It calls to me

Food, that is! I’ve eaten so much ice cream today that I physically feelll. Yes, it’s been hot, and yes, I’m premenstrual, but still, what is it within myself that makes me want to eat until I’m sick? I know I do not eat for hunger. Not once today was I hungry when I ate the ice cream (3 Klondike bars and 3 scoops of Edy’s loaded choc. chip cookie dough). I know I have body issues. I’m not thin. I’m not obese, but it would improve my overall health if I lost 20 lbs. But you’d think that for survival, the body would NOT want all of the crap that we feed it. My dad had type II diabetes, and I’m ready for it the way I’m going. There is heart disease in my family, and that doesn’t scare me enough to stop eating. I used to be much more active than I am now. Now I prefer sitting and watching movies to riding my bike, dancing, or walking. I will die young if I continue this (I am 38 now). I don’t want to die, or do I? Aren’t I basically choosing an early death by eating this way?

I will try again tomorrow…tomorrow is another day. I want to be good to myself. I want to believe I’m worth it. I want to eat to live, not live to eat. Maybe someday….

Just nothing

I don’t have much interesting to say tonight, but typing is relaxing for me, so here I go.

Can’t believe the devastation in China after the earthquake. I just read that it lasted over 3 minutes! That must have been horrifying. And for schools to collapse and trap so many students inside…just very sad. I told my husband that the world was definitely ending soon (I’m paranoid and anxious and always looking for something to worry about) and he said that there’s nothing new happening but that there are just more people affected because there are more people in the way of the devastation. That made sense, so I’m not freaking out just yet.

Am watching American Idol. I am totally routing for David Cook. David Archelleta is so annoying. I dreamt that he was stalking me a while back, so I could never vote for him. He haunts my dreams!

I made contact with a guy I’ve known since middle school but who I haven’t seen or talked to for 20 years, and that made my day. Always wondered what happened to him, and after my sister reconnected with his older brother, we were able to connect with each other. He used to grab my boobs during reading class in 8th grade. Wonder if he remembers that. Today he would probably be suspended or even arrested (especially after some little boy, maybe 6 years old, recently was punished way too harshly for spanking a little girl on the butt at school). But I know that this boy from my class was just experimenting, and I certainly hold nothing against him. I was more annoyed that he was interrupting me during class.

Anyway, like I said, I didn’t really have much to say tonight but just felt like typing.

No real thought before having kids

Rumor has it that humans are the “intelligent” species, but if we’re so intelligent, why on Earth are people still popping out child after child. Does no one think ahead that adding people to this world right now is hugely selfish. And to have 18 kids is just ridiculous! Americans are a huge drain on the Earth. One American hungrily uses more resources than 1,000 people in a third world nation. So adding 18 humans to this earth is like adding 18,000 people in a third world nation. People use resources, resources add to the strain on the Earth as it is, adding to global warming.

I admit that I am childfree and proud of it. I chose not to add children to a world that I think is full of greed and hatred. I chose not to add a person to a world where money makes it go around. I thought ahead about WHY I would have a baby. I’ve heard that statement, “The first child is for me, and the second child is for the first child.” How about not having children just “for you.” Humans should be intelligent enough to see that adding more people, at least more than just replacing yourself, is selfish and, a lot of times, careless. How many children are brought into the world unplanned for and unwanted? I have a sister who selflessly takes in foster children whose parents aren’t able to care for them. There is a huge need for foster parents. But it makes no sense to me how people can take on parenthood with so little care about what they can give their children and what world they’re bringing the children into.

But back to having 18 children. Well, maybe I don’t have much to say because I’m speechless. Years and years ago, when childhood disease and death happened more often, and children worked in the fields and helped their families in one way or another, I could see the reason to have numerous children. But today there is no need to have so many children. It is not getting you closer to God. It is not at all considerate to the world around you. Stop draining the world’s resources and start taking birth control!

If schools give sex education classes these days, they should make it clear to girls and boys that NOT having children is an option. When I was growing up, I always thought I would have two children: a boy and a girl. I thought that because it’s just what seemed to be “the way of the world.” But as I got older, I realized I had a choice, but it was a choice that some people looked down upon. I can’t imagine why anyone would look down upon someone choosing to be childfree, because by being childfree, I am not adding to the world’s burden of carrying capacity. I am not inconsiderate in any way to the world or my neighbors or anyone. In fact, I’m being overly considerate, giving up my childbearing so that maybe there will be a little left for others.

