One Bad Mom - ONE BAD MOM BLOG

One Bad Mom - ONE BAD MOM BLOG

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"The difference between sex and death is that with death you can do it alone and no one is going to make fun of you."

Woody Allen


I had to get a stupid MRI because a lump had formed on the back of my neck, and after an ultrasound, nobody could tell what the hell it was. Instead of the doctors saying, our equipment is only so good we can’t see everything the way we would like, they said in effect, that thing on your neck is creepy and scary; it is probably nothing, but we want to rule out deadly, slow-killing, unbearably painful cancers that may be curable with invasive, drawn out treatments that leave you bald, sick, weak and ugly.

"Hi I'm here to check-in, when will I get my sedation?" I said the second I arrived at the doctor’s office.

“Not quite yet,” the receptionist said. “You freaky drug addict,” she didn’t say.

Minutes later I asked again, "Okay I have filled out my paperwork, can I have that Valium now?"

She did not look up. She did not answer.

"Now will I get my drugs?" I asked the nurse taking my blood pressure.

“In a little while,” she answered. Do you ever feel like you are missing front teeth, have a grinding jaw and desperate, dilated eyes?

"Are you allergic to any medicines?" the nurse asked later.

"Just penicillin. NOT Valium," I said.

I am so uncourageous it is embarrassing; but brilliantly, I have learned if I take drugs and keep my mouth shut, nobody knows.

Every since I found out I needed an MRI, and I would need a sedative if I was claustrophobic, I have been so excited about getting a Valium Buzz. The excitement over the buzz made all the worrying worth it. My stomach lurched for the entire hour and a half of waiting in the lobby and I sat there thinking that after all these tests and procedures; MRI ($3,300), ultrasound, TB test, doctor's appointments, an impending biopsy, and after crying, fretting, and milking attention, I damn well better have some kind of cancer.

If I don’t have cancer, this has been the biggest scam and waste of time and emotions. What a fucking racket: $3,300 to be told I am healthy? Man I will be pissed. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely don’t want cancer, but after all of these dramatics and fancy machines, expensive procedures and sleepless nights, it better be for a huge, scary disease. Would they do all of this if it were just a kink in my neck?

I haven’t even had the MRI and already I can't wait for the chemo to start so my god-dammed hair will fall out. I will save so much time and money that I will be able to afford a trip to Europe or a Lexus. I spend $150 per month to color and cut my hair, then another $50 per month for hair care products. That is $2,400 per year. Jesus, I can't afford to be cancer-free. I spend hours every week shaving my legs, arms, bikini area, butt crack, nostrils, ear holes, mustache, and chin hairs, having chemo and losing all my hair will save me so much time. I will not like the nausea because it feels like I’m dying when I am nauseous and throwing up, and I am a hulk of a crybaby. I like losing weight though; I'll be skinny but bald. I will have a flat stomach, but a sickly pallor. I’ll be bald but rich. I don't want a damn wig either...they are hot and sweaty. And what, do I super glue it? I will milk my doctor for great anxiety pills, and if I can get a lifetime supply of Valium, it will all be worth it.

And if I do have cancer now, man it feels great. I have had the damn lump for two years and never felt terminally ill. If this is dying of cancer, I can take it.



"Have you ever been sedated before? Were there complications?" the nurse asked me.

"Oh no! I do quite well yes yes quite well with these sorts of things. Yes I am very good with sedatives and sedation in general I assure you, quite well with being sedated indeed,” I replied holding back the urge to wrestle her to the ground and get the drugs I knew she hid in her little white pocket.

The third nurse came into the waiting room and said, "I have your sedative. It is Valium."

"Can I get two more to go please?"

She handed me a gorgeous, little, clear, plastic cup holding three elliptical salmon colored pills. The relief insinuated into my muscles and brain the minute I saw them so you can imagine the ease I experienced once I actually took the pills. Jesus Christ, when they kicked in, I began telling my sister Julie about my epiphany of the Lord that I had never told anyone; I told her about a certain teenage sexual experience that I would rather have remained private, and some various other secrets that I would not like to go into here. After fifteen minutes of thoroughly enjoying my buzz and revealing every embarrassing moment in my past, revelations which my sister Julie did not try to dissuade, the nurse came and said it was time to get the MRI.

"Oh no, but you had a long wait after your sedative. Would you like one more Valium just in case?" the nurse asked me.

"Well yes I would, yes, as a matter of fact, come to think of it, yes, I would thank you very much," I said.

"She won't remember any of this," the Nurse told Julie.

"Oh yes I will. I will never forget any of this," I said.



Nurses shouldn’t tell a patient’s sibling that their sister is so buzzed that she won't remember anything later. Julie could have started poking me with sticks or tripping me with my hospital gown on, or worse making me apologize for the time I flicked boogers all over her door and in repentance make me strip in front of the old people and dance like a freak, even though she knows I dance terribly. She already stripped me of a truckload of private information.

Feeling excellent, I tried not to look too carefully at the MRI machine when I entered the testing room; I didn’t want reality to ruin my buzz. The machine was huge and looked animated. I thought of Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory and wished its purpose was more along the lines of non-invasive, laser cosmetic alteration; I’ll take a tummy tuck, a toe removal, a designer labiaplasty, and some acid on my face. I lay on my back on the table, and the nurse put a cozy warm blanket on my footsies. The tech said it would be incredibly loud. He really stressed that it would be enormously loud.

"This will be louder than you could possibly expect,” he said.

He stuck earplugs in my ears the size and shape of large gourds.

"Wow, you are serious about this," I said.

They then put a flat tray over my face; about five inches from it, and then the table slid me mechanically into the coffin-like tube while my ear gourds stuck out left and right. I felt like a meat patty on a conveyor belt at Carl’s Jr. Really, who puts a metal tray over your face, it’s so rude. It reminds me of when Luke wants sex and puts a flat screen TV over my face and tunes into The Girl’s Next Door. But it didn't feel coffin-esque because everything was beautiful and I loved the technicians and nurse.

I slammed my eyes shut tight and fell into a blissful sleep. A light beamed and I felt as if I were in a copy machine, then a LOUD LOUD noise happened right around my head. If I didn't have a condition before, I most certainly would after this. It was exactly the sound and decibel level of a jack hammer an inch from your head. The MRI machine would jackhammer for several minutes then copy, jack hammer, copy. There were other noises too. I wondered what incredible fake ass machine I could come up with and tell people it was very special and charge $3,300. I would come up with something far more sophisticated. Surely the noises on my machine wouldn't sound like a jackhammer and it wouldn't seem like a copier. I would at least have an interesting whirring sound and if there must be light it would be blue or red, not plain white.

I was in there for 45 minutes and was thinking about Krista when she said, “If you have only one year to live, then waiting one month since the ultrasound, the doctors have wasted one tenth of your life.”

Even with the Valium, I had a few moments of panic. I wanted to start flailing around like a fish on deck, and bang on the sides while pulling my hair out in massive clumps, frothing at the mouth like Old Yeller and peeing on the table, but I maintained.

Even with earplugs, the noise was deafening. What a circus. What a racket. What a way to make people die earlier. What a way to make money. What a way to make a perfectly good death, miserable. I am not getting anything checked again.

Suddenly bam, the jackhammer would start and stop again. It jolted me and hysteria surfaced through small unguarded holes in my drug induced euphoria, but a couple of deep breaths and I was good again. What would it be like to be brave? With no drugs, I would have needed a straight jacket so that I wouldn’t do involuntary aerobics in that confined space, claw my eyeballs and tongue out, give myself a hemorrhoid, kick the lights and electrocute myself. I would be stuck in the lights and my face and hair would be bloody, the gown burned off leaving my ass bare in an un-sexy way what with the hemorrhoid and all. I’d have been better off dying at home alone with neck cancer.



It took seven long days of waiting before I got the results. The MRI lab said they sent the results to my doctor three days after the MRI, but it took many phone calls and much begging before the doctor called me back. I was crushed that my doctor cared so little that she didn't call sooner. Dumb I know, but I thought this was what I had to look forward to with my future cancer treatment.

I didn’t want to do anything at all during those seven days of waiting, but Krista pushed me out of my mental malaise and said, "Mom let's go to LA tomorrow since your days are numbered; we definitely should not wait."

She had a point.

“Okay, let’s do it, but clean up the dog shit first,” I said.

"Don't worry about the dog shit Mom, soon you'll be dead and it won’t matter.”

Some may not find all of this funny, but it was therapeutic and terribly hilarious to me. And the few times she did say, "Mom I really don't want you to have cancer, it would be awful." I appreciated the genuine feeling and brevity.

There has not been one minute since the ultrasound that I wasn't positive that I had cancer. I can't stress enough how sure of cancer I had been especially after the doctor and ultra-sound lab girl talked about the large and unusual lump on my neck that reminded them of the deformed monster in the basement with the basketball genital growths. I was already planning on things to do with my business, finances, and children. I already relaxed about shit I didn't like doing, like paying taxes, scrubbing the floor around the toilet, and being nice to strangers, knowing soon I would be dead. It was great.

So you can imagine the strange let down I had when my doctor called and said, "Suzie, you are good. It is a fatty tissue. It needs to come off, but it is not cancerous and looks good."

