Inspire Emotion

Another Year; the Mandatory, Ubiquitous Resolutions

New Year resolutions are said to be rarely kept. Something like 3% of them are actually ever acted upon according to a news report on network tv.

But, think about it. If we don't even bother to make these resolutions, how much less likely are we to act upon them? In my opinion, setting goals is always a good thing. And, so I am setting my goals for the new year.

The order isn't relevant, however, hopefully, the resolutions will be. I won't pinky swear though.

1. I am going to make a concerted effort to live more green.
Currently, I participate in the local recycling program, and have for at least 12 years. But, this really is a minor thing, and I believe that we all need to do more.
- I plan to cut out fast food completely. Our landfills, are overflowing with containers from McDonalds, Taco Bell, etc.. Enough already. If they can't be compelled to be more responsible in their packaging, then I will not buy from them.
- I will begin composting.
- I am going to buy organic as much as possible.
- I am buying an old-fashioned push mower.
- I will walk more, for example, to the drugstore, which is only a mile from my home.
- I am changing all of my bulbs to energy efficient bulbs.

2. I will forgive that group which brought our country to the brink of fascism, and economic annihilation. But, I will watch them. And, I will continue to speak out. I will never again retreat in to the comfort and complacency of my lifestyle. This matters.

3. I will spend more time on my art, and less time on things that shouldn't matter. For myself, for my family, for my own sanity.

Remembering Jimmy

Shortly before the Christmas when I was twenty, one of my best friends died at the age of twenty-four.

Jimmy was the kind of man liked by everyone who knew him. He was a man's man in that he loved sports (he had been a quarterback at a big 10 school), and women loved him because he was not only super attractive, he was unbelievably sweet.

Growing up, Jimmy was the son of a well-known lawyer and a mother who had serious, ongoing problems with depression. When he was ten years old, he found his mother hanging in his grandfather's studio. She left behind a long letter about her religious views, a letter that made her sound completely crazy. Jimmy was of course, compelled to read it.

Thankfulness on Thanksgiving

During the Reagan years, I lived and worked in Washington D.C., and I grew to love that city with a passion.

A little background:
During those years, I ran an upscale women's apparel shop in the area of 17th and K streets, aka the business district and/or lobbyist land, and the area where Ted Koppel had his office and where he frequently broadcast Nightline. One of my stock boys was a Nancy Reagan marine¹, on a sabbatical, working toward his masters degree at Georgetown University at government expense, and moonlighting in my shop. (Oh, the stories he told us about working at the WH parties.) Yes, Washington is an odd place, and more like a small town in many ways than anything else..

While I loved and will always love WDC, it is many things, and one of the things it was during the Reagan years is heartless to the plight of the homeless.

I used to wonder how a man could be THE President, and look out from his windows in the White House on a daily basis, and see the urgent need of these poor people, and do nothing to change it. Nothing that mattered.

During the winter, these people slept across from the WH nightly, trying to stay warm on heating grates, or whatever they are called. One of them slept under the awnings over my shop year round. I used to buy him breakfast at the French pastry shop next door. Just a palmier or a croissant and a coffee. I also occasionally brought him some home-baked goodies or a few bucks or a hat and scarf when it was cold outside. Just little things which I did out of both compassion and to assuage my own guilt at not being needy. No big deal.

DC had a huge homeless population, many more than I had ever seen in any large city. Truly. An inconvenient fact largely ignored by the government, and that I saw as highly incongruent That my country, the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world had such a large population of homeless living in it's capitol city was a source of shame to me.

Anyway, while Reagan as a president never held any luster for me, in fact, I saw him as highly anti-intellectual, and a mere figurehead for the GOP, I learned to deeply dislike him when Gorbachev visited him in Washington in 1987. In preparation for Gorbachev's visit, the city "cleaned up" the homeless. They simply vanished from the streets for a week or so. I have no idea where they took them, and they didn't exactly broadcast it, but they were gone. No where to be seen. I was ashamed to be an American.

It's All About Hormones and Life is Not Freakin' Fair!

Several years ago, I was considering doing botox, and then a facelift. And then possibly, whatever occurred to me next. Two things stopped me.

First, I am a bloody huge chicken. I don't want to be cut up! I like being able to frown, and I like being able to move my lips normally. I don't want to look like a caricature of  myself  when I was younger. But, even more importantly, I decided that it was not only futile to attempt to hold back the effects of aging through artificial means, I decided that it's simply a silly, costly, stressful, and useless thing to do.

After all, everyone knows that even if you look thirty, yet are 50, everyone knows you are fifty, and thus there is no point.

But is that really why?

Nope, it isn't. As I learned when I had a life-altering epiphany recently, one which has been brewing in my mind for some time now, but which I didn't fully understand.

A Minor Rant and Why Some of You Deserve John McCain

A while back, I think it was before the primaries ended, I saw some comments by Republicans on a friend's blog. They were moaning about how sorry they were that they voted for George Bush twice. How dumb do you have to be to have voted for him TWICE??   Now, I don't know for sure, but I would lay odds that those same individuals are going to vote for McCain this time around.  Why? Because many conservatives never seem to freakin' learn! 

McCain IS McBush, but try to tell many conservatives that, and they will call you stupid, crazy, deluded, ignorant. Oh yeah. Can you say extremely DENSE?

