Last Day

So today is the last day of NaBloPoMo, yay for me I made it.    I can’t believe we’re here at December already, this year is rushing to a close.   Certainly the ending of this year is better than the beginning was for me, but I’m looking forward to an even better 2010.

It’s been weird to go through so many changes, but it’s for the better.

 

Where’s the Compassion?

I was reading an interesting article in the NY Times about how food stamp use is soaring.  Like Amazon.com, half the interest for me is the comment section.  Wow, some of them are unbelievable.  One of my long standing rants is that there are plenty of conservatives who are so against abortion, but once a baby is born, they couldn’t care less.  Then that child is  somebody’s else problem.   That kind of philosophy is hypocritical.  And the fact that a bunch of people could be against food stamps is just crazy to me.

My parents are conservative Christians in that they are against abortion, homosexuality, sex before marriage, and they believe people of other faiths (and some other Christian denominations) are going to hell.  Yet they are not Republican either and brought up my brother and I more as liberal than anything else.  I remember that when I went to college, I was shocked to see how much people were categorically against welfare at my conservative Christian college.  It was mind-boggling that you could be Christian and against helping the poor.   Their belief was that people who were poor were lazy and milking the system, and hard-working honest people were supporting a bunch of drunken drug addicts.

Life is rarely that simple, and one hope I have is that if a lot of new people are on food stamps, they will realize how many hard-working honest people need them.  I find it so ironic that people like to throw around Jesus as the end-all for the right thing to do–well, his teachings were very simple, but not very easy.   For example, as a country we have made a choice that when a person is on trial they are presumed innocent until proven guilty.  Why is that, when some guilty people may go free?  Because a civilized society will err on the side of compassion–some of the guilty may get away with their crime, but less of the innocent will be unnecessarily punished.

And so many people are willing to judge “motives” of poverty–there are jobs, but they must not want them, they’re lazy, how come they’re overweight and need food stamps, they’re going to use money for alcohol/cigarettes/drugs, why do people breed them if they can’t feed them?   How sad that in our country, which has so much, people can have so little empathy.  A civilized and a moral society that cares about doing the right thing will err on the side of compassion, not judgment.

Late in the Night

So tonight we had one of our friends over for dinner.   I made sort of a disparate meal, cheddar-potato soup made from leftover mashed potatoes, and curried noodles with tofu.  And then Leif and I had made pies, he made pumpkin and I made a ginger-apple pie.   The food was good, and we sat and talked at the table for awhile, though Rowan had a hard time of it.   She wanted to play with our guest, and instead we were being boring grown-ups and talking.

Rowan got some play time in (she showed him the games she knew on the computer) and after we put her to bed we watched a movie.  And then after the movie, we sat around and talked some more.  We stayed up way too late, but these are the nights I love.  Seeing good friends, eating good food.   I have always loved having people over, but it’s had more significance lately.

There’s been a shift within me.  I left my 20s awhile ago, but now I really feel it.  I’m not a girl anymore.  I’m borrowing a book called “Summoning the Fates” by Z. Budapest, which talks about the three fates, Urdh, Verdandi, and Skuld (sort of like Maiden, Mother, and Crone).  I feel like this year I have come under the domain of Verdandi.

I have more responsibilities than I ever used to have, yet I feel more capable than I ever used to be.   It’s a good change, yet different.  I’ve been getting together with more of my friends lately, and it’s odd to see how we’re all getting older.  Sadly, “older” has a lot of negative connotations, but that’s not how I mean it.  Just that we are transitioning into a different phase of our life.   I don’t want to go back in time.  But I do want lots of nights talking with friends.

Life Changes

It seems odd how my life is going to change so much in 7 weeks.  What’s even more odd is that I already have a kid, I’ve done the baby thing and all that, so it’s not like I don’t have any experience.  But just as Leif and I couldn’t imagine Rowan until she got here, I can say the same about this little girl.  And I’m sure after she’s here, I won’t be able to imagine a world without her.

Rowan has been more clingy lately, I’m sure she feels the pressure of the upcoming birth.  She never really became daddy’s little girl, at least not in the sense that she preferred him to me.  I still seem to have some mystique to her.  Which if funny, because she knows me so well.  There have been times when I have been angry or annoyed with Leif and she will deliberately pick a fight with him, as though it is on my behalf.   She hates it when I am annoyed or upset with her, and gets very emotional if she feels we aren’t right.

One thing I am proud of is that I try to never lie to her, to always tell her the truth and explain things as best as I can.  It’s harder, because I don’t believe in a black and white world and perhaps she is not ready for more complexity.  But one person I always admired was my grandmother, and she was always open to me.  She talked about all the bad things that had happened in her life, even when I was young.  In so many ways, I feel like I knew her far more as a person than my own parents.

Some people believe that as a parent, you can’t be your child’s friend.  That’s not your role.  Perhaps.  I certainly don’t plan on taking the place of her peer group friends, but I want both my girls to know that I will be straight with them.  And when they need me, I’ll be there for them.  I hope that by being open and trusting with them, they will have the same attitude towards me.

