To spawn or not to spawn

Has never really been a question for me. I've never wanted children. Even as a little girl, when you might hear a child say that they want to be a mommy, I never did.

My mother remembers with outright glee a telephone call I made to her when I was about 14, whilst babysitting a colicky 18 month old; I couldn't get the kid to stop crying, and it had made me near-hysterical. "No teenage pregnancy for me, Mom," I shouted over the screeching. "I can't handle this!!"

(Nevermind that I was positively sure that sex basically equaled death, in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, or that my religion taught that sex outside of marriage equaled HELL...)

Not that I waited, but that's not the point here. I decided - definitively - sometime in my late teens that motherhood wasn't for me, and I wasn't interested. DH and I have been together for a loooong time, and there were a few family members (on the Catholic side of the fam, ffs) who pressured us to have kids even before we were married. I met him when I was 19; I could say then, with absolute certainty: "I'm too young to be a mother."

But as I've gotten older, more and more people - some outright strangers - apparently think it is OK to question my judgement and badger the living hell out of me about having a child. Let me say this:

Does.

Not.

Want.

Now before you tell me, "methinks the lady doth protest too much," please keep in mind that my frustration with this boils over and spills out once a year or once every few years, and today? Is that day.

The anger comes from one place; how the bloody living hell is it anyone else's business if I have a child or not? Simply, and truthfully, it isn't. But when you meet someone new, and they ask if you're married (DH and I do not wear wedding rings, so it isn't obvious from the get-go) the very next question is if you have children. When you answer in the negative, it isn't uncommon for the questioner to ask, "Why not?!?" as if it is positively shocking that you don't, because somehow it is your sacred duty to pop out a kid or two if you've bothered to get married.

Um: No.

Having a child is a major, life-altering decision, one that in my ever-so-humble, ought not be entered into lightly. In fact, I think people ought to think long and hard about ALL of the impacts a child will have on their lives. Financial, emotional, physical....those 3 are the merest tip of the iceberg. But getting pregnant is very easy, and I think it is rare that people think much about it; you grow up, go to school, go to college, get married, have children. Period; that's just how it is done.

I belong to a few Childfree or childless by choice groups (aka and hereafter CFBC) and something that those groups point out often is that most people don't really consider the fact that there IS a choice there; married does not need to equal with children.

BTW, this isn't about abortion or my usual reproductive rights spiel; or at least, not exactly. "Reproductive rights" to me means - in part - that a woman has the right to choose for herself if she will get pregnant or not, no matter what her religion or social norms expect.

I'm no longer a member of the Catholic Church, so what the Popes say no longer means much to me other than the fact that their writings usually piss me the hell off. But when I was Catholic, something Pope John Paul II wrote made me sad; by choosing to work outside the home and not have children, the Church thinks that I am "denying" my "essential femininity". Hogwash. To read this outrageous bullshit for yourself, click here and start reading at Chapter VI, part 17.

So society thinks I'm weird for not having kids. Christianity (and, I'm sure, all of the other major world religions also push for procreation; who will carry the Word and the Truth if there are not new Believers being created constantly?) thinks I ought to be having kids. What I think, apparently, is completely immaterial. No matter that I'd be the one going through pregnancy - which, btw, scares the living hell out of me - or that I'd be the one going through labor - also, quite terrifying, tyvm - and no matter at all that the primary caregiver of the new baby would be, again, me. Nope. What you want, little lady, is far less important than what the Church and society expect from you.

I like my independence. I like having time to myself. I like sleep. Kiss all of that good-bye the minute a baby enters the picture.

What's gotten in to me that has me so all-fired angry? A recent episode of Dr. Phil, where he questions a CFBC couple about the fact that they may come to regret not having kids, and that they ought to re-visit the issue every year to make sure that they're still "on the same page," as if the childfree don't know their own minds, and must second-guess themselves at every opportunity.

Allow me to repeat myself -

Um: no.

Isn't it a good thing that I already know - before ever being preggo for even a second - that motherhood is not the path for me? Isn't it a good thing that I'm quite cognizant of the fact that motherhood is something I'd be terrible at, and thus should not attempt? I'm OK with that fact; it doesn't pain me in the least to admit that I'm not motherhood material. In fact, I think that it is a fantastic thing that I'm cognizant of that fact before I even think of contemplating parenthood.

Once you have a child, you are then responsible for that child for the rest of your life. Let me say that again. For the rest of your life. To the end of your born days. It isn't like buying a home, or even getting married; once that child is born, there is NO going back. You can't decide to just up not be a parent one day.

Should anyone be entering into that lightly? I think not.

Oh, Lucy, you're thinking. You say nothing of the joys and the love and the wonderful things that children bring to your life. The pain of labor is fleeting; the joy lasts much longer. Perhaps. I don't deny that babies are adorable and smooshable and kissable, and that kids can be an absolute delight. On the contrary; toddlers, in particular, fascinate me. You can SEE them learning every day, watch their language development, see the little wheels turning as they pick up a new word or skill. That's great. But I can experience all of that without being a mother myself, and that's A-OK with me!

Lots

I spent a long weekend in New York City over the New Year holiday, and there is lots I'd like to write about from that trip, but the posts are still growing from germination of an idea to text. Today, for my first ever-so-auspicious post of 2010, I'd like to rant and rave for a minute about a global cosmetics company.

Not surprisingly, this story has a twist of Sweden in it.

Sweden has social medicine. They figured out the whole health care mess a generation ago, and while their system isn't perfect, it is a damn sight better than the one we're used to. Even if it seems a little odd to a die-hard Yankee capitalist.

So let's set out a little scenario. Imagine a 24 year old Swedish bloke, let's call him Magnus. (Yep, that really is a common male name. I love it. Were I ever going to have kids {NOT} I'd fight DH long and hard for that name for a boy!) Anyhow, Magnus is playing football with some friends on a sunny Saturday afternoon in the park, and he takes a hard fall and hears an ominous crack when he lands hard on his elbow. His friends bundle him into a car and thence to an emergency room, where he's fixed up with a cast, good as new in 6-8 weeks, and he walks out of the hospital with a prescription for painkillers.

Thus far, it isn't all that different than what we'd do here in the US, right? Except for the fact that it didn't matter if Magnus is independently wealthy, or if Magnus had the money for the ER or not, because he's got health insurance provided by virtue of being a citizen of Sweden.

Ah, sorry. Getting a little sidetracked.

So to get his painkillers, Magnus needs to visit a pharmacy - or chemist if you're a Brit - and to do that, he has one and only one option: the state-run pharmacy Apoteket. Every tiny hamlet has its own Apoteket, even if it is only a kiosk inside a grocery store.

At 17, I stayed the bloody hell out of Apoteket, sure that someone would demand to see my health insurance card and that I'd be "in trouble" for going someplace a non-citizen shouldn't go. Hey, it made sense to me at 17. I didn't want to get sent home for any reason, so I stayed away.

Of course at 35, I have no such compunction, and I've learned well that either by looking like you know what you're doing or playing dumb, you can get away with a lot.

