Lizard Love

or was it just a sexual fling? what are your thoughts?

i was looking out my window today and i saw these two going at it like...like animals! they were so cute. they would be still for some time and then the male lizard would hump hump hump and then they would freeze and do it again. no post coital cuddles though, she ran up the tree as soon as she was freed from him.

perfect song for my mood...

right...

i forgot...U2 Joshua Tree....REM.... some classic aretha franklin...okay and...The Strokes

Best Albums of all time...

Every now and then the music magazines come up with a list of the top music albums of all time. I believe that Rolling Stone had a list of the top 500 back in 2003. I have that magazine around here somewhere. I was out last night shopping for music for my youngest son of the Disney genre and thought that I deserved to purchase some music for myself. Whenever I buy music now, I am thinking about building a core collection of must have classic CD’s.

So don’t laugh but I bought the greatest hits of….drum roll please…Guns-N-Roses. The funny thing about this purchase is at the time when this band was gold, I sneered at the thought of ever buying their stuff. But now that I am…ahem…a little older…I am seeing that they did produce some classic rock. Favorite song? To me, Sweet Child of Mine, is the quintessential rock love ballad. I always did love that little jiggy dance Axl did to it. If you are wondering whatever became of Axl Rose, here is a good article talking about his reclusive nature, his love for throwing Halloween parties, and his plans for producing a new album.

I also bought a compilation of the best of Jimi Hendrix which includes my favorite song of his, Angel. You can’t have a good music collection without Hendrix. I often wonder if he were born in a later generation, would he still have chosen rock as his genre? We shall never know.
Other CD’s which I feel are essential for a good core collection are:

1. Pink Floyd’s Wish you were here
2. Any Led Zep album
3. Radiohead Pablo Honey, In Rainbows
4. The Rolling Stones…best of
5. Madonna’s Immaculate Conception
6. Nirvana…Nevermind
7. Carole King Tapestry
8. AC/DC live
9. Pearl Jam…even flow
10. Ramones best hits
11. Nine Inch Nails with teeth and downward spiral
12. Alanis Morrisette…jagged little pill
13. Stone Temple Pilots-Core
14. The White Stripes-Elephant
15. David Bowie-changes
16. Bon Jovi-one wild night
17. Joe Cocker’s greatest hits
18. Classic The Kinks
19. Rattle and Hum U2
20. The Black Crowes..southern harmony and musical companion

On my list to get next…sex pistols, the clash, boston, fleetwood mac-rumors, metallica, REM, velvet revolver, etc and so on.

Your turn…what albums are on your list for the best albums of all time?

The Dichotomy of Me

I have a special empathy for anyone who is my friend. I am not an easy person to figure out. Hell, I have known myself for 43 years now and I still can't figure me out.

One thing for certain about me is that my emotional landscape is vast. When I feel things I feel them deeply and I tend to vacillate between extremes. While I have never been diagnosed with anything but suffering from a garden variety depression, I feel much akin to those who ride the roller coaster of bipolar disorder. I have my highs and lows but perhaps not as extreme as some. But I can say that these fluctuations in mood have definitely had an impact on my survival and day to day functioning and also upon interpersonal relationships.

There are times when I feel on top of the world and I can do no wrong. I feel exuberant. I am the life of the party. I schedule tons of activities and seek connection with people. My energy is boundless as I tackle huge projects. My libido is through the roof and I ooze sexuality. My thoughts are endless streams of creativity. When I speak I can't get the words out fast enough, my tongue seems in the way. I am external and searching. Happiness is just right around the corner, so easily found.

Then inevitably the crash comes. What was once light is now dim. The ease of doing things, even the simplest of tasks is replaced by a heaviness which slows me down to virtual stillness. It is like walking through quicksand. My mind plays tricks on me. I feel like a protruding nerve for all to prod. I feel inside out with my guts exposed. I want to run. I want to hide. Connection seems too difficult and I do my best to hide my vulnerability. The internal grey invades and leaves me empty. Tears won't take this away. I sink into the bottomless bit unsure if I will ever get out again. Hope is gone from this place. The only refuge is internal and this is where I hide.

