Roller Coasters & The Meaning Of Life

Men In Black Exhibit/Ride

Yesterday we went to Universal and Harry Potter in Orlando. It was a day of butter beer and heat, bangers and mash and whirly twirley rides. Photos and fruit cups, we ate and screamed our way through the park, and even after 9 hours we still had not seen it all. Miranda (by now you must know she is my adorable step daughter) knows her way through the parks so Mark and I did not have to use up our limited energies wandering around looking for things. Even with bad bones and joints and just plain aging, Mark and I rode all the rides and had fun doing it....well I got a bit queezy after the Harry Potter ride, but I pushed on and rode the dragon, which marked my stomach's end of those rides. It was getting dark and cool by then anyway.

Shopping! Oh sheesh! My ovaries are chastising me for forgetting all the shopping we did! Of course we didn't buy much since the price would make even The Donald blush, but looking is half the fun. (Okay, a third of the fun)

While in bed last night, and trying to stop the room from bucking and rolling like it does after an amusement park day,  I began to see parallels between my life and an amusement park. Hopefully some of this will hit home for you.

When I was younger and full of anxieties and baseless worries, I felt I had to be in total control of myself at all times or..well I didn't really know what would happen if I let go, but I was certain it would be terrible. I do not recall ever laughing with abandon as a child. I don't recall doing anything with abandon most of my life. I sabotaged my childhood by not allowing myself the freedom to just let go. I never spun just for the heck of it, or chased a butterfly to see where it would go. There was always a purpose to what I did and usually it did not include much glee. Not that I didn't play, but even my dolls were organized and went to work and had no fun that someone like Barbie should be having.

From childhood to about age 18 I rode a roller coaster the same way I rode life. I was very stiff and I did not scream or laugh, I held my breath and body still and silent and, though this made the ride unpleasant physically, at least I had control of myself. Yet even then, at all costs, control of self was the goal. It kept the world from falling apart. In retrospect, this easily equates with my anxiety and depression, but at the time I didn't see it.

When I got a little older and began to work I had the horrible realization I would have to socialize with coworkers and try to fit in. The was distressing to me. I had always been a loner so had developed some habits others might call odd, that I called simply social ignorance. So I joined the birthday celebrations in the break room, went for the occasion beer with the troops after work, listened with feigned interest to the other women's love lives or kids' antics. I fit in just fine, even though I always felt my face would crack from faking it all. This was also the time I was seeing a therapist about my anxiety and other issues that were making my life less than perfect. I was learning how to let go, trying desperately to live like others lived, to join the human race.

I went to an amusement park during this time and rode the only things I ever ride, the roller

My 1st coaster in 25 years

coasters. I remembered how disastrous the clenched teeth method was so this time I  forced myself to scream, to let it all out so it wasn't bottled up inside, eating away at me. I held on and screamed like the other riders did, I was no different than they were. Well, the screaming did help the muscles not to be clenched but it felt wrong. I am not a screaming kind of person and I did not have the fire or fear in the belly that it takes to really scream. I was an outcast in sheep's clothing.

A couple of decades have passed. I am now 50, waving hello to 51, who I will meet up with soon. The trip yesterday was the first amusement park I had been to in a few decades. This time I didn't think much about how I appeared or how to control my thoughts and bodily reactions to those thoughts.  My husband loves me, as does my  Miranda, but they still roll their eyes at me at times because of the weird things I do. I have learned to cherish those times, the times when people are shocked or slightly disapproving of me because I then know I am really ME. I no longer fight inner demons who make me feel control is the answer to it all. I now know that being the Mighty Oak and standing firm will get you blown over in a hurricane, but to be a willow means the wind bends you and contorts you, but in the end you are still standing and by god I AM still standing. It took me a lifetime to love myself enough to allow others to love me. I now accept myself, quirks and all, as everyone around me does... and if they don't? There are a few billion others out there they can befriend.  I could lose some weight but I no longer lose sleep over it. There are things in my past I could have done better but unless someone has a time machine I can borrow I don't worry so about that, plus its brought me here, to this amazing life, so thanks Hard Knocks, you did me a service.

Yesterday, in line to ride the first roller coaster in years, I tried not to worry about my bad neck, tried not to worry the heights would freak me out. I looked around and saw people just like me, with inner demons, inner flaws, inner beauty, and I didn't feel alone.

The roller coaster went clickety clack, up up up...I could see the city! I heard someone say they saw their house. Then the coaster crested the apex and I could see down the other side.

Oh.

 My.

God.

But I kept my eyes open. I did not want something as stupid as irrational fear (we were safe after all) get in the way of me having a really good time on one of the most fun things to do on earth, ride the coasters. We flew down that hill (I was in the front car) and were slammed to the right as the coaster curved sharply and twisted sideways at the same time. It was fabulous! Yet right in the middle of it this little voice popped into my head, the one that looks at you from outside yourself and usually judges you harshly...but it didn't. It said "look at you. You are screaming and laughing at the same time. you are afraid yet enjoying the heights and curves, even enjoying the fear itself. You are so lost in the experience that, if it were not for me popping into your head, you would be totally engrossed in the ride and not even thinking about yourself. I guess control is not all it's cracked up to be, huh?"

The ride was still going when that little voice left and I then actually heard myself laughing. For the very first time in my life I was laughing and howling with abandon, and it was a sound I had never heard before.

Very cool in person. Fire shoots about 25 feet.

I believe it was then that I knew I would be ok. Not on the ride or in the park, in life. I knew the rest of my life, no matter how good or bad, I could face it with abandon and know that, even if it didn't work out as I wished, I could handle it, all rides end eventually, and control has nothing to do with outcome.

It is 24 hours since I first stepped into the park and my body feels like I was in a series of small car accidents yesterday. The neck hurts, as I expected, but that ride will end. I think I pulled a back muscle and know I banged my head pretty hard but these things have a time limit as well. Funny thing is, I have been living life this way for a couple of years now but until that roller coaster ride I did not realize it.

Whether is a trip to Universal or a pick -up basketball game with your kids, laugh and yell with abandon, for that is the child in us that never grows up.

