Some Lessons Are Hard To Learn...

The lesson that I finally internalized today is that old dogs do not learn new tricks.

 

To whom may I be referring?

 

Why, to my ex boyfriend, of course. He who has been seeing someone for three months yet was trying to get into my pants last week (and failing miserably).

 

Yet he expressed abhorrence when I said that I thought he wanted to meet with me for drinks, as friends, so that he could get me drunk and in the sack. I'm not saying that tequila makes my clothes fall off, but liquor certainly does lower my inhibitions and clouds my judgment. And I don't mean after a whole bottle of wine. I mean after one or two glasses.

 

After I found out the truth, which I thank God for, I was a little mean to him. I don't like it when people do nefarious things such as what he was attempting to do...cheat on his girlfriend with me, just like he did to me at about month four of our fledgling relationship. I had some of the same feelings that I had had previously when I found out that he was cheating on me. I admit that I called him a POS.

 

I read only the first of the nasty text messages he sent to me. The worst he could come up with was that I was a Pollyanna. Woe is me. I'm naive and positive. A friend of mine told me that if that's the worst he could come up with, then I should buy myself a dozen roses.

 

Actually...he probably did come up with some other nastiness to hurl at me, but I don't know what he hurled, because I erased everything else without reading any of it.

 

He kept saying in our conversations that I had supposedly gotten some honesty in my life from my association with him. I may have gotten some honesty...but apparently not enough to dismiss him from my consciousness forever. Certainly, I wasn't honest enough with myself to remember why I dumped him in the first place. Clearly, I lied to myself and told myself that he was surely different, he had surely learned from his experiences. It is just as clear now that he just is who he is.

 

I suppose no more energy need be expended on this bastion of dishonesty that is my ex boyfriend. He is in the past now, a mistake not to be repeated again. I just feel sorry for his new girlfriend. I guess she will learn after he screws up and gets caught cheating. Or perhaps she will learn after she gets pregnant and realizes she doesn't want a creep like him anywhere near her child. Or perhaps after he gives her AIDS, which is something that someone who has slept with 62 women and whose feelings about condoms are limited solely to disgust, is certain to do eventually.

 

I may be angry at him. But more than that, I feel sorry for him. He would definitely turn up his nose at any pity that I feel for him, insisting that he feels even more for me. But I can't help but feel sorry for someone whose life is ruled with an iron fist by his dick. An existence like that might seem fine now. But its luster will wear off one day, and all he'll see behind him is a wake of hurt feelings, of bridges burned, and things that might have been. I don't envy anyone that.

Learning my Limits

After a recent scare where I thought that my sister was trolling my blog, it was suggested to me that I close or erase the blog. That idea seemed to have merit.

However…

…this blog has been around for three years now, and even if I closed it or erased it, all you'd have to do in order to find it would be to type the name of the blog into Google and up would come the pages from the blog. They've been cached at various locations around the 'net, and, at this point, deleting the blog just won't make any difference.

I can choose to post differently about problems I have with my family, if I choose to post them at all. Right now, it is a sensitive time for me with regard to Niece's case.

Niece was going to be placed with me again as her foster parent, but her mother is protesting that. She has stated on the web that she no longer trusts me and that I have become part of the team that's arrayed against her, collectively know as CPS or The State.

She's right, to a certain extent. I don't believe Niece should be placed back with her. But my beliefs have nothing to do with the State's decision as to whether Niece goes back to her mother, contrary to her mother's conviction that this is all my fault. I believe she actually said on one of her many websites that 'the State is playing right into my sister's hands'. Ridiculous.

The State determines whether a child should be returned to their parent based on their own observations of the parent's behavior while service providers are in the home. They base their decision on whether Mom follows through on her appointments, assignments, and behaviors. My sister is heading for a termination of parental rights trial because she has failed to follow through with these things, not because of anything I have done. In fact, the state workers have always treated anything that I advised as not credible because they feel that there is a lot of enmity between my sister and I. They were more right than I knew, at the time. This is one of the reasons that I had to quit doing foster care.

I am only volunteering to do it now because the case is winding down and there is a strong possibility that Niece will be placed for adoption. Should worse come to worse, I don't want her lingering in foster homes, waiting for a permanent adoptive home, nor do I want her dealing with being placed in a home full of strangers. Should she be placed with me for adoption, she'd still be able to see her family, once things calmed down. I actually, perhaps foolishly, envisioned holidays together with my family. I envisioned Niece being this happy, healthy, clearly nurtured child who felt secure enough to be able to offer and accept love from other people. Were she to go back to her mother and live in that unhealthy environment, her chance of being that child would be the same as a snowball's chance in h*ll.

Well, I don't have any control over this. I can only take the next right step, and that means I can just keep maintaining my relationship with Niece and keep on being her aunt. That's fine with me; that's the only thing I can control in this mess. I don't have to fight the battle about placement. The State will take care of that and it is really in their hands. Fine with me. I'd rather not deal with it…not because I don't care, but because I can't be objective. I'd probably take stuff personally that shouldn't be taken personally, and whatnot.

In one sense, my sister is right. I did create this mess. I called CPS. And, while I was in my addiction (food), I did antagonize her and act like a total b*tch about things. Like religion. I took Niece to church and whatnot against my sister's wishes. I did want to be more spiritual at the time, but I also, I think, wanted to rub it in her face. That was really asinine. I was very angry with my sister for not raising her daughter, for putting me in the position of having to stop my life and start raising my Niece. During that part of my life, I wasn't ready for children, I think. Life has changed dramatically now, though, and now I'm ready to be a parent, if that's what is in the cards for this particular situation.

I think the worst thing about this whole thing is the waiting…waiting to know if I'm going to be a parent or if I'm going to remain child-free, waiting to know what my future's going to look like. I know one thing; my days certainly feel far more purposeful when I'm raising Niece than they do when I spend them alone. Perhaps if I do not adopt Niece, I could foster. We'll see.

You Snooze You Lose

I'm very irritated today.

"ABC Nuts and Bolts Sales and Marketing."

"Hi, I just took the widget test and I'm having a problem with the..." blah blah blah

"OKAY sparky, you're gonna have to talk to human resources about that. You've reached sales and marketing," I patiently say while thinking...WHOSE NUMBER APPEARS NOWHERE ON THE WIDGET SITE!

"The number is 877-829-..."

"Oh wait, I gotta git a pencil..."

"No waiting for you, LOOOOOOOOOOOSER! You called the wrong number and now you ain't got a pencil? You SNOOOOOOZE, you LOOOOOOOSE!"

"But wait, I..."

click.

Only in my fantasies.

Ring ring ring...

"Some horrible b*tch just called me a loser and hung up on me!"

"And you called me right back?"

"Uhh..."

"That's right, you SNOOOOOOZE, you LOOOOOOSE."

Click.

My Favorite Line from the Mel Gibson Drunken Rant

See rant here: http://www.thesuperficial.com/2006/07/31/mel_gibson_drinks_and_drives_a.html

"What're you lookin at, sugar tits?"

It sounds like a line right out of a movie. I laughed my a*s off when I read that.

You Oughta Know...

…that if you listen to "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette on bad speakers at a really low volume, it sounds like a fast polka with small dogs continously yipping in the background?

Far out.

Miscellaneous, Tofu, Lunch with MFD, and Adventures in Hair Coloring

Miscellaneous

Do you ever get to the point where you just run out of stuff to rant about?

I used to love ranting about my family situation, oh woe is me! Now it just feels so tired. I feel like I'm whining, or trying to get some kind of sympathy mileage out of this dramatic situation. Sometimes I even feel uncomfortable writing about it…as though I am trying to paint myself as some kind of saint, which I am clearly not. I guess that I just am now getting to a point where I am questioning my motivation to write about it. I think my recent about my family stuff will probably be the close to last post about it, unless something ticks me off enough so that I feel sufficiently moved to write about it. I just feel less and less like writing about it.

