Suburban Bliss:: Birth Control Via The Written Word

I'm leaving.

It has been a very, very long time since my family took a vacation together. In fact I think the last time we left our house for mulitiple days was two years ago.

Of course two years ago Max was two and also Max was so constipated he never pooped without intevention. And God help us he won't have the same horrible tantrums he had the last time we were up north.

After school tomorrow we are leaving Royal Oak and driving up north and even though experience tells me that my children don't vacation well, God I'm looking forward to this time with my family. My Family. How weird it is that I have my very own family.

My own family who will hopefully not require an enema in the bathroom of our cozy cottage in northern Michigan.

My sister is staying with my cats at our house for the next few days, God love her for keeping the animals alive. I love her.

I'll be back on Wednesday of next week. I may or may not be able to log in to the internet by stealing someone's signal. If I do post be prepared for me to speak in an entirely new dialect because I'll be in northern Michigan. They all talk funny.

My dishwasher.

If I had to choose between having a working dishwasher or an ass as large as mine currently is, I'm surprised after this past month of body image issues and dishpan hands to tell you: I would choose the dishwasher.

A check we were waiting for for a few weeks finally came through early last week. I waited to buy the dishwasher until we looked over our finances. See how much smarter we are now than we were before? Before we would have said, "Wooo HOOOO! it's a free for all!" but now we carefully plan our purchases leaving money in our savings account, for at least a week.

I narrowly escaped washing all these dishes by hand.

Friday night we picked up our dishwasher and it's a kind of utilitarian machine. It tries to pretend to be a little more luxurious and I'd like to believe it's a little more exciting than just a stupid machine which cleans dishes. So I read the owner's manual and said things to Logan like, "Well, lookie here. It has a 'delay start feature'!" and "Oooh, see, this piece of plastic holds your wine glass stems in place!" and my favorite: "Oh wow! You can use it to heat up your serving dishes!"

If your dishwasher has a 'heat dry' function you can do that to, my dishwasher does not possess a special skill. Plus, what are we? The Rockefellers heating up our serving dishes? My dishwasher is just that, a dish washer. But I am no longer The Dishwasher and I can't explain how happy I am about that.

Logan installed the dishwasher Friday night at 10pm. The installation involved just one trip to the hardware store and only a little swearing. But here's a tip, even though you may want to tease Logan about his plumbers butt while he's under the sink fighting to connect all the plumbing to the dishwasher, you're going to want to resist that urge.

Even though I'm still not comfortable in my skin (or my pants), I am thrilled to not be facing a sink full of dishes every morning. Thank you, Printed Marketing and Retail Materials for making my dreams come true. Now Marketing Materials, about those Danskos.

Also while I have your attention I wanted to say: You're going to want to borrow my dining room lamps to carry around with you all the time to light your face. The light is so flattering it looks as if you've never once abused your body with caffeine and alcohol. I've taken to carrying it around and turning off all other lights, this does make it difficult to leave the house during the daylight hours but it's worth it. I'm not even wearing makeup!

And one more thing, I have the most disgusting spider living on my porch in my dining room window. It's so huge I can't even fathom squashing it, it's the size of a hummingbird, sort of.

>

And with that, nighty-night.

Let's be silly and superficial now. How about shoes?

Before I go further, I know you guys mean well telling me what exercise to try and what you did that worked for you. I just find myself feeling defensive and I don't want to feel defensive. I have a few ideas to get my body moving more than it currently is. My friend Chrissy has a neighbor who teaches pilates so we're going to do that one morning while our kids are at school. I'm debating a couple other things, like dropping the gym membership and doing a Curves-ish place. Max and I go on long walks but they can't be too long since he's not worried about his weight and has legs which are one half the length of mine. I put him in the wagon yesterday and we walked all over for about 45 minutes. It was a better work out than our usual walks which are decidedly slow and leisurely.

I really, seriously, do NOT EAT BADLY! We just don't keep junk in our house, so I don't eat junk. If anything I don't eat enough, at least that's what I found when I lost weight last year. When I started keeping a steady flow of healthy food in my mouth I lost weight much quicker than when I was eating about 200-300 calories during the day, eating real food only for dinner.

