Haven't the Slightest...

wah-NAH-nuh...

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:07:03 GMT

Guess who's back?

Back again.

Phantom Poop.

Tell a friend.

PAHAHAHAHAHA

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:35:06 GMT

This is the funniest damned thing I've seen all week.
Thanks, Gypsy, for sharing.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=T4_MsrsKzMM

A Blog of One's Own

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:45:44 GMT

Although I'd lie and say that my blog has aspirations of becoming some great memoir, it's honestly just a sounding board for my thoughts and life. In light of recent events, it's become evident that in order for me to continue my journal in such a tradition, I'm going to have to make a lot of my upcoming entries "Friends Only" with an added filter to keep from sharing dirty laundry with the world. Even though I'm severely pissed at a specific person, the hurt he's causing has to do with people that I love and respect very much and they don't deserve to have me broadcasting our struggles publicly.

Anyway, being that my blog is exported to a few networking sites, I really wanted to just give a "heads up" to those remote readers who tune in from time to time to let you guys know what's going on. If you'd like to be included, you can always sign up for a free livejournal.com account and I'll put you on the filter list, but I can't imagine anyone being that hardcore of a fan of my ramblings.

Just for the sake of clarification, Greg and I are still doing wonderfully and he's been incredibly supportive and loving through everything. He's encouraging without being enabling, he lets me sound off to him without letting me become obsessed, he's keeping me in a healthy realm and I'm very very grateful he's in my life right now. We'll be okay.

Complete and Utter Bullshit.

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:10:04 GMT

Fuck.

Pissed.
Hurt.

Sobbing.
GODDAMMIT.

Devastated.

Changed. Everything's changed.
I wish I could unlearn it.
I wish I could go back to blissful oblivion.

Fuck.
FUCK

FUCK YOU.

Appalled.
Devastated.

Confused.
[:::Nods:::]
confused.

Fuck.
FUCK.

Goddammit.

Cooler than cool.

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:30:48 GMT

I know I'm probably crazylate on this, but ColorWar 2008 invites people to find a picture from when they were younger and recreate it as they're older to some really cool results.

Here are some of my favorites:

NOTE TO SIBLINGS: WE WILL BE DOING THIS AT AN UPCOMING GATHERING! BE PREPARED!

Many Blissful Returns...

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:11:10 GMT

My darling Chloe,

A lot of utter bullshit has happened to your mommy in her life. While some of it snuck up on her, a lot of it was instigated and perpetuated by herself [for reasons she'll explain much later]. Whatever the case, there's been a lot of crap to wade through and thus, she's turned into this hyper-self-critical, ever-analytical, worrisome, obsessive Woman In Recovery who dwells so deeply in her need to "fix" every single aspect of her life - both past and present - that it's hard for her to sit back and just enjoy the ride for once.

However, no matter what anyone has ever said to her or about her, no matter what anyone has ever done to her, no matter what she berates herself about and doubts in herself, no matter what crazy instance the Universe hurls into her immediate life that throws off her center and serenity, all it takes is for you to look up into her eyes and smile and she feels all the validation she will ever need.

Your first six months have easily been the happiest of my entire life. Between you and your father, I cannot fathom any human receiving more love within her family as I and it makes me work harder every day to stay worthy of such a divine blessing. Thank you for everything you are and everything you let me be.

Happy Half-Birthday, Bear!

Much love and light,
Mommy

Name.

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:54:52 GMT

Being that I honestly thought I'd never get married and have children [much less, be happy with that conventional lifestyle], I didn't really stop to consider this whole name changing tradition as a reality for myself. Nonetheless, when Greg proposed last year, I just slid into the notion that I'd be hyphenating my last name... and nothing has occupied my mind with such long-standing intensity as that choice. I've thought about it every single week and talked about it with Greg for months now.

The thing is, hyphenation just makes so much sense. No matter how long I'm married to Greg, I'm never going to be a Schultz, much like he's never going to transform into a Pardue. We're merging the two families together to start our own sect, so why not hyphenate?

Well, first there's the argument that everyone's doing it and it's pathetically trendy. Yeah, gross. And then there's the question of "What if your child marries someone with a hyphenated last name as well?" (So, let's say she becomes Chloe Pardue-Schultz-Zeta-Jones.) That could get really complicated very quickly.

Okay, the truth behind my dilemma is not my personal arguments with name-changing, but it is, in fact because I care so deeply for Greg. Even though he agrees with my points about hyphenation making sense and two people in a couple should meet in the middle on every front, he still carries a good deal of tradition with him that he values. Just as I would never pressure him to change his name, he won't ask me to change mine, but I know that changing my last name to just "Schultz" would make him very very happy and I can't pretend that his emotions on the subject don't affect me at all. He's resigned himself to the fact that I'm hyphenating, but, in our conversations about it I can tell that he still believes that it's somehow "keeping one foot out the door" by not changing my name altogether.

Here's a stripped-down version of one such conversation, for example's sake.

Him: I would be really happy if you took my name.

Me: But I am taking your name.

Him: You know what I mean. If you made my last name your last name.

Me: But your last name will be a very big part of my last name.

Him: But you're still hanging on to your family's name.

Me: Well, you're still hanging on to your family's name.

It gets even more cyclical and redundant from there and the frustrating thing for both of us is that even when I shoot logic holes into the tradition aspect of his argument, it doesn't change his sentiment about the situation.

Which is really what my worry and concern boils down to in the first place. If I was to look to logic to influence all my decisions, I wouldn't get married at all, so obviously I've accepted human sentiment as an active participant in my decision-making process. I stand strongly behind my decision to hyphenate my last name as a sign that I respect and treasure my family and background yet want to integrate a life with someone new into my identity. This makes sense to me. This feels right in my heart.

Ideally, I'd like for Greg to do the same so that we've met in the middle and can genuinely share the same last name as a family, but just as my name change is my prerogative, his name is his. While I constantly reconsider my hyphenation choice out of worry that Greg will somehow grow to resent me for it (although he swears it's not nearly as big a deal as I've made it), I also know that I cannot disregard my personal values for someone else. Compromising is one thing, as all healthy relationships have to incorporate this practice at some point [and I think that's what hyphenation is, isn't it?], but to totally disregard or ignore one's feelings on anything is never healthy as someone will always feel short-changed.

I think this is going to have to be another lesson about living my life and not trying to control others' reactions.

* Can I just say - for the record - how nice it is to be in a relationship where a disagreement over a last name is the biggest problem between us? Seriously, what a luxury.

So...

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:45:40 GMT

In other news:

~ Chloe's having her Half Birthday tomorrow. I promise not to get hyper-sentimental and drivelly [agaaaain], but we're planning a little mini-party for her with just the three of us and some cake. Pictures to come, of course.

~ We're inching slowly toward order in the new house. While we still have a few here-and-there boxes, we're hoping to have everything sorted by this evening and can start with the side projects this week, such as staining the dining room set and building an entertainment center. We're hoping to have a small open-house get-together (we're thinking a Bring Your Own Beef party where we grill and provide drinks and side dishes) for our friends and family toward the end of the summer, but I'm sure that with the upcoming wedding, various visitors coming to town, the sex-toy/lingerie/bachelorette party my sister's planning, the bachelor party I've commissioned Greg's friends to, and general family-style mayhem, something like that may not happen for a while. However, as the house comes together, I promise to update with pics.

~ Mom's coming home from Africa in a couple days which means I'm spending this afternoon trying to restore a little order to her house. Incidentally, she's arriving a few days before our family's annual July 4th Extravaganza, so I feel inclined to print out flyers for distribution and pull some weeds in the front yard and kinda tidy up a bit to ease my mom's stress level upon her arrival as best as I can.

