An Oxymoron Is Not An Idiot With Zits

February Fantasies...

2012-02-04T06:20:00.001-05:00

So much has been going on since last year. So much, in fact, that I haven't had much time to write in my blog. And yet, here I am on a Friday night/Saturday morning, 5am in fact, writing with no real goal in mind.

I've been working a lot, doing what I love most in the world. Marketing. I have been parlaying my social online activities into a job and so far, it's been pretty successful. I have an expanding client list, which is always a good thing. Paychecks are nice. They allow me shoes. Lots of shoes. Not like I couldn't have lots of shoes before...but there is something liberating about not having to justify my shoe purchases to my husband. Mind you, he doesn't inquire. He frankly couldn't care less about my shopping habits. I just always feel the need to explain them away.

"Oh, these? Yeah, I got them on sale for $blah blah and then I had a Groupon which got me $blah blah off and then, there was an online code for free shipping so they finally came out to $blah blah."

He always says the same thing.

"Babe, you don't need to explain these things to me. If you like them, buy them."

*sighs* Never an argument. Sometimes, I wish he would pull a Ricky Ricardo on me.

"Ceeeeeeee Peeeeeeee!? 'Ave jew bin spending all our moneee again? Ees dat what jew are do-eeng? Jes?"

"Oh no, Hotband! I deedn't spend all jor moneeee again! I got a YOB!"

"A YOB? Where did jew get a Yob? Oh Ceee Peeee! Jew ara bad bad wife! Ay carramba!"

"Waaaaaaaaaaaah."

(Those of you under the age of 25 will not even remotely get the I Love Lucy references. Please exit to the left. I have no use for you whippersnappers.)

5 am is a bad time for me to be awake. There's lots of infomercials on at 5am. Lots. Generally there are two different categories of infomercials. Things relating to exercise...and everything else. Things relating to exercise are safe. NO danger of me ordering that P90X or the Insanity Workout in the middle of the night. (Although, I really want that T-shirt...but according to the commercial, you have to "earn" it. Screw that shit. I'll just buy one. My body will reveal the truth. I didn't earn anything but 5 pounds from the cheese danish I was eating while watching these morons lift chairs over their heads while grunting like wart hogs having coitus.) It's the "everything else" that scares my husband. Everything else includes: The Instyler. I really want that fucking thing. I want to make barrel curls, roll curls, mini flips or straight hair that is polished by the rolling/brushing action. And ooh...it comes with a second mini rotating Instyler for when I want a tighter curl! It just may be the most perfect styling tool ever invented! They said so, so it must be true!

The Instyler: Part hair brush, part masturbation tool. The possibilities are endless.

Next on my infomercial list? Wen Hair Care. Yes, I love Alyssa Milano. She's named after my favorite cookie. (Mmmmm...Milano's. Double chocolate please.) But the Wen Hair Care System says that I don't have to wash AND condition my hair any more because the non-lathering magic unicorn jizz in the bottle will magically make my hair stunning and glorious just like Alyssa's. When I pump a dime size blob in my hand and comb it through, little fairies will dance around my skull, infusing my head with nourishing fairy dust and encasing each strand in their special fairy saliva. It will be magical! And all the worlds problems will cease to exist because MY hair will shimmer, shine and bounce. Presidents and Kings will bow to my whim because my hair is ethereal!


Chaz Dean: Creator of Wen. Advocate of the Instyler for off label purposes.

Next on my wish list? Set It...and Forget it! Not only is the product awesome, but the name is genius! As a matter of fact, I want this to be my motto in life! Everything should be that gimmicky. Work: Do It...nah, Screw It! Marriage: Wed Him...then Bed Him! Having Kids: Have Them...then spend the next 18 years of your fucking life biting your nails down to the nub worrying about the dumb little shits turning your hair prematurely gray and gaining 30 pounds in the process. Hm, okay. Not everything can be that catchy. But seriously, how awesome is the concept of slapping some food in an oven and then, leaving it? You know, while you go out to dinner, because you totally set it...and then, forgot it. I can see this thing playing a real important role in my life. "Yeah, babe. I did make dinner. But I forgot it. Go look in the amazing peek a boo window! It's in there! Now, where shall I put these leftovers?" Everything in life should be so easy.


These chickens are 5 days old! I totes forgot about them!

This next one just makes my heart go all aflutter. It's the Slap Chop. Waaaaaay before the Shake Weight commercials were around to bring joy to your soul as you diddle your skittle or choke your chicken (you know you do), there was Vince slapping his way into your life. Vince would slap chop any thing you put in front of him. Tomatoes? He'd chop them. Hard boiled eggs? He's gonna slap 'em for ya. Baby fingers? Yep, them too. No more need to put your children in time out. Just put their little chubby hands on the counter and slap, slap, SLAP your way into obedience! Vince had no shame. Not even a few domestic violence charges, drug arrests and prostitutes would stand in the way of Vince slapping his way into your dreams. I have to be honest...when my grandson was born, I had a fantasy that consisted of Vince in Mohel gear bursting into the labor and delivery room, scooping up Liam and just slap slap slapping his brand new little penis into circumcision submission. Sadly, my daughter wouldn't allow me to make this happen. Something about wanting him to stay out of therapy and actually be able to use his penis some day. Pfffft. Wuss.


Hava Tequila. It vill dull zee pain! I vill slap slap slappa da penis!

As Vince says, "I can't do this all night". The fantasies are simply endless. I love me some infomercials. I probably could go on and on all night...but alas, I have a feeling that this last one just might make Saturday night grandkid sleepover night come to an abrupt halt. Besides, I have a Pampered Chef chopper. It doesn't have the same ring to it. "Let me Pamper Your Penis". Hm. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Of course, my all time favorite infomercial is for the Shake Weight. The male or the female version...which really only boils down to whether you get a pink Shake Weight or a gray Shake Weight. But I love watching the burly guys on the men's commercial do the jerk off motion with a straight face. You know that commercial was made to be soft porn for the gay community. No straight woman finds that remotely attractive. Same with the women's commercial. You know that straight men who can no longer see their porn channels through the squiggly lines jerk off to the women's Shake Weight commercials. Sure, there is the obvious "hot chick holds on to pink phallic thing and jerks it up and down" thing. But, if you look PAST that to the woman's chest...you will see tons of jiggling boobage. That's where the action is, Kats and Kittens. They found the jiggliest boobies they could find on 90% perfectly toned women. I think they probably crop in the jiggle bubbies off of fat chicks and insert them into the videos. Regardless, I don't care how it happens, just that it happens. Plus, infomercials, unlike regular commercials, are 30 joyful minutes long. Plenty of time for info induced orgasm to take place.

Now, it's 6 am. I totally ruined my alone time with my infomercials. I think I shall turn in and have sweet dreams of violating Vince with my Instyler, lubing it thoroughly with some Wen and then, listening to Ron Popeil saying "Shove It...You Will Love It" as I burrow it into one of Vince's orifices.

A girl can dream, can't she?

We're talkin' panties. No boys allowed...

2012-01-09T03:18:00.000-05:00

unless you are a cross dresser, transvestite or drag queen. Although, I would imagine the latter two would already know these tricks. For some reason, drag queens know more about undergarments than the average biological woman does.

In that case, this article is for you, Frump a Dump. We're talking bras and panties here. Sit back, take notes and then, go evaluate your lingerie drawer. There will be a quiz at the end of this lecture, Bitches...so absorb!

Those of you who read regularly or know me "in real life" know I am a pretty fashionable chick. I love fashion. I live for fashion. I eat, breathe and sleep fashion. The only thing I don't do is fuck fashion. I save that kind of love for the Hotband exclusively. Though, I do make sure to be fashionable WHILE fucking, if that accounts for any thing. Bra and panties must not necessarily match...but they must be attractive. Alluring. Eye candy.

I am a big advocate that sexy starts from the inside out and that goes for clothes too. If you start with a base of sexy lingerie, your "feel good" will shine through. It's always a sexy start to a great outfit. When you throw on your basic frump a dump white sports bra and a pair of your big ol' granny panties, you are starting with a canvas that just screams "I am going to feel shitty for the rest of the day." If you start with a sweet lacy bra and a cute tanga panty or a flirty pair of boy short panties, you are going to have a sexy secret with you all day long. Plus, you never know when your partner is going to grab hold of you for a "nooner" or a "quickie".

Do you really wanna be caught out there in a pair of your oldest "Hanes Her Way", with the tiny hole that lets two or three pubes escape? The ones with the saggy, worn out elastic around the crotch? Or, worse still...the ones that you wear during "that time of the month" that have the dark, shadowy remnants of all the times your pad didn't do its job appropriately?

Don't look at me like that. You know what I am talking about. We all have a pair of those.

You should be ashamed of yourself. Truly.

Once I had my hysterectomy, I threw out every single pair of underwear that qualified as "dust rags". Dumped them all. Any thing that I purchased that came in a five pack? Gone. I figured, I am never going to destroy another pair of underwear ever again, ergo, I am going to invest in some of the prettiest panties I have ever owned. I have tangas, boy shorts, T backs, bikini's, high waist, french cut...some lacy, some in cotton, some patterned, some solid...but the one thing they all have in common?

They are all sexy. All of them. There will never be a time that I will be caught with my "pants down" (pun blatantly obvious) in the underwear department. Same thing with the bras. Girls, dump the bras that have twisted wires, an underwire poking through, the one that you pinned together because it's your favorite. Get rid of them. All you need are two basic white bras, four basic nude bras and about four basic black bras. Those are your staples. After that, the rest of your bras should look like a circus threw up in your lingerie drawer. Colors! Lots and lots of colors! Sure, with sheer blouses, these don't work...but how often do you wear sheer blouses? That's where your basic colors come in.

And while we are on the subject of basics...here's a tip for you, Sugar Tits. White bras should only be worn under white blouses. That's it. End of story. Any other sheer blouses you own should have a NUDE bra underneath it. You can even do a nude bra under a white blouse. Same thing goes for your panties, doll faces. Do not wear white panties under white pants. It shows right through and draws a whole lot of attention to spots you don't want attention drawn to. Keep it nude. Nude bras work under everything. Don't try to match your bras to your blouses. For example...if you are wearing a sheer yellow blouse, don't think you should wear a yellow bra beneath it. It looks "udderly" ridiculous. NUDE bras, girls. Also, please...be mindful of your nipples. If you have prominent nipples, do not wear a see through bra under your sheer blouses. In the dim lighting of your bedroom as you dress in the morning, you won't necessarily be seeing what all your co-workers will be seeing under the fluorescent lighting of your office.

The nude rule under sheer does not apply to black sheer blouses. One would think this is common sense, but alas, it is not. Black sheer needs a black bra. Let me explain why. We are living in a digital age, girls. People are snapping photos all the time. There is a horrible phenomenon called "headlights" and it is no longer the catchphrase for a pair of hardened nipples. When a camera flash flashes...suddenly, whatever you are wearing beneath the sheer is going to become blatantly apparent. Worse than your titties showing through your blouse is your bra being too light for the blouse you are wearing. It makes these two "round disks" of light where your breasts should be. This will end up on your friends and co-workers Facebook pages with all sorts of ridicule ranging from "nice high beams" to "look into the liiiiiight, Carolann...walk into the light!"

It is important to pay attention to your skin tone when dressing. And while I am not normally one to endorse products I have not personally used, THIS website, called "My Skins", offers you the opportunity to either download (not recommended) their color chart or order one by snail mail. The reason I don't suggest downloading the skin color chart is because if your computer does not have the right ink or the correct color settings, you are going to get skewed colors. This chart will help you find the right color undergarment that best matches your skin tone. If you choose to buy from this site, I will say, they ARE reasonably priced undergarments. Their panties run to about a 44 inch hip (the XL is too small for me, but might fit some of you chicks with less endowed asses than mine). Their bras run to a 38D...again, too small for me, but perfect for all of you who can shop Victoria's Secret. (You know what her secret is? She has nothing in my size, that's her secret. Bitch.) But, even if you don't shop there...you can still use the color chart (free) to be able to match it to undergarments where you do shop. I personally wear "Cappucino"...which is perfect for my olive skin tone. Your skin color may vary.

However, I have truly digressed.

The staples are the staples. Every girl should have a base undergarment wardrobe that consists of neutrals that always work under the spring and summer lighter colors. Where the colors come in are under things like tank tops, summer dresses with spaghetti or narrow straps or loose, flowing tunic tops. There is nothing tackier than your bra straps hanging out from under any of the aforementioned things. However, the way to go from tasteless to tactful is by using color. If you are wearing a tank top with narrow straps and you are not a member of the itty bitty titty committee and can't get away with a tiny bra, no bra or a strapless bra...you want to put on a bra with color in it! Fun colors! Wearing an orange tank? Throw on a yellow bra so that if the shoulder slides away, you are looking at a pretty pop of color, not a dingy white bra strap. If you make it look like you MEANT to make that sexy little fashion faux pas, it will be interpreted that way.

And, as everyone knows, perception IS reality.

PS: The "pop of color" undergarment rule applies to casual wear. If you are wearing a chic little black dress or a formal white dress, keep your black undergarments with the LBD and a nude/white undergarment with the white dressy wear. Do I need to explain this? From the looks of what I see out there in the world, apparently, I do.

Wearing a black tank top? Sure, you can grab your basic black bra. But, if it slides to one side, everyone now sees that your tank doesn't fit and you are not fooling any one with the black bra on. Instead, have a hot pink bra on! Pop of color! Fun! Flirty! A hint of color is sexy. Trying to conceal a tank that is too big on you or doesn't fit you correctly with a bra of the same color looks exactly that way. If you have a tank that isn't fitting you correctly, the correct remedy is...BUY THE RIGHT SIZE, Dumbass. But, if you insist on wearing an ill fitting ANY thing...let me let you in on a little secret.

Camisoles. And no, we ain't talkin' about your granmama's camisole. Not some lacy, slinky thing from the 40's. We're talking a basic, cotton, thin strapped camisole. Yes, it means layering your bra, your cami and then your tank...but at least you look appropriately dressed and not like you are trying to fit into something that you bought when you were 20 pounds lighter. Use them. Have them in every color of the rainbow. They cost barely more than $10 at Old Navy in all size from size 0 all the way up to a size 28. No excuses, girls. Get them. Use them. Please.

The point is, if you start with a sexy base, you will feel good in what you wear all day long. There is a lot of truth to the adage that beauty comes from the inside. That applies to your clothing as well. If you have a sweet little secret under your clothes, you will have a sly smile on your face all day long. You will have this gorgeous air of confidence and radiance that will make you look tremendously better the whole day through. When you feel better about what you are wearing, you will walk with an air of confidence that is immediately apparent to others.

You'll know you're doing it right if men ask you for your phone number and bitches talk about you behind your back. And for those of you who are already happily paired off...if your significant other decides to treat you to a little "afternoon delight", you will already have the right gear for hittin' the rear, ya know what I'm sayin'? Hm?

Remember, the right 'tude will put you in the right mood.

And, remember what you're mama always told you...you want to have on clean underwear if you are ever in an accident...or want to snag yourself a hot paramedic. Either one works for me.

Stay sexy, bitches.

CP.

The Final Post of 2011: And so it ends...

2011-12-31T00:00:00.001-05:00

I think we can all collectively agree on one thing.

2011 was a clusterfuck of suck.

Don't get me wrong. There were wonderful moments.

In January, I had a fantastic New Year's Day with the Hotband and my kids and of course, my grandson turned 2 in January and that's always fun. In February, we had a very lovely Valentine's Day, or as the Hotband and I call it, "excuse to buy each other cards" day. February also reared it's ugly head in the form of one of my closest friends losing her daughter in a car accident. She and her son were both in coma, her daughter, in a morgue. It was one of the most horrific moments of my life, getting that email from my "Northern Bestie", Jan of Two Scoopz, telling me that Destiny was gone and my dear friend Melia's son, Riley was barely clinging to life himself. It was a time of close friendship as Melia's "angels" reached out to her, rallied around her and fund raised a large sum of money to help her to ease the burden of burying her baby girl. Six dear friends and Melia. Since then, those friendships have broken down. Familiarity breeding contempt and what not. And it's a damn shame. But, for six months, we stayed the course, protected her ferociously, guarded her with our lives, staved off the press, people who were trying to benefit from a horrible situation, crazy ex boyfriends, etc...and made sure that our sweet Melia stayed untouched and able to grieve in peace. The pain all of us felt as mothers was indescribable...and we all hugged our babies just a bit tighter during those harrowing months. Riley made an amazing and near full recovery. And while Melia and I no longer speak, I do ask about her and Riley all the time.

There are moments in life that bond people together for eternity. It doesn't matter if we no longer speak due to a falling out (that I know she had no part of). What does matter is that when she looks back and reflects on that time, she can do so knowing that she had people who loved her surrounding her with love and light.

In March, and the same week as Destiny's funeral, the Hotband and I set sail with my parents for a great cruise to the Bahamas to celebrate my father's 70th birthday and my parents 30th wedding anniversary. While the cruise with my husband part was phenomenal, my mother was being...well, my mother, and made it a pretty unpleasant experience. In April, I went to Washington DC with my home girl, Bran Muffin, for some cultural doings and met up with my home boy, Gary R. who I have known since kindergarten. They drove all the way down from Virginia to come see me and I was thrilled to see them. We dined at a great restaurant, saw some pretty cool historical stuff and it was great. However, the week ended with me falling out of his truck, sustaining a pretty bad back injury (I fractured one of my vertebrae) and that was sort of the beginning of what was to become a radically shittier year.

In May, I had a problem with one of my professors accusing me of plagiarizing a paper I wrote. I might have blogged about it. Who knows. Who remembers. Apparently, since I was on pain medication from my back injury, I ended up submitting a paper to him that was my draft which included direct quotes from sources. I didn't send him the actual paper I had written. In the confusion, he attempted to take me up on charges with the school. Fortunately, I have a very strong connection with my college as a perpetual student there and enough of my teachers were able to vouch for me...that I am not the sort of student who plagiarizes nor needs to. I had a perfect GPA. Why would I need to plagiarize a 3 page paper, for God's sake? So, he gave me a "make up" exam, to prove that I actually DID know my stuff. Hello? It's Humanities. The Arts. You only have to know me for 10 minutes to know that I know my shit where that stuff is concerned. I got an A on the exam. He tried to give me a B for the year. I fought him and won. May was also the month that my relationship with Melia started to take a radical turn and when others via jealousy, slowly started making their attempt to oust me from her life. I did, however, get to go to San Francisco with my husband and see my best guy friend, Jester and his partner, Mikey. Hotband and I got our beautiful Star of David tattoos that we were dying for Mikey do put on us for nearly a year. It was a wonderful time. Saw my buddy, Jerry, as well...and made some new friends during Jerry's birthday party, which also marked for us the passing of the "Rapture". We all survived. The tragic part was ending that visit with a terrible tornado that ripped through Jester's hometown of Joplin, Missouri...killing hundreds of people and leaving very little of his hometown left to salvage. I was grateful to have been there to supply him with hugs, handholds and kisses as one by one, the texts came rolling into his phone about another person he knew being injured or killed. Another friend who lost their home. The text about his old school being ripped from its foundation and no longer existing. It was tragic and heartbreaking. I didn't want to leave him. Ever. I will never forget the look on his face when he got word...not ever.

June came, and with that, the end of "Team Melia" as a trip to Arizona was thwarted by a manipulating piece of garbage. The beginning of the end. But, June brought other things...things that were far more important. June handed me a big pile of dog shit in the form of my sweet Jan being diagnosed with cancer. I can never remember, since my own personal bout with the Big C, crying so much, so hard, for so long as I did when she told me this. I felt like my world was ending...because Jan has been my rock for so damn long. She is beyond a sister. She is part of my life in so many ways. For two people who have never been in the same room together, you couldn't find two people closer than she and I. And now, here I was...1600 miles away from her while she was going through what was going to be the most challenging time of her life. While I offered to come and be with her, she refused me...the eternal optimist, comforting ME and telling me that everything is going to be just fine and if she REALLY needs me there, she promises to call. That woman is still fighting the fight valiantly, with a strength and a conviction that very few are capable of, let alone privy to. And I am so grateful to have a ringside seat in her life. I am grateful that she turns to me when she is feeling sad. I am happy that she still has the ability to say, "OMG...shut the hell up, CP. You're DEPRESSING me and I am the one who has the cancer, for fucks sake!" She is also my "Hyster Sister" as we both had our hysterectomies this year barely two months apart from each other. She was absolutely key in helping me make my decision to have it done. And I think in some ways, her being able to focus on me and my recovery helped to keep her strong. She was able to give the the ol' "Pffft, been there, done that. Suck it up, gorgeous. You'll be fine again in six weeks."

She's a no holds barred, no bullshit kinda girl...and I love her for that. More than words can say.

July was a trip to New York and as usual, save for one AWESOME damn party for my friend Suzee's birthday, it was business as usual for mom and I. The saving grace? My son came along for the trip and somehow, he manages to keep it all in perspective for me with a simple, "Damn. I'm glad she's only my grandmother. She totally sucks as a mom, Dude." Heh. I love my son. Well, loved him right up to the point where my brother convinced him to cut his shoulder length hair and I realized the reason he was keeping it so long. Yeah. Double pierced his ears. Awesome. After that trip, I came home to a barrage of surgeries to figure out what was going on with my female parts. I thought I was having pain due to my back injury I sustained in Washington. I was having trouble walking. My body, especially my lower abdomen, felt "heavy". My periods were starting to look like gangland mob shootings and I was constantly drained. Tests showed me to be heavily anemic. Further tests showed a "tumor of some sort" on my right ovary. No. There is no way that Jan and I both have ovarian cancer at the same time? I mean, I heard of being close...but really? Do we need to go this far?

Well, the big C avoided me this time...but what I did find out was that I had Stage 4 endometriosis that was slowly wrapping itself around my bladder, abdominal wall, colon and the edge of my spine. Two surgeries later, and the doctors were still unable to chisel their way through to removing that ovary that now had a tumor on it the size of a golf ball. The only option? A full radical hysterectomy with bladder shaving, colon shaving and perhaps, some snipping around the spine where the endo had decided to cling to it. To say I was scared shitless is an understatement. But, with Jan's help...knowing that she had just gone through it and was now into the chemotherapy stage of her recovery, I said, fuck it. I can do this. And there were hard times in that. While the Hotband and I always pretty much knew we were never going to have any kids...I still had a choice. His vasectomy could always be reversed and in the back of my mind, I knew this. But a hysterectomy? That's some final shit right there. Can't make no babies if the baby making machine is removed from the building. The thought of this fucked with me emotionally and for the first time in my 8 year marriage, in 12 years together, I felt a distinct separation from my husband. Emotionally. He just didn't understand WHY I would be so upset about this.

"We always said we were not going to have kids, Babe. I have YOUR two kids. They are OUR kids. I don't need any thing more than that. I am already a dad. I don't need to have my last name 'carried on'. I raised our kids with you. That's always been enough for me. I don't understand why this is upsetting you so much."

And it was apparent that he really didn't "get it"...which only served to make me more angry. My best friend, Gin, wrapped it up for me quite nicely. "He's a MAN, CP. Neanderthals. They just don't get it." And she was right. She rallied around me, as did my daughter, in a way that made me feel complete. Even though I felt that everything that defined me as a female was being stripped away from me, they managed to make me feel loved, protected and safe. I am not defined by having a uterus. I am defined by being the woman I am...a loving mom, a phenomenal wife and grandmother, a fiercely protective and loyal friend and a person with the ability to make people laugh, even in their darkest hours. Hubby and I went away for a much needed vacation with old friends to Jamaica and for that week, I was allowed to forget that, come September, a new chapter of my life was about to begin. A new adventure. A life without pain. We had so much fun that week with Joey (an ex boyfriend from 30 years ago) and his wife, Marcia, who is an amazing lady...that it should have been crime to have that much fun in one lifetime.

September arrived and with it, my surgery. The rest of September and October were a blur for me. I remember a lot of pain, a lot of pain medicine and a lot of sleeping. But, the end of October and my granddaughter's third birthday allowed me to do the "unveiling" of this new woman. I put on my brand new Michael Kors suede wedge boots (my hysterectomy gift to myself), with a fantastic amount of gorgeous jewelry and proceeded to be the best new "me" I could allow myself to be. I felt like I was back again. Not perfect, certainly, but back in my life again after six weeks of pain and struggle.

It was like coming home.

November brought the clusterfuck of a bad visit with my parents. A falling out with my brother. A multitude of chaos in my personal life but, it also brought me back together with my husband. After feeling emotionally detached from him and physically detached from him (no sex? SIX weeks? Are you kidding me?), we were back on track again and it felt so good. There was some personal pain from other things...but nothing I felt I couldn't handle.

December and the holidays. Normally, I am a bah humbug kind of person...but this year, I felt like celebrating life. My life. My friend Jan's life...the fact that she was getting stronger and getting through her chemo with a brave face and a positive attitude. The lives of my children and grandchildren. My best friend, Gin, evolving as a wife and mom, really bringing her A game and showing me that a "stay at home mom" is something that means you have value and worth as a female and your not "just a mom." Hubs and I went on our yearly vacation to St. Maarten, St. Thomas and the Bahamas and recharged our batteries. We reconnected on a level I have not felt between he and I since my surgery and life was suddenly, really good again. Really good.

So now, here we are. On the precipice of a new year. Once more, Hotband and I will be spending it at our hideaway on Treasure Island, having a beautiful dinner gulfside and then, likely standing on the beach, holding hands for a long stroll right before the ball drops. Likely, we will be making wonderful love during that year change as we have always done. (He likes to be able to say he fucked me for a year straight. Corn ball. LOL) Yes, from 11:59 pm until 12:01 am. He's quite the stud. Heh.

While I am excited to see what this new year is going to hold for us, I have to admit...2011 is a year that I don't want to revisit ever again. Like I said, there were some amazing time in there, but it was like a beautifully wrapped present, shiny paper, big elaborate bow...and then, opening the box to reveal pound of shit inside. I am praying that this year brings all my friends health, prosperity and the best of everything life has to offer. This is the year that I am opting to take on some challenges, both scholastically and with my own personal health. I want to be stronger in the upcoming year. I want to be able to run around a bit more with my grandchildren without getting winded. More than any thing...I just want peace. No drama for this Mama. I just want to have my family and my friends be happy. I am not sure what the definition of happiness is for each individual in my life...but whatever their definition is, I want them to own it in 2012.

The way I see it, Folks...any day on this side of the grass is a good day and I want to keep that perspective. I want to leave the petty stuff behind and focus on the things that really matter. The people that count. I want to make sure that I take care of myself so that I am capable of caring for those that I love and who love me for a good long time to come. And even if the world ends in 2012 per the Mayans prediction, I want this to be the best last year on earth ever.

So, in closing...have a blessed New Year. I have some ideas and changes for this blog coming up...and I hope that my writing will reflect that. I want to swing back to 2006, when it was all about the laughs and a certain amount of introspection. I want to repair burned bridges and make things whole again. I want to learn the value of "I'm sorry" and I want to make sure that people know they are loved.

Tomorrow is promised to no one. So, for today, I want to make it the best day, every day, until the day they lower me into the ground.

Happy New Year to all my faithful friends and followers. And to those, not so faithful, let it be said that I can forgive who you are, what you have done and be at peace with myself for it. I hope the same for every one of you...even those who have hurt me immensely over this past year.

And to those who I love, and you know who you are, let me tell you that you are a part of my life for keeps. You will always be valued, respected and treated with dignity and love. All I want from you is the same in return. A friend of mine (named "Angel", ironically enough) just said to me on Facebook, "I only have one (resolution): to live purposefully." I could not sum it up better than that. A life with purpose. That is all I want...

A Certifiable Princess could ask for nothing more.

See you in 2012. xoxo

Brotherly love.

2011-10-26T19:57:00.001-04:00

My brother and I were never particularly close.

Close in age, certainly. We are less than three years apart. In the photo above, that is me on the left. My brother is the chubby baby in the Giants onesie on the right. We are two years and nine months apart, yet you can never imagine two people so different.

My brother and I were brought up in a very abusive household. Our parents, well-meaning as they might have been, were a non stop source of stress and strife in our little lives. They fought constantly, every single waking moment of the day and night. She was a shrew, my mother. Nagged to the point where you could no longer stand the sound of her voice. (It still makes me cower a bit when she raises her voice.) My father, the man I have come to call "the sperm donor", was a self-absorbed, egotistical hippie type who never quite grew up enough to understand that you no longer get to be a "free spirit" once you make the commitment to having a wife and children. Sure, you can be an individual, but you do not get to live your life as one. There are three other people in the picture. Three other people who matter, who count on you and who you need to give thought to before doing the selfish things that stop you from being a part of that family unit.

