The Children Choice

My mother and I were sitting at an absurdly tiny table in a suburb of Atlanta, waiting for our tea and crumpets. It was early in my first marriage, and I was telling her my plans for when I have kids. I wanted to teach them to be happy, functioning members of society, I said. Rather than just giving them chores and an allowance, I was going to assign each chore a dollar amount, depending on how often it needed to be done and how badly I didn’t want to do it– you know, just like a real job. I wanted them to understand at an early age that life going to School is not like “The Real World.” I wanted them to think critically and to learn how to make solid decisions after looking at potential outcomes, and to have compassion for others. I had plans, outlines, and even charts (in my head) for all the different ways I had thought of to get these concepts across to little people who don’t yet have life experience.

I must have gone on for a solid ten minutes. And when I ran out of breath, she just stared at me, a little baffled. “I had kids,” she said, “because that’s what people do.” Continue reading The Children Choice

I have a dream.

So here it is, a day to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who worked tirelessly toward his dream, a dream that will hopefully come true some day. I do my part, as best I can, but sometimes I wonder if people really heard what his dream was.

When I go through this speech, what I hear is not a dream about passing a law or forcing people to see things a certain way. I hear a dream about people treating each other with dignity and respect– something that is sorely lacking in this country, not only in terms of race, but in terms of gender, age, and class as well.

Dr. King, I have heard your dream, and it is something I, too, work towards every day, not by passing laws or setting policies (because those are not things that I do), but by being the best person I can, and treating everyone else as if they are their best selves, too. It’s what I have at my disposal, and I’ll be honest, my way is quiet and unglamorous, but I have seen tiny miracles sprout from my way. I’m not saying it’s The Only Way. It’s what I do.

My question to you, Dear Reader, is What do you do?
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There are two people, currently active in my spheres, that I am very angry with. One of them, Blowhard, has been abusive to a very dear friend of mine. The other, Nina, was abusive to me.

I am not going into what Blowhard did; as I said, his actions were against my friend, not me. But he is pretty high on my shit list, because he caused my friend deep and abiding pain, and I had to witness it. The situation was fairly complicated, because people are complicated, but at the end of the day I just don’t like him, because of the choices he made.

As for Nina, at first I thought she was simply incompetent. I suppose it’s because I have a trusting nature– everyone has their blind spots, I suppose– but when I first started dealing with her, I thought that since she had a responsibility to me that she would honor it. I was wrong. Slowly it dawned on me that the actions she took, the choices she made, were not out of ignorance, or even just the result of a bad day, but were in fact deliberate and malicious in intent. Continue reading unLoading…

The Year of Awesome Chocolate, R’n’R, and Kick-Assery!

Are you superstitious? Mostly I’m not. Except for sometimes. According to my personality profile (and my husband), I read meanings into EVERYTHING. I’m not sure if that makes me superstitious, but apparently I read too much into things. I like it, though; it’s fun. 🙂

Anyway, last week I dubbed 2015 “The Year of Awesome Chocolate, R’n’R, and Kick-Assery!” Wanna hear about my first day in the YOACRRKA?

The first thing I did, before even waking up, was I dumped one of my pills on the floor. I have a timer set each morning to wake me up long enough to take my pill, and then with enough time before I “wake up” that I can easily get back to sleep. (Just go with me on this.) Anyway, Honey and I had to miss one of our favorite parties of the year, because both of us were sick. 🙁 Which meant that for January 1, we weren’t hung over or exhausted, so that part was kind of nice. But I didn’t wake up well for my pill alarm, and managed to drop the bouncy little thing on our hardwood floors.

I could hear it skitter away from me, hit something, and stop. Oh, GAWD, I thought. My year will be filled with losing things?

Continue reading The Year of Awesome Chocolate, R’n’R, and Kick-Assery!