Okay, the baby is asleep so maybe I can write about something intelligent for once.
Ann's in trouble. She recently came out with a new book, "Godless". I think it's appropriate and most of the country on some level or another would agree with that. I haven't had the privilege of reading this book, once I get an extra $20 I'll run out and buy it. Her books, by the way, are usually hidden deep in the back of the book store. I've never seen one on display in the front of the store, no matter how new and controversial it may be. I happen to believe in the case of this new book, she just may have bullied her way to the front of the store. Finally.
I love how she makes a career out of pissing people off. In a good way, of course. People are so pissed and it only came out the week of June 7th. Speaking of it's location in the book store, she writes this about how to find her book:
"The main problem with "Godless" is that I had to walk through the valley of darkness to find it. You will have to push past surly bookstore clerks, proceed past the weird people in the "self-help" section, and finally past the stacks and stacks of Hillary Clinton's memoirs. If all else fails, ask for the "hate speech" section of your local bookstore. Ironically, if you find "Godless" without asking for assistance, it's considered a minor miracle. "
Heh. Anyway, so I've heard through the grapevine that she says some bad things about the widows of some 911 victims. If that's the truth I've yet to read it, but as I said as soon as I free up some cash...
I love her. I will remain faithful unless by some tragic twist of nature she goes against her own beliefs and starts trying to actually please people. Something tells me she'd rather be set on fire.
So I just had to leave you with some quotes from the book that she posted in her column this week:
* No liberal cause is defended with more dishonesty than abortion. No matter what else they pretend to care about from time to time – undermining national security, aiding terrorists, oppressing the middle class, freeing violent criminals – the single most important item on the Democrats' agenda is abortion. Indeed, abortion is the one issue the Democratic Party is willing to go to war over – except in the Muslim world, which is jam-packed with prohibitions on abortion, but going to war against a Muslim nation might also serve America's national security objectives. Liberals don't care about women. They care about destroying human life. To them, 2,200 military deaths in the entire course of a war in Iraq is unconscionable, but 1.3 million aborted babies in America every year is something to celebrate.
And this one made me reconsider a public education for Riley:
* While gays were being decimated by the AIDS virus, U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop was more interested in not "stigmatizing" them than in saving their lives. See, where I come from, being dead also carries a certain type of stigma. Instead of distributing condoms in gay bars and at productions of the play "Rent," where they might have done some good, Koop insisted on distributing condoms in kindergarten classes, to emphasize the point that AIDS does not discriminate, which it does.
In 1987, New York Times reporter Maureen Dowd – before she was elevated to the cartoon pages – wrote a heroic portrait of the man. Dr. Koop, she said "fiercely wants to strip AIDS of its stigma," and for that reason, he talks "about making an animated educational video that would feature two condoms 'with little eyes on them' chatting, and about the need for 'gentle, nonmystifying' sex education for students, starting in kindergarten." I would pay quite a bit of money to hear someone describe anal sex – oh hell, make it any kind of sodomy – to a 5-year-old in a gentle, nonmystifying way.
Ick.
Well, now the baby is up. The liberal agenda keeps him up at nights too. I'll leave you with this but it's really for me, because I have to leave in a rush but I found two new awesome blogs I want to keep up with:
* http://www.floppingaces.net/2006/06/07/the-coulter-attack/
* http://bamapachyderm.com/archives/2006/06/07/ann-coulter-slams-the-jersey-girlsbeth-yawns/
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Monday, June 19, 2006
Unwritten
I'm definitely not a band-wagon kind of girl, but I've got to admit this Natasha Bedingfield song has got my attention. Musically, it's not anything spectacular or even slightly unique but at this time in my life, I find the words kind of meaningful. Once upon a time I was a bit of a spit-fire. If I had an opinion people heard it loud and clear and shy wasn't part of my vocabulary. Somewhere between the embarrassment, splits and broken hearts my spine has deteriorated somewhat through out the years. The only times I make my opinions heard now are through this blog and to my husband, who at this moment is the only person who hears me. Period.