Perhaps it's because Program is sinking in a little better lately. I went through this period here lately that I was just sick of Program, sick of trying to be an adult, sick of trying to grow and change and I just wanted to go back to my comfortable old ways with food and the whole nine yards. This 'grown-up' thing is really hard some days.

Well, thankfully, I snapped out of it. I'm back to growing and changing and stuff now, and it feels good.

I really dislike having my moods change like that. I wish I could just stay on an even keel all the time. A saner person might just look at it and say that they need to stop being a slave to their moods.

One thing that I'll probably not run out of steam to rant about is tofu.

Now, you may wonder…why would anyone rant about that high-protein, high-fiber, low-cal, lovable stuff?

Because it causes GAS, people. Serious gas!

I had tofu and pork stir fry for dinner last night. Today I am smelling it and I am praying very hard that no one decides to meander into my cube after I have recently lit one off. God, this is horrible. I must seem like the stereotypical fat person, complete with disproportionate amounts of gas emitting from my hiney. I swear, I'm not really like that! Skinny people would totally get gas from this stuff too, they just don't write about gas AND their weight.

Lunch with MFD

I had lunch today with my favorite director. She's awesome. We have great conversations. We went for a joyride in the new ZoomZoom when I first got it, 16 days ago. Then today she said she had a little gift for me and she gave me a couple of gift cards to a VIP car wash around here. Oh joy! :o) I guess they do the whole nine yards -- wash and wax, underbody wash, vacuum the inside, armor-all the dash, etc. Kewl.

I have the feeling that it would be much easier to converse with her if it weren't always her taking me to lunch. I really need to start paying instead of letting her pay all the time. I don't just want to be her underling, her mentoree or something. I want to be an equal of some kind. I'm not going to be her office equal, but I'd like to be friends with her.

Next we were off to eat lunch at a little Greek café around here. Lots of folks from ABC Nuts and Bolts eat there because it's so close by (which reminds me, I actually met someone yesterday who used to sell nuts and bolts for a living…weird.). So we're sitting there eating and a couple more folks from our department at ABC come in. MFD invites them to sit down and shoot the sh*t with us. Good thing she did, I was running out of things to chat about. Am I just not inspiring or something? Probably not…the only thing remotely interesting or dramatic that I have going on right now is Program (not a work topic) or my nutty family (which is a tired boring subject now, and probably not fit for work consumption either).

Anyway, these other folks sit down with us and start telling us their hilarious stories. At the end of the lunch, MFD's favorite line is now, "Who do I have to f*ck to get a bagel around here?" which is a line famously uttered by an erstwhile salesperson from the New York office. She says that line about six or seven times on the way up in the elevator and laughs like a hyena.

Ahhhhh, a life in sales.

Adventures in Hair-Coloring

In other news, I got this do it yourself hair-coloring kit. It's a rinse though. Should rinse out in eight to ten shampoos. I'm interested in having somewhat red hair. Since my hair has turned almost f*ckin black in recent years, good luck to me. With my luck, it'll turn green and I'll have to beg Napoleon to let me wear a godd*mned 'do rag to work until the sh*t washes out.

Some Lessons Are Hard to Learn

The lesson that I finally internalized today is that old dogs do not learn new tricks.

To whom may I be referring?

Why, to my ex boyfriend, of course. He who has been seeing someone for three months yet was trying to get into my pants last week (and failing miserably).

Yet he expressed abhorrence when I said that I thought he wanted to meet with me for drinks, as friends, so that he could get me drunk and in the sack. I'm not saying that tequila makes my clothes fall off, but liquor certainly does lower my inhibitions and clouds my judgment. And I don't mean after a whole bottle of wine. I mean after one or two glasses.

After I found out the truth, which I thank God for, I was a little mean to him. I don't like it when people do nefarious things such as what he was attempting to do...cheat on his girlfriend with me, just like he did to me at about month four of our fledgling relationship. I had some of the same feelings that I had had previously when I found out that he was cheating on me. I admit that I called him a POS.

I read only the first of the nasty text messages he sent to me. The worst he could come up with was that I was a Pollyanna. Woe is me. I'm naive and positive. A friend of mine told me that if that's the worst he could come up with, then I should buy myself a dozen roses.

Actually...he probably did come up with some other nastiness to hurl at me, but I don't know what he hurled, because I erased everything else without reading any of it.

He kept saying in our conversations that I had supposedly gotten some honesty in my life from my association with him. I may have gotten some honesty...but apparently not enough to dismiss him from my consciousness forever. Certainly, I wasn't honest enough with myself to remember why I dumped him in the first place. Clearly, I lied to myself and told myself that he was surely different, he had surely learned from his experiences. It is just as clear now that he just is who he is.

I suppose no more energy need be expended on this bastion of dishonesty that is my ex boyfriend. He is in the past now, a mistake not to be repeated again. I just feel sorry for his new girlfriend. I guess she will learn after he screws up and gets caught cheating. Or perhaps she will learn after she gets pregnant and realizes she doesn't want a creep like him anywhere near her child. Or perhaps after he gives her AIDS, which is something that someone who has slept with 62 women and whose feelings about condoms are limited solely to disgust, is certain to do eventually.

I may be angry at him. But more than that, I feel sorry for him. He would definitely turn up his nose at any pity that I feel for him, insisting that he feels even more for me. But I can't help but feel sorry for someone whose life is ruled with an iron fist by his dick. An existence like that might seem fine now. But its luster will wear off one day, and all he'll see behind him is a wake of hurt feelings, of bridges burned, and things that might have been. I don't envy anyone that.

You must read this story. :)

Check it out:

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/disowning-conservative-politics-is/"http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/disowning-conservative-politics-is/n20060729195809990004"

It's about a preacher who, in a series of six sermons given at his megachurch, 'disowned' conservative politics and lost 1,000 of his church's 5,000 members over it.

I'm proud that there are people like this in the world -- who aren't afraid of the consequences of taking what might be an unpopular stand.

Weekend Movie: In Her Shoes

Awesome.

 

Bit of a slow starter. But when they have their big falling-out, it starts getting interesting.

 

It reminded me of something. Their big falling-out was so much like a falling-out that could happen between my sister and I. We'd each pick on eachother about our most obvious weaknesses, pick at eachother's most deep-seated Achilles' heels. Could happen? What am I saying? It should be more like "has happened".

 

Families are like that. They know all your worst stuff. And if your family's a little screwed up and the screwed up shit overcomes love and trust, then out all your stuff will come when you have any big fights. Hence the namecalling from my mom during our worst fight so far. I'm sure our worst fight is yet to come.

 

Toni Collette does an awesome job in this film. She pretty much always does though. I had no idea that she was British.

 

I highly recommend this film. Yeah, it's unabashedly a chick flick. That's what makes it good.

Hath a fat person not eyes? Hath a fat person not hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?

I hear DC asking the marketing assistant if she needs help with a box that she's carrying. She says no, then he asks if she's sure, and she says, no, it's really not heavy at all.

Yeah, I'm a little jealous. You would be too if you had wandered around the office carrying boxes with five reams of paper in them and no one offered you one iota of help. Yet the moment that the tall, wide-eyed, beautiful marketing assistant looks like she might need ANY assistance, she has guys falling all over themselves to try and help her. Yeah…real gentlemen.

Maybe it's because she looks so fragile. I would look fragile too if it seemed like my head was too big for my body because I was so unbelievably thin. This would also explain why Mr. Universe was always hanging out at her desk and whispering to her while I was working at Mr. Leads' desk, which is right next to hers. I'm not jealous of that bit though; that's just sleazy -- he's married. She does a good job of deflecting him.

