Sar was nominated for best political blog at blogs of summer. She needs ten nominations to make it into the finals. Doug seconded whoever, thank you, nominated her, and I did whatever seconding the seconder is called.

Monday update: Sar made it into the finals. She’s the only person with an Impeach Bush banner. You can vote here.

I don’t nominate people for political blogging awards nor campaign much more than this. Just putting Sar’s nomination out there because Belle of the Brawl is a unique mix. We did meet brawling and have become friends which is why I love the name of her blog so much. Sar provides a place for people to feel safe when discussing issues and that is rare. Love people who mix things up. Life’s about much more than politics and issues. Sometimes we need cruises and James Spader–and Boston Legal better be back on in the fall.

The other blogs include Michelle Malkin’s who shouldn’t really be nominated for something like this. It looks like Sar’s blog is the only “left” leaning blog.

Yes, I’m off politics and issues for the summer. So this post is a mosh pit of issues

Bush’s veto of stem cell research was beyond sick. This is why I love Frank Rich, and wll make this into a page.

It’s not a choice of IVF babies or research. There would be more than enough for both. As an adoptee I admit to a strong prejudice against people who are so ego-filled that they won’t consider adoption. Am strongly pro-choice. But that’s not even the point.

Bush purposely paraded kids who would have been born and clouded the issue. The snowflake babies.

This country cares more about the rights of the unborn than the rights of the already living.

William F Buckley equates stem cell research with moral guidelines that Hitler might use. No it’s the opposite. It’s to save lives, not kill them. That didn’t link properly. Found it in Yahoo news or wherever somebody I once had respect for might write.

Hope that none of the Bushes ever develop a condition that might be cured or controlled with something derived from stem cells.

If you have ever seen somebody you love develop a debilitating condition and be told by all doctors that it might possibly be cured with stem cells, it hurts and that hurt never goes away completely because so many other people have or will develop conditions….It doesn’t make sense.

Bush is pandering to people who have no respect for human life.

If they did they would want Michael J Fox and millions more who are suffering from Parkinson’s disease to possibly be cured. So many other conditions. I’m a baby boomer with a vested interest. As an adoptee I really don’t know what conditions I might develop. As a nursing home social worker, I saw the sickest of the sick.

People with advanced Parkinson’s, and so called Parkinson’s dementia would answer your question 20 beats later, because they weren’t really demented, just in another time space. To know that they are aware of this is horrible.

I couldn’t work with older people anymore. It wasn’t the dying that disturbed me. It was the quality of life. Sometimes when people hear that I could no longer work with the very sick elderly, they think I lack compassion and guts. Of course these are the same people who think “old people are cute,” and dementia is a second childhood. No, most people fight it for years, even after it’s advanced.

I make no apologizes for not being able to handle something so sad. At the same time my Mom was aging too rapidly from Macular Degeneration. You don’t know how many times we were told, “stem cell research.” My mother died a tragic death that haunted me for years. While it doesn’t anymore, it’s in her memory that I care so passionately about this. Also hope to live until I’m old–a full and wonderful life.

Lyn who is sponsoring the blogs of summer has a very different take on this. Read her at blogging out loud. Please respect her blog.

And boobs. I have them. Therefore I have joined a new blogroll called bloggers with boobies. Don’t have to have them, just like and/or support women who do. Breast cancer is a subject for another time.

Pandering to the radical right is wrong, and I’m scared that this will give many people license to think that they can troll. Don’t even come here. I delete; and somebody else has the password for those rare times I’m not in front of a computer;

Stumble it!

The always brilliant Cooper has a transcript of an IM between her and EW that is priceless. My blogging friends are in rare form today. The wacky life of MizB is wackier than usual. I’m putting Doug’s word of the day on my sidebar, with his definition. Logo is this weeks guest at Sar’s, and the conversation is fascinating. Out-intellectualized myself so much that I have to go to sleep now. But did leave the best comment of my commenting career.