See I'm getting defensive. The biggest problem in my lifestyle is the Bells Oberon and the Sierra Nevada, heavy yet delicious beers I enjoy drinking. I've cut my intake as summer has come to a close but still, that's where the bulk of my added calories come from.

The only thing I really need to change is my activity level. In order to do that I'm just going to have to try things until I find the thing that I enjoy and that doesn't cut into my writing for Flogging Baby and the rest of my life.

Also I'm going to have to try a new medication because I do think the medication I'm taking is factoring into the rapid and large amount of weight I've gained since May.

So we were going to be superficial and 'light'.

What shoes are people wearing this year? Every fall I struggle to find a pair of shoes which are comfortable, not frumpy, a bit trendy but not overly so, give me a little lift so I don't feel so casual everyday.

So what are the kids wearing these days. What are they wearing with their Mom Asses? Well what would they be wearing if they had Mom Asses? I wear boot cut jeans or corduroys almost everyday with either a v-neck ribbed sweater, cardigan or t shirt....what shoes should I be saving my pennies for this year?

Still fat, but understood!

Well that's unfortunate, isn't it. That so many of us struggle with our bodies and feeling at home in them. After reading all the comments and taking in all the emails and really thinking about my body image, I thought perhaps I'd felt better. But don't worry today while putting my clothes away I felt once again tormented by my pants in the closet which are no longer wearable.

I have to find something I enjoy doing to work my body. I worry though that for the time I want to commit (minimal) to my body and overall sense of well being, running may be all I can do to fit into my pants again. I know we talked a lot about not letting a size run our lives but I have 15 pairs of pants in a perfectly reasonable size waiting in my closet. I'm also realizing that even though I've always felt unhappy with my body, the weight I was over the last winter until spring is one I can learn to live with.

It's sort of like realizing how easy one child was only after you have two. Or realizing how easy two was only after you have three. And so on.

I wanted to move on from weight issues after that last post but I'll admit sometimes when I write something extremely emotional, I'm sort of deflated afterwards. Sometimes I'm so deflated I catch a cold. And that what I have now.

A cold.

I guess I want to say I'm surprised I'm not alone in these feelings but then when I look at the world around me I know I shouldn't be surprised. It's true I'm a happier person overall than who I was when I was thin as a rail. But why can't we have it all?

I need nyquil and a good night's sleep.

Thank you for reading what I write and for understanding me. I'm not exactly sure why it makes such a difference to me but it truly does.

Two plus two is four. Four plus four is eight. Eight plus eight is death.

I have some really big issues to work through lately. I've been thinking a lot about why the restrictions on my own photos sends me careening with anger and a suffocating and often out of proportion need to protect my right to do as I please.

I'm also debating pulling Madison out of her school because I'm not sure it's the best place for her but rather the closest place. There are 28 students in her class right now and even though that sounds like a lot, to actually be in the classroom it's just overwhelming. Madison is much like me in that she is easily overstimulated. I was in the class for less than 10 minutes and felt stressed with the talking 28 children can do. The issue of taking her to a school in a more affluent neighborhood (we have schools of choice around us) brings out several other issues of money and class and the insecurities which come from growing up poor surrounded by awe inspiring privilege in Birmingham.

I've talked before about my weight issues. I feel so tired of thinking about it and I try to tell myself that everytime I sink this low into a self loathing place about my body I pull myself out and get to an okay place. I've done it before, and I know I'll do it again. I keep ballooning higher and higher each time I let myself off the exercise wagon though. I don't want to do this anymore and I really don't want to care anymore.

I've never been happy with my body. When I was a size 4, I wanted to be a 2. When I was a size 8, I wanted to be a 6 and so on meaning I've never ever been happy where I am. I've always realized after the fact, that a size 8 was actually a good weight to be. Why was I hurting myself? Why couldn't I ever be happy? Why is it I can look at the women in my life and not even register their body size as anything more than a passing glance. But for me, my body size is who I am. I really don't have any answer to those questions. Other than it's how I've always felt about my body and sometimes that is so incredibly depressing.