So am I unreasonably jealous? Probably. Does being fat make me less of a woman? Well, fat cells do emit testosterone, and when you have a lot of em together, that's a lot of testosterone. Yet no one would ever mistake me for a man unless I taped down the jubblies and started wearing man-clothes. So I should be safe from gender misidentification. For now…

I suppose that this type of gentlemanly behavior ought to be rejected on the basis that it assumes that women are the weaker sex. But I don't think any woman's going to argue with me that, in the context of daily life, it certainly does feel nice to have the doors held for you, to have them ask you if you need help with something heavy, to be allowed to go first through any open door just because you're presumed to be a lady.

Those mannerisms are probably more beneficial to men than they are to women. Though it's nice to have guys treat us so considerately, it's certainly not necessary for us to go first and we are definitely capable of opening doors for ourselves. So while we get the benefit of consideration and a small bit of feeling special and esteemed by society because of those things, men who do those things receive our favor, which they certainly must like, since they think about s*x every two or three seconds. Obviously, you usually need a woman's favor in order to attain the goal of having s*x.

That little statement actually answers the question, doesn't it? If we assume that men are motivated to be gentlemen because they believe that it might lead to favor, which might lead to s*x, then we must also assume that no man is going offer assistance to someone whom he has no subconscious desire to be intimate with. However, all the executive guys are helpful all the time, nevertheless, to every woman they come across. I mean the REAL executives. Napoleon will always be nice to you, always hold doors for you, always let you go first.

Yeah…I'm jealous…but I think my jealousy is reasonable. I deserve just as much consideration and esteem as any other female member of society, whether I'm fat or thin. The world doesn't revolve around me, and, certainly, a man decides whom he will offer his assistance to. Yet, is it unreasonable to feel slighted because the same man who would offer his assistance to a thin woman won't offer me the same assistance? Aren't I a person too?

Today's Horoscope

Secretary,
You might feel as if you have mastered your emotions, at least temporarily. However this is not an all-or-nothing accomplishment, for even if you have made progress recently, you still might get frustrated when you realize how much more there is ahead of you. Try not to judge yourself too harshly; just pay attention to your goal and keep moving in that direction.

Wow. That's pretty accurate.

Recently I had an experience where I realized just how much work I have left to do. I temporarily lost hope and had all these really difficult expectations of myself. I was doing the perfectionism dance. I snapped out of it, but that was a pretty nasty week.

Conversation of the Week

New feature.

Over coffee at Denny's last night with a friend whom we'll call Nag.

Nag comes in and sits down. Before he can even sit for long, I notice he's got that ridiculous earpiece in.

"Ummm, Nag?" I sweetly say.

"WHAT?"

"Oh dear. What's the problem?"

"I haven't even been sitting for a minute and you're already on me about something. Give me a minute. You said you'd be nice." Am I typically mean? Definitely not impossible.

"Nag?"

"Whaaaat?"

"I'm sorry."

Nag looks taken aback. Holy sh*t! I've admitted I made a mistake. Nag hardly ever admits making mistakes, that must be why this seems like an alien concept to him.

The conversation goes onward and pretty soon we're, ummm, debating something. He's like a dang pitbull about whatever he's debating.

"Don't you ever just concede anything?"

"Ha. I could win a battle of wits with you with half my brain tied behind my back."

"How anyone can utter that line seriously when they didn't even have the originality to think of it themselves is beyond me. Dude, you totally got that from The Princess Bride!" C'mon folks. You know the part -- when the Dread Pirate Roberts climbs up the cliff, meets with the little guy in red, and challenges him to a battle of wits.

"No I didn't. I got it from Rush Limbaugh."

"Oh that explains it. Well then HE got it from The Princess Bride."

"I don't know. He's been around for a long time."

"Well The Princess Bride's been around longer."

"Are you sure?" Here is where we see that Nag is still wet behind the ears, despite being a man-wh*re. Here is where we also see that being a man-wh*re does you no favors intellectually or culturally.

"Yes, I'm sure."

This particular conversation ended when I decided I wasn't happy with its direction, Nag wouldn't just change the subject, and so I paid the check and left.

Wasn't that interesting. Ahhhhh.

Good Advice

Check out this page. Lots of wise little tidbits. : )

http://www.countingthecost.com/poll/advice.htm

Today's Horoscope

Secretary,
Your deepest values are undergoing profound changes and there isn't much you can do to stop the process. Today everything looks better as you see a definite direction you want to take. Keep in mind that you don't have to make a decision just yet; letting yourself dream about the possibilities may be enough for now.

Wow. How appropo. :)

Awesome!

I detest credit bureaus. Yes, they are a necessary evil and serve a purpose, but they pretty much ignore their mistakes most of the time, as do creditors, and I'm glad that someone is not just lying down and letting them get away with it. I love it when the little guy wins.

http://www.potomacnews.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WPN%2FMGArticle%2FWPN_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149189600764&path=

Woman wins suit against Equifax

By JACLYN PITTS
jpitts@potomacnews.com
Wednesday, July 26, 2006

A federal jury has ordered Equifax Information Services LLC to pay a Nokesville woman $351,000 in actual damages from an identity theft lawsuit.

The $45 million lawsuit against three major credit reporting companies, Equifax, TransUnion and Experian Information Solutions and creditor CitiFinancial Inc., was the second in Suzanne Sloane's battle to reclaim her stolen identity.

In June 2003, Sloane gave birth to a son at Prince William Hospital.

A few months later, a woman working in the hospital's billing department lifted Sloane's Social Security number from hospital records and used it to open several credit accounts, running up thousands of dollars in debt in Sloane's name.

The identity thief, a temporary worker named Shovana Sloan, had previous convictions for identity theft and was on probation at the time she was working at the hospital, according to lawsuits filed against the hospital and the temp agency that hired her.

Sloane sought $3.35 million from NRI Staffing Inc., the temp agency, and $12.5 million from the hospital in lawsuits filed last fall.

The hospital settled the suit in March for an undisclosed amount.

Court records show that Sloane's lawsuit against NRI, filed in federal court, was dismissed in March at both parties' request.

More than two years after her Social Security number was stolen, Suzanne Sloane's credit score was still hundreds of points less than it was prior to the identity theft, the couple said in January.

After countless phone calls and letters yielded little progress toward restoring Suzanne's credit, she and her husband, John, filed a federal lawsuit in November against the country's three major credit reporting companies.

TransUnion, Equifax and Experian compile credit reports on people and provide them to lenders.

When the Sloanes discovered that they had been the victims of identity theft, they reported the crimes to the credit reporting companies.

Their lawsuit says the three companies continued to show debts incurred by the identity thief on the Sloanes' credit report.

The suit also says the companies lack a mechanism to repair the damage done by identity theft to a person's credit report.

The suit sought a total of about $31 million from the credit reporting companies.

The three companies each filed written responses to the lawsuit, denying the allegations.

The federal lawsuit against the credit reporting companies also sought about $13 million from CitiFinancial.

The suit says CitiFinancial passed one of the accounts Shovana Sloan had opened to debt collection agencies, which then harassed the Sloane family for money that Shovana Sloan had spent.

CitiFinancial denied the allegation in court filings.

A. Hugo Blankingship III, the Sloanes' attorney, said confidential settlements had been reached with Experian, TransUnion and CitiFinancial.

The Sloanes said that litigation wasn't their first choice, but that it seemed to be the only way they could clear their credit history of the damage done by the identity theft.

They tried for a year to work with the companies to fix the credit reports before resorting to suing, they said.

Shovana Sloan was arrested in March 2004 and was later sentenced to two years in prison.

The Wages of Addiction

I find myself wanting to post about my crazy family stuff, but not knowing how to do it without looking like a nutty drama queen.

My family situation really is nuts. The short of it is that my niece (my sister’s kid) was being abused and neglected when she was about four years old, so I called Child Protective Services and reported the abuse and neglect. I tried to get my family to change before I took that step, but that was a total no-go.