 

Gratitude

So Thanksgiving went very well.  I did cook a turkey, but for the second year in a row I abstained from eating it.  I’m not 100% vegetarian (I still cheat) but I will get there at some point.   We had some of Leif’s family and my brother, but it was pretty small and low key.  Leif and I both watched our portions this year, so I didn’t overstuff myself.

But having heard horror stories of family tensions, I am pretty grateful that it’s never a big fear or issue in either of our families.  I rarely see my parents on Thanksgiving, they prefer to visit at less stressful times, but I did call them.   And when Leif’s mom comes over, she always helps to clean up afterward, bonus.  Though we were pretty busy today, things went fairly smoothly.

Lessons From the Man in a Kilt

I was reading in the NY Times that sadly, Brian Nelson has passed away. (I’m a NY Times junkie, wouldn’t you know?)  He seemed like a very nice man, and had a great sense of humor about a disease that was killing him.  But I started wondering about all the other people that get cancer.  It’s almost like a mandate now, have a deadly disease but have a good attitude about it, or otherwise people will tune you out.  I think I would be very angry, or at least, very depressed.  I wonder what happens to all the natural feelings of grief.

Leif had a friend who recently passed away from cancer as well. Like Nelson, his face was incredibly puffy at the end as a side effect.  He wore sunglasses all the time, as his eyes were extremely  sensitive to light.  He was also very positive–he had been give 3 or 6 months to live, but got another 5 years until he finally succumbed.  He said he was writing a book–I wonder what became of it.

I just sort of wonder if there’s people out there with a deadly disease who write blogs along the line of “My life effing sucks because I’m going to die.”   Or do all those get censored out from a collective consciousness that doesn’t want to deal with it?

 

I Have to Watch my Laugh

So Rowan is going through this phase where she’s obsessed with my laughter. Either she wants to make me laugh, or she gets upset when something (or someone else) makes me laugh. She’s been kind of clingy anyway. Poor dad, by the time I come home she wants me to herself. But something about laughter, it seems like she’s curious about what I find funny and why. Sometimes she’ll deliberately act silly, and if I have the misfortune to not be paying attention, she’ll get very upset. Maybe she has aspirations to be a class clown.

So Glad it’s a Short Week

Why is it that there is never enough time to do all the things I need to? I did do my yoga and cardio today, and got in my 5 servings of fruits and veggies, but I should be working on my bills. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

The Appeal of the Love Triangle

I went with out with my friend Marlene today to see the New Moon movie. Actually, it wasn’t bad at all, I quite enjoyed it. When I got home, I was telling Leif about the movie and how a common theme in women’s romance (novels, movies, whatever) is the two guy, one girl triangle. He asked if that was an ego thing, to which I replied that of course it was, but look at porno–how many men fantasize about two girls, one man? So everybody, in one form or another, would love to be the center of affection of two.

Women, of course, have to moralize it. In these stories, it is unusual that the woman will have both at the same time–good girls just aren’t like that. They ultimately have to pick one. Whereas for men, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with two girls at the same time, and if they get it on themselves, so much the better. But women put so much pride in the idea of monogamy and soul mates and Mr. Right, all of which I feel have no basis in reality. I’m not a cynic exactly, but I think people are so multifaceted you can pick a mate that matches the different parts of yourself.

I’ve actually found that my tastes in all that have changed quite a bit. Well, for one I don’t read nearly as much fiction as I used to. For another, I find myself interested in the all the nitty-gritty of love when it is no longer fresh and new. Every day, there are couples deciding to split or to stay, people deciding to have an affair or abstain–what is love really? I was reading a forum post that said to truly love someone is to be willing to die for them. That’s a high standard, and I’m not sure it’s relevant for all situations. For example, I have several close friends that I do love–but if push came to shove, would I die for them? I don’t honestly know.

And children complicates things a great deal more. No question, I would be willing to die if it meant saving my daughter. However, there was an interesting article in the NY Times about one of the first pregnant women who came down with H1N1–she was in a coma for five months. She survived, but while in a coma, the doctors came to her husband and told him that it may be necessary to make a choice–his wife or his unborn child. Now, I believe they already had a young child, but he chose his wife. They did try to save the baby, but it didn’t work out.

I don’t think a true definition of love has to include the willingness to die for someone, but it is interesting that part of the appeal of romantic love is just being into someone for who they are. Rowan needs to do nothing, just be, and I adore her. Ironically, probably no one else, with the exception of her father, will love her as unequivocally as I do.

Likewise in the first flush of romantic love, you don’t have to be anything but yourself. Somehow the you that is you is special enough. It is only later, if you have been with someone a long time, that you see the flaws more than anyone else does. But the potential sacrifice of being with someone for decades, because it is slow and occurs over time, is weighed much less than hormones declaring, “But I’d die for you!”

My Mom is Sweet

So about this time is when my mom starts sending stuff for the holiday season. First, she sent Nueske’s, which is a big hit with Rowan and Leif, meat lovers they are. Then she sent some pears (yay for me!) and lastly, some Wolferman’s English Muffins. But the icing on the cake was when I opened the Wolferman’s box and on top was a big sheet of bubble wrap. “Yay,” said Rowan, “Your mom knows I love these things!” and she ran off with it. She has not been as impressed with the muffins themselves, but I’m not complaining. More for me.