~ So, we've all heard about this supposed Pregnancy Pact by now, which is mind-boggling and temper-flaring and faith-challenging and indicative of the Second Coming and all that noise. (I love it when people blame movies and Jamie Lynn Spears for their kids being complete idiots, by the way. I can't wait until Chloe gets to go to school with these people's kids. Can't. Wait.) But what I really love is when the media does something boneheaded and then blames the media for making a mistake. For instance, this whole "pregnancy pact" thing got started with the principal of Gloucester High saying that it seemed too coincidental and that these girls were high-fiving each other more than being freaked out about it, and the media just ran screaming their own conclusions that really sounded more like high school rumors than hard evidence. (I love that one report stated that one girl had supposedly slept with a homeless guy. How 10th-grade-Girls-bathroom is that?! Did the principal find it scribbled on the wall in lipliner?) Then, as they took the time to actually investigate the situation, it turned out that only 8 girls were actually pregnant and nobody had even really heard about something like a pact and the principal might be a little bit of a giant wank and might have no idea what he's talking about in the first place. So they blame "the media" for causing confusion when technically, they were the ones that broke the false story to begin with.
Ahhhkay...
It's like when paparazzi and media sources like People and Inside Edition won't leave celebrities alone and then get on the air and say "The media's gone too far!! Why can't they just leave people alone!?!" I don't know, why can't YOU leave people alone? It's like they think if they call everyone else the "media" then it somehow negates them as such as well. ::sigh:: I don't understand.

(I mean, I know I tend to obsess and maybe beat myself up a lot for my faults, but Christ, at least I'm willing to admit when I'm just wrong. It's called "humility". I tend to consider myself a little emotionally immature as I only just started having healthy relationships in the last couple years and haven't been practicing sanity as long as most people, but "humility" really seems like a painfully elementary notion to me that everyone else should just "get". It seems second nature to me that humility is a great characteristic that isn't indicative of weakness and makes you a better person and all that and I'm recently becoming shocked at how many people out there still don't effing get it. And[, to further abandon my pursuit of humility momentarily,] maybe I'm not quite as emotionally retarded (I mean that term literally, by the way) as I'd assumed.

I know..
"The proud man can learn humility, but he will be proud of it."
- Joseph Priestly

"Humility is a strange thing. The minute you think you've got it, you've lost it."
- E.D. Hulse

... Back to taking my own inventory instead of others'.)

Pregnancy Hauntings

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:42:02 GMT

Note to Self: Under NO CIRCUMSTANCE should a pregnant woman register for wedding gifts without immediate supervision.

This realization comes about as I am scrolling through my selections at Crate and Barrel and realizing that maybe my hormones weren't quite as covert as I enjoy believing because seriously... what the hell?

Which leads me to the

Other Note to Self: Just because they make it in brushed nickel, doesn't mean it's a good idea in general.

-------------------------------------------------

In other news, Kanye West is whining again and this time I'm laughing because his show got pwned (as those crazy kids like to say) by Pearl Jam. Aaaaahhhahahahaha.

Broke Into The Old Apartment...

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:46:20 GMT

Because we've been able to pay rent on two places at once, we've been in no hurry to get out of the apartment completely in our move to the house, which might've saved our sanity more than we can recognize at this point. However, this has resulted in our moving process taking an entire month of running carloads of various posessions and sorting and discarding and all the extraneous moving yackety schmack.
Today Greg finished cleaning the apartment [in a final desperate attempt to salvage our deposit, although with the chaos Benny wreaked on the blinds, I'll be shocked if we don't somehow owe the company more money] and I'm secretly elated I didn't have to go back.

Ugh, it does get exhausting to be so insanely sentimental all the damned time. A few weekends ago we were gathering and packing in between keeping an eye on the bear at the house when I found myself alone in the apartment with my inevitable reminiscience tugging at my sleeve.

This room is where I first went into labor.
This is where we put our first Christmas tree.
Remember that crotchety old man who sold us the bed and helped us move it in?
Remember we sat on the balcony last summer and talked for hours while the sun set on the lake?

I sighed, exasperated at my inherent need to overanalyze every situation. "It's just a space," I told myself. "It's just an apartment that we used for a year."

This is where you slept on the crappy futon when your massive belly wouldn't let you sleep.
Remember the day Greg came in and couldn't contain his smile when he got the new job?
Remember when he first surprised you with lilies from that florist up the road?

I always tell people I'm not as giddy and excited about the wedding as I am about the marriage, which is really true. The wedding will be special and meaningful, but it's definitely not going to be the "best day of my life"; I hope there's more to stick around for after that. I'm excited about getting old with Greg and watching our kids grow up and having family vacations and watching each other grow and change. I love sitting around talking about where we want to travel or what dreams we have for our personal careers and I'm excited about the life we're going to have together.

This is where you giggled until the middle of the night in conversation together.
This is where you two mastered the art of bathing the cat.
Remember that drunken bass player who drunkenly played "Down on the Corner" and "We Need the Funk" repeatedly at 1 AM?
This is where he let you keep the thermostat at 65 in December because he knew you were puffy and uncomfortable.
This is where he took beautiful pictures of your pregnant body for just the two of you.

When Greg and I moved in together in June 2007, everything was so harried and uncertain. We knew we were in love, we knew we wanted to be together and give our unborn daughter the best life we could, but everything else was a vast, terrifying blur.
In all the chaos and hormones and learning about each other, I never stopped to realize that we were, at that time, beginning our lives together. I kinda assumed that it would "start" when Chloe arrived or when we got into a house or when we moved away from Myrtle Beach or when we got married. It seems really elementary from where I stand now, but I didn't realize the significance of what moving in with Greg really meant. Maybe it was the habit of being in relationships that worked their way to an inevitable demise or maybe it was just that I was preoccupied, but I just didn't think this far ahead.

This is where he listened to your discomfort-fuelled 3AM breakdown.
Remember how the walls seemed to close in as you amassed baby accoutrement?

It feels like nothing's changed when obviously everything has. I still have this ridiculous crush on this man in that I still giggle when he sends me texts during the workday and I still feel a flutter in my chest when he wraps an arm around me as we drift off to sleep. Somehow, despite our complete irreverence and silliness, we've grown more intimate, with our conversations becoming more self-explorative and expositionary. Somehow we're ecstatic with staying in for evenings of homemade dinners and going to bed at 10:00 even though we're in our early 20's. Somehow we've integrated a new little person into our lives in such a way that we can't remember how we functioned without her.

This is where you first tucked your tiny baby girl into bed and slept independently as a family.
This is where she first smiled when she recognized your faces.
This is where you held each other after the Wal-Mart incident and the in-laws incident.
This is where you first forgave each other.

I know we won't be married until September when I tell some Hawaiian minister that I want to devote myself to Greg forever. But years from now when we sit and reminisce about lives, we're going to remember our first year in our small two-bedroom apartment and all the triumphs and challenges we met in what seemed like such a brief moment.

This is where you started being a family.

I've never felt such joy at the end of something so wonderful.

YEEEAAAAHH BOYYEEEEE!/Not so much

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:18:06 GMT

Things That Excite Me as of Late

I'm back in the 160's!!!!!!
Every time I reach a milestone in my (very gradual) weight loss, I can't help but think "I never thought I'd be so excited to be this weight." Like yesterday, for instance. I go for a 6 am walk/run, take a shower, hop on the scale and am elated to see the number settle at 169. Yah, it's still 34 lbs. away from where I want to be by September 20, but dammit, it's 36 lbs lighter than I was in late January and it's 10 lbs. lighter than I was when I got pregnant to begin with, so YYYEEAAAAHHH!!!!!.

Making baby food is cheap!!
$2 for a giant bag of baby carrots that will feed Chloe for two weeks really outweighs 50 cents for a jar that will feed her once. So I'm taking two hours every weekend to boil fresh carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, squash, to blend them along with a few various fruits and the time spent is easily worth the money saved. 'Cause I'm broke.

