Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Say it ain't so, I will not go, turn the lights off, carry me home

Back to never never land where people don't reject decent bills out of spite. Seriously.

This is the only piece of her speech that implicated the Republican Party. The rest was a call to arms if you will.

It is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush administration's failed economic policies: policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything-goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system.
And yet this is the reaction: a bill rejected by the house republicans simply because their feelings were hurt. We only get mad at the truth people!


Now is not the time for political posturing. We need to work both sides of the aisle and get a move on before it's too late. But instead, here we are, waiting to exhale. Again.

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Saturday, September 27, 2008

The Debates

I promise I'll do something with this tomorrow. Tonight I'm just too tired. I'm also hoping my good friend Charlie will help me out, too.
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Miscellany

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, put in blue the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

(via)

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Sunday, September 21, 2008

Gotta read this

Aaron Sorkin Conjures a Meeting of Obama and Bartlet by Maureen Dowd

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They don't think she can debate!


At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.
See? Even her own teammates think she doesn't have the experience or the wherewithall to hold her own. Biden can be pretty tough and he's not afraid of a confrontation either.

McCain advisers said they were only somewhat concerned about Ms. Palin’s debating skills compared with those of Mr. Biden, who has served six terms in the Senate, or about his chances of tripping her up. Instead, they say, they wanted Ms. Palin to have opportunities to present Mr. McCain’s positions, rather than spending time talking about her experience or playing defense.
Only somewhat? Did they not see her interview with Charles Gibson? She was horrible! Of course Biden is going to be able to trip her up, even with the format currently in place. But seeing her flounder, get defensive, and make a "major misstep" is what her party needs to see. Of course they'll only blame Biden for coming on too strong, her being a weak woman and all that.

(via)

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Friday, September 19, 2008

Fuck 'im

I have decided some dude who doesn't like telling the truth when it really counts and will only talk to me via text message now isn't worth pining for.

So fuck him.

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Wednesday, September 17, 2008

You know what fucking sucks?

Thinking you found the guy you could really settle down with who then decides, a month and a half later, that he's moving back to his hometown.

And instead of exploring options such as those of the long distance kind, he breaks up with you.

But not really because he avoided you and pretty much ignored you for 3 days then told you. Via text.

Granted I knew he was going to be moving at some point, but he had made no active reach toward that goal so I figured it would be sometime in the next year. Granted he hasn't even started looking for a job yet so some kind of discussion can still be had here, too. Granted that would also still keep it within a year, rolling us a few months down a road that could very well prove we could do the long distance thing (btw, his hometown is only 2 hours away from here).

But I was cut out of all of this. So now I'm just supposed to turn everything off and pretend like he never existed. Which is really fucking hard to do considering I have been waiting for someone like him to show up in my life for over 5 years now.

So this really fucking sucks.

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Monday, September 15, 2008

Fun Sucker Outer

The idea of being one sends me into a panic. I have a kid, school and a full-time job that can be a fun crusher for most anyone I am trying to date because they have to work around it thus limiting their own freedom. I’m sure it can get frustratingly simple at times.

I worry about holding someone back from their full potential because I have these particular responsibilities in my life, essentially chaining me down and if it gets serious, it thus chains them down as well.

Who I am dating doesn’t have any responsibilities and is free to come and go at will. It’s hard on me because I, on more than one occasion, have wished I had that life.

Dating becomes a little easier when you don’t have an instant family.

So when that person I’m dating accuses me of being a fun sucker outer, I take it personally, because it is something I fear being.

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Sunday, September 14, 2008

Overreacting? I think not.

Words, such a wonderful weapon when chosen to hurt someone. Here is an example:

"Why are we still sitting out here when I still could be having fun instead?"

Nice, eh?

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Thursday, September 11, 2008

I don't want to be a mom anymore

I don’t want to be a mom anymore

At least that’s how I’m feeling today. It’s a contradictory position to take I’m sure, but I’ll bet there are others out there like me, having a bad mom day that is.

Nothing spectacular has happened; I’m just tired of being chained to a 9 year old. One I will be chained to for the next 9 years and then a lifetime after that, just not as explicit.

I am aware that I chose this life: a single mother who went back to school at the age of 26 to get an undergraduate degree, Peanut then 3, and now again to get my master’s, Peanut now 9. Who knew Peanut’s dad was going to be a total waste of a life partner, so much so that I honestly thought since I was doing it by myself anyway, I may as well really have a go at it alone because at least then I wouldn’t have to argue over parenting styles?

As the cliché goes, hindsight is 20/20.

If anyone would have told me how hard it would be, I wouldn’t have listened. I’m strong-willed, stubborn, fastidious in nature, unwilling to give up easy, tenacious and so many other adjectives that probably won’t help a certain special someone like me any more than he already does.

I also know I’m caring, thoughtful, playful, a total goofball, definitely a smart ass and above all else I take care of those who are most important to me to the best of my ability.

But damn raising kids can bring out the worst in people can’t it? They are our mirrors, throwing back in our faces the faults we didn’t realize were there to begin with. Self-awareness is a huge part of being a parent, I think, which is probably what makes it so difficult at the same time.

Peanut told me a week or so ago he didn’t like how I more often than not talked to him in a mean tone. Or better yet, am always telling him what to do, i.e. pick his clothes up off the floor, put his shoes away, why are his pj’s on my bed and recently, he’ll have to fold his own clothes and put them away (they are still in the basket just so you know), just to name a few.

