Archive for February, 2006
a new adventure
Feb 7th
As if I didn’t have enough going on in my life, I’ve decided to follow in Willow’s footsteps. Yep, you heard me right, I’m following in my six-year-old niece’s footsteps.
I am going to start Tae Kwon Do classes tonight.
I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal but let me give you a little information.
I’m not really a joiner. I don’t join groups. Even when co-workers invite me to parties and/or dinner or drinks, I rarely go. I am not much of a crowd person. It’s far more stressful for me to go to those kinds of events than it is to just avoid them.
Now I’m not only joining something but I’m risking the fact that I will most probably look stupid for a while. I hate looking stupid almost more than I hate being a part of groups.
Top it off with the point that my niece, love her as I may, is a yellow belt with a black stripe and she is not shy about telling me when I’m doing things wrong. I will be that beginning white belt. She is delighted that she is so far ahead of me. Delighted.
I’m wondering if I secretly like public humiliation.
sensitivity
Feb 6th
I think I was born sensitive. My feelings get hurt easily. I cry over things that most people wouldn’t even care about.
I remember once when I was a teenager, the family was sitting around watching one of those made-for-television movies. It was about teen suicide. It upset me so much that I just sat there, hiccuping through the tears that streamed down my face. My dad told me to stop. He said I was “too damn sensitive” and this was a stupid thing to cry about. I think it hurt my sensibilities that kids thought life was so bad that they didn’t want to live. That bothered me.
I think nearly every man that I’ve ever had in my life has told me that I’m too sensitive.
And I wonder. What does that mean, exactly? Does it mean that I’m too sensitive for them? Does it mean that I’m more sensitive than most of humanity?
I can’t watch those animal cop shows. I cry through them. I’m so upset that people treat their pets so badly. It just tears me up. And then I have to cuddle with Dakota (as if that’s a chore!) because I need him to know that he will never be treated like that.
This weekend, Willow and I had some issues on a trip to Phoenix. My feelings definitely got hurt and I ended up crying over it. Yesterday I could barely function because I was so upset. I was upset because the consequences of her treatment are that she has to miss out on a month’s worth of playdates with me. That doesn’t just hurt her. It hurts me, too. I love that girl. But she also needs to know that she has to treat me well in order to spend time with me.
I’m not just emotionally sensitive. My skin is sensitive. I have such a horrible outbreak of eczema right now because of the dry weather. I itch all of the time and have rashes. My doctor had to give me some medicated lotion that I could use all over my body.
I have a sensitive stomach. It seems like the oddest things will upset my stomach.
I have a sensitive brain. Okay…weird, I know, but I didn’t know how else to label it. I get headaches at the drop of a hat.
I have sensitive eyes. I have trouble driving when it’s dark because the headlights of other cars hurt my eyes so much that I can’t see. I see spots instead. I have to tilt every mirror in my car to avoid any lights. In addition, my bedroom has cloths draped over any ambient lights that may be in my room because the lights drive me crazy.
I have sensitive hearing. I think I can hear every noise on the planet and it drives me nuts. I can hear the very subtle whirring of my Tivo at night and it irritates the heck out of me.
My nose is sensitive. The littlest whiff of things can make me crazy. Cigarettes are the worst. I can’t breath if I smell them. But even odd foods will bother me and then my stomach will get upset.
Maybe I need to be put into a bubble and sheltered from the evil world.
I could be like John Travolta in that late 70s/early 80s show (I can’t remember exactly when) show, “The Boy in the Bubble.”
I could be the Bubble Girl.
sunday brunch
Feb 5th
american life in poetry: column 045
by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate
Poets are experts at holding mirrors to the world. Here Anne Caston, from Alaska, shows us a commonplace scene. Haven’t we all been in this restaurant for the Sunday buffet? Caston overlays the picture with language that, too, is ordinary, even sloganistic, and overworn. But by zooming in on the joint of meat and the belly-up fishes floating in butter, she compels us to look more deeply into what is before us, and a room that at first seemed humdrum becomes rich with inference.
Sunday Brunch at the Old Country Buffet
Madison, Wisconsin, 1996Here is a genial congregation,
well fed and rosy with health and appetite,
robust children in tow. They have come
and all the generations of them, to be fed,
their old ones too who are eligible now
for a small discount, having lived to a ripe age.
Over the heaped and steaming plates, one by one,
heads bow, eyes close; the blessings are said.Here there is good will; here peace
on earth, among the leafy greens, among the fruits
of the gardens of America’s heartland. Here is abundance,
here is the promised
land of milk and honey, out of which
a flank of the fatted calf, thick still
on its socket and bone, rises like a benediction
over the loaves of bread and the little fishes, belly-up in butter.
Reprinted from “Flying Out with the Wounded,” New York University Press, 1997. Copyright (c) 1997 by Anne Caston. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
fatty, fatty two-by-four
Feb 3rd
I don’t know where that came from. I remember some thing that kids would chant at one another and it had those words in it.