I was in several of the Apoteket stores this year; the trouble started in a town on Sweden's southeast coast, Ystad. Spring allergies were in full swing, and I think we (part of the team) wandered in there in search of nasal spray or something like it. At the till, I spied several kinds of lip balm and picked up two of them; one made by ACO (Never heard of it? Don't worry, me neither.) and one made by Eucerin.

I tossed them both in my bag, and I think I used the Eucerin once before leaving Sweden.

I should have purchased 20 or 50 or 300 of them, however many it would take to last me until I can go back to Sweden, because this is bar none the best lip balm I've ever used. It has NO flavor. None. Not even a whiff. I truly despise cherry or mint or vanilla or wtfever flavors are added to lip balm. Ditto camphor, which seems to be in every single "healing" lip balm. Just no. Leave that stuff out.

This stuff works fantastically. It doesn't bother my skin. (I've had issues lately with peeling lips from every freaking lipstick I put on, ugh.)

Since I didn't figure out until a month or so after I came home that this stuff was the bee's knees, I didn't start looking for it right away. When I did go a-hunting, imagine my great shock to discover that Eucerin doesn't sell Lip Active in the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Ireland, or anyplace else that I could possibly get it from. I can't even find the stuff online with just Google.

I tried Amazon. No dice. I tried going to Apokteket's website, and just like the Bliw soap I wanted, I can't find a single Swedish vendor who is willing to sell to the US. They're polite, of course, but they explain that due to the US's complete pain in the arse border control, they can't guarantee shipments, ended up refunding a bunch of prior customers' money, and thus they quit doing it when it became no longer cost effective.

eBay! eBay would have it, right?? They'd have to. There has to be someone, somewhere in the eBay universe that would have a mad desire to sell cosmetics available only in Europe to the rest of the world, right? Indeed, there is. In Sweden, I paid about 25:- SEK, about $3.50 for my tube of Lip Active. On eBay, I can pick up a tube of Lip Active from a seller in Thailand who is willing to part with it for merely $11.39 plus shipping, plus insurance.

Now I understand that a global cosmetics company has a lot more things to think about - like protesters and animal testing, or, um, profits - than what mix of products they offer to which countries, frustrating as that understanding is. They don't care much what I want, one individual consumer me. But dammit, I want more of that stuff before I run out of what I have. I've got at least 3 if not 4 months more of winter here in Ohia, and even when every lipstick I touch ISN'T making my lips peel, they still get chapped a lot in the winter.

I also understand that paying $11.39 plus shipping, plus insurance, is one hell of a lot cheaper than a plane ticket. I do. I just don't want to part with $11.39 for something that I 'know' costs $3.50.

So, Eucerin....what do you say?? Please?? Start selling Lip Active in the US?

The CCC and Oven Debacle

Who does not love chocolate chip cookies? I know a handful of people who don't like chocolate (can you even imagine?) but all of them still eat chocolate chip cookies.

My mother allowed my sisters and I to putter about in the kitchen from a very early age. We made dinner, we baked, we helped her with canning. I don't know when the first time I made cookies all by my lonesome self would have been - 8? 12? somewhere in between? - but by the time I was a teenager, I was an old hand at baking. Chocolate chips were always a favorite.

For a long time, I used the recipe on the back of the bag of Nestle Toll House cc's. I wasn't always satisfied with the results, but they were OK. Sometimes they were too flat, sometimes they were too hard; but back then, things like exact measurements and careful processes....well, they weren't high on my priority list, y'know? I made CCCs in Sweden for my host family. I took a Pyrex glass measuring cup and Nestle's with me on the plane, smuggled in my luggage. I'm sure that container of chips looked odd on the X-rays, but no one tried to stop me! The results of the CCCs in Sweden were a crapshoot. Sometimes they were better than others. Using a liquid measuring cup for a solid, like flour....eh. Not the wisest. And once I ran out of cc's, I used big bars of chocolate from the grocery store, chopping them into big chunks. Usually milk chocolate, which I really don't like much. My host family enjoyed them, and once I learned how to read Swedish, I could distinguish milk from dark chocolate.

After I came back to the States, I continued to use the Nestle recipe.

Food Network made its appearance on our local cable system somewhere in the late 90s. And then I discovered Alton Brown. Oh, AB! My geek heart goes pitter-patter when you explain how and why things work. Complete with diagrams. AB's recipes for CCC's show you how to make puffy CCCs. How to make chewy CCCs. How to make thin CCCs. My favorite of the three is the chewy variety, the recipe can be found here. I've happily used that recipe for many years now.

But.

Earlier this year, my oven broke. One of the electric coils gave up the ghost, and we were forced to admit that purchasing a replacement coil would be foolish when the entire unit - oven and stovetop - were vintage 1978, plus I've never liked the stove, and hey, we found a brand new one for $100.

I haven't used the new one much. But I got the urge for some CCCs, and baked a batch of AB's best. Except: they were flat. Flatter than a pancake flat. Still chewy, but flat flat flat. Well! I couldn't have that, now, could I? No. So I began doing a little research and I decided (in my infinite wisdom) that using my stand mixer and allowing it to run for a little longer than normal had incorporated too much air into the batter. I can make CCCs without a stand mixer, so I did. Super-carefully measuring, and I got a new box of baking soda, thinking (incorrectly) that maybe my baking soda was old and not giving its appropriate ooomph to the cookies. I also bought a new thermometer for the oven, from a restaurant supply place, to make sure the oven was at the right temperature. (It cost all of $2.52.) I have a nifty new scale (which was NOT $2.52!), and I measured AND weighed everything with the scale, noting down the metric equivalents so that I can make CCCs the next time I'm in Sweden. But. The second batch? Was as flat as the first. Still tasty, but UGLY. Well, that meant war, now, didn't it?

In all the time I've made AB's cookies, I've never altered the recipe a whit. Followed it to the letter, with the exception of adding more chips than it calls for - I always do that when making chocolate chippers - or using chunks instead of chips. Sometimes pecans or macadamia nuts, too. I decided the time had come for me to step back from the master, and wing it.

So the next batch was again made without the mixer, and careful measuring. But I added a half cup more of flour. The secret to the chewy cookies is using bread flour rather than AP flour. Something about gluten and chemical reactions and AB does a much better job of explaining it than I do; hop over to foodtv.com to watch him do so. But why I needed to suddenly use 2-3/4 cups of flour rather than the recipe indicated 2-1/4....I have no idea. None. Nothing except my oven changed. Remember, please, that I have a brand new thermometer in there to make sure the oven is at the right temp. Is it the size? The new oven is bigger. Is it the single rack instead of the 2 I'm used to? I just don't know.

Batch # whatever was finally the result I was looking for. I was back to "my" chocolate chip cookies. Just in time, too, as the holiday baking season is about to begin. I couldn't give flat CCCs in the tins of cookies that I give to so many people as gifts!

