Residency in the Evil Empire

When I was in junior high, back when they called it junior high, our principal, Dr. Anderson, got the idea to stir our young patriotism by playing "God Bless the USA" by Lee Greenwood.  As an adult, I understand Dr. Anderson's motives, but as a smartassed 7th grader, I joined in with my other fellow smartass 7th graders to make fun of it.  It was the age of Motley Crue and Ozzy Ozbourne, so Lee Greenwood wasn't our pick.

The one takeaway that I did get from Greenwood's morning warble was that I was proud to be an American.  I knew I was free from oppression.  We were still in the throws of the Cold War back then, and heard all of the stories of how the KGB in the USSR would kidnap people right off the street, listen in to their citizen's phone calls, and jail them indefinitely without a fair trial.  The USSR was ruled by a small, elite Upper Party, while the rest of the country were merely cogs in the wheel that were only as valuable as the work they did and the obedience they observed.  In the mid-'80s, the USSR was the Evil Empire, and I was so grateful that I didn't live there.

Fast forward, 25 years later, and I'm starting to wonder if I do live in the true Evil Empire.  I didn't change citizenship, I still am an American, I still take a lot of pride in coming from a place that has a tradition of welcoming people from all backgrounds into its fold, but as of late, my government is taking a page from the KGB handbook and my country is becoming a scary place.

After 9/11, we let fear take over and did something very stupid, we surrendered our freedom in the folds of a terrible piece of legislation, ironically called, The Patriot Act.  It was presented as a way to keep us safe, but what it did was allow the government into our lives in a way it had never had access before.  It allowed people to be held indefinitely without trial if they were deemed an "enemy combatant" or super bad person that pissed off the government in a big way.  Our media abdicated its responsibility by not asking the hard questions in an attempt to look like "good Americans".  To be a good American after 9/11 was to never question anything the government did, because the government was doing what they were doing for the sole purpose of keeping you safe, or that is what they told us through their talking points spewed by corporate-owned media.

The only saving grace for liberty was the growing popularity and expansion of the internet.  The internet is a hodgepodge of ideas and opinions and sometimes it seems like there is a heck of a lot wackadoo mucking it up.  However, the internet has done a large part in saving what was left of journalism.  Citizen reporters and independent news sites have enabled the average citizen to break free of the NewsCorp, Gannet, AP, Time Warner death grip and read honest news and opinions about the topics the big guys don't want to talk about.

While the blessing and the curse of the internet is that anyone can create a website about anything and say whatever they want, it has always been a given that, in this country, saying what you want to say is okay.  However, the walls are starting to close in.  I felt the walls going up with the persecution of Julian Assange.  No matter what you think of him, Assange's WikiLeaks is just doing what we were able to do pre-9/11.  Prior to 9/11, if you were a member of the press, you could request documents and information under the Freedom of Information Act.  Unless it was classified, you could have the documents within 5-7 working days.  For a document to be labeled as "classified" it had to have some info pertinent to the safety and well-being of American citizens.  Back then they didn't just label anything classified, it really had to be important.  We lost a lot of this post-9/11, and when Assange re-introduced transparency into the mix, our government set off on a witch hunt the likes I haven't seen in ages.  They are still determined to extradite him to the U.S. to face charges, but I'm not sure what they can charge him with.  Assange is not an American citizen, and I'm worried that our government will label him an "enemy combatant" and hold him for years or the rest of his life without trial.  Given that he has been holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in the U.K. for over a year, he must be afraid of this, too.

On the heels of the Assange scandal came the Occupy Movement, which was a general push back from people who hated the fact that Wall Street, along with their government cooperatives, ripped off the country, sent millions into poverty, squandered away the life saving of even more millions, and got away with it.  There were stories of police brutality, government monitoring, and military-style crowd disbursement throughout the months that Occupy was publicly active.  The mainstream news, of course, refused to report on Occupy until it was absolutely necessary, and when they did, they used the government and corporate talking points to tell us that Occupy was bad, had no direction, and were basically lazy, unemployed people who felt entitled to government benefits.  Thankfully, by now, no one really believed the mainstream media, because we all knew people who had lost their homes and/or their life savings and/or were unemployed, and we didn't think they were lazy or worthless at all.  In fact, we were pretty sure they got screwed, and the ones who did the screwing were getting off scott free thanks to big campaign donations and lobbyist money.

Since Occupy, there was the young soldier, Bradley Manning, who is going through a sham of a secret trial, because he revealed the abuses of the war.  He will likely spend the rest of his life in jail for doing something as vital to our democracy as exposing government abuses of power.  Edward Snowden is another victim of government over-reach.  It doesn't matter what you think of this guy, or what his motives are, the fact is that he provided evidence that our government is monitoring us.  I've heard people say things like, "I'm not doing anything wrong, so why should I be worried?".  Here is the problem with that line of thinking; when a government insists on assuming absolute power, you never know when you will do something that will cross the line into what is right and what is wrong.

Most of us regular folks seem to have nothing to worry about.  We use the internet to send email, shop online, read the news, take in funny joke sites, access Facebook, Twitter or other social media, and a few (i.e. millions) even use it for porn.  None of us are likely to think that anything we look at, read, or post will arouse the suspicion of the National Security Agency, but the truth is that we don't know, and it's the not knowing that will cause us to start cautioning ourselves in the future.  When I have to sit here at my blog and wonder if I should post my distain at the way my government is conducting the business of my country, then I no longer live in the Land of the Free.

My daughter once asked me why the Jews would allow themselves to be carted off to death camps during the Holocaust, and I explained to her that the Nazis didn't just, one day, out of the blue, grab people and round them up.  They started with small restrictions that people didn't grumble about, then little by little they chopped away at rights and freedoms until the Jews were no longer treated as human beings.  Freedom doesn't go out with a bang, it goes out with a whimper.

This morning's story about Edward Snowden's desperate flight to find a country that will give him asylum ended with a government official saying he will be pursued by the most powerful country in the world.  This statement didn't make me feel good, it makes me feel as though I am living in the Capital of Panem right before Katniss and her former tributes show up to destroy it.  The full force of our government has mobilized to run down a whistleblower less than a month after he did an interview, yet four years after Wall Street moguls crashed the economy leaving millions in poverty, our government has refused to go after or prosecute anyone.  This is not the behavior of a government that represents the Land of the Free or Home of the Brave, this is merely a re-boot of the Evil Empire that I learned about in the '80s, only now, I live here.

For Privacy's Sake

I'm a writer.  I have been a writer all my life.  I like that I can make blog posts, and put my views out for people to comment, all the while hoping what I post makes some people laugh or think.  At best, I can hope that something I write helps initiate a dialog leading to some kind of change or action.  I post regularly, and probably will for the foreseeable future, but I have no desire to be a celebrity or a public person.

Anyone who has followed me for any length of time knows that I grew up in a fairly crazy, fucked up situation.  It took me years of self-destructive behavior, personal strife, and a shit load of therapy to get to a point where I could deal with my past and create a happy future for myself and my family.  One of the keys to creating that happy future was stability.  I want my girls to have the stability I never had, because I believe when you have a stable situation, you can focus on pursuing your dreams and interests.  This means I live in Suburbia, not because I like it, but because I want to give my kids that wonderful feeling of looking at a house and knowing it is their home.

To deal with living in a place where I completely feel out of place, I write about it.  In those writings I bitch and moan, point out absurdity and hypocrisy, and hopefully, make others living in similar situations feel a little better about their lives.

I have actually done meet ups a few times with people who read my blogs, and they've gone quite well.  I will admit that I research the reader prior to meeting up with them just to rule out the homicidal maniac factor, but thankfully, I've not run into any weirdos.  Aside from less than a handful of meet ups, I remain a private person.  I have absolutely no desire to be a celebrity or attain any level of public notoriety.  In my professional life, I am the person behind the curtain, and I'm very cool with that, which is why I find this latest story about the NSA spying on Americans so disturbing.

One of my favorite novels of all time is George Orwell's 1984.  I read it for the first time when I was in the 8th grade, and usually read it every few years.  This latest scandal, which the government has responded to by publicly saying they don't give a damn about it, falls so much into Orwell's playbook it's horrifying.  We live in a country that now has drones, mindless machines that are programmed to kill indiscriminately, we have no real media anymore, since corporations have bought out all of the traditional media outlets, so we essentially have nothing to monitor the government, and now in a twisted turn of fate, our government, like Orwell's Big Brother now watches us.