In fact, I’m really not a fan of all of the new technology to create babies in labs. I feel like either you can have them or you can’t. There are so many unwanted kids out there who could use homes, and if you can’t get pregnant, then pitch in and help them out if you so need to have children in your lives. IVF technology produces a lot more multiple births than would occur naturally, so again, people are adding more children than the world needs.

I know that parents who are wanting babies or who have had children will think I’m crazy. They’ll say I simply don’t understand what it’s like to be a mother. And you’re right…I don’t. But I chose ahead of time NOT to find out, and I’m fine with that. I don’t see mother’s with children and think, “Oh, I wish I had one of those.” I’m sure there’s an amazing bond that mom’s have with their kids. I’m sure there’s a lot of fulfillment. But to me, creating a person to get fulfillment is the most selfish thing of all.

If there were a way to have a law against too much procreation, I’d consider backing it. But, of course, I don’t want Big Brother making decisions for us. I want people to be responsible for themselves, their community, and the world. You don’t need to birth a village. Just replace yourself and be done with it, or forego parenthood and give the money you don’t spend on a child toward saving the world any way you can.

The end of the world?

Okay, so a while back I heard something about either the Aztec’s or the Inca’s (I think the Aztec’s) saying that the world would end on 12/12/12. I’m guessing they didn’t say a date, per say, but probably described the day by the alignment of the Earth with stars and the sun, etc., seeing as they didn’t live following the Gregorian calendar. (Do we? Is that the right term?)

Well, I’ve always been a fatalist. I remember when I was around 12 hearing that all of the planets were going to line up and maybe their gravity, in sum, would make them all smash together. I barely breathed that day and was so relieved to make it through. But this 12/12/12 is getting to me, partly because everything just seems really screwed up these days.

We have global warming. And I’m sorry…my using energy-saving light bulbs (which, by the way, are so full of mercury that you need a hazmat team to help you dispose of a broken one…is THAT better for the environment) is going to save the Earth. I know a lot of folks are trying, and I try to do my part, but unless we’re all willing to take a few thousand steps back and give up our cars, our power plants, our manufacturing, etc., we’re not going to make a dent. It’s like giving aspirin to someone with a full-fledged infection. Maybe it’s going to help with the pain, but it’s not going to save the person…IT’S TOO LATE!!

Because of global warning, we are having really crazy weather. I am lucky…in the Northeast, things haven’t changed that much. We don’t tend to get tornadoes or hurricanes, and we were spared any really bad blizzards this past winter. But every day I am hearing about a slew of tornadoes going through the Midwest (I would NEVER live there…I am terrified of tornadoes!). I read that on average at this time of year, maybe 200 would have touched down, but a couple of weeks ago, over 500 had touched down and that was before the latest bunch that killed a number of people.

There are earthquakes in places that don’t usually experience them, both in the MIdwest and in Utah. What’s up with Utah?? Their aftershocks are getting stronger instead of weaker. And scientists discovered some weird earthquake off the coast of Oregon recently, a type they’d never “heard” before (apparently they were using some listening device).

After a tidal wave killed over 100,000 in Thailand in 2006, another 100,000 are assumed dead in Myanmar (where the heck IS that? Was that Burma?) We in the United States have no idea how large a tragedy that is because we are bombarded with news when only a few people die (the bridge collapse in Minneapolis), or even a few thousand (9/11). But 100,000???? I don’t even know how we would all respond to something like that.

Okay, so they’re talking about the honey bees disappearing. Without bees, there will be a real shortage of food. Add that on top of tragedies like Myanmar and the Chinese epidemic that is killing children, and everything else, and I’m thinking that if the world doesn’t end in 12/12/12, I’ll be ready to get off.

More than anything, I can’t stand the news of how human carelessness (basically never thinking about the consequences of all of our actions on the world around us) has harmed the animal world. Polar bears are starving because of the ice melt, beautiful Amazonian frogs are disappearing because of chemicals leaching through their skin (okay, I am not completely sure why they’re dying out, but this sounded like a possible cause), other animals are nearly extinct because humans have either killed them outright or have destroyed their habitat. What is WRONG with people and why are they so determined to ruin the earth??

Sometimes I just think that I need a vacation from all the news. If I didn’t know about all of these tragedies, all of the animal deaths, the earthquakes, etc., I would be far more relaxed. But it’s nearly impossible to escape it all. Information overload is everywhere, and I just want to turn it off.

Hope the world doesn’t end while I’m not paying attention!