I can’t believe that I have an imaginary dog named Toto, and forgot that they did “Rosanna.” And in the category of weird: How can I go from being a large mammal in TLB to not even being able to find my blog? Wasn’t a large mammal–but sure photosnapped it. Was almost one. Could be called one in real life

Found it to be too thrilling. Not that I care about ranking. Am so beyond all that, yeah right…

This post is not about disparaging older people. Just one man who made my life miserable. Writing this turned out to be incredibly cathartic. There is a theory that you have no memory until you understand language and can put words in order. I think I can’t get over things until I can write about them fairly succinctly. Feel like this incident was hindering my progress and can go on now. So in love with this hypothesis, it might be my next post.

Though I begin by recapping the story, it sort of turns into the whole thing. And I’m putting it in now instead of Friday as I have no intention of reading it again.

I did write the entire story of being harassed by a 74 year old man, Dr. Gene Kravitz, a retired Latin professor, who needed a hip replacement. It was long, and I was going to divide it into two parts. When I hit “save” only the first third was saved.

I even admitted to being slightly culpable as I once went out to lunch with him. And I didn’t report him until after he repeatedly called me a seductress. He honestly believed that I had one ambition and one ambition only: To find a demented old man who was a private pay patient and seducing him into marrying me. Yes I have always been confused with a low rent Anna Nicole Smith.

To quickly recap some of the highlights as I have no intention of writing this story anytime soon: The Social Work Supervisor and the Director of Social Services soon realized that they had made a really big mistake in offering this man an internship. He had no intention of being a social worker and every intention of being strictly a therapist. He advised a resident who had a history of psychotic breaks to stop taking his meds if that’s what he wanted to do. Nobody but a doctor, a medical doctor, could make that decision, and in theory it’s a decision made with the consent and knowledge of all relevant departments.

Gene couldn’t follow simple directions or instructions. He asked me every week how to get to the IDCP meeting which was held directly over our office. As Gene had responsibilities taken away from him, and I had more added, he began to resent me even more.

I was “seducing” the residents and the staff into liking me. I reminded two thirds of the residents of their granddaughters and the other third liked the way I dressed and my manner. I have a perky but professional work face that never failed me.

Each week I was supposed to have supervision sessions for an hour. My supervisor complained about Gene and I gave her advice.

Gene became increasingly irrational; I began to cover for a social worker who was going on maternity leave and was going to take her place the next semester. Social Work isn’t brain surgery. I had been a large scale litigation support manager for over a decade and then was an SSI Claims Rep prior to going back to school. Yes I was used to getting people to do things that they might not want to do. I was used to interviewing people and finding out their needs and wants.

Social work allowed me to practice more fully what I had always loved to do. I was counseling my own supervisor, and while I would have preferred another type of learning, I realized that I was finessing my skills in a slightly unorthodox but maybe more worthwhile manner. I had to remain positive.

As I was always in the residents halls or in the social worker’s office that was soon to be mine, I only saw Gene for ten minutes in the morning in our office and at the mandatory staff lunches where we were supposed to discuss social work concepts. While nobody but the director enjoyed the lunches, Gene’s Freudian take on everything would have confused Freud. Freud, social work and a nursing home aren’t a good fit.

During those ten minutes each morning Gene would accuse me of one thing or another. No matter what the complaint was Gene would make it sexual. I couldn’t take him seriously. The man could barely walk. My day was too filled to even think about his remarks. I did finally tell my supervisor because it was inappropriate, and social work is about appropriate behavior.

Our only assignment for our social work practice class was to write a paper about a patient and her treatment. It counted for 90 percent of our grade. One paper was going to be singled out for discussion. For some insane reason known only to the irrational side of my brain I agreed to go out to lunch with Gene.

Gene told me that he was re-imagining Freud’s treatment of his patient Dora. He was sure that it was going to be the paper that was singled out as it was going to be the only truly intellectual paper. I of course was capable of nothing worth anything, except some type of seduction. I had never thought of my self as a seductress, and I have to admit, I found it funny but unsettling.

Though I would never find it funny when he told me that I was sexually aggressive and obviously desired him. He said this more than a few times. I just wasn’t into a 74 year old man with more than a few screws lose who needed a hip replacement. Once he introduced himself as Dr. Gene Kravitz, and said that I was his assistant. I corrected him.

He had almost every responsibility taken away from him.

