Good-bye, Yellow Brick Road

Dear Sir Elton John,

I’d like to thank you for helping me when I was in third grade.

There was this talent show thing. I fiercely wanted to be in it, but I didn’t know what my talent might be. I settled on baton twirling, as it was something I had recently taken up and it made me feel kinda cool.

A friend and I decided to try out together, and we chose your song "Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)" as our background music. We rocked! AND we were chosen to be in the talent show. Woohoo! Throwing that baton up into the air as I spun around and caught it, while hearing you croon, “Saturday, Saaaaaturday, Saturday, Saaaaaturday, Saturday, Saaaaaturday, Saturday, that’s all riiiiiiiight!” is truly one of my favorite memories of my school days.

Suffice it to say, I have quite the soft spot for you in my heart.

So, back in 2004, when you accused (United States) American Idol voters of being “incredibly racist” because an African American had been eliminated from American Idol Three, I shrugged it off and made apologies for you. I figured your heart was in the right place, and hey! You had my back in third grade.

I know, you don’t need me to make apologies for you, but I did anyway. I’m pretty loyal that way.

Later, when an African American ended up winning that same year you called us racist, I thought you’d retract your accusation. You didn’t. I assumed you were on to better and bigger things.

Fast forward to today. Rather, yesterday. Nearly four years to the day that you accused the American Idol voters of being “incredibly racist” (really, a pretty heavy accusation, I must say), you have leveled a new charge against the people of the United States.

So, now, you are calling the people of the United States misogynists. Why? Because Hillary Rodham Clinton isn’t kicking Barack Obama’s ass in the Democratic Primary?

A bit ironic, no? Because, what if she were ahead in the delegate count? Would we then be incredibly racist because Barack is African American?

Sorry, but your accusations are starting to ring hollow, Sir.

But we still have Paris our baton twirling rendez-vous. That was all good. Thanks for the memories.

Sincerely,
Christine

You've been trying all month long just to talk to me

Dear Sallie Mae,

Yes, I know I owe you a crapload of money. Believe me, not a day goes by- hell, hardly an hour goes by- when I'm not hit with the realization that I owe you more than I owed on my first home. And yes, I do understand that the interest is accruing and compounding even while I'm in deferment or forbearance or sticking-my-head-in-the-sand-itis; the interest is now a large percentage of my overall principle.

I also realize that it isn't YOUR fault (nor the other lenders I relied on to pay my tuition) that I chose to go to medical school, even though I didn't have enough money to pay cash for it. I also sympathize that it isn't YOUR fault that I chose to be a stay at home mom after my son was born and thus don't have the physician's salary I thought I would when I took on this debt. I totally ooooooooooooown that.

But I am saying it must be nice to be a Congressionally chartered and subsidized yet still private corporation who receives tons of our taxpayer's dollars to out price competition and make your shareholders wallets thick without financial risk. It must be nice to have such a special, intimate relationship with the government where, for example, I am not allowed to take MY debt to a different lender, one who would agree to an interest rate lower than 8%. When I consolidated all of my student loan debt in order to make monthly payments manageable, I HAD to bring loans from other lenders to YOU, because that's part of the deal you worked out with our government. I'm just saying.

So I'm stuck with you...and yeah, I'll pay you back. Oh, and sorry about those weeks there when our phone number was messed up and you were trying to get in contact with me (because I'm behind in my payments). Talk to Comcast about that. You're hard to get a hold of, too...well, at least it's hard to talk with someone there, too.

LoveYours, Christine

P.S.: Not that we've even considered bankruptcy, that's not even an option for us but it must be nice for you to know that you, and you alone, are exempt from having your loans discharged in a bankruptcy case. Even family members would have to be paid back in court, but not you, our a Congressionally chartered and subsidized yet still private corporation. Just saying, it must be flipping NICE to be you.

From the peanut gallery

My son's kindergarten year was just over a month along; I was at pick-up, waiting for him to come out of his classroom, walk under the rose covered trellis in the center of the kindergarten courtyard, and run up to me for a big hug and flash me one of his broad grins.

I was chatting with the other moms, still getting to know this new world of School as Parent Not A Student. Another mom came up and thanked me for some graphic design work I'd done for a charity dear to her heart, a physical and behavioral therapy center for children handicapped either physically or mentally. We went on to discuss my pregnancy (I was seven months pregnant with my daughter) and her other children.

