Mamarati

GoDaddy is kinda irking me with its slowness lately. It didn’t used to be the case, especially on this domain, but I have a couple of others and to say they are moving like molasses is a compliment.

I’ve been toying with the idea of moving back to Blogger for a while. I’m one of those people who gets bored with stuff easily, like the way my house is arranged, for example. A change of layout always brightens my outlook. I’m not one of those people who freaks out when things change (for the most part.) I actually really enjoy adapting to a situation.

But Blogger… When I was there back in the day, they didn’t have a lot of the features that they have now… all reasons why I moved to WordPress in the first place. But even though I like things in beta and trying out all the bells and whistles on a new thing… sometimes I just want to go back to simple stuff. It’s like when you move into a house from an apartment… and something breaks and you realize that you cannot call the landlord to fix it for free. Like say, when your furnace goes out, like I experienced this week. Just in time for the temperature to start dipping into the Brrrrrr range. And you have to mow your own lawn. (Or have your boyfriend do it.) And that lawn is full of stickers which prevent you from doing anything with the yard. And also there are no trees, thus ensuring that it’s too hot for any of your plants to survive the blistering Texas heat even if you did want to do something substantial. And oh, you have to pay for water and trash instead of just heading to the dumpster for free. Stuff like that.

Of course there are benefits to home ownership. But sometimes I still long for the easy, care-free days of renting and not having a yard.

And so, that’s what Blogger is. I’m tired of dealing with the slowness and clickety clack of trying to accomplish anything at GoDaddy (despite the cheap factor) and believe it or not, while WordPress is robust as all hell, I just really find most of the things I want to do inconvenient and a waste of time. Especially with the new version.

So… there’s that. Simple.

I must be getting old. I traded my kid my qwerty cell phone for his simple flip phone because the qwerty one was just getting on my nerves. Next I’m going to get one of those Jitterbug phones.

I did not have these worries when I was a kid.

More on that later, I have got to get some work done now that it’s quiet and peaceful at my house. Must not take these moments for granted.

I do need to write later about my kid getting in a fight at school, though… But that’s a longer story than I’m prepared to eek out at the moment.

Meanwhile, I’m not sure how the cat is going to survive the winter. The furnace is blasting out the heat (alas, alas) and she’s already circling me like a vulture for my warm lap. How can I work like this? Her fat flaps are now resting on my trackpad.

to move away from my family. I got this racist crap-filled email about Obama being a Muslim antichrist from my sister-in-law:

*******************************

A lot of Americans have become so insulated from
reality that they imagine that America can suffer
defeat without any inconvenience to themselves.

Pause a moment, reflect back.

These events are actual events from history..

They really happened!!!

Do you remember?
————————————————————————————————————–

1. 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by a
Muslim male extremist.

2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were
kidnapped and massacred by Muslim male extremists.

3. In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over
by Muslim male extremists.

4. During the 1980’s a number of Americans were
kidnapped in Lebanon by Muslim male extremists.

5. In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was
blown up by Muslim male extremists.

6. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was
hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was
murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair
by Muslim male extremists.

7. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens ,
and a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers
was murdered by Muslim male extremists.

8. In 1988 , Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by Muslim
male extremists.

9. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the
first time by Muslim male extremists.

10. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
were bombed by Muslim male extremists.

11. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two
were used as missiles to take down the World Trade
Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed
into the US Pentagon and the other was diverted
and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of
people were killed by Muslim male extremists.

12. In 2002 the United States fought a war in
Afghanistan against Muslim male extremists.

13. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and
murdered by– you guessed it– Muslim male
extremists..

No, I really don’t see a pattern here to justify
profiling, do you? So, to ensure we Americans never
offend anyone, particularly fanatics intent on
killing us, airport security screeners will no
longer be
allowed to profile certain people… Absolutely No
Profiling!

They must conduct random searches of 80-year-old
women, little kids, airline pilots with proper
identification, secret agents who are members of the
President’s security detail, 85-year old
Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of Honor
winner and former Governor Joe Foss, but must
leave Muslim Males alone lest they be guilty of
profiling.

According to The Book of Revelations:

The Anti-Christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM
descent, who will deceive the nations with
persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like
appeal….the prophecy says that people
will flock to him and he will promise false hope and
world peace, and when he is in power, he
will destroy everything.

And Now:

For the award winning Act of Stupidity Of all times
the People of America want to elect, to the
most Powerful position on the face of the Planet –
The Presidency of the United states of America …
A Male of Muslim descent who is the most extremely
liberal Senator in Congress (in other words an
extremist) and in his 40s.

Have the American People completely lost their
Minds, or just their Power of Reason ???

I’m sorry but I refuse to take a chance on the
‘unknown’ candidate Obama…

Let’s send this to as many people as we can so that
the Gloria Aldreds and other stupid attorneys
along with Federal Justices that want to thwart
common sense, feel ashamed of themselves — i
f they have any such sense.

As the writer of the award winning story ‘Forrest
Gump’ so aptly put it,

‘Stupid Is As Stupid Does’

As O’Reilly says, You decide.

Chock Full o’ Nuts, anyone? Are you friggin’ kidding me?

Then two days later she sends this:

Ok, I had to apologize. The last email I did not read to
the end! The bible stuff I is not true. But the rest of
the information was. So sorry. Thanks.

(sigh)

She sent some other crap earlier about what a saint Cindy McCain is.

Whatever. You can vote however you like, but when your vote is backed by absolute filth like this, it makes my stomach turn.

It makes me laugh a little, though. For someone who professes to be such a good Christian, goes to church every Sunday, is involved in church activities and so on and so forth to send something around like that… that is so clearly not a Christian thing to do. Obama is a Christian. And even if he wasn’t, while John McCain might approve of her message, do you think that God does?

