I can't believe I've gone this long without writing an entry...

Today my friend Maria, when she came in to run the breakfast buffet at the hotel where I work, looked at me with a measure of defeat after we'd talked "bills" and "kids in college" and what it costs to feed people these days. She's from Vietnam, was brought here in the early '70s under the furor of fire and in the wake of the country falling to Communism. She's seen a lot.

She goes back to Vietnam nowadays, back to visit family she wasn't able to for probably twenty years or more. She mingles with others in this area who are from where she is-they came in a group and were dispersed as refugees are. The result is that it's often hard to understand what she says. I try but more often than not I end up trying to catch the gist of what she tells me and smiling like I understand when I don't. I've tried the "huh" route and making her repeat herself, but it doesn't really help so what's the point? But I like Maria. I think she probably has a Vietnamese name she doesn't use because we crazy Americans wouldn't be able to pronounce it correctly, ha ha! She's a really nice lady with a constantly sick husband and three daughters, one of whom is a single mother to a little girl, 2-yrs-old. She has two jobs-leaves this one to go and work in the kitchen of a school. She also takes care of her grandaughter when her daughter goes to work. The woman works really hard and it shows on her face, in the creases and dark circles of little sleep. But still she smiles and complains very little...except when someone leaves this kitchen in a mess--she knows who worked the evening before from how much coffee has been spilled in the making of it...I don't do that! In fact, when I think of it and have the time, I try to clean up the kitchen so she'll have a nice clean work area when she comes in. It's the least I can do for someone I respect and enjoy working with.

Another Maria works here, in the kitchen. She's from Costa Rica and is really hard to understand too, sigh. I like her a lot too, though. She's not as determined to be cheerful as "the other Maria," but she's a good person. She came to this country in the early '90s with her husband who has a job with the railroad, not sure which one. Over the years he's become difficult for Maria and her kids to deal with. He had a family before, a wife and two sons who perished in a traffic accident. Maria thinks that's why he's so cold and closed off from her kids, a 16-yr-old girl and a 13-yr-old boy. She's having a really hard time with her son who's fallen in with "the wrong crowd." She's been scared to death for him; unfortunately her husband thinks all he has to do is "crack the whip" harder and harder until the boy straightens up, but we all know it doesn't work like that. Ever. So Maria has spent the last month in Costa Rica, where she dropped off her son with her parents and siblings, hoping he'll get some sort of structure and discipline-the right kind of discipline-there. She just can't control him, here.

Last year Maria from Costa Rica went back there because she's still a citizen there, and she needed surgery she couldn't afford, here. They have health insurance, but the percentage she'd have had to pay to have surgery here would have killed them, financially. In Costa Rica, because she's a citizen, she could recieve treatment for free, in a clean hospital with decent doctors who took very good care of her. She came back a month later all smiles and feeling much better.

By the way, I haven't written anything for a couple of weeks because I'm paralyzed. There's so much I want to write but not enough. I don't remember ever feeling so disjointed by the world, I don't remember being worried like my own kids are about what's around the corner for them-who wants to look? It's not anticipatory. It's scary.

Maria from Costa Rica came into the hotel yesterday all smiles and ready to come back to work, but she had a disturbing story to tell, about having trouble getting back into this country. She wasn't treated well by security personnel at the airport, and she became frightened. Her daughter is still here, she envisioned not being able to get back to her...

Maria from Vietnam, after we talked finances and such, gave a long and weary sigh. "It's not easy," she said, "to live in this country, anymore."

Amen, Maria.
 

Today, April 22nd, is my WDC birthday.

When I joined this site six years ago today, I had two teenagers and a child. I was in the throes of trying to figure out how to deal with a bipolar adolescent while juggling the needs of two others. I don't know what I had in mind for the near futures of my girls six years ago. I wasn't a mother who thought I'd go through that "empty nest" thing. I love my girls and I threw myself into being their mother, but I was tired, even back then. I looked forward to a life, someday, that had something to do with my own needs and wants and even whims! I anticipated independence, the kind where I wouldn't have to consider anyone's needs but my own...

What I didn't see coming was something I've learned is an anomoly amongst those of my kids' generation: they don't want to leave!

I remember being eighteen and not just walking, but streaking out of my mother's house to begin life as an "adult" (one thing we all learn is what a relative term that is). I couldn't wait for the autonomy of "being on my own" (again very relative, ha ha), and having my own space. I couldn't wait to come and go as I pleased without having to answer to anyone. I couldn't wait! I enjoyed autonomy so much that when summer rolled around after my first year of college, I moved in with a friend in my hometown instead of returning home. I loved my mother and grandmother and all the extended family, but I wanted freedom that doesn't come with "living at home." I wanted to be responsible for myself-I RELISHED being responsible for myself. I assumed my kids, once they grew up, would feel the same way I did. I assumed wrong.

I didn't get it. I talked to my own friends and peers, and they agreed with me. It has been a bit of a relief that my kids aren't the only ones, not even close. Many of us are in the same boat-we love our kids immensely, want the best for them, and so totally don't understand this reluctance to get out and into the world, to start their lives as bona-fide, independent people who don't have to worry about anyone waiting up for them at home. We've discussed the phenomenon, because that's what it is. There are too many young people living at home, reluctant to leave our "nests," to call it anything else. Those who have left have most likely been pushed. It's true. Even those whose kids travel off to college...they return and hunker into their same old rooms, often miring themselves in their same old routines. For those of us who envisioned our young adults being long gone, who thought that by now WE would have some of our OWN autonomy back...ACK!!

Last week I picked up a USA Today and was interested to notice a week-long series about "today's kids." Okay, I thought. I'll see what they have to say...once again I was hit with an "AH-HA" moment (gotta love those).

My fellow parents and I had talked about the possible reasons for the difference in this generation as opposed to ours. We'd mentioned the internet, knowing too much about the world maybe, the way our own kids don't have to leave the confines of "home" to socialize...but I still wasn't satisfied with those answers. There has to be something bigger going on, I thought. Something we're not putting our fingers on.

One article talked about how much more freedom WE had as children. When I was a kid I played outside in the summer and on weekends with my mother "checking on me" once or twice during the day. I had the run of the block, screaming up and down until sundown, when my mother would call me in for dinner. Occasionally I was allowed to ride my bike downtown and spend hard earned coins on an ice cream cone from the Sweet Shop. From the time I was in the second grade I walked to and from school by myself, with no help or guidance from anyone. By the time I was twelve I had a lot of autonomy by today's standards. I walked downtown when I wanted-of course letting my mother know where I was and when I'd return. I pretty much took care of my own school issues, did my own homework without much monitoring, and got myself to my dance lessons, softball practices, and anything else I felt was important enough for me to be a part of. My mother was present always, of course, and if I needed a ride she helped me get on-she didn't drive. But the point of this tale: I was in charge of myself. The childhoods of my own children were very different.

We lived in St Louis for much of the growing years for my older two. They didn't have a "downtown" to ride a bike into and I doubt I would have allowed them if we did. They didn't play outside, have the run of any neighborhood, or schedule their own play dates or decide their own activities. These things were decided for them. They were driven to and from school, monitored closely no matter where they were, and given far less 'down time" than kids of my own generation. Ironically, the article I read claims that our kids actually had it far safer than we ever did. Was there a real need for all the monitoring?

Technology and "news at our fingertips" comes with a price. There were just as many child abductions in my day as there were in my kids' day, but we didn't know about them. We didn't have seatbelt regulations or cell phones. People can't even smoke in public buildings anymore! Remember when every restaurant and office building was a haze of smoke when we walked into it? It's amazing more of us don't have asthma and chronic bronchitis. We drank water from a hose instead of the bottled kind...and we survived. Because we "knew" more, we encased our own kids in plastic during their growing years...and are surprised they don't want to venture out into the big world?!?

In addition to instilling a level of fear in our kids, there's the added pressure of "making it" socially, aceademically, athletically, artistically. Kids have been infused, with all their after school, before school, summer enrichment, and in-school programs, to believe that they have to be all things at all times. If they're not, if they can't be...what's out there for them?

Good grief. No wonder they're still hunkering into their rooms.

So six years after the first day I signed up to become a member of this site, I'm still enmeshed in parenting matters. I've learned something the parents ahead of me will laugh with knowledge to read: I'm a mother. I'm never going to NOT be a mother. It really wouldn't have mattered if my kids tripped out the door like I did all those years ago. It doesn't matter how far and how wide my girls end up going as they age and mature...my life will never be totally mine. I'm a mother.

But I'm also a writer who's better because of that day six years ago. I'm a woman in a relationship with a man I LOVE because of that day six years ago. I've learned that even though I'm a mother and I always will be...I'm also a person with needs, interests, and goals that are ALL my own. Thanks WDC, for six fabulous years. I hope I'll be here for six more. I'll bet by THEN the girls will be....nope. Better not jinx it.


