Happy Old Year!

Why is everyone always so eager to say good-bye to the old year? So many things I’ve seen, read, heard lately all indicate how bad 2011 was and this is no different than any other year. Every year everyone talks about being glad to be done with the year just ending. People have lost loved ones or jobs. Friendships have broken, marriages have fallen apart. Yes, those things happened in 2011. They happen every year.

But good things happened too. They did. I’ve often been accused of being overly optimistic or toting around more than my share of joy but I like that.

In 2011 I started a new job which I still enjoy even after a very busy and sometimes stressful first year. I was able to recruit a dear friend to join me at the new job. I bought a new car…for my husband to drive! It’s the first real “family” car I’ve ever owned, something nice for a change that I’m not embarrassed to valet park at a nice restaurant. I think the leak in our back room has finally been fixed (this may not seem like a big deal to YOU but it sure is to ME).

A close friend embarked on a new relationship and with that change in her life there was room for us to be closer friends again (AWESOME). A beautiful new dance studio opened around the corner and I started taking ballet again, along with two nights of barre method classes, through this I’ve made new friends and lost two pounds and toned up a bit.

My husband lost more than 20 pounds and looks and feels GREAT! We cut red meat out of our diets (again). The local animal shelter came very close to reaching their goal of saving the lives of 5,000 domestic pets (GREAT NEWS).

We had a snowy and pretty beginning of 2011. I took back my yellow bicycle from the consignment shop. I rode my bicycle a lot this past summer.

I was told by someone who knew me 30 years ago that she always looked up to me. She’s had a tough life since then; hopefully I can ease her burden just a tad.

My fence fell down but the power of friendship put it back up again before any of the dogs got out.

US Soldiers really did leave Iraq. Osama Bin Laden was finally taken down.

I know there was more, that’s just what came to mind so far.

Of course it wasn’t all hats and horns in 2011…it never is and it won’t be in 2012, no matter how hard we wish it on ourselves and each other there will still be tears and fears, dreams dashed and plans re-directed. There will be sadness and loss I’m sure of it. I wish it weren’t so but it seems that life just works  that way; the best we can do is hope for good things and work our hardest to make good things happen for ourselves and those we love.

Yeah, we sure do need some good changes here and everywhere. We need to bridge the ever-widening political divide in America. People seem far too polarized, I find it hard to believe that everyone’s ideas are so extreme there must be some common ground, right? We need to put religion back into the church’s, temple’s , synagogue’s and other houses of worship and keep them out of our political halls and venues. We need to be kinder to each other, to the environment and to the animals we share the planet with. We need to eat more fiber and not drink and drive. We need to remember to stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk. We need to shed our sense of entitlement. We need jobs. We need to MAKE THINGS again in the USA and they need to be good quality and affordable. We need to say please and most importantly THANK YOU more often and with feeling. We need to smile more because it’s contagious. We need to make time for our significant others and not take them for granted. We need to take the time to give our pets a tummy rub more often (or a scratch behind the ears or an extra toss or ten of the Frisbee). We need to respect our elders…we need to respect OURSELVES.

Well, here’s to 2011, wacky weather, endlessly leaking roofs, long bike rides and good times! Happy Old Year.

Pathetic (Non)-Reasons

Pathetic reasons why I don’t blog as much as I’d like to:

1.       I have too many topics in my head at once, would take too long to get them all down so instead none get written down.

2.       I don’t want to post anything without posting a picture with it and I don’t always have a good picture to post and I’m too lazy to go out and gather enough decent pix to keep the flow going.

3.       To feed my blog needs I send 3,000+ word e-mails to my friend because it’s faster and easier…and I don’t need to send her a picture with each e-mail.

It’s 9/11/2011

Just like any American who was alive and older than an infant I know where I was and what I was doing when I first heard about the terrorist attacks. Let me correct that, when I first heard what happened it wasn’t yet a terrorist attack, it was a plane hitting one of the World Trade Towers.