And do you think that she’s ever read the book of Revelation? It’s really not that long a read, either. And for all its cryptic strangeness, it’s not that difficult to understand. Certainly finding a laundry list of character traits for the antichrist in there would be something memorable, no? Except it doesn’t exist.

Coo Coo for Cocoa Puffs.

Even funnier, she’s the district manager for some cosmetics company and she sends this stuff around to all these people on a distribution list FROM HER BUSINESS EMAIL. Very professional. I’m sure they’d be thrilled to know their employees were sending emails like this around.

When I was there for my niece’s funeral, she went on a tangent about Muslims chopping off kid’s heads and putting them on the ends of sticks. She talked about how they were trying to take over America. “If we let them come over here, that’s what they’re going to do to us.” She said it with complete seriousness and this strange kind of outrage.

It had been a while since I’d been back to see my family. I moved away when I was in my early 20s (after having been away for a good deal of my childhood in a children’s home). The last time I saw everyone all at once was at my mother’s funeral in 1999. I went back once after that, I think the same year and have stayed away and not seen anyone since.

When she said that about the sticks I was so taken aback, I didn’t even know what to say. I looked at my brother to gauge her seriousness. I thought maybe it was a joke or something. I looked at him to see if he agreed with her. I’ve always known that most of my family members harbor some form of racism, but I do not know this brother well enough to know his true feelings on the matter.

What I saw was puzzling. He looked down at the floor while she spewed all this and didn’t say a word. I didn’t say a word, either. Just said, “Well….. OK,” and grabbed my suitcase and announced it was time for me to go. It was his daughter that had died and I didn’t want to start any drama by calling his wife (who I was meeting for the first time on this trip) out on her hate and crazy. I got the feeling though that while he might have been embarrassed at her saying that in front of me, in front of another person he might have confirmed what she was saying and maybe even joined in.

I thought about this on the 3-hour drive home. I thought about all the incidents of hate and crazy I’d seen growing up. My family is full of secret racists. In fact, a lot of the people that I knew in Oklahoma had that going on. Most of them would not participate in a lynching or call someone a nigger to their face. Indeed, I always got the impression when I was growing up that everyone in my family was afraid of black people, Hispanics, Asians and really… anyone different.

One of my sister-in-law’s sisters married an Iranian. This was in the 70s when there was all that turmoil. I was just a kid, but I remember all the things that were said about him. About how he was a terrorist. He was a sand nigger. I was exposed to lots of racist jokes about Iranians and people from the Middle East. Sometimes a joke about Jewish people got thrown in for good measure.

My father would always say the same thing, over and over and over and over again, and it would be echoed by my oldest brother. It was as if it was the funniest joke they’d ever heard: “I’m not a racist. I love niggers and I think everyone should own one or two.”

I don’t really talk to anyone up there. But I’m curious about how Obama must be affecting them. They must be up in arms. Contrary to what one would think, most of them are not Republicans. It’s a red state and they certainly sound like Republicans most of the time, but my father and my brother have both run for public offices (judges, as they’re both attorneys) as Democrats.

I’m glad they both lost, too. They didn’t deserve to win. I’m sorry, but if you want to be a judge, you ought to have some scruples, good values, ethics, morals, respect for people, so on and so forth. Neither of them have too much of that going on.

At any rate, Obama must present a really puzzling situation for some of them. I imagine that there are lots of reasons they will use to justify why they will vote Republican this year. And those reasons will all be lies. They will vote for McCain because he’s the white guy. They will not vote for Obama because he’s the black guy. Rather than think or reason past their prejudices, they will do what’s comfortable and familiar.

The funniest part of all of this, though, is that they are also a huge bunch of sexists. My grandfather wouldn’t pay for college for any of the girls in the family. Only the boys. Women don’t need education, they need to find and marry a man that has an education and then take care of him. Girls in my family didn’t get middle names for some sexist reason. The boys got them, but not the girls. I could go on and on about the sexist, anti-female sentiment I was exposed to… Again, I think it was all fear. How does that Rebecca West quote go?

“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.”

Yes, whenever any woman would say anything that strayed from doormat, mother or hooker… the boys would all start up the “stupid woman” jokes. It was their only defense, because in truth, the women of the family turned out to be kind of a tough, smart lot. At least some of them. Fear. So, Sarah Palin must scare the shit out of them. Not just a strong, powerful woman but one with looks, too? But in the end, I think white will trump black even with a woman on the ticket. I’m sure they will make jokes about exactly where on the ticket she falls even as they’re voting for her and dreaming about dominating her in bed or some other way.

I was right to move away from my family. I was right to move my child away from there. I don’t know how I turned out differently after everything that I was exposed to, but I am thankful to God every day that I did. I’m glad to be where I am, today. When I look back, I don’t like what I see, and in a lot of ways I’m ashamed of it. But I’m relieved, too, that I can see how far I’ve come away from it.

Where is it? I want to go there. I want to see pictures. How long do animals typically live there? What about the animals who have been adopted out after research… I want to hear from humans who have done this.

I think I’ll write a letter of course, but these are the things I’m wondering tonight.

I’ve always been pretty good about buying things that don’t get tested on animals, but after having this corneal erosion and knowing how severe the pain is involving the eye… It makes it that much more important to me.

In other news, I’ve lost a shed load of weight in two weeks. I think I’m down something like 11 pounds. I am also dying for a cookie. Dying is probably an exaggeration, but I would really enjoy a cookie. I also have this vision of me eating a cookie… and then eating about 10 more cookies. Because that is what I would do. And I know it. I would not stop at just one. Not my nature.

Last night when I wanted a cookie and was bitching and moaning, I decided to have some bacon instead. Boyfriend came in and said he didn’t think he’d ever seen someone sitting on the couch eating bacon as a snack. Bacon is the new cookie in my low-carb world.

So, I’m on day 4 and I’m already down 6 pounds. Very nice. Although it kinda sucks because it’s the 6 pounds I gained last week. I am still shocked that I gained that much damn weight in a week. I haven’t done that since I was pregnant.