My father, in something so cliche it embarrasses me to mention, left my mother for his secretary (cringe) back in 1973 when I was merely 7 years old. Not that this was his first affair, mind you. This was merely the one that "stuck" and the one that finally took this man out of his home and into hers. There was a part of me that was so grateful when he left. For years, I had endured listening to their fights that would end up with punches thrown, furniture being flipped over, disgusting and vulgar things said right over my head and the endless tears that my mother would cry each and every time he walked out that door and away from "this bullshit". I came to feel that I was a part of the "bullshit" he needed to walk away from and, as every child does, began to blame myself for my father leaving. This was further confirmed when my mother, in moments of distress and uncertainty of her future would say thing like, "he never wanted any kids to begin with."

Great. Like I ASKED to be born into this?

For years, I resented my father. Years. Hated him with a fervor and a passion that no little girl should ever have to know. When I got stuck having to go to his house on the weekends, I was moody, irritable, out of sorts, angry. I felt deep venom for my mother for leaving me with this man who obviously did not want my brother and I there and truly made us, or at least me, feel like we were cramping his bachelor lifestyle. He had a girlfriend (the secretary) named Yvonne. She was a red head. Tall. Thin. Gorgeous. And their lifestyle consisted of walking around nude all the time. It's just what they did. And while that's fine monday through friday, it is probably something that should have been curtailed when your 9 year old daughter and your 6 year old son would come to visit. They smoked weed. A LOT of weed. We were never really "watched" or cared for. It would make me feel so uncomfortable being in that environment. I don't think it effected my brother the same way it did me. He sort of found it all funny...that he got to see "boobies" at Dad's house. But for me, a young girl on the precipice of my pre-teen years, it made me feel out of sorts. I used to sit in the loft of his apartment and just get lost in books. Reading for hours on end til my mother and whatever random flavor of the week she was dating at that time would come and pick us up from his place on the west side of Manhattan.

As I got older, savvier, I learned how to take the train back from Riverside Drive in Manhattan up to Queens Boulevard in Queens. I would run away from his apartment, letting myself into my mothers apartment with my key. (Those of you who were "latchkey" kids would understand why a 10 year old would have her own key to the apartment.) Most of the time, my mother would not be there. She'd be out, somewhere, with whomever she was dating. Sometimes, she would be there with her boyfriend and I would get stuck back on a train, heading back towards Manhattan after listening to my mother screech at my father at the top of her lungs about how the HELL he could not even notice his daughter had disappeared.

Simple. He was too stoned most of the time to even notice whether I was alive or not.

"I thought she was upstairs, reading," he would stammer, trying to stifle his laughter.

"You're an asshole, piece of shit," she would continue. Blah blah blah.

This was my world. The world of the broken home. The world of having two sets parents who were so self-absorbed and involved in their own worlds that they never really saw the magnitude of what they were doing to their children.

Truth be told, I think the divorce took a much deeper toll on me than it did on my brother. My brother stayed in touch with "bio dad" long after I made the decision at 11 years old to never see him again. I hated him, all he stood for and his selfish ways. The last time I saw my father as a child, it was at my 11th grade graduation. He showed up, after the ceremony of course, with some flowers. I took a single photo with him and that is the only memory that I have of him that stands out in my head. I saw him again, when I turned 19, in a chance meeting at a Florida mall while I was on Spring Break with some girlfriends. We talked. Ironed out a few things. Said some things that needed to be said, but by this time, he was older...the age I am now, actually, and it seemed like life had beaten him up so badly, I couldn't muster up all the venom and rage that 9 year old me wanted to throw upon him.

A mere 6 months after that chance meeting, my father was dead. Killed by a heart attack caused by cocaine usage. He was driving on the I-4 interstate when the heart attack occurred. He jumped the median and slammed into a Pepsi tractor trailer going in the opposite direction.

In my utter distress, in my lack of being able to wrap my head around this...I made a joke out of it. A morbid joke. Something to the extent of "this time, Pepsi actually beat out Coke." No one appreciated the joke. I was called "insensitive", but I had experienced such a disconnect between me and this man that all I could rely upon was a macabre sense of humor to get me through.

Fast forward to now. Right now.

My brother is having an affair. He told me about it. He didn't need to. I knew it was going on. I could tell. All the tell tale signs were there. "My wife doesn't understand me," he would say. He sought my advice and was appalled when I told him to go the hell home and work things out with your wife. He thought I would have taken his side, told him to go...be happy! Do your thing! Live your life! But as I looked at him, all I could see was my father. He looks so much like him. He sounds so much like him. And in that, he represented everything I ever hated about my own selfish father.

Recently, his wife found out about his affair. She called me, crying, asking if he could come down here to stay with me for a few days. He wanted to "clear his head" before making a decision about whether he would be staying with her or leaving her and her three beautiful children for this girl who "understands him". Of course, I told her. Let him come down here. Let him be with me and my family. Let him see what a loving family unit is supposed to look like. Let me talk sense into him.

He came...and it was the worst three days of my life in a very long time.

I have never seen such selfish, self absorbed behavior since my fathers existence on this planet. He spent the entire weekend texting this girlfriend of his. He ignored me when I tried to talk to him. He ignored my kids, my grandkids who he has scarcely seen since they have been born. All he wanted to do was go out and party. "What is there to do in this town," he carried on. "What's good? Where are the clubs at? Who's coming out partying with me tonight?"

And all I saw was my father...and the rage slowly boiled in my blood.

"I thought we were going to have some family time," I said.

"Yeah. Yeah, of course. We'll have family time. But it's the weekend. So, let's get this party going! Where's the Hard Rock? Let's go gambling! I got a grand burning a hole in my pocket. Let's do this."

Not the faintest hint of moral dilemma in his eyes. No thought to his grieving wife back at home. No thought to his three children, ages 9 through 13, who are suffering right now, listening to mommy cry at night as they go to bed. The three of them acutely aware of what their father did...but having to suffer the consequence of his insanely selfish actions. There was a lot of arguing between my brother and I. I would try to talk to him, try to get his face out of his phone and off the texting that was going on between him and this random girl (who, incidentally, DOES know my sister in law and apparently, does not care about sleeping with her husband). I tried to keep my brother focused.

"Go to the mall with your nephew," I told him. "He's missed you. Go spend time with him."

My son reported back to me that Uncle spent his entire time at the mall walking alongside him with his face buried in the phone. We went out for dinner. Same thing. Out for breakfast with family. Same thing. Went to go visit my husbands family. Same thing. Face buried in that phone...no consideration to any one else.

And I finally exploded.

My brother declared he had to "get the fuck outta here". Apparently, the whore that he had taken up with was giving him ultimatums about coming home. He was pacing the floors, gotta go gotta go gotta go gotta go. Change my ticket change my ticket change my ticket now now now now now now. It was around then that I released the wrath of 9 year old me all over him. Everything that 9 year old me ever wanted to say to that stupid, selfish, piece of shit father of mine came flying out of my mouth. Only now, it was 45 year old me, screaming it at my baby brother...who looks like the man, acts like the man. We fought ferociously to the point where he was punching the dashboard of my car, jumping out of it in the middle of the highway and me, considering throwing my truck in reverse to run him over and leave him to join the same fate as his father...dying under the wheels of a truck. All of a sudden, that wild rush came through me...and the fury was too huge to fight. I couldn't contain it any longer and in that instant, I wanted him to die...and I wanted ME to the be the one who put him in that box. I wanted him to suffer for the things he did to me, but it wasn't him. It was my father. I wanted him to suffer for the things I knew he was about to put my beautiful niece through. She is now the same 9 year old little desperate girl that I was at the time, and I knew what lay before her. I walked this road before...and I felt so justified in just removing my brother from this world to spare her all the pain. Let her father die while she still loves him and still wants him in her life. Let him just die that way...before she grows up hating him, blaming him for every failed relationship in her life. Never trusting men ever again because she couldn't trust the one who gave her life. I just wanted to hear his body under the tires of my truck as I rolled over him again and again and again.

Fast forward once more.

I am at home. He is gone, back on an airplane New York bound, on the way to ruin the innocent lives of my precious niece and my two nephews. On the way home to destroy whatever little is left of my sister in laws self esteem. He is going home to break everyone's hearts. My parents. Her parents. All the children involved. And the last thing he said to me..."This isn't about YOU, this is about ME! It's always been about ME!"

Yes. Yes, "Dad". It was always about you. And because it was always about you...hearts died in the process.

I turned on the song "Helpless" by Neil Young. It is off the album "Everyone Knows This is Nowhere" and was one of my fathers favorite songs. I put my head down and I cried. I cried long and hard from a place so deep within me that I knew I was no longer an adult woman, but that little girl whose father destroyed her self esteem, her sense of security, her trust and faith and most of all, destroyed her life. I wept so hard for this broken doll inside of me. The pain was palpable. I could feel her within me, so angry for never getting a chance to tell the real man who ruined my life what I really thought of him. Angry, that now my relationship with my brother, my one link to that time in my life is now irretrievably broken. I cried for loss. I cried from abandonment. I cried for the realization that I was left to my own devices by my daddy when I was only 9 years old, the same age my niece is right now. And wept harder still...because I know now, as a 45 year old woman, that I can never, ever get those moments back, nor can I save my niece from becoming a 45 year old woman who is going to inevitably look back with the same pain, grief and anger.

It's been two days since my brother left town.

He sent me a text message. "Left my sneakers there. Can you ship them to me?"

No apology. No "I'm sorry" for hurting you. No sense of responsibility for the devastation he left in his wake. No regret. Just concern for his sneakers.

He is, after all, his father's son.

And I sit here, my heart still torn wide open, trying to wrestle with the fact that I have all these open wounds that I thought were long gone, but realize now they were just scabbed up, waiting to be torn wide open to bleed, to fester, to become infected. It is a painful realization to find out that what you thought you were so far past in your life, you never really resolved after all. You just buried it deep down, burned it in a box and scattered the ashes somewhere.

Eventually, the winds of time blow them back at you. You suffocate in their thickness as they choke you and blind you. You shake your head to clear your thoughts, to gain some sense of vision and clarity. Then suddenly, you realize. The game remains the same...only the players have changed.

And like a lost little child on a subway heading to Queens at 2am...you brave it alone.

Home is only a few more stops away.

Focus 52: Shadows

2011-10-10T23:44:00.002-04:00

I love make up.

I am a girly girl who lives and dies for the sparkle, the shimmer, the gloss, the gleam, the bling, the shiny and all things that are wonderfully and magically feminine.

Lately, I haven't been feeling so girly.

Since my hysterectomy, it has been hard for me to jump back on the "Sparkle Wagon" as I call it and make myself fabulous. It's been a real struggle. A chore for me. Even showering is a process. Bending over to shave my legs is a true production as I can feel the incisions in my abdomen tugging hard to the point where they feel like they are going to snap. Showering usually exhausts me to the point where I don't feel like going out any longer.

The other day, in the mail, one of my dear friends, a fellow blogger who shares my love of all things make up, sent me a pallet of eye shadows, cheek tints and a nude lip gloss. Just something to brighten my day and make me feel "gorg" (as she put it) after all the shit I have been through as of late. Well, I played with those eye shadows in a gazillion different color combinations on my arm til it looked like one big long bruise.

You know, when a bruise is healing? All those crazy colors; purples, yellows, greens, blues, blacks.

And when I realized that, I scrubbed my arm clean. It brought me back to a time in my life where I had to rely on cover up, thick, copious amounts of cover up, to cover up bruises that were given to me by someone who claimed they loved me. As I was washing off my arm, still staring at these glorious eye shadows, I wondered why...why would I be thinking about something so terrible out of nowhere when just five minutes earlier, I was in girly girl heaven?

Then, I realized. 20 years. This November will be 20 years since someone tried to end my existence on this planet. 20 years since someone beat me into a coma with a baseball bat in front of my 4 year old daughter. 20 years since doctors told my parents that I may not come back from this and if I do, I will probably have severe brain damage for the rest of my life. The "anniversary", if you will, of one of the worst moments of my entire life. I suppose it had been brewing just under the surface in me for awhile. The night before receiving this wonderful present from my friend, I had had a very restless sleep. At one point, my husband had to wake me, because not only had my sleep been fitful, but apparently at one point, I ended up flailing about, punching him violently and screaming for whomever I was dreaming about to "leave me alone, leave me alone...stop!" My husband shook me awake. "It's me, baby...it's me," he said as he slowly brought me out of my tortured slumber and back into reality. I stared at him for a minute, still confused and somewhat dazed.

"It's me," he said again, softly.

"Okay," I nodded, understanding that he was reassuring me that I was safe. "Okay."

I curled back up on his chest and went back to sleep.

It's peculiar to me that even 20 years later, the silliest of things can trigger me. A certain scent. The sound of a man's voice when it is particularly gruff and laden heavily with a thick, italian accent. There are specific sounds that make me jittery, like the sounds of footsteps on a wooden floor, especially if that wood floor creaks. There are certain actors I can't watch on TV or in the movies who remind me of my abuser and even if the movie is supposedly "sooooooooooo good," I will still avoid it like the plague.

The day after I got my friends gift, I went back into my bathroom, and played in front of my mirror again, combining golds with peacock blues and and lush, rich purple shadows. And it became fun again. The joy was restored because those other shadows, the kind that hover over you and wake you from restful slumber...the kind that haunt your thoughts and dreams, the kinds that are long, tall and ominous? They eventually go away. And they are replaced by 16 pots of beautiful eye shadows sent with love from a gret friend. A silly soap opera palette called "The Balm and the Beautiful"...with names like "The Other Woman", "The Drama Queen" and my personal favorite, "The Perfect Man."

However, I think I will steer clear of the one called "The Coma Patient" for a little while.

Hits a little too close to home. ;)

Focus 52: Writer's choice - The Men In My Life

2011-10-10T23:06:00.001-04:00

They say a girl is forever looking for the love her father.

They say a girls first true love is her father.

And, they say, when a girl finally marries the love of her life, that man will be the image of her father.

I've had a lot of men in my life.

Boyfriends who have come and gone. My mothers boyfriends, who also came and went. My biological father, who I wanted love from, but never received it. And because of the damage he did to me, I searched for a long time, cliche as it may be, looking for that love in all the wrong places. I got into relationships that were destructive. I was the victim, no, survivor, of a relationship where I was beaten almost daily, into submission. A relationship that broke me, literally and emotionally. Broken bones. Broken heart. I wanted so badly to be loved unconditionally by a man, any man, be it the one who brought me into this world, or some divine replacement for him. I wanted to marry a man who would take care of me. Not the woman I am, but the little girl who never received the love she needed. I wanted both of these men, the father and the husband, to cherish me. To fulfill me. To complete me. There was this giant hole in my heart, in my soul...in my little girl world, that desperately needed to heal. It bled, continuously.

After my biological father left my mother, when I was a mere 7 years old, she dated often. It was within her right to do so. She was single, dealing with her own pain, needing to be loved and valued as well. My biological father was a horrible man. He was cruel, selfish, self centered. He hurt my mother in so many ways, they are far too numerous to mention. The men she brought home, they were never right for her. They were distractions, temporary band aids on bullet wounds. Something to dull the ache of being rejected by the man who was her high school sweetheart. The man who promised he would love her forever.

He lied. Oh, how he lied.

By the time my mother brought home the man who is now my stepfather, I was an angry 11 year old. I didn't want any more of these men around her, around us...this tiny unit of a family who only consisted of my mother, my brother and myself. I was over her repeated heartbreak. I was over meeting every random fool who promised her the moon and instead, gave her faded stars. When my stepfather came into the picture, I remember thinking, "Great. Another one." He will stay for a little while. Pretend to care about my brother and I long enough to be able to sleep with her. Then, like the rest, he will be gone. I put up a wall that would rival The Great Wall, never letting any of them in. Never letting them close enough to me to hurt me. And, I also grew a deep resentment for my mother, for continuing to bring these people into our lives, allowing my brother and I to feel this false sense of security, only to be let down again.

But this man, the man you see on the right in this photo...he was, well, different. He didn't overcompensate with gifts and toys for my brother and I. All he wanted to do was love my mother and in time, perhaps love us as well. If we would let him. He saw us not as a burden, but part of the package my mother came with. He included us on his dates with her. Picnics, movies, weekend trips to Lake George. He just wanted to be with my mother and he knew that in doing so, he would have to learn to want to be with two very broken little children as well.

As years went by, this man earned my trust. He didn't play games with my mothers heart, nor with mine. He was truthful, forthright and upstanding. He knew that we were all, collectively, damaged works of art and he took his time restoring the three of us. Skillfully, he dabbled with the colors on the pallet to recolor our world. Slowly, the picture came to life once more and now, we were a family. This man made me understand what it was like to have a fathers love once more. Eventually, I discovered that he too, was in pain, suffering his own loss. He had a daughter who rejected him. Her mother had poisoned her against him during a very ugly divorce of his own. So, while I was desperately seeking a fathers love, he was desperately seeking the love of a daughter. He filled my fatherless void. I fulfilled the role of his estranged daughter. It took time, it took energy and it took work, but eventually...I gave him the greatest gift that any stepchild can offer their new parent. I started calling him, "Dad". Tentatively at first, but then, it became natural, rolling off my tongue as freely as any little girl would call the first man in her life "Daddy".

This man put braces on my crooked teeth. He put my first prom gown on my back. He was there to hold me the first time I got stood up on a date. "His loss," he said. And I cried, allowing him to cradle me in his arms, perhaps feeling for the first time that I was not rejected but it was, in fact, this boys loss. He taught me to drive a car. Was there for my dance recitals, piano recitals, talent shows. He bought me roses and would proudly boast, "that's my daughter." He made me feel special, loved and when the wounds would surface from my biological fathers rejection of me, the same words, "his loss", would always be the words that would bring me the most comfort...especially once he started adding "his loss is my gain" to the phrase.

When my biological father was killed in a car accident in 1986, it was my stepfather who came to my job, took my hands in his and broke the news to me. I fainted. I fainted into the arms of the man who rescued me, while grieving the death of a man whose DNA was in my body, but I felt no connection to other than the obligatory connection of knowing that this is the person responsible for giving me life.

But, in some other way, I felt free. I felt free to fully love my stepfather now. There was no more guilt attached to my calling him "Dad" now. I always felt it was wrong in some way to call my stepfather "Daddy" when I had a father. Yet, the relationship that I had with my stepfather made me realize that any man can become a father. It is a man who is worthy who gets to be called "Daddy".

My stepfather. My father. He is beyond worthy...and I love him beyond all reason.

I made a lot of mistakes as I grew older. Now, I was not searching for the love of a father any longer, but rather, searching for a man like my father to take on the role of my husband, my life partner. And, I did a lot of settling during that time, because there was no man who could possibly measure up to the greatness of my father. Certainly I came close a few times, but there was always something missing. Something lacking. I wanted a man like my father. My father would bring my mother flowers for no reason. He would greet her with big, warm hugs at the door when he came home. He would refer to her as "his princess" and even in her fifties, she would still smile this shy, adoring smile and a slight blush would color her cheeks. I wanted that. I ached for that. Two marriages and several broken engagements later...I still never found it.

Enter the man on the left in that photograph.

My life was in a shambles. I was in the middle of a very messy separation with husband number two. My daughter was 12 years old and my son, just barely 4 years of age. I had met my now husband at school. He was a quiet man, reserved, didn't talk much but when he did, it was always something either poignant, clever or sweet. I noticed he held open doors for women, let someone with an armful of groceries go before him online if he only had an item or two. He was complimentary of people. A gracious man who everyone seemed to really like. One evening, at a school function, my daughter met this man. I often brought her up to my college functions with me to show her how fun college can be. I wanted her to get a taste of the college experience so she would be more determined to go. After she met him, she sidled up to me and said, "Mom, you should marry him. He's really cool. I like him." I remember laughing out loud. "Sam, I barely know him. We are just friends." She cocked her head to the side, raised a brow at me and said, "I like him. He's not like the other jerks you date."

And all of a sudden, it dawned on me. She was seeing me the way I saw my mother when I was 11 years old. While I was far more careful than my mother was not to bring around my boyfriends near my children, there was one man in particular that I was dating that my daughter really, really did not like. She actually hated him enough to forewarn me that if I intended on marrying him, she would move away from me. I have to admit, that made a huge impact on me. At another school function, my soon to be ex husband was in attendance with my children. I was the President of the Honor Society at school and we were inducting the newest members, of which this man my daughter was so fond of was to be inducted as well. As each person was handed their certificate, one by one, I gave each new inductee a warm hug and welcomed them into the group. When this man came up for his certificate, I remember feeling such a nervousness come over me. I didn't want any one to notice or realize that I was attracted to him on some level. So, instead of that warm embrace, I merely gave him a handshake. That gesture was as transparent as glass to my soon to be ex husband who said, "that kid whose hand you just shook? Yeah. He's going to be your next husband." I remember laughing nervously. "Whaaaaat? What kind of crazy thing is that to say?"

We were married two years later.

In this man, I found my father. After 12 years together, he escorts me to the car, linking my arm onto his so that I don't fall. He opens the car door for me. He says, "Careful, honey," every time I get into the car just before closing the door just to make sure he doesn't shut the door on me or that my dress does not get caught outside the door. He walks around to the other side of the car when we reach our destination and escorts me out. If he knows he has to park far from our venue, he will always drop me off first and then, proceed to park the car. He brings me home flowers for no reason whatsoever. If he knows he is going to be gone all day, he will go out and buy me breakfast and leave it in the microwave for me to warm up when I finally wake up. He kisses me every time he leaves the room, whether it is to go to the bathroom or to walk down the hall to his office when he is working at home. He calls me his princess, his queen, his baby girl and a million other names of adoration and affection. And when I look at him looking at me, I see my father staring at my mother. I see the insurmountable love in his eyes. I see him smile at me sometimes, not being able to help himself...because he is just that much in love. He calls me his best friend, the same way my father says to me, "your mother is my best friend in the whole world. Without her, life just doesn't work."

Those two men in that photo. They are the loves of my life. The men in my life. They both filled a desperate void in my world. I love both of them so much that I can cry just thinking about it. They both saved me, in different ways, from the feelings of rejection that my biological father left behind when he left us. These two men, so much alike. Quiet. They are listeners. They don't have much to say, but when they do, it is meaningful. It is from the heart. It isn't frivolous or just talk to hear themselves talk. They are both creatures of habit who work hard for the women they love. And like my father, my husband embraced my two children, not out of obligation, but out of love. When my children talk about him, they refer to him as their dad, despite their father being in their life. My son refers to him as "my steppy", his affectionate name for his step dad and my daughter as a pet name for him that warms my heart every time I hear her say it or see it written in a card. My son calls my husband his best friend and to me, that is the most joyous thing in the world. My daughters children, our grandchildren, race up to him with arms wide open screaming "Gampa Gampa Gampa" and will just tug at his legs til he picks them up, tosses them in the air and gives them great big hugs and kisses that make them burst out into hysterical giggling fits. And my daughter, she loves with and adores him as she has from the moment she was a little girl telling me, "you should marry him, Mom."

She was right. And I am glad I listened.

My husband. My father. They both love me so much. I am very blessed for having them. They both claim they are very blessed to have me. To know that someone thinks that much of you that they consider you a blessing in their lives? No other feeling compares.

I know sometimes my father wonders where his biological daughter is, how she is doing, what is going on her world. He has reached out to her countless times and every time, she rejects him.

I take his hand. I smile at him. I kiss his cheek and say to him, "her loss is my gain."

I know some day that I am going to lose my dad. It's inevitable. Time slowly steals our parents from us. But, I also know that whenever I look into my husbands eyes, I will see the kindness, the love, the adoration and the mutual respect I always see in my dads eyes when he looks at me. I feel sometimes that perhaps my husband was this special gift given to me in the world so that I will never have to know the pain of being without my father ever again.

These are the men in my life.

If fate is on your side, sometimes you are blessed enough to get one or the other.

I am fortunate enough to have both.

I am a lucky girl, indeed.

About Last Night...

2011-09-21T17:34:00.001-04:00

He whispered to me, "it's going to be alright. Trust me?"

It was a question, certainly, but one that didn't require an answer. He knows I trust him. He has known that since the day I first laid eyes on him. I gave him my heart, my soul and my children. You can't not trust someone when you give them the gift of your children. The children you didn't have together, but have raised together. And now, now that I look down at the scars across my tummy, the three horrible scars that say, "you will never, ever have a child with this man. Ever..." I feel weak as a woman. I feel as though I have lost my empowerment, the ability to give life. The choice to do so, should I have ever chosen that route again.

Certainly we knew with my husband vasectomy in 2004 that the decision not to have any more children was the right one for us at the time. And yet, there was this knowledge, somewhere in the back of my brain that knew that vasectomies are reversible. Someday, I could fill this belly with the seed of the man I am in love with and make a beautiful little human being out it, because I was a woman and as a woman, I am the cradle of life.

These scars across my abdomen. These three, jagged scars. They tell me, "never more."

I put my hand in his. I trust him. He turned the water to the shower on. He stepped in, checking the temperature, making sure that everything was in place. This was my first shower post surgery and the moment I had been dreading the most. The sight of myself naked after the violation of my smooth, soft skin. Worse still, the moment HE saw me naked again with the addition of these three scars on my body. I was on the verge of tears. I knew it wouldn't take much to make me cry. One word spoken out of context. One "Oh, it doesn't look so bad, baby." One furrow of his brow and I would be reduced to a sobbing mess because somewhere on that operating table, along with my uterus, my cervix, my tubes and my ovaries, the doctor took away something else. He took away a good portion of my self esteem. The very thing that made me feel womanly which, ironically enough, was the bane of my existence, was now gone. No more periods was suddenly replaced by...oh my God. No more periods. I am this empty vessel now. This useless, empty vessel capable of nothing but the ability to accessorize well...and even that felt like a challenge as of late.

He stuck his hand through the shower curtain and extended it in my direction. I couldn't bring myself to drop the towel in front of him though I had been naked before him millions of times. Sensing this, he stepped back into the shower, leaving his hand extended for me to hold on to as I stepped in to join him.

"I only want to be in here with you so you don't fall," he said. "I'm just worried you're going to fall."

And those words, which should have filled my heart and said "look how he loves you", somehow translated into "I don't want to be in here with you. I am not attracted to you any longer. However, since you are my wife, I am obligated to make sure you don't hurt yourself."

I dove into the shower quickly, turning my scarred body toward the onslaught of water. He can't see my scars now and more importantly, he can't see me crying.

"You like a lot of lather in your hair, right baby?"

I nodded. He washed my hair, careful to make sure every strand was perfectly lathered. He massaged my scalp. I felt his body pressed against mine and noted, as any woman feeling particularly vulnerable would, that he was not "excited". Normally, the sight of my wet, curvy ass would drive him into a frenzy, but...nothing. He rinsed my hair and then, poured a ridiculous amount of conditioner onto my head, making sure all my hair was coated, root to tip.

"We'll leave that in while I wash you, okay?"

Wash me? He is going to wash me. He is going to take inventory of what is still there. What has been removed, what has been replaced. He is going to see me "unlandscaped", legs with four day old just out of the hospital stubble with underarms to match and those scars. Those god forsaken scars, still fresh and oozing all sorts of goo and grossness. He loaded the loofah up with some Dove body wash and washed my back in smooth, soft circles. He washed my hips, my ass, the length of my legs down to the tips of my toes. And then, he turned me to face him. My arms were wrapped around my breasts as though I were covering them, making myself invisible, like a little kid does when they cover their eyes. "I can't see you, so you must not be able to see me," was the thought process. My head was down, the water tasted like coconut conditioner as it rolled across my swollen lips. He lifted my chin.

"Let me see those beautiful brown eyes."

I looked at him with a careful vulnerability that said, "this is your moment, my husband. please. please. please. don't mess it up with words. just get me through this. please. please. please don't make me hurt more than i already am hurting. my femininity can't take another hit. please. please. stay silent."

He washed my shoulders, loving, soft concentric circles. He moved my arms away from my breasts, one at a time, so that the other arm could remain there, hugging my body, saving it from the hollow feeling of uselessness. He washed my breasts one at a time, giving me a delicate kiss on the cheek each time. I glanced down. His body gave him away once more. This was not sexual for him. He was not aroused by this. Normally, we are clawing at each other like two animals by this far into the shower and I am bent over, hugging the towel bar for dear life as he pounds against me in his neanderthal "Me Man. Me Must Make Beastly Love to Woman" stance.

This...was not that. It was the complete antithesis to that. And I felt my heart deflate. He no longer finds me sexy. He doesn't think I am hot any more. Then, just when I think I couldn't be in any more emotional pain, my husband of nearly 10 years drops to his knees in front of me. The water is running off the curve of my breasts and sliding onto his cheeks. I am looking down at him, crying. He is looking up at me with those warm, gentle brown eyes that swore to me so many years ago that he would never be responsible for a day of pain in my life. Every promise he every made me were swirling in the mist and haze of his eyes.