I told her thank you so much as if she cured a terrible thing; as if she were responsible for my good health, as if she revealed a truth that I would have died from had she not examined it. I was disappointed. I had bought Tuesdays with Morrie, Life After Death by Deepak, I had written my eulogy, I wrote down my passwords and User IDs and willed my business to a family member. I planned on the savings of hair products, imagined the Brazilian cut with no stubble. I was pissed that after all that worry, stress, expense and preparations, that there was nothing wrong after all and all of that ridiculous over-zealous testing was for nothing. I felt betrayed. Sure I was glad I wasn’t dying, but dude, does Medicine really need all the theatrics for a piece of fat?

But Krista was as relieved as could be; Mom and TT, who had called several times a day over the last week, were audibly relieved.

They were both choked up and Mom said, "you choose a strange place to grow your fat."

Things like this give you a chance to notice how loved you are, and I see how much I love my family and could care less about my earlier petty complaints about stretch marks, rude bladder infections, and hard mattresses. Luke however was a different story. He was sure nothing was wrong from the beginning, and was therefore not concerned. He didn't ask or call to see how I was doing/feeling.

Before I had even gone in for the MRI he asked, "Oh did you get those results in?"

“Um, I haven’t had the MRI yet,” I said patiently. He can be an airhead.

Later he said, "I have two weeks off now that it is January and the year has started over. I better not get sick or have to take a day off. There is nothing on Earth worse than having to take a day off in January and destroy the clean slate."

"Oh then I guess you won't be going to the doctor's with me," I didn't say.

"Mom don't tell Luke about your results and see how long it takes him to ask. Two years will pass and he'll finally ask, tell him that yes you had cancer and are still being treated for it," Krista said.

This cancer business is powerful stuff. I don't pretend to have never thought of the leverage I could use with this. I am almost disappointed now I can't make Luke feel bad or play on his sympathies.

Luke didn't call the entire day of my MRI even though he had been over the night before and knew I was extremely nervous. (We were not married yet). What can I expect, he wasn't even slightly nervous before either of his own two surgeries, not even a little, so he can't understand my fear.

In some sick way, I wanted Luke to think I was dying of cancer so he would love and appreciate me more. Or at least I wanted him constantly in fear of my contracting some rare disease or in constant worry about someone or something coming and killing me. But he never fears and never worries about me. For that matter, he doesn’t worry about anything. His stable mental health is so annoying it drives me barking mad. Fine Luke, I’m healthy and safe: are you happy now?











So live, that when thy summons comes to join

The innumberable caravan which moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take

His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams

Thanatopsis, by William Cullen Bryant



I just read that 267,000 women die from heart attack every year, 41,000 from breast cancer. Most women over 65 die from heart attack. That is awesome great news, unless you are a death denier. We are all going to die, it is silly to say beware of heart attacks, they kill more women than anything else. Death, God, Nature kills everyone. What better way to go than a heart attack: quickly, albeit extremely painfully? But it doesn’t drag on and on like stupid cancer. It isn’t so grisly, the treatments aren’t so draconic. BTW Breast cancer is 80% curable. And a healthy diet and exercise can prevent most breast cancer.

~Vegetable Mould, Bushtits and�God - ONE BAD MOM BLOGS - ONE BAD MOM BLOG

~Vegetable Mould, Bushtits and�God - ONE BAD MOM BLOGS - ONE BAD MOM BLOG

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"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature."
- Henry David Thoreau

Luke, Brook, her friend Leila and I drove the Prius 14 hours to Idaho while listening to Twilight on CD: a recipe for insanity for the adults, but pure ecstasy for the teenage girls. We all, but especially Luke, fell in love with Edward Cullen’s “liquid topaz eyes”, his “velvety voice” and his “hard, marble smooth body”. Finally in Idaho, we visited Luke’s friends Nathan and his wife Colleen. They are super cool people and a lot of fun to hang out with, but they are also huge polluters and I almost went mad trying to enjoy my stay and assuage my guilty conscience. Nathan is fun oriented: everything in his life is fun. He lives near a gorgeous lake that we went boating on. We took his wakeboarding boat out on the lake and camped on an island in the middle. We also had a jet ski, and it was a blast. Before we arrived, the water in the lake was clean and beautiful; I’m not sure it could still be said after we left. There were rocky crags, cliffs and huge colorful rocky canyons that were separated by the blue waters and had swallowtails and Elk, Canada Geese, Mergansers with twenty (yes 20) baby chicks. I saw hundreds of barn and cliff swallows that nested in the craggy volcanic sides of the canyons; they coughed through their tiny beaks and implored us to leave when we chugged by in the boat.
“You aren’t a very good environmentalist Suzie,” I thought I heard one bird say. And the bird was right. Try as I might, I always end up polluting against my will.

We guzzled fifty gallons of gas and emitted tons of dirty, smelly emissions in one weekend on that clean lake. It was awful because I enjoyed it all so much. I kept thinking, some Environmentalist I am. The Jet Ski was my favorite, and I drove it so fast and jumped wakes and absolutely had a blast which I rarely have. Then Brook (fourteen) and her friend Leila went on the inner tube behind the boat for hours and hours, their faces alternating between joy and horror as Nathan sadistically spun the boat and drove fast as hell and flipped, spun, and slung the girls, there little bodies flopping up and down on the inner tube, barely able to hold on, their knuckles clung like death to the handles in front of them. They flipped off several times, but were loathe to give it up. They reminded me of two penguins being dragged behind the Exxon Valdez.
Oh the ridiculous hypocrisies of trying to do live an eco-friendly life. What was I supposed to do? “Excuse me, but we can’t take the boat out because I am an environmentalist,” I could have said. What a freak.
Or:
“I’ll just sit on the beach in protest to your Arab enriching, oil-sucking tendencies.”
How effing rude, it would simply look fanatical anyway.
It made me think of W.C. Fields when he said, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it."

After the lake, Luke, Leila, Brook and I went camping in the lovely and secret Boise National Park, 2.1 million acres of pristine wilderness, home to eagles, bears, grey wolves, but very few campers. It was SO gorgeous and there were no people. We hiked, fished, ate. Then one afternoon in the hot part of the day, giant persistent flies stalked us and stared while rubbing their little straight hands together evilly; they landed on us then wouldn’t go away. Luke was killing them violently, knocking over tables and chairs, his hair askew, and looking like a madman. I wanted to write, but my battery was going dead on my laptop. What, now that I have a laptop I can’t write with a pen and paper? The trailer had a generator and only a few lights work with the battery. I swore I wouldn’t use the generator while there, but I was sweating and my mosquito bites were killing me, the fucking flies wouldn’t stop harassing me.
Then Brook walked by and said like a spoiled princess, “I wish we were back at Nathan’s house where it was cool.”
That pissed me off mostly because it was the thought I had been trying to fend off for an hour or so. “Not one negative word from you; do you hear me? Not one.” I retorted angrily.
She stomped off somewhere, and I sat swatting at the beetle size flies and sweated in my Hollister shirt while watching my battery life die slowly on my laptop.
Then, the thing that always happens when things get too rough happened. Against my will I gave in to the luxuries at my fingertips.
“Luke, screw it, hook up the generator and let’s go in and turn on the air conditioner so I can plug in my laptop and Brook will be happy dammit.”
Great: I was one of those people in the middle of nature, sitting in my motor home, using the a/c, a laptop and a stereo, and barely able to look out the small windows at the scenery: and I was happy.
It was so frustrating; I was having imaginary conversations with people I know (right then Nathan and Colleen) about keeping our air and water clean, about how Idaho will end up concreted in, all land grabbed up, traffic, people and stinky dirty water with dirty air like Southern California if things aren’t changed. I importantly explained to them in my mind how to go green; limit boating on the lake, maybe try sailing or canoeing, try organic food, put in water savers in the showers at the house, go to city planning meeting to staunch urban sprawl. I had elaborate speeches formed in my head with carefully chosen words. Then when a little fly landed on me and a bead of sweat a fraction of the size of a strawberry picker’s, appeared under my armpit, I caved and ran for the nearest gallon of gasoline.
What use is it to go ten miles out of the way to the (super awesome) Co Op Market in downtown Boise and buy the organic turkey slices, organic fruits and vegetables, local milk with no hormones, free range chicken, toilet paper from recycled paper, eucalyptus bug spray without deet, all costing 25% more than the junk at a regular store? What use is it to drive fourteen hours in the cramped Prius instead of taking the roomy, more practical truck or an airplane, if I sit in the trailer in the middle of the pristine forest with the air conditioner and laptop on and the generator outside sucking gallons of gas and spewing dirty, billowing clouds of smoke into the pure air?
I always wonder if I am doing enough at home. My house is too big, and I use too much water on my lawn and sometimes I let my compost in the kitchen go too long and throw it in the trash because I am too disgusted to open the container and put it in my compost container; I forget to pick my zucchini once in a while and they grow too big and gross and I throw them away. Some days I’m too lazy to recycle my water from washing dishes or warming up the water in the bathroom. In the amount of time it takes for the water to heat up in my bathroom I could birth a small fetus. Or I’ll decadently eat a piece of steak Luke brings home. But after spending a week with Luke’s friend Nathan, I realize that I am doing way more than some. He has motorcycles for each person in his family; there was not one CFL in their entire 4,000 square foot house in which they run the air conditioning all summer even when they are at work because it supposedly takes more energy to cool it down after a whole day of heat than it does to run it the entire day. Right. We drove that damn boat endlessly all weekend and I could see the slick colorful sheen of oil on the top of the water near their boat. The whole time there, in my mind I picked apart their entire lifestyle like some grotesque Green Police. They have a front loading energy efficient washer and dryer, and energy efficient dishwasher, and they have no lawn in back. Their yard is small which is good. But they gobble down pounds of high protein animal groceries on their Suzanne Somers: This is Not Your Mother’s Atkins Diet. Not one organic product graced their fridge, and in fact when their son David mentioned an organic apple he ate, Nathan said, “What the hell is an organic apple.” In that don’t talk to me about stupid eco enviro shit tone of voice. It was excruciating not to say a thing. Really the last thing I want to do is look like the Enviro-Freak that I have become. It did make me think of Bill Maher when he said on Real Time,
"But when it comes to bad for the environment, nothing--literally--compares with eating meat. The business of raising animals for food causes about 40 percent more global warming than cars, trucks, and planes combined. If you care about the planet, it's actually better to eat a salad in a Hummer than a cheeseburger in a Prius."