So someone viewing this transformation from the outside looking in, must be puzzled, frustrated, and helpless. I think it would be easy to assume blame. I can assure you that it is nobody's fault. It isn't caused by an ill spoken word or by not trying hard enough or even negligence. I simply vacillate between my two worlds but I am always me. Sometimes I am internal and sometimes I am external. Sometimes I am brazen, opinionated, and confident. Other times I am sullen, withdrawn, and melancholic. Sometimes I cling and sometimes I push away. Sometimes I enjoy being immersed in crowds and other times I wish to be a hermit. Sometimes I need protection and other times you may need protection from me. I am maternal. I am a little girl. I am me.

But know this about me...the yin and yang of me needs love no matter what state I am in. And likewise...dichotomous me is capable of loving despite any mood. The expression just may be a little different at times. I am always here. Knock at my door, I may not always answer but please don't stop knocking. You know in time, I will open the door and let you in.

Thank you to all my friends who put up with me.

Is happiness over rated?

"I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all."

Leo Rosten

I tend to agree with this quote. The pursuit of happiness above all else seems contrived and rather futile. Trying to make a difference seems a better use of time to me and it brings more joy. Happiness as a goal is over rated.

What are your thoughts?

A can of whoop ass..

I was watching the news the other night and a little blurb came on about MS and how it affects more women and how they are researching this fact. More so I was interested in the woman they spotlighted. She was probably a little older than I am and had a son of about ten years old. She was trying to explain to him about MS and why she couldn't walk well. Her gait was noticeably affected. Then her boy talked about how he gets teased at school because the kids say his mom is a "cripple". That really got to me.

I was thinking...man...if I ever need a cane to walk with, and if someone said something to me I would have to be held back not to whoop them upside the head with the cane. Seriously...there is no excuse for cruelty.

I have been around folks with disabilities my whole life and I have been a staunch advocate for them. I am not one to ever put up with bullshit.

Have any of you encountered cruelty because of your differentness? How did you handle it?

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I wasn't gonna even write about this for awhile because it is so dreadful but speaking of cruelty in an up close and personal way...today my son was subject to abuse at the supermarket of all things. He has autism and he sometimes appears odd. He has some tics and he also makes some sounds like chirps and peeps. He also likes to sing and hum. Well evidently this disturbed the old woman behind us and...she starts yelling, "WHY ISN'T HE IN AN INSTITUTION?" I assume she was nuts. After being chastised for being rude and..."my son has autism, what is your excuse?" she still kept on until she abruptly left the line. I still can't comprehend this and while it seems easy to logically dismiss...I am very...disturbed. I watched her drive away in her Lexus and I wondered how she could be so very hurtful. Oh well...all in a day I suppose. Ignorant people are everywhere. I am happy to report that most people we have met have been nothing less than kind to us.

End of week reflections..

Well how about that? Friday already. Time to reflect upon the week.

So many moments...how do we remember them all? In fact we don't. Some moments just drift on by, never to be recovered again. And if you look at things in a realistic way...we are but tiny blips on the continuum of time. In the scheme of things our life seems insignificant in the history of the universe.

Yet here we are alive and here to see another moment pass through our periphery. And there goes another one!

This week I have been feeling more laid back, less anxious, and more grateful. I can't say why I am feeling this way but I feel more at ease with letting the moments pass and just enjoy them as they come. I am feeling more okay about my "smallness" in the world. There is beauty in the process of becoming. I am not sure what it is I am becoming but I do know that I can't hold back change. It comes for all of us.

So let go....breathe...and embrace the moment. There won't ever be another one like it.

Sympathy for a Broken Umbrella

When I was a little girl of about six years old I had this beautiful red umbrella. I loved it so. I looked forward to rain showers just so I could carry it with me. And why shouldn't I have loved it? It gave me protection and a feeling of safety. It was my portable shelter in storms. But of course there comes a day when our favorite things are no longer useful anymore. My umbrella had weathered one too many wet and windy days. Over time the wires became bent and the once perfectly symmetrical red dome was now lopsided.

