Thursday, April 27, 2006

Handing Tickets Out For God

So the ankle is better, but not quite up to snuff. It's very aggravating because it is the same foot I kicked Carlos with and fucked up my toe beyond all compare.

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I received some mildly interesting news yesterday. Jethro's ex and my former best friend, Micky (with the hairy nipples, hairy stuffed monkey/cum rag, and that animal she carries around all the time) has spawned. The only thing I could think of was that the monkey will have a twin. Sometimes I'm evil.

But I wish them the best and hopefully the baby will fill the void in her personality that compels her to use a prop to insulate herself from normal human relations.

But enough about her. One day I will explain my animosity towards her, but that's only for a day when I don't feel like talking about bowel movements or transvestites.

I've got other things on my mind.

My mom has had a hard life. Divorced parents, child abuse from a wicked, evil stepfather, and then, of course, The Cult. Then she was widowed with eight children to look after and quickly married a man who was not the right one for her just over a year later. Now, as it turns out, he is cheating, he is verbally abusive, and he treats her like shit. I don't know what to do. She has just had one run of bad luck after another and I don't think she is the strongest person mentally or she wouldn't be in the mess she's in.

I want to quit my job because it is too stressful and I want to get my real estate license and take care of my house. My mother wants me to stay working in the office so she doesn't have to worry about a strange woman becoming his secretary. Now she's asking me to train her to take over my job which is the most pointless endeavor. She really doesn't want to work. All she wants to do is spy on stepdad.

My mother is too reliant upon others to care for her. That is the sad truth. If my father had not died, I think she would be a different person. But my father, even though he was an altruistically good person, was also influenced by this cult. My upbringing was just a little more apocalyptic and a tad more belty than the norm. I blame this directly on the cult. They influenced my mom's and dad's parenting style in ways that I believe were downright abusive - even after they left. And the horrible fact is that my parents were nothing compared to what the cult members did to their children after 1978.

God it's hard to write about this. I can't make it funny.

My parents had unrealistic expectations of us. They made us feel like outsiders to our peers and somehow expected us to be a good influence on them. Failure in this department, regardless of how subjective , was punished. The worst part is that my parents did it out of love as well as fear. They loved us and feared that we would go to hell if we were not constantly driven like cattle down the path of righteousness. It was tumultuous. Perhaps that is why I like the quiet. As much as we may feel that compulsion, you can't micromanage your children's lives like that. It makes them neurotic.

So I'm stuck in limbo. On one hand, I am furious at my mother for being in this situation. But on the other, I feel bad for her because much of it she didn't cause. On the other hand, she could have prevented most of it if she had used her brain. On the other hand, overwhelming grief can make you crazy. On the other hand, I didn't ask for the idiotic parts of my childhood - and how I came out of it without killing myself or someone else is beyond me and I still blame her. On the other hand, her terrible childhood was what left her susceptible to this stupid cult in the first place.

I try not to feel contempt for her because she is a kind, loving person with a good heart. She just doesn't have any sense. And now she seems to be looking to me to sort this all out for her, which means I have to sort it all out for myself, which is something I really didn't want to have to do. It's so much easier to bury the past and let time and love wash it away. But I don't think I can do that. Sometimes I just want to scream "WELCOME TO MY HELL" when she starts complaining about what the cult is doing to her life.

I don't know whether I want to help her or not. On one hand, I want to let her stew. On the other, I think I would feel a real sense of accomplishment if I had a hand in her living the next 20, 30, 40 years free of this curse.

Is she just a little bit of my responsibility? Would I be wrong to take this on, possibly at some expense to my own little family? Would I be wrong to leave her a mess? I'm lost and I need help.

Monday, April 24, 2006

It's the Law of Murphy that the second you sprain your ankle, you will end up having to use said ankle more than you ever thought possible.

But I've learned some valuable lessons this weekend, the most important being that if you try to rest your ankle while sitting on the sidewalk at the finish line of the MS 150 Bike Tour, you will see spandex covering the most interesting and complex of physical protuberances, namely Camel Toes as far as the eye could see before you gouged them out in despair. No two were alike.

But just to be contrary, anyone who says spandex ought to be outlawed will be banned permanently from my blog. Spandex should not be outlawed. It should be required. It never gets old to see it. It only gets old to say it. And as long as you can still feel that thrill of revulsion when a 300 lb gentleman, oozing with sweat, saunters into your line of sight with his spandex shorts pulled up to his armpits and his entire package firmly encased and protruding from his left thigh, let it not be anathema.