 

I whine too much.

I don't always share the whiny person I am inside, which is a really, really good thing. In my head I whine about too much work to do at home, so much going on at my place of work that makes me worry, so many bills piling up, too much month at the end of the money, kids who aren't as kind or understanding as they should be, being on the receiving end of all these aches and pains, not being able to get a handle on my weight problem, feeling kinda icky all the time nowadays BECAUSE I can't get a handle on the weight thing...told you. I'm a whiny brat.

Most of the time I catch myself mid-whine and sternly tell me to stop it. I don't have a terrible life, I really don't. Most of the things I whine about I can fix, and those I can't...shouldn't be my focus. There are ways to work through anything. I mean ANYTHING.

I just checked a couple out of the hotel where I work. Like most of our guests, they've been here for the Mayo Clinic. It's early in the morning, I was making conversation, and discovered the wife is going in today for surgery. Well, I said cordially like I always do in these situations, I hope you get a positive outcome and everything goes well. The wife had wandered off by then, pacing around the lobby while the husband was finishing the transaction with me. He gave me one of the most bleak looks I've ever seen. "It's only to make her more comfortable," he said. "There's nothing they can do." I maintained composure, telling them I hoped everything would go as well as it could and that they had as good a day as possible under the circumstances.

I watched them go and thought about how selfish we who stare down an endless tunnel of life can be; selfish and whiny and ungrateful.

LIFE is a gift. I know it's been said umpteen times in a trillion different ways, but that's because it's so TRUE. I've been gifted with another hour, another minute, another second, and right now I don't have a timer on my life. Oh there's a timer for me out there somewhere, but at this moment I'm not privy to it and I have a pretty good notion I've got a LOT more time on it than the lady who just walked out of this hotel.

I can't help whining sometimes, I think that's the nature of the beast-the human beast. But I'm in control of when I stop it and how much I allow myself to wallow in how "hard" I have it. I mean seriously, I'M ALIVE and the world is not as terrible as some pessimists would have us believe.

I've pasted the song before but I have to do it again. It'll probably happen somewhere down the road, even, when I think I'm in need of it:

Do you ever stand in the midst of people acting like complete assinine fools and wonder where their brains have gone? Do you ever wonder why in THE WORLD the American public sees fit to flock to election polls like sheep and vote into office those very idiots???

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE??!?!

I'm so sick of it. When Obama was elected into the Presidency, he spoke on and on about how he wanted a unifed country, a government whose agenda is about nothing more than what's good and right for the people. THE PEOPLE!!! Yes, it is for THE PEOPLE that our supposedly democratic government exists. How has it come to this??

President Obama is now taking flak for being too "non-confrontational," too willing to bend and twist and compromise. I see the point of some who make the conjectures, but he started out this way for a very good reason, a way to attempt to realize the dream of elected officials who work TOGETHER towards no other agenda than the one of making this country great for its people.

HA! Unfortunately, Obama and a very small faction of his supporters are the only ones willing to do the bending and twisting. They're the only ones who want NOTHING MORE than what's right for the masses. Everyone else on Capital Hill...it's all about their own agendas, their own world, their own pocketbooks, their own power-plays. It's about trying to "take down" the United States' first black President. It's about stomping opposition into the ground regardless of who they catch under their feet while they do it.

Because of selfishness, because too many people running our country are hellbent on furthering their own causes and to HELL with the ones that really do good for the people- because they couldn't care less about the young woman who won't get her pap smear; she can't afford to pay for it herself, because they don't have a care about the army specialist with a baby who won't be able to pay his rent next month, because they have no thoughts towards the elderly man down the street who has only his social security and medicare to keep him going...

I love this country, I really do. The problem is with those who RUN it that don't. What they love is money from "special interests," power they grab and hold and use for their own purposes-a lot of them have dropped even a pretense of caring about anything besides themselves. What I've always loved is how our government is supposed to be about THE PEOPLE, how the government is supposed to serve THE PEOPLE. How, in the United States, it's THE PEOPLE who matter most.

Not anymore. I'm sad, I'm disillusioned, I'm upset...I"M ANGRY!!!

These selfish, egomaniacal, narcissistic politicians are in desperate need of a whack on the butt and a time-out. That's what I did when my kids acted like this!
 

I did something I haven't done in a while: I've started a contest here on WDC. My reasons are several.

I went to the "contest" page in an attempt to jump-start my writing. Some of my best work has been in response to some contest I've entered on this site. There wasn't much to choose from, sadly. The contests I did click on were very narrow in their requirements which bothered me. I like guidelines because they can be a challenge, but when they get too strict I can't be creative. Most ot the contests I had even a minor interest in fell into the latter category. There were several listed which required a specific genre-a lot of my writing may not fit into "romance" or "horror" or "comedy" or "drama." Sometimes I write in what they call a "literary" style, the "human condition" kind of thing with elements of all or none of the "genres" evident.

I was feeling stifled and I didn't feel represented on that page...I thought about the people on this site who are like me, who write short stories on a variety of topics with varying characters and not often pigeon-holed into a certain theme. Where have they gone for some sort of motivation and/or inspiration? I thought about my previous contests, from a few years back, and how much I enjoyed them. I thought about my need to get back into the entire writing game-I love to review but I haven't done enough of it. All these thoughts catapulted me into:

ID: 1765299   (Rated: 18+) Show me...Your Fabulous Short Stories!  A contest about solid writing. Genre doesn't matter, quality does! by susanL

ID: 1724747   (Rated: 13+) Life at The Home  A Baby-Boomer living in senior housing... by carlton607

Life Is Good.

I don't get it.

That's a catch phrase, but in this instance, I truly don't get it.

When I was in the sixth, and then the eighth grades, I dealt with the grand phenomenon of adolescence: bullying. I wasn't physically assaulted. The damage done to me during those school years was far more subtle...and insidious.

I'm not quite sure how it started. I was out of school for the first day of my sixth grade year, having cut my big toe on a perfume bottle. You read it correctly. I couldn't walk very well, the wound was fresh, hence I missed out on all the first-day activitiy. At the time I was one of those intrepid "school lovers," so I wasn't at all happy. *I looked for a "geek" icon but we don't have it* I knew most of the people in my sixth grade class, had known them for years. I grew up in a small town where everyone knows everyone and everyone's business. We'd known each other AND business far too long for me to remember ever NOT knowing these people, my peers. I was always, in some way, a little different from the rest. I was talkative, full of energy, blurted out answers during class with excitement, and had yet to learn that art of self-censorship. Okay, maybe I DO know how the bullying came about.

Humans in groups are often like animals in packs-they seek out the weak or the easily bruised, and zero in. I was a bit different-I even had ONLY a mother when such a thing was not common at all. I was the only kid in my class, at the time, without a father living at home. Heck, my father didn't even live in the STATE! My fellow students, these people I had grown up beside, attended church with, the ones went to brownies and baseball with...they turned on me like savage little beasts. That was how it felt. One boy in particular, our families having been friendly for years, came at me with a sarcasm and cruelty that left me lost and hurt, at first. Then others began to join in. He was a popular boy, well liked and a leader. What he said, others did. What he did, others echoed. And so it was that they began a campaign to make me as miserable as possible. It worked. I often faked illness so as not to have to attend. Once, in the midst of cruel hazing, I hyperventalated, felt like I couldn't take even one more second of it. The kids, in a circle, jeered at me. What did they say, how did they perpetrate what caused me such pain? I don't remember. What I remember is the PAIN, almost every bit of it. My grades plummeted, my spirits sagged, and I changed. I became a different person because of what I endured my sixth grade year at Academy Elementary School. I don't know if the change was for better or worse-I'm hoping better, but who knows? What I DO know is the memory of such incredible misery. It will never leave me.

During my eighth grade year it happened again. You'd think I'd have learned, don't you? I'm such a trusting soul...I was part of a "group" in the seventh and part of the eighth grade the way all girls needed to be, back then. We had our cliques in Jr. High, and it was imperative we stick with them, having someone to eat lunch with, walk beside, laugh amongst...to be without would have been social suicide. Then I did something rather unheard-of; I befriended a "new girl," someone who was without a group at the time. She seemed nice, I felt for her, I talked to her. Gradually she became insinuated into our "group" and all was serene...until one day when the "new girl" walked up to me before band and told me, with venom dripping from her words, that I was no longer welcome in their ranks. "What?" I asked. I was befuddled. The girls had been mean to me at lunch, had tried to "ditch" me walking to band, but everyone got that treatment once in a while..."we hope you got the message," she said. "We don't like you. We don't want you." She gave a nasty grin and stalked away to the clarinet section. (At least I had the satisfaction of playing something much cooler: the drums).