The corporate media is falling lock-step with the government on ignoring the NSA spying claiming that Americans have ceded their privacy, because they are on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, post YouTube videos, and write blogs.  However, no one ever seems to point out that most people who post don't do it for fame or to gain public notoriety, they do it to share personal information and experiences with their social circle.  Just because I tell my FB friends that I don't like Monsanto controlling our food supply doesn't mean I want the NSA to start a file on me as a potential eco terrorist.

I support the Occupy Movement, because I hate the fact that Wall Street robbed our country, made us all a lot poorer and got away with it.  I'm happy to share my boycott list with anyone who wants it, again, because I don't like Monsanto, the creator of Agent Orange, controlling our food supply.  I hate old, white men telling me what I can and can't do with my body, and I'm very vocal about it, because I have two daughters who I'm trying to teach to own their bodies.  Since the NSA surveillance program is targeting all Americans, I might be file-worthy several times over, but I'm not sure what that means for my future and the future of my family.

As a kid in the '80s, I would hear the stories about the Pinochet regime and the thousands of "disappeared", every night on the news there would be stories about Soviet citizens living in fear of the KGB, and well into the '90s and new millennium, we were inundated with stories about Saddam Hussein and evil totalitarian dictators who committed egregious human rights violations, oppressed their people by monitoring them, arresting journalists and whistleblowers, and keeping their people in a constant state of fear.  With this NSA revelation, we are inching forever closer to becoming one of those oppressive states we grew up glad we didn't live in.

As I write this, there is a young man holed up in a hotel in Hong Kong.  He had to reveal himself publicly as the person who blew the whistle on the NSA.  Had he remained anonymous, he'd likely be dead right now.  He is petitioning China for asylum, because he knows that China is the one nation the U.S. likely won't be drone bombing anytime soon.  He knows he can never come back to the States or he will end up like Bradley Manning.  In earlier years, we had real news that would have praised this man for letting us know that our government is doing something way too Big Brother, but the media social safety net doesn't exist anymore.

Yes, I post blogs and make Facebook status updates.  I have phone calls with my friends and family about how I don't like the fact that wealthy corporations own our government.  I don't believe any of that qualifies as ceding my privacy or inviting an NSA investigation.  I don't live in Oceania, and like most Americans, I don't want to.

Bringin' Home the Bacon

The headline hit yesterday, women are the primary breadwinners in over 40% of American households.  I could have told you that without the flashy headlines, and backlash from conservative, white guys.  

This latest "duh" headline has brought out the usual band of haters claiming, once again, that women in the workforce are the reason for the downfall of the country.  Yet, where are these same haters when families realize that one income doesn't cut the mustard?  Are these same haters equally as vocal about fighting the war on the middle class?  

There are a lot of families I know who wish they could have one parent at home with the kids, but reality doesn't work that way.  Most of the women I know work.  They don't work for vacation money or fun money like they did back in earlier times, they work, because if they don't, the mortgage doesn't get paid, and the food doesn't make it to the fridge, but you wouldn't know that by the way the boys are on tv screaming about women this morning.  

This headline comes on the heels of Sheryl Sandberg's encouragement of women to "lean in" and take the bull by the horns.  She has been advocating for women to champion their dreams and goals in the workforce, so it doesn't surprise me that the backlash has been particularly vicious.  What sticks in my craw about this issue is the idea that women are being told what is supposed to make them happy and fulfilled.

By telling working women that they are destroying America, because they want a life outside the home, you are telling them that the validation they feel by working is devious and willfully destructive.  Back in the '40s, women entered the workforce as temps to fill in while the men were at war.  Immediately after the war, the ladies were expected to surrender their jobs.  Many tales have come out now where the young, working women of that time were told by the bosses who fired them that they were the best workers the boss ever had, and if given the choice, the boss would have liked to retain them.  Women continued to work in the '50s and '60s to a lesser degree, although you would have never known it from tv, which seemed to revel in the idea of the perfect housewife and mother stereotype.  Thankfully, the '70s came around along with the Second Wave and women re-entered the workforce with a vengeance.  However, the income earned from their work was mainly seen as fun money, not the serious money that helped the family survive.  With the increased rate of divorce and more women putting off marriage, combined with a large rate of inflation and stagnant wages, mom's income is no longer fun money.

If you are a stay-at-home mom, and feel completely fulfilled by it, then Mazel Tov!  I have friends who can't imagine not being at home with their kids, and feel that they are at their best when motherhood is the central focus of their lives.  I tried to be stay-at-home mom and failed miserably.  I love spending time with my kids, and having a clean and organized house, but I also love the validation I get from using my skills to produce a great event.  I like the comradery of being part of a team, and the idea that long after my girls have moved out to begin blazing their own paths I will be able to have something that fulfills me.  I'm not sure how that is destructive or how I am being willfully divisive, but there are a whole lot of boys on tv screaming this morning that I, and my other female working counterparts, am somehow responsible for the country's deterioration.

I guess, according to the verbal diarrhea spewing from their fat, white faces, that our supposed lack of presence in the home has torn this country apart and destroyed the youth.  Nevermind the decade of war, constant offshoring of jobs, 40 years of stagnate wages, a culture that promotes men being love 'em and leave 'em playas and the 'greed is good' mentality, not to, again, mention that conservative men have been so busy regulating our vaginas that they haven't been advocating for better conditions for American families that would enable a single-income household to survive.  Nope, it's all my fault, because I can't be 100% happy wiping snotty noses and folding laundry, and I have a crazy desire to use my college degree.

The point is that men just need to stop telling women what should make them happy and focus on giving women the support they need to be happy.  They also need to stop being pussies and worrying that a few more gals around the board room table means they are, somehow, going to be ousted from their jobs (you know, like we were back in the post-war '40s).  Men and women can co-exist just fine in the workforce, and when they work together, much to the chagrin of the conservative patriarchy, the workforce actually becomes a better place to be.  

Wanted: Concert Buddy

I've always accepted the fact that I'm an oddball.  I'm a chick, but I don't like chick flicks.  I like passion, but think romance is corny and sweet talk sounds childish.  My favorite fiction is the grimmest dystopia scenarios ever published, yet I tend to be an optimist.  I am grateful to Eli Roth for bringing back the horror film and modernizing it, and I really, really love hardcore music.

I am fine with living in the 'burbs in order to bring my kids the stability that I never had growing up, but it gets a bit lonesome when I attempt to search out oddballs such as myself.  There are billions of people in the world, but apparently I am the only suburb mom in Orange County who happens to be a fan of hardcore music.  Although I should be happy about this, because it makes me unique, I would be lying if I said I liked going to concerts alone.

I've heard the suggestion that I should take my husband, even if he doesn't care for the music.  When pressed, I know Jeff would go, but my kind of music would, frankly, scare the hell out of him.  He made it through exactly 2.5 minutes of the recent Revolver Golden Gods Awards broadcast before looking at me and asking if I understood what the hell the vocalist in Anthrax was singing about.  In those 2.5 minutes, he also managed a half dozen comments about how freakish the band and audience looked.  I married a great guy whose only fault is believing that the musical sun rises and sets to Billy Joel.  Nothing against Billy, after all, I enjoy the piano man from time to time, but he is nothing close to what is usually blaring through my iTunes catalog.

For quite a long time, I was spoiled.  I lived in Seattle where I could always manage to wrangle an old friend from art school or someone I knew a million years ago when I worked in the music biz to go to concerts with.  Sometimes I wouldn't even have to reach out, because I knew they would just be there.  Seattle, despite the corporate makeover it experienced 15 years ago, has always been a great music town.  Now, I live in one of the most conservative counties in California, because God has one hell of a sense of humor, and in the 'burbs, no less, where I can find copious amounts of cupcake recipe referrals, advice on the best area dog walking trails, and sympathy for the horrible drop-off traffic at my kid's elementary school, but no other human who resides here and does their morning drive to Slipknot, Disturbed, or Iron Maiden.

I almost wish there was a creep-free Craigslist where I could list an ad.  "Wanted: Concert buddy to accompany suburb mom to hardcore music shows.  Must also be a normal-appearing suburb mom who lives in the suburbs for their kids' sake."  At this point, I would even accept a suburb dad, because I know I would probably have more luck finding a male who loves hardcore music, since this always seems to be the case.