Naturally, my family was more than a little upset. I can’t think of a single thing, other than my disease, which has affected my life more in the last two years, or which has been a more consistent, unrelenting factor in my life.

I’m estranged from every member of my family now. They will never understand what I did. They do not have the awareness necessary to understand it. And it’s easier for them to not understand. It’s easier to just blame me than it is to recognize that, by your actions or lack thereof, you have robbed an innocent child of her sense of worth and stability. It’s easier to just blame someone else than it is to admit that you’ve made serious mistakes.

This whole thing is such a mess now. My family believes that I just want to steal my niece from my sister because (supposedly) I cannot have children. Until recently, I’ve been unable to figure out where they got this impossibly ridiculous idea, but now I think I have it figured out.

I used to be someone who could do that…who could call CPS on my sister in order to acquire a child and satisfy my own selfish desires. I used to be this unbelievably crazy person. I used to be this horridly manipulative freak.

I used to covet my sister’s child, big time. That coveting ended before Niece was two, when I started realizing how much work being a mother is. It’s not easy by any means. It might be rewarding, but it’s not always fun.

I may have stopped coveting her child and settled into being an aunt who just basically enjoyed her niece, but I was still manipulative, selfish, and just plain crazy. That’s the person that my sister and the rest of my family are used to. They’re used to someone who only thinks of herself, who hasn’t built a loving relationship with them. They’re used to someone who doesn’t know how to love or how to receive love, really. They’re used to someone who talks down to them, who looks down her nose at how they live their life. That person looked down her nose at them because she believed she was sooo superior, so much better than they.

I don’t look down at them like that anymore, I just wish that they could know a better way to live so they’d be happier, but I no longer feel it is my job to be their knight in shining armor and lead them to this happier place. I don’t have a need to fix them anymore.

I do feel sorrow for my sister and my mom. I wish I could help them, but I’m not someone they could ever accept help from. Plus, who am I to try and fix anyone? Really? I’m still crazy. Granted, I’m much, much less crazy than I have ever been, but the crazyness is still there, lurking. It hasn’t all been rooted out. Just a little over a year ago, I was lording it over my sister that I was taking her daughter to church and didn’t care what her objections were. How arrogant and asinine. I wish I could take it back.

So I can finally see why they would think that I called CPS simply in order to steal my sister’s child.

However, that’s not the truth. I didn’t call CPS for that reason. I called CPS because my niece was being abused and neglected. My sister’s written this crazy timeline of her case that states all kinds of stuff – that I can’t have children without a special operation (not true), that I whited-out my niece’s name on the birth certificate (I did?)…and so on. She conveniently left out a few details relating to her own behavior.

No group that my sister belongs to, no one who reads her blog, will ever see any admissions from her about her mistakes. She will never admit that, yes, she did tie her kid’s ankles together with a sock, she did let the child sit for extended periods in her own waste, her child was underweight and didn’t go outside, her child was unbathed and the house was filthy. No one will ever hear her admit these things. All they’ll ever hear is that I called CPS to steal her child because I am an evil, avaricious, grasping b*tch.

She’s even said that her child was taken away by CPS because of reasons related to poverty. I guess people are expected to believe that being poor is what causes your house to be filthy, causes you to yell at your child all the time, causes you to let a drunk old man (who used to beat the h*ll out of you when you were a kid) watch your child for hours at a time, causes you to not bathe your kid, and causes you to tie her ankles together with a sock so she can’t climb out of her crib that she spends most of each day in.

God, this stuff sounds like a broken record.

You know…these are the wages of addiction. This is what addiction does to your life and the lives of those whom you love.

My dad was an alcoholic, and when he was in his cups, he abused the heck out of my sister. I still feel pangs of regret about my actions back then…trying to defend my sister but then telling CPS nothing was wrong. How I wish I had been honest and accused those who deserved to be accused so that my sister could have gotten some help! Instead I kept silent, even lied to protect our parents and the life that I was comfortable with.

My mom was addicted to the addict and didn’t do anything to stop the abuse. Can you imagine how worthless that made my sister feel? I just recently realized what that kind of failure from a parent does to a child. It’s devastating.

Their diseases created my sister…a person who still believes she’s worthless and doesn’t deserve anything better than what she’s got, a person who, having been neglected and abused during her own childhood, knows little more than a life of neglect and continued abuse. It’s only been a little over a year since she moved out of that situation (which CPS helped her to do).

And their diseases created me. I inherited my dad’s addictive personality, but chose food as my drug of choice. That disease, that method of survival adopted in the midst of neglect and abuse, helped create the horrible, manipulative, selfish personality that I used to have. I thank God that I have been able to shed that personality. I remember being so proud of it; now I am ashamed of those things that I said and did back then.

But the problem, of course, is that you cannot take these things back once they are done. All you can do is try to act right going forward, apologize for what you've done wrong, and try to stop being crazy.

Good luck to me.

TMZ Hits a New Low...

Anyone see the article about TMZ's interviewer asking Paris Hilton about the comments that TMZ readers have left about her on their website?

It seems like the interviewer chose the most putrid comments she could find and then decided to present those morsels to Paris' face in order to get the strongest reaction she could. Reading which comments were presented to Paris and then reading her response to said comments makes one feel slightly guilty about having said one's own putrid stuff about Paris Hilton. Even I have forgotten at times that she really is a human being. She might be shallow, and if she saw a person who looked like me cross the street, I'm pretty sure that her and her friends would soon be in stitches from making cracks about me…hey wait, now I feel justified, not guilty!!!

You reap what you sow.

http://socialitelife.com/2006/07/20/in_defense_of_paris_hilton.php

When the Shit Hits the Fan...

So Niece has been staying with me this week because her foster family is on vacation. It's been a good week with only a couple of problems. Man her behavior is so much better. It's pretty hard to keep her away from the damn TV though. Niece may be placed with me as her foster mom, but that will depend on what happens with Niece's mother's formal objection to that placement. Why she is objecting, I don't know…the only reason I can surmise is that she's just very angry and thinks the world revolves around her. I guess that's just another thing I can't control. Such is life.

I got to daycare yesterday to pick her up and the lady watching the kids had a few things to tell me.

"Did anyone mention anything to you about her visit today?"

"Nope." I looked at her expectantly, with a sweet little smile on my face. "Do tell."

"Well, I guess she called her mom 'Secretary' a couple of times and mom got really angry."

"Uhoh." I smiled inwardly. That's bad; I shouldn't do that. It's pretty infantile to smile at someone's misery like that, even if they've hurt you through and through. Let my sister act like an overgrown child all she wants; I don't need to participate in that. One step closer to the crazy sandbox...

"And I guess she also told her mom that she was staying with you and mom got really angry and called her caseworker immediately." Big surprise there.

"And when it was time to leave [to come back to daycare], Niece crawled under the kitchen table and wouldn't come out. Driver threatened to call the police and she still wouldn't come out. She didn't come out until she saw him actually dial the numbers." Why didn't her mother crawl under the table and GET her out?

Niece went and got her stuff and we happily left. We had a good evening together last night. I didn't bother talking to her about what happened except to ask her if her mommy was angry that day, and she said no. I asked her that only so that, in the event her mother had shown her anger to Niece, then I could assure Niece that it wasn't her fault. It can't be easy for Niece to be in the middle of this.

I don't know what to say to Niece when I hear about this kind of stuff on her visits. Niece knows the behavior isn't ok, I just think she doesn't know how to deal with the constant upheaval she must experience when she's going to Mommy's house and then has to leave again. She needs a permanent place to live really badly. There are always issues at my house when it's time for her to go back to the foster home. I think she constantly feels like she doesn't belong there. It can't be easy for her to know that she's a houseguest and not a family member.

I hope this ends soon, for everyone's sake.