I have been feeding finches for years. But our house has huge picture windows that give me a gorgeous view. Problem is the birds keep running into the damn shiny windows. I found a gorgeous male Costas hummingbird on the concrete beneath the window. Costas hummingbirds are small even by hummingbird standards; about 3 inches. The male hummingbird’s head and gorget, the area at the throat, is iridescent purple. The poor little guy was in perfect shape aside from being dead. Not a scratch or drop of blood. His wings and tail looked as if they were still in motion. Then I found over a period of about three months, three dead American and Lesser Goldfinches. I feed them Niger Seed every day and attract twenty to a hundred a day; I swear to God. And the worse thing is that they are smacking into my windows. I spent a fortune on special stickers that has helped prevent much of the problem, but there is still that occasional thump I will hear as one hits my window, and for some reason reminds me of the song, “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor”. The Costas Hummingbird was in such perfect shape that I put it in a clear Starbucks cup and studied it as much as I could before it disintegrated. It lasted a long time, weeks, and any visitor would get a viewing. I would say open your eyes at your home and you will see this. And I would shove the poor sacrificial hummer in their face. It affected everyone who saw in a way that made them quit their jobs and join Eco Terrorists for Birds and kill anyone who had a window that birds flew into. Not really. They just thought I was nuts and rolled their eyes swearing to never pay attention to birds again. The little guy with his shiny green back lay in the Starbucks cup which was placed carefully in a 15x11x7 cardboard box. Albert, Brook, and Krista thought I was nuts, and so too did Luke and he accidentally threw my poor baby in the trash, not even the compost or the green yard waste recycling can, but the regular, cruel and impersonal dump trash can.
“Hey honey, have you seen my hummingbird?” I asked Luke one day when I couldn’t find the bird or the box in the garage.
“What hummingbird? Oh you mean the dead one? No, of course not.”
“I had it out in the garage in a small box on the work table and now I can’t find it,” I said.
For some ungodly reason, he thought this was terribly funny and laughed too much. I was not amused.
“I threw that box away; I don’t think it had your bird in it though. There was just an old Starbucks cup in there,” he said.

Brook told me, in the form of a funny story at a family gathering, that she found several dead goldfinches and threw them over the fence to spare my feelings. But I know her well enough to know she threw them over to spare herself the chore of watching me and my over reaction to the death of my little babies. Somehow, she thinks throwing things over the back fence is a good way to handle things, because she threw the cookies I made with applesauce instead of oil and agave sweetener instead of sugar, over the back fence much to Albert and Krista’s utmost delight. Apparently partially hydrogenated free cookies are as useless as are dead yellow birds.

The difficult thing about having close relationships with people, like marriage and children for instance, is that while you may be fanatically dedicated to non polluting endeavors, your children and/or spouse may not be. Sure they may be interested and try a little, but how can one expect them to be fanatics. It is unusual. Luke loves to watch the Animal Planet shows on nature and he understands and is concerned about climate change and animals. But not so much so that he is willing to sell everything, build a cob or straw bale house in the woods and grow all of our own food while becoming Eco Terrorists and chasing evil developers on our mopeds and suing them for building in our precious canyons and rare open spaces. He also isn’t into using a composting toilet, abstaining from all air travel, riding a bicycle to get our produce at the Farmers Market on a 105 degree day, or carrying the way too feminine re-usable grocery bags, much less give up dirt bikes, boats, jet skis and fishing with his brothers. My only consolation is that while I may not have married or raised Grizzly Adams or Rachel Carson, at least they do keep me balanced and prevent me from shaving my head bald, growing my unwashed leg hairs long enough to braid, and move to the woods to live in a teepee, and write bad nature poems. Oh and wear a deerskin Pocahontas dress with moccasins.

ONE BAD MOM BLOGS - ONE BAD MOM BLOG

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SOAPBOX

“Healing the wounds of the earth and its people does not require saintliness or a political party, only gumption and persistence. It is not a liberal or conservative activity; it is a sacred act.” Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawken

Writing is tricky business, especially when you want to say something that really matters to you. You don’t want to sound too mad, or too passionate about a thing, or heaven forbid condescending; and you certainly don’t want to sound like a total idiot.

I once wrote grandly, “In a world as troubled as ours, we must always take heart and forge on.” Uhm. Stupid. Acid just refluxed into my mouth.

The other bad thing about writing is that I grow out of things. I may write about my passionate desire to save the planet now, but in twenty years I may cringe at my naïveté or unrealistic utopian leanings. I may one day hate the stupid Earth and dumb polar bears and Eagles, the stinky things. I may be driving a bulldozer for the pleasure of destroying large swaths of pristine endangered species habitat for all I know. I may develop bad habits like drowning baby kittens and eating horse meat. I can’t tell you how often I read something I wrote a long time ago and gag. Thank God I was not published. Hopefully I never will be; what a horrific reminder of earlier stupidities. Not long enough ago I was writing about how much I loved designer purses, sunglasses and shopping at Nordstrom’s.

“I bought a new Coach purse, a pair of Bulgari sunglasses and a timeshare in Mexico today,” I wrote. How embarrassing.

TT said, “Whenever you are on a new kick, I just roll my eyes and ignore you instead of getting super annoyed; and I know that you will be over it soon enough and onto something else.”

So now TT, I would like to talk about my present annoying stuff: Environmentalism and Feminism. Seriously does it get any worse? But why is it that environmentalism has such a tainted sound to it? Why is it degraded, reduced, lessened, and treated like a nonsensical silliness? Whereas, tough, loud, aggressive endeavors are cool (like pounding a man in the face for five rounds, or clearing a hundred acres of wooded forest to build twenty lawned houses); things like caring, nurturing and loving Nature are often considered silly.

Caring, nurturing and loving animals, plants and Nature is silly. Even as I write this, I think it sounds super dumb. It sounds girlie and whining. Why? TV, (which shapes our nation’s very being), and many men idolize women when they are skinny, young, hot, physically mutilated to maximum endowment, cutesy and without an important thing in their tiny, white heads. Hot, half-naked young bodies are splattered all over the television like soft porn to entice and lure people into buying shit. The large-fake-breasted, not very smart, not very old kind of girl is acceptable. But women who care, nurture and love Nature are ridiculous.

It is a Man’s World any way you slice it where the Girl’s Next Door, Pamela Andersons, and Jessica Simpsons of the world are how guys like it. And guys will laugh and talk about how stupid those hot girls are all the while imagining fornicating with them, which is all part of the degradation. The message: Be Hot, Be Dumb, Be Naked, Be Quiet. So when a woman comes along and doesn’t want to be hot, or dumb or quiet, the rut of ridiculing, reducing and demeaning occurs. Therefore, when I say I care about Nature and I want you stupid fucking assholes to stop killing whales and wolves, and stop polluting, and stop cutting down old growth forests and stop messing with Spotted Owls, I am easily dismissed.

“Oh now, isn’t that cute, she loves whales,” I hear.

Or worse, “What a dumb bitch, fuck those stupid dumb whales and wolves, all that matters is me, my dick, my dually truck, and my hunting license.”

Women and their fluffy ideas and their voices are silenced, ridiculed by those who would rather you look like a Barbie and sound like a mute while they sit with a half-hard-on watching hot cheerleaders, football or boxing because men running into each other super hard and punching one another until blood spurts from their heads is a superior endeavor compared with women who don’t want Japan to kill all the whales in the ocean, or loggers to raze trees that stood before the Greeks were the Greeks.

Oh and then those dumb Barbie Girls do get up and say, don’t wear minks it is mean, we love animals….and since they have put themselves in a position to be ridiculed and ignored and only to be stared at, then the things they say, even if they may be important, sound totally stupid and bring down their cause.

Why is it a feminist issue? Because it is a Man’s World and the attitudes today are trained and bent on aggression and destruction. Aggression and destruction is all good and natural, but there must be a balance. The aggressive agenda has been pursued and forced down our throats long enough, time to Man Up and speak out about the destruction of nature by those who feel that whales, wolves and polar bears are the fluffy stuff of a stupider gender.

