Oh, Mel Gibson.

I remember when I thought you were attractive. I remember your sense of humor during Lethal Weapon and the way your eyes seemed to twinkle. Those were the days.

You started taking yourself more seriously around Braveheart, which I did not exactly enjoy. But your creative happiness was important to me, so I forgave you for not making Bird on a Wire 2 instead.

I’ll admit that I was put off by Passion of the Christ, but gave you the benefit of the doubt since you made like eleventy-billion dollars from it.

You first DUI rant disturbed me more. I couldn’t ignore it. I broke things off with you. I merely shook my head when you dumped your wife of decades for a Russian musician and impregnated her almost immediately.

By that point, I already suspected that you were an asshole.

But these tapes. Wow. You have crossed the asshole line, skipped abusive and gone straight for complete whackjob. I think you must be crazy, because otherwise how did you not figure out that she would tape you saying all of those vile things? And, you know, how did you even come up with some of those things unless you were nuts?

But, other than stabs of pity for your many children and former wife, I didn’t feel much when I heard the tapes. My feelings for you had long since died out.

What I don’t understand are the people who are defending you. The women – the WOMEN – I heard on the radio yesterday, who were blaming your girlfriend for entrapping you. Who were saying that your drunken rants didn’t mean anything. Who said they were still on your side.

Those women need therapy, Mel.

I’ve been drunk. I’ve had a drunken rant or two and I’ve certainly heard some. But you? You went so far beyond the normal parameters that it’s obvious your unbothered supporters have heard some really bad stuff regularly in their lives. Some really ugly stuff. And they’ve blamed themselves for it.

Mel, this is the chance you’ve been waiting for. You still – even after you support your ex, your kids and your Russian – will have a shit-ton (that’s a finance term, right?) of money. Pay for therapy for your supporters. Get them to see that you’re a crazy person and that even pet rats deserve better treatment. Then they’ll still support you, but it will be because you’ve helped them. And many of us who think you’re a crazy douchebag will be impressed with your generosity and maybe not picket any more movies you make.

Especially if you do make Bird on a Wire 2.

Do you remember having chicken pox? I remember it well. I didn’t get until 8th grade, so when I got it, it was horrible. Oh, the pain in my throat. The fever. The ITCHING. The marks all over my face. The ITCHING.

When I began reading about vaccinations while I was pregnant with Ironflower, I was thrilled to find out that they now have a vaccine for chicken pox. My babies would never have to suffer through the ITCHING. Also, they would not die (yes, chicken pox can kill too).

Today, the day after I returned home after speaking at a social media conference for health care non-profits sponsored by Immunize.org, I received a note from the kids’ school. It seems another student has come down with chicken pox.

I recalled another speaker at the conference discussing why people can be against immunizing their children (I just spoke about using Facebook and Twitter and stuff like that, but it was fun to hear about the other stuff too, seeing as I have a personal interest in the health of children). She mentioned how these people do not trust experts like doctors and scientists, but instead the experiences of friends.

Apparently, some parent at my kids’ school is friends with Jenny McCarthy.

Jenny McCarthy blames her son’s autism on vaccines, in case you didn’t know. And because of one flawed and later disproved study, thousands of parents are not vaccinating their kids. So the conference was about how organizations like health departments could use social media to get people to immunize their kids.

(Side note: Let’s pretend Jenny’s right, for a second. Maybe there is a vast conspiracy poisoning children with vaccines. I’d much rather have a child with autism than one killed by polio. Just sayin’. )

I love it when my universe comes together. The awesome social media ninjas (healthcare and social media experts) at the conference put together an entire social media campaign in 24 hours. If I find out who’s got chicken pox I will be sending the links to them immediately. In the meantime, I suggest you check them out and follow Guysimmunize on Twitter. You can also hear about the conference at the Autism Science Foundation or like them on Facebook.

In addition to learning all sorts of neat stuff at the conference, I also discovered that people who work at health non-profits are a lot like teachers – predominantly female and liberal. But I think they might drink more. Did I mention what a great time I had?

But it’s nice to be home, though Hot Guy and my parents held the fort down admirably. But somehow being here helps me believe that I can hold back any stray chicken pox germs that might get past their vaccinations, especially with ChunkyMonkey’s being so new.

Not that I’d to worry about this at all if SOME people trusted scientists instead of former Playboy Bunnies.