We WILL be registering for wedding gifts
We'd thought that not inviting people to our wedding and then asking for gifts seemed rude and tasteless, but after hearing from numerous tasteful friends and relatives that they'd prefer to bring gifts to our small backyard pig pickin'/reception, we've decided to go ahead and start a small registry of linens and a few here-and-there's. We're not going to go over-the-top, although we're entirely tempted to and have found that Crate and Barrel must be run by Satan's minions with their endless temptations. However, we really have everything we need but a few sets of nicer-sheets-than-we-can-afford and supersoft towels aren't asking too much, I don't think.

They gave Pam Anderson her own reality show!!!

I don't get into reality TV so much now that we're in the new house and there are countless things to do and get done. And also, I know it's nuts but I love the broad. She's aging rapidly, she hangs out with the beloved Courtney Love, she has the worst taste in men imaginable, she totally laughs at herself and she's smoking hot. What's not to love?
(I collect magazines she's been in and love her to pieces, although for the record, I am in the Carmen Electra FanClub. I love the bombshells, but I have allegiance to brunettes. Plus the girl at least has a little singing/dancing talent to fall back on.)

I'm tenatively starting a number of side projects
Thanks to a fellow blogger friend, I'm diving into the world of whoring myself out as a pro blogger. I feel like the market is swamped but I also feel like this place has helped me produce enough pride-worthy entries that I can start using myself as my own resume and not flop too terribly. Additionally, I'm working through enough pieces that I can start sending submissions to publications like a fiend.
Also, a few years ago, I had an idea for a small company with a cute little design I doodled. I started a Fat Bottom Girl Cafepress Store to test out my marketability and, although I've left it alone for the last three years, I've still turned enough of a profit from the site to keep it in my consciousness. So I'm going to make a couple bulk purchases from a different merchandiser and sell a few things in a local shop. I'll be sure to update as things work out, but my secret dream is to start a Blue Q type company that gets featured in little shops and boutiques and offers a plethora of products. We'll see how that comes along.

Eminence Front is my guilty pleasure du jour

I'm way into the Who, but there are a handful of their songs that really just irritate the crap out of me (Like "Bargain", for example...) and "Eminence Front" was one of them until recently. I mean, it's just awful. What the eff were they doing?! They look like a bunch of middle-aged office workers at open mic, not a world-famous rock band that redefined a genre... It's all bad. All of it.
And yet? It's so amazing. I mean, look at them! They look ridiculous! What's with the stripes!? And the haircuts?! And the song itself, my god! It's like they lost Keith and then lost their minds. (Which is exactly what everyone was saying about Pete when this album came out anyway.) But yeah.
Ew.
Yum.
I don't know.
There's genius in the dichotomy and I can't get enough.

Things That Aren't So Super

There's Phantom Poop in our potty daily.
We're not real sure how it gets there, but every morning someone else's poop arrives in our guest bathroom. It's not mine. It's not Greg's. But there it is, accompanied with Phantom TeePee. Deelish.

The Bear's ear is still giving her problems.
I don't know what's going on, and while I know that ear infections and general congestion are signs of imminent teething but after two separate antibiotic treatments, I'm worried she's going to have to have tubes put in her ears and this scares me.

I'm gonna miss George Carlin
I really think we needed him around for a few more years. At least until the bottom fell out.

Hard Suck Park

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:38:22 GMT

I've made it obvious that Myrtle Beach isn't my location of choice for living in general, but it has it's good points; there's Murrell's Inlet which is the seafood capital of South Carolina (with fantastically yummy reason), there's hundreds of thousands of acres of wetlands, marshes, and rivers for kayaking (or whatever else people do in the water...) there's the fact that the residents are generally Southern and therefore reminiscient of manners, and of course, there's the beach.

However, Myrtle Beach has never been accused of being a playground for the wealthy and has slowly earned the reputation of being the Redneck Riviera with thousands of half-clothed, hygienically-challenged reasons pouring in annually. Scores of run-down beachwear shops litter our neon streets and the ruddy underbelly of our hyper-commercialized city sits at the forefront of consciousness when driving past locals' desperate attempts to swipe a piece of the pie. The higher-ups at the City of Myrtle Beach offices took notice to this a few years ago in the post- early-90's Golf Revolution slump and have spent millions of dollars on such user-friendly developments as road-construction, rezoning, and general beautification, in hopes to attract more discriminating touristas. Naturally, their efforts have caused a chain reaction that have lead to Burroughs and Chapin remodelling of dozens of skeeze-centric resorts on Ocean Boulevard and the development of some generally impressive commercial centers like the new branch of Market Common that appeals to those tourists who've actually heard of finer retailers than Sears. In the mayhem of scrambling for tourist recovery, another colossal undertaking has worked it's way into our area and it's arrival has caused mass excitement for the city.

Slumped behind the shambles of what used to be the popular Waccamaw Pottery Outlet Center, the Hard Rock Park sprouted from the ground within the last nine months to the delight of locals, the owners... and.. um.. a few hundred tourists.

Alright, look, I'm really not trying to be negative here. I'm not. I want to see Myrtle Beach pull itself up by it's bootstraps just as much as the next guy, but for Chrissakes, am I the only person who thinks this is going to tank miserably?

Here's the thing: Theme parks aren't doing so hot. They were losing business before September 2001 and have kinda started struggling in the aftermath of the attacks. Even Disney's gotten a little desperate with their declining sales and Paramount and Six Flags have been scraping along for the last five years with hopes that plans for new theme rides will spark interest in revisits. The truth is that people just aren't flocking to these places with the excitement of the late-80's-mid-90's and these huge companies are losing money from it. So why in God's name a company would want to actually build a new park is beyond me.

Don't get me wrong; I think it'll have a very big first year. But first of all, they're charging 50 FREAKING DOLLARS a head or $40 for four-or-more, which is going to make it nearly impossible for an average family of 4 to want to get in, spend half a day (because we get showers almost every afternoon here in the summer) on the 4-5 rides they have open and splurge on theme-park lunches/snacks/souvenirs. Look, if they couldn't keep the Pavillion open at $15 a person (with 50-some years of being a Myrtle Beach tradition and tons more rides) there's no way they're going to be able to usher people through the door for even double that. Not only that, Hard Rock Park isn't even done building the park yet [according to the PR guys who gave me an annual pass for working at a respectable business in the hospitality industry], so the park is only a third the size it's supposed to be, [which is just more than a third the size of the Magic Kingdom, just for reference's sake.] So, basically, for roughly $20 more, I can spend all day at the most amazingly elaborate theme park that's ever existed versus a day at a rather overpriced park in a shady area of Myrtle Beach that's only one-third completed.

I think the company's slowly starting to feel a little deflation in their heads, recently as they aren't quite raking in the dough they'd started counting a year ago. For example, the park set up this amazing two-day Grand Opening Event, featuring two nights of concerts with Eagles and The Moody Blues that had the whole town abuzz. The only problem was that the event was $150 and insisted that everyone purchase a Season Pass whether they gave a crap about the park or not. My dad's dreams of seeing the Moody Blues again were dashed as he realized he'd be dropping $900 to get his immediate family through the door to see a band that usually plays for $40-in-the-good-seats. I couldn't help but laugh to myself as HRP employees seemed bewildered that the shows hadn't sold out and the company became increasingly aggressive with sales as the weekend breezed past. In the weeks since, they've begun giving away season passes to local hospitality-industry employees in hopes to create positive buzz about the place and have started slashing prices, offering day passes at a generous $39 for residents of North and South Carolina and a $25 special for hospitality-industry workers. I hate to say that the desperation has started, but um...

I know the economy's in the shitter right now. I know that nobody's really doing much of anything this summer and every tourist town is suffering enough to scare us more than we're prepared to admit. I know I'm no businesswoman and have trouble balancing my own sad excuse for an income, so I don't have much room to throw stones. But I've seen the ebb and flow of this town and how our local commerce tends to work and can honestly say that if the Hard Rock Park is still up and running in five years without having to file for bankruptcy, I will be very very surprised.