I was driving along the access road to my job in New Jersey. A job I had started on January 3, 2001, a whole new career path with exciting opportunities. I loved it (I kinda hated my boss but I loved the job.) I was on the phone with my best friend, she was still self-employed then (now she’s an incredibly well-respected pre-K art teacher making an amazing impact in one of the worst inner city school districts in the country). We were doing our usual gossiping and such while she put off starting her day a little bit longer. She had the TV on while we chatted.

Suddenly she gasped and said something like, “oh my God a plane just hit one of the World Trade Towers”. My first reaction was, “a commuter plane? What a weird accident.” Her response, “no, I think it was a big plane, they’re saying it was a big plane, its chaos”. I was at work by then and said that I had to go but we’d talk as more news was available.

By the time I got to my office the second plane had hit the second tower. No one was working everyone was desperately searching the internet for answers to questions we hadn’t even asked yet. The US sites like CNN and MSNBC were unreachable too many people were all looking for the same answers to the same unasked questions.

Despite our New Jersey location in the US, we were a company headquartered in Northern Europe with several ex-pat employees who were able to access news sites in their native country (and in their native language) so we got our news from northern Europe about what was going on less than 50 miles northeast from where we sat.

The company I worked for made two drugs that may be needed in a time of emergency, this was that time. All employees onsite that day were called together in the largest available conference area, the number of employees wasn’t as large as normal because it was September and September was the time for big sales meetings. Many of the executive team members as well as other staff were off in Kansas City (I think it was KC) some should have been flying back. I realized I didn’t know when my friend Michele, one of the meeting attendees, would be flying back. We stood together now in that conference room while the VP of Regulatory Affairs addressed us; he was the highest ranking Executive Team member onsite that day. He told us to go home to our families, only essential personnel should stay, those would be the people who might have to get needed drugs to the victims, I was in marketing, I was definitely not essential.

I left work. I wasn’t sure what to do or where to go. I was single at the time, the cell phone lines were jammed, and really, was my call that important considering all the people just wanting to make sure that their loved one WASN’T on one of those planes or maybe was late to work that day.

My friend Michele ended up sharing a rental vehicle with some people she didn’t even know. It was important to get home and it was important to get home, wherever home might be.

In the days and weeks following the attacks the country came together like never before, we were wounded and we needed each other. We had learned that even these hallowed shores weren’t safe from extremism but it doesn’t seem we took that lesson to heart.

Here we are ten years later. Ten long years where the market has fallen apart and we’ve realized that America isn’t as perfect as we once thought. We are still struggling to come back. We’ve weathered situations like Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme which bilked millions and millions of dollars from people just trying to save enough to have a better life.

We’ve seen a new subset of the Republican Party rise to prominence, the Tea Party.

Many of the Tea Party candidates lean on religion as their guide to their ability to govern. Have we learned nothing from religious extremism? I support each person’s right to seek whatever comfort they may find from believing in a deity of some sort as long as that deity is a kind and benevolent one. I don’t support the right to worship any deity that takes a life for any reason, a human life or an animal life. A kind and loving deity doesn’t take life because life is precious to a deity who gives life.

On this 10th anniversary of this tragedy it should be a time to reflect on what is right and good in this world and in life. We are heading towards another US presidential election and things are already heating up to be a crazy race. There are people who believe that being gay is a disease that can be “cured” and people who believe that they will rule with the aid of their God.

Instead of learning from the mistakes of others we are building our lives on their mistakes. It’s my understanding that the terrorist plot was formed to bring down the horrible American infidels; we were considered a Godless people because we didn’t worship the deity of the terrorists. Now it seems we are expected to worship the deity of the Tea Party candidates.

Today, 9/11/11, America feels more divided than ever. Republicans don’t want what they call “Obamacare”, people shouldn’t be “forced” to carry health insurance. That’s an interesting concept considering that I’m forced to carry home and auto insurance, insurance for objects; but I’m not required to have insurance for my health without which no objects would have any value anyway.

There are studies stating that health care costs are the single most common reason for Americans to declare bankruptcy and to lose those objects they are required to insure.