Wizarding World of Harry Potter, main street at night.

What Your Hair Color Says About Everyone Else:Blonde vs. Brunette

As  Father Time marched on, he march right over top of me and left his snowy boot print in my hair. Consequently, by age 30 I began the fight against grey. By age 40 the troops were retreating and now at age 50 the troops have gone AWOL and I am now at least 75% grey.

I take after my father's side of the family which is Spanish, Italian and Irish/British. Every grandchild looks like my grandmother's side of the family...fair skin and eyes and very dark brown hair (with the exception of one cousin who is an exotic beauty but could never embrace it when she was younger). My grandmother was certainly the matriarch of the family and she prized blonde hair.  Where she got the idea that everyone looks better blonde I have no clue, but we all, with varying amounts of success, tried to go blonde. I started in my teen and could never get lighter than a brassy, strawberry blonde. The kind you see on hookers.

Then Father Time paid me that visit and as my brown hair turned white I was able to go blonder and blonder until I achieved what the hair color industry calls "banana peel blonde" (I kid you not, it's a real term). I was ecstatic! The battle with my hair was finally over, I was going to defy age by being blonde! (whoever fed that little pearl of wisdom to us  should be shot, its not true).

I remember the first day I was truly, finally blonde, with no hint of red. I bought new makeup (because I was fighting my cool complexion by having warm toned hair) and could have sworn I lost 15 years off my face.

It's been about 3 years now that I have been blonde and I still look in the mirror and wonder who that is staring back at me. I don't look younger, I look colorless and tired. My hair has no shine or life to it. I keep it piled up in a clip on top of my head most of the time. But the worst part is that I never felt like myself. I thought the feeling would go away after a while but even after 3 years, when I blow dry my hair, it is not me staring back out of the mirror. I am the quiet bookworm with the brown hair and occasional glasses. Not this bleached blonde who is trying to look younger than she is. I felt I belonged at the mall more than the library and that really messed with my sense of self.

While I was getting used to the new color I decided to make mental notes about how people treated me, to see if blondes really do have more fun.

I discount the first couple of months because I was so happy I think my upbeat personality changed how people treated me more than my hair color. So once I got used to it I began

my study. This is what I found:

Young Men: They may as well say "MILF" and put their eyes back into their heads

Older Men: A thought bubble appears over their heads that says "trophy wife"

Younger Girls: They have no time for anything but their own reflection so they are discounted.

Older Women: The ones with fully grey hair try to convince me mine will be lovely and it will not age me. Funny but no one my age has ever said that, the ones that say it have all been 65-80 years old and yes, when I am that age I will let nature take its course but stop trying to initiate me into the Grey Hair We Don't Care club too early.

Women My Age: Either tell me to stop fussing and let nature handle it or tell me the blonde is terrible on me. The opinion had nothing to do with what they did with their hair as far as I could see.

Children: Interestingly, children were much more open to coming to me when I was a blonde. If I approached a lost child as a brunette they shied away but as a blonde they held on to me like I was Mommy. I cannot explain this unless their mothers also dyed their hair blonde.

As a brunette, my little verbal mistakes, my inability to do math, my forgetfulness and lack of directional skills was always looked at as sort of the absent minded professor syndrome. People knew I was smart and allowed for idiosyncratic behavior. As a blonde? I got NO slack. Anything I did that was not perfect or at a genius level I got called "blonde" or "Are you having a blonde moment?" Not fair, and I am sure very frustrating to all the smart, naturally blonde women out there. I felt like I was constantly trying to prove I had a brain, that I was not some dumb bimbo. Stiletto heels on a brunette are sexy, on a blonde they are trashy. (Sorry natural blondes, I am calling them as i am seeing them).

I found the stereotypes are true. I was more apt to be flirted with, ogled, and looked upon as an object when blonde. Men would convey the same interest in me as a brunette, but with more class and more respect. As a blonde it was cat calls, as a brunette is was "pretty eyes". Even clerks, regardless of gender, were more friendly to me, as were waiters/waitresses. It's almost as if blondes are seen as stupid but warm hearted and brunettes are seen as smart and cold hearted. Neither of which is acceptable! Men have a habit, no matter how "liberated" they re, of talking over women but as a blonde, you cant get word in anywhere...and they ask why I am shouting. Oh and all these observations hold true

whether I had on makeup and nice clothes or was in my grubbies without makeup.

Today I went back to being a brunette. I feel like myself. I am comfortable in my own skin again. I can only explain it as I am me and I am sure if I was born blonde and went brunette for 3 years I would feel the same.

But let me speak for the unheard minority out there. The downtrodden who do not even realize it. We are women who are smart, creative, powerful and nurturing and, like our breast size, our hair color is no indication of what goes on on the inside.

Harry Potter and the Salvation of a Generation

EXPELLIARMUS!

INCENDIO!

EXPECTO PATRONUM!I

Using my grandmother's broom to play "Bewitched" as a child, I never thought, nearly half a century later, I would have charms and spells to disarm my opponent, start a fire with my wand, or create a patronus (look it up). But there you have it, those Latin sounding words J.K. Rowling so deftly made up can do all those things, and more, in the land of Wizards.

One of my cousins is a senior in high school this year, less than a year away from being a legal adult, yet she still reads Harry Potter books, watches the movies, reads fan fiction, goes to as many nerd-fests as she can (think COMI-CON), has a place and a life on Pottermore.com and a season ticket to all that is Potter in Orlando. She is a friendly, but at times meek girl who nevertheless fiercely defends HP, as if the franchise were a real friend to her, a living, breathing person.

She is but one of a unique generation of kids who had an entire series of books creating a magical world for them, next installments they had to look forward to, stories to discuss the minutia of, to bond with like minded people, shy, awkward kids. This is a phenomenon unique to these people, one I honestly don't think anyone else can fully appreciate. Certainly I know of no other cultural phenomenon with this much impact on an entire generation. The closest thing would be either Star Wars or Star Trek, one of which was limited to 3 superficial (but awesome)movies, the other a weekly series with good ideas and morals but nothing people could really relate to on a personal level...Star Trek dealt in social issues.

