No one can stop you but you

As found here. 

Pressure has stepped up at work, blah blah blah. More hectic than before, blah blah blah.

In the meantime, my children are suddenly both giants (Viva wears a size 9.5 women's shoe, Lord help us) and I don't know how that happened. I am trying to keep up with everything they're up to, in between making dinner and doing laundry. Sweet Dub is working nights right now on two different freelance gigs. Evenings are exhausting, just so much to do. I love my kids and realize how quickly the time is passing so I am trying my damnedest to be present -- to hear about their days, to know who is friends with who, check on the homework, know what field trips and food drives and music recitals are coming up, harass them into the shower after dinner, harass them out of the shower when bedtime is already past, open their bedroom door and shush them well after lights out. Let's not even get into the Sunday night hair marathon. My kids have so much hair. It needs conditioning and detangling and braiding or twisting up. It is not a low-maintenance blessing.

Well, and so, writing, you know? Not so much.

Right before Sweet Dub got the second night gig, he and I had come up with a new concept for a joint website to launch in the new year. We have not had time to work on it. I am hoping -- no, I mean to say I am PLANNING. INTENDING. to carve out time during the week between Christmas and New Year's to get it together. It must be done, else the time will keep unraveling away and we will be in the same spot. 

Time to get it done! 

Image found (where else?) on Pinterest.

In Which I Bemoan My Lack of Writingz of Late

You know, writing is hard. I am trying to figure out exactly what has pulled me away from writing here. Have I run out of things to say? Uh, no, as anyone who knows me personally would attest. The problem as I see it is that I have so many damn things to say that I don't quite know where to begin.

In the past few weeks, I have wanted to write about (and have composed posts in my head about) the murder of Michael Brown and racial profiling by police; an update on my endless struggle with the school district to not have Ceeya repeat kindergarten; an explanation of the current craziness in my family of origin (but told how? the craziness of my family merits its own book, I've been told many times, but I can't relate it here without violating people's privacy); a related post on childhood trauma and its long-term impact; the evolution of style - Viva's style, that is; the video of Ray Rice knocking his then-fiancee/now-wife (!! it boggles the mind) out in an elevator, and a related post about domestic violence. Also, in a Seinfeldian homage of writing about nothing: a post about how you are charged tax on coffee when consumed on premises but not when it's to-go (I just learned this - that's why they ask, even when you are drinking it out of the same identical cup). Okay, because I just can't NOT say it:  my mother and my stepfather, who were married for 18 years and divorced when I was in my early 20s, recently got back together. (Note that I am now 46.) And when I say got back together, I mean my stepfather moved 3,000 miles across the country back to California by train and is now living in the same house with my mom, my sister, my brother-in-law, my two nephews, their dog and assorted reptiles, based on some scattered phone calls and emails. (You can see that this is a situation ripe with possibilities for literary gold. I must refrain.)

But I haven't written about any of these things. I am stressed and depressed, which I guess is nothing new in this space, unfortunately. Honestly, that has a lot to do with why I haven't been writing. Which makes me depressed. Oooh, it's a fun little carnival ride.

I miss that part of myself. I miss myself. I share an office at work and I share my home, at home. My kids are not part of that "early to bed, early to rise" crowd. (Is there one of those? Where can I sign them up and get my free water bottle?) My time (and space) to myself is very limited; one might say nonexistent. But I NEED that time and space. I feel a little crazy and a little spaced out without it.

Some days on my lunch hour, I take my lunch to the park and sit. I keep a notebook and a sketchbook in the car, and that is my little bit of calm and re-centers me in the middle of my day. Mainly I jot down ideas for a new blog that would be more focused (don't laugh) and story ideas for creative writing projects - one, an adult novel and the other, a series of books for young kids. And I eat salad. I don't know if I have ever mentioned this but I am a big fan of salads of all kinds. Minimal dressing. It's all about really fresh veggies and a variety of different textures.

Coming way back around to my point:  I have been a writer since I was a little kid. It is an important piece of who I am and it is feeling ignored and shut away and that is making me super crankypants. I don't want to be crankypants. I want to be badassbritches.

And I don't want to read this in a month or six months or whatever and want to kick myself in the head because nothing has changed. So I'm starting here. I'm writing more. So help me God.

One Moment in Time

Have you ever used a day book? Or read one? Day books are simple journals that are used to record daily events as they occur -- back in the day, one would write about little happenings such as "first snow," or "finished Little Women today," or "zombie apocalypse, ugh."

