and ultimately the American Dream. I thought of our recent lashing out at immigrants and considered the way these things are connected. A couple of weeks ago, our local paper published an article on workers' rights. A local non-profit had done a training on workers' rights calling upon an attorney with expertise in the area to help out. The article did not emphasize or really even highlight the undocumented immigrants, yet the online discussion on the newspaper's website took a markedly racist turn. One woman (not as ravingly racist as the person who wanted to tatoo and hang "illegals" who returned) in particular mentioned the loss to our education standards that takes place because of hispanics from uneducated backgrounds inundati...

Instruments of Change I've been thinking more about our political system. I've been thinking about a lot of things and I've come to worry that Christianity mixed with consumerism may be problematic in our social ideologies. There are two schools of thought as to the instruments of social change: the individual, and the masses. Our history texts and classes tend to teach us through heroes. Regular everday people who've become great through their actions during adverse circumstances and great leaders and orators who seem to have been born for this role of hero. By studying history as a series of hero tales, we've gathered that as an individual, only if we are very, very special can we be the instruments of change. (see People's History of the United States : 1492-present) In the example of civil rights, we look at the exceptional individuals like Martin Luth...