Gay Men: Marrying the CRAP Out of Your Girlfriends

While my last post has taken off and gotten a lot of attention—both good and bad—I have realized that I'm due for a post with a bit of humor.  Too many people get unnecessarily and overly emotional about political matters, taking every differing opinion as a personal attack.

So, when I saw this posted on Facebook earlier, I decided it was exactly the spot of levity I needed tonight.

I have retrieved this video from the comedy section of the Huffington Post website [link here, opens in new window] where they had this to say about it:

"There may have been gay rights victories in Maine, Maryland, Washington and Minnesota this past election, but there are still states out there doing their best to keep couples from getting married.

For those states, the men of College Humor have an ultimatum: Let them get hitched, or they'll bite the bullet and start marrying your girlfriends.

They have a pretty solid case, guys."

Of course, it's well known that I already support same sex marriage.  This video, however, is pure comedic gold!

CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos

Just Because.....

Earlier this evening I read a wonderfully unapologetic rant, and I wanted to share it here.  I can say that it mirrors many of my own feelings these days, which is why I wanted to share it.  It was written by someone as fed up as I am with being negatively stereotyped.

[Some of the language contained within is not the sort of stuff I usually post on this blog.  I have semi-censored some of the text, but you'll still be able to tell what the original words were.]

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I'm a woman and I'm fat.

After you stop gasping in horror, grow the f*ck up and deal with it. You don't buy my food, my clothes, nor do you fill my car with gas so piss on your self-righteous indignation. I pay for my own health care so stop trying to blame me for your rising insurance premiums. I'm tired of hearing your false platitudes about how I should lose weight for my health. Stop ASSuming I don't eat healthy food and exercise just because I'm fat. While you're at it, stop ASSuming thin people are always healthy too.

If you don't like the way I look stop whining; do the adult thing and simply look away. Contrary to what you've been told, I don't have an unspoken obligation to please your eyes. And for your information I bathe at least once a day during the Winter, and twice a day during the Summer so stop curling your nose up. The only thing that stinks around here is your putrid attitude. Screwing your face up like that only makes me look even better because baring your teeth in disgust makes you look like a rabid hairless chihuahua.

No, I don't hate skinny b*tches. All true b*tches are worthy of respect. It's superficial skinny c*nts I can't stand, right along side superficial fat f*cks. Just because I'm fat doesn't mean I have to listen to you whine about your eating disorder to prove I am not prejudiced against thin people. I have my own eating habits to keep in check without being burdened by someone else's deliberate food fuck ups. I'm fat, not a professional sympathizer for the self-labeled "pretty people" who throw up, starve, snort coke, or do whatever stupid things to stay thin. I'm not anti-thin, I'm anti-enabling people to act stupid without criticism.

Being fat doesn't mean I have to prove my worth by nurturing everyone; including every professional victim and f*ckwit that thinks my precious time should be spent listening to their complaints of the unfairness of the Universe. Just because I'm fat it doesn't mean I drop everything I'm doing right then and there because you feel entitled to consolation on my big fat boobs. My big fat boobs aren't nearly big enough to console all the sh*theads of the world, so space is exclusively reserved for the people who really do deserve my sympathy.

Women Who Want Equality But Won't Live It

To my fellow American women:  If you're going to keep demanding equality, it's time you start living it!

Let's face facts:  It's simply not fair for us, as modern American women, to demand chivalry and equality.  The two are almost entirely contradictory.  You cannot expect a man to think of you as strong when you cry out for help every time you are faced with a task that requires a tiny bit of grit.  You cannot expect a man to think of you as independent if you get visibly offended when he doesn't open the door for you.  You cannot expect a man to respect your employment income when you constantly assume it is his responsibility to pay for everything, on every date, regardless of how long you have been together.

If you want to be treated as equal to a man, then act as if you are equal.  If you play the part of the "weaker sex," you deserve to be treated as a weaker person.

Most often, I think about this when I hear about incidents of domestic violence.  I am not talking about those sad occasions when one person in a relationship is abusive toward the other, unprovoked.  That's wrong, regardless of who is the abuser.  Rather, I'm talking about those times when a woman hits, punches, or abuses her male partner and then has him arrested for assault & battery when he fights back.  Really?  How is that at all fair?