"I'm going to wash those scars now, baby. I promise you. I'll be careful."

He put the loofah down. "I'm not going to use this. I'm going to use my bare hands." The thought terrified me. He was about to be face to face with them and then, on top of that, touching them? This was emotional pain overload and I truly thought I was going to pass out. But he didn't take his eyes away from mine. He was waiting for me to be ready. We stared at each other. He put the body wash into his hands but he never lost eye contact with me.

"Are you ready?"

I bit my bottom lip, already swollen and sore from where they roughly forced a tube down my throat before surgery and nodded slowly. His eyes moved from mine to my lower abdomen. He stared at the holes in my stomach. The left one. The right one. The large one where my once perfect "innie" belly button was. He gently touched them. My stomach quivered under his touch. His naked fingertips slowly washed away the dried blood, the coagulated ooze, the surgical glue. He looked back up at me and smiled. Not a big, beaming smile, but a smile that said, "this is okay. i'm not freaked out. you shouldn't be either."

And I exhaled for the first time in what seemed to be months.

His fingertips went from the scars on my abdomen, to the "Y" between my legs, touching me lightly. And when I looked down at him again, kneeling before me in the shower...I noted "signs of life" between his wet, taut thighs as well. I closed my eyes, and smiled. He stood up, rinsed me off and kissed me lightly.

"Want to take this to our bed," he whispered.

And yes, yes I did.

I know there are going to be challenges along the way. I know we cannot have sex (the Bill Clinton definition thereof) for another five weeks. I know that my hysterectomy will sometimes inhibit my ability to have an orgasm. I know that it means lube will become a necessity, not a playful thing to add in now and then. And I know that it is going to mean having to adjust my way of thinking about what it means to be a woman, to be a sexual creature.

But I also know that I was blessed with a life partner who is willing to embrace me no matter who I am. More important than being desired is the fact that I am loved. And he spent all the gentle, wonderful time in the world last night proving to me that while yes, things will be different, the love that I have come to know will always be the same. It will be patient, it will be kind and it will be reminding me that no matter what, it will heal me of whatever ails me.

And life, my life? It just got a little bit more fabulous.

My husband once told me a long time ago, that the stretch marks on my lower belly didn't bother him. They were reminders of how that belly of mine once cradled our children, nurtured them, gave them life. Now, the scars on my belly...they are a reminder that while that era of my life is over, a new one has begun. A new, pain free existence where I can learn to enjoy my body once more, not dread the last two weeks of every month. Where I don't have to worry about wrecking the "good sheets" or not buying the "pretty panties". A sexually liberating time in my life that means that my husband and I have to rediscover the new and different ways of gratifying each other.

If last night was any indication of what is to "come"...bring it on. We're ready. We are SO ready.

Off Focus: The Hysterectomy Saga

2011-09-14T14:00:00.003-04:00

aka: When Uteruses Attack.

Okay, as you can see, I took the entire month of August off. In all my time blogging, I have never lost a complete month. There's been a lot going on in my life, most of it good, some of it bad, some of it not worth mentioning. In that time, I took a fabulous trip to Jamaica with a couple of my best friends, I turned 45 (first year of no birthday post!) and I became an aunt again to a beautiful set of twins, Torin and Talia.

I have also found out that my endometriosis has come back with a blazing vengeance.

So, tomorrow, Dear Reader, I go under the knife. 10 am. We are not just going after the remaining portion of my uterus, but we are grabbing out the following:

2 useless ovaries, one complete with 6mm cyst.
2 fallopian tubes.
1 slightly damaged cervix.
1 portion of the colon.
1 section of the bladder.
1/4 of the lining of the abdominal wall.

Stents shall be put into place to assure that my ureters do not collapse. I am dosing heavily today on antibiotics (Flagyl and Amoxil) and in only a mere hour from now, shall start what is lovingly called a "colon cleanse" to make sure I am no longer full of shit, lest the doctor get spewed with fecal matter when he goes to scrape the endometriosis from my colon. Yes, a full bottle of magnesium citrate awaits me. I have a choice, Cherry or Lime. I am thinking of doing a half and half mixture over crushed ice for the Sonic "Cherry Limeade" effect.

Of course, tonight would be the night we decide to have a Happy Hysterectomy party with all my family and friends coming to visit. Likely, I will spend three quarters of this visit in the toilet with my ass going like a running faucet on full blast while my husband lovingly slips a piece of my vagina cake under the door.

Yes, we are having vagina cake. Red velvet...to celebrate the end of my periods.

Tampon shaped candles. Sanitary napkins to decorate the house. I think I will add glitter to them.

So, that's where I'm at, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I don't know when the next time is that I will be on my blog. I have no clue. But for now, I just wanted to put this out there, garner as much sympathy as I possibly could and perhaps lay a little Jewish guilt on you people who haven't visited me in some time. Sure, we probably passed one another on Facebook, but really, is that the same thing? No. No it isn't. "Today, CP is having a hysterectomy" and you hitting the "like" button is the equivalent of you shitting your pants and me pointing and saying "tee hee".

When I return, I will be substantially lighter (do you know all these organs have a total weight of at least 14 pounds?) and pain free, which is probably the most important thing in my life at this moment.

So, take care. Good wishes to one and all. I don't know or care if you're the praying type...but toss me out a good vibe or two. And no, Ladies, my shoe collection is already designated to go to charity should something happen to me. My purses go to my best friend, Gin. My jewelry all goes to my daughter. My money to my son.

Don't even dare think of trying to grab the Hotband. He will be mine for all eternity. Sorry, girls.

Peace.

Focus 52: "Glass"

2011-07-26T01:08:00.000-04:00

This photograph was taken, a complete fluke considering I did not realize what the prompt was for this week, at the Salvador Dali Museum this past week. This is the spiral staircase that takes you between the three floors of the museum. It gradually narrows, slowly winding to an end, just under the glass dome. It made me think "Stairway to Heaven". It made me think about the way things have been going in my life lately. Things have been looking up and then, leading nowhere real fast. It's been a very confusing time in my life. I have been in and out of the hospital three times in the past three weeks. Little pieces of me being removed each time. Doctors saying one thing, doing another, forcing me to lose control over the one thing that we should all take for granted: the ability to have control of our own bodies. I feel like I am on an upward climb...but repeatedly hitting this glass ceiling that allows me to LOOK towards the future, but not allowing me to get there. It's frustrating, to say the least. I want to be somewhere that I can't get to. I am trying to remember that there are people out there that have it a lot worse than I do. A LOT worse. I don't have a fatal disease...something which was a possibility several weeks ago. What I do have is a disease that is slowly overtaking my reproductive organs, literally encompassing them into this big, woven web of scar tissue, forming a barrier around what does need to be removed. It is like having to drill through 20 feet worth of solid rock to get a poisonous snake out of your garden. It should not take so much work to rid yourself of evil, the evil here being one of my ovaries that encompassed in a man-eating tumor. This cystic tumor is three times the size of my poor, overworked ovary, causing me incredible pain. Yet, the pain that I have to endure in order to remove, well, the pain...it's almost ironic.

To get rid of pain, you must endure worse pain? Somehow, it just seems medieval.

This past Thursday, I had a laparoscopic surgery to drain and/or cut the cyst off my ovary. Upon entry, the doctor discovers that I have webbing, scar tissue, called "endometriosis" covering my entire abdominal cavity. It is everywhere. It is "stage 4", which is apparently the worst you can have. One of the last things I remember the doctor saying to me before the surgery is..."You know, you should have told us you were having pain before the FIRST surgery. We could have taken care of it then."

I had no words. None.

This is the equivalent of an "I told you so" from a doctor. And I would be lying if I said it didn't hurt.

I had told him, for weeks, about the pain I had been enduring. My husband and I had just called the doctor two days earlier to tell him that I was in the emergency room with excruciating pain just the day before. He cut away a portion of my uterus, a bunch of fibroids and polyps. He did a D & C to check for cancer (none) and then, abladed my uterus so that I could no longer bleed to death nearly every month. With every passing period, my red blood cell level kept decreasing. I am severely anemic. However, the pain. The pain from that ovary that they never removed remained and I felt this was all for naught. That caused an extreme amount of mental duress for me. This past week, I came back into the doctors office again, the pain absolutely maddening and the depression, deepening.

Doctor makes that remark from earlier and then, gives me 3 hours to let me know that A) your ovary has just blown up, B) you're going under the knife again for emergency surgery and C) this time...This Glorious, Wonderful Time...we will be removing that ovary. The bane of my existence. And life shall be good again.

Of course, this is when I find out about my endometriosis. The moat of impossibility that is encompassing the remainder of my battered uterus, one innocent ovary who is likely wondering "what the hell did 'I' do to deserve this?", and of course, the culprit, the right ovary who...had she not spoken up in the form of extreme pain, would have never alerted me to the presence of the EndoMonster, eating my insides.

So into surgery I go, tube into the belly. Soreness extraordinaire when I arise the next day. Complications. Stress with my already stressed out husband and an argument that never should have taken place due to a misunderstanding. But it's okay. Because now, I have been made to understand that despite the doctor's best Black and Decker power tools, the wall of the EndoMonster could not be penetrated and the force within, the control center of pain, that God forsake ovary...still remains. He could not get through the enormous amount of scar tissue surrounding it.

Square one.

There are questions that need to be answers, research that needs to be done, phone calls to be made. But, in the midst of all this, there was a birthday to celebrate. Two days after that emergency surgery, I had pre-planned an amazing weekend with my husband to celebrate his 37th year on this planet, 12 of those in my life. Thusly, we went to the Dali Museum where, to bring this full circle, I took the picture that captured what I am feeling. The feeling of moving up and yet, going nowhere. We took a helicopter ride over the beaches in Clearwater. It was scary, exhilarating and amazing. We did a lot of laughing, a welcome distraction from all the tears as of late. Then, we went to an out of the way Indian restaurant to burn our mouths on the finest curry based delicacies they had to offer. We stayed i a hotel, also a welcome reprieve from all the time we have been spending at home, only to wake up to a brand new horror the next day.

My belly, never flat...but never sticking out further than my size F breasts, was completely engorged, swollen and bloated. It was painful. Extremely painful. Tender and hot to the touch. By later that morning, I could no longer fit into my pants. It was then I found out that during the laparoscopic surgery, a woman is pumped full of carbon dioxide to both shrink and dry out the organs in the abdominal cavity and to expand the area in which the doctor has to work. It is quite common, apparently, for the sudden expansion to occur a few days after surgery as my husband and I read horror story after horror story from dozens of beleaguered women who have gone through this process. It is also, from what I understood (and concur with) extremely painful. By late Sunday night, my belly was swollen to the point of looking equally as pregnant as my sister in law who is presently 9 months pregnant with twins. I was scarcely able to breathe as I was babysitting my grandchildren for the night. I could not lift them and eventually, I could not lift myself without assistance.

We called the doctor this morning who wanted to see me "right away" as "that kind of pain and swelling is not normal". Not normal? We read literally hundreds of stories that said quite the opposite. This pain and swelling IS rather normal for this surgery and for some women, the swelling and pain can take weeks to go away. Once again, I am questioning my doctor...and questioning myself. I am normally a fabulous advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves in times of health crisis. Yet, I had scarcely enough time to be able to read and understand what is happening to me. My husband, God bless him, is doing what he can to give himself an education on the topic...baptism by fire, if you will, but he can only do so much.

I see my doctor again tomorrow morning and I think, at this visit, I will be releasing him as my gynecologist in lieu of someone who cares enough to be able to give me rational explanations for what is going on with me. I want to know why this disease was not discovered years early by the barrage of tests I have taken for other gynecological ailments I have suffered through, such as interstitial cystitis and cervical cancer. I want to know why three gynecologists, two urologists and one family doctor never thought to look for something as common as endometriosis knowing my history of painful periods accompanied by excessive bleeding.

I want answers. I deserve answers...but my surgeries are coming faster than the questions are forming in my head.

So, when I looked at the spiral staircase, leading upward toward the glass ceiling, allowing in the sunshine and the promise of something brighter, but never quite allowing you to touch it, I thought...there it is. My life, in a photo. This is where I am right now. Looking skyward, with no discernible means of getting there...

just a long climb spiraling rapidly to no where at all.

Because she needs to know...

2011-06-26T20:47:00.000-04:00

Because she has rescued my weakened psyche more times than I can count.
Because she has reached out to me when everyone else has turned their backs.
Because she knows my heart better from 2500 miles away than some people who are right next to me.
Because she understands me, even when I don't.
Because she makes me throw my head back and laugh.
Because she keeps secrets.
Because she is painfully and brutally honest with me, even when I beg for a lie.
Because she protects me.
Because she gives me advice, unsolicited or not, and I can take it...or not. And it doesn't matter.
Because I can give her advice, unsolicited or not, and she can take it...or not. And it doesn't matter.
Because she is one of the handful of people I can rely on.
Because she doesn't let me fall off the deep end without standing close by with a life preserver.
Because I can talk to her any time of day or night and know that I am a welcomed presence.
Because, despite having green eyes, she never looks at me with jealousy.
Because she knows the difference between jealousy and envy...and lets me be envious of her thin bod.
Because she is the only blond I simply cannot make fun of.
Because I like her 95% of the time and the other 5% I forgive her.
Because she likes me 5% of the time and the other 95% she is laughing at me.
Because she knows that orange pants automatically make you a loser.
Because she needs to know that she gets thought of at least once a day by me.
Because I think she is a level of controlled awesome and Canadian coolness that I could never achieve.
Because she needs to know I admire her and always have.
Because she needs to know that the sun has shone a bit warmer since her presence in my life.
Because she needs to know that she's one of my favorite people in the world.
Because she needs to know...that she is a friend in every sense of the word.
Because she needs to know that I'm not ready to let her go any where.
Because we have a date in 2016.
Because she needs to know...she is loved.

And she always will be.

I love you, J. Holding your hand across the miles. Right there with you. Never letting go.

Ever.

In Memory of the Puppy Monster.

2011-06-21T04:10:00.000-04:00

Has it really been four years since I wrote this post?

If I was to recall the list of tragic events that have occurred in all my time as a blogger, this would be at the head of the list, because it was the first of many blogger tragedies that would follow in the subsequent years. It was the first blow that our large group of bloggers had ever really taken collectively. Since then, husband have passed away. Bloggers have passed away. More children of Bloggers have passed away. More than I care to remember. The most recent, this past February.

I can clearly remember the day that I received the call from Avitable. Dave's son had passed away in a tragic pool accident. Can we rally the troops? Can we do something, any thing, to ease Dave's pain?

And we had nothing. All we had was our love, our support and our broken hearts.

But what we also had between the two of us, was a very large blog following, and a call to arms was made by Avitable. He spearheaded a campaign to gather an outpouring of support from all over the web. We sent out emails to everyone we knew. People donated time, creating photos, creating t-shirts, making donation sites, soliciting funds to help pay for any expenses Dave may incur trying to lay his beautiful son to rest. Whatever. It didn't matter. We just needed to do something, any thing, to try and stop his pain.

A band aid on a bullet wound. That's all it was.

Now, four years later, nothing has changed...and yet, everything has changed. But the memories of that day in June will never leave me. The way everyone rallied together, came together to lift our friend from the depths of despair. We all mourned in our own way. Some people chose to blog about personal losses. Some, like myself, chose to keep their blog silent for a week in tribute to DJ. But, the same group who was there four years ago are still there now. And we still rally around every year to remember DJ and remind Dave that he is loved.

Life takes us in a million different directions. We have priorities that pull us away from our friends daily lives. We have Facebook now, where we can make a quick appearance, "like" a status and feel that replaces actual interaction. Blogging is a lost art. Facebook has stolen so much of the intimacy and warmth from our relationships. But, oddly enough, this same group still refers to themselves as "Bloggers" and when we say that, the list of usual suspects come to mind. We were all there for Dawg then. We are still here now. The heartbreak of DJ leaving this world has never left many of us.

Tonight, I am thinking of DJ, of Dawg...and the outpouring of love and support that carried all of us through a tragic time. We may not all be close any longer. Some have left for greener pastures. Others have just left altogether...but the memories that bound us back then still bind us now. I am grateful for having known DJ, if only through his fathers eyes. His posts about his beautiful little boy used to make me laugh. The videos of DJ eating out of a bowl of cereal bigger than his head, eating from a spoon twice the size of his little mouth always made me chuckle out loud.

And in those videos, every once in awhile, he would glance sideways, up at his Dad...the Big Dawg, as if to ask, "Am I doing good, Daddy?" And the Dawg would look down upon him with a smile that said, "You're doing great, Puppy Monster."

Now it is DJ who is smiling down. And I bet he thinks Daddy is doing just great. Still.

RIP Puppy Monster. Sleep well, Little Angel.

Focus 52: "Mornings"

2011-06-21T02:03:00.000-04:00

I hate mornings.

I detest mornings. I am an insomniac, so I am all too familiar with the concept of being up at a sunrise. Every morning, the sun rises, reminding me that for yet another night...I have not slept. It is torture to me. I am not the type of person who welcomes the sun with a cup of coffee and a positive attitude. The sunrise says to me, "you are already several hours behind the pack, girlfriend." It says to me that it is now time for me to go to sleep, finally, and waste a good portion of the day. By the time I wake up again, it will be about 3pm. Too late to do any thing productive. Generally, I fall asleep around noon, wake up late afternoon and by then, life has pretty much passed me by. I resent the morning a great deal. It bothers me. And, no sooner did I see the sunrise, then I am waking up with a sunset looming only a mere three hours away.

I loathe mornings.

However, the only time I make peace with the morning light is when I am at the beach. When I am on the beach, I don't feel so much animosity towards the sunrise. I appreciate it then...because the water is glimmering. There are people on the shore, starting their day and admiring the sunshine. Generally, these people have had a good nights sleep and are happy to see the sunshine...and I look at their faces with great appreciation for what they are feeling. I know at that point...I can lay a blanket out on the sand, fall asleep under the sun, wake up in the late afternoon as I usually do and feel like I spent the day at the beach doing what everyone else is doing. Lazing about just soaking in the sun. It's okay then, to greet the morning. It doesn't mock me so much when I am on the beach. I don't feel bad about having an insane sleep schedule. I don't hate the fact that I woke up so late in the day, because when you are on the beach...sleeping until the late afternoon is not only acceptable, it's welcomed.

But, in my daily world...I hate mornings. They remind me of just how much of my life I am wasting fighting with my body's internal clock. And it's a waste of time. A complete and utter waste of time. It makes me feel bad about myself. I hate feeling that way. My sleep pattern has been erratic since I am a little girl. Sometimes, I don't sleep for two or three days and when I finally do, it is because the sun has risen and said to me...don't you think it's time to go to bed?

And I always agree...and go to bed.

I feel comfortable at night. There is something about being awake all night long when most of the world is asleep that brings me comfort. I can be alone in the silence and it is alright. I don't have to talk to any one. I don't have to answer to any one. I don't have to get dressed. I don't have to wash my face, brush my teeth and go out and run pretend errands that do not exist. I can just sit quietly in the soft glow of my computer and do my thing. Read. Study. Write letters. Watch mindless television programs. My DVR is filled with television programs that air during the daylight hours that I can watch at night. Sometimes, I do. Sometimes, I don't. But at night, everything is my prerogative.

Besides, everyone knows calories consumed after sunset don't stay on the body.

I hate mornings. I hate everything about them.

And just when I decide to break up with them for good, my husband takes me to the beach and reminds me why it is okay to fall in love all over again.

It's okay to cheat on a sunset, now and then.

Focus 52: "Down Low"

2011-06-14T01:57:00.001-04:00

(Blog post to follow)

On second thought...

2011-06-11T18:22:00.002-04:00

You don't deserve that much of my bandwidth.

I've given enough of my time and energy to you. It's all been positive and good and loving.

I'm not going to ruin my track record now because of your shitty life.

You made your bed. You lie in it.

Stay jealous of me, though. It might inspire you to reach higher.

Peace.

Focus 52: "Line It Up"

2011-05-31T02:36:00.000-04:00

The prompt for this week was "line it up" and this being Memorial Day, I thought what better than to show a bunch of soldiers lined up, doing what they do best...protecting our freedom. I knew that I wanted to find a touching photo online, perhaps a somber looking sunset with a flag at half mast while the silhouette's of soldiers lined the bottom of the photo. But, as I was perusing Google Images for ideas, I saw this photo. I tried to find out who the original photographer was, but to no avail. This, for me, was a beautiful way to endorse the prompt, salute Memorial Day and remind everyone that at the very basest level of any soldier is their heart. Their ferocious, lion strong heart. They are brave, true enough, but they are also tender, putting their job above their personal needs, the needs of their family and friends and above all, their own lives.

In my life, I personally have not been effected by the loss of a soldiers life, but a friend of mine lost her beloved husband last year, a mere two weeks after turning 30 years old. He was a baby. A child himself, practically, with four little ones of his own. Beautiful little ones, the oldest who may some day have faint, distant memories of his daddy...and the youngest, barely old enough to ever remember what her father looked like.

This is Sgt. Keith Adam Coe. He was the beloved husband of my friend Trina, a girl I have known since she was barely out of high school herself. I had not heard from Trina in years, though my best friend was still in touch with her here and there over the years. Last year, my bestie told me that Trina lost her husband, Keith in Iraq. He was killed in action. I tracked Trina down on Facebook. We talked. We shared photos of Keith and her children and, we cried. Keith was killed by a roadside explosion in Northern Iraq on April 27th, 2010. He was a dedicated and loving husband and father by all accounts. My heart broke having to hear my friend of over a decade relay the pain and anxiety she was now feeling with this loss. Scarcely thirty years old herself, she now finds herself widowed...the ultimate sacrifice of war.

I think about Keith and his friends, the fact that Keith did indeed die a hero while rescuing a friend. It makes me both mournful and prideful. He died doing what he loved and a job he was proud of. He gave his all to protect his country, our liberties and our freedoms. I find myself realizing, as I get older, that Memorial Day is more than beers and backyard barbecues. It is about the men and women of the military giving the ultimate all to provide for their families and protect this country. No matter what your politics are, no matter what side of the war fence you sit on, it is so important that you support these men and women who are merely doing their job. You may not like the fact that we are at war. I sure as hell don't, but I am not naive enough to believe that every soldier fighting in that war believes that they should be there fighting it either. However, they have a job to do, no different than any of us. They do their job even if they don't necessarily agree with the politics behind it. They do what needs to be done, sometimes at the expense of their own personal values. There is honor in that.

On this day, for this F52 project prompt of "Line It Up", I choose to line up a group of soldiers in the shape of a heart and hope that Keith Adam Coe knows how much he was loved and is missed by his family every single day. I truly hope to never have to hear that any of my friends have lost their spouse to this war ever again. It hurts me, unbearably to the core, to know that Trina's little ones will be growing up without their father. But, if I know Trina as I do, she will make sure that their daddy is incorporated into their lives. She will do fun things with them to honor him. She will keep photos available to her babies and, as they get older, she will share the more intimate details about their father with them. And, they will grow up to admire their father for his ultimate sacrifice, for his giving, loving heart and for being so very brave.

God bless you and rest you well, Keith Adam Coe. And to all the spouses, significant others and children of the men and women who serve so diligently...God bless all of you as well. May your loved ones stay safe always. May they always be protected, loved and most of all, supported by their fellow Americans.

Happy Memorial Day to all who have served. And please, if you come across a soldier in your travels today, offer him a handshake and a thank you for a job well done. It is the very least we can do for those who make incredible sacrifices so that we may enjoy our freedom.

Focus 52: "Writers Choice"

2011-05-24T02:08:00.000-04:00

Focus 52: "Feminine"

2011-05-16T20:59:00.001-04:00

Bottom row, second from the right...your Princess, age 12.

From the time I was a little girl, I always embraced being female. I loved everything about being a girl. I loved dresses, playing with my hair, decorating my room in various shades of pinks and purples. I devoured perfume and make up...any of the hand me downs that my mother would be getting rid of in favor of newer items. I would hoard it, keep it all in a big, pink plastic box with the "Barbie" logo emblazoned on it.

I was not one of those girls who tried to be "boyish" so the boys would like me. My nails were always polished. I always had pretty shoes on, in lieu of sneakers. My hair was always "done". And, for my efforts, I was made fun of, taunted and harassed by some of the boys on my block. They called me "dumb girl".

Two things I knew for sure. I knew I was a girl in every sense of the word. Second, I didn't fall remotely into the realm of "dumb."

Apparently, my father was a John Travolta/Chuck Norris hybrid.

On graduation day from sixth grade, 1978, I opted to wear a full length white lace gown. I was in awe of the blue and pink satin ribbons running around the garment tiers. I loved the gauzy material. I loved the way it hung off the shoulder, like a grown up woman's dress! It looked like the "disco" dresses I saw the ladies on the Saturday Night Fever commercial wearing. I wanted to look like that. I wanted something grown up, classy and above all, trendy. When my mother took me shopping for this dress at Lord and Taylor in the city, I was simply beside myself. I knew I had found my home. This beautiful, amazing arena they called a "mall" was an amazing play on all my senses. I could smell new leather. There were dresses trimmed with sparkle, glitter, rhinestones that shone in my eyes. Fur coats, for as far as the eye could see, beckoning me to come closer and stroke them. I remember putting the sleeve of a satin jacket up to my cheek and caressing my face against it. Fashion, my mother told me. This is all called "fashion"...and I was enthralled.


The 80's requisite glamor shot: Eat your heart out, Joan Collins.

Along came the 1980's and with that, my love and passion for all things girly evolved. The hair was big. The jewelry was ornate bordering on ostentatious. Deep rich jewel tones, bright neons, mini skirts and huge hair. I had it all. I devoured Glamor, Vogue and Vanity Fair as if they were religion, my bibles. The heels were sky high stiletto's with ankle socks and opaque stockings. I rocked them all. Animal prints were every where making the malls of Long Island look more like a hunting ground for wild game. My love for all things girly thrived in this era. I had a killer body and wasn't afraid to show it off in hip hugging outfits. I was easily distracted by all the shiny things Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Sach's had to offer. Even though I was a lover of punk rock and everything rock and roll, my style stayed firmly feminine. I never traveled with less than six tubes of lipstick and gloss in my Louis Vuitton purses. I indulged in the latest trends, sometimes spending the entirety of my pay checks on whatever Vogue said I was supposed to be sporting. Despite being a Jewish woman, and much to my mother's dismay, I draped myself in crucifixes because Madonna said so. So it was written, so shall it be done. It was also during this era that I discovered that being feminine didn't just embody fashion, but ones own personality. I took my cues from the likes of Joan Collins, Deborah Harry and Madonna. Strong, opinionated women who made being a bitch look like an art. Sexy, determined and daring...this would now be the framework for which I would base my own sense of style. I started reading about art, poetry, literature, music...because for me, being feminine not only meant slipping on a skirt and stiletto's, but being incredibly well-read, well spoken and above all, a take no prisoners persona. This was also the era of the "Supermodel" and I immediately embraced Janice Dickinson as my style icon. She was brash, bawdy and always impeccable...and therefore, so was I.

Separated at birth?

The 1990's walked in and with it came the downfall of the glamor goddess and in with the grunge era. It was a hard adjustment for me. I was rarely seen out of a skirt or power suit and now, the pages of my bible were suggesting that I put on...JEANS? And not just any jeans...but...*cringes* acid washed jeans? Colored denim?? It went against all my fashion sensibilities. Women were wearing...flannel shirts? Plaid? SNEAKERS? Doc Martens? Someone even went so far as to bring back spandex pants in capri cuts? And Dear God, I hold wholly responsible for this disaster, the cast of 90210, who made "rompers" stylish. Rompers are nothing more than onesies for big people. Can we please let this trend die in peace? Ponchos. Uggs. Cut off jean shorts. The "California" look. Well, fuck that, said this diehard New York glamor goddess. I was not going to give in on this one. I was NOT straightening my hair. In desperation, I turned to Peggy Bundy who maintained her high hair and leopard prints from the 80's (though, she did totally sell out on the spandex capri's). I kept my flaming red locks with the bangs, bouffed up high and proud. I was not selling out to the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. (Though, admittedly, in a dark room...alone...I would listen to the music). Sure, I made concessions. The chunky shoes. They weren't too terrible. The harem pants (aka MC Hammer Pants), well, they had their place in the clubs and with a cute sparkly halter top and heels, they didn't look too awful. Same with stirrup pants. Paired with a long blouse and a thick belt and some high heels, not too horrible. And while part of who I was as a woman meant sometimes braving the trends that didn't necessarily please me...I stuck up a long, well manicured middle finger to overalls. Even if I was a farm girl somewhere on the amber waves of grain filled plains of Kansas, you could NOT stick me into a pair of overalls. Basically, the 90's were a fashionista's nightmare and one I would like to forget.

