My final class for this semester was last night, at a brewery/restaurant. It had potential to be a great time as there are a lot of interesting characters in this particular course. Unfortunately I was the second to last person to arrive so I ended up in the cheap seats, just far enough away from the good conversations to be excluded from most of them. Sadly, it seems, this is the story of my life..Always on the fringes, just close enough to see the cool kids but just far enough away to be unnoticed. I'm sure it is my fault, I'm sure it somehow goes back to some deep self loathing that keeps me in a perpetual state of exclusion. I'm also sure that the fact that most of the time I am apathetic about my social status doesn't help elevate it in any way. Never-the-less, sometimes it makes me sad.
I've never been accused of being cool. I had some glory days in late elementary because I got boobs before everyone else, but the boobs were soon followed by a ridiculous growth spurt that left me taller than all my 5th grade teachers (I was known as Paul Bunyan from that point forward).
In seventh grade I had a short lived resurgence of cool just because I switched schools and the new kid is always popular for 5 minutes. They soon caught onto me too and I was once again relegated to the ranks of social mediocrity. High school was a blur (where I was re-nicknamed Amazon woman), I spent most of it in a "relationship" (with 3 different boys, not at the same time). And even though I would never have signed an abstinence pledge, my promiscuity was more myth than reality, leaving "coolness" elusive once more.
Then there was college....still uncool. I lived in an all female co-op for 2.5 years. I got along with most of the girls in the house, at least I thought I did, until I found out after I had moved out that everyone (almost everyone, I did make a few good friends) had either hated me or seriously disliked me... Boo freakin hoo, right?
Since then I've been married and breeding, and even still, have somehow managed to procreate a group that I am still excluded from. This house is definitely a boy's club, and since I lack the necessary equipment, I can only sit on the sidelines and watch. I get to be the utility player here, the one that makes it all happen, yet I'm never invited to the secret meetings where they must discuss how to find worms, aim farts, and come up with names for their balls.
Then there is always facebook where I get to see all my friends and family socialize with each other in ways, quite frankly, they just don't with me (nor I with them).
Like I said, most of the time, I really don't care. Even last night, about halfway through my 2nd beer, I decided I didn't want to hear about treks through Peru, or adventures on The Great Wall anyway. Who cares about travels to Vienna or conversations about national education standards? I had my pizza and beer and all was well with the world, well, except for swine flu and my secret, nagging desire to be one of the cool kids.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Misled...
I'm sorry, I know I've already established my nut-job status when it comes to the swine flu, but I am very annoyed with our CDC (and the news media).
There has been a death here in Houston from the swine flu. I keep hearing about it, reading about it, trying not to obsess about it, etc. etc. Then the CDC comes out with this report saying that the death may indicate that it is becoming more serious in the U.S. What most of the reports are leaving out is that this U.S. death is actually a Mexican child brought here for treatment.
Think about it, and if they are giving us all the facts how the hell was there a death in a city that was, until that point, unaffected????
Don't get me wrong it is still unnerving, especially since I have a 24 month old in my home, I am scared. BUT I would appreciate is some accuracy in reporting. I'd rather hear facts instead of scare tactics.
I'm a mom, I live in fear of what might happen to my family, I don't need any one's help with that. What I do need are facts and information.
If you listen carefully to the CDC they keep saying they fully expect to see more deaths, which may or may not be a result of an increasing viral danger. It may also be the result of looking a little deeper, finding cases previously unknown. You won't hear much about the latter because, well, it isn't scary enough!
Reports out of Mexico are scant if anything. I think the cases of flu there are now hovering around 1600 with 170 deaths. BUT if you look deeper you will find that many communities there have been experiencing this illness (with high rates of recovery) for several weeks (if not months). Even their "patient zero" lives in a community where 3000 people became ill. How did they come up with 1600 again???? Oh that's right because they aren't telling us everything.
Yes this flu is scary, so is the regular old flu.
Yes this flu is serious and contagious and sometimes deadly, but so is the regular flu.
Yes most people who get this flu will recover, as they will from the regular flu.
Yes this flu responds to antivirals, just as does the regular flu.
Enough already, I'm scared, the CDC has my attention, but I refuse to rely on the media for any accuracy in their reporting. I am now (as I suggest you should) reading the reports myself, and listening to people who don't have a vested interest in scaring the crap out of me to get me to watch their prime time news shows.
I can't allow anyone (read: the news media) to feed off my fear and vulnerabilities...
This is funny if you have 5 minutes to watch...
There has been a death here in Houston from the swine flu. I keep hearing about it, reading about it, trying not to obsess about it, etc. etc. Then the CDC comes out with this report saying that the death may indicate that it is becoming more serious in the U.S. What most of the reports are leaving out is that this U.S. death is actually a Mexican child brought here for treatment.