The good news is that Shayna seems to be a lot more open to harder music than Rachael, so perhaps I see a light at the end of my solo concert-going tunnel.  Sure, it might take another 10 years before I will let her go to one of my shows, but at least that is something for me to look forward to.  In the meantime, if you happen to be at an area hardcore show, and you see a short, dark-haired woman who you think might have ended up in the wrong place, hanging out in the corner waiting for the show to start, it's me.  Come by and say, "hi", because, aside from the two-minute chat with the bartender, it will be the best conversation I will have that night.

There is No Such Thing as Funeral Mascara

I laugh now when I think of how cavalier my attitude used to be about death when I was younger.  In my teens and 20s I would tell people that I wasn't afraid of death, because there was no point in fearing it.  I had never experienced death, so why be afraid of it.  I used to spout all the usual cliches; 'When your number is up, your number is up.', 'It's better to burn out than fade away.', and my favorite, 'Death is just another door.'

All of these cliches are true, but they seem more worth pondering now that I've hit the halfway mark.  Statistically, my life is halfway over, and in the ramp up to my 40th birthday, this was on my mind quite a bit.  One of the bummers about life in your 40s is that death seems to be everywhere.  All of the old guard in the family starts to go, every other day you see a Facebook post from a friend who has lost someone, and you start noticing it on the news.  To top it off, you see a band you always loved for the first time in years and realize that most of the members are now in their late 50s/early 60s.  Time is no longer your friend.

I lost half of my parents before the age of 40, but it seemed less distressing than when I lose someone now.  I guess I was so young that I could contrast their loss with all of the time I still had left, and in my head, it made the situation better.  The thing about death is that we all assume we are going to live long lives, despite the fact that no one gets a guarantee.

A little over a year ago, one of my lifelong friends buried her 21 year old son after he died in a car accident.  I held this boy when he was nine hours old, and the pain of his loss was tremendous.  I mourned, not only losing him, but the loss of the life that he could have had.  This is why a young person's death is so tragic, it's a double loss.  When my husband's grandmother passed away at 101.5, there was a void, but not a whole lot of sadness.  She had been asking for death for about two years, because her life was at the suck point.  She couldn't walk, she needed someone with her when she went out and going out was a hassle, she couldn't enjoy good food or drink due to meds and general stomach intolerance, and her razor-sharp memory and mind had began slipping.  I always say that no one was happier to wake up dead that Sunday morning than Grandma Ethel.

I don't think I'm alone in hoping that I will enjoy a long life, and say "farewell" before it gets to that suck point, but there are no guarantees, which is one of the reasons our culture seems so fearful and fascinated by death.  Death is something we can't control at all, no matter how advanced we make our technology.  We can keep a body incubated and functioning, but having seen someone being kept "alive" by machines, I can tell you that all of the most brilliant minds in medicine can't keep someone alive.  At this point, my cavalier attitude about death is gone, and I've come to respect it.

I'm not a great fan of aging.  I don't like the way my skin seems to be hanging off my bones differently now than how it used to.  I don't like it when the guy who does my hair describes the texture as "fine".  I despise being mistaken for a member of the venue staff at a concert, because I'm middle-aged, and I freakin' hate describing myself as middle-aged even though I am.  However, I am grateful that I'm here to have the days I have, even the crappy ones, because it's a gift, and the alternative is a bit scary.

I don't know if God exists in the form that religion suggests or if God is just the collective energy of the life that exists outside of the world we see when we wake up in the morning.  I don't believe in the devil or Hell.  I'm not a big fan of the idea of purgatory.  However, I refuse to believe all of that wonderful spark and energy just goes away once the human encasement we live in ceases to function.

I went to the funeral today of a woman whose smile I saw just two weeks ago.  Her journey to the grave began Tuesday night and ended Friday afternoon.  A close friend described her telling stories in ICU as her "final curtain call".  I was sad, because she was not an old woman, and there was so much more I'm sure she wanted to see and do before leaving this life, but we don't get to make that choice.

I hope, in the end, I will have done everything I wanted to do, seen everything I wanted to see, and can leave a legacy that someone can be proud of.  Despite the halfway mark, I still don't fear death, but I'm not ready for it.  My goal is to live to be old enough to see my girls become amazing women, and see their children develop into good, productive people.  I want to live long enough to complete nearly all of my bucket list, and mostly, I want to live to the point where everything negative and crude I say is automatically dismissed, because I'm old.  After all, in her final few years, Grandma Ethel was never so entertaining as when she'd let it fly about one or two particular family members that were pissing her off at the time, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

White Trash Obsessed Nation

I've always been very reluctant to use the term "white trash", because at one point in my life, it was likely how I was described.  When my mom, sister, and I first moved to Idaho, we were flat broke, my mom was single and only 22, and yes, we did a stint living in a mobile home park on the outskirts of a small town.  It was a condition we never celebrated, and one that my mother got us out of as soon as she could.

White trash was always something bad.  It was a completely negative connotation that should be avoided at all cost.  If you were white trash, it meant that you were poor, not because of circumstances, but because of stupid decisions.  It meant that you were uneducated by choice, refused to adhere to proper manners and social graces, and were generally, a detriment to society.  No one wanted to talk about white trash, see it, or be it.  However, somewhere in the hellscape that is reality television all that changed, and now our failing nation seems to have become obsessed with white trash.

I'm pretty sure I've seen at least a few minutes of these shows and they all follow a similar pattern; they profile a family, usually low income and little post-high school education, who happens to spend lots of money on hobbies, but lives in a sketchy dwelling.  These shows aren't made as documentaries into examinations of the vast landscape of American culture, they are used as a method to make fun of people who, most Americans, would consider themselves better than.

Take "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" for example.  Just the name, Honey Boo Boo, lets you know this is not high brow entertainment.  The people in the family seem sweet enough, and I almost feel sorry for becoming a laughing stock.  The mother is a nothing impressive, and feeds her family meals void of any nutritional value.  She doesn't take care of herself, and seems unfazed that her 17 year old daughter is about to give birth, perpetuating a cycle of teen pregnancy and poverty.  This family lives in cramped quarters with cheap furnishings, yet they have plenty of money to throw into their youngest daughter's beauty pageants.  When a pageant dress for a toddler can be over $500, any sensible person has to shake their head at the decision making process.

Herein lies the fascination and obsession with these white trash reality t.v. shows.  Many Americans sit at home laughing at the stupidity of a family that would choose to eat generic macaroni and cheese for dinner every night in favor of buying $100 per session pageant consultations, and feel better about their own lives and circumstances.  Our nation, as a whole, is not doing well.  The financial crisis plunged millions into income insecurity and economic crisis, so it's not a surprise that industry has responded by giving out more opium for the masses.  It's easy to look at Honey Boo Boo's family, and think, 'I make much better decisions than they do', or to watch an episode of "Teen Mom" and feel superior to the young couple who chooses to purchase matching tattoos, then in the next scene struggles to buy diapers.  All of these shows perpetuate the idea that despite our houses being underwater, benefits getting cut, rampant unemployment, and politicians threatening to cut every social safety net in favor of funding war, somehow, we aren't as bad off as we thought.

In previous generations, there was mindless television, but it was counter balanced with real news shows, and programs that celebrated decent, middle of the road families.  All of that is gone in this new era where the "I gots to get mine, and fuck you" attitude, accompanied by a famewhore culture, is prevalent.  Kids aspire to be famous and rich instead of facing the dour reality that the job market sucks, a higher education means possibly decades of crushing debt, and in the end, even if you are responsible and play by the rules, Wall Street criminals can steal your future with no repercussion.

Part of me doesn't blame people for watching these shows to feel better about life, because life, at this point, is a depressing thing.  However, I wish that Americans would get off their lazy asses and take to the streets the same way people have in Europe.  Just once I would like to see one of these reality shows feature a poor family that wasn't obliviously happy, which they all seem to be.  I would like to see Honey Boo Boo's mother complaining about the lack of affordable healthcare, or get upset that her rural community doesn't put an emphasis on higher education.  However, I am realistic enough to know that if she did begin talking about real world issues, her show would be cancelled in a heartbeat.  These shows are meant as nothing more than a modern day freak display, and we are to watch them, feel good about our lives, and remain asleep.

Explaining the Unexplainable

As the mother of Jewish kids, you know that eventually, you are going to have to discuss the holocaust.  I was strolling through Target with Rachael the other day when she turns to me and says, "Did you hear that everyone is mad at Justin Bieber, because he went to some girl's house and said something bad?".