Of course my love for my umbrella over ruled any need for usefulness. I would carry it out with me, broken or not. But my mother did notice and told me it was time for my beloved umbrella to be thrown into the trash. I watched her, heartbroken, as she carried it outside for the garbage men to pick up the next morning. I felt such sympathy for this inanimate object. How would I feel if I were taken out to the trash after being so loved for so long? I imagined the sorrow of feeling alone and unnecessary, and it was then that I decided to rescue my umbrella from certain demise. I did go out and retrieve it, hiding it into the back of my closet. Although it would never shield me from one more raindrop, I was glad to have my umbrella back with me.

Decades later I still feel a particular empathy for broken objects mainly because I feel broken too. For years upon years I have not had any major health problems. I have never had a broken bone, not even a sprain. I had rarely experienced the inside of a hospital except to give birth to my two boys. I never worried about my health and it was something I took for granted. But now things are different. I have been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, this mysterious disease which causes ghostly symptoms to come and go. One day I may not be able to walk well. On another I may feel weakness in my hand. On yet another day I may not be able to speak coherently or keep my balance while standing. The course of my disease is unpredictable and therefore frightening.

What does it feel like to have MS?

I have to say that one of the first images to come to mind is my broken umbrella from so many years ago. There are days I feel broken. This is something I do not like to admit to myself. There are things which may not be fixable. But it is more than a physical phenomena, this "broken" feeling is quite emotional. Everyone has a way of thinking about themselves which does involve this flesh and blood house we inhabit. I read something recently about someone saying that we are not our bodies. The article I was reading was about weight and body image. But if you extend this philosophy you could include overall bodily health. I thought about this for awhile and then concluded that this statement is only partially true. Yes we are greater than this body we must dwell within, yet there is no escaping the fact that we are biological creatures. Everyone, regardless of who you are, will experience a decline in physical functioning. Even our brain, which acts as guardian of memory, intellect, and emotion, will someday enter a phase of gradual demise. Age is the great causal factor here, but for some who happen to have neurological disorder such as Multiple Sclerosis, loss of some functioning is going to happen a lot sooner. In many respects we are our bodies.

After some time has passed since my diagnosis last October I have had a lot of time to think about such things. I wonder about my usefulness. I am not the same as I was. There is an undeniable emotional loss to this fact. I can no longer do all the things I used to do with ease. I must think beforehand. I must plan. Spontaneity has been replaced with trying to determine the exact point when my body may rebel and begin to collapse. I must think about weather now and particularly heat. I must think about adaptations should I be unable to walk or talk. I worry about my children and if I will be able to keep up with them. I worry about the future and if I will recognize myself in years to come.

Despite all of this, I do feel I can handle whatever comes to me. I can adapt. I have no choice really. The physical part of this I can endure. It is the emotional aspect of having this disease which seems harder to bear. I am a little broken. I feel if I tell myself the facts with no denial, that I will be better able to accept this. I am worthy despite my limitations. I am not about to throw my life into the garbage because of this disease. Unlike my childhood umbrella, I am not a disposable object to be tossed aside when my body fails me. Broken or not, we all deserve to be loved for who we are despite our perceived usefulness. Pity and sympathy have no place here. I have left mine in the closet with my umbrella.

Question for the Day...

I was just thinking that I come from a generation who did not know life without television. Now my kids are a generation who will not know life without computers.

Can you imagine life without television or computers?

Which one of these inventions could you least do without and why?

a. your computer

b. television

c. your cell phone

A blogging question...

I just recently tried out the g**gle feed reader to catch up on all your blogs and I am just not sure about it. I mean...it doesn't really save time as you have to go to this secondary link and...well...you might as well go to people's blogs right?

I have heard about another change coming to blogger where...you can see which blogs on your links have updated. You can try it out before they make it mainstream by logging into blogger in draft. I was wondering if anyone has tried this and what it is like and how to do it.

So what is your method of reading and commenting on posts?

post script: this is really strange but since publishing this post and using the word g00gle in this post...i am getting these g**gle 403 error messages like crazy when i try to visit some of your blogs. lisa...yours is one. are they mad at me or what?

I am also using AOL as my browser...wonder if that has anything to do with it?

Food as Love

I wanted to get back to some consistency here on my blog and also get back to my theme which, if you have already forgotten, is FOOD. So here goes...