He said the sun was in his eyes, but I suspect the lack of smile was more "what the hell did I just do?"

Ah. The entrance of the 2000's. The new millennium and of course, the beginning of new trends. One of the best trends to appear was the low rider jean look. Yes, because this lovely trend was the beginning of new lingo like "whale tails" and "tramp stamps". For those not in the know, a "whale tail" was the v-shaped piece of material that you would see sticking out of a girls ass from the thong she was wearing while paired with low-rider jeans. And, just when you think it can't get any less classy, enter the "tramp stamp", the need for every twenty something (who are now thirty somethings and undoubtedly full of regret) to get a tattoo just over the crack of her ass. Most men referred to it as "the target". I'll let you people figure out that one. Some things are just self-explanatory. I finally allowed my hair to drop down a few notches and wore it long, freer and above all...flatter. The flat iron became both my best friend and nemesis. My huge can of Aqua-Net now gathered dust in the back of my bathroom cabinet. What the 2000's did bring back was the wonderful dark wash flare jeans of the 70's and the biker chic look. The jeans had a taste of the 70's as well, with their leather tie ups replacing zippers. The bottoms were not neatly hemmed, but rather, fringed...also reminiscent of 70's fashion. Lacy, gauzy blouses, much like the ones I adored and coveted as a 12 year old were now back in style. Black boots with jeans, pointed toe...either full calf or ankle came into style and I adored the look. Above is a photo of my wedding day. I chose "biker chic" meets "scared to death husband" for my look. The make up was lighter, more natural. A basic "sun-kissed look" that we had not seen since the 70's. No more glitterati. No more huge, chunky jewelry. Bohemian chic was back and I for one, was thrilled to see its resurgence. Once again, my faith restored in fashion humanity, I re-subscribed to Vanity Fair and Glamor (though, secretly, I never gave up on Vogue. They swore the 80's would come back and while I still wait in breathless anticipation, I trust in them.) This was also the beginning of my not cutting my hair for the next 10 years. Trims, sure, but no hair cuts. I would not subject myself to the chunky layers, the bobs, the streaks, the highlights. Besides, there was one trend that I had been sporting for years. It was the one a chunky little guidette made popular on "Jersey Shore."


Long Island girls did the "pouf" long before Snooki got her first tan.

(Please note the Louis Vuitton overnight bag on the bed of the tacky little hotel we were in. You can take the girl out of the classy, but you can't take the classy out of the girl). Which now brings us to today. Today, where I am still a slave to all things girly. I still adore pink. I love purple. I love glitter and unicorns and Barbie dolls and playing dress up. Only now, I wear what I like. I wear what looks good on me. If it happens to be trendy, great. If not, that's okay too. I have a shoe collection that rivals most department stores and, if I hang onto everything long enough, always see a second coming of whatever shoe is now "in". I dress to make ME happy and not according to the guidelines of a magazine. (Okay, again...MAYBE Vogue has a little influence, but come on now. I'm a girl, for God's sake.) I buy what I like which, according to my husband, appears to be just about everything judging from our bank statement. But, what I can say is that although I am now a 44 year old grandmother of two, I won't go out like that. I will not get the pre-requisite 50 year old woman hairdo. I will NOT wear polyester. I will never buy a matching necklace and earring set. I will never give in to the lure of open toed shoes with pantyhose. (WHY, Ladies...WHY???) Most of all, I will live and die in my high heels. Blister me. Cripple me. Give me arthritis. I care not. But what I did do...just two weeks ago, was to cut my trademark long locks. Six inches. Gone.


Funky, fresh and fun. I am totally diggin' the look.

So what was the point of this little jaunt through fashion history? None, really. I always find it interesting to see how a woman's look evolves through the years. Like, Madonna...then and now. She's grown up. So have I. But, what remains the same is that strong sense of femininity. Feminine doesn't necessarily mean girly. It doesn't mean you have to play "damsel in distress" to your "superior" male counterparts. No, feminine is simply the act of embracing the fact that you are a girl. A lovely, beautiful, interesting creature that eludes men's perceptions, confounds them and makes them desire you all the more. It is a mystery. It is being strong in body and mind, while having a certain grace at the same time. It is the ability to rule the world with the gentle touch of a hand. It is knowing that tears don't mean you're weak. It is the aura that allows you to cry at a dog food commercial and then, go outside and build your children a tree house. It is the very embodiment of being, divinely female. An exceptional woman. A slave to your emotions and then, a master of your domain. While some women see being "feminine" as a weakness, I see it as a strength. Men have always had their abilities. The feminine mystique is ours. It is a trait as unique and elusive as the women who represent it.

Coco Chanel, one of my style icons, once said "A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous."

I think she'd be pretty impressed with the woman I have become.

Focus 52: "May Flowers"

2011-05-10T02:20:00.000-04:00

No. Really. No "May Flowers."

Did you all truly think I was kidding last week?

Here's your "May Flower." Deal with it.

I am too delirious right now to comprise a post. Do you want suckage...or would you rather have me back, fully rested and raring to go?

Yes, that's what I thought. So um, in the meantime...hope all you Momsicles out there had a Happy Mother's Day. I personally got $100 in DSW gift certificates which is the retail equivalent of 5 orgasms. So, happy shoe shopping for me. Got PJ's. Got jewelry. Got candles. Got flowers. (yes, I could have taken a photo of those for "May Flowers" and been perfectly safe in doing so. So what? I just thought of that just now...and NOW, I am pressed for time. Fuck it.) Got Glee CD's and DVD's. Got gift certificates for Ross. Got a big damn fat assed cake.

Most of all, I got laid. Awesomely, supremely laid. The Hotband busted out some moves, circa us...1999. Threw down the PIPE, dudes. Rocked it out. Word! And that is what got me into this whole "Mother's Day" mess in the first place...so I suppose there is some poetic justice in that.

Just would have been nice to have had some new shoes up on his shoulders.

Ah well, that's what next weekend is for.

Overall, a nice weekend that included my baby boy, my big girl, my son in law, and my grandbabies. Truthfully, what more could a girl want?

Well, shoes...but again, that's what next weekend is for. Oh, and another Israeli missile lodged in my bunker of love. And THAT, is what right now is for...which is why you got this lame ass post.

I do have priorities you know.

Peace, Bitches. xoxo

Focus 52: "April Showers"

2011-05-03T02:26:00.001-04:00

Do you have any idea what I went through to get this photograph for you?

I braved "bee hell" to get this picture. I am NO photographer by any means. Not by a long shot. But I was trying to get something that included my two favorite colors, and unfortunately, my two favorite colors were smack in the middle of Bumble Bee Haven (aka: The Reason CP Does Not Go Outside). I am deathly allergic to bees. I'm not talking about a little swelling, a little itching, a little "ouch." I am talking "rush this fat chick the emergency room STAT" kind of allergic. My throat swells. I get hives down my throat. My breathing and my heart rate slows and then, into anaphylactic shock I go.

The last time I was stung by a bee, I had to have a trach tube inserted into my throat. I was about 7 years old, scarcely remember the incident, but have the tiniest little scar at the base of my neck where a paramedic or doctor sliced open my throat and inserted a tube that saved my life by allowing me to breathe. Mind you, this is not the rantings of the drama queen you have come to know and love. This is some true, die hard shit, People.

So, while Anderson Cooper is braving the desert sands of Afghanistan or climbing through the rubble of Haiti to save some random parrot from harm, I am braving the deep tundra of bee hell to appease the owner/operator of the Focus 52 Project to get you the deep, dark lowdown of the flower situation in the month of April here in Central Florida.

I truly deserve a medal for this endeavor, but will accept your love, appreciation and gratitude in lieu of same.

I also accept Paypal.

Is She Out Of Her Mind Edit: So, I get my flower picture because naturally, April Showers...bring May Flowers, right? Obvious choice for a photo, no? I go over to TwoScoopz just to find out that the next Focus 52 project is...yes, you guessed it. May Flowers. Well, I'll tell you what. Kiss my May Flower ass, Sister. I am not venturing into the gaping, bee infested maw of gardening HELL to get another flower picture for you. You'll have to settle for THIS May Flower:

There you go. My work here is done.

Focus 52: Easter

2011-04-26T01:05:00.000-04:00

Due to circumstances beyond my control, Easter has been canceled this year.

I don't "do" Easter. I don't know anything about Easter. I know that it is some crazy ass holiday that for some reason involved Jesus and chocolate eggs and rabbits and zombies. I'm a Jew. I don't know from these things. But, what I do know is that my husband and I made up a really cool "Last Supper" menu for if we DID celebrate Easter.

We would have:
Eggs Benedictine with Heavenly Hash Browns for Breakfast.

Christ Kabobs with Resurrection Beans for lunch.

Holy Mackeral in a communion wine sauce for dinner. Keep the Holy Water coming.

And, for dessert, some angel food cake, with Jesus pieces. Or, a Sinful Apple and Eve Pie.

It's a meal worth coming back for...even if it is 2500 years later.

Focus 52: "Hope"

2011-04-19T00:18:00.002-04:00

There was a photo here.

There was a prayer for hope.

I opted to remove it because I couldn't write about it.

I opted not to write about because I couldn't come up with the words for it.

All I could come up with was "hope." One word.

And in believing in that one word, my prayers were answered.

The story doesn't need to get told. 24 hours worth of stress, heartache, prayer and pain can't always be documented. What can be documented is the relief, the release of anxiety and the overall inexplicable joy in knowing that this post was not necessary. That it was not about to be the beginning of a long, ongoing saga that would have changed the path of my family for years to come.

Silence...and a grateful "thank you" to those who supported, believed and prayed, is all that is necessary.

Judgmental? Party of ONE???

2011-04-15T00:39:00.000-04:00

Irony.

It comes in many forms. Today's lesson is brought to you by the letter "J" for judgmental. Let me set the scenario up for you. Actually, lets let Facebook set it up for you, because I am too lazy to do anything but cut and paste.

CP: Finally got around to doing my instructor evaluation for my humanities professor. I wonder how many times you can say "cock-sucker" before it is deemed socially unacceptable?

Insert various "tee hee" and "Oh, CP you are so funny" comments here.

Random Friend: Haha is that Professor Butterfly?

CP: No, not Butterfly. Buttefly is AWESOME. I love him. NO, this was S********. Douche canoe. I hate the fucker. I just wrote him an email containing the phrase, "Congratulations. In 20 years of higher education resulting in three degrees, I ...can honestly say that you are, by far, the worst professor I have ever had in the duration of my scholastic career." It felt SO good to say that to him. And I'm not even done with his class!!! LOL So it's not like I was being passive/aggressive "let me say something shitty because I am never going to see you again." Not my style. LOL

Now. Was this a mean-spirited post? Certainly it was. I was angry as I have a right to be (explanation coming up) because this man has made my life a living hell for the past couple of weeks. Besides, am I not entitled to use my Facebook wall to vent my frustrations on? It IS my wall, after all and while my blog would have been completely suitable, I have not been well enough to sit at the computer for an extended period to make a blog post. However, to appease my friend, the Angry Greek Goddess, who simply feels the need to know every detail every single time CP loses a few brain cells to the whimsy of her 700 Facebook friends, I am complying with her wish for me to blog this. Also, she totally accused me of NOT blogging it because I would find "something shiny" that would distract me. Hence, she will never get a glimpse into the world of Angry CP.

Suck on that, Greek Goddess. Posted! In your face, Bitch!

Anyway, so I'm sitting on line, playing Sorority Life because they have all the good clothes, money, boyfriends and cars and I just have well, okay, the good clothes, money and car. I also have a husband. None of those bitches do...so they can suck it too. All of a sudden, a little notification pops up. I Haz Da Emailz! Yay! So I clickity click on my email and I am greeted by THIS letter (unedited except for names redacted):

Random Judgmental Person: April 14 at 7:35pm

Subject: your actions.

you may not like what i have to say, however sometimes the truth hurts.

in order to get that albatrose of your back, you must get busy looking at you......not others.
bragging and boasting, even if it is your page, is the ego at work proving that you are so much better than your professor, or whomever else you tell off....
it's like doing good things for others
do em and then, just be quiet about them.... thats where the gifts, miracles, humilty come from....

i adore you, CP and know you are a good woman.
however your motive and intention WAS TO HURT this teacher, and now you publicly mock him, like a grade school girl.
this really is not how you would like to be treated, is it? even if it were possible that he or she may have "deserved" it.....
no, CP, ....no one wishes to be treated cruely rudely or inhumanely, physically or verbally.

there are other ways to get ones point across that will not be so hurtful, vindictive and smearlike.
i understand it is awesome to be a stand up woman such as yourself...very empowering and attractive. take no crap, but at who's expense?. squashing people like roaches just because they do not rise up to your standards is not a moral way to live......again, not the way God wishes and hopes for your to live....
Love is always the answer, not hate. No matter what.

I am not judging you, I am however attempting to guide you along in a fashion that allows you, Miss CP goddess herself............... to think and act instead of not think and react....to have humility and grace, while still take no shit.....
if you choose to keep on with you alone, no mtgs, sponsor or step work and not look really deep inside at YOUR motives.....with being able to admit your faults to another human being, and to make amends......you will no doubt, mark my words, use again. and that would pain me so. It has been proven time and time again that this is the case.......I know I choose not to go that route. It's a lonely bitter ugly long hard road to hell.

I love you, adore you and pray that you can slow down just for a few moments and see the real deal. I live it every day. I am far from perfect.....I fuck up often, however i do my darndest to not hurt, mame, or smear anyone at all, even if I want to...because it just is wrong.
Love love love u
Random Judgmental Person.

What. The. Fuck?

Now, ya'll know me. I am a fire tongued she-devil. However, I pride myself on the fact that I can take it as well as I can dish it. I have NO problem whatsoever with her wanting to speak her version of "truth" to me. I honestly have no problem with anyone who feels the need to point out my various and sundry flaws. I know they are plentiful and I could probably write the list more accurately than any one. What I did absolutely find myself livid at was this:

"...if you choose to keep on with you alone, no mtgs, sponsor or step work and not look really deep inside at YOUR motives.....with being able to admit your faults to another human being, and to make amends......you will no doubt, mark my words, use again."

Did you just seriously use my SOBRIETY against me? Did you, you former alcoholic recovering addict AA Nazi, just actually say that if I continued on my "bitter, ugly, long hard road to hell", I will return to my 25 pill a day drug habit that nearly killed me, destroyed my life and the lives of others. Did you really just go THERE to make your point? Wow. Really? After some well placed snark on my FB wall while I was contemplating what to say to Ms. Judgey McJudgerson, I came up with the following, thoughtful albeit restrained commentary. I will refer to her as "RJ" throughout the remainder of this blogpost:

Certifiable Princess: April 14 at 7:49pm

You are totally judging me, RJ...as you have no clue how this man has made my life a living hell for the past two weeks. Do you know that I have been flat on my back with a broken back? Yes, broken vertebrae in my back. And while all my other professors have done everything they possibly could do to make sure that I maintain my GPA and do not have to drop out of my classes in order to graduate on time, this man has not answered my emails, has REQUIRED my presence in his classroom despite my inability to walk let alone drive, has insulted me, humiliated me by pointing out that "due to one students needs, I will have to change the date of the final exam" and made it virtually impossible for me to be able to complete his coursework.

Because of him, I am losing an ENTIRE semester of school, as I now have to retake the class over the summer in an advanced curriculum setting and my GPA that I have worked brutally hard to maintain for 2 years had just gotten shot to shit. So yes, you ARE judging me...because you are making a statement as to why I was "cruel" or "rude" to someone who has given me nothing but disrespect despite all my best intentions.

I'm sorry, RJ...but your letter was completely out of line. People who are here with me, on a daily basis, in my REAL life know what this man has put me through and all the heartache, tears and headaches...not to mention PHYSICAL pain he has caused me. What I wrote to him, in the grand scheme of things, was actually POLITE with all things considered.

So yes, you are judging...and you have succeeded in making ME feel badly about something I have a RIGHT to be angry about. And, in essence...you just did to me exactly what you told me not to do to someone else. Just because you prefaced it with "you may not like this" and threw in a couple of "i love and adore you" statements doesn't make what you wrote any less hurtful.

Incidentally, this: "...squashing people like roaches just because THEY DO NOT RISE UP TO YOUR STANDARDS is not a moral way to live."

Yeah. You may want to practice what you are preaching, Sister RJ.

Restrained? Bet your ass it was. What I really wanted to say was "Hello, Hypocrite" followed by a few well placed "douche canoes" and "feel free to jackhammer my chocolate starfish with your tongue, you fuckwad." However, in the interest of continued friendship, I refrained. This person is not a bad person. In fact, I like her a great deal. She is/has been normally very supportive in my struggles for sobriety over the past year so this letter sort of struck me as "odd" coming from someone who is usually very thoughtful and measures her words with care. Truly, if I were a weaker person, this letter might have had me sobbing with the fear that I am indeed on the path to hell and frightfully worried that I may, in fact, return to using because I have failed to live up to the standards of someone who I know has been a sponsor and mentor to many a reformed alcoholic. Actually, it would make me feel like a complete and utter failure.

So, good thing that I am " Miss CP goddess herself" and "a good woman" who is both "empowered and attractive", or I just might fall to the floor in a crumbled mass of humiliation and despair before dressing and accessorizing appropriately for my journey on the "lonely bitter ugly long hard road to hell."

I mean, just because you are going to HELL does not give you an excuse to look anything less than exceptional. Also, don't wear red...because it is always rude to wear the same color as your host. It's like wearing white to a wedding. You just don't do it.

By the way, do you think there are rest stops along that lonely bitter ugly long hard road? A girl may want to freshen up just a bit before entering. Can someone get back to me about that?

Anyway, what really struck me was the irony of the entire thing. I mean, you are writing me a letter about being unkind and judging others who do not meet my standards, in a letter where you are unkind, judgmental and feel the need to point out that I, obviously, do not live up to your standards.

And oh! The hits keep coming, Folks! Because, as I was sitting here blogging this little nugget of joy, a brand new reply to my reply appeared! I am going to share share share it with you, right this very second! I am going to LIVE post it! Before I even read it! Before I even have a moment to think about it! And of course, my reply will follow soon thereafter! Isn't this amazing!? It's like, totally an OMG moment in technology! It's like you are peeking over my shoulder and into my little world! Tee Hee! Giggle giggle! This is such a slumber party moment! Here's the letter. Same rules. Unedited and only names redacted:

RJ: April 14 at 11:26pm

CP. People do not make people do or feel anything. Either they do what they do or feel what they feel stirctly because of themselves. Blame is not an option.

I am sorry and sad to hear that you continue to have pain in your back.
It saddens me to hear that this "gentleman" has mistreated you in public about a circumstance that you caould not change. Bad on him.

Have you or had you gone to his superiors? The Dean? did your other teachers go to him?.....
Bottom line is, that he probably, no make that by HIS action; definitely doesn't care about you, or anyone else for that matter. His behavior is not tolerant and respectful, as is expected in the service and tenure of scholastics....from pre-k thru gad schooling.

However, his behavior does not allow for similar behavior. two wrongs do not make a right. It makes two wrongs. I had to learn this the hard way when I behaved as you did when I was the "victim"...

Thirty years later, I am now the victim in litigation with a lawyer and insurance company that lies beyond belief. They have deined my claim, twist the truth, and I am in appeal...I have no relief for my hands and must use them anyway, I am in constant intolerable pain 24/7, and cannot take anything for them....i have sleep apnea, migraines, brain fog and have just been diagnosed with severe liver disease. I have been in and out of the hospital and been pricked, prodded more than u can imagine. my veins roll and blood draws are excrucistingly painful.....did you know that? did you know that i am flat broke, i mean FLAT my car is on it's last legs and if i don't get some money somehow someway im in HUGE straits?????? I have no health insurance, get ALL my medical traetment for freee or close to it as an indigent person.....I get food stamps and am grateful for all my woes.....yet, I do not no matter what......get back or be vengeful to anyone, for a resentment is the number one offender.....it is the way to kill us addicts......we must.....let go of resentments and see what we can do to make a situation better, without motive. (Editor note: This, my friends, is what is known in psychology as "deflection" or in legalese, a "red herring argument". In her attempt to apologize but yet, still cast blame, she is showing me that even in the throes of her own misery, she is STILL a good person. Beyond reproach and I am not. It is also an attempt to make me feel badly for coming back at her the way that I did. You know, remind me that she has been through so much hell...so I really should take a lesson from her because after all, she knows better than I.)

I was not judging you CP...God does not judge. I am not God. No human power can replace God. Not even (insert my husbands name here).....However God want us all to be loving and tolerant and forgiving of all including ourselves... (Editor note: God DOES judge. Actually, he is the first documented hypocrite. He judged the actions of Adam and Eve and continues to judge, for if you do not live by his standards, you too shall take that long, bumpy, lonely, dirty, filthy, chaotic descent into hell. If he didn't judge, heaven would be terribly overcrowded, don't you think?)
He wants us to love all and love ourselves.....
Yes, you do have a right to be angry.....but ya don't have to get even....eye for an eye means do unto others as you would have them do unto you.......many people misinterpret this........

I do practice what I preach, and I fail often......if I have hurt you, and I again apologize, as the truth does hurt...someone had to type this very similar letter to me to show me where my motives were all messed up.....then know that it is thru working the 12 steps and traditions, and freeing myself of bitter resentments that i have been able to sdeal with life not as if look at what they did to me and screwed it all up....life is what it is...we can fight for whats right, but not at the expense of others...
I would report this joker to the State Board of Regents ASAP and ask for an IMMEDIATE review, and bring ALL your medical records.....
pray for peace in your heart...miracles DO happen all the time.
i love you..
RJ

And in the interest of full disclosure, I give to you, my reply without benefit of a proofread:

CP: April 15 at 12:05am

RJ...with all due respect, if people do not "make" others "do or feel anything", then really? Your original letter to me has not point or validity whatsoever. Your main point was that I was out to hurt and humiliate this man with the things I said. So, which is it? Can I cause him hurt with my words...or, because I turned the tables on YOU just now, are other people not responsible for the way you feel? You can't have it both ways. Pick a team and play on it.

Your letter was rude. Straight up rude. Also, it was laden with unsolicited advice. Had I not been a stronger person, your letter just might have been responsible for putting a chink in my armor. I have turned to you in times of uncertainty and when I needed guidance because I knew you would never judge me; having "been there and done that", you would surely understand where I was in my recovery and I knew I could trust you. However, the things that you said to me were degrading. You attempted to make me feel small, take me down a few notches and encouraged me to get my ego in check. Wow. I would expect better from someone who is a sponsor to so many recovering alcoholics and should know to approach someone early in their sobriety with gentleness and care. However, my sobriety is not in jeopardy, was never in jeopardy and I am far too strong to let a few words ever put me in the danger of hanging on that precipice ever again. But again, I suggest to you that a weaker person might have succumb to your suggestion about using again as the overall flavor of your letter was to make someone feel as if they failed not only in YOUR eyes, but in the eyes of God as well.

So, thank goodness for my healthy, strong ego, RJ. Had I not been in possession of it, you might have been what pushed me over the proverbial edge.

Also, please don't use the phrase "the truth hurts". It's your truth. Not mine. You see the situation one way, I see it another. There is no "truth" where opinions are concerned. Your letter did not make me see the light or have some sort of breakthrough. Actually, all it did was serve to make me angry. I am entitled to my opinion of this professor and to express it to him. I did not use foul language. I did not call him names. I did not judge him as a professor on the whole. I simply told him what my experience with him was. Just as he felt he had the right to humiliate me in front of my classmates, I felt I had all the right in the world to let him know how his actions were hurtful to me in a physical and emotional way. I am a good and conscientious student. I am beyond thoughtful and courteous to all my professors and treat them all with a great deal of dignity. However, RJ, respect is something that is to be earned and despite all my courtesy and restraint with holding my tongue so as not to embarrass him in a public setting, he still felt it necessary to embarrass and humiliate me on more than one occasion. That was not me flexing my superiority muscles, RJ. That was me letting him know that his selfish behavior and lack of empathy has harmed me in many different capacities.

As for the rest of your letter, it is all extraneous. I am not going to do the tit for tat thing...making a list to see whose life is harder right now. Who is struggling with what demons. Who is rising up against what challenges. Your tales of woe are no different than any one else...and you are not trying to have a conversation with me about them as friends would. No, you are once again, trying to make a holier than thou point. All this stuff is going on with me and still, look at how gracious and wonderful I am in God's eyes.

You are being extraordinarily judgmental of me right now, RJ . I am actually sitting here laughing and shaking my head at how terribly pious you are. Do you really want to compare laundry lists of whose going through what or who has been through what? And really, doing it to drive your point of "yet, I do not no matter what......get back or be vengeful to anyone", so even in the throes of an apology, you are STILL being judgmental to me. LOL

Please. Just stop. The hypocrisy is absolutely strangling me.

Read your own words back to yourself: "we can fight for whats right, but not at the expense of others..." I just got done, in my last letter, telling you how hurtful your letter was but still, you felt the need to pile MORE of your guilt driven and shame filled hyperbole on me. You are now committing what I have tallied up to be your third contradiction. You are fighting to be right at MY expense now. You're not right. This is not truth. This is an opinion and you are entitled to yours, certainly, but you are not entitled to continue this conversation with me if all you want to accomplish here is shaming me into good behavior.

If my Jewish mother couldn't achieve that in 44 years of my life, I assure you, it ain't going to work for you either.

Now, at this point, I suggest one of two things. We either A) Stay mature adults. Agree to disagree, drop the conversation because truly, it is really draining me emotionally and while I know you said no one is responsible for how you feel (more contradiction), right now, you are wholly responsible for irritating the fuck out of me while I am already in physical pain. or B) The immature route. We drop out of one and others lives. I will make some flippant, nasty facebook post about you and you, because you are a better person than I by far, will say nothing in order to keep yourself straight with God and not have to sit beside me on my "lonely bitter ugly long hard road to hell."

I would probably have been much kinder if I had the assistance of pain killers to assuage some of the horrible pain I am feeling in my back before I answered you. However, because I do take my sobriety extremely seriously, I have not had the luxury of taking pain killers of any kind and of course, muscle relaxants on a broken bone is like putting a band aid on a bullet wound.

I will watch my facebook wall like a hawk. If you disappear, then I will consider that my answer was option B. If you choose to stay, however, I will assume that option A is what appealed to you and agree that we will not speak of this again and treat each other with the love, courtesy and respect that we always have.

Best to you.

So, there you have it. Unlike this letter, I am welcoming your responses and replies. If you feel I was wrong, then please, by all means, express that in the comments. If you feel I was right to feel as I do, then please, feel free to smother me with accolades, praise, worship, erect a shrine in my honor. Whatever you see fit.

As for me, I am hitting the couch. I have been terribly negligent towards my DVR and I can hear the "Real Housewives of New York City" ranting and raving, beckoning me to watch some REAL judgmental bitches in action. Frankly, I feel my life is far more interesting and they should have a "Real Housewives of Tampa Bay" because even ONE of my Facebook posts would probably generate more ratings than all these housewives put together. Because, face it, my life is just THAT amusing and secretly, I know you all really wish you could be me, if only for ten minutes, so you too can deal with the ridiculous nonsense that I have to deal with from people claiming to be my "friends".

Side note to the Greek Goddess who insisted I blog this: Yeah? What now, Bitch? Bring it! LOL

Regards,
Miss CP, the almighty goddess herself, blogging live from my car on the long road to hell.

Damn. Hope I didn't forget to pack the sunscreen. *sigh*

Focus 52: "Yellow"

2011-04-11T23:37:00.000-04:00

This weeks Focus 52 post is brought to you by the color "yellow". Actually, that is what the prompt is. And what a good time for this prompt to show up. The above flower was from a bouquet I received from the wonderful girls that comprise a group of ladies I now affectionately call "Team Melia". These girls have been a constant mode of support for one another since our dear friend Melia lost her daughter in an accident at the end of this past February. Six beautiful, wonderful women who would make this flower blush with embarrassment for thinking it could remotely compete with them, who all rallied together at a time of crisis for the seventh member of Team Melia; Melia herself. Seven women. Seven women bound in the wake of tragedy who have since brought so much laughter and love into my life that I can scarcely find the words to describe it. Seven women, one for each color of the rainbow, who have brought so much color into my world. And, how appropriate that this yellow flower was the star of the bouquet, for yellow is the color of loyalty and friendship. Yellow is bright and full of promise and hope. Yellow is warm as the sun in the sky and the warmth in my heart when any of these girls leave me random love notes on my Facebook wall. We, the members of Team Melia, are a force to be reckoned with. We have conquered every subject from bad backs to bad marriages. Good sex to good food. We laugh at one another and with one another. We cry just as readily. We have brought tears of joy and tears of pain to each others eyes, but never once was there someone not readily available to dry those tears with a soft word or a sweet gesture.

