Dru Blood - I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings: October 2003 Archives

DruBlood

Home
Dramatis Personae
Archives
Contact

Feed the Bleed

Full Bleed Fundraiser

Amazon wish list
Cole’s birthday - 10/24
Monk’s birthday - 12/2
Dru’s birthday - 1/5

Search

Syndicate this site (XML)

Special thanks

adam host
julie template queen
kd general lusciousness
pea guru

Powered byMovable Type 1.5

« September 2003 | Main | November 2003 »

Cool!

October 31, 2003

I just made a chat room. I might just leave the window open during the day and pop in and out if you want to try it out. Does anyone want to set a time for a big group chat?

Posted at 12:52 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

An Announcement and a Request

October 31, 2003

First, I would like to announce the re-launch of the radical homeschool blog. Read it, post to it, love it. If you aren't already a participant and you would like to join, e-mail me and I will hook you up. There are still a few minor adjustments I would like to make to the site, but people have started to post cool content, so I wanted to tell people about it now.

Second, I am searching for someone who enjoys designing blogs who might want to do me a redesign. You will have my undying affection and gratitude in return, and perhaps a mix cd or whatever I can give you that you would like. I pretty much want the same features that I currently have, with maybe one or two additions. I'm just kind of getting tired of this layout and want to try something new, but I know if I attempt to design it, it won't be very cool at all...or it will take for-fucking-ever.

Enjoy, and thanks!

Posted at 12:38 AM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

Excerpt from Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters

October 30, 2003

"Li Chi was the beautiful daughter of a guard on the frontier border at Ai. When she was first captured by the Chin Army, her dress was bathed in tears. But then she found herself in the king's palace, sharing his fine bed and savoring imperial food, and pretty soon she wondered why she'd ever cried. So how do I know that the dead don't wonder why they'd ever clung to life?"

Posted at 5:13 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

One of those days...

October 30, 2003

I'm having one of those days where i don't feel like I have anything particularly interesting to talk about, and if i attempt to post something, it will just be a laundry list of complaints about my ex, and I Don't Want To Go There.

So, I'm turning this around...talk to me. I've noticed that I get comments from the same group of people just about every day, and they are wonderful...but I wanna know who else is out there. speak up. Say something interesting. Entertain me.

Posted at 10:29 AM • Comments (5) • TrackBack

I am a poseur and I don't care...

October 29, 2003

I have to cop to the fact that, while I talk frequently about anarchism, I am NOT a scholarly anarchist. I say this because a few people have asked me about anarchism, looking for good anarchist texts to read and, quite honestly, I didn't come to anarchism by reading about it...and, in fact, for years and years I avoided calling myself an anarchist because so many of the people I knew who claimed to be anarchist were either stuffy, pseudo-intellectual freakazoids or immature kaos kids. OK - maybe not ALL. I mean, there's Profane Existence and Slingshot and other cool collectives that really embody what I think is the true spirit of anarchism...but I conveniently ignored those shining examples and chose to focus on the negative, as I am prone to doing.

What brought me to anarchism, though, was the gradual but persistent awareness of the fact that humans are meant to be free, and that - yes - all beings are inherently good. I truly believe that people are born with a desire to do right things, and it is the system that engenders greed and competition that drives people to act in a way that is contrary to our inherent good nature. I have a sense, through my limited exposure to anarchist texts, that I have a natural inclination towards anarchism, and everything I do read reinforces that sense...but I do not tend to follow textbooks or tenets - which I'm certain solidifies even further that I am, in fact, an anarchist. (I'm probably a Buddhist too, to a great extent, but I feel like I would need to know a lot more about Buddhism to identify as such)

The best anarchist text that I have read, though is the one upon which the Negativland/chumbawamba song "ABC's of Anarchism" is based.

For so long, I refused to refer to myself as "the 'a' word" because the philosophy behind anarchism is so misunderstood...but at one point I came to the realization that if I didn't start calling myself an anarchist, then there was no possibility of being able to explain the philosophy (which kind of defies explanation, particularly when dealing people who are so immersed in society as it is that they can't conceive of there being "another way") to people who might be interested in exploring other methods of co-existing and collaborating. I might add, this is how I felt about feminism for a long time before I finally "gave in" and started to identify as a feminist. Now I look around me and I see many, many people who I consider to be true Anarchists, who would never even think to identify as such. Which is totally cool with me, and probably makes them even more anarchist than I am (ha ha).

So, I may be a poseur anarchist who would fail "intro to kroptkin 101" miserably, but I know in my heart that people are meant to be autonomous as well as interdependent, and that external governance and an economic system based on scarcity only serves those who have the privilege and power to influence our representatives.

And, while I believe that an anarchist "state" is possible, and is likely to be the only means of sustainable existence, I'm not really interested in waiting around or rooting for a bloody revolution. Instead, I allow the philosophy of anarchism to affect my life by helping me to define how I want to interact with the world on a personal level. I am informed by the idea that, essentially, the ideal way of doing things is by relying on myself and the various communities of which I am a part to accomplish my goals in life. Melding autonomy with interdependence is a common practice among parents, and...I'm finding, is particularly useful in the homeschooling community. We all have our strengths which can be shared, and together we are able to reduce our reliance on government entities to educate and nurture our children and ourselves.

Dude, that doesn't take any fancy book learning. That's just plain ole common sense.

Posted at 5:38 PM • Comments (6) • TrackBack

"is this thing on?"

October 29, 2003

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but lately Monk is TRYING to make the blog. This is a scenario that just occurred:

I walked out of the room to get some clothes on, and when I walked back in, both kids were panting and eating their lunch by putting their faces in their dishes and not using their hands.

Monk: We're pretending we're dogs, mom.
Mom: Well, ok, then...I guess I should feed these table scraps to the little humans in the backyard and throw some dog food on your plates.
Monk: No! We're pretending people food is dog food and we're eating it!
Mom: Should I take that as an insult on my cooking?
Monk: No, you should take it as a compliment about our imaginations.
Mom: *laughs*
Monk: Oh, and...you can put that one in your blog.

Posted at 11:58 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

an e-mail to my brother

October 29, 2003

...in which I once again attempt to explain the concept of unschooling (he's been very patient with my efforts so far) AND in which I come out as at least an anti-capitalist. I'm wondering where that is going to lead. And also in which I, in not-so-subtle-ways question the rosy picture that some of my family members have painted of our childhood.

Before you click to read more, I should say that I really think my family resents the fact that I never went to college. I hear from them all the time that they were jealous of the fact that I got straight A's throughout my schooling, seemingly without effort while they all had to struggle for B's and C's...but they all seemed to turn out OK. It's funny how grades have seemed to make them feel as if they are somehow less worthy than me of being called "smart" or whatever. I was "the smart one." I need to add something about this to the actual e-mail before I send it.

[cross-posted to the radical homeschool blog]

Hey Michael...

I want to preface what I'm about to say by saying that I think Mom did the best that could be expected of anyone in her position. She had 7 children to care for, and I'm growing to understand more and more that she was probably battling with some pretty serious depression while we were growing up, with all that entails.

That said, I simply can't compare my childhood (nor can you compare yours) with what my children are experiencing. First of all, there are only two of them. Second, they get at least three hours of direct attention from me on average every day - which is more than I ever got from mom and school combined. This means that we can have discussions about drugs and depression and pharmaceuticals over our lunch, which is a conversation that we had yesterday, which springboarded off of Monk's desire to eat ALL of the vitamins, which prompted me to relate a story about a friend of mine who had a seizure after eating an entire bottle of vitamins, which led to a very deep discussion about the side effects of drugs, after which we further explored how depression can be cause by external drugs that are ingested as well as internal chemicals gone awry.

This conversation lasted about 30 minutes, but I think it was probably the equivalent of a week of lessons in a modern scholastic setting. Plus I was able to present the idea of drug addiction to monk in real terms with real consequences, and I was able to reiterate to him that he will be responsible for his own body one day, but until then, I am in charge of making sure that when he becomes an adult and gains that responsibility, he has the tools necessary to do a good job, as well as a relatively clean slate with which to work.

I would never tell someone that they have to unschool their children for them to be happy. That's just ridiculous. However, I feel that unschooling, or something resembling it, is the right solution for my children. I do intentionally sit down with them for "lesson time" three times a day for an hour or so, but mostly that time is spent reading books that they enjoy listening to, working on puzzles that they enjoy, having discussions about things we have observed or done together, and sometimes just reading a good goosebumps book together. Today, I sat down to do morning circle. I lit the candle, I started reading, and they were far more interested in dressing up in costumes from the dress up bin to bother with listening to me...so I closed the book, blew out the candle, and here I am. Why push it? Yesterday and the day before, we did a tremendous amount of reading about all sorts of things, and I feel like a lot has been accomplished this week...and I trust that if they are disinterested enough to be distracted by silly hats and beads, then they aren't really going to learn anything anyway.

This afternoon, we're going to a concert at our homeschool co-op, so there won't be a "lesson" - but they'll get to hang out with some friends. The other day, out of the blue, Monk started talking to me about fractions...he told me that 2/5 plus 3/5 equals a whole. I have no idea where this came from or how he figured this out, although math problems come up in our converstaions quite often. I am simply not able to prevent them from learning. It happens. It's like growing taller...they just learn. Perhaps my children are just freaks, but I doubt it.

As far as your experience and wishing you had more structure...my kids do have structure. I guide them. Hell, I downright boss them around sometimes...but I also trust their judgment AND I make it very clear that they are responsible for their actions - including their learning. If Monk doesn't want to write, that's fine for now...but he has dreams, Michael. Just like every kid, he wants to amount to something when he gets older...and so every time he talks about something he wants to "be" - I talk about what he needs to know to "be" that. And when his desire to be something is great enough, he learns the things he needs to know to do that. It's no different than it would be if he was in school. It's no different than it was for me. I was dreadfully bored in history class, so I never learned historical dates and facts past cramming for tests. It was never taught to me in a way that was meaningful. Now I'm totally fascinated by history and politics, but I learn them by researching things that are interesting to me, and by the desire and the need to put important events in context. When you talk about your desire for more structure, it sounds less like you needed more academic structure and more like you needed more guidance from an adult who cared about you. Just about anyone has the ability to learn the necessary academics in a chosen career, it's the choosing that can be difficult. And I don't think high school students are old enough to make those choices anyway, which is why I think all of us should have the ability to change our minds about what we want for our future well into adulthood.

I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was in high school, which is one of the main reasons I never continued my formal education. I happened to stumble into a career that is fulfilling, and then I found a way to apply my talent in that area in a job that is probably better than I ever could have dreamed up on my own. My lack of a degree might hinder me if it were to come to having to find a new job, but there's no REAL reason for that, other than societal expectations and a good deal of class prejudice acting as the norm. I know as much or more than any college graduate in my field, and I have the proven ability to apply my knowledge in a real-world setting. The importance of degrees and college education is real, but it's a social construct that isn't valid outside of the context of our social system. In my situation, the only thing a college degree would prove is that I was able to afford the leisure of being able sit in classrooms and study things that I instead learned on my own, in my own time, motivated by myself.

Which is not to say that I necessarily know more than any college graduate out there, but I certainly don't necessarily know less due to my "lack of education." It just means that I am differently educated - as are many people who don't have degrees or diplomas or even any formal schooling at all. In my job, I have met some very brilliant individuals who never set foot in any sort of institutional learning facility, and I frequently wonder how much of our ability to label people as "stupid" or "uneducated" has more to do with our bias towards what I consider to be a completely unnatural educational philosophy and less to do with the actual brainpower of the labeled individual. And it is a completely self-perpetuating bias, because those who have the power to change the system are products of the system, and no one wants to admit that the system must be changed. That takes risk, and there aren't too many people out there who want to accept that risk because if you go outside of the accepted norm, you have no excuse. Like if I sent my kids to school, and the public school system failed them, it wouldn't be my fault...I could blame the system. But pulling my kids out of school and taking on the responsibility of their emotional and intellectual development is, I must admit, a courageous act. I got no one to blame but myself and my kids. And if I fail them, I really do fail them. The thing is, though, deep down I know - and I think we ALL know - that the responsibility for the well-being of children should fall primarily on the shoulders of the parents of the children regardless. Going along with the crowd provides a surface-level immunity from responsibility, but we all know that's a farce. We learned it the first time someone told us "If your friend jimmy jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?"

Anyway, I'm rambling, and I'm afraid you are going to think I'm completely insane or, as you say, "on crack." I am not either, but I am very passionate about parenting and educational choice and I'm also very critical of the capitalist system and its views on education. I think there's more to life than learning things to increase your employability...but at the same time, I completely understand that there are certain things that my children must know and learn to be able to survive in this world, regardless of my opinion about their validity and overall usefulness. So I'm compromising...I'm teaching the kids about the world around them as it exists, and encouraging them to learn as much as they can, while hopefully demonstrating to them that success is a relative term, and to me, success means happiness, love, and the ability to connect with individuals and communities on a real level.

Anyway...I have to go because the children are tormenting each other as I write this, and I think I need to step in and help mediate this one.

Take care...sorry for the diatribe.

livelifelove
Drucilla

Posted at 11:18 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Commercialization

October 29, 2003

It's a surreal world when the owners of huge media conglomerates feel totally comfortable (and justified) coming right out and saying stuff like this:

"If anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn't be someone from our company. We're not in the business of providing news and information. We're not in the business of providing well-researched music. We're simply in the business of selling our customers products." Lowry Mays, founder of Clear Channel

I would go into a treatise about anarchism and the right of people to live without the invasion of commercial interests in all aspects of our lives, and the need for the rights of individuals and collective society as a non-corporatized entity to be respected and defended, and the fact that our elected officials are no longer interested in preserving the interests of the people, and...and...and...

But I'm having such a difficult time maintaining any level of concentration here long enough to hit a groove in my writing because coley is in a "constantly talking" phase, and even though he's totally happily entertaining himself, he is just talking and talking and talking and I simply can't concentrate on what I want to say. So, maybe later. For now - i hope you enjoy the link. Er, rather "enjoy" the link.

Posted at 9:34 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Fat like my ASS

October 29, 2003

Sorry...I just feel the bile rising whenever I think about this stuff, and Tish reminded me today of that STUPID "Fat Like Me" "documentary."

*sputter* *sputter* - I think I'm too full of rage right now to muster a good rant, and that says a lot. I'm just wondering how many people WORKED on that film without noticing that it was counter-productive and offensive. And certainly among them there was one fatty...or more. How could it be that something like this could even get to production without someone on the staff voicing concerns over its idiocy.

I did not watch the show, but Tish's post on this subject made me cry. Not because I feel forlorn and depressed about my size, but because I feel forlorn and depressed about the stupidity that is perpetuated in the name of "caring."

And - to the mama who was uncomfortable hugging holding the hand of her fat child - you don't deserve to be a mother. I know that sounds extreme, but you don't. As a mother, I've cleaned up the worst diaper catastrophies you might ever imagine, and to think that this mother probably does that, but then refuses to touch her fat child...well, I know whose face I'll be thinking about rubbing in it the next time coley has a load.

Like I said...I get a little angry. I'm going to carry on with my day and pretend like the stupid fucking people who generate this kind of fucked up bullshit don't exist.

Posted at 8:03 AM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

Coley's First Words of the Day

October 29, 2003

(lifting up his shirt to expose his wee nipple) - "You be the baby, and I'll be the daddy with the boobies."

Posted at 7:33 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Boatman's Call

October 28, 2003

I was listening to Boatman's Call by Nick Cave on the bus today. This is the perfect time of the year for that CD. A little bite in the air (or at least there will be on the way home) and some bittersweet feelings about love and remembering past love. There's a line in one of the songs that goes:

You come for me now with a cake that you've made
Ravaged avenger with a clip in your hair
Full of glass and bleach and my old razorblades
O where do we go now but nowhere

And, listening to it, I was reminded of an ex-boyfriend who was a comic book artist who drew all these pictures of me with a grinning mouth of razor blades and hypodermic syringes for arms. Sure, he drew all of his women that way, but why on earth did I put up with being portrayed that way? I mean, clearly this was his impression of me, and it is not my impression of myself.

Just like L really has a way different impression of me than I have of myself. And for years I have thought that somehow his interpretation is more accurate than mine. What royal bullshit that is! How can anyone know me better than I know myself - particularly if someone is so messed up that they can't even account for their own shortcomings. And even still, why on earth would someone stay in a relationship with someone who has razor blades for teeth and dental drills for hands? Is it my problem if they do? Because if my hands are chainsaws and butcher knives to you, certainly no matter how I use them, it will hurt. And even the most delicate kiss is going to kill if my teeth are razor blades.

I'm tired of feeling responsible for the way I've been interpreted by other people. I'm about as out there as I can possibly be. I hang out all over the fucking place. I'm not afraid to say what I think at a given moment, and I'm not afraid to apologize for it five minutes later if I'm persuaded to look at it from another angle from which what I've said looks shitty. I've not been the most mentally stable person in the history of the world, but, damnit, my hands are made of the smoothest skin and my lips can heal wounds if they're allowed to.

So, anyway, on the bus, listening to Boatman's call is a religious experience. It's a religious experience anyway, but something about the way that album is composed makes me look at people and search for that quality that makes other people fall in love with them. Because we've all been loved, whether it's been copped to or not. I fall in love with people all the time and never say a word so I possess the supreme arrogance to assume that others have fallen in love with me silently and unrepentently. I just have to believe it.

And I was thinking about the kiddos and my earlier post about my conversation with Monk. At one point in the conversation, Monk asked me if I was sad that L didn't live with us anymore. I told him, no. I told him that I don't hate L, but that I feel much happier now because I had a really hard time living with his papa. Monk said "Yeah - I'm happier too now, because now I can run around and be all hyper." Which saddens me in a way - all of those years that they, Monk in particular, had to be quiety so papa could sleep. It must have sucked. And I'm not exactly good at allowing the children to be noisy in the house, but I don't put a cap on it unless it's dangerous or I'm just not in the mood to hear loud shouting.

And on the bus, I thought of this...and I thought about being in a relationship and being out of a relationship. And I truly feel like my life is complete as it is. Whole. And that I can and maybe even will get involved with other people romantically at some point, but it's really not a necessity. I don't feel the slightest bit lonely. Damn, it was lonely, though, living in that house with L and being completely unable to get through to him - to communicate with him. THAT was the loneliest I think I've ever been. Right now, I have my kids and even they are not the secret to me being not lonely...even if they went away for a week I don't think I would feel lonely, because I just feel so full of love of life - a feeling I've worked hard to maintain in the past, but which now seems to be my center to which I always seem to return. It's this unabating bliss, this rampant joy...it's amazing. And the only tinge of loneliness I feel is in the knowledge that it would be nice to be able to share that with someone - but I'm just cynical enough about love right now to feel like sharing it would deplete it somehow - that this is better to hold to myself for awhile and savor. That sharing will come, certainly, but that for now it's best to just sit and enjoy these moments I have with myself and with my beautiful children. And sit and watch the people on the bus and revel in the awesomeness of life. Forever and forever and forever.