Once upon a time, an EP was some kind of record (yeah, it’s true, I don’t know exactly what kind, but I bet I owned one when I was a kid). Now it stands for “exclusively pumping”.  As in pumping breast milk, exclusively. Apparently there are women who believe devoutly in breast milk, but who don’t want to breastfeed. And Time or Newsweek recently wrote an article about it (you can Google it if you don’t believe me, because, frankly, the article wasn’t so good as to make me actually want to link to it).

I am appalled.

Now, I’ve discussed breastfeeding before. I breastfed Ironflower for 10 months with an occasional bottle of formula and plenty of pumped milk, Lovebug for 15 months with an occasional bottle of pumped milk and ChunkyMonkey for 13 months with 20 bottles of formula. It was easy, cheap and good for the children, of course.

I went to back to teaching after having Ironflower and for 7 weeks after having Lovebug. So I am familiar with pumping. And I just wonder if these women are completely insane  or masochists or what. Because pumping has got to be one of the lousiest parts of new motherhood. Seriously.

You cram your boobs into these uncomfortable shells which suck on your nipples with the force and finesse of a drunk, horny 15 year old. And since you’ve got to manage to keep them in place your range of movement is extremely limited. Then you’ve also got to focus on thinking about your baby so that you can actually produce half the milk you produce when you actually nurse. I couldn’t even watch TV while doing it. So boring. Oh, and then you’ve got to sterilize everything over and over and over. I have never, ever, ever, met a woman who didn’t hate pumping.

Who in their right mind would choose to do that ALL THE TIME?

Sure, if your baby’s (Goddess forbid) in the NICU. Or maybe you have massively deformed nipples. But why else?

One woman said it took less time. Right. Because what new mother wants LESS time to physically bond with her baby?

Another woman said it let her know how much milk her baby was getting. Clearly she missed breastfeeding 101, which lets you know that that fear is retarded and that it’s fine that breastfed babies are skinnier. I also blame pediatricians for this. I have met so few who are truly supportive of breastfeeding.

The reporter noted (but didn’t quote, I don’t think) that some women are worried about breastfeeding in public. To them I say stop hanging out at Tea Party conventions and start therapy for your shame issues. Also, buy a cute wrap.

Look, I don’t care if you breastfeed (though I think you should at least try it for a month) or bottle feed or combine the two, but if you exclusively pump? I am totally judging you. It’s like you’re choosing to torture yourself without any reward. Ugh.

Hot Guy calls it “the big black”. How I love it. It’s huge, round and insulated. It has fallen down stairs, fallen into the trash and been left in hotel rooms. I have violent feelings when other people try to use it. When Hot Guy uses it, I want to smack him. It’s MINE. It’s my favorite. And I earned it, dammit.

Sure, it’s probably petty to get so upset about a cup, but I don’t care. I love that cup. I got it at the hospital where I gave birth to Lovebug and I’ve been overly attached to it every since. It’s not just that it’s black instead of some brightly colored advertisement for 7-11 or Quik Trip (which, for the record, kicks 7-11′s ass). It’s not just that it reminds me of giving birth to my middle child (aka the least dramatic and traumatic of all of my children’s births). It’s that I’ve declared it as mine.

When Hot Guy and I first moved in together, I discovered that my collection of large, refillable, insulated cups was depleting. He would take one and leave it somewhere, comfortable in the knowledge that a new cup was only a few bucks and a short drive away. I tried to get over it. After all, it’s not like I was emotionally attached to the cups, right?

Enter “the big black” a few years later. It looked so cool, Hot Guy conned the nurses into giving him one too. Which he subsequently left somewhere. And I declared that the other big, black cup was MINE. He was not allowed to take it anywhere and I really didn’t want him to use it at all.

My cup has survived these last 4 years, mostly due to my vigilance. At first, he avoided it completely. But eventually he’d use it if it was in the drying rack and he wanted a quick drink of water. I tried to let it go, especially when he’d just hand it over if I asked for it. Even though sometimes he’d suggest that I drink water from it too. If the Goddess had wanted me to drink water when I wasn’t exercising, she wouldn’t have invented Diet Pepsi.

Anyway,  it’s getting worse. The rest of our supply has been decimated, and our local 7-11 doesn’t seem to have them. This morning I caught him drinking cranberry juice out of it. I am very concerned that his next step will be to take it with him somewhere. Then I may have to kill him.

I know, I know. It’s a cup. That’s Hot Guy’s argument. Why get worked up over a cup?

I don’t know. Maybe when I wind up in chocolate rehab my therapist can help me figure it out. But for now I’m asking you, internets, how can I make sure he keeps his paws off of MY cup?