Elevator Repartee

After resigning myself to the fact that my lunch period was over ten minutes prior, I finally stalk to the elevator. Pleasantly enough, the HVAC Maintenance Man is there. We are shortly joined by a 40-something worker from the third floor.

"So," I ask HVAC, "how're the eight ex-wives doin?"

"Seven. They're good. So are the 11 kids."

"That's good."

40-Something joins in. "You have seven ex-wives? I thought I was doin bad; I have three."

"Seriously? You got three exes? How old are you?" exclaims HVAC.

"I'm fortyish."

"Wow, I'm in my late 40's." Yeah. Way more acceptable.

I'm watching this exchange in silent amusement. What's wrong with this picture? It was hilarious. Finally, I just had to exclaim.

"Helloooooooo! HVAC, you have SEVEN ex-wives and ELEVEN children! She only has THREE exes and NO children, and you're like, "Oh my God, THREE exes! Holy sh*t, I can't believe this!""

Take Home Chef & Dealing with Ex

I've seen this show. It's awesome. It doesn't hurt that he's hot lol.

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=57&u_sid=2208609

Sorry for the lack of good posts this week…I haven't been very inspired lately. Well, the one person who inspired me to write a rant is Ex and he is now reading my blog. I don't know why he's decided to read my blog, but I feel incapable of writing stuff about him on my blog when A. I might get something wrong, and B. He will then feel the need to correct me. I wish he'd quit reading my blog!!!!

But on the other hand, what am I really scared of? I can tell right now that we aren't gonna be friends. I'm still too ticked off, and just about everything he says makes it worse.

He said something last night about having had a reason for cheating. Anyone who's ever been cheated on knows that that little remark was absolutely infuriating. It's like, "Oh. You had a reeeeeeeeason. Well that just explains everything, doesn't it?!!!"

More and more, I'm feeling like selling the car to him, renewing contact with him, was a bad idea. It started off ok…it started off as, "I need to sell this car and I know Ex could really use it plus I know he'll want it and it'll be really easy to just sell it to Ex. Poof! Done deal. His truck gets bad gas mileage and he has to drive all that way, he's already poor and this car gets 30 mpg…blah blah blah."

Then I remember that I still had some of that putrid Slimfast sh*t in my cupboard and I know he drinks it. So then I'm like, "Hey, I've got this Slimfast and you know I'm not gonna drink this stuff; want it?" Next, we're talking about Slimfast and this dude is just mesmerized at why on God's green earth I would be soooo nice to him.

The car thing…I could see that as being strangely generous. As in, "I know you hate me; are you sure you're not going to cut the brake lines and then sell me a defective car in order to murder me?" Slimfast though...I don't see why that would spark such curiousity. I hate the sh*t. Need to get rid of it. Could throw it in the trash or could give it to someone who drinks it. Simple as that. I mean, yeah, you could inject something nasty into it, I suppose, but geez, all he did was cheat and that doesn't warrant execution. Does it?

Nicole Kidman...Pregnant?

Hmmm…take a look at the photos and see what you think…

http://www.imnotobsessed.com/2006/07/09/i-bet-you-nicole-kidmans-never-been-in-a-target-in-her-life/

Oprah is Not Gay

So Oprah and Gayle King are not 'involved'. Great. I don't really care.

However, my opinion of Oprah did raise a few notches when she and Gayle said that if they were, they wouldn't have a problem telling people, since there's nothing wrong with being gay.

Good Article

The Way We War
The Israelis always did know how to win a war...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/opinion/18keret.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Ford Motor Company - Slow-Moving Dinosaur

Is Ford Running on Empty?
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
William Clay Ford Jr., the head of Ford Motor, could be the family member who resurrects one of the biggest companies on earth — or the last Ford to run it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/business/yourmoney/16ford.html?th&emc=th

Great article.

The only reason I give a vrelt's a*s (bonus points if you get this pop culture reference :o])about this article is because Ford laid off 38,000 workers in the not-so-distant past and that piqued my attention, mainly because I was shocked. I mean, can you imagine the corporate mismanagement that has to be in place in order to put a company in a position to have to mess with the lives of 38,000 workers? That's serious mismanagement.

And anyone who has ever driven their cars can see why. Heck, you don't actually have to drive one of their cars. You can look at them and see the problem.

Their cars are fugly. I'm going to have to put in a caveat to the new Mustangs. I like the neat exterior styling of those cars. However, I'll have to put in a caveat to that caveat -- I've been in one of their new Mustangs and I was not impressed by the interior in the least. They could have made it way cooler. Yes, they have those old-fashioned instrument panels. Yippy skippy. But the effect that I got was not 'cool' -- it was 'cool on a budget'. It looked like a cheap attempt at having something new and different.

Look at the Ford Focus. I heard from someone that the Focus was based on a European design. It looked a little weird when it came out but cool at the same time, with those sharp edges and whatnot. It turned your head. You may have thought it was ugly or perhaps you thought it was cool, but you noticed it. The newer Foci seem to be having their design dumbed down…they are turning into ordinary little economy sedans, with not a whole lot in their exterior lines to make you look twice at them. They are slowly becoming…well…ordinary.

This particular paragraph stood out for me:
'In the executive dining room, the last of its kind at Detroit's big automakers, waitresses take orders from a multicourse menu and bring silver finger bowls betwee the main course and dessert.'

Are you sh*tting me? That company just laid off 38,000 workers and their executives are enjoying these kinds of perks? If I was one of those 38,000 workers or perhaps if I were one of the people who performs one of the 30,000 jobs that are going to be eliminated in the next six years, I would be more than a little torqued after reading about this little bit of 'we're still treating our CEOs like they're gods' bullsh*t.

One thing that I think Mr. Ford is doing somewhat right, though, is holding back on producing hybrids. The alternative fuel market is still very much in flux. Hybrids may be a good start, but they are not the decided solution to high gas prices and dwindling fossil fuels. However, that's still very much a gamble, because hybrids are in fact getting snatched up RIGHT NOW. Ford could very much use the shot in the arm that producing a domestic compact hybrid that's cheaper than an import hybrid would give them. Meanwhile, Ford plans to work on developing flex-fuel vehicles, which seems to me to be the better idea. After all, how many people are out driving cars they just bought a year or two ago that are not hybrids? Gas is obviously going to be around for a long time, though not forever, and people, not just industry, need time to catch up.

Well, that's my Ford rant folks. Enjoy.

Good Morning!

Well, I had a good weekend. I spent most of the weekend feeling lightheaded and headachey, but it was still pretty pleasant.

I got up early on Saturday and had 'coffee' at Starbucks. I don't actually drink coffee, so it was pumpkin bread and OJ for me. It was cool to be out that early having breakfast with a friend.

Next up, I went to the Saturday morning meeting, figuring I'd better get as many meetings in as I can while I have Niece with me. The meeting was ok. I had to confess that I was nervous about having Niece with me all week. Never mind that I've been planning to have her with me for the rest of my life. To be nervous about having her with me for a week seemed a little ridiculous.

I went home from the meeting and pretty much went back to bed. I couldn't believe how tired I was, but I spent the afternoon sleeping, and woke up at a 4:50pm. I was due to arrive to pick up Niece at 5pm. So I hightailed it over to her foster mom's and snagged her. We went home, I cooked dinner, then it was time for bed.

Sunday arrived and I was still tired. Now my gut was feeling a little odd. Nevertheless, we had a swimdate to keep. So off we went, swimming at 1pm, while the sun bore down on us. It was something like 105 degrees yesterday and we felt every bit of it. My scalp is still red and I had a terrible headache at the end of the day, even though I had my sunglasses on. It was horrid. For some reason, I got it in my head that potato chips might cure my headache. Or not.

I finally went to bed after watching "Star Wars" for a while and slept fitfully until I woke up this morning after having dreamed that a vampire had married me and we don't need to talk about that any further.