My husband, who is wonderfully loving in so many ways, has not been exactly supportive of me and the changes my body has faced in the last 12 years since we met, married and had two children. He thought I was "letting myself go" when I was a size 8, rather than the size 4 or 6 I was at twenty. When that happened there were other problems in our marriage and I've mentioned them in vague terms before because although I tend to believe talking about things gives away their power, Logan does not believe that same thing. So it's not just my story to tell.

But when he told me I was letting myself go because I wore a size 8, it stung so much I thought I might collapse with the weight of it. It made me so angry I knew I was deliberately not watching what I ate and not working out as a giant fuck you. But then a year or so later I got uncomfortable in my own skin and had gained 10-15 pounds more than I was comfortable with.

What I've realized this last week is that I am not uncomfortable in my body because Logan says asshat things like, "Oh honey, you're not ugly." Leaving out the 'fat' part of my heartache. I'm simply uncomfortable in my skin when I am this weight. There is nothing Logan could say to change that, my body is making me unhappy and I don't know how to gain control again. He can't make me feel better about being fat, he could however, not make me feel worse. He could do that by loving me no matter what my size. By truly not caring if I have 20 extra pounds on me. It seems, he's not able to do that. And I am not able to respect his spending four hours on a Saturday running until his toenails fall off. Maybe we're even. I don't know.

He offered to be my 'coach' in my weight loss effort and I nearly shot him in the face. There could be nothing worse than him having an excuse to tell me what to do and what not to do to regain control over this body I can't seem to live with.

I find myself recently facing a kind of body dysmorphic issue I had in high school when I believed, in spite of what the scale said, I was fat. So I ate sticks of chewing gum all day and brussle sprouts with Molly Mc Butter on them for an after school snack.

I truly don't know what I look like. I live in Michigan where a lot of people are overweight, so when we're out I try to compare myself to other overweight people. To see where I fit, what I look like from the outside because I feel absolutely mammoth and disgusting on the inside. I meet someone, usually another mother, and I think 'She has a couple extra pounds on her and she look absolutely fine. I wonder what size she wears.' I want to grab her pants and peek at the tag, just so I have a reference point. I stand in line at Old Navy, buying the next bigger size in jeans, because the jeans which fit me in June when I put them away for the season, no longer fit. I try to spy the sizes the people around me are buying....so I'll know if I look like her or maybe her.

I find myself not wanting to get dressed in the morning because when you've gained weight you lose a lot of clothes and you don't want to see how horrible you look in things. I find myself avoiding actually moving because I hate to feel my body around me. I try not to look down at myself when I'm sitting. I sit on a chair rather than my bed to write because I hate feeling my skin touching itself in odd places I'm not used to.

I don't know how to dress this body I have now. I'm stuffing myself into clothes which used to fit just right and now only accentuate how fat I am. I'm sitting at the library across from a very skinny woman and I'm thinking about how fat I am.

I used to think about money all the time. I still think about money a lot. I go to playgroup with my girlfriends and I talk about money and then I talk about weight and how I don't want to exercise and I want to drink and I want to eat what I want. I'm becoming exceedingly tiresome, even for myself.

A friend said to me that she just never wants to be 'that mom'. The mom who is overweight but even worse doesn't care for herself. She wears unflattering jeans which accentuate her mom shaped ass and she wears kitty sweatshirts from 20 years ago because, why bother buying nice things for herself?

When she said that I flashed to the pair of pants I bought last month to fit around my expanding body. I cried when I bought them and I cry every morning when I put them on because they give me Mom Ass and there's no way around it: I have Mom Ass and I don't seem willing to do what it takes to not have Mom Ass.

That's the self loathing I suppose. I know what I need to do and I just can not seem to control myself. Maybe that's the problem.....

When I was young I struggled with eating disorders. I felt hunger as power and thinness as beauty. I didn't feel beautiful and I felt powerless. So food, and denying myself, became both those things I needed. I fear, now that I'm huger than I ever believed possible, that I am never going to be able to get control of myself again.