The new oven is kind of obnoxiously annoying. It came with one oven rack. One!! My old oven had 3. I removed one of the racks from the old oven, finding 3 too many most of the time. I kept it next to the refrigerator, handy but not exposed. When we got rid of the old oven, the rack was forgotten, so it wasn't hauled away with the rest of the scrap that the old oven had become. Of course, that leftover rack does not fit into the new oven. In fact, NO oven rack on the planet seems to fit that new oven. As noted above, we got the new oven for a steal. $100. From a "closeout" type store, so of course it was either discontinued by the manufacturer, or it had some minor cosmetic damage. At the time, I thought nothing of it. My mistake. Because while the brand name on the new range/oven is one recognized easily all over the US, it apparently is a one-of-a-kind. It is a Sunbeam. I know, right? You recognize this name, yeah? You probably have a small appliance (mixer, food processor, toaster, toaster oven) that has their name on it. Sunbeam divested themselves of their major appliance division in early 2009, which is how my $100 oven ended up in a closeout store sometime in March. Their website has an ever-so-NOT-helpful memo suggesting that you contact a company called AP Wagner for replacement parts.

There is a local appliance parts shop that has been around since probably the 20s, and so I took the oven rack out of the oven, wrenched my back (seriously, still hurting from that) when I pulled the oven out from the wall for the model number on the rear of the oven. The model number is an odd one, not following the pattern of other Sunbeam model numbers. Hm. When I walked in to the appliance repair place, I had both rack and model number in hand and I had every confidence in the world that they'd have what I needed. That store is a blast from the past type of place. No shiny showroom, no uniformed/name-tagged employees, stacked to the rafters with all sorts of junk, refurbished appliances of every stripe all over the place. There's a front counter, and you tell the person behind the counter what you want. They wander away into a maze of shelving units, disappear for a while, and return carrying your item. Invoices are written by hand. An adding machine calculates the sales tax on your item, and and old-fashioned cash register that makes a loud audible ringing noise when the till is opened is where your money goes.

The person behind the counter did a double-take when I carried my rack in. "What is THAT?" he asked me. Bad sign, if the appliance repair man / parts person does not recognize it right off. I told him it was an oven rack, and he punched the model number in to the computer - for inventory only, and the sole concession to the modern age in that place - and you know what he got back? Bupkis. He told me my model number wasn't a Sunbeam model number, and that the rack in my hand was the largest he had ever seen for a home oven. He didn't think he could even find something that was close, when I told him I didn't care who made the bloody thing, I just wanted it to fit the oven. {GROAN}. Strike out!

I called the 800 number for AP Wagner, and went through the same rigmarole. The model number printed on the sticker on the back of the oven isn't a Sunbeam model number, they say. Oh, FFS. The person on the other end of the phone tried inputting partial numbers, did her best, but you know what she got back from her computer, don't you? Bupkis. She did suggest to me that I call back when I was standing in front of the oven, and that possibly there's a serial number or some other thing that she would be able to track down. Have I done that yet? No, I keep forgetting, thinking about it only when I'm at work or it is 3:30 AM. Not. Helpful.

I called Sunbeam directly, and they were even less of a help, in fact they were curt, trying to blow me off by pawning me off on AP Wagner within 15 seconds of me telling them the problem. I explained that I'd already spent a half hour on the phone with AP Wagner, and then they suggested my local appliance parts place, after asking for my zip code. Been there, I said. They couldn't identify the model number either. Then they gave me a phone number for an appliance parts store in the state capitol. Not. Helpful. The state capitol is a 3-4 hour drive from home, not exactly around the way. I got snippy in return, and then they were apologetic, but firm. They couldn't help me.

Help me, interweb!! How, oh how in the world, am I going to bake 20 dozen cookies with ONE measly oven rack??? On my way home from work each day, I drive past a decorative ironworks business, and I'm frustrated enough, and desperate enough, to stop there and ask if they could make me one. The thought of the price tag for that being triple what I paid for the oven is the only thing that is stopping me from doing just that.

Poor, poor baby. Let me organize a pity party for you.

A few years ago, anonymous sex-blogger Girl With A One Track Mind, Abby Lee, was outed by British newspaper The Sunday Times. Backlash from the blogosphere was swift, virulent, vicious, and according to a recent article in the same paper by the same writer, Anna Mikhailova, career ruining.

Mikhailova ruined Abby Lee's film career - she worked in production, not as an actress - and now has the utter brass cajones to whine about Abby's readers ruining her "reputation" and by virtue of that reputation-ruining, her career as a bottom-feeding journalist is just not thriving. Awww. Honey. I'm so sorry.

I have a vested interest in this not just for reasons of anonymity; I believe that Abby would not have been vilified for her sexual escapades had she been male, so there's the feminist angle as well as the fact that I myself write under a pseudonym. My reasons for doing that are my own. Abby's were as well.

When does "the public interest" or "the right to know" trump privacy? When there is something illegal going on, certainly. But if I'm writing about my own private Idaho over here, and you read it and like it, why does it matter if I'm the woman in the office next to you or if I live three time zones away?

Of course, the automatic comeback to my argument is that if I wanted to remain anonymous, I wouldn't be writing on teh interweb, I'd have a journal that I kept under lock and key. Guess what. I do. Writing is part of who I am, not just something I do for fun. Publishing my struggles with depression has been both about my own recovery and about the hope that someone, somewhere, reads what I've written and decides to seek help for their own issues. De-stigmatizing mental illness is a goal of my blog.

Writing here about politics, the abortion debate, my silly little inconsequential life, is something that I enjoy doing. I believe that I have the right to do that under a pen name. And so I do not feel sorry for Anna Mikhailova. The line for the pity party forms to the left, please. Right there, that sign that says "Exit"!!

Not as you think.

A few years ago, when my nephew made his First Communion, I sat at my sister-in-law's house and talked to her in-laws. They're conservative Catholic folk, and therefore in general, we don't see eye-to-eye. I try, really, I do, to keep my liberal lefty opinions to myself, but I don't always succeed.

As I talked to her brother-in-law about politics and public policy, the conversation turned towards some of my pet issues; the death penalty, among other things.  Eventually, he sat back, laughed, and said to me, "You are NOT as liberal as you think you are."

I told him we'd have to agree to disagree on that.  But.....

Last night, as I was driving home, I heard just a portion of this story, enough to make me remember to seek out the full audio and listen later.  It is about the drug problem in Mexico, and the official response of the United States' government to the same.

My gut reaction to this was annoyance, and I surprised myself by saying to the radio, "and this is MY problem, as a US taxpayer, how exactly?"  No, me talking to the radio was not the surprise. I do that all the time.

I don't take illegal drugs.  (Nope, I save my money for the legal ones, eyeroll.)  The drug cartels in Mexico aren't what we need to be spending taxpayer money on right now, people.  It annoys me that Mexico has its hand out, looking for money from the United States to solve problems in Mexico, of Mexican creation.  Their police force is corrupt.  Their jails are apparently a sham.  The cartels run things any way they see fit, committing murder, kidnappings, extortion....and they want the United States to fix this?  Buh?

And wow, that is about the most conservative right-leaning thing I've ever typed OR said.

I understand the argument that without the United States and the voracious appetite on this side of the border for cocaine and weed, there wouldn't be a drug problem in Mexico, but with respect, I disagree.  There's a market for illegal drugs the world over, and it was a very long time ago that the US had the largest population in the world.  After China, and India, the United States ranks third in population size, and somewhere, someone besides Americans on American soil, are buying Mexican product.

