The movie, Carrie " is playing on A&E right now, and for some inexplicable reason has donned the gossamer robes of Milady Muse for the Day...

When I first read the book, Carrie, and each time I see the movie, I'm always transported, to some extent, back to my own Junior High and High School days... I was every bit as nerdy and out of the loop as Carrie, but instead of telekinesis, my youthful "cross to bear" was one of enhanced intuitiveness and premature maturity. I spent the bulk of my Freshman and Sophomore years wondering what planet I was really from and how I'd managed to fall off the cosmic bus at such a foreign and seemingly hostile depot. The kids I went to school with worried about whether or not Mom and Dad would lend them the Cadillac to drive to school or doom them to taking the family station wagon, whether or not they'd make the grade during Senior High Fraternity/Sorority rushes, and who would say what about whom at the weekend mixer. I worried about getting to school and work on time, given that our family had no car and my primary mode of transportation was my own two feet - and working as many hours as possible in order to keep our utilities paid.

I must admit, I bought into the whole popularity "status" thing for awhile, and spent a significant amount of time secretly longing to be included as a member in good standing of the "in" crowd - or at least not the girl everyone else viewed as wholly out of sync with the normal scheme of things and a scrubs- or hand-me-down-attired Nerd of the Consummate Kind.

I'll never forget my merciful reprieve... my Epiphany of Epiphanies... the Eureka moment that freed me from a decaying orbit around Planet Popularity and gave me wings to forever soar above and beyond its gnarled, perverse grasp.

Near the end of every school year at my High School, the current class of Seniors-in-Waiting would hold student body elections and choose their Senior Class President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer for the coming year. The outcome of these "elections" was inevitably contingent upon who commanded the most financial resources, popularity, and influence-peddling skills, which is why I'd never even considered throwing my hat into the ring in during The Class of 70's Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior years.

And then, walking to work at Dr. Edward's office following a particularly deflating, Card-Carrying-Member-of-the-Nameless-Nerdy-Rabble, dog day afternoon at school, I had a scathingly brilliant idea.

So what if I couldn't swing buying fancy-schmancy novelty items urging classmates to vote for me? So what if having fliers printed up was a luxury in which I'd never dream of indulging at the expense of my Momma and siblings? So what if I didn't stand a rat's ass chance in Pittsburgh of actually winning a student body election?

What I did have was sufficient creative prowess to make my own damn posters. I also had an excellent command of communication skills, a long, abiding, heretofore unexpressed list of personal observations about all the things I believed the High School could be as opposed to what it actually was at our school... and 15 reserved minutes of gloriously unfettered podium time before a captive faculty and student body audience in which to air them.

I ran, boys and girls - I ran. At first, I'd planned to run for Secretary or perhaps V.P. Generally, the position of Senior Class President always went to someone who'd served in a lesser office in their Sophomore or Junior years. But then it occurred to me that I had about as much of a crack as an ice cube in hell at getting elected to any office anyway, so why not go for the brass ring?

My posters, I don't mind saying, were the best of the bunch. I didn't bother with fliers or novelty items, and my wallflower status emancipated me from the frenzy of cut-throat "political" B.S.-ing, back-stabbing, and butt-smooching to which my opponents devoted themselves in the ensuing three weeks. While they were blotting their brown lipstick....* heh, heh, heh * ... I was writing my speech.

Election Day finally came, with all its attendant hustle and bustle. Second Period was dedicated to a full student body Assembly, and the Auditorium was standing room only. Our speeches were delivered in order of ascending levels of Office, which meant that I and my two opponents running for Class President would be heard last. A draw of straws amongst the three of us relegated me to the position of "last of the last" to speak.

And speak I did. Not angrily... not resentfully... not negatively - but openly, quietly, and completely. I simply told 'em like it was.

At the end of the speech, I heard the words, "If you want to elect a dedicated Class President, vote for me. If you want to elect a monarch... don't. Thank you." come out of my mouth... followed by several agonizing seconds of dead silence. I remember looking out over a sea of faces, the vast majority of which appeared to be stunned into silence.

Then came a sprinkling of applause, followed by teachers and even a few students rising to their feet. As I walked away from the podium and back to my seat on stage, the applause grew louder and louder. Both of my opponents' mouths were gaping as they openly gawked at me, and I clearly recall staring back at them with a "Don't look at me - I don't get it, either!" expression on my own befuddled countenance.

Just before school let out for the day, the new Class Officers were announced over the Public Address system. I had not won, of course... that came as neither a surprise nor even a disappointment. What did come as a shock, however, was being served with a pass to report to the Principal's office just before the bell rang.

Oh, shit.