As individualistic as we Americans mean to be, we are pack animals, social in nature, and we need each other to form ourselves and our ideas. In Medieval prisons, the isolated prisoners craved human contact so much that he would scribble notes on small chips of stone with his blood, and pass the notes through the cracks to communicate. The Internet and the social networks remind me of those isolated prisoners. We 21st century citizens are so isolated from one another that we desperately communicate via FaceBook.com and MySpace.com.

Corporations and the TV programming they control, and plug-in to our brains understand our pack mentality, our drive to be like each other and fit in.

"Television is the literature for the illiterate, the culture of the low-brow, the wealth of the poor, the privelage of the underprivelaged, the exclusive club for the excluded masses." Lee Loevinger

If the people on TV are our friends and enemies, and the TV is our society; then the television is our pack that can shape our most intimate feelings and ideas. The McDonalds and Walmarts of the Corporate World have a direct feeding tube, an IV drip as it were, from their bottom line offices directly to your brain; they tell you how to think. Exxon funds “think tanks” that are formed specifically to counter climate change efforts and put false but seemingly reasonable information on the tube and in our newspapers.

Exxon's contributions are as follows:

Action Institute for the Study of Religious Liberty $155,000

American Council of Capital Formation $250,000

The American Council on Science and Health $90,000

The American Enterprise Institue $960,000

The American Legislative Exchange Council $712,000

Citizens for a Sound Economy$302,150

Reason Public Policy Institute $230,000

Competitive Enterprise Institute $1.74 million

Cold Earth Society $8 million.

The corporations have the money, the tube to your brain, the genius minds to make it all sound reasonable, and our willingness if we sit by stupidly. And they have the capacity and desire to devour our natural settings so they can regurgitate it and feed it back to us. This is why it is so vital for you to speak up and put your ideas out there to counterbalance that unnatural force. The internet is like that scribbled blood note that keeps we desperately separated individuals in a pack. It is not the healthiest, but we do what we can. It is our microphone that can transmit our voices, it can give we little people the voice and power that television has given Coca Cola. We can post info on our Facebook that concerns us like the ad for the movie, The Cove that I saw my friend Carol Schill post. It is about the dolphin harvesting trade in Japan. My Mom posted an excellent link about Reinstating Protection for the Northern Rockies Wolves. I have posted different things on my Facebook that you just click to send a message to your representative or sign a petition that is directed to the relevant authority. The internet can make these small powerful steps quite simple.

Why is it important? Corporations are powerful; they will not let up…they are relentless. You don’t have to move the entire human race to effect change. If the town hall meetings have proved one thing, it is that the loud, annoying, obnoxious idiots get shit going. Act like those idiots only with a more correct and educated purpose. But do not stand down, do not step aside, do not cringe, do not tolerate your opinion being denigrated or reduced by the burping, heinous fools who have shaped opinions for too long. The Powers That Be or The White Male Establishment or whatever you want to call it starts with corporate CEO’s and trickles down to the farting man on the couch. The same people who will Kitty Kat your issues and tell you to go sit on your frilly sofa, also would love to have you shut up so they can watch the bimbos on Brett Michaels Rock of Love Remember who is criticizing you with his stupid beer belly and bad breath.

Some of this commentary is brought about because I watched The Sea Shepherd episode where the whalers outran and then harpooned a whale that took twenty five minutes to die. I read the stupidest rude remarks on Facebook about the unimportance of whales and those who care but in quite different terms. I usually ignore that crap because then I write long tirades about the White Male Establishment and the Oppression of Everyone. It is a few voices that make a huge difference. It only takes a hundred letters to each senator in every state to kick some ass. You could generate ten yourself by just asking a few friends to point and click on a website that makes it easy.

One of the biggest arguments for whaling, polluting, and/or ignoring climate change is that “Saving whales” or “Saving Trees” or “Saving the Planet” is economically unsound. That it will hurt our beloved economy. Are we not fat enough? When will we be? When will the decadence and horror of our Economy First Mentality become apparent to more? By the way, I don’t think hunting is wrong or immoral in and of itself. But an overpopulated species hunting an under-populated species isn’t going to last. And it isn’t hunting that is being done, it is mass harvesting for a 6.784 billion human population and that is different.

When you get to the second half of your life, and you have pretty much raised your kids, you want to make the rest count. I don’t want to just work hard to accumulate more shit. I want to work hard so that in the end, my life counted. What is this blog then? It is a rally cry. It is cheerleading in a higher, evolved form; it is a question and an encouragement. It is a plea to those who can and to those who will to take a stand and draw a line in the sand with me.

“Polite conservationists leave no mark save the scars upon the Earth that could have been prevented had they stood their ground.” David Brower

How to be a 21st c. Activist

1. Use the internet. Sign up for Action Alerts so you can point and click letter write/send.

2. Grow a garden. I wish somebody would have told me how easy it is to grow food. I have lettuce, tomatoes and carrots for a salad everyday, and zucchini by the armloads for zucchini muffins.

3. Compost. Don’t take it too seriously. Do it wrong if you must…just throw your food in a barrel that closes tight. Toss some dirt and/or leaves on top to keep the smell down. Or do it right, read: http://Composting101.com .

4. Buy eco-friendly products. Research. Use plant based soaps, detergents and make-up. The stuff they sell at the normal stores is oil-based which is well, oil-based. Think about it.

5. Buy organic. That way food and flowers are grown without using herbicides and pesticides. Don’t let the spin prevent you from buying right. It does make a difference.

Whale oil is little used today and modern commercial whaling is for food. The primary species hunted are the Common Minke Whale and Antarctic Minke Whale, two of the smallest species of baleen whales. Recent scientific surveys estimate a population of 103,000 in the northeast Atlantic and 665,074 around Antarctica. Brazil, Argentina and South Africa argue that whale watching is a growing billion-dollar industry that provides more revenue and more equitable distribution of profits than commercial whaling from far-away developed countries. Peru, Uruguay, Australia, and New Zealand also support proposals to permanently forbid whaling South of the Equator, as Indonesia is the only country in the Southern Hemisphere with a whaling industry.

NUMBER OF WHALES KILLED BY WHALERS:

Whaling Season:

200-2001 1,015

2001-2002 1,151

2002-2003 1,322

2003-2004 1,388

2004-2005 1,324

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~A Pack of Big Bears - ONE BAD MOM BLOGS - ONE BAD MOM BLOG

~A Pack of Big Bears - ONE BAD MOM BLOGS - ONE BAD MOM BLOG"Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life." Rachel Carson



Luke, Brook (fourteen) and I went with my sis TT and her daughter Sara to South Fork near Big Bear, California to camp. It was gorgeous. We were in the very back of the campground and had to hike in a bit to get right up next to Lost Creek. The campsite was huge and you couldn’t see the parking lot, and the neighboring campsites were quite far. It was dark when we got there and I felt like an eyeless worm accidentally above ground, tripping and dropping stuff while my stupid underwear rode up my butt.

We could hike to the bubbling Santa Ana River. The Santa Ana River in Orange County, CA, where it meanders through to get to the Pacific Ocean and spurts out in between Huntington Beach and Newport Beach Ca, is disgusting.



Orange County (OC) cemented it all in so there is not a tree to be seen. Nice work Orange County. Some cormorants loiter on the telephone lines that cross the river in Orange County, and a few Egrets and Herons trespass on the clean concrete occasionally to get a toxic fish or two, but that is about it for bird species much less mammals.



I suppose it would be a revelation for Orange County city planners to understand that most rivers have trees and animals and not concrete and graffiti.



However, in the mountains, the Santa Ana River is an absolutely beautiful, clean brook. It is treed, cool, and shaded, with a lightly trodden trail alongside. . As the river goes through Riverside California on its way to the OC, treated sewage water is dumped into it, but at least the river is wild and not concreted. Actual live birds and animals frequent the river.


The first night, at about 2 a.m., TT woke us all up yelling, “BEAR” and after several long minutes of struggling to get out of my North Face mummy bag, I managed to unzip the tent, while Luke fumbled around with his shorts and the brand new three-layered Eddie Bauer sleeping contraption, and I saw the damn bear. It was surreal and he was beautiful and big. I yelled “HEY” and the bear trotted off a few feet as if to mock my weakness. We all have seen bears while camping in Sequoia and Yosemite. We have all needed to chase them away and been super careful with our food, keeping it in bear boxes. But the camp host told us “Eh there aren’t any bears here.” I should clarify. It wasn’t the Camp Host but her slow and inbred son whose eyes were one inch apart. Why we listened to him I don’t know, but we did.

“There haven’t been any reports of bears in this area for ten years. We have never had an incident here in this campground. We don’t have bear boxes because we don’t need them,” he said.

Note to self, never take advice from the mentally challenged if your life depends upon it. This same guy later told us if a bear confronts us, you should get down on all fours and turn your butt to it, and he pantomimed what he meant. Starlight, TT’s sweet loving Labrador almost attacked him in that position. We chased the bear off, but Brook and Sara, then 14 and 10, were fucking terrified. Especially Sara of course because she was only ten and sensed that we adults may not protect the children if it came down to it because we would be running away too fast. I mean I had a mini heart attack myself, especially when the darn bear came right up to us to get the marshmallows off the table. Then he just chilled out around the perimeter of our campsite while we shined the light on him for about fifteen minutes, marveling and shitting bricks. I banged some pans together and he ran off, but that made it worse because then we didn’t know where he was. Now what? We took all of our food and put it in the car with visions of bears tearing cars apart to get buns and chips. I’ve seen it in Sequoia with my own eyes.