Man, kids can be mean, can’t they? Thinking back, I can’t remember one kid of my youth that was even near being overweight. They were either healthy or even underweight but never overweight.
Even me, as a kid…I was skinny as a rail. Tall and thin.
On NPR this morning there was a little segment about French women and how they are getting bigger. They’ve reached the dizzying height of 5’3″ on average! Whoa! And they weigh a whopping 138 pounds on average. I’m shocked! And then the caveat…”But American women are still bigger.” Well, duh! First of all, our average height is 3 inches taller.
And I have to say, going to the gym every other day, I feel like I’m surrounded by a bunch of people who spend hours and hours and days and days at the gym. Seriously. I think that’s all they do. I don’t think they have jobs. But they are skinny.
I’m the cow there. I’m typically the biggest woman in the room. And that does nothing for my self-esteem, I can assure you. It makes me not want to go back – but go back, I do. I plug away. I lose myself in the tunes on my iPod and pray that no one looks at my butt while I try to walk away those pounds.
truth
Feb 2nd
For those of you who have not known me a long time, you have not seen all of me. And maybe that is what has been coming out in recent days.
So, a quick recap – because I may not be who you think I am – I’m an activist. I always have been. I always will be. I’m not typically in-your-face but I have definite views on certain subjects and I will defend my right to have those views.
I’m probably as liberal as you will ever find. I’m left of the left…and I like the view from there.
I am pro-choice. Vehemently. I have worked in family planning clinics. I have marched. I have escorted women into clinics. This is a major voting point for me when I vote for officials.
I am anti-death penalty. I do not believe in state-sanctioned murders.
I am anti-war. I don’t think it is EVER necessary to wage war to make a point.
I’m a tree hugger. Literally. I have hugged more trees than I can count. I have cried while driving through clearcuts. I have issues with people wasting water. I support the Kyoto Treaty, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act. I would drive a hybrid if I could afford one (or not drive at all if we had good public transportation here) but since I can’t, I drive a small compact car while surrounded by the behemoth SUVs (and scared for my life at times, I might add). I compost. I recycle.
I don’t eat red meat.
I do not belong to any religion but I’m a deeply spiritual person. My spiritual leanings would be akin to a mix between Native American spirituality and Eastern philosophies.
I’m a feminist. Or better yet, I’m a humanist. I won’t apologize for wanting equal rights between the sexes, races, and cultures.
I’m a geek girl. I work in the technology field. I like gadgets.
I’m a student. I am working on my master’s degree in an English field that includes technology. Very cool area that combines all of my loves.
I’m an aunt. I adore my nieces and nephews and could wax on about them for hours.
I’m a mommy – to a four-legged furry kid and a kid with fins. They are babied.
I’m a redhead. Enough said.
This does not, by any means, complete the “I am” circle. But it may give you an idea of who I am, why I write what I write, and why I may not agree with you. I love healthy debate but you probably are not going to change my mind and I have no illusions that I will change yours. I enjoy understanding people and the diversities between us far more than I do wanting to change anyone.
struggle
Feb 1st
Yesterday, in response to my entry about peace, Jennifer wrote:
I’m just wondering if you differentiate between an aggressive agenda to obliterate a country (Iran’s stated intent to destroy Israel) from defending oneself and one’s allies against such an agenda?
I thought about it all night. I didn’t want to give a glib answer and be done with it. Her thoughtful question warranted a thoughtful response.
I thought about how Nelson Mandela and deClerq were able to avoid bloodshed when apartheid was abolished and how they moved in a peaceful way to create a new nation. I thought about how the leaders of the nation next door to them, Zimbabwe, did exactly the opposite and began killing whites and burning them out of homes when the new government took over. I thought about Gandhi’s walks for peace. I thought about the Civil Rights’ struggle here in the US. I thought about the student standing in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square.
And I know it’s possible to do things in a peaceful manner. It is a struggle but it is possible. It takes courage to do that. Few people have that kind of courage.
Then, this morning, I heard on the news that the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made comments about the United States and said that this nation is a “hollow superpower” that is “tainted with the blood of nations”. And that sealed it for me.
We need to stop for a moment. WE may think that we are “doing good” by going in to other nations and taking out oppressive factions. However, how do those people view us? Sure, we all see on the news the people who held up their purple thumbs after the election. We didn’t see, however, the people who boycotted the vote. We don’t hear from the people who aren’t happy with our occupation of their country.
And make no mistake, we are occupying countries.
We are not some benevolent giant who is merely protecting our interests and the interests of our allies. Iraq had nothing to do with that whatsoever. They weren’t threatening our security. Neither was Afghanistan. But there we are, occupying their nations.
In terms of Iran, so far peaceful heads have reigned. Germany led the way for Iran to be brought to the UN Security Council for their nuclear activities. Iran vows that the nuclear actions they are taking are positive and will not be used for bombs. And that is why we must take steps that are peaceful. Not just jump in with a gun and say, “Hey, I don’t believe you!”
Bullying is right. We are bullies. We want the world to believe and act as we do.
And that’s just not possible.