Posted at 5:12 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Totally High on Love Right Now

October 28, 2003

For all of these years, I've been scoffing at the idea of having sit-down meals with the kids. L would never do it, and I always felt like I spent so much time with the kids that we didn't need to sit down together at meal time. So, up until very recently, I have spent meal time kind of eating and surfing the web or cleaning the house or reading or doing anything BUT sitting down with the kiddos and talking.

"We do enough talking" i always thought.

But for some reason this week I have decided to try to sit down with them and eat lunch. Perhaps it's because I moved the table in the kitchen into a position where there's actually room to sit down. And it's been amazing. I can't even begin to describe how amazing it has been.

Today, Monk started our meal by proclaiming "It's too bad scientists don't have the technology to figure out how the mind works, because I'd really like to know how the mind works." And then we were talking about my stinginess with vitamins, and I told the kids about a friend of mine who ate a whole bottle of vitamins and had a seizure and we talked about drugs and how they can cause unpredictable results and about how kids' bodies are still growing, so it's best to only put things in the body that we know are good for the body.

And we talked about depression. Monk knows a lot about depression, but I was relieved to hear him say that he has never been depressed, but he knows what it's like to be depressed because he plays "the Sims" - which is kind of amazing, really, for him to learn that particular object lesson from that game, but it does extrapolate...because if you are a depressed sim, you don't want to do any of the things that help you out of depression, so it gets harder and harder to become happy again...See? Bet you didn't think the Sims could be used for homeschooling! But it totally works.

And then Monk started talking about the depression of someone in our family. He mentioned that this person is depressed, and he knows this person is depressed because this person is "grouchier than anyone else in the family." He said that this must be because this person is secretly doing drugs, or maybe it's because of the cigarettes.

So we talked about how some people who are depressed just ARE that way, not because they are taking drugs that make them depressed, but because their bodies make chemicals that get them depressed for some reason. But we also talked about smoking and how it is bad for you and about addictions and habits and how hard they are to break. I don't want him to feel like depression is some sort of moral thing, or that addiction is, either, really. But I want him to have a sense for how difficult it can be to quit something you are addicted to. I hope I did ok.

But I was just blown away by the whole conversation. He's such a perceptive little guy that it takes me by surprise sometimes when he says stuff. Apparently he has been watching KidsWB a lot at night while I'm at work, and they have a lot of "say no to drugs" commercials which have heretofore gone totally unexplained. I think it's important for him to have context, because it would be counterproductive for him to go around believing that drug users are worthless pieces of shit who deserve no sympathy when, like, half of his family are users and/or abusers. In recovery and otherwise.

I also want him to have the sense that it's about choice. All drugs. We talked about how even drugs that are legal and drugs that doctors prescribe can have side effects, which is why I try not to give them any drugs unless it's ABSOLUTELY necessary...and which is why I don't want them to have caffeine or anything like that.

And he seemed grateful when I told him that the reason I'm so careful about the things he puts in his body now is because I want him to make those choices for himself when he's older. I'm responsible for making sure he is healthy now, and when he's old enough to take that responsibility on for himself, I want him to be free to make choices without having to worry about the side effects of the various drugs (legal, prescription, or otherwise) that I have addicted him to.

We ended the conversation with hugs. And I'm sure I will be sitting down to lunch with them tomorrow. I wonder what we'll talk about. I'm so thankful. I can't even put into words how very, utterly, tears-of-joy thankful I am that these beautiful children are in my life. I wish I could bottle the way I feel right now and give it to everyone in the world, because if I did, we would all just drop whatever the fuck we were doing at any given moment, find the closest warm body, and just hug and hug and hug with tears of absolute bliss streaming down our cheeks. That's how fabulous I feel.

Livelifelove
drucilla.

Posted at 1:24 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

What's the Point?

October 28, 2003

I've started posting a word of the day on our little white board in the hallway, and I signed up for a couple of word of the day e-mail reminders to ensure that I have good words to choose from. Today's word is ravel, and this is the definition:

What does it mean? 1 a : to separate or undo the texture of the threads of b : to undo the intricacies of : disentangle 2 : entangle, confuse
How do you use it?
When Becca was learning how to knit, she often had to ravel the snarls that ended up in her yarn so she wouldn't get knots in her sweaters.

Are you a word wiz?
Which of the words below means the same thing as "ravel"?

A. unravel
B. snag
C. knit
D. smooth

Answer:
It sounds crazy, but "unravel" is a synonym of "ravel." "Ravel" is from the Dutch word "rafelen," which describes a thread unweaving from a fabric or spool and becoming tangled.

English speakers understood the Dutch word two ways. From one point of view, it suggested unweaving, which lead to the sense of "ravel" that means "to disentangle." From another point of view, it suggested becoming tangled, which lead to the sense of "ravel" meaning "to entangle." People took the "to entangle" meaning of "ravel" and logically created "unravel" to mean "to disentangle." As a result, "ravel" has contradictory meanings, and "ravel" and "unravel" are synonymous.

Can someone tell me what is the point of this word if it means two completely opposite things? And how confusing would it be to have to explain this to a 6 year old?

I think I will go wite "penumbra" or "occident" or "tortoise shell" or "avatar" or "prescience" or "largesse"...or just about anything other than "ravel."

Posted at 7:49 AM • Comments (10) • TrackBack

War Family Values

October 27, 2003

I could go on and on about the ways in which post-World War II militarism has eroded American family life. (I do go on and on elsewhere; see the chapter on the military vs. the family in my WITH GOOD INTENTIONS? REFLECTIONS ON THE MYTH OF PROGRESS IN AMERICA.) Divorce, dispersal, disruption of courtship patterns: ye shall know the warfare state by its rotten fruits. These include even the people-scattering Interstate Highway System, which was conceived during World War II by the top-down planner extraordinaire Rexford G. Tugwell and made concrete by a deracinated general named Dwight Eisenhower, who had admired Hitler's autobahn and got one of his own: the tellingly titled National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Cohesive working-class neighborhoods in countless American cities were sacrificed to the Road Warriors.

Bill Kauffman: George Bush, the Anti-Family President

Posted at 10:13 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Resistance.

October 27, 2003

Some of my least favorite warbloggers are still talking about how there is a small minority of Iraqi resistors of the occupation. Certainly, it is true that there is a small number of ARMED resistors, but I am not at all sure that you can ignore these numbers reported in the Observer:

A poll released this week showed that 67 per cent of Iraqis view the American-led coalition as 'occupying powers', more than 20 per cent higher than a survey conducted shortly after the fall of the former regime. According to the poll, conducted by Iraq's Centre for Research and Strategic Studies, the number of Iraqis who view the coalition as a 'liberating' force has dropped from 43 to 15 per cent, and very few feel safe in the presence of the police or foreign armies controlling the country.

It's bad news over there,

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking on NBC'S Meet the Press, said: "We are in this insurgency sort of situation where people strike and run and it's a much more difficult security environment . . . We didn't expect it would be quite this intense this long."

and in spite of what michele at a small victory believes, I am not in the mood to be crowing over being right about the clusterfuck we have gotten ourselves into. Instead, I'm mourning for all who have suffered and continue to suffer due to our poor planning and negligence. Including Iraqis. Including our troops. Including children. Including all of the people who are paying for the mistakes of the pigs in power.

You just can't brush that away by claiming that the "other side" is gloating over deaths of innocent people. And fuck you, Michele, for uttering it.

Posted at 1:53 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Lunchtime

October 27, 2003

Look at these two beautiful boys - don't you wish you could be me and be sharing a nice tasty lunch with such delicious looking children?

er...

on second thought...

Maybe Not.

Posted at 12:44 PM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

This Woman's Wisdom

October 27, 2003

Dawn, at this woman's work has a wonderful entry in which she describes a conversation with her son about loving our imperfections while improving them.

I'm glad that I started blogging, too, Dawn - because it helps my self-esteem to read of others in my same situation AND because together we all share this collective wisdom which enriches my life to such a great degree. I'm thankful for people like Dawn, and many of the other wise women whose words I read every day. And I'm thankful for the wisdom of the people who comment here and help me talk/think through my experiences.

Thank you for sharing this story, Dawn.

Posted at 12:08 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Blog Dream

October 27, 2003

I had a dream last night about a blog meme that was going around - about spaces. About bloggers inviting others into their homes by posting pictures of the spaces they inhabit. The intimate corners of their spaces that no one else notices or ever sees, or the most comfortable parts of their spaces...or whatever areas are important for whatever reason. How strange. I woke up this morning wondering if it was a blog I surfed last night that actually had this meme going, or if it truly was an invention of my subconscious.

Just in case it was an original idea - here are some pictures of some of my favorite places in my house:

(click to make it bigger)

This is an old mailbox, painted by a dear old penpal of mine way back when I was in high school and MAILED to me. The joke was that it was the truest form of mail-art ever. I've never been sure of what to do with it, so it's sitting on the craft table in the kitchen doing nothing right now. I might use it to give the kids little surprises or words of the day or thoughts of the day as soon as I get my shit together enough to get in that habit.

The unfinished ceiling of the purple room. I'm thinking yellow would be a good color, but I'm not sure. I'll bring paint samples into the room and figure it out when I actually have enough money to buy the paint. Isn't it lovely, though? I was worried that the color would look gross, but I'm loving it. I'll be painting a thick stripe of the accent color through the middle of the room so we can make a timeline/collage.

I have a big oak tree in my front yard, and one in my backyard. This is the view of the front yard from my bedroom window. I love this tree. Some of its branches are currently touching the roof of the house and weighing on the power lines and I need to get someone to trim it at some point, but I think it's lovely all overgrown. I also like the way the lawn looks. It's wild, it never gets cut, and it just stays at about that length all year. I think my neighbor hates it, because he's always mowing half of my lawn...but I love it, and I don't care if it never gets mowed.

Posted at 9:18 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Cole's first proclamation of the day

October 27, 2003

"I'm clapping my hands and grabbing my sippy cup and shouting UNNNN-DERRRR-WAY-UR! That's a good idea. And drinking my miwk."

(and he is)

Posted at 7:35 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Money stuff

October 26, 2003

It's ironic that today's episode of NOW was dealing with poverty, because I discovered that I am once again broke. Not broken, and certainly not completely destitute. I have a paycheck coming in a week, and I spent a good portion of my last cushion on little gifties and foodies for coley's birthday, among other things. But I'm out. And I'm really just going to have to start doing some serious bean counting from here on out. Which I'm OK with.

I looked at my bank statement, and it really looks like I'm spending all of my money on food and little toys and things for the kids. I think the kids deserve good food. I'm willing to compromise only so much of that. I'm not willing to give them crap because it's cheaper. But I can do better about the little things I buy here and there for myself. It's not much, but it's enough to bring me just a little over the line, spending-wise. And I can do better about the little toys and things I get for the kids, although there was the change of seasons and cole's birthday which convinced me to spend a little bit more than maybe I should have.

Of course, the biggest expenses these past few months have been therapy for me and upkeep for the house. The therapy is gone for now. And I'm fine with that. I'm ready to fly solo for a little while. But I still have a lot of upkeep to do here. Thankfully, I think I can tackle projects one at a time and still be ok. As long as I'm careful.

My B-I-L came over today and painted the back room, which will from here on out be referred to as the purple room. He found this deep discount paint for me - shopped at several places to find it - mixed a bit of white in to make this really cool mauve-y looking color, and slapped it all over the walls with the speed of a real pro. It's lovely. He started to paint the ceiling first, and realized he didn't have nearly enough paint to finish it, so I think I'm going to shop around for a can of yellow-y paint to go on the ceiling and trim. And he left the walls I'm using for chalk and magnet walls totally unpainted. He's going to sand them and paint them for me whenever I can afford the paint. It's really lovely back there, though - and I'm very grateful for his help. I fed him a big bowl of chili and a slice of the birthday cake, and I gave him 20 bux for supplies, and that was that.

One room at a time.

The floor still needs work, but my new scheme is that I'm going to slowly amass mix and match tiles of various types of flooring and just piece them all together into an interesting mosaic-y pattern back there. There's carpet down now, but it's thoroughly disgusting. And I've pretty much given up hope that L will honor his agreement to have the floor professionally cleaned and finish cleaning up the bathroom - So I'm just going to take care of it. I'm thinking of painting the bathroom the same yellow that I'm using for the trim in the room - and I would paint the trim in the bathroom the mauve-y color, but we don't have any left.

B-I-L also informed me that he has the wood to reframe my pain-in-the-ass gate. I'll have to bake him a huge batch of cookies if he does that. That gate has been the bane of my existence for years now. It's missing a picket, for one thing, so the dogs can get out of it if you don't block the hole. Plus it scrapes the ground and doesn't open all the way, which is a HUGE pain in the ass when I'm carrying the baby in one hand and a bag or two of groceries in the other. I hate it, hate it, hate it.

So, yeah, that will be a good thing, too.

And I'm surprisingly unpanicked about money right now. I have enough. I can make it until Friday with what we have in the house to eat easily, I just need to get dog food, and I have enough for that. I have enough to pay for Monk's November field trips with the field trip co-op, and I have enough to get to work and back every day. I have paid all of the bills that are due in October (which is part of the reason why I'm broke now!) Plus we have tons and tons of legos, to keep us all entertained. And we are having great fun with them. I need to focus on getting that room ready for use as an income generator of some sort...I'm going to run by the re-store on my way to work whenever I happen to drive and check on cheap flooring. And just wait for the money to regenerate. I'm really hoping that at some point L decides that, you know, being financially responsible for his children is actually a pretty good idea, but even if he doesn't, I'll be OK. Monk needs new shoes and I need new boots, but we're ok on clothes. It's cold tonight, and I'm glad I bought some new blankets, because we lost two to dog chewing and general wear and tear.

We have library books and internet access. I need to have L removed from my auto insurance policy to see if that will reduce my rates. I already managed to get my monthly mortgage escrow payment reduced by like a hundred bux because they were overcharging me for property taxes. My electricity bill is going to be lower since there is no need for air conditioning, and my gas bill won't go up too much because I'm not using the dryer and there is no need for heat. I will spend the winter squirreling away extra bits of money, plotting alternate ways of generating income, conserving...and really thinking about my relationship with money, and what I can do to live on less. I've already managed to learn to live on about 1/2 of what I was making when Coley was a newborn...now I need to learn to live on 1/3, so I'm not reliant on other people for emergency situations, and so I can save something up for later.

But it's been a long, grey day. I'm tired. Coley's been in bed since 7, Monk is playing with Legos after having slept all day because he was at a slumber party last night and I don't think he got any sleep. I think I'm going to retire early tonight...snuggle up with my little newly-three and have sweet dreams of dreamy sweetness all night long.

Posted at 10:28 PM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

"as the Lord's humble fruit inspector, it sure looks suspicious to me."

October 26, 2003

I'm watching this interview right now, and I want to cry. This man is so passionate and so right on, and I wish the other so-called religious people in this country would listen to him

It is about whether Democrats and Republicans who are sensitive to this move, where people who are sensitive to this move in our society politically, are able to get the will to say, "Enough is enough." I mean, let's stop this business, and let's look again and ask the question, "What will really make this a country that we can be proud of, and one that that pays attention to all the people, not just a few."

Posted at 4:37 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

This should come as no surprise...

October 26, 2003

but it still
sucks:

Few newspapers routinely report injuries in Iraq, beyond references to specific incidents. Since the war began in March, 1,927 soldiers have been wounded in Iraq, many quite severely. (The tally is current as of Oct. 20.) Of this number, 1,590 were wounded in hostile action, and 337 from other causes. About 20% of the injured in Iraq have suffered severe brain injuries, and as many as 70% "had the potential for resulting in brain injury," according to an Oct. 16 article in The Boston Globe.

Posted at 8:47 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

It Feels Good

October 26, 2003

I just danced for an hour - silly as can be, letting it all hang out, listening to "Stay Human." Not worrying - no self-consciousness. Allowing myself to acknowledge my clumsiness but develop my grace. It feels good.

I had good conversation earlier. Some angry conversation, but fruitful. I felt wholly dysfunctional, but I needed to feel that way. The more I hear about other peoples' reasons for ending their relationships, the more justified I feel about ending mine. I wasn't hearing the very real trauma in my relationship with L this time last year. These days, when I tell my stories with the lack of emotion that comes from having fully justified the actions of L, I notice the horror on peoples' faces. I realize it must have been there before, and in some respects I maybe internalized that feeling and stopped talking about it - as if the horror I was seeing had something to do with the person I was rather than the person that L is. A year ago - two years ago - I learned to not talk about it, for fear of being judged by his actions, as if I welcomed them into my life. As if I somehow did something to deserve them.

Now, I'm pretty sure I know better. Well, I mean, I always on a conscious level was aware that I am not responsible for another person's actions - but I'm recognizing that faster these days. These days, I can choose to not react to L's bullshit if the situation warrants non-action...or I can choose to react to the bullshit. I need to allow that to happen without judging myself. Part of my self-doubt is due to the fact that not only did I have to deal with the bullshit, but I also had to deal with the fallout from the bullshit. I wasn't "allowed" to respond in anger to situations that were anger inducing. Somehow, anger was a weakness that was my doing and my fault, in spite of the fact that the situation that caused the anger was not my doing or my fault.

Anger is an emotion that has to be let out somehow. I can no longer allow myself to associate with people who fear my anger. I have to concentrate on allowing people into my life who accept the range of emotions. If I get angry, that does not make me an angry person. I choose to be a joyous person. This is how I identify. And I will not allow someone else to define me otherwise.

I'm smiling. My life is so good and happy. There is so much in my life that is just kick ass. Good people, good music, beautiful kids, loads and loads of laughter. I will not let the ill-will of one person make me forget all of this or forgo all of this so I can knock myself out trying to express my joy in a way that he will understand.

Because I have lived the last three years doing just that...I have felt guilty for my own happiness because of his inability to feel joy. I have tiptoed around the house for fear of skipping and laughing and existing in the sheer ecstasy of living. It felt like a trap. A cage where anger and bliss were discouraged and reacted against. And not just that - there was the frustration of being in close proximity with a person I once loved so very much. Someone who used to laugh freely and enjoy my company, who suddenly clammed up and became dour. A person who just didn't find any joy in the world anymore. A person who, instead, sought out things to hate and despise about the world.

And, while I understand that depression played a big role in this behavior...and that depression is an illness over which L has little to no control, I still don't deserve to live beneath the yoke of someone else's depression.

Tonight, kate and i were laughing/crying chatting over the shit we've had to deal with and she blurted out something about how I had a lot to recover from. I had just told her about not being able to take a fucking nap in this house for three years. How it's always been that if I am in the house, the kids are dumped on me. I call in sick to work - I end up having to care for the children. Even in labor with Cole, I had to deal with that bullshit. My alternative would be to push the children away or to just deal with it. I have done both. I'm not happy with having had to do either.