I hardly EVER misbehaved in school, and certainly never beyond the boundaries of a teacher or guidance counselor level of review. Catapulting to the conclusion that my public remarks had rocked the boat sufficiently to earn me the epitomically dreaded Principal's Pass, I fearfully contemplated the horrible fate that surely awaited as I headed for Mr. Purcell's office... and worse yet, what punishment I'd face at home when Momma got word of this.

Three decades later, even as I type these words, my palms are as moist and my heart is racing nearly as fast as it did for the ten or so angst-ridden minutes I waited outside the Principal's door, utterly defeated and eternally doomed. GAWD, teenage hormones are a bitch!

In my day, the relationship between teachers and students was never as informal as it has apparently become nowadays... and the Principal stood right behind God and Jesus at the head of the lunch line. By the time Mr. Purcell called me into his inner sanctum, I'd mentally fleshed out a hasty draft of my Last Will and Testament.

"Kelly?"

"Yes, Sir?"

"That was the best damn speech I've ever heard. You have a fantastic future ahead of you. I'm so proud of you I could bust, and I'll remember you at that podium until the day I die."

With an unvarnished "Say WHAT?" look on my face for the second time in a single day, I sat before the man in deer-caught-in-the-headlights silence, finally squeaking out a tentative "Thank You, Sir" while fervently praying I'd not wholly misunderstood what he'd just said and offered a monumentally inappropriate expression of gratitude in response.

Apparently I had not, because, after swearing me to secrecy, Mr. Purcell confided one more bit of information never before or since disclosed in the history of my school. I had lost the election by only two votes. Until this moment, I've never revealed that to a single other soul.

I thank you, Mr. Purcell, for entrusting me with that information. It proved to be one of the crowning jewels of my youth - and 38 years later, still occupies a special place my spiritual treasure chest. Even during during life's stormiest, most overcast interludes, its glint illuminates my path to this very day.





 

This is better than a sketch pad, artist's chalks, colored pencils, AND fingerpaints!

I'm having more fun than a barrel of monkeys learning about creating graphics with PSP. To that end, come celebrate the Grand opening of my newest C-Note Shoppe! (I'm particularly tickled with the 2nd to the last, " Bay Window" C-note... I took the real life sunset-at-dusk-Texas-sky photo that's seen in the C-note outside the front of my home. ANYhoo... click on the logo below iffin ya wanna check it out...

 

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It shouldn't have surprised me... God knows it's becoming an ever more pervasive social phenomenon...

Seems super model Naomi Campbell got herself arrested in a busy London airport for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and assault on a law enforcement officer. The reported "trigger" for this, Ms. Campbell's FIFTH charge of criminal assault upon another person since 1998, was the fact that she was permitted only two pieces of carry-on baggage instead of the three she was demanding. Despite the fact that she was rude, insulting, and combative at the gate, airline officials permitted her to board, undoubtedly in deference to her "celebrity" status. However, Ms. Campbell continued being so disruptive aboard the plane that she was ultimately deemed unfit to fly, her boarding pass was retracted, and she was asked to disembark. She refused to comply and continued to menace and threaten the onboard staff, prompting them to summon police. After defying their requests that she leave the plane voluntarily, she physically resisted and assaulted them during the course of her arrest... culminating in spitting on at least one officer. Proof positive that one can be incredibly outwardly beautiful... yet inwardly uglier than an STD-infested garden slug.

GAWD, I'm sick of the rampant "diva-ism", arrogance, and seemingly impenetrable, whole conviction of complete entitlement that seems so on the rise in our society... and no longer just among the ranks of "celebrities". Not only do we tolerate it - we celebrate it, as is evidenced by the immense popularity of cut-throat reality shows like "Survivor", "Bridezilla", "The Apprentice", and countless more of their dog-eat-dog ilk.

Having worked in law enforcement and later the medical profession, two things I learned well in my youth that have been been upheld time after time in adulthood are are these: 1. Without our masks, we're all on the same level, and: 2. Money talks and bullshit walks.

It's nights like this that make me want to scream, "Stop the world - I wanna get off !"

I hope they throw the book at you, Naomi. Sweeping subway bathrooms is too good for your high-falootin', Diva-in-your-own-mind behind. Try duking it out with fellow inmates for a change and let's see how big and bad you really are when push comes to shove.
 

WOW! It must have been a busy Autumn past, 'cause babies are arriving or due to arrive everywhere I look! To that end, you're all invited to the Grand Opening...

ID: 1408061   (Rated: E) The Rock-a-bye Baby C-Note Shoppe  Elegant, affordable C-Notes for expectant/new Mommies and Daddies! by Of Fire Born ~ welcome, 2012!

 

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Many I know are absolutely shocked to learn that I am pro-choice on the abortion issue, and always will be. They often ask how I can be so fervent a child advocate and spiritually steeped in Christianity-based faith, yet not wholly condemn a woman's right to chose to abort a pregnancy. Actually, my pro-choice stance stems from and is supported by both.