Well then... Giddyup

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:06:05 GMT

Typo Personalities:
Armed with Sharpies, erasers and righteous indignation, two apostles of the apostrophe make it their crusade to rid the world of bad signs

Saw this over on the Snaptacular blog (which is DIVINE, ohbytheway and is highly recommended to anyone, although the main writer is a fantastic Swirler-friend). Apparently, white people have become so anal about misspellings that we've started crusades. Fantastic!

WARNING: RUN ON SENTENCE ALERT BELOW!
~ I've just spent the last four hours at work searching for non-"O.C" or "LOTR"- related moodthemes and I'm starting to feel like an idiot because the Bjork mood theme I've found isn't loading and I don't know enough about coding to just put it in the Admin stuff and I feel dumb and that leads me to my next blathering...

~...Which is about blogging which is kinda stupid because I kinda hate how people have started burying their noses in the internet without getting out and having a life but on the other hand blogs and the internet as a whole have made the world so much more communicative and accessible that it's fun to peruse the blogosphere to enjoy other's opinions and discoveries but recently I've been tuning into the blogs of both my online acquaintences (such as the brilliant cunts of Evil Slutopia and the aforementioned Snaptacular!) as well as those of somewhat better-known bloggers (like The Beloved Fug Girls and the ever-brilliantly bitter Jenn Lancaster and the revolutionary PostSecret and the dreamy College Callgirl) and then those silly guilty pleasures I can't stay away from
(Like that LOLcats thing and the crazy guy at the Superficial and his alter-ego at Geekologie... I know, you get it. I'm into bloggers...) and I'm starting to feel really inadequate. I mean, I'm not going after a full-time writing position with the gusto that most of my writer friends and contemporaries are and honestly, I've decided to dedicate the first 9 months of Chloe's life to just getting into a routine and spending time with her as much as possible so I don't even really have time to dedicate to setting up a lucrative, name-making blog about anything decent or innovative, so instead I just ramble on about my life and personal triumphs in all their miniscurity (that's a fusion of "miniscule" and "obscurity" that I just made up! You're welcome!) and even though it's not that grand, I have hopes of some book-industry guy just stumbling on my tiny LJ and saying "Hey, wait a second! You should write a book!" just like what happened to Jenn Lancaster even though I know shit like that doesn't just happen and I have to make my own destiny but I don't have time and here we are again.

I hate the feeling that my best years are sliding by without the chance to really fling myself into a career. And then I immediately kick myself because any career is nowhere as important as making the life of my little girl as wonderful as it can be. And I spend time cranking out essays and submitting stuff to publications as hard as I can go, but when I look at my contemporaries (my friend Kathleen was a guest blogger for a huge publication in Atlanta when she traveled to Germany with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra! That's HUGE!) I have to struggle not to beat myself up too much for the limits my life provides.

(By the way, I feel I should state that I'm really not as full of self-doubt or seeming-loathing as I appear on here recently... My blog has turned rather introspective in the last while as a means to keep it out of my daily life and so when I'm rereading all this I'm finding that I'm reading a lot less self-assured than I usually feel. Weird.)

~ In funny-realizations-that-cheer-me-up news:
Oh my god. You guys. I FINALLY realized who Avril Lavigne looks like:

YEEESSSSSS!
:::Snarky teen snortle here:::
(I have to admit, though. I thought Chris Crocker was nuts, but I'm all about his little myspace rants 'cause they're ridiculously true for the most part. And the fact that he walked away from a reality show to keep making freebie youtube videos makes me smile.)

More essays to come. Once I figure out this filter thing. (Thanks luffing!)

Such a Charmer, Oh No!

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:03:03 GMT

~ I'd like to say that I've done more with myself than take care of a sick baby while wearing a man's t-shirt and a sarong in the last two days, but if I did so, I'd be a liar. No makeup, no leaving the house, minimal hygeine, no bra... Just me and Chloe and Benny and Lean Cuisine wandering in a house full of slowly unboxed crap.

~ Chloe had a raging ear infection three weeks ago when she had her dedication ceremony. We gave her antibiotics then, but somehow it came back and infected both ears and we've changed to a different prescription that lasts a good deal longer. She's still crying and pulling on her little ears and I'm trying not to freak out about my baby girl being sick but I've found that when she starts crying, I'm apt to start, too. (Poor Greg. He does so well with a screaming baby and sobbing wife, I feel there must be some official medal he can be publicly awarded.)

~ Jesus, I'm tired. I felt compelled to update, but my sentences are stilted and Hemingway-esque (minus the intent... um, if that's not redundant.)

~ It's been Hormoneville over here by the way as my body is both recovering from a year of babydom and getting adjusted to this IUD. So there have been tears. Lots and lots of tears. Not over anything important, mind you. Lots of singing-to-my-baby tears or God-what-a-beautiful-southern-summer-morning tears or why-does-my-leg-hair-have-to-be-taken-care-of-weekly tears... you know.. Estrogen-y stuff.

~ So when the story of the 80-year-old lesbian couple finally allowed to get married hit the media this week, you'd better believe I was sobbing like a 3-year-old victim of trikey theft. (Seriously, that story made my whole week better.)

~ I just finished watching the loudQUIETloud documentary and while I love the Pixies as much as any post-90's twentysomething, I could sit around and watch confused, awkward, overweight, middle-agers at a bar up the road anytime. I'm just saying...

~ Oh OH! And KoL and Pearl Jam was amazing although I should have known I could count on stupid South Carolinians to fuck it up. This was the first time PJ had played in SC since 1998 and so a good portion of the crowd was idiot redneck frat guys (they roam in great numbers round these parts. See: Borat for more info.) who halfway expected them to break into "Come As You Are" and didn't have any idea they'd done anything since 'Vitalogy". So when Eddie came out for a solo encore and used the stage for one of his countless anti-Bush/war causes, there was a noticeable amount of "boo"-ing going on. Errugggh.. (However, the anti-war song he sang was genuinely beautiful and I would have cried about it if I wasn't fighting the urge to scream at the redneck idiots behind us.)
Also, I got autographs from all the Kings after smoothly chatting up one of the roadies at their bus. And "Charmer" is my new absolutefavoritesong 'cause Caleb Followill is "Squee!!!"-worthy every time he SHRIEEEKS into the microphone. (It's AMAZING live and somehow sent me into a giddy clapping-and-giggling frenzy.)

See?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EXNQiqTfC0w

~ I'm not ever going to get on here and just flat-out lie about being some highly intelligent being, so there's something I need explained when someone gets a chance. I'm unpacking and straightening around the house and catch an ad for tonight's "Ghost Hunters" which is advertised as the "Mid-Season Finale".
Again, I'm no Einstein, but wouldn't "Finale" usually mean "the End"? Isn't that.. What.. It means? I confused.

~ Oh yeah! And even if I didn't drive a vee-dub, I'd still be SO into Max, the Volkswagen Spokescar I can't even stand it. I think he's hilarious and SEXY and the swingin' music at the end of the ads puts me in the grooviest mood ever. (Plus, is that Lenny Kravitz's drummer in his studio band? ROCK!)

DAAAHHHH!!

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:46:50 GMT

I GET TO SEE PEARL JAM AGAIN TOMORROW NIGHT!!!

WITH KINGS OF LEON!!!

!!!!

DAAAHHHHH!!!

ITWASSORTAASURPRISECAUSEALLISON'SMOMWASGONNAGOANDTHENDECIDEDNOTTOATTHELASTMINUTEANDASKEDIFIWANTEDHERTICKETANDIDOSOI'MGOINGYAAAAAAY!!!

you in?

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:34:39 GMT

Um, now I'm going to employ the benefits of being on a blog community by stating that with this new house I have a new address (go figure) and if anyone I usually contact through snail mail is interested in acquiring said new address, he or she can contact me via email at Soar101@aol.com and we'll work something out.