You know what is supremely wonderful about the circus? The other people are just as fantastic as the acts. Especially when you go to the circus in Newark, NJ.

I mean, it was Ringling Brothers, so of course the circus itself was fabulous. Except for the tigers and the elephants. I just feel like they’re looking at us, trying to say, “I am a majestic beast, dammit! Of course I can roll over, motherfucker.” For some reason I don’t get the same impression from the llamas and miniature ponies. Anyway, there was much jumping and flipping by amazing athletes, 6 motorcyclists in the globe cage (I remember when there were only 2 – and that was super cool) and clowns that didn’t freak me out too much.

But I can’t say the same about the people watching the circus. They freaked me out A LOT. For example, after standing in line to enter the arena for a good 10 minutes, where they repeatedly stated “Have your tickets out!” over the loudspeaker, some people still could not grasp this. As soon as they got to the front of the line, they opened their bags and SEARCHED for their tickets. I don’t know if they were all extremely stupid or extremely thoughtless, but the result was the same – more standing in line for the rest of us.

Speaking of stupidity, shouldn’t seat 1 be at the start of a section? Like let’s say you’re sitting in section 3 and you are in seat 1 in row whatever, wouldn’t you expect seat 1 to come first? Like if you walked from section 2, wouldn’t you expect section 3′s seating to start with 1? It doesn’t. Unless you go backwards from section 4. And boy, did the ghetto fabulous usher who grabbed my tickets tell me how dumb I was for assuming seat 1 in section 3 would be closer to section 2. Not that I actually wanted her help, because I can read numbers. And not that she really helped, she just yelled that I should have come in the other way. Considering that there were about 20 people in the entire section at that point, I think her bitchiness was unjustified. Which is why I snapped, “I know EXACTLY where I’m going” and gave her a totally snooty look.

I also gave a snooty look to the guy 3 rows in front of us with his electronic cigarette. Not that I have a problem with cigarettes that don’t harm others, but who really can’t make it through the circus without a cigarette? Do you think he also brings it into the shower? He also sported hair gel and tight black jeans – stuff that was cool when we were both young. That might have prejudiced me against him. The clincher was when he rolled he sleeve up and had his wife apply cream to his new tattoo. I have nothing against tattoos per se; I have two of my own. And it’s because I have tattoos of my own that I can say no one needs to apply cream that often. What a douche.

And speaking of douches, a special Jerseygirl shout out goes to the asshole who thought it was funny when his kid smacked the lady in front of him with his sword. I was embarrassed when my kid smacked the ladies in front of him with his sword, thank you very much.

And on a sadder note, both of my children want to be clowns. They were entranced the whole time, but clearly I’ve screwed them up so much already that they want to be clowns.

When I was a teenager,  just about every time I went to the mall, boys came up and talked to me. They were always different than the preppy boys I was used to and each time I was a approached a shiver of fear and of excitement would run through me.

Without fail, the boys would then proceed to ask me about my “friend with the red hair”. I would stammer, “She has a boyfriend,” as I looked down at my penny loafers. The excitement would turn to pure fear as the boy would look at me menacingly, trying to decide if I was lying.

Once a group of them actually chased us through the mall. After which, our interest in visiting that particular mall sharply waned.

I am reminded of this because now there is another male of the species trying to intimidate me, even though he has no interest in me. But this time I am not 15.

Recently I received a Facebook message intimating that my husband was cheating on me. My first inclination was to laugh, because not only would Hot Guy never do that, he doesn’t have the time. Or the energy. Or a working  cell phone.

Then I remembered that Hot Guy had told me about a high school friend of his whose high school boyfriend had started stalking her through Facebook. Even though she’s married to someone else and they haven’t seen each other in 15 years, the ex has become obsessed with her again. To the point where he’s been accusing all of her male Facebook friends from high school of sleeping with her.

Which is where Hot Guy comes into it. Apparently the ex thinks Hot Guy and high school friend are having an affair (did I mention that she lives 1200 miles away?) and since trying to intimidate her and Hot Guy wasn’t working, he decided to message me and make the accusation.

What’s really scary is that after I blocked him he set up a new account and messaged me again. He’s freakishly determined to contact me so that he can mess with Hot Guy and thus prove to high school friend how serious he is.

She has threatened legal action and is documenting everything, of course. But that’s all so far. I am scared for her, to be perfectly honest. Chasing down the wives of high school friends seems extreme to me.