I do believe wholeheartedly in the omnipotence of a single Creator I happen to call God. I also believe in the Holy Trinity of God in three forms; God, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. Furthermore, I'm absolutely certain that children are God's greatest gift to us and should be cherished and guided as lovingly as God cherishes and guides all of us.

But in today's world, at least in American society, it seems that our children are growing more and more collectively the victims of abuse, neglect, cruelty, and horrendous predators who subject them to unimaginable criminal acts. Of these, one group of helpless victims being targetted more and more are children put up for adoption.

Before you undergo a complete meltdown, let me assure you that I regard adopting youngsters, if your motive is to take a child into your family and love and nuture them to healthy adulthood, as a beautiful, beautiful thing. In fact, I often reassure a child who has been adopted that they are so special and their parent(s) love them SO much that they chose them to be their very own child. But I do have reservations - serious ones, indeed - about the fact that so many adoptive parents want only a completely healthy, non-challenged infant or toddler... leaving thousands upon thousands of older children or children with health and/or disability issues to languish year after year in the adoption and foster care systems.

Whether referring to a child born to them or one they wish to adopt, any time I hear an individual say, "I want a baby SO badly", a red flag goes up for me. Often, I have to wonder if they truly want a child... or just a baby. For with passage of an incredibly short amount of time... the two become entirely different things. In more and more instances, once the "baby/toddler/pre-schooler years (or fewer still) have passed, people who "so badly" wanted "babies" fall by the wayside in terms of responsible parenting, and it becomes quite clear that wanting a baby and wanting a child are not necessarily one and the same. I'm much more comfortable hearing someone say they want a child... it signifies that they have at least given some consideration to the fact that parenting is a full time job and the singularly most crucial of responsibilities one human being can take on toward another. You must be willingly and lovingly embarking upon the holy mission of parenting for the long haul... not just through the "terrible two's", but right on through the "terrible teens" and early adulthood. In today's world, even as challenging and difficult as it clearly is to "parent" an infant through its pre-schooler years... that's a snap compared to the troubled, potentially lethal waters they'll have to help the child navigate from that point on. And the fact of the matter is - this is the juncture at which more and more alleged "parents" are dropping the ball.

If a woman for whatever reason decides she does not wish to carry a child to term, and opts to terminate the pregnancy instead of placing the child for adoption, I do not believe she is "murdering" a human life, particularly not in the first trimester. Human life is not simply cells, organs, and flesh... these are but the housing materials for the soul God breathes into our existence. I believe that when God is determined to send a new soul into our midst... He or She will do just that. I also sufficiently trust in God to believe that He or She would not condemn a woman for honestly acknowledging she is not ready to nurture that soul to adult fruition. And even if I'm wrong about the latter, I still regard her ultimate choice as being between she, God, and no one else... and God alone should be her judge in that regard.
 

Some believe dreams are meaningless bits and pieces of imagination that manifest themselves in sleep and have no meaning to offer the dreamer. I'd agree that dreams are assimilated from innumerable fragments and often well guised, but I'm also convinced that nothing stored within and/or revisited in slumber by our subconscious is ever without significance and/or meaning. I think, instead, that dreams are our minds' avenue for sorting and resolving... it is only that the facets which comprise them often flit past our conscious minds so swiftly we fail to take full notice that renders their resurrection in dreams so mystifying.

The human mind is fascinating in that regard... not one of the billions upon billions of interfaces brought to it by any or all of our sensory messengers goes unnoticed and/or unrecorded within the confines of its conscious or subconscious memory banks. Were each and every such bit of sensory input to insist upon and be granted front row seating in the conscious mind, our brains would soon short-circuit and experience a total meltdown. Oddly enough, complete sensory deprivation can produce a very similar outcome in astoundingly short order. In both instances, the subconscious mind steps in as a protective backup system.

Dreams, I suspect, are constructed from all of the materials our subconscious stores when our conscious mind is too busy to deal with them; they are the progeny of orphaned input initially denied a conscious "say" in the matter of life. However, for a plethora of possible reasons, they demand to be reckoned with... most often when the conscious mind reposes in quiet surrender to somnolence. Whether they come to us as nightmares, seemingly nonsensical scenerios, or sweet ventures of the unconscious kind, every dream has a story to tell. Each, I believe, is a manifestation of desires, pleasures, pain, fears, etc. of which we're not consciously fully cognizant. When any of their number recur, be they good dreams or bad... is they that are most insistent upon conscious recognition and some form of reckoning.