I tried to run. I ran a 5K and I felt powerful for struggling through and making it happen. But I never enjoyed running. I enjoyed punishing myself for being so weak. For being so fat. I ran because I didn't want to change much of the way I ate or drank and I didn't want to do a lot of exercising. 30 minutes, three times a week was the only goal that seemed palatable to me. It still does. Unfortunately, I eat and drink too much to get weight loss results from walking three times a week for thirty minutes.

At some point it just stopped being worth it to run until I spent the rest of the day with intestinal unrest. Maybe I started to like my body after I lost 15 pounds and I didn't hate myself so much that I had to hurt myself 3 times a week running. I stopped punishing myself.

Logan has said he takes that as an insult in a way. That having a healthy and sexy body isn't worth it to me anymore. Why wouldn't I want to be the best I could be? Why don't I want to bring my best self to our relationship?

Why don't I? I guess because I don't think it should matter all that much. I know we live in a world where beauty and body image go together. But I'm still the person he loves, the person who emotionally grows and changes over the years and who grows with him. Why does it matter to him if I'm a size 6 or a size 12?

Unfortunately it's still not as simple as that because he is not the only reason I am upset with myself. I'm upset at myself for letting things plummet this low and whining about it incessantly but never being able to get control over myself. Why the hell does it matter to me if I'm a size 6 or a 12? Why does it matter this much that I end up hating myself so deeply?

I hate writing with questions because it opens me to advice I don't want. It opens me to often painful judgement.

And here's another secret: Sometimes I think I lay my soul out here because the nasty things people say to me ease the nasty voices in my own head. If other people are cruel to me I can ease up on myself.

I don't know how true this is, it's just a theory I'm playing with right now.

[**Update: It's important to note that Logan has apologized to me and understands that his feelings about my weight are more his issues than mine. I wrote about them because it still hurts and isn't helpful, but it's not entirely fair for me to continue to pummel him with his mistake.]

Secrets

This is a secret:

Sometimes I hope I'll run hard enough to break my ankle so that I never have to run again.

Even worse, sometimes I hope Logan breaks his ankle, even though running is the one thing he has control over in his life. Even though training for the marathon has filled the last 8 weeks and having to stop would kill him.

Even so, I still sometimes hope he breaks his ankle so that running is no longer something which rules our family life. So that maybe he would stop judging me because I don't have the same interest in running and keeping my body in the same condition is was before we were married.

If I had the energy to send a post card to Post Secret I would. Instead I'm just laying it here.

Things to not say to me, guess why!

"It's just that I'm feeling so fat and ugly, I can't shake it and it's incredibly depressing."

"Babe, you're not ugly."

Ban, extra dry.

I've been in a banning mood lately. If you give me unasked for advice. Ban! If you call me ugly. Ban! If you tell me I'm an idiot. Ban! If you tell me to get a life. Ban! I haven't banned a lot of people since I started this website, and if you take out all the in law IP's I've banned, I haven't banned very many people who are not related to me by marriage at all. The other night I got a comment, and honestly I don't even remember all of what it said but Logan read it and said, "Ban that!"

He then took a look at my list of banned IP's and said, "You have got to publish these." So here they are a sampling of some of my most annoying comments from the last 2.5 years. Feel the love!

xxx.xxx.xxx: Reality: "Count Your Glorious Blessings!" Jack Ass.

xxx.xxx.xxx: "My house is fancy! Love me!"

xx.xx.xxx: Fucker at Fucker dot com!

xx.xxx.xx: "Lighten Up Francis"

xxx.xx.xxx: Bitch@Bitch.com

xx.xxx.xx: "Freak, get a life and move on!" uh....what?*

xxx.xxx.xx: L was obviously never breastfed.

xxx.xx.xxx: "Get a real degree!"

xxx.xxx.xx: Chrissy might want to calm herself down.

xxx.xx.xxx: "Get off your ass and get a job!"

xxx.xxx.xx: "Yur kidz are ugly skanky ho!"

xx.xxx.x: "I need the naked pictures of the bliss or others!"

(*This could be in law related or preschool related so I counted it.)

Chop Shop Kitchens.