Ahhhhhhhhhh, Monday.

Too Good for Marriage

I agree that marriage is an institution designed to protect children from their fickle parents. And I know that, because of the non-reproductive nature of gay sex, children are not produced on impulse or by accident. However, this argument doesn't really stand up. Gay people aren't super-couples. They're humans, just like everyone else. They and their children are just as needful of the benefits of marriage as are heterosexuals.

A gay relationship that was stable and considered to be a lifelong commitment when children were conceived or adopted could easily face the same stumbling blocks that a heterosexual couple would face after going through years of fertility or adoption. It is as though this court has bought into pop culture; that of the stereotypical loving gay couple that's saner than their heterosexual peers.

I feel like the court was just desperately reaching for a reason, any reason to uphold the ban. I feel like what we're seeing here is just their personal feelings, not real rule of law.

Enjoy the article here or visit the NY Times site. I strongly suggest signing up for their site; it's free. :o) Lots of good stuff everyday.

From the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/14/opinion/14yoshino.html?th&emc=th
Too Good for Marriage

By KENJI YOSHINO
Published: July 14, 2006

LAST week, New York’s highest court voted 4-to-2 that a legislative ban on same-sex marriage did not violate the state Constitution. In doing so, it added to the patchwork of state rulings on the issue, including those of Indiana and Arizona (which similarly upheld legislative bans) and Massachusetts (which struck down a legislative ban).

What’s noteworthy about the New York decision, however, is that it became the second ruling by a state high court to assert a startling rationale for prohibiting same-sex marriage — that straight couples may be less stable parents than their gay counterparts and consequently require the benefits of marriage to assist them.

The critical question, expressed in a plurality opinion by three members of the New York court, is whether a “rational legislature” could decide that the benefits of marriage should be granted to opposite-sex couples but not to same-sex couples. The opinion then answered in the affirmative with two different arguments. While both related to the interests of children, they differed significantly in vintage and tone.

The more traditional argument stated that the Legislature could reasonably suppose that children would fare better under the care of a mother and father. Like most arguments against gay marriage, this “role model” argument assumes straight couples are better guides to life than gay couples.

And like other blatantly anti-gay arguments, it falls apart under examination. In a decision last month in a case concerning gay foster parents, the Arkansas Supreme Court found no evidence that children raised by gay couples were disadvantaged compared with children raised by straight couples.

But the New York court also put forth another argument, sometimes called the “reckless procreation” rationale. “Heterosexual intercourse,” the plurality opinion stated, “has a natural tendency to lead to the birth of children; homosexual intercourse does not.” Gays become parents, the opinion said, in a variety of ways, including adoption and artificial insemination, “but they do not become parents as a result of accident or impulse.”

Consequently, “the Legislature could find that unstable relationships between people of the opposite sex present a greater danger that children will be born into or grow up in unstable homes than is the case with same-sex couples.”

To shore up those rickety heterosexual arrangements, “the Legislature could rationally offer the benefits of marriage to opposite-sex couples only.” Lest we miss the inversion of stereotypes about gay relationships here, the opinion lamented that straight relationships are “all too often casual or temporary.”

When an Indiana court introduced this seemingly heterophobic logic last year in upholding a state ban on same-sex marriage, I thought it was a cockeyed aberration. But after both New York City and New York State presented similar logic in oral arguments, and the court followed suit, I began to understand the argument’s appeal: it sounds nicer to gays.

It also sounds more desperate. New York’s ban on same-sex marriage is based on provisions enacted in 1909. It is preposterous to suggest the Legislature promulgated and retained the law because it believed gays to be better parents. Moreover, as New York’s chief judge, Judith Kaye, pointed out in her dissent, even if marriage were a response to the dangers of “reckless procreation,” excluding gay couples from marriage in no way advances the goal of responsible heterosexual child-rearing. “There are enough marriage licenses to go around for everyone,” Judge Kaye noted.

This is not the first time courts have restricted rights with a flourish of fond regards. In 1873, the United States Supreme Court upheld an Illinois statute prohibiting women from practicing law. Concurring in that judgment, Justice Joseph Bradley observed that the “natural and proper timidity and delicacy” of women better suited them to “the noble and benign offices of wife and mother.”

Hostile rulings delivered in friendly tones can take longer to overturn, as evidenced by the century that passed before members of the Supreme Court reversed their thinking about women and, in a 1973 opinion in a sex discrimination case, recognized that confining women in the name of cherishing them put them “not on a pedestal, but in a cage.”

We should not need a century to unmask the “reckless procreation” argument as a new guise for an old prejudice. The “reckless procreation” argument sounds nicer — and may even be nicer — than the plainly derogatory “role model” argument. But equality would be nicer still.

Kenji Yoshino,a professor at Yale Law School,is the author of “Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights.’’

Today's Horoscope...

Wow, it's pretty accurate, what with this car deal with Ex. It's pretty tempting to be 'friends' with him and sh*t. No thanks.

Secretary,
You are usually in it for the long haul, but now it's easy to get distracted by the lure of a more immediate situation. Don't get dragged into something that is more than you desired. Your strength is that you can feel so passionately and intensely. With your planet Pluto activating your desires, go ahead and feel it fully, but don't play your hand just yet, even if it appears to be a good idea.

Raise Your Hand if...

…you think the middle eastern conflict, newly revitalized, is going to blossom into World War III.

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/mideast_conflict

I can see it now. First it was just Israel with their evergreen Palestinian problem, or perhaps it was Palestinian with their never-ending Israeli problem. Depends on your point of view, naturally.

Then Lebanon seemed to be helping Palestine, so I gather, and Israel decided to brazenly start fighting with them. Israel seems to be like the scrappy kid on the playground who's willing to fight anyone who steps on his territory in order to prove he's not going to take any sh*t.

Hmm…I wonder who's going to wade into this mess next...

Gas Mileage Woes et al

I guess being an owner of a Honda is some kind of special thing or something. There's a website you can sign up for called "Owner Link" through the Honda site.

Let me tell you...Ford has no such thing. Nope. Once you buy a Ford, it's good luck and we'll see you when it breaks down, baby. Their Escorts are pretty good though…at least the mid-90's ones. Probably because they're foreign-made.

And by 'pretty good', I don't mean that they're so solid they seem like one big piece of steel attached to four wheels. Or like finely-made puzzle pieces fitted together absolutely perfectly with not a millimeter to spare.

No.

I mean that the engines seem to run forever. My old Escort had a great engine and she got 30 miles to the gallon. Pretty groovy when gas is $3.00/gallon.

(Dear SUV Conspicuous Consumer Owner: Thanks for parking your SUV in compact car parking, you tool. I hope someone dings the side of your car with a vengeance, lazy a*s. It won't be me though…I'm just going to think of $3.00 gas and smile.)

Anyway, I'm not sure why I thought that an Accord is an economy car that would get great gas mileage. Because that is not what an Accord is at all. I should have realized this, since it's more expensive than a Civic. Big fat f*ckin duh. It still gets ok mileage, but it's not what I'm used to by any means. And it has this ginormous 15 gallon gas tank. Crikey. And it gets a total of 23 miles per gallon! That seems like nothin. No wonder the car seemed huge when I went to buckle Niece in last night for our short joy ride.

I still love the car. I guess I'm just skittish about money right now. Having a car payment is making me very nervous. Plus there's the insurance. My cost of ownership just went from $65 per month to $290 per month, about a 450% increase.

But it's raining really hard out right now, and that rain reminds of a few things…the plexiglass window in the wagon part of the car. It leaked during rain and car washes. The rain also reminds me of the non-functioning defrost mechanism on the back window. That was pretty scary sometimes. Furthermore, I am reminded of having no air conditioning during rain that feel through air that was 90 degrees or more. So, right now, I'd be riding around in a car with all the windows up during 90 degree weather and no air conditioning. With brakes that are just about falling off.