 

Apparently, people still keep them online, formats vary widely and sometimes, sometimes you might see them in the form of a blog post. (You see, I actually did have a point there.) Here is my daybook entry for today - Monday, February 10, 2014.

 

------------------

 

I am thankful...that I was able to reconnect with friends this weekend at a bridal shower.

I am wearing...a gray and silver polka-dotted sweater with an aqua scarf, cropped dark gray pants, knee-high black high-heeled boots, and silver circle earrings.

I am wondering...what the hell I am going to wear to my friend’s wedding in two weeks. It’s a 1920s/Gatsby theme and we are asked to wear attire appropriate to the era. Note that Ceeya is the flower girl and Viva is a guest. I have dresses for them but no shoes yet. I am trying not to stress over this, as I know I will get it together, but I have not yet found anything for myself that I would LOVE to wear and that I might wear again.

I am pondering...why toilet seat covers have become such a big thing on public toilets. Is it really that hard to squat?

A favorite quote for today...

Photo of me (not from today, from this weekend's vintage Victorian bridal shower):

 

 

P.S. Do you not love the old lady hat? I die.

 

Patience, My Precious

All indications from the universe lean toward telling me that I must be patient. I have had two weeks of servers crashing, appointments going wonky, and heavy traffic. Just now, I composed an email to someone about a job posting and my gmail will NOT SEND IT.

Something else must be in store. I remain hopeful.

 

P.S. I wrote this and stupidly tried to post it, not making the connection that Blogger is also a Google platform. Thus, if gmail is not working, neither is Blogger. I is smart some timez.

Let's Do This Thing!

Last night per tradition, Sweet Dub and I took the girls over to the West Adams neighborhood where many of his friends grew up. We use the house of the mom of one of his oldest friends as our home base to meet up and trick or treat from, so other friends can join in as the evening goes on. I look forward to it because it is one of the few times a year we all get together, and in past years we have had as many as 13 kids in our group, shuffling along in their assorted costumes and shining flashlights hither and yon.

One of our friends is the mother of four girls, currently ranging in age from 12 to 16 (there's one set of twins in there). She works full-time at a demanding job as an educator, runs marathons, and is constantly driving her kids to swim meets and volleyball tournaments all over Los Angeles in her spare time. She is warm and funny and I have missed her. When I ran into her on the sidewalk, she hugged me tightly and told me I was gorgeous. Who doesn't need a friend like that?!

Later, we were sitting on her mother-in-law's porch as our kids were trading candy and still giving candy out to straggling trick-or-treaters, and she said to me: "I just have to tell you that you have inspired me!"

“What?” I exclaimed. “How so?!”

“I am writing!” she said, her face all aglow. It turns out she is working on not one but two writing projects as part of her work, and she will be publishing an academic e-book as well as contributing a chapter to a book that is being edited by a colleague in Australia. She said that I inspired her because I am a writer and she knows I have been working on a book myself.

Er…okay, let’s be honest here. I haven’t even written on this blog consistently, never mind working on the actual book I want to write (which is in pieces, each of which is less fleshed out than the last). My job is stressful and exhausting and once I have got home and dealt with dinner, baths, the kids’ homework and everything else, I have nothing left.

I confessed all this to her, and she was sympathetic and supportive. “You just have to do it,” she said. And by God, this is true. My spirit is withering away without having a shred of a creative outlet except the fun projects I do with my kids. I need to get this shit together.

I am writing again. And I am starting here. NaBloPoMo is upon us! Wish me luck, and some quiet time to think.

It's Personal

In my Internet travels today, I came across this article, in which the author describes how she read her 5-year-old daughter’s diary.

Her daughter had asked repeatedly for a diary so she could be like her older brother. She was clearly thrilled to have it, and happy to be a big kid and have her own secret book with its own key. She told her mom not to look, and she laboriously wrote down her secrets in it. The mom, Kim, started to worry that something was wrong.

She unlocked the diary and was pleasantly surprised at what she found. Her daughter, who at nearly 6 years old is still mastering how to print, was merely cataloguing all the things which made her happy.

Her relief was so great that she took a picture of the pages with all their adorable misspellings and posted them on the Internet – I’m not sure why, except to reassure the Internet, who probably was not all that worried about it, that her daughter was perfectly fine.