When did the US become the world's ATM?  Why does the perception that we have oodles of money to be handing out over every third-world nation conundrum persist?  GLOBAL Financial Crisis, anyone?

This all makes me wonder, too, if I would feel differently (i.e. more leftist) about this issue if the US economy were not hemorrhaging jobs at an alarming rate and several of our biggest industries - financial, automobile manufacturing - weren't on the precipice of complete disaster. 

I'd like to think so.

Ladies and Gents, welcome to 2009

This is a storytelling post.  Unfortunately, unlike the other storytelling posts, this story has no end.  Yet.

Laundry might be the bane of my existence.  It is never, ever, ever done.  If things are running along swimmingly (which, um, when, exactly does that happen?) I would start a load of laundry in the morning, allowing it to run mostly while I'm at work, because it is loud, and obnoxious.  That load would be tossed in the dryer when I got home, and folded before I went to bed.  Then, there would not be what the Fly Lady calls  "Mt Wash-More."

Instead, what actually happens is I manage to wash about 3 loads a week, and the clean clothes get tossed on the couch in the living room, and I fold them on Saturdays, catching up with whatever is left over then, too.

One weeknight last week, I came home and took off my coat, hat, scarf.  Have I mentioned lately that it is bloody freezing?  Anyway, I turned away from the closet, and I noticed that a sock had fallen off of the couch.  It makes the house look even messier than really is, and bothers my OCD-urge to have everything put in its place, even when its current place is not where it really  belongs.  So I walked over and picked up the sock, and that, my friends, is where the true trouble began.  Because that innocent black sock was soaking wet.  Not damp from the dryer being out of order, but soaking wet, dripping wet.   From the ceiling above, a drip, drip, drip from a crack we had repaired before we moved into this house.   Dammit.  There went my planned evening of a few glasses of sangria, dinner at a nearby Mexican place, folding the laundry, and going to bed.

Following the trail of water across the ceiling led us upstairs to our bedroom, which is the largest room in the house.  The wall in question had a desk up against it, and we pulled that back to discover a patch of damp drywall, damp enough to push our hands through to the insulation behind.

DH, once upon a time, was a firefighter and had to pull walls down searching for any errant flames, so he attacked the wall and pulled out insulation that was dripping wet, just like my sock.  Bugger.

We pulled off about a 3 square foot area of  that drywall, and discovered a hell of a mess.  Behind the soaking wet insulation was not a pretty picture.  I know almost nothing about construction, so my terminology may be inaccurate, but sometimes that's the way it goes.  The studs that frame the house are covered with a composite material, which looks like particle board.  I know, I know, it is not particle board,  rather, it is an insulating material that is between the pink fiberglass insulation INSIDE the house and the aluminum siding, OUTSIDE the house.  The wall joins up with my neighbor's section of our duplex and creates a 90 degree angle very close to where we ripped all that wet drywall off.  With a flashlight, we took a peek at that angle, and discovered a wall of ice between the aluminum siding and the particle board stuff.  You can reach into it, run your hand up and down that ice wall.  

What I don't know about construction could fill a library full of novels, but I do know that ice shouldn't really be *behind* the aluminum siding.  We had a contractor come the next day, someone we have worked with in the past, so we trust him.  

I have no idea what he did to fix it.

The ice, however, remains a problem, because it is still there.  Whatever contractor J did, it was to keep more water from coming into the house.  The ice that is already there has to go out the same way it came it; via the path of least resistance, and as liquid.  Which means that we will be cleaning up water for quite some time to come. 

Sigh.  

In the meantime, two rooms of my house are torn up, furniture shoved away from its usual spots, and, while not quite the hassle and expense that the leak has caused, something that adds little bit of fuel to this already messy fire.....

My laundry still isn't done.

Yarn-related ranting and some non-sequiturs.

I love knitting with big, bulky yarns.  Bulky yarns, according to standards provided by the Yarn Craft Council of America, are yarns that knit 6-11 stitches to 4 inches.  The smallest category, for those readers who are not fiber fanatics, lace weight, can be as many as 40 stitches to 4 inches.  Bulky yarn should be knit on big needles, size 11 (8 mm) and larger.  

I am not a fan of lace weight yarn and teeny-tiny needles.  I know knitters who think that my size 7 (4.5 mm) needles are "huge".  No, size 7s are small.  I knitted a shrug for my sister on size 7s; that sucker took me 5-1/2 MONTHS to knit.  Urgh.  I want to make things that are finished a little more quickly than 5 months.  And maybe next time I knit that same pattern (for ME!) it might go more quickly, because I'm familiar with the pattern.  But making things that take eons...just not my style.

Sadly, I realize that I am indeed part of the instant gratification everything-all-the-time set.  Wonder if my obsessive-compulsive disorder has anything to do with that.

Back in March when I visited my sister in New York City, she took me to a wooooonderful yarn store in Brooklyn on Atlantic Avenue, Knit-a-Way.  My sister is a great one for monopolizing my knitting time; she sends me patterns via e-mail or links via instant message, asking if I can make whatever it is for her.  She has 3 hats, a scarf, and a shrug of my making.  I'm not complaining, I'm usually thrilled to accommodate her, and she is always appropriately excited about the finished projects.  2009, however, will be the year of me knitting for ME.

At Knit-A-Way, sis picked out some very yellow yarn for me to use to make a hat for her.  Manufactured by an Italian company (di.Ve Fiamma) and imported by Cascade yarns, the 100% wool was surprisingly a delight to work with.  Surprisingly because 100% wool makes me itch like crazy.  I can not wear wool next to my skin in a sweater or trousers without at least one layer of cotton between me and the wool.  I think my skin is hypersensitive to wool.  I've worked with wool before that made my hands itch from holding it.  But this didn't make me itch.  The pattern I chose for my the hat was probably part of the reason that I enjoyed working with the yarn.  I like the pattern so well that I've made 2 more hats with the same pattern and have a third on needles, not done.

I've searched locally for more di.Ve, and while one local store does carry many of Cascade Yarn's products, di.Ve isn't one on their list.  They're quite happy to order it for me, with me paying the shipping, and a bit of an elevated price.  Thank you, but no.  Not that I don't want them to make money, I do.  I support local merchants whenever possible.  But this stuff is expensive at the MSRP.  Adding to the cost makes it worse, and paying shipping adds insult to injury if you ask me.  

So I've watched eBay and searched on Ravelry for people willing to part with di.Ve that they already own.  Found some, and the person was willing to part with it for a very reasonable price.  In our exchange of e-mails, I mentioned the trouble I have had trying to track this stuff down, and she informed me that many of the Fiamma colors are no longer manufactured.  What?!?  WTF?  Turns out that with the rising cost of, oh, EVERYTHING, bulky yarns are getting too expensive for local yarn stores (hereafter referred to as LYS) to buy and carry on inventory, and so buyers for the yarn stores are purchasing less, and money talks, people.  Bulky yarns tend to be expensive, and so to purchase enough of it to make, say, a sweater or a full-size afghan, you'd be breaking the bank.  The volume that your LYS sells, then, is much diminished from the volume of finer gauge yarns.  Result?  The LYS doesn't have a lot of bulky yarn.  Boooo!  Boooo!

