Dear Mr.Moore,

     I see you have spoken again! This being two days before the release of Capitolism: A Love Story, I wonder what you will say, will it be accurate? Everyone, yes, everyone has an agenda and tend to twist it no matter how tight to support their truth.  There is a crime we are all both guilty of and victim to, and that is BULLSHIT.  Whats worse is sometimes we realize we are doing it and continue anyways. FoxNews does this everyday, along with CNN, CNBC,and MBC. One news story just seems to slip into another and no matter who you watch your going to fall victim it. They label, tell you the facts bas they know them, and then sensationalize. As an American I really HATE to think the media thinks its a good idea to try dumb us down.

  We have some common ideas about the world.  Yes, George Bush was a REALLY BAD idea for America although Dick Cheney was worse. I do believe I am here to help others and hopefully do something worthwhile while I am here. I was brought up with the idea of helping our fellow man, towing the line, saving and making good financial decisions, making sure that others are considered, sticking up for what or who cannot speak up for themselves, we are one people and should act as such.  Yes, again America (as a government) has been largely disappointing in the recent past. Now We The People have woken up to a not so bright and hard to navigate through future. We feel like we have been B.S.'ed enough.

So when Capitolism A Love Story comes out I expect you to have have made sure that you are wholey honest with us. Give them no reason to say you have lied or twisted the truth. Now is the time,Michael.

thirty-three years go by
and not once do you come home
to find a man sitting in your bedroom
that is
a man you don't know
who came a long way to deliver one very specific message:
lock your back door, you idiot
however invincible you imagine yourself to be
you are wrong

thirty-three years go by
and you loosen the momentum of teenage nightmares
your breasts hang like a woman's
and you don't jump at shadows anymore
instead you may simply pause to admire
those that move with the grace of trees
dancing past streetlights
and you walk through your house without turning on lamps
sure of the angle from door to table
from table to staircase
sure of the number of steps
seven to the landing
two to turn right
then seven more
sure you will stroll serenely on the moving walkway of memory
across your bedroom 
and collapse with a sigh onto your bed
shoes falling
thunk thunk
onto the floor
and there will be no strange man
suddenly all that time sitting there
sitting there on what must be the prize chair
in your collection of uncomfortable chairs
with a wild look in his eyes
and hands that you cannot see
holding what?
you do not know

so sure are you of the endless drumming rhythm of your isolation
that you are painfully slow to adjust
if only because 
yours is not that genre of story
still and again, life cannot muster the stuff of movies
no bullets shattering glass
instead fear sits patiently
fear almost smiles when you finally see him
though you have kept him waiting for thirty-three years
and now he has let himself in
and he has brought you fistfuls of teenage nightmares
though you think you see, in your naivete
that he is empty handed
and this brings you great relief 
at the time

new as you are, really, to the idea that
even after you've long since gotten used to the parameters
they can all change
while you're out one night having a drink with a friend
some big hand may be turning a big dial
switching channels on your dreams
until you find yourself lost in them
and watching your daily life with the sound off
and of course having cautiously turned down the flame under your eyes
there are more shadows around everything
your vision a dim flashlight that you have to shake all the way to the outhouse
your solitude elevating itself like the spirit of the dead
presiding over your supposed repose
not really sleep at all 
just a sleeping position and a series of suspicious sounds
a clanking pipe
a creaking branch 
the footfalls of a cat
all of this and maybe 
the swish of the soft leather of your intruder's coat
as you walk him step by step back to the door
having talked him down off the ledge of a very bad idea
soft leather, big feet, almond eyes
the kinds of details the police officer would ask for later
with his clipboard 
and his pistol 
in your hallway

by Ani Difranco

It is within the darkened door that I observe life. I breathe in the dust of others with cobwebs that cling to the bridge of my nose and eyelids. Blinking is not an option anymore. I am too afraid what I might see if my sight renews itself. My feet pad the dewy wood, slinking.

My vixen Mother stepped on the frosty grass with her already rough and raw paws. She found a gentle grove far away their rattle and booming. Cutting claws scratch,into the earth. She grits her teeth feeling her belly roll,carving a hovel in the ground. Impregnated with the slow killing that is another litter.
 Quicker now, fighting dehydration she shapes with the roundness of a cave. When she is done struggling,growling to God she crunches the ice outside. Feeling the crackle in her mouth, relief somehow smacks her on the nuzzle with sarcastic indifference. Crawling now, into the den she yawns curling herself around her swell as we rob her soothing quiet.