Ladies, it is no longer acceptable—really, never has been, in my opinion—for you to think that you can be physically violent toward a man and then expect to hide behind your femininity as protection from retaliation.  If you are tough enough to hit a man, then you better make sure you are also tough enough to take the hit-back.

In the end, I think that most of the focus of "Womens' Liberation" has been focused in the wrong direction.  We have come a long way toward equality, and we should continue to press onward toward full equality with men.  Along the way, however, I think we ought to be kind enough to liberate men from the unfair double standards of an outdated system of chivalry and "kept" women.

The American Way

Yeah, I know, it's too early for Halloween pics already.  What can I say?  I adore this child, and when we tried on his costume tonight, I just couldn't resist.  Besides, it's not like my blog readers are going to get to see him live and in person on Halloween night...

♥

Accepting Un-Pretty

I spent most of my childhood being teased mercilessly by my peers, both at school and at church.  I have always been the fat, freckle-faced, redheaded, unpopular kid.  I didn't play sports.  I didn't have any particularly enviable talents  I didn't come from a "rich" family.  I rarely ever had more than one or two "friends" at any given time.  It didn't take me long to understand that I have never fit into the mold of what common society considers to be physically beautiful.  I probably understood this fact by the time I had finished elementary school—although acceptance of this fact would come much, much later.

As I grew into adulthood, I learned that it didn't really matter that I'm not beautiful.  I'm smart, I'm funny, I'm passionate, and I'm a hard worker.  I have learned that I don't need a hundred "best" friends, and I'm honestly much happier with a smaller, closer circle of genuine friends.  I have learned that who I am is good enough, and that I'm worthy of love and friendship and respect.  I've learned that I don't need to be beautiful, and I've come to realize that I'm not sure I'd even want the pressure that would come attached to maintaining a beautiful me.

Working around middle schoolers, these past several years, has given me the opportunity to develop an entirely different perspective on being "un-pretty" by watching it unfold through the eyes of my students.  While it's not something I point out to them, I have students who do not fit into the "beautiful" category.  Some of them may never fit into that category, and there's really nothing that they can do about it.  While the "un-pretty" seems to afflict both male and female students, it is the girls I worry about the most.

The problem I see is this:

When a girl goes crying to her friends, parents, or teachers, telling them that she has been harassed or bullied by someone who said she was "ugly" or "fat" or some other such derogatory term, it is almost always handled wrongly.  The first reaction or these friends and parents and teachers is to comfort the girl—and rightly so—and then to say something like "Just ignore them.  You're beautiful no matter what they say."

New Discoveries in an Old Routine

As I begin this post, it's 11:20p.m. on Tuesday evening, and I already know that I'll be dragging when the alarm clock starts buzzing in the morning.  But, I've had some thoughts circling my mind in a never-ending loop the last few days, and I need to get them out, so here I sit, on the couch, blogging when I should be already asleep.  Alas.

About 6 weeks ago, Kaleb was diagnosed with ADHD by his pediatrician and began taking a daily dose of Adderall to aid him in regaining control of himself.  To say the least, it feels as if our lives have been transformed.  It took a bit of trial and error to settle upon the correct dosage for Kaleb—just enough to get the job done, but not enough to turn him into a pre-school zombie—but when the right dosage was tested, it was like a magic spell!  He's not a perfect kid, and we still aggravate one another immeasurably sometimes (he's 3 years old, and we are both redheads), but pretty much everything has improved by the introduction of this little pill into our morning routines.

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Many people who know me already know that Kaleb began Pre-K 3 at Escambia Christian School yesterday (Monday) on the first day of the 2012-2013 school year.  It wasn't something I had really prepared for, and was arranged on relatively short notice—the reasons behind our withdrawal from Malena's Mini School will be the topic of another post.

Remembering Bob

At some point, some person will become a part of your life for a short time, but will leave a very lasting impression on your heart.  This is an experience that most everyone will have, and it can be a unique experience, to be so affected by someone you've barely gotten to know.

This is the story of the brief time that Bob* was a part of my life.