We moved our tents into a semi-circle about 2 inches from each other and went to bed. Sara and Brook shared a tent and Brook knew Sara would feel more comfortable with her mom.

“You better not ditch me Mckenzie, you better not,” Brook threatened. She had a metal pan with a spoon that she would clang regularly from inside her tent.

“I heard something behind our tent. Something just brushed the back of our tent. I heard a snuffling noise in front of our tent. A bear just walked by the door of our tent,” McKenzie would say throughout the night.

It was freaking me out. Instead of trying to calm her and say, you’re imagining things, we hopped up and shone three lights around, but didn’t find anything. We stayed up for 3 and a half hours, jumping at every silent sound, until exhausted, we fell asleep. Then in the morning, at 6 am, we hear some squirrels chipping the hell out of the morning air, and some Stellar’s Jays squawking like mad, and then a few loud thumps, I opened my back window in my tent expecting to see some cute little birdies and a view of the trees, but instead saw a huge fucking black bear, knocking the tackle box around. When he heard me, he sauntered off casually.

Everyone else got up, but being the eldest, I was too tired and felt as an elder I should sleep in and have pancakes ready for me when I got up. The trouble with that is that TT kept talking about how frightened she was by the bear and how heroically I behaved when I yelled at the bear. She put her chair right next to my open back window to talk more about my bravery. Then she left her chair to build a roaring camp-fire and designed it in such a careful way that the smoke made a trail directly to my nose. Coughing and with red eyes, me and my bravery got up and made the pancakes myself.

We had only one neighboring camper who was 200 yards off; an old guy in a hammock. He regularly hiked the Sierras and was used to this kind of thing, but at the time we didn’t know it. We kept imaging him with some Chips Ahoy on his tummy, fallen asleep after munching half the bag, and the bear peering over to get at them and accidentally cutting him in half with his thick sharp nails as he went for said delicious cookies. So we shone our multiple flash-lights on him every three minutes, but he never got up. In the morning we apologized for all of the noise and made up elaborate stories of two and three bears coming in packs throughout the night which was why we kept banging pots together repeatedly.

“No worries, tonight my grandkids will be here. I’m sure they will get you back.” And boy did they.

He was a super cool old man but his daughter was an OC gross dumb bitch that sang instead of spoke to her toddler.

“Oh she is speaking Chinese, isn’t it adorable,” she oozed.

We told her about the bear from the night before and she said, “When we went to the Caribbean, they told us there were no sharks. Duh we knew better, just like I would have known better than to believe there were no bears here. My dad taught me all about camping when I was growing up,” she said while I bit her neck with my fangs and removed her of all of her life-affirming blood. She was so campy and nature-based that she had her shiny black, brand new Mercedes detailed before she came to the dirty mountains and later washed a gallon of oil based dishwashing liquid into the stream.

Next night we ship-shaped the place and then crashed and didn’t hear a thing. I slept like a rock, but several babies cried through the night, making Luke appreciate my old and barren womb.

“I never ever want babies, they are fucked up.” he said.

“GO TO SLEEP NOW” I heard the dad say before I fell asleep.

The beastly boy delighted in the night “La la la, everything is fun,” he laughed and laughed. The Dad was getting SO pissed. “Go to sleep you little asshole.” I know he wanted to say. And the kid was having a brilliantly fun time.

The next night TT said she heard a toddler crying half the night, and then she thought she heard the muffled sound of a hand over the mouth. We laughed about that because our toddler days are over and we take great pleasure in other parents’ great misery.




It was such a great time. Brook chopped ten piles of wood and made the best fire. Luke fished on the creek and Brook Sara and I hiked along it. Without MySpace, texting, One Tree Hill or her BFFs, Brook did not expire or implode, in fact she was human and not an automaton like at home. She made eye contact and spoke full sentences. It made me wonder why we lived in the smothering suburbs. Why not live closer to nature? But my question was answered when the OC Lady walked by with neon-colored camp chairs, carrying a Nordstrom’s bag and smiling her big fake smile and I realized that you can’t leave The OC behind even when you leave The OC.







Santa Ana River: Due to Southern California's dry climate, dam control, and confiscation by local water agencies, very little water flows throughout the year. Wikipedia





OC: Orange County and all its trappings.



All four pictures above are of the Santa Ana River which is 110 miles long.

Picture 1: Santa Ana River at South Fork, RaphaelMazor on Flickr

Picture 2: Santa Ana River somewhere in Orange County, CA

Picture 3: Santa Ana River where it enters the Pacific Ocean

Picture 4: Santa Ana River at South Fork, RaphaelMazor on Flickr

Picture 5: Santa Ana River at South Fork, property for sale


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~Beauty is a Short Lived Tyranny - ONE BAD MOM BLOGS - ONE BAD MOM BLOG

~Beauty is a Short Lived Tyranny - ONE BAD MOM BLOGS - ONE BAD MOM BLOG

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson
In social settings I feel naked like a hairless dog. I know people who, in order to appear important, refer to their CO2 spewing jet boats, their 3 year old daughter’s Chinese lessons, or their $200 bikini wax and I am repulsed by their boastfulness. Yet I can match their delusional grandiosity. I’ll say the dumbest things to look good. “Oh my gosh my Whole Foods stock just jumped up 10 percent.” That way people will know that I am financially savvy, I am socially responsible, and therefore I am special. It is so dumb.
I told a lady on the train once that my new Toyota Avalon had reclining leather back seats. How I wheeled a conversation around to my backseat escapes me now. Trading in my Avalon for my small, geeky, eco-friendly Prius hampered my ability to brag. I still do brag of course, but in an eco way which doesn’t feel as impressive because lots of people could care less if I’m heroically saving the planet by driving a car that gets good gas mileage and has near zero emissions. And anyway, my Prius isn’t impressive because I’ve trashed it. I spilled nail glue on the center divider so there are big holes in the fabric, and I drive like shit and backed into Luke’s truck twice. I hit a pole, a curb, a tree and a small child so there are dings, nicks and hanging pieces all over the car. Losing my child support and house during the housing crisis has helped curb my bragging enthusiasm; you’d be surprised what financial destitution can do for your arrogance.
When Gore Vidal says, “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.” I understand. And when someone is talking about their own success, I immediately start thinking of a matching or better story, and if I can’t think of one, I get bored of the person and think of negative things about them like their nose hairs or forehead wrinkles. I start picturing little tiny organisms climbing down the crevices of the wrinkle in microscopic hiking boots and carrying walking sticks; and I wonder what the little guys might do if I ran my fingernail down the wrinkle until I remember the microscopic men are in my imagination and the person might think I was weird if I scratched their forehead while they were explaining their portfolio to me.
Occasionally when I am in a social situation, I drop into a stupor. Luke and I went to Randy’s barbeque. Randy is Luke’s annoying friend that I described in “New Boyfriend and Drunken Stupors” on right. I sat on the couch and blended in with the brown flowers on white background. I don't even like sitting on flowery couches, and I hate being ignored, but if you are just sitting there all quiet and boring, nobody wants to get near you in case it rubs off. I tried jumping in at the wrong time in a conversation and interrupted stupidly, and then the conversation stopped and people looked at me quietly. Awkward.
I have taken Biscuit to Dog Park. Biscuit is Krista and Brook's little black dog. She looks like a black Welsh Corgi/Mutt mix. She is cute and smiles big, but who cares because she is an obnoxious manic freak. When other dogs happily lope up to sniff her cute little butthole, she tucks tail, snaps, barks and spazzes out. She is scared so she becomes aggressive and turns a simple social matter into a terrible fight. What a dumb-dumb. Or she will jump on the bench next to me and try to squeeze under my butt so I’ll sit on her and keep her invisible. But sometimes I cannot attain even her social level. At least her butt is interesting enough to sniff. I sit quietly on the dirty couch at Luke's friends and wait for Luke to sit by me so I can feel less lost. It doesn’t help that Luke’s friends are half my age. They are always partying and happy and I am always snappy and freaked out, tail tucked and trying to squeeze under Luke’s butt.
When we first arrived at Randy’s apartment it was great, only Randy and another friend were there and things were mellow.
My mission at Randy's was to meet Randy's new wife. Randy met her on a Friday, went to Las Vegas the next day Saturday, and married her on Sunday. They weren’t even drunk. The newlyweds came home and renewed their vows before Randy's parents. Randy's mom was crying. Dan, Randy’s dad was in his boxers holding a beer and blubbering inane sentiments.
Randy's wife's name is Lori, she is 22 or 23. She is skinny, 5’5” and maybe 100 lbs. She has a dark tan, pretty brown eyes, a gorgeous smile, and absolutely no chin.
Luke had told me, "She looks like a pretty girl's ugly sister. She could be cute if she had a boob job, a chin, and a personality."