In the business, they told us that as children we have such large dreams and that through the years our dreams get smaller because our world is limited by what money we make. That wasn't exactly true in my case. I've picked up and left off so many things. For instance, when Josh and I first married I knew I couldn't go back to school full time so I picked up dog grooming. I finished my classes and volunteered some time at the Humane Society to gain experience. I was pretty good, and I really liked it (though I will admit it was back-breaking and one half dead German Shepherd did bite me). Anyway, then I called every groomer I could find in the phone book to ask for an interview. Most of them were self-employed and didn't need any help so I went out to the streets to go shop to shop looking for a grooming job. The first shop I went into, the owner invited me to stay and work the day to try out for the job. I did and she gave me a 200 lb blue collie as one of my clients. I held my own and ruined my interview clothes and at the end of the day she gave me her number to call her after dinner because she said she would have to think about whether or not she would want me to come back tomorrow. Seven o'clock came and I called.
I am hoping for her sake that she was terribly drunk, because the woman who answered the phone was either that, or the biggest bitch to ever grace God's green earth. She told me she wouldn't be wanting me (in many more words, most of them expletives and all of them rude) and that I'd never amount to anything, that my education was worth nothing and that I was a loser. It took her about 45 minutes to say all this and all I did was sit next to Josh in the car, with my mouth wide open and I am ashamed to admit I even thanked her at the end of the call. That was the day I lost all of my self-respect.
Josh wanted to go vandalize her building, in the end I forgot her name and most of the awful words she said to me but I never groomed another dog.
And she is just one example out of many. I don't know if having Riley has something to do with it, but I have decided that I'm not going to be that girl anymore. I want to be the girl I used to be, only now with the tact that can only come with age and experience. I'm finally going to start healing that old spine of mine.
It's like India Arie said, "The only thing constant in the world is change. That's why each day I take life as it comes."
And this is Unwritten. My theme song for the moment.
I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined
I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We've been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can't live that way
In the business, they told us that as children we have such large dreams and that through the years our dreams get smaller because our world is limited by what money we make. That wasn't exactly true in my case. I've picked up and left off so many things. For instance, when Josh and I first married I knew I couldn't go back to school full time so I picked up dog grooming. I finished my classes and volunteered some time at the Humane Society to gain experience. I was pretty good, and I really liked it (though I will admit it was back-breaking and one half dead German Shepherd did bite me). Anyway, then I called every groomer I could find in the phone book to ask for an interview. Most of them were self-employed and didn't need any help so I went out to the streets to go shop to shop looking for a grooming job. The first shop I went into, the owner invited me to stay and work the day to try out for the job. I did and she gave me a 200 lb blue collie as one of my clients. I held my own and ruined my interview clothes and at the end of the day she gave me her number to call her after dinner because she said she would have to think about whether or not she would want me to come back tomorrow. Seven o'clock came and I called.
I am hoping for her sake that she was terribly drunk, because the woman who answered the phone was either that, or the biggest bitch to ever grace God's green earth. She told me she wouldn't be wanting me (in many more words, most of them expletives and all of them rude) and that I'd never amount to anything, that my education was worth nothing and that I was a loser. It took her about 45 minutes to say all this and all I did was sit next to Josh in the car, with my mouth wide open and I am ashamed to admit I even thanked her at the end of the call. That was the day I lost all of my self-respect.
Josh wanted to go vandalize her building, in the end I forgot her name and most of the awful words she said to me but I never groomed another dog.
And she is just one example out of many. I don't know if having Riley has something to do with it, but I have decided that I'm not going to be that girl anymore. I want to be the girl I used to be, only now with the tact that can only come with age and experience. I'm finally going to start healing that old spine of mine.
It's like India Arie said, "The only thing constant in the world is change. That's why each day I take life as it comes."
And this is Unwritten. My theme song for the moment.
I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined
I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We've been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can't live that way
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
I'm a Newsie
If you're not into musicals then you probably don't know what a Newsie is but as of last Thursday, I am one.
Riley and I were sleeping on the couch and were awakened suddenly by a knock at the front door. Immediately my heart sank into my stomach. I just had a feeling it was bad news. Josh was upstairs getting out of the shower but I called up to him to get the door anyway. He must have heard the panic in my voice because he stopped whatever he was doing to come down and answer the door.
I hear Josh thank the guy at the door and watch from the window as he pulls away in his truck. Josh walks into the room with a piece of paper. "What's this?" he asks. Just as I thought, bad news.