From October 2006 to October 2007, I worked in the administration and monitoring positions at a residential facility here in Pensacola where newly-released inmates were court ordered to attend drug and alcohol abuse treatment.  Up to 60 of these clients at a time lived in our facility, taking part in individual and group counseling and working to get back into the job force.  Each week, some clients would rotate out and others would rotate in.  Though I spent 50+ hours a week working among them, I never truly got to know the majority of the clients as there was a need to maintain a clear separation between profession and personal life.

But, try as I might, I did still get to know occasional clients very well—nothing remotely inappropriate, but some of these people.....you just couldn't help but like them.  Yes, I knew many of the more troubling and disturbing details of their individual pasts, but I also knew that many of these people were struggling with addictions that had taken away their self-control along with their self-respect.  The majority of the clients were good people who had made very bad choices and ended up in very bad situations.  Then they had landed in our facility.

That's the Thing About Having Friends...

I've never been the kind of person who had—or wanted—bunches and bunches of friends.  I've always preferred to keep one or two close friends and simply maintain others at the level of friendly acquaintances.  I know this might not be typical for a woman, but there's a reason behind it.

You see, there's this thing about having friends: you have to open yourself up emotionally.

It doesn't sound like anything big or scary, but opening up emotionally leaves you open to being hurt or disappointed or mislead (intentionally or not) or embarrassed.  And none of those are things anyone likes, really.

Throughout my life, nearly every time I have opened up to a new friendship, at least of of those things has happened to me, and I can tell you that it is never any fun.  And each time it happens, I have to take a break and decide if that friendship is worth saving or if it's better to just let go.  Most times, I end up deciding that the value of the relationship doesn't outweigh the emotional toll it takes on me.  On rare occasions, I step back for a while, swallow my opinions (I know, hard for you to imagine), and push on through with a business-as-usual friendship.

Some of you may have noticed that I've been on a bit of "internet silence" the last few weeks.  Partly, this has been because work is pretty hectic this close to the end of the school year.  But mostly, I've been nursing a spot of hurt pride/embarrassment caused by a couple of friends.  I went out on a limb for someone, and it ended up biting me in the ass.  That old familiar sting came back, reminiscent of so many hurts and wrongs in the past, and I needed some time to myself to reevaluate.

I've had plenty of time to think now, and I'm back in the public arena of the internet again.  I haven't made any definite decisions about the status of this freshly-wounded friendship.  And, though I won't name the other party or even hint to their identity, the ball is now squarely in his or her court.

Friendship.  It's tough.  But for the opportunity to find those rare, true friends, it's totally worth it.

A Beautiful Dream

For the past couple of weeks, I've been having the same recurring dream every night.  It has even popped up the couple of times I've gotten the chance at a daytime nap.  I've never really been someone who spent much time analyzing my dreams, preferring instead to enjoy them in whatever manner they present themselves.  On the few occasions I've had recurring dreams in the past, they would come once or twice and then retreat into memories.  Most of them I cannot even remember now.  This time, however, the dream is visiting me night after night, and I awaken with it fresh in my mind every morning.

Nearly 3 weeks into this repetitive dream cycle now, the dream remains so much in the forefront of my mind that I relive it even in my waking dreams (daydreams) in snippets throughout the day.

Although I typically don't read deep meanings into my dreams, I do believe that they are one of the tools our minds use to heal themselves.  In your dreaming world, you can do things that you can not—or would not—do in your real life.  You can have new experiences, attempt difficult tasks, and get closure for past relationships.

In my dream, I'm in a hospital waiting room.  I do not know why I'm there, or if I'm a patient or visitor.  So far, that seems to be irrelevant in my dream.  I'm usually sad, but not overwhelmingly.  As I sit in this room, people keep coming to meet up with me, to sit with me for a while.  So far, each of these people has been someone from my past with whom I do not still have a positive relationship (or, in some cases, any relationship at all).  In each case, the visitor and I talk about our happy memories and our past hurts.  Each of these conversations ends with us in tears, ready to let go of the pain of the past and part on good terms.