I'm thankful that I am patient. In the past, I have gotten myself into relationships by default. I've always been so happy alone, but I always end up meeting someone who seems neat, but who also imposes himself on my life in ways that are inappropriate. I need to recognize this. I need to value my alone-ness, my autonomy, my singularity. I'm so treasuring my freedom to just laugh and laugh without having to be self-conscious about it. I am certain that I can and will allow positive people into my life who won't drag me down. I am certain that I can learn to differentiate between the kind of depression I can be a friend to and counsel someone through - and the kind that will only traumatize me. I am confident that all people are inherently good, and that I can recognize and respond to that goodness without fear.

Posted at 2:20 AM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

Roni Sums it Up

October 25, 2003

This post by Roni, sums up many of the reasons why Wal-Mart sucks ass.

Posted at 4:19 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Phew.

October 25, 2003

The party is over, the last person left at around 10:45, the kids are asleep, and I am BEAT! Good Lord am I beat.

I spent all day cleaning and cooking. L came by at around 12:30 - half an hour later than he's supposed to be here - and took the kids for about 2 hours. I spent the first hour that they were gone cleaning up and rearranging the house. I discovered that when L replaced the window he broke, he left all of the broken glass laying on the front porch. So I swept that up, and put all of the crap that was sitting on the front porch back in the back closet. It was mostly boxes of baby clothes that were waiting for some charity organization who clearly forgot about us months and months ago to pick them up. So I'll probably wash all that stuff and just drop it off at Safe Place when I get a chance.

So, anyway...I cleaned and cooked until 2:30, when I was so tired and hungry that I thought I was going to pass out and at that point I plopped my tired ass on the couch and watched Rikki...and of course, within 10 minutes, L reappeared with the kids, and I was treated to that look that says "I can't believe you are laying here watching television."

It's funny how I still respond to that look, even though I no longer have to. I never had to, but I have even less of an implied obligation to do so. But this is just an idea of his sense of entitlement. If he had his own place and was watching the children there, it wouldn't matter what the fuck I did when he was gone. But since he refuses to take that responsibility, he walks in whenever he pleases and feels like he can give me judgmental looks about what I've been doing with my time. And I jumped up and turned off the TV. Bah.

Which was actually fine, because I had more stuff to do...but I really need to work on not allowing him to affect me that way.

Aaaaanywaaaay.

Me and coley went out to get the store-bought carrot cake. Damn is cake expensive. No wonder I had planned to make it myself. I'm vowing to begin baking once a week. This is my vow. On Sunday, I will bake.

I came home from the grocery store, and laid down to take a nap. L was supposed to stay until 5:30 - so I figured I had some time. About 10 minutes after I laid down, L basically dumped Coley into the bed with me. This is pretty consistent with his behavior. I was EXHAUSTED. I had been running around all day, preparing for the party and I was very tired. It's really not that difficult to keep the children out of the bedroom for 30 minutes or so while I'm napping. I know this, because L basically slept all day for the last 2 years of our relationship, and I can't remember ever having to dump them on him while he was trying to sleep.

Fuckr.

Did I say that out loud? Sorry.

And what was I going to do? It's coley's birthday, I'm not going to send him out. So I tried to get him to snuggle down to sleep with me, and eventually he lost interest and left the room. I managed to get another 20 minutes or so of sleep before I felt like I should probably get up and finish up the prep for the party. It was around 5, and the minute I stepped into the kitchen, L was all "I guess I'll go then." And, again, what am I going to do? Yell at him? Tell him "No, you are supposed to stay until 5:30, you asshole?" At this point, I was kind of glad to see him go...but this is the kind of bullshit that happens on a regular basis. He, of course, sees nothing wrong with this - and on an isolated basis, there isn't a problem...but it's this little chipping away of the time and the kind of weird power play that occurs with the children between us like a shield.

At any rate...I was tired, but I quickly recovered and finished up the food prep, and I was able to settle into a chair and read the most recent issue of King Kat Comix, which was the best kind of therapy. I love being in John P's world for a little while, it's calming - and it reminds me that good, kind people really exist out there somewhere...and they love me. I have that kind of love in my life, so there's no need to fret too much about the unkindness.

And it was nice when kate arrived - and then everyone else arrived, and food was eaten and the kids had a great time and it was very nice and very fun and very, very exhausting. And I totally forgot to give out the goody bags.

And now I'm just ready to go to bed. So, that's what I'll do.

Posted at 12:10 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Cake Performance Anxiety

October 24, 2003

I did not bake the cake last night, and I'm suffering from some sort of weird anxiety about doing so now. I keep giving up and deciding to go buy one at the store, only to re-decide that it would be so much nicer to make one myself.

I'm not at all sure why I'm suffering from this anxiety, perhaps it's the fact that I have about 20 gazillion things to do today to prepare for the party, and cake baking is the thing on the list that I'm least good at doing. Perhaps it's because my oven doesn't work really well, and I'm worried that I'll burn it and/or undercook it.

Fuck it. I'm going to have to dive in and do it. I even got some cute halloween sprinkles so Coley can decorate it himself, and it just wouldn't be the same with a store-bought cake.

OK, I'm going to do it. I have officially psyched myself up. Thanks for listening.

Posted at 8:36 AM • Comments (7) • TrackBack

Extra Sugar, Extra Salt

October 24, 2003

I'm about to attempt to make a cake for my baby boy, who will officially be three years old tomorrow. Three. Years. Old. And Monk lost his third tooth tonight. Three. Teeth.

I'm sure I'll figure out something sappy to write about cole at some point during the day tomorrow between frantically cleaning the house and cooking, but for now I want to tell a sappy story about Monk. About both of my kids.

This morning I was feeling really grumpy. I mean, REALLY grumpy. I was trying to write that rant, and it wasn't coming out right and I kept getting caught up and Monk kept interrupting me with his endless questions which I really should be thankful for but this morning I was so not thankful for it because it was totally breaking my concentration and coley kept poking me with legos and I was not in a happy mama place and so...I yelled. I yelled twice. I told my little Monkey man that he needed to stop interrupting me and I told him in a not very nice way, and loud.

I could instantly tell I hurt his feelings, because he got that little pouty face going and I felt bad, but I was too frustrated to express that I felt bad because any apology would have come out with a "but" attached and that's just not a good way to apologize. So I stewed, sitting here on my bench.

And before I could make amends, suddenly Monk was hugging me. He just quietly walked over to me and put his arms around me and hugged me. He knew. He knew I was frustrated and that I didn't mean to take it out on him, but I told him anyway. I told him it wasn't his fault that I was upset and that I shouldn't have made him feel like he was doing something wrong. And he just hugged me and looked up at me with his beautiful blue eyes and he said "Thanks mom. I know."

What a great kid. Later on, after everything had cleared up and the kids were happily playing with Legos together, I sat down across from him on the floor and told him that it wasn't his responsibility to make me feel better, especially when I'm acting like a butt, but that his hug was the perfect thing and it really did make me feel better. And of course that I loved him.

And a little later, he got mad at cole for breaking his lego pyramid...and he yelled, loud, at Cole, and then he ran into his room and slammed the door, and I went in after him and I told him "Look, I yell - you yell...we all need to really work on not yelling at each other when we are frustrated because it doesn't do any good - so I want you to go make amends with coley and I will tell coley to make amends with you for breaking your pyramid." And I did...and monk apologized and coley apologized and they hugged each other and went on playing with their legos.

These kids are so great. They really are. I am, like, the luckiest mama in the whole world. I have always led a pretty happy and fulfilled life, but I can't even imagine what I would do without these guys. What would I do without Coley waking up and demanding that I tie a scarf around his neck so he could run around proclaiming that he is "super village!" all day - and that I am the crimefighter who is to defeat him and his villagious ways! What would I do without Monk's pumpkin-faced wisdom and silly stories?

It all makes sense. I really can do anything, because I have to - because they deserve everything. I might not be perfect. I might get frustrated and angry. I might not always be the best mama in the world, but I love those little guys so much...and I just always hope the know how very very much I do.

Posted at 1:20 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Stupid post stupid interruptions

October 23, 2003

I've spent about an hour a day for the past week attempting to record my feelings about recent interactions with L, and every time I start, it turns into this really long involved post about politics of relationships and dealing with people who are unreasonable and/or mentally ill - and the double-edged sword of DESIRING productive interaction, knowing I'm not going to get it and wanting to vent about it but feeling guilty about it because a part of me understands that L is fundamentally and profoundly unable to cope with relationships. And the fine line between understanding that and being sympathetic...and allowing abuse to happen and feeling compromised because of it. And wanting to accommodate but, again, not wanting to be compromised.

And all of this in a swirl with societal expectations of women and men and how drastically they differ and how it's assumed (and rightly so, I might add) that I would never in a million years even consider walking out on my children or even not financially supporting my children in a significant way - and yet the threat of L walking is palpable and the reality of L not financially supporting the children is waved away by him as a mere technicality because isn't he doing me this HUGE favor of watching them while I'm at work? And shouldn't that mean that he has absolutely no other obligation to them or to me...and included in that lack of obligation is the obligation to find his own place to live so I'm not expected to open my home on a daily basis to someone who time and time again has proven that he has absolutely no respect for my autonomy.

But I'm the nice one. I'm the workhorse. I'm the responsible one. I'm the mama.

Even though the way he sees it is that I'm the bitch, I'm the lazy one, I'm the spendthrift...

And what I really want to do is scream in his face. What I really want to do is get up in his space and see how he likes it. What I really want to do is take him to court and shake him down. What I really want to do is tell him he is a worthless piece of shit. What I really want to do is sky-write in huge, unmistakable letters "Your children are YOUR responsibility, too...and fulfilling your obligation as a parent is not a favor you do for the other parent, but a BARE-MINIMUM requirement of being a parent."

And then I feel like staying out all night so he has to wonder if I'm ever going to return and take care of the kids. Staying out all night with no way for him to contact me so he can know what it feels like to watch the clock, and hear the children sigh disappointedly, knowing that I'm supposed to be there, and I'm not. Staying out all night so he has to feel the panic of not knowing how he's going to care for these kids without the help of the other so-called adult who brought them into this world. Staying out all night so he has to take the baby to the emergency room, spending the last of the money that was set aside for therapy, without any hope of seeing that replenished by the other person who is RESPONSIBLE for helping with bills. Staying out all night until he really understands what it's like to know that the other parent CAN'T be relied upond. Staying out all night so that he has to scheme up backup plans, and backup plans to backup plans. And all the while the children are walking around with this disappointed and let-down look on their faces, because what staying out all night really does is teaches them that they can't rely on their parents to provide the care that they need.

So, I won't stay out all night. I'll come home at my designated time and hug them and hug them and hug them and I'll push down all of the "fuck yous" and "assholes" and every other descriptive adjective that rises like bile when I think about his hubris and sense of entitlement - when I have to look at that fucking adolescent smirk or that bloodshot look of indigence caused by his own inability to pull his shit together and be a fucking adult.

***

PS - this was a RANT, not a state of mind. I don't need advice - I don't need sympathy - I just needed to let this out so I can go about the rest of my day without jawclench and eyetick.

Posted at 10:52 AM • Comments (6) • TrackBack

Drug Pushers

October 23, 2003

I have to preface this post by saying that I love the clients I serve where I work. They are, in general, wonderful people who really care about our program and treat us with the utmost respect.

Which is probably why about 2/3 of my class was trying to get me hooked on allergy medication when I was sniffling in class yesterday. I got to hear stories of weekly shots and daily pill popping - things people do to control allergies around here. I heard a lot of "Oh, you need to get rid of that! This stuff will knock it right out of your system."

And I kind of wonder what exactly allergy medicine does to your body. Since allergies are really just a symptom of an over-active immune system, does a person who is what can only be described as absolutely addicted to allergy medication eventually end up compromising his or her immune system?

Personally, I can't touch the stuff unless I'm absolutely dying. Any medication I put into my body makes me feel dopy and sleepy - so much so that I am absolutely worthless to anyone. And if I'm going to have to call in sick to work anyway, I might as well just take a hot eucalyptus bath and go to bed...

...which is what I did yesterday, and I woke up today without a sniffle.

Posted at 1:06 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

It's not an adjective, either

October 22, 2003

Among my criticisms in the first column, I noted that GHETTOPOLY's biggest offense is reinforcing the notion of the ghetto as a free-standing cultural space, whose residents are caught in a tangle of pathology because of their own depravity, ignorance, addiction, bad choices, and incompetence.
In fact, as I explained with historical evidence, the ghetto is a creation of the political and economic elites who sought to restrict black residential mobility to the urban core, even as whites were being subsidized to move to the suburbs. The ghetto, in other words is not the product of the people who live there, but those who don't: it is the geographic detritus of institutional racism and economic oppression.

In the second of a three-part series at the Black Commentator, Tim Wise lives up to his name.

For that is the biggest white privilege of all: namely, the privilege of remaining oblivious to the real world, ignorant to the workings of your society, enraptured by the fantasy created by your history books, teachers, preachers, parents, Boy Scout leaders and politicians.

It is the privilege to never have to think about the things you don't want to think about.

It is the ability to live a lie every day, and most of all to insist upon one's innocence long after that innocence was delivered still-born, and to swear that the baby, so to speak, is still breathing.

It is the privilege of thinking that poverty is a game, precisely because you and yours have rarely if ever had to play it from the inside, have never been the chess pieces moved around by someone else's hand.

It is the ability to say "lighten up, it's just a joke," precisely because the joke is not on you or anyone you know.

Rock on, brother.

Posted at 8:22 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Much Needed Help

October 22, 2003

My brother in law came over today and again offered to paint the back room for me and fix the gate on the privacy fence in our back yard. That gate has been an annoyance to me for years now, because it sticks and doesn't open all the way and there's a picket missing so the dogs get out. It's just a huge hairy fucking pain. He says he's going to buy some wood and build me a whole new gate, and he's going to shop for cheap paint and take care of the back room for me - at least a primer coat in a neutral color. Once that's done, and once I can afford some of the chalkboard paint and some of the magnetic paint, he's going to sand down the two walls I want to use for that and paint it again.

I'm so thankful for the help. BIL is a good guy. He has some problems (who doesn't) but the kids love him and he's always been very nice to me. Today, he brought over this cute little homemade rocking horse that his girlfriend found in someone's trash. He cleaned it up for us and gave it to Coley, who adores it.

I don't have any family in town here, so it's nice that they are putting forth the effort to maintain a relationship with me and the kids. It's difficult to accept help from L's family, but I think I need it, and I think the helping helps them, too. Plus it's good for me to practice receiving from others, as well as giving.

Posted at 5:50 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Hipmama

October 22, 2003

I love the way Coleen so nonchalantly points out that hipmama is "back." Cool.

Posted at 8:57 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Crazymama on National Marriage Protection week

October 21, 2003

I really don't feel qualified to write about the sanctity or importance of marriage as I am in the midst of becoming demarried, so I'm glad that crazymama has written about it. Go read.

Posted at 8:41 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Redistricting in Texas, The Photo Essay

October 21, 2003

Excitement Machine hooked me up with this link, which is...well, it's laughably depressing.

Posted at 7:13 PM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

Ben Weasel has a Blog

October 21, 2003

Hey everyone, Ben Weasel has a blog.

And I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but while I'm on the subject, I might as well shout out to Jim Munroe, who also has a blog.

I wonder how many people I have known/known of in my past are blogging now. It seems like there should be a lot of ex-zinesters out there with blogs, but I haven't run into too terribly many of them.

Make yourself heard! Zinesters (and ex-zinesters) with blogs, unite!

Posted at 5:53 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Sniffles.

October 21, 2003

I hate this fucking weather. I really do. It gets down to about 50 at night, and up to the 80s in the day, and every day the trees and plants think "Yay! It's spring again!" And I get the sniffles and the drippy nose and the whole she-bang. Which isn't so bad. I mean, I would rather have the sniffles than the sore-throat inducing post nasal drip (that comes later, during cedar season) (wouldn't you like to live somewhere where seasons are defined by the allergies they cause rather than by actual meteorological differences?) But, yet, it IS so bad, because I am supposed to stand in front of a room full of people and teach them things without sniffing every five seconds (which is annoying) or wiping my nose on my sleeve (which is disgusting) - both of which I regularly do when I'm not standing in front of a room full of people.

I suppose shoving facial tissue up my nostrils is out of the question, too.

*sniff*

Posted at 5:49 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Moyers on Education

October 21, 2003

Quite honestly, the left doesn't get it. The so-called Houston "miracle" (which is actually more like the Houston educational scandal) was not merely a symptom of bad educational policy - it's a symptom of our shitty political and economic system of capitalism.

However, last week's show was an absolute inspiration to continue fighting for educational reform and/or revolution.

Posted at 2:28 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

How Doctors and Hospitals Undermine Breastfeeding

October 21, 2003

I'm coming up on the three-year anniversary of my nursing relationship with Coley. At this point, he nurses maybe once or twice a day at the most, and he seems to be working towards weaning naturally, without any interference from me.

Monk self-weaned at seven months of age, but I don't blame the doctors or the hospital for that. I think much of the reason Monk weaned early was because I was working full-time and just wasn't able to spend as much time establishing the nursing relationship with him. He was fed bottles of pumped breastmilk mixed with artificial baby milk (ABM) for much of the time that he was nursing. And by the time he weaned, he was pretty much eating three square meals of solid food a day.

When Monk was a newborn in the neonatal unit, I wasn't actually given the option to nurse him - I pretty much had to demand it. I was also sent home with a package of "information" about my new baby, much of which included coupons for ABM and free samples. My doctor put me on a mailing list for the manufacturers of ABM to send me still more samples...

It's easy to see how some parents might reach for that first can of pre-mixed ABM in a panic or out of frustration. The first few weeks of breastfeeding can be very stressful and almost uncertain, particularly for a first-time mama. It starts to look like a really good idea to feed a baby ABM on the fifth or sixth night in a row that the baby has been up screaming and it just doesn't "feel" like he is getting enough milk. ABM manufacturers know this - and this is the reason for the free sample.

Once a mama has used ABM, it can be a slippery slope from which the nursing cycle has difficulty recovering. The biology of nursing is based on a supply and demand relationship in which there are often phases of frequent demand to build up supply for a growth spurt or recovery from illness. Giving a baby ABM, while definitely understandable, can interfere with the process and cause diminished supply.

Let me make it clear, too, that ABM is not merely an alternative choice. Rather, it is an inferior method of providing a child with mere nutrition, where breasfeeding supplies a child with not only nutritional balance, but also with immunity to disease, as well as skin to skin contact that is vital to emotional well-being.