And I agree. Who likes to be harped on all the time? Nagged, eh, not so much.

If I had someone around to help 24/7 like most duel parent households, I probably wouldn’t be as demanding or even commanding. But because I am the only one trying to keep this boy in line and make him into something, self-responsibility being a major component of this partnership, I get tired and of course getting stuck in a rut is a strong possibilty. Even Super Nanny says it’s bad.

Here comes the but again; I need to play with him, too. I want him to be able to talk to me about anything and everything on his mind. I want to be that kind of mom for him. I want him to trust that I will always put his needs before anyone else’s, despite how selfish I really honestly truly feel at time. (This is very hard at times, just so you know.)

Over the summer Peanut was with his dad for 2 weeks, me 2 weeks, then his dad, etc., for a total of 5 weeks. It was the first time I truly got a taste of being a single adult woman and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was really hard getting back into the routine of waking Peanut up at 7, spending 15 minutes trying to get him out of bed and into clothes, then another 10 or 15 minutes getting him to brush his teeth and hair and, Hey, why are you playing when we need to leave NOW?!, and of course dropping him off at daycare then hurrying to work. And it all starts again at 5 beginning with picking him up from daycare, shuttling us home, cooking him dinner then walking the dogs after he eats, making sure he gets a bath/shower when I get back and again getting him to brush his teeth and get into bed. And to stay in bed. Wait, why are you out of bed again? *sigh*

It’s no wonder we get stuck in myriad ruts over and over again.

Hopefully, that’s what weekends are for. We try to do something fun, play with each other and spend quality time together. Now there is that special someone who enjoys goofing off, too, who also isn’t afraid of being around a kid (and as far as I can tell, not the least bit intimidated either). He’s already pointed out a few things I do that aren’t exactly productive parenting, ; ).

Tomorrow is a new day. But damnit, I want to feel what I feel now and be justified in my indignation, maybe even a little bit of resentment!

******

I'm not the only one, see?

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Thursday, September 04, 2008

What's that Palin lady about, anyway?

While I was impressed by Sarah Palin's speech last night at the Republican Convention, as she did carry herself well, spoke articulately and even managed to relay to her peeps she has not forgotten her meager beginnings, she won't entice me to vote for the McCain/Palin ticket.

Not even a little bit.

And here are a few reasons why:

I honestly don’t care that her 17 year old unmarried daughter is pregnant because it demonstrates this situation can happen to anyone no matter their moral values. It also helps prove abstinence-only programs don’t work, another Republican stronghold thrown back in their faces.

She’s even more pro-life than McCain and I do not want to see women die trying to abort their own fetuses. It’s a horribly painful way to die, hemorrhaging until you bleed to death. It is not something I wish on any woman no matter how she got into the predicament. Abortion is an issue Obama’s campaign has now decided to bring to the forefront.

Jumping on the “American Values” band wagon, she was real quick to point out her son, Track, had signed up to “serve our country” and was about to be deployed to Iraq. I do not subscribe to the idea our women and men are defending our country since it has already been proven and stated many times in myriad ways that we are now an occupying force. If anything the soldiers are defending their own lives and that of their mates from angry residents of said countries because they don’t like being told their way is wrong and being forced into our version of a flawed democracy.

Then, a little too flashy for my taste, she touted her youngest son who has Down’s Syndrome, almost as if she should be heralded as a martyr for not only having a child at age 43. But look, he’s got Downs and she is a Vice Presidential nominee. I’m going to be keeping an eye on this particular aspect to further determine her motive. He is certainly adorable though as is her whole family.

And she’s from Alaska. Where the Republicans (and some Democrats) desperately want to drill for more oil. Enough said.

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What still fascinates me is that McCain, and thus the Republican Party, nominated a woman for Vice President, something the large good ‘ol boy base usually steers clear of. ‘Cause you know, we women might get cranky while menstruating or going through “the change” and push the Big Red Button (pun very much intended). Never mind the fact several male presidents have already done just that.

None of these are new arguments, I know, but I’m getting really tired of them circulating endlessly. Isn’t it time to come up with something new?

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Wednesday, September 03, 2008

See if you know what any of this means

Preconscious Awareness
One begins to realize that he or she is not self-aware.

Simple Conscious Awareness
For the first time, one experiences awareness.

Reflective Awareness
One thinks about and reflect on what has happened in simple conscious awareness.

Reflexive Awareness
One pays particular attention to and understands how personal history and one's personhood affect the situation.

Social Constructive Awareness
One recognizes the mutual meaning-making that shapes what has happened in a situation.

Critical Reflectivity
One accepts responsibility for the role she or he played in the situation and asks questions about biases and power dynamics in the situation.

Contextual Awareness
One recognizes how raising questions about biases and power affect others, seeing the self in context.

The assignment?

Having read these definitions, see if you can provide an example of when you used each type of awareness. If you have not experience a particular type, make a plan to go to that level of awareness. Think about the costs and benefits of each level of awareness.
These 2 books were cited at the bottom of the page:

Who is the "self" in self-aware: Professional self-awareness from a critical theory perspective and Organization practice: A social worker's guide to understanding human services.

The former is something I would have liked to read prior to this exercise or at least peruse it a bit to get a better understanding since it is really hard to go backwards once you've successfully stepped into a certain amount of self-awareness, or enlightenment if you will.

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Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yep, today is my 33rd birthday and I treated myself to a facial and massage; both were fantastic!

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