We were supposed to swim at Randy's apartment community pool, but were not allowed by management because we, meaning; Randy, Luke, a mob of drunken and immature twenty-five year olds and I, were too loud. Lori wore her bikini top even though we couldn't swim. She had a long torso and very low shorts, and her tummy looked like a teenagers, so I threw hot wax on her and burned her perfect skin. She sat on every guy's lap and flirted with everyone but Luke because I was shooting hot daggers at her with my squinted eyes whenever she got near him. It was nauseating. She had little tattoos of suns and moons on her belly and lower back. I prayed the tattoo sun would set on her dumb vagina and melt the red polyester to her privates and give her genital warts. She was hanging on Tina (one of the girls there) in a sexual manner; in a lesbian way. Young girls these days all act like lesbians so they can get attention. I wonder what real lesbians think of these lesbian charlatans. I for one would be pissed. Lori was loud and stupid. Oh well it won’t be long before she realizes what the rest of we middled age women have discovered: “Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.” Socrates
She was terribly bruised and hung-over from the night before of drinking and falling down. Since Lori and Randy had been married one full week, Lori said she quit her job to become a Housewife.
"All I do is clean up after Randy and I am positively sick of it," she whined.
How could she be positively sick of anything she'd done for seven days. Terrorists have survived seven days of water-boarding without getting positively sick of it. I’ve tolerated seven days of a yeast infection without getting positively sick of it.
Randy described what would be many men's description of marriage: "Last night she wouldn't go to sleep. She wouldn't stop cuddling. I wanted to push her off the bed. I am never alone."
When Randy told Luke and me that, Lori was busy giving Randy’s best friend a lap dance, rubbing her stupid ugly crotch all over his leg. Lori’s latex bikini, the red eyesore, will not leave my thoughts, and any shred of tolerance for her is completely lost from my memory.
Luke and his friends were placing bets on the length of the marriage. Most said two weeks. Luke said six weeks. They all put $5.00 in the plastic, red Budweiser, Dale Earnhardt Jr. ice chest and were waiting. Unfortunately, Don't Peter stole the money so then it wasn’t as fun.
Randy falls so hard for girls. A while back he was madly in love with a girl named Mary who worked at a topless bar and had two sons who were raised by her mother and sister. When she dumped Randy, he was heartbroken. He incredibly cried in front of Luke which seems unthinkable because Luke can’t tolerate emotions at all much less Man Emotions. Luke probably sat stone-faced while Randy wailed, "My heart is broken Luke. It is completely broken. Did you hear me Luke? Luke, I say I'm heart-broken, downright heartbroken, hello hello. Are you listening?"
At the barbeque, we watched a pathetic Jackass type movie of Randy's friends fighting at bars, throwing up in every conceivable setting, riding motorcycles indoors: fast and in circles, throwing TVs at one another and knocking people out cold. There was an entire twenty minutes dedicated to boys throwing up. Randy's dad was in that part of the movie, on all fours in the sand barfing black slick fluid from his deep bowels. Randy stuck his finger in it and said, "Hmmm about a quart low."
After we left the barbeque, Luke heard that Nick, Luke’s fetus-looking friend, and Randy began rough housing and ran into a table and broke some dishes. Lori yelled at Nick and told him to fucking knock it off. Nick was wasted, of course, and said, "Fuck you bitch." She said fuck you back and words were exchanged. Nick, beautifully, shoved her face and pushed her down onto the brown and white couch that I had earlier been blending into. Randy jumped on Nick and a fight ensued.

Hanging out with these guys makes me appreciate my old age. Becoming middle-aged is not all bad. There are perks with maturity: people treat you with respect, and you demand respect by your presence; you and your friends don't throw kegs in pools or push friends off of stairwell balconies, you haven't fought since High School; you go to piano bars and listen to jazz and drink wine together.
What would it be like if when Luke went out with the boys, it didn't mean to a crazy bar where twenty-two year old, hot girls hang on cute boys. What would it be like to have a boyfriend who didn't know anyone who took pills or smoked pot. There are benefits to youth; energy for one. But the young spend their energy on the dumbest things. I’ll keep my exhaustion if it means keeping my entertainment systems from being thrown around. Quiet evenings with friends on warm nights on balconies that overlook something besides weedy car parts in the backyard is what I long for sometimes. I dream of a time where the only twenty-two year old girl my man knows is his daughter. It will be decades before I can say that.
I was sitting pouting quietly about these things when Luke leaned over and said, "You are beautiful. I can't wait to call you my wife."
And I swear he meant it. Talk about mental. But no wonder I tolerate all of his friend’s crap; there aren’t many men in the world as sweet and genuine as Luke. If he wants to marry me even though I imagine his friends' wives decomposing in small containers, or buy over-priced eco-friendly designer goods just to impress others, then who am I to pick his friends apart? But maybe next time there is a party, I’ll not go and instead buy a new Hybrid Lexus and go to the organic coffee shop to get a book on investing in a new Botox alternative so I can brag about it.

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."
Shakespeare

"The goal that led him on was not impossible, though it was clearly supernatural: He wanted to dream a man. He wanted to dream him completely, in painstaking detail, and impose him upon reality." The Circular Ruins, Borges
I love reading Borges. His writing is not only strange but gorgeous. "..,a lean and evil mob of moon-coloured hounds" is his way of describing a pack of dogs and my way of describing Luke’s friends. As trippy as reading Borges is, Luke's friends are by far stranger and more other-worldly than even Borges. Luke’s friend Boss, for instance, is 6'9" tall and 5' wide. Boss is Russian; he has blond, short hair, and blue eyes with v shapes beneath his eyes and interesting crow’s feet. His hands are enormous, his head is elephantine, and his mouth is deep and labyrinthal. The teeth are yellow, jagged and like a garbage disposal; I would hate to accidentally put my hand down in there. Vegans and carnivorous humans argue over the physiological orientation of our species. Are we meant to be vegetarian, carnivores or both? Boss's teeth would be strong evidence of our flesh-tearing origins. The jagged, rugged pointiness of those piss-colored peaks demonstrate our strong carnivorous state. Humans must have evolved and refined from having Boss-like mouths to having straight and squared off, truncated teeth. I have nightmares of being chased through viny jungles and over grainy deserts by that giant lug. I imagine him on all fours with that lawnmower mouth overshadowing his giant, loping body. I'm glad he's not very mean to me because I would crumble. He used to be a Neo-Nazi, skin head but these days he is just a big old teddy bear.

One day long ago when I was first dating Luke, he and all his friends and I were at a bar, and Boss got into a fight if you could call it that. Boss towered over a much smaller guy, yelled several obscenities (something about if you ever look at my girlfriend again I'll kill you), then flung a globe-sized fist at the guy's face. The guy fell and didn't get up. It didn't look like Boss hit that hard or put that much effort into it, so perhaps the guy fainted or played dead.
This was one of the first nights that I had met Luke’s pack of friends. They were all in there twenties; even now I marvel that I went to bars with that gang of kids. I must have looked like the old perverted man in a van hanging out at the high-school giving girls beer and rides. We played pool, then danced and everyone got super drunk, then Boss got into a fight and we had to all hop in our cars and rush off because the cops were coming and Boss was on probation. Hilarious. I was forty. For the past decade I had been wiping snot off kid’s noses, picking up Cheerios by the bucketful off the kitchen floor, and stressing out over paying my Gymboree credit card, and here I was, running from cops with a pack of kids who just became drinking age. When I see movie stars dating much younger men, it looks glamorous and vindictive, a snub to rich old men with young hot babes; but I always wonder if Demi hung out with Ashton’s childish friends, watched them crawl on the ground and roll in the shrubs, barfing and too drunk to stand up. I mean you have to hang out sometimes with your guy’s friends, even if you are in a relationship with someone who is half your age. I figured I’d just adjust my attitude and pretend on those nights that I was the chaperone, like at proms.


Nick is Luke's other friend. Nick is 5'2", has a buzzed hair cut and blue eyes. He is Boss's miniature self. I sometime think of buying Boss a baby front pack. Nick's mother was a crack head when he was in utero and you can tell because he looks deformed. His body is small, his head is giant, and the forehead huge. Think very large embryo and you have Nick.
Maybe his growth hit some barrier at the three week fetal stage and stuck. He grew in size, but the embryonic construction remained. Nick stutters, talks about blowing up the world and screwing girls (which he rarely does), but he is good in spite of his self mis-representation. Boss and Nick both have fully tattooed arms of naked girls, swastikas, exploding earth and pot plants. They are both in their twenties. They came over to Luke's one Saturday to use Sheldon's bong and look up porn on the computer that sits at the ten foot long bar in Luke and Sheldon’s living room. Boss showed me disgusting pictures of one inch inverted penises and talked about going to pick up ugly, fat girls at bars. Boss and Nick were getting bored with me and Luke since I was doing a dolphin puzzle and Luke was watching “Black Holes” on the Science Channel.
"What do you wanna do?" Nick said to Boss.
"I don't care let's just get the hell outta here. I’m interested in black holes, but not out in space, let’s go to the bar," Boss said.
It was the middle of the day. Who goes to bars in the daytime? And after spending an afternoon with these odd fellows, I too wanted to dream a man; a man exactly opposite of these men to replace them on Earth. A man I could impose upon reality or even better, I would like to impose Boss upon a page in a book and relegate him to a corner of my bookcase.
Davy, Luke’s roommate at the time, was twenty-three, thin and Hispanic. Davy' s hair was giant and afro-style, and he had big hound-like eyes. Davy was like a mellow, sedated koala: sweet, gentle, exhausted. He talked like a stoner; slow, drawn-out and very low. He smoked a lot of pot, drank a lot of beer, ate a lot of food, and slept a lot of sleep. Davy smoked pot on his lunch break, slept on the couch during the day and ate every meal at the bar.
"Do you want to go to the movies with Luke and me?" I asked Davy one fine hot day.
"Maybe not since I'm pretty stoned," he answered.
When it was time to go I went up to him and I said, "Do you want to go?"
I startled him out of his elaborate stoner dream of living a beautiful life on an island with several sexy women, because he snapped his head to face me, his eyes were stunned, his hair a huge shocking square and said, "No I don't think so," trying to restrain his hysteria wondering if I weren’t a demon or the DEA or both.
The next day Luke, Davy and I went to a head shop to get Sheldon a Xmas gift. I tried walking and talking like a stoner so I wouldn’t look out of place.




