Happy Darwin Day to me

I've been having a mid-life crisis of sorts lately.  Some would say I'm too young to have a mid-life crisis, but that's assuming that I live to be, like, 100.  My mother lived to be 53, so technically she should have had a mid-life crisis at 27.  From that perspective I'm way overdue.

The only thing I don't like about getting older, aside from my mind going, is that I suddenly have all this anxiety about losing my looks.  Until recently I didn't realize I had any looks to lose.  I thought I'd come to terms with the fact that I'm an average-looking girl who has to get by on her wits in this world.  Maybe it's the fact that I'm losing my wits that feeds my desperation regarding the other.  I don't know.  Well, I wouldn't, would I, because I'm getting stupider as we speak.  It's not fair, in any respect.

Yesterday I was taking Elvis to speech therapy, and I forgot how to get there.  I got off at the right exit, but I failed to immediately turn left, and a few moments later I was completely lost.  I had no idea what I'd done wrong.  I thought I'd taken the right exit, but maybe I hadn't.  Maybe I went one too far.  It was kind of hard to believe because I drive him there every Monday, and moreover, I had just been to the dentist that morning, which is right next door to his speech therapy, and I didn't have any trouble doing that.  I figured if I could just remember how to get to the dentist's, I would automatically remember how to get to speech therapy, but unfortunately I couldn't remember how to get to the dentist's anymore, either.  I knew that I could get there taking the same street that the rec center was on--the rec center where Princess Zurg took her ballet classes when she was seven years old--but I didn't find that working for me either, because what street was that again?  Was it this one?  Did I really take the wrong exit?  I didn't think so, but I must have, so I turned back and tried to retrace my steps--which, incidentally, is not something you want to do at 4 p.m., just in case you were wondering--but that wasn't working for me either.  Under ordinary PMS circumstances, I would have been screaming and cursing at this point, but I wasn't doing either of those things.  I was trying hard not to cry because, seriously, I have been driving this route every week since Elvis was three, and I've never had any trouble with it before, and now I literally did not know anymore where speech therapy was in relation to...anything.

The good news is that it only took six minutes, total, for it all to come back to me, but it was the longest six minutes of my life.

It was like that time I got down on the floor to change Girlfriend's diaper and forgot how to do it.  Usually I get down on the floor to change Girlfriend's diaper and forget that's why I got down on the floor.  This time I knew why I was there, but I couldn't figure out how to begin.  "So I'm here to change a diaper," I thought to myself, diaper in hand and wipes at the ready.  "What comes first, again?"

That only lasted about thirty seconds, tops, but it was still disconcerting.  Perhaps even you are disconcerted.  Or perhaps you yourself experience this about twenty times a day, in which case I'm sorry I brought it up because you're much worse off than I am.  I've only had these two incidents in, like, a year.  Twenty times a day I forget what stuff is called or why I walked from one end of the room to the other or why I turned around or what my husband's name is, but this business of forgetting how to change a diaper or how to drive my son to speech therapy--stuff that ought to be muscle memory by now--has only happened twice.  So it's not time for assisted living yet, but clearly that's where I'm headed, so I ask you:  If I lose my wits, exactly what am I supposed to fall back on then? 

It doesn't seem like this should be related to me dying my hair, and maybe it isn't, but all I know is that when my mind was young and spry, I didn't worry about gray hair or those permanent creases in my forehead that I got from furrowing my brow fourteen hours a day.  Do you realize that as I type this, I am attempting to ward off the signs of aging by raising my eyebrows as high as I can get them, i.e. in the opposite of the furrowed position?  Do you think that will help?

I am already dying my hair.  I own three tubes of lipstick, which is more than I've ever had at one time, and I might go through all of them in fewer than six years.  I am back to wearing eye make-up on special occasions, even though it makes me cry, which is kind of a counter-productive beauty regimen, if you think about it, but what does my brain know anymore?  I am still sort of planning to get braces.  A couple weeks ago I was thinking about getting my ears pierced, and for the last 48 hours I have seriously considered getting my boobs done.  I mean, why not?  I'm all done breast-feeding, and it would be nice to have some body parts that a bra could support.  Rephrase:  it would be nice to have body parts that a bra could fit.  You know, just for a change.

