Driving spawn to school this morning (’cause apparently she’s done with being on time for the year), we heard this song.  I immediately go all verklempt.  I don’t know if it’s because the song is permanently connected to this incredible video.  Or if it’s because the song is so freaking powerful.  Or if it’s because I might have felt this way at some point (and who hasn’t).  Or if it’s because I have two daughters who are Perfect. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1bcQMCZ5gU

That part where she whispers, “why do i do that?”  It makes me gasp.  Every time.

When you talk
About yourself, you were wrong
Change the voices in your head
Make them like you instead

First time I watched it, I cried my eyes out.  Elder spawn came in to see what the heck I was crying about now.  I made her watch it too. 
So there’s the two of us, flooding- ’cause she’s as melodramatic as her mother- and maybe she can tell.    I think she can tell.  Sometimes I just stare at her.  Because she is perfect.

Pretty, pretty please
If you ever, ever feel
Like you’re nothing
You’re fucking perfect to me

And, for once, I chose to avoid the temptation to embarrass her publicly.  I waited until I got home to cry my eyes out.

(and I apologize again that I just can’t figure out how to link stuff right.  maybe someday)

so i was on campus yesterday and made the mistake of holding the door for a kid.  he greatly offended me with his nice manners as he said, “thank you, ma’am.”  for crying out loud, MA’AM?  i ain’t no freaking ma’am.

what the heck qualified me for ma’amitude anyhow.  is it because i was wearing clothes instead of pajamas?  was it the lack of uggs (that are so freaking ugly) or flip flops?  was it the lack of exposed tatas? (i was wearing a pretty virginal sweater.) i know it wasn’t gray hair, ’cause i hide that stuff thank you very much.  did i look purposeful?  did i look too alert? (believe me i wasn’t)  what was the neon sign that proclaimed me.  i need to know, ’cause i’m gonna smash it. 

sometimes i feel like i belong on my campus.  and it pissed me off that he was telling me i didn’t.

is there anyone on earth who thinks being called “ma’am” is a good thing?

the sun’s rays

peek through the damp leaves

drying the tears of a worried heart

warm, bright

like the girl

a promise

everything will be

as it should be

So I’ve discovered you can’t really take a picture of the moon.  Ok. I can’t.  Which I suppose is just fine.  Photography not my thing anyhow.  What you can’t see from this picture was amazing.  The moon itself had those very cool and clear dark patches (and was coincidentally the same moon from my car fire/foot long caterpillars and alien invasion dream- but that’s another story.)  Then a ring around the moon which you can almost see in this boring photo.  What you can’t at all see was the second ring and the clouds shifting the image.  Yea, ok.  Guess you had to be there. 

And maybe you were.  Because I was quietly singing “somewhere out there” in my head and having contemplations about shinyness and cosmic connections and stuff.  You may point and laugh.  It’s ok.

150 year old oak tree from across the street.  It dumps leaves for fabulous leaf piles, keeps the squirrels very busy, and is generally just a tribute to how fleeting we are in the scheme of things.

There.  I figured out how to stick in photos.  Now I’m like everybody else.  Yea, me.

I have trouble with asking questions I really don’t want the answer to and making statements that leave people no choice.  It’s a long term bad habit.  One I’d like to break.  Really.

Once when I was a snotty, obnoxious teenager I did the worst thing ever.  I have no idea what provoked it, but I called my mother a bitch.  She probably told me I couldn’t go somewhere I wanted to go or do something I wanted to do or buy something I wanted to buy.  Because she was that kind of horrible mother.  Always present.  Always caring.  Always wanting me to make good choices.  So I called her a bitch as I stood there in her kitchen.  Next thing I knew I was on the floor.  My mother is not a violent woman, my father was the disciplinarian back in the time when physical punishment was still the norm.  I don’t think it was divine intervention that put me on the floor, but I have no recollection of the physical act that did.  I do remember feeling absolute sorrow.  I remember feeling very, very small.  And lucky for me, forgiveness must have been there, because this was some 30 years ago and my mom and I are still pretty darn close.  Do I need to say that I never called her that again?