"Yeah, I'd like to look at that pipe, the one that you could take a big, fat hit off. I like it cuz I could fit a big wad of POT in that bowl, and I could SMOKE that WEED right out of it. Yeah I like to get HIGH on POT," I said to the tattooed, middle aged, large-bellied sales clerk.
The old drunk looked at me with introspection but said nothing. I knew, however, he was impressed that I, an obviously hip, together, successful, mature woman smoked pot. Yes pot, P.O.T. I smoke it.
Davy was buying something and showing it to me; I thought it was a pipe. I held it up to my lips like a pipe and pretended to take a hit.
"Yeah you just suck on it right here and get a good HIT," I articulated knowingly.
"Uh, Suzie, that's a bowl. You put it in the bong and it holds the pot. You don't hit off of it with your lips," Davy explained thoughtfully and sweetly.
"Oh."
An image of Krista’s horrified face popped into my imagination. Her reaction to my performance would have been mortification had she known of my behavior which is why privacy in my personal life is so important. A pathetic, middle-aged woman trying to not be pathetic or middle-aged is simply absurd.
In the car Luke said, "I was surprised that they didn't ask you to leave; you're supposed to refer to the bongs as water pipes, and you can't mention pot or weed."
"Really? I had no idea," I said as if I didn't mind one way or the other which couldn't have been farther from the truth.
Aside from the stranger with the dreads and hemp crocheted beanie, and the drunk sales guy, Luke was the one person I was most trying to impress thus my aggravation at this comment. Davy merely laughed. Even though I didn't wear my Born Clogs that look like nursing shoes or my high-waist pants, I still think I didn't pull off the mirage that I was a pot smoker and once again I did not fit in. Perhaps I never will, especially when I keep trying to fit in with people half my age and a fraction of my sobriety. And perhaps my bizarre behavior should be self studied and an improvement made. Whenever I act like an idiot I always wonder why I ever left my books. I could be reading, since I agree with Harold Bloom that there is never enough time to read, but instead I was trying to act like something I didn’t even like in the first place. Therefore, mental note: next time young people ask me to go to a head shop to buy a pipe-I will not go. I will not try to look cool; I will not pretend to be that which I am not. I will stay home and read about it. I need not be twenty-two and smoke pot to have psychedelic episodes like them. I need only read Borges and remember that I am just like him when he said, “Life and death have been lacking in my life.” And that now is no time to change.

“I foresee that man will resign himself to new abominations, and soon that only bandits and soldiers will be left.” Jorge Luis Borges

Because of my strange experiences, I am often asked if I think marijuana should be legalized. Hell if I know; we could tax it, people smoke it anyway, it would de-criminalize it. I get it; so I suppose my answer is yes. But that doesn’t mean I think weed is a worthy thing to do with your time. Conversely neither is drinking, but I do that so who am I to say. Pot makes people stupid and lazy; two personality traits I abhor; so legalize it yes, smoke it no. It makes you retarded. People who smoke weed defend it to the death. I wish I loved my kids as much as some pot smokers love their weed. And as for kids like mine? It is an abomination when teenagers smoke weed. Their little brains are still too new and growing and kinda dumb in some ways. Just wait kids, what is the rush to kill your brain cells, you have your whole life to become a dumb ass.

One Bad Mom - ONE BAD MOM BLOG

One Bad Mom - ONE BAD MOM BLOG

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~Smack

"This youth that you see here I snatch’d one half out of the jaws of death."

Twelfth Night, Shakespeare

On Wednesday, November 7, 2007, at 5:30 pm; daylight saving time just changed, and it was dark; Krista, then fifteen, wore all black and her hair was an unfortunate normal person’s brown instead of her usual dyed yellow or neon pink. Watkins Drive in Riverside has apartments on one side, a small fenced concrete canal that parallels the other side, beyond which is the park that Krista and her friends were previously hanging out. What they were doing at the park is anyone’s guess.

Playing with a Jewish dreidel, eating strawberries with sugar, picking four leaf clovers? They all went through the canal and climbed/crawled out of the hole in the fence and onto the street, Watkins Drive. I can imagine her scraping her knees, ruining her pants and hunkering down like a Hobbit crawling out of its hobbit hole. The street had three lanes: one in each direction; one center. Three of her friends immediately crossed before her then two were behind. Krista crossed the first lane, the center lane and half of the second lane, and made it to the center of a Ford truck when it hit her going 35-40 mph head on. She rode up on the hood for a bit, and then was catapulted off when the driver slammed on his brakes. There was a tremendous bang. The driver never saw Krista and pulled over not knowing what he hit. Brett said it was such a loud noise that it sounded like two cars had collided. He said that when he heard the noise, he immediately turned around and Krista was on the ground in the gutter, crawling.

I was at Luke's in Orange County about 45 miles away when Brett called, "Suzie, something really bad, but not too bad, but pretty bad, but not super, super bad, but kind of super bad just happened. Krista was hit by a car. She is on the ground and her leg hurts and her back and head are banged up."

My heart sunk to the pit of my soul; it felt as if I were hit by a truck. There is a music video by Simple Plan (see below), a real tear-jerker, where a girl is hit by a car and is killed, and at the same moment, every one in her family, wherever it was that they stood when the girl was hit; in their kitchen, bedroom, or office, was thrown as if they too were impacted by the same car. That is what it feels like when your troubled baby girl, who you have little control over, who you know is drinking and smoking weed, is hit by a truck. It is such a mind fuck too, when they are hurt, while doing everything wrong. It is said that dying is the one thing you must do alone. But it is not. When someone dies, everyone she knows leaves a part of themselves here on Earth and goes with her to die. The police and ambulance weren't there yet but had been called and were on the way. Brett’s casual explanation and tone had a strangely calming effect. I appreciated his cavalier attitude. Luke and I jumped in the car and began the hour and a half journey during commuter traffic. Racing down a freeway and weaving in and out of traffic to get to your dying daughter is one thing; but sitting absolutely still and hemmed in on every side with traffic stopped in front and behind as far as one can see is another. I braced myself for the impending truth: Krista was dying. I was sure of it. And there was a trapped feeling, like being in a coffin, where I couldn’t move and was going to die.

I called Zoie, who was with Krista, to see if the ambulance had arrived and Zoie was hysterical and crying, "Her head is bleeding and her back is all bloody, both her legs and arms are broken and her back is broken."

Zoie, thirteen, saw the whole thing and was not doing well. I was so fucking scared. It did in fact take one and a half hours to drive the forty five miles. I lived for an hour and a half, knowing, positively that Krista was dead or dying.

That ride in the car was what I imagine Purgatory to be like: an insane uncertainty and an endurance of the worst possible reality.

"I’ve looked that old scoundrel death in the eye many times but this time I think he has me on the ropes."

Douglas MacArthur

When Luke and I arrived at the hospital, the girls at the front desk rushed me in. I was told that Krista had been examined and her wounds scrubbed. The hospital had performed a CAT scan on her head and X-rays on her legs and back. My Mom, Krista’s dad, and my sister TT were already there. She was in the emergency room still in shock, hooked up to tubes, awake, yet high on morphine, and still in a lot of pain. Her head had a big, ugly gash, her back was monstrously flayed the size of a square manhole.

This patch of exposed flesh went from as far left to as far right as one could define as the back, and then from just above the butt crack up to the blades of her shoulders. It was raw and bloody; the worst road rash I had ever seen. Her legs were bruised, her precious face was not. She could not remember a thing about the accident, but had to be reminded that the reason she was in the emergency room hooked up to tubes and in pain was that a truck had hit her. My stomach lurched to see her back. Extraordinarily, she had only hairline fractures on her knee and spine, spleen bruises, and no brain damage, but she was banged up and in shock. The doctor said she was incredibly lucky and had she been smaller, she would be dead.