Whatever. I’m doing good on the diet and am not craving sugar, although I’m craving milk pretty badly. Really just any beverage besides water, because I hate drinking water. But I will get over it. I’m trying to stay away from the artificial sweeteners and even stuff like Stevia for a while until I get all this carbiness out of my system. I tend to have bad luck with those… they stall my weight loss and make me crave sweets even more.

I’m doing OK without the caffeine but am still getting a little bit of headache. Last night it didn’t hit me until late and it occurs to me that I should have just gone to sleep.

Sleep. Yes. I see myself doing less of that in the future. This week I’ve had 4 corneal erosions. Two of them were last night. I woke up at like 8am with one and then an hour later it was stuck again. That’s a first. I truly don’t know what I’m going to do about this. Boyfriend is thinking I should tape my eyes shut and I know that is a solution for folks who can’t keep their eyes shut at night, but what I don’t know is if the pressure between eyelid and eyeball will be worsened with tape and cause the sticking to be more severe.

This morning when I got the first erosion I could feel the anxiety and depression setting in over me. But I still decided to face my fear and go back to bed. And then it happened again. And now it’s something more than just anxiety. I feel … something like despair. I want to cry. I want my eye to be normal again. I want to stop using all these drops nonstop all day, all night. I want to sleep without goggles on. I want to just go to sleep and not worry… like I used to be able to do.

But that is not to be. So, I imagine I’m going to spend less time sleeping for a while until I can talk myself back into being comfortable and sleeping more than a couple of hours at a time. This is no way of life, I will tell you that. It is severely affecting my overall well-being.

Meanwhile, the VP debates are tonight. And it occurs to me that no matter how Palin does, there will be people who spin her as some kind of political genius. And that makes my stomach churn. I’m so tired of all the crap and all the mangled lies and distortions, I’m just not watching the news too much. I had to stop watching the Twitter election coverage completely, it’s just so filled with hate and lies. It’s one thing to poke some fun at your opposition or to have a good-spirited debate with someone or to use humor to throw some light on the situation… but what’s going on there is just a lot of hate, racism, extremism, closed minds, rocky hearts, venom.

It’s like there’s this other America or something… or something beneath the surface of people that I don’t get to see very often face to face and it really disgusts me. So, I just have to be done with that and listen to the news on the radio on the way to pick Jacob, where it’s not all about politics and it’s just reporting and no spin / commentators / pundits, etc. I’m going to watch the debates, but I’m not going to watch the analysis, which is just a lot of biased crap. I can analyze all by myself, thanks, and I’ll be in a lot better mood if I do just that.

Wow. I forgot about this part of starting Atkins. The part where I go through sugar withdrawal and caffeine withdrawal and withdrawal from whatever other crap my body had such a good time with.

I have the mother of all headaches right now and I feel like I’m carrying a ton of bricks, I’m so weighed down and tired. It doesn’t help much that I woke up at 6am with my eyeball stuck to my eyelid. The pain from that does not get any better… I put in a numbing drop and switched to a brand new contact. I’m thinking that maybe 3 weeks is going to be my limit on these rather than the 30 days it says I can wear them nonstop. That’s probably on a person with a much wetter eye… I think what’s been happening lately is that the contact gets a bit dried out and sticks to another part of my eyeball, thus leaving my cornea exposed and ripe for stickage.

Either way, it’s no fun. I did take a monumental step, however, and I didn’t stay up freaking out paranoid. I actually went back to bed. I don’t know if I was just feeling particularly brave, if I was relying on the newness / wetness of the new contact to save me, or if I have just given up and realized that if it’s going to stick it’s going to stick and what can I do about it?

I feel like shit right now. But I know this will pass. I remember it… Once I got over the hump I felt great. It sucks, but an hour ago I had my first nearly purple ketostix, so that’s all the evidence I need to tell me I’m on the right track. Yay. So I’m going to go indulge in an advil and a nap and hope this bout is going to be a short one. Seems like last time the worst of it was over in a few days but I was really tired for like 2 weeks… Hopefully not this time.

Or rather, not. I have gained like 6 pounds this last week. And that was before I went to Bubba’s and ate fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and a giant roll.

I have been eating a ton. Stuffing myself. I don’t know what the deal is, either. It’s like I’m doing some emotional eating except that I have nothing emotional going on. I’m just eating till I’m beyond full. I think part of it has been that I’ve been eating really late in the day, and then boyfriend comes home and I eat again soon after.

At any rate, I have to get this under control. I think I need a kick start and a change from this sugar / bread / pasta love affair that I have going. I started Atkins induction this morning. When I got on the scale and saw how much weight I’d gained, I immediately knew it’s what I have to do. And no more excuses about being so busy or being on campus all day and unable to make the food. I’m home all day. I can do this.

I guess I took myself seriously, because usually when I say I’m going to do something like this I have to take some time and plot it all out and then have a blowout of sugar. Not this time. I started first thing this morning and spent a good part of the day cleaning stuff out of my pantry and rearranging things so that it will be easy for me to follow.

I needed to do that anyway, since it’s been a while since we found out about all of J’s food allergies… Some of the stuff that didn’t quite work for us (like quinoa flakes and kamut flour) has since expired, so they needed to go anyway. I put all the oils and vinegars together, all the snacks J can have, all the grains, so they are away from my area and all the canned meats and things I can have together. I kept all the baking stuff together so I can make stuff for J and boyfriend.

The good thing about this is that I’ve done it before with great success, even though it was a bajillion years ago (or like… eight) and it’s not incompatible with what I need to cook for J and his allergies. Basically it’s fresh food and not processed crap. Everyone will survive. I make them brownies and don’t eat those anyway.

God I’m just tired of being fat. I feel like I’m at my rock bottom here. But at least something is REALLY motivating me now.

