Sunday musings

I'm wanting to beat up the TV again.  It's hard to sit here and think and try to remember what all I've done this week when Daffy Duck is screaming in my ear.  Except now Daffy has been replaced by Joan Rivers, and it's not an improvement.  Oh, and there's Larry the Cable Guy.  Okay, now there's a show about Border Collies.  Finn's part Border Collie, so this is okay, i guess.  Now i want to put him through agility training.  (We couldn't even make it through obedience classes, who am I kidding?)

The water problem was solved by a visit from our favorite plumber and a few turns of a pipe wrench.  It really was that simple, thank goodness.  (Of course, that was something we learned after Jimi spent 3 hours and an entire bottle of propane trying to torch the handle off, but whatevs.)  We've not yet addressed the water line on the fridge, but we'll get to that this week.  I'm still thrilled by the novelty of turning a knob and water coming out of the spigot.  The little things are huge, you know.

I was thrilled that Mississippi's proposed "personhood" amendment failed on Tuesday.  It would've made abortion completely illegal in Mississippi, and also would've banned contraceptive methods such as the IUD and certain forms of birth control pills.  Pregnancy threatening the life of the mother?  There's no choice or option - the pregnancy must be continued.  It surely would've been defeated in the Supreme Court had it somehow tragically passed, but I'm happy to see that the people of Mississippi, like those in Colorado before them, were able to recognize this attack on the reproductive rights of women and defeat it soundly.

My mouth/face has hurt all week, but (fingers crossed) I think it's over and all better now.  I guess I just really burned the fuck out of the roof of my mouth - I've never had something so long-lasting and painful result from a french bread pizza before.

It's so windy here today - I was finally able to turn off the TV, and I hear Granny's windchimes making beautiful music, accompanied by a hollow howling sound made when the wind whips across my front porch and through the cracks under my front door.  It's a creepy sound, that wind blowing.  It makes me think of dark and stormy nights, locked away in a cabin in the woods, where some madman is stalking and waiting...but it's 11:30 Sunday morning in the middle of the South End of Louisville Kentucky, and it's 60 degrees and overcast outside and the madmen don't hide and stalk, they're out there walking the streets with the rest of us.  Or we are them.

I applied for a credit card this week.  I don't know why I did it...if I had to guess, I'd say it was probably because of the whole "what if I need to go to the dentist and I don't have any money" thing.  I know the right thing to do is to have a savings account from which to draw those emergency funds.  I'm working on that.  Meanwhile, I will have this little dangerous piece of plastic.  This is a test, to see if 5 years of cash-only living and a few really painful lessons have taught me to live within my means and not spend money that isn't mine.  Wish me luck.

I think I blinked and all of a sudden it's the middle of November.  Thanksgiving is less than 2 weeks away; so's Stacy's birthday.  Her baby shower is the first weekend in December, then there's the company Christmas dinner, then Christmas and New Year, then the baby will be here - holy crap!  Time is flying!  I've gotta get on the ball - I'm taking Stacy to a day spa for her birthday for a massage and facial (it's her 30th, and I can't exactly treat her to a fifth of Patron, you know?), and I still have to find a place and make appointments.

Brother comes home on Tuesday.  He made it.  He will be home for the holidays, home for the first time in over a year.  Able to sleep in a dark quiet room that's not shared with 39 other men.  Able to eat real food, meals complete with fruits and vegetables that grew from the ground.  Able to come and go as he pleases, without requiring a pass or a "by your leave" from a guard or counselor.  I'm terrified for him.

I went to the local coffee shop yesterday for a fix and came away with three huge cupcakes, one for me, one for Jimi, and one for Steve.  They were all three different flavors, but all three had a squirt of whipped cream icing in the center.  This seems to be a recent trend in cupcakes, and it's sorta pissing me off.  Now, a year or so ago, my boss's wife brought in a six-pack of gourmet cupcakes from a bakery near them; one was a lemon, and inside was a wonderful squirt of lemon curd, all tangy and sweet.  The wedding cake cupcake had the whipped cream icing, with a surprise injection of strawberry glaze.  Those surprise fillings add a great flavor element and are welcome and completely acceptable.  The plain ol' whipped cream icing squirted into every single cake, though?  Come on.  If your cupcakes need that, you need to make better cupcakes.