And, even after all that's occurred recently, including the financial crisis which can be pinned on the Republicans who enacted deregulation, and the Bush Admin who cares not how they spend taxpayer money. , I still hear many conservatives reciting the same old crap by rote. It is discouraging.

And then there is John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin, the singularly most unqualified running mate chosen for high office EVER. The woman can barely think, for God's sake. [UPDATE: Many conservatives are now jumping on the "Palin is an imbecile" bandwagon, to wit:

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough says Palin 'just seems out of her league.' National Review Editor Rich Lowry called her performance 'dreadful.' Dallas Morning News columnist Rod Dreher described the interview as a 'train wreck.' Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker urged Palin to quit the race, saying: 'If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.'"  Source]

Okay. Fine. If the American people elect John McCain, they deserve what they are going to get, which is four more years of MCSAME. His economic policies, his policies on the war in Iraq are the SAME. His policy on health care will cause you to pay higher taxes within a few years. His tax policy is more of the same.........he will still give the breaks to the wealthiest.    
What the hell is WRONG with you people? Do you not pay attention?

Anyway, I am done talking to conservatives about politics. Except for Dan and Jessie. Most of them make no sense to me. And, if you wanna hate me for this post, feel free. Like I care when I am too scared about the future of this country, and if it even has a future. Really.

Finally, if John McSame is elected, we had better all hope and pray to whatever deities we prefer, that he does not die during his first term in office. And that includes all of you conservatives.

I Interrupt This Election: Paul Newman Gone

 
My earliest memories are filled with images of Paul Newman playing the "bad boy", more often than not with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Shirtless. Gorgeous. SMOKIN' HOT.

The dichotomy between his movie personas and his real life persona was striking. Married to the same woman for nearly his entire life, Joanne Woodward, he was the opposite of the image most frequently portrayed in the movies, that of the quintessential, charming "bad boy". Maybe that's one of the reasons that women, myself so included, loved that man.

Whatever. He rocked. Seriously engaged with the real world, happily married for  a lifetime, fine actor, activist, and gorgeous to top it all off. Quite a man in the best sense of the word.

R.I.P. Paul Newman, and thanks for all of the fantasies.

Random Thoughts About 9/11

 
Yesterday, when I was typing "inane and silly", I wasn't thinking about September 11, 2001.

In point of fact, the date had not even registered with me, and 9/11 could not have been further from my mind.

Returning from the gym this morning, I flipped to 'Good Morning, America', on ABC. What a shock.

Seven years ago, when the first plane hit the towers, at approximately 8:45 am, my child was sick, and had stayed home from school. I had just brought him a cup of tea with honey; he was camped out on the couch in the family room, and I sat down to watch GMA with him.

He was twelve years old; Tuesday, September 11, 2001,  is the day that his childhood ended.

Notes to Myself: A Half-Assed Rant About American Politics and John Edwards

Why do Americans always think that an affair by an American politician is similar to the end of the world, and puts an immediate finis to his political career? And to any hope he ever had of being remembered for things like the actual deeds he did that were worth remembering him for.

As per usual, the Europeans are rolling their eyes, and/or laughing hysterically at us, because after all, we Americans are so silly.

We refuse to give up this notion that our pols must be perfect in at least one arena, that of  marital fidelity. Indeed, we require them to be more perfect than we ourselves are in our own daily lives.

We just don't seem to recognize the absolutely irrefutable fact that they are just human. Just like us. And just like us, they too get lonely, they too make mistakes,  and they too screw up their personal lives in a moment of passion or loneliness as easily as any one of us.

And, for that failing, we crucify them. It seems very wrong , and unrealistic to me, and I am bloody sick of hearing about Edwards' affair. I frankly don't give a damn if he screws/screwed one woman or fifty. Really.

I am also very, very tired of listening to some of the conservatives make a bloody big deal of this. What about McCain's infidelity? Doesn't that count on their scale?

Clearly not, and that is the way it is.  Can you tell that I have lost my passion for this rant?

On a lighter note, what did he see in her???  In my opinion, the woman not only seems like a twit, but she is not even attractive.

What did you think I meant?

I haven't come out and said this publicly lately, although I did allude to it in a previous post, Ten Things I Know About Men, when I stated that men are obtuse. 

Obtuse........ I apparently vastly understated, so please pardon me while I friggin' clarify. I would not want anyone to go to sleep tonight unenlightened! 

Men are not obtuse, they are damn near deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to women. They must think that we talk in riddles, and therefore we can't be understood. As if. 

*swearing and kicking a box of something* 

So, you might well ask, what set me off? 

I can't really say. I prefer to speak in riddles. After all, that is how some guys seem to like it. That way they have the perfect bloody excuse to say that they don't get what we are talking about. 

Just tell me this. Why do men need almost everything totally freakin' spelled out for them? 

Notes to Myself: My Mother's Death

 When my Mother died in late July of 2004, my world changed drastically, as I suppose is inevitable, but still unwelcome.

My marriage, already on the rocks, deteriorated to the point of separation not too long after her death. His behavior during her illness, and subsequent death, simply put the nail in a relationship that should never have been. 

My reaction started out slowly, and as time went on, grew in to this thing, this monster, that seemed to be swallowing me little by little. Never a person who had many female friends, at the time of her death, she was the only woman in my life to whom I was close. 

She was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in December of 2003, in spite of the fact that she had never been a heavy smoker, and had completely stopped smoking thirteen years prior to this diagnosis.