I'm not going to get my boobs done, of course.  I'm probably not even going to get braces.  Do you know what I was thinking on my way to the dentist yesterday?  I was thinking about how long it takes to do my hair in the morning.  Answer:  about two minutes.  Five minutes if I want to get fancy.  How improved is my appearance by combing my hair?  About ten times, minimum.  So why don't I comb my hair every day?  It is a mystery.

That is why I know I'm not getting braces.  I can't handle the pressure of spending two-to-five minutes on my hair everyday--I can barely manage to color my hair ever six to eight weeks--so how am I going to handle the responsibility of the detailed dental hygiene and orthodontal maintenance required by braces?  Even thinking about getting my boobs done--I'm just going to have to get them done again in ten years, so what's the point?  You see the extent of my problem.

Another problem with getting my boobs done is that every time I look at my fabulous new breasts, I will feel guilty about the fact that the money I put into them could have fed x number of families starving in another part of the world for x number of months.  (I don't have the math on me--I haven't researched the boob job that thoroughly yet.)

Of course, another potential problem that I haven't really explored is that I'll be so pleased with my fabulous new breasts that I'll want to show them to everybody I meet, which will introduce a host of issues I don't wish to discuss right now.

In a perfect world, women would be rewarded for their part in continuing the species by being allowed to keep either their bodies or their minds for the 30-50 years they have left on earth.  They shouldn't have to lose both.

Girlfriend Fun Facts!

1.  She is shy around strangers, but at home she is a total ham.  Still, there are times even at home when she'll seem to be "performing," but if she realizes that you're watching her, she'll run and hide--or alternatively, scream at you to go away.  Maybe she's not performing, but rehearsing.

2.  She still loves Thomas the Tank Engine, but she's picked up a new favorite show over the last year:  Dungeons & Dragons.  ::shrug::

3.  She'd rather sleep in the recliner than in her bed.  But she'd rather sleep in Mom and Dad's bed than anywhere else.

4.  She is four years old today!

And now for the flashback segment of the program...

When I started this blog, Girlfriend was not even born yet.  She was not even thought of, in fact.  She was sort of a theory, I guess, but mostly academic.  I had my hands full of one-year-old Elvis at the time.  Here is an excerpt from an April 2005 post, shortly after I found out I was pregnant:

The internet is such a useful tool.  I have found all kinds of information on treating nausea during pregnancy.  For example, I could do as one web site suggests and avoid those foods and smells which make me queasy.  [Slaps forehead]  Doh!  It also said I should just eat what I want when I want, and that my cravings won't steer me wrong.  Obviously not, since my cravings tell me it's good to eat Jell-O Instant Pudding cups morning, noon and night.  My cravings also just told me that a chocolate chip cookie would be good, too.  And it was.  I wonder what nutritional wisdom my cravings will come up with next. 

And another one, from October 2005:

Today I screamed so hard at my kids that I wet myself.

On a happier note, here is an excerpt from Girlfriend's birth story (posted November 29, 2005):

In the car the contractions were three minutes apart and lasting around 90 seconds.  By the time we found a parking space and hauled ourselves down to the maternity ward, they were even closer together.  "So you think you're in labor?" the triage nurse asked.

"Yes, I think so," I said, much too casually to convey the urgency of the situation.  She went to get a fetal monitor, and meanwhile I had this killer contraction and started screaming.  Just so we're clear, I do not recommend screaming as a coping mechanism for labor pain.  It is, in fact, the worst possible thing you can do.  I knew that already, but dammit, I really didn't want to be in labor just then, do you understand?  I wasn't thinking clearly.  Screaming did, however, get about four nurses running into the room, and everyone believed I was in labor after that.  I got my cervix checked again, and I was at seven centimeters, which wasn't good enough for me, because I really wanted to push the baby out immediately, but they had to rush me to an actual delivery room first, and my midwife was still en route.  Have I mentioned already that labor is very, very painful?