I have to report, however, that the second time, I was wiser and less affected by such treatment. I was hurt and lost at first, but then I did the old pick-up-and-dust-off and went along my way the best I could. At first I didn't eat lunch in the cafeteria. I'd wander out behind the home ec building and lay on the grass, looking up at the blue, cloudless sky. I started talking to God alot. At first I asked him why this had happened to me, what was wrong with me? It was like He answered after a while. Nothing. There was nothing wrong with me. There was something wrong, He said in subtle ways, with people who treat others the way I had been treated. I talked to myself, and to God, and came to several life-altering conclusions: It was nice to have people in my life, but I didn't need them. It was good to have friends my age, but I wouldn't die if I didn't. There was so much about life, God told me, that was better and beyond what went on in the eighth grade, in Jr. High. I changed classes at the semester and my life became about ME. I wasn't pleasing anyone else, anymore. I smiled and was my same ol' bubbly self...I ate lunch alone in the cafeteria a few times, and it was hard, but I smiled through it. After a few days, other kids hesitantly joined me. I was amazing how, once "the pack" didn't have power over me anymore, it all stopped. The girls whose group I'd been a part of--I didn't hate them at all. Oh I did at first, but once I had peace in my soul and I knew my worth had absolutely nothing to do with them...it was easy not to hate them. They were just another set of people who happened to attend the same school I did.

I was lucky. I can't even put a finger on what changed in me when I was fourteen, that second time around, and why I feel I came out of THAT experience so much better for having had it. I learned about the inner workings of my own mind and came to terms with who I was-what a gift.

But the pain all of it caused me will be with me forever. I can't remember words, but I can remember my feelings upon the receipt of those words. I remember the crushing blows of lashing tongues and jeering faces. If I think about it all for too long, I get tears in the corner of my eyes, at forty-five years old. That's how deeply words can hurt.

Now they have so many more avenues to wound: the internet, cell phones, technological bullying with a finger-swipe. It's so much easier for the masses to cut deeper into a sensitive psyche than ever before. "Who cares," they say. "It's all in fun."

I hope pretty little Rebekkah Black has the thick skin of a rhinocerous.

I don't get it.




 

Okay, okay...I didn't get going on the story like I wanted to, but THIS time I have a really good reason-seriously! I got sick for the second time in a month. I mean really, WHO does that happen to??? *feeling sorry for self* Being bronchitis-prone from being asthmatic, I'm used to this crap. But for the last two-and-a-half years, since living in Minnesnowta, I haven't been sick as much as I used to be. Go figure. So the stuff this year took me by surprise. Bummer.

That's okay, I'll perservere, I'll keep on going, I'll wage the battle against germs and WIN! Just let me close my eyes for a minute if my damn nose and damn cough will let me...*snorkle*

Update on the oldest daughter who drives me round-the-bend: She's in Kansas City with her cousin. She's staying with her, probably until the baby is born, and from there we'll see. We "talked" a few nights ago via IM. What began innocently enough turned into a fight, but eventually rounded out into a deep discussion about issues we haven't addressed in far too long. Her bipolar disorder, her child and the likelihood of HER bipolar disorder, and what Liz really needs to come to terms with by Olivia's birth. I'm willing to name her, now. My grandchild's name is Olivia. I do like the name Liz picked out. If I can trust her to choose a decent name, perhaps I can trust her more than I thought...Thomas said this might be the best thing that's ever happened to her, ironically. Perhaps she NEEDS another person to focus on, to worry about, to take care of. Maybe the reality of another person depending on her will do it for REAL. We can hope. *fingers crossed*

Sarah, at 16, is spending her first week away from home during "spring break." That has to be in quotes, by the way, because there is nothing spring-like about the weather this week. Another bummer.

She went to Branson, Missouri-country music's second home and the location of Silver Dollar City-with two friends named Rachel, ironically enough, and one of the friends' mother. That woman is BRAVE! She seems to be having a good time. I hadn't realized that unlike her sisters, Sarah hasn't spent much time away from home without me. She was homesick the first couple of days, but now she's used to it and enjoying herself. What she did beforehand, though...the mother sent her an itinerary, she was to forward it to me. She did so. Right before she walked out the door. I sent her with money, of course, but not enough. Had I been afforded the chance to actually READ said ininerary, I would have known how much she was going to need, etc. She practically hyperventilated over her delimma-think she'll remember this next time? We had to wire her money but all is serene, now. Until I make her pay us back with money from her first paycheck. She's working at a local grocery store now, a bagger. Wow. It seems like I was just writing about the older two and their first jobs as, well, baggers! Guess it's a family thing. She's also taking honors classes and making good grades, and she was cast as the lead in her school play. So she gets moody and morose at home...but that's improving, too.

Rachael...ah, Rachael. She's funny, smart, responsible on some levels. She can't seem to crawl out of bed to make it to her college classes! The girl drives me nuts with this. She gets mad at herself, beats herself up psychologically, KNOWS what she needs to do...then it happens again the next week. SHE is going to ulcerate me as much as her older sister. Sigh. She has SO MUCH going for her. Rachael was a straight A student in high school, doesn't want to work a menial-type job the rest of her life. She's seriously leaning towards journalism but...she needs to GET TO SCHOOL!!! Gah. I know this is HER issue and good grief, she's an adult who happens to live in our home out of convenience for all of us. It's not like she's a teenager and I should be worrying about what is HER problem...yeah. So much easier said, not so much done. We've talked. We've hashed out possible solutions. So she keeps plugging along-hey, she made it to borh her classes today and had a good time writing a paper for her literature class. Baby steps. I told her...take one day at a time. She tends to be a hermit, too, so I told her to MAKE herself join a club or two, get herself involved so going to school won't seem like a chore. Once again, fingers crossed. They're going to grow that way.

So far my job is steady. You see, the owner is a dweeb hellbent on running down his own hotel. He doesn't understand the concept that it takes money to make money. He angers so many people with his attitudes and behavior. I'm amazed we're still open for business but you know what? We are. And job hunting isn't only for teenagers and young adults. Sigh.

I'm looking up, not down. It's really not that hard. There is good and bad in every single life situation. Que Sera Sera! (Did I spell that right?)


 

So much and yet nothing. That's what's on my mind.

Here's the trouble with thinking up blog entries these days: I have SO much on my mind that I can't pinpoint any one thing. In the past I could latch on to the premier dream or idea or "cause of the day" and go forth to spew words...lately, it's hard for my brain to compartmentalize. I've decided it's this whole dumb change-of-life thing women are forced to go through.

I'll have to work through it because there really is still SO much to do!

-I've begun to review again, albeit slowly. I've probably completed a handful of them in the last week, but it's a start. I used to LOVE reviewing when I first started on this site; it fulfills that "teacher" thing in me. It gets me into the "writer" mindset too, making me feel more prepared to take up my own quill to...

-WRITE! I am pledged to begin a short story tomorrow evening, strong on characterization. I haven't written a story in over a year, how ridiculous of me. No wonder I get all "funky" and down way too much of the time. Writing stories...it is the way I emote, express, invent, create. When I don't create I get...icky. I've been icky!! Waaaay past time to WRITE!

-I need to get my writing OUT there! Whatever it takes, wherever it leads me...writing, go forth and...collect readers!

-I want to start a different blog than this one, a blog with a political, hard-hitting theme. I'm a great believer in the causes I take up for the sake of what I know in my heart to be "the greater good." My mother used to call me "Susie Goodfellow," ha ha, when I got on a soapbox and she needed to coax me down. I need my soapbox, though. It's almost as necessary to me as the short stories. I want my opinions to be read, understood, comprehended...I want to be a VOICE for the people in every way I can be. Political Blog, here I come! I just have to decide where this blog will find its home...*thinking*

-I have to GET HEALTHY! Especially with this impending "change-of-life" thing surging its ugly little head, I badly want to lose weight to enhance my health and increase my energy level. And let's face it, extra weight really isn't all that attractive. It makes me feel Blah about myself and that's never good. Weight....Be Gone!

-You know what I miss? I miss the stage. I miss performing. I miss using my voice in broadcasting. I want to do something like that again. I don't know how, I don't know where, but I definately need to find an outlet for my "performance gene."

So as anyone could discern, I have no time for my mind to be less than compartmentalized. I'll have to look for herbal mind enhancement supplements or some such...any ideas?


 

...what will come out of my fingers as I type. None at all. Some of my best stories have been written that way so we'll see. I mean they were written years ago. Writers' block fairly sucks. I've been dealing with it for more than a year and a half. I'm sick of it.