I explained Bieber's visit to the Anne Frank house, and why his comment was egocentric and myopic.  Our conversation then turned to Anne, herself.  I had read Anne's diary when I was 10 years old, and remember that it was one of the first books that made a significant impact on me.  30 years later, I still recall various passages from Anne's diary.  I told Rachael about Anne and her family hiding in the attic of her father's business with another family and two other men.  I told her about their life in hiding; how they had to limit their movement during the day and weren't allowed to go to the bathroom until everyone left work.  I told her about the brave woman, Miep Gies, who risked her own life to keep the Franks and the other hiders alive.

She asked if Anne's father and Miep were still alive.  No, and I'll have to Google it.  She asked me why they published a little girl's personal diary.  It was one of the best records as to what it was like for Jews in hiding during the holocaust.  If Anne was alive today, how old would she be.  In her 80s.  How did she die?  She died from starvation and typhoid, which is a nasty thing you get from eating rotten food, because that is all she had to eat.  Have you ever been to Anne's house?  Yes, Daddy and I went to Amsterdam when I was 30, and my main priority was to see Anne's house.

Then her questions turned to the holocaust, in general.  Explaining the holocaust is kind of like explaining algebra.  I don't understand either one, except that eventually algebra has a logic and a reason to it, whereas the holocaust doesn't.  How do you tell your little girl that had she been born, not even a century prior, in Europe that she would have been rounded up and systematically murdered?

During our conversation, she said so many times that she didn't understand, but neither do I.  I've never understood baseless hatred, and I don't think I ever will.  I tried to give her some of the usual reasoning about Jews having gained so much wealth and prosperity in Germany during a depression that the envy of the German people made the successful minority a target.  I gave her the philosophical religious reasoning that when the Jewish people divide themselves, they open themselves up to destruction.  I spared her the secret conspiracy reasoning that Hitler was, himself, at least part Jewish, but despite all of the explanations, she still told me she didn't understand why.

I told her that I would buy her a copy of Anne's diary if she wanted to read it.  Rachael said she didn't want to read it now.  She would like to read it later, because when she's older she will probably understand it better.  I smiled and said, "okay", because I don't have the heart to tell her that no matter how old she is, she will never understand the holocaust.

No Right to Protest

I have participated in so many protests throughout the course of my life that I don't even remember my first one.  I'm pretty sure it might have been the day I skipped high school with friends to go to Boise to protest the fact that Idaho did not recognize Martin Luther King Day, but there might have been a protest or two prior to that, because my mother was a radical before she became a beat down agoraphobic.

To me, protesting has always been one of the best ways to let the power structure know how you truly feel about an issue.  There is nothing more powerful, or more frightening, than hundreds or thousands of pissed off people showing up to let you know exactly what's wrong with a given situation or issue.  I am a fan of protesting, but lately there is one group of protestors that I'm feeling should have their protesting license yanked.

Every weekday I drive past Planned Parenthood to retrieve my youngest from preschool.  About half of the time, there are protestors holding various signage.  I usually mutter phrases of vile hatred under my breath about them needing to mind their own fucking business, or how dare they harass women going in for medical treatment since abortion is only a very tiny percentage of what Planned Parenthood actually does, or even, that men shouldn't have the right protest at all because they don't have vaginas to deal with.  The group bugging me the worst lately are the Catholics.

I grew up with Catholics, a certain percentage of my family is Catholic, and I'm well versed on Catholic dogma.  I know what the beliefs, customs and practices are, and I have nothing against anyone who is Catholic.  Whatever inspires you to go on from day to day, more power to you.  However, between the Catholics protesting in front of Planned Parenthood and the Catholic Church's continued effort to make contraception exempt from healthcare legislation, it's time for someone to call this church on its moral hypocrisy.

How dare any institution that is responsible for the systematic rape of children over decade after decade lecture me on what is moral.  The church was aware that they had priests who were raping children, yet instead of stepping in to stop it, they moved the priests to a whole new crop of children to rape.  Then when those children became very damaged adults and tried to take the issue public, the Catholic Church retaliated against them and their families.  I have seen the stories of some of these victims and it sickens one to the core.  One story I will never forget is that of a 54 year old man whose life, from the age of 7, was a nightmare.  He was repeatedly raped by his local priest for years.  When he tried to tell his parents, they punished him, so he never spoke of the abuse until he joined a lawsuit against the church when he was in his early 50s.  After the abuse ended, with a priest transfer, he went on to have two broken marriages, three kids he barely spoke too, floated from job to job, and was an alcoholic.  Despite, finally getting some acknowledgement of the wrong that had been forced upon him, the damage was done, and I wonder today if that man is even still alive.

I think of that man, who had he lived a childhood without being raped, probably would have been a proud man with a fulfilling life, whenever I see those protestors carrying their Virgin Mary statues and praying in front of Planned Parenthood or when I read articles where a Catholic Church official is talking about how immoral it is to have employers pay for a female employee's birth control pills, like it's any of their fucking business in the first place.

I know the Catholic Church is in damage control mode right now; electing a South American pope to keep their Hispanic churches from bleeding members, which it has been doing for the past 10 years since the child rape scandal broke, and paying off lawsuits, while excommunicating a rapist priest here and there, but then they shoot themselves in the foot by continuing to exercise influence they just don't have anymore.  They also seem to let their ego get in the way by giving someone like Cardinal Roger Mahoney a slap on the wrist, then flying him to Rome to vote in the papal conclave.  It's as if the church is only doling out punishments to repair its image in the press, but is not at all interested in the systemic changes that need to take place in order to make it a worthy institution.

The sad thing is that, like most systems that have become corrupt and bloated, it will not see its own death coming.  On the tip of my brain, I know at least a dozen, once devout, Catholics that have left the church and want nothing to do with them.  Most of it has been due to the child rape issue, but nearly half of the people I know who have left the church are women who are tired of hearing that they are only good for breeding and obedience, and that no matter how hard they try, they will never be good enough to become leaders within their faith.

In the second decade of the new millennium, there are a few things we know.  We know that child rape is the worst thing in the world, women have the right to choose how many children they want to have, and no human being, no matter who they are, is infallible.  Unfortunately, the Catholic Church finds itself on the wrong side of the modern world, and it needs to take a long, hard look at itself in order to determine how it will survive into the future.  Until then, the church needs to stop believing that they still hold the power to influence policy, particularly when it comes to issues of morality.

I Need a Hero

Marvel Comics, you are officially on my shit list.

In whoring their Avenger series with, yet another, piece of merchandise, Marvel put out two t-shirts; a shirt for boys that shows the Avengers and reads, "Be A Hero", which is a good message to tell boys.  They should want to be valiant and do the right thing.  They should aspire to be brave, ambitious, and nobel.  I have no problem with this shirt.  If I had a boy, I would probably buy it for him.  My bitch is with the shirt for little girls that shows the same Avengers group, but reads, "I Need a Hero".

When I see shit like this I have to do a double-take and wonder what fucking century I'm living in.  In this day and age when women are expected to pull in just as much income as men, what are companies thinking by putting this kind of crap out?  I looked at the story with both of these shirts in awe for awhile, mostly because I couldn't believe Marvel would do something so stupid, but also I had to wonder about the graphic designer that put this together.

Would the graphic designer who came up with this shirt really have their daughter wear it?  When their daughter came to them and asked them if she could be a doctor when she grows up, would their response be, "Honey, you should marry a doctor, not be a doctor.  After all, you are a girl."  Highly doubtful any regular, non-religious extremist, person would say this, so why would this same person design a shirt that basically tells girls that the best thing to do is sit around waiting for a hero.

As the momma of two girls, I am raising them to take responsibly for their lives and solve their own problems.  A few months ago I recorded Disney's "Cinderella", and I've watched it with my 3-year-old.  I giggle through most of it, because it is so 1950s; the sweet girl waiting to be rescued from an abusive parent, yet still remaining obedient to the abusive parent until she can be rescued, while the king searches for a gal with good breedin' hips for his son.  The best part of watching the movie with my toddler was when she turned to me in the end and asked me if Cinderella kills her vicious stepmother and stepsisters for being mean to her.  I had once read somewhere that Cinderella forgives the hags, but I told my girl that Cinderella had them banished from the kingdom.

Point is, girls aren't made to sit by idly and wait for anything these days, so I don't get why Marvel or any company thinks that these Cinderella/1950s messages are okay.  Most of the women I know work making just as much, and sometimes more, money as their husbands.  They have the same level of education, and are expected to contribute equally.  On top of all the financial commitments, they are still expected to raise kids, help keep the house running, and make sure the family socializes.  The reality is that women, particularly in today's economy, don't have the luxury of staying at home with their breedin' hips ready waiting for a hero.