My most frequently recurrent good dream is that I can fly. I don't have to "flap" my arms or use wings... I can simply concentrate and will myself to rise above my surroundings and navigate wherever I wish to go. Often, I retreat to a corner of a room and observe others interacting below... sometimes, I simply mosey about on the winds in a woods or meadow or over bodies of water. I always wake from such dreams feeling wonderful... and convinced that on some level, our souls can leave our physical bodies for a time and fly free with no fear of not being able to return.

Oddly enough, one of my most regular nightmares also involves flight. I'm always an emergency responder of one kind or another in such dreams, and actually stand transfixed watching a commercial airliner plummet from white, puffy-clouded, sun-kissed skies to earth. On responding to the crash, there is absolutely nothing I can do for any of the hundreds of victims of the tragedy.

I've had both of these dreams many, many times since young adulthood... and I've come to believe that they represent the alpha and omega of my greatest pleasures and joys - and most epitomical fears. In the case of the first... utter freedom, answers to troubling questions, and inhaling sheer beauty with every fiber of my being. In that of the second... ineffectuality, helplessness, and despair. Neither of their events has ever truly occurred in my waking life, and likely never will. Both, though, are bearers of messages my spirit must heed... and from them, learn.
 

I've mastered transparencies, making Paint Shop Pro Tubes, and creating my own graphics from the tubes I've made!!! ( See above new Spring Blog decor - ).

Animation and glitter... heah ah come!!!

*dislocates elbow patting self on back*
 

I love to crochet, knit, crewel, sketch, color, garden, sew, design, and engage in crafts of every shape and kind. My brother was an extraordinarily talented professional dancer and had exquisite taste for interior decorating. My sister also had a designer's eye and was immensely creative in her own right. We all sang and none of us were strangers to the dance floor.

Many is the time my mother has sighed as I sat crocheting or completely absorbed in some other creative endeavor and said, "I don't know where you kids picked up all this creativity - you sure didn't get it from your mother."

She is so wrong about that.

Even though she herself didn't happen to engage in these pastimes, Mama insured that her childrens' wings were never prevented from fully unfurling in that regard. First and foremost, she instilled in each of a keen love of reading, which in turn served as the foundational springboard for venturing forth in any direction we wished to go and learning just about anything we had a mind to. She read to us as toddlers and taught us to viewed learning to read and write as a magical means of soaring in any direction and just as high and as far as our hearts desired. She bought us "Little Golden Books" and "Little Golden Records" and a record player that came in it's own "suitcase" style container. To this day, I can remember the magical tunes those bright yellow 45-rpm vinyl discs bestowed upon little ears - and to this day I remain convinced they played a major role in the love of music and dance all of Mama's children carried with them into adulthood. Mama, herself an amazingly imaginative woman, fostered and nurtured well the imaginations of her children, never quashing their potential in any way, shape, or form. She made certain that that we knew all about Santa, elves, fairies, angels, leprechauns, the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy, magic, dreams, and all of their collective attendant joys. She equipped us with toys like Playdough, crayons, paints, colored pencils, beautiful jigsaw puzzles, building blocks, make-it and needlepoint kits, and children's cook- and crafting books. I can remember spending hour after many a delightfully entertaining hour making Christmas paper chains to decorate my bedroom, learning how to knit and crochet from my treasured Make-it Craft Book, cutting paper doilies, needlepointing a gorgeous yarn rose, singing and dancing and putting on "plays", drawing and painting, coloring and completing color pencil painting-by-numbers 'masterpieces', putting together puzzles and models of the human body, brain, and various wildlife, buildling sand and Playdough castles, writing stories and poems, and, of course... reading, reading, and reading some more. My childhood forays into Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, Charlotte's Web, Little Women, Little Men, Gone With the Wind, all of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books such as Little House on the Prairie, Little House in the Big Woods, and These Happy Golden Years... all of these and so many more remain vividly alive and well in my heart and mind's eye some five decades later.

Then, in my late 40's... I discovered CYBERSPACE ! Initially forced into using a computer for work, I soon discovered how wondrous an outlet computers, software, and the internet can be. Besides writing and reading, a whole new venue for artistic expression now stretches out before me. And on of the MANY beauties of it is - the more you learn, the more you want to learn and explore. Even if my hands some day become too old to crochet, etc. - there will always be Writing.com and Paint Shop Pro and voice activated software to use them! . I've just taught myself how to obtain and use Paint Shop Pro tubes... and now I'm a mad woman in pursuit of mastering the art of creating animations. The older I get, the more quickly I seem to be able to learn - and learning, in turn, keeps your mind <insert Beverly Hills accent here> - totally buff. Learning does for the mind what exercise and physical activity does for the body... both are age defying. My mother, despite much hardship, saw to it that her children received the seeds for a love of both... and wondrously fertile soil in which to plant them.

You don't know who gave us our creativity, Mama? You did, of course... you did.