I have tried very hard to understand her feelings on this and she has tried to explain  them but I don't think her feelings can be verbalized.

She had to write a paper for school and asked me to look at it. I did and ended up crying and thinking maybe I finally understood. Here it is, edited for space....

In a barren hallway sat a bookshelf full of classic novels with curling spines and dusty pages....the book that stood out to me was Harry Potter...My preteens were a very difficult time for me, my parents never seemed to stop fighting with each other, I was struggling in school, and I felt like I was completely alone. It was when I decided to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone...that my life changed. Suddenly there was something that would always be there...Harry Potter was there for me when I needed it most. A book really is powerful enough to change a person's life. The life in a book can be so beautiful...Harry Potter was how I coped with my parent's divorce, the loss of friends, my brother leaving me with my alcoholic mother. After dad left, my mother would sit on the couch in a daze until midnight. The feeling of loneliness consumed me...The characters were my closest friends and Hogwarts was my home, also my escape...This character (Hermione) was never afraid to be who she was...helped me understand it is okay to be who you are no matter what people say...Through reading these books I understand life is fleeting so we should do everything we can while we are alive...HP introduced me to a whole other world of people like me: nerds who seem to have an intense passion for knowledge and things that are ...out of the ordinary. HP introduced me to the world I belong in and how magical reading can be...

Of course I had begun crying almost immediately when I read this. between the lines lurked the depth of her pain, loneliness, confusion, and lack of sense of self. What her parent's divorce and annamosity put her though, the profound effect of having her brother kicked out of the house had on her, and all the things she never really talks about; I saw between those lines, and it was almost like reading into a mirror.

So much of what she went through, of who she is, could be said about my life too. Yet I had no Harry Potter to console me. I had Nancy Drew, hardly more than fluff, and that was it. Nothing. And my generation sparked the beginning of the "divorce is normal" generations so there were so many out there like me. Plus I had her love of books, knowledge, and that feeling you get when you are smart and dorky, when the kids make fun of you or worse, ignore you all together.

I have not read but the first Harry Potter and I have seen all the movies. I see now, after having the memory of those feeling tear through my heart again via my lovely cousin, how this series can bind all the hurt, broken, lost children together, or even console the single child on a dark

lonely night. This series teaches morality, strength, how to honor your word and your friends, how to stand for what is good and what is right, how to have the courage of your convictions and still see the wonder of magic that is out there, and it is there, even if between the pages of a book.

I have no love lost for KJ Rowling, but I must give her credit for saving a generation of children from their parent's bad marriages, addictions, abuse, neglect, or simply bad parenting. For beginning the trend that nerd is cool, that being smart is not dorky, it is to be admired, even though the dumb kids will always jealously make fun of the smart ones.

One of the beautiful things about this series is that these children grew up with the characters, and as they grew so did the dangers the characters faced, the magnitude of the situations, and the difficulty of the moral issues they had to grapple with. They babysat our kids through the beginnings of school, through the beginnings of puberty, and all the emotion that entails, to young adulthood, all the while guiding and entertaining the lost and lonely. Giving these kids a sense of self, helping them find their sense of self, teaching them lessons and morals no one can argue with.

I seem to be switch perspectives here, from parent to child, but I see both sides of it both from my own difficulties growing up to watching my generation pass or fail at parenting.

Thank you Hogwarts and friends, for properly parenting our children when we were too self involved to do it ourselves, for keeping them company when they were alone, for giving them courage when they were afraid. Thank you for taking away the pain we inflicted and showing them there is a bright wonderful world out there, just waiting for each of their unique shining stars, something we woefully neglected to do.

Shame on us, and thank you Harry, I wish you had been there for me too.

I Don't Know

Quick...

Adam and Eve or Evolution?

Big Bang or Creation?

How old is Earth?

Was there a "Noah's Flood"?

And the questions go on...

"Do you believe in God?"

"I am spiritual but not religious."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I believe in something but not what is in the Bible."

"Then you worship trees or Satan or something?"

"No, I believe in a God that is different than your God"

"Well then you aren't REALLY a Christian."

"...Um, yes, that is what I said. I am not religious but I have a set of beliefs."

"There is only one true God and he will show you the way. I will pray for you."

Good lord how many of these inane conversations do I have to have in my lifetime? Why is it so hard for

people to understand that not everyone believes as they do, and most of all, that you cannot put a label on everyone. I do not believe Christ was a Supernatural being, so I am not a Christian. I do not believe in worshiping trees so I am not a Pagan or Wiccan. I do believe in something but I don't know what, so that makes me neither Atheist nor agnostic. (Atheist meaning you have no belief in any supernatural being and Agnostic meaning you are not sure if you believe in any being or not, basically an Atheist in training).

And yes, those who know me know I do believe in paranormal forces. Just what they are I have no idea, but you CAN believe in something and not have ALL the answers, you just have to have some science to back it up. My belief in the paranormal is as science based as my non-belief in the Christian God.

I know there are others out there like me. We have no voice. We belong nowhere. We lead our own spiritual lives in private and try to gently talk around others because we do not want to lie, nor do we want to talk about it and be lectured, pitied, or condemned. For me, I would have to add that I respect other's religious belief and do not want to discuss it because it usually ends up with me using words like "blind" and "ignorant" and that is ugly and disrespectful to something that is an integral part of who they are.

Here is one to make your head spin. I believe, no I know that evolution exists..it is not a belief system, it is fact. Don't believe me?  Look at your dog. If you have a purebred dog you can be damn sure man genetically selected puppy after puppy to get Fido at your feet. This is a scientific fact, not a belief.

But the second part of that is where I lose people... I do not think humans came from apes nor do I believe the Adam and Eve story.

"Well what do you think happened then?"

"I don't know."

Everyone, repeat after me...I DO NOT KNOW.

Yes, you can doubt something, have no faith or belief in it and not be obligated to fill in the blank with something. I don't know is a perfectly honest and reasonable answer.

Why do I not believe we came from apes or in the Adam and Eve story? Science.  Adam and Eve; so many holes in that story, in that whole book, from a scientific perspective I can toss it out immediately.