So everyone is rushing around getting ready for the delivery, anticipating the midwife's arrival, while I am breathlessly informing SD that I cannot do a natural childbirth this time, I really, really need something for the pain, I don't care what it is, but I can't stand it anymore–not in so many words, of course, but I think he got the picture.  We've been married a long time.

"What does she need?" the nurse asked SD.  "What did she just say?"

 "She said, 'Drugs, I need drugs.'"  (For some reason this was amusing to some members of the staff, because I know I heard laughter.  I heard it again a minute later when I was screaming stuff like, "Why did I do this???")

...

I can tell you, there is no better feeling in the world than that of not pushing a baby out of your body.  It's better than ice cream.  Better than hot fudge sundaes.  The contrast from one moment to the next is so, so very exhilarating.  SD said he wished he had a camera so he could capture the look on my face once the baby was born.  Apparently I give off a very arrogant vibe.  Like I'm the first woman ever to give birth and I just so freaking rock my own world.  I don't remember any of that.  I just remember loving the fact that it was over.

 It was at that point that I noticed this very nice Asian woman between my legs...

And on that note, I'll leave you all.  I have a house to clean and a cake to bake.

Travel and leisure

Stand up for your rights?

So the other day I saw this story about a 10-year-old in Arkansas who refuses to say the pledge of allegiance until everyone in this country has equal rights.  Or rather, I saw the headline of this story, but I didn't read the actual story because I'd reached my eye-rolling quota for the day.  (Another 10-year-old has discovered that America isn't perfect!  Alert the media!)  This morning, however, I heard a clip from a CNN interview with the kid and his dad, and it piqued my interest, so I decided to go back to the article and read it, assuming I could keep my eye-rolling under control.

So this 10-year-old kid, Will Phillips, decided he wasn't going to say the pledge along with his fifth grade class, for the above stated reasons, and the substitute teacher tried to make him stand up for it, but he refused.  This went on for a few days, and the teacher kept getting more cross with Will and started saying that his parents and grandparents would want him to stand and say the pledge, until finally young Will couldn't take it anymore and said to the teacher, "With all due respect, ma'am, you can jump off a bridge."

Shall I be frank?  Historically I have had mixed feelings about the pledge of allegiance, even after I became a red-blooded right-winger.  It has nothing to do with the pledge itself, which is a lovely sentiment.  It's an ideal, an aspirational statement.  I've always been a fan of America, even when I was a big sissified lefty, and I'm a fan of Old Glory and I even like "The Star-Spangled Banner," so sue me.  It's a free country, after all.  Anyway, no, I have no problems with the words in the pledge of allegiance, but the act of standing up and reciting a pledge to a flag has at times struck me as kind of...I don't know...weird.  Just when you really stop and think about it.  Like when you say a certain word a lot, all of a sudden it starts to sound weird, like, "Why haven't I noticed how weird this word is before?"  Okay, maybe it's not a shared experience.  Whatever.  I don't have strong feelings about it, but I'm sympathetic to people who don't want to do it.

So, fine, don't pledge allegiance to the flag if you don't want to.  That's not what stands out to me in this article.  What stands out to me is that the kid told his teacher to jump off a bridge--and that's the point where sympathy and I parted ways.  I wasn't there, so I can't say for sure if the teacher was really being a suckhead, or if that was just the kid's perception, but I'm willing to stipulate for the sake of argument that the teacher was being a suckhead.  It doesn't matter.  I'm against children mouthing off to adults, period.  That's unacceptable behavior, even if she was ticking you off.  It's not to be done.