My account lapsed after my last blog entry; I was loathe to pay for another installment and thought maybe my blogging days are over. I haven't felt the same kind of connection with blogging that I used to and I'm upset about that. I think blogging is a form of writing I'm good at, but it's been a part of the block--I just couldn't seem to blog off the top of my head like I used to. I was getting bogged down in worrying about "what I should blog about today" and "who's reading my blog" and "is this blog entry as good as any of the ones from my last blog" and all that incessent CRAP. So no this blog and these entries AREN'T as good, because when I first started to blog-oh my God six years ago, ACK-I just went with it. At first I was a little stilted but I loosened up and got into the blogging thing so completely. It was such a joy of my life. I need that again. Something that gives me joy.

I've been sad, today. I couldn't pinpoint a certain reason but it's everything. I know that. I don't feel good about my health-I'm not taking care of myself. I need to lose weight in the WORST way and exercise, get moving. I'm having horrific knee problems which make WANTING to move difficult, but it's a crazy deal...I know if I make myself get up and get going, the knees won't be quite so problematic. I know if I make myself get healthier I'll feel better emotionally. I know these things. MAKING myself begin the process is another matter. The will has to come from inside. Where to find it...

My oldest daughter is, as usual, a source of much anxiety and upheaval. She's pregnant with a child I know she's not ready to care for. She has no home, no means to support herself or the child, and her head is completely in the clouds. I've told her I'm not going to raise this child and I mean it. I am way too tired from raising HER-I don't want to and I can't take on the responsibility of Liz's child. I can tell, however, that she's still in la-la land. She's been unmedicated for over two years now, her anger issues are extreme and unbelievable. I have told her that NO ONE can make you more angry than your own child-isn't that the truth. To imagine someone with Liz's lack of self control mothering...Oh My God. How am I supposed to help or step in or deal with this?!? I have no idea. Right now, when it comes to this, I feel completely lost. I start to actually shake when I think about it too much.

I feel lost, period. My job is precarious at best and worry about every single family member keeps me up at night-or in the day, depending upon my work schedule, ha ha.

I need to lighten up! I need to let go and let people be responsible for their own lives, their own happiness, their own STUFF. Haven't I blogged about this before? Like a LOT before?? Sheesh. How can I learn to live my own life and let others have the reins for their own?

I'm a nut.
 

Really?!

Someone in congress says, "I believe President Obama is a citizen, I believe he is a Christian, but I can't convince the PEOPLE."

Why does it MATTER if Obama is a citizen or a Christian???

Okay, I get the "citizen" part, and YES he IS. Anyone who tries valiantly to convince others or themselves otherwise is frantically trying to oust our President. Why? Prejudice. Fear of Difference. Fear, period.

But the "Christian" thing?! WHY? I'm personally a Christian. I made that choice many years ago after searching my own soul and making a choice that was right for ME. I believe in aspects of the Christian faith. I don't believe in others. This issue is moot. What is NOT is the idea that faith should matter in the issue of public service. Christians don't necessarily make better politicians. History speaks for itself.

Separation of Church and State: Those who argue the Constitution can't decide what to push and what to not. Life just doesn't work that way. The very people who choose to quote some pieces verbatim as a mantra choose to "conveniently" ignore others.

It should NEVER MATTER what the religion of our President happens to be. What should matter is who he is as a politician. Does he promote the needs and wants of the people? Does he do his DAMNEDEST to be the person he needs to be for the job?

Faith is such a personal issue. We never, ever know what lies in the hearts of men. Or women.

Enough said.
 

I work "night audit" at the front desk of a large, downtown hotel. Crazy management aside, , I like my job and I take it seriously. It is a job instead of a career-if I can get myself to WRITE more I'd like to claim that as "career status"-but I have to make a living and keep a roof over our heads, so off I go to this cream-colored downtown high-rise hotel, mostly during the nights.

I take my job seriously when it comes to accurately charging credit cards guests leave in the computer I audit. I take seriously the responsibility of a night auditor to go back through the day's transactions and ensure that no guest is overcharged for any service, amenity or basic hotel fee. I double-check the work of those who came before me in the day and roll the computer over and into the next day's business. I know what I do isn't nuclear fusion or rocket science; I don't perform heart transplants over at the Mayo Clinic or solve any world crises during the time I'm clocked in, but there's importance in what I do...

I'm working a Friday night in Rochester, MN. It's not Minneapolis or Chicago, but the night life here does seem to get hoppin' when the thermostat outside finds numbers above 0 degrees. Minnesotans take advantage of the "warmth" and take to the streets, bar hopping with a fervor. As the night progresses on a weekend like this, they tend to start dancing in the streets...literally.

I lock the hotel doors at midnight. In a weird move that defies explanation, this particular hotel was redesigned six years ago when the current owners took over, and they decided the front desk of this establishment should be housed on the second floor. This means I am, essentially, blind to the happenings on the street below me. We have monitors, but oddly enough, none of the cameras actually show me the doorways to this building-and there are many of them. When someone wants to enter the hotel after I've flipped the switch that locks them, they have to hit a buzzer, which jars my teeth with its shrill summons. I depress a lever to the appropriate door...and here's the rub. I can't accurately hear the person asking to be buzzed in. More often than not I have to shrug and let them in, hoping I didn't just give access to a psychopathic lunatic. Then again, I'm sure psychopathic lunatics get hotel rooms, too...

On weekends like this, the challenge of working the front desk at a downtown hotel lies in keeping people safe. That, to me, is a HUGE part of my job, perhaps the most important part, and I take it VERY seriously. At one point about a month ago, the owner in all his "wisdom" thought he'd cut corners by eliminating our security detail. Security walks the streets of downtown Rochester and is employed by every building and hotel in this area. They are invaluable to those of us who work alone at front desks and strive to maintain order and create a safe environment for guests. My particular hotel holds 173 hotel rooms, 7 floors of condominiums, and offices on the first floor, one of them being the Chamber of Commerce. There are a lot of people on any given night in this building. The thought of being solely and completely responsible...I almost wet myself as I told the owner "NO!" So we maintain the ability to call security when there's a potential problem, to me the most important factor in having them on the payroll. They come in at 10pm, 2am, and 5am to patrol no matter what. I like my security guys and gals.

Tonight I buzzed in a couple of young men who live in one of the condos. They were a "tad" inebriated but were holding their own. Unfortunately for me they brought down laptop computers and sat here in the lobby, talking loudly and surfing for free with the hotel's wireless internet service. I rolled my eyes but said nothing. They weren't being disruptive and they DO live here. On the heels of these young men came a young woman I knew was unfamiliar to me. You get a sense for these things when you've worked in the business a while; I had a feeling she wasn't a hotel guest. She sat in a chair, chattering at a high decibel to friends on her phone. I noticed she couldn't form her words well and heaved a sigh. I HATE dealing with drunks. I really, really hate it. They are overly sweet, stupid, then suddenly belligerent and mean. They are unpredictable.

The young lady wandered unsteadily over to where the men were sitting with their computers. I became uneasy when she leaned over, close to them, and started asking them personal questions, sharing personal information of her own, and generally being extremely familiar with drunk men she didn't know. I got her attention and gestured her over. I asked her if she had a room, here. No she did not, she said with wide, brown, bloodshot eyes. She weaved a little and blinked her too-trusting, young lashes. I asked her what she was doing here. "I just called my friend," she said. "She's going to pick me up, here."

"That's fine," I responded, "but you need to go downstairs to the lobby and wait. We have chairs and a couch where you can sit. And," I leaned forward from my position behind the front desk, which caused her to do the same, "do NOT talk to strange men."

"Oh, they're not strange," she responded. "I know them. They're my friends." Sigh. I'd just seen her shake the hand of one from WAY too close an angle, introducing herself.

"No they're not," I told her.

"Oh," she said. "Just let me get my phone back from them and I'll wait downstairs." ACK.

I didn't wait to watch her take the escalator down to the first floor. I went into the back office and called security. I explained that there was a drunk young woman waiting for a ride downstairs, could they please come over and ensure her safety until she was gone? They did.

It is for nights like these I'm glad I work where I do, when I do.

And the temperature in Rochester, tonight? a balmy 20 degrees-woohoo!!




 

I've been in a funk, lately. I have asked myself "why" tonight, sitting here, wondering why, for the last three or four days, I've been unable to pull out of it.

Perhaps I've been looking down at life instead of up. I think we all have the ability to perceive the world around us, to decide how we're going to interpret that world and set about making it so. I need to readjust my vision, but first I feel the need to purge with a little of what I think might have led to this latest moody downturn:

I usually don't let world events decide how I feel, but this time it's different; this time, for some reason, it feels personal. Egypt is in turmoil because the people there want a different government. After 30 or more years of the same regime setting their own heinous rules for how to treat the people who belong to the country, they are actually taking a stand and saying "enough is enough." I didn't know things were so bad there, but of course it shouldn't surprise any of us. The Middle East is not a peaceful place.