Gotta look on the bright side. Yet, I'm so much better at complaining! What can I say? It's an American tradition and right. We complain.

Would You Like to be Flavor-Flav's Concubine?

You can.

Just sign up to be on "The Flavor of Love" and you too can be a has-been rapper's wh*re/kept woman.

http://www.justjared.com/gossip/2006/07/flavor-of-love-season-2/

Disgusting.

Soon to be a Family Unit...Again

Well I’m fairly excited. Niece and I will soon be a family unit again. Did I mention this?

So I have to pick out a school for her. I have picked an elementary school that is a magnet center. She will be learned languages starting in kindergarten, but it won't be hardcore, so fear not.

Child care will be tricky. I am itching for foster mom to get her immunizations up to date and do her pre-kindergarten checkup. She's been dragging her feet.

I'm so excited about Niece going to school. I can't wait for us to be able to go and take a tour of the building and whatnot. It'll be so cool! I wonder if I can get a list of the supplies and stuff she'll need from their website. Hmmm..

I hope Niece does okay in regular school. I think she will once she is more secure and away from Mommy Dearest.

A Blast from the Not-So-Distant Past

Having acqired the new ZoomZoom, I decided to sell Bessie.

 

Bessie, you have served me well, but it's time for you to find a new home.

 

Bessie's new home is going to be with my ex boyfriend.

 

He came over tonight to test drive the car, to see what all is wrong with it, etc. I'm selling it for $100. The car has body damage, the hatchback doesn't work, the windshield's cracked, none of the motorized or power accessories work, it has no stereo, and then there are the brakes. Soon the new owner will need to replace a CV joint, and let's not forget that the shocks aren't so hot.

 

I knew that Ex would want the car; the gas mileage cannot be beat and he can get the mechanical work done cheaply. The easiest way to get rid of the car would be to sell it to him. So selling it to him is a good decision.

 

Seeing him again was hard. I was excited about it despite myself. I found myself wanting to smile at him and make jokes with him and stuff. And I did a little bit. We talked about a few things that were pretty mundane. Pleasant stuff...how big his daughter's getting, stuff like that.

 

He said, "One thing I've been wondering about all afternoon, it's been troubling me. Why did you keep my number?"

 

I thought to myself that he was searching for some node of feeling from me. And trust me, that node is there. It would be so easy to love him again, if the Program hadn't taught me to see sick as sick. But now I see the truth and I can't ignore it.

 

"I didn't keep your number. I had it memorized."

 

"Oh."

 

"I wasn't going to speak to you ever again, Ex. I just needed to sell my car." It was the truth. But I wished I could say something else.

 

"Oh. I see," he said. He had walked me to my car, actually trailing a few steps behind me. "Well, I'll have the money to you within the week for sure and I'll see you then." Then he was gone and so was I.

 

I had had some dumb fantasy about us being friends, about maybe him going to the video store with me in the new car, etc. etc. ad nauseam.

 

I guess I'm glad that I didn't do that. I should be glad, right? That relationship was bad. He was abusive to me. He betrayed me a countless number of times. Who would want to be friends with someone like that? I couldn't trust him.

 

And I'm still pissed about the things he did in our relationship. Honestly, before seeing him again tonight, I felt repugnance for him. I thought about his personality and how he starts out all charming, hooks you in, and then takes over your life. Then when you see what's up, and you start trying to change things, he goes and finds another woman, fucks her, all the while treating you like shit and convincing you that you're crazy for trying to make decisions, have opinions, etc.

 

I guess I'm grateful to have spoken the simple truth with no illusions, no possibilities, no friendly crap.

 

But I can't say that I don't miss him, that I didn't want more somewhere in my mind. I did, and I do. I know that I just can't. I'd take three steps back. Screw that.

Oh You Know I'm Watching This...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20060712/en_tv_eo/19480

Airwaves Again Safe for "South Park" Scientology Spoof

By Gina Serpe 2 hours, 7 minutes ago

Comedy Central is finally respecting Cartman's authoritay.

One week after South Park's controversial "Trapped in the Closet" episode garnered an Emmy nomination, and nearly four months after it was abruptly pulled from rotation on the cable net, Comedy Central has finally acquiesced and will allow the Scientology-skewering episode back on the air.

And clearly not a moment too soon.

"If they hadn't put this episode back on the air, we'd have had serious issues, and we wouldn't be doing anything else with them," cocreator Matt Stone tells Variety.

The episode reportedly ruffled some high-powered feathers upon its first airing. In addition to an accurate, if cartoon-depicted, primer on Scientology, the show featured a literally closeted Tom Cruise who refuses to come out, only to be joined in his hiding by fellow Scientologist John Travolta and R&B man R. Kelly, whose operatic ballad provided the show's title.

While Comedy Central failed to publicly disclose its reasons for yanking the program (which is also credited for leading Scientologist Isaac Hayes to jump ship as the longtime voice of Chef), creators Stone and Trey Parker didn't shy away from broadcasting what they claimed was the network-sanctioned reason.

As the conspiracy theory goes, the Cruise's camp had a hand in deep-sixing the episode, with the litigious actor reportedly threatening threatened to pull out of promotional duties for Mission: Impossible III. (Viacom is the parent company for both Comedy Central and Paramount, the studio that was releasing Cruise's film.)

Cruise's reps vehemently denied such allegations, but the South Park brain trust stuck by its guns.

"I only know what we were told, that people involved with M:I:III wanted the episode off the air and that is why Comedy Central had to do it," Stone says in Variety. "I don't know why else it would have been pulled."

Now, Cruise's saturation-level publicity tour is over (and proved fairly ineffective, with the sequel grossing a disappointing $133 million domestically) and he is apparently in hiding with his new baby.

As it is, Comedy Central's decision to reintroduce the episode to its rerun schedule seems as arbitrary an action as yanking it in the first place. But the move is putting the network back into the good graces of Stone and Parker, who have said that their relationship with the network has been tenuous since the spring.

"It's true we are not as big as Tom Cruise, but we've done two movies for Viacom and 10 years of South Park episodes, and this has been our home," Stone tells Variety.

Stone explains that the episode's removal was nearly the final straw for the duo, who had been censored by the network on three separate occasions.

"We've been through a trifecta of annoyances," Stone says. "The 'Bloody Mary' episode angered Catholics. And we had a big fight when we wanted to show Muhammad."

Last year, the network declined to rerun the "Bloody Mary" episode after the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights attacked Parker and Stone and protested the program that featured a menstruating statue of the Virgin Mary.

In April, Comedy Central intervened on another episode before another religious group could take umbrage.

"Cartoon Wars," an episode dealing with the worldwide violence ensuing from a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet, was broadcast with a title card reading "Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network."

At the time, the network defended the decision to censor the show to ward off the possibility of violent reactions.

"The mantra has always been everything is fair game," Stone tells Variety. "I love [network president] Doug Herzog, but I think he's dead wrong and made a totally cowardly decision."

South Park's "Trapped in the Closet" returns to Comedy Central's airwaves July 19.

Does Africa Just Hate Women, or What?

I have read so many dang stories about African cultures routinely maiming women, about routine widespread RAPE and then of course, genocide, in Africa, that I am beginning to think that African cultures just hate women. I mean, my God, female genital mutilation and now breast ironing?! WTF? It just makes me so mad to think about how much women have been subjected to just because they are women.

If I were an African woman, I think I'd probably be doing whatever I could to escape that godforsaken continent. No, I'm not racist. I just don't understand why women are put through so much. I don't understand why some Middle Eastern countries also seem to hate women. WTF is the problem? Women are just human beings. Well, that's what you get when you have religions that encourage men to run amok.