Think about it, and if they are giving us all the facts how the hell was there a death in a city that was, until that point, unaffected????
Don't get me wrong it is still unnerving, especially since I have a 24 month old in my home, I am scared. BUT I would appreciate is some accuracy in reporting. I'd rather hear facts instead of scare tactics.
I'm a mom, I live in fear of what might happen to my family, I don't need any one's help with that. What I do need are facts and information.
If you listen carefully to the CDC they keep saying they fully expect to see more deaths, which may or may not be a result of an increasing viral danger. It may also be the result of looking a little deeper, finding cases previously unknown. You won't hear much about the latter because, well, it isn't scary enough!
Reports out of Mexico are scant if anything. I think the cases of flu there are now hovering around 1600 with 170 deaths. BUT if you look deeper you will find that many communities there have been experiencing this illness (with high rates of recovery) for several weeks (if not months). Even their "patient zero" lives in a community where 3000 people became ill. How did they come up with 1600 again???? Oh that's right because they aren't telling us everything.
Yes this flu is scary, so is the regular old flu.
Yes this flu is serious and contagious and sometimes deadly, but so is the regular flu.
Yes most people who get this flu will recover, as they will from the regular flu.
Yes this flu responds to antivirals, just as does the regular flu.
Enough already, I'm scared, the CDC has my attention, but I refuse to rely on the media for any accuracy in their reporting. I am now (as I suggest you should) reading the reports myself, and listening to people who don't have a vested interest in scaring the crap out of me to get me to watch their prime time news shows.
I can't allow anyone (read: the news media) to feed off my fear and vulnerabilities...
This is funny if you have 5 minutes to watch...
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Snoutbreak '09 - The Last 100 Days | ||||
| ||||
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Pandemic issues.
Okay, I know what I am about to write could make me look like a complete nut-job....but I'm gonna write it anyway!!!
I CANNOT handle anymore Pandemic, Swine Flu news flashes. I just can't.... I'm a bit of a germ-a-phobe/hypochondriac and I'm pretty sure I've done enough Internet research, on rare but deadly diseases that may or may not be causing my (insert symptoms here) on any given day, to have earned an M.D. with honors!!!
I also CANNOT watch any Armageddon type movies or documentaries. I can't do it. I mean when Al Gore came out with An Inconvenient Truth, I was depressed for weeks, thinking I had brought three children into this world just in time to see the end of days. (Maybe I'm just a tad melodramatic too, as is evidenced by my husbands permanent state of eyeroll directed towards me.)
All these little idiosyncrasies about my personality in combination with the fact that I somehow sat through 2.5 hours of "Armageddon week" on the History Channel last weekend and am currently watching every last one of the latest news reports about the swine flu, has me in a state of psychotic frenzy. I keep having to talk myself down off the ledge.
This is happening in Mexico, I mean I can throw a rock from my house and have it land across* the border.
*of course, by "across" I mean approximately 400 miles away from the border, but you get my point.
In an effort to ease my mind I've been doing a little "research" on the 1918 flu pandemic. It is staggering to know that that flu killed 50million people world wide. Keeping it in perspective 500 Million people actually had the flu, which means 450,000,000 people lived through it. Now 10% is a very high death rate for a flu and from what I can tell the deaths were pretty fast, but still 9/10 is still pretty decent odds right? Not to mention the advances in anti-virals and modern medicine ,we may even have a better chance at surviving, right? Please say yes!!!
In all reality we will probably be okay, I know that logically, but the chance that something so totally out of my control could come into my house and take me away from my kids, or vice versa, just makes me C-R-A-Z-Y, and the media just eats this shit up. I keep waiting for some cheesy graphic with the sound effects of doom playing in the background to come up every time they talk about it.
I will try not to panic, I'll try to act (relatively) normal, but I can't promise that I won't stockpile canned goods and attempt to order a bio hazard suit and matching mask ! For now I'll try to be happy overusing my Purell.
I CANNOT handle anymore Pandemic, Swine Flu news flashes. I just can't.... I'm a bit of a germ-a-phobe/hypochondriac and I'm pretty sure I've done enough Internet research, on rare but deadly diseases that may or may not be causing my (insert symptoms here) on any given day, to have earned an M.D. with honors!!!
I also CANNOT watch any Armageddon type movies or documentaries. I can't do it. I mean when Al Gore came out with An Inconvenient Truth, I was depressed for weeks, thinking I had brought three children into this world just in time to see the end of days. (Maybe I'm just a tad melodramatic too, as is evidenced by my husbands permanent state of eyeroll directed towards me.)
