Hello, lovely denizens of the Quirkyverse. My friend, Megan, has nominated me for an award. I told her, I’ve never been nominated for anything, but just realized that’s not true. I won an award in high school. But I’ve never been nominated for writing. I’m pretty sure that’s true.

Megan nominated me for the Liebster Award. Queue Logo:

Here are the rules I must follow to accept the award:

1. You must tell 11 things about yourself.
2. Answer the questions your nominator gives you.
3. Create 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate.
4. Choose new blogs with fewer than 200 followers and link them to your post.
5. If you’re nominated, please leave a comment on this post with the URL of your Liebster Award post.

I already messed up #5 because I misread it and left a comment with my general blog url, but I’ll rectify that as soon as I get this posted by leaving a shorlink in her comments section.

The first two requirements are generally lumped together, meaning that the nominee tells 11 things about her(or him)self by answering the questions given by the nominator. I really liked the questions Megan was given, though, so I’ve decided to separate the requirements by answering those as well as Megan’s fabulous questions.

Questions given to Megan:
1. What is your preferred beverage? Sweet tea, especially if it includes either fresh pineapple or mint.
2. Are you afraid of any animals? Cats. And snakes, but mostly cats.
3. Would you ever go hang-gliding? Absolutely. I’ve been bungee jumping and that was fun. Parasailing was kind of boring, but I think hang-gliding would be kind of in-between. And fun.
4. Country, city, or suburbs? I’m a suburbs girl. The city is too crowded for an introverted girl who likes grass and trees as much as I do. I like the idea of the country, but it’s too far from a movie theater for my taste, so I’ll just dream of a big back yard.
5. What is the easiest way to make you laugh? Hmmm, that’s a toughie. Probably by using a line from a movie out of the blue in a normal conversation. Or, as Megan said, tell me a funny story. I’m relatively new to Modern Family and haven’t seen “The Old Wagon” episode yet, so I’ll have to check that out.
6. Do you enjoy a good cry? Yes. Whatever the reason for the cry, I find the physical release of the emotion really cathartic. Not a big fan of the puffy, red eyes, though. They run in my family, so thanks a lot, Mom.
7. Are you multi-lingual? No, but I know enough Spanish to tell you to shut up if I think you’re talking about me.
8. How often do you read for pleasure? I try to take a little time to read for pleasure every day. It’s my one sure-fire escape from my everyday life and it helps keep me sane. You know, relatively speaking.
9. Can you do anything crafty (sewing, knitting, woodwork, etc.)? I’m a sampler. I can cross stitch, make potholders, hook rugs, sew, knit, stamp metal, emboss paper, and probably some other things I’m forgetting. I generally pick something up long enough to complete a project, then move on to the next thing.
10. What was the worst thing you’ve ever tried? Snowboarding. I fell almost instantly and I don’t think I was ever able to make it back to a standing position on a snowboard. On the bright side, it was then I had a revelation that I need independent movement of my legs to move. ‘Swhy I can roller-skate pretty well, but I can’t skateboard to save my life. Now that I think about it, that high kick while roller-skating to a Barry Manilow song in the garage circa 1978 was not such a hot idea either.
11. Johnny Depp or Sam Elliot? Johnny Depp.

And here are Megan’s questions:

1. What is your favorite sport? Is reading a sport? No? Okay, well, then I guess it would have to be volleyball. It’s the only one I’ve ever really been able to play. Or totally follow.
2. What did you want to be when you grew up? I can’t remember ever wanting to be anything but a doctor or an actress/singer. I did musicals in high school and realized my singing abilities might be sufficient for the chorus, but my acting abilities would probably not even gain me amateur status. College physics beat the doctor dream out of me.
3. Modern or antique? Depends on the period, but I lean toward antique.
4. Do you have a favorite band or music genre? In high school, I would have answered Billy Joel or Manhattan Transfer. Later it might have been Bare Naked Ladies, They Might Be Giants, Dave Matthews Band, or Linda Eder. Aretha. Ella. With a very few exceptions, I’ve never been a fan of Country Music. Never Death Metal, but anything else is pretty much fair game.
5. What do you want to be doing ten years from now? Writing books and remaining calm while teaching a certain 16-year-old wanna-be zoo-keeper to drive.
6. If you could choose, during what era would you live? I think early 20th century. Sometime where I could be involved in fighting for suffrage and civil rights.
7. D.I.Y or contractor? D.I.Y. baby! Unless it’s hard or will take more than a few hours, then totally contractor.
8. What is your favorite vacation spot? Hapuna Beach, Hawaii. Of course, I’ve only really been on two vacations in my life. There are lots of places I’d like to try.
9. Can you roll your tongue? Yep. That’s a dominant inherited trait, did you know?
10. Have you ever dyed your hair, and if so what was your favorite color? My hair color is something I’ve always liked about myself, so I’ve never done anything long-term more than subtle highlights. I did a hairspray one Halloween that was an orangey-red that looked awful on me. I think I would probably go with a deep purple or blue.
11. Do you believe in fate? I’m not sure. I believe that, while random things sometimes happen, the universe mainly unfolds in predictable patterns. Some would call that fate, so…maybe?