However, I think some people ought to be aware that being skinny doesn't automatically mean you look good in spandex. Wear it, by all means. I sit in no judgment and frankly, the comedic value is far too high. But for your own sake, you might want to reconsider the strutting of your stuff when you haven't any stuff to strut.

What was I doing at the finish line MS-150 when I am so opposed to physical exertion of any kind? Well may you ask. It's actually pretty simple. Jethro's sister, her husband, and their cousin participated. For Halliburton, no less. They asked if Jethro would pick them up at the finish line in Austin and I tagged along.

They sucked. They were supposed to finish at 12 noon and we were supposed to leave immediately from there. They finished at 5:00pm. That left Jethro and I with 5 hours of waiting. If I had known it would be that long, I would have called Trashman. But instead, I had to suffer through the heat, boredom, sprained ankle and the insufferable Austinites.

Austin is a beautiful, pleasant city except for the hippie stench that is the equivalent of smog in LA. It's where the old hippies go to die and from the smell of them, they've been dying since the 60s. But at least they haven't moved to California, snort coke from their poolside lounges and happily tell the rest of us how we oppress the poor when we bitch about taxes. Noooo. They haven't sold out.

I think what set me off was when we were on the drag and I thought I'd buy a couple of bracelets for Gwennie and Emma. I was looking through the tables and every one of the unwashed artisans had some anti-American example of their art, from leatherworks of desecrated American flags, to hammers and sickels, to Fidel-fucking-Castro etched in stone. Fuck that. I don't care how old, smelly, or talented they are. They can sing their protest songs and bitch about The Man. I will keep my filthy lucre. No need to make it any filthier by putting it in the hands of those stinking weirdos.

And speaking of filth, I must return to the cleansing of my habitat. It is unfit for humanity.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Field Trip

I volunteered to chaperone Gwennie's field trip. I sprained my ankle, my allergies are killing me, and it is storming.

Y'all have a nice day.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Fear and Loathing in the Mind of Zelda

Gwennie has been having crying spells where she tells me she is afraid of getting old and dying. I'm not quite sure how to manage that one being plagued with fear on that score myself. Then in the middle of Easter Sunday Mass, she looked at me skeptically and said, "But yeah. Who made God?"

Damned if I know, kid. And that just may be the truth.

While I appreciate and even delight in intricate theological questions, I am not thrilled with being thrown into existential crisis at unsuspecting moments. Being a nervous sort, I don't handle it very well.

Now if I may shift gears, what is it with crazy white people? I swear, every time they discover I am married to a Vietnamese gentleman, they insist on sharing with me every aspect of Asian culture they've ever been accidentally exposed to from bedroom slippers to a salad at Jack-in-the-Box.

We have a crazy real estate agent working for us now (a blog post in her own right) and she drives me insane. She never shuts up, and she does everything wrong from filing to writing contracts.

So after having driven away her clients with her endless, banal chatter, she called me while I was at lunch and kept me on the phone for 20 minutes telling me about some Asian salad at Crap-in-the-Box. "You would like it," she says. "It's ASIAN."

Go Away, Crazy Lady. I'm dealing with my own insanity. Must you heap yours upon my already overflowing platter? Truly my cup runneth over.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Tolerance

In case it escaped notice, a pedophile commented on my blog. And I'm not just being insulting. This is the blog he is was from. (Hat tip to Blonde Sagacity). I guess blogger either removed it or they've been pressured to shut it down. I flagged them and reported them to the FBI along with others. But they really are pedophiles, and there was a whole group of them.

The preamble to the blog was this:

"Pederasty, as idealized by the ancient Greeks, was a relationship and bond between an adolescent boy and an adult man outside of HIS immediate family. This is modernized in today's culture as gender neutral by a relationship and bond between an adolescent child and an adult outside of their immediate family. In a wider sense this refers to erotic/mentor/spiritual love between adolescents and adults. Building Bridges!"

It's the standard pedantic argument. The Ancient Greeks did it, therefore it must be intellectually justifiable.

I just wish they'd remember the civilizations who accepted, condoned and practiced "pedaresty" and it's other deviations, ended up spectacularly conquered. I don't think I'm off-base in assuming that if you spend your time planning the seduction of little boys, it makes you just a bit vulnerable defensively.