The Secret Police in Egypt have so horrendously abused their authority and the citizens of Egypt...it astounds me they've waited this long to create an uprising. Stories of people stopped for speeding and being sodomized, pulled over and raped, being stopped on the street and robbed of all their belongings, being stripped of their children...the list reads like a recap of Iraqi government when Saddam Hussein was in power. My little Western brain says, "What the hell? How can we justify 'ousting' Hussein and remain bosom pals with the man responsible for these atrocities perpetuated daily in Egypt?! I don't get it!" But unfortunately I DO get it.

It's all about the money, isn't it? That's what it's always about. I listen to President Obama speak-a man I've held in high esteem, a man I've actively campaigned for and believed in-I listen to him talk about our "Egyptian allies" and how we're going to do our best to remain neutral, supportive of what's best, yada-yada-rhetoric-that-sucks-crap. I get it. Even Obama is at the mercy of the great mother of politics and the money giant which surrounds her. Even Obama has to bow before the Great God of Oil. Even in my disgust I sit in a well-lighted office with my car in the parking lot below, and the term "hypocrite" wafts over me in a great wave. How much of my lifestyle would I be willing to give up to release myself from the Oil Gods? How much would I do without to ensure that people are no longer subjected to so many human rights violations we might as not even have a "human rights" mandate?

I'm depressed because I feel jaded. I don't want to stop believing that somewhere, on some level, there are people who believe in the Greater Good. I don't want to stop believing in my own country. I don't want to think that democracy isn't what matters to us anymore, it isn't what drives us. Now it's Capitalism. Now we're buddies with China because they're our Capitalist friends, regardless of how they have violated the basic human rights of their citizens for so many generations. We look the other way when countries put their children to work for 20 cents an hour because it means we recieve our goods for less price. We gloss over or completely ignore man's inhumanity to man if it means we'll get what WE want, if we'll get MORE for LESS. MORE MORE MORE MORE and to HELL with the people who suffer because of it.

I don't want to believe we live in a world like that. But no matter how much Egyptian Officials try to stop the message, it's getting through loud and clear, the message our own Western governments might not want us to dwell on: it's not about the people, anymore. It's about the stuff.
 

Some say 'dress for the job you want.' I say, 'dress for the man you want to be.'


Adventure. Ever since I wrote my last blog entry and went through our goodbyes to Tom's dad-a great guy who kept the names of the seven dwarfs in his wallet-I've been thinking about that word.

I have accepted, in my old age, that some things in life are just going to be tedious. I won't stop doing the laundry or washing the dishes. I won't stop picking up the house to keep it from becoming a hoarders' paradise I won't stop going to work...at least as long as it's my primary source of income...and I won't sacrifice anyone I care about for the sake of "adventure." So how to combine them, the tedious with the adventurous?

I like the "online dictionary" definitions I found for adventure: a. An undertaking or enterprise of a hazardous nature.
b. An undertaking of a questionable nature.
2. An unusual or exciting experience: an adventure in dining.
3. Participation in hazardous or exciting experiences: the love of adventure.
4. A financial speculation or business venture.

I've always enjoyed the concept of an adventure, the most likely reason I opted for a job in the tedium of the army because I found something there that actually gave me extra "hazard" pay for my "hazardous" job. I've been involved in my share of "questionable" undertakings but we won't go into those. I like that final definition-a financial or business venture? Seriously?? Oh, yeah. I haven't participated in any of them myself, darn it, but watching Wall Street does it for me, gives me the adrenaline rush I tend to crave. Had I paid attention in math class, I could have been a financial barracuda...perhaps it's best I didn't...

Anywho, I came up with a few definitions for myself, the ones I'm taking to heart most of all-

Adventure: Grabbing the brass ring; finding what you thought was out of reach and lunging for it.

Adventure: Engaging in an activity you never have, before. Finding something unique to do, read, or be.

Adventure: Greeting every new day with a joy that you are here to greet it. Planting your feet on the floor with vigor because who KNOWS what lies around the corner!

Adventure: Letting nothing stop you from going for it! Submit the story, apply for the better job, eat at the great restaurant you've had your eye on...like the Nike ad said, JUST DO IT!!

I'm forty-five years old. I want to be proud of where I've been and what I've done. I want to be satisfied when I lay down my head at night, I want to close my eyes with a smile on my face and open them with a goofy grin. I did that back in the day, when I was a young adult. I did that when I first moved to Rochester and had the utter and complete joy of living with the love of my life (I'm LUCKY in so many ways it's ridiculous). The tedium of laundry and dishes and bills should never take it away from me...the joy of LIVING.


I need to go shopping. I'm ready to dress for the woman I want to be.
 

...In Order To See Them." John Irving


I was a young teenager when I saw that movie, The World According to Garp. It was a jaw-dropping experience for me, probably the first time a movie spoke to me with intensity, the first time I walked away from the movie theatre feeling changed, somehow. It was an odd story, I thought, not the sort of entertainment I was used to at that time in my life. I was from the Jaws generation, one of the kids who grew up during George Lucas' and Steven Spielberg's burgeoning influence in film. There's definately something to be said for the breakout movies of the late '70s and early '80s, but for me, there was something about Garp...

Now I know the movie was an adaptation from John Irving's novel by the same name, and by now I've read the book which is, of course, better and far more complex than what I watched on-screen so many years ago (sheesh, many, MANY years ago!). I have found similarities and commonalities in Irving's writing which I both embrace and scratch my head about; he does seem to write with central themes in every story: young boys are usually either orphans or like orphans, growing up in institutional environments in unusual ways for uncommon reasons. Irving, himself, had an unconventional upbringing for the era in which he was raised which explains his penchant: he kept re-creating himself. I'm not sure if that's the mark of a good novelist, a lazy one, or of someone in need of self assessment...a LOT of self assessment.

But the plot and sub plots most readers, critics, and movie watchers seem to spend the most time on...those weren't the points of the movie or the book that spoke to me and made me feel changed, gave me an epiphany I held close for years to come. There was a simple line uttered by Garp's mother Jenny, but an important one. Garp spent his life first resisting her words, but finely embracing them--The thing is, to have a life before we die. It can be a real adventure having a life.


It was those words I held dear to me and took with me from that moment on, those words, I decided, by which I wanted to live my own life. Almost every day, for so many years afterwords, I would gage my world by a line in a movie, a sentence in a book. I created adventures and forged new paths that sometimes surprised and often shocked the people who thought they knew me best. I took pride in re-inventing myself if it meant "adventure," if I could reflect on the event or direction I took and paste it in my mental scrapbook...

Life, the way it often can, reared its ugly grown-up, realistic head. I got pregnant, I had a child. Time to grow up, time to get serious... Children need stability, they need bounderies, they need security, they need parents committed to them, parents who stay in one place and work for a salary... the words I lived my life by faded, became muted amidst all the "shoulds" and "musts" and ideas of the "Brady Bunch" world I thought my kids needed. Much like Garp, I mired myself in what I thought was "normal" until I began to fade...

Thomas 's father passed away, last night. His name was, I thought, unusual and interesting--Donovan. He was complex, intelligent, funny, clever, loving, and bipolar. He reminded me a LOT of his son which is, of course, a WONDERFUL compliment to Don. I've cried for his passing, while at the same time I'm so glad he's no longer in pain. This reflection on life is, of course, all about my thoughts concerning who he was here on earth and what knowing him has meant to me. He LOVED life during the time I knew him, I'm pretty sure he always did. He dealt with the challenges of being a bipolar man and sometimes, without question, he stumbled because of it...but he picked himself up, dusted himself off, and got back on the track of his life. He loved his five children more than life itself; since he loved life so much you can imagine what kind of father he was. Four of the five still on this earth were around him when he passed on. They were vigilantly by his side for his last few weeks...a testament to a life well lived.

The thing about Don: he never tried to become someone he wasn't. He never apologized for who he was or tried to become someone different to accomodate his kids. He just loved them with every fiber in his soul. He adored his music-mostly country-and loved old sitcoms and good movies. He told the same old jokes he'd been telling since HE was a kid and chuckled at the punch line every single time. He took his kids with him on some adventures when they were young, road trips he'd decide they should take at the spur of the moment; they'd jump in the car and just GO! Sure, he got angry and threw a cell phone or two-or three, heh heh. Yes, he ruined more than one TV remote control in frustration, and he was sheepish about those lapses in control...but he took his meds and did his best to enjoy the world around him. Most of the time, he succeeded.