"Sure, you can speak of the benefits of breast-feeding," explains Dr. Gartner. "But it's really just as accurate -- maybe more accurate -- to speak of the risks of formula-feeding. Unfortunately, the large volume of medical literature we now have that demonstrates this is written from the perspective of proving the 'advantages' of breast-feeding -- as if formula-feeding were the gold standard. But when you read the literature the other way around -- as it should be read, really -- the results are rather startling."
These "startling" results were crystallized in the AAP's exhaustively researched 1998 Policy Statement on Breast-feeding and the Use of Human Milk. For the first time, parents can easily access a readable, comprehensive overview of all the most current medical literature related to infant feeding. Summarizing the results of their study, the AAP Policy Statement notes that infants who are not breast-fed "in the United States, Canada, Europe, and other developed countries, among predominantly middle-class populations" see an increased incidence and severity of such diseases as diarrhea (a malady from which approximately 500 American children aged 4 and under lose their lives each year), lower respiratory infection, otitis media (ear infections), bacteremia, bacterial meningitis, botulism, urinary tract infection, and necrotizing enterocolitis. The AAP goes on to say that a number of studies now indicate that breast milk may lower babies' risk for sudden infant death syndrome, insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, lymphoma (cancer), allergic diseases, and other chronic digestive diseases.

"More than 1,000 childhood deaths per year in the United States could be prevented through breast-feeding," says Dr. Allan Cunningham, associate professor of pediatrics at the State University of New York Health Science Center, Syracuse and the author of scholarly articles on the mortality risks of bottle-fed babies in the United States. "This includes infants who die from a wide variety of illnesses such as diarrheal diseases like rotavirus, as well as pneumonia and bacterial meningitis. Although the 'Back to Sleep' campaign has made a large dent in the number of babies who die each year from crib death, my estimate is that you roughly double the statistical risk of a baby dying of SIDS if you formula-feed. This is something parents just aren't made aware of."

Why, then, is ABM aggressively advertised to new parents IN hospitals? I can understand why doctors would want to give free samples and coupons to parents who have not chosen to nurse or who are not able to nurse, but why are they given to parents who have clearly stated a desire to breasfeed?

Um, money? Money. Money. Money.

I'll have to come back and add more links later, I need to feed the kids breakfast.

Posted at 9:05 AM • Comments (5) • TrackBack

Don't JUST Listen to Your Doctor

October 20, 2003

And don't JUST listen to me. I should put a disclaimer on this site that says that I am authority of nothing but my own experience, as are you.

Anyway, I WAS going to post a bunch of "information" about vaccinations and why I made the choice that I did to NOT vaccinate my children, but the data is inconclusive in either direction, so I think instead I will post links to some sites and let whoever is interested wade through it all, because really that's the only way I was able to come to any conclusion, and my conclusions are decidedly inconclusive. I think the last decision I made on the subject was that, like circumcision, I would just wait until the kids were old enough to make their own decisions about it. Ha Ha. Kidding.

Actually, the first scenario that gave me pause with regard to vaccination occured with Monk. We were at his one year check up, and we had a new doctor. The first thing this doctor did, pretty much, was to criticize my decision to co-sleep with Monk. She asked how he was sleeping, and I told her he had been a bit more fussy than usual. She said something like "Just put him down in his crib and leave the room and let him cry a bit, and increase the amount of time before you come back to him each night..." etc. Basically, she was telling me to employ a modified method of letting him "cry it out" which was a practice that I very VERY strongly disagree with. I stopped her before she could go any further and just said "Oh, he sleeps in the bed with us." And she gave me THAT look, and replied "Oh, then pretty much he will never learn to sleep through the night."

What I hadn't told her, and what I didn't even bother to explain, was that his fussy phase was one that had only cropped up a week before, and it lasted about a day or so longer before it went away entirely. Monk has ALWAYS been a champion sleeper.

At any rate, she launched right from that little superior dance into the explanation of the twenty or so vaccines she was going to be administering that day, one of which was the chicken pox vaccine. This was the one vaccine I had been researching and really seriously questioning the validity of at the time, and my suspicion was triggered when she tried to give me a guilt trip about the mortality rate from chicken pox in children. I told her that I needed to do more research about it, and she started to lecture me some more, and I pretty much decided at that point that maybe I needed to do more research in general before continuing to vaccinate him at all.

So, that's pretty much what started my serious research on the subject and, like I said before, that research has not ended. I will read something on one side of the argument, and read something equally compelling on the other side. Just when I think I've stumbled upon something that seems conclusive to me, I read something else that makes it seem inconclusive. So, my current attitude is that most diseases that are actually likely to be transmitted to my children (whooping cough, measles, chicken pox, rubella) are treatable, but the side effects of the immunizations are not. Plus I just think that vaccinations are much safer once kids are older - so I probably WILL give them the option of being vaccinated when they reach a certain age. I'm HOPING they catch chicken pox naturally before they hit 12 or so, but if they do not, I will probably end up vaccinating them.

So, anyway, that's my deal with vaccinating my children, and why I do not. Here are some more sites on the anti-vax side that might interest people:

10 Reasons why parents should question vaccination

AVN Immunization Information

Mothering Magazine's Vaccination Links

I thought this presented an interesting argument:

There is no system of the human being, from mind to muscles to immune system, which gets stronger through avoiding challenges, but only through overcoming challenges. The wise use of vaccinations would be to use them selectively, and not on a mass scale. In order for vaccinations to be helpful and not harmful, we must know beforehand in each individual to be vaccinated whether the Th1 function or the Th2 function of the immune system predominates.

In individuals in whom the Th1 function predominates, causing many acute inflammations because the cellular immune system is overreactive, a vaccination could have a balancing effect on the immune system and be helpful for that individual.

In individuals in whom the Th2 function predominates, causing few acute inflammations but rather the tendency to chronic allergic or autoimmune inflammations, a vaccination would cause the Th2 function to predominate even more, aggravating the imbalance of the immune system and harming the health of that individual. This is what happened in Gulf War Illness.

The current use of vaccinations in medicine today is essentially a "shotgun" approach which ignores differences among individuals. In such an approach some individuals may be helped and others may be harmed.

If medicine is to evolve in a healthy direction, we must learn to understand the particular characteristics of each individual and we must learn how to individualize our treatments to be able to heal each unique human being in our care.

National Vaccine Information Center

Neurological Complications of Vaccinations

" It is also germane to point out that vaccines contain a number of substances, many of them as antigenic as the one for which they were designed. Preservatives may also contribute to the adverse side effects. It is extremely difficult to distinguish the effects of the vaccines' constituents.

Physicians often neglect to ask about previous vaccinations when confronted with puzzling neurological illness. Most of them appear to have been convinced that immunizations are completely harmless. Many also believe that such reactions must occur within one month from vaccination, and therefore do not inquire about immunizations in previous months.

Because of the expense of testing drugs, vaccines and other medical products, the pharmaceutical industry has assumed an increasingly important role in the conduct of therapeutic trials and post-marketing surveillance. This is both understandable and often beneficial. On the downside, however, is the appearance of conflict of interest when the analyses of the results are carried out by the pharmaceutical firm itself, or the government agency charged with guarding the safety of the product."

vaccine safety

Posted at 8:43 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Don't Listen To Your Doctor

October 20, 2003

I learned a valuable lesson in the days following Monk's birth. After 10 miserable days of waiting for the hospital to release my child to me. Ten days of trekking up to the hospital 6 or 7 times a day in my newly post-partum body to breastfeed a child who was hooked up to about a million cords and machines for no apparent reason. Ten days of Nurse Evil-Eye who at one point insisted that I was SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME with my OWN CHILD. Ten days of unexplained and unjustified agony that shoved me into a sea of depression that I didn't even know I was treading until three years later I sighted a shoreline and swam like hell. And this is what I learned:

Don't listen to your doctor.

I have spent much time in the past 6 or so years wondering what would have happened if I had refused to allow them to keep Monk. If I had silently unhooked those machines and brought him home. If I had stood up to that nurse. The speculation is useless, of course - it happened, it's over, I didn't have the energy at the time to argue. The experience of birthing Cole at home and eschewing ALL medical interference before, during, and after his birth taught me that my instincts about Monk had probably been correct. Most likely Monk did not need to be hospitalized at all after his birth. Coley, too, had run a bit warm in the days following his birth. He had a rapid heartbeat, just like Monk did. These are the reasons the hospital administration cited for keeping him from his mother. And I know these reasons were not valid.

I suppose I'm being a bit hyperbolic when I say "Don't listen to your doctor." What I mean, instead, is "Listen to your instincts." My instincts told me that Coley needed to see a doctor when he stepped on the glass. They provided him with the vaccine that I felt he needed, and they also prescribed an antibiotic. The antibiotic was prescribed because it "looked like he might have an infection."

These were the exact words that were used when Monk was a newborn, by the way. It "looked like he might have had an infection." And that suspicion was reason enough to rip him from the arms of his mother 10 minutes after birth and rush him to the neonatal unit. Rather than waiting until an infection manifested, they gave him a spinal tap and started him on antibiotics immediately.

I filled the antiobiotics script for Coley on Friday, but I have waited to start giving it to them. The doctor was careful to tell me that I would have to use the ENTIRE BOTTLE of antibiotics on Coley, otherwise immunities would be built up and, yadda yadda, we start having the problem of resistant strains.

Well, great. Lay that problem on the shoulders of the parent, but don't bother to accept the responsibility of prescribing medication on the off chance that it might be needed.

Rather than prescribing me the medication, which I would have had to give to Coley EVERY SIX HOURS - introducing more crap into his body in the midst of a double immunization - wouldn't it have been wiser and more responsible to tell me what to watch for on the wound and in general, and then schedule a follow-up appointment?

Yes, wiser..but no, not in line with current medical practices. Instead, doctors work hard to eliminate parental instinct and parental responsibility by prescribing medication that is not necessary, and then further the problem by insisting that it is the fault of parents that these medications don't work, because parents ask for them when they are not necessary.

Coley will be going to our trusted doctor today to get his DT vaccine. He seems totally fine, with the exception of tenderness in the area of the cut. There is a slight amount of swelling, but there is nothing that looks scary or dangerous. We have kept the wound clean, there is no fever, there is no more bruising, and the wound is slightly red, but it seems to be healing quite nicely.

Our bodies are amazing things. They are capable of healing from some pretty serious illnesses. Coley's body can heal this wound just fine on its own without the aid of antibiotics. That's what it's designed to do. If an infection becomes apparent, I will enlist the aid of pharmaceuticals, because THAT'S what pharmaceuticals are for.

The day I brought Monk home from the hospital, he had the worst diaper rash I have ever seen. I believe it was a side effect of the antibiotics. He also had horrible excema. Thankfully, I was able to breastfeed him without too much trouble, in spite of the fact that he had been given bottles about half the time while in neonatal. It took months for the diaper rash to really go away. He hasn't touched antibiotics since. Coley was on antibiotics once, when he had strep. Cole's other emergency room visit was for croup, which I had never experienced and which scared the shit out of me until they diagnosed it. They prescribed a steroidal medication which I also never used, opting to manage the croup by filling the bathroom with eucalyptus-y steam and by stepping outside into the fresh cold air. It was good to have the script, just in case...but it turned out to be unnecessary.

Don't listen to your doctor. You know what your children need. Do your research, listen to experience, and trust your instincts.

Posted at 8:54 AM • Comments (20) • TrackBack

A Couple of Austin Events

October 19, 2003

First off, there will be a benefit show for Scarleteen Monday night, October 20th starting at 9:30 at 219 West, on the corner of 4th and Lavaca in lovely downtown Austin.

Second, there will be a march on the capitol and a rally in support of midwives on Thursday, October 30th. From an e-mail:

Texans for Midwifery - Austin
Join us October 30, 2003, for a March and Rally for Midwives sponsored by
the Midwives Alliance of North America and Texans for Midwifery-Austin. The
event is on Thursday, October 30, from 4:30-6:00 p.m. The march begins at
the Hyatt Regency Town Lake at 4:30 and ends at 5:00 p.m. on the South Lawn
of the Texas State Capitol. The rally starts at 5:00 p.m. on the South Lawn.
Parking for the rally is available at both the Visitor Parking Garage at
13th St. and Trinity or at meters surrounding the Capitol, closest on
Colorado between 13th and 14th.For details, see
http://www.tspb.state.tx.us/SPB/Plan/Map.htm

TFM-Austin is a consumer-based group working to inform families, the medical
community and decisionmakers about midwives and midwifery care. We promote
The Midwives Model of Care© as a valuable birth option that should be
available wherever women choose to birth, both inside and outside the
hospital.

Mission & Background

The goal of TFM-Austin is to see that the Midwives Model of Care© is
available to all childbearing women, wherever they choose to birth, and is
universally recognized as the best kind of care for pregnancy and birth.
Tfm-Austin also endorses the Mother-Friendly Childbirth InitiativeTM.

For more information: Mother Friendly Childbirth Initiative
http://www.motherfriendly.org/MFCI/

BACKGROUND

Austin families have recently lost access to Certified Nurse Midwives' (CNM)
services in our hospitals. In April 2002, two physician groups announced
they were shutting down CNM practices at Seton Medical Center and city-owned
Brackenridge Hospital, making Austin the only major Texas city without
midwifery care in hospitals. Today, none of the six affected midwives is
catching babies. Read more for updates on these midwives at
http://www.texansformidwifery.org/austin/midwives.html

Following these announcements, families rallied to support their midwives in
the summer of 2002 -- first at a meeting of the City Council's Brackenridge
Hospital Oversight Council, and later at midwives reunion picnic downtown,
where hundreds of families voiced their concerns to City Councilmembers and
hospital administrators. Since that time, TFM-Austin was formed to promote
access to The Midwives Model of Care wherever women choose to birth.

Our access to Direct-Entry Midwives (DEMs) in homes and birth centers has
eroded in the last decade and faces more threats to their profession and The
Midwives Model of Care. The number of DEMs has dropped from 426 in 1991 to
only 159 as of May 2002. In April 2003, the Texas Department of Health
approved the Midwifery Board's groundbreaking rules governing DEMs, despite
last-minute opposition from a physician trade group. In May 2003, Texas
legislators narrowly defeated Rep. Jaime Capelo's (D-Corpus Christi)
attempts to amend Texas law to move the 20-year-old Midwifery Board at the
Department of Health to a medical board that would govern this non-medical
profession. Similar attempts are anticipated in 2005, and are regarded by
the Association of Texas Midwives as a major threat to the midwifery
profession. For more about this struggle, click here.

At our midwives picnic and rally last summer, more than 270 Austin parents
signed petitions in support of keeping midwives in Austin's hospitals.

I can't attent the midwifery rally due to work, so be double extra loud for me, will you? I am going to TRY to be at the scarleteen benefit, though. Maybe I will see you there.

Posted at 10:24 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

The old familiar pucker...

October 19, 2003

This post at flummel, flummer, flummo made me cringe AND laugh.

Posted at 6:15 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Coley on his Peter Pan Complex

October 19, 2003

Coley: I'll be the baby, and you be the mama, and monk be's the big bruver, and twla and bailey be's the doggies!

Mama: Do you want to grow up and be a big boy?

Coley: No, i want to grow down and be a baby again.

Posted at 5:53 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Some Links Against War

October 19, 2003

Why write original content, when I can just link to it, instead:

Christopher Allbritton asks "Is Syria Next?"
John Smith talks about the phony letters and War Marketing 101.
Veterans for Common Sense has a link to a USA Today article about Lettergate, and a report about morale among soldiers...and did I really see that? I guess I did.

Posted at 3:06 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

No Offense intended...

October 19, 2003

But there are a few people on my daily reads list who just aren't updating very frequently anymore, so I'm moving them down to the generic blogroll. I haven't had much time to read daily anyway, so I doubt I can possibly get to them any less frequently than I'm currently doing.

Posted at 10:11 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Bahahahahaha

October 19, 2003

This is just too too funny. Thanks to redheaddread for the link.

Posted at 9:40 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Some cute things about yesterday

October 18, 2003

I forgot to mention that we actually spent a good portion of our visit to the emergency room hugging each other as a form of entertainment. Probably about 20 minutes or so. Monk would hug me and cole would hide between us and it was the most fun thing ever apparently, because he kept demanding that we "squash him dark" again and again. I'm sure the hospital people thought we were the weirdest family ever, between the not vaccinating and the take me out to the ballgames and the inquisitive 6 year old who was not in school but was accompanying his baby brother to the emergency room and the group hugging. How funny that that would be considered odd, but I'm sure it is.

Also, last night before bedtime we were all watching a movie and Coley gave me a big hug and said "I YUV my family."

I nearly cried. It was so sweet.

Posted at 12:00 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

An Open Letter to a Man

October 17, 2003

Dear man in the parking lot,

I'm going to give you some advice. It's not a good idea to approach a woman while she is loading her children into her car - with her back turned to you - after dark. I understand that your car, which was parked on the dark side of the building, might very well have needed the jump you claimed it needed. I apologize that I was unable to be of assistance to you, but I need to consider the safety of myself and my children before I consider your potential need for help. I know it was probably difficult for you to understand why I would demand that you back away from me, while I reached into my car to grab my keys which I'm sure you thought might have been a gun or mace or any number of weapons of defense. You seemed confused by my fear of you. Perhaps you felt like you looked benign in your frat boy outfit and your baseball cap. You did not look benign to me.

I would think you would realize that a nearly empty parking lot at night is the wrong place to get help from a woman with two children in her care. I would think you would understand my refusal to even speak with you. I'm sorry that my reaction was an affront to you. I'm just trying to take care of my kids.

Sincerely

A mama.

Posted at 8:48 PM • Comments (6) • TrackBack

From ER to Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

October 17, 2003

When I came home last night, L informed me that Coley had stepped on a large chunk of glass in the backyard, and that the wound had been cleaned but it was stil tender, and that Coley was doing ok. Then L left.

Did I mention that I do not know where L is living, and I have no way of reaching him by phone?

So, of course, this morning when it was time to deal with all of the doctor-y type things that come from having made the (JOINT) decision to not immunize our children, *I* am the one who has to do it all. I woke up and immediately called the offices of Dr. Day, who is not the primary care physician for the children under the state child medical program we are insured under, but he is the doctor I trust to help me make decisions about healthcare. He is the doctor who very patiently explained the potential side effects of each and every vaccination, and respected our decision to not vaccinate in spite of the fact that he believes all children should be vaccinated. He is the doctor who goes out of his way to stock only mercury-free vaccines.

The decision to not vaccinate my children has been a well-researched and agonizing choice. I'm not absolutely sure it's the right thing to do - which is why you don't hear me talking about it too much - but then, I'm not absolutely sure immunizations are the right thing to do, particularly in the manner in which they are given these days - several at a time, and at a time when a child's immune system is just beginning to develop.

The funny (har har) thing is that I was planning to bring coley in for his Tetanus shot after his third birthday, particularly since my friend R in Germany just had a run-in with the emergency room after her unimmunized daughter got a nasty scrape. The Tetanus vaccine was one of the vaccines I was borderline about, and I was hoping to avoid having to introduce immunoglobulin, which is a blood product, into my child's system. I waited because I knew there was an emergency fallback but I would have preferred the vaccine over that emergency fallback.