I really wanted to tell you about the perfect cooking experience I had last Friday with three of my four favorite girlfriends but I'm sorry. It was so perfect for Blogging Baby, I put it over there, but you should read it because Chop Shop Kitchens and I are madly passionately in love. If you're in the area you have got to go.

Look how we drink and prepare healthy meals for our family without chopping a single ingredient or washing a single plan. I am absolutely certain Barack Obama is behind this.

The first day of school was never so awkward!

This morning I said good bye to Logan who is gone to New York City for the week. Of course he's staying in lovely Secaucus, New Jersey. Which I like to call Sebaceous New Jersey, which is mean to say but somehow makes me feel better when Logan tells me about the restaurants and places he's hoping to see while in town. He's even threatened me with the possibility of seeing Alice and Henry and Scott and the thought of that makes my arms go numb with envy.

Today is my actual birthday. I celebrated by taking my son to school with the Third Reich, I mean, Presbyterians. I would show you a picture, strategically taken to avoid any images of other children, of his joyful face in front of his coat hook, but then we'd have to leave the school because the school knows better than I do what is okay for my own child! Hey! Never before have I felt like my camera was a weapon of mass destruction.

I've requested that the "Technology Agreement" be amended, at the suggestion of my attorney, to read "No photographs capturing any student or staff of [blank] preschool or area of the preschool shall be used in any public forum....."

Because the current policy would prevent me from publishing any photo of my child or my friend's children or any other child in the world in any setting whatsoever. It also prevents me from allowing my son to do the occassional modeling he does for Logan's company....which legally they can do. They are a private school, they can make whatever ridiculous rules they want.

I am certainly hoping they've miscommunicated what they are intending to do: Protect children from what they see as a danger. Of course, I don't know why they have rules which infringe on my personal rights. In or even out of the school setting.

It really irritates me and Logan suggested I spend some time thinking about why it is that when someone tells me what I can or can not say or do I get so horribly upset about it. Because it's true I feel an indignance inside of me which is far out of proportion to what is actually happening here.

Perhaps I'll look for the answer to that but for now I'm planning to accept the ban on photography (amusing side note: the school is asking for a volunteer classroom photographer!) because the truth is I didn't take many pictures of school events last year. I made one fatal mistake and I would gladly leave if I did that stupid thing again.

For now I am accepting the ban (with the agreement rewritten to only include students of the school during school hours and field trips), and also searching for a new school for my child, in case the ban actually does extend beyond what is appropriate to protect students of the school. I can accept protecting the rights of other people's children. I understand it fully.

I do not understand trampling my personal rights to do it.

I haven't pulled Max because he's comfortable there and I've never had a problem with the teachers before. This is a direct result of an overreactive mother and the school's attempt to appease her. Which is sad but there will always be an aggravating mother in every group of people. Also his four best pals go to school there and it would be unfortunate for my website to take that from him.

I've requested certain information from the director of the school and still haven't received anything from her. The amended wording, a definition of what criteria is used to grant permission to publish pictures of my own child and his friends and I would also like to know how this 'clause' is enforced. Through complaints from parents that their child has appeared on my website without permission? Because I can personally guarantee in the name of Christ Almighty I will not publish a picture of any child without their parents permission ever again. EVER.

I just don't know how many times I can say that.

My Clause Has Arrived.

Well here it is. I had to miss this year's preschool orientation because I was at Madison's curriculum night listening to a nice teacher say, "Blah blah blah..." about school and learning and schedules. After that we listened to the principal spout out useless (to me) data about the MEAP and the RSI and the ACT and on an on until even the teacher had drool coming out of the corner of her mouth.

Thankfully Andrea and Leslie and Chrissy and Stephanie were at the preschool orientation and picked up my packet of information. After orientation Logan and I had a date night planned to celebrate my birthday early since he'll be in New York City on my actual birthday. We ate dinner and then Hey! There's Andrea and Mark. I think to myself, "Wow, what a coincidence! Andrea and Mark are here on a date night too! What are the chances we'd both get a sitter on a week night and end up at the same place."