I couldn’t understand why they kept him. They couldn’t either but they couldn’t summon the courage to get rid of him

My paper was on a resident who was resistant to living in a nursing home but had no choice. I liked the resident. She was cognitive, sharp, nasty and sarcastic. The paper took a long time and I used many references. It was of course the paper that was singled out. Gene shot me a look that could have killed, and continued to stare at me throughout the class. Everybody but the teacher noticed.

I had worked many hours the first semester and had enough to take the first week of the next semester off. I wasn’t there when Gene did something that finally drove the staff over the edge, and don’t remember what the incident was.

Though he had been kicked out of our field placement he was allowed to go to class. Before each class began he would ask who I had seduced that week. He would say other lewd and gross things. I told my adviser and my teacher both of whom asked me not to go to the school administration as they would.

Yes I should have won idiot of the year award. I finally did go to the people who were “investigating.” They told me that they needed more time as he could have a case against the school. I really didn’t care if he was kicked out of school or not, I just didn’t want him in my class.

About six weeks into the semester, a teacher and dean, a woman about my age put her arm around me and told me how I would learn so much from this experience. I finally blew up.

“Excuse me. I was stalked for over a year by a former boyfriend. What am I supposed to learn from this experience?”

She began to tell me how I would be empowered and learn to be truly free…
” Empowered? How? Free of what? Being harassed? Do you know that in New York State a woman who has been stalked perceives that she is being harassed, she has a legitimate case?” I’m still not sure if I read that or dreamed it

The Dean’s face turned red. The hearing was several days later. Though our social work practice teacher spoke for him, he was kicked out. My supervisor retired early. I really should have dropped out or transferred to an Ivy because I felt cheated.

In the preceding nine years I had learned that I had many learning disabilities and other problems, I had met my birth mother who spent the entire weekend calling me her mistake, my father had died, my mother was going totally blind, was frail, and needy. I had remained empowered through all that.

For the first time I began to feel dis-empowered.

Stumble it!

I forgot to add that I learn conceptually, have a graduate degree and much more. It’s all in the archives. This really isn’t what I want my writing or I to be known for.

That is why I attempted to stay away from it. I would make the worst spokesperson for Aspergers as I’m “not socially awkward,” or many other things.

I am angry at an embedded psychiatric system that first told me as I was an adopted girl, I couldn’t have real motor coordination problems, etc. so it was anger at being adopted. When I sought help as an adult in the 80’s, everybody agreed that my problems were real but I was too eager to be helped, and there weren’t treatments for adults.

Yes I know Aspergers itself wasn’t diagnosed until 95, but many of the components were known and there was help for children and then for the adults that they had become. When I was in grad school I became aware of students who at 25 were still playing the learning disabled card. I was both envious and resentful, as the help had never been available to me yet I had more than functioned.

Also felt that I wasn’t supposed to get into the boats with the life preservers as it was more important that somebody who was 25 rather than 44 be given a chance. This sounds bitchy. It is. I did very well in school, and passed the state licensing exam while still in school. Frankly I believe that this school accepted White Middle Aged Women because they knew how hard we would work, and that we would boost their stats by passing the exam while still in school. Frankly most of school was a joke and taught at a Junior College level.

I went to a top ranked social work grad program to have an intellectually challenging experience. It was challenging in every way but intellect.

I went to grad school in part to learn more about myself. It was the height of political correctness, and like I said the boats with the life preservers were reserved for all younger women, and any handicapped non Caucasian male. I am far from racist. I had many problems with a male Caucasian who was 74.

Though he was harassing me, he was given precedence because he was a Senior Citizen who needed a hip replacement, and I looked far younger than my age. I was supposed to understand for the 20,000 time in my life. He said things to me in front of other people that were first sexual then nasty. My classmates of all races, ages and both sexes were appalled. He had been kicked out of our field placement, yet was allowed to go to a class where you were supposed to have one as it discussed your work. I was supposed to understand that since he was older this was sensitive and he could have sued the school–though their reaction was to do nothing.

Then his problems became so overt that the school was forced to do something and he was expelled. This took most of my second semester. I should have transferred to a more demanding less politically correct school, or dropped out. It was a very expensive horrible experience. It was when I began to doubt myself and my accomplishments. I had always been so optimistic. This was the first time that I understood being optimistic could be a negative.