Jimi's got a list a mile long of shit we're supposed to do today.  I don't want to do any of it.  Are you shocked?  I'm sure.  I want to sit here and do nothing.  Maybe take a nap.  Then do nothing some more.

I repotted the love tree and brought it into the house this week.  Well, I actually replanted it into the same pot, but it had a nasty lean to it, so I had to add some extra soil and make some adjustments for the odd angle.  As I dropped the root ball into the dirt-filled pot, the loose dirt blew up into my face - and my open eyes.  Wow, that sucked so bad.  I was blinded immediately; I stopped what i was doing, made my way to the front door, and once inside, I stripped off the clothes from my top half.  I walked straight across the living room and hall into the bathroom, where I flushed my eyes over and over for the next five minutes.  So. Much. Dirt.  Eventually they weren't so red anymore and the tears stopped, and I was able to go out and finish the job.  Fast forward to yesterday, when I'm talking to Jimi as he digs around in the shed where we keep the gardening stuff.  I was standing on a bag of dirt, just like the one I'd used to repot the love tree, and looked down and read "Important:  We strongly recommend the use of gloves when using this product." and "Not for container plants".  It's organic garden soil.  It's supposed to go in your flower beds.  It's a big ol' bag of shit, and I got it all in my face and mouth and nose and eyes.  While repotting my container plant.  Pretty good metaphor for the whole week, really.

Jimi and I are good, though.  We spent a couple hours a couple nights this week talking to each other - really talking, like looking at each other while we spoke and everything.  No distractions of television or computer, just us, the way we used to do all the time.  The sort of talk that reconnects you as a couple; the sort that's as therapeutic as good sex.  We're always here, but I'm always grateful when we're able to take the time and reaffirm that fact.  And then I feel guilty for doing my part in not making it happen more often.  But not too guilty, because that's just life, and I don't need one more thing to beat myself up about.

He picked me a rose from the bushes that line the White Castle drive-thru.  Then we made out like teenagers (the drive-thru line wasn't moving anyhow) and got our food and came home and I put the flower in a little tiny mason jar full of water next to the laptop.  A pretty good metaphor for our whole relationship, really.

I'm in a Sims phase.  I'm addicted to this Pets thing - I've adopted a unicorn and five cats and three dogs and some horses and birds and rats and snakes...it's awesome.  (When I say I want to do nothing, that's what I really mean - I want to play Sims Pets.)  I guess I'll go do that until he makes me do something else.

Happy Sunday!
 

Let's chat.

I'm sitting here trying to find words to type and I don't have any.  So I went to read the words my friends wrote, and Notie Kari said "Let's Chat", so, okay, let's do:

I went to bed before dark last night.  Before 9 p.m.  I took a sleeping pill (to help me stay asleep), and off I went.  The plan was to be up at 5 and to work by 6, but it's after 7 and I'm here typing, so that's not really working out as planned.

Rick Santorum is a cockbag.  Please don't vote for him.  "Blah blah blah, abortion is wrong in every circumstance, even in the instance of rape or molestation or if the pregnant person is eleven years old - unless it's my wife, in which case it was medically necessary and if she hadn't done it it would've left her children without a mother."  Um.  Well.  See?  That's why we need to keep in place laws that allow each individual woman to make those decisions - because circumstances that lead to abortion do not all fit into neat little boxes of "didn't practice safe sex" and "had it coming to her", as Rick would have us believe.  I wonder if he really feels that a girl who is raped and impregnated should be forced to carry that pregnancy to term?  I wonder if he would feel that way if he had a daughter in that situation?  If so, he's heartless.  At best, he's a hypocrite.

Honestly?  I won't vote for anyone who makes abortion a strong part of their platform in an election.  Allowing abortion rights to become part of the discussion as if the topic is anywhere close to being one of the major threats to our nation today, well, I think it's all a bunch of smoke and mirrors and nothing more than a way to get the devoutly religious to vote for you.  Kat, my former BFF of yore, she told me once, in the midst of her Mormon years, that she could never vote for a candidate that supported legalized abortion.  People, that scared me.  It scared me because she's smart, and she could see and freely admit her candidate had some nasty flaws, but the abortion issue trumped all others - even if it meant war and reductions in our freedoms.