Now that I’m positive you know more about me than you ever wanted to, I give you the questions to my nominees:

1. If you could spend an afternoon with anybody, living; deceased (though not deceased on your imaginary afternoon); or fictional, who would it be and why?
2. You get to have your mother make your favorite meal for dinner tonight. What do you want to see on that table?
3. If someone walked in your house right now, what’s the most embarrassing thing they would learn about you?
4. What is the one thing about yourself you like the best?
5. If you had to leave your house right now and never return, what one material possession would you take with you?
6. What task do you totally hate doing?
7. What are you afraid of?
8. Which are your favorite smells?
9. If you could start your own restaurant, what would it be?
10. If you could get back any article of clothing you once wore, what would it be and why?
11. Tell me about someone you envy.

And now for my nominees (don’t click here for a drumroll because I couldn’t make it work):

Kimberly, Mimi, and Sarah

It’s been a while since I’ve been here. I know I said I would be posting about my tangential musings following Sandy Lake, and I still plan to do that, but there have been some disruptions in the Quirkyverse that have absorbed my thoughts these last few months. I won’t write about them here, haven’t written about them at all, actually. Not because I’m unaffected, not at all, but because they are not my issues to write about. There’s not even anything I can do about them except support my loved ones as best I can. They have been my focus for 2013 so far and will continue to be for a while, I’m sure.

That said, I need to start writing again. If I don’t, I may implode with the weight of the words. I’m out of practice and they’re kind of pent up in there, so they could trickle out slowly and painfully, as they’re doing this moment, or they could just start spewing out with force at any time. I’m afraid that either will hurt, but it’s a necessary first step. And now I feel the need to apologize for the thinly veiled colon analogy. Sorry.

Sparky, wonderful man that he is, encouraged me to take time away at a hotel this weekend. I did and it was lovely. I did not, however, spend that time writing as I had planned. Instead, I read, napped, and watched some TV. As I said, it was lovely. At first I felt guilty for not writing, but then I wrestled that to the floor and threw it out the window. I needed to loosen my internal system before I could write. I could go on, but already feel myself slipping back into the colon analogy, so suffice it to say that I don’t feel guilty anymore.

Now it’s Sunday and I’m sitting here in the library wondering how to untangle my thoughts and determine which thread to lay down here. I keep coming back to the movie I watched last night: Schindler’s List. I went with a friend when it first came out in theaters. As I recall, we were late and the line was long and we ended up missing the first ten minutes, so we started at a disadvantage. I was in my early twenties and had seen my fair share of horror films, so it hadn’t occurred to me that the death in this movie would bother me. I was so naïve. I’m pretty sure I surprised my friend when, about two hours in, I leaned over to her and said, “If they kill one more kid, I’m leaving. I’ll meet you out in the hall whenever you’re ready.” A few minutes later, I was sitting outside that theater with my back against the carpeted wall. My friend joined me not long after and we left.

I had been told by many people that we left just before the good part and that I should go back and watch it. I’ve thought about doing that many times over the past 20 years, but could never bring myself to do it. Until last night. And last night, I watched it all the way through. It was windy and the cable cut out a few times in the middle, so I may have missed some of the violence I saw the first time around. That’s okay. I figured out a while ago that it was never the violence itself that bothered me.

No, what bothered me was the ability of a group of people to deny the humanity of another group of people. To believe that they were so other as to not be human at all. At 24, I knew the history of the holocaust, but it’s one thing to know it on an intellectual level and another entirely to watch it unfold on a screen in front of you. I wasn’t ready for that; was simply incapable of processing it on an emotional level. So I walked out.