And while we have all known one another for various rates of time, it matters not, because we are seven women for whom time stood still, stopped and then, started once more. Anything that happened prior to that fateful day in February does not matter. What matters is here, now, under the watchful eyes of our "Rainbow Girl", Destiny. Could our angel be any more aptly named, for if not for her departing our lives so soon would we have made this "rainbow connection"; the lovers, the dreamers...and me.

This post is dedicated to my girls, my world. I love you all.

Focus 52: "Silly"

2011-04-05T01:46:00.001-04:00

(Seeing as I just stepped off a plane from Washington, DC a mere couple of hours ago, the post that pertains to "silly" is going to have to wait. In the interim, here is the photo that the blog post is going to be about. Please stand by.)

April 11 update: Well, it seems you are not going to get a blogpost as promised, as I have since moved on in my life. Would the words "April Fools" suffice? No? Not at all? Okay, then suck it up and just deal with the fact that sometimes a princess just gets a little too busy to blog. Yes, it happens. And, as one of my friends pointed out, sometimes...I just suck. So, this is one of those times. Deal with it.

What I can tell you is that I have been laid up since this post was made with what I thought was just merely a bad backache. A phone call from the hospital in DC, however, has informed me otherwise. Apparently, your clutzy assed Princess managed to break a vertebrae in her back. For the life of me, I could not recall hurting myself so I had no idea where the sudden onset of pain was coming from. I mean, I have been lugging around size 44F's for the last 20 years of my life. If that didn't cause me mad back pain, I can't imagine what would have. However, as I was talking with the Hotband and showing him pics from my DC trip, I relayed to him a funny story about how I stepped out of my friend Gary's huge ass truck and, without considering how high up I was, went to go step down without stepping onto the running board first. Landed squarely on my fat caboose.

"So um, you think that's maybe how you hurt your back," he offers up to me.

"Wow babe, I never really even thought about that until just now. OMG, that is probably totally how I did this."

"You know," he says, matter of factly-like, "I was reading about compression fractures in the back and it appears that when you fall and land on your rear, it causes a lot of downward pressure to the spine and that is probably how you got that fracture in your back."

"Ah, okay there, Doc. Thanks for clarifying."

So, there you have it. Your "silly" post. Because nothing is more silly than stepping out of a truck with heels on and landing on your ample ass while three of your friends look on, point and laugh. Yeah, it's a stretch. I'm aware of that, but a promise is a promise and frankly, peeps? Beggars can't be choosers. I didn't ask you to come back here and check to see if I actually made a post, did I? Oh no, you did that of your own volition. I was merely trying to skate by, hoping to go unnoticed. But, did you let me? Did you give me that moment of peace and solace? No. No you did not. So this is what you get in return. A half assed post, nearly a week later about virtually nothing that had to do with the picture in the prompt whatsoever.

Now, go away. Don't you have something better to do? Don't you? DON'T YOU???

xoxoxo

Focus 52: "The View From Here"

2011-03-29T00:28:00.000-04:00

This is the view from here.

In my mirror. I'm looking a little run down. Tired, but happy. Frankly, I have nothing spectacular to offer up this week because my heart is just not in it right now. I'm just so tired. I've been taking midterms, studying, writing term papers, finishing up homework. Exhausted is not nearly an understatement.

But, I found time to offer up a weak, half assed smile to you guys, because you have been such a strong means of support for me. I appreciate that. I need the words every so often.

I also think I have realized that gray is SO not my color. Washes me out, don't you think?

Next week's prompt is "Silly". I will be going away for the weekend with a girlfriend of mine that I haven't seen in 13 years. I imagine "silly" is going to take place quite often. Incidentally, I will be in Washington, DC...so if you hear of any disturbances at the White House, look around for your favorite Jewish Princess.

I won't be the one wearing gray.

Focus 52: "Green"

2011-03-18T22:16:00.001-04:00

Yes. I could write a St. Patrick's Day post for this weeks Focus 52 prompt of "Green". That would be relatively easy. Frankly, I don't know much about the Irish. I know a lot of their names have an "O" followed by an apostrophe and then some other word. I know that Irish eyes are sometimes smiling. I know what "Irish twins" are. I know what it means to have "the luck of the Irish" and, on the opposite hand, I know what the "curse of the Irish" is due to some unfortunate dating choices in the 80's. I know that Bailey's Irish Creme is some really good shit to dump into your coffee...or not. And I know that St. Patty's day is a day to wear green, run out into the street with a bottle in one hand while simultaneously puking on your friends shoes. I get all of that. I admit, I don't know much about St. Patty or why he is so legendary. Is he a Leprechaun? Are people always after his Lucky Charms?

I would like to make a day like that for the Jews. Like...St. Moses Day. We can all wear blue and white, the colors of Israel, run around holding up a bottle of Manischevitz and flinging Matzoh at passing cars. We can go around burning bushes and when the police show up, we can join each other in a merry chant of "Let My People Go."

I'm not big into cultural and religious celebrations if you haven't noticed.

So what does "green" mean to me? It is not envy. It is not easy being green. In fact, green is the color of my fear. Green is the color of the worst period of my life. For me, this is green:

Green is the color of my former addiction. Those little green bottles that use to house those little white pills that used to ruin my life. This picture that I took reminded me of how I felt when taking drugs. Everything was blurry, black and white and then, when the magical green bottle would enter my hand, suddenly, color once more! And the world would make sense again...at least it did, in my fucked up, addicted mind.

So why would I be thinking of little green pill bottles during a week of green celebration? Because holidays that glorify drinking and addiction go hand in hand. I admit, I am scared for my friends this weekend. They are going out to party pretty hard. Tonight, the world becomes Irish and everyone joins in the celebration. People will drink, party, take pills, smoke weed, whatever so they can remember this as "The Best St. Patrick's Day EVER!!!"

And I will hold my breath until Monday, praying that none of my friends die this weekend.

If you are celebrating this weekend, please...do so in moderation. Be careful of what you ingest and how much you ingest. Alcohol poisoning can kill you. A combination of pills and alcohol can kill you. If you have to "go green" this weekend, smoke some weed and stay home and giggle at the movie "Leprechaun: 3D" but please, above all...stay safe.

Because I love you. Because I care.

And because I want to see your smiling Irish eyes for a long time to come.

Focus 52: "Variety"

2011-03-14T23:30:00.000-04:00

I am a shoe whore.

No, no...it's alright. Don't worry about labeling me a shoe whore. I'm good with it. It's okay. I have come to terms with it and while the term "whore" is a bit degrading, it is what it is. I mean, a whore is someone who performs sex for money, right? I perform sex...for shoes. Now, don't get me wrong, my husband doesn't say to me, "Babe, I saw a fabulous pair of Steve Madden's that you are going to LOVE. Price? One blow job." But, if he did say that, I would totally be down for it. So, in theory, that makes me a shoe whore. There's not too much that I wouldn't do for a pair of shoes as long as it will A) not land me in jail where I can only wear state approved canvas boat shoes or B) will not cross the boundaries of my marriage, disabling my pipe line to fantastic shoes for the price of a well timed blow job. I mean, seriously, are there many men out there who would say, "baby, for just one quick hand job, you can have these Jimmy Choo's?" No, not many. But, my husband is one of them...and I am not going to disrupt the flow, you know?

So, for this week's Focus 52 prompt being "Variety", I have allowed you into my closet, so to speak and pulled out 25 of my favorite pairs of high heels. Mind you, I said my favorites. This does not include my ridiculous flip flop collection, my multiple pairs of flats, the tons of heels I no longer wear as they are out of season or fashion, the vast array of sneakers that I own or anything that can be remotely referred to as a "stripper shoe". I call them "Over the shoulder" shoes.

You figure it out.

So there they are. Mama's babies. However this photo does not include my crown jewel. The Pièce de résistance. (That's French, Fuckers. Someone come kiss their way up my arm and say "Cara Mi! You spoke French! And if you don't get the reference, you are too young to be reading my blog. Go away.)

Here she is:

Ladies, say hello to "Fifi" by Steve Madden.

She is my new best friend. My "sole" mate. And no, I don't own a DAMN thing that will go with her, but best believe that I will by this weekend. I see her and my lady bits throb. She makes me happy. We are in love and never shall any other shoe render us asunder.

Until next season.

Focus 52: "Aged"

2011-03-07T23:18:00.001-05:00

The sultry redheaded, Raquel Welch lookalike you see in that yellow car next to the little girl...is my mother. Well, it is my mother circa 1975. The chubby kid with the stringy hair flying all over the place? That's me.

This photograph was taken at Disney World in 1975 by some guy who was dating my mother at the time. I know he who was, I just don't care to talk about him. Any way, the reason for this photo is to remind myself that, once upon a time, my mother was a very vibrant and alive person. She used to have fun. She used to allow herself to let her hair down and enjoy herself.

It was very difficult being her daughter once upon a time. She was a traffic stopping beauty. Literally. Men would get out of their cars in Midtown Manhattan just to watch her walk by. And of course there would be chubby me, braces, glasses, stringy hair and the occasional zit huffing and puffing alongside her, trying to keep up with her long-legged stride. I remember distinctly the catcalls. Men would hoot and holler at her as she would walk by. She would just toss a playful glance over her shoulder, wave in a coy fashion and then, look down at me.

"Men are very silly creatures, CP," she would say. "You will find out just how ridiculous they can be, once your boobs fill in."

Then, she would laugh which in turn, would make me laugh. I was always in awe of her though. She was incredibly beautiful, very smart, a savvy businesswoman and never lacking for a boyfriend who would wine her and dine her. She always made them pay for a babysitter. ("If he wants to take you out, CP...you make sure he takes care of your kids, too. If he wants to see you that badly, he will have no issue with that.") She would make them pick up a pizza or some Burger King for me and my brother. ("If I am going to go out with you tonight, I don't have time to cook for my kids. Bring them over some take out.") And, very rarely did she let these guys into our apartment after they would drop her off from a date. ("Don't give away the milk, CP. Always let them buy the cow.")

I never really got what that last one meant, because she said it all ass backwards all the time.

Anyway, watching her grow up as a single woman in the 70's helped me to grow up somewhat cool, confident and self assured. My mother was far from the best mom on the planet. She had her issues, for sure. But, what she did do was give me little life lessons all the way through, reminding me that while I may not look a certain way now, at 9 years old, I would have the rest of my life to grow into the woman I want to be. Don't rush it. Don't push it. Stay a kid as long as you can...because you get to be a woman for the rest of your life.

She made me a very confident woman. While my friends were struggling with their self-esteem, mine was large enough to require me to sleep in a double bed just to accommodate my ego. While my girlfriends were always worried about being too fat, too thin, too short, too tall...those things never entered my universe. I was always very confident, very self assured and well, perhaps a little full of myself. I think my personality came from trying to emulate that woman that I would walk alongside in Midtown Manhattan. She always looked like she was on stage, performing for the masses. She walked like a supermodel--chin lifted, eyes up, that red mane of her blowing in the breeze. She would toss her hair around now and then, raise her face up to the sun and smile. She was brimming with self assurance and I was dying to play that role.

I played it so well...that I became it. And now, it is who I am. Self assured, confident, loving myself, my body and my life despite its flaws.

So, why this picture for the Focus 52: "Aged" prompt?

Because, I am now the age my mother was then. I have aged. She has aged. The memory has aged. This photograph has aged.

This past weekend, we were all on a cruise ship together. She scarcely wanted to do anything or go anywhere. She was so tired all the time. Worn out. Her confident strut turned into a little more than a limp and a shuffle when she walked. During the trip, she took notice of my 5 inch high heels and shook her head. She said to me, "You are so funny, the way you strut instead of walk. You look like a supermodel when you walk...like you are running the show."

And I couldn't help but laugh to myself...and wonder, if she only knew that my training in life came from running with short little legs alongside my beautiful red haired mother on the hard concrete streets of Midtown Manhattan, all those years ago.

Focus 52: "Celebrate You"

2011-02-28T23:20:00.002-05:00

In order to celebrate me, the current prompt of the Focus 52 project, I am going to donate my blog space to celebrating someone else. Destiny is the 11 year old daughter of my friend Melia. Destiny recently lost her life last week in a tragic car accident that also put her 15 year old brother Riley in a coma. He still remains in a comatose state today. Melia was in ICU with bodily injuries that included a broken clavicle, some bleeding on the brain and various lacerations and bruises. While she is recuperating in one hospital, her son is across town in another, fighting for his life. Her eldest daughter, Hailey, who was not in the car at the time of the accident, is left alone to run between the two hospitals where her brother and mother are currently staying. A devastating position for an 18 year old child who is grieving the loss of her baby sister to be in.

So what does this have to do with celebrating ME?

In a word, charity. Sweet charity. My one huge passion in life. If there is ever an attribute that I would want celebrated about myself, it would be the fact that I am enormously passionate when it comes to giving to others in need. I will donate time, money, material needs until I have nothing more to give. It is the one area in my life where I feel I truly shine as a human being. Giving to others in need makes me feel good. It lifts me to a plane of existence more gratifying than even the most earth shattering orgasm. Every time I can do something, anything, to help another person in a time of crisis, I feel elevated. Closer to achieving a sense of nirvana. I am at peace even in the midst of chaos. It gives me something to devote my ever abounding energy to and provides me with a better sense of self. And, while it is said that charity should be a selfless gesture, any fool would know that simply cannot be. There is a certain selfish aspect to it. There is a certain rush or "high" if you will when it comes to knowing you have done something to potentially change the outcome of someones life. I enjoy giving. I enjoy doing for others. I don't require thanks. I don't require gratitude. I don't even require acknowledgment. All I need is to be able to achieve that remarkably warm feeling of knowing that I was able to play a small role in making someones life just a little bit better, if only for a short while.

With all that said, I am inviting you to please visit my "Cause" page to help Melia and her family try to recoup from the tragedy of this past week. While nothing on earth, any amount of money or gesture, can return Destiny to us, the family is in dire need of financial salvation. The family is going to need financial help desperately to help pay for the enormous hospital bills, for Destiny's final arrangements, Riley's long term care, the entire families living expenses and of course, they will need money for legal fees to go after the repeat offender criminal that stole Destiny's life.

The family does not have a lot as they just moved across the country in hopes of starting a better life. They need the help of friends, friends of friends, relatives, etc., to get them through this difficult time.

While there are grass root efforts being made in her home state of Arizona, Melia has many friends who know and love her in other parts of the world as well. We are reaching out to the blogging/social media community in an attempt to help rebuild this woman's life.

Please help in any way you can. Even the smallest of donations are appreciated.

To date, we the members of the Cause have been able to raise nearly $2500. However, the cost of Destiny's final arrangements far exceed that. The need is still great. Melia will need to be able to stay close to the hospital where her son is now in ICU. This will cost money. The family is without health insurance. Daily bills for the ICU stay run in excess of $20,000 per DAY. They will both require hospital type beds when they are finally released. There will be legal fees to pay. They will need special medical equipment for Riley, such a a wheelchair for him to use while he slowly regains function of his extremities. The costs are overwhelming and endless. Even if you are unable to donate yourself, just passing the word around to others and encouraging them to donate will help Melia and her young family to recuperate from this tragedy.

To celebrate me, I am celebrating the life of Destiny. I am celebrating the fact that my dear friend Melia has lived to see another day. I am celebrating the fact that Riley has not given up and that his battered body has youth on its side and he is putting up a strong fight for his life. In fact, I could not think of a better way to celebrate MY life than to introduce you to them. To be able to remind all of you how precious life truly is. How to let you all have this serve as a reminder that life can change on a dime. If this story makes you a little bit more wary on the road, stops you from running a red light (like the person who hit Melia did), makes you hug your children a little bit tighter tonight...then to me, those are small but enormously significant victories. Little celebrations of life...and in turn, small celebrations of my life as well.

Tonight, I was speaking to a friend and mentioned that it deeply saddened me every time I had to write the words "Destiny's funeral" during updates to friends. She said to me, "It is not a funeral. It is a celebration of life." And, she is right. Melia has chosen to have people dress in every color of the rainbow, Destiny's favorite thing, in honor of her daughter. No drab, somber black garb...but brilliant hues. Greens, yellows, oranges, blues, purples...all as vibrant and alive as Destiny was.

"What an amazing thing for a mother to do," I thought to myself.

She opted not to dress Destiny in a formal dress and fancy shoes, but rather, a pair of jeans. A Justin Bieber shirt. Her favorite DC brand rainbow shoes. She chose to let Destiny leave this earth the same way that she came into it...with her own sense of style. A ferociously independent little girl who had the gift of gab, a smile that could start a fire with its brilliance and the eyes of a mischievous angel.

Indeed, this will truly be a celebration of life. And I can think of no better way to celebrate me...than to celebrate her all too short, but incredibly purposeful life.

Goodnight, sweet Destiny. Rest well...and remember that every time I see a rainbow in the sky, I will know it is you, asking God to please redecorate the world.

You are loved.

Focus 52: "Close Up"

2011-02-21T12:50:00.001-05:00

This is a close up of my mouth in a very unfamiliar position.

Closed.

And, because of my closed up mouth...millions of women, like you, like me, are going to die.

Closed up mouths lead to the take over of closed up minds. Closed up minds equal the doors of Planned Parenthood closing up as well.

With the recent passing of a Senate bill in Congress that is now going to remove federal funding from Planned Parenthood, you will now start to see changes. Changes that I personally have not seen since the 1970's. You will start reading about women, dying, because they could not get basic gynecological care due to lack of funds.

So what does a close up of a closed mouth have to do with this?

Complacency. Because women did not speak up. Because women did not protest this with outrage, with vehemence, with determination. We, the fairer sex, have once again allowed suited men (and women) in Congress to enter our uterus and determine what our rights are. Even though providing abortions is a small part of what Planned Parenthood does—and is isolated from federal funds within the organization's structure, by law—the amendment passed 240-185.

Is this the beginning of the end of Roe v. Wade? Are women in our lifetime about to be relegated back to the days of back alley abortions? Will we once again read about women who fall prey to quacks with dirty folding tables and rusty scalpels performing our abortions, leaving us bleeding, mutilated and dying?

What Congress does not seem to realize is that abortions are only one EIGHTH of what Planned Parenthood actually does for women. This organization also does pre-screenings for diseases such as cervical, breast and ovarian cancer for women who cannot otherwise afford to have these services done. They provide testing for HIV, AIDS and various other sexually transmitted diseases. They offer education and birth control for low income sectors of our society. Let's not forget that Planned Parenthood makes sure that the rate of unwanted pregnancies and teen pregnancies stays extremely low. Without their services, it is estimated that there will be 1.9 million unwanted and preventable pregnancies each year.

1.9 MILLION. You read that correctly.

In a society where we can scarcely afford to take care of the population that exists right now, can we actually afford to supplement an additional 1.9 million more babies coming into this world? This has little to do with abortion, but much to do with lack of birth control for those who cannot afford the doctors visits to obtain birth control, let alone the monthly cost of purchasing it.

It is not hyperbole to say that women will die as a result of this bill. It's the horrible truth. Women who are uninsured will avoid seeking annual exams, pre-cancerous lesions on the cervix will be missed and will develop into cancer, breast masses will not be detected early - some women will die.

In addition to this, more will have unplanned pregnancies. Abortion rates, ironically, will increase. Only these medical interventions will be peformed by those not likely to have proper credentials, equipment and who are seeking to prey on the weakest members of our society - the poor.

Sound outrageous? It is. And if this makes you angry, you should be. You need to be on the phone calling your senator, you need to be planning how you'll support the person who runs against the incompetent moron in your district who voted for this reprehensible bill. This must be stopped. We cannot blindly allow women to step back into the dark ages of back alley abortions and black market adoptions.

Are you part of the reason this bill passed? Rip the tape from your lips, open your mouth and start yelling. Yell for your daughters. Yell for your granddaughters. Yell the way women yelled back in the mid-seventies when they decided that they were no longer going to allow government to take away our basic fundamental rights of reproduction control. Those women yelled to protect our future. We should be yelling for the next generation of women and girls who may fall victim to this heinous crime.

I'm yelling. I've been yelling.

You should be too.

Focus 52: "Love, Baby"

2011-02-12T01:43:00.001-05:00

"Stay there. Just like that. I have my camera under the pillow."

"What?"

"Sh. Don't move. Don't smile. Just stay...like that."

*click*

Yes, People. I went "there". I always wanted a photo of us literally seconds after the the "big finish". I love the glazed over look on his face. I love how soft his eyes are. I love that I can't help from biting my bottom lip like a schoolgirl with a big secret. What you can't feel in this photo is the warmth between our two bodies. What you cannot see in this photo is how our legs are intertwined under our big down comforter. How his right foot is playing with the bottom of my left foot, tickling me. How the tips of his fingers are swirling soft, concentric circles just above the top of my ass, in that small indentation we women have in our lower backs. What you cannot hear are the banging of two over taxed hearts and the huff and puff of the aftermath of the aerobic exercise we just completed. Neither of us are particularly active people...except in this arena. It is here that we can run the mile, vault the horse, stick the landing and end with a perfect dismount that even the harshest of Russian judges would have to give a "10" to.

This picture is not about two people who just had sex, bumped uglies, did the nasty, made the four armed machine, etc. This photo is this weeks title: Love, Baby. After 11 long years together, this man still captivates me. Every line, every dent, every nook and cranny. His scent intoxicates me. His eyes draw me in like magnets. His breath on my face is like warm apple pie. His hands feel like butterflies, flickering all up and down this expansive mountain of flesh that makes up my ample body.

And me? What you are seeing there is a rare moment...only vaguely seen by previous lovers, but never quite the way my husband sees it. It is vulnerability. It is the taming of the shrew. It is the moment that I become not just his wife or lover, but rather, his mistress. His virgin. His whore. His Goddess. His first time. My first time. And what will be, for both of us, our last time...until the next time.

Each experience of making love to my husband is more intense than the last. Orgasms be damned, for it is SO no longer about that. It is about what I bring to the game, on bended knee if you will, for him. He is not a selfish lover, by any means...but never in my entire sexually active life have I yearned to be more of the pleasurer than the pleasured. Together we are a force to be reckoned with. While we are working with the broken down bodies of what a man in his late thirties and a woman in her mid forties can offer, when it is time for game on, we are two eighteen year olds bringing 38 years worth of combined experience to the table. We are passionate, feverish, combining sweetness with the tart and tangy and softness with the heavy handed and hardened. He is the yin to my yang and every move is done in perfect sympatico.

This picture. It captures "love, baby" because feasibly, you will never meet another couple more in love than he and I. Other couples aspire higher when they are around us. I joke to my husband and say "we're contagious, babe!" They become better couples in our presence because they yearn to have what we do. We've both heard it before. "Oh, I wish our marriage was like yours. You guys always look like you are having so much fun together." And, truth be told? We ARE having that much fun together. We laugh during sex. We laugh during nervous times. We laugh in the midst of crisis...one of us usually cracking an inappropriate joke to lighten the mood.

It would sound as if I were bragging if it weren't just merely the truth.

It wasn't always this way. We had our share of problems in the very beginning. His baggage came in form of a carry on piece of luggage with rickety wheels and a broken handle. Mine came in a Louis Vuitton 8 piece steamer trunk set. Once we learned how to put our clothes away and put the luggage in storage, our life together truly began and we haven't looked back since.

"Lemme see the picture," he says.

I show him.

"Aw, Baby...", he whispers to me. "You look like a little kid about to burst into laughter. Was I that bad?"

"No. You weren't 'bad', goofball. You were amazing. You're always amazing."

"WE'RE always amazing," he corrects me and kisses my forehead.

I put the camera to the side.

"Did you really have the camera under the pillow just for that," he asks.

"Yep. I always wanted to see what we looked like two seconds later, when we fall backwards in exhaustion."

"We look pretty damn good," he says.

Still biting my lip, I nod in agreement.

It's late and he's going to be catching a 4am plane to California for work. It's nearly 2am at the time the photo is taken. I roll onto my side, pulling him with me. My back is pressed into his chest. I can feel the soft tendrils of his furry chest tickling my sensitive skin on my back. His arm is raised above my head...our fingers interlaced. His other hand rests in the dip of my waist, his fingertips grazing my lower abdomen. I can feel him breathing into my hair, heavier and heavier. He murmurs something almost inaudible, but I caught the tale end of "I love you". I answer him by pressing my hips a bit harder into his. His breathing slows and hard, heavy breaths give way to light, exhausted snores. There is music playing in our bedroom, soft piano music playing low. The piano sounds soft and low as the oboe that is playing over it sounds vaguely like a woman crying.

Until I realize, I am the woman crying.

You see, my heart will be taking to the sky in less than two hours. The better half of my soul will be 3000 miles away from me. There will be no one to have a midnight snack with. No one to giggle with me at America's Funniest Home Videos. No one to eat dinner with. No one to talk to in the middle of the cold dark night. No one sharing the warmth of my bed. I will be alone for a week as I am every month for one week a month and as always, it will break my heart yet again.

I miss him already so my heart knows to instinctively cry. I sob inwardly so not to wake him of his precious hour of sleep before having to board a plane. The alarm rings forty-five minutes later. He slips out from under the blankets. I feign sleep. He kisses the top of my head and goes in for his shower. I hear the water running and it hurts so much. I reach out and grab my camera, still sitting on the edge of the bed, just under my pillow. I flip through to the picture I took. Look at that moment. I can't help but smile. That sweet, sexy innocent moment now forever preserved in time. I bite my lower lip to suppress what could either amount to a giggle or a choked up sob.

He is packed and leaving.

"I love you baby," he says. "It will be a short week. And, when I get home...we have our special Valentines Day weekend at the beach. Just you, me, dinner at The Pearl and a balcony view of the ocean."

"Can't wait," I whisper.

He kisses my lips softly.

"All the love in the world, Angel," he says.

"Nothing but love, Baby," I reply. And with that, he's gone.

Monday comes. I wait for the Focus 52 prompt, excited to see what the challenge will be for the week.

"Our prompt this week...," she writes, "why, it is Love, Baby!!"

Love, Baby? I laugh. I laugh so deep and hard that it almost hurts my belly.

I grab the picture and run to my blog. Sometimes, fact is stranger than fiction and the story just writes itself. Who would have thought that a picture would accompany it as well. I "frame" the pic with a Polaroid type effect to make it look like an instant moment in time. Something captured and clandestine. Something sneaky and sexy...like the Polaroids you have hidden away in the bottom of a drawer somewhere.

So there you have it. The story of the photo. The story of our loves...and nothing but Love, Baby.

Nothing but love.

Focus 52: "Frame"

2011-02-05T19:05:00.001-05:00

Frame.

I had a bunch of ideas for this word of the week but nothing really came to fruition. With midterms going on, I was sort of pressed for time. The way I wanted to use "frame" wasn't in the cards...but then, my husband, my biggest source of inspiration said "Why not a door frame?"

And I thought, why not, indeed?

So, welcome to the front door of my home. If you had any clue or have been reading my blog for some time, you would know why this particular door frame means so much to me and my family. A year ago, we were being thrown out of our original home due to foreclosure. Nothing we did, mind you, just victims of circumstance.

You can read the story surrounding it here at "This Old House", a post I made a year ago.

This picture, taken one night when we first moved into our new home, means a lot to me. It was the symbol of a new beginning. This front door has seen the entry of my grandchildren. It has been the gateway to many parties, a lot of laughs and of course, a few tears. But, this new home has also been the source of safety...a place where I now know I will never be asked to leave ever again. I will never have to come home to see chains on the front door. I will never have a process server come up to me and say "Sorry, Ma'am, but this house is being seized by the bank." I will never have to call my husband in California ever again and say, "baby, they lost the house on us. We're homeless as of next week. What are we going to do?"

It will never, ever, happen again.

So, while this might not be the home where my first granddaughter came home to, or learned to walk in. While this may not be the house that my husband and I dreamed of buying once upon a time, it is better than what we had, because it is safe. It's in a fantastic neighborhood, surrounded by a cop, an ex-marine and a private detective. It has a much bigger backyard where my grandbabies can run around in. It is a stones throw from my sons school bus stop. It is beautiful, spacious with vaulted ceilings and a large, bright and welcoming kitchen. There is a step down living room with cherry wood floors with an amazing warmth to it. The bedrooms are large and expansive. There are windows everywhere, not like our past home which was dark and dreary. But most of all, it is inviting. It envelopes all who pass through it like a secure hug. Surely, it is not the house itself that make a home, but rather, the love contained within. But this home that we have made fits us like a glove.