Even if my girls luck out and marry great guys who pull down enough bank to give my girls an option to be stay-at-home moms, I still want them to be able to solve their own problems.  Life is long and filled with complications and strange situations, and the last thing we need is a world full of girls waiting for their heroes.

Two Ladies Dead, But Only One Was Great

Yesterday, I woke to the news of Lady Margaret Thatcher's passing.  A few hours later, the news scroll told of Annette Funicello's death to MS.  Both of these ladies played a significant role in American pop culture.  Annette was a Disney icon, a 60's beach movie darling, and a spokesperson for a nostalgic vision of America that no longer existed.  Thatcher was a Ronald Reagan ally, the quintessential "Iron Lady"who led Britain during the Cold War.  Both gone, but only one was great.

I grew up indoctrinated with the belief that anything associated with Ronald Reagan and the U.S., particularly during the Cold War, was good.  It was very black and white.  The USSR was bad, and if they had the chance, they would kill us with nukes.  I was 11 years old when the movie "The Day After" came on t.v., and my mother wouldn't let me watch it.  Looking back, it amazes that the U.S. can scoff at other countries' use of outrageous propaganda, while showing movies like "The Day After" on network television during the height of the Cold War.

Part of the propaganda of good vs. evil was Margaret Thatcher.  We didn't know much about her politics, but we knew she was good, because she was an ally of Reagan.  We knew she was a woman to look up to, because she was the first female Prime Minister in Britain, but we never knew her stance or work on women's issues.  Once she left office, Americans were left with a favorable view of Margaret Thatcher, mainly from their lack of knowledge about her domestic policies in Great Britain.  Let's face it, we all enjoyed Meryl Streep's performance, but were left wondering why the movie seemed like a snip-it reel that never really explored the results of her policies on the British people years later.

Much like Reagan, Thatcher was a strong-willed capitalist who believed the market was god.  She tried her best to make Britain into a capitalist system by breaking the mining and manufacturing industries, ignoring the poor, and coddling the wealthy.  Fast forward 30 years later, and the ruin and rot brought by Thatcher and Reagan's policies are evident city by city, town by town, and family by family.  The U.S. and England are no longer the powerhouses they once were, and the inability of the two countries to repair themselves, both on an infrastructure level and a cultural level, is shameful.  Thatcher may have been known to the U.S. as a great leader, but when you break it down, her "greatness" was superficial, at best.

Annette, on the other hand, did not rule a country, never had to enact policy during difficult times, or make decisions that would have long-reaching effects on the lives of millions.  Some would laugh at the comparison of Thatcher with Annette, but again, in the U.S., Thatcher was more of a pop culture figure than a politician, so it's relevant.

Annette was discovered by Walt Disney and rose to fame as one of the original Mouseketeers, she later went on to star in several quirky beach films with Frankie Avalon.  I remember Annette from Mickey Mouse Club reruns, and as the beautiful lady with the friendly smile who became synonymous with childhood, Disney, and Italian heritage.

Annette was a genuinely nice person.  In all of the commentary with her passing, the one thing everyone who ever met her talks about was how nice she was.  In a world full of snark where insults are traded as humor on a regular basis, being nice has become an anomaly.  Annette never took herself too seriously.  I loved her movie "Back to the Beach", because she basically spent 90 minutes making fun of her own persona.  There aren't too many people, particularly celebrities, who would bypass their own egos and question their own relevance the way Annette did in that movie.

I was sad to hear of her diagnosis with MS, because it's a disease that only gives you one direction to go.  I nearly cried when I saw her in her last public appearance to celebrate a milestone anniversary for Disneyland, because by then, she was wheelchair bound.  Despite her tough battle with MS, she would do a Christmas Card campaign every year where she would round up celebrities, have them create Christmas cards, and sell them online at holiday times to raise money for MS organizations.

Annette's legacy is a positive view of what America was and could be if we would all just get back to being a little nicer.  Whereas Thatcher's legacy will forever be associated with the Reagan-era policies that changed us from a culture of community to a culture of self.  Although the media is fawning over Thatcher, in this day and age, I think we need a little less iron and a little more nice.

Mahwige

I've been married for nearly 11 years.  It is my second marriage.  My first marriage was a four-year, "starter" marriage train wreck from which I learned exactly what I didn't want in a relationship.  The first time I married, I did it to get away from smothering parents and to give myself the motivation to pursue my dreams.  Looking back I wish I would have had the self-confidence to go after my goals on my own instead of using marriage as a means to an end, but life is filled with "shoulda-coulda-wouldas".

Point is, I didn't take marriage seriously when I was in my early 20s, but I was allowed to do it, because I was a woman marrying a man.  Now that I am in a healthy, good marriage, and truly respect the institution of marriage, I cannot imagine being denied the privilege of spending my life with my spouse, which is why I am completely perplexed by the movement in this country to deny the benefits of marriage to two people who love each other and want to make a life together strictly because they are the same gender.

I have heard all of the bullshit arguments, the main one being about the "biblical" standard, which is hilarious.  Let's look at that "biblical" standard.  First off, I put "biblical" in quotes, because the version of the texts that is often used by the folks who always seem to be condemning others is very different from the original Aramaic and Hebrew texts, but the "bible" bangers often overlook that when it doesn't suit their needs.

Back to the "biblical" standard of marriage.  Opponents of same sex marriage claim that their bible states that marriage is between a man and a woman, but think of who wrote the bible.  Although the claim is that the bible was divinely inspired, the fact is that the oral interpretation, which became written at some point, was penned by men who had multiple wives.  It was nothing, back in the ancient oldy times, to have at least four ladies refer to you as husband, and if you were particularly wealthy, you got the perk of concubines (i.e. women who were yours to sleep with, procreate with, but not have to marry).  If you were very wealthy, you also got slaves, which you could molest at will.

Do you really think that these men, with all of their generous options for tail, would have limited themselves to a one man/one woman scenario?  Not likely.  There is also the fact that women, of that time, were not married to men they loved.  Sure, the bible points out relationships like Ruth and Boaz, and Abraham and Sarah (but even the greatest patriarch had a mistress, who ended up being the matriarch of Islam).  Most women were married off to men to increase their families finances or standing in the community.  Much like in today's Afghanistan and other Third World countries, women were not of value in biblical times.

Oh, and to top it off, this same book that supposedly gives the edict of one man/one woman marriage also says that if a man rapes a woman, he must marry her, which is only a truth that male members of the Tea Party and the Taliban still adhere to.

Basically the claim of biblical marriage is completely full of shit, yet somehow the faithful have justified denying rights and happiness to couples they don't know and will never meet, because of biased religious beliefs.  I'm sorry that the idea of two boys kissing gives you the willies, but it's none of your fucking business.

I support same sex marriage for several reasons, but the main one is that I don't believe in telling other people how to live their lives.  If you want my opinion or advice, I'm more than happy to give it, after all, I am a middle-aged, Jewish woman.  However, I have zero right to impose my beliefs on you.  Isn't that what freedom means?  The right to live your life without others imposing their beliefs, particularly religious beliefs, on you.

I continue to be amazed by the fact that the people who claim to love freedom and G-d and guns and apple pie and 'don't tread on me' the most are always the ones who want to take that "bible" and force you to live by its standards, either by using it to prevent a loving couple from getting married or by preventing women from having a say over what she wants to do with her life and body.

I have no doubt in my mind that same sex marriage will become the law of the land within the next 10 years, and I hope it will be sooner than later.  Love is love, and if you could bring the guys who lived 2,000 years ago, and wrote a book that has been misinterpreted several times over, into today's world, they would probably agree with that, after they stopped being amazed by the intense amount of cat posts on Facebook.

Fat Shaming the Pregnant: Yet Another Indicator that We are Living in Rome Before the Fall

It really, really pisses me off when I am forced to defend something I detest, but the latest slew of negative comments, stories, Twitter twats, and overall comments about Kim Kardashian's pregnancy weight has given me great concern.

The Kardashians are a pox on our society, and I can't stand them.  I hate that this bitch got famous for a sex tape, contributes zero to society, and that everyone loves her.  I don't get it at all.  However, no matter how disgusted I am by her, her vacuous sisters, her pimp of a mother, and the whole family, in general, with the slight exception of Bruce Jenner, I think it is really unfair to call her out on her weight gain during pregnancy.