At 24, I wasn’t ready to accept that marginalization on this level had been so very real. Or so very close in time or vicinity. I wasn’t ready to let go of my belief that, although it had happened, we had learned from it and it could never happen again.

At 44, though I don’t think I will ever understand the thought process involved, I realize that it’s never really stopped happening. Cambodia. Bosnia. Rwanda. Darfur. Still, those places are so far away. Nothing like that could ever happen here. Right?

I’m sure many Germans felt that way in the 1930s. Germany was recovering from a war and economic times were hard. Sound familiar? Hold that thought a minute.

I also recently saw the musical movie of Les Miserables. There were things I liked about the movie and things I didn’t, but what struck me most was the level of reality they were able to achieve onscreen. I know the story is fictional, where Schindler’s List is based on actual events, but both movies were able to make me experience the story as if I were actually there. I also think the larger societal themes in Les Miserables are probably not far from the reality of the time. And I was stunned by the similarity between 19th century France and 21st century America. And, sadly, early 20th century Germany.

I saw a tendency to view a population of people as something less than human. In Les Miserable, it’s the poor. In Schindler’s List, it’s the Jews. In Nazi Germany, it was actually Jews, homosexuals, immigrants, the poor, the unemployed, and many other groups. In 18th and 19th century America, it was the black slaves. In 21st century America, we’re back to the poor. Not that the poor were ever out of it, we just sometimes focus on other populations as well. And for the last thirty years or so, we’ve been adopting policies designed to wipe out the middle class, thus making a few rich people mega rich, while exponentially expanding the size of our population of poor people.

Which brings me around to the Preamble of our very own Constitution. Come on, those of you old enough to have grown up with School House Rock can sing it with me:

We the People, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.

I want to focus on the part about promoting the general welfare. Now, I’m no constitutional scholar and I know there’s debate as to the legal meaning of this clause, both in the Preamble and the one in the Taxing and Spending Clause, but I’m not going to address that. I’m not concerned with what it means legally or the kind of power it confers on the government. What I’m concerned with is what it means for citizens of the US.

I know that the founding fathers didn’t write this clause with me in mind. Or you, for that matter, unless you are a rich, white man. But the truly beautiful thing about our Constitution is its ability to change with us. And, so, I believe that it now applies to you and me; to all people living in the US.

But what does it mean to promote the general welfare? I can only tell you what I think it means. I think it means we have a responsibility to take care of each other. To ensure that every member of our society has his or her basic needs met. Not that I think every last person should be given the keys to the city without making a contribution of his or her own, just that I think no parent should have to choose between feeding a child or taking that child to the doctor because they don’t have enough money for both. And I think that, when you are successful, it’s your responsibility to help the society as a whole function. The more successful you are, the greater your responsibility to do this. More than just your responsibility, it’s in your best interest to support the infrastructure of the country, including its workers. It’s important for all of us that we have safe roads and sturdy bridges. That we have clean water and fresh air. That we have healthy people who can go to work, earn a living wage, and go on to buy our products. I’m not saying that there aren’t people out there scamming Medicare or the welfare system or that those systems don’t need to be retooled. What I’m saying is that’s not a good reason to do away with the system or to cut it to the bone. Those programs are components of our safety net and we need that net to catch as many people as possible. As many humans as possible.

Now that we’re at the end of two wars with a struggling economy and a crumbling infrastructure, we should pull together to build this country back up. But the policies I hear from the mouths of Boehnor, Cantor, McConnell, Ryan, etc. are invariably about making sure that certain populations are denied rights like marriage and basic healthcare or they are about benefitting big business (e.g. guns and oil) at the expense of the people of this country.

I don’t agree with everything Obama endorses. Drones and fracking, for instance. And there have always been politicians like Boehnor et al around. But it seems different to me now. It seems like they’re shouting louder and louder and there don’t seem to be many reasonable voices out there to counteract them. I hear Marco Rubio talking about how his parents benefitted from Medicare and he went to school on government funds, but somehow those opportunities have nothing to do with his success and should not be available to anyone else. They don’t deserve it. They should just pull up their bootstraps and try harder. I know that’s not the exact text of what he said, but it is exactly what he said. And the only thing I hear anyone say about it concerns his awkward drink of water. If it hadn’t been for his sudden thirst, would we even talk about his speech at all? Where are the voices to call out the hypocrisy? And by hypocrisy, I mean his assertion that he’s still awesome even though he accepted the government’s help, while anyone outside his family who cannot manage to get by without government assistance is just lazy and unworthy. Those people are they and they are not part of us. They are less than us.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Mr. Rubio is a patriot. Mr. Rubio and his collegues believe whole heartedly in American exceptionalism. It’s just that the lazy souls who need government assistace are unworthy of that label. They are not part of us.