I replied to the second message with a request to please leave me alone and the threat of legal ramifications if he didn’t. But I don’t know if that will just piss him off or what. I don’t know what he knows about where we live or even if he knows about this blog.

I don’t think he would really care, though. It’s high school friend he’s after. Right? I don’t know a lot about stalkers.

You know, I really didn’t want to learn to appreciate being just “the friend” this way.

Dear Terrorists,

I don’t think about you a lot. I am fortunate in that I don’t currently have any family members or close friends serving in the military or traveling in the middle east. And I am also fortunate in that I live in the United States, where the media would much rather listen to Tiger Woods’ pathetic excuse for an apology than to pay attention to anything you do.

I know you see us as the big Godless bully, one that keeps getting back up again even though you landed an excellent punch and made the rest of the class hate us. In your scenario, you will kill all of the infidels and have a perfect Muslim world (never mind that you can’t even agree on which kind of Muslim is perfect) where women are chattel, imams rule and no one eats hot dogs.

In my scenario, all the terrorists, rapists, pedophiles, racists, homophobes and murderers die of a mysterious illness and we live in a perfect liberal world where women are truly equal, children are ALL loved and no one eats hot dogs (see, we have something in common – give tolerance a chance!).

Here’s what would really happen in both of our scenarios: A bad seed would be born and start advocating equality or redhead hate and all of the people who weren’t quite as well off and who weren’t quite as educated would start listening to the bad seed and we’d be right back where we started.

Did you ever see the movie Heathers? It’s one of my favorites. In it,  a young couple murders the popular bullies of their school. . .only to have someone else step into the bully shoes almost immediately. Sort of like a modern day version of the Hydra.

Now in the movie and in the myth, the heroine/hero defeats the evil, resurrecting bully. Which is great, because who likes a story where nothing changes? No one.

However, these stories are also FICTION.

You are not going to defeat the bully. We’re not the biggest country (though I’m sure many of our high school graduates think so). We’re certainly not the smartest (just watch The Hills). We’re not the kindest (just ask our veterans). But we are the most popular. Take a poll and see how many of you have watched an American movie, heard an American song, eaten an American (or an American version) food, read an American book or heard about American Idol.

Even those kids who wear black and spend all of their time making fun of us (Russia, I’m talking to you) secretly want to be us. Yes, you can make us look stupid. Yes, you can hurt us. Yes, you can make people nervous about being our best friend. But given a choice between coming to the party where they have celebrity telethons for tragedies and sex is meant to be fun and coming to the party where they ignore other people’s problems and sex is shameful, which do you think people are going to pick?

Do you ever imagine what your lives would be like if your grandfathers had managed to move to the US? If your parents had opened small businesses in Detroit? If you and your sisters had 12 years of public education (which is better than you have gotten, even if it did produce Sarah Palin)? If your first crush was the Christian or Jewish kid from across the street?

Then you would have seen Heathers too. And you would have given up on this shit already.

Regards,

Jerseygirl

Last night I watched the commercial for “Teach Your Baby To Read!”, a product that teaches babies and toddlers to memorize the shapes on flashcards read. The urge I had to smack all those parents upside the head, well, it reminded me of my urges when I watch the kiddie pageant spectacle, Toddlers and Tiaras.

It’s the same damn thing.

Poise, the ability to walk in high heels, reading. . .those are all great skills to have. Reading’s obviously more important, but still. In our looks-obsessed society, the ability to wear lip gloss without it going all over your teeth can’t be denied. But why the rush?

Four year olds don’t need to look polished to do well at preschool.

And babies don’t need to be able to read. And, in fact, they aren’t actually reading. Sure, I saw them say the words on the cards, or gesture to indicate that they knew what the word was. But that’s not actually reading. They didn’t decode (aka “sound out”) the word and they sure as hell didn’t comprehend its meaning from the surrounding text.

I’ve taught lots of kids to read and I guarantee that none of them would have read for real any more quickly had they memorized the words for body parts as babies. If their parents had talked to them more, read them more stories and/or not let them spend all night watching horror movies, that might have helped. But this stupid program? Not so much.

A colleague once referred to me as “The Reading Bitch”, that’s how into teaching reading I was. I might have been a little militant. I might have distributed timelines and scopes and sequences and lesson plans to my elementary school teacher colleagues a little obsessively.

And yet my baby has no idea what letters even are. But I have gotten him to sit still long enough to finish listening to “Touch and Feel Farm”. I’m kinda proud of that. Because it’s age-appropriate.