On to the non-sequiturs, then.

I went to the doctor's office, my usual family doc, to get a flu shot.  Yes, yes, you're supposed to get that in October or November, but I didn't.  I plead laziness and lack of time.  I'm leaving for Florida in a week and the flu is making the rounds there, so I wanted to make sure I finally got one.  The entire collective office where I work has also been passing a viral infection around.  Fun.  Yeah.  Like a hole in the head.

I hate waiting in doctor's offices, but usually manage to stay calm by knitting or reading.  Several of the other folks waiting were really pissy about their wait, making lots of passive-aggressive remarks.  Equally as annoying as waiting, if you ask me.

When I finally got called back, the exam room where the nurse was waiting with the shot had a framed bit of advertising from a drug company advertising medication that treats an extreme form of sleep apnea.  Like many of these posters, there was a checklist of questions to ask yourself, and the oh-so-helpful tag line that if you answered yes to three or more of these questions, you should talk to your doctor about this apnea thing.  These kind of things are bad for me, because I am a major hypochondriac.  So I try to look at these posters with a humorous eye, not with an omigod I'm going to die eye.  That said, the list intrigued me.

Waking up with headaches.  Check.

Sleepiness during the day.  Check.  My caffeine consumption has gone up A LOT recently.

Chocking sensation while sleeping, waking up coughing.  Check.

Excessive or very loud snoring.  Check.  DH claims I snore.  I know he snores, lots.  Dunno if I do, really, but I believe him because my dad snores.  

Hmm.  Something to think about.  Maybe the headaches have more to do with something outside of my usual litany of suspects; hormones, weather, ciggy smoke, stress.

Damages

In the sidebar for almost two years now, I've had a countdown timer from backwardsbush.com. Anxiously awaiting the day when there would be another president, even when I had no idea who that other president might be.  Someone, hell, ANYONE would be better than him.

Now that there are far fewer than 100 days left in his miserable administration, the Bush White House is striving hard to make sure that President Idiot leaves his mark on history.  He's been busily signing stuff into law that maybe he thought would fly under the radar screen, but instead is big daily news.

The most recent thing that has me all riled up is some 500 pages of revisions of rules for the guest worker permit program, also known as H2A.

It is my general opinion that Republicans tend to be pro-business, pro-big business, often at the expense of the environment, or, as in this case, at the expense of the impact it will have on the most exploited group of workers in American society.

But this is just the latest thing in a long list of stuff that the Idiot Administration is pushing through during the twilight of their days in office, railroading a laundry list of "reforms" through while they've still got time.  Relaxation of environmental impact study requirements.  Reduction in the amount of input scientists have over how much damage new power plants would do to national parks.

President-Elect Obama has said that he will overturn much of the damaging legislation that Pres Idiot has pushed through in recent days, but that will be a much lengthier process than getting them into law in the first place.

How much MORE damage will he manage to do in the remaining 39 days?  The end of his administration can't come soon enough for me.

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer

I mentioned wanting to read Mike Huckabee's new book to someone the other day, after hearing an interview with the former Arkansas governor.  

No one who has met me in person has any doubts a'tall about my political leanings.  So this person did a double take, and immediately asked "Why would you want to do that?"

Simple, really.

Disagreeing with a political movement or a particular point of view does not mean that the other side is dumb.  What is stupid is shouting at one another, not having a rational dialog.  How can you defend your point of view when you don't know why your opposition feels the way that they do?

Over the summer, I had a plethora of books checked out from the library, a lot of non-fiction from biographies to political dissertations and everything in between.  I never finished any of them, *AND* I incurred massive library fines from having the books in the back seat of the car for a few months.

Two of the biographies got raised eyebrows at the pool; one by Benazir Bhutto, and another by Vicente Fox.   Bhutto's, obviously, got raised eyebrows because the cover had her pictured wearing a veil.  Not a full hijab, but a scarf covering her hair.  I get very offended when people make remarks about all muslims being terrorists.  Islam is a profoundly peaceful religion, and if we don't try to understand why an extremist faction is intent on raining destruction down on the western world, we're never going to get anywhere.  As I said, I didn't finish the book, but it was a fascinating read.

Fox was more conservative than I had previously realized, and someone did stop by my poolside chair and ask why I had chosen to check that book out of the library.

For the same reason that I want to read Huckabee's book: to understand.

'Cause they were, like, totally awesome and stuff.

Facebook, again.

I went to a very small school system, K-12, except for the school year I spent in Sweden.  I graduated with 135 people.  I knew their names, I knew their siblings, I knew where they lived, I knew what their parents did for a living.  Small, small place.  I don't think that there were more than 400 kids in the entire high school, so of course I knew a lot of people in the class ahead of me and the class behind me, too.  My sisters often had the younger siblings of my classmates in their classes, so I knew a lot of them, too.  

When I take a peek at the other people who note that they graduated from my alma mater and the same year I did on Facebook, I don't recognize many of them.  There are only roughly 30 of my classmates out there, and I don't know who about half of them are.  There was someone named Tito in my class?  Really?  Um, OK.  Suuuuuuure there was.

Hilariously, of the half that I *do* recognize, I didn't like about half of them back then.  I lived in a pretty upscale little place, and if you weren't rich (and we weren't) and you weren't a cheerleader (and I wasn't) and you weren't considered "pretty" (and I never thought I was)....well, to put it mildly, there were a lot of cliques, and like not mixing grains when you're drinking, or oil and water when you're cooking, there was very little crossing of the clique lines.  I had a great group of friends, many of whom I still see/talk to/e-mail on a regular basis, please don't misunderstand that.  

But there are a bunch of those people that a) I don't really care about, b) weren't nice to me then and I don't see why I should be nice to them now, and c) apparently, I don't remember them at all.  

Mean-spirited evil little bastards they were.  Cruel, nasty, elitist snots.

Saying I don't care about them is harsh, truly, and not exactly what I mean.  I hope they're happy, I hope they have nice little lives for themselves, I am glad they're still alive, but that's about the extent of it.  

When I was in high school and people would tell me that my high school years were "the best time of your life" I either wanted to stab them, repeatedly, or myself, fatally.  I used to ask adults, "You DO remember being in high school, right?  Best time of your life?  It doesn't get better than THIS?  Eurgh." {eyeroll, eyeroll, eyeroll}  And I'd be thinking, "Dude, seriously?  I think you're, like, young for Alzheimer's and stuff, but you obviously don't, like, remember, like, what fucking hell on earth high school really is."  Yep, had a potty mouth back then too, and was horribly guilty of the over-use of the word "like".  Obviously.

It does get better, by leaps and bounds.  Thank the gentle goddess.  I look back on the time I was in college with lots more fondness than high school will ever be recalled.

Searching through lists of classmates and checking out these people's friend lists has turned up a few folks that I really did like and have lost touch with.  I'd like to send them friend requests, but there's a little demon in my ear that whispers..."What if they remember YOU with vitriol like you remember the popular kids?  Do you want to know that?  Worse, what if they don't remember you AT ALL?  You were such a wallflower.  I doubt they'd even recognize your name, and you KNOW sure as 'ell that they're not going to recognize you with your short-short hair, and hello?  Did you forget that you've gained a treeeeemendous amount of weight since those days?  Oh, and sweetie?  You were no angel yourself at 15."