Same goes for homosexuals. If they were allowed to marry, they might get the idea that they are equal to us. That would destroy the very fabric of our society because they are not part of us.

Same for illegal immigrants. They come here and take our jobs. We cannot allow them a path to citizenship because they are not part of us.

They are the poor, the homosexual, the immigrant. Do those groups sound familiar? They are not part of us. They are less than us. Mr. Rubio and his colleagues have not gone so far as to imply that they are less than human. Not yet.

It’s more than just politicians and pundits, though. I hear regular people espouse these views that come directly from the right wing talking points. When you try to discuss it, they shout you down with irrelevant arguments or “facts” they’ve gotten from Fox News because “it’s the only news source that tells the truth.” Some shrug off confrontation with facts by saying you can find facts to support any viewpoint. No, you really can’t. You can find something on the internet to support any viewpoint, I’ll give you that, but being on the internet doesn’t make it a fact. I’m headed off topic again, so I’ll pull back before I start explaining what a fact is.

Here’s an example of something I hear from people I know: “I don’t want my taxes paying for some lazy woman to sit around the house having more kids.” I’m paraphrasing, of course, but those kind of statements scare the shit out of me. They smack of misunderstanding of poverty and perceived moral superiority. They are in line with the feeling of American exceptionalism and superiority that is pervasive in our society. They sound, to me, like precursors to statements where the person speaking does not acknowledge the humanity of the group he/she is speaking about. And I don’t like where that leads.

The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people. ~Noam Chomsky

I’ve started this at least 20 times since the horrific events at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 17th. Each time I dance around what I actually want to say and then fly off on a tangential rant. Don’t get me wrong; the rants are all relevant. They’re about guns or mental health services or profiling or autism. I believe everything I’ve said in each one and I will post them here, but I need to acknowledge that they also represent me wandering away from my horror at the senseless tragedy into areas where I’m much more comfortable expressing my emotions.

Because I have a six-year-old son who started kindergarten in public school this year. When I think about those scared little kids at Sandy Hook, those terrified little babies, I freeze up inside. I can feel the heat rising from the pit of my stomach, but I take my feet and stomp it back down until it’s molded into the lining. I simply cannot allow it to rise because it will thaw my emotions and all of the ‘what ifs’ will come flooding in with the rising tide. Maybe I’ll eventually be able to handle it, but at this point in my life I have no doubt that I will drown in those emotional waters.

So, for now, I will stick to making rational arguments about guns and mental health services and profiling and autism. I’ll post them here and you all can say whatever you want in the comments, provided you say it respectfully. I encourage a good, well-thought-out argument, but I’ve seen enough dismissal for a lifetime. Enough stubbornness and misplaced avarice. Trolls beware; I am in no mood to be trifled with.

For today, I will leave you with this article naming each of the dead in the December rampage. I wish peace and healing for each of their families and loved ones. I have no idea how to achieve it, but I’m wishing it so hard I can feel it vibrating out from the tips of my fingers.

I’m sitting here trying to figure out where I went wrong. A month ago I started this great new diet. The food was good, it helped me feel better, and I lost almost 20 pounds in three weeks. Three weeks ago I started writing on my novel and I was tearing it up in the best way. I wrote almost seven thousand words in four days. I made it through Halloween with all the candy and BamBam disappearing in the dark street for a few minutes. We found him and everything was fine. I was fine.

Then the boys got sick. And I stopped writing. And I faltered on the diet. And I forgot to take my anti-depressant for three days (not consecutive, but still). And I had a fight with a close friend on Facebook that it turns out she didn’t even know we were having. And I had a nervous breakdown in front of our ABA program manager. And I smell like cigarettes, but I don’t even smoke and that’s making me crazy. And if I have to have another fucking conversation about a zoo my head is going to explode. And I keep allowing myself to become hypoglycemic and shaky. And I don’t want to write anything, anything at all. And I don’t want to read anything, either, which is what made me realize how depressed I really am.

A woman I know had surgery to remove a brain tumor on Tuesday. She’s been such a trooper and I’m amazed. She has such a great attitude and I’m falling apart. I’m falling apart and I have nothing real to complain about.