The very experience that was supposed to give me a new career left me angry, depressed, and for the first time, since Junior High, I felt “not able.” This coincided with my mom’s too rapid aging after a lifetime of being vital, and many family problems. Yes it was ironic that I was Geriatric Social Worker and unable to help my mother, and at 45 I felt old and mired in systems that weren’t looking at new ways to help adults.

It was probably me. I probably didn’t help ask for help correctly as I don’t grovel, do present myself well, and have always stood to the side for the people who needed more than I did. I have always helped others to the best of my abilities and they’re pretty damn good. In placing other people above myself I allowed myself to be used. Won’t allow that ever to happen again.

To all the baby boomers who have suddenly become concerned with their own aging as they watch their parents age when I talked about this subject a decade and more ago, you laughed. Wasn’t going to happen to us; we were going to establish new ways of aging and new communities.

Where has this happened? We live in a country that doesn’t even allow stem cell research unless it’s privately financed and in a few states, but still they don’t get federal funds. We have regressed since Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America. We are a failure as a society and a people, and don’t even see that. We’re so busy passing blame onto other people that we don’t stop and ask what we as individuals can do. Well, I have, and I won’t anymore because for the first time in my life I have to think of myself first.

Yes I have somewhat significant resources, I guess. I wouldn’t know as I live in New York where they will be eaten. I hate to feel helpless; I hate to feel despair; I hate to feel in pain. I have always apologized for feeling any one of those emotions as “they’re not nice, not polite, not becoming for somebody like me who has been blessed with so much.” And I have been blessed with much. But I am so tired of feeling that everybody else should get on the boat first for one reason or another.

I’m high up on the blogger food chain. As a “successful” personal blogger I can use my own voice to help me. I am very aware that this might be construed as whining, something I was often accused of last year when the radical right owned the blogging world.

The radical right no longer does. I have done more than my bit to ensure that. I wish that I wasn’t so aware of all the negative possibilities. I wish that I could feel more faith in both myself and in the blogging world. I have made incredible blogging friends. If I stay within my blogging sphere, my comfort zone for now, it’s because I need to continue to feel that safety for awhile.

I don’t want to turn off the people who read Courting regularly. While I am glad that there is much help available for children and thus then maybe their parents, I will sound harsh and say that I’m not interested in child centered treatment. I really don’t want to be writing about this at all as I’m probably sabotaging my own future by coming forth with this.

My story isn’t dramatic. I have never tried to kill myself or to harm another person. I have never spent a night in a mental hospital. I have never found myself in a homeless shelter or any governmental agency unless I was working in it. I have been on unemployment and have paid the taxes due.

I’m much more fun when I stick to old boyfriends and other things. I feel as if I’m rehashing things most people who read Courting already know but re-reading my blog and working on my memoir has brought certain issues up that I don’t want to be known for, really. I am very tired of my own story. For many reasons I feel that I can’t move forward until I find some closure, and you have no idea how much I hate the word “closure.” THE MERE ACT OF WRITING AND POSTING CAN LIFT ME OUT OF THE DESPAIR–SO I DO

I am almost finished proofing and categorizing July, 2005. My spelling had improved though I don’t think I’m up to the Google spell check era.

Why has my inability to spell suddenly become more important than my ability to write?

When I was a student, tech writer or other type of professional writer I made sure that my work was always perfectly spelled. This is a damn blog. Used to have something on the left sidebar as the first cut is the deepest so is the first draft

That shows two things: I went through an embarrassingly long Rod Stewart phase; and I can appear to be insightful. Maybe I am. Aspergers makes me second guess myself and/or not appreciate my own talents. I hadn’t planned to talk about Aspergers on Courting until I read a post in a blog:

“My nephew is going to suffer because he doesn’t give the correct answer as it’s so obvious.”

Had to answer that. One of the reasons I never participated in class discussions and failed some tests in high school was because I couldn’t believe that the teacher was looking for an answer that

Stumble it!

Thank you all for supporting me through my nineteenth nervous breakdown. Well more like nineteenth hundred, but I haven’t known most of you that long. Sure you’re thankful for that. I will return all comments over the weekend and/or during the week, I hope. Really want to get the pages of truly great things–and some a bit sarcastic–but hey I’ll take a cab ride with Tom Waits anytime–people have said about me and/or Courting. Though we are one and the same. Sometimes even I think I’m the Courting Pin-up

It’s 62 degrees out so I’m going out. And I will change the late great Warren Zevon’s saying from “enjoy every sandwich,” to “enjoy every salad,” because truthfully I can’t remember the last time I had a sandwich. Have a great weekend. Spring has finally sprung here.