I fell off the track of what I wanted my live to stand for a long time ago. I've been really busy, these last 20 or so years, trying to be what I thought everyone around me wanted me to be. Is that what I want for my obituary? "Susan did what she could to be someone other than who she really was. She was never really happy, as a result, made herself too stagnant to do the writing and/or travelling that kept knocking on her soul's door, fighting to breathe. The people who loved her felt cheated by her passing. They never knew who she really was. She was too busy being some sort of weird 'people pleaser'. Yuck!

Donovan Harper, you will be missed. Thank you for helping me to experience another "ah-ha" moment, a big one. I want to leave this world the way you did, with authenticity and with pride in who I am and the life I've lived. No apologies. Just loved for who I was.


"In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases"
 

I've been angry tonight.

I could say I don't know what I'm angry about, but that's not true. I'm angry about a lot. I'm angry that people don't understand a simple fact of life: what you say and what you do DOES have an impact on events which unfold afterwords...the domino effect is real. Set up a box of dominoes in your living room, watch them all topple because you nudge the first one in the line.

Jon Stewart was right with his commentary, yesterday. We, in this society, can't watch everything we do all the time and wonder if someone who's mentally unstable will pick up on some large or small word, graphic, or text and "run with it." We can't stand in vigilance to the extent that we're afraid to voice our opinions or write what we believe. We can't be afraid to disagree with those we elect into office or argue our points of view in any legal way we choose. Somewhere, in some way, someone with mental problems is going to pick up on something completely innocuous to the rest of us...and "run with it." It WILL happen again. Does that mean we sigh, shrug our shoulders, and resign ourselves to the event?

Of course not.

We do what we can. We speak our minds but with respect. That means we don't call a political opponent "Hitler" and we don't spend all our time verbally slaying the people we disagree with. It means we accentuate, to each other, what we believe and why in a forum where a common-sense kind of sharing should be the preferred method of debate. It means we keep the dirt-flinging and the mud-slinging to a minimum as we continue to confer as ADULTS. Quite often, over these past couple of years, I've wondered where all the adults have wandered off to...

We can, as a society, work to find a solution for our mentally ill citizens. Years ago, it was determined that "insane asylums" and "state institutions" weren't the answer for those who suffer from ailments not easily seen. Maybe that was true; I can't make an informed determination because I've never personally visited such a facility. But I know doing nothing doesn't stop the problem, doesn't suddenly make people "normal" or well. I know it firsthand. In my own experience and from what I see and hear about the plight of others, we are NOT dealing with the issue of mental illness.

A hundred years ago, families locked mentally ill members in their basements, chained them to radiators, tied them to their beds. Having dealt with this issue on a daily, hourly, minutely basis, I can honestly state, on behalf of most of those families, that it wasn't out of shame so much as it was of desperation. People who are mentally ill are a danger to themselves and others, period. In those days before psych meds, even, what were they to do? Where were they to go in a world where having a family member with a mental ailment was a stigma to every related person and no one was willing to help find a solution to the problem?

We no longer chain people or lock them in basements. Now we call them homeless because they wander the streets. Psychiatric medication helps but it doesn't solve anything. People in need of the medication, more often than not, go off the meds when they "feel all right" and find themselves right back where they started. Or they resist putting themselves on medication at all, and it practically takes an act of God himself before a court system will grant anyone the right to medicate an individual without his or her express consent. When do the rights of the masses need to supersede the rights of the one? When do we need to draw the line for the good of everyone, including the mentally ill person?

We need to keep asking the tough questions so we'll remember to keep seeking the tough answers.




 

Yeah, yeah, I'm back.

I never meant to stay gone so long, but what happens when I stop writing for probably a decent reason? The snowball effect. One holiday swims into another holiday and I don't get things done for either one the way I wanted to. Sigh. I get tired-working at night doesn't help.

When I work at night, which I've done periodically throughout my adult life, what I like to call "the fog" begins to occur. It's what I walk around in during the time I''m supposedly "awake" before I go off to work again when the sun's gone down. It doesn't matter how much sleep I get in the day-although lately I'm finding it difficult to get quality sleep of any significant length-"the fog" gradually settles around me, encasing me in a grip that keeps me from being alert, responsive, or plugged into life on any level. It's kind of a bummer. I notice the fog's ability to suspend normal activity increases as I age. Major bummer.

There are pluses and minuses to working the night audit shift at a hotel. On the plus side, I have hours to do things like write...if I can find the energy and motivation to do so. The bosses aren't around to bother me, which on this job is a PLUS! The nights-at least week nights-are quiet. I have time to get my work done like they don't in the day.

Especially in the evenings at a hotel-a shift I still work a night or two a week-things move pretty darn fast. If you're a multi-tasker who's good with people, even the "difficult" ones, and if you can jump from one task to another without having to stop and think, evening shift might be for you. I like working evenings part time because I do like the fast pace and I do enjoy the people I get a chance to meet along the way. I like working nights part time because I still have that stretch of quiet and solitude with time to-um-write, heh heh. Switching from evenings to nights, though, might very well be enhancing the blasted fog-

I'm frustrated. I don't feel like much is getting done the way I'd like. I'm not writing the way I want to, I'm not plugging back into WDC like I really want to. I like to review. I think it makes me a better writer, and it satisfies this odd "teacher" gene in me...I feel almost as good reviewing as I do writing. So why can't I get busy with either?! I'm also not getting as much accomplished at home as I'd like. there are so many projects I want and need to do, there, but no energy with which to do them. There's that bummer, again.

I'd love to get out more, too. Tom and I used to belong to writers' groups which for various reasons have waned and faded over the last couple of years. I'd like to find another group or two, and find time to re-connect with some great people we met in those groups, people SO worth knowing. I feel like such a grown up when we mingle in those writers' circles and do things like go to dinner, read and critique each others' work, and share our lives and ideas. I miss it.

I want my world to be about more than work-either at home or at a venue where I recieve pay. I want to enhance my life experience, I want to embrace and enjoy every minute of it! I believed Ferris Beuller the first time I heard him tell us that if we move too fast in life...we could miss it. I completely agreed with Garp's notion that life needs to be an adventure, every last bit of it. I might have to work for a living, but that doesn't mean it has to be drudgery!

I need to get busy lifiting the fog. It's my New Year's Resolution: LIFT THE FOG! To do that I think I need to get serious about three things; improve my physical health, my mental health, and my career health. In that order.


 

I've lived in the great white state of Minnesota for over two years now, going on three. If anyone had told me, back in the day, that I'd live this far north or "off the beaten path" I would never have believed it; in the course of a summer two and a half years ago, I picked up my life and relocated up here, one state away from Canada. When I explained to my mom just how far north I'd landed, it was crazy to her. I'm from Texas and Oklahoma, for pete's sake, we don't move this far North-from the desert dryness of my childhood to the land of 10,000 lakes...

Plenty of old friends and peers ended up in places like Arizona, New Mexico, and of course Texas and Oklahoma. A few transplanted themselves in Colorado-that's as far North as most of them have ventured. Of course there are those odd-ones-out. One friend landed in Idaho of all places, and a few ran as far as overseas to France or England...but Minnesota?? I think I'm the lone Oklahoma Panhandle transplant-

It's always fun to run into people from Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas...I love looking at a driver's license and uttering, "oh, you're from Norman! or Wichita! or Plainview! I invariably have to let them know I come from Guymon, which usually is followed by the guest asking, "how in the WORLD did you end up here?!" I love it. They ask it every single time. I usually answer the same: "Isn't it always a man?" YES, they respond. I also tell them it's been a long and winding journey...

Growing up in the Oklahoma Panhandle, people were friendly enough. They'd tip a cowboy hat to say "howdy" if they met up with you on the street. They'd nod and smile if they knew your mother or your mother's mother. But they didn't invite much more if they didn't KNOW you. I think that, to this day, there's a certain isolationist mentality that comes from living in "No Man's Land," which is what they call the Panhandle of Oklahoma. It's three hours from the nearest city, which would be Amarillo, Texas, and six hours from the capital of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City. Guymon, in the center of the Panhandle, is eight hours away from Tulsa.

History tells us that before the Panhandle was tacked onto Oklahoma like an orphan land, it was a haven for criminals looking for a place to hide. No one wanted to venture into a place where the winds bite no matter what the season and cause the tumbleweeds to blow with abandon and sting like fire when they hit skin. Wind storms are not uncommon; during visits to my hometown, my girls learned to duck their heads and close their eyes against the onslaught which never lasts more than a few minutes, but always leaves grit on every inch of the human body. There's nothing quite like biting down and crunching on some Panhandle dirt, either. There are no trees to stop the wind or the dirt from flying about.