 

        I have yet to make my decision if I want to go back to work or not. I am indeed leaning towards working because if I stay home for another week straight I'm going to go nuts. But this is a firaction amount myb fault, I don't get out that often during the week. I am good at making huge plans bad at carrying those through. Well in the way of working out , going out for coffee by myself...ect. Gotta get better at that. Must get that together.

     Working out four times a week, going to write at least 2 times a week is my goal. The rest of the time I can manage to be a homebody.

I MUST go work out at least 4 days this week. Please do badger me on this! =)

Please, remember me
Happily
By the rosebush laughing
With bruises on my chin
The time when
We counted every black car passing
Your house beneath the hill
And up until
Someone caught us in the kitchen
With maps, a mountain range,
A piggy bank
A vision too removed to mention
But

Please, remember me
Fondly
I heard from someone you're still pretty
And then
They went on to say
That the pearly gates
Had some eloquent graffiti
Like 'We'll meet again'
And 'Fuck the man'
And 'Tell my mother not to worry'
And angels with their gray
Handshakes
Were always done in such a hurry
And

Please, remember me
At Halloween
Making fools of all the neighbors
Our faces painted white
By midnight
We'd forgotten one another
And when the morning came
I was ashamed
Only now it seems so silly
That season left the world
And then returned
And now you're lit up by the city
So

Please, remember me
Mistakenly
In the window of the tallest tower call
Then pass us by
But much too high
To see the empty road at happy hour
Leave and resonate
Just like the gates
Around the holy kingdom
With words like 'Lost and Found' and 'Don't Look Down'
And 'Someone Save Temptation'
And

Please, remember me
As in the dream
We had as rug-burned babies
Among the fallen trees
And fast asleep
Aside the lions and the ladies
That called you what you like
And even might
Give a gift for your behavior
A fleeting chance to see
A trapeze
Swing as high as any savior
But

Please, remember me
My misery
And how it lost me all I wanted
Those dogs that love the rain
And chasing trains
The colored birds above there running
In circles round the well
And where it spells
On the wall behind St. Peter's
So bright with cinder gray
And spray paint
'Who the hell can see forever?'
And

Please, remember me
Seldomly
In the car behind the carnival
My hand between your knees
You turn from me
And said 'The trapeze act was wonderful
But never meant to last'
The clown that passed
Saw me just come up with anger
When it filled with circus dogs
The parking lot
Had an element of danger
So

Please, remember me
Finally
And all my uphill clawing
My dear
But if i make
The pearly gates
Do my best to make a drawing
Of G-d and Lucifer
A boy and girl
An angel kissin on a sinner
A monkey and a man
A marching band
All around the frightened trapeze swingers

Dishes, organize new and fun stuffs in kitchen
Throw away bulb flowers
Make list for groceries
Make list of household priorities
Make wish list on amazon
Load  of laundry

   *Drags out the trusty soapbox again*

   This is how it adds up:

one 14 year old chimpanzee
+

 

200 pounds
+

very little physical exercise
+

living in a home
+

lonely woman
+

treating chimp as human
+

alcohol
+

Xanex
+

best friend with new hairstyle
+

chimp attacking  best friend
+

hitting chimp with shovel
+

chimp ripping friends face off
+

then stabbing chimp
+

chimp running outside
+

getting shot by cop
+

news cameras/reporters

____________________________

 EPIC FAIL 

 Standing too high on my already awkwardly stacked crumbly soapbox, I give you my opinion anyways...

If I were lucky enough to have a daughter, and we were talking about the woman who recently came into the news because of having octuplets after having six children already. Three of them having special needs. I ask my daughter how she felt about the situation. Prior to this discussion she would know my thoughts about it because I would have already yelled them at the television with fists shaking. Spouting an Ozzie Guillen "psst...pleeeaaassseee".

Part of being a woman is knowing if and when you are ready to have children. There are questions you need to ask yourself, thinking it through. Am I able to support this new life? Emotionally? Intellectually? Financially? Do I have other children who need my time and attention? Does that outweigh my want and possible need to have other children? What kind of example do I want to be to this new life I am molding? What am I going to teach him/her about the world?