It’s the most important meal of the day.

And I need to get my poop in a group and start eating it regularly. I’m so haphazard with it and really, I need it. I am so grumpy and mean and can’t think straight when I don’t eat breakfast.

Not eating breakfast also leads me often to not eating lunch. And then I eat a gigantic dinner that just sits there and puts weight on me all night. Today I’m having some blueberry yogurt (Cascade Fresh) and some English Muffins. And coffee.

Coffee with stevia. I’m not down with all those artificial sweeteners. Aspartame gives me the most horrific headache. If I suddenly have a migraine, I can bet it’s from some piece of gum or mint someone’s given me. Do you know how hard it is to find gum without this stuff? At any rate, I’m trying to see if I can find a good sweetener for things that has a lower glycemic index. I’m realizing that I use a lot of sugar there. It probably contributes to the crash I have around 1pm and, of course, my general chunkiness.

Stevia tastes a lot like saccharin to me. At least in the powdered form I got. I might try the liquid next and see if that’s any better. If I like it a lot I might just try growing it and drying it for tea. Not sure if it will survive down here, but what the hell? The company that makes the kind I got is local (about 7 miles away) but of course, the actual product is not local… Same with the sugar. Local company, shipped in product. No change there.

And yogurt… yogurt pisses me off. At least all the yogurt at my non-hippie grocery store. It’s all loaded with crap, including HFCS, splenda, beef-derived gelatin (not a bad thing in itself unless you’re trying to go veggie), food coloring, etc. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff in there for what should be a pretty simple food. And when you think yogurt you’re thinking, “Hmm, that sounds healthy.” But Yoplait and all that is a lot of sugary junk. The kind I get at my hippie store has 110 calories, too. Yoplait has like 190.

In other hippie news, I just saw a Citgo commercial and they’re jumping on the “local” bandwagon. Talking about how each store is locally owned and contributes to the local economy and it was all touchy feely. What is it with oil companies and the softer, gentler marketing. It’s like a twist of the knife.

The cat is doing her morning potty duty. She spends more time scratching than any other cat I’ve ever seen. The litter box is in the laundry room, so there’s always stuff stacked up around the box. If you put something new back there next to her box, she will spend an extra long time scratching the new thing. The other morning, there was a stack of boxes that needed to go out to the recycle cart next to her litter box and she scratched so much that one of the boxes fell into the litter box. Then the next time she needed to go, she couldn’t get in the litter box so she peed on the floor.

I’m tempted to get one of those bead curtains and hang it from the ceiling around her litter box like a shower curtain. The noise would be hilarious. Maybe wind chimes? Or strings of bells? I could rig up a Casio keyboard against the wall and leave it on and see what songs she’d come up with…

In other news, I’ve been sick all week. Coughing, sore throat, drainage. Some of it worked its way into my chest. I’ve been lethargic and generally tolerating a low level of misery for days. I haven’t paid much attention to my eating, though haven’t really been hungry, so who knows what my weight will be today when I’m reunited with the Wii Fit. I’ve missed it so.

I’m feeling better, but when I lay down I start coughing and get that trickle tickle in my throat. Still a bit tired.

To compound chest problems, the freakiest thing happened to me starting about Wednesday, I guess. My chest started getting really tight at night and I could hardly breathe. My throat was already feeling tight and sore, and I was coughing up stuff, so I didn’t think too much about it except that my asthma hasn’t acted up in many years. Only one time in the last 4 years (outside of that incident it’s been a good 10 years since I had an attack) and it was when we went to Corpus. Chemicals and humidity, I don’t know, but down there, I had to stop at a CVS and get a Primatene Mist since I don’t carry a rescue inhaler. That’s how infrequently my asthma acts up. I can’t even keep an inhaler around without it expiring and going unused.

So, Wednesday night, can’t breathe. Thursday night, can’t breathe. Friday night, can’t breathe. Saturday night, can’t breathe. Saturday night also brought on an eyelid-sticking-to-eyeball corneal erosion… so instead of taking my contact out Sunday during the day, I left it in to protect my cornea and help it heal. And that was when it suddenly all made sense. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe, but this time it wasn’t right before going to bed. It was right after I used the new rewetting / lubricating drops (ReNu Multiplus) during the day. It dawned on me that I was having the attacks right after putting my lenses in and adding a drop of the new solution in each eye. Then, a few minutes later I couldn’t breathe and had to use my kid’s inhaler each time. I was sleeping with it next to the bed and adding more drops as I woke up in the night, not even realizing…

I was allergic to something in the drops. I had been using the generic Wal*Mart brand but it sucks and was leaving my eyes really scratchy and not giving me any relief. I thought I’d try the brand that matches the disinfecting solution I use (also ReNu Multiplus) and see if it was any better.

So I looked at the ingredients and the only thing in there that I’ve never had in a drop or anything else is the povidone. I did a little further research and found that some folks are indeed allergic to it and that it’s been responsible for bad rashes and anaphylaxis in some. So, there ya go.

I did some further research to find a new drop, and in the course of that read some things about the MultiPlus disinfecting solution that made me less than happy (corneal staining, etc. and it’s my cornea that I’m trying hardest to preserve here, so I really don’t want to expose it to anything even questionable.) I found another article written by someone who wasn’t liking Renu MultiPlus and had read in several sources about Clear Care being a good option for folks who have lots of allergies or who are having problems with other solutions. I read the reviews on Amazon.com and some drugstore sites and found that while there were some idiots who don’t know how to RTFM, most folks loved it. So, I tossed all my other crap out and went to get some Clear Care.

Clear Care is different than the no-rub stuff. It has a special case that you put your contacts in (it looks like those cheesy plastic things you’d put a trucker hat in to wash it in the washing machine) and it works using hydrogen peroxide, which can seriously hurt your eye if you try to use Clear Care like the other solutions… You can’t just rinse your lens off and pop it back in your eye. There’s a metal doohickey in the case that causes the reaction that bubbles all the crap off your contact lens, and then it neutralizes the solution and leaves it inert after 6 hours.