Like Hillary Clinton, I believe that it does take a village to raise a child.  My children are living proof that it takes a village.  If it weren't for the village, we'd all be screwed.  That's why my kids, as much as I like to nurture their independence and feistiness, are not allowed to sass the village.  They're the kids, we're the adults, and that's all she wrote, amigos.  Believe me, I have tangoed with teachers and principals who treated my child unfairly, but we had our words behind the scenes.  The school functions in loco parentis, which doesn't work if kids get the message that they can talk to the teachers the same way they talk to their peers.  I got annoyed with teachers when I felt that they'd provoked Princess Zurg to anger--they were awfully dense and inflexible at times--but my consistent message to PZ was that she was not allowed to disrespect the teachers.  Even when the teachers were being suckheads, if she'd been disrespectful (or, you know, punched them), she had to apologize and take the consequences because children have to respect their elders--that's the rule.  I'm unreasonable and unmovable on this point.

I hope it's obvious that if a teacher is physically abusing a student, using racial slurs, or engaging in other behavior meriting termination of employment, that's another story.  I would really hate to have to write another paragraph on this.

So yeah, I was appalled that this kid's parents would support him telling his teacher to jump off a bridge and get the media involved so the media can fawn all over him for being such a clever little guy (he's so smart! he wants to fight injustice!) and on top of it have the chutzpah to demand an apology from the teacher for making their little boy angry.  Jeez louise, people.  Why don't you just homeschool him and get back to the village when he's ready to accept his Nobel Prize?

I'm not a fan of this family.

But that's just me.  I admit it, I'm a reactionary SOB (insofar as it's possible for a woman to be an SOB--there's really not a female equivalent of this yet, such are the limitations of the English language).  I'm sure some of you have a different point of view and y'all will probably share it with me--what are friends for?--but as long as we're sharing, let me talk about the other thing I was thinking.

When I was in high school, if I recall correctly, everyone was supposed to say the pledge of allegiance at the beginning of second period.  Most of the teachers I had didn't bother with it.  I had one who did, and he made it clear from the beginning that no one had to say the pledge and no one had to place his or her hand over his or her heart, but everyone had to stand beside his or her desk (and be silent, if they weren't saying the pledge).  The teacher, a former Marine, did not say the pledge himself and always had one of the class members lead it, but he did put his hand over his heart, so whatever that signified, I don't know.  His requirement for us all to stand didn't seem outrageous to me at the time, but I don't know how a Jehovah's Witness would feel about it.  We didn't have any Jehovah's Witnesses in our class, or if we did, they were all very rebellious because everyone stood for the pledge.  Not everyone said it, but everyone stood.  Maybe they felt silly doing otherwise after the teacher had been so reasonable about the other stuff, but regardless, that was how it was.

I understand that it makes more of a statement to remain sitting during the pledge of allegiance than to stand and just not say the pledge.  If you stand, people may not notice that you're not saying the pledge, and your little protest will be for naught.  If you sit while everyone else is standing, people will notice and really understand how much you hate injustice.  I'm not a legal scholar, so I'm not pretending I can speak authoritatively on the subject (unless you're a child, in which case, MY WORD IS LAW WITH YOU, SUCKA!), but it seems to me that it doesn't violate anyone's constitutional rights to require them to stand during the pledge of allegiance.  I say this because my there's-no-such-thing-as-an-ex-Marine civics teacher was generally one of the most laid-back cats you'd ever meet, and I would hate to think he was inadvertently being some rights-trampling Nazi guy.  Also, because I really don't see the rights-trampling.  All you have to do is stand.  If you're a Jehovah's Witness, I might make an exception, because that's your religion and I'm not an expert on what constitutes idol worship, but for people who just don't agree that our republic aspires to provide liberty and justice for all, I really think you can stand up and have your constitutional rights remain intact.  If you don't want to stand because you want to make a statement, fine, don't stand, make a statement--but I don't have much respect for a person who wants to practice civil disobedience without any consequences.  I mean, if civil disobedience is consequence-free, it's not really civil disobedience, is it?  It's legal, so it doesn't make a statement.  You may as well stand up.

Or, alternatively, you could bow.  That would really get the Man's attention.

Madhousewife is the Backtalk Czar for the Obama administration.

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