Perhaps there is a fundamental misunderstanding of pregnancy weight gain.  Kim appeals to a younger demographic who, maybe, haven't had the experience of being pregnant yet.  There are also a fair amount of guys chiming in on the issue, as well.  In lieu of a presumed societal ignorance regarding pregnancy weight, let me break it down for you.

Pregnancy weight is like no other kind of weight gain, in that, there is not a tremendous amount of control over it.  Yes, you can try to diet and stick to an eating program, but my experience was that the weight comes whether you like it or not.  Also, all women have different pregnancies.  Kim's younger sister didn't get too large with her pregnancy, but she is a different person, and just like fingerprints or vaginas, not only is every pregnant person different, but every pregnancy is different.

One of the rag magazines claimed that Kim's eating was out of control.  Clearly this was written by someone who has never experienced pregnancy hunger.  With regular hunger, even if you're starving, you can usually hold out for a little while until you finish a project or arrive at the place you want to eat.  No go with pregnancy.  When you get hungry when you are pregnant, you need to eat STAT!  There is no waiting, there is no finishing that project, food needs to find its way into your mouth immediately. The same goes for being thirsty and using the bathroom.  That little critter stewing in your uterus wants what it wants when it wants it, which is the universe's way of giving you a preview of what your life is going to look like once said critter is on the outside.

It used to be that celebrity pregnancy weight was off limits.  It was only a few years ago that Kate Hudson got big as a house while she was carrying her children, and none of the tabloids said a word.  She blew it off by telling anyone with an absolute that she was pregnant, so fuck off.  As someone whose body resembled an inflatable raft while pregnant, I respected her attitude.

This latest trend of fat shaming the pregnant is really disturbing on many levels.  First off, women and girls are constantly inundated with the very clear message that fat is ugly, fat is unacceptable, you're not a good person if you are fat, and if you are fat, you have a huge moral failing and a fundamental flaw that makes you an unworthy person.  To impose those negative messages on women who are pregnant will lead to, whether conscious or unconscious, unhealthy choices during pregnancy.  I fear the day when pregnant women are being rushed into emergency rooms to deliver malnourished babies, because they insisted on keeping themselves on a strict, deprivation diet during their pregnancy to avoid gaining weight.

Second, what kind of message does this send to young girls?  My 9-year-old daughter came to me the other day and asked me if she should go on a diet.  Rachael is a very healthy weight, and an active girl. She is at that point in development where she will start bulking up ahead of puberty.  It is a normal process in the development of a body, but all she can see is that she is not as skinny as some of her classmates.

In many ways, I blame myself for her asking this question.  Years of battling my own weight, along with trying every diet ever invented, has likely seeped into her young mind.  As of late, I've made the concerted effort to frame exercise as something you do to be healthy, and instead of talking about dieting, I discuss healthy food choices with her.  A whole box of cookies, not healthy, but two cookies are okay.

In the epic battle of women vs. the fat shaming media, women need to get a little more militant.  Don't buy those magazines that fat shame women, demand normal size models and mannequins at your favorite retail locations and sites, and in the home, talk about healthy choices instead of diets.  This is not a problem that will go away when Kim hires a personal trainer and nearly kills herself, post-pregnancy, to get back to her fighting weight.  However, it is an issue that we need to get more demanding about.  Wouldn't it be nice to live, and raise daughters, in a world where fluctuating five pounds was no big deal instead of a moral failing that makes you a worthless piece of garbage?

My 'Gina Is Just Fine, Thank You

I am always amused when men have a "no shit, Sherlock moment" and see something that makes them aware of how badly the media sexualizes young girls in our country, so when brother-in-law saw a documentary called "Sexy Baby" he came to me in eager alarm and told me I had to watch it.

It was filled with the typical info; blah, blah, blah, media telling young girls that they were only as valuable as the sex they could provide to men, blah, blah, blah, if you want to be worthy as a person you need to whore yourself out for acceptance, blah, blah, blah, and more stuff I wrote an academic paper on over a decade ago.

The only new information presented to me, someone who has been very aware of these issues for close to 20 years, was the whole labiaplasty phenomenon.  I heard of this procedure about six or seven years ago in the context of a 15 year old girl who was about to have it done for medical reasons.  This poor, young thing had been born with freakishly large labia that had caused her real problems in life.  She was athletic, but had trouble doing things like riding a bike and running.  She loved to play softball, but dreaded the uniform pants, and even had trouble wearing underwear.  To me, this was no different than women who, during development, end up with one boob considerably larger than the next.  When the story aired, I was happy that there was a surgical remedy for an issue that was beyond her control.

During "Sexy Baby", it was a different story.  The documentary profiled a stunning beautiful, young woman who was obsessed with having labiaplasty done.  From years of looking at pornstar images, and through crude remarks from an insensitive group of assholes, she called male friends, she got it in her head that her sweet lady bits were ugly and terrible, and the only solution was to go under the knife.  These thoughts were further enhanced by a sleazy doctor, whose sole business was labiaplasty.  This poor girl had gone so far as to take a second job to save up for her labiaplasty.

I watched her story with a mixture of anger and bewilderment.  All my life, I have held to a few solid truths; grass is green, the sky is blue, and all vaginas are different.  Like weddings, vaginas come in all shapes and sizes, some are interesting and fun, and others are routine or weird, but because they are different, it's all good.  I felt that the "your vagina isn't good looking enough" was almost like the one last place where our society could go in telling women how ugly and inadequate they were.  We are already told we are too old, too ugly, too fat, not tall enough, not hairless enough, our teeth aren't white enough, why not tell us our vaginas aren't good enough, either.  What's next?  Will there be a big x-ray trend where the media tells us that our internal organs aren't as quite up to par as they could be?

I really wanted to reach out to this young girl, and talk to her.  If I could, I would first tell her to get new guy friends.  She seemed to be about 24 years old, so assuming all her guy friends were in their mid-20s, I would let her in on a little secret about them; they are all completely full of shit.  They may go on about being such amazing dudes that they would, absolutely, turn down a vagina for not looking proper, but we all know the truth.  I have met tens of thousands of men throughout my life, and barring the ultra-religious, I would venture to guess that when presented with a naked and willing vagina, the men I've met wouldn't likely turn it down due to lack of symmetry, and if they did, I would question whether they were really into vagina to begin with.

I would tell this young lady to quit her second job, and enjoy her young, happy life.  As I said, she was stunningly beautiful, and seemed like a genuinely sweet girl.  She doesn't realize what an amazing catch she is, and that made me sad.  She is the kind of young woman that any decent man would be proud to have on his arm, but all she could see were her own flawed girly parts.

She said her previous boyfriend once made a comment about her labia being too large, which I suspect was a subject she first introduced, and given the male company she kept, was likely a 20-something asshole with way too much ego.  I would give her the best comeback ever.  When the asshole made the remark about her labia, all she had to do was look at him and say something to the effect of, 'Hmm...that's strange.  I've been around naked women before and I'm fairly average.  Maybe it's not that my labia is too big, but that your dick is too small.'

Then I would encourage her to unfriend him from Facebook, take his number off her phone, and tell every female she knew that he was in intensive taker with a small penis.  If every woman were to stand up and do this, then I guarantee, the labiaplasty trend would subside in a heartbeat, and the procedure would be relegated for medical necessity only, once again.

"Having It All": The Reality Version

As a post-70s feminist, I grew up with the belief that if I wanted it bad enough I could "have it all".  "Having it all" refers to this insane theory that, as a modern woman, you can have a thriving, go-getter career, a happy, fulfilling marriage, a wonderful family who you perfectly mother, time to go to the gym, a good circle of friends you spend time with, and a fucking partridge in a pear tree, if you wanted it.  All you had to do was want it bad enough.

Well, I wanted it bad enough, so I went on the road to delusion to try to "have it all", and I found the truth.  I do "have it all", but "having it all" is like a diet.  On Atkins, you have to completely cut out carbs, which means there are things out there that you absolutely cannot have.  On Weight Watchers, you can have anything you want, but the size of the amount depends on how much of a fat ass you are.

When men think of "having it all", they go right to the Atkins plan, because they know that in order to have a thriving, go-getter career, they are going to have to give up some things, cold turkey.  Women who choose to have big careers are put on the Atkins plan by society, because, after all, there is no way a female corporate CEO could possibly lead a thriving company and not be a neglectful wife and mother.  Sure, male CEOs never have that issue, but female CEOs, that's another story.