Her youngest had just started preschool. She loved the place, but was considering switching schools, "We got a notice in the mail just before school started; the preschool campus is peanut free because some kid has an allergy. That's ridiculous! My daughter loves peanut butter and jelly. Why should I be inconvenienced because of someone else's kid's problem? I don't care. I'm still sending in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches."

The words are burned into my memory because I was so incredulous. This is a woman who's middle child, most unfortunately, was born with a constellation of issues which left her developmentally disabled in a variety of ways. This is also a woman who is extremely wealthy, and whose other children attend a very expensive, elite, private school. This is a woman who put her disadvantaged child into the public school system and lobbied heavily (to the point of a lawsuit) for said school system to provide this child with every possible intervention. This is a woman who put this child into kindergarten before this child was remotely ready, with the full intention of having her repeat kindergarten. This is a woman who understood that her child was disruptive in the classroom and whose private aids were a huge financial drain, but felt it was important for her child to be mainstreamed because the other children learn compassion.

This is a woman who told me all of the above. I didn't disagree with her decisions...every parent needs to be an advocate for their children, and needs to follow their conscience to that end.

But in response to her peanut allergy outburst, I said, "You do understand that while it might be a matter of inconvenience to you, it might literally be a matter of life and death for this child, right? A peanut allergy isn't something to mess around with."

"Whatever. It's not my responsibility."

Yup. Hypocrisy incarnate.

During this conversation my hand went protectively to my belly, hugely swollen with pregnancy. This reflexive gesture is one innumerable women throughout the ages have lovingly performed as they carry babies in their wombs, silently and ever so fervently wishing for them to be healthy and happy forever.

My daughter is healthy and infectiously happy.

She does, however, have a peanut allergy (we have no family history, so it was quite the surprise). It sucks so bad.

I'm not one to ask others to sacrifice for my sake. I chose a preschool for her because it is a cooperative and I am allowed to be there with her every day; as I signed her up I knew I could monitor what the other kids ate. I would be there with an Epi Pen if she suffered an anaphylactic reaction and couldn't breath. I could watch her, take care of her, be responsible for her.

As I walked through the gate on the first day of preschool I was thrilled -and nervous- to see a sign loudly proclaiming, "THIS IS A PEANUT FREE SITE."

I had checked a box on one of the bazillion of forms that yes, she has an allergy. I'd noted in the blank, peanuts. That's it, that's all I'd done. Had I raised a red flag that had altered this preschool campus? I didn't want that.

As it turns out there are two other kids at that site with peanut allergies, kids whose parents had advocated for them and requested that peanuts be restricted from snacks served. The school went further than that and asked that on the rare occasion food is sent in with a child that it be peanut free. I cannot tell you the piece of mind that this has brought me. I still am there at snack time, every day (I am almost always there, all day every day)...just in case.

Peanut allergies just aren't seen as serious, for some reason (links are from a blog new to me, these posts of hers prompted me to write about my daughter's peanut allergy). I have my theories as to why that is, but I'm sure it is a conglomeration of issues. That being said, I simply want my daughter to be safe in school.

I hate feeling defensive about my daughter's condition. As if it weren't real. As if I was just being hysterical. It's just Skippy, right?

In Wonderland

I may not always make the right choices, but when it comes to my children it always comes from that Mama Bear place...I may make mistakes, but my love is no less ferocious. In fact, sometimes that very primal ferocity is what compels me to go down the wrong Mama Path, to make the wrong choices as a mother.

Our children need our freedom, but it is our responsibility to nurture them, and then, our joy watching them blossom sometimes feels paramount in its instinctual rawness. Ideally, those three parenting prongs braid nicely together, each taking their rightful turn, one not overshadowing the other, the tenacity of each equal to it's neighbor, thus resulting in the anticipated strong, glossy, autonomous plait.

Sometimes, however, a parent makes mistakes. Gathers too much in one third of the braid and it becomes lopsided. The other parts suffer...they are jilted, not given their fair share. It can be unbelievably difficult to allow our children that freedom to strike out on their own, whether that be walking down the street to a friend's house...or moving out on their own. That urge to nurture, to hover, to protect is so overwhelming that letting them out of our sight, for a minute or a month, feels like part of our very self is missing. It is, in fact.

And when they are out of our sight, they are blossoming without our witnessing it.