Kinda groovy. So, I also looked at saline solutions. Since you can’t use Clear Care as a rinse, I needed something for those times when I’ve got a piece of dust, lint or lash stuck on my lens and just need to give it a quick rinse. I was just going to get the generic kind, but then I thought, “Hey, that’s what I did with the rewetting drops and look where it got me.” So, I started checking ingredients and I never knew there was so much stuff in simple saline solution.

I ended up getting the Unisol 4, which had the least amount of stuff and everything in it I recognized as something I’ve already been exposed to with no problem. And it has no preservatives, which seems to be what irritates me the most. I also switched my rewetting drop to Aquify, which also has few ingredients and seems to be the only preservative-free rewetting drop specifically for contacts. (I already use preservative-free BionTears for my actual eyeball, but that doesn’t do much to work with the actual lens, sometimes I wonder if it makes it worse, even.)

Nerd alert: Clear Care is actually kind of fun to watch, and it’s science in action, you know? Bubbly reactive goodness. So there’s that factor, too. I know, I’m a complete nerd. At any rate, this combination is like putting a new contact lens in my eye. It’s almost like I can’t even feel them, which was not the case before. I was acutely aware of their irritating presence every minute. Now, it’s just Comfort City.

After all this, boyfriend is swearing off contacts and is going to get glasses. I don’t blame him. It’s been a pain in the ass. Of course, he doesn’t have all the weird allergy / sensitivity stuff that I have, but it’s still a bigger pain than glasses. If it wasn’t for the cornea issue, I don’t think I’d be willing to deal with all this. It’s kind of annoying.

Now I just have to get in the habit of making sure I take them out and disinfect them for 6 hours every day. I wear them at night, so my schedule isn’t that of your typical contact lens wearer… I was cracking up at some of the reviews that gave the stuff one star and talked about how dangerous the product is and how it shouldn’t even be available for sale. I mean, I feel for the folks who used it incorrectly and ended up burning their eyes… I do. And I especially felt that way before I actually purchased the stuff.

After purchasing the stuff, though, it’s almost funny. I don’t know how they could get another warning label on this bottle without making the bottle have red flashing lights and sirens. There are SO many warnings on the bottle, on the box. There’s a friggin’ bright red cardboard ring around the nozzle telling how it can’t be used like other contact solutions. You can’t miss this stuff, seriously.

And that brings me to the last thing on my mind, I suppose, before I start working: Today is the first day of Fall. Beautiful, crisp, cool, wonderful Fall. My favorite season and the time of year when I am the happiest. All these health problems be damned, I’m going to enjoy this season. It’s always been my favorite, but living in Texas for the last 10 years through these brutal, endless summers, Fall signifies so much more. In a word: relief.

I finally got Wii Fit. Cashed in a bunch of old games. Amazing what those little buggers are worth…

I didn’t know if I was going to like it all that much, but figured it would hold its resale value so why not give it a try? But, wow, I am really loving this thing. If you’re anything like me (you work on the Internet, never leave the house, don’t live in the safest neighborhood for walking, live somewhere where it’s 80 bajillion degrees all the time, hate walking at the mall, can’t afford a gym membership or Yoga / Pilates / Other classes or don’t have those options close to home, have an injury which prevents you from getting the most out of a gym membership anyway, basically lazy, procrastinate, did I mention you’re a complete homebody?) then this will really be your cup of tea.

At first, I was really screwing up on all the games and such, but I’m steadily getting better with about an hour a day of practice. I love the yoga and strength exercises quite a bit, although there are still some that I cannot do because of my arm. I am finding that I can modify them, however, so perhaps this will add to my range of motion over time. The balance games are fun and I think it’s all helping my back. My spine just seems more cooperative and … ? not as compressed maybe? Something is definitely more comfortable in that area. And it’s popping like it used to when I was younger and would twist in a chair or on the couch. That hasn’t happened for years.

I think this is just what I need to work me back into a regular routine and prepare me for some more strenuous exercise.

Something else I found that is nice… Alicia King wrote a few articles about the yoga poses, including other poses that you can incorporate that aren’t included in Wii Fit (like doing Crescent Pose or Reverse Warrior on the Warrior setting). (More: Seven additional poses, More advanced poses, Is Yoga on the Wii good or bad).

Biggs came over the other day and he loved it, too. His mom was wanting something like this so he went and got it this weekend. That brings me to some things that I wish Wii Fit had or that I hope they program into Wii Fit II if there is to be something like that…

A way to run through multiple exercises / yoga poses without using the Wiimote. I find that it’s too clicky, kind of like Windows or a poorly designed Web site. Click, click, click. I’d love the option of picking five exercises and just running through them one after the other and maybe using my body balance to hit a “Yes” or “No” square. (Next exercise? “Yes” or “No”)

On Ski Jump, especially, I want to fast forward to my results and not wait for the crowd applause and whatnot. But all games should give me the option of not watching the beginning / end cinema.

More song choice and more routines on the step games. I really enjoy this and had no idea it would be so fun. I’d love to have a lot more of these routines. I think a whole new game spin-off could be made from this. I guess it’d be sort of like Dance, Dance Revolution, except for the less coordinated. (Like me, my kid, my boyfriend or the very elderly. Haha. We are a houseful of clumsy.)

Well, since I know a lot of moms online who have it and now Biggs has it and I know a lot of my kid’s friends have it, I wish it worked with the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. It would be fun to do side-by-side exercises, compete against friends or even strangers in the balance games or even do turn-based exercises and competing. I think if they added a component like this, they’d see the formation of support groups and perhaps they could even have it where groups of friends could meet in a room (kind of like on MarioKart) and they could add some way to send each other notes of support and motivation, cards, gifts, trophies, etc.