When my father died, fifteen years ago tonight, I didn’t cry. My mom and sister did. I didn’t cry at the funeral or for so many years when other tragedies came and went, and I had somehow lost that ability.

Then Katrina happened. And I cried for everybody who lived in New Orleans, for 9/11, for my mom, for my dad, and for this wonderful but flawed country that I have truly begun to only know well since I began blogging.

I bought into all the blue and red states myths before I began to blog. I was so provincial and so sure about false myths. In my heart I think I believed that I was a bit better than thou because I’m a New Yorker.

Don’t think that way anymore. And you all helped me relearn to cry. The empathy and support that I have found in people from across America and across the world amazes me.

When I went to see Light in the Piazza based on a book my mom and I had read when I was thirteen, on the Tuesday of the levees, I cried for every person stuck in New Orleans, I cried for my country for it become mine by then, and for a government none of us deserve to have.

Even my dad, neocon that he was would have hated our government for its gross failure to act. I’m not psychic though some people think that I am. If I knew, what was Condi Rice doing at Spamalot the next night–Wednesday–can’t stress that enough?

I know my dad would have hated Karl Rove for that horrible statement uttered last June about “liberals wanting therapy for terrorists…” He wasn’t talking about “liberals.” He made that statement in New York, home to the only civilian terrorist attack in history really, for a reason, a reason that wasn’t lost to me or to any person in this amazing though Disneyfied city.

What was it, a week later, that he was outed for Plamegate? Still during Katrina our President gave him more responsibilities not less.

I never cried for my father for many reasons. One was because I knew him so well that he lived on in my heart. Though the memories are beginning to be sepia tinged, they are still there. My father’s compassion was well known. When times were tough for his clients, he let them owe him, or he was paid in kind. I own an original oil painting that served as a cover for a romance novel; have the cover also.

When his poker game consisted of mostly artists and writers, and one was struggling, my father would insist that the pot be turned over to that person

My father was the chief American CPA for a very large Asian company. He began to realize that they weren’t always ethical, and wanted him to do things that skirted the law. Actually he showed me the documents as I was a paralegal manager then, and I translated from legalese to English.

They wanted him to shoulder all responsibility for much that happened in the American branches. They paid him very well, and he only was just beginning to suspect them of doing shady things. He walked. Wow did he walk. I was never so proud of him. He wouldn’t have gotten into trouble. The things weren’t clearly illegal or unethical, they just smelled wrong.

Can’t stand the smell, get out of the kitchen. In my father’s case that was all he could do.

But I know that as neo-con as he became about foreign issues, this government would have been too much for him. I know that my father would be proud that I have stood up and have been counted as somebody who in no way shape or form can ever be silent about this government.

Last night when I lit the candle, I cried as I have so often since Katrina. It gave me a headache but I felt better and stronger. My niece, my father’s granddaughter will grow up in a stronger better America. She will grow up in the America we all deserve, because in this past year some remarkable things have happened.

Blogging has brought things to the forefront, political bloggers have uncovered much wrong doing and bless them for that. Personal bloggers have found commonalities that we never knew could have existed before the advent of blogging.

Blogging has truly changed me and I thank each person who has helped me learn that it’s okay to express feelings and emotions.

Today is also the first anniversary of Terri Schiavo’s death, and I don’t know of a sadder one. I would still like to know how much the special Palm Sunday Joint Session of Congress cost, in total–with all or most members returning just for the day or weekend.

I do know my father’s views on living without a functioning brain, and I know that he would have been proud that I stood up when it counted. The governments very sick response to Terri’s death would have made him hate it if nothing else had.

Then there non-action on Katrina, the worst natural disaster ever to befall this great but so flawed country.

I am proud to have stood up. I am proud to be one of the founding members of BIO, the first liberal blog to give a voice to everybody. Steve, not our Steve O, can tell you how much we fought last year, and how much we have found in common. Though we will never be on the same side in some issues, we are both Americans who love our country, and want to see it be truly great again.