That is a whole different kind of pain. And joy.

On Paris and Parenting

Not that I don't love my kids (a fun blog, check it out) brought an awesome article to my attention; it is written by Jamie Lee Curtis and is over at Huffington Post.

One more reason to love batteries and hate oil

For too long Mr. Scale has been saying to me, "STEP OFF, bitch! Yeah, I'm talkin' to YOU! Why do you keep coming 'round here looking for something you KNOW you won't find? To quote Albert Einstein (or maybe it is Benjamin Franklin, or Rita Mae Brown, or a Chinese proverb...what do I know, I am a SCALE?), 'The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.'"

But AHA! I have discovered how to make Mr. Scale do my bidding. The other day I tapped it with my foot, waited for the tare function to do it's zero thing, and then stepped on.

It was so lovely. My scale told me, in no uncertain terms, "TOO LOW."

It's been many years since those words have been applied to my weight. I am TOO LOW!!! And I have been every morning since.

I *knew* my clothes were shrinking. Just knew it. My wedding rings being too tight for comfort? Clearly a function of solar flares or some other phenomenon causing them to decrease in diameter.

I really don't want to change that particular battery any time soon.

I'm gonna make it after all

Ugh, I was a wreck of a bitch yesterday. It started with the old woke up on the wrong side of the bed excuse combined with the syndrome of EVERYTHING is falling apart at the seams. Every other moment I felt like I was putting out fires, then turning around and hearing bad news, then being head-butted by the most ugliness humanity has to offer, then finding out that life as I know it is probably crumbling under my feet.

At least, that's how it felt.

So I called my Mommy. She always makes me feel better (belly poking notwithstanding...and honestly I invited it when I asked her, "Do I look like I've gained weight?").

Anyway, today I called her to talk me down, which she did. She always can; no one else helps me like my mom. During the course of our conversation, my daughter kept interrupting (the audacity!) and whining and yelling. Eventually I lost my "cool" and bellowed, "KNOCK IT OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

It's almost like my daughter didn't understand how badly I needed to talk to my mom. I mean, sometimes a girl just NEEDS her Mommy.

Later that night, as I was putting the kids to bed (my husband still at work, or at a fantasy baseball meeting, whatever) my daughter disappointed me. Out of respect for her three year-old privacy I will refrain from sharing (she peed on my bed) but let's just say she knew better.

I lost it.

I yelled at her, "YOU KNOW BETTER!" then lugged the linens downstairs to the laundry room, cursing myself because I was so behind on laundry that I didn't have enough to scrape together to make my bed properly. I bitched and moaned and complained and blamed everyone I've ever met.

Even as I did so, I knew I was acting like a lunatic. I didn't care. Some weird, primal, reptilian part of my brain actually enjoyed entertaining the thought of punching a hole in the wall. Another part of my brain worried that I had in fact lost it, and that this was The Beginning of the End.

This morning I woke up on the right side of the bed (and no, there is no subtext here). As soon as I opened my eyes I knew I wasn't in the same dark place that I was yesterday...that was certainly a relief, but I wondered what the hell was wrong with me yesterday, and felt heaps of guilt about my inability to keep my emotions in check the day before. I felt great today, except for that guilt.

As the day went on I was relieved to find that little things that would had set me off yesterday I was able to deal with in a rational way. While that was reassuring, I felt the echoes of yesterday tugging at me. You wouldn't have been so level headed yesterday, eh? Why NOT?

Mid afternoon I unexpectedly started my period (Wait! What is that sound? The out-clicks of all my male readers?). OH! THAT is what my deal was yesterday. I wasn't descending into lunacy, I was just PMS'ing.

Since being an optimist isn't my strength, I've come to the conclusion that at the age of 41 (and a half), since my periods are now not following the normal pattern of utter predictably (yes, I have neglected to share with you that my last cycle was nearly a week late) that I have entered perimenopause. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.

im like geeze sorry

All I can figure is that my husband was playing a prank on me and put Cory Kennedy's blog on my linky list there to the right and was just waiting for me to see how long until I noticed.

I apologise for any confusion.

I think I'm so smart

Even though I find it tiresome when people refuse to take responsibility for their actions, I'd like to point my own hypocritical, accusatory finger at my high school math teacher and foist blame upon her for my pretty much unending lack of financial stability over the past twenty-some years.