At any rate, at least I was well-educated on the subject to correct the nurse when she said that I just needed to come to the office and have them administer the first Tetanus vaccine as they would normally do. I said "I thought he had to get an immuno-globulin shot if he had a wound and hadn't been vaccinated." She said she didn't think so, and that I should come on in...but then called me back five minutes later and said "You know, I just talked to the doctor and you are right. And we don't keep the immunoglob shot here, so you are going to have to go to the emergency room."

She was nice enough to call ahead to the emergency room for me. I love Dr. Day's office. They are like the anti-doctor there. There's no fucking red tape - just people who help other people make informed choices about health care without getting all up in your face about it. I like that.

The emergency room at Seton is halfway under construction right now, so there was no parking. I had to park about 2 or 3 blocks away to avoid paying for parking in the garage. I figured I was just going to walk in, get the shot, and walk out...but I ended up having to entertain two hungry, bored children - one of whom was also grouchy and a little bit frightened - for over 3 hours while they examined, x-rayed, immunized, and then made us wait for 20 minutes to ensure there was no side effect to the immunization. Wonderful. The people who work there are really nice, but I was wishing I had planned ahead and brought some toys or food or my phone or something useful other than my purse and my children.

And the children did pretty well under the circumstances. The other patients in ER were subject to several rousing rounds of "Take me out to the ballgame" with the words "pee" and "poo" and "underwear" interjected at various intervals. And Coley did. not. like. the shot...at all. But we all got over it, and managed to get home with very little hassle, 3 hours older and a little wiser. I told Monk this counted as a field trip for him, and that he was supposed to write a report about all of the people who work in an emergency room when we got home. It should be interesting. He asked the doctor about snake bites, and showed off his newly acquired encyclopedic knowledge of the game of baseball to anyone who would hear him. (Monk has decided he wants to be a baseball player when he grows up, so he can, as he says, "Strike it RICH!" - He wants to be a pitcher, and he's going to have a terrific sinker. A sinker, you see, is a ball that sinks. You throw a sinker by just throwing the ball downwards, towards the ground.)

At any rate, being that I could not contact L, and being that what I thought would take 30 minutes took 6 times that long, we were late getting back to the house, and arrived there an hour past the time he was supposed to watch them. Coley was passed out, Monk was keyed up, and I was ready to burst with frustration. Mama was ready for a break, and if L had shown up and then left, I wasn't going to get one.

Thankfully (?) he was TWO HOURS LATE...so I did get a break. He was worried about Cole...but I kind of wish that worry would have compelled him to maybe have taken care of the emergency room visit himself when the accident occured...or at least prompted him to call this morning to see if I might have needed any help. He said he "figured i would take care of it." Which I guess is the right thing to figure, considering taking care of everything is what I seem to do.

But, at least I got out of the house before I started to get really grouchy. I managed to stay calm through the whole ordeal, even though I really just felt like bursting into tears over the big fucking needle they stuck in my baby's leg. And I handled myself very well as I very calmly explained our situation to the ER staff, who didn't give me MUCH trouble about the vaccination issue - but they were clearly puzzled over the fact that I felt that there was some sort of choice involved in whether or not to vaccinate. When the nurse gave us our walking papers, she said "I know you have researched your decision, but the doctor wanted us to put information about the vaccination schedule in this documentation." I thought it was nice to acknowledge that I didn't just happen to have an unvaccinated child because i was lazy or uncaring.

So, anyway, after L came and sprung me from mamadom, I made a beeline to the movie theater because at this point I HAD to see Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I marched into the theater with my small popcorn and sat my ass in a seat and spent about two hours being absolutely brutalized by this film. It was non-stop. My heart was beating so fast. I haven't seen a horror movie in quite some time, and I know why. It's just too much for me. But I needed it today. I really just needed an escape from all of the pressure and responsibility that always seems to be on my fucking shoulders, you know? I mean, it's not like I minded taking care of things today. It's not like it was anything huge or above and beyond. It's just the fact that it's assumed that I will, and therefore no one else does. Just like it's assumed that I will pay all of the bills and take care of the house and just deal with everything, and somehow that is my baseline whereas for L it is the pinnacle of success. And it's not just how he views me - but when I listen to the radio or watch the news on TV, I hear it there, too. Single mothers are EXPECTED to do everything - whereas fathers are lauded for showing up and maybe paying child support. Just like I'm supposed to be THANKFUL to L for taking care of the kids while I'm at work. Like he's doing ME the favor, rather than just doing what needs to be done to ensure the kids are cared for. Doing the BARE MINIMUM.

But I'm not angry with him. I know this is all he's capable of doing. In my mind I know this. I understand. I am well-aware of his limitations, but that doesn't stop me from feeling frustrated with him and everyone like him...and everything that sets up the scenario where he's comfortable not taking full responsibility. The last two days haven't brought any NEW revalations...I just feel like every once in awhile I need to vent these things - to get them out. Because really when I'm dealing with him face to face (and our situation requires that I deal with him face to face almost every day) it doesn't help for me to even bother to tell him what I want from him. Because any request is a demand to his ears. And any kindness is an insult.

But, whatever. The movie helped a little, believe it or not. It's hyperbolic, obviously, but seeing a woman in a seemingly impossible situation, using her wits and whatever other resources she could find to save herself and the child...I could relate to that. I'm not saying that L is a chainsaw-weilding monster. But the whole fucking world can start to feel that way at times. And it's nice to know that when all is said and done, a well-placed meat cleaver and the ability to hotwire a car is all you really need to battle back.

And I know it goes against my character, but damnit I was cheering when she threw that sucker in reverse.

Posted at 5:52 PM • Comments (8) • TrackBack

While I'm venting...

October 17, 2003

I'm feeling the need to remind myself of a few things:

How many times did you refuse to go to the store for me to get orange juice and snotrags when I was sick? zero. or close to it.

How many times was I forced to take care of the children and myself while ill - while you went to play music with the guys? Many. Too many to count.

How many times did you go to the grocery store or take care of the regular household duties? Rarely, other than tidying a room here and there. I will always remember being pregnant with Cole and hauling bag after bag of grocery into the house while you sat inside doing fuck knows what.

How many times did I run to the store for your damn cigarettes because it was easier to do that than to have to deal with your adolescent temper tantrum if I didn't? Way too fucking many.

How many times have you told me that I'm selfish, unreasonable, and unwilling to do anything for anyone else? More times than I could hope to keep track of.

How long did I believe you? For way too long.

I don't believe you anymore. I'm not selfish. I'm not unreasonable. I'm not a bitch. I'm not DOING SOMETHING TO you. I'm merely insisting that you do your duty as a parent and stop forcing me to take care of your shit. I'm merely insisting on my freedom, like I should have done years ago. I don't hate you. I don't really love you. I want you to maintain a good relationship with your children, and I want you to stop trying to use your children to control me. I want you to support them financially and emotionally, and I want you to stop passively forcing me to support you financially in any way.

I'm breaking my ties with you. I have no hope of ever having any kind of relationship with you outside of the love we share for our children. You are a fellow human being, and I love all human beings on this planet. I wish you the best, because I want the children to have a father who can be a positive role model. I don't care if you get a fancy, high-paying job. I don't care if you never get a job again. I just want you to start being an asset rather than a debt to me. I want you to take care of your shit and stop fucking forcing me to take care of it for you by default.

And I'm so glad you are out of this house so I no longer have to feel the frustration and annoyance at having to watch you move about with that glazed look of vague disgust on your face. I'm ready to move through this completely and put my relationship with you behind me as much as I possibly can. I am not responsible for your failure. I am not responsible for your inability to live up to your promises. I am not responsible for your hardships. I am not responsible for your mental illness. I am not responsible for your actions. I am not responsible for your inability to act. I am not responsible for your hunger. I am not responsible for your homelessness. I am not responsible for your dysfunction. I. AM. NOT. RESPONSIBLE. FOR. YOU.

Posted at 1:03 AM • Comments (7) • TrackBack

Warning: Whining ahead

October 17, 2003

I am tired, and I have a headache, and I haven't had much urge to update the blog today. I have a lot to say, and I'm still generally feeling pretty positive about my life, but I got pretty pissed at L today because he was late, again, in getting here, and he still has not cleared out the back room of the house that he was supposed to clear out 2 months ago, and he will. not. talk. to me. He just comes here and uses the children as a shield to avoid conversation. He doesn't respond to any reasonable effort on my part to communicate about the issues that require communication, and I'm tired of having to ignore pressing issues because he "doesn't feel like" talking about whatever it is that warrants discussing at any given time.

I've tried really hard to be reasonable with him, but I'm feeling like I'm trying to be reasonable with someone who is incapable of being reasonable with me. No matter how I present things, I'm always accused of being bitchy or confrontational or mean. The facts are these: Our agreement states that he will be here at a certain time every day and will stay until a certain time - he is arriving about half an hour or more late almost every day (3 out of 4 days of the week) and I am coming home an hour before our agreed-upon time to help him get to the bus on time. This is difficult for me, because I basically have to leave work almost immediately after our classes are over and go straight home. But sometimes there are problems that need to be troubleshot or errands that need to be run or clients who are waiting for rides...you know...stuff like that.

Our agreement also states that he should have cleared his belongings from the back room, cleaned the carpet, fixed up and cleaned the bathroom by August 24th. It's now nearly October 24th. This is ridiculous. I need to use that back room to generate some extra income. Of course, this is not a priority for him, so he apparently feels like he can break his agreement with me. This pisses me off, because he's also acting like a smug asshole about it - with a little "What are you going to do about it" thrown in for good measure.

There are other facts that, although I'd like to, I won't go into in my public space...but suffice to say that it's been very aggravating dealing with him. In spite of it all, and in spite of my feelings towards him in a relationship context, I still have a desire to be reasonable. But it's feeling more and more like I'm dealing with an unpleasant, adolescent child...and I'm tired of it.

If it was a perfect world, I would somehow be able to allow for the children to have a relationship with their father without having to actually deal with him myself. But it's not a perfect world, so I have to figure out my limits. I need that back room cleared out so I can earn some extra money. I also need some financial help from him that he's not providing. I would like for him to find his own place where the kids could visit him. I'm not sure if he's capable of any of these things, and it pisses me off.

The thing is that I'm a totally reasonable person. I'm willing to compromise on most points. I understand this is a difficult transition and that things are hard for him as well as me. But there's not much I can do when he refuses to talk to me about anything. Compromise requires communication...withouth communication it's more like me being compromised than it is me compromising. And I've been compromised enough. I've spent the last 2 years being compromised. This not-talking bullshit is the exact same thing that caused the breakup. I'm not supposed to have to deal with this now.

I'm looking forward to finalizing the divorce, but I'm not sure that's going to stop the bullshit.

Bah. I'm going to down some rescue remedy, and I'll probably come back and delete this post later.

Posted at 12:17 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

society wants no fatties

October 16, 2003

So, now being seen with a fat person is a revolutionary act. Wonderful.

In the English study, psychologist Jason Halford and colleagues from the University of Liverpool tested 144 female students' reactions to two prom photos. One showed a dapper, thin young fellow standing next to a svelte ringlet-haired woman. The other was the same photo altered to show the guy arm-in-arm with a very large, nicely dressed woman.
The volunteers took a quick look at one or the other of the pictures and then were asked their opinion of the man. They rated him from 1 to 5 on 50 negative adjectives called the "fat phobia scale" that people often use to describe obese people.

The man with the big woman was rated 22 percent more negatively than the same fellow with the thin companion. When seen with the large woman, he was more likely to be described as miserable, self-indulgent, passive, shapeless, depressed, weak, insignificant and insecure.

I'm sorry...I was going to say something else, but just re-reading these words is making me want to go on a cross-country shooting spree. Thanks to Nurse Ratched and Redheaddread for upping my ire quotient for the day...

and, repeat after me "I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings...I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings...I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings...I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings...I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings...I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings...I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings...I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings...I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings...I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings...I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings...I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings...I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings...I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings..."

Posted at 11:34 AM • Comments (8) • TrackBack

I love a good conspiracy first thing in the morning...

October 15, 2003

Which is why I'm glad that Ms. Insane is usually on AIM in the AM - so she can pass me links like this one:

But then the results came in, and all of Georgia appeared to have been turned upside down. Barnes lost the governorship to the Republican, Sonny Perdue, 46 per cent to 51 per cent, a swing of as much as 16 percentage points from the last opinion polls. Cleland lost to Chambliss 46 per cent to 53, a last-minute swing of 9 to 12 points.
Red-faced opinion pollsters suddenly had a lot of explaining to do and launched internal investigations. Political analysts credited the upset - part of a pattern of Republican successes around the country - to a huge campaigning push by President Bush in the final days of the race. They also said that Roy Barnes had lost because of a surge of "angry white men" punishing him for eradicating all but a vestige of the old confederate symbol from the state flag.

But something about these explanations did not make sense, and they have made even less sense over time. When the Georgia secretary of state's office published its demographic breakdown of the election earlier this year, it turned out there was no surge of angry white men; in fact, the only subgroup showing even a modest increase in turnout was black women.

There were also big, puzzling swings in partisan loyalties in different parts of the state. In 58 counties, the vote was broadly in line with the primary election. In 27 counties in Republican-dominated north Georgia, however, Max Cleland unaccountably scored 14 percentage points higher than he had in the primaries. And in 74 counties in the Democrat south, Saxby Chambliss garnered a whopping 22 points more for the Republicans than the party as a whole had won less than three months earlier.

Now, weird things like this do occasionally occur in elections, and the figures, on their own, are not proof of anything except statistical anomalies worthy of further study. But in Georgia there was an extra reason to be suspicious. Last November, the state became the first in the country to conduct an election entirely with touchscreen voting machines, after lavishing $54m (£33m) on a new system that promised to deliver the securest, most up-to-date, most voter-friendly election in the history of the republic. The machines, however, turned out to be anything but reliable. With academic studies showing the Georgia touchscreens to be poorly programmed, full of security holes and prone to tampering, and with thousands of similar machines from different companies being introduced at high speed across the country, computer voting may, in fact, be US democracy's own 21st-century nightmare.

MmmMMMmm...yummy conspiracy goodness.

OK, but seriously, as David's talking points after an EFF meeting also reflect, there are some serious issues with e-voting that extend far beyond the usual digital divide issues.

Posted at 10:41 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

My Life Is So Cool

October 14, 2003

I'm really hitting a groove with this single parent thing. I am feeling very free and very happy and loving it. I have a definite rhythm of the day down, and I'm growing more and more able to deal with the need the children have for flexibility and mutability within that rhythm. I have created a great system for keeping the house clean, and I'm slowly slowly slowly reorganizing things so they are the way I want them to be. I know I've gone over this and gone over this a million times in this blog, and I'm probably going to look back on this time in my life 5 years from now and think "Why the fuck was I so obsessed about keeping my damn house clean?" But it does. It makes A Difference.

I've also been able to follow along with some Tai Chi videos that I've had for several years and have never used, becuase I didn't ever really have sufficient private time in which to use them. For out-of-shape me, it's a great thigh workout, and I feel refreshed after doing them - even if I'm only able to grab 15 minutes or so of it before crashing for bed. I'm looking forward to Coley being more able to deal with separation from me in a childcare environment at a gym or something so I can really think about joining the Y and doing some swimming and/or weight training. I dunno if it's that I'm in such close proximity to Coley's third birthday - which was about the time in Monk's life when I got severe baby fever - or if it's just a feeling of gentle closure, but I'm starting to think that I might want another baby in the future...and, for me, it helped a lot to be in good physical cardio-vascular condition when I had Cole. Right now, I don't feel the slightest bit unhealthy, but I do feel as though I would like to improve my strength and stamina. It's just not something I can commit to while worrying about whether Coley is SCREAMING in the childcare room while I'm lifting weights for 15 minutes (Coley's screaming is what is keeping me from going to the UU church on a regular basis. I tried and tried to figure out how to leave him in childcare without traumatizing him, but each time I did, he would just sit by the door and scream for me. And he refused to come into the sanctuary with me, even though children are most definitely allowed during services...so for now, I've put church on the back burner, as well.)

So, yeah. I was actually trying to write about how cool my life is right now, and I'm not sure why I went off on that tangent. I'm done now, though. We have a new Network Administrator here at work and he's a vegetarian and he has become my food buddy. So, when I went to check out Full Bellies, and saw that RedHeadDread had posted a recipe for spicy fries, and squealed "Spicy Fries!" We both kinda decided we needed to go out and get some french fries. So we went to the mall and got spicy fries and smoothies (what a taste combination!) and now I'm back and feeling like my life is even more kick ass than I thought when I first started writing this.

So, um, yeah. I suppose I should get to work trying to figure out what I'm going to say in this blog class tomorrow. And answer some e-mail, and do the million and a half other things that are not getting done while I sit here and muse about how cool my life is. And if I don't do them, I will lose my cool job, and my life will be not so cool.

Posted at 7:59 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Blog Class

October 14, 2003

in about 24 hours, I'm going to be delivering a 2-hour blog class to a group of 8 students here in Austin. I'm nervous. I have no earthly idea how I'm going to explain all of blogdom in 2 hours' time. My blog class is 24 hours, and I'm having to cut that down to 12 hours for the pilot class in December...and I'm finding THAT difficult. How the fuck am I going to teach people about blogs in TWO hours?

Posted at 5:03 PM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

Words of Wisdom

October 14, 2003

Both Dawn and Carvegirl have excellent posts up with words of wisdom that are worth pondering. Thanks, mamas.

I have a couple of inspirational quotes that I've hung on the wall of my bedroom, and I think I would like to change them. I think one of them most definitely will be "I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings" as that seems to be my mantra lately...but I want some more. Please feel free to share your words of wisdom with me...

Posted at 11:35 AM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

Counteracting the idiot OB-GYN

October 14, 2003

When I decided to have a homebirth with Coley after a terribly traumatizing, disempowering, and dehumanizing hospital birth experience with Monk (I can't find the link - but it's out there somewhere.)...I chose my midwife on gut instinct. She was the first one I interviewed, because she lived in the neighborhood, and I just fell in love with her.

Suzie Terwilliger is a wonderful, loving, concerned activist for women's rights in the best way possible. When I would go for my prenatal visits, I would always get a drink at the water fountain, so I could meditate on the bumper sticker posted above it which said "Women of Earth - Take Back Your Birth. It brought me to tears every time I read it, and reading the words as I type it, I'm getting choked up a bit. Our prenatal appointments basically consisted of sitting down and talking about my past birth experience as a means of counseling myself through the trauma to come out on the other end unafraid and totally capable of giving birth gently and instinctually, and I am almost positive that any given client of Susie would give a completely different description of their prenatal experience. I had a lot of issues to work through - the birth of my son and the dissolution of my marriage...and both of these major life events were going to play very vital roles in Cole's birth.