I hate the night

I hate the night, and I mean the deep night. The time of night when, if I can’t sleep, if I have something I need to say, there’s no one to talk to. My husband sleeps so deeply that he could miss the ball drop if sleeping in the middle of Times Square on New Year’s Eve. The streets are dark (my street is particularly dark, with no street lights and lots of trees), so not only do I feel alone, I feel a little creeped out. My anxieties seep out in the middle of the night. Things that don’t bother me when the sun is up can totally freak me out in the dark of night because it’s as though I’m the only person in the world.

I definitely need more friends who live across the world so I could at least write to them at those times when I’m awake.

Anyway, tonight I sit up waiting for my cat to die. I suspect as soon as the sun comes up, I’m going to be taking Fiddlehead for his last visit to a vet, and sadly, to one whom he’s never met because it’s Sunday. I can’t bear to make him suffer another day.

This is my first cat, the cat I always wanted when I was a kid. He’s been a great cat for the past 13 years, and now he’s dying. He has congestive heart failure. I knew he was going to be the first to go. He always seemed more vulnerable than the others. But he was my favorite at times…a great lap cat. A cat that had to run into the bathroom with “dad” to get a drink from the sink. A cat who loved to eat and would try to bat food right off of your fork. He stole an entire pork chop from the kitchen once, right out of the pan! He was afraid of EVERYTHING. If you turned the newspaper page too quickly, he’d bolt out of the room. Sometimes he’d just see something, like my foot, and look at it like it’s a serial killer. Any false move, and he’d run.

I hated traveling and leaving Fiddlehead with strangers. He wasn’t comfortable with many people except my brother-in-law and the elderly neighbor across the street who he’d only met once. That was shocking.

He was the only cat of my three who WOULDN’T jump in bed with us in the morning. He’d always try to sleep on our laps if we were sitting in the living room watching TV, but he wasn’t interested in sitting in bed with us. I never understood that.

Every morning before we were up, we could hear him say what sounded like a long, extended Hellooooooo? Helloooooo? Sort of like “Is anyone there? Who’s going to feed me?” But right now he’s not eating, and we always said that once he stopped eating, we’d know it was serious. He hasn’t moved from his spot on the couch for over 12 hours (although he has turned around). I know taking him in this morning is going to be the right thing to do, but I also knew this wasn’t going to be easy.

I know that some people, those without pets and those who don’t, in general, just LOVE animals, will not understand why I would write an entire post about Fiddlehead, but I don’t have kids and I DO love animals, and I just hate seeing him uncomfortable.

In fact, that way I feel about my cats, I can’t even IMAGINE what it’s like to have a kid. I’m nearly 40 and I have no plans to have any kids (had the tubes tied for my 30th birthday present), and I just can’t imagine having one…a real little person counting on me. I see overprotective parents, and although it’s easy to say “they’re nuts,” I’m hovering over a cat! What’s it like if someone’s child is sick. That must be just a terrible thing to go through.

I have a friend whose daughter was diagnosed with leukemia when she was just six months old. And her son has hemophilia. She and her husband were really happy to have a girl because it meant she would be free of hemophilia. But to then be told that she has another, much worse blood disease? They’ve been through so much in the past 18 months. Their lives changed overnight. They spent months in the hospital. And the worry must have just been incredible.

So I know this isn’t like having a kid, but I just want Fiddlehead to be at peace. Maybe that will come today as soon as the sun comes up and the husband wakes up. Time will tell.

 

 

 I’d like to take him to the vet right now, at 4am, but I have to wait for that log of a husband to wake up because (1) I don’t know that I want to do this alone and (2) he might resent me for doing it.

Separation of Church and State

I hope my tax dollars are not paying for the visit of the pope to the White House. This seems a huge conflict with the policy of separation of church and state in this country. If President Bush wants to visit with a religious leader like this, he can do it at his own personal ranch so that I, as a U.S. taxpayer, is not footing the bill. He may be the leader of all Catholics in the world, but I’m not one of them and so his visit is not in any way something I want to pay for. But somehow, I have a feeling I’m paying.

Proud to be an American?

Recently I read that Sen. Obama’s wife was criticized for saying that she only recently felt that she was proud to be an American. For some reason, people in this country are threatened when someone might not be proud to be an American. But how can anyone be proud to be something they just “are.” I’ve never understood that. I was born in this country, not because I chose it but because my ancestors chose it. Does that make me proud to live here? Not really. I happened to be born within a set of boundaries that some strangers in the past set up. Deos that make me better than someone born on the other side of the boundary, or within a different set of boundaries across the ocean? Of course not. Being born in a particular area does not make you special, and it shouldn’t give you reason for being proud.