So.

I switched high schools between ninth and tenth grades because we moved across the country...I had no say in that. My father wanted me to go to a private Catholic school, not because we were particularly religious (we weren't), nor because I had gone to one before (I had, for a variety of reasons...some of which I did have a say in) nor because the public schools were inferior. They weren't; in fact, they were far, far better.

Every day I took a tour of the public high school's parking lot sitting in the back row of the yellow public school bus. I looked longingly at the huge building with its gymnasium that didn't double as a cafeteria and church, its multiple departments of study and and ginormous football field, the students not wearing plaid. A half hour or so later I got dropped of at a cheapo, inner city Catholic school. Never mind that it was a sucky, second-rate school with a guidance counselor who hung out in her office smoking cigarettes with the cool kids, never mind that it had a skeletal curriculum that obviously wasn't devoted its student shooting for ivy league-or even college, never mind that the good-looking guy down the street got dropped off at the public school. I was getting a private education.

Anyway, I had been advanced in math in my prior high school (which, by the way, didn't suck), and when I enrolled in the next math course in my new high school the sole math teacher on staff was thrown for quite a loop...a loop so unfathomable she wouldn't have it. So I and the other transfer student who coincidentally was in the same situation as me (WHAT?!? two advance students in one year?!?!) had to plead our case to not be forced to choice between retaking a class we had both already passed or not taking math for a year. Finally she capitulated, but not without informing us on the first day of class that, "Since you two think you're sooooo smart, you will be held to higher expectations." Bring it on, I thought. I was a math whiz.

Oh, she brought it. She found ways to dock points where no points were dockable. One time we both got credit taken away for several problems on an exam that we both got entirely correct; when we asked her about it, she replied with, "Well, if you two are sooooo smart you shouldn't need to do these problem in five steps. You should have been able to do them in two." The fact that the exam specifically expressed the problem had to be solved in five steps was a non-issue according to her.

So during next exam, because we were both sooooo smart, we learned from our past mistakes. My fellow warrior and I both solved the problems in two steps. Yup, big surprise, our wonderful math teacher marked us down for not following directions.

"For two kids who are sooooo smart you aren't very good at following directions."

So I got a 2.0 in each of the two math classes I took from her, then just dropped math after that. She sure was good at instilling a love of numbers in her most promising students.

From there it was a slippery and direct slope to my present state of indebtedness: my high school GPA slipped so I wasn't in the top ten of my graduating class (instead I was lucky 13). I had to pay for college on my own (at this point my parents were divorced and my dad didn't want to contribute to my college education-hell! he had paid for a private high school, so who blames him! and my mom couldn't afford to help me out).

My stellar high school doled out the scholarships/grants it had to the top ten students...many of the top ten got two and three helpings of aid (utterly independent of financial need or any type of consideration as to course work...I mean, really, is a senior year coursework of yearbook, drama, voice, study hall and some other easy 4.0 class *really* compare with college prep coursework?) ...well, I got dick for student aid.

So in college I worked full time, went to school full time. Couldn't even get student loans until my fifth year of college because of some now defunct stupid requirements to be "independent" in the eyes of the feds. I took out as much as I could then for that lone semester left and graduated with little debt.

But my BA in Humanities didn't go far towards that amazing career I anticipated would appear after graduation. It was the late 80's, there was that recession, and of course Student Placement Services at my university wouldn't let me interview because, "the businesses coming here don't want to waste their time interviewing someone with your degree." Soooooooooo, I did what I knew best- I went back to school. I worked on a second degree in pre-med, applied to med school, got accepted, racked up a gazillion dollars in student loans during that time. Got married in-between my third and fourth years of med school, got pregnant within days of the honeymoon. Had my son a month after graduating. Took off six months, then another six months.

I never went back to medicine, and I have been doing the stay-at-home-mom thing full time, with the occasional free-lance photographer gig here and there to keep me from going nuts.

But free-lance photography doesn't pay my med school loans. Neither does my husband's job, at least not consistently. So, I have been deferring my student loans more often than not. Sooooo smart, what with compounding interest and whatnot.

So, obviously, it's all her fault, my tenth grade math teacher for this crap load of debt I have incurred.

I feel so much better wallowing in my victimhood, knowing that it isn't my fault that my credit score wouldn't qualify me for a Victoria's Secret Angel Card.