Exorcising the Demons: Part I

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:16:40 GMT

Just when I got all comfortable with life and sanity and happiness, a few neuroses of mine wriggled their way to the forefront of my consciousness [in the last month or so] and I’ve had to sit down and take a look at them and their role in my life and see what I can do to fix that. So in the last week I’ve been consulting Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements, Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, and Caroline Myss’s Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can and have been meditating and journaling frantically in hopes to wrangle my emotions. In time, I’ve come up with some pretty astounding discoveries and have somehow put together a custom-built ritual to help me purge some of my poisons and move forward (all while raising a baby, moving to a new house, working a couple days a week, and getting ready for our first Father’s Day. I've been busy.) Allow me to delve a little bit into what the hell I’m talking about.
(Also, I realize this is very expository for a public, web-based forum. Trust me, any sort of vulnerability I’m showing here isn’t a schtick; I’m just more inclined to be honest if I have something to keep me accountable, even if it’s just a handful of online friends/readers.)

Fear-Based Emotion

In therapy/sobriety I’ve worked really effing hard to try to act from love and its countless components. Although it took a LOT of time, I’ve been able to move my most valuable of relationships into forums of love-based motivations whereas I’m never driven by those feelings of residual guilt or anger and can interact with those people I really care about without the pendulum of my emotions swinging crazily into unhealthy territory.

However, being that anger and guilt fuelled my actions for most of my life, it’s no surprise that practicing such fear-based emotions would be a hard habit to shake. Because of this, I still sit around and try to make sense of some of the treacherous, painful relationships and mistakes I made and then go out of my way to try to remedy them externally in hopes to clear the anger and guilt from my psyche altogether. What I have quickly learned in these interactions is that stepping back into a sick, insane relationship in hopes to figure it out is exactly like trying to go back to drinking in hopes to conquer my alcoholism; it doesn’t matter how much I’ve worked to fix myself, it can’t be any different because it’s sick and broken. And then I am emotionally trapped in these sick, unreasonable interactions that really, genuinely don’t matter to my life while the people who actually do care about me and the life I have now literally beg me to just walk away from such useless insanity.

It became evident that the next addiction I have to kick is my inherent reliance on anger and guilt to sway my motives.

Alright, I know that being angry about something longer than a few minutes is only damaging to myself and never for the person toward whom my anger is directed. Likewise, I know that experiencing guilt over something endlessly is a form of injustice toward myself. (D.M.R. says “True injustice is paying more than once for each mistake.” I’m inclined to believe him.) These two ideas alone should satiate any lingering inclinations I have toward anger or guilt, but somehow they don’t and that causes a lot of frustration for me. Especially when a relationship with someone involves great amounts of both guilt and anger, in which case, I am always conflicted. However, the need to express a genuine apology and then get the hell out without wasting time on arguing and feeding the ever-frenzied insanity has become the wiser choice over the years.

But I wouldn’t have any of the problems if discarding such deeply-habitual emotion wasn’t so effing hard to begin with. That’s where meditation and gentle reminders to rewire my thought patterns away from fear (and therefore anger and guilt) come in.

Spitting Out the Poison
There are literally hundreds of thoughts I refrain from uttering out of lack of desire for altercation or confrontation, (if you can believe it) but I find that the more those things sit with me the more they churn in my subconscious and cause general mental disarray. Some of these are opinions I’m never going to be asked for, others are responses that will never be heard or respected, but all are statements that sit at the ready on my tongue and I fight daily to keep inside, out of mischief’s way. Instead, I periodically dump those festering notions on this here blog as a means of pushing them out of my head and into universal accessibility.

This time, however, I hand-scribbled everything fear-based I ever wanted to say to anyone but really had no reason to, cut them out individually and planted them next to the new flowers in my front yard. To each one I sent positive energy and the hopes that it would disintegrate and grow into something beautiful over time.

I’m including the abridged, anonymous rough-draft after the cut for reference’s sake. Alright, sure it’s a little passive-aggressive, but (:::shrug:::) it’s cheaper than therapy. (And due to the nature of such an unabashed expression of inner-commentary, I might resort to name-calling. Because I am classy.)
(Also, I’m putting these on here for my own personal documentation and for discussion purposes with the friends that choose to read them. If they somehow generate or attract the negative energy I’m trying to purge, I absolutely reserve the right to eliminate them from this space. Just saying…)

To Whom It May Concern (in no particular order):

~ Stop it. Stop making excuses, stop waiting for things to get better, stop living in misery, stop wasting your life. Go out and do it. Right now! This week, even! Don’t spend another second waiting for nothing and settling for this mediocrity that’s obviously killing you.

~ I’m not answering any more of your calls. Ever. You’ll never get a chance to take me for granted again, you conceited stick figure.

~ Do you have any idea how many people associate your name with mental terrorism? You’d never believe me if I told you, but I’m less and less convinced that you’re able to sleep at night without some sort of medical aid.

~ What used to be an amusing imitation of self-exploration is really just pathetic grappling in your own self-loathing that you’ve lacquered with arrogance and self-righteousness in your years of practicing denial. You couldn’t appear or sound more cluelessly asinine if you actually put your mind to it. The only person your cunning seems to be working on anymore is yourself.

~ It’s never ceased to amaze me that even though you are honestly the wealthiest people I’ve ever met, you’re still the ones with the least amount of class.

~ I don’t believe you. Not a damn word.

~ You’re the single most annoying, idiotic, hyper-defensive (ergo insecure) cunt on the whole Swirl. Hands down. Every time you post, I hate humanity a little more because your distinct level of stupidity was somehow artfully tweaked and crafted through years of procreation. I’d pay money for you to just. Go. Away.
But seriously, stop it. You’re embarrassing yourself.

~ My mom was right; you are trash. You’re not my friend and honestly never have been.

~ That was your finest work? Seriously? That was easily the worst display of pretentious defecation I’ve ever experienced in my whole, entire quarter-century of life. I sat for a long time thinking about it and wondering if there was anything worth praising and honestly, despite what anyone says to you, there really really isn’t.

~ I’ve stopped apologizing to you directly, but I still think about how badly I screwed up with you on a weekly basis.

~ You’d think that by now with all the times you’ve made a total ass out of yourself, you would’ve learned even a little humility. Because nothing looks more idiotic than sitting around, making the same mistakes and telling everyone how great you think you are and how much you’ve supposedly changed.

~ I hope to God you didn’t marry her just because she was someone you could feel more important/intelligent/headstrong/attractive than ‘cause you’re going to have some serious problems with that in a few years if you plan to be a self-searching man.

~ Ahem. You’re WELCOME.

~ I don’t loathe myself enough to wait around for an apology from you. (Mostly because I don’t care, but also because I know you’re entirely too shoved up your own ass to ever realize you did anything wrong.)

~ The only thing that would ever cause me to consider suicide again is if you were hurt or consumed by one of my demons.

Anyway, I'm not completely done with my whole purge-and-cleanse ritual just yet (I'm going to take a week on it. Maybe once a year if it works out this time.) but I wanted to share what I'd been up to as of late. I'm sure it all sounds a little hippie-go-nuts, but I feel amazing after taking a moral inventory to hone in on what poison has been hurting my life recently. Realizing what exactly is hurting my life and citing the need to rewire my brain and thought patterns away from these sick habits has already started working wonders in my daily life and I'm encouraged and excited to continue.

She's a good girl, loves her mama...

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 14:58:45 GMT

Note: My hiatus went from "I'm swearing off the Internet for at least a WEEK! Just to see if I can do it!" to "Maybe once daily for a half hour..." so it's curbed a little but I'm indulging as I'm wasting hours of my life at work with nothing to do but read The Fug Girls' recent giggle-inducing column-wizardry and wander around this Internet, searching for enjoyment... So yes, my integrity has [predictably] waned.

In the flurry of moving into this house a few things have happened: I've put on the 5 lbs I spent all of May trying to lose from buying fast meals on the run, I've already spent the money that hasn't yet arrived in the form of a government tax-stimulus check, and I haven't had a chance to stop and really reflect on Chloe's unbelievable growth and development. (Yes, it's going to be one of those posts. Consider yourself forewarned.)