The difference between this experience and my experience with my OB-Gyn was vast. I had chosen a hospital birth for my first child, in spite of the fact that I desired "natural birth" - because my insurance did not cover homebirth. I paid ten dollars for a hospital birth, but it cost me so much more than that. My visits with the OB-Gyn were brief, terse, and I felt very much like a head of cattle being shuttled from one area of the corral to another. Blood was drawn, size was measured, weight was recorded...and I was asked to strip for just about anyone who entered the room. Susie never saw me naked until my birthing day.

I can't help but feel that the insistence of nudity on the part of my OB-Gyn, and other people (I'm having a difficult time not surrounding the world people in quotes there) in that practice has more to do with maintaining a power relationship than any medical necessity. But, whatever.

As I approach Cole's birthday, I am meditating on his birth. On how I faced some pretty significant obstacles, and I overcame them all. On how I was surrounded at the birth by people who loved me, and that love drowned out the emotional distance between my husband and myself. On how I was brought to tears when Susie, a woman I had grown to love very much, sat down with me the day after the birth and, with tears in her eyes and mine, said "You worked so hard to do this, and YOU DID IT. And you should feel proud of yourself." She wrote "a very gentle birth" on my record, and I cried out loud, remembering the violence and violation of Monk's birth.

All of these things come to me when I hear some ignorant arrogant asshole OB-Gyn claim that she is some kind of superhero who rushes to the defense of these poor women midwives have failed. Doctors in the city of Austin have REFUSED to work with midwives, making midwifery unavailable in a hospital setting in Austin - making it very very difficult for any woman to make the choice for a less medicalized birth.

The statistics contradict the doctor I saw on television last night. Anecdotally, my first birth was medicalized and required intervention and hospitalization of my son. I had the same problems with my second birth - or WOULD HAVE, if I had not been allowed to birth in a position that was instinctual and comfortable to me.

Doctors have a vested interest in making women feel that homebirth is unsafe and undesirable. They make birth sound like it is a dreadfully, unbearably painful illness, rather than a beautiful passage from one phase of life into another. There is pain, yes. It's the pain of transition, and it's pain that, when overcome, becomes an accomplishment that is empowering and preparatory to whatever challenges a parent of a newborn is likely to face.

And, Doctor Fuck-You on Fox News last night - first of all, I know we are in an age of managed care when people go to doctors for no reason at all, but it is a DOCTOR'S JOB to "clean up messes" - and it's also a doctor's responsibility to not treat their patients as if they are messes to clean up. I should remind you of that, because in my experiences with doctors, it has at times felt as if many of you have forgotten this. Second of all:

Every study that has compared midwives and obstetricians has found better outcomes for midwives for same-risk patients. In some studies, midwives actually served higher risk populations than the physicians and still obtained lower mortalities and morbidities. The superiority and safety of midwifery for most women no longer needs to be proven. It has been well established." (Madrona, Lewis & Morgaine, The Future of Midwifery in the United States, NAPSAC News, Fall-Winter, 1993, p.30)

Same for same - midwives have better stats than doctors. So FUCK YOU again. I'm going to write to Fox News and ask why a doctor was allowed to peddle her wares during a segment on midwifery, and a midwife was not asked to speak.

Posted at 10:06 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

A Hearty FUCK YOU

October 14, 2003

To the OBGYN interviewed on Fox 7 News tonight who claims that the reason homebirth outcomes are so good is because doctors "clean up the messes" that occur when an emergency situation arises.

I don't have time to go into detail about the importance of birthing choices for women, but it's this kind of arrogant bullshit that makes me want to slap people.

I wish I had been paying more attention to this woman's name so I could have sent her the story of the mess that was made of my first birth by an OBGYN, and the hard work that my midwife and I had to do to "clean up" the emotional trauma that resulted.

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

Apparently, there's going to be a rally in support of midwifery on the 30th. I'll try to post about this tomorrow because I need to sleep. In short, it's illegal for midwives to work in hospitals in Austin. This is fine for me, as I prefer homebirth, but it eliminates the option for women who rely on public aid or stupid insurance policies for thier birthing experience.

You think I'm a freak about homeschooling and educational choices? Wait'll you hear me go off on birthing choices.

grumble grumble grumble.

Posted at 2:10 AM • Comments (8) • TrackBack

I don't know whether to laugh or scream with fright.

October 13, 2003

Kos linked up this image of bush. I agree with the person who says he looks like he's about to sprout hair and turn into a werewolf. He may have a media-generated nimbus, but that does not counteract the evil fucking look in his eyes.

Posted at 10:54 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Homeschooling and political activism

October 13, 2003

Over the weekend, I posted a link on randomwalks to an interesting article that cited the statistics of homeschoolers who were are actively involved in the political process as being far greater than the general population. The gist of the article was that homeschoolers might be or become a potent force in future elections - on the side of right-wing republican candidates.

I wonder how true this is. For one thing, is it still true that the VAST majority of homeschoolers are right wing republicans? It's difficult to say. Perhaps it may be true that many of the people who actually get reported on are right wing republicans, as many of the more radical "left-wing" homeschoolers that I know of are nomadic in nature and probably not easy to capture in census data.

Check this out though...it's STUNNING:

For example, just 29 percent of all 18- to 24-year-olds voted in national and state elections over the last five years. But among former homeschoolers who are now in that age bracket, a whopping 74 percent went to the polls. In the next age bracket up (25- to 29-year-olds) the margin is even bigger: In the population at large, 40 percent voted, but among folks with homeschooling backgrounds, 93 percent went to the polls.

So, ignoring the ignorance the author of the article expresses by assuming that all or most homeschoolers are right wing republicans, (and disregarding the anger I feel about the fact that the HSLDA continues to represent all homeschoolers as if they are all religious, right-wing republicans) I have to ask...why? What is it about homeschooling that encourages children to be more involved in the political process? Or, more importantly, since public schools are still the overwhelming norm in our society - what is it about the public school experience that disenfranchises our children?

I could probably speculate, but I'm wondering if anyone else has any ideas.

Posted at 8:44 PM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

Quick...I need some input here.

October 13, 2003

anyone reading this blog who is currently enrolled in a college or university - how much time do you have to drop a class before it adversely affects your gpa?

Posted at 1:08 PM • Comments (6) • TrackBack

Monk on Uniting the World Through Gas

October 13, 2003

Monk: One of the things I just put into the great outdoors. A fart.

Mama: Yeah?

Monk: Yeah. (pause) It COULD spread through the entire WORLD.

(if that isn't 9 AM wisdom...I dunno what is)

Posted at 9:17 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Is Andy Rooney HIGH?

October 12, 2003

CBS News | Iraq: The World's Problem | October 10, 2003 16:44:43

I'm not even sure how I ended up reading an Andy Rooney article, but this editorial is so poorly written and wishy-washy that it's somewhat entertaining. Maybe he's on the same stuff Rush is on.

Posted at 10:05 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Monk and Cole, being sweet.

October 12, 2003

I'm folding laundry in my bedroom, and I hear Monk and cole in the hallway. Cole says "What are you doing, Monk?" Monk says "I'm putting this on my door so that whenever I look at my door I will always be reminded of this great day."

I came out to give him a hug, and he said "Cole said to me 'you're the greatest brother I've ever seen.'"

I am not worthy of these children. They are so very sweet and cool and wonderful. I'm going to go cry joyfully.

Posted at 1:26 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Ego Blogging

October 12, 2003

I just posted a recipe for TVP enchiladas at the recipe blog...and my homeschooling article was published today at OSpolitics. You've read most of the homeschooling post before, but go visit anyway.

In addition, spookydoll and I have come up with a really cool idea for a blog. I don't want to say anything about it, because I want it to be a surprise...but I think it will be a whole lot of fun! I'll let you know when we unveil it.

Posted at 1:05 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Bah.

October 12, 2003

I am really fucking sick to death of comment spam.

Posted at 8:30 AM • Comments (5) • TrackBack

I really love this article

October 11, 2003

It's just nice how the relationship between the parents and the children and the relationship the children have with learning is emphasized.

Meanwhile, they home-schooled Christopher and Angela, because, they said, the children were precocious and worried that they would feel out out of place in a formal school. Kenneth Paolini said he wanted them to have time "to watch the clouds, to have thinking space." Still, their schooling was exacting.
Talita said: "We were always looking for information. I tried to tailor the lessons around their interests. Angela likes cats. I gave her a book of Victorian cat stickers and she would write stories about all the cats."

Angela said, "They taught us how to think."

Posted at 10:49 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

I've lost track of how many reasons there are to homeschool

October 11, 2003

But this is definitely one of them.

FIFTEEN year old Brandon Kivi was arrested last week for sharing his albuterol inhaler with his girlfriend, who was suffering from an asthma attack. The school district was going to press charges, but they decided to expel him until after Christmas, instead. His mom has decided to homeschool him.

It seems like the public school system has the same inability to use reasoning rather than rote adherence to regulation that it preaches to its students.

Posted at 2:38 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Bill O'Reilly on Fresh Air

October 11, 2003

I think O'Reilly's favorite word is "defamatory."

Thanks to mr. tofupup for the link.

I've never watched O'Reilly, but the guy sounds like a fucking idiot. This interview is indicative of everything that is fucked up about right wingers - bellicose, bullying, defensive, smug assholes, accusing everyone else in the fucking world of giving them a raw fucking deal...and then turning around and doing EXACTLY what they accuse everyone else of doing.

The bulk of that interview was a walk down memory lane with Mr. O'Reilly. Nothing challenging or adversarial about it. Amazing how he chose to focus on the challenging portions of the interview in his criticism of it. I mean, O'Reilly's interpretation of it is so ridiculous as to be...off-balance.

Cry me a river, O'Reilly. At least now I know I'm smarter than the president AND the author of a number one bestseller.

Posted at 8:34 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

Forgot to mention

October 10, 2003

I'm suddenly overcome with the urge to paint my house, mostly because I'm witnessing the transformation of my friend k8's house as she paints and refloors and generally beautifies. I don't have the money for all of that right now, but I'm starting to plan. I am going to do small things - a room at a time. And I'm going to work at figuring out exactly what is needed in each room.

The back room, when it's cleaned out, is going to function as the "school room" as well as a spare guest bedroom. It's HUGE, and I'm going to put a futon and some pillows back there in the little section by the big windows. I'm going to paint the walls of that section with chalkboard and magnet paint so the kids can draw and create stories on the walls. The rest of the room will be painted in a neutral color, and I'm sticking with my mural idea to illustrate the things we learn about, little by little. I also want to put a big running timeline as a border along the top of the wall. Or...maybe in the middle. That might be better - so the kids can actually see it. I want to paint it on, and paste pictures of events in history on it. The carpeting has to go...and I would actually like to put in some sort of wood or laminate flooring because I really hate carpeting, but maybe I'll do a little of both - with carpeting in the couch/pillow quiet arean and other flooring in the other part. With a big, colorful rug.

I asked Monk tonight what he would like to do with his room, and he has the COOLEST idea. He wants a giant checkerboard pattern painted on his walls - dark blue and black. He wanted me to paint the floor, as well, but I told him we would have to find a checkerboard rug or something instead, because there's just no way I'm going to paint his hardwood floor.

I also want to finally finish the painting of the kitchen, and put some trim along the top of the wall. The kitchen is pumpkin orange, and I have this lovely marigold color that I want to slap on the wall that extends into the living room. I want to paint the rest of the living room walls a rust color, but it might clash with the pumpkin in the kitchen. Do I care? I'm not sure.

My bedroom? I think I want to do it lime green. I thought about it awhile ago, but thought it might be too gaudy. Then K8 did her boys' bedroom in lime green and dark blue and I just LOVE it. I think I can make it work if I break up the walls with some art maybe some stenciling. This room is going to have to wait awhile, so I'm not feeling any urgency about solidyfying plans.

The kitchen floor needs replacing, and I'd LOVE to pick up some slate tiles at the re-store at some point. They always seem to have inexpensive flooring there, and maybe I can mix and match or something.

All of my furniture (what there is of it, anyway) must eventually go. I have no money to buy furniture, so I'm not even going to think about this. Basically, I live like a college student. I have no style. I want style. Damnit. This house (and I) have suffered from compromise. Meaning, L and I had such different ideas about what looked nice, that both of us ended up not caring about anything at all. I'm all for functionality, but I would like to inject some style into that, as well. I need to figure out what style I am, though. Sort of a zany, punky, futuristic retro. hahaha. I can't wait to start working on it and see what emerges.

Posted at 11:05 PM • Comments (5) • TrackBack

My day, Continued

October 10, 2003

So, I wanted to say a couple of more things about my day.

First, I discovered today that Monk can tell time on an analog clock. It's amazing. No one has taught him this, but he knows. He can't tell me HOW he knows, but he knows the names of the hands and what they are for. We only have digital clocks in this house. I have no clue where he picks this stuff up. I thought I was going to be teaching him something new, and he was so over it. Haha.

I've decided that I'm going to stop pushing the writing on him. He's not interested in it, and it's only making it worse for both of us for me to get all pushy about it. I think it's more valuable for me to record his thoughts and stories than for me to force him to do it himself. Clearly, his ability to think through ideas is stronger than his motor skills allow him to write, and this must be very frustrating for him. So I'm about to tell him that he can learn to write on his own timetable and I was a fool for trying to force it on him.

Also, HUGE news...my friend J from Alaska will be visiting next month. I'm so psyched to see her. It has been years, and it will be like seeing a long lost sister. She sent pictures of her kids and they are so gorgeous. I'm thrilled. I really am. It's going to be so fun. I want to throw a huge party. Maybe that's when I will have my housewarming...because having her there would make it seem complete somehow, as I met her because she used to be married to one of L's best friends. So...yes. This is very good news. I miss having friends take crazy road trips and coming to see me...even though seeing me isn't the entire point of J's crazy road trip, it will be a happy reunion indeed.

Anyway, I'm going to go talk to Monk. Have a good night.

Posted at 10:37 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

I went out on a date tonight...

October 10, 2003

with Monk. Haha...gotchya!

But I couldn't have asked for a nicer companion.

Steven and I have, as part of our agreement, scheduled time for each of us to spend one on one time with each of the children once a month. Tonight was his night with Coley and my night with Monk.

Monk and I had agreed to go to Mangia for pizza - mostly (sadly) because they have a commercial on PBS (you know, non-commercial television?) But I like their pizza because they at least ATTEMPT to make it Chicago style with the sauce on top - even though the sauce is too salty and the crust isn't beer-y enough.

At any rate, before we went to Mangia, we stopped at Half-Price Books and picked up a couple of Goosebumps books for Monk to read at the coffee shop we were heading to after pizza. Then we ate our pizza and Monk made a new friend who was there eating pizza with his mama and his baby brother. Monk had his nose in a book and this kid thought he was a girl...he said something like "Goosebumps? Isn't that for BOYS?" But Monk liked him OK, and I thought he was a nice enough kid. So I exchanged phone numbers with his mom, who also seemed nice enough...although I will probably never ever call her because I'm too phone-a-phobic to do anything like that and also because I'm a big snob and I think I already HAVE the best friends in the world and couldn't possibly ask for any more.

Anyway, so we each had a couple slices of pizza, and then we hoofed back to the car and stashed the pizza box, walked over to Wheatsville, because I thought I would maybe pick up a little magazine for myself to read while sipping a lovely coffee drink.

It was the night of indecision and a clear inability on my part to be a consumer. I could not bring myself to pay five dollars for a magazine when there is so much fine reading on the internet. I would have bought BITCH or PUNK PLANET but neither of these was available, so I bought some incense instead, because I'm running low. Completely a practical impulse buy. I almost bought some tea tree oil, too, but decided to wait until my grocery shopping trip tomorrow for that.

Then it was off to Mojo's, where I ordered an iced Mojo for myself and a lemon-lime juice for Monk. We stayed there for a good two hours, Monk reading his Goosebumps book, reclined on the couch, and me sipping my drink and reading the Chronicle. I am finding it very difficult to read about Texas politics these days. I feel an intense urge to march down to the capital and kick the shins of all of the stupid republicans in the place. Idiots. Fucking idiots. But I refrained from emitting a string of expletives and made it almost all the way through the political section of the paper before Monk decided he was ready to move on to the next destination.

I had thought that we could go buy him some shoes, but Monk's insisting that he will. not. wear. socks, and therefore that the shoes I picked up at Savers a few weeks ago will fit him nicely through the winter. But, while it's altogether possible that he will survive an Austin winter quite nicely without ever donning socks, the mama in me wants to insist that we get him some shoes that will still fit over socks. At the same time, it seems this decision can be postponed until actual cool weather arrives - so I agreed with Monk that shoes were not a high priority at this time.

Then I remembered that I had a Barnes' & Noble gift card which I received as a reward for my promptness in turning in my time sheet at work. Nothing huge - just fifteen bucks. I think my boss actually bought it out of her pocket, because we were only given one card for our TEAM, and she didn't feel like making us arm wrestle for it. But Monk and I had about 2 hours left of our "time" together, so we hoofed it back to our car and drove out to the evil book empire.

Again, my inability to make a decision caused me to default to the children for my consumerist urge. I got Monk both of the new Captain Underpants books, and I also got the Dav Pilkey Halloween book, Hallo-Weiner. At various moments, I was fingering books by the Dalai Lama, Sark, and Michael Moore, but I just can't bring myself to buy books - particularly new books - when there is a library full of good reading, not to mention my own house, which is full of books that I've bought and never read. Ah, the good old days when I was able to allow myself to spend with impunity and little thought of the wastefulness involved. Miraculously, due mostly to this weird new aversion to spending money on books, I was able to escape the evil clutches of B&N spending only 2 dollars and 29 cents of my precious non-gift certificate money...which I had in CASH, so the government will not be able to hunt me down for my suspicious taste in toilet humor.

Bahahahaha.

So, now we are home. The boys are having yet another slumber party in the big bed tonight. We read Hallo-weiner together (it's actually a cute story in which the little guy prevails) and Monk is reading Captain Underpants to Cole while they nosh on some popcorn that I popped for them. It's past bedtime, but I don't really care, as they are entertaining themselves.

At one point, Coley had yet another jumping on the bed and falling and bashing his head on the windowsill incident, which brought tears and a large bump on his head. When I went in there to console him, he KNEW I was going to remind him to please not jump on the bed, so he wailed "I caaaaaan't stop juuuuumping on the beeeed, mama!"

I spoke too soon about them entertaining themselves, and even though there are many more interesting facts about my day to relate here, I should go and somehow convince this little cutey-bug that sleep is a good idea.

I'll post more later.