For those of us who want to "have it all", we essentially put ourselves on the Weight Watchers program.  I "have it all", but all that I have is portioned out to a point where I don't ever feel like I'm getting enough of anything to eat.  I have a career, but if I went to work full-time, I could really make great strides.  I have a family, but depending on what my job is doing, I have to miss kid activities and bring home fast food for dinner some nights.  I have a marriage, but live with the constant discomfort of having to watch my husband not really have to contemplate the work/life balance.  I have friends that I would like to see more often, but schedules get in the way on both ends, and my gym time has been replaced by an exercise bike in my room, because fitness often comes at about 10:00 pm if at all.

The short answer to the long question of "having it all" is yes, you can, but not the way you want to.  Since we are stuck on a diet motif, and diets suck ass, the better way to think of "having it all" would be a great big Eileen's cheesecake.  There are only so many slices you can get from one cheesecake.  You can try to divide it into tiny slices, so you can make it last, but this is an Eileen's cheesecake, so that's not realistic.  In the middle of the night, you will sneak out of bed and grab another slice when no one is looking, you know you will, so it becomes a balancing act.

Yes, I would like to be Mother of the Year, but I need to make money and keep my resume current, because someday those kids are going to leave, and I don't do well sitting around the house with nothing to do.  I also have to make money, but I can't make as much as I want, because I have to make sure my kids have a mom who is present and involved in their lives.  I would love to have the time to mold my body into something that could be remotely considered "killer", but in reality, I have 45 minutes max, four days per week that I can dedicate to this.  I keep up with friends on Facebook, because kid schedules make phone calls a rare thing.  I'm living the Weight Watchers lifestyle, but hey, I "have it all".

My goal is not to piss and moan, because I created this situation, and 70% of the time, I'm okay with it. I just want society to get more realistic in what it expects from women, and I want young women to realize that "having it all" is kind of a myth fraught with double standards and a hell of a lot of marketing.

Screw You and Your Cookies, Too!

When I volunteered to help with the fundraising element of my oldest daughter's Brownie troop, I never thought in a million years I would end up with the title of Cookie Mom.

That's right, I am one of those moms who stands at the green-clothed table at the door of the grocery store and oversees noisy, kinda stinky, adorable girls in green or brown vests as they try to sell you diabetes in a box.

The Girl Scout cookie racket is fairly cut and dried; do a big initial order and divvy the cookie boxes out amongst the girls in the troop.  Keep up with their requests for re-orders through a reasonably easy website, and make sure you get a booth sale (i.e. green-clothed table in front of a grocery store, restaurant, park, etc.).  Since I volunteered, I was determined to do my due diligence by making sure my paperwork got in on time, and answering texts from parents who needed cookies in a timely manner.  Frankly, I thought I should have gotten a medal for clearing out a corner of that shit pit we call a garage for cookie storage.

All seemed to be going well until I was hit with the creeping death super cold that took out nearly half of the U.S. this past winter.  I was sick that fateful day in December when the booth sale lottery took place.  Apparently the booth sale lottery is the shit.  You get to pick the day, time and location your troop can sell cookies.  Anyone who doesn't show up to the lottery is stuck with the leftovers.  I didn't stress.  We were a first year troop who had never done cookie sales, so we had zero expectations.

I put in my request for a booth sale once I could drag my dead, sick ass to an upright position, and continued on with life.  Three weeks, and four email requests later, I was sent a roster of dates, times, and locations.  I picked my top five, hoping to secure two booth sales, so that each girl had the opportunity to participate, because they get badges for it, and badges equal bragging rights.  I like to think of them as the girl version of stitches scars.  The boys go to the E.R. bleeding and cut wide open from doing stupid shit and end up with a scar.  The girls do accomplishments and end up with adorable badges on a vest.  Yet, somehow, we are the weaker sex?!?

In the end, I got one lousy, three hour booth sale.  Again, we had no expectations going into this, so I was only a little miffed, until the beginning of this week when I found out that the mom who does the booth scheduling scheduled half of the available booth sales for her own daughter's troop.  Are you fucking kidding me!  It's this type of bullshit that makes living in Suburbia a particularly nasty piece of Hell.

As a mom, I totally get wanting your kid to be successful and accomplish things that give them pride and self-esteem, especially if they are girls, but if you do a bunch of sickly, underhanded shit to make that accomplishment happen, you haven't helped them achieve their goal.  By tipping the scales, and cheating others at the same time, you end up looking like a pathetic asshole.  What happens in 10 or 15 years when your kid figures out that they sold enough cookies to get the iPad, because you locked everyone else out of selling?  Whatever money you saved not buying her that iPad is going to go right to the therapist in a "everything my mother ever told me was a lie" round of sessions.

The biggest dilemma now is do I say anything or keep my mouth shut?  The problem with a mostly volunteer organization is that the moment you bitch too loudly about how something is done, your ass gets chosen to do it the next year.  Although it seems like something that could be easy to do, filling open spots, given the amount of politics and bullshit that I just had to deal with in the past two months hocking cookies, something tells me it would be eight weeks of Hell on Earth.

For now, I will keep quiet.  I'll put this tidbit of knowledge in my back pocket, and try not to be sick as a dog next year when I will, without a doubt, because I volunteered, end up as the troop Cookie Mom.  I will try to schedule two good booth sales next year, and if I get any flack, I have no problem with confronting the offender about her own gratuitous scheduling.  After all, the one thing you can always count on is that the suburb dwellers hate confrontation and uncomfortable situations that might rupture their perfect little bubble of Suburbia happiness, whereas, I live for it.

Where the Fuck Have You Been?

I started blogging years ago in this very journal to work out the fact that I was a punk who found herself living in the doldrums of suburbia.  It just didn't make sense how I, someone who had dreamed of a more hardcore, rock 'n' roll lifestyle, could end up in this situation.

When I was in my 20s, I did everything to make sure I didn't fall into the suburban dream that seemed more like my mother's lifelong ambition than mine.  My mom always wanted the perfect, nuclear family with the children, the loving husband, and the comfortable life that forever came with the happy ending.  Instead, she got instability, turmoil, a man who only appreciated her for the work she could do and made her do that work 24/7, and kids who couldn't wait to get the hell away from her.  She had anxiety and depression issues, but we didn't know that until she died at 49 years old.

It is kind of a sad, sick irony that I wound up with the life she always wanted, and thanks to that irony, I've spent more than my fair share of hours on therapists' couches trying to figure out whether I truly chose this path, or if it was something that was pounded into my head as I was growing up.

I could contemplate this situation for a thousand years, and probably never have an answer, so I took to writing to relieve some of the angst.  It helped, and worked great for a few years, then I was struck with the most cruel of afflictions; writer's block.  I've been writing since the second grade, and it has always come easy to me.  The words just flowed out of my fingers and onto a page without a second thought.  I love to write, and it was the one thing I felt I was truly good at, so I can't even tell you how fucked I felt when my gift was gone.

I tried writing several times, but it was pure crap.  I cringe when I recall the two pieces I wrote for a British feminist indie mag.  They were pathetic, and I knew it.  The worst part was that I couldn't figure out what brought on the block; was it the second baby or the job that nearly ran me into the ground or maybe it was moving from Seattle to sunny Southern California.  There were many nights when I stayed up trying to write, only to end up in tears, and I'm not someone who cries over much of anything.

I had nearly given up on ever writing anything again, and had even thought of killing this blog.  Then I got hit with the time bomb known at 40.  I began dreading the arrival of my 40th birthday back in mid-December.  As it came closer, I wrestled with the realization that half my life was officially over.  I know we don't know how long we will be here, and at any point we could all be hit by a bus or keel over from some crazy shit we didn't know we had, but statistically, the average life expectancy of the American female is 80 years old, so I was at the halfway mark.

To deal with the pending doom of admitting that my youth was gone, I did something so pathetically cliche I laughed my way through it; I created a bucket list.  I filled it with things I wanted to do and places I want to see, and since it was 1:30 am when I did the list, I finished it and went to bed.  I don't know what kind of crazy voodoo magic happened on the night that I created that bucket list, but I woke up the next morning and spent an hour and a half writing 40 pages of a graphic novel that's been stewing in my head for a couple of years.

I guess this is the long way to tell you, the very few who still check in and wonder where the fuck I've been, that I'm back, and I plan to continue writing with the same flare I always have.  I may be a couple years older, and still living in suburbia, but I'm just as much of a punk as I ever was, and now I'm 40, which means I give even less of a fuck than I did before, only now when I give less of that fuck I'm probably wearing yoga pants while drinking wine.  Cheers!