Coming home one night, I noticed how it glowed, like a beacon in the dark...welcoming us in and assuring us that we will never go back to where we were a year ago ever again. It is where new memories are being made, where happiness and love abound and where all who enter through that front door frame are friends. People I trust. People I love. People who embrace me and whom I embrace in return.

It is our home. And, should you ever be in the neighborhood, it is your home as well.

Drop in. Any time. The door is wide open.

Focus 52: "Play"

2011-01-28T18:17:00.002-05:00

Playgrounds.

The birth of innocence starts here. The death of innocence generally starts here too. Standing outside the chain link fence of a nearby school, I am transported back to the days that I spent in my own schoolyard.

"Fat girl, fat girl," they used to chant at me.

I would slide underneath a sliding pond, looking for solace, hoping to become invisible.

"Brace face, brace face," they would scream at me.

I would try to touch the sky in a swing. Maybe if I could get just high enough, I could fly away. Maybe if it would lift me high enough, I could learn to rise above this...but their hate spew would still fill my ears and simultaneously, empty my heart.

"If you would just get to know me," my heart would cry out to my head. "If you only knew how funny I am. How silly I am. I have the best jokes. I really could make you laugh...if you would only let me." I make my little brother laugh, I would think to myself. I do a really cool impression of Donny and Marie singing,
"I'm a Little Bit Country/I'm a Little Bit Rock and Roll". If you would let me show it to you...you'd forget how fat I am. You wouldn't care about my braces.

You might even like me...just a little. And we could be friends...in secret. No one would have to know.

I can keep a secret. I'd make a good friend. I promise.

There is nothing lonelier than the sight of a little girl alone on a see saw in the downward position, the other end high up in the air. "The whole class would have to get on the other side to lift you up," one especially mean-spirited girl would spit at me, venom in her voice and malice in her eyes.

I would close my eyes. Squeeze them shut tight. So tight, I would see colors. I would make up rhymes in my head, jotting them down in my notebook. Later on, when I get home, I can write a song. I can write a poem. I could write a book, someday. My teachers always said "what a good writer you are". And I was. Alone...in my little world, I could write the words that could bring grown men to tears and cause the coldest heart to defrost. I had talent. I had a gift.

But they don't know that about me. They can't see past a fat girl with braces.

So, I would get up from the see saw. Walk over to the bench and sit down, eating my lunch quietly alone. I had my notebook. I had my new pencils. I had a shiny, brand new Charlie's Angels lunchbox. I would happily give you half my sandwich. Or, you can have both of my snacks. I would give you the world if only you would be my friend.

"What are you writing," the teacher would ask.

"Just a poem," I would mumble.

"You are such a good writer," she would say with kind eyes that easily translated to "I feel so bad for you".

"Thanks," I would reply with a shrug of my shoulders.

And I would continue to sit on the bench, scribbling notes and words that scarcely make any sense. I would show them all someday, when I am a famous writer. I have no time for their silliness. I am a smart girl. I am a good person. I have more important things to do than play hide and seek or freeze tag. I have plans. I have hopes. I have dreams. I have secrets.

But, if you knew me at all, if you ever took the time to...you'd know the truth.

All I ever really wanted to do...was play.

Focus 52: "Cold"

2011-01-21T09:30:00.000-05:00

This weeks prompt has had me so frustrated. Cold. How on earth do I do "Cold" when I live in Florida and the temperature is a balmy 73 degrees? Florida has been the hold out in the United States as the ONLY state that did not cooperate during "Snowmageddon 2011". Every single other state in the union had snow on the ground except Florida. Not even a hint of frost in the weeks since the holidays. Nothing.

So, I search my house for the usual suspects. My refrigerator? That's cold. Perhaps some sort of artsy photo of my fridge which looks more from the exterior like a photo album? It's covered in photographs of my kids, my niece and nephews. My grandkids. My children. My husband and myself. Bleah. Not feeling that idea at all. A photo of my thermostat set at 68 degrees with the air conditioning on "high" because it is so warm in my house? My photo cannot convey the feeling of cold like that. What can I shoot that would convey a feeling of cold?

I go to the bathroom in my barefoot. It's freezing on the tile floor. My legs get goose bumps! Oh, a pic of goosebumpy skin for "cold"! Alas, by the time I grab my camera, the goosebumps dissipate. My moment of "cold" is gone. It IS cold in my house though. My nipples are rock hard glass cutters right now. My boobs straining against the fabric of my t-shirt would relay the look of "cold"...but hey, Jan is running a family show on the Focus 52 project, so perhaps a set of high beams pointing south is not the way to go. (However, the photo can be sent to whoever has an interest in seeing it. Simply fill out an email with "erect nips" in the subject line. For a meager fee of $9.95, I will forward the photo to you. I accept PayPal. I will also be happy to supply you with a receipt for your tax returns. The desire to look at 44 year old erect nipples would clearly be a charitable gesture and probably would earn you a deduction on your return. Offer not valid in Canada. Sorry, Jan. LOL)

I turn on YouTube for some musical inspiration and listen to one of my favorite songs, "Cold" by Annie Lennox. Didn't really inspire much of anything except my desire to listen to the rest of the album, Diva, which is arguably one of the best albums of the 1990's...or like, ever. She's an amazing songstress with the vocal prowess of a thousand lovebirds all cooing in perfect harmony. However, there is nothing "cold" about this moment and so, my idea of musical inspiration falls flat. I sit here, staring at the screen...empty as the thoughts in my head. All roads are leading me no where. I turn to Google Images and pop "cold" into search bar and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky". I get this. Sure. Leave it to me to find the ONE site on the entire internet that has the word "cold" in it...but is under construction. Seriously? Billions of sites with the word "cold" in it and I manage to find the one site that is as barren as a woman's womb post hysterectomy. Great. So, I do it again, only this time...I hit "Images". It suggests: Are you looking for "cold sores"? Um, no. No, Google, I am not and if I were...I most assuredly would have found them during my stint as a single woman back in the 80's because, well...it was the 80's. Think "free love" during the 60's...only with neon colors, shoulder pads and replace the pot with cocaine. I politely decline the offer of cold sores and hit Images again...with just plain, old fashioned, herpe-less "cold" in the search bar. I am presented with this picture:

which is awesome and all because A) it's true and B) it takes you to the artists site who drew the above picture which is the infamous Natalie Dee of Toothpaste for Dinner. And, in what can only be described as Six Degrees of Separation/Kevin Bacon style...Natalie Dee is the artist who drew the little princess that adorns my header, sidebar and all the comments I leave for you people. The irony is just too much to wrap my head around.

The internet is a strange and wonderful little paradise of coincidences and extraordinary occurrences, is it not?

It is at this point that I give up. I will have to just take the stupid refrigerator picture that I thought of earlier and just be done with it. Nothing else is coming into my head at this point. I'm tired, it's 6:45 in the morning and it is friggin' freezing in this house. I leave my office, shutting the light off behind me. I have to wake up my son for school in about 20 minutes so to go lay down in my bed right now would be the equivalent of foreplay without orgasm. It would feel good for about a minute but then, I would have to leave before sleep comes and frankly, that's just a damn tease. As I am walking down the hall, I circle back and decide to just check in on my sleeping son. And...there it was. My picture! The moment!

I run back into my office and grab my camera to take a shot of this:

My baby boy. All bundled up in his comforter, pulled up to his neck...because he is, wait for it...wait for it...

COLD.

Is it genius? No. A masterpiece? Not by a long shot. But, what it IS is real. A precious, non-pretentious, non-staged moment in time that gave me a heart warming picture to share with all of you. When our babies become teenagers, it is rare that we have a moment of peace with them. It's always something, somewhere, somehow. They are too busy to slow down to talk to you...or, when they want to finally say something, of course it is always at the same moment that now, YOU are too busy to slow down to talk to them. But, when they are sleeping, time stops. You are transported to a time when you held the cards, you had the power, you called all the shots. You fed them, you bathed them, you dressed them and then, that wonderful moment where you laid them down to sleep for the night. How peaceful they looked. How quiet and sweet when their big teenage gaping maw is not blathering on and on in your ear, on the phone, in front of the television or with the stereo playing way too loud...despite the fact they have headphones on.

Right now, at this moment...he is my little boy. And he is cold.

I put another blanket over him. Tousle his moppy brown curls, now tiger striped with peroxide orange streaks from his latest teenage whimsical decision to bleach his hair and plant a kiss on the top of his head. In 5 more minutes, I will be waking him up for school. He will be a moody, agitated, annoyed teenager again and I will be the screeching banshee standing over him caterwauling "YOU'RE GONNA MISS THE BUS...GET UP!!!"

But shhhh...because right now, he's still my little angel baby...all wrapped up, snuggled and content. And suddenly, this really cold house feels warm again...right along with my heart.

Barely out of Tuesday...

2011-01-19T04:51:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, I find a song that touches me in a pretty profound way. There are days that I listen to it and think "this is a great song" and then, the same song on another day takes on a completely different meaning. Today on Facebook, Adam Duritz of Counting Crows posted up his song "Barely Out of Tuesday". This particular song is not new to diehard Crows fans. It's a song that never made it onto any of their albums which is a damn shame. Yesterday, I was under an enormous amount of stress and seeing as it is about 4am right now...and I am barely out of tuesday myself, I thought I would share it.

Relative to nothing I have said thus far, I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew this semester. I am taking an algebra course, an intermediate algebra course. I have managed to get through many years of college and test out of having to take math courses. This time, I was not so lucky. As a pre-requisite to getting into the Bachelor's program I am looking to get into this fall, statistics is required. I'm not concerned about that because statistics really have very little to do with actual numbers. However, this algebra course is required to be able to get into the stats class. So, my suave manipulations of the system will not get me out of this one this time. I suppose the luck had to run out eventually. I probably did myself a grave disservice by not taking the intermediate course directly after taking the "pre" and "elementary" courses that preceded it. Now it is eight years post degree and I have very little recollection of the "order of operations" or "distributive properties", "associative properties" or "inverse/reciprocal properties". I did a lot of research on "Rate My Professor" type websites before settling on this particular teacher. I knew I was going to need my hand held on this one and by all accounts, she is just that type of professor. She allows scientific calculators in class. She allows you to do your homework over and over again online until you max out your score with a perfect grade. She even allows you to bring a "crib sheet" with notes into her exams. One page only, handwritten notes. "You write small enough, you can probably fit everything I teach you onto your study guide," as she calls it. "Write too big though and too bad. You lose." Okay. Fair enough. Actually, well beyond fair and with a six point font type of handwriting, I can really make this work in my favor.

However, she did stress that you, the student, will only get out of the class what you put into it. "Don't bother to open a book until test day and your grade will reflect that," she said. "Study for at least one hour every day and you will do just fine."

By nature, I am a procrastinator. I am also one of those really cocky students that truly believes she works best under pressure and at the last minute. Math, I think, will be the end to this notion and probably the end to my perfect GPA as well. On Thursday, after class, I told the Hotband that I am going to just "relax" for the night and give myself Friday off as well. Since it's a long weekend, I will have Saturday, Sunday and Monday to do homework.

Best. Laid. Plans.

I do nothing on Friday. Nothing. Don't even crack open a book to do some reading in Applied Ethics or my humanities course. Why bother? I have this nice long three day weekend. I have all the time in the world. I have more than an ample window in which to get all my work done. I have...

food poisoning.

Friday night, my hubs ordered in from our favorite italian place. Normally, I just have some pasta and meatballs. This time I thought it would be nice to try their eggplant. As I was eating it, I thought it tasted peculiar to me. My husband tasted it. He said it didn't taste strange to him, so I just assumed it was me and continued to eat it. Halfway through the dish, I decided that I really was not enjoying this meal at all. It still tasted odd and a bit sour even. About five hours later...I was vomiting my guts up. At one point, I vomited so hard that the content of my bladder erupted. Seeing as my face was occupying the bowl, I could barely swing my fat ass around in time to find the hole on which to set it upon. My husband walks in to find me covered in puke from trying to twist around in time to pee in the bowl...and sitting in a puddle of my own urine. I was shivering, felt like my body was ice cold while simultaneously sweating from every pore. My husband helped me get up, clean myself up, change into fresh pajamas and sent me to bed. Bed...where I proceeded to stay for the next 32 hours, completely obliterating Saturday as an option for homework and studying.

I finally awoke on Sunday around 2pm, feeling like utter shit...like I had been hit by a bus. I had a throbbing headache. So, the hubs being the angel baby that he is, set me up in style. A bunch of pillows, fresh t shirt and undies and some warm socks. A nice cold glass of water on the nightstand. Remote in my right hand, cellphone in my left. My laptop plugged in so I could blog, facebook and tweet during the Jets game, the Golden Globes and of course, The Real Housewives of Atlanta. I was in social networking heaven. He also bought me a slew of gorgeous gourmet cupcakes for me to devour once I was feeling better.

Hello, lovers...nom nom nom.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday. All gone. No studying done. Monday arrives. I feel like ass, but able to get out of bed finally. When I do, I am greeted by my son who apparently arrived at my house at some point over the weekend. I was so sick, I scarcely knew he was there. He was all like "Hey Mom, how are you feeling? Good? Great. Remember you said you would dye my hair for me this weekend? Remember? Remember that? Well, it's Monday already and...and...and..."

"And you would like me to color your hair now."

"Yeah. Can you?"

"Yes. What do you want done?"

"I want my hair blue."

"Blue hair," I reply. "All of it blue or just certain spot blue or a blue streak? What are we talking about here?"

"All of it. Blue!"

I sigh. But, it is his hair. He is fifteen. If he wants to look like a smurf, who am I to stop that? I schlep myself out of the house to do some errands I had thought could be done at any time over the weekend, you know, because it was a LONG weekend after all and I had all the time in the world, right? So, I go to where my daughter works and buy some boobie car covers (also known as bras). Hey, buy two get two free? Bras in my size run about $40 a pop, so buying two to get two free is a deal that I would get out of bed for. Then, of course, since Ross is right next door and they do their shoe/purse restocking on Mondays...well, I can't let a perfectly good "get out of bed when you're sick" errand run go to waste right? Cute Jessica Simpson pumps. Adorable Guess slingbacks. Mine. Productive. Next. Over to Office Depot because I need graph paper, a scientific calculator, some pencils and some folders. All of this for my math class which equates to, in my mind, doing something productive in math for the weekend. There we go. Guilt of doing nothing, alleviated with one quick trip to Office Depot. Salvation in the form of a Texas Instrument calculator...oh, and the purchase of a really cute pink stapler. Because, every princess should have a pink stapler on her desk, right?

Final stop? CVS. After mulling over all the possibilities... we decided on a nice electric blue which, best case scenario, will look like deep blue highlights over his black/brown hair. Worst case scenario? The boy will look like Cookie Monster.

I know you have some cupcakes too, bitch! I saw them. Now where are they???

Well, long story made real short (I'll make the long story longer in a separate blog post that includes pictures), I ended up stripping my sons hair of its natural color, leaving him with bright. orange. streaks. all over his pretty, mop top of curls. Yeah. There's a reason I never became a professional hair dresser. He takes a look at it. He stares at it. I assure him that when I add the blue, it will cover up all that bright, light orange and...

"I LOVE IT! IT LOOKS SO AWESOME!!!!"

"Seriously," I ask incredulously.

"Holy crap, it's AWESOME," he exclaims again. "Forget the blue stuff. I'm keeping it like this."

"Nick, honey," I say, "It looks like I dropped a bucket of Clorox on your head from a really high place or something. It's just a big...splat...all over your head."

"Dude, it is SO cool. Thank you, Mommy!" He gives me a big hug and dashes out of the bathroom, presumably to jump right on Facebook and let the world know that he know looks like a damn tiger.

So, how does this all relate to my earlier complaint about not getting to do any of my math homework this entire weekend? Well, simply...it doesn't. While I didn't enjoy being sick and definitely did not enjoy the uncomfortable feeling that accompanied not being fully prepared for my algebra class this evening, the full out, painful belly laughs that I shared with my son and husband Monday night were entirely worth it.

Here I now sit, a mere 4 hours and 40 minutes into Wednesday or, as the song says, barely out of tuesday. And I think I am willing to forgive myself this for the lack of drive or effort in completing my schoolwork. If nothing else, this past Monday night showed me what most of us have known all along. Family first and foremost, always. If it means getting one little goose egg for a grade due to lack of homework preparation, so be it. The moments that I spend with the kid and the hubs made that zero worth while...

and if you do the math, Happy Family - Algebra Homework + Digital Camera = Lifetime Memories.

I think I made the grade.

Focus 52: "Connect"

2011-01-15T10:00:00.000-05:00

So I am mulling over the word "connect" and thinking. Connect. Connections. The way we keep ourselves together with the people we love. The connections we make, even briefly, over a cup of coffee. The shake of a random hand. The connection of a smile. How we all connect in tragedy, like the way we all connected over the shootings in Arizona...

I have a million ideas throbbing around in my skull for what I would like to photograph and write about.

But, always one for new ideas, I turn to the Hotband. "Honey, when I say the word, 'connect', what's the FIRST thing to pop into your head."

He says...."dots?"

Men. So simple minded. So sweet. So...so...boring.

Admittedly, I was at a loss this week. I started thinking about connection in its most simple, base terms. I thought about puzzle pieces and how they connect. I started trying to think modern and considered snapping a photograph of the tangled web of wires just below my desk...the ones that keep me connected to all of you, here, on the internet. I struggled with this concept as I was walking across the bridge at my college taking me from one side of the campus to the other, where I continue on my path of higher learning.

And then it dawns on me. Connect. Bridges connect. This bridge that I cross every day that takes me from the parking lot, where I stood with trepidation...not exactly sure that I was ready to go back to school, across to the buildings where lessons will be taught. I thought about the bridges I have built and, naturally, the ones I have burned.

Bridges connect.

I stepped off the bridge, down into the grassy area that runs along the beautiful lake at my college, defying the "Keep Off The Grass" sign. I stood among the palm trees and the lushly landscaped butterfly gardens that decorate the campus. I edged closer to the water despite the warning signs that let me know an alligator might be lurking nearby, waiting to take a nice healthy chomp out of my leg. I waited for the sun to creep a bit below the trees and bathe the bridge in its natural, warm glow.

The sun on my face felt good. The moment felt right and the sun setting reminded me that I only had a mere five minutes to get to my classroom, to begin the learning process once more. Back in school once again and on my desired path, despite my detour into forbidden territory.

Bridges connect...and this time, it is taking me where I need to be. This...is home.

Overcome...

2011-01-10T06:28:00.003-05:00

This week has been incredibly overwhelming for me. Personally, professionally and emotionally. I am drained. I am tired. I am exasperated. And more than anything...

I am overcome.

After many years, a friendship was ended...mutually, after nearly 40 years. We didn't decide to just release one another but rather, it ended in an incredibly ugly fashion with sarcasm, bitter words, name calling and scathing accusations. She wasn't listening to me. I wasn't listening to her. We both struggled to be heard, but the louder the words became, the more they fell on deaf ears. This person was gone to me for a very long time. From the time I was 14 years old actually. We reunited back in 2002. For six years, it was wonderful. We shared each others homes, hearts and secrets. She entered my life during a very volatile time with my husband (yes, once upon a time, things were not all hearts and flowers between the Princess and the Hotband.) She got me through a lot of rough years. I will always be appreciative of that. Then, Facebook comes along. Old friends enter the picture. Worse yet, new friends enter the picture and slowly the chasm grows. We start realizing how different we are. Subtle changes at first give way to more blatant, outward changes. Statements that would once be taken in jest were no longer amusing. The differences become more noticeable, not only to us, but to our mutual friends. Bickering begins. Nit-picky small things at first slowly give way to all out lunges at each others throats. Diplomacy is suddenly lost on both of us. She is asking me to change who I am. I am telling her accept me as I am. She calls me a liar. I call her varying degrees of the word "bitch". She tells me she is blocking me from her feed. I eventually block her from my "friends list". Sarcastic nasty notes are exchanged and suddenly, it is 1980. We are two teenage girls, snarling at one another in the school yard, throwing down our books as the crowd forms a circle around us. Sides are chosen. Friendships are irretrievably broken. Alliances are formed.

Only this time, there is no teacher to step in, to intervene. We are left to our own devices, both of us too afraid to have this discussion by phone...so we are relegated to nasty Facebook messages saying things that we more than likely wouldn't dare to say to each other if we were face to face.

It was exhausting. And now, it is over.

I have opted not to discuss this with our mutual friends. She, however, has been talking about this non-stop. The chitter chatter of the spies still running back and forth between us, like little electrical synapses firing off, one after the other. I just want to be free of it already. I wanted this year to start differently rather than more of the same.

And while there is a part of me that is always going to mourn the loss of that friendship, I am trying to remember that there was a reason she walked into my life when she did after a 25 year separation. I am grateful for the little girl I grew up with as much as I am grateful for the woman who held me in her arms as I sobbed over the pain my husband had caused me. I would have loved to have shared another 40 years with her...but we grew up differently, our lives shaped by different events. I am not who she remembers, nor who she wants me to be. She is not who I remembered, nor who I wanted her to be.

But, for a short moment in time, we were everything to each other. She held my hand in kindergarten sometimes. She was always the braver and bolder one. She had a silly laugh that carried over into her adult years, a giggle that would make you look into the eyes of this 40 year old woman and see the 6 year old within. We couldn't stop talking to one another and were placed on opposite sides of a classroom more times than I can count. We crushed on the same boys. She always won their hearts and I suppose I always envied that about her. It always came so naturally for her. I had to work so much harder to impress people. Thus begun my extremely extroverted personality. The outrageous things I would say and do. She would always shake her curly head and laugh at me. And I would smile, knowing my best friend approved of who I was, accepted me and loved me...even when I wasn't in performance mode. To everyone else, I was that crazy girl...but to her, I was just "CP". Or, as she put it, even in our 40's, she would refer to me as..."my CP".

And I was hers. Unconditionally...and probably would have been for life had we not allowed the little things to pyramid to grandiose proportions and spin violently out of control.

In my heart, in my mind and in my soul...I will always remember the moment when we were 14 years old and hugging goodbye as my parents moved me out of the city and into the suburbs. I never saw her again after that. I will always remember her big brown eyes, her long curly hair and her lips, quivering from trying to hold back the tears of seeing a best friend disappear from her life. That vision will help me handle what has happened between us, remove the ugliness that transpired on both our behalves and allow me to move forward into the new year without regrets or pain.

She will always be my very first best friend. No amount of ugly will ever change that.

I'm willing to keep her there, in my heart, exactly that way.

Focus 52: "Begin"

2011-01-07T17:26:00.000-05:00

Yes. I already wrote my post for the New Year. It was fabulous. Did you miss it? Well, go the hell back and read it. It was all about love with nice stories, sexy music and of course, the joy that is my life.

Now, I am involving myself in the "Focus 52" project, where we creative types will be taking photos, blogging, showing off our goods (no, not like that...perverts) in a collective effort to post our stuff at least once a week, every week, for a year.

I am a commitment phobe. Don't believe this? Ask my three husbands. Yeah. It's like that.

However, I truly feel I can devote myself to this project. I watched my girl Janice do her 365 day project, where every. single. day. she took another photograph and uploaded it, blogged about it and she really moved me with her work. It inspired me and now that she is sponsoring the less taxing Focus 52 project, well, this is something that I feel I can do...especially with her at the helm.

I recently started taking pictures. Not great pictures, but pictures of moments that make me say...wow, I would love to write about that moment. So, with camera in hand...I grab the moment. I'm not a professional photographer by any means. My experience goes as far as in the mirror pics of myself for Facebook or boobie shots on my phone that I text to my husband. But, for the purpose of just grabbing the moment, my skills of point and click are good enough. I just want to capture enough of the moment for me to take it home and write about it. My focus will now be on exactly that...capturing moments in photos and then, talking about that particular moment in time. What it meant. What I was feeling. The circumstances surrounding it.

This project will not only give me the opportunity to commit to my writing once again, but allow me to branch out just the tiniest bit into another creative outlet. You don't have to be good at something to love what you do. (See: President George Bush).

Here is my first photo (click to enlarge):

This photo was taken New Years Eve, 2010. It was taken from the balcony of our hotel room overlooking the Gulf Beaches in Treasure Island, Florida. A better photographer would have known to center this bitch, as the sun usually doesn't lay lazily to the right. At this particular moment, I was thinking...this is the last sunset of the year. When the sun sets...it will give way to a new year, a new start.

A new beginning.

I think I am going to like being a part of this project.

Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes...

2011-01-02T18:11:00.000-05:00

How do you measure a year?

The song would suggest you measure in sunsets. Perhaps daylights? Cups of coffee?

I would have to go with their ultimate conclusion of love. And there has been a lot of that in my life. Never more than there has been this past year. 2008 saw me falter. 2009 saw me climb. 2010 will be the year that I surfaced from under the drowning pool I was swirling around in for the past two years. It is the first year that I rose up and gasped for air. The first time I can recall my head being above the surface. It marked the birth of my second grandchild in January. My 10th Valentines Day with my husband in February. It saw the reuniting of myself with many old friends and my letting go of some who should have never had the privilege of even speaking my name. It marked my triumphant return to school on a career path that will both help me, heal me as well as allow me to share my special gifts with the world.

There were amazing trips: Israel. California. New York.

There was the foreclosure fiasco of 2009 that led to the final goodbye to our home in March, 2010. Our new home is far more beautiful, far more homey and has none of the haunting horrible memories that plagued our old home. Nothing was more terrifying than not knowing if today would be the day you pulled up to your house to find chains pulling the front doors closed. Though it was through no fault of our own, it was still a cringe-worthy way of living.

May of 2010 marked one full year of sobriety. An accomplishment that back in 2008 wasn't even in the cards for me and in 2009 seemed like it would be an unattainable goal. I am still on that path.

August was my 44th birthday and sometime in September, I chose to forgive myself for a lot of things I had done wrong. I gave myself that as a gift. I am sincerely looking forward to my 45th birthday, as I have always considered that number to be the mark of "halfway through" my life. Only halfway there. I'm still a baby. I still have so much more to do.

October of 2010 saw me have to confront the very real prospect of not having full control over the things that happen in my childrens' world. It was the first time I had to protect either of them from bullies and it was entirely too terrifying in light of all the suicide induced bullying incidents that it coincided with during that month.

November. Sweet November. November would bring my parents, Esther and Harold, back into town. It would be the month of the Turkey. It would be final exams, final projects, final papers. It would also be the last and final time my blog would ever be so uninspiring. My friend in love, Janice, would turn my plain Jane blog into a bucketful of beautiful, where a princess would be happy to flounce around in once more. Since she changed it, I have begun writing again. That is always a beautiful thing.

Then, finally...December. I hate the holidays. If you've read me for any length of time, you would know that. But somehow, this year was a little different. This year, there was hope in the air. Laughter in my home. And, to sound entirely too cheesy, perhaps a song in my heart. My grandson celebrated his first Christmas/Hannukah. My kids are happy. Healthy. My marriage is good. So, so so so so good. We went on our yearly anniversary cruise. 11 years together, 8 of them married...both taking place in December. It's a special time for the hotband and I. A time of reflection. A time to bond. A time to kick back in the sand of some tropical island, look over at one another and realize...we made it.

Wow. We made it.

Through tears. Through pain. Through strife. Through uncertainty. All the while, never letting go of each other's hands. Together...we survived it all, weathered the storms and sailed away on seas of contentment and joy. We made it, my love. We truly made it. And look at all we have to show for it.

Sitting perched on the precipice of a new year, I can't help but reflect and can't help but rejoice. More than anything, I can't wait to see what else the future brings. So, yeah...it begs the question:

Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes...how do you measure a year?

In love. Definitely, in love.

Further proof that no good deed goes unpunished...

2010-12-30T15:51:00.002-05:00

So, I am reading a friends Facebook page. From what I am gathering, my friend is not just depressed and sad, but she is posting things that make her sound like she is in full on crisis mode. These weren't suggestions or innuendos, but full on statements like wishing death on herself. This concerns me greatly, as I know this friend has been under a lot of stress for quite some time. I worry for this friend. I want this friend to know they are loved, cared about and thought of in such high regard that the world would be a little dimmer if they were not here.

Also, there is the thought of my beloved Derek racing through my head. His suicide back in 2007 has scarred me so deeply and perhaps has made me hyper-vigilant when it comes to someone tossing around the notion of suicidal thoughts. I lost Derek and still blame myself in a lot of ways. The "should haves", "would haves" and "could haves" still haunt me. So I will be totally damned if I am going to let another friend leave this earth without a fight.

I wrote a letter on Facebook to about 12 of this persons closest friends, asking them to rally around this particular friend. Post something on their wall, a memory of them. A photo of you and this person together. Something sweet and loving. Or, if your time allows, send this person an email just to let them know you are thinking of them. I didn't divulge any personal information about this person. I did not disclose what was going on in their life. I just simply asked for a few friends to reach out to this person.