There's nothing like being sued first thing in the morning.
So here's' the background. I did go to college for two years, I was a pre-law student and I was damn good if I do say so myself. The problem was I was also sixteen and ridiculously naive. (I'm pretty naive now, so imagine my state of mind four years ago.) Anyway, I got a decent amount of scholarships but the school I was attending was about $25,000 a year plus the cost of living. I had to take out loans. I had absolutely no guidance in this area. It's a long story, but my parents didn't agree in my choice of schools so I was pretty much on my own. It's not that I needed them financially, but a little guidance in the matter of taking out a loan would have been of great help. But...all that is in the past. Anyway, I left school in 2004 to get married and never returned.
May of 2006 a court clerk is knocking on my door to tell me I'm being sued by the school I was attending for an unpaid balance of over $2,000. Blah. Well, Wesley College is crap in the matter of paper work. Anyone who has ever tried to do anything with them knows that fact very well. They did contact me over the years to say that I owed them money, but no one was ever clear on exactly how much (the figure always changed) or what for (they never did give me proof). So, I just ignored them. Maybe that was stupid, but I thought they'd just go away. I knew I didn't owe them anything, their policy was pretty strict that if you had an unpaid balance, you weren't allowed to begin classes or move into the dorms. Well, I had done both by the beginning of the last semester I attended and was told my balance was paid in full. No biggie, right? God...I hate over-complications. Wesley is such a drama queen.
So I called the school asking for an itemized list of what I supposedly owe. They sent me a three page history of anything having to do with finances that I ever had there. Still, their total only came up to $1,000. So where is this $2,000 coming from that they are suing me for? That's basically what I said in my answer. Actually, my answer kicks butt. I have quite a bit of proof against them, plus I didn't pay for all those law classes for nothing. (Well, yeah I did but at least they could help me a little in writing up an official legal answer).
I got a job as a newsie anyway, because I am just the little guy and the little guy always loses. No matter how great an answer they may be able to put together. Wesley has an actual lawyer, who made it all the way through law school. I can't touch any effort that he may put forth, but at least I'm pretty sure I won't have to pay everything they are asking, unless they gave their lawyer a different list of charges than they gave me.
So now I am getting up at 2 am every day to deliver papers. It was the only job I could get that wouldn't really take me away from Riley. I don't care if the court runs off with everything I own, I'm not putting my son on formula and sticking him in a daycare. Yuck. All he knows now is that daddy feeds him in the middle of the night. I'm home by 7am (it will be closer to 6 when I get quicker at it) and I don't think he misses me at all. If anything, it has been really good for his relationship with Josh. I still hate it. I bawled my eyes out the first night I had to leave them.
I hate all this crap. I never should have gone to college. I've done so many different things with my life, closed and opened so many doors but college is the one and only regret I have. It had a lot to do with pressure, mostly from my parents but also a strong need to please everyone else. My whole family always strongly pushed education, some of them are a little snotty about this. I guess it's good news that now my parents have let up a little in this area. Mike has chosen not to go to college, and they haven't kicked him out of the house or even charged him rent. As a matter of fact, they are actually respectful of his decision saying things like, "Well college just isn't for him." I'm so jealous. I won't even try to hide that fact. I wish they had been that supportive of me. But that's one line I've been singing for a long time. Yeah, things are different now and I am extremely grateful for the relationship I have with them, especially my mom. I just wish I didn't have to deal with all the student loans hanging over my head like a death cloud. I really hate the way I feel like whining and blaming everything on them right now. Nobody put an actual gun to my head and made me choose Wesley or take out student loans but I won't say there wasn't a proverbial gun in the mix.
Everyone wants the best for their kids, but there needs to be a line drawn between that and living vicariously through them. I don't care if Riley grows up to be a trash collector. If he's happy, I'm happy. And that's the honest truth. Maybe I can say that's why I went through all that hell, so that Riley wouldn't have to. Maybe then I'd hate that part of my past a little less. Only time can tell.
'Till then, I've got to get some sleep before work tonight.
Riley and I were sleeping on the couch and were awakened suddenly by a knock at the front door. Immediately my heart sank into my stomach. I just had a feeling it was bad news. Josh was upstairs getting out of the shower but I called up to him to get the door anyway. He must have heard the panic in my voice because he stopped whatever he was doing to come down and answer the door.