The bear is a week older than 5 months at this exact moment and is like a completely different person than the tiny infant I brought home last January. She's almost 17 lbs. and with the recent addition of solid foods, her weight gain doesn't seem to be lagging at all (which is fantastic for my upper-body strength, by the way.) Whereas a few months ago we were elated with her awareness and willingness to interact with us, now we are enthralled with her constant desire to communicate and find that many of our hours are whiled away in "conversation" and play with her. Like her mother, she's become quite fond of eating and enthusiastically flings her little mouth open between bites and adorably greets every spoonful with a great "MMMMMMMMM!!!!". (She loves sweet potatoes and carrots, but makes over-exaggerated expressions of disgust when presented with green beans that are hilarious and often send us into fits of giggles.) Honestly? She's perfect. She giggles a thousand times a day, she's always cooing and "talking" to us from wherever she's perched, she never cries unless she's hungry or sleepy, she kicks her feet and squeals with glee over various excitabilities, she loves music and gets really wound up with the rockin' music I play in the car, she loves to be held and often gets a little whimper-y if she hasn't gotten enough attention, she loves staring into our eyes, she loves reaching and grasping things and was enamored with the gardenia I gave her, she likes to snuggle up next to us and grab our faces as we move and explore us and herself and just everything and ::sigh:: she's just perfect.

Okay, she's not any different than any other baby in the world and I'm not going to be one of those annoying parents who tries to inform everyone that she's abnormally gifted or more special than anyone else's child, but I do have a profound amount of pride in her and her recent accomplishments. She's fascinating to watch as she's learning how things work and how she plays a role in her immediate surroundings. My mom and I sat around and watched Chloe figure out how to wrangle a teething ring around an affixed toy on her walker's tray for a half hour like it was the lunar landing and I was so proud when she realized she'd have to move it to the other side of the tray and then pick it up in order to chew on it. I know I gush all the time, but I'm still enamored and somewhat befuddled by her and it's a very strange emotion to be ruled by, as it's far stronger than any other love I've experienced, but equally as gentle and serene. I'm not doing well with articulating it, I'm afraid.

Greg and I sit around and stare at her all the time, wondering how in the hell we were capable of fusing some bodily fluids to create an independently-sustained being who brings so much light and energy and love to our lives. I know, it's a pathetically textbook thought for new parents to have, but it's the one that we openly ponder to each other on a weekly basis.

And then a couple weeks ago at meditation, I started thinking about the complexity of motherhood. [Insert eyeroll and "Oh, here we go." statements here.] Whether people admit it or not there are endless planes of realizations associated with one's mother and the role she takes in one's life. Even those people who lost their mother early in life are revisited by her memory (or their interpretation of her memory, given their age) and the residual emotion from her role in their lives. It's complicated. We want to be exactly like her and then we don't, we want her approval and then we don't, we want to believe she's perfect and when we realize she's human, we spend a few years being pissed about her faults and then struggle to make peace with her shortcomings and love her where she is (which hopefully happens by the time we're done being all angsty and teenager-y) and then we start to uncover the pieces of her as an actual person instead of this flawless figure we chose to believe in as children... it's really a tremendous force in our lives in our quest for identity.

My vibrations were at a fever pitch as light flooded my mind and illuminated in me that I'm one of those women now. Even if I die tomorrow, Chloe will always hold me in that role and have that point from which to build her individuality. Don't get me wrong; I've understood that I'm a mother/guardian/caregiver for about a year now and I realized that having a daughter has changed everything about who I am and what I live for, but I never stopped to really delve into what my role means to her as a person. I don't think I could ever really uncover all the facets my own mother's role has played in my own and I'm finding that the unknown value of myself as a mother figure is scarier than I could have predicted.

Makes me want to reform immediately and fight the habit/lifestyle I've developed of acting from guilt. Makes me want to [finally] stop apologizing for my words, my weight, my past faults, my deliberate actions, my motivations, my defenses, my overall existence. Makes me want to immediately eliminate any questionable/bothersome people and situations without another moment wasted on worry. Makes me want to be better than I was as recently as five minutes ago. Mostly, though, it makes me realize I'll be spending the rest of my life balancing authority, humility and general humanity.

Hiatus

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 12:12:28 GMT

Being one with an addictive personality, I have to stop and reassess my habits on a regular basis and have realized that I spend a shameful amount of time online when there are literally hundreds of other things to be done in my immediate life. So I'm taking a brief hiatus from the Internet altogether as a means of redirecting my thought process long enough to get some things done and [most importantly] move into our new house.
While it's primarily for productivity purposes, I'm also wondering if I'm actually going to be able to do it and sadly, I realize that because our society is very Web-centric and won't be able to purge this habit of mine altogether. (Another lesson in moderation, I suppose.)
I'm optimistic, however, that I can spend at least a week without wasting whole afternoons reading my favorite daily blogs, blogging myself, or giggling at drama on the Swirl. I'd like to think that anyway.

Poop on Fan: A Rant in Vague

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:26:12 GMT

Oh, I am not doing this noise.

So, you know that feeling when you've set aside a rather full list of grievances on someone to offer them condition-less friendship and comfort (maybe out of pity but mostly from relate-ability) just for them to crap all over that, thus proving that, despite their words, they're still driven by a pathetically desperate need to be loved by any/everyone and really just thrive on pointless, manipulative, self-inflicted "drama" (I still hate that term) therefore making you a little pissy at yourself for even entertaining a second thought on them in the first place and bringing you to the conclusion that no matter what you do and how you conduct yourself, there are people who just aren't going to change or be able to treat you like an actual person worthy of respect so you should really just throw in the towel and not instigate more mindless bullshit in pointless attempts to clear the air because you have a life to get back to [dammit] that really isn't worthy of this sort of inner-rant to begin with?

I'm glad you know, 'cause I would have no idea what that feels like.

(:::sigh::: Between that and getting my best friend lost on her way home and an ex calling me out of total nowhere to ask if he can tag along to AA meetings [I don't go anymore unless I absolutely need it] 'cause (GASP!) he just might be an alkie (or may just want to rope me into more crap whoeffingknowsanymore), aaalllll within the course of an hour, I was prepared to crawl under my bed and hide out from people for a while.)

Makes. Me. Wan. Na Scream.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=HyQuDJUxXRc

Love and Light

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:53:42 GMT

~ Yesterday was among the more sacred days I've experienced. At one point my friend Daisy started beating a drum while the minister performed a reading of the "Song of the Sacred Directions" and the cicadas and birds in the trees surrounding the spot we chose went beserk, singing out loudly and causing this great lift in energy that had me trying not to break into teary-eyed hysterical giggles. It was intensely profound and everyone in our small congregation was enthralled at the sudden presence of Spirit, making these "HOLYCRAP! Whoooaaaa..." faces at each other.
Most notably, however, Greg waited until the end of the ceremony and asked if he could talk to me in private, which sent a lurch in my chest [which I assume could only be from the reminiscience of high-school "We-gotta-talk" moments]. However, after he pulled me aside he asked if he could baptise Chloe and had realized that it was more important to him than he'd let on and, as a Catholic, it was a significant symbol to him that he felt moved to provide for his daughter. So after everyone left, Greg and I walked Chloe around to a new space between the castle and the ocean and as Allison watched, Greg performed a baptism ceremony with the holy water his great-great aunt and uncle had brought from the River Jordan. Chloe was screaming and crying from fatigue and heat and I was desperate for the ceremony to move along so she wouldn't get hyperthermia, but it was really a blessed, special occasion.

~ I've been in love for a while now, but I'm constantly reminded of why and it's really wonderful, to be frank. Recently, there have been these tremendous hits on my "Oh-my-god-this-man-is-perfect" radar, with the most obvious being the impromptu baptism yesterday.

