I am shameless

There comes a time in a woman's life when she just has to OWN who she is.  And be shameless about it. 

That time is now for me.

The larger than life rump, the oversized thighs, the double chins, it's all good and should not be hid under a bag any longer!  I will make efforts to retreat hubby's big shirts to the back of the closet and let my backside shine like the sun! 

Can I actually do it?

God, I hope so.  Hiding is becoming exhausting.  There are only so many long shirts I can wear!  We women of a certain age have the emancipation of not caring anymore about what other people think, say, or feel.  One of the luxuries of not attracting the young man's eye anymore is NOT CARING and there is a freedom to that.

But.............I still look at the young men.  I still search for their eye to seek mine.  Innocent and reflexive, I've been doing this unconsciously for my entire life.  I enjoyed it and revelled in the approving eye.  What am I saying?  Do I need this anymore?  I'm a happily married woman with an 8 year old son.  What do I care if some handsome slacker 24 year old looks past me anymore???

I do still care.

I don't want to turn back the clock though.    Don't get me wrong. My twenties were so turbulent and dramatic with the men.  Drunken fights that turned ugly, cheating men, my own ambivalence and yes, cheating, and looking, looking, for the next cool guy.....not a lot of fun.  Dates were horribly stressful and depressing when the next day there was no call while I waited.  Or worse, they liked me, and they were the uuber dork.  Always the king of all dorks who became obsessed with me.  And the hangovers!  Oy vey!

I guess if I was to be honest I would say I liked my looks better back then.  Woo, what?  You're kidding!    I remember a short story by Dorothy Parker called "Big Blonde" that I read in college.  How I feared I would become  her, sitting on some bar stool, staring into my vodka tonic and trying to catch any man's fancy while avoiding my mirror reflection.....a woman of a certain age, like 40's or 50's perhaps.  A woman who became lost and lost her youth, thus losing her shot at love.  A sad woman.  I feared I already was her and the story was somehow based on me.

But, I am not her.  I fought to stay away from the lure of her.  The lure of the easy drunk night and the chaotic divorce and the fucked up kid.  I did not want to be like Big Blonde.  I kinda look like her, but I am no drinker  anymore.  The actual process of getting drunk is so single focused.  All other responsibilities fade as the drunkeness  rages forward.  I have Irish descent, norweigan descent and german......the irish is the side of the alcohol problems.  I have billions of focuses in the course of the day. Not one thought, one single focus, on getting drunk.    I drink water, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and an occasional glass of wine at a restaurant.    The luxury of the addict, is that is all the goal is.To Be  Drunk.

I won't be crying in my beer as an old woman.  I won't be barfing the next morning and asking, "what did I do?  Did I do something stupid?"  when the inevitable blackout surfaces.I stopped boozing when I was 36 years old.  I'd really be something to see if I had kept drinking.  Ay caramba.

I've got more important things to do.    It does suck when the looks fade, but hell, I was never a raving beauty; just considered cute.  And there is so much more in life.  Marriage and all that it entails.  My son who is so achingly beautiful and who could care less.  Human suffering and hunger.  Homelessness.  Sprit life if I'm  inclined to believe it.  Animals.  Life force.  Work.  Respect.  Shamelessness. 

True to form, I cannot get away from this image I have to live in each day.  It is there and it is reflected back at me from all shiny surfaces. 

It is not me.

I am inside here, trying to come out gracefully from my hidden room.  Time to own all parts of me, even the mental fricks and fracks that are not so positive.The deficits in character that I would torture myself over.

   For what is a soul unless it receives self love and  self nurturance? Oh yea, and  I can still admire handsomeness too.  I probably will until the day I die.

My Christmas request

Well, I don't think this is entirely out of the ball park for a christmas request from Hubby.  I think I deserve it and it would look good on me.  Every girl should have a little sparkle in her day.

For Andy

Haven and Home: A New Piece of Art

Haven and Home: A New Piece of Art

Third grade is becoming challenging

Third grade is becoming challenging for the boy.  Not only is the academic part becoming more difficult and frustrating, but the social interactions are tough, as I feared.  He said yesterday that some kids were yelling at him because he bumped into the bey blades they were playing with.  I never got a straight answer from him what exactly happened, but he begged, pleaded and begged again to stay home from school.  The look of fear and terror on his face broke my heart.  I explained we cannot keep him home everytime he is upset about something.  That mom and dad would get in trouble for breaking the law, and that he needs to face this challenge, climb this mountain , go to the next level, (insert cliche here) to come out stronger and be able to deal with people.