Sometimes I'm a little slow. It was a surprise. And my goodness we had fun and I have the best husband and the best friends and also the best friends' spouses.

Leslie brought my orientation paperwork to the restaurant and they all proudly told me there was in fact, a Suburban Bliss Clause. I found it and cheered and drank to that!

This morning I started to read the actual agreement, and I think it's kind of over kill. But then maybe I'm sensitive to rules being placed on my use of my OWN photographs of my OWN child and my child's friends who's parents have given me permission to publish their photographs on this website. But no! I can't just have my own permission or the permission of my friends, I have to have written permission from the school to publish any picture taken on school property.

According to this Technology Agreement I can't publish this photo of my own child at a school event without first asking the school if it's okay. Same with this one and this one, even though I have permission from the other Max's mother, I don't have permission from the school.

Under this 'technology manifesto' taking a picture of my daughter in front of her coat hook on the first day of school and not asking the school for written permission to share it would be grounds for a "review" of my "affiliation" with the school.

Look, I understood the problem the minute Marnie emailed me. I took steps to insure no other child would be shown (with a funny caption or not) without permission on my website.

Now I'm required to ask for permission to publish photos of my friends' children and my own child if they happen to be at a preschool event? Is this even legal?

638 South Alexander

Here's something to change my head exploding tone.

Why don't we look with friendly (but deeply running) envy at the home a photographer Logan works with is trying to sell. He's a photographer who is also very good at taking care of homes. He's also very anal. He also has great taste. He's also very clean.

>

(Admit it, you want to buy this house just because of the front door, light and awesome house numbers.)

The backyard is drool inspiring. The kitchen made me let out an audible squeal. CUPBOARD SPACE. Under mount sink. Under cabinet television! We have no garage, so the garage with it's very clean back shed area, made me wet my pants.

I think I would shamelessly make love, sweet, sweet love, to this house if Barrack Obama was sitting on the front porch.

Logan said when he showed me this house, wouldn't it be funny to do a comparison. Davo's basement vs. our shit hole basement? Davo's incredibly organized attic vs. our horribly organized attic? I said, 'Oh my God that would be a riot and he then threatened me with becoming a Bush advocate if I did it. So sorry, my shame will remain only for the people I invite into my home.

But if you're looking for an stunning home at an *unbelievable* price for this area and this level of workmanship, attention to detail and updating. Seriously. If you, unlike me, are at a place in your life and with your fiscal dreams where you could consider moving, I think you should move there and we'll be practically neighbors!

Except I'll never invite you to my house because your new house will shame me.

*if you contact davo, let him know Logan and Melissa referred you.

In the end what I really want to say is, I'm in love with Barack Obama

I'm not allowing comments on this post and I'm turning off comments on the one before it. I really don't want this to be a political debate because I do understand my view of the world is not 'the right' one but it is mine and there is nothing you can say to change my mind. I don't want to argue about Bush's fitness as a president or a world leader. I don't want to argue about our government. I realize there are several ways to interpret the things which have happened and will continue to happen. I don't want to argue with you about it.

I'm pointing you in the direction of a couple of things which have me fired up today. I promise I will ease up on the politics. I am smart enough to know I don't know anything. I'm smart enough to understand one man does not have the power to destroy a country. I'm smart enough to realize there are one million ways of looking at things.

I've lost friendships dear to me over politics in the past and I don't intend to lose anymore.

The truth is, I do not understand what the hell went wrong in New Orleans. I don't understand exactly how the local government failed it's people. I don't know how exactly the government was supposed to respond differently. Things failed at all levels in this catastrophe. But I think we can all agree something different needs to be done in the future because I never want to beg my own country to help me in a massive natural or man made disaster.

The part which is giving me massive heartburn right now is the fact that I simply loathe George Bush and there is no nice way for me to say it. His insensitive Trent Lott comment was the first thing which made my head explode. There is nothing you could say to make me love him....or his mother. Or his administration and for that reason: I don't want to hear how much you love him or why I should support him and stop whining and understand that "sh*t happens". Shit happens, yes. But some leaders are better equipped to be sensitive to the suffering of others (like this man* maybe?) and other leaders are not.