My father was all about politics, and a zillion other thing, but every night at the dinner table we did discuss the issues of the day. Our holiday dinners, and I think about Passover soon coming up, were filled with over 40 people all screaming at once. Some even made picket signs. I have always been convinced that my father thought Woody Allen’s Hannah and her sisters was about our family’s Thanksgivings.

My father was a contradictory person. When I was little I thought that there was one film star in the world, Charlie Chaplin, because my father took me to see all his blacklisted films at The Museum of Modern Art. It did leave me with a life long aversion to silent films–hey I was three–and weekly Charlie Chaplin films were just too much for me.

I quickly learned to understand that he was doing a great thing by taking me to see a man who was banished from America for having sex with Ona O’Neil who he did marry, and I do believe that they were happily married.

During the Impeachment hearings my mom and I thought of her husband, my father often, for he would have hated it. It would have embarrassed him out of his neocon mode. The cold war was over; now the war for America began.

We can’t let people with antiquated notions of good and evil win this one. I want my niece, my Goddaughter, Little Luce and all the kids I know and love, to know that I stood up when it counted.

Before I was born my parents went to every session of Alger Hiss’s trial–look him up, I’m too lazy. In later years their accounts differed, but I do remember the stories they both told me before I was old enough to understand, as they understood the importance of teaching children to love but to never blindly obey the government.

And yes with all my heart and more, I do support the troops. May they come home soon from this fiasco of a war.

May the memory of my parents make sure that I always do the right thing.

This is a personal blog. The First Amendment doesn’t apply here. I do delete comments. Want to fight me? Bring it on! to BIO, where we do have operators standing around waiting to take your call. No we don’t, but it’s a good line.

At BIO we began buying body armor for the troops months ago. We won’t let them wear defective government grudgingly issued armor. We want them home today, but as long as they’re in Iraq, let them be as safe as possible

Stumble it!

Courting’s good friend, Anna, has already solved one huge computer problem today, so we’re not going to ask her for help again until tomorrow!  Anna’s a great writer and blog designer.  Because she is so good at both, she is the only person who has helped me understand the mysteries of HTML and WP2

Loved this article by Julia Glass, Meanwhile what is truth?  She  write fiction which presents metaphorical truths at least, but it’s never presented as pure fact.  Though I thought she made some excellent points, I believe that a memoirist has a responsibility to present perceived truth.  Several hours does not equal several days, and can’t be perceived as such.  It’s out of the realm of believability unless the author has some kind of mental disorder.

For some reason somebody nominated Courting for a Koufax award, best writing, blog.  Will try to put this on the side bar tomorrow.  There’s no way we can win this as other contenders write for The Daily Kos and other big blogs.  Sheer numbers helps them win. 

We don’t believe in pitting bloggers against each other in nominations.  Yet we feel since the “big blogs” make money while we lose money blogging, we need all the recognition we can get.  Sue us, at least we’re honest.  We have been at our desk doing blogging stuff since nine AM and now it’s 3:52 PM. Since we don’t take breaks except for an ocassional email, that’s an entire working day.  And we haven’t even begun to work on our memoir, and do other things

Also and this is important.  For a long long time, Courting was the radical right’s favorite target.  We have been humiliated, made fun of, called “stupid” and so many other things–our BIO post yesterday touched on that.  We grew scared that only radical rightists and a few good people would comment on Courting.  We took on each challenge though our stomach would become sick. So when The Daily Kos says that they can’t understand why some people were nominated, we say, try to look at life in our shoes

The Fat Lady Sings is great; so is the heritik.  If we know anybody who was nominated and left them out–well we’re super spacy today.  Monday, amigos and amigas! 

When my sister and I were children we would ask my dad to play the tape of my adoption over and over again.  My sister was born to my parents two years and one week after I was adopted.

My sister was a typical younger sister. She tormented me and copied me.  Her daughter does that to her now. so she understands how revolting it was

But I was the golden haired chosen child.  Though my parents presented being adopted as normal, my agency social worker had written the book The Chosen Child.  Whether that was good or bad, I don’t know.  My sister cried because she wanted to be adopted also!  She got over that.