What I don't understand is why people worry so much about abortion, when there are real live people next door who need food and help paying their electric bills?  That lady you're yelling at on the sidewalk while she makes her way to the clinic?  She's aborting because she can't afford to feed the kids she already has, and you already say horrible things about her because she survives with the help of WIC and food stamps - now you're saying "Let us help you!  We can help your baby!"  You don't care about her baby - you won't help her with midnight feedings and 2 a.m. diaperings.  You won't be around to explain to the other kids why they're having cereal for dinner again tonight, or why the lights got turned off for a week last month.

I've got an idea.  I suggest we take all the money and effort and man-hours the devoutly religious put into anti-abortion protests and legislation - let's take all that money and put it toward public service programs that educate women about reproductive health and safety.  Hand out condoms.  Offer low-cost birth-control options for women.  Set up food banks that feed local needy families.  Set up neighborhood volunteer child-care programs to give people who can't afford day-care an opportunity to find outside-the-home work and maybe start to make better lives for themselves and their children.  I propose that if we, as a people, put our efforts into lifting up the people in our communities that need help, we'd see abortion numbers drop.  Not go away completely, that will never happen so long as women are getting pregnant.  But the "i can't afford to have this kid" or "i didn't know i could get pregnant when i was on my period" abortions would decline.  I'll bet ya five dollars.

Well, so much for a chat.  Fucking soapbox - excuse me, I'm going to go put this away now.

Wait, is that a soapbox I'm standing on? My bad.

I like to think that if I'd been alive in the 1860s, I would've done something to get involved in the abolitionist movement. I most definitely wouldn't have "owned" slaves...right?  I say now, from a 21st century perspective, that I never would've participated in such a ghastly practice, but would I have?  If all my friends did?  Or maybe I would've just sat back and made noises about how slavery is wrong the way they do it in the DEEP south but had at my disposal a dozen excuses for why it was okay for me because I was kinder and more humane.  Or maybe I would've not held any slaves due to my location or position, but would've thought it was perfectly normal and acceptable.  Or maybe I would've been anti-slavery, but in talking points at parties only - you know, the sort that agrees that slavery is a bad thing, but wouldn't dream of actually doing anything about it because of the risks associated with such a movement.

I tell myself that if I'd come of age during the Civil Rights Movement, I would've sat at lunch counters with black friends in protest of laws that said they were equal but not.  I would've marched on Washington...surely I would've.  Right?  Or would I have been too into free love and drugs and rock'n'roll to notice that I didn't have any black friends because we were kept apart in all ways?

There are some things going down right now in this great nation of ours that strike me as being nearly as turning-point, monumental, huge as those two things were.  It feels like we're standing on an edge, and I'm scared to see which way we're going to fall.

Here are some things I was taught to believe about why America is the greatest nation in the world:

1.  Freedom.  Just in general, freedom.  Here, everyone is free to do as they please, provided they're not hurting someone else in the process.  This lesson was taught with a hint that, anywhere else in the world, you'd get arrested for small infractions like talking without raising your hand.
2.  Prosperity.  Here, everyone has enough and there is plenty for everyone.  We're the richest nation in the world!  There are hungry people out there, but they're not here.
3.  Freedom of religion - believe whatever you want!  It's why the Pilgrims came here, after all.
4.  Opportunity - you can be whomever or whatever you wish, if you're willing to work hard enough.
5.  Separation of Church and State, Separation of Government Powers, Checks and Balances, Justice is Blind.

Part of me, the child who loved fireworks and singing The Star Spangled Banner and saying the Pledge of Allegiance each morning and raising the school's stars and stripes, part of me still can feel the pride swell up  the way it did when I used to believe in those things.  Once upon a time, I knew those things to be truths the way I knew my name was Natalie.  That childhood/adolescent patriotism has been replaced by cynicism and doubt and mistrust in a system I thought was designed to protect the least of those among us.  What happened to the American Dream?  Is it just growing up that takes away all the shiny and replaces it with stark reality?  Or have things really gotten that bad?