Man not evolving from apes? Science as well. If you read more than a magazine article here and there about the science of archaeology you will see that the vast majority of what we "know" about pre-humans is basically made up. Fit the facts to the theory.  Find remnants of a fire with a bone  and instead of concluding simply that Neanderthal cooked their food, archaeologists are quick to set up a whole scenario  behind a glass case at the Smithsonian, complete with what they wore, how they looked, what their social structure was, who hunted or gathered what...all this from a bone in a fire huh? I don't buy it. I used to play a game

See the "wings" on this
 archaeopteryx  hoax fossil.

with a friend when I was in elementary school. One of us would pick up an object and the other had to create a whole, believable story around it to show how it ended up where she found it. that is what archaeologists do. There is nothing in the records or in existence of ANY species evolving into another. For example, there is no fossil record of that cross-over, that critical hybrid...the dinosaur with feathers (we thought we had that one in archaeopteryx but that turned out to be a hoax) proving dinosaurs turned into birds, and we do not have one showing an ape turning into a man. With all the fossils we have found, not one shows ANY species changing into another. and as soon as they find even one I am on board with species to species evolution)We thought we had a few times but they ended up being either hoaxes or mistakes. And if you look at it the other way, we have the shark and the alligator, creatures who have not evolved  in millions of years, so evolution is not an inevitability.

So how do I think humans and all other creature got here?

I don't know.

Science has not proven, to the best of its ability, that we came from apes or that birds came from dinosaur. Yes, there are many physical similarities that point to this, but the rabbit has the exact same eye structure we do, does that mean we came from rabbits?

This mode of thinking, which is basically "prove it to me" is why I also know the paranormal exists and why I do not rule out cryptids. Cryptids are mythological animals that actually do exist. Bigfoot is the most famous. When you are finished laughing, tales of a wild, bloodthirsty deer that hopped on its back 2 legs and carried its young in its stomach were reported sporadically by early Australian explorers but it wasn't until the 1770s that a dead one was found and taken to England for dissection. Now, of course, we all know of the kangaroo.  More recently, about a week ago it was reported what sailors called "The Kraken" and oceanographers call the Giant Squid was first filmed live in the black depths of the ocean. Previously, one would occasionally wash ashore but for a very long time there was no evidence for their existence at all. Or take  the coelacanth, thought to have been extinct for 66 million years, was caught in 1938. and Here is a list of the top 10 cryptids that we now know are real:

http://listverse.com/2010/08/13/top-10-cryptids-that-turned-out-to-be-real/

So if these, and many more can be real, and if you look closely at all the evidence for Sasquatch (meaning reading books by scientists not watching bigfoot shows on the Travel Channel) you will see there is a very good possibility these creatures exist. And this does not, in any way, conflict with science. It also does not mean I think every cryptid is real, but instead of dismissing it all I take each one individually, look at the evidence both for and against, and come to a conclusion as to whether or not the creature MIGHT exist. I cannot say it does, as no one has properly documented it to be a fact.

My interest in the paranormal is usually where people think they have stumped me, trying to equate it with

One of the oldest & still
unexplained ghost photos.

religion. For some, it is a religion, just like for some, science is a religion. All of this meaning that you hold tightly to a belief system,  regardless of the facts and evidence to the contrary and yes, scientists are guilty of this too and it makes for very bad science and fuels the fires for the Creationist Movement, but that is a book in and of itself.

Lets choose an aspect of the paranormal, one everyone is familiar with. Let's look at ghosts. What evidence is there that they exist. I am the one that said I will not accept it if there is no evidence. Well, there is the history. Ghosts have been seen for all of recorded history and almost always have the same traits. Anecdotal evidence usually is tossed out but when you have this much it cannot be ignored. We now have EVPs  which are recordings of supposed ghostly voices. Many of these are recorded under laboratory-like, strict conditions and there is no physical, electrical or mental explanation for them. I want to prove my hypothesis. Since so many people are computer savvy and can build so much in their own homes now, we have equipment that has shown ghostly activity is more prevalent near certain rock formations, near water, in places with certain histories, we have lots and lots of footage, both still and video (the most impressive being dated prior to the computer so it would be virtually tamper proof). There is so much evidence over so many hundreds of years that there has to be something there, you cannot just ignore this part of the human experience simply because you have not experienced it. I have never seen a kangaroo but I know they exist. Shouldn't I be saying "I don't know" you ask? Well yes, and I don't know, but that is why I do the research, so I can know what I suspect. I have seen a ghost, many ghosts, but I did not document it, I had no witnesses, so I need to research it, to find the answer, which may be totally wrong and ghosts do not exist but we are talking about my quest  here, not a call for a new religion or scientific paradigm. This affects no one but me, whereas science and religion affect billions of people, so they better have their facts straight.

So back to where we began.

God.

If we look at God and the Bible scientifically,  the ideas have more holes than a sieve. Sorry but it is a book of fables with a few historical facts regarding the existence of certain people and places that archaeologists have found, and therefore I accept. The rest of it? I simply cannot believe. I actually have tried my entire life to be Christian. I always thought life would be so much easier if I knew there was a better place to go when I died, that my good deeds were smiled upon by someone, that there was a heavenly father that loved me unconditionally, that had a plan for me, that protected me and heard my prayers. I can see why people hold on so tightly to their beliefs in the face of all contradiction. But you cannot MAKE yourself believe something and as much as I want to, I simply cannot.

Now I did say I am spiritual. What does that mean exactly?

I don't know.

I know what I feel. I know that too many coincidences have happened for me not to feel some of them were engineered somehow. I sometimes question whether or not something as complex as Earth, life, the universe...how could all of that just happen? what created the Big Bang, what was before it? I don't know. I have just enough personal experience to make me believe there is something else there but what it is, who it is, how it operates or even if it is, I don't know.

One thing I do know is that  I will never push either science or spirituality into a religious person's face, as some of them do to me. I will never start a war over spirituality as religion has done for millennium. I will never look down my nose at a person who "sins" and feel superior, or not buy a bum a hot dog because "I gave at church". My love for my fellow man, my caring for others, behaviors, my moral code is not driven by fear of eternal damnation or to seek the approval of some nebulous deity, it's because that is the person I want to be, regardless of who knows it.