September 11, 2001 was said to remind us of the value of every life but we have forgotten that message just ten years later.

We are so divided now that it seems as though I live in two or more separate countries with very different beliefs. People seem less and less likely to allow people to pursue their individual lives as they see fit.

I want to live in a UNITED States of America, I want to be united by our common belief that there are no true common beliefs and we, as Americans RESPECT that. I respect every person’s right to go to church, temple, mosque or nowhere, I want my rights to be preserved. I don’t just want freedom OF religion, I want freedom FROM religion if that is what comforts me.

We make strong statements that the terrorists will never win but in many ways they have won. We are divided as a people, we are haters. It hurts my soul the way things are now. Sadly, September 12, 2001 was in some strange way a better day than September 12, 2011 will be.

I woke up that day to find American flags proudly displayed everywhere from the gas station up the street to the highway overpasses I drove under to the window of nearly every car. People were nicer, smiles were kinder and words and actions were respectful.

I never want to go back to the actions of 9/11/2001 but I do want to go back to the actions of 9/12/2001. I want to be kinder and more respectful of each other, I want to celebrate our similarities and respect our differences.

Don’t ever forget the events of 9/11/2001, they changed us forever…but tomorrow, 9/12/2011 take time to look back and remember THAT DAY, remember the feeling of not caring if someone was a Republican or Democrat, a Christian, a Jew, an agnostic or an atheist. On 9/12/2001 we all woke up as Americans of the UNITED States of America.

NEVER FORGET.

PUKERS!

WTF? I know I’ve complained quite recently about the books I’ve been reading so I should just shut up but I can’t so suck it.

Where is all this PUKING coming from? In almost every book I read a woman pukes when faced with some sort of S.H.O.C.K.I.N.G! news or some harsh reality. She generally turns some interesting greenish hue then vomits.

I’m an adult, I’ve RARELY vomited as an adult and when I have it’s been for very specific reasons; (a) I have the flu and I have it BAD and (b) I drank too much. That’s it and both of those are extremely rare. In my memory I’ve had the flu bad enough to vomit just once as an adult (last February) and I haven’t drunk enough to vomit since the ‘80s.

I just started to read a new book; mere moments ago and the lead character vomited in the PROLOGUE! Kid you not.

I’ve been faced with shocking, bad and disturbing news on many occasions as an adult. All of us have. It’s run the gamut from an ex-boyfriend slipping an engagement ring on a close friend’s finger (they never married, still very close with my friend and still talk to the ex, both of us do), to someone dying suddenly and finding out about it as I’m walking into work to start the day.

I have not been driven to worship at the porcelain alter for these or any of the many other shocking incidents adulthood has flung my way.

I get it; at least I think I do. The author is trying to convey just HOW SHOCKING it is. It’s shocking enough to evoke a physical act of revulsion; food and bile are forced up and out burning a path through the shocked person’s esophagus. But it’s stupid.

It is. Please stop it. Express the shock in a way that makes sense for the average adult and that is NOT by puking up their lunch.

Most people suppress the puking reflex sometime around their ‘tween years (except those who are entering into a bulimic phase in which case they’re actually honing their gag reflex to produce vomit, but that’s a whole other illness not to be addressed here). Think back, little kids seem to be able to vomit with no warning then go right back to enjoying their day. Too much soda and candy can bring on a big pile of vomit. The kid immediately feels better and is begging to go in the bouncy house while the parents are left swimming through a sea of grossness.

As the years march on you just naturally figure out that vomiting is no fun and you don’t wanna do it. Apparently the exception to this is if you are a female character in a work of fiction.

I can understand vomiting if faced with a truly gross image and smell. Walking into a shack filled with death (if that happens to be a plot line in your particular story) could easily make folks of both genders toss their cookies, yeah, I’m on board with that line of puking. I am not on board with puking because you found out that an old friend was marrying some unsavory character from your past or puking because of a bad memory. No, just no.

Stop it now.