Fast forward a decade or so.  I’m living in the outskirts of hell.  Newly married, husband in college, living outside DC in a crappy apartment that I had to pay for by working two jobs (neither of which in my chosen field).  It’s Christmas Eve (or possibly 2 days before Christmas).  In any case, I’m the on-duty management in a fabric store for crying out loud and this man knocks on our locked door desperate to return some glue or something.  The lights were out.  In the building and in my head.  I let him in, because I was that kind of naive.  Well, obviously, he wasn’t there to return glue.  This skinny man forced us 3 woman back into the office with the safe.  And when I say forced, I really mean told.  I’m suddenly wondering why I didn’t just take him down.  But anyhow.  He convinced us politely to go back to the office (and he knew how many of us there should be) and told me to open the safe (which obviously shows that he knew who was in charge too).  This is where I got brave and just stood there.  I might have said something too because he whipped a tool out of his pants.  It was a crowbar.  And then I just got stupid and said “what are you going to do, hit me with that?”  Well, yea.  At that point he was and did.  Because what else could he do?  In for a pound.  There I am, blood gushing out of my head, thoughts of stupid spinning about, and he looks like he’s thinking pretty hard about taking another swing.  My desperation must have changed his mind- I surely said something about not being great at opening the safe without a headwound (which was very true).  Anyhow.  So he got his paltry winnings at the pre-Christmas fabric store lottery.  I took a ride in an ambulance to get staples in my head.  One of the other employees quit, one did not.  We were all a little jumpy for a while. It was a lot of years before Christmas Eve Eve was an ok time and before my heart didn’t pound a little bit when I saw a black man.  (for which I am equally ashamed)

A little side note about that.  I met a lot of bigwigs from the company for a year or so after that and they all thanked me and knew who I was.  Which really was a little embarrassing, because number one it was godawful stupid and number two, I really didn’t do it for the company.  I had only a passing interest in the company.  I took on that skinny, desperate man because it PISSED ME OFF.  I was working my ass off, maybe 60 hours a week just trying to get by.  And this stupid shit thought he could take an easy route.  It just pissed me off.  And my being pissed off didn’t do me any good and put a couple people in real danger.  I always kind of wonder what I would have done if he’d had a gun.  Not all that unlikely within spitting distance of DC.  Then again, this poor, desperate man surely didn’t have the money or even the hutzpah for a gun.  If he’d been big time, he wouldn’t have robbed a freaking fabric store.  They never caught him, which at the time might have made me a little mad, but I wonder if maybe, just maybe, the crazy girl who took on the crowbar, led him to re-evaluate.

Yesterday I said to elder spawn that when I’m in a silly happy mood, I’m obnoxious.  She said that it’s better than when I’m bitchy.  Mighty true.  Probably why I’m thinking about the whole incident with my mom.  And you know, I didn’t correct her language or anything because she most definitely was speaking the truth.  And she didn’t call me a name, she was speaking to my behavior.  Completely different.  And then 5 minutes into the conversation, she said that I’m not obnoxious.  Too late, girlfriend.  But I wonder, what is it about a silly happy mood that results in bad choices?  Because that’s true too.  I say stupid things.  I do stupid things.

The worst decision of my adult life happened in a silly happy mood.  I chose poorly (to paraphrase or possibly quote an Indiana Jones movie).  The aftermath kinda felt like that Nazi getting sucked into oblivion too.  I made a comment on Facebook at the time saying that I wish life had an “undo” button.  A wise, wonderful friend simply commented “U turn”.  I cried, wishing that that were possible.  I’m mostly over that now.  But recently found myself heading down that path again.  I found some wise words from someone I don’t even know, but a very real living person, that helped me realize what I was looking for and that I wasn’t driving the right direction to get it.  And I executed a very real U Turn.

So it is actually possible that I do learn, that I am paying attention, that my head and heart will lead me where I need to go.  That I’m looking at the map.  Sometimes I may misinterpret the map and go on a side trip that may keep me from reaching my destination, but it’s up to me to decide if that side trip is an ok thing or not.  Sometimes the places we find by accident are very cool.  But sometimes the places we find are not. 

Long Beach Island, New Jersey.  It’s the perfect beach location.  Especially the northern part with the private beaches.  Just the right kind of crowded (other people, but not too many).  Beautiful sand, surf.  Sometimes dolphins, rarely jellyfish.  Always go with friends and my wacko people.  We sing as we jump waves.  I embrace my inner child in the water and have no sand digging duties.  Missed it this year.  A lot.