Since leaving Guymon behind, I've lived in many different places, even in different countries. I lived in Dallas, Texas for a summer where, in general, the people I met seemed wild and abandoned. I lived in Kansas where they were friendly enough but similar to the folks I grew up with. I lived in Germany where I think we Americans were looked upon with more curiosity than anything else...and a little bit of resentment. I lived in St. Louis where they don't smile at each other on the streets. They scuttle along, heads down. Driving in St. Louis is an exercise in defensiveness behind the wheel; get in or get out, but don't look for anyone there to wait for you or let you into or out of a lane-not gonna happen. That's pretty much the way life is lived, out there. At least that was my experience. It never felt like home to me.

The Quad Cities consist of Davenport, Iowa, Bettendorf, Iowa, Rock Island, Illinois, and Moline, Illinois. For eight years we lived there, on the banks of the Mississppi River. For six of those eight years we lived ON the River, on the Rock Island Arsenal. The girls did the bulk of their growing-up there and loved it. They have wonderful memories, had a lovely childhood in a small town atmosphere with city-type amenities and friendly enough people. I wouldn't say they were effusive, but Quad Citians are not rude, hostile, or unwelcoming. I enjoyed the time I spent there, called it home and still wax nostalgic and want to visit.

So here I have landed, in a state far to the North of where I began. I'm not adverse to cold and snow, and GOOD! It is here that I have experienced the most brutal, punishing winters of my life. It is here where I finally have come to intimately understand Laura Ingalls Wilder's story The Long Winter. It is here that I have come to understand the phrase "Minnesota Nice." These people are NICE!

It takes some getting used to, actually. They won't tell you what they REALLY think if you might be offended by it. What?! They will go out of their way to be polite-just for the sake of it! If your car is stuck in the snow, someone will come along, no question, to help you dig out and get you back on your way. They'll wave away your thanks with a simple smile. An across-the-street neighbor will offer you part of his driveway...and yup, totally happened...that he's cleared off with a snowblower so you won't get buried by the plows when they come through. He waves away your stammered thanks.

The winters here are crazy and long and cold and white. Getting around in this mess is frustrating and annoying. Trying to Christmas shop is almost impossible! Spring and fall are too short and for God's sake, these people elected Jesse Ventura to be their Governer, once...but you know...I LIKE it, here. You betcha!

My oldest daughter Liz is, as most will recall from blogs past, bipolar. She is primarily manic and engaged in an adolescence that could have killed me, her, or both. I'm happy to report we both made it through, but not unscathed. Liz has still been struggling through the mire of both her personality and her condition. The two combined have made for a tumultuous young adulthood, so far. I've held the hope in my heart that as she ages, her brain will stabilize and she will be able to accept her condition, deal with it, and move into some sort of productive life. Since she moved out and away from us, things have been tough, crazy, and scary for her. Her life is of her own choosing, bipolar or not, but of course as her mother I pray and/or worry for and about her at least 50 times a day. The difference between now and a few years ago is that I don't allow myself to be swept into the vortex that is Liz, anymore. What she feels and goes through is for HER to handle, not me. I'm her mother and will gladly listen, lecture, and love her, but I will no longer be swept up in the tide. It helps immensely that she's past the age of my responsibility for her. I could sing Barry Manilow's tune, "I Made it Through the Rain." I feel like I have.

One thing I worried/obsessed/freaked about during Liz's teenage years was the possibility that she would become pregnant. Part of bipolar disorder in many people, and in Liz to a great degree, is hypersexuality. I was often encouraged to put her on the birth control pill but I resisted. I knew my daughter. I knew if she had what she considered to be a safety net for risky behavior, she would have an even harder time controlling it. Instead I lectured, preached, grounded, and chased after her shamelessly to keep pregnancy and/or disease from happening, to keep her safe from herself.

She's 22 now, almost 23, and she no longer lives with me or my protection. It was time, almost two years ago, for her to strike out and into life on her own. She chafed, back then, at the boundaries Tom and I set for her-we set them out of necessity and concern for her-but she was old enough to disagree. She was old enough for us to give an ultimatum to: live by the rules we establish in our home or don't live here. She chose the latter.

Almost two years later she's been through more than a few harrowing experiences. We've been aware of a few, blissfully unaware of others. Her latest news, however, has us all reeling: Liz is pregnant. It was hard to believe, at first, because Liz has a tendency to exaggerate her life circumstances, a tendency to believe something before or even if it's not true and voice it as fact. So I was cautious, waiting out the news, refusing to give credence to such a life-altering situation until I was convinced of its reality. I was convinced a few weeks ago but languished in the safety of denial-

Once I was forced to leave denial behind, I was scared. I will admit, freely, that I wasn't scared for Liz or her baby or for anyone or anything but...well, me. I felt selfish and wrong and rude, but I was scared and worried for myself and what this means for my life. Liz has not been stable, she has not been able to take care of herself well at all; how in the WORLD can she take care of another human being?! I thought about all the grandparents out there who have taken on the raising of their children's children. If they've taken it on with love and enthusiasm, if they wanted it for their own lives, a chance to raise another generation of people, I applaud them. I, however, have never wanted it. I admit that part of the reason I was so adamant to keep Liz from a teenage pregnancy was for ME. I don't have the energy or the stamina to raise another child like my oldest daughter. I love her with every fiber of my being, but being her mother has been the most mind-melting, exhausting part of my life. I don't have it in me to do it twice.

I wouldn't want to raise a child of Rachael's or Sarah's, either, actually. I've asked myself often for the past month or so: am I a bad person for feeling this way? Is there something wrong with me that, first of all, I do NOT feel ready to be a grandparent at all, but if I am one, I sure don't want to be the primary caregiver? The sensible, common-sense part of me answers: of course not. I have every right to live my own life without being responsible for the lives my children or their children. I wonder, though, about the disapproval of others. If they know what a mess Liz has been and they know how I feel about NOT raising her child, what will they consider me to be? Heartless? Uncaring? Unfeeling of what the child of my unstable child would go through? And finally: Is it my responsibility, my calling, my lot-in-life to take up the scepter of self sacrifice and actually raise this child?

Then, a couple of days ago, I logged on to WDC and found a review waiting for me. It was, inexplicably, a review of The Blog of a LIfetime, I wondered how the individual found it, first of all, because I haven't been there in a while. I wondered which, if any, entries he/she read? I opened up the old blog, scrolled down a few entries, and stopped. I'd written something about my own grandmother not too long before the blog was done, an entry about who she was to me as opposed to who she REALLY was and the simple fact that I had to wait until I was a discerning, forgiving adult to finally know her as a person:

She was very tired by the time I came along, and she hadn't planned on having to raise another set of children in her retirement years. My mother's divorce and our move back into her house changed what should have been her quiet, twilight years, filled them with the kind of work and toil she'd already been through. In thinking about the entire situation with my family during my growing years, I know my grandmother should have been more strict with my mother about what her role in our upbringing should be. She allowed my mom, the bipolar, flamboyant woman that she was, to bulldoze her way back into the house she'd grown up in...and she turned back into "one of the kids". But she was an adult, my mother, who should have been the one to shoulder so many adult responsibilities that were shoved upon Mamo.

And there was my "AH-HA" moment. When Liz called again we talked. She's accepted state and federal aid, her head seems to be on straighter than it's been for a while, and she's decided to stay where she is for now. The child's father is where she lives and she said her life seems to be coming together. She's on a waiting list for housing through the state...hey, whatever works. We've discussed what she will do, how she will support this child, and you'd better believe she's been getting some of my strongest lectures, yet. She can be a mess when she's on her own, but now there's someone else depending on her. She seems to "get" that without my lectures, but I can't be too cautious in this, the onset of my grandchild's life.

Tonight I told her, "I'm not going to be your child's mother. That's your job. I will not raise him/her, I will do the grandparent thing and once I'm used to the idea I'm sure I'll love it, but that's the sum. However, I will be YOUR mother always, and I will be on you to be the mother YOU need to be." She accepted my words with surprising humility.



*Thank you Thomas , for your neverending patience and your loving support of all us crazy women. .*

 

I read a story, once, about a husband and wife in the late 1950s. They were good people who wanted nothing more than to have a family, children to fill their home, keep them busy, keep them laughing. When they'd been married for a few years and had yet to conceive even one child, the wife went to a dr. who told her the news which would break her heart: she was infertile.

Back in those days they didn't have the options they do, today. No invitro, no surrogate, no treatments of any kind to treat what ailed the wife and kept her from becoming pregnant and giving birth. They did what any couple in that time period would do if they still desperately wanted a child but couldn't have one, themselves. They dove into the adoption process, which even then could be long, tedious, and fraught with all kinds of stops along the way.