When I was eleven or twelve I went through my father’s files.  He had the whole story written with one more pivotal detail: “adopted for the usual reasons.”  I had read Peyton Place; I knew that meant I was born out of wedlock* 

I was forever cured of the notion that my mother was a princess and my father was a prince and their kingdoms couldn’t meet.  My father told me years later that he probably left it where I could easily find it.  I was, also, forever cured of snooping.  If people want me to know something, I think they will tell me sooner or later. 

I can say without Freying that I never went though any of my boyfriends things.  While I have a myriad of neuroses, I have never been jealous.  Guess I was too loved as a child for that.  

Am very out of it today so I’m going to ping myself.  This pings to something my dad wrote the day after they brought me home from the foster home.  It is very beautiful and makes me feel joyful.

http://courtingdestiny.com/archives/2005/06/22/my-dads-story-about-my-parents-feelings-upon-adopting-me/

 *Stupid expression, “out of wedlock,” as is “illegitimate.”  We’re all legitimate.  For that matter, I hate the word “adoption” being used for pets.  Continue Reading »

Stumble it!

Changed the title as it seems to sum it up all up!  This is my fourth  sixth version of this post.  Not sure that it’s better, but I keep on thinking about the subject.

Have very mixed feelings about Oprah. I had wanted her to apologize not to change how memoirs should be written. Loved her original definition: something about a persons truth at that time as perceived by the author.

Totally agree that big incidents should be fact checked? But how do you fact check a life?

Remember when Oprah first became known; her story was remarkable.  Of course, she’s a remarkable person.  But no person should have so much overt power.

Can she substantiate her claims that she was abused? Would it have been easier to substantiate when she was younger, more people were alive and memories were fresher?

Is she saying that she should be trusted because she’s famous and is Oprah, but different rules apply to the rest of us?

Realized that the only thing I could write a totally substantiated memoir on is the saga of my teeth–there would still be still be room for argument. And who would want to read it?  The torrid tale of a teeth bulimic: Actually the title sounds better than the story.

Who is Oprah to pronounce a moral judgement on another person? James Frey’s crimes were against the publishing world, other writers, not criminal. Oprah’s crimes are much larger as her words carry so much weight; way too much weight. Maybe it’s time Oprah relinquish her title as Queen of America.

 This is not to say that I agree with Frey in anyway.  Please; “several hours” is very different than “87 days” in jail! 

Finding out that wasn’t true made everything he said suspect.  But how the girl killed herself isn’t relevant.  She killed herself, that’s what is important.  But did she exist?  That too is important.  Continue Reading »

Stumble it!

“Hammer please.”

sickle, suture, scalpel I was trying to think of every word that began with “S” when the dentist began hammering my mouth. It hurt.

I was no longer sure that my commitment to make a better me from the inside out was a good commitment, Or it was one that would both hurt me and begin me on the route to destitution. For at least two days after each two hour dentist appointment all I seem to be capable of doing is blogging and walking. Lost a great rant for Bring it on!

Really really need to focus on things that can make me money; not things that bring great intrinsic pleasure but no money. I would like to ensure my future so that I’m not the bag lady with the great teeth.

At this moment I’m either exhausted or not motivated. I truly hope it’s the former as my motivation is my greatest asset.

When I began the implant process I knew that it would be long and tedious. I didn’t know what tedious was then; I didn’t know what patience meant. I know now. Continue Reading »

Stumble it!

I worry that my life sounds too strange; too many quirks, and weird events. James Frey, apparently didn’t think his life which was so much more decadent than mine was decadent enough. Couldn’t get into his memoir; unlike Augusten Burroughs’s Running with Scissors which I devoured in several wonderful hours.

Sometimes I feel like a Lifetime movie of the week. Hey, you want rape? Here I am. You want an abusive live in lover; there was Zachary, want this? Want that? Here I am. Central Audio Processing Disorder? I’m one of the best listeners I know but I miss words and whole phrases.

I write about my problems and how they were blamed on my having been adopted. Damn it, they weren’t. I truly liked being adopted. No, I was used to it; I always knew so it wasn’t a big deal. But some many people tried making it into one. The easy answer; go for it when nothing else fits.

Wasn’t going to blog today or tomorrow. But the pain med is kicking in, so…If you haven’t read the two posts below, read them first. have nothing to do with this, but… Continue Reading »

Stumble it!