So I want to make a deal with all religious people out there. If you do not try to convert me I will not insist you explain to me how you can be as intelligent as you are and still believe in the Bible.

Romanceland

Sometimes, just a simple question can be a loaded time bomb. Tonight I had to decided whether to pull the pin or leave that particular grenade alone.

I pulled the pin.

My lovely 17-year-old  is spending the end of the summer with us so she is here every night. She has been dating a boy that has caused her some angst; some his doing, some not.

While in her mis-matched jammies, towel turban over her wet head and toothbrush in hand, she turned and casually asked me, "When you and my dad were first going out, was he all romantic and attentive at first  and then stopped? Did he do less after a while but act like it was the world? Because that is what (boyfriend) is doing, is this normal?"

Yikes. That is a much bigger question than she realized. Do I tell her the truth, or do I lie to save her feelings? And if I do tell her the truth, how much of it do I explain? My answer turned out to be simple and the chicken's way out. "Yes, he did the same. He was very romantic at first but after a while it diminished greatly and now, like you are feeling, I miss it a bit. But Honey ALL relationships are like that, it is part of the evolution of an intimate relationship, it gets even better after this." And I went to bed.

Lame, lame, lame! That is all I could think of. I told her a half truth that could have made it worse, maybe better, but I did not get the soap box out like I wanted to.  I wanted to save her a lifetime of hurt and disappointment. I wanted to tell her every show,  every movie, every song, every myth, every love story is a lie geared to play to our yearnings for eternal romance. I call the whole mess of it Romanceland.  In Romanceland people fall in love quickly, deeply, romantically and then they get married and either it ends there, implying that it just keeps getting better, or keeps going and they hit a few rough spots after a couple of kids but they manage to rekindle that romance completely with one dinner, a few flashbacks, and its back to Romanceland.

Bull.

I wanted to sit her down and tell her the reality of it, to save her the disappointment and heartache that can

take from 10 years to a life time to never to realize...Romanceland is a lie.

When you date and the rush of chemicals in your body finally subsides, the romance will die down quite a bit, sometimes completely. If you have something real, it will mellow and deepen into a friendship that grows into love and keeps growing.  It will be a place where you feel you belong, where you can be you, where make-up doesn't matter. Where you are safe and happy and fulfilled and yet still a bit excited. Maybe not every day, but most of the time. Love needs to be nurtured and worked on all the time, a never ending project, but the outcome is a life, a family, roots, happiness, REAL happiness.

On the other hand, when the chemicals subside and you do not have that core intimacy, you part ways, the end. I f you are older and happen to have gotten married and/or have kids, it can be a heartbreaking, scar-making experience, so decide wisely.

The problem is that we are conditioned (and for women I believe a lot of it is just in out nature, sorry feminists) to believe that the romance stage IS the love, so when the romance wears off, we are no longer loved. How many times do you think the average person does this before they find real love? Think about this and realize that every time this happens it's like being told we are no longer loved or, therefore, loveable. To us, some invisible fatal flaw has been realized or shown itself and boom it is over, the love is gone. How many times does this happen before we give up on "love" and think we are damaged humans somehow and cannot be loved? How many people developed eating disorders, depression, even become suicidal, because they simply do not know what real love is and think Romanceland is 'It"?  (I know so many adults, especially men, my age who use every excuse in the book; I love being alone. Women are nuts. You ALWAYS get hurt so why bother. One even said it was too expensive to be in love! It is so transparent that they really are just too scared, too hurt to be rejected again. In the name of "freedom" they have built themselves a safe little cage).

How do I get through to a blossoming young woman that she is perfect as she is, that the romance part is the fun part, but it is not the real part, and that when it ends, that ending means no more than something has run its inevitable course? It does not means YOU are not good enough, the RELATIONSHIP was not good enough.

I wanted to tell her that outside of Romanceland you find the one person you can count on, the one person you love deeply, who loves and respects you as much as you do them. The one where the romance is really, truly felt from the heart. The person you care for so much you want to make little people with, and when those little people become too much and you find yourselves fighting and hating and your sex life and love life are gone, that you fight even harder and you MAKE it work. Unlike Romanceland, you do not fix it with a vacation to the Bahamas  and a bottle of wine, you fight within it. You talk, you cry, you love and hate until you come out of the other side of hell and you are stronger and better than ever as a couple. Then when the

kids grown up and leave you again meet this stranger you have made a life with for 30 years. The romance may come back, but this time it is between two people in real love, not people who met in Romanceland.

"You are not going to marry this boy" I so want to tell her. "You are probably going to break up before graduation" I wanted to prognosticate. The signs are all there, to those that have bought many tickets to Romanceland. "You will cry. You will feel lost,  like part of you is gone, but you will survive" I wanted to tell her. And if she is lucky, if she is wise and if she listens to me, she will buy another ticket to Romanceland and get her hand stamped on entry so she can return the next day, knowing that she will have to revisit it quite a few times in her life before she is finished with it. Ah, but with the right choice by her side Romanceland is child's play compared to what Real Life romance is like.

Until then, cry, I will be here. Listen to my advice. You won't, but try. Remember you are loveable to us and to boys. Love comes in many forms and yes, I do believe you are in love with him and he with you. But again, this is Romanceland, made of dreams and hopes and cardboard.

In a few years you will drive past Real Life and stop by for some lunch...and that is when the real fun begins.

...and I cant's wait t see you there.

Ch..Ch..Ch..Changes.....

Born to go fast.

Finally have photos for those of you who have been asking...me with blond hair and the changes we have done to the house recently.

The first three need no caption, just me as a blond.
Please don't tell me you like me better as a brunette. I do too, and have always identified myself partly by my being a brunette. But when Mother nature replaces the brown with grey and Clairol cannot make a dye that can cover it for more than a couple weeks, you just go blond and deal with it.
The only photo cheating I did was fix my broken tooth and re sized them so those that have accused me of messing with it to make it look better, well that is simply not true, but thank you for the compliment.
I think I photograph better than I look. The blurry one is there to show how I look when its not a great photo.