When a year passed and they still hadn't been able to successfully adopt an infant, they started to think about other avenues, other choices they might have for bringing a child into their home. That was really all they wanted-a child. They talked about it and decided that it didn't matter if the child was "perfect" or lily-white or "new." They simply needed a child who needed them. They put themselves on a foster parenting list, a concept in its infancy when this couple forged into the system.

The social worker warned them that the child they would receive would be older and perhaps not well-adjusted. The child could be difficult and hard to control. If at any time they felt the child was too difficult or the process to hard for them, they could give the child back to Social Services, no questions asked. For the couple, they knew they wouldn't do any such thing. A child in need was a child they needed.

A little boy, about three years old, was brought to them soon after. He was blond and sweet-looking, but he had his share of issues. He wouldn't sleep in a bed, wouldn't use the toilet for a long time, couldn't seem to feed himself properly, and his tantrums were often and loud. The couple worked with him, though, giving him constant and never-ending love and care until a couple of years later he wasn't even recognizable as the "at-risk" child they'd taken in. The wife-now mother-decided their son, whom they adopted formally, was lonely. She and her husband decided to go the fostering route again. They really wanted a little boy, a brother close to their son's age; instead they were brought a troubled little girl. They couldn't possible turn her away.

She didn't speak for the first few months after she was brought to their home. She wanted to hide in a closet. Eventually, with neverending love and care, she, too, was brought out of the hell in her head and became a fun-loving little girl, full of energy and smiles. The couple still weren't sure their family was complete, however. They decided to try again with fostering, and THIS time...the social worker asked the couple if the child needed to be white. NO, said the couple. They only wanted a child who needed them. So a Filipino boy was brought to them, a boy much younger then their oldest son was, now, but still a child who desperately needed this couple who had already performed two miracles.

The couple wasn't rich by any standard. The husband was the pastor of a small church and made a paltry salary. The wife planted a vegetable garden and took in wash to make extra money. Whatever they had to do, they determined, was worth what they wanted for their lives and their family. They felt led, simple as that, to keep fostering and adopting children who seemed to be unwanted by anyone else.

Over the years, this couple ended up fostering and adopting thirteen children. They took in Latino, Chinese, Korean, Eskimo, Indian, and Asian children. About eight years into their growing and happy family, the social worker approached them cautiously with the tale of a little girl in need of a home and family. She was six years old, had been farmed out to relatives for years without a permanent place to call home. Of course the couple had absolutely no qualms about taking her in, but the social worker was concerned. It was the late '60s by this time, and the little girl was Black.

She was a pretty little girl, arriving in a pink dress, her hair in braids and with a shy smile that could melt the hardest heart. The congregation the husband now served had always been loving and tolerant of the growing and expanding colors of their pastor's family. Some saw it as an eccentricity but a decent enough one...until he brought in a little black child.

Many in the church just couldn't abide a little black child within their church or in the family-and no, the couple did not reside in the South. Within days of the little girl's arrival, all of the children were shunned by their friends, a rock was thrown into the window of their home, and a cross was burned on their front lawn. The little girl was spit upon when she tried to walk down the street, even. The town, the church, and the family itself were thrown into a chaos the husband and wife were at a loss to deal with. In extreme pain and much sorrow, the couple decided it was even in the little girl's best interest to be placed elsewhere. They were to the point of fearing for the safety of their entire family, including her.

The husband insisted he be given a chance to find a loving black couple for the little girl, and he did. She was sent to them, kept in touch with her foster family of many colors, and was adopted by the family she went to. But the couple: they were devastated. They were disappointed in their friends, their community, and especially in their church. One Sunday the husband preached a sermon about what had transpired as a result of the beautiful little black girl's presence in their home:

"How hard is it to deal with the history we have, in this country, with our black brothers and sisters? It is so easy to enslave a race of people when we take away their intelligence, their hearts, their humanity. For centuries, the slavers who bought and sold human beings as property tried to justify their actions by doing just that, and to this day we have bought into it. We should be ashamed of ourselves."

I don't know if his words reached anyone in that congregation. He wasn't the pastor there for much longer. He found another church in a larger city, but he and his wife never again tried to bring an African American child into their home. They grieved over the decision, but determined that it was for the good of all the children that another conflict be avoided. This story started in the 1950s. Their family was complete, the children pretty much grown, by the mid '70s.

I wish I could end this entry by saying "times have changed!" I wish I could write that the inauguration of a racially mixed President has given us proof of it. I wish I didn't have to feel like half, at least, of those who seek to undermine what the President tries to accomplish are driven by the simple fact of the color of his skin. I can't.


Racism isn't born, folks, it's taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list. -Dennis Leary



 

I started a new job about seven months ago. I tend to start new jobs a lot. I'd like to say that's just a simple coincidence and has nothing to do with me as an employee or a worker,and it doesn't. I'm way too much of a "people pleaser" to do a bad job or slack too much no matter where I work. I've learned, in forty-five years of life, that no matter where I work the boss is going to be annoying at least part of the time-ha ha-the coworkers will encompass a mix of those I honestly like and who work well, the "slackers" who are pleasant enough people but will do JUST enough to "get by," and then there are the truly repulsive ones. Oh come on, we all know they're there! I don't quit and move on because of the repulsive people I work with or the annoying bosses. Not even repressive owners/management/state laws cause me to seek other avenues of employment. I must admit that frustration with finances...yeah, that will cause me to look elsewhere without question. It's tough to give all you can to a place of business and feel ripped off for the time you're there. Mostly, however, I find excuses like pay rates because...

The simple fact is: I get bored. I get restless when the status quo is maintained for too long. I long to mix it up a little, blow with the wind towards a new direction. Most of the time I'm not even sure it's a better one, but for me, NEW is the better one. When I get bored I get sloppy. When I could do a job or finish a task in my sleep...I have to move on or my teeth grind, my feet shuffle of their own accord, my brain goes numb. I HATE when my brain does that! As a result, I find a way to move on-

I do it in most aspects of my life. I get restless if I stay in one place for too long. My poor two older kids moved in excess of NINE times during their childhoods. Oh sure, I found all kinds of excuses for it. Sometimes moving was unavoidable, like if we were relocating from one community to another, but I do face facts about myself. Situations arose which necessitated moves quite a lot. I really do believe that more often than not, we orchestrate the paths of our lives more than we like to admit. There can only be so many "coincidences" and "chances" before you have to step back and say, "hmmm, this could very well be a pattern." Ya THINK!

So change does me good, right? Maybe. But what if I could find a way to keep my brain from going numb and I didn't even have to change jobs or move to do it? What if there was a way for me to make a living and stay in one place, all while my neurons continue to fire and my adrenaline continues to pump? Could it even be possible? Yes. Even someone like me gets tired. Can I get off this crazy train??

There are a few interests I have engaged in that give me the adrenaline surge and the neuron-fire I crave. Acting does it-I'm really intense when I can get on a stage of any kind and emote in the guise of some other character. When I was in elementary school and starred in my first play...wow. I knew I had to do more. I had a great time doing just that through high school and college. Here's the kicker: I was offered more and better at intervals for PAY even, but I never followed through. I couldn't seem to keep the focus.

Teaching, directing plays, coaching drama (speech)-when I'm interested in a subject and I'm given a chance to impart my own zest for it, I'm in my element. The energy flows out and my neurons buzz in appreciation! I LOVE giving credit to students when it's due, one of my favorite parts of the process. I hold tight to comments from kids and teenagers I've taught, times when they've told me I'm tough and I challenge them, but it works. My instincts take over with this: they will give what is expected. Expect a lot, GET a lot. There's nothing like it.

Then there is, of course, writing. The same thing happens when I sit down and make myself actually focus. When the ideas start to pop and my fingers begin to hit computer keyes, I get transported into the world and the people I create. Hours can pass and I'm not even aware-it feels like ten minutes when I finally look up and release myself. And the finished product-(as finished as it can ever be)-is such a RUSH! Sometimes I sit in awe of how I just did that, how I shoved myself into people and places and turned it into something someone else might find pleasure in reading. Awesome!

I'm firmly into middle age, now, and I've been thinking it might be time to grow up. Sure, there are ways in which we all need to remain young: looking forward to the next life step, enjoying the day we've been given EVERY day, finding time to laugh at whatever happens to tickle our own particular fancy...but when it comes to this moving and changing jobs stuff...I need to find something else that will keep me moving, keep my mind engaged, keep the surge alive inside me. Hey, what if I could find a way to make a living while doing something that actually stimulates my brain for more than six months?!

Dishes or not, laundry or not, work or not, I have to find time to do what feeds me. If I don't, the crazy train I'm on will keep me going 'round and 'round when I'm way too physically tired and nauseous to enjoy it.