I know he has no friends.  He used to, but now, things have changed for some reason.  He considers his home to be his "safe house".  His inner circle is getting so small.  I realize hubby and my culpability in this.  I have friends......but they don't live near me. I have passed this on to my child.  Hubby has passed this on  too...the fact that he considers friends to be superfluous and non essential.

But I have opened so many doors for him!  He is in soccer, mainstream school, has gone to camp, karate, sports classes, birthday parties, many playdates and open gyms.....at what point is it all my fault? 

I told him to try to pick an ally at school.  Just one.  It is still early in the school year so he has time to find that friend.  Someone to trust outside of this house.  I dearly hope and pray for that despite being a bad role model in terms of keeping friendships alive (as I have failed to do.)

So.............my part in all this is,   my former bff was a party girlfiend.  We boozed and met guys and had a lot of fun.  Enter marriage and respective sons.   The friendship fizzled in a big way.  When said bff was still up for the party, I got engaged and she was NOT happy.  She had lost her party girl buddy....me.  I wanted her to be happy for me but she was sad for herself.  It didn't help that she was married during the whole party scene years and my hubby to be (at the time) despised her for that.  Frankly, no one could understand why she would party to the degree that she did and cheat on her hubby claiming they were "seperated".  I wanted to transition into a more "real" friendship and we just couldn't.

Long story short.  That friendship meant something to me.  Then, her true colors came out.  Hubby said, "I told you so" and now her and I don't speak anymore.   I didn't want to be one of those 40 something women looking lonely, sad, and frankly old in a worn out bar.  She partied when she was married....why couldn't I, she thought?  She wanted to still travel and devote weekends to the girls, why couldn't I??  She and I clearly had different ideas of how to be a loyal partner in a relationship.  I think I could have still been loyal to the friendship had it transitioned into adulthood, quite frankly.

I believe to this day she is still searching for someone to replace her husband.

Oh boy, how did I get on this tangent....?

So, I don't have an entourage of friends.  My inner circle is small and so is the boy's.  I have a hunk of guilt about that, but the reality is, I am a complicated person who is not always easy to be friends with.  I yearn for a female friend being in a house of boys and losing my mom, but no one has seems available.   And, as a mom of an 8 year old with some specific needs, I don't think I am available much either these days.
So, I'll be patient with little man, and it will happen naturally.  Not everyone can have an army of friends and I'd rather have one good solid friend than a bunch of aquaintences.  I won't let him always hide in the "safe house" but winter is coming, and I know all 3 of us tend to do that. 

My boy, my son, will find his way.  I must lead him at times.  Other times, he must lead and show me what he wants in life. And I will teach him the difference between party friends and true blue friends.  And,   I cannot deny we are the best of friends.

Latisse does whaaaaat?

What is up with that Latisse junk you put on your eyelashes to achieve that "freakishly long" eyelashes effect?  Being a woman, I was intrigued by the pics of the long, long eyelashes....men will really love that, right?  Anyway, celebrities like Brooke Shields and that really smart chick from  that teen tv show oh yea, Claire Danes endorse it on tv. So, it must be awesome!

The side effects  were rattled off quietly at the end of the commercial....oh itchy, dry eyes I can handle and eye pressure problems, I'll deal with that, but there was one side effect that stood out.

"May darken pigment of eye itself; most likely will be permanent."

What the devil does that mean?(said in British accent)

Ok, I have blue eyes.  My husband and son have brown eyes.  I love brown eyes, but...

  Does this mean my eyes could potentially, permanently turn brown from using Latisse? 

The answer is.....YES.

 The thought that these pharmaceutical nimrods would market something so potentially dangerous is shocking and frightening to me.  So many girls and women want to look pretty and with those spokesmodels to sway us to use this.......  I am speechless with disgust.

To throw a product our way that is clearly dangerous and lures young women to screw with their eye color and eye pressure and God knows what else, is so WRONG.   

If I want long eyelashes, I will use false ones.  They glue on and don't change the color of my eyes. Or I will use mascara.  Or vaseline, like in the 70's.  Oh, not likely on that last one. But, you get my drift.

I can breathe easy knowing that Latisse is making freakishly long eye lashes out there and turning women's eyes brown or black or some mucky other worldly color to pad the wallets of their company.

Brooke Shields would endorse Michael Jackson's dead body if it paid her.  And Clare Danes....doesn't she have some movie to do or meal to plan with that foreign husband of hers? She is pretty smart, a Yale grad. I believe...why would she endorse this?  Did she read the side effects?  Does she care?  

And, why does it change the color of your eyes?  What exactly is in Latisse to do this?  What are the long term effects of using Latisse? Will women become blind?

Latisse sucks.

Frankenstein - The Edgar Winter Group (1972)

In honor of Halloween, crank this up and eat some candy.  Seriously.