To me, it’s one thing if her daughter left the unlocked diary lying around; particularly if she left it lying open. It would be difficult to resist a peek. But she didn’t. Kim rationalized unlocking it by creating a problem that didn’t exist:  her daughter was being secretive, thus she must have something to hide.  

Again, this is a 5-year-old girl.

Every child is different. But if she suspected something were seriously wrong, Kim could ask her to draw a picture. She could ask her if something’s bothering her. She could just talk to her. She doesn’t describe anything that I can see would trigger this sort of reaction – for example, was her daughter having trouble sleeping, did her eating habits change, was there some sort of radical change in her personality?  It sounds to me like her daughter was having a pretty developmentally normal moment, establishing boundaries, indicating that she is an individual with opinions and ideas that she is working out.

I understand some parents believe that they have the right to poke around their child’s rooms and through their belongings. To a certain extent, I agree that a child cannot expect unconditional privacy – sometimes poking around through their things is the way you find out there’s a fundraiser at school, or that they need $4 for a field trip. But if unlocking the diary did not already cross the line, publishing the thoughts that an evidently sweet and happy kid believed were private certainly did.

With the omnipresence of technology in everyday life, sometimes we forget that blogging and the Internet have not actually been around that long. We forget that we are kind of making these rules up as we go along.

I have shared before that Viva and I keep a mother-daughter journal. While I may occasionally share the things I write to her (as long as they are not too personal), I would not share anything she wrote in the journal with anyone without asking her. And honestly, I would think twice about asking her because I AM her parent and thus the power differential already exists. I wouldn’t want her to feel she had to comply.

I guess what I am trying to say is:  ease up a little bit out there, Internet parents.  Tread carefully. And this is as much a reminder to myself as it is to anyone else.

Holding Out Hope

Nothing from Google seems to want to load this evening. I had a whole photo post I was planning, and now:  zip. Hmf. Is it time to ditch Blogger? I finally am back in the groove, wanting to put fingers to keyboard, and technology is gettin in the way. I will now hit send and see if my blogging by email works. Stay tuned for further griping.

I am not THAT bad

I have posted to my blog via email a couple of times in recent weeks (no, really, it's true), and then today was looking at my blog and realized neither post actually posted. So much for all my great intentions! Although I have been able to post by email previously, apparently this feature was disabled at some point so nothing I wrote recently was showing up.

You did not miss anything earth-shattering. I'm just ticked off that I actually made the effort and nothing happened.

Oh, and on a related note:  the check is in the mail.  And I have a bridge and some swamp land to sell you.

(No, really!  I did actually type up two posts which have gone off into the ether!)

Something New

In my spare time (of which, like many people, I have far too little) I have been rethinking what I want to do with this blog. Or more specifically, whether I want to continue this blog or start something completely different. And I am thinking the latter. And in that spirit, I have been doing some research to refine what I want to talk about, as well as trying to do some planning so that I actually have a cache of blog post ideas ahead of time, and even some posts written. The goal is that I might (heaven forbid) post on a regular basis.

I think Joseph Campbell said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that in order to find out what really drives you, what really interests you, you should closely monitor what grabs your attention, where your interests naturally take you over a few weeks. And when you realize that (for example) you can’t stop thinking about basket weaving and deep-sea diving, that is what you should pursue.

That’s what I’m working on here, since my blog has been really unfocused over the past year or so. I’m not trying to be mysterious; I’m just in the midst of a process I don’t want to bore you with.

In the meantime, I’ll try and post a bit more here as well so I can get in the writing practice and keep anyone who is still reading (hello?) up to date on my little corner of the world. Thanks for reading and for being patient with my evolution.

P.S. Also, rereading this post before I publish: I will try and reduce my use of parentheses.

Happy New Year!

No, I haven't been eaten by a pack of wolverines, I've just been trying to keep my head above water--but my blog has suffered for many months and I apologize for that. Since the layoff in April 2010, Sweet Dub has been doing freelance videography and photography, and one of his regular clients is a bar/club, which translates into him being gone a lot in the evenings. This translates into me doing the evening routine with the kids by myself, which translates into me being too tired (after a full day of work) to do much else besides fall asleep on the couch watching TV. Sweet Dub comes home and wakes me up in the wee hours, and I often don't get back to sleep for a while. It's not a good pattern.

In the New Year, I resolve to figure out a better balance with this situation, and be more conscientious about making time to write here.