Dethroning Midas

In the '80s, I was an MTV addict. I loved that they played music videos non-stop, had special feature shows about music such as Headbanger's Ball and 120 Minutes, and had VJs who seemed to live to eat, sleep and breathe music. I adored MTV News, because it reported on what music was being made in a given scene. One of the main reasons I loved MTV was, because its mission in life was to reflect what was happening in music.

This all changed after about a decade in existence when MTV's focus shifted from reflecting the culture to dictating it. Perhaps at some point they realized they had real power. I saw an interview not too long ago with a member of Duran Duran, who remembered that the moment they realized MTV was a defining force was at Live Aid, a benefit concert on two continents that brought together anyone who was anyone in music. The Duranie was on stage during the final act when the number of stars could rival the universe, and he looked over and saw two of MTV's top producers standing next to him. Two production guys onstage with mega rockstars. MTV was very good to Duran Duran, so the band member didn't want to state the obvious, which was that the two producers didn't belong there.

This is how I've felt for nearly the past two decades watching Fox News and the entire News Corp. organization in their rises to power. The media in the United States has always been hailed as the beloved and respected Fourth Institution. There is the Executive branch controlled by the president, the Legislative branch controlled by Congress and the Senate, and the Judicial ruled by the Supreme Court. Until the rise of Fox News, the media had been the fourth branch that kept a watch over the other three. The media was an added layer of protection to the people of this country. They were the quality checkers who inspected the toys before the stores put them on the shelves for your kids. They were the brave journalists who made politicians up to no good shutter when they walked through the door. All that changed when Rupert Murdoch and Fox News broke into the U.S. market and picked their team.

Traditionally, there has always been a bit of a bias one way or another depending on the source of the information. Even the networks weren't exempt from a story that leaned more to the right than to the left, but they made an honest effort to keep themselves in check. Not Fox News. They came out of the gate as unapologetic, right-wing, Republican slanted news, and to add insult to injury, left their slogan, "Fair and Balanced" hanging like a smirk on the face of a date rapist. To anyone who was a true fan of the institution of media, and its history, Fox News was and still is absolutely infuriating.

At the heart of their sick world is Rupert Murdoch, himself. A tireless opportunist who seats himself at the throne of News Corp. like a golden king. He dictates talking points to further his own political and financial agenda without a care in the world of what that agenda will look like in the real world, because plain and simply, he doesn't live in the real world.

Murdoch can have his stations advocate for a candidate in the U.S. who he happens to like without a care in the world for how the candidate will effect policy if he is elected. How many people has Murdoch sent to Washington D.C. via his barrage of highly questionable information and agenda-driven spin delivered by Fox News, who have voted against the best interests of the American people? I am, by no means, putting all of the blame on Fox News and its management, the folks who think that all they have to do is wave a flag and love Jesus, and the economy will be magically cured by capitalists are just as much to blame. However, consistent and deliberate studies from thousands of universities throughout the world have proven media's extensive impact on people and their decision-making processes.

This information in the right hands results in people wearing their seatbelts to be safe, sneezing into their elbows to prevent the spread of colds, and washing their hands to stem the tide of communicable diseases and illnesses. In the wrong hands, it results in fraudulent elections, poor people advocating for the wealthy guy who will make their living situation worse, and the blind hatred and persecution of country music trios who exercise their First Amendment right of free speech.

The fortunate thing is that Murdoch has finally been called to the table to answer for his crimes against journalism, albeit long overdue. I find it incredibly ironic that he is called out by a country with state-run media rather than the country with "freedom of the press", but at least someone has the chutzpah to take him on. I have always valued my motto that "when you sail a paper ship, it has to sink eventually", and I hope it reigns true in this case. There is nothing more in the world that I would love than to wake up in the morning and watch a real 1960s-style newscast. No cute banter, no supermodel-like newscasters, no punditry, no opinion, just real, honest to goodness, fair and balanced news.

As Time Goes By

I have returned to my old stomping ground to attend my 20 year high school reunion this weekend. Although, with urban growth and development, the prairies and fields I used to ride past on my way to school have been replaced by clusters of replica single family homes and business parks with Starbucks-like coffee shops.

It's hard for me to believe it has been 20 years. It seems like only last week I was sitting in Mr. Estell's health class on one of those sunny warm days close to the end of the school year, looking out at the lawn space in between buildings and figured out that I would be 27 years old when the new millennium came around, and 38 years old at the 20 year high school reunion. To my 18 year old self, it was a lifetime away.

In some ways, the past 20 years have been a lifetime. I got married twice (fortunately the second has turned out much better than the first), I've traveled the world, earned two educational degrees, gave birth to two amazing daughters, buried two of my three parents, moved residences more times than I can count, and have managed to fit into nearly every pant size on the retail spectrum.

I always dreamed that I would go back to my 20 year reunion as the picture of health and success, that I would be that enviable person who made it out and came back with fabulous stories to tell. Those thoughts were the musings of a woman much younger. Now I see that we are all coming back, successful in our own right with our own variety of stories to tell. Although some people have done more than others, at this age, envy is few and far between.

Through the magic of Facebook I have reconnected with the wonderful people I knew in high school and some who I didn't know as well, but have since become more familiar, because our views and experiences are more clearly aligned. The bright side of Facebook is that you are able to reconnect with wonderful people you knew from your past, the dark side is that some of those people are now Teabaggers.

There are many things I would have done differently in the past 20 years, but for the most part, I don't regret the life that I've lived or the experiences that I've had. However, if I could go back and do it all over again, I would have definitely made more of a concerted effort to lay off the carbs.

I'm Getting Off My Ass & Writing

Perhaps it was due to recently finishing the amazing Patti Smith autobiography, "Just Kids" that drew me back to my very neglected blog.

I used this blog for years to vent about everything from diapers to gender politics, then I moved, went to work at a very busy company, and suffered a severe degree of writers block. I haven't been able to write for the past few years. Whenever I would click over to my blog, I would feel like the words just wouldn't come out in a presentable form. This has never happened to me. All my life, I've been able to write. Writing was one of those talents that came easy to me. I never had to practice to be good at it. I just put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, and out came something fabulous.

I'm not sure what caused my writer's block, and I'm not sure that forcing myself to write regularly again will cure it, but I have to try. I used to be an avid bike rider. I loved getting on a bike and going for miles. It was such a joy to feel my legs powering my mobility while the wind whipped through my hair. Then I moved to Seattle, where the rain is rivaled only by the steepness of the hills, and I gave up riding. Upon relocating to Southern California, I vowed to get back on the bike, it took me three years, and now, I barely know how to ride. I've always heard; if you don't use it, you lose it, so I'm back to writing, because I don't want to lose it.

I plan to carve out at least 15 minutes per day to put my thoughts down, and we'll see what happens. My hope is to re-gain my love and ease for writing. I have two books that I started, but haven't come close to finishing. I could care less if they ever get published, but I would like to finish them. So here I go...wish me luck.

Cost of War to Date

Since we are coming to the end of 2010, and I've heard a lot of people bagging on the healthcare legislation, while championing the tax cuts for the wealthy, I thought I would take it upon myself to post a current tally of our biggest national expense (spoiler alert: It isn't education or infrastructure...though it should be).

$4-$6 trillion for the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that include some of the following expenses that we are paying for instead repairing aging bridges, improving our education system, investing in development that will result in a better future for our kids:

$547 million P.R. money to sell us on the war

$100 million security contract in Afghanistan to XE (a subsidiary of Blackwater)

$840 billion per year on inefficient military spending (i.e. manufacturing parts for weaponry that is out of date or no longer needed)

$27 billion to citizen mercenary groups in Iraq and Afghanistan

$51 billion to military for no-bid contracts

$6 billion to Blackwater to train cops in Iraq

$7.5 billion in aid to Pakistan

$500 million dollar planes that cannot fly in the rain

$9 billion in cash sent to Iraq that cannot be accounted for

$1.5 billion for a new embassy in Iraq

$1.2 billion over five years to boost Yemen's security forces

$60 billion training and supporting Afghan troops

$375 million for arms for citizen mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan

$4.2 million New York City penthouse for the Afghani Ambassador

A navy eleven times the size of the next most militarized nation

We spend 15 times more on our military than the next most militarized 26 nations combined, and 24 of those nations are our allies. We cannot afford our empire, and at this point, the upkeep of our empire will likely be the undoing of our country. By my guestimate, we are in the same place the U.K. was in the '70s; high unemployment, a waning empire, and a country so mired in red tape that the politicians couldn't get anything done. Let's hope we aren't making the U.S. last year's beauty queen.