Posted at 10:07 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Congrats to Randomwalks

October 10, 2003

Randomwalks has been named the coolstop "link of the day." Yay, Randomwalks! It was one of my first favorite blogs that really drove home the value of blogging to me, and I'm so happy to be afilliated with them that I refuse to move my blog to my own freaking domain.

Posted at 11:12 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

I'm with Chris...

October 10, 2003

Embroidery is starting to look like a really fun past-time.

[link via letter never sent]

Posted at 9:53 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Strange Bus Ride.

October 10, 2003

Yesterday I left work early and went to hang out with a friend of mine for a bit. To catch the bus home from this friend's house, I had to hoof it a bit to get to a bus stop that wasn't obscured in darkness - because something about waiting at a bus stop in the dark for any length of time doesn't sound like a particularly good idea to me.

So I got to the bus stop, and there were two people already there. We all nodded at each other and I stood waiting while they sat and talked in Spanish. I have to admit that I was listening to them, but I wasn't really consciously listening. I think it was just that I was letting myself get kind of carried away in the beauty of the language and I was kind of annoyed with the fact that I haven't picked up enough spanish through exposure to even recognize a single word they were saying. In fact, I started to feel like maybe they WEREN'T speaking Spanish because of thise fact, but the language they were speaking had the same cadence as Spanish...so I dunno.

At any rate, as we were staring off into the direction of where the bus was due to come, there would on occasion arrive a vehicle that would LOOK like the bus, due to the colored lights above the windshield or some other kind of clever camouflage. I noticed that the couple who were speaking spanish noticed this, too...as they would get kind of restless and begin to stand up, and then would laugh when it became apparant that it was not the bus. This happened a few times, with vigorous conversation from them between occurances, until finally it happened, and I laughed out loud. And we all kind of looked at each in this tiny little shared experience that overcame the language barrier (of course, it's altogether possible that the couple also spoke english as well as spanish) and made us all laugh. When our bus finally did arrive, the man looked over at me, pointed to the bus and said "There it is!" And we all laughed again and boarded the bus.

The bus was full, and I was tired of sitting anyway, so I stood up towards the front in a space that would comfortably allow me to stand and lean my back up against something for balance. There was an old man on the bus who was obviously either pretty severely mentally ill, or drunk or on drugs - or perhaps all three. And there was a woman sitting down on one of the front seats talking about the importance of eradicating the white race. I was just trying to mind my own business. At the next stop, a woman came to the front of the bus and stood across from me, causing passage to be nearly impossible at the front of the bus. When someone boarded, I had to move over to allow them to pass, and I unknowingly shoved my backpack into the face of a seated passenger.

The person who had boarded was someone who used to intern at my work and who left under very bad circumstances...really the only intern I've worked with who has been resentful of me as a boss, at least the only person who has been outwardly so. He is now in the Navy, and wearing his uniform everywhere, getting the attention he has always craved and needed...and I truly hope the military is treating him well. I harbor no ill-will towards this kid for his behavior when he worked for me...but I feel like he harbors a significant amount towards me.

At any rate, I stepped aside to let him pass and he pointed to the seat next to the drooling crazy/drunk/drugged guy and said "You know you can sit down" and I replied "Nah - I prefer to stand." And at that moment the person who was being assaulted by my humongous backpack said "excuse YOU." So I had to turn around and apologize for shoving my backpack in her face.

I really DIDN'T want to sit down, but now it looked like I was just a big snob who didn't want to sit next to the crazy person on the bus. But now if I WERE to sit down, it would look like I was trying to look like the snob who was trying to prove that she didn't mind sitting next to the crazy person.

Anyway, I really TRULY wanted to stand.

So, I tried to make myself as small as possible, standing near the front of the bus. Trying not to swing my backpack in anyone's face, listening to my ex-intern explain about his military assignments. And I realized that the woman who had moved to stand at the front of the bus across from me was talking dirty to the bus driver in a very subtle way. I shit you not. They had a mutual dirty talking conversation for the DURATION of my 30 minute bus ride, pausing only momentarily to intervene when the person who was advocating for the death of whitey and the crazy guy started exchanging obscenities. The bus driver said the equivalent of a parent who says "Do I have to turn this car around" and both passengers immediately cowered in their seats.

And the subtle dirty talking continued. I can't tell you what was being said, because I wasn't standing close enough to hear the actual words...but the tone and the timber of the laughter they shared and the bits and pieces that I did hear had me convinced.

And you are just going to have to take my word for it.

Posted at 9:18 AM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

Hello?

October 9, 2003

Chocolate delivery service? My place. Now!

Posted at 10:48 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

I never realized what a good dog twyla was...

October 9, 2003

until we got bailey. Which is not to say that Bailey is an exceptionally BAD dog, just that she's more annoying than Twyla. Currently, Bailey is on my shit list because after REFUSING to step outside because it was raining, even though I KNOW she had to at least pee, she is now somewhere roaming free through the neighborhood because I forced her to go outside for five minutes. I swear that dog is vindictive. If I leave the back door open, she won't try to escape, but if she is forced to stay outside alone, she immediately crawls under the fence and takes off.

Thankfully she's the only dog missing right now, and she's going to have to stay missing because the other annoying thing about her is she refuses to acknowledge her name when it is called. I have to actually grab her if I want her to come in or go out and she cowers from me like I'm going to beat her within an inch of her life.

She also barks ALL. THE. TIME. when she's outside. This confuses me, because her previous owner said she was primarily an outdoor dog. He did tell me that when he wasn't home she had a habit of barking. He also gave me a shock collar for her, which I will not use, but which I totally understand now that she's been here for awhile. She barks at everything that moves out there. It's not such a big deal for us, because she stays inside most of the time...but I can't imagine what it must have been like for her old owner's neighbors.

Anyway, that's the dark side of bailey. Truly, though, I hope she comes home soon. I'd hate for anything to happen to her. I'm going to go outside and yell for her again. I can't leave to look for her because I'm expecting guests. Wish me luck.

Fucking dog.

Posted at 10:16 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

Coley Turning 3

October 8, 2003

Yesterday, Coley hit me in the face with a rock. I didn't mention this, because I had forgotten until today when I realized my mouth was tender, and I remembered why that was so. The reason I forgot is because Coley has fine-tuned the art of being cute to distract me from getting too terribly upset when he is naughty.

He's much much cuter than he is naughty.

Lately, he's been doling out the hugs like no one's business. This morning I woke up, and he wrapped his little arms around me and said "I hug you, mama - I LOOOOOOVE you!"

Then he padded into his brother's room, gave Monk a hug, and said "I love you my big brother!"

Coley is very, very cute. Seriously. He's the king of cute. He will always be my baby because I don't think I will be having any more children. I think Coley feels just fine about this. Where Monk used to always remind me that he was NOT a baby, but a BIG BOY...Coley is very content to say "I'm a BABY and I'm CUTE!" Which is why, even though he will be three in less than three weeks, I still refer to him as "the baby."

For his birthday party, Coley has requested that we invite three of his favorite friends. He would like to make "mexican pizza," even though he's never eaten a mexican pizza before (he told me he wanted a pizza on a tortilla, and agreed with my idea of putting beans on the tortilla and letting his friends help him put whatever other toppings on they like.) and he would like carrot cake. He loves candles, so he will have fun blowing them out.

And then he will be three. My baby boy will be three years old.

I gotta go before I cry. I love that little guy. I'm the luckiest mama in the whole world.

Posted at 11:30 PM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

Meanwhile, the more reasonable prevail

October 8, 2003

It might help to recite the mantra "prop 54 defeated soundly" whenever you encounter "The Terminator is my governor" shock syndrome.

It's a good thing there wasn't a Hollywood style superhero sponsoring the so-called "racial privacy act."

Thanks to negrophile for this little pinhole of light on an otherwise dark day.

Posted at 2:33 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

The importance of community

October 8, 2003

I'm sitting here in my kitchen at 1 in the afternoon, surrounded by the quiet that befalls the house when the children are absent. I figure now is as good a time as any to start what I hope will be a series of posts on community.

The children are absent thanks to my good friend and neighbor Megan, who watches them on the Wednesdays that we don't attend our homeschool co-op for special activities. In exchange, I watch her son most Fridays. This is an ideal arrangement for both of us, as it's generally easier to watch multiple kids than it is to watch one, and we both get regular time to ourselves. For me, getting time to myself that I get to enjoy inside my home is golden.

So this, in a very specific way, is what I mean when I talk in general about forming communities and creating more options. In fact, it was Megan herself who, in a conversation about real choices and options, raised a point that I hadn't directly considered but which perfectly defined the difference between anarchism and left-wing democrats: We want to create choices based on community rather than be supplied with choices through government programs.

Stating it this way helps frame many of the more difficult ideological issues I stuggle with. It's like having a formula in which to input various circumstances to decide if they are legitimate options or just the typical smoke and mirror rhetoric that our government wants to present as choice.

When I was explaining to Megan my arguments against school and daycare (she, too, is ideologically opposed to these types of institutions) she asked me "Why do you think our government would want to encourage us to institutionalize our children?" It's a good question. It was a question which made me pause to consider whether I was being a reactionary conspiracy theorist or a thoughtful and educated conspiracy theorist.

What I came up with was this - in general, our system relies upon keep us separate and weakening the bonds and authority of community and family alliances. And, while it's possible to maintain ties with community and family while our children are in institutional care...it's difficult. And it takes an extraordinary person to overcome this difficulty. This is "good" for the system, because the more we separate people into individualistic units, the easier it is to get them to rely on so-called experts, and the easier it is to perpetuate the competition and fear of scarcity upon which the capitalist system is built and maintained.

This is difficult for me. I have been born and raised within the confines of capitalism, and it can be difficult for me to create community. I'm thankful that I have the time and resources to explore community at this point in my life. A few posts ago, someone asked me if I was involved in any homeschool groups in my area. Hell yeah! I'm incredibly blessed to be involved in at least 2 different co-ops. We have a mama who has a craft "class" once a week, 2 parents who teach an ecology class, a field trip co-op, several homeschool "park days" of various size and ages, I'm starting up a computer club which will meet twice a month, and we have rented space at a UU church where we meet for special events such as study groups and presentations by various individuals and organizations.

By homeschooling my children, I have learned so much about creating communities and participating in those communities. And I'm really hoping to write more in depth about these communities and how they have impacted my life and how I feel they can impact society at large.

In the next post in this series, I want to talk about how parenting within a community of other parents is an incredible learning experience, and what I believe it is teaching my children. Whatever comments you have about this post or perhaps whatever you feel should be addressed in future posts about forming communities are greatly appreciated! All of you are my on-line community - for which I am also incredibly grateful. In fact, if I can just go off on a tangent here for a second, while I was composing this post in my head on my walk home from the grocery store, I was thinking about how fortunate I am to be able to type ideas here on this lonely little interface and how those ideas interface with so many people who have so many interesting ways of interpreting and adding to these ideas. It really has been incredibly educational to me to have the privilege of talking some of my thoughts through with intelligent people who agree or oppose and are willing to take the time to explain why they feel the way they do.

And that's not just me being a kiss-ass, either.

Posted at 1:33 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

"The Big Picture"

October 8, 2003

And I might add that "the big picture" has nothing at all to do with "ousting George Bush from the white house." George Bush sucks. He may even be EVIL. But "the big picture" is co-creating a society in which all people get all that they need to live fulfilled lives.

Bush is not the target. The capitalist system of false choices and harmful competition is the target.

Posted at 12:42 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Is it just me?

October 8, 2003

Or is anyone else sick and tired of hearing the Monday morning quarterbacking that occurs on all of those "major political" blogs. Lately, I've been reading the comments on Kos and Eschaton and Calpundit, and I can't help but think these are a bunch of economically "comfortable" white guys who really think politics is some sort of sports event - perhaps because the consequences don't really impact them in any significant way.

Don't get me wrong...I love those blogs. They help me stay informed about what is going on, generally. I just wish the people who make comments like "Democrats are being raped by the republican party" and "We need to just let Arnold totally screw things up in California, because that would prove our point." would really THINK about a) how those words might feel to people reading them and b) who, exactly, gets hurt when things are "totally screwed up" in California.

Let's remember that elections are held and politicians are selected primarily by people who have the leisure to follow politics and cast ballots. There is a very real voting divide in this country, and, unfortunately, those who are most disenfranchised are the ones who will feel the pain when things fall to shit. Rather than praying that republicans screw up while they're in office, we should be focusing on doing our part to make voting more accessible to everyone, and including everyone's voice in the process...or we really need to focus on tearing down the system to create something new in which people aren't marginalized to ensure the victory of another money-grubbing political party and their corporate cronies.

Posted at 11:14 AM • Comments (11) • TrackBack

American Sentamentalist

October 7, 2003

Mark, the American Sentamentalist, has an excellent post up about the double standard of the United States goverment. Simultaneously, as he says, crying for peace while selling war.

Posted at 8:43 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

pictures.

October 7, 2003

It's been awhile since I have posted pictures here...and this week has been a particularly good photo opp. week, so here goes:

(you can click on the images to make them bigger)

Monk's "Dragon" Creation

Bailey and Twyla playing in the backyard

Cole in his Halloween costume

Monk's "Temple of the Gods" Block palace

You should see him now. He's...they are BOTH...completely covered in mud. Head to toe. I'm going to have a fun time washing them off in a minute or so. Yes, he's wearing his under-way-ur backwards (he prefers it that way...so he can SEE batman). Yes, those are kneepads. Don't even bother to ask, because I do not have any idea.

UPDATE:

You don't know how difficult it is for me to watch them play in the mud. All of my mama instincts are telling me to go clean them.

Posted at 11:44 AM • Comments (15) • TrackBack

Wait...so the bush poem is REAL?

October 7, 2003

I thought it was a joke. I swear I did. Someone, please, tell me it was a joke. And while your at it, please tell me that I am hallucinating every time I hear Arnold use the word "terminate" during a freaking political speech...

I mean, things are getting weirder and weirder. I'm just waiting for the Cubs to win the World Series to kind of cap everything off.

Posted at 9:48 AM • Comments (7) • TrackBack

Another Great Unschooling.com Essay

October 7, 2003

I'm slowly making my way through the unschooling dot com library page. I thought this article was right on, and addresses exactly what I felt like I needed to see addressed at this particular moment in time. Thanks, Joyce...whoever you are.

And it's so true, but so easy as a parent to get freaked out and insecure about what they are learning. I honestly believe that there's nothing that Monk can't learn when he puts his mind to it - and that timing is everything. If he's not interested in something, he won't retain it or even listen to me try to teach or preach it. But once he can relate to something, it sinks in fast and he can maintain focus for super long periods of time.

It's funny, too, how we tend to compare our children. I just got an e-mail from my brother, and he was asking me how I know Monk is "on track or schedule." It's really funny that he asked that, because I have never put much serious thought into it. Of course he's on track or schedule...he's the one setting the schedule. Fortunately, his schedule seems to be slightly ahead of most kids his age, so it reduces the amount of insecurity I might feel about talking with family members about "being on track." But my brother was asking when I was going to "test him" to make sure he was "on track" and that seemed kind of ridiculous to me.

It reminded me of what my therapist told me last week about homeschooling. She said "It takes a lot of work and a lot of confidence to take that responsibility for your child." At first, I thought she was trying to tell me that she didn't feel I was up for that responsibility (I personally do not think it is much work.) Now I'm thinking she was trying to point out to me that I am stronger and I have more confidence than I let on. And I know that's true. I frequently am self-depracating.

But back to the idea of testing children to find out if they are "on track" - why? Do we not know if children are learning merely by observing them interact with the world? It just strikes me as funny that anyone would assume that I should have to FORCE Monk or Cole to learn. As if they can help it. As if learning is something that happens TO you rather than something that is constantly happening within you.

Posted at 8:43 AM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

Where's that Super Rat when you need him?

October 6, 2003

Apparently we're only this far from going back to having official food testers:

Thai health officials have thought of a unique way to ensure that Bush eats food that is safe. The finest cuisine that Thailand has to offer will first be injected into mice for tests against possible poison before it is served to the American head of state.

I've got a hint for you, Mr. pResident - maybe if you would stop pissing so many people off with your idiotic (lack of) foreign and domestic policies...you wouldn't have to freaking kill a bunch of mice to ensure no one is poisoning you.

[link courtesy of The Vegan Blog]

Posted at 11:22 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Really feeling...quite good, actually

October 6, 2003

I feel like such a goober because I keep writing these posts about how great I'm feeling, but it's true...and I feel like sharing.

Lately, I've found it much easier to keep my house clean. I have an established routine for cleaning, and I'm feeling like everything is slowly coming into some semblance of order. Surely, I can't blame my ex for the state of the house before he left. I don't think he went OUT OF HIS WAY to make it messy or anything, and it's not like he NEVER EVER cleaned up...but for some reason, now that he's gone, I am able to keep it more neat. It's not up to a normal person's standard of orderly, I'm sure, but it suits me just fine. Every night I light some incense and every morning, I wake up to a nice-smelling house that is...orderly. Monk even MADE HIS BED today. He volunteered to do it (I don't think I would ever get to the point where making a bed is mandatory, but I think all of us in our house really like to have our beds made when we can get around to it...mostly because a made bed gets sprinkled with lavender.)

But the thing about today was we were able to do a bunch of cool learning things that flowed completely effortlessly within the context of our day. I've really looked at my "schedule" (the one I tried to pass off as a rhythm) and decided, while it's good for me to have something to go by...we're all much better off the cuff. My compromise is that I have two hours set aside within the day which are dedicated to focusing on the kids, and I do minimal planning for that time, unless there's something really cool that I think the kids will enjoy that might fit in with the day.

Here's what that looked like today. When we woke up this morning, we went for a walk. Then the kids had an hour to goof around while I did some reading and writing and cleaning up (mostly news reading). They were playing with their magnifying glass (I have to pick up another one of those, as it's a very popular item in our house) looking at bugs and Monk was feeding the pets and then playing a computer game. When it hit right around 10, we lit the candle for morning circle.

Yesterday, we watched a Nature show about snakes, and I wrote down some questions about that show that I thought Monk would enjoy answering. I wasn't sure how well it would go over, since quite a bit of time passed from when we watched the show until I asked the questions, but Monk answered them enthusiastically and knowledgeably. There is absolutely no problem with that child's memory. We were able to talk about different kinds of snakes, different methods snakes used to kill their prey, genetics (there was a segment about a guy who hunted rattlesnakes by listening for their rattles - and the documentary made a salient point about how killing the loudest rattlers only creates an environment where snakes are unable to warn off people and animals who are approaching. It was a great talking point and I was able to introduce the basic concepts of genetics, which was so cool.) and issues of ecosystem - like why snakes are important. We also were able to talk about venom and anti-venin and how there are some people and animals who are able to resist snake venom because they are exposed to low levels of it throughout their lives.

It was such rich material, and it felt like...WAS...just a conversation, but it was such an excellent and fun conversation to have to start our morning circle.