P52, Somewhat: Week 15, "Tradition"

I grew up in a family with traditions.  We knew, more or less, what to expect at every major holiday, and it was nice to know what was coming.  Now that I'm a parent myself, I want Kaleb to benefit from these same types of traditions.  But the pressures of wanting him to have the perfect Rockwellian holidays, as I remember having in my own childhood.

What I have discovered is this: I probably actually never had a holiday that went perfectly according to my parents' plans.  My family holidays with Kaleb will probably never go perfectly either.  And that's ok.  Just as I never had any sense of things going wrong as a kid, Kaleb probably won't either.  In fact, the most important tradition is to simply spend time with Kaleb and do things to make his holidays special and memorable, just as my parents did for my brother and me when we were kids.

This year, for the first time, Kaleb and I dyed eggs.  Assuming I already had all the supplies we'd need, I didn't bother to read the directions of the egg dying kid my dad had given us.  I bought some eggs, and hard boiled 20 of them.  18 of them survived the boiling without cracking, and they were set aside to be colored.  On the day we were to dye the eggs, however, I realized we had no vinegar to add to the dye water to help the color adhere to the egg shells.  A quick glance around Google hinted that I might be able to use lemon juice instead, and I decided it would just have to work.  Kaleb and I spent some time dying the eggs, six at a time in three rounds.  They came out with plenty of imperfections, not at all what I had hoped for my first attempt at sharing this activity with Kaleb.  But you know what?  He didn't notice those imperfections at all!  He was overjoyed to be able to help, to get to participate in something new and fun.  When it was all finished, I couldn't pry Kaleb out of the kitchen.  He actually wanted to stand atop his stool and watch the eggs drying on the counter.

My Boys

It's not at all unusual for me to see a few raised eyebrows when I make reference to "my sons" or "my boys."  Most people know that I'm a single mom with a little boy, but those plural nouns often throw people for a loop.  However, even when I was pregnant with Kaleb, I already had one fuzzy child—my big orange cat, Morris.

In 2002, I was married and living in PPV military housing in a little town in Northern San Diego County called Ramona, California.  One day while I was home alone, there was an unexpected knock at the door.  I opened the door, and there stood a sleep-deprived Navy wife with a Radio Flyer wagon containing a basket of mewling orange furballs and several dozen cans of kitten formula.  She told me that her cat had had these kittens and had taken off and not returned.  She had been trying to take care of all 6 kittens herself, but was finding it impossible to keep up with them and her own children.  She was looking for families to adopt the kittens.  I had always wanted an orange cat—it seemed a redheaded woman should have one—so I agreed to take one.  We already had 3 cats, and I knew my then-husband would be none too happy when he came home....but he was rarely very happy anyway.

I [Don't] Enjoy Being A [Stereotyped] Girl.

I don't know about any of you, but I grew up watching movies that were musical classics: Singin' in the Rain, Shall We Dance, Holiday Inn, The Sound of Music, White Christmas, The King & I, and Flower Drum Song among them.  While I loved the musicality and exuberance of these movies—and still do—I have, as an adult, begun to see things in these movies that I never noticed as a kid.  Primary among these more recent observations is that these movies, to great extent, seemed to celebrate "girly" women, women who loved dresses and lace and being taken-care-of housewives.

And this one simple observation has caused my first feeling of complete disconnect from these movies.

Of these movies, Flower Drum Song is the most obvious in it's display of these traditional gender roles, highlighting them in all their somewhat-outdated detail in the musical scene shown below.

I got to reading the words to that song a few days ago, and have been unable to stop comparing my real life to the realistically fictional life detailed in the song's lyrics.  As a formerly-married single woman, a single mom, and a woman with a full time job, my life seems to stand in near-complete contrast to these lyrics.  Below, I have listed the song's lyrics and contrasted them line by line.  Enjoy!

Honesty: It's More Than Just Words

Looking innocent in the winter of 1992.

When I was a child, honesty and I were near-complete strangers.  Right or wrong, it's the truth; and it's one truth that I have spent many years pretending didn't exist.  I lied as naturally as I blinked my eyes and nearly as often.  The older I got, the better I got at lying and getting away with it.  Sure, there were plenty of times someone figured me out, but there were plenty of times that no one did, and I learned from those "successes."