Speaking of trophies and such, I wish there was more unlockable stuff or rewards… When boyfriend saw that it had “unlockables” he joked that I would be dripping with sweat and collapsed on the floor when he got home from work the next day. Except it’s no joke. I get completely obsessed with unlocking and earning things in video games. I like to collect stuff. Not in real life, only in video games… you ought to see how crazy I get with stuff like Animal Crossing. I have to have EVERYTHING. Other people like Super Paper Mario, but I have to get every combination of items so that I can cook every recipe and I have to have every single badge, even the worthless ones I will never use. On Smash Brothers and Brawl, I have to have every single event completed, sticker and trophy collected.

My kid drives me crazy how he can run through levels completely ignoring all the hidden goodies. He just hauls ass to the finish or uses continuous brute force to beat the boss. I’m like, OK, if I have all these items and I’m wearing these badges and I do this move at just this right time… then I will end with exactly this many coins and I will obtain these items and level up here. It’s total micromanagement, but it’s fun and somehow very soothing to me.

So I would like to see more of this in Wii Fit… maybe more rankings or challenges. I like when it tells me, for example, that I can combine a strength exercise and a yoga pose and when I’ve done both it will say I’ve completed that workout. I would like feedback on that. Give me a little trophy or something and chart that information. Tell me how many times I’ve paired those particular exercises.

Or send gifts from Nintendo, like the winter hat and such… you could sign on to Wi-Fi on Animal Crossing and then you’d get a letter with a gift hat from Nintendo. That’s just fun. So, how about send me a little something now and again. Or reward me for signing on 100 consecutive days or whatnot. I don’t know why that stuff works for me, but it does, and I know I’m not alone. I know some people get confused about that stuff or find too much tracking to be a distracting pain in the ass, but I like it. They could make the most obvious tracking and charts up front and then hide another settings area for the more anal, like myself. A super-neurotic setting, if you will.

A Stage Builder for step might be fun… Kind of like building a level on Elebits or the Stage Builder on Brawl, it would be fun to drag and drop the different elements (side steps, kicks, etc.) to make your own routine… and be able to choose from different songs (kind of like on Brawl, old school Nintendo songs would be fun to do the routines to, no?)

There was something else I was going on about the other night, but now I can’t remember. I’m sure it will come to me, though.

Oh, I remember… the Lotus Focus level… I would love to see that or some other mediation level be unlockable to have an unlimited amount of time or see something like the iTunes visualizer with some soothing meditation sounds or just quiet. I know I can do this on my own (duh) but I would like it to show me how much I move around, shift my balance, get antsy, etc. and I would like it to chart my progress for me.

In other news, another program I’m liking a lot is My Word Coach. I’ll have to write about that one later…

Are the Republicans trying to ride on the wave of pride leftover from the Olympics or something? Do they know they aren’t campaigning in China? It’s really weird to me to see all that chanting start up. Ummm, we’re all Americans here. I think no matter what side of the issues you are on, most of us just want what’s best for the country.

I don’t know, I think there are enough things that we disagree on that we don’t need to add a fake thing. It’s strangely alienating.

Now, I said I was going to talk more about politics, because it’s a pretty big part of life in this household. But… this is a conversation so large and complex, I just don’t think I can even begin.

I will try, though. I always think it must be nice for those people who are absolutely 100 percent sure of how they feel or believe about anything. I’m not that way. There are very few issues that are black and white for me. And there is no platform that I am 100 percent behind. I lean lately more toward the Democratic party not so much because of what they are but what they aren’t. And because of who I am right now. And because it’s one of the few two choices out there.

I think it’s really unfair that a candidate has to line up with a party so completely. There are very few say, Republicans that are pro-choice. Or Democrats that are against choice. A few. But it’s like so much hinges on that issue, for example. And if you believe the opposite way of how you’re “supposed” to for your party, it’s like you’re some kind of traitor instead of some kind of person who has come to a different conclusion about a thing. It’s like you’re forced into believing (or at least saying you believe) a certain way.

And I think that’s terrible. And it’s so terribly dishonest. And it makes the media coverage of things like elections or crises a big lie. You see these spokespersons and pundits up there one minute talking about how much they love McCain and think he made a great choice about picking Palin, and they’re all smiles and joy and bubbling with support. Then you go off camera and, Oops, open mic, and the story is completely different. They’re saying the exact opposite and slamming his choice.

And then there’s all this fakery about how we shouldn’t talk about Palin because she’s a woman, we shouldn’t talk about her being a mom. We shouldn’t talk about her kids. We shouldn’t talk about her pregnant teen. We shouldn’t question whether she can do both things. That’s anti-woman. Look how hard we’ve fought for blah blah blah blah.

No. Anyone who says we shouldn’t be discussing these things can just go on and stop talking about them. But for me, I will continue to talk about these things. Because some of these things are things we haven’t been talking about and quite frankly they are just the conversations we need to have. Can we, as women, as mothers, balance it all? Can we do it all? Are we superwomen?

I mean, you can continue to be a martyr if you want and you can say bring on the challenges. Bring on the adversity. Make it hard, as hard as you can. Don’t give me any slack just because I’m a woman or a mother. To that, I say NO. We do need to be protected on the job against discrimination. WHY? Because discrimination against moms happens. We do need privacy and more breaks for pumping milk. WHY? Because not everyone wants to feed their kid formula and because that’s how breastfeeding works. Supply and demand. We do need flexible work hours. It’s not a 9-to-5 world any more and why should it be anyway? It would help more than just moms, it would ease traffic burdens and energy costs, too. We do need flexibility about where to work. Because not every job requires my butt to be sitting in a seat in an office somewhere when I could be doing it (and probably even more efficiently) at home, thus reducing child care costs, etc.