Look I know it’s fiction and in fiction you, the writer, are the creator of the known universe but it seems that a lot of creators aren’t very original with their creation if they’ve all created a genre of the female puker.

Blue

We watched Avatar last night. Well, hubby watched Avatar and I uploaded photos to Facebook and read news stories on line and did stuff like that.

It was the first time we’d seen Avatar, we don’t see a lot of movies because of me. I can’t sit through them. I couldn’t sit through Avatar either.

Here’s the thing, and yeah, this could be a “spoiler alert” but frankly if you haven’t seen the movie yet then you’re enough like me to not really care if someone “spoils” it for you. The movie was simple and predictable. I remember when it came out there were people who no longer wanted to live if they couldn’t live as an Avatar on Pandora. Really?

And here it is, Americans (i.e. humans) want a precious natural mineral in abundance on this other planet (Pandora) which is a lovely, mostly peaceful (but fierce) bunch of elongated blue beings who got a few fashion tips from bad ‘80s videos (crop tops to be specific). Of course one of the humans gets to be made whole again both through being able to shed his broken body and also through finding love in an effort to infiltrate the peaceful blue critters.

To be honest, the flick kinda made my flesh crawl. It’s a message that has been put out there time and again in books and films. The message of, we’re kinda stupid and evil and want what isn’t ours to take and, hey, look at those cool, gentle peaceful people over there…let’s fuck THEM UP.

If we can put that message out there time and again then why oh why can’t we actually give it a go in real life?

I have a close friend who is not a John Hughes fan. I am. She takes issue with The Breakfast Club and other John Hughes flicks because of their predictability. She’s my friend, I love her, we can amicably disagree.

Because she’s smart (and my friend) I do give her the courtesy of considering her opinion on these things even if the results are the same. She’s mentioned that The Breakfast Club is rather predictable and the questions of what happens the following Monday are left unanswered but one can guess that since it’s high school those enlightened kids will slip quickly back into their comfort zone roles on Monday morning…or not, we’ll never really know. Yeah, I get that. But even the characters in the movie acknowledge that things will quite possibly be different on Monday when peer pressure hits.

Is Avatar any more or less predictable than The Breakfast Club? No.

The special effects in Avatar were all the rage when the movie hit the big screen. We have a 52” HD TV so we weren’t exactly watching it on 1960’s console TV with the tubes glowing in the cabinet, we had the home theater system blasting, it was loud. I wasn’t impressed.

The Breakfast Club’s special effects were…oh wait, there were no special effects in The Breakfast Club. It took place in a school library over the course of one day. Huh, no need to tell the story of elongated blue high school kids, I guess.

I admit that I went to bed before Avatar was over. I was sleepy and I couldn’t really do anything fun on the computer (like this) because it would’ve ruined the experience for my husband.

When he came to bed he said how much he loved the movie. I thought he was joking. I did. Hubby is usually rather cynical about most things. Not the type to be moved by elongated blue creatures (or so one would’ve thought).

I must’ve asked him four times before he fell asleep if he was joking about the movie and he assured me he thought it was brilliant. He mentioned the special effects and it made me wonder how much of that is what made the movie appeal to some people.

The New Yorker of a week or two ago had a piece about the final Harry Potter movie and how much the writer’s young son (8? 10? I could find this out easy enough by going upstairs and actually GETTING that issue of The New Yorker…but I’m lazy and this is no research paper, if the actual age of said child is bugging you find the damn article yourself) enjoyed it but he went on to speculate if children today would be able to enjoy a movie in the future if it didn’t have a lot of special effects. Clearly my husband has a bit of that in him even now.

In many ways the Harry Potter movies and books tell a similar story to that in Avatar, good vs. evil and some romance tossed into the mix. Unreal and unbelievable events happen in both movies because they are make-believe situations in parallel universes. In the case of Harry Potter the universe is so parallel as to be happening right here but in a magical realm, in Avatar the world itself is a different sphere somewhere else.