Over the years, my lies resulted in hurt feelings, disappointments to my parents and family, the losses of friendships, and some not-so-fun punishments.  Was it worth it?  At the time, I was fully convinced that the benefits outweighed the down sides.  However, as I became an adult, I began to see that there had been nothing gained from any of it—not the lying, not the deceit,  not from any of the dishonest behaviors.

I admit, I'm still not perfect.  Lying can become as addictive as any drug, and I spent well over a dozen years in the grips of that addiction and in denial of the problem right in front of my eyes.  Now, however, I see those faults in all their damaging detail, and I actively work to be honest with friends, family, and anyone else with whom I come into contact in my life.

P52, Somewhat: Week 9, "Distance"

This week's post topic is "distance."  I could think of plenty of distant objects the photograph: a setting sun, a tree in a field, a storm looming on the horizon, a boat heading out to sea.  And any of those shots, along with a multitude of others would be great practice for a photographer using this photo-a-week challenge to bolster their photography skills.  I, however, am not a photographer; and while I may see some improvement in my amateur photography skills by the end of this project, it is not my primary motivation for participation in this challenge.  Rather, my motivation for attempting this was to help bring some added variety and diversification to my blog and give me a chance to further build and exercise my writing skills.

So rather than deciding on what photo to write about, I decided instead to write about something that I could find a photo to complement.

What comes to mind when I think of the things in my life that are meaningful yet distant?

Jack.  Of course.

Friendships worth having require a great deal of shared work and mutual responsibility to keep them healthy.  And maintaining such relationships over long distances grows exponentially more difficult.  For it to work, you must care enough to work for it.

Frequent readers of my blog will already know who Jack is and how we met.  (If you missed that post, you can catch up here.)  Jack and I share a relationship that neither of us quite know how to properly label.  We are friends, for certain, but there is more too, and it is the addition of this "something more" that makes our friendship so valuable to us both.  And even over the 10,122 miles (16,290 km) between here and Jack's current home in Japan, that "something more" gives a reason to stay close.

All Bottled Up

When we are children, we speak everything that comes to our minds with little regard to appearances or consequences.  It's natural for children to be this way, yet it is neither polite nor productive to continue this through out life.  So, as we grow up, most of us learn to guard our thoughts and police our words.  We may be given the freedom of speech by our country's Constitution, but with it comes the responsibility to speak with care.

The problem this creates, however, is in knowing what to say and what to keep back, when to speak and when to remain silent.  Sometimes, the appropriate course of action is clearly apparent—we cannot threaten others and we ought not spread falsehoods or half-truths.  Other times, however, the correct choice is not so clear:

• When those pants really do make your friend's rear end look bigger, do you tell her?
• When you can't stand a friend or relative's significant other, do you tell them?
• When you know information that could get someone into even bigger trouble than they might already be in, do you keep it to yourself or do you share that information?
• When you know something important, that would hurt the feelings of someone you care about, do you tell them anyway, or keep it to yourself?
  

P52, Somewhat: Week 7, "Love"

It's hardly surprising that the P52 topic this week was "love," being that this is the week of Valentine's Day.  I have plenty of things I love: my little boy, family, friends, pets, books, shoes, chocolate....the list goes on and on.  I could think of plenty of things to photograph for this week, from the mundane to the extraordinary and from cliché to unique.  But I couldn't narrow down my options and decide what sort of photo I wanted to take!

To: Minha ruiva! [My redhead!]
Love: Seu devoto! [Your devoted!]
(Brazilian Portuguese [English])

But today, my sweet Jack solved the question for me, sending me a gift with a story.

Most people who read my blog have heard of Jack.  He's my....well, I don't know exactly what to call our type of "us-ness"....but there's definitely something here.  He's my friend; he's the person who knows every single one of my secrets; he's the first person I want to talk to when I've had a bad day, or a good day, or a day that's notable for any reason at all.  I could spend all night extolling the virtues of Jack, but that is not the purpose of this post.