Okay now for the house. These I will caption.

Mark and I had to strip wallpaper and paint plaster, not an easy thing, you have to use a brush for the whole wall. Put up new crown molding and new fixtures in the bath. The color of the bath made it hard to photograph. The towels are very bright and the walls are a medium sunny yellow. A very clean, happy room, the Period Table shower curtain I got from The Big Bang Theory, and the same with the bright colors for everything else. 

The dining room walls change color. They were more blue when I photographed them and in different light they are more of a peacock teal. We really took a chance painting it this dark but it paid off through the expressions on friends' faces when they see it. 

I added a photo of how it looked before to show the contrast and sorry but it happens to be Miranda's 16th birthday party.

Sorry this one is sideways. Shows new fixtures and cute shelf mark made from an old piece of marble he found in the shed. Hobby Lobby pictures, and tea light holders, target towels. Also switched out light fixtures from other bath and got a new toilet seat.

Better picture of the fixture and shelf. I went a little wild on the towel buying.

Replaced old shower curtain with the extremely nerdy, and therefore cool as hell to me, Periodic Table of the Elements. Also put in a bowed curtain rod so there is a lot of room in the shower now. Inside there is a bright blue mat and pink soap holder. Oh and a very posh back pillow for baths.

This whole project began because our friends gave us this pretty chandelier. Its hard to see but the table cloth is black and the runner (which has to be sewn up properly) is a light lime green, an really dramatic accent color used throughout the  room.

View from the opposite angle.

Room before the change.

This is the crown molding and corner pieces in the door Mark added. Really brings it all together.

For you Daddy, see how great my prized Canterbury tales looks since Mark restored it and the frame? It has been hanging constantly for about 4 years now. We love it and it is almost the exact width of the piano under it. 

Sorry, I do not know why these are sideways, i fixed them in the photo editor but they moved back. This is a framed copy of the song my great grandparents wrote together and had published at the turn of the century. I was not lucky enough to know my great grandfather frank (apparently whose personality I share) but i did know and love my great grandmother. We spent a lot of time together and I still miss her sometimes. This photo holds a lot of love.

PC in DC

When I grew up a couple (ahem) decades ago in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, Billy Kilmer was the quarterback for the Redskins, we actually won a game or two, and I have fond memories of, the gods forgive me, my father in a construction paper head dress doing an "Indian dance" in front of the TV, all of us singing "Hail to the Redskins". Now if you think the NAME is bad, look at the lyrics to the fight song and picture that scene.

I was not put on this earth to make friends and I have done a damn good job of doing just that, and my blog is here for me to voice opinions as I wish, repercussions be damned (you also cannot strike me through the computer). Anyone who knows me knows I despise political correctness, which differs from polite, empathetic speech.  I think, in its extreme, it is simply a form of social control. The extent to which I am politically correct goes no further than common sense. After all, I am a blond female who is 10 pounds overweight and 10 years over 40, so I am no stranger to jokes and names that can be hurtful without the name callers realizing it. I have no idea how women got left out of the PC file but that is another blog.

We all complain about our parents, but one thing mine did really really right was never to limit me to girly things.  If I wanted a Matchbox car for my collection I got it as readily as I got an Easy Bake oven (and if you do not know what those are they are now on display at the Smithsonian, I kid you not).  Climb a tree or play hop scotch, I did it all without a second thought as to whether or not it was" proper" for a girl to do. So the day the boy down the street took my Matchbox car and told me I couldn't play with it because I was a girl shocked me out of my penny loafers (did  I forget to add tall skinny dork to my self description?). I played baseball (not softball) and make-up with my sister. I sculpted clay Loch Ness Monsters and painted pictures with houses with white picket fences. I had no one telling me  "You cannot because you have no penis and you have a vagina".

Fast forward to high school, I outrun a couple boys in track...did not matter; out drink Mike Lusick, football team giant, still did not matter. I would always be a girl and therefore a lesser human. I could egotistically tell you my IQ is probably higher than yours, but it wouldn't matter because I am a GIRL.

So after being brought up at the cusp of the "go to college to get a husband" and "go to college so you do not need to get a husband" years, women were demanding equal pay yet still calling themselves "gals". It was a very confusing time for our gender.Being of the Gen X crowd, that is, the ones of us who are technically baby boomers but were born when the Beatles hit our shores and 20 years after WWII ended, we really had no good role models; man hating mothers or man-serving grandmothers.

So you have a generation of women who have married, had kids, and worked for pennies on the buck to a man's salary.  Then came the Women's Movement, and Equal Rights Movement, so finally everyone was finally realizing this inequality should stop. But it never did for women. We still are called spoiled sports if we take offense to a blond joke, a PMS joke, or anything said at our expense. We are chastised  if we do not react with our best Geisha smile. 

Coming from this perspective, and having lived the last 15 years or so with political correctness gone to the extreme in some cases, I find so much if this nothing but controlling. I honestly do not know what to call a person  of African heritage anymore. Some are now taking offense at African American. So I say black and I say white. Tough. You are not an African American any more than I am an Italian-Irish-English-Spanish American, yea how fun is THAT to say. You and I are Americans(unless you were not born here). But really we are not. We are INVADERS. Native Americans are the one and only TRUE Americans (a country misnamed in the first place) and should be the only ones with the rights to that name. But in the real world that is PC gone amuck.  How about human, wouldn't that be nice for a change? Ah, but I dream again.

So what about these here Redskins in D.C.?  I spend the majority of my life there and every bloody season the Washington Post did and does a piece on how the name should be changed. It has been an issue there for at least 30 years, but the rest of the nation did not hear of it since it was a local issue. Never got changed. Old Jack Kent Cooke did not give a damn about anyone and would not change the name of his team. But the one thing I always found interesting, and I am sure there are old Washington Post articles to back this up, was that none of the Native American organizations took a stand on the issue.They honestly did not seem to care. The only thing I recall, because it was so on the mark, was a Post article that argued the name of a sports team was so beneath the real issues they were having that they would not even recognize it as an issue at all,  it was so inconsequential. Now in D.C. There are not a lot of Native Americans and the ones there are revered as god-like and almost always get laid whenever they want. (It's that hair/eye combo dude). Sure you heard whispers of "reservations" but everyone was told if they wanted off, hey, there were no fences.  It has not been, until relatively recently, that the true plight of the Native American has come to my attention. It  is a disgrace to this government and hopefully we are looked down upon for it by the rest of the world.