I felt like I was the luckiest person on earth and that I was given a second chance with Krista, and that she was given a second chance. Miracle is too weak a word, but that is what is was. A joyous feeling came over me, as if I were hit by a car and lived life afterwards in a fresh new way. When I learned she would live, I felt entirely relieved. I was as grateful as one could be. She had to stay in the hospital five days and four excruciating nights. You never want to go to the hospital without your own heavy painkillers because the nurses may or may not come when you call within one or two hours. I stayed every night and day. The nights in the hospital were like an insane asylum. You could hear a lady across the hall crying and calling for help constantly. The nurses would bust in our room and turn on the brightest lights possible about every three hours to poke and prod. And Krista had her boom box blaring The Doors.

“You men eat your dinner

Eat your pork and beans

I eat more chicken any man ever seen,

yeah yeah I’m a back door man

The men don’t know

But the little girl understand…”

Back Door Man, The Doors

I slept on a little cot next to her bed and had to jump up and help her every few hours. She couldn’t hold her own cup; she needed help to the bathroom which took one hour each time. In the hospital she had some excellent nurses the first few days, but over the weekend she got some terrible bitches. And Krista was a bitch too. The doctor had her on a liquid diet for two days and changed her from morphine to Vicodin on that second day, which did not work to alleviate the pain at all. We had twenty hours of pure hell. Her pain was unbearable to her so she made life unbearable for all those around her. By the third day, she was starved and under-medicated with no doctor in sight (her original doctor was the only one who could make changes to her meds or diet, and he could not be contacted). When the doctor finally came and gave her the stronger pain pills (Norcos) and food, she made a 180 degree turnaround. Comfortable, relaxed, nice. But erstwhile, she yelled at nurses to give her her damn medicine, when they poked her arm, she bitched and yelled. One nurse left a piece of packaging from the sterile needles on Krista’s bed.

“Next time you come in here, I would appreciate it if you didn’t leave your trash all over the place,” she told the nurse curtly.

“Fire her MOM. Get her out of here!” she would say about the first and second nurse.

The doctor finally came around and heard all of the nurses’ horror stories about the monster in room 901. He stormed in while I had one of Krista’s legs up in the air helping her get out of bed. She couldn’t bend her knee and her back was stiff, so getting out of bed took time and effort and was painful. It took twenty five full minutes just to get her out of bed and to the bathroom. Her knee and ankle and spine were in intense pain when she moved. She walked with a walker. Her back would be stuck to the sheets from her oozing, weeping back, so it took several minutes to simply peel the sheet off her back. By the way, where her jeans were, there was no road rash at all. I recommend wearing jean overalls with a tight jean jacket if you plan on getting hit by a car or truck while walking in the street. The doctor walked in and immediately started going off on Krista. He was yelling at her. His face was boiling red with rage.

He was short and barking mad. “You are manipulating your parents and my entire staff. You are NOT the Boss. I am the Boss. I say what meds you take, how much and when.”

He was acting like such a baby, I was waiting for him to ball up his fists and jump up and down, and stomp his feet demanding his Super Man training pants and not the Hulk ones.

“NOW! NOW! NOW!” he shouted.

What a freak. There was a study done on patients who were given an entire bottle of painkillers when hospitalized as opposed to being administered one by one by the nurse. They found that patients who self medicated used fewer painkillers than those who waited desperately and tensely for nurses by doubling up when they finally came and asking for more and more.

“I decide what goes on in this hospital. I am the doctor-not you,” the little Napoleon screeched.

Then he barked at me and Steve, Krista’s dad, “Go out in the hall NOW. I need to talk to you alone.”

Had I left NOW as he demanded, Krista would have fallen to the ground because I was holding her up while she was halfway out of bed. When he had walked in, we both froze in amazement. But even still there was no way I would have gone out to the hall and bowed the Nazi. I couldn’t move or say a thing. I was so drained from being up most of the night to help Krista with her meds, pain, bathroom, etc. I had little sleep, was overwhelmed by the stress and upset that Krista was acting like such a miserable bitch. I have never felt so weak and powerless and for this ass to walk in like this and steamroll the entire family was demoralizing. I thought there is no hope now for anything. There is no hope for healing, for pain; because now he probably won’t give her any meds.

“I want you to go out in the hall now,” he repeated.

Shockingly, Steve obeyed. I stared at this little troll with my mouth agape so shocked at his behavior. At the time, my clouded mind couldn’t think and I don’t know if I’d have known anyway, that there were other painkillers and that there was food. I was too delirious to know that Krista could have been calmed with the right pain medicine and a little nutrition. I would have been even more appalled at his behavior had I known that within ten minutes of the correct meds and a small sandwich, Krista relaxed into the most peaceful human you could imagine.

“Get the fuck out,” Krista screamed. I can’t imagine what the other patients must have thought since earlier she was crying and begging for the nurse and saying it hurts so bad I can’t bear it and I was desperately in the hall seeking a nurse in the empty echoing halls. Other patients and visitors looked at me in pity. It was like that scene in Terms of Endearment with Shirley McClain when she went up to the nurses and freaked out in order to get her daughter some medication. The Dr. gave up on me obeying him and went in the hall to talk to Steve who then came in to get me. I made the little troll wait since that was all the power I had in the world.

Steve had to come twice to get me, “He just wants to talk to you.”

So I finally gave in and went into the hall to talk to the little Fuhrer.

“You may be too close to the situation to see what is happening. She is manipulating everyone. She is on enough morphine (he had just given it to her) to knock out a horse but needs to learn to control herself.”

Bullshit. I’ll step on you like a bug and put you in my pocket if you don’t settle down you stinky little elf. I wanted to say.

“So what you are saying is she is a pampered princess experiencing little or no pain and is simply throwing tantrums and being a monster not in reaction to pain and fear from being hit by a truck, but as a result of bratty rudeness?”

“Well no she is experiencing pain, but needs to control herself,” troll said, while his long fangs dripped with saliva.

“So you get hit by a truck and go without food or proper drugs and when you act like an idiot it has nothing to do with those circumstances,” I asked.

Thank god he gave her Norcos and food. I would have given her food myself but I thought the diet was due to drug interactions, nausea, throwing up in your mouth while asleep, etc. What a dumbass I was.

Krista and I had fought the morning of the accident. I told her to get the hell out of my car and I pulled over. It had to do with her orientation at her new continuation school. It was during a particularly ornery time in her life, and she was a rude bitch to the teacher at the orientation. After the accident she could remember nothing of the day and was as curious as was I if she had been high or drunk. She remembered nothing of the day from when I dropped her off around 11 am at Brett's until the accident. However, she did remember our fight, me telling her to get out of my car, but did not remember what prompted my anger. And she remembered going with me for my patch test for hair color at the Beauty School at RCC. So in her mind, I was a ruthless, angry bitch that kicked her out of the car and made her walk, but I had good hair. And she was an angel who did her chores and spoke with respect to her elders. She came home to a hospital bed in my living room with a lot of movies to entertain. As horrible as it all was, we had good times watching movies, laying around. I slept on the couch next to her at night so it felt like camping. Pedro, our Chihuahua lay on her belly every day and night while she recovered. He rarely got down off her bed and she and he could not stand to be apart.

She recovered quickly but I didn't. I got some horrible flu with a cough that lasted an entire month-I’m pretty sure it was the Plague or the Swine Flu. Krista got a staph infection. Huge boils which the doctor (our regular nice doctor-not the yeasty little bastard at the hospital) scared the hell out of me explaining that it could be related to flesh-eating disease. There was wallpaper border around the top one foot of the wall. It was pretty classical, very Greek looking. But who pays much attention to what subject matter of wallpaper border?

Krista stared and stared and finally asked the doctor, “Are those urns on your wall?”

He smiled and giggled, “I never really paid attention. Well yes I suppose they are.”

“That is fucked up,” Krista said lightly.

He was amused. The guy who hit her with his truck never called or sent flowers; I don’t know what I expected. And to this day she limps and has pain in her knee and has memory issues, nightmares, and headaches. But she is alive. And she mellowed out after the accident, partied less, stayed home more, used cross walks.

Krista and I have always worried that if she were in a terrible accident I would be a terrible nurse and a bitch. I am a terrible nurse when she is sick or hurt. It is ridiculous how she over-reacts and I get pissed. I am mad if I have to take her to the doctor. I was mad when she broke her foot and ankle. Mad at every flu, boil, bite, cold, pain and ache. And likewise, she was melodramatic at every slightly painful experience. She exaggerates miserably.

“I’m dying Mom, I’m sure of it,” she said the last time she had a sore throat.

“Oh my god will you go gargle and leave me alone, I’m trying to drink my herb tea,” I shouted.

But here is the thing. When it was the real deal and she needed me-I stepped up. I held her cup to her mouth, slept every night by her side, got up in the middle of the night to give her meds, help her to the bathroom. And I was nice because when people you really love, especially your children, are alive, it is a good thing; a very good thing indeed.

"Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time." George Carlin

1ST Picture: Black Angel, Iowa City, bronze statue, 1912

2nd Picture: Dreidel, wood, Jewish Toy

3rd Picture: Death and the Devil Surprising Two Women, Daniel Hopfer, 1500-1510

4th Picture: Soft Construction with Boiled Beans, Premonition of Civil War, painting by Salvador Dali, 1936

5th Picture: The Flayed Angel, painting by Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty 1746

6th Picture: Civil War Surgery, photograph

7th Picture: Napolean, Jacques Louis David, 19th c.

8th Picture: Stop That Pickle, children's book illustrated by Andrew Sachat