In fact, in the past few years, especially since George Bush came into office, I think I’ve been more embarrassed to be an American than proud. I wouldn’t say I’m ashamed to be an American, because again, I’m not ashamed of something that I didn’t choose to be. But I know that other countries look at the United States and the people who live here in a very negative light because of decisions a few people have made. I didn’t make those decisions, but sometimes I guess I’m embarrassed to, as an adult, have chosen to remain in this country.

How can someone be proud of living in a country where 1 in 100 people are in prison? That either means that we have a lot of people in prison for crimes that don’t deserve hard time or that Americans are a society where crime is just a part of life. I am not proud to live where people don’t know the difference between right and wrong, where people feel somehow entitled to have certain things, and if they don’t have those things, they need to get them illegally.

I am not proud to live in a country where children now feel it’s okay to use guns to get their points across. School shootings are almost not “news” anymore. It’s becoming a way of life, and it’s embarrassing. Where are young people getting the idea that it’s okay. If someone wants to commit suicide, why do they think it’s okay to take others out with them?

I’m not proud to live in a country where people are coddled so much as children that they expect to be coddled as adults. And these same adults now feel that they can make a quick buck the minute something not so pleasant happens in their lives: lawsuits! Americans don’t want to work hard to make a living. They want to get everything the easy way. I’m not proud that this country runs on lawsuits, and I’m definitely NOT proud that there are times I’d like to make a quick buck without working hard myself. Hell, I play the lottery a lot, hoping to be given a whole lot of money so I won’t ever have to work hard.

I’m hugely embarrassed to live in a country where the leader (who was not elected by the popular vote, nor by MY vote) lied to start a war. I’m still waiting to find out where the WMDs are. I’m embarrassed that we’re now occupying Iraq with no real end in sight.

I’m embarrassed that leaders in this country feel like everything is our business. We need to keep our hands out of other country’s politics the way we would be horrified if another country tried to interfere with us.

But back to pride in general. Being proud of something you didn’t work for doesn’t make sense. Gay pride…what are they proud of? I cannot understand being proud that you’re gay (or straight or bi or whatever), but maybe they’re proud that they were strong enough to choose to live life the way they were meant to. Being gay and living publically as a gay person, with bigotry and discrimination, is not easy. So the pride should be in the way they choose to live their lives, not in the fact that they’re gay.

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up, and many Irish will talk about their Irish pride. I am Irish, but I’m not proud that I’m Irish. I didn’t choose it…I just am. I’m not proud that I’m female or that I’m straight. I’m not proud that I have 10 fingers and 10 toes (although I’m definitely happy about that). I’m simply not proud of those things that I did not choose, and it makes no sense for others to be proud of those things either.

What I’m proud of is who I’ve become as an adult. I’m a good person (most of the time). I try to be open minded. I am extremely self aware, and I am constantly trying to better myself. Many people have told me that they know I listen to criticism. Sometimes I can be defensive at first, but I’m always listening, and I take to heart what is being said, in case I really am at fault and need to try to be more understanding, more flexible, more sensitive to other’s situations. I always try to see arguments from both sides. I know that the person arguing with me believes they are right as much as I believe I am right.

I am proud that I am financially independent, living in a house that is paid off, with thousands of dollars in savings and no debt whatsoever. I’m REALLY proud of that because decisions I’ve made have made me financially secure in a time when so many others are in trouble.

I’m proud of myself when I succeed in meeting a challenge, in solving a puzzle, in finding a difficult answer. But I’m not proud that I have the ability to do all of this.

I think people need to figure out the difference of being proud and being happy or feeling lucky.

Although I’m sometimes embarrassed to be an American, much of the time, I’m grateful to be an American. I feel like I’m even lucky to live in a country where we have so many rights. I feel lucky to live where I do, where I’m not constantly afraid, where war is not outside my door. I am lucky and happy to have the family that I was born into and the husband that I married.

So I think it’s fine if Michelle Obama has had times where she hasn’t felt proud to be an American. Perhaps if her husband is elected and she helps him in his daily work, she can be proud of what she is helping other Americans achieve. In fact, if Sen. Obama weren’t proud of being an American, that might be a good thing. Perhaps if he were to become president, he would work hard enough so that he was proud of the job he was doing and we, as Americans, can be proud that we voted the right guy into office.