Our elected officials lie to us about pictures they send on the internet, and we think they're going to tell us the truth about where our tax dollars are going?  The corporations that threw the world's economy into a tailspin get billions in government bailouts, but we're told pensions for firefighters and policemen and teachers are bankrupting us?  Our politicians are fucking us six ways to Sunday while they whisper sweet nothings in our ears, like how Planned Parenthood is the devil because they provide abortions and pap smears and condoms to women without medical insurance.  Oh my God, and whatever you do, don't let gay people get married because it'll be the end of the world as we know it - there will be donkey shows on Main Street at 3:00 and 4:30 every afternoon, your husband will suddenly need 2 more wives, and little Johnny will start humping the family dog.

What the fuck, America?  Are we that lazy and dumb that we're just going to sit here and watch while stupid takes over our nation?

I've got to do something.  I don't know what, but I'm going to figure something out.  I'll write a letter or hold a sign or get sprayed by a firehose or something - I just can't take sitting here and watching this country I grew up loving go all to shit.

Why is the American public suffering while Wall Street laughs all the way to the bank?  Why are we allowing our elected officials to attack the ones who are supposed to educate and protect us?  Why are we trying to strip medical access from the poor?  Why are we treating people like they're second class citizens because of who they want to fuck?  (Hello, Congress, I'm talking to you, you scandalous cretins - you should be the first ones on the "don't judge me for my sexual behaviors" bandwagon.)

I just can't take the hypocrisy.  I can't stand the dumb.  How do I fix it?  Where do I start?

Natalie For Congress!!!

I'm starting my own political party.  It's called the NAT Party - the National Alliance for Truth.

It's a no bullshit club - you join if you're tired of dirty old men who cheat on their wives telling you that Planned Parenthood is America's Enemy Number One, what with all their affordable HPV screenings and Pap smears and low-cost birth control distribution and (legal!) abortion-providing.  You're a NAT Party-member if you want to know why in the fuck our treasury gave billions of dollars in back-door loans to European nations while our government officials directed our attention to the bail-outs of Wall Street tycoons.  You're a NAT Party member if you want to know why it's okay for you and your friends to lose your jobs while the people who created this grandfuckery got to keep theirs - and they got bonuses?!  WTF?!

I'm just so sick of it all.  The people running this country are fucking it up royally, and we, the masses, are such good blind little sheep that we allow them to systematically steal our rights under the guise of restoring family values and protecting us from terrorists.

And about those terrorists.  We lost 3000 people on September 11, 2001.  Ten years later, how many hundreds of thousands have died in their names?  Who're really the terrorists in this scenario?  The only difference is we do it under the banner of justice.  You know what?  There's no such thing as justice when a woman's child is blown to bits because she happens to be unlucky enough to live in a place where someone thought some bad guys were living.  We've destroyed countless lives, on all sides.  Osama ain't got nothing on our pal George.

Here are some things the NAT Party supports:

Constitutional-ism - Specifically, those parts about equality for all and separation of church and state.

Fiscal Responsibility - if elected President, I would fill my Treasury department with stay-at-home mothers who've managed shoestring household budgets.  Fuck your PhDs, I want life experience.  Ain't no Momma in the world that'd buy a $600 toilet seat.  Give me a few hundred moms and 100 days, I'll give you a balanced budget.

Healthcare for All - I propose an immediate cancellation of all government-sponsored medical programs for all elected government officials - they must find and pay for medical coverage for themselves and their families, same way you and I do.  This would remain in effect until they were able to pass a healthcare bill that would provide medical coverage for ALL Americans, and then they would be covered under the terms of that plan.  I honestly believe this catalyst would bring swift, effective results.  (This would end Medicare and Medicaid, too.  And I'd find a way to force pharmaceutical companies to play ball, too, and the days of "I can't afford my medicine" would be fucking over.)

Education - Nothing pisses me off more than hearing a politician scream "Think of our grandchildren!" right before he proposes a bill that cuts education spending.  Hey George - you know how much college those bombs could've paid for?!  Anyhow, our system is in dire condition these days, and needs some money and common sense thrown its way.  (The Moms will find the money, I'm sure of it!)


