Celebrities May Be Human, Too.

I watched the mis-named Dancing With the Stars last week for the first time. (These are stars?) Even though there were several that I never heard of before, it was worth watching for Margaret Cho. She ACCIDENTALLY got herself all twisted up in her gold veil and her partner had to stop their performance to get her out of it. And her very old parents were sitting in the audience. I love Margaret Cho, but this was hilarious. I know, I'm so mean. And the following night they had Carlos Santana and Chis Daughtry. That CD is now on my Amazon wish list.

Maybe I have ADD, or Maybe I'm Just Crazy

Addicted to watching the Ken Burns series: Jazz. Addiction grows by finding the songs in the series on You-Tube. Becomes insanity when I get You-Tube on my cell phone so I can play videos wherever I’m at. About to be committed when I spend spare time making lists of videos by artist, etc.

One good thing: my kids are ignoring me.

Why I Like Zombies

Now I'm not saying that I really want to meet one, or be one. Although I admit that I can resemble the Living Dead before I get my first cup of coffee. In fact, when I had a bright pink bathrobe, my kids would refer to me as the "Big Pink Thing", as I stumbled into the kitchen.

Now I'm trying to go from light-hearted to serious. If there is a secret that all writers know as to how to do this, I don't know it. So here goes:

We live in a world of uncertainty. We don’t know what the future holds. We want to succeed in life, but we can’t count on even getting or keeping a job. This feeling of doom has seeped into our spirits. It is part of us, even when we are not consciously thinking about it. In a fictional world where zombies exist, you are fighting to survive. You don’t know what is lurking around the corner. I think immersing yourself in that world even for a few hours generates stress, but it is so overwhelming during that time span that it takes your mind off what you are going through in reality. Then when the movie ends or you finish the book, you actually feel better about your own life, at least the world you really live in isn’t that hopeless.

Blabbing Again

This is a much longer version of a comment that I made on Mommy Wants Vodka blog.

I was beginning to feel invisible. Next, the feelings of my husband and children seemed more important than mine. Finally, I felt like my opinions were worthless. Depression ensued. It may seem trivial , I know, but one day I read an on-line article that made me feel like WTF? I don’t remember what it was about, but I wrote a response. Someone responded and agreed with me. I started checking out news articles, started with Twitter, then a friend said to me, “How come you’re not on Facebook?” I started to keep a journal, and then a blog. I found the blog Mommy Wants Vodka, to be inspirational. My responses were getting so long, that I thought I should title them by Chapter. I shortened them before submitting and put them the original on my blog. (Not copying you, Dear Aunt Becky). Her blog was a great starting point for me to get to know myself again. Now I know this sounds pathetic but writing has greatly increased my self-esteem, even though no one reads it. (I might put this on my blog, getting too long again.) I think an on-line support group for women that promotes honesty, bacon, and vodka (responsibly, of course) is awesome. As well as fruit flavored vodka.

When I Had To Re-evaluate My Beliefs

My son got his first haircut at the age of 2, and honest to God, he flirted with the tall blond hairstylist. She told him how handsome he was. When he turned 12, he was into rap music, horror movies and violent video games. Girls would stop at the house for him. At 14, he tells me he could be gay. I was shocked at first. After all, he wasn't effeminate and didn't like Broadway musicals. However from the age of 2, he was very particular about how he wanted his hair cut. And he kept his room very neat decorated with a Spongebob poster and pillow.
When he came to me and said “mom, I think I might be gay”, I did not yell or criticize him. But I did say that sometimes 14 year olds can be overwhelmed with hormones and maybe in a year or so, he might change his mind. I guess I just grabbed at the word “might”. At the time, I was quite religious, I considered myself “saved” and was attending a Bible Study class. There were from time to time jokes made by someone in the class about Gay people. I told the class what happened and they said they would pray for him to change. I thought about my fears and talked to my son. I realized that he did not choose this life. Why would he? People get beat up and killed because of their orientation. I did some research on the so-called Biblical view, and found that there are other interpretations , just like we interpret other parts of the Bible that we disagree. At this point, I started to wonder about taking the Bible literally, I mean, I already rejected the creationism thing. Besides, I could not tell my son that he was committing a sin because I did not believe this was something that he chose. He did not decide one day that, although he naturally preferred girls, in order that he could offend God, he would just pursue guys. Sin is a conscious choice.
He recently turned 20 and is turning out to be a nice young man. I guess I'm lucky that he doesn't act effeminate because he is not subjected to homophobia. Unfortunately, he has to be careful about who he tells. Our relatives don't know and I don't know how they would react. They will either laugh at him, or condemn him. He will always have to pretend that he is something that he has no interest in being.

I Really Do Love Animals

We got our kids a cat, thinking it would be easier to take care of, in case I got stuck with the job. His name was Sage and his nickname "Pooh Bear". The idea came to me when I was cleaning his litter box. How come TV ads never show the goddamn litter that the cat kicks off its feet and wind up all over the floor. Used kitty litter on my bare feet. Yet somehow I could not get it up with the vacuum.
He also would attack my hands. Just me, no one else.One day, I realized that the stupid cat thought that my red nails looked like blood. He was so dumb that he didn't know what to do with a mouse. He smacked it, let it run, jumped on it,and smacked it. Then the poor thing ran under my sofa, where it had a heart attack and died. Once in a while, our cat would catch a lizard and eat all of it but the head and tail. The tail would wiggle for a while. EWWW.
Unfortunately, as time went by,he developed a rare cancer in his bladder. He would pee all over the house, rarely in the litter box. The pet urine cleaners (who'd want THAT job?) told us when we called them for a second cleaning, that there was too much urine. We wound up replacing most of the carpet in our house. When the end was near, we had a talk with our kids, telling them that our pet was suffering and that we would have to put him down. They were reluctant, but after a few days of observing him, they changed their minds. They spent his last full day with him, carrying him around, petting him, trying to get him to drink. Then we took him to the vet, said good-bye, and cried.

Having Fun With My Kids

When my kids were little we had a VCR tape of the Wizard of Oz. They were totally addicted. One day on Mr. Rogers, he had the woman who played the bad witch on his show. She was a grandmother, who liked reading to the grandkids. Then he showed her a cape and witches hat. She put them on and laughed her evil cackle. My 1 ½ year old stuck her thumb in her mouth and was transfixed.
A couple of years later, we took our kids to Disney MGM (at that time). We took the Great Movie Ride and to my delight, at the Alien section, the creature stuck its head out of the ceiling and was right above my 5 year old. She screamed and I put my arm around her and laughed.
Years later when she was 17 and my youngest was 10 we watched the Stephen King movie “It”. I think I kind of ruined the movie for my older kids because I kept mentioning that I saw the actors in other TV shows. Anyway, my son never complained of nightmares.
The following year we went to a Haunted Halloween Walk. I explained to him that everyone was wearing masks. Well, one of the characters was a demented-looking clown. Well, once the guy realized that my son was scared, he followed him all the way through to the end. Luckily, he, for some reason, he grew up to be afraid of spiders. What?