But do we change the team's name? No. And I will give you my screwed up logic on this one.

Anyone who knows football knows Redskins fans are some of the most rabid fans around. The tickets are sold decades in advance. They can lose for years and the fans still love them.  So if the name is changed it is not going to do the Native American cause much good.  It's not right, it's not fair, but it's true. These fans will be angry at Native Americans for taking their team name away and look upon them as yet another controlling PC group. So when the votes are counted, the plate passed or the petition signed they will remember who took away their Redskins. I KNOW THESE PEOPLE, they will. Not nice but true. Personally, I believe it is more a backlash against the PC movement than Native Americans but the results are the same.

Another argument, why not the Cleveland Indians(or Browns, same same), the Knicks (derogatory towards knickerbockers, or Germans), the Braves, The Celtics. The Washington Bullets* changed names, with a really bizarre ending, and the Carthage College Redmen were kind enough to change it to Red Men. Here is a link, see for yourself how many team names are quite offensive. 

This is where I get into a lot of trouble. Toughen up! You think being called a "tall drink of water" or "do-able" or "dumb but darling" has been easy?  If you are a man I bet your boss never requested you not wear panties to work one day. You think walking streets in fear for our safety, all 51% of the population of us, all of our lives, is easy? We look over our shoulders all the time. We endure cat calls and are called "dykes" if we protest, like it's some kind of compliment. We smile to keep our jobs when our asses are pinched, yes even now, because it is still a white male world and we still do lose jobs, sexual harassment laws  be damned. Yet even white males on TV are portrayed now as dumb and run by their genitals, blacks are stereotyping themselves, as are Latinos and every Native American you see is wise and spiritual. Not a bad thing but still a stereotype. I personally would not want to have to live up to that high a standard because of my genetics. PC is crap. It's nothing but speech control, sanctioned judgment, and though it is not as rampant as it once was,  it's there. To be clear, PC to me means that I have to call you by the name you choose and when you change that choice I must use the new name. In other words, if I do not use the words and think the thoughts you choose for me then I am a bigot. That is PC to me.

So here is the thing. I do not complain that the women who read the news on TV have zero qualifications, can barely speak properly and obviously have the job because they are completely plastic and easy on a man's eye. I complain at the quality of tripe coming out of their painted mouths. THAT is an issue worth fighting for. I do not complain that Obama is half black and half white (which I do not care but this is for the sake of argument) I care that he has drones pointed at my ass and GitMo is still operational, THOSE are issues. I do not care that the Redskins are called The Redskins, look at the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, if that is not a self-image killer for women I don't know what is. I am more concerned that in the Southwestern US you can be a Native American and be turned down for a job because of it and no one will do a god damn thing. From what I hear from friends out there, native Americans are treated very closely to how Blacks were treated in the 1950s. THAT people is the issue! Pick your battles. If people think your biggest problem is that a sports team is named after you then you are defeating yourselves. They will tell themselves you have no fences around your land to keep you in, they will tell you you are an independent nation so pay no taxes, they will say you are filthy rich from your casinos...yes, they say it, I hear it, it's disgusting and hateful and ignorant but if the only time we hear your voices as one people is to change a football team's name then what else will these idiots think?

And if we allow the media, politicians and the speech police to take up our time and energy on these non-issues we never get the chance to challenge them on the things that are important and THAT bothers me. A little sleight of hand on their part.

So there you are. Call me a racist. call me a bigot. I feel I am neither, I am just trying to pull the wool off our eyes so that we are not sidetracked away from what is really important here.

And the reality is, if you want Washington D.C. to pass ANY legislation helping the unfair treatment of our true citizens, the Nations we somehow feel we "own", then you better let them call their little ball club what they want. It's just a game and a way to sell beer anyway.

*This is a darkly amusing story to me. The Wizards, Washington D.C.s Pro Basketball Team, used to be The Bullets, but they changed the name because the black community felt that since, at that time, DC had the highest number of shootings in the nation, Bullets was inappropriate. So the Washington Post did a write-in campaign asking readers to submit their ideas for a new name. At the end there were five: Wizards, Dragons, Express ,Stallions or Sea Dogs. I voted for Sea Dogs. When Wizards won I think I laughed at their stupidity for days. Wizards. Really. For a mostly black city. Wizards as in the Big Guy in the KKK is called the Wizard. Great change there guys.

Ya Can't Fight Crazy With Crazy

To try to convey all my thoughts and feelings on what has happened to the Republican Party over the last decade would be an entire book in and of itself. The highlights are such; for some reason the elected Republicans and their media shills became lying, paranoid infants when Obama took office, having felt unlimited power at their fingertips prior to that via the misnomer, The Patriot Act.

I know many Republican  citizens who have no place. They are not Democrats but they do not even recognize their own party

anymore. The Republicans will say and do anything to hurt the administration, even when they get caught in lies, self contradictions and pick-and-chose quoting. This is not the way of our Joe Citizen Republican.

Last night was the end for me though. Prior to yesterday this was just a huge annoyance bordering on the frightening. It seemed The Republican party was cutting of our noses to spite Obama's face. What I saw last night was chilling.

I was watching The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. The bit he was doing was illustrating how far the Republicans have gone over to the insanity side. Regardless of what you think of him or his show, the quotes and clips were real and full, not snippets out of context.