I suppose in a world where first graders have cell phones and grandmothers attend Botox parties, age-appropriate isn’t a very popular concept. Sure, everyone clucks over the pageant kids, made up and hairsprayed like teenage prom queens, but they still have their own shows. And I’ve yet to hear anyone talk about, much less criticize, “Teach Your Baby To Read”.

The truth is, kids who memorize easily (or very early), often have a hard time reading more difficult text when they hit second or third grade. And forget about developing their thinking skills. Memorization does jack for those. But all those parents can now brag that their one year olds can read, which I guess is more imporant than age-appropriate or thinking.

Score another one for the assholes.

After some trauma in my youth and an ugly first marriage, I worked really hard on my mental health. I became a happy person. The only voice in my head was mine.

And then I had kids.

Now being in my head is like being at a committee meeting ALL THE TIME. There’s an officious president who’s all about following the rules from the parenting books (You can’t let the baby cry! Have you read to them for twenty minutes? ), the crackpot in the back (Why don’t you just chill and let everyone eat ice cream for dinner?), the one who’s read too many self-help books (You’re not giving enough hugs! Hug that kid who just used crayon all over her carpet!), the one who’s not paying attention (I wonder if Daisy of Love will be as good as Rock of Love?), the mommy blogger (Will this be funny enough for a post, or just humiliating?), the nutritionist (Where is all the organic food you were supposed to buy? They have to eat carrots!) and my mother (Don’t take a break! You haven’t done everything yet!).

It’s a wonder no one’s caught me talking to myself yet.

Do you have voices in your heads? Or do I really need that much fantasized about week in the loony bin?

South Carolina is pretty boring on I-95 I can’t wait until we get to Savannah I love Savannah. Garmin Girl is telling us to go a different way than the hotel website said but of course we have to listen to her though it is a relief to get off of 95 wow there’s no traffic here.

Oh my look at that bridge I’m going to have to admit that Garmin Girl sent us a good way this view is AWESOME now we are going to find the hotel wow this neighborhood looks dodgy are those project houses? They totally are but this can’t be right because the website said we’d be in the historic district and I’m pretty sure they don’t put section 8 houses in historic districts oh my that’s the hotel well at least the lobby’s nice and we’re blocks from the historic district

GOOD LORD the historic district seems far poor Hot Guy pushing this behemoth triple stroller oh my Goddess I am hungry at least these projects don’t seem as bad as the ones I used to teach by we are never going to make it down to River Street with this stroller where are the ramps? Maybe we can find a place up here on Bay Street oh look a pub. I want a beer.

Hmmmm . . .this is good and they have kids’ food and what the hell are those girls wearing? They look like sorority and fraternity kids but those dresses look like hooker dresses from the ’80′s and the shoes are trampy too oh please god don’t tell me all those nice looking young frat guys brought hookers to a formal I am NOT staring, Hot Guy, and anyway they wouldn’t notice if I was, I’m old. I like this mixed aged happy hour crowd but I don’t like dragging Ironflower through it on the way to the bathroom oh the bathroom lady moved here from NJ and loves it I want to move to Savannah too

This walk back sucks and I don’t like the way that homeless guy is looking at us and I don’t care if that makes me prejudiced against the homeless or the mentally ill or whatever God I am SWEATING. . . .I love it here.

I can’t believe ChunkyMonkey is sleeping through the night but Lovebug is waking me up. . Uggghhhhhh. ..need sleep. ..so tired. … .

We are finally going to get to the Gulf Coast of Florida today but wow, northern Florida is kinda ugly. I was thinking that I would enjoy driving on this smaller road connecting 95 to 75 but I was so wrong I feel like I’m in Deliverance country and the traffic is so SLOW and we’re never going to get there. . .

Gainesville is the ugliest college town I have ever seen.

How come no one in Florida understands the basic traffic laws? I can’t believe all these crazy people passing on the right at 100 mph and the people on the left chugging along at 60 this is nuts and totally freaking me out God bless Hot Guy for driving oh please stop crying and whining Lovebug I want out of the car too JUST SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

Oh my poor baby Chunky has been such a trouper he’s finally done too bad the drive isn’t I hope he stops crying soon he’s full and and his diaper is new he’s just sick of the seat poor baby STOP CRYING, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

I wonder if pulling my hair out of my head would make me feel better we have been on the road for over 20 hours all together and I just want to get there and THESE OLD PEOPLE ARE FUCKING INSANE DRIVERS it would be so tragic if we died now and my last thoughts were about how sick I am of I Spy and why didn’t I spend money on DVD players? Why?