The Breakfast Club doesn’t exist in a parallel universe even though almost anyone who lived through high school in America might wish that it did. Most of us would fit into one or a hybrid of a few of the stereotypes sitting in that day-long detention; we were a brain, a jock, a princess, etc.

I’m doubting I’ll ever be an elongated blue critter in an ‘80s crop top…possible, yet highly unlikely. I’m doubting that I’ll ever wave a magic wand to fight evil, but I know for a FACT that I made it through high school and lived to tell about it.

Learning to drive

Riding my bicycle is making me a better driver. I no longer roll through stop signs because I’m too used to being on the OTHER side of that.

As I’ve mentioned I live in a resort-y area. I was on my bike today and an out-of-state driver on a “mission” to get to the beach barely slowed down at the very obvious stop sign. I try to live and let live because let’s face it one never knows when someone is packing a weapon of some variety but this time I couldn’t go quietly, well, for one thing, I almost couldn’t go at all because he came within inches of running me down. I turned around and shouted at him, “yo, JACKASS, in this state STOP means STOP not, “I’m gonna kinda roll through here so lookout’”. His lovely black Escalade was full of his very beautiful wife or girlfriend and two kids watching DVD’s in the backseat.

When I shouted at the guy two bicycle cops suddenly jumped to attention and pedaled over. Enough people had seen the incident and the two bike cops pulled the guy over and wrote a ticket for running a stop sign. The two bike cops must’ve realized it could be a banner day for them.

When I got to the next corner I looked back and they were pulling over every third car or so. The people weren’t even bright enough to pay attention to what was going on two or three cars in front of them, they just kept on running that stop sign.

About a mile up the ocean front on a 25mph piece of roadway that is nearly solely populated by bike riders, dog walkers and runners a young babe in a convertible BMW and yakking on her cell phone didn’t even bother slowing down, nor, it seems did she bother looking to see if she was at risk of hitting anyone. Okay, that one REALLY pissed me off. I punched the hood of her swanky car (because she came even closer to hitting me that the previous guy). She was rattled and actually apologetic but c’mon, a little courtesy on the road there babe.

Anyway, now I’m the one that diligently stops, FULLY STOPS, at every stop sign and checks carefully before pulling out into traffic.

Look, folks, imagine how you’d feel if you hit someone, a pedestrian, a bicyclist, someone walking their dog (and their dog). You’re entrusted with wielding a big hunk of metal (that’d be your car lunkhead), be careful and be respectful of the PRIVILEGE (driving IS privilege NOT a right) of driving; of being able to take road trips and get yourself to work.

And look out for me…on my bright green bicycle and don’t run me down, thank you for your consideration of my safety.

Oh just me bitchin' again...

I’ve been told there are only something like seven stories to be told in fiction. That sure as shit seems about right. I’ve been reading a lot this summer. Just fun stuff, summer reads. Frankly, I’m bored. There’s romance and deceit, mystery, intrigue and murder, cheating and stealing, and let’s never forget our good buddy redemption. There are historic novels that incorporate facts into fiction; but really isn’t that the case no matter what? There’s always some pseudo-factual part of any piece of fiction unless it’s written solely about Middle Earth.

I’m big fan of J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter series. One thing I like about the Potter books is how she incorporated the current “real” world into her world of witches and wizards. When Harry, Ron and Hermione aren’t decked out in their Hogwarts attire they’re wearing jeans and sweaters, just like any other teen-ager. The witches and wizards are careful to keep their lives and activities separate from that of the muggle world (if this doesn’t make sense to you, tough shit, go read the books or stop by mugglenet.com).

When you write fiction you can write whatever you want…because IT’S FICTION! None of it is REAL. It’s all made up stories, every last bit of it. You can write about a big red dog (really BIG) or about vampires or witches or about not being an asshole in a relationship.