I have a wonderful, supportive husband. Our boys are both doing really well in school and in therapy. I now have time to myself without requiring a babysitter or even my husband to watch the kids. I have fabulous and supportive friends both in person and online.

Yet I’m depressed and frozen in place. It’s such a first world problem, right? I’m the one standing in my own way and I can’t figure out how to make me move my ass. Maybe I need a tiger to chase me. I was kidding about that, but it’s actually kind of true. I’m really good in a crisis. I’m very levelheaded and on task. I hate every second of it, but I get things done. For other people. But I freeze solid when I’m the one who needs something. Because I’m only comfortable on the back burner. My issues can wait. They always can.

Except now they are getting in the way of front burner issues. Like potty training. I realized during my meltdown with our ABA PM that I’m part of the problem there. I’m resisting being consistent about making Zoo Keeper go. Actually about making him wear underwear instead of pull-ups at home and making him try to go. Because it’s a fight every damn time and I’m tired of fighting.

Part of what he needs is to alleviate his constipation. We’ve done that several times by using Miralax in apple juice. But I’ve stopped making him do that because every fucking sip is an all out war and I’m not up to the fight.

His constipation would probably improve if his diet were better. I might even be able to muster the energy to fight that battle, but I would certainly lose at this point because I would have to fight it with his brother as well and god knows I’m not up for that. I’m also not up for the fight it would take to get them to take supplements. I found liquid calcium and B vitamins because BamBam won’t eat the gummy kind. Or the chalky kind. Or the liquid kind, as it turns out. I could hold him down and force it down his throat, but I’m not up for that every day either.

And, so, my sons will likely be malnourished into their teens unless I muster the strength to engage in a daily fight with them in the next few years. But I can’t even seem to fix my own diet for any reasonable length of time, so who am I to tell them how to eat anyway. I know, I know. I’m their mother and it’s my responsibility to do it. I just don’t know how. Or, rather, I know how, but I’m at a loss as to how to make myself do it.

Those are the major battles, but there are others as well. Zoo Keeper comes out of school every day raring for a fight. I get it; he’s had to hold himself together at school all day and he needs an outlet for that energy, so he spews it at me. But that takes a toll. As does his reluctance to do anything for himself. Like buckle his own seatbelt. Or put away his shoes. Or take his underwear upstairs to put in the hamper. I know it’s completely run of the mill to struggle with the underwear in the hamper thing, but at least they’d be in his room instead of the middle of the floor just inside the front door because he sheds them in favor of a pull-up as soon as he’s in the house. And there are toys on the floor all over the house. Sometimes I fight that one, but it always wears me down. And there are zoos on every flat surface. We try to restrict him to certain areas and that works for a while sometimes. But then they start to move to chairs and couches and eventually walkways and stairs and I just tire of the sound of my own voice in the argument.

And then there are the battles I’ve been fighting that were apparently pointless. I’ve been cutting the boys’ hair for more than three years. They fight me every damn time, which is why I generally allow their hair to grow much longer than I’d like. They scream and they squirm and they make it so hard. So very hard. And they end up with uneven hair that looks…well, like their deranged mother cut it. But I’m okay with that, except that I wanted their hair to look nice for family pictures we had taken a few weeks ago. So I asked friends for suggestions and then took them to a woman who specializes in cutting hair for kids with sensory issues. They both jumped up into the chair like pros and hardly moved as she snipped and buzzed their hair away and I looked on in astonishment. Zoo Keeper even let her wash his hair, which is a battle I assigned to Sparky long ago. So, apparently I’ve been beating my head against the wall every month or so for the last 36 months for NO REASON.

And those are just the battles I fight with the kids. What about me? What about my own health? I’m pretty sure I’m at least on the precipice of diabetes, so what about my own diet? I know what I need to do. I read the (recent diet) book; the science is sound and, what’s more, the diet worked. It made me feel better. I did feel better. But it takes a lot to cook good food on a regular basis and that’s energy I’m already lacking. And then there’s the fact that sugar is soothing. It just is. And my nerves are frayed, dude. I need a lot of soothing. I know it’s bad for me and my body feels better without it and there are a million reasons to resist it, but it’s a drug and I’m addicted to it. It’s hard to continually fight that battle, too.

So, when Sparky told me to go take a nap this afternoon because I looked so tired, I went upstairs. I didn’t nap, but I did think about the fact that he’s right. I am tired. So very tired. But I don’t think a nap’s going to cover it.