If you then have satisfactory answers to those questions, then as a woman you make certain pledges to your unborn child. I will never leave you. I will expect greatness from you, but  know you will sometimes fail. I will tell you when I think what you have done is wrong, but I will love you anyways. I will try and guide you through the world in the best way possible, wanting only good for you. I will take care of myself to take care of you, I will not put poisons in my body, I will try not to act in any way I do not want you to. As my child you will realize that I will like you  fail at this. I will try to maintain a relationship with my partner, your co-parent because I realize that is part of doing well as a Mother.

I hope my daughter will know this, not getting pregnant until she is sure she is ready to take on the name of Mommy proudly. To know herself well enough to say no. But if she isn't I hope she comes to me, and tells me when she has not been careful. I hope that I will not tell her what to do, making those huge decisions for her. I hope to be her guide though through it all. I hope that whatever her choice is, she knows what she can handle. It's a crap shoot sometimes isn't it?

  It's hard for anyone to say that they have never tried to be someone that they are not. People do this daily for all kinds of reasons. Ted Haggard did indeed do this, he lied to his parishioners, he lied to his wife and children, but most of all he was running from his own truth. His lover, a male prostitute came out and told the world that Haggard had engaged in sex and drugs with him. At first Ted admits to the drugs but not the sex. Then admits to the entire truth.  Who is to blame for this lie that  Ted has dealt with all of his life?

  Haggard and his family were exiled from their  church and home in Colorado. He was also made  to go into a program to "cure" his homosexuality. In the therapy sessions he has said that he has discovered that he is a heterosexual man who often has same sex attraction.The truth is that Haggard is indeed bisexual or even homosexual.  Many death threats were made and now that his lie had been so public ,  Ted found it difficult to find a job. The stress was mounting moving from safe house to safe house.

. Based on these facts I feel sorry for a man who is so devoid of the ability  communicate what is really in his heart and mind to others, full of self loathing. I am also angry with the part of him that is a hypocrite.  He can make excuses and give reasons of molestation and demons but he ultimately has to live with his make believe and the fallout.  Ted is his own worst enemy.  He has dug his own hole, jumped in and covered himself with dirt. 

 Inspired by the show Most Evil on the Discovery Channel. Most Evil profiles serial killers like Ed Gein, John Wayne Gacey and Charlie Manson. The host of the show is a doctor of psychology and has made a "scale of evil" of 1 through 22. Twenty-two being MOST EVIL!! While being pretty interesting and touching on a lot of medical testing the show is sensational and fails to be a study in  the psychology of these mentally ill and psychopathic people.
Rich and I have come up with the idea of making a list of the Most Pretentious musicians . It is in its preliminary stages and we have to make up a scale. It will number 1-22 with number and like the show 1 will be the lowest and 22 will be at  the highest level of pretension. So what I am asking you guys to do is to send me some people you'd like to see on this list. We will add them to the list and consider what level they should be at. 

We are traveling this Monday out to Pennsylvania for Christmas. The trip will take us a total of ten hours. This should give us something fun and meaningless to debate.

Please comment!!

You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.   70 % Nerd, 52% Geek, 43% Dork

Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!

Congratulations!

Sigh* Cringe! My crush on Jon Mayer has been a well kept dirty secret for a while now. I will be the first one to admit he's just becoming a musician still in his infancy and at best mediocre. Whats his something that is making me bite my lip you know in that sniveling fan girl way?

I think I have come up with an answer! He resembles one of those disheveled guys at the local independently owned coffee house. One of those guys who shows up on open mic night, plays guitar and seemingly is appreciative of female company. Oh, those guys that lure you in with their whispery voices and the who "feeling the music" with his Joe Cocker like movements. Occasionally looking up to let you think he's singing just...for...you. Memorized you tap your toe and move your head in time with the music.

Problem is that kind of guy would always languish in the company of the coffee house "popular" girl. You know the one who didn't have time for the likes of you. Cursing them and their clove cigarettes, style over substance. Never finding out the beauty you hold inside of yourself, he will never know the gifts you have. You know you are going to windup feeling like crap and then when you see him next with his girlfriend your ears will perk and you will feel the heat rising from your neck all the way up to your cheeks. You know that the next time you see him he will glance your way possibly with a ""cute but not cute enough" look written on his face.