I know there needs to be plot devices otherwise there’s no story to read but books deemed to be “summer reads” seem to have similar plot devices. Woman is (a) suddenly single, (b) a beautiful young widow, (c) a beautiful middle-aged widow, (d) a hard-ass young woman who can’t keep a man. Said (beautiful) woman meets a handsome (a) recently widowed, (b) from her past who just lumbered back into town, (c) tough and solitary guy and they do the mating dance. They each send mixed signals to the other one. Some ancillary characters get involved who mess things up, then fix those things, then get caught up in their own troubles, then jump back in to help the couple.

Toss into the mix some pushy parents who are urging one or the other (or both) to get hitched and have babies. Add in the woman (or man) yearning to be a parent but not having the right partner yet. There are the few failed dates with “that other person” who just isn’t right because of (a) he/she is married, (b) he/she is just plain evil, (c) he/she is really in love with someone else and trying to get over them.

Maybe there’s a parent diagnosed with cancer (usually a mom with breast cancer), perhaps there’s a belligerent younger sibling that throws the whole family into a tizzy when they waltz out of town with a dangerous stranger.

I’m bored by it all. Truly, hopelessly bored.

Here’s the thing. Let me remind you again in case you forgot…IT’S FICTION. You can live out your wildest fantasies in it. You don’t have to tow the straight and narrow and yearn for babies and a settled life. You can tell everyone to fuck off when they ask when you’re gonna (a) settle down, (b) have a baby, (c) get a job or whatever. You can make every single character a different facet of yourself, even the ugly underside you never would dare show the world.

I know, I know, if I’m taking the time to write this blog post why not take the time and just write something I’d like to read, right? (WRITE?) Yeah, I know I don’t have many readers here (I can check these things, hence, I know) but even if I did…you’d notice that I haven’t posted much lately and why is that? Because it’s summer and all I really wanna do is go out and play. I’m only writing this because I’m sitting outside by the pool right now and it’s rather breezy so I’m not actually IN the pool where I normally would be…or on my bike going for a ride…or at the gym or who knows where else but not sitting at my computer writing.

A few years ago there was a series of books by the author Shanna Swendson (http://www.shannaswendson.com/index.html) , I love these books. They’re silly and magical and creative. I couldn’t wait to read the next one. The characters were lovable and annoying and kinda real in a very fanciful way. She apparently has a fifth book ready to go but no-dice on that…why? Because her third book didn’t sell well enough. So that makes me wonder if I have any clue at all what people want to read. Maybe people do want to read the same ol’ same ol’.

Alice Hoffman (http://www.alicehoffman.com/) is another author that incorporates a lot into her books…she uses magic that is just on the fringe of MAGIC. You’re almost not quite certain it’s really there…but it is. Most of you are probably most familiar with her witty and quirky title, “Practical Magic” because it was made into a movie with Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock and has become a rom-com fave around Halloween. That’s the stuff I love. Alice Hoffman’s books and characters. It’s not all hearts and romance but there’s a magic that prevails.

I think that’s what’s missing for me, magic. Reading lately has been to “real”. If I wanted “real” I’d watch “jersey Shore” or the Kardashians (kidding, I know that shit ain’t real, silly). To be honest most days I think that my life is more magical than most of those summer reads I’ve dug my sandy toes into this summer (well, not quite as magical as all those books that let the heroine be blissfully un or under-employed but still have plenty of cash to live on, I do have to work for a living).

I want a heroine who truly doesn’t like babies and isn’t suddenly swayed when someone strolls by her with a little one swaddled to her chest. I want a hero who doesn’t mess around and send mixed signals, he may not be Mr. Romance but he could certainly be Mr. Reality (oh they were a WONDERFUL band in the late ‘80’s early ‘90’s…loved them, my friends and talented musicians…you can still find them on MySpace…remember MySpace? http://www.myspace.com/mrrealitynj, but I digress…). He could just tell the flighty chick that he likes her, would like to know her better and give it a go. Good Lord people; I don’t know a single person in real life that did as much “dancing” around someone as most of the morons in the books I’ve read.

I want an adult heroine’s mom to NOT be struggling with breast cancer but instead a strong, independent person who rolls her eyes at all of her needy friends begging for grandkids. Where ARE these characters? These books?