I'm just so fucking sick of the bullshit.  Have you ever had a job where they threw that teamwork stuff at you and reminded you "You're only as strong as your weakest link"?  There's some validity to that little cliche' - how can we claim to be the "land of the free and the home of the brave" when our people are chained by debt and unemployment, and terrified because their government tells them to be so?

/soapbox rant

Abortion is still a dirty word, and no one wants it to be normal.

I was invited by a friend to attend this event.  It's titled "SPEAKOUT to normalize abortion".  The thumbnail image associated with the event is a photo of a keychain that reads "I had an abortion...and I don't regret it."  It sounds like the purpose is to give women a safe place to share their experiences and stories.  I think they really need a new PR rep, because the title and the image are freaking me out. 

I am pro-choice.  I believe every woman has the right to make her own educated, informed decisions regarding her reproductive health.  I would prefer, of course, that women make those educated, informed decisions well enough in advance to avoid an unwanted pregnancy, but as the old saying goes, wish in one hand...you get the picture.  Women and girls get pregnant, unexpectedly, all the time.  It happens.  And the circumstances surrounding every single one of those conceptions are different from the last and the next.  That's why I'm pro-choice; because we don't all fit into the same boxes.

The title of this event bothers me, though.  "normalize abortion"?  I guess I know what they're trying to say - that "abortion" shouldn't be a dirty word, that there shouldn't be so much stigma attached to it, that women have abortions for all different reasons and that they shouldn't be ashamed.  Still, the title makes me go, "uhm...I don't want to live in a world where abortion is the status quo".  And the thumbnail picture?  Who'd carry a keychain like that?  I mean, seriously. 

I have a few friends who have confided in me that they've had abortions; I'm sure I know several more women who have and haven't told.  Surprisingly, none of the friends who've made this confession fit into the mold I'd imagined in my head - none of them look the way I'd imagined a woman who'd abort a baby would look,  and none of them made the choice they made because they were young, single, or failed to take adequate precautions to prevent pregnancy.  All were in their mid-twenties or later, all were in relationships, all were victims of some form of abuse, all were making use of birth control.  And all found themselves unexpectedly expecting, in a situation where they honestly felt that abortion was the best choice they could make - not only for themselves, but also for the child they were unintentionally carrying.  I know, I know - so many people want to adopt, I hear you.  But sometimes, fear or inability to raise a child is not the reason this choice is made - sometimes the choice is made because a woman fears she wouldn't survive the pregnancy, and I'm not talking because of pregnancy complications here.  Again, we don't all fit into the same boxes. 

My friends who've undergone this procedure, for the most part, don't regret their decisions.  But I don't think I'll ever see them carrying a keyfob that announces the choice they made, either, and not only because of the stigma attached.  What a horribly painful, personal decision!  I simply cannot fathom the emotional weight such a choice would carry, and I imagine it's not something that goes away once the bleeding has stopped and your hormones are back to normal.  My miscarriage threatened to send me into a tailspin of "OMG this is all my fault and I'm a terrible person" - I can't imagine the loneliness and sadness and fear of having to choose that for myself.  A keychain advertisement is tacky, at the very least. 

I follow a blog called Every Saturday Morning.  It's written by volunteers who every week stand in front of Kentucky's only clinic that provides abortions, escorting clinic patients safely through the mob that shows up every week to protest the rights of those patients to have a legal medical procedure.  On their Facebook page once, they posted a video of a man confronting these protestors - he used his cell phone to confront the elderly Catholic women who'd been spewing hate and vitriol in his direction as he'd led his wife into the clinic.  He told the women that the child his wife was carrying had died and needed to be removed - that is why they were at the "abortion" clinic. 

Every person you meet is fighting a battle you can't see. 

Facts are facts; abortion is not something anyone wants normalized.  No one wants to see a day when a woman gets pregnant and automatically thinks "Hmm - do I go to a prenatal exam, or should I just have an abortion?"  When you use words like "normalize abortion", that's the world I imagine.  "SPEAKOUT to Destigmatize a Woman's Choice" perhaps would've been a better title, or "SPEAKOUT to End the Silence" or something.  I see and understand the reason and need for the event; I just don't like the title and image they're using to spread the word - something about it seems flip; not appropriate for the gravity of the conversation.   I don't like it a lot.