Barbara appears to be in the throes of senility. This comment makes that clear.

Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

Then she added: "What I’m hearing which is sort of
scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is
so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you
know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she
chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

Oh yes, it's a veritable orgy of lovely living! Perhaps Barbara would like to try living in the Astrodome for a few weeks and see how well it works out for her.

I like to imagine Barbara in a large communal shower room naked, trying to be modest but not having much luck. I like to imagine her walking down to the donation tables in nothing but a towel to collect new clothing when hers is stolen from the hooks outside the showers.

Someone give her her medication, stat. She is clearly spiraling quickly.

In closing, the Times-Picayune is pissed and frankly I'm pissed right along with them.

An open letter to the President from the Times-Picayune.

I do understand President Bush did not create this disaster. I also understand the devastation occured on many levels. I also understand I can not stand George Bush as a leader and I don't want him leading my country.

Obviously over half of America does not see things the way I do. At least four of the people I love and respect dearly disagree with me. So yes, yes I understand I am not seeing things as they are, but rather as I see them through my own reading, feelings and interpretations of what I read. But there it is. How I see it.

I haven't posted links to various charities because I assumed everyone knows where to go. And if you didn't know where to go, Dooce came to your rescue. If I have to tell you where to find Dooce then you're my mother. Call me.

*You should really read the article I linked above.

Obama is "offering nuanced, but tough, criticism of the federal response, but is not taking direct aim at President Bush."

Someday I would like to be nuanced. Nuanced is something you could never really call this verbal vomit I call my website.

Also from that article: "What I think is that we as a society and this administration in particular have not been willing to make sacrifices or shape an agenda to help low-income people," he said."

Also, you should just read the piece: "He warned against using a "false dichotomy" to analyze the situation -- an incorrect assumption that there are only two answers to a question -- whereby the answer to what went on in New Orleans gets boiled down to either a failure of personal responsibility or of mutual, or societal, responsibility."

Amen. (or A-fucking-men as I like to say.)

==========================================
Update: Since this is my last political post I'm adding two things.
This photo from Boing Boing. Bush is SO AWESOME!

Also Keith Olbermann tells it like he sees it and gosh, it's a lot like how I see it. The "City of Louisiana....." says Chertoff. Wooo HOoo! [Thanks Karen.]

Update #2: Okay Karen says it's really better to watch the video, so go here. Awesome.

I wasn't sure how to do this.

When the hurricane hit I thought, "Things will be fine, they have been before."

When I began reading about the rising water in New Orleans I thought, the water is rising slowly. It's not the same as the tsunami. We're in the U.S, things will be fine. On day three I began to feel angry. Last night I went to bed after reading news websites and emitting horrible squeals and gasps. I read the news because with sensitive kids you can not watch television news because you will live with those horrifying images for the next 5 years. Those horrifying images (image from The Washington Post, from James Nielson of Getty Images, AFP) on the television will appear at the most unlikely times from my children's mouths. They will remember the images they see for at least five years.

Currently my head is exploding and I tend to avoid writing about things which make my head explode because I am not intelligent enought to speak about politics or the suffering of others in any profound way.

When the Tsunami struck in December, I felt guiltily removed from that suffering. Logan and I donated money to the relief effort but I was haunted by the fact that if it had happened in my own country, I would have been moved in an overwhelming way. I calmed myself thinking that in my own country there would be the help, money and resources to save people. I thought things would never be as dire as they were overseas because we are America! We don't let our people suffer as if it's the third world. But then I saw the images and read the tales of suffering of the people left behind, they have been treated as if they are a third world country. They have not been treated as Americans. Shouldn't it have been different?

I want to point all of my anger at Bush and his stupid fucking comments, I mean, Thank God Trent Lott's house will be rebuilt! I want George to have a place to drink his lemonade. It's not that he made that comment, it's that he's saying that as at least 5,000 people are still at the Superdome living with shit and piss and shootings and rapes and no water or food. You stupid Fuck. How dare you. You are the president. You're not some fucking blogger who can say whatever they feel appropriate. You are our leader, you are required to be....to at least pretend to be sensitive to the suffering of people who don't look like you but are Americans all the same.