So, with this Palin stuff, I am afraid that some people are going to get this idea that, WOW, here’s this powerful woman and she’s doing it all. How amazing. If she can do it, anyone can do it. She went back to work just days after having a baby. So you can back to work just days after having a baby. She got on the plane when her water had broken, so you can, too. She has five kids and is going to try and be the Vice President, so what’s your problem that you can’t work a few hours or 20 of overtime?

Know what I mean? And I’m sorry, she may have that small-town background, but make no mistake that what she’s doing now and what she’s been doing for the past few years is not at all middle class. I don’t know too many poor folks or even middle class folks that can afford a nanny and a housekeeper. I also know that most families don’t have kids spread out that far apart where the teens can take care of the babies and younger kids. Most of us do not have child care that is so flexible we could leave the house at a moment’s notice without completely disrupting our kids every time. Most of us do not have husbands that stay home with our kids.

Of all the women that I know with kids who also work, very few of them have husbands that do a significant portion of things like taking care of the kids or taking care of stuff around the house like cooking or cleaning. Certainly nothing like half of it even though they may be working as many or more hours than their husbands. There are exceptions to this, of course, but not an overwhelming amount. Not many of their husbands woke up in the night with their babies or do laundry regularly or sweep, mop, dust… and very few cook regularly, plan the meals or shop for the food. If the kids are sick and someone needs to stay home with the kids, most of the time it’s mom. If the kids need to go to the doctor, it’s probably mom that takes them. And this goes beyond just the people I know, too. I mean, my kid has tons of health issues, and when we’re sitting at the allergy shot clinic, it’s 98 percent moms with the kids. Ditto all the other doctor’s appointments. This is how it works in my neighborhood.

So, the expectation that moms are just so wonderful and they can do anything and they can balance and juggle it all… that’s all sweet and quaint. But it’s not true. There’s a lot of sacrifice in there and a lot of suffering and resentfulness and guilt and we need to keep talking about it so it can get better. Of course motherhood without having an outside job is full of times of sacrifice and suffering and whatnot, I’m just saying that we don’t all have to put on this stoicism and run around like a bunch of friggin’ martyrs when we can talk about it, hash it all out and figure out what can make it better for women and for their kids and families overall. For society overall. I know many of us would like a little more joy and a little less hardship and I think we can get that if we keep this conversation going and not act like it’s taboo or it’s going to collapse everything that women have worked so hard for. Give me a break. We’re still working hard. Palin is not evidence that we’ve arrived, by far. Hillary isn’t either.

So, in short, regarding the working mom thing, I don’t think that anyone should confuse what Palin is doing with what working moms are doing. Palin is making sacrifices that are above and beyond what should be EXPECTED of a working mother. I’m sure she’s doing it because she feels she has a calling that goes beyond what she feels called to do directly for her family. Don’t kid yourself, no matter what you hear in the media… She knows that she’s not giving her family 100 percent. The only way you’d be so clueless is if you were in complete denial. BUT, that’s not to say that she doesn’t feel that what she’s doing is going to provide an even better life for them, for their kids, for their kids and generations on… there’s something to be said about making sacrifices now for huge change for the future.

But for your average working mom, that’s not what’s happening. And the support network that Palin has in place does not one iota resemble what that everyday working mom has to contend with. And the EXPECTATION should not be the same. It doesn’t even compare. And of course I realize that you can work and still be a good mom. But I also know that you can work and be a mom who is doing her best but is still leaving a lot to be desired in the parenting arena, whether you realize it or not. And I realize, too, that sometimes, these are the sacrifices that have to be made because food has to be on the table and a roof has to be over your heads. But I’m also saying that not talking about it and pretending that everything is perfect and fine — that’s not going to bring about any changes.

We have come a long way, but we need to keep going. When I was growing up, for example, and I lived with my dad and step-mom… there were a variety of tough things going on. I had lots of emotional problems, my mom was an alcoholic and I couldn’t live with her any more after the divorce, we had a big family (13 kids) that was just full of drama all the time… I could go on and on. My dad would leave the house before I ever woke up. He would get home many times after I’d gone to bed. My step-mom worked a split shift as a waitress and would be in bed or getting ready for work when I got up to go to school and would sometimes work till late in the evenings and I wouldn’t see her either. They were so tired when I did see them that they hardly had the energy to deal with me. I was the baby of the family so I’m not sure they had the energy left to deal with me anyway. On the weekends, she would still work or they would do housework, yard work or do their own thing. My dad was obsessed with our ginormous yard. It looked like a friggin’ golf course. His battle with moles is the stuff of legend. When I came home from school and let myself in the door (from about 2nd grade on) I was responsible for myself. I could wake up in the morning and roll off the side of my bed between it and the wall and my parents would think I’d gone to school. I could then go play in the woods all day long. Maybe that’s typical for a teen to do once in a while. No, I was doing this from 4th grade on. In 5th grade, I was in the office almost every day getting swats and I never did my homework. I was so clueless in math, so behind in it that when I looked at my assignments it was like trying to read a foreign language.

OK… my parents didn’t even know 99 percent of this stuff. And half the calls they got from the school they just ignored. Were my parents neglectful? Absolutely. But then how much choice did they have then when they had to stay afloat and my dad was an criminal defense attorney and could not cancel people’s court dates and he always had to be somewhere meeting with a client… and my stepmom would lose her job if she took time off to deal with me. This was the reality. Were they good parents? Actually, no. They weren’t. That is also reality. There was no one for me to talk to about my problems. No one told me about my period. No one explained the world to me. No one cared for me. No one noticed if I didn’t take a bath for a month. No one helped me recover from failing grades. No one noticed I had asthma or allergies. No one was happy to see me in the morning or at the end of the day. Hell, half the time I didn’t even see anyone so wouldn’t know if they were happy to see me or not.