I've heard the argument, and they round-aboutly made the claim that kiddie porn keeps pedophiles from acting out. In case anyone was in doubt, I beg to differ. Let's pretend for a moment that I love chocolate. The mere thought of chocolate makes me happy. Even when it isn't there, I can visualize it, and crave it to the point where I can almost taste it, my mouth watering and waiting for the creamy sweetness to melt in my mouth. Now let's for an instant (and a very brief instant), pretend that I am 400lbs, diabetic, and if I eat any more chocolate - even one more piece - I could end up in a serious health crisis. Would it then make any sense for me to sit around writing about chocolate? Would it make any sense for me to wander the candy aisles and thinking about chocolate?

But what bothered me the very most about that blog was their claim that since they didn't choose to be attracted to young boys, they should not be discriminated against. They preach Tolerance.

And this disgusts me. The Constitution grants the right of the people (i.e. the majority) to dictate the laws under which they live. This is a fact. Tolerance is not mandated by the Constitution. This is also a fact. This idea that anyone is legally entitled to tolerance is quite dangerous.

We have legally made the decision to not discriminate against anyone based on the color of their skin, nationality, gender, etc. These are things that truly cannot be helped. No one has the ability to change their skin color, eye shape, hair texture, gender (despite the operations). Everyone has the ability and more importantly, the responsibility to control unhealthy urges. While the 400 lb diabetic is legally allowed to harm herself with her lack of control, no one would consider it unreasonable or wrong for her to strictly and strenuously deny those urges and cravings for chocolate. We, as a society, have legally decided that an adult engaging a child in sexual activity - whether it is by force or seduction - carries enough risk to that child to make it a crime. Knowing that a child's safety and well-being are at stake, as well as his/her own freedom, it wouldn't be unreasonable for a pedophile to strictly and strenuously deny those urges and cravings for children.

This site indicated that there is a difference between child rape and consensual sex with a child. Believe me, I am aware of all the nuances of the adult/child sexual relationship even to the point where both the child and the adult believe the child is in control of the situation. But it really makes no difference. And pedophiles are just going to have to accept the will of the people on this one.

For an interesting read, this young man has been dealing with pedophiles for a few years now. I highly recommend taking his insights into the minds of these criminals very seriously. It mirrored almost exactly the arguments the pedophiles made on their blog.

For a personal experience, during Hurricane Katrina, my mother and stepfather became accidental hosts to two New Orleans residents who had been on vacation. They were the uninvited guests of an uninvited relative. The gentleman (who was not a relative) set off my alarm bells immediately. It would be very hard to give you a concrete reason as to why. He just had this pompous way about him as if he were always trying to keep the adults off-balance in a way that would ingratiate him to the children.

I resolved to keep my eye on him, and sure enough, when all the kids had gone to the game room, I saw him amble off in that direction. I had thought that it was my 11-13 year old sisters who were in his line of fire, but when he went into the game room, he made straight for Emma, then 4. Emma wouldn't speak to him because strange men terrify her (than God). I cleared the room like a professional and got between them, scooping up Emma and holding her on my lap. I told him firmly that Emma doesn't like strangers and that he was scaring her.

Then he informed me that there was something wrong with her and I should be taking her to a professional. I told him I was fine with her being shy of strangers and then proceeded to stare him down. He tried to call me out for being an overprotective parent in front of everyone later that evening.

Didn't phase me. I said I'd rather be overprotective than have my children fall prey to someone with ill-intentions. He stopped after I threw out some more barbed responses and wouldn't back down.

There are too many incidents and I know too many people who have been molested to believe this is anything other than pandemic. The pedophiles will try and convince you that it is because we live in a society that is too strict with our sexual mores. But when you hear calls for more sexual liberation, please keep in mind who is making the argument and what their ulterior motives might be.

Monday, April 10, 2006

The Turtle

Brighton - Don't be mad, but I had a dream about Travis last night.

For anyone who thinks blogging about dreams is stupid and boring, I mostly agree, and I'm sorry to have to put you through this.

But I had a dream that Travis was auditioning for a movie role where he had to jump from one boat roof to another while they were moving through the water. Don't ask me why or how the boats had roofs sturdy enough to jump upon. So we were all watching and cheering him. He jumped on the first roof and for some stupid reason, there was a turtle on it. Travis screamed. Think Chris Tucker from The Fifth Element. Or Carlton from Fresh Prince. Or a very timid woman who has just woken up with a boa constrictor on top of her (my own personal horror-scenario).

Anyway, I must have found this very, very funny, because apparently I laughed like a hyena in the middle of the night and woke up Jethro. He wasn't terribly happy about that.

Friday, April 07, 2006

I think I'm having an episode. My head hurts and if I were to put my face down, I think my eyeballs would drop out of my skull. And while this might be an interesting sexual proposition for Jethro, I think he would soon tire of having to feed the seeing eye dog.