I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too!

My youngest was completely desperate to do Girl Scouts this year.  yippee.  I’m sure Girl Scouts is a perfectly lovely organization once you get past needing to sell your soul and lots of overpriced cookies to support a gluttonous parent company that is more interested in lining their pockets than making sure that girls have a fun experience.  After all, it’s the troop leaders who are responsible for the experiences, rather than GSA.

Why am I so yucked out by Girl Scouts?  A mere 6 years ago, the other spawn was desperate to do Girl Scouts.  She had friends, I had friends, sell cookies, have fun, what’s the problem.  Well, the problem was that my two friends instigated a coup for cripe’s sake.  A Girl Scout Coup!!  Between each other.  Naturally I’m in the middle, the girls suffered, it was just bleeping ugly.  I had planned a pile of badge junk to do under the encouragement of friend L, let’s call her Lying Sack of Shit, to help out stressed friend P, let’s call her Psycho Nutjob.  Well, when L went to headquarters to get P thrown out as troop leader, in addition to wanting me to “testify”, she also tossed my piles of badge junk to the curb.  In a sense saying that my time/energy was good enough under the P regime, but not good enough under the L regime.  And then has the nerve to ask me to chaperone the Girl Scout trip as a driver.  And to lie to me about where we were going to stay(yes, some people might read the directions before the rest stop and therefore not need to have a confrontation in front of Sheetz.)  I’m not holding a grudge.  Much.  In any case, L has moved back to where she belongs and P is still a casual friend since our daughters are still casual friends.  And I thought that my Girl Scout experience could be called complete, finished, done.  B’bye.

Until little one is so desperate to do it that she might actually have said something about cleaning her room and taking a bath voluntarily.  So we’re in.  First meeting we get the dreaded sales packet.  Fine.  I pulled out my checkbook.  We’ll order some shit.  I paid for membership.  I paid for Camporee next weekend.  I paid for the badge thing later this month.  I’ll buy her a stupid overpriced vest or sash or whichever darn thing she wants.  And I will sell freaking Girl Scout cookies in February with a smile on my face.  I thought my checkbook would be enough interaction with Girl Scouts. 

Except not so much.  Three weeks in and I get an email from the troop leader.  Can you please _____, because you know you’re going to volunteer at some point?  Yup.  She’s right.  Four years of being on PTO together and she knows that I will say yes.  Actually, she knows that I will not even wait to be asked.  I will raise my freaking, stupid hand. (which is why I don’t go to PTO meetings anymore)  Oh, shit.  I’m going to end up asking her if she needs a cookie mom.  Somebody disconnect my internet.

Fine.  We’ll give this Girl Scout thing one year.  Next year, little, loud one will be too busy in middle school to do girl scouts.  And I will again say b’bye.

I loved the 80′s.  Big hair. Even leg warmers (not that I wore them, mind you).  And the music was totally the best.  I danced my way through the decade (not anything you’d have wanted to see, but it sure was fun.) So when I heard the Rolling Stone readers voted on the worst songs of the 80s, I was sure I’d have something to say about their choices.  And I do.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/photos/readers-poll-the-10-worst-songs-of-the-1980s-20111006/1-starship-we-built-this-city-0260875

The hoppy songs department is well-represented on this list.  The video for Wake Me Up Before You GoGo has absolutely ruined this song for me forever.  The only thing mildly redeeming is the glow in the dark lips.  But that’s just me.  Don’t Worry Be Happy was the Hakuna Matata of the 80′s.  That’s all I have to say about that.  Mickey.  Fun to make fun of. There are a couple songs I’m ambivalent about so you can make your own comments.

Never Gonna Give You Up, in the worst song list?  Denied!!  It’s catchy, has a great meaning, and is sung by an adorable fresh-faced ginger with a big voice.  Probably helps that I didn’t know what a rickroll was until a few month’s ago (because I live under a rock.)

Safety Dance.  Any song that silly and perky can’t be all bad.  And it includes this: And you can act real rude and totally removed and I can act like an imbecile.  I don’t need to be told twice.

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