So, imagine my surprise when I see THIS response show up in reply:

Hey, here's another thought. What about letting people deal with their lives and butting the fuck out. We have private lives for a reason and I for one prefer not to have people discussing mine behind my back. it would embarrass me and send me away if I thought the people I actually turn to for a little cheer on my terms thought I was a pathetic suicidal mess. Even if that's not your intention. It would be the way I would see it. That's all I'm going to say and I'm not going to be baited into a discussion either so I'm untagging myself from this and would prefer not to be invited back.

*blinks*

Um, Wow?

Nowhere in my original letter did I state this person was a "pathetic suicidal mess". Not even remotely indicated. Just stated what I saw on their Facebook page. It was right out there, in the open, on this persons sidebar. I found their reaction (or rather, overreaction) peculiar, because this particular group of friends...well, we are sort of known for doing things like this for one and other. This past year, we had two friends lose their jobs, one had a cancer scare, another lost a beloved pet and another still went through a nasty divorce. In each of these cases, someone rallied the troops and said "Hey, let's leave a little love and support on their Wall." Ironically, we did the same thing for the person who took my head off for their birthday! They were feeling sort of sad...so one of our friends said, "Let's do something special for their birthday this year." About 17 of us got involved in a collaborative project to come up with the perfect birthday gift for this person. And, I recall this friend saying "You guys really touched me. I have the greatest friends. Thank you for doing this for me."

So apparently, when it benefits YOU...the notion of rallying around a friend is alright?

Last night, I went to go post to this persons wall. I found a funny picture that I thought they would like and was going to post it to their page as somewhat of a peace offering, instead of discussing the situation to death. I was just willing to let it go even though they came at me in a terribly harsh manner. I get to their page only to find out I had been removed as their friend. To say I was hurt is a huge understatement. It is not often that someone can hurt me to the point where I cry, but I did. Not that I was hugely close with this person. I wasn't. We were friends through mutual friends. But, this was someone I respected and liked a great deal. Plus, this person now had me up all night long wondering, questioning myself...

did I do something wrong?

I tossed and turned over this all night. I must have read the letter I wrote again and again. What did I say? What did I do that was so bad? I thought it was a positive gesture.

I received some letters of support from the other people I had on the list. One person even stuck up for me and told this person to "lighten up", which was nice...because that was my thought too. But really? For the first time, I was sort of speechless. I wrote to this person on the thread the only thing I could possibly think of to say...

"And strangely the only thought that comes into my head is...no good deed goes unpunished. Thanks for that, (Friend). You rock. /end sarcasm."

How very true those words are. Sad during this time of year, when suicide rates spike up to their highest levels, is it considered a bad thing to reach out to a friend in need. Do I think the original person would have killed themselves? I hope not. But how can anyone really ever know for sure?

I have to be honest. I still maintain a lot of guilt over Derek's death. I will be damned if I let someone walk down that road alone again without letting them know how much they are loved, needed and wanted in this world.

Only next time...I guess I'll just keep it to myself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2 HOURS LATER EDIT: So, I am scrolling through pics at Imgur.com when I come across this pic. You know what? Fuck that friend who deleted me. I did the right thing. Validation comes in the craziest of ways. ~CP

(Click to open a new window, then, click again to enlarge.)

I have to vent...

2010-12-26T06:44:00.000-05:00

Okay, so Xmas is over. Finally. I have to admit that I absolutely hate this holiday. I think it is so commercialized and total bullshit. And, before anyone says it, it has nothing to do with being a Jew. I hate Channukah equally as much. Actually, I hate any holiday that demands you send cards, flowers, candy, presents and is lead by retail corporations and card companies. This includes Valentines Day as well. Garbage. You shouldn't have one day a year to tell the person that you love how you feel about them. Just the same way that I hate the entire "Jesus is the reason for the season" crapola. Jesus is not the reason for the season. If you knew anything about Jesus at all, you would probably know that he would be positively appalled by all the gift giving and all the excessive purchasing that we do for our families. The man was rooted in the theory of "good works" as opposed to things. You want to celebrate Christmas? DO something. Feed the homeless. Clothe a child who has nothing. Adopt a child from another country through a Unicef type program and spend the damn twenty bucks to take care of them all month long. $240 a year will keep a child who is in a poverty stricken situation in clothes, in school, well fed and vaccinated against simple diseases that no child should ever die from. Volunteer. Go to a nursing home and read to the elderly. My kids know I have a die hard policy about donating their things to kids who are less fortunate before I buy you one single thing. I don't exchange xmas presents with my husband for just that reason. We simply don't believe in it. I bought my grandkids 3 toys each and two outfits. That's it. Nothing crazy or excessive. Hubs and I spend our gift money on one another donating to St. Jude's children's hospital, the pediatric AIDS foundation, the American Cancer Society, etc. I'm not being holier than thou...I just believe that good works trumps good presents every time. I think that Xmas/Channukah should be about the kids, so I don't really do the whole gift giving thing for the adults in my family. None of my siblings, parents, in laws, etc got presents from me. They know better than to expect it. I will sooner make donations to charity organizations in their names then send them a gift. My two exceptions this year were sending a gift basket of chocolatey yum yum red velvet cupcakes to friends who have been very supportive of the hotband and I this year. The other was to buy my bestie a dress that was absolutely screaming her name. I knew she would look beautiful in it and I wanted her to have it. She is always there for me and while I know damn well I don't have to buy her anything to let her know how loved she is, I wanted her to have this particular item. It wasn't expensive...but I knew she would be beautiful in it and she deserves that.

Okay, end that rant. So not what I wanted to vent about.

What I wanted to get out of my system is how seething mad I am at my sister in law. Ever since coming home from Israel, she has treated me like utter shit or rather, worse than usual. You would think that after 11 years of being with her brother, I have more than proven myself to be a good and loving wife to him. She should be happy about that, but no. Always an attitude. Well, in the past 3 months, she has managed to A) Not show up to my granddaughter's birthday party because she went to a baby shower of a friend of a friend, B) Completely ignored my sons birthday and now, C) opted out of spending Christmas dinner with us because she went to her friends house instead.

Mind you, this is the same woman who used to torture my husband for all the time he was spending with me when he and I were first dating. She used to harass him about how I was consuming his whole life and how he was blowing off his "real family" to be with me and my kids. Well, good morning...but it's 11 years later. I think we have pretty well established that I wasn't some fling he was just blowing off his "real family" for. When her marriage collapsed, my hubs and I were there for her completely. Absolutely supportive of her and her endeavors. Whenever she needs someone to watch her son, we are there for her. We invite her and whoever she may be dating that particular month to anything we have. She is never excluded. Yet, she manages to keep herself at bay when it comes to me and my kids.

Admittedly, I used to blame my husband for this. I told him, why on earth would she think YOUR kids are important to you if you allow her to continue this behavior of not acknowledging them at all? But now, it's gotten to the point where HE is upset by it. I used to tell him how shitty I thought it was that his family doesn't acknowledge my kids. Hotband has raised Nick and Sam since they were 4 and 12 years old respectively. They are now 15 and 23, for God's sake. I think it is pretty well established that he loves those kids as if they were conceived from his own loins. We don't ever not acknowledge her son. That's my husbands nephew...and I love him just as much as if he were my very own son. When my granddaughter had her birthday party...she simply never showed up for it. No call, no text, nothing. Then, this past October, my son had a small birthday party at a Go Kart track. He invited his cousin, my sister in laws son. He showed up without so much as a card (not his fault, entirely my sister in laws fault). If my son had been a friend of my nephews from school, she wouldn't have dared to send her son without a gift or a card. So, my husband *finally* worked up the balls to say to her..."Hey, what you did was kind of rude". First words out of her mouth? "Did your wife put you up to this?" Yeah. My fault. *eye roll* Because my husband couldn't possibly feel a little slighted that his family STILL doesn't bother to acknowledge my children as OUR children. I had to laugh at that.

Another example of her shittiness? We flew all the way to Israel for her sons Bar Mitzvah. Nearly five grand in flights and food, etc. PLUS we gave him a gift of well over $200. In the Jewish tradition...the number 18 signifies long life. So, we gave him $18 for every year of his life. He was turning 13, a huge occasion in a Jewish boys life. We gave him $234 cash. Not so much as a thank you from her. Okay, whatever. But the kicker for me? My parents, who are not related to her or my nephew, sent my nephew a check for his bar mitzvah. I thought that was a really nice gesture on their part. They certainly didn't have to do that. Does she have him call and thank them? No. Can't be bothered. One month goes by. Two months go by. THREE months go by. Finally, one day, she asked if we could watch her son. As always, we did...and I told my husband to make sure that my nephew CALLS MY PARENTS and thanks them for the gift. It took my husband having to make that phone call for my parents to receive a thank you. I think that's absolutely disgusting, tacky and tasteless.

Anyway, back to Christmas. My daughter invited her to Christmas dinner. It's a big deal for Sammi. She and her husband made this big, beautiful dinner for us and the kids. She extended the invitation to her "aunt" to join us. She writes on Facebook that she didn't know what time dinner was. So, my son in law writes back that it is between 7 and 7:30. No show. No call. No text. No FB message. Nothing. I figure, maybe she decided just to stay home and be alone. Later on FB, I see a photo of her with her on again/off again boyfriend at the home of a friend, enjoying Xmas with them. Wow. Really? She never even called her own brother to wish him a Merry Christmas/Channukah. My husband is so hurt and upset by her actions...but he for some reason, refuses to confront her. Maybe because of something she said to him a LONG time ago. She once told him that if he chose me over her, she would disown him as her brother. I think that stuck in his head and is now afraid of losing his relationship with her. I couldn't fathom telling my brother that and my bro and I aren't even remotely as close as my hubs and his sister are/were.

I don't really know where this post is going. I suppose that I chose to blog this instead of writing her a very confrontational letter. I am so sick and tired of this shit. The only thing I can think of is that she is avoiding us because she owes us a pretty large sum of money. Of course, that would be utterly ridiculous. We borrowed a few grand from her a long time ago when things were lean for us so it's not like she should be ashamed of needing the help from us. For God's sake, we are family. Isn't that what family is supposed to be about? Being able to lean on one another when things get hard?

Look, I don't care if she hates me. I have tried to reach out to her in every single way possible. She's made it blatantly obvious she doesn't care for me as a person...but what on earth does that have to do with the kids? Moreover, what kind of human being shows such blatant disrespect for their brothers children? My kids are my husbands children. He loves them desperately. No different than if we bore them together, or if he had adopted them with me. But, I suppose since they weren't crafted from his semen that they just don't matter to her. My husband was in the delivery room when his grandbabies were born. He witnessed both their births. He loves those kids. I know he is hurting over this. I try to refrain from saying anything to him about it, but I know he was really hurt that she didn't show up tonight. I want so badly to call her up and say, "look bitch, hate me all you want...but you are killing your brother's heart."

The whole situation is just so fucking sad. 11 years later. You would think that she would realize that my husband and I are in this for the long haul. You would think she would care more. I don't know what else to do or say without causing some irreversible damage. I have held my tongue til it literally bled. I don't know how much longer I can do so...but for my husbands sake, I will make the effort.

In conclusion? Family sucks.

When Religion and Tradition Collide...

2010-12-15T04:47:00.004-05:00

I truly believe that most Christians do not have a clue about the origin of their religion. More over, I believe that most of them do not even remotely understand that Christmas has nothing at all to do with the birth of Christ. And Santa? Good old Santa has nothing at all to do with the Christian version of Christmas whatsoever. So, when a conversation like the following takes place, I often try to gently inform and educate while trying to understand that, no matter what I say, someone who has been made to understand one thing since they were a child is not likely to change their opinion regardless of how much sense someone else makes.

I had the following conversation on Facebook the other day and was curious what Blogger would think of it. Apparently, "Person A" was upset because of a recent ruling in Florida stating that all Christmas signs/decorations would not be adorning the toll booths along the highway, as has always been done in the past, because when Halloween decorations were put up this past October, many people complained that they were "offended" by them. They were offended because the decorations pushed the Pagan holiday of Halloween and it was an affront to those who are devout Christians.

NOTE: Names are redacted to protect the ~~idiocy~~ identity of the player involved. Also, random comments that contributed nothing to the main idea of the conversation were deleted in the interest of saving space.

Person A: I'm tired of hearing that people are offended about the word CHRISTMAS & when someone says MERRY CHRISTMAS to them! Well guess what, "TOUGH SHIT", I don't hear you complaining when you go on CHRISTMAS break or have OFF from work for this wonderful day. If you are offended--TO FRIGGEN BAD-- I have to be sensitive to all your holidays, then be RESPECTFUL of MINE! MERRY CHRISTMAS, MERRY CHRISTMAS, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Friend of Person A: That's awesome! You took the words right out of my mouth!

Person A: Thanks (Friend), I can't take all the credit, my awesome cousin said it first but it is exactly what I was thinking!! Forget political correctness, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

CP: I get that...but then, you have to give equal time to ALL religions. There was no Happy Channukah signs up this past season either. That's disrespectful to me...if you are going to just do Xmas but not MY holiday. I exist. I pay taxes just like you do...why does my holiday not matter? LOL I'm just kidding. I actually don't care. People say merry xmas to me all the time and then I usually shoot back with Happy Hannukah to them. It makes people laugh. I put up a tree every year and call it a Hannukah bush. Truthfully, the safest thing to do so as not to offend is to place a sign that says "happy holidays" and leave it at that so whiny bitches don't get all up in arms over it. However, it seems to me that most find "Happy Holidays" equally as offensive, like there is some secret crusade or conspiracy to eradicate Christmas which is ridiculous and untrue.

The Halloween thing, though...that was another story. And, to clarify, it was Christians and Catholics who did all the complaining! They were angry that a Pagan ritual based "holiday" was being shoved in their faces. So basically, all the people who celebrate xmas sort of shot themselves in the foot now with all the halloween complaining. LOL They did it to themselves.

Person A: I'm personally tired of tip toeing around, all this pc stuff is ridiculous! If I offend you with Merry Christmas then don't say anything or say Happy whatever back! My holiday, what I grew up with was CHRISTMAS, I'm catholic and believe in the MAGIC of CHRISTMAS!! I have no problem going to the mall and seeing a dreidel or a Menorah and now even the kenorah, it does not offend me so why should a "CHRISTMAS TREE", Santa or other Christmas symbols offend others, it's just plain old crap!

CP: But that was my point. I'm a Jew, as you know. I don't find "Merry Christmas" to be offensive. Not at all. My family has Catholics and Christians in it as well. However, it is important to realize that the people who complained about the Halloween decorations were the people who made it so that Xmas decorations are now offensive to others. Unfortunately, the people who complained about Halloween were devout Catholics and Christians who were angry about a Pagan holiday being shoved in their face. So, you see...if they hadn't gotten offended over someone ELSE'S holiday, they would have their decorations up now for their own! It wasn't Jews or Muslims who did this, Hon. It was YOUR OWN PEOPLE! I'm not trying to be offensive here or even attempting to point fingers, but what happened at the toll booths was done by hypocrites (which I am NOT NOT NOT accusing Catholics/Christians of being). What I am saying is that people who did not think about the big picture ended up cutting off their own nose to spite their face. They rallied against someone else's holiday (Halloween) with such fervor that now their own politics are getting tossed back at them. That's what happened here in Florida. As for why others find Christmas symbols offensive? I have no idea. But then again, I'm still trying to figure out how Santa has anything at all to do with the birth of Christ. Santa was born out of, coincidentally and oddly enough, Paganism...which makes all this entirely too ironic. LOL

Person A: So you are saying that the people who complained about the Halloween decorations are the reason that we can't have Christmas (not Xmas please) decorations now? That makes no sense.

CP: Sure it does. The newspaper clearly stated that it was the Catholic Coalition for Keeping Christ in Christmas were the ones that sent the threatening letters to the Florida Highway Patrol regarding the Halloween decor on the toll booths being offensive. So, in order to please everyone, they made the only decision they really could make, which was to opt out of decorations altogether. It seemed like the appropriate decision to me. Kind of like kindergarten mentality. If you all can't play nicely together, no one gets to play at all. It's unfortunate but because of the radical behavior of some, no one gets holiday decorations now. Frankly, I don't understand why there would be a specific holiday put on the toll booths ever. Happy Holidays is more than sufficient and easily runs the gamut of holidays between October and the New Year.

Person A: Ya but this is the Christmas season. Everyone celebrates the Christmas season even if they aren't religious. Its a tradition thing not a religious thing.

CP: I disagree. There are about 4 other holidays that take place during the month of December that I can think of. There is Hannukah, the Muslim New Year, Kwanzaa, Christmas and probably a few more that I am not even aware of. Merry Christmas does not acknowledge those other religions at all. Second, Christmas decor would consist of Santa, reindeer, elves, etc. which are all steeped in Pagan tradition and originate via Pagan mythology. It was the fact that Florida state chose to use the Pagan originated holiday of Halloween to complain about in the first place. But now that we are discussing Christmas, they want Pagan symbolism to hang freely? That makes very little sense to me. Further, why only Christmas trees, Santas and the specific phrase of "Merry Christmas"? Why not menorah's and kinara's as well? Why wasn't there a big banner across the booths that said "Happy Hannukah" during that week? It's completely unfair to only acknowledge one religion during a holiday season that consists of more than just that one holiday. This is why a simple "Happy Holidays" banner would have been sufficient. My personal opinion is that NO holiday acknowledgment is warranted due to the fact that there should be separation between church and state. Those toll booths are paid for by MY tax dollars as well as yours. If we are going to reflect one religion, then all should be given equal time...but since the toll booths are run by state and federal government agencies, religious holiday acknowledgment in any form is inappropriate to begin with. So, my initial assessment stands. If the Catholic and Christian organizations who boycotted the toll booths at Halloween had thought about what they were doing...I mean, really thought their actions through, then they would have realized the simple fact that they did, indeed, do this to themselves. State government just opted to take the path of least resistance, which is to do away with the decorations altogether.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is where the conversation ended. I was "defriended" shortly after this. I gave her a few days to cool down and then wrote her a note telling her that I absolutely was not trying to offend her nor be offensive. She accepted my apology (though, I still don't know exactly why I felt I should apologize. However, she is someone my daughter is associated with and I didn't want to make things bizarre between she and my daughter) and continued to state that she felt I was mocking her religious beliefs. Now, I could have opened a brand new, fresh can of worms by telling her that the decorations in question have absolutely nothing to do with the religious aspect of what Christmas represents. I suppose that's another story for another day. I shall save that one for the inevitable Easter vs. Passover debate.

What's your take on the situation? Are you part of the "Leave Christ in Christmas" brigade that is easily offended when someone writes "Xmas"? Are you a "Happy Holidays" kind of person or do you feel the need to retaliate with a stern "Jesus is the reason for the season" reply to any who say that to you? Do you think that most people understand the origins of Christmas and/or Hannukah well enough to know that what I was saying was not necessarily offensive so much as it was an attempt to educate?

One thing that continues to make sense to me is the fact that after all this time, Jesus still has not come back. I mean, would you want to come back only to answer all these ridiculous theological and religious questions? I know I wouldn't. He's probably sitting back on some island somewhere, taking in the sun with a cold beer in one hand and the good book in the other saying "No shit. Really? Did I do that? I don't remember saying THAT. Who wrote this crap? It had to be Luke. Maybe Matthew. No, wait. Paul. This has Paul written all over it, that damn prankster. When I get my hands on that little bitch, I am going to give him a piece of my mind, Dad dammit."

Why women suck...

2010-12-14T15:53:00.000-05:00

I have a lot of acquaintances. I have a lot of good acquaintances. I have some friends. Of those friends, most of them are male. There is a reason for that. The reason?

Most women suck.

I learned at a very early age that women tend to be spiteful, catty and malicious. Even when they are well intentioned, they can't help speaking from a place of jealousy most of the time. I hesitate to use the word "envy", because I tend to put a positive spin on that word. There are definitely things I envy about some of my friends. I envy my kid sisters gorgeous, thick brown hair and her insane ability to cook. I envy another friends gorgeous wardrobe. Still, another friend manages to make her life look so effortless and breezy easy. I don't covet these things, but I sure as shit wish I knew how they do what they do and manage to do it with ease.

What I don't do is begrudge my female friends their beauty, their strength or the wonderful things that happen in their lives.

It seems to me that when really great things happen in our female friends lives, we don't entirely focus on their happiness, but rather, use it as a gauge to figure out exactly where we are on the scale of female perfection. I have been steadily working on that with myself. I try to realize that when enormously wonderful things happen to my girlfriends, it doesn't mean I am less than. It only means I have yet another goal to strive towards.

Recently, a friend clued me in that someone I considered a friend, who I have known via the blog realm for nearly 5 years has been talking shit behind my back. Now, I am no stranger to criticism and back-stabbing. I've been hearing women talk shit about me since the day I was old enough to understand it. I'm okay with it. My mother always told me, feel bad for the girls who talk about you. It means they have nothing in their own lives worth talking about. One thing I can say about Esther, she sure knew how to make an impact on my tender pre-pubescent psyche.

Back to my point.

This "friend" tore me up in a letter? Email? Blog post? I'm not sure the medium. I didn't ask. I frankly don't care enough to ask. What I do know is I was chastised for the following:

1) I brag about my husband too much. I will reply to this with an "absofuckinglutely". I do. My husband is awesome. He's better than your husband. He's better than you. He's even better than me. I believe that the Christians have not yet realized that my husband IS the second coming of the Messiah that they have long been waiting for. Until they realize that, I will keep him as the best kept secret Judaism has ever seen since the burning bush. He loves me unconditionally, flaws and all. He loves my children as though they were bred from his loins. He has three jobs all to support my dream of heading back to school to do the work I long to do. He is a good friend to everyone who meets him. He is KIND. Like, "walk an old lady across the street while he pushes her stalled vehicle across three lanes of traffic" sort of kind. He is a devoted grandfather who cannot get enough of his grandkids. So, do I brag about him? Yes, because he is worthy of this praise and should have it heaped upon him every single day. And, yes, you should have to know that he is the reason I am happy. If you were really my friend, you would love that about him and be thrilled for me. Just because your husband hasn't touched you since the new millennium began, don't hate on me for it. Buy yourself a vibrator, dust out the old vag canal and handle your business.

2) I brag about my "things". No. I don't brag about my things. I tell people about my things because I want them to have similar things. Similarly, I expect to hear about YOUR things, because if you are happy with something...I would hope you would want me to have that same feeling. Do I get excited about an upcoming vacation? Certainly. Am I not allowed to voice that? Do I talk about my shoe obsession? Yes. And to someone who is not a shoe whore, I can see where that would be annoying. However, I don't begrudge you your new breadmaker? Salad shooter? Curtains? Shop Vac? Whatever the fuck it is that brings you pleasure, I applaud it. I don't get it. I don't understand it. But, I do understand that whatever it is, it is making your life just a bucket of awesome, therefore, it is doing the same for me too.

3) I brag about my grandchildren. Wow. This one cracked my ass up. Is there a grandmother on the face of this earth who doesn't do that? I'm sorry you didn't produce children of your own who in turn will provide you with the joy of grandkids, but that is hardly my fault. My grandkids are amazing little creatures who change and grow every day. Every day they bring something new and fascinating into my life. I love this brand new aspect of my life. Do I tell you not to brag about your dogs? Cats? You say these are your "furry children". Well then, act like it. Enjoy them. Have fun with them. Let them make you laugh...and in turn, share the funny with me! I'd love to hear it. No, really. I would. I'm not you.

There were other things, like for example, my coffee maker. Yes. My coffee maker. Sure, that goes under the category of "things", but this one had to be separate because in this letter/email/blog post about me, it was a separate issue for this person as well. Apparently, the fact that my husband bought us an industrial sized Keurig was of grave concern to this person. So much so, that she went on to discuss why HER coffee maker was far more awesome.

I also brag about: My charity work. My writing gigs. (Really? I usually keep those kind of private). My grades. (Totally fuck you on this one. I work for those A's, bitch. I work hard.) I can go on and on. It's truly fucking laughable at this point.

Has it seriously come to this?

So, this is why women suck. We all have jealousies and insecurities. But, the measure of a good woman is the one who can put that on the back burner to allow for genuine happiness for a friends good fortune. And honestly, am I a braggart? I would suggest a thorough read of my blog would answer that for you. I have been through a LOAD of shit in my lifetime. Was I bragging about the losses I have suffered? The man who beat me relentlessly for 2 years? My past drug addiction? My struggle with bipolar disorder? No. Unless of course you are under the belief that I am one of those people who feels they have to "one up" everyone else's sob stories. I don't believe that's me either. I'm just a real person. I talk. A lot. I talk about the good things in my life openly just the same way I talk about the not so good things. If it seems like there has been more of the former as of late, well, there has been. And honestly, I feel I have earned the good things that have come my way over the past few years.

I am a good person at heart. I love my family to the ends of the earth and would lay down and die for any of them. I am fervently devoted to my friends. (Is that bragging or is that simply a statement of fact? I think the lines are starting to blur for me). I think I am smart, funny, confident, interesting and damn beautiful to look at. Oh, and I have a great rack. Again, not bragging...it just is what it is. The other day, I happened upon this quote:

There's no such thing as bragging. You're either lying or telling the truth.

I know I'm telling the truth. And sometimes, sister, the truth hurts...especially when it reflects your own personal truth right back at you and you don't like what you see. For that reason alone, I forgive you. I hope you are strong enough to forgive yourself and allow yourself to know happiness in your life. You deserve that. Every woman does. Even you.

No. Especially you.

To Write Love On Her Arms

2010-11-13T04:46:00.000-05:00

Nick and I, with love written on our arms.

The Hotband and I. A promise of love, support and hope. Always.

Yes, I could continue 30 days of truth...BUT WHY????

2010-11-11T01:17:00.000-05:00

When there is all this brand new prettiness all over my blog!!!

Are you dying??

Five years, this blog has looked EXACTLY the same. Then I hired me some TwoScoopz goddess, also known as my beloved friend "J" and THIS was the result? Hello? Pinkness? Prettiness? Lipstick? Shoes? Purses?

Does this bitch know me or does she KNOW me? *shaking my head*

I turned over the reigns to her. The only thing I asked to keep was the banner of my Princess marching down 5th avenue in NYC and of course, the little Princess herself. Other than that, she had carte blanche.

And she totally nailed what I wanted. Totally.

If you need a new face on your old space, I HIGHLY recommend my girl, J. She is so hugely talented. And, even if you don't need sprucing up, head over there anyway to see her amazing photography. She doesn't know this, but I have stolen SO many of her photos to use as my desktop background. Ooops. Did I just say that out loud? Don't STEAL her shit, ai'ight? I will brown bag your ass in a parking lot if you head over there and steal her shit. Grounds for a shank to the solar plexus, you got it? Just lay down a nice comment...and maybe she will share a pic with you. But you ain't me, bitch, so don't just go taking shit that ain't yours.

*sighs*

Man, I can't even be MEAN here any more. It's just too. fucking. pretty.

Thank you, J. Not just for taking my "house" and turning it into a "home", but for being a guest in my house for so long. From sitting on the porch, to walking through the front door, to hanging on the couch, to snuggling in the bedroom...the very heart and soul of where I live and breathe. You have always been there for me, through good times and bad. We've shared a LOT of laughter and tears over the past few years. I couldn't even dream of putting my beloved memories in anyone elses hands. Thank you for treating them as though they were your own.

I love, love, love you to the stars and beyond.

Day 7: Someone who has made your life worth living.

2010-11-08T10:46:00.002-05:00

Oy. Really?

I hate this shit.

You know I am going to say the Hotband. You know I am going to say Nick. You know I am going to say Samantha. You know I am going to say my grandkids. Have you not read at least 604 posts all dedicated to them, the love they give me and the way they have held my head above water for the past five years? Writing this post will bore me to tears and, more than likely, that will trickle down to you.

So, instead, I am going to write it about someone who doesn't hear my accolades too often.

Esther.

If not for Esther, half of the posts I write on here wouldn't be worth reading. She is truly a gift in my life. Not because she's a great mom (which totally depends on the day) but because she is so spontaneous, so without tact or forethought, so "from the heart to the lips", that she is literally entertaining. Even at her most cutting, she is undeniably funny. No matter how rotten she is being, there is something hysterically funny about the things that irritate her. She is quirky as hell. I mean, who cleans the house because they don't want the cleaning lady to see her house dirty? Who does that? Who designates an entire bedroom of a house to her dog, complete with monogrammed Lazy Boy chair, monogrammed towels that say "Max", more photos of her precious pitbull in frames than of her own grandchildren and, mind you, his own SONIC CARE toothbrush?