Greg doesn't like to talk about religion or spirituality, which is sometimes hard for me because I talk about it all the time and live a life submerged in it, and am eager to learn and explore with anyone, especially my partner. So I had a lot of admiration for him for stepping up and outside of his comfort zone to make a spiritual/religious decision on behalf of our family. (I really hope it isn't sacrilegious to say this but I thought he was so handsome while he was holding Chloe and performing these prayers and rituals. That coupled with his strength in representing something he strongly believed in really pushed all the right buttons in me and I felt a little weird being turned on during a religious ceremony. :::Fighting the urge to make a "Like a Prayer" reference.:::)

Last week when his family was here, Greg and I took a leisurely stroll along the beach while his folks fawned over the bear and I brought up my concern for his stress level pertaining to our income. We're doing decently financially, but I know that supporting a family of three at twenty-three years old has to be stressful and with the economy being the way it is, I don't want him living in constant fear of our condition. Plus, we're moving into this house which we're excited about, but I know that he's making a lot of sacrifices so we can do so and I wanted to let him know that if he needs/wants help making ends meet, I'll start looking for a "real" job to alleviate some of the burden.
He'd have none of it and reiterated to me that having someone stay with Chloe as much as possible was important enough to both of us that he didn't mind the stress of taking care of family finances.
While that's pretty wonderful of him, what he went on to say is the reason I'm making mention of this instance at all.
He started talking about my writing and my erratic attempts toward a freelance career, telling me I should focus on that as much as possible and, if I really wanted to work toward a financial goal, I could always focus more intently on this memoir I started for my thesis.
Alright, I've had exactly one thing commercially published in my entire life and all my "writing career" consists of these days is cranking out a low-traffic blog and peddling a handful of short stories and essays to various small-time publications and he's not only supportive of that, he's full-on encouraging of it. My memoir is only two or three chapters complete, at best, and has at least another year of full-time daily work before it's even close to considering a workable manuscript, and yet Greg is gently pushing me toward making it a reality, despite the absolute illogic of such a fantastical endeavor in our lives right now. I am floored by his faith in my talents and dreams I don't even know what to do with myself.

~ My brother just got back from China and brought gifts (which is HUGE because he's by far the cheapest guy I can even fathom), including a pair of pink infant Pumas. Cuuuuuuuuute.

~ We're finishing up the painting on the house and moving in this week. Pictures to come, of course. (Also, pictures to come of the dedication, but I'll warn you; Greg looks entirely too sexy for a casual religious ceremony. And the bear looks adorable, but is lost in a mass of white garment in my mother's christening gown so she looks like a little baby head in a cloud... of preciousness.)

Baby Dedication

Sat, 31 May 2008 11:49:24 GMT

Baby Dedication

Call to Worship (Navajo Blessing of newborn child)
Our Mother, the earth, the sky, the sun, the moon, together Great Spirit,
May the essence of life be love.
May the source of happiness be beauty.
All in peace.
All in beauty.
All in harmony.
All in happiness.

Greeting & Charge by the minister
To the family and friends gathered here today on behalf of the parents of this child I greet you.
We are here today to welcome this child into the world.
It has been said that only the most courageous and strong souls come to this earth school to learn that which will bring the highest and greatest growth for the soul. We therefore honor and thank this little spirit for blessing us with her presence.
May the parents, grandparents, and other family members and friends be the cornerstone of her soul growth. May she also be a pinnacle to teach those who have come before her, with her, and those who shall follow, the lessons which are for their highest and greatest good.
For I firmly believe that on a spiritual level this child has chosen Liz and Greg as her parents. May you both know what a blessing and an honor it is to be chosen as parents by this loving soul.

Invitatory
(Adaptation of Omaha Indian ceremony introducing the newborn child to the Cosmos)

Minister: Oh spirit of the sun, the moon, the stars, and all that move in the skies, I bid you hear us!

Group: Into our midst has come a new life.
Blessings to this child we pray!
Make her path smooth, that it may reach the brow of the first hill!

Minister: Oh spirit of the winds, clouds, rain, mist, and all that move in the air, I bid you hear us!

Group: Into our midst has come a new life.
Blessings to this child we pray!
Make her path smooth, that it may reach the brow of the second hill!

Minister: Oh spirit of the hills, valleys, rivers, lakes, trees, grasses, and all of the earth, I bid you hear us!

Group: Into our midst has come a new life.
Blessings to this child we pray!
Make her path smooth, that it may reach the brow of the third hill!

Minister: Oh spirit of the birds, great and small, that fly in the air,
Spirit of the animals, great and small, that dwell in the forest,
And Spirit of the insects that creep among the grasses and burrow in the ground, I bid you hear us!

Group: Into our midst has come a new life.
Blessings to this child we pray!
Make her path smooth, that it may reach the brow of the fourth hill!

Minister: Spirits of the skies, and of the air, and of the earth:
I bid you hear us!

Group: Into our midst has come a new life.
Blessings to this child we pray!
Make its path smooth—then shall it travel beyond the four hills!

Prayers of Consecration
We gather on this day, with Liz and Greg and their daughter to celebrate her entrance into the world. We are here to welcome her and pray for her.
We join our thoughts and sincere goodwill, asking that a mantle of peace might embrace this family and that the divine light of protection surround this child for all her days.

I would like to ask the grandparents of this child to join with me now, and repeat this prayer of blessing and protection:

Dear God,
We give thanks for the birth of this beautiful child into the world and into this family.
We offer ourselves this day as caretakers of her spirit and higher mind.
May we fulfill with strength the glory of our role, in her life and the lives of her parents.
May the spirit of this family, from generations past and into the future, burst forth to bless and sustain this child. Amen.

I would now like to ask that the grandparents to express their hopes and wishes for this child and her life:

I now ask the godmother of this child to please come forward.
(Godmother holds baby and parents step back)

Allison Flanagan, you have been given an important task. It is with utmost gratitude and trust that this child’s parents ask you to play this role.
Divine Spirit shall place within you the wisdom and strength you need to hold within your mind forever the good of this child and the importance of the emotional responsibility now entrusted in you. Please express your comments and wishes for this child:

Liz and Greg please hold your child and receive our blessings.

Dear God,
We join together on this day, and pray for the life and well-being of this glorious child.
With her parents, we give thanks for her entrance into this world.
With them also, we surrender this family to spirit and ask that spirit guide, guard, and protect them always.
We pray for this couple, and ask that they be filled as parents with divine power.
May they receive divine strength with which to hold this child, divine love with which to raise her, and divine grace by which to guide this family now and forever.

(To the parents)
What name have you given to this child?

So be it. It is with faith and hope that we now dedicate this child Chloe Diane Pardue-Schultz, daughter of Elizabeth Anne Pardue and Gregory James Schultz, Granddaughter of Pamela and Claude Pardue, and Elise and Warren Schultz.

In the name of Wakan Tanka, Great Spirit, God and of generations before and after us, we welcome you, dear child, to the mystical union of souls on earth. We have awaited you. We rejoice that you are here.
We ask Great Spirit to bless her and protect her, now and forever.

(To the parents)
Please repeat after me:

We give thanks for the birth of our daughter.
May she receive the gifts of grace this day.
We dedicate her life to Spirit,
That she may grow in love to become a woman strong and wise.
May we be the father and mother that we are meant to be.
Give us patience and wisdom.
May our home be blessed and guided by Divine Will.
We give thanks for her faith in us,
That such a glorious child is born unto us.
May she always remember the sacredness within.
May she never forget, throughout her life that
Grandmother Earth, Grandfather Sky, and Great Spirit
Are her source and inspiration.
May she learn from us happiness; may she learn from us kindness.
May her heart always be humble and her spirit ever strong.
Thank you O Spirit of Life. Amen.

Silent Meditation

Dedication to Spirit (Renata Ash, Song of the Sacred Directions)

Prayer of Sacred Dedication accompanied by Spirit Drumming.

Minister: “Spirit of the South, Spirit of the South,
Bring her Healing and laughter.”

(South is the direction of the flowering tree, and represents the power of growing…)

“Spirit of the West, Spirit of the West,
Bring her cleansing and insight.”