I try to be forgiving and understanding when I look back at that time, but it’s not easy, really. I look at the sacrifices and I’m not sure what they were all for. They weren’t for me. I didn’t need that big house or those 8 acres of land. I didn’t need fancy lighting fixtures or a giant pond or a new Ford Mustang or plastic surgery or 50 trees to line the driveway. I needed an inhaler, an antihistamine and some help with my homework. I needed someone’s time.

I realize that my upbringing may not have been the most typical, but I know I’m not alone. And the more Burby parents can argue that they do get to spend time with their kids and that they do meet all their needs. Awesome. And other parents will argue that they may not meet all their needs but that they try their best. WooHoo. And there are other parents who are trapped in an existence that is so bleak, working two or more jobs or working and going to school and barely making ends meet and I don’t know what they will say… And I don’t know what to say to them. But I do know that what I won’t say is, “Hey, shut up. We don’t talk about this issue. You suck it up and deal with it because you’re a woman and this is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

There are so many different levels here and to deny the level another person is on is just nuts. I realize I’m rambling at this point, but hey, like I said… it’s complex. And there is no black and white. And your life is not someone else’s life so you should reserve your meanness and harsh judgment… but you should never stop talking about it or scrutinizing it or rolling it over and over in your mind to try to figure out what it all means. Because there is no one truth to this all. And it’s certainly not anything at all like what you see on either end of the political spectrum. Take down your defenses and look deep down inside and think about what you really want for your life and what you really want for your kids, for your sons and daughters… for their friends and their friend’s mothers. And don’t ever stop talking about it.

I feel like today is the first day of something for me. First day at work. First day at school. First day of something. I finally feel relaxed. My kid started middle school and so far, he hasn’t had sex, joined a gang, failed the metal detector, smoked pot, skipped class, worn his pants so low that his underwear show, flipped off a teacher or otherwise taken part in any offenses that would land him in the office or hot water, been made fun of, shoved into a locker or been the victim of a swirly.

Not that I thought any of those things would happen, but those are my worst, most paranoid fears for 7th grade (or any grade, really. Haha). How do I arrive at all this craziness? Well, if I buy into the bit about kids doing stuff at a younger age than we were back in the day… The rebel years should start any minute.

I’m lucky, perhaps. My kid is a really great kid and we’re pretty open about discussing all this stuff. I didn’t have a lot of sound, solid adults to bounce my concerns off of when I was a kid, so I’ve always wanted to make sure that my own kid wasn’t flailing around in a sea of misunderstanding and confusion. At least not any more than already goes along with being a teen…

7th grade. I can’t believe it. It’s like he’s maturing every single day, too. I see so much difference in him even from just a month ago, and certainly much more than during his last weeks of being in 6th grade, which is still elementary school around here. I look at the kids at pick-up time, though, and I realize that he’s not nearly as mature as many of them. I’ve sheltered him a bit. I’ve kept his exposure to some things minimal. I question doing that some days. Other days not so much.

So far, though, I couldn’t be more pleased. He’s happy about his teachers. He’s interested in his classes. He’s bonded with one of his teachers and wants to stay after school talking to him. He’s so observant and talks to me every day about the things he sees and his take is so interesting. I am thankful for the time we have in the car, where some of our best conversations take place on the drive home after school. He really opens up. He’s not seeming anxious or nervous about anything and said to me yesterday, “I think I’m really gonna like this middle school thing.”

Phew.

So, now that he’s settled… I feel like I’m settled and I can get back to business.

Back to writing and working and being productive. Back to having moments to think. I feel relaxed today. This despite two cups of high-test coffee. It’s a little bit exciting at the same time. I feel like I need to go to Office Depot, though, and get some new school supplies. Nothing says “time to get busy” like a new pen.

—-

In other news… politics have been incredible lately. I don’t talk about politics too much because of the “work” site. I have my own personal beliefs, of course. Some are strong. Some are pretty liberal. Others are incredibly conservative. I took some quiz one time that identified me as both liberal and libertarian. I have my issues where I’m not going to be swayed and others that I have not fleshed out enough to say where I stand.

I think that a lot of folks are like that, no matter what you may be seeing on TV or reading on blogs or wherever. I think that this race for president is bringing out a lot of issues that people are arguing about, sure, but I also think that a lot of the “conflict” is going on within ourselves. I can only truly speak for myself, but I’m tellin’ ya — I’m thinking about issues and figuring things out for myself that haven’t ever come up before.

And the truth is, while I don’t usually talk about politics online because I work here and I don’t necessarily want my personal politics to be used for or against me in any way… and I want to be as unbiased as a person can be who is offering what mostly consists of advice rather than pure journalism… I have a lot to say about politics. I’ve been involved in this process. I’ve had relatives run for office and I have been to rallies, watch parties and the like. I’ve campaigned for candidates. I’ve dragged my sick, flu-ridden self to the polls to vote. I ran a friggin’ caucus here in Texas and boy was that a rush. I’m excited by the Democratic process. I like thinking about all this. I think that things are in a state of change right now and it’s really interesting to me to consider things I haven’t before. To be confronted by issues that I’ve never had the opportunity to consider and weigh.

Sometimes I hear my son say something and I think that he’s getting it from me. Sometimes it sounds extreme coming out of his mouth and that reflects on me. It gives me a chance to think about the context of how he heard me discuss that issue and how it came across to him. It gives me a chance to play Devil’s advocate and give him the other side of it. It gives me a chance to say I may not be right about everything and even that there may not be a perfect right or wrong way to think or feel about an issue.

More on this… because I am going to write about it. And this is my space, so I’m going to use it because I’m tired of remaining silent on these issues that are so important to me just because it’s such a charged arena. It’s so much more complex than that, and I have so much to say that some days I’m about to burst. And, too, I have so much more to work out for myself, and this has always been the place where I’ve done that. Do you remember what you told yourself, woman? That all this self-censorship was like cutting out and discarding a part of your brain? Yeah, I’m tired of that.