Let me tell y'all. If you believe in karma, pray hard to come back in your next life as my mothers dog. That's all I'm saying. She leaves the house for a few hours and she calls a babysitter for Max. I recall being 9 years old, my brother being six...and her going out for dinner with a boyfriend. No babysitter. Just "here ya go kiddies" as she put the TV dinners on the TV trays for us. "Be good, I'll be home soon. I'll have Sonja next door check in on you."

But Max...a 13 year old Pitbull gets a dog sitter if she's gone for more than 2 hours.

Pretty good life, if you can get it.

Overall, my mother is not a bad person. She doesn't have much of a mind of her own. Her politics depend on whatever my father's thinking involves. Her logic on certain subjects in incredibly flawed and dare I say on occasion, desperately uneducated. If she didn't hear it on Fox News, it couldn't have possibly happened. But, despite this, she is a source of a lot of the laughter in my life...now that she and I no longer live in the same state.

I will say that I have taken some of her best and worst traits for my own. We are both terribly and often inappropriately outspoken. We both don't sit idly by for injustice. We will get involved when we see someone in trouble without much fear for our own personal safety. We are both crusaders that way. Very strong woman. On the flipside of that coin, we are both easily angered. We tend to get involved in things that don't necessarily require our input. We can both be incredibly overbearing to the point of overshadowing others.

The difference that separates us most probably is tact. Spend 10 minutes with both of us, and I will come off looking like one classy dame. She's got a mouth like battery acid and while I know how to flip the "off" switch on that...she does not. But if she did, what on earth would I ever have to write about?

So, Mom...this one is for you. Someone who has made my life worth living. You gave me life despite all the craziness in your life. You were a single parent with two little kids doing the very best you could. Was it always the right thing? God, no. Did you fuck up quite often? Definitely. But, in doing so...I learned from your mistakes as well. I am not saying I would be a better mother than you were...but a different mother. I know you grew up in a very abusive household, as did I. But you inspired me to break that cycle. And, while I didn't always do a fantastic job of that, I did well enough so that now, when I see my daughter interact with her babies, I know for sure the cycle of abuse is officially broken. It's over. No one will ever get hit again.

I forgive you, Mom. I DO love you. I know I don't say it enough. I don't know that I ever will, but as I watch you grow older, becoming a bit more reserved and not as quick as a whip with that vile tongue of yours, I find myself softened. Something in your eyes have lost that edginess and I see the first signs of an older, more frail human being. It allows me to let my guard down a little.

And, just when I become afraid that I will never see that side of you again, I wait for you to come visit, just so I can say "Bill O'Reilly sucks and Obama is the best President ever!" It winds you back up, you lose 25 years in your eyes...and you're back to calling me a stupid bitch who doesn't know shit.

I will always love you for that.

Day 6 - Something You Hope You Never Have to Do

2010-10-19T16:41:00.004-04:00

(This post brought to you by the word "Middy", who publicly outed me on Facebook for not finishing up the 30 Days of Truth. Where does it say it has to be 30 CONSECUTIVE days, bitch? LMAO)

There's a lot of things in my life that I hope I never have to do. Some of them are things I hope to never have to do...AGAIN. Bury a child. Return to drug rehab. Go back to nursing. Re-marry. Those are the things that come to mind immediately.

However, something I really hope I never have to do again is deal with my son being bullied in school. This blog post dropped off a couple of weeks ago after an incident at my sons school brought my flow as a writer to a crashing halt. In light of all the anti-bullying campaigns going on, I found myself smack in the middle of the controversy.

Apparently, my son was approached by a young lady in his school about smoking pot with her. He told her that he didn't do that, told her that he thinks people who do are losers and left it at that. Should he have said that? Maybe not. No sense in making people feel bad about their personal decisions, but I was nevertheless proud to know that is his take on drug users. This in turn incensed the young lady.

Sometime around noon, she tapped my son on the shoulder. He had his back to her and when he turned to see who was tapping him, she proceeded to strike him, close fisted, right across his face. She left large, red welts across his cheek. As he was always taught, he did not retaliate with violence, but rather with a "What the Fuck, Lindsay?" She stormed off. He was sent to the clinic for some Tylenol and an ice pack for his face. At approximately 4pm, I received a call from the school telling me what happened. All the administrator said was that my son was involved in an altercation. She was not forthright with the details immediately, so I was incensed. The details were not coming out as fast and furiously as I wanted them to. Is he okay? Is he hurt? Is he safe? Where is he now? And...the all important, if this happened at lunch, WHY THE FUCK AM I FIRST HEARING ABOUT IT NOW??? To say I was livid is putting it in graciously mild terms.

The admin told me that the girl will be suspended, however, my sons "involvement" in the incident was going to be investigated. My sons involvement? He never touched her. Never laid a finger on her. What the HELL are you investigating my son for?? This girl is obviously a bully. According to my son, this isn't the first time she has hit a boy in school, simply because "she can". She knows they won't retaliate.

Her reply to me was "We don't understand how we can qualify this young lady who assaulted Nick as a bully. She's in all honors classes!" *ROFL* Really? Because if you are a piece of shit who assaults other people, you can't possibly be smart too? Well, hell...there goes my entire High School career! LOL

The first night it happened, I was enraged. I was literally pacing the floors wondering how I can get this girls address so I can beat her father to a pulp and claim "Well, I'm a girl. I can do what I want and get away with it." I was so angry. Someone struck MY baby. My little boy. The child who I nursed back to health after open heart surgery and a time there that we weren't sure he was going to make it back into the safety of my arms. MY baby. Who the FUCK are you to touch MY child? To make him feel unsafe? To harm him in any way whatsoever, simply because he opted not to conform to your drug use? Seething. I was literally seething. And what would be the aftermath? I told the administration that I intended to press charges of assault against the girl. When I told my son of my intentions, he begged me not to.

"It would ruin me in school, Mom," he said. "Please don't do it. It will ruin me."

So here I am, caught between needing to do what is right to protect my son and my sons comfort and safety in the days that would follow thereafter. It was a confusing time for me, especially as I watched his facebook page, posting video after video of angry songs about kids being bullied. This obviously was affecting him deeper than he was letting on. And all I can think of was how angry I was. I am so angry. And Alone. And I want to hit something. I want to hit it so damn hard over and over again until it hurts as much as I do.

What to do next? What do you do?

I go to the girls facebook page and find that she has written in her "info" that she has bipolar disorder and anger management issues and that if you "fuck with her" expect to get "fucked with right back". But, my son never did anything to her. He was a victim of abuse. For any of you who have read my blog for any length of time, you know I was the victim of abuse at the hands of a man who beat me relentlessly for years before I finally got away. I don't tolerate it in my life any longer and I sure as fuck will not be standing for it in my childs life. Further, since when is bipolar disorder an acceptable excuse for bad behavior? Obviously this child does not have her parents involved in her life or they would see her facebook page, as I did, and be appalled by most of what was written there. I did print out a copy of her page and send it up to the school to show them what their precious "honor student" was capable of when left to her own devices.

Eventually, Nick was completely exonerated of any wrong doing at all. Opted not to press charges against this little piece of shit, but did let her parents know that I have six months in which to change my mind about that and a police report in my pocket. So, hopefully, they will keep their little mongrel on a leash from now on.

I hope, in the rest of my lifetime, I don't have to do this again with my son. I hope that the rest of his school career is safe and nurturing. I never want to see that look of pain in his eyes ever again, nor do I ever want my level of anger to rise so high that I do something stupid in retaliation for a wrongdoing directed at any of my children or grandchildren.

If nothing else, it has only gotten me more involved in The Trevor Project, an organization that is seeking to stop bullying. Their agenda incorporates the bullying of gay teenagers to the point of suicide, but really, any child who is being bullied and threatened in school is encouraged to seek help before opting for the final act of suicide, simply because they just can no longer take the ridicule. Being different, whether it is because you are gay, you are fat, you are tall or you refuse to do drugs with your peers should not make you a pariah. People need to learn to respect that we are all different. We are all unique and everyone has a place in this world.

Bullies are small minded cowards with big mouths. Nothing more.

If you are being bullied in school or are the parent of a child who is being bullied, I encourage you to join in me in my endeavor to get out the word about The Trevor Project so that no more teenagers succumb to suicide due to being bullied in school. If you have an urgent emergency and need help, call The Trevor Project. That number is The Trevor Lifeline: 1-866-4-U-TREVOR (866-488-7386).

In the interim, I must encourage you to take 15 minutes out of your life and watch the short film "Trevor", the movie that inspired The Trevor Project. It is 15 minutes that will change your life and make you realize that yes, it DOES get better.

You may watch the movie in full HERE Please encourage your children to watch it as well.

Nine children in the past 6 weeks have killed themselves due to bullying. Those are nine beautiful lives that were full of potential and promise being snuffed out in the springtime of their lives. So much in store for them, so much lying ahead for them and now, they will never know.

We have to do better. We have to.

Day 5: Something You Hope to do With Your Life

2010-10-07T01:48:00.009-04:00

This is going to sound so trivial. The answer came as quickly to me as the question did. What I hope to do with my life, I am already doing. In a lifetime, 44 years worth of drama, heartache, pain, suffering, highs and lows, etc., the only thing that I wished to be doing with my life right now is celebrating it.

That is precisely what I am doing.

For the first time in my life, I can look in a mirror and say "I'm happy". Not just a little happy or happy with certain aspects of my life. No. Truly and legitimately happy with every single portion of my life right now.

Truth be known, I am one lucky bitch. I have a husband who absolutely adores me and lets me know this consistently through not only his words, but his actions as well. He is loyal, a hard worker, dedicated to his wife and kids, generous and above all, he is kind. Kind almost to a fault. He is the kind of man who buys a homeless person a sandwich on the street. He pulls over to give stranded motorists a boost even if he is running late for something. He calls 911 when he sees a car swerving all over the road and follows that car to make sure that no one is harmed until the police arrive and take over. He is a good soul. He makes an effort every single day to do something in the name of God and his family. He is truly a selfless human being and I am utterly honored and blessed to have him as a partner in life. My best friend in every single sense of the word.

My children. They are growing, thriving and are two of the most amazing young adults I have ever seen. My daughter is a fantastic mother, raising her two children under the age of two so adeptly and with such ease and grace. She makes it all look so easy, balancing her children with her responsibilities as a wife and a full time employee. Her husband has proven himself to be a good person and a very doting father. They just celebrated four years of marriage and seem to be happier now than ever before. My son. My son...my little musical prodigy, just began his first year of high school, leaving behind a football for his Les Paul. He is an individual through and through. He doesn't take shit (like his mama) and he is thriving in school. He is polite, yet sarcastic. He is funny and articulate. And while he tries to act like he gives a shit about nothing (typical teenage boy AND he gets that from his mother as well), he is a caring, noble and honest person.

My grandchildren. Oy, the lights of my life. Sadie will be two years old soon. She drives everyone nuts with her independent attitude and her impatience. She is a diva in the making. Loves to climb, run, jump and do everything all the boys do. She is an absolute angel. Liam, my little chubster. The little man. Bubba Schwaz as we call him, much to my daughters chagrin. The most docile baby you will ever meet. Always happy. Just wants to be held all the time and loves to snuggle. The two of them are absolute blessings in my husband and my life.

My parents. God love 'em both. Esther and Harold. Both alive and kicking, driving each other crazy. They are insane, loud, boisterous, annoying...and I wouldn't have them any other way. Dad turns 70 years old this year, a huge milestone for someone who was very ill once upon a time. I am grateful to have them in my life and to have them be as supportive as they are. I also am grateful to have Esther 1200 miles away. ;)

My home is large and inviting. My cars run. We have a savings that allows us to vacation once or twice a year. My husband makes a good enough living that it has allowed me to go back to school and work towards my Masters degree in Social Work. I want to work with addicts and also with GLBT and Questioning Youths. I am doing a lot of volunteer work with The Trevor Project (thetrevorproject.org), an organization that is working with gay and lesbian children and teens in the hopes of protecting them against bullying and taunting. With the recent rash of suicides that have taken place among this particular demographic, it is more important than ever to me to dive into my volunteering head first and make my education really count for something.

My dogs are fine and shit in my kitchen on a daily basis. My cats are wonderful.

Lastly, my friends. I have spent the past year weeding out the poison, carefully cultivating the garden so that only the most voluminous flowers will bloom there. Sure, there were some tricky spots along the way. I pulled a few weeds that were really flowers in disguise. I planted some gorgeous flowers that turned out to be venus fly traps. But now...now I think I've got it to where I need it. To where I want it. To where I can be the great big oak tree and be surrounded by the beautiful landscape of my carefully formed and nurtured friendships. This has been a year of surprises for sure. Those I would have never thought I could have trusted in a million years turned out to be ferociously loyal friends. Then, there were the friends that I thought I knew oh so well, who turned out to be nothing more than the fertilizer...the absolute SHIT in my field of beauty.

Regrets along the way for some missteps with a few of them? Certainly. But none so compelling that I feel the need to make further amends than I already did. One managed to surprise me...but what surprised me more was how little I ended up caring in the long run. As long as I have those who know me and love me, flaws and all, I am a-okay in my little world.

So, something I hope to do with my life? I'm doing it. I'm living it. I'm living it happily and I am living it well.

It was a long time coming.

Day 4 - Forgiving Someone Else...

2010-10-04T14:44:00.008-04:00

Forgiving someone. Not as hard as forgiving yourself, but a challenge nevertheless. There are a few people I could put under this category. A perfect example would be my own father, who selfishly left my family behind only to succumb to a cocaine induced death back in 1986. I think I have made peace with that. He was a man-child, who never really wanted the ties of marriage to bind him let alone the children that came along with that commitment. I have let that one into my mind back and forth over many years and believe I have long since come to terms with the fact that the man lived the best way he knew how, fast and on the edge, and eventually died the same way. I have a lot of his traits only I feel I am stronger than he was and his death was an example to me of the road I could have taken had I not been more careful.

But, with this being Domestic Violence Awareness month, I carefully thought over the aspect of forgiveness. Some might be horrified by my choice, but for me, this just feels right. The person I am trying to forgive is Tony. If you are a long time reader of this blog, then you will know that Tony is the man I was with for 2 and a half years, who beat me within an inch of my life. It started with a slap in 1989 and ended with my being in the hospital in November of 1991, bleeding in my skull from a brain hemorrhage.

My story about Tony is told here:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

For all these years, I couldn't bring myself to feel anything but hatred for this man. Now, nearly 20 years later, all I can do is feel pity. Pity for him. Pity for the fact that he had such a hard and traumatic childhood that he felt the need to take it out on the flesh and bones of a woman he supposedly loved. When people would ask me "is there anyone in this world that you absolutely hate," my answer would be Tony. Not even a pause. Not even a thought. It was something I had programmed my mouth to say.

Now I realize that hate is such a wasted emotion. I don't hate him any longer. When I think of him, it is with sadness. Nothing more. I used to have deep-seated regret stemming from my time with him. Now, I feel he has done me some what of a service. He has made me a much stronger woman, knowing I am capable of living through a situation that others might have died in. He let me know that I am the type of mother who would protect her children at all costs, no matter how horrible the situation might be. He made me an activist, working diligently for rights of women everywhere. He made me rise above, showed me how powerful I actually am and what I am capable of when cornered.

To me, forgiving him is the ultimate. It is like forgiving the person who stole your child from you. He stole a huge portion of my life. Not just the two years that he beat and battered me, but many years to follow. All the years of self-loathing. All the years of physical pain from my various injuries. All the mental and emotional pain that had to be treated by doctors dumping various and sundry drugs down my throat to right my wronged brain.

But now, all that is gone for me. And I think, if I ever encountered him now, I would do so without fear. I would be able to look him in his eyes and where once upon a time I might have asked "why", I find that that doesn't really matter any more. I would be able to tell him that I forgive him. He was a child of abuse and neglect. He related to me the only way he knew how, with fists rather than words. It was his only way of having power in his life, the power that was stripped from him as a little boy. I understand that now. I can empathize with him...

and I believe with empathy comes forgiveness. And Tony, I forgive you. My nightmares about you are long gone and I wake up every morning with a huge smile on my face, knowing what an amazing life I have since created for myself. I hope somewhere in the world, you are living the same way and are released of the demons that caused you to brutalize the things you loved best in all the world.

I wish you peace. I hope you have found it.

600th post! Day 3 - Forgive myself.

2010-10-03T20:09:00.006-04:00

The thing I need to forgive myself for, well, I believe I have nearly achieved that. My drug addiction. The way it threw my entire family off kilter. The way it effected their lives, my life. The fact that I haven't fully recuperated from the post traumatic stress that comes along with being a recovering addict. I did this on my own. No country club rehab facility. I laid on a couch for nine long days, near death, punishing myself for what I had done to myself. I suffered purposely, to make each moment an agonizing one. I wanted to feel every ache, every pain, every cramp. I wanted to choke on my own vomit. I wanted my head to feel like it was going to implode. I wanted to bleed out of my eyes and ears. I prayed for a heart attack to shut me down for good, the pain...both emotional and physical were unbearable.

But I chose to feel it. I chose to go through it without the benefit of the hospital so I would never, ever forget what the pain of addiction did to me, to my family, to my friends, to my career. God was incapable of punishing me more than I was punishing myself.

Even now, I find myself dwelling on the fact that I lost nearly two full years of my life, first to addiction and then, to my subsequent recovery.

I need to grant myself the ability to look in the mirror, 1 year and four sober months later and say "You did good, kid". I need to be brave enough to walk outside, knowing full well that I disgraced myself as a nurse...but that doesn't mean I have to give up my life. I sinned. I atoned. That should be enough. Enough for everyone...but most of all, enough for me.

I need to allow myself to start living again. Forgiveness is coming easily.

It is forgetting that's a bitch.

Day 2...Something you love about yourself.

2010-10-02T05:17:00.007-04:00

There are lots of things I love about myself. This list can go on for hours. I'll try to keep it brief.

What I love the most about me is the way I love the people in my life. The people who I treasure. The friends and family who stick by me no matter what. The people who know me and accept me the way I am. The ones who know I would never do anything hurtful, harmful or disrespectful to them. That's just not me. I may have a ferocious tongue, coated with battery acid...but to my inner circle, I have a crazy soft spot. I am a charitable person. A good person. I may not always come across that way because of my wildly big mouth, but there isn't any one of my good friends that I wouldn't lay my life on the line for if need be. If I tell you I am going to do something, I do it. If I tell you I am going to be somewhere, I will be there. If I tell you not to worry about something, don't worry about it.

My word is my bond. Always. It's really all any of us have in this world that we can give that is a direct reflection of who we are. That is why I take HUGE exception to being accused of being a liar...ever. I can be accused of being many things in this world, but a liar is never one of them. And, when you cross that bridge with me and accuse me of something like that, rest assured, I won't even glance backwards in your direction.

The way I figure it is this...if you don't know me well enough to know the things I would and would not do, then we have no business being friends in the first place.

I love that about me.

The other thing I love about me? The ability to admit when I am wrong. I have said and done some pretty heinous shit in my lifetime, but when I know what I did was wrong, I will always apologize for it. And not one of those insincere "Well, I'm sorry if you feel that way", or better still..."I'm an asshole, let's just forget about it". No. If I went out of my way to hurt you and you didn't deserve it, I will go out of my way to apologize to you. The right way. Not like the Fonz who can't admit he's wr...wr...wr...wrong! Likewise, I expect you to give me the same courtesy. If you fucked up, be a big girl and admit it so we can move forward.

That said, it is time for the...

BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH INFO OF THE DAY:

Every 2 minutes, there is a new breast cancer diagnosis.

Every 14 minutes, a life is lost to the disease.

Over 40,000 people will die this year; about 400 of them will be men.

85% of all diagnoses have no family history.

1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer.

Breast cancer is the leading cause of death in women between ages 40 and 55.

Make sure to feel your boobies this month and every month, Ladies. The best time to do self exams is the same day every month. The time your breasts are the fullest are right before your period, so make sure to do it AFTER your period so you can get a better feel for what is going on in there. The days of having to do little circular motions with your fingertips are long over. Just pick the girls up and give them a good squeeze or two. What you are looking for are lumps, hard lumps...things that have almost a "coral" feel to them, like a sharp rock. Also, cancer generally does not hurt, so if you have a lump that's sore, it is more likely a cyst or benign growth. Take ye to the OB/GYN and get it checked out.

Protect your girls. Save your life. Feel your boobies once a month...for life.

30 Days of Truth...and BOOBS!!!

2010-10-01T05:25:00.006-04:00

I saw a few people doing this meme. I don't usually jump in the meme thing, but I thought this one would provoke me to start blogging again a bit more consistently. I have a beautiful new template layout all ready to go and still haven't hung it up here yet because I haven't been blogging very much. But, I figured this might be a good foray into getting that jump start that I need. So, 30 days of truth...one post a day, 30 days worth. I was going to start it a few days ago, but my crazy OCD won't allow for me to start on a random numbered day. I waited for October 1st. The meme includes the following questions:

Day 01 → Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 → Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 → Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 → Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 → Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 → Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 → Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 → Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 → Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 → Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 → Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 → Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 → A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 → A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 → Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 → Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 → A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 → Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 → What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 → Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 → (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 → Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 → Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 → Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 → The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 → Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 → What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 → What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 → Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 → A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself.

So here we go. Something I hate about myself. This is pretty easy. The thing I hate most about myself is probably one of the things I also like about myself if that makes any sense. The thing I hate the most is my "I don't give a shit what other people think of me" attitude. This attitude has it's good points. For example, it allows me to speak freely at any time, any place in any situation. However, it has also gotten me into a fair amount of trouble with people that I do care about. And, it is because I care about certain people that I really should care what they think of me. Sometimes, I am not very tactful. I have been working on this for the past few months. I am trying to put the ol' brain in gear before letting the mouth (or, in this case, fingertips) go into overdrive. I find that people who say they don't give a shit about what other people think use it more as a defense mechanism for bad behavior. That's the truth of it. When someone removes me from due to something that I have a strong opinion about, I tend to say "Fuck it. I don't give a shit." But, sometimes, I do. And it bothers me. Then I start to dwell on it. Eventually, it starts to eat at me a little bit. Usually not enough for me to apologize for my actions even when I feel that an apology may be justified. I never usually intend to hurt people. It doesn't start out that way, but 9 times out of 10, it ends up that way. I know I have hurt a few people I used to be good friends with because I also can be judgmental and I have a passion for getting caught up in drama. Again, I am working on both of those things. It's hard to undo something you have done for 44 years of your life overnight. However, the last time I did something that was pretty rotten, I did apologize to the parties involved. Not because I cared so much what they thought about me, but more because I care what "I" think of me. And, that particular situation made me feel bad about myself. Do I regret the things I say? Sure, sometimes. Then again, sometimes, I feel they are things that need to be said and I am unapologetic about it. There needs to be a happy medium there. You can say the things that need to be said...only, I think it's best to say it to someone directly as opposed to passively saying things to others, hoping that the intended target "accidentally" gets wind of it. I'm normally not a passive/aggressive person so I really want to kind of edge that out of my life. I have always been the kind of person to say something to someone's face (or Facebook, if you will). This "I don't care" attitude has not served me well in the past and I don't foresee that this will change for me in the future. I am working on improving myself just a little, every day. But, you know, Rome wasn't built in a fucking day. Neither was I. I'm not quite where I want to be just yet, but I know I am heading in a better direction.

But yeah, I don't like that part of me very much. I would rather use my powers for good than evil. One day at a time, I suppose.

It's really all any of us can do.

Now, all that happy horseshit aside, Ladies...this month is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It is time once more to pay attention to your fun bags, your sweater cows, your tata's, your boobies or whatever the hell you call them. Along with the 30 days of truth, I will be talking about taking care of the tits of doom, how to give a self breast exam, what you need to look for/feel for and how you can invite your partner to help you! So, make sure to put on your PINK all month long in support of the titty brigade.

If you have the chance, stop by FeelYourBoobies.com to sign up and join the awareness group. You can send reminders to all your female friends and relatives about the importance of breast exams. Let's help keep the boobies bouncing along healthfully and happily!

Long time gone...

2010-09-14T20:40:00.003-04:00

I haven't written in here since May. I said I was going to take June, July and August away from writing. I've missed it and while I have had a lot to say, the words were escaping me. It seems my inner voice has been a bit battered as of late. I wanted to write on September 11th, the way I always do. I couldn't. I couldn't even bring myself to honor the people lost on that day because I have been utterly swallowed by my depression lately.

Don't get me wrong, I've had reasons to laugh in the past three months. Lots of reasons. There were a lot of fantastic things that happened over the summer. There were also horrible things, like my trip to Israel. There was pain, rejection, loss of connection and the annual celebration of the day I was torn via C-section from Esther's pristine uterus.

44 years old. Happy birthday to me. Another day closer to death. The way I figure it, I am probably halfway to dead by now. If the average woman lives until 88 years of age, I am dangling on the halfway point this year. I did a quick assessment to see if I am anywhere near where I wanted to be at this age. The answer was a resounding...perhaps.

I'm a grandmother to two beautiful babies. I am married to the most amazing man to roam the earth since Christ himself...if you believe in that shit. My children are thriving in their lives. My daughter is happily married and a fantastic mother to those to babies I mentioned. My son just started his first year of high school at a brand new school and loves it. I am on decent terms with Esther. My dad is well, not healthy, but well enough for now. So those things are amazing and incredible and perfect.

But where am I? I'm not really any where. I am clean of my drug addiction for well over a year now. I gave up my nursing license and now, in retrospect, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I realized how miserable nursing made me and how it contributed to my depression. Whoever tells you that nurses get to help and heal patients, well, they obviously never worked in long term care. You don't get to do any of those things. You get to shove pills into their incoherent slack-jawed mouths and then onto the next. There is no comfort. There is no care. There is no time to sit at a bedside holding a hand. All that bullshit you see on soap operas...it's a fantasy. A fairytale that surrounds the beautiful myth of the nurse. At least it is in that setting.

So, back to school I went. Off to get my degree in Social Work. I decided I want to go for my Masters in Social Work and Human Services. Why? Because I need to hold that hand. I need to bring that comfort. I need to smile into pained and troubled faces. It does them good. Selfishly, it does me good. I decided that I am going to be an interventionist and work with addicts. Does it scare me? Definitely. I am scared shit to be around those who are using actively again...but now that I have been there and by the blessing of my Higher Power, found my way back...I feel this is the path I am destined to walk.

I love being in school because it is something I am good at. I am an "A" student, a perfect 4.0 GPA. The professors love me, they always embrace the returning adult students more than the new, fresh out of high school kids. They know we care a lot more and are a bit more hard pressed for time. There is no room for us to fail. We don't have the opportunity to fail because we don't have the time. The money. The lack of desire. Our grown up hearts are on fire to do something, anything relevant with the time we have left, however much that might be.

The way I figure it, I will walk out with my degree in 2 more years from now. 46 years old. Still enough time to begin a life, still enough time to put in about 30 years worth of employment.

I ain't quite dead yet.

But in the interim, I am suffering. I have stopped taking all my psych meds. I just don't want anything to do with them any more. And, it has its good moments and bad ones. I don't feel fucked in the head any more. I have my memory back. My sense of humor has returned and it is whip cracking sharp the way it used to be. On the flip side, I cry at the drop of a hat. I fall into depressions very easily. And, my old friend insomnia has returned to fight me nightly. And while the bottles of Cymbalta, Lamictal, Buspar, Xanax, Geodon, Ativan, Klonopin and Trazodone all look tempting...I mainly find myself having staring contests with them. They dare me to open them and to indulge. And the temptation is always there. But, I don't. I could. Nothing wrong with taking one now and again when needed, but I feel like one will be death of me. Just one pill will open up a can of worms for me. I can't revisit the days of bottle dependency.

I keep them all over the house. Some on my desk. A few in my purse. More on my bedroom dresser. They stare at me and say, c'mon CP, let us take the edge off. And me, I scoff and say "no, let me empower myself, dammit". "But you have a disease," they retort. "You need us." And that may very well be, but I want to try to go this alone. I want to feel like myself at every possible moment I can, however fleeting it might be. For those few hours, life is so perfect.

Then, the depression comes back, wraps me up in its itchy wool blanket and says, "No, no Dear. You don't get to make the decisions around here. We do. Me...me and all your pills. Come down the rabbit hole, CP. It's not that long of a drop."

But it is. I've taken the trip before. For the five minutes I jump into the deep end, it requires a lot of swimming to get out of the murky waters again and I simply don't have the energy to do it over and over again.

I'll probably be writing more frequently now, but not daily. Just when I need to...like in the beginning. And tonight, I needed this to be here, like an old friend with open arms letting me fall into them and just cry. Let it all out, rubbing my hair til I fall mercifully asleep.

I need this.