As you slump back down into your coffee, remember you are a rich brew. You would have been something he could not handle, something he could not dare to touch because what you have mistaken for a "cute but not cute enough" look is really a "I am not good enough" inner monologue that will huant him for many years! Remember you have layer upon layer of fascination and allure.

Don't fret, you will come to realize that you don't need anyway. You are all about substance,  you are about poise and eloquence. When you hear his top twenty song years later, it will not make you jealous that you did not have a chance. You have moved on, gotten your education, love someone who loves you back, maybe have some children maybe not. You will quietly smile, and then wonder to yourself what would life have been if you were indeed the popular girl? You come to the realization that he left her all alone crying and making a scene out in front of the Coffee House.
He was in his infancy, needed a few girls to tell him no, needed a couple label signings to go bad. Get his addictions under control. Taking some to be by himself in the Mojave Dessert he will think back and begin to wonder what that chick at the coffee house is doing these days? Calling himself a dolt all the while.

I will whole heartedly admit my love of cooked  turkey dark meat in particular. Please may I have seconds? With stuffing? Apart from my love of eating all things fowl, I do have my phobias sorted out with everything that fowl that flies.  Live birds, don't like 'em. Never have. They are creepy dirty feathered pointy beaked flying rats. Eww!
Guess who I'm about to comment on? Yes, Sarah Palin! Again. *sigh* Standing in front of the turkeys being killed so they can sit and be eaten on Thanksgiving by some creepy guy who looks like someone I dated in my early 20's because I didn't know any better.

While Palin had just pardoned a turkey from the sentance of death(lets call him Sid)by being smushed down in a metal cone and having his neck broken.  Sid is probably at some sancuary somewhere, safe from brutal Thanksgiving hands.

Sweet Sarah then stood in front of a bathtub of turkey blood and interviewed while Sid's brother (lets call him Harold) shook and trembled in the throws of death as before mentioned creepy trucker broke his neck and pulled off his head.

Later Palin said she did not notice Harolds painful clucking when talking to reporter. Did not notice. How does one not notice? My Mom was raised on a farm, and while she understood that animals were sluaghtered for meat she appriciated it and for lack of a better phrase "gave thanks" for those that gave thier lives to the possibility of dinner. My Mom would have noticed and more over she would have refused to be interviewed standing in front of the carnage.

Maybe this is figurative of society, or the state of the world today. Would America take too much interest in itself to notice others being tortured and killed right behind Her back? People are generally out for themselves. This has been my lesson over the past 5 years. The world is too bright and noisy to notice the little Harolds suffer. Would we rather have him on our Thankgiving table?

I say all this and then think about the decapitations of fellow human beings on you tube. So it shouldn't suprise me that we are immune to some turkey some crazy women named Harold, postmortum.

Lets think of how freakin' greatful we are this Thanksgiving! How lucky we are to have abondant turkeys to snuff for the table. Happy Thanksgiving!

It has been a busy two weeks full of changes. At work we are changing programs from play-based teaching to play/academics, we are also changing rooms and hiring new people. We are sorely under staffed at the moment, and unfortunately it has worn on all of us just a bit. In better news I do love the kids, and am having fun watching them learn. I forgot how much energy they have at that age. I am not so secretly jealous that they get to take 2 hour naps during the day. I wish I did!

I think the fog has lifted, now all I have to do is maintain my good mood! =)

I just interviewed with a preschool here in San Jose. It went well I think, I am supposed to hear back from the school tomorrow. Why am I as BLAH! Well blah and feeling downright awful really. Earthdog and I were supposed to go to SF for a flickr meet up tonight. I'm staying home and going to bed early. Sounds fun, eh?

This has been a year full of ups and downs. Got a divorce, met the love of my life, Mom passed away, got engaged, planning a wedding, Uncle Jack passed away. Maybe thats too much change? Maybe a low grade depression hitting. It may be because I started taking my anti-depressants at a different time. Who knows! The reason I started looking for a job is the four walls of the house tend to close in on me from time to time, making me highly unmotivated to do anything. Generally for me not being active is a bad thing. Isn't it that way for almost everyone?

 
   Sleeping and I aren't the best of friends tonight. I have too much on my mind.  A lot has happened since I last wrote in this journal. I normally go t o my space and write there. I know! She said trying to duck for the oncoming day old tomatoes. As journals go this is the space in which I should write.