♫♪ Let's start at the very beginning....♫♪

In December of 2002, I was married to a guy in the Marine Corps and we were living in Ramona, CA just north of MCAS Miramar where my then-husband was stationed.  Several of the other kid-free military wives in our apartment complex had begun volunteering at a V.A.-run recovery center in downtown San Diego where a number of recently-wounded Marines were living while undergoing extensive physical therapies for a range of injuries.  The other wives invited me to come along with them, and it sounded like a worthwhile cause, so I went.

P52, Somewhat: Week 6, "Texture"

Monday, January 23, 2012 marked 9 years since I met my friend, Jack.  As he does on many holidays and special days, Jack had a gorgeous flower arrangement delivered to me at work.  I kept them at work to show off and admire all week, then took them home on Friday afternoon to enjoy them longer (they usually last a couple of weeks).

It was nice to have the flowers at work all that week, giving me something to jump-start happy thoughts during the occasional low points in my days.  It struck me how many of life's situations we tend to describe using "texture" words.

• Work was tough today.

• This car has a smooth ride.

• Marriage is a bumpy road.

• Single parenting is rough.

Friendship is another situation we describe with many words, and the descriptions can change over time.  The friendships that last the longest seem to be the ones that make it down the bumpy roads, past the rough times, and into a smooth comfortable closeness...never giving up when the going gets tough.  I have been lucky enough, in my life, to have had a cherished few friendships like this.  I have some amazing friends who have shared the good and the bad with me, and who have remained my faithful friends though it all.

Help Reunite Grandparents with Baby Granddaughter!

While scanning my Facebook News Feed tonight—is it still called a News Feed?—I saw that a friend had posted this:

I read that and knew immediately that I wanted to help.  I have learned some tricks over the years for trying to find people online, but they aren't always enough.  So, even though it may be a long shot, I'm reposting this plea here on my blog in hopes that someone might see it.

I know that things like this circulate Facebook with some frequency, and most of them turn out to be hoaxes to get us to click links that lead to viruses or get us to donate money to mysterious organizations or people feigning illness.  Rest assured, this is no hoax.  In the pic above, you see the post was put up by a man named Leslie Taylor.  Leslie is an old friend of mine from middle school, and I had a real-time chat with him verifying the validity of this issue.  The grandparents who are looking for their granddaughter are a deacon and his wife from Leslie's home church and, according to Leslie, are good and loving people.

I'm so glad that my son is lucky enough to have 5 living grandparents and 4 living great-grandparents, as well as lots of extended family and many of my friends who are like family too.  I believe that children deserve to grow up surrounded by as many loving relatives as possible, and I hate the thought of these good people and this little girl living separate lives.

A Quick Q&A—Marriage Equality

Q: So, Sarah, you support gay marriage?

A: I support marriage.  While I certainly don't want to do it again myself, lots of people do, and I know of no reason (aside from religious ones) why they shouldn't be allowed to marry.

In short, I think ANY adult should be allowed to legally marry ANY other single (1) consenting adult.  Period.

The sad thing is that anyone needs to have a political opinion concerning who can marry whom!

If anyone can give me a rational reason why this should not be allowed,a reason that is not religion- or faith-based, I'm happy to listen (this does not mean I'm going to change my mind).  Otherwise, mind your own business and keep your noses out of other people's love lives.

It's A Magic Number

Today my baby turned 3 years old!

I can't believe that it's been three whole years already since he was born.  These have been three years filled with happiness and heartache, tears and laughter.  And there's nothing in this world that could convince me to go back to life before Kaleb. It's definitely true that 3 is a magic number.

Ok, so maybe my little family is just a family of two, but that's ok.  We do pretty well figuring stuff out together, and Kaleb and I are lucky to be surrounded by family and good friends who love us and are always around with advice or other help.

I know plenty of people who go all out and have crazy parties for their childrens' birthdays.  And while I'm sure Kaleb will age into birthday parties eventually, it seemed a little silly to have one this year.  I mean, he really only even sees other kids at daycare, and I don't know any of their parents.  I certainly don't want all those extra rugrats running around in my house on sugar highs, and there's no money for a party elsewhere.  Kaleb will be asking for parties soon enough, so since he didn't mention it this year, neither did I.  Instead, I planned a nice little family day for us.