I hear Josh thank the guy at the door and watch from the window as he pulls away in his truck. Josh walks into the room with a piece of paper. "What's this?" he asks. Just as I thought, bad news.
There's nothing like being sued first thing in the morning.
So here's' the background. I did go to college for two years, I was a pre-law student and I was damn good if I do say so myself. The problem was I was also sixteen and ridiculously naive. (I'm pretty naive now, so imagine my state of mind four years ago.) Anyway, I got a decent amount of scholarships but the school I was attending was about $25,000 a year plus the cost of living. I had to take out loans. I had absolutely no guidance in this area. It's a long story, but my parents didn't agree in my choice of schools so I was pretty much on my own. It's not that I needed them financially, but a little guidance in the matter of taking out a loan would have been of great help. But...all that is in the past. Anyway, I left school in 2004 to get married and never returned.
May of 2006 a court clerk is knocking on my door to tell me I'm being sued by the school I was attending for an unpaid balance of over $2,000. Blah. Well, Wesley College is crap in the matter of paper work. Anyone who has ever tried to do anything with them knows that fact very well. They did contact me over the years to say that I owed them money, but no one was ever clear on exactly how much (the figure always changed) or what for (they never did give me proof). So, I just ignored them. Maybe that was stupid, but I thought they'd just go away. I knew I didn't owe them anything, their policy was pretty strict that if you had an unpaid balance, you weren't allowed to begin classes or move into the dorms. Well, I had done both by the beginning of the last semester I attended and was told my balance was paid in full. No biggie, right? God...I hate over-complications. Wesley is such a drama queen.
So I called the school asking for an itemized list of what I supposedly owe. They sent me a three page history of anything having to do with finances that I ever had there. Still, their total only came up to $1,000. So where is this $2,000 coming from that they are suing me for? That's basically what I said in my answer. Actually, my answer kicks butt. I have quite a bit of proof against them, plus I didn't pay for all those law classes for nothing. (Well, yeah I did but at least they could help me a little in writing up an official legal answer).
I got a job as a newsie anyway, because I am just the little guy and the little guy always loses. No matter how great an answer they may be able to put together. Wesley has an actual lawyer, who made it all the way through law school. I can't touch any effort that he may put forth, but at least I'm pretty sure I won't have to pay everything they are asking, unless they gave their lawyer a different list of charges than they gave me.
So now I am getting up at 2 am every day to deliver papers. It was the only job I could get that wouldn't really take me away from Riley. I don't care if the court runs off with everything I own, I'm not putting my son on formula and sticking him in a daycare. Yuck. All he knows now is that daddy feeds him in the middle of the night. I'm home by 7am (it will be closer to 6 when I get quicker at it) and I don't think he misses me at all. If anything, it has been really good for his relationship with Josh. I still hate it. I bawled my eyes out the first night I had to leave them.
I hate all this crap. I never should have gone to college. I've done so many different things with my life, closed and opened so many doors but college is the one and only regret I have. It had a lot to do with pressure, mostly from my parents but also a strong need to please everyone else. My whole family always strongly pushed education, some of them are a little snotty about this. I guess it's good news that now my parents have let up a little in this area. Mike has chosen not to go to college, and they haven't kicked him out of the house or even charged him rent. As a matter of fact, they are actually respectful of his decision saying things like, "Well college just isn't for him." I'm so jealous. I won't even try to hide that fact. I wish they had been that supportive of me. But that's one line I've been singing for a long time. Yeah, things are different now and I am extremely grateful for the relationship I have with them, especially my mom. I just wish I didn't have to deal with all the student loans hanging over my head like a death cloud. I really hate the way I feel like whining and blaming everything on them right now. Nobody put an actual gun to my head and made me choose Wesley or take out student loans but I won't say there wasn't a proverbial gun in the mix.
Everyone wants the best for their kids, but there needs to be a line drawn between that and living vicariously through them. I don't care if Riley grows up to be a trash collector. If he's happy, I'm happy. And that's the honest truth. Maybe I can say that's why I went through all that hell, so that Riley wouldn't have to. Maybe then I'd hate that part of my past a little less. Only time can tell.
'Till then, I've got to get some sleep before work tonight.
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