 There are things that have been discovered that I need to put down here
1. I have started making up songs in my sleep and when I wake up I can never remember the lyrics to them long enough to scrawl them on a piece of paper.   

2. Depression is a beast for me, it always has been. Since Mom died I feel like I have one toe in its quicksand. It's not quite a full on cycle but it is there. I think of her everyday, I mention her. I miss her, and love her.  I also feel jilted out of Mom seeing me get married next March, and her meeting our children. It wont be the same, it will never be the same. Being Mom-less is something I have to get used to.  Nothing lasts forever, no matter how you want to manipulate the truth in your own head. These are the times when I wish I didn't doubt the thought that God is always listening.

3. As Rich and I further entwine ourselves in our relationship, becoming engaged, talking joint accounts and living the day to day stress; I know now even more than before that this man I have had such great luck to discover is my best friend. I have shared more of myself with him than anyone else in existense. Moreover we are good to and for each other. I now know what discovering a treasure everyday is like.

My heart is open because of my Mom. Her life and the experience of being "Marlene's daughter".  I finally feel at peace because I have given myself to someone and he has given himself to me. 

I am fading here, I better get to bed. Sweet dreams, sleepy heads.

Lately my dreams tend to be vivid and strange. Like last night I dreamed that my grandparents got in a fight and it was so bad that my grandmother drove off. She went tearing off in a monster truck, ya know the kind with that annoying color of bright puke green painted on it? Strange. Being that my Grandma drove a Caddy. I went to bed during all of this and she eventually came back. We went out that morning for pancakes without my Grandpa. My Grandparents were simple people. They called each other "Mother" and "Dad". My Grandpa moved the lawn and my Grandma did basically everything else. Old fashioned, ya know sexist?

Then I had another dream, this ones a bit fuzzier. It had this blond woman who kept killing people by cutting open their tummies. Weird. My Mom and Dad and I were swimming in a river trying to get away from her. Then my Dads best friend came into the river and was trying to  talk this  woman out of killing us. 

I'll let ya know if I have any tonight

Women! What in the hell were we thinking? Wait a minute, we weren't thinking were we? After my family had eaten Thanksgiving dinner and politics were discussed in what I thought was a completely Liberal Democratic way. Which now I understand does not amount to feminist .

Then! THEN!! My brother in his need for the old black and white movie tuned into Judge Hardy and His Son. A Mickey Roonie movie. First off I find Mickey Roonie quit annoying as an actor and no prize to look at. What did Judy see in him? Anyways, women in this particular movie were protrayed as weak, manipulative, victims. Three of the most important men in my life were watching this. My father, my brother and my boyfriend (whom I live with), My Dad an my brother seemed un-phased by the way these women were acting or being treated.   All the brunettes were civil but spoiled and jealous. All the blonds were dumb as dirt clods with a mysterious way of minipulating to get what they wanted. Thats where the nickname "Andy Dandy" came from.  MADE ME SICK, it did!

My father and my brother just sat there! Enjoying the movie, getting into the Andy Hardy character. It was my boyfriend (whom I live with) that looked at me with knowing eyes knowing I was appalled at this.  The other two just seemed to revel in it. The high pitched dumb blonds and the saucy catty brunettes. 

Is this what men expect us to act like? Admittedly there are certain roles we all fit into.  Some may be less comfortable than others, and may challenge us or others. But why act like something we aren't? Do we really want to set that example for our girls, the younger of us? I certainly think differently about Barbie than the mainstream thinking being that my Mom didn't think that she set a great body image for me. I was denied Barbies. Not the most popular thing at the time but the phrase "you'll thank me later for this" was echoed throughout my childhood. 

How then does a woman who denies her daughter Barbies (based on what body image they will give); how then does she marry a man and raise a son who love the image of stupid manipulative idiotic women? Was her strong yet comforting hand too much for them to handle? My mother acted this way for first herself and then for me. She showed me how to be strong and at the same time put up with and to love jerks. 

Yes in that way I am called my brother and father jerks. They have their great points but feminism is not one of them.  As for Him With Who I Live, I don't think hes quite  a feminist but I really don't think this brother of 4 sisters fits in with Andy Dandy either.  THANK GOD!