I say to the demon, "So what?"  and "I looked anorexic back then, I look normal now, bite me, 'you've gained a lot of weight' jackass."  When I'm filled with bravado, that is.  The rest of the time, I just look at the pictures and wonder.

Poli-sci-fi

Is there a single soul left in the United States (or, frankly, anywhere on earth) who is not sick unto death of the current US presidential election?  Gah.  And: boooooorrrrrrring.  I'm so over it, and I am a political nut. I started this blog yea those many years ago specifically to write about liberal-lefty-politics and the pro-choice side of the abortion debate.

I have not watched a single one of the debates.  I didn't pay attention to a single second of the conventions over the summer, other than the daily recaps I heard on the morning news as I drove to work.  I can't watch McCain.  I want to throw things at the TV when I do.  DH gets really upset at me hurling things at his flat-screen telly, and I like peace and serenity in my home.  I can't listen to Palin.  I scream obscenities at the radio if she's on.  I am making a good-faith effort (really.  No, seriously!) to clean up my language, so that's not good either.

My issue (abortion) is so decisive for me that I. Will. Not. Ever. vote for someone who is anti-choice.  The McCain/Palin team has made it abundantly clear where they stand on this issue. Truth is, though, that I wouldn't vote for him even if I wasn't such a pro-choice advocate.  He's out of touch with reality, out of step with....well, I was going to type 'the American people' there, but it sounds so pompous that I can't type it with a straight face, so instead I will say that he's out of step with ME.

I usually feel that a presidential election comes down to the choice of a lesser of two evils.  Who of the two candidates is going to do less damage during the 4-8 years they're in office? Yes, yes, there are always more than two, but reality, people, reality.  A third-party candidate has about as much likelihood of getting elected as I do of turning into a pretty pretty fairy princess.  With wings.  

I voted for Hillary in the primaries, because the possibility that there might be a female president in my lifetime is too beautiful to resist.  I didn't think she was going to get the nomination, but I wanted to vote for her.  Then, surprise, surprise, she won Ohio.  I was stunned, I didn't think she had a shot.  

Obviously, then, I will be voting for Barak Obama when it comes time to cast my ballot.  I don't feel bad about that decision in any way, and this time I think it is a choice between hope and evil rather than a choice between the lesser of two evils.  I have a hard time not feeling hopeful when I hear Obama speak.  My local paper (a rag if there ever was one) carries Parade magazine as part of its Sunday inserts, and last week's Parade had a small paragraph about what the tax plans of two candidates would mean for income levels from $10,000-$100,00, broken down in chunks of about 10K.  Under McCain?  My tax liability would stay roughly the same.  Under Obama?  My tax liability would DECREASE by over ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS.  $1,000! How can I say NO to that?  I can't.

It seems surreal to me that there might be a minority in the White House.  I'm excited about that.  So many predictions for the twenty-first century have fallen flat; where are our flying cars?  Our jet-packs?  Our vacations on the moon?  Nowhere, that's where.  But people who have been traditionally disenfranchised gaining more and more political power?  That's here.  Fantastic indeed.

Immigration. Again.

I heard a news story that was preceded by the pundit wittily noting that this election season, Sarah Palin's lipstick is more of an issue than immigration.  And ugh, he was right.  That is dammed annoying.

The report was about yet another right-wing nut job "we're against everyone who isn't just like us" group.  An anti-immigration lobby, that has taken out ads in Harper's and The New York Times and I've already blocked what their name was from my memory.

The thing is....the United States is a nation of immigrants.  I've ranted about this before, probably ad nauseum, but it still bugs me every time I hear someone talking about how all of those (Mexicans, Africans, Syrians) insert your favorite social minority here are ruining this country for the rest of us.  What-ev-er!  Isn't it a good thing that no one felt that way about their grands and greats?  Unless you can trace your ancestry to waaaay back before the Mayflower as being entirely Native American, guess what?  There is an immigrant in your family tree.

Is the far right really that dumb?  Whoever this group was, they are taking out ads warning of overpopulation, and how massive immigration just might destroy the environment.  Riiiight.  Because it is the recent immigrant population that is living in McMansions, driving giant SUVs, and continuing to push along the consumer-driven economy by purchasing ever more stuff at Wal-Mart.  Silly me.

Unanserable Questions

I'm in a mood today. Not a good one. More......like.....massively pissed off for no reason whatsoever. I found myself yelling at people on the freeway, irked beyond all measure at about a thousand other little things.

Being as medicated as I am, the little things like that don't usually bother me too much. If no one died today, then hey, it was a decent day, y'know? Everything else is a fixable situation. (More or less.)

So why is it that when I'm driving on the highway, I get stuck behind the idiot in the passing lane with their left turn signal going blink blink blink blink driving at 50 miles an hour, instead of the speed limit of 65? They're usually backing up traffic for at least 3 miles.

How come whenever I'm minding my own business, in a store or at a cafe, sitting by myself in an empty spot, some loon comes along and starts a conversation with me? Like in the movies when there's an empty bus, just one passenger, and someone else gets on and chooses to sit next to the only passenger, rather than any of the other 65 open seats. Do I have "talk to me if you're strange" tattooed on my forehead in invisible ink?

Why do men talk to my boobs?

Why is it the end of May and still bloody freezing here? I had to turn the furnace back on, ffs, because it was 58 in my house. Hello?

Why is it that our nearest and dearest know exactly which buttons to push to rile us up, and then why do they push those buttons?

Why do people get facial piercings? I saw two kids yesterday with their lips pierced at the corners of their mouths, each of them with 2 lip piercings. What the hell? Who is going to hire them? Is that a decision that you end up looking in the mirror at 45 and thinking, hmmm, maybe that doesn't look so hot? Imagine walking into a doctor's office, or an accounting firm, and having your CFP certified CPA introduced to you with an eyebrow ring, a nose ring and a lip ring? I'm guessing that unless you run a tattoo parlor, that look isn't going to inspire confidence in your tax professional. Or in your physician.

Why do people get up to give a speech and then say, "Before we begin, I'd like to....."? You've ALREADY started, jackass.

Why can't I knit faster? There are about 36 knitting projects I want to be working on, from this to this to this and this. I'm still searching for a shawl pattern that I will want to make over and over again, in different colors and textures. (Ed. note: good luck with that.)

Why do people say, "I don't want to be an asshole about this, but...." and then proceed to be assholes?

Why do I make so many things more difficult than they need to be?

Why do we call public toilets "restrooms"? I can't think of anyplace where I would want to rest in less than a public toilet. Ew.

Why do people think it is cute to intentionally misspell things, and name their businesses with those misspelled words? Word to the wise: It just makes ya look stupid. Kiddie Kollege. Kountry Kurls. Granny's Kountry Kitchen. Urgh.