But no, it's not just Bush who has failed. It's also the city of New Orleans who's failed to perform in a crisis. Just like Chicago failed in 1995. I've been reading about the politics of the city, and if Detroit were under sea level and in the path of a hurricane, it would also be lost. The politics are the same. The lack of effective leadership is the same.

My heart is bleeding and it's true, is now the time to point fingers and cast blame? Shouldn't we be helping?

I'm in Michigan, there is not much I can do. I've donated and the company I work for has promised to match all donations made to the Red Cross by it's bloggers. I started donating a relatively small amount. Today I emailed again asking that one third of my monthly paycheck be donated. Logan was aggravated because we are currently waiting to purchase a misfiring gas range and a dishwasher which hasn't been working for a month. When I thought further, realizing Weblogs Inc. would be matching my contribution, I wanted to donate more because I can wash dishes for a few more months, I can use the microwave for a few more months, but I can not pull that type of cash donation out of my checking account.

My guilt at being white and middle class has gotten the better of me. I'm so sorry for New Orleans. I'm so sorry for the gap between the middle class and the lower class. I'm sorry we didn't take care of you and help you out of a drowning city. I'm questioning my government because people have died needlessly and I hope the questioning will help prevent this type of crisis in America in the future.

I am sorry.

The Fucking Hippies.

In Kindergarten I went to school with John McDaid.

The McDaids were the hippies down the street. Mrs McDaid did something called "Breastfeeding".....yes! She showed her breasts to other people and fed her children in public from them.....in the 70's. Which would at first glance seem fairly normal, since it was the 70's. But not in my well-to-do conservative neighborhood. There everyone thought, "What's up with the McDaids with their breasts and the feedings from them?" But it got worse. So much worse. The Crazy McDaids also made their children wear something called seatbelts. What the hell kind of lunatic straps their child into a car rather than letting them be projectiles waiting to happen?

What's funny about the Family Legend of the Hippies Down The Street, is that they fed their children organic peanut butter and breastmilk and used the seat belts their car came equipped with and that was considered 'odd'. Except my father came home on Friday night and began drinking from the Beer Fridge in our dining room and he drank right through until Sunday afternoon when he passed out. But Jesus, at least we didn't eat organic fucking peanut butter.

Drinking while blogging should be avoided, mostly.

So John McDaid and I went to kindergarten together. On the first day of school our teacher took us out for recess and he and I missed the whistle telling us to come back inside. I'm certain it was because that organic peanut butter was laced with marijuana. Because have you been listening? These people were hippies.

So the class went inside and John and I were playing on the slide. But suddenly we realized there was no one outside anymore. We were afraid and we didn't know what to do, so we decided to walk home. I was four years old when I started kindergarten, and my school was at least three blocks away across a busy road, here is a map for your viewing pleasure, especially if you're familiar with the area.

Madison lives two short blocks (I'd show you the map of that but Logan would kill me) from her school, on a straight road. I can see her walk from my front porch to the front door of the school and yet she has never walked to school alone. My mother had my brother to walk me to and from school, he was six years older than me but still on the first day of school John and I walked home and surprised our parents with our knocking on the storm doors. John made his way first and I continued walking six more doors down until my mother said something like, "Those fucking hippies."

I was planning on leading from this into my experience with friendships but Jesus, this took way too long to write. so there you have it.

Let's be honest, I'm in an odd place with this website. I'm hoping it's a phase but for now I'm doing the best I can. I feel depleted of my humor. I'm having a hard time plucking the humor from my life in an everyday sense and it's not because I'm struggling through anything particularly difficult. It's because sometimes my humor seems redundant.

I love SuburbanBliss and I'll figure this out. I hate laying things out here like this but it seems that when I admit I have nothing left to give, I suddenly turn things around. So lets hope that's the case this time.

I've struggled though a conflict with an important friendship this week and I think we've come out okay, but it was hard for me because I suck at conflict. Thankfully the person I was in conflict with is much better with conflict than I am and she held my hand through it.

More about my loser-y friendships this weekend....