All these little idiosyncrasies about my personality in combination with the fact that I somehow sat through 2.5 hours of "Armageddon week" on the History Channel last weekend and am currently watching every last one of the latest news reports about the swine flu, has me in a state of psychotic frenzy. I keep having to talk myself down off the ledge.
This is happening in Mexico, I mean I can throw a rock from my house and have it land across* the border.
*of course, by "across" I mean approximately 400 miles away from the border, but you get my point.
In an effort to ease my mind I've been doing a little "research" on the 1918 flu pandemic. It is staggering to know that that flu killed 50million people world wide. Keeping it in perspective 500 Million people actually had the flu, which means 450,000,000 people lived through it. Now 10% is a very high death rate for a flu and from what I can tell the deaths were pretty fast, but still 9/10 is still pretty decent odds right? Not to mention the advances in anti-virals and modern medicine ,we may even have a better chance at surviving, right? Please say yes!!!
In all reality we will probably be okay, I know that logically, but the chance that something so totally out of my control could come into my house and take me away from my kids, or vice versa, just makes me C-R-A-Z-Y, and the media just eats this shit up. I keep waiting for some cheesy graphic with the sound effects of doom playing in the background to come up every time they talk about it.
I will try not to panic, I'll try to act (relatively) normal, but I can't promise that I won't stockpile canned goods and attempt to order a bio hazard suit and matching mask ! For now I'll try to be happy overusing my Purell.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The Global Rich List
One of my Facebook friends posted this link. It shows where your income ranks you in comparison to the rest of the world, and gives a bit of perspective about how much we really have here in the US. Interesting!!!!
I am the 31,845,353rd richest person in the world, who knew???
Yes, I know I'm being a lazy blogger, but really, my brain is fried from the end of the semester stuff and job hunting.
I am the 31,845,353rd richest person in the world, who knew???
Yes, I know I'm being a lazy blogger, but really, my brain is fried from the end of the semester stuff and job hunting.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Now we know....
...what will happen to us if we lived out this occasional fantasy.
You know you've thought about it too, or is it just me and the crazy lady from New York?
You know you've thought about it too, or is it just me and the crazy lady from New York?
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Dear Miss California,
Dear Miss California,
If you are feeling cheated and discriminated against because of your political views, imagine what it would feel like to experience that just because of who you are....
Hugs and Kisses
If you are feeling cheated and discriminated against because of your political views, imagine what it would feel like to experience that just because of who you are....
Hugs and Kisses
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Blogger Interrupted
Since my blogging is being interrupted by my life and I have no time to say anything of interest or value, I figured this was a good time to share a blog I really like...
http://www.bloggerinterrupted.com/
Check him out and watch some of his videos, I think he could be my new best friend (in a totally non-creepy, non-cyberstalkerish kind of way)!!!
back to the grind.....
BTW, I changed my comment format since a few people were having problems responding. See if it works now, comment all you want just don't give me a complex I already have enough issues.
http://www.bloggerinterrupted.com/
Check him out and watch some of his videos, I think he could be my new best friend (in a totally non-creepy, non-cyberstalkerish kind of way)!!!
back to the grind.....
BTW, I changed my comment format since a few people were having problems responding. See if it works now, comment all you want just don't give me a complex I already have enough issues.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
The Senator's Response
You may recall that I wrote my senator a letter of disapproval recently over his over his "no" vote on the Lilly Ledbetter act. I am highly unimpressed with his response, in fact it makes me just a little nauseous, but regardless, here it is.....
Dear 2nd class citizen who should shut up and do the same job for less pay,
(I may have taken a liberty or two in the greeting but the rest is his (or one of his minions) writing.
Thank you for contacting me regarding pay equity in the workplace. As the father of two daughters, I believe it is important to protect women’s rights, especially in the workplace, and I appreciate having the benefit of your views on this matter.As you may know, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal for employers to adjust an employee’s pay because of their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Additionally, this legislation requires that any pay discrimination claims brought under the Civil Rights Act be filed within 180 days of the discriminatory employment practice. In 2007, the Supreme Court in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc., upheld the 180-day statute of limitations for pay discrimination claims filed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. I believe that victims of discrimination deserve their day in court; however, we must protect the rights of those who are discriminated against without creating a system that is subject to abuse. Unfortunately, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (P.L. 111–1), which was signed into law during the 111th Congress, is likely to jeopardize the right to a fair and speedy trial. P.L. 111-1 effectively eliminates the 180-day statute of limitation for discrimination claims, allowing employees to file claims for lost compensation decades after the act of discrimination occurs. As a former Texas judge, I know that justice often suffers when trials are delayed. The statute of limitations exists to ensure that trials are held while the event is still fresh in the memory and records of the victims of discrimination, the employers, and the witnesses. Finally, Congress must work to ensure that claims for discrimination are filed in a timely manner, while protecting the rights of employees who are unaware that they are victims of pay discrimination. For this reason, I cosponsored the Title VII Fairness Act (S. 166) which reaffirms the importance of a statute of limitations for filing discrimination claims, but also recognizes that, in some cases, a person may not know that they were a victim of discriminatory activity at the time. S. 166 was offered as an amendment to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and would have improved protections for employees against workplace discrimination. I am proud to have voted for this amendment, unfortunately, S. 166 was not included in the final version of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. I appreciate having the opportunity to represent you in the United States Senate, and you may be certain that I will keep your views in mind should S. 166 or other relevant legislation be considered during the 111th Congress. Thank you for taking the time to contact me.