Lack Thereof

Patience has never ever been my strong suit. I'm pretty stubborn, too. My parents tell a hilarious story about 2 or 3 year old me taking a pair of kiddie scissors to puzzle pieces, in an effort to make them fit the way I thought that they ought to.

In the world outside of teh interweb, I'm waiting for something to happen or not happen. Anxiously awaiting news, one way or the other. Which is dammed annoying, frankly. Tom Petty sang, "waaaaaiiiitttinnnng is haaaaaaardest part" in a pop song in the 80s, and true dat, folks.

One of my favorite Sci-Fi authors, Anne McCaffrey, writes about a system of belief (I don't know what else you could really call it) that has vaguely Eastern overtones, and one of the basic statements is 'Never hurry, never wait.'

Far easier said than done.

{I must point out that I neither subscribe to this system of belief, nor do I completely understand it, because she never bothers to explain more than the most basic sorts of things about this faith, or whatever it is. See: Sassinak, Dinosaur Planet, The Planet Pirates, etc.}

We spend a lot of our lives rushing around, from one appointment to the next, or from one task to the next, and a whole lotta time waiting in queues for all kinds of things.

We've become mostly convinced as a society that unless we're multi-tasking, we're wasting time. Standing on line at the post office? Check your e-mail from your phone. Or write a grocery list, but be doing something other than just waiting. Goddess forbid.

The reason you end up rushing around then sometimes becomes that you were too busy multi-tasking to stay on schedule.

As I've waited (a seeming eternity, too, I must say) I sometimes get a little swoop in my stomach, like when the car is going fast over a little unexpected hill, a swoop of excitement, and other times it is a swoop of dread. I woke up this morning feeling like a ton of bricks had taken up residence in my tummy, along with about 300 butterflies. Does that even make sense? But I had hoped so that today would be THE DAY, and alas, no. The phone did not stay silent, instead it rang all day with other calls, and each time I'd look at the screen hoping that big important number would be popping up, and bummer, no. (Yes, I know what number will be calling me with THE NEWS, or at least I know the area code and the prefix, if not the last digits. I'm a geek. Of course I know the number that will be calling.)

Stomping my feet and fussing hasn't helped either. What a surprise.

I've tried to focus on other "stuff" and during the weekend, that's not so hard. But during the workdays, when you know everyone in the world is in their office, and freaking NOT CALLING ME, it is harder.

I'm fond of many curse words for the forcefulness of expression they provide sometimes. I've been trying to decrease the number of them that I use here and in the world unless I'm trying to make a particular point, because they tend to make people sit up and listen. But none of the American slang or curse words I could come up with are as expressive in this situation as is a Brit word, one that the average Yank wouldn't even recognize as a curse word.

No phone call today: Bugger! BUGGER!

Fell On Black Days

Whatsoever I feel has
come to light
Whatsoever I fought off
became my life
Just when every day
Seemed to greet me with a smile
Sunspots are fadin'
Now I'm doin' time
Now I'm doin' time

'Cause I fell on
Black days

~Soundgarden, Fell On Black Days, Superunknown, 1994

Its a rough day today. For absolutely no reason whatsoever, I'm feeling like I was hit by a semi.

Part of living with this disease is that you know there is still so much unknown, no discernible reasons why it takes the course that it does. If there WAS a pattern, reasons why there's highs and lows, I think 'they' could treat it better.

Patients, me included, want to self-medicate when things don't go so well, or when things are going great; we think that we can quit taking the meds when things are looking up, and consider all sorts of other options (like booze or upping the dosage ourselves) when things are down.

There's all sorts of possible explanations; its overcast and cloudy today, and that makes me want to stay in bed; sometimes hormonal shifts, part of the normal menstrual cycle, make your moods go wonky; I'm frustrated over some other areas of my life that we don't talk about online; the whole glasses/contacts thing is pissing me the hell off, I've been back to the eye doctor's twice and still can't see well out of the contacts; pick any one of those. To a person suffering with depression, any one or any combination of the above could sometimes be enough to be tail-spinning. And sometimes, there's no reason at all.

I was complaining about the FDA just the other day; that whole non-labeling of cloned beef thing. But they're not just the food-checkers, they're also the drug regulators. A friend sent me a link to this Yahoo! News article which suggests that the drug companies AND the FDA bury studies that don't show the meds in a favorable light. Fan-fucking-tastic. The major med that they're talking about, Zoloft, isn't my poison of choice, but what's good for one company is good for another, no?

I also skipped the gym this morning, and won't have time the rest of the day to get to it, which doesn't help.

Ranting about it sometimes does, though.

Listening to: Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Ahi Wela, Alone in Iz World, 2001
(Cheerful, sunny, Hawai'ian music)((that helps sometimes too))

The Resources Available

When I worked for the non-profit, for a good long while I was the only employee. This meant several things; one, no one was looking over my shoulder most of the time. Two, there was only so much I could do; I used to say all the time, "I do the best that I can with the resources I have available." 'Resources' usually meaning me, myself and I.

NPR is doing an occasional series about the songwriting process. As a music enthusiast, this interests me a whole lot. On the way home the other day, I listened to this piece, about pop group Georgie James and their dynamic. The reporter, Bob Boilen, used my resources available phrase when he was talking about what he thinks the true test of an artist/creative person is; the ability to use whatever they've got to accomplish the goal at hand.

My new job requires me to be constantly creative; there are, of course, some days when this is effortless, and others when it is quite the struggle. I have been feeling like the job is sucking up all the creativity I've got, leaving none at all for me. And that bums me out, because I haven't worked for more than a minute on my novel since September.

My friend who owns a beauty salon tells me all the time, "You're crafty," because I'm always bringing her things I've made. Cookies, or something else I've baked, endlessly. This time of year, it is bath salts and the coolest thing that I make all year long, solid lotion bars. (I wish I could claim that one as my own idea, but unfortunately, all I do is mess with the kit that they send me, adding a few things.) I always correct her, though and tell her with barely suppressed laughter, "I'm creative, not crafty. Martha Stewart and the people on HGTV are crafty. I'm cooler than that."

A while ago, I wondered on these pages if feeling better, with my depression symptoms easing, was making it more difficult to write. Something that I fear, quite honestly. I now think my fears were well-founded, and that in order to write fiction, and write it well, I need to be in a pretty dark place psychologically. Many of the things that I've discovered on this journey which initially made me uncomfortable are now all right with me. Not being able to write; that isn't OK with me.

It is a big push/pull, though. I am not willing to stop taking the meds in order to boost my creativity. I am not willing to not stop writing. There's a bit of an impasse there. One that I don't know how to fix. Besides not feeling like I'm able to further express what I want to say about my story, I also have absolutely no time for it at all. Last night, I posted my usual Tuesday post at just a few minutes before the calendar flipped over to the next day, because I didn't have time to finish the post during the day. I was working until nearly 10.30.

I don't mind being employed again, that's not it at all. I'm incredibly grateful to be working at all. I know that the fact that I am working has a lot to do with the improvement in my outlook. Not as much as an impact as the meds have, but I felt worse than worthless while I was unemployed. Not unloved, but unlovable. Not that circumstances forced being jobless upon me, but that I was apparently completely undesirable as an employee. Good times, good times.