The Republicans were praising Putin. Calling him Ronald Regan. Showing a photo of him riding a horse with no shirt on along with  his typical dead eyed scowl. Then in comparison  they showed Obama riding a bike and repeatedly insulted his wardrobe, somehow implying that the fact that he rides a bike and wears "mom jeans" makes him less of a president and that we should idolize Putin for being a "man's man" by ring a horse with no shirt on. I think one of them even used the phrase "muscles bulging". At this point I got confused. Were they casting for a western or talking about the effectiveness of a leader? They said Putin was a better leader than Obama.  Below is a quote from yesterday's paper giving a brief synopsis of all of this:

Stewart saved the best for last during the segment. After showing all of these conservatives calling Obama weak and indecisive while fawning over Putin and basically wishing he was their leader, Stewart showed clips of many of those same people complaining that Obama acts like a dictator and rules America with an iron fist. Apparently, in the conservative mind, Obama is a 'weak, mom-jeans wearing DICTATOR KING!' As Stewart hilariously highlighted, either something happened to these people as children to create this inherent cognitive dissonance, or they will just do whatever it takes to undermine the President at every turn.

Putin is well known for using his media as a propaganda machine to build himself up and American conservatives have swallowed it. When they said we needed a leader like him who "hunts bears" what they were referring to was a photo of him having hunted and killed a tiger. Which actually he did not. The tiger was trapped and tranquilized and had to lay there and wait for Putin to arrive so he could shoot him. Yes. Remind you of anyone Sarah Palin?

It is no secret Putin pines for the old USSR days. Yet the Republican praised him for how "when he speaks everyone reacts immediately" yet they forgot the "for fear of their lives" part. Putin is an old fashioned dictator and it is obvious to anyone, except the Republicans, who for some reason cannot stand Obama. I have my personal thoughts on why that is and I am going to keep them that way.

After all of this information overload (and I highly recommend you watch the 5 minute segment on youtube.com: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-6-2014/big-vladdy---semi-delusional-autocrats )

To me this five minutes sums up everything that has gone wrong with the Republican party.

Having said all of that, Today I received mail from the Republican Senate Leadership Survey. I have seen enough of these to know this is a real one. Basically, a survey from the Senate on how you think the leadership of this nation is doing and what they should or should not do  in teh future, with the pretense your opinion matters. Now this is important. It gives our Senate an idea of what We The People want. We all know that surveys are only as meaningful as their method of question forming, so listen to the questions this survey asked. Now remember, this is a United States political party. One that prides itself on being fair, conservative and patriotic. Italics are my ideas. Words in quotations were put there by them.

Real questions:

·         What is important? Blocking efforts to pass another wasteful "stimulus" plan?(well the second great depression did not happen and everyone has paid back the money so "wasteful is hardly an appropriate word here )

·         Do you believe raising taxes has had a positive effect on our fragile economy?(loaded question, "fragile" implying a yes answer is the only right one)

·         Do you believe President Obama's strategy of treating all other countries as equals to the United States has strengthened our security and weakened the resolve of those who seek to do our nation harm?(Conjecture, opinion and projection, all traditional propaganda tactics)

·         Do you support a constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage between a man and a woman?(by traditional does that mean the bride has to wear white and everyone must dance to YMCA at the reception?)

·         Is it the responsibility of Republicans in the Senate to hold President Obama accountable for the actions  of his administration in Benghazi, the IRS Scandal, wire tapping journalists...? (Benghazi was an attack on us, this "scandal" was politics as usual, and the only wire tapping I know of is by the government, sanctioned through the Republicans sacred cow The Patriot Act)

·         Do you believe ObamaCare is a total disaster that must be repealed?(yes, lets repeal something we have not fully implemented yet based on the projection of unqualified

Republicans who have proven they will do anything to block Obama's success)

The list goes on and on, but some especially non-biased phrases include:

·         Republicans do best...promoting a strong, proud America (because only Republicans want that)

·         ...liberal special interest handouts...(as opposed to conservative's protection of the top 1%ers)

·         ...Congress need to listen more closely to grass roots Republicans on such issues as spending, ethics

·         and immigration reform...(why is ethic in with spending and immigration reform? This implies spending and immigrants are unethical)

·         ...dramatic Obama-Democrat drive to initiate European-style socialism in America...(I have no idea what they are even basing this on except possibly delusional paranoia. And if they do not like socialism lets first get rid of their social security and Medicare, two highly socialist programs)

I have a few problems with this.

First, and most obvious, is that this is so slanted it is useless as a true gauge of people's wants, and if I ever hear the results of this crap quoted to back up one of their Fox News idiots rants I will put a fist through my TV. The "IRS SCANDAL"? You mean when the Democrats were accused of targeting republicans for IRS audits? Because I am sure that was a vital and nationally destructive "scandal"( that lasted 3 days in the news) and was never perpetrated by the Republicans.

I love "liberal special interest handouts" even though the Republican equivalent to that is "special interest kickbacks".

Believe me I barely scratched the surface of this piece of propaganda.

What frightens me is that many people do not think for themselves. They simply follow party lines blindly and never question sources or motives so things like this, worded in this way, paint a disastrous and probably frightening picture of the Democrats while making the republicans look like, direct quote here, "strong, proud Americans" like only THEY want that?

People, no, fellow citizens, this has gone way past cat fighting and politics as usual. This "no Obama at any cost" has hurt our country. We have been successful as a 2 party nation because, though our party methods differ, our goal has always been the same...America first. Historically, on the good days, the 2 parties hash things out, both trying to win their side, concluding somewhere in the middle or possible leaning a bit to one side, but in the end, something good for America.

Not anymore. Republicans first showed disrespect for the office of the President. If you are worried about looking weak to other nations, then the last thing you want to do is belittle and embarrass your leader. Then they decided that not only was their way always the only right way, but they promoted the smallest, most extreme faction of their party, the Tea Party, and managed to alienate everyone but their own  tiny group. Even long time Republican elected officials are switching parties or going independent because they no longer can be affiliated with the fantasy world that is the "grass roots of America". Finally, they are so desperate now that they will vote down their own bills if it means making Obama look bad. Their policies, or rather their lack of policies and their refusal to negotiate have created a bad America, and yet they insist this America is all the administrations' fault.

I hear them clamoring of impeachment and incarceration but if you look at the facts, look at the stats, you will see the worst terrorism we have had in the past decade has been the Republican party, the ones who deserve the scrutiny and incarceration.

Lets wake up people. Stop believing the scare mongers and start thinking for yourselves again. If you don't, then doing so may not even be an option in the future.