Many blessings, love and light to you and yours in 2012!

Testing

Disregard--just testing to see if I can actually publish from my phone. Thanks for your patience.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Not Really Amazing

 Today I am working from home, in the living room of my new apartment. I am facing the windows, and all I can see is trees. It is a beautiful sunny day, but not hot—perfect Southern California autumn weather.  A slight breeze is blowing.

I spent a big chunk of my day working on one writing project, writing and rewriting and reading here and there online to flesh out ideas and going back to rewrite. Then I took a walk, came back, had a snack, quickly went through email, and decided to sit a minute and try and get back in the habit of writing for myself. I find that if I don’t post for a while that when I sit down to write I don’t know where to start. Once I start, I often go back and delete whole paragraphs from the beginning. I don’t love getting started, but I do love having written and being done.

I am distracted these days.  Lots of big, bad things happening to people I love—and since they’re not happening to me, I don’t feel I can completely share here. Nonetheless, I am worried, and upset, and distracted.  What do you do to distract yourself?

I am listening to lots of music, and getting irritated with iTunes, since sometimes it will let me purchase songs from my phone and sometimes not. It makes for a very disjointed playlist, which I am trying to embrace so as not to be annoyed. I am trying to let it play out as it wants.

In related news, I am reading lots of comparative religious stuff these days. I find the similarities between various world religions calming—just in terms of the very basic messages. Love each other, treat others the way you’d want to be treated, etc. Sometimes the unexplainable happens. Is it a miracle? Do such things exist?  

Parenting small children is also very distracting. I am very tickled by my kids’ use of language.  Right now, Ceeya is apt to say, when something doesn’t please her, “Mom,  that is not really amazing.”  She is not saying it in opposition to me, as if I have said something is amazing. No, she is just letting me know, drawing my attention to something—maybe she expected to like it, but she doesn’t, and so it is not really amazing, and she says it with great seriousness, looking deeply into my eyes with her giant dark brown ones. And I say to her, “I am sorry that it is not really amazing. I hope you find something else that is really amazing.” And I think she will.

And I hope you do, too.  Because right now some things are not really amazing. And I wish they would turn around a bit.

 P.S.  Do you want to know what else is not really amazing? Blogger insisting I should switch over to Google Chrome. And then all my posts publishing with the format all wonky. That is extra really not amazing.

P.P.S. I chose to work from home today because of several chaotic events going on at work. My co-worker friend, who is in the office today, emailed me to let me know it was a good call because I would really be annoyed if I had gone in. I wrote back, "I think annoyed is my default setting." That is also not really amazing. I don't enjoy being annoyed (although it is good fodder for humorous anecdotes). I am trying to work on being less annoyed. I'll let you know how I progress.

Let's Go Ride a Bike

Recently Viva was riding her bike around the neighborhood with her dad and she was coming down a hill and got nervous as she was going too fast. Instead of braking, she put her feet down, nicked one heel on a bike pedal, and then in reaction, leaned too far in the other direction and pretty much ate it on the tree she was trying to avoid. They were a couple of blocks away, but her leg was scraped up pretty badly and she wanted Sweet Dub to carry her home. (Oh, there were tears! And moaning! And he was so mean because he would not just carry her!) He reasoned with her that they couldn’t just leave their bikes on the street, so she had to tough it out until she got home. She recounted the whole episode to me while I washed her wounds, put her feet up on a pillow, and treated her to a Popsicle and uninterrupted Disney Channel viewing.

A couple of days later, Sweet Dub had her go back to the same spot and ride down the hill again. She didn’t want to do it, but he insisted that was the only way she would learn to navigate the situation. She came back very proud of herself for having conquered her fear of the big hill.

So you know when you've been away from your blog for a while and you don’t even know what to write about? You think, I just have to get back on that bike and write something, anything, any damn random thing. And then you do and you even connect it to something else that actually happened in your universe and you’re all like, well, that wasn’t so bad. And then you realize you’re kind of talking in the second person and that’s kind of annoying. And then you’re a bit peeved at yourself. And around we go.

I’m going to put it out there: I’ve been a bit depressed lately. And when I’m depressed, I tend not to write about it, because that makes me dwell on it and that is no good for anyone. And I hate using my blog as a dumping ground for this kind of thing.

And there is this thing, this NaBloPoMo? Which all of us who have been blogging for a while are well familiar with? If I were participating I would have