Me-time is an essential part of who I am. There's a world of difference between alone and lonely. I treasure time to myself; that solitary-ness, the need for solitude, is one of my defining characteristics. Not having time to myself will eventually make me a bit stir-crazy, a little twitchy. More than a bit grumpy, too. It isn't the same sort of c-r-a-z-y as the depression, this is more just being temperamental.

So I feel like my resources are limited. It is partly the season; after work today I'd like to spend some time chatting with a few online friends and writing, but my house is an utter, complete, horrible disaster area, and it needs cleaned desperately. Three loads of laundry await folding, another two need run through the washer and dryer. One of my OCD things is that I have to take the dry cleaning off of wire hangers that the dry cleaner uses and switch the clothes to my nice hangers, and hang them in my closet in very specific order. That needs done, I brought home $150 worth of dry cleaning yesterday. As if all that wasn't enough, because of the holiday season, there are gifts to be wrapped, and still one or two to be purchased. Urgh. Have I mentioned that I'm training for a race that is in 12 days and I have yet to be able to run the entire 5K on the treadmill? Too much to do, too little time.

How to fill the well when it is in danger of running dry?

Did YOU vote?

I did.

And yes, I watched the returns into the wee hours, marveling at the very low number of voters in each race. School levies, decided by 10 or 15 or 20 votes. Mayoral races with very slim margins.

I went to vote at noon-time, my new boss having suggested that I head home at lunch and fetch a winter coat because it was not just cold yesterday, it was fucking freezing, and we were spending some time walking around the city. So I ran over to the precinct after fetching said winter coat and cast my ballot, and at 12.30 in the afternoon, I was only #77 in my precinct to vote.

That saddens me. Voter apathy is one of the worst problems a democracy can face, in my ever-so-humble. In non-presidential years, the usual voter turnout is something like 20%. Twenty percent of those eligible to vote actually do so. The other 80% stay home. Truly, it doesn't just sadden me, it disgusts me. Women really had to fight to get the right to vote in this country; out of respect for those brave souls alone should women head to the polls. Nevermind the rest of it; that one vote does make a difference, that it is part of your civic responsibility, that you can't bitch about the state of the country if you don't vote.

And then there's the fact that now that the November elections are done, things are going to really heat up for next year's presidential primaries. Already the longest running election in our history, I know by the time it is all said & done, we're all going to be way over it.

I got your grammar police right here!

Bad grammar bothers me. Always has. I have my parents, the grammar gestapo, to thank for this. Not that I'm complaining, really. I'm articulate thanks to them. I do appreciate that. The problem is that I want to correct everyone and everything when I see grammar errors.

Case in point?

Driving along a major road on my area, I saw the following sign:

"Summer Deals: Get them while their hot!"

Let's forget the punctuation error for a second, and instead focus on the homophone. Their. Which is the plural of he/she/it. What they meant to say was they're, the contraction of they are. This isn't rocket science. If you're not sure of your grammar, for chrissakes, ask someone else.

The English teacher I had from 5th grade to 7th grade had a rule, called "The Three English-Speaking People Rule." The rule required us to have at least 3 people who were English speakers read the compositions we turned in to her. She specified English speakers because we were little smart-asses who would tell her, "But I *did* have three people read it. They just weren't native speakers." Thinking back, if I were her, I might have shot us just for being brats. But then I'm not a patient woman. She was.

Regardless, I have instituted that rule every place I've ever worked, because people have terrible grammar. Abysmal grammar. Even a lawyer I worked for once upon a time was a habitual fragment-writer. I had to work with the typing pool on a nearly daily basis to "translate" what he had dictated for them.

I'm trying to hold myself back from calling the store with the grammatical error on the sign and telling them precisely what it should say, because that's a really obnoxious thing to do. On the other hand, there's the fact that unless someone tells them, I doubt that they'll ever know.

Then there's the punctuation error. Ahh, don't get me started.

Red State

I was chatting online with a few fellow fangirls a few days ago and we were talking about obnoxious t-shirts I bought from Cafe Press, one of which says, "Don't fear feminists. We just want our turn on top." I think that the shirt is hilarious. I needed new t-shirts for the gym, my old ones are too large, so I wear it there. I picked up a few other shirts as well, each of them more obnoxious than that one. I told my friends about all of them.

One of them blatantly declares that I am pro-gay rights, and yes, I *do* wear it to the gym as well. Did I mention that my gym is a YMCA? A Young Men's Christian Association? So I'm waiting for someone to say something to me about the t-shirts, especially the gay rights one. Or waiting for the Y to just toss me, for the shirt alone.

One friend said, "Is Ohio really that red? Or is it just where you live?"

I responded, "Are you KIDDING me? We passed a defense of marriage act. Homophobic misogynistic bullshit."

Another friend chimed in, "Uh-oh. Lucy's getting fired up. Quick, someone change the subject."


They know me too well.


But I do get fired up about gay rights. What makes you so special, Mr. and Mrs. Straight America, that you can deny the rights of someone who isn't straight?

My parents live in a resort-style community. Gated, on a lake, in the summertime it is just about "party central." The 'rents have a fire pit, which becomes a gathering place on fair summer evenings. People from around the development carry their coolers from home and settle around the fire, and talk about everything from politics to how the wake boarding was on the lake that day.

A few nights ago, I listened as a few of my parent's neighbors talked about a man who is looking to buy in the development. (The community is "gossip central" too.) Turns out that the man might be gay and you should have heard the derogatory horrible things several 30-something guys were saying. So terrible that even potty-mouthed me won't relay the conversation to you, I find it that offensive.

I will tell you to your face if you are offending me, no problem. Have done it about a million times before. DH was sitting next to me as this horrible bit of stunning bigotry was taking place, and he put his hand on my shoulder and didn't say a word, but he didn't have to. I knew what he was thinking. "God, don't start!"

So I didn't. I did open my mouth to say a few things, but most of them were under my breath and I know that if they heard me, they weren't paying any heed to me. There was quite a lot of liquor there, so yet again I learned the lesson of In Vino, Veritas.

Mysteriet Mig

A Mystery To Me

Why does the scale say the same number as it has for nearly two months, but my wedding ring is so loose that I now have to remove it before I shower or swim or wash my hands because as soon as my hands get wet, it slips off? I think that I weighed about 15 pounds less when I got married than I do right now. It wasn't this loose on my wedding day.

How can just two people accumulate 5 loads of laundry in 2 days? Both grown-ups, I could easily see how two kids could accumulate that much, but DH and I? I don't get it.

Why can I ignore a plethora of unhealthy eating options and eat what is good for me until there's chocolate in the offering?

Where the hell is the summer going? Already it is the middle of August. WTF, people?

How do spiders get into my library? The doors are closed, and I know the little bastards aren't hitching ride on me, I'd freak the heck out. So where do they come from?


Good questions, all. Too bad I have no answers.

Two other quick unrelated things:

1. I think my writer's block has eased. I know it is probably tempting Fate to say anything, but I managed to write a page or so last night. Yay!

2. Bumper Sticker Wisdom; saw a bumper sticker over the weekend that said...."trust Snape"
Bwahahahahaha! Love it.