Sincerely,
JOHN CORNYN
United States Senator
Dear 2nd class citizen who should shut up and do the same job for less pay,
(I may have taken a liberty or two in the greeting but the rest is his (or one of his minions) writing.
Thank you for contacting me regarding pay equity in the workplace. As the father of two daughters, I believe it is important to protect women’s rights, especially in the workplace, and I appreciate having the benefit of your views on this matter.As you may know, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal for employers to adjust an employee’s pay because of their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Additionally, this legislation requires that any pay discrimination claims brought under the Civil Rights Act be filed within 180 days of the discriminatory employment practice. In 2007, the Supreme Court in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc., upheld the 180-day statute of limitations for pay discrimination claims filed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. I believe that victims of discrimination deserve their day in court; however, we must protect the rights of those who are discriminated against without creating a system that is subject to abuse. Unfortunately, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (P.L. 111–1), which was signed into law during the 111th Congress, is likely to jeopardize the right to a fair and speedy trial. P.L. 111-1 effectively eliminates the 180-day statute of limitation for discrimination claims, allowing employees to file claims for lost compensation decades after the act of discrimination occurs. As a former Texas judge, I know that justice often suffers when trials are delayed. The statute of limitations exists to ensure that trials are held while the event is still fresh in the memory and records of the victims of discrimination, the employers, and the witnesses. Finally, Congress must work to ensure that claims for discrimination are filed in a timely manner, while protecting the rights of employees who are unaware that they are victims of pay discrimination. For this reason, I cosponsored the Title VII Fairness Act (S. 166) which reaffirms the importance of a statute of limitations for filing discrimination claims, but also recognizes that, in some cases, a person may not know that they were a victim of discriminatory activity at the time. S. 166 was offered as an amendment to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and would have improved protections for employees against workplace discrimination. I am proud to have voted for this amendment, unfortunately, S. 166 was not included in the final version of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. I appreciate having the opportunity to represent you in the United States Senate, and you may be certain that I will keep your views in mind should S. 166 or other relevant legislation be considered during the 111th Congress. Thank you for taking the time to contact me.
Sincerely,
JOHN CORNYN
United States Senator
Thursday, April 9, 2009
ugh!!
Ever since having my third child, my life has been out of control in one way or another. There just never seems to be enough of me to go around. I can never get anything done because someone is always needing something and I am the go-to person in our house. I kinda feel like I am in a never ending game of Tetris (yes I am that old) where as soon as I figure out how to make the pieces fit, new pieces start falling from the sky faster and faster until they all end up in a big messy pile. I'm sure there are moms out there that can handle 3 kids with ease and grace, but I'm not one of them. Someone always needs more of me than I have to give at the moment, and someone is always left out.
I was under the false impression that once I got my kids weaned, out of diapers and in school they wouldn't need me as much. I have found that reality is quite the opposite and my mind is full of worry over whatever issues my kids are dealing with at the moment. The thing that sucks the most about all of this is that my dear (no) sweet (eh) loving (Bleh) husband is totally unburdened by all of this. How is it possible that we live in the same house, produced the same offspring, and I am the only one losing sleep over my 8yr old's conduct grades, my 5 yr old's broken arm or the ever increasing possibility of my 2 year falling into our unattended pool??? Clearly the benefits of being a man extend beyond the ability to pee standing up!!!
I was under the false impression that once I got my kids weaned, out of diapers and in school they wouldn't need me as much. I have found that reality is quite the opposite and my mind is full of worry over whatever issues my kids are dealing with at the moment. The thing that sucks the most about all of this is that my dear (no) sweet (eh) loving (Bleh) husband is totally unburdened by all of this. How is it possible that we live in the same house, produced the same offspring, and I am the only one losing sleep over my 8yr old's conduct grades, my 5 yr old's broken arm or the ever increasing possibility of my 2 year falling into our unattended pool??? Clearly the benefits of being a man extend beyond the ability to pee standing up!!!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
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