(West relates to our ability to go inside and pray. This is a time to contemplate, be quiet, and find the source within yourself.)

“Spirit of the North, Spirit of the North,
Bring her wisdom and purity.”

(North is the circle of coming to completion. We may experience fear as we enter into
Great Mystery and may have to face the consequences of our past actions.)

“Spirit of the East, Spirit of the East,
Help the new dawn in her rising.”

(The East corresponds to the daybreak star, the star of understanding. This early morning, the break of day, is the time to stand with the sacred drum and give thanks for this gift of life.)

“Grandmother Earth, Grandmother Earth,
You give her food and shelter.”

(We stand on earth, we stand on our true mother. It is the gift of the mother to let each one of us be born through one of her representatives, one of her female children. Every cell of our body is created out of the tissue of the earth. The body is an abode for the Spirit, covered, fed, and supported by the earth)

“Grandfather Sky, Grandfather Sky,
You breathe the breath of life into her.”

(As we breathe, we share the breath with all of life; we beat upon a common drum. The air is our inspiration; it is our link to life.)

Spirit of Within, Spirit of Within,
You are her appreciation.”

(The greatest gift is the consciousness that is within you, that looks out, and listens, feels, and tastes life. This seventh direction is the center of your individual humanity, which looks out with pain or joy, hate or love.)

“Wakan Tanka, Great Spirit, O Great Mystery,
Take the veil of ignorance away from us.
Wakan Tanka, Great Spirit, O Great Mystery,
Take the veil away so we may see.”

(Wakan Tanka, Great Spirit, Creator, God—these are just different words for the expressive and divine power that pervades all existence. It is the power within everything and we open ourselves up to this through ceremony and prayer.)

Closing & Benediction
“Our children are not our children;
They are the sons and daughters of life, longing for itself.
We may give them our love, but not our thoughts.
We may house their bodies, but not their souls.
For their souls live in the house of tomorrow.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
We are the bows from which our children
As living arrows are sent forth.”
(Adapted from Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet)

And now, to you, the parents, I say on behalf of all of us, go in peace and build a strong
and beautiful family life. Your wishes are rooted in truth, for we have prayed with you
and joined our hearts with yours.
Your prayers are our prayers, that you might have a home that is full of love and righteousness for you and for your child.
May she grow up to reflect the best in both of you and extend unto the world she
touches the love she receives from her mother and father.
Have strength knowing that Spirit will guide you always. You are loved and you are cared for.
Spirit is with you always to guide you both and bless your child.
And so it is. Amen.

(This ceremony adapted in part with some paraphrasing and where not otherwise indicated from the book Illuminata A Return to Prayer by Marianne Williamson; Pages 248-253

Talkin' 'bout things when nobahdeh cares...

Thu, 29 May 2008 20:36:04 GMT

1)A few days ago I invited probing questions about myself and received a lot of really good ones from some of my close friends (thanks guys!) However, one question stuck out among the rest and has given me pause to stop and think for the better part of the afternoon.
Haylee asked me what one question I'm most fearful of Chloe asking.

A: "Mommy, why do you have cut-marks on your arm?"

At least twice a week I practice how I will tell Chloe about my 2003 suicide attempt. Greg and I have decided that we're going to present mental illness in the same light as a physical illness in that when Chloe feels pain in her mind, it's just like feeling pain in her body and she should tell someone about it so she can get help to fix it and make herself healthy again. We feel strongly that if we present this to her without insinuation of taboo (like most kids in my generation grew up with) then she's more likely to tell us if she's struggling with depression or anxiety and there's less risk of her missing out on treatment if she needs it. We're not going ahead and assuming that she's going to have the same mental hangups we have, but we are prepared to talk with her about them if she needs it.
However, there's a difference in explaining mental illness to a child and explaining the depths of her mother's own struggles. First there's the question of when. Five seems too young while thirteen seems too old. Do I wait for it to come up or do I have a sit-down-here-we-go talk like one does with periods and sex and drugs and all that? Should I make it a formal "talk" or should I talk about it in a more casual setting? What should I tell her between now and when she's old enough to understand? That leads to the question of "How?" I know there's plenty of literature on discussing suicide and depression (etcetera) to children that I'll be sure to read for support's sake between now and then, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to tweak it one way or the other. There are a lot of "what ifs" involved that I'm sure I'll battle between now and then. What if she gets scared I'll do it again? What if she tries to do it because I tried to? Would it be better for me never to tell her at all? (That doesn't seem right to me, by the way.) I don't anticipate telling her the specifics about all my crazy, drunken escapades within my booze-fuelled delirium, but there are so many things that can serve as cautionary tales it's going to be hard to differentiate between necessary and not.
If I rehearse twice a week from now until [I'm guessing] she asks me at 5-years-old, I'll have had 456 times to practice. Somehow that doesn't seem like enough.

2) Look, I'm really not trying to be a bitch here. I swear I'm not. But when I die, can someone reading this please ensure that nobody memorializes me in a roadside flower display, a facebook group, or a sticker on the back of someone's car? I mean, I get the gesture that you're sad and you live your life in memory of a loved one, but when you cut someone off in traffic, I really don't want them to know that you're driving like an a-hole in my memory because of the "RIP Liz" on your back glass, you know? In fact, if we could eliminate the whole "RIP" term in regards to my postmortem festivities, that'd be great. I really do appreciate it.
(And don't do it for irony's sake because I posted this, either. Seriously. I'll haunt your ass.)

3) Greg does little things that I think are sexy that really really can't be to anyone else on the planet. For example? I've already mentioned that a while ago he made an offhanded comment about "Bartleby the Scrivener". To any English major, this is just a funny joke bordering on eliticism. However, the fact that Greg was a Studio Arts Major allows this indication of his literary knowledge to make him thatmuchmore sexually appealing to me (and I promptly jumped his bones when it happened.)
Alright, that one might've been understandable. Here's another:
Recently, we've discovered that the ION channel shows 'Quantum Leap' reruns a few nights of the week. (::Inhales:: Oh god, this sounds so lame.) I think it's sexy that Greg can still whistle the theme song to such a campy, cheesy show every time we watch it. Maybe it's 'cause it's one of those under-the-radar shows people tend to forget about, maybe it's because it was a show we both loved as kids, maybe it's because Greg doesn't sing that often.. Whatever the case, it made me all tingly in the loins. I know.. I'm pathetic.

Life sets in...

Wed, 28 May 2008 20:12:20 GMT

:::sigh:::

~ Last night at 2 am Chloe began screeching and wailing. She never opened her eyes but flailed and screamed for the better part of an hour, despite our desperate attempts to soothe her. Her left eye appeared to be red and puffy but we didn't notice that so much as the red blotches all around it and up to her forehead. We were terrified. All day she's been lethargic and exanimate, rarely opening her eyes and prone to screeching at random. We went to the doctor and it turns out she does, in fact, have a pretty advanced ear infection that's treatable but still scary.

~ My dad's raising holy hell about whether or not this dedication on Saturday is some sort of "New Age" crap. Now, he can't define "New Age", nor can he site any examples of a "New Age" religion (and actually has made it apparent that he doesn't realize there are a plethora of "New Age" religions/creeds to choose from) but it's coming down to me saying "If you don't support my faith and aren't going to be there in love, I don't want you there at all. This isn't about you. The end." although I know it's going to be a thorn in my side for a while.

The Six

Tue, 27 May 2008 12:41:47 GMT

I put these up every so often as a means of thought-provoking and seeing what sort of traffic I'm getting on the site. I haven't done it in a while, but apparently my friends on facebook are staging a revival and I'm kinda feeling self-explorative, so here we go:

YOU CAN ASK ME SIX QUESTIONS::
(Form if you need it for some reason)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
__________________________________________________

No matter how rude, revealing or pointless, I promise to answer them 100% truthfully.
(Although anyone in my life has the liberty to do this anyway, it somehow makes it more appealing when the invitation has been delivered.)