Millions of Cameroon girls suffer "breast ironing"

By Tansa Musa Tue Jul 11, 11:25 AM ET

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (Reuters) - Worried that her daughters' budding breasts would expose them to the risk of sexual harassment and even rape, their mother Philomene Moungang started 'ironing' the girls' bosoms with a heated stone.

"I did it to my two girls when they were eight years old. I would take the grinding stone, heat it in the fire and press it hard on the breasts," Moungang said.

"They cried and said it was painful. But I explained that it was for their own good."

"Breast ironing" -- the use of hard or heated objects or other substances to try to stunt breast growth in girls -- is a traditional practice in West Africa, experts say.

A new survey has revealed it is shockingly widespread in Cameroon, where one in four teen-agers are subjected to the traumatic process by relatives, often hoping to lessen their sexual attractiveness.

"Breast ironing is an age-old practice in Cameroon, as well as in many other countries in West and Central Africa, including Chad, Togo, Benin, Guinea-Conakry, just to name a few," said Flavien Ndonko, an anthropologist and local representative of German development agency GTZ, which sponsored the survey.

"If society has been silent about it up to now it is because, like other harmful practices done to women such as female genital mutilation, it was thought to be good for the girl," said Ndonko.

"Even the victims themselves thought it was good for them."

However, the practice has many side effects, including severe pain and abscesses, infections, breast cancer, and even the complete disappearance of one or both breasts.

The survey of more than 5,000 girls and women aged between 10 and 82 from throughout Cameroon, published last month, estimated that 4 million women in the central African country have suffered the process.

"You ask me why I did it?" said Moungang. "When I was growing up as a little girl my mother did it to me just as all other women in the village did it to their girl children. So I thought it was just good for me to do to my own children."

The practice is now more common in urban areas than in villages, because mothers fear their children could be more exposed to sexual abuse in towns and try to suppress outward signs of sexuality, the survey said.

Its findings have prompted a nationwide campaign to educate mothers about its dangers and to try to eradicate it. A similar campaign some years ago helped drastically to reduce rates of female genital mutilation in Cameroon.

"A girl...has to be proud of her breasts because it is natural. It is a gift from God. Allow the breasts to grow naturally. Do not force them to disappear or appear," said a leaflet from the campaign.

Moungang said she stopped ironing her daughters' breasts after one girl developed blisters and abscesses.

"I took her to the hospital and the doctor scolded me and advised never to do it again because it could ruin my daughter," she said.

The practice is most common in the Christian and animist South of the country, rather than in the Muslim North and Far North provinces, where only 10 percent of women are affected.

"Massaging the breasts with hot objects is painful, very painful, and can completely destroy the breasts," said Bessem Ebanga, executive secretary of women's rights group RENATA, herself a former victim.

"Some girls could be traumatized throughout their lives and their sexual behavior could be disturbed forever."

For Ndonko, the campaign is a battle to respect the physical integrity of young girls -- with broader implications for human rights.

"If nothing was done today, tomorrow the very parents may even resolve to slice off the nose, the mouth or any other part of the girl which they think is making her attractive to men."

Frickin' Cool

Ok, this is so frickin' cool. The creativity of this guy…amazing!

Do you ever see these kinds of things happening and you're like, Why the heck can't I think of something like that? I'm sooo uncreative!

http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/

A New Car...and New Worries

I am not good with money. Most people that are my friends know this about me. Anyone who saw my name in The Record back when I filed for bankruptcy in '05 also knows this about me.

Yup, I went through bankruptcy. You would be uber surprised at the people who have. I don't mean celebrities. I mean people that I know, who look like that is the last thing that would ever happen to them. My ex-mentor, La Buddha, was one of those unfortunates who fell for the Nigerian scam. Greed at work, baby. She lost almost everything. The fact of where she was when I met her, which was about three years after her bankruptcy, spoke volumes about her work ethic and persistence.

You'd also be super surprised at how many of the folks around here live from paycheck to paycheck. Many of the sales guys do. You can tell who they are because of how voracious they are on payday. I don't mean voraciousness born of wanting to make sure they are paid for the work they've performed for this company, but voracious because their checking accounts are near to empty and they seriously need that money NOW.

Anyway, the last time that I had a car payment, full insurance and all that jazz, it didn't go so well. I f*cked it up royally. I was in a much worse place than I am now, mentally and maturity-wise. Yet, I am still making mistakes. Perhaps they are not as egregious as they were about a year and a half ago, but they are there.

And I find myself being so ashamed of them that I cannot or will not tell my sponsor. Recently I have started doing so even though I am mightily embarrassed. I made so many OA phone calls last night and one of them told me just what I needed to hear: "If you can't be honest about your money, you will lose the car."

She's right. Well, the outlook may look dismal today but there is hope. It's so weird; when I am working my program, I feel ok even if my bank account is in the hole. It doesn't matter, I know I'm going to be fine. But when I'm not working my program honestly, I could have hundreds of dollars in my bank account and still feel horrible.

Fingers and Tubes in Every Orifice

I just discovered this blog today. It's great. http://fingersandtubesineveryorifice.blogspot.com/

One of My Peeps is Having a Baby!

It's so exciting!

I'm going to make her a baby blanket. Should be fun. I'm going to make it out of Homespun, I think, even though that yarn is a pain in the patootie to work with. Or maybe I should just give her a doily for her baby's dresser. I have one that I'm about 25% away from finishing…

Nope…a baby blanket is much more appropriate. A nice lavender one.

I couldn't be more happy for her. She is someone who didn't settle and consequently didn't get married until about age 40. Her and her husband have been trying for a baby for about 2 years now. She may be 40, but she's really taken good care of herself. She confided to me that she's been through a few miscarriages while trying for this baby. I thought she might have; there've been times when she's had to have time off or she's had to have surgeries to help her get pregnant and stuff like that. She confided that her miscarriages happened naturally and that she was grateful for that. I'm grateful for her for that. I don't think that having had to abort a child deemed too unhealthy to give birth to would have sat well with her. I don't think it sits well with most women who find themselves in that position and who make that choice.

It was a little surreal listening to her. She was talking about how they live in this apartment in Manhattan and how they were going to have a nanny permanently and a baby nurse also.

I go, "Wow, you guys are a lot more sophisticated than we are out here." lol New York really seems like a different world sometimes.

I sound like a total country bumpkin right now.

Devilish Delights

Have I mentioned before how much I love antagonizing the other admins by constantly giving all leftover goodies to the folks downstairs?

 

Well, I do. I looooooooooooooove it.

 

Today I ordered a goodie tray from some local bakery. I told that hot new security guard whose uniform fits just right and who also happens to have a nice derriere, along with a pleasant face, that he and the receptionist should just go snag the leftovers once the clients leave down there, because I am not coming to get the leftovers. LOL. Twiggy is gonna be soooooo ticked off.

 

She seemed a little frosty last week when I spent almost all week back here, away from her. So she couldn’t do her passive-aggressive bit to get me to answer her phone even though I am taking lead calls and cannot interrupt said calls to answer fat-fingered Geico callers and tell the hapless folk that they have the wrong number. Over. And over.

 

I know at least one person who doesn’t like me sitting back here, and that’s the VP of Marketing. Here’s the reaction I got from that gentleman:

 

“What the h*ll is she doing back here?”

 

“Her computer is broken.”

 

“Oh.”

 

And then today, “Secretary is your computer broken again?”

 

“No, it’s just easier to keep on top of Mr. Leads’ stuff by being right here, next to his phones.”

 

Then he did some whispering to my supervisor, who I happen to be sitting right by.

 

It’s so nice to feel wanted. I have a feeling that sitting back here doing my work while Mr. Leads is vacationing or has serious back pain is not going to last long, no matter how efficient it is. I could go on and on about this, but I think we’ve covered it.

 

Yes. The world STILL revolves around me.

 

Ha! Ha! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!