One of the first things to come to mind when I think about the topic of food is love. And as Mother's Day approaches I think about my mother and how she always showed her love through her edible gifts.

One of my first memories of being with my mother was being allowed to share her box of chocolates. I would sample them for her by sticking my little sticky fingers into the tops or else nibbling from the sides. I would carefully replace them into the box and then report to her on what was inside each one. I am not sure if she truly appreciated my "investigative reporting" but she lovingly tolerated it and even grew to expect it. It became a ritual between us.

Then there were the cookies we made together. Back when holidays were openly celebrated in school, my mother would volunteer to make cookies. I specifically remember baking before Valentine's Day with my mother and how beautifully uniformed those hearts were all lined up on the baking sheet. I remember our floured hands and noses and the rolling pin she used. Her wooden rolling pin is the same one I use today when I bake with my kids. I can still taste those cookies with their distinctive vanilla flavor. And the cookbook, Betty Crocker of course, I still own and use.

Yet aside from being able to bake cookies, the truth was, my mother was a horrible cook. She did try though, bless her soul. Mostly everything she made was fried or came out of a can. There were many meals created by the Chef Boyardee. Frozen TV dinners were also a staple at our house. I loved the Hungry Man dinners myself with the fried chicken and mashed potatoes. And then there were the TV dinners specifically geared for kids where you got the little chocolate brownie which of course didn't taste like a brownie but was chocolate enough to taste good. I never liked it when the foods mingled with each other and I would find gravy on my corn and corn on my brownie. I also remember the many helpers as in Hamburger Helper and Tuna Helper or Scalloped potatoes made from a box. My all time favorite meal that my mother would make was fried porkchops, orange macaroni and cheese from the box, and applesauce. I am sure many of us from my generation will remember the famous lines uttered by Peter Brady about such a culinary delight ala Cagney style: "Porkchops and appleshaush." I guess you had to be there.

What my mother lacked in culinary abilities, she made up for in buying me treats. Being a single mother in the inner city, my mother lacked the money for luxuries such as a babysitter. When I was about nine or ten she felt she could leave me alone for spell and would head on out to run errands. Each and every time she went out she would bring me back a suprise. Most times the surprise would be a treat from the bakery. I simply don't think they have bakeries as they did then. Cream puffs covered in chocolate and filled with custard and/or ladylocks sprinkled with powdered sugar and stuffed with cream were two of my favorites. I felt special and loved when she would remember me in that way.

Perhaps I remember the food so much because there were so many times we would go hungry. My mother was not only raising me by herself, she also was battling a severe mental illness of schizophrenia. We sustained ourselves on social security widow benefits. Things would be wonderful at the beginning of the month when it was check day. But by the end of the month, there might not be much to eat but some ramen noodles or some crackers.

There were many times when we would go to the supermarket and not have enough money to buy the food in our cart. I remember a time when my mother had picked out this wonderful coffee cake bedazzled with white icing, maraschino cherries, and almonds. We were so looking forward to eating it. But despite the fact that we had emptied our coin jar and made the clerk count pennies, we didn't have enough money for everything. The decision was made reluctantly to put our prized coffee cake as well as several other items back. The people in line behind us as well as the clerk silently glared their dissaproval.

When I look back at my childhood, there were many things lacking. Sometimes I didn't have enough to eat. There were some very cold days in winter without enough heat. There were some very sad Christmas's with no presents. But there was also love there too. Maybe it wasn't some perfect Leave it to Beaver existence that I had heard about from TV but I never doubted my mother's love for me. Sometimes you have to take love as it comes to you, even in the form of a heart shaped cookie with extra red sprinkles.

I'm still alive...

I know I know...I suck.

But...I have been kept busy with life stuff and the fact that it is spring. All of a sudden there is green everywhere! I am planting a garden and I have been keeping guard. I have seen one bunny rabbit and one mourning dove trying to get into things. Bad varmints! The deer will surely come next and then of course there are the bugs. How does one grow anything at all?

For my readers...now numbering in the single digits...I am returning to being a human capble of posting and commenting. I promise. I know...you have heard that before.

So what have you folks been up to? Do tell all!