So Jethro is loving his new job. I am ecstatic for him and am eagerly awaiting his first paycheck. Mama needs her a new pair of shoes. Or at least a new stick of anti-perspirant. I'm licked. I'm crying "uncle" while attempting to breathe the swamy air. I will risk breast cancer for dry armpits.

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I left what I thought was a fairly innocuous comment on a Controversial Issue the other day on someone's blog. They responded to it saying, "I've caught your show on other blogs and I find that I have nothing to say to you."

What the Fucking Hell! That is the singularly most pathetic response I've ever gotten in my entire blogging career and I strenuously object. It's not that I mind it when people don't want to argue about something. Very few people are as argumentative as I am. But to automatically discount my opinion on one issue based on your disagreement with me on other issues (of which you haven't even seen fit to make me aware) seems a bit narrow-minded - and considering the individual, a more than a bit hypocritical. I can tolerate narrow-mindedness to a degree and I can tolerate hypocrisy to a degree, but marry the two, and I find I have nothing to say to you either and I am very sorry to have made the attempt.

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And I'm done bitching.

Next week, ball jokes!

Have a fabulous weekend. I will be watching Jethro hoover down crawdads and suck their heads dry (I've always maintained he could have had an awesome prison career) with Brighton, Travis, Jen and her husband, Vince the Prince.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Zelda Morning

I've had an interesting morning. Bearing in mind that I have had insomnia for a month and am not a morning person anyway, I have been really out of it lately. I can get Gwennie and Emma to school on time (with Jethro's help), but I am invariably going to look like death. I just can't get ready in time to present a decent, nay human appearance.

Today was no exception. I threw on a pair of Jethro's old and crumbling pj bottoms sans undies, decided against a bra and left with Something About Mary hair. I have no shame.

So to make a long story short, as I walked out of Emma's school, I felt a slight breeze. I looked down and the flap of Jethro's pj bottoms had sagged open and there was the pooter for all to see. We're talking a fairly R rated visual.

I think it speaks well of my apathy that I made a kind of half-hearted swipe at it and then just got in the car.

I forgot about it while dodging the inbred morons who are the only ones who seem to be able to get drivers licences.

When I got home, I encountered the next-door child molester leaving for a job interview. I accidentally flashed him.

What? It's not like he's interested.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

I am of two minds on the death penalty. On one hand, child rapists/murderers deserve death. Most assuredly they do, and that I do not question. If you can kill an innocent person, your life is forfeit, not only for the sake of justice, but for the sake of safety.

On the other hand, is it fair to put the responsibility for their deserved demise on an innocent person, i.e. the executioner?

This court ruling makes me seriously question whether we can sustain the death penalty. Apparently the lawyers for Michael Morales, the rapist and murderer now on CA (where else) death row, are allowed to have personal information on the executioners, but they are not allowed to make it public. I am skeptical to say the least. You have to presume they are going to share their legal strategy with the rapist and murderer, and there can be no doubt he will make it public. What are they going to do? Send him to the gas chamber?

Forget the lunacy that allows a man who raped and bludgeoned a 17 year old girl to death to claim that having a few needles stuck in his arm is "cruel and unusual" punishment. Now he can threaten the lives of those who are responsible for carrying out his legal punishment.

I am curious as to just how many more weapons we are going to hand over to these beasts, while at the same time, wonder if there is any such thing as cruel and unusual punishment for these individuals. They clearly don't deserve to have their crimes mitigated by reducing their sentences.

I suppose if we could find the collective will to take responsibility for purging these animals from society, I would support public, naked hanging. I just wouldn't eat my picnic lunch too close to the gallows.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Gwennie came up to me on Saturday.

"Mom. Guess what? On Monday they're going to teach us about babies."

"Oh really?" I was a little startled having received no pior word of this little endeavor.

"Yes," she continued. "But they said we can't tell anyone."

"Oh really?!" I was nonplussed. "Just who is going to be teaching you about babies?"

"Mrs. Tom, but she said it's a secret and we shouldn't tell anyone."

"Well, I don't like secrets about babies." I said firmly, imagining myself having an interesting little chat with the principal. "If you have any questions about babies, you can ask me anytime. I will tell you anything you want to know."

I was just gearing up for a good discussion when Gwennie suddenly burst out with:

"Hahahahaha! I fooled you. You know what day it is?"

Folks, I nearly died. She is only 6.

Sunday, April 02, 2006