After that, we read a bit from an old Highlights magazine, and I read a Thomas book to Coley, and then we whipped out the Childcraft "How Things Work" edition and read about how clean water gets to our houses and how waste water is carried away. The boys both loved the explanation of how a toilet works. Har har.

Then we closed the circle and the kids played for a bit while I got my shit together to go renew the registration for the car. And we drove waaaaaay downtown only to find that the tax assessor's office had moved to about a mile away from where we live, and by the time we got there I was in no mood to stand in line with both kids hanging on me, so we went home.

I tried to do the newspaper scavenger hunt with Monk, but he was SO not into it...even though I thought I had some cool questions (my favorite was "how did the illusionist get mauled" - because I really felt like Monk would appreciate the story of the tiger mauling Roy. He's pretty morbid.) So we just hung out and did some cleaning (this is where the bed-making and the lawn-mower rolling over the rock happened. And at around 2 or so, L came over to watch the kids and I was able to lay down and take one of those really short, but totally refreshing naps. And then I was off to get the registration renewed, return some library books, and come to work.

And that has been my day. I'm loving it. I truly am. I'm kind of pissed because I had wanted to take the kids to the speak-out against racism on campus today, but I totally forgot about it. Monk was kind of eager to go, too...so I'm not going to tell him we missed it.

That reminds me. Yesterday, Monk was sitting in the living room and he said "Mom, next time we go to a protest, can we make a sign that says 'It's not a good idea to go against your allies.'" Because the night before we had talked about who were the allies of the United States, and I had told him that France and Germany were among our allies and they didn't agree with our actions. He's very into military strategy, and now that he's playing Civilizations instead of Age of Empires, I think he's getting a better sense of how important PEACE is, as opposed to war. He is definitely influenced by those games. It makes me sad a little, but he really enjoys them and I think learns a lot from them, so I am trying to reserve judgment. I thought it was a really interesting thing for him to say, though. At least I know he will come with me to the next protest.

Posted at 8:53 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Damnit

October 6, 2003

I was just kicking ass in the backyard with the lawnmower...and then I ran over a rock and now the blade is all fucked up. I want to bring it in to get repaired, but I just KNOW they are going to make fun of me for having such a crappily-maintained mower. At least, that's what they did the last time I brought it in.

Crap.

Posted at 2:11 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Answers Please, Mr. Bush

October 6, 2003

This link appeared on blogs against war, courtesy of the Greenpeace blog. Blogs against war is still posting new links every day just about - mostly from here, randomwalks, and the greenpeace blog. If you post something about war, you are welcome to trackback there, or manually ping the site with your entry.

Posted at 7:52 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Another exceptionally good day

October 6, 2003

I'm going to try to write this in the same mellow, upbeat mood I was in last night - even though right now I'm pissed because I fell asleep while putting Cole down and now I'm having to listen to his endless requests for a cupcake which I will. not. give him until he eats some real food for breakfast. Not just because I'm evil, but because this child is going through a phase where he is not eating anything good. Why did I buy the cupcakes, then? Don't freaking ask me. Evidently, I was not thinking things through. I rarely buy stuff like that, but the baseball game was on, and I was feeling magnanimous.

At any rate, my day - our day, yesterday was fantastic. It was the kind of fantastic that involved a lot of laying around acting silly and a lot of running around the house cleaning up and some looking out of the window at the lightning and minimal amounts of getting pissed off about things that moms tend to get pissed off about (like teasing your baby brother, climbing on the furniture, and tormenting the dog by chasing her around with a laundry basket.) I got a lot of cleaning done around here, and it's nice to wake up to a tidy house. AND we got to watch the Cubs WIN. I haven't been able to watch the cubs on a regular basis since I left Chicago, so it's a delightful treat that they are going to be in the playoffs so I can see them play.

I'm struggling to think of specific occurances that made yesterday so special. I can think of one - I got a phone call from R, a mama I know in Germany. The rest of the day was just good because it flowed that way. Monk took a bath and Cole took a nap and everyone seemed happy. I made TVP enchiladas for lunch, and we had leftover pasta salad for dinner, and the cupcakes...and the rain, which interfered with our intended walk, but was so nice to watch.

It's too bad I fell asleep rather than taking care of the vital things that needed taking care of that I was saving until After Bed Time...but our field trip to the newsroom was postponed to next week, so I have time today...kind of.

Today will be a nice day for a walk. First thing in the morning. A walk, then breakfast, then stories, then playtime, then lunch, then playtime, then something fun like the newspaper scavenger hunt, then work for me.

It might even be another exceptionally good day today. Who knows?!

Posted at 7:24 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Reason to homeschool #789,374,328,974

October 5, 2003

Unlike "fritz" ketchum, I do not want my children to be forced to follow mindless rules.

Posted at 10:18 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

The best article about Rush that I have seen yet

October 5, 2003

You really need to read this assessment of Rush's race baiting. Tim Wise intersperses it with references to Limbaugh's little drug problem that had me totally laughing out loud. My favorite was this one:

what if McNair were to claim that racism against blacks was the reason he failed to get the credit he deserved? Odds are good that Rush and his loyal listeners would hit the roof, blow a gasket, and then have to pop twenty or thirty pills to ease the pain.

I'm sorry. I know it's terribly immature, but I just can't stop laughing about the fact that Rush is a fucking pillhead.

Posted at 8:16 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Agitating about BushCo

October 5, 2003

My current crush, Andrea, has posted a litany of links that address the "slime and defend" politics of the Bush administration.

She's actually not supposed to be my crush anymore, since it's well into October now...but I'm too lazy to find another crush and I'm thinking the blog crush thing has run itself out for now.

Posted at 6:37 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

You gotta wonder...

October 5, 2003

I'm hearing all sorts of crazy shit about republicans these days. It's making me almost paranoid that I have completely lost my fucking mind and am living in an alternate reality. Can it be possible that a STATE CONGRESSMAN can say such a thing as this and still be even remotely considered fit to do his job?

U.S. Rep. Cass Ballenger blames the breakup of his 50-year marriage partly on the stress of living near a leading American Muslim advocacy group that he and his wife worried was so close to the U.S. Capitol that "they could blow the place up."
The nine-term Republican lawmaker, in an interview with The Charlotte Observer published Saturday, called the Council on American-Islamic Relations — whose headquarters are across the street from his Capitol Hill home — a "fund-raising arm" for terrorist groups and said he reported CAIR to the FBI and CIA.

Here's a link to the CAIR website, if you are interested in doing some independent investigating.

Thanks to Kos for making my head explode.

Posted at 5:06 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

The world just changed to a whole new shade of surreal

October 5, 2003

Arnold was in on Enron? Clutch the pearls.

Posted at 4:44 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

this, I like.

October 5, 2003

A message to the universe.

Link courtesy of liz.

Posted at 4:33 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Why I can't take medication

October 4, 2003

Ragweed is in the dangerzone, and I've been having a hard time breathing lately. Today, I finally gave in. What happens is that I lay in bed and start getting freaked that I will be unable to breathe, which makes it harder for me to breathe.

At any rate, I gave in and took two puffs off of my albuterol inhaler. Usually just knowing I Have the inhaler is enough to help me get over the anxiety of not being able to breathe, but I didn't want it to go that far this time.

Two puffs, just like the directions say, and now I'm like hopelessly stoned. hahaha. I suppose I should be thankful that I'm such a lightweight that my allergy medicine makes me fucking goofy...but it's not a fun stoned. I'm all jittery and itchy and tired at the same time.

But at least I can breathe, right?

Posted at 11:40 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

MIT Open Courseware

October 4, 2003

Check out this site:

Welcome to MIT's OpenCourseWare: a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world. OCW supports MIT's mission to advance knowledge and education, and serve the world in the 21st century. It is true to MIT's values of excellence, innovation, and leadership.
MIT OCW:

Is a publication of MIT course materials
Does not require any registration
Is not a degree-granting or certificate-granting activity
Does not provide access to MIT faculty

Posted at 5:27 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings.

October 4, 2003

do you?

Posted at 2:03 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Those Wacky Capitalists

October 3, 2003

Everyone's jockeying for some of that sweet, sweet rebuilding money. Make no mistake about it, the portion of the money that's going towards rebuilding is nothing short of a handout to the wealthy. Then the other day I heard on the news that we're seriously considering making the Iraqis pay for the mess we made. Well, ok, we predicted it, but I kind of hoped I was being cynical by believing it could actually come to pass.

You have to love right wingers. No other group of people on the face of the planet are so blatantly hypocritical about all of their views. I mean, supporting the drug war while being addicted to drugs is one thing, but opposing welfare while at the same time participating in the most morbid of all welfare programs? Come ON!

Posted at 9:01 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

John P/King Cat Comix

October 2, 2003

Aw, man. I'm so glad to see this article. It's nice to see John P. getting acclaim for his work.

Yay, John!

Posted at 11:48 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Whoah!

October 2, 2003

From a commenter at Eschaton: Poll Shows Increased Doubts About Iraq War, Bush

The poll found new lows for Bush's foreign policy performance, which garnered just a 44 percent approval rating. Among respondents, 50 percent lacked confidence in his ability to handle an international crisis and 53 percent said they now believed the Iraq war was not worth it.

There's more. It's kind of amazing. Go read it. People are waking up? Getting pissed? Or maybe it's just a biased poll. Who knows. We can hope, though.

Posted at 9:16 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Rushing to Judgment

October 2, 2003

So, Rush Limbaugh is a speed freak...and he should have done to him what I'm sure he would expect be done with any crackhead - he should be incarcerated in the most overpopulated prison we can find. I'm sure his, um, viewpoints will go over real well.

Oh, that's right, we don't send rich white guys to prison. I forgot.

Thanks to Aaron for the link, and to Right Wing News for the amusing idiocy. Talk about living in freaking denial. Nyeesh.

Posted at 5:33 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Bragging on Monk

October 2, 2003

In spite of the fact that we've had a rough day today that involved some yelling (because no one was freaking listening to my repeated requests to STOP THROWING TOYS)...I'm feeling so proud of Monk right now. We've been doing Brain Quest First Grade math today, and Monk can add two-digit numbers totally in his head. He still refuses to write his numbers, which FORCES him to figure things in his head where it would probably be easier to figure it on paper...and I think this is actually working to his advantage. Without my coaching him at all on how to solve the problems, he figured out that you just add the numbers in the ones place and the numbers in the tens place - and he even figured out how to carry over, using pure logic. I'm kind of in awe.

He also totally understands me when I "fiddle with the numbers." I am constantly compensating for my inability to do math by making "tens" out of numbers and figuring the equation based on ten and then redistributing. I thought it might be a bit complex for him, but I explained it to him on one or two equations and now he automatically says "let's fiddle with those numbers a bit" whenever an equation is too complex for him. "If you make that 7 a 10, and add the 5 to the 10, you get 15...then you can subract the 3 that you used to make the 7 into a 10, and get 12 - which is the answer to 7+5." That kind of thing. It's kind of amazing how he keeps track of things with no problem, and I'm pleased that my weird compensatory math works for him, as well.

It's really just so cool witnessing him learn like this. And he's totally having fun. He loves playing with numbers, and he seems to be able to keep story problems straight in his head way better than I ever did. I'm actually kind of looking forward to learning harder math with him. A few years from now. Maybe he can teach me algebra...again.

Posted at 2:48 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Grocery Lists

October 2, 2003

Gah. I swear I could go on and on about the topic of parenting choices. It feels like every time I finish a post on the subject, I start writing another post in my head. To me, it feels a lot like the breastfeeding/bottle feeding discussion, in which someone is always feeling alienated. I tend to think this guilt and alienation comes from society at large rather than the actual participants in the discussion. If a parent truly feels like he or she is making the best choice possible for his or her or their child(ren) - then there's no reason to feel guilty or defensive or alienated no matter what anyone says about it. But it's all tied up in self-worth and identity and, you know what, it really sucks that it's the mamas who feel particularly attacked.

I'm upset that I can't have a discussion about it and figure things out without potentially making people feel bad about their choices. So, I apologize for having caused bad feelings, if I did...and at the same time I want to keep having the discussion - because I feel very strongly that we need to all move past the stage of putting people on the defensive/being defensive and find the vocabulary to discuss these issues respectfully to everyone. I think the defensiveness is understandable, but metaphorically speaking it seems like defensiveness might be causing some people to respond to the fact that some people are hungry by saying "I have plenty to eat, I don't know what you are talking about." I'm happy that there are people who have acceptable options, but that doesn't negate the fact that many feel trapped between, well, a rock and a hard place. And I'm not really even including myself in that category, as I'm spending all of my energy pretending that rock doesn't exist and that hard place is flexible.

Anyway, I didn't start this post to write all of that (see what I mean, though...it just slips out!). What I started this post to write was that Monk wrote up our menu plan for me last night. It was so fun sitting in his room and deciding on meal ideas and having him ask me how to spell words. I'd like to take a picture of what he ended up writing, because it's really cute.

One of the days was "leftovers" and Monk felt it necessary to add "Which I don't really like." hee. We were both giggling and laughing and even though it took like half an hour to write 10 days' worth of meals, it was great fun, and I plan to do it again.

Posted at 7:46 AM • Comments (10) • TrackBack

ReFraming the discussion - a repost with additions

October 1, 2003

Yesterday I buried what I felt was a pretty significant mini-essay on paid vs. unpaid work within a post that began with complaining about how tired and grouchy I was. I'm reposting the part about paid vs. unpaid work because I'm less tired today, and I would like to hear with others have to say about it, and perhaps add a little more to the post myself, now that I'm not quite so tired and grouchy. I think this would be considered "on strike" part 2 of 2, as I do go into how our children are indentured servants to our shitty lifestyle choices.

I'm thinking about my questions from yesterday - about reframing that "On Strike" post to focus more on what parents need - what choices would we WANT - rather than what is currently available. I gotta tell you, there's a false dichotomy between those who work outside the home and those who work primarily inside the home. Working outside the home is not necessarily what I would consider child abuse or even, as I termed it, "abandoning your child to the state." The issue is not the number of hours you spend in the presence of your children. The issue is the amount of time you spend being fully present with your children. And not only that, but what are the options you would like to have that are currently unavailable to you.

For me, my living/working situation feel so tenuous as to be frightening. I have no idea if I'm going to be able to keep my job in a year if our funding runs out. And if I don't keep this job, I can't as of right now think of a single job that I can take in the evenings that would pay me what I'm making now - enough to live. And this home is not sale-worthy in the least, so I don't have the option of "just selling" and getting on. I'm thankful that for now I have the ability to make the choices that I have made, and I really don't tend to dwell on the tenuousness of those options, but I do on occasion get pissed off about the fact that I am THIS close to being unable to support my ideal lifestyle, which isn't all that extravagant. And that takes me right into being pissed off that there are people who can't even get to where I am, in a position where they even have a tenuous relationship with something resembling an ideal situation.

It makes me mad that we're so tired, and that we don't have time to form communities for ourselves and our children. It angers and frustrates me that our economic system places more value on working to create product than it does on working to nurture our children and each other. It pisses me off that my children will be indentured servants to the debt we are creating ever day. A fiscal debt. An emotional debt. An environmental debt. A TIME debt. We are borrowing all of these things from our children without the ability or intention to pay it back.

My argument is that the world will not cave in upon itself if we all "worked" a lot less (and by "work" I mean doing meaningless tasks for profit rather than meaningful tasks to fulfill need). In fact, the world would most likely benefit from a slowing of production and unnecessary work. So, that's my ideal. My ideal looks like a world where the needs of all people are fulfilled, including the need for some people to stop. To slow down. To NOT work. It's not laziness that compels us to slack. It's sanity.

There were a couple of people who took issue with the way I phrased my arguments in the "on strike" post. Perhaps, too, they took issue with the entirity of the argument I was trying to make. I have a difficult time with this. I don't want to alienate anyone on this issue, because it's crucial that we all make ourselves heard so we can fight for a menu of choices that is capable of satisfying all of us. At the same time, I worry that there's so much time spent being adversarial (on my part, in this instance) and getting defensive that we neglect to see that we could all stand to see a great deal of improvement in the choices that are presented to us.

Unless, of course, I'm totally wrong, and there actually are people who are totally happy with the options that are available to them and wouldn't change a damn thing. I have a feeling I am not wrong about this...but I've been wrong about not being wrong before. (ar ar)

As I type this, I have two mamas on my mind. Three if you count me. Two mamas who work really hard to provide their children with the best life they can possibly provide. Both mamas are restricted due to financial issues and a potential lack of a supportive community. They both need a really strong community that they can rely on, but it's so difficult for those around them to juggle family, work, and just getting by that it can seem nearly impossible to offer the support that these individuals need.

There's no reason for these women to be struggling. There's absolutely no reason why they should have to choose between providing for their children and being there for their children. Both of these women are inspirations to me in their style of parenting. They have truly raised mindful parenting to an art form, and I have learned so much from observing their interactions with their children. While parenting is not their "life" - both of them have many talents in other areas as well - it is certainly something they both do well and take very seriously. Well, ok, MOST of the parents I know take their job very seriously and do a very good job of it, but I'm focusing right now, in my mind, on these two parents because in my perfect world, they would be well-compensated for the work that they do and they would not have to worry about how to pay for groceries next month. They would not have to get outside jobs that make them too tired to interact with their children as effectively as they would like. They would not have to worry about the joblessness rate, because they HAVE a job. And they do it well.

UPDATE: I feel like I need to add that I am NOT a stay at home parent. I am employed full time outside of the home. I LIKE my job, so I'm certainly not suggesting that EVERYONE be REQUIRED to quit their jobs or whatever else they are doing outside the home and stay home with their children. What I am saying is that it's important to advocate for living wages for parents who would choose to stay and not rely on institutions for the care of their children AND the availability of affordable options for those who do need/desire to work outside the home.

For me, it's frightening how very much I am depending on a volatile and precarious situation to care for my children in the way I see fit. I also see parents who have to work two or more jobs to support their families, therefore not having ANY time to spend with their children in which they are not totally exhausted. Some of us are able to provide for our children with one job, and we can't forget that's somewhat of a privileged position, as well. Some who rely on institutionalized childcare only have to rely on it for 5-8 hours a day, which to me would not be ideal, but it's definitely ideal as compared to the 12+ hours a day that many of my friends who work for afterschool programs talk about. TWELVE OR MORE HOURS A DAY. That means some of our children are in the care of other people more than half the day.

I have to reiterate that I'm not blaming parents in the system for this bullshit. It's the system itself which is flawed. And it's not just about parents...it's about PEOPLE being forced to work more than is necessary to produce, procure, sell, and defend products to support our economy. Much of what people call "work" is really just unnecessary to our vital or even desirable functioning as human beings.

Posted at 8:01 PM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

I've been waiting for this day all summer

October 1, 2003

Ladies and gentlemen, I am, at this moment, officially, slightly uncomfortably chilly.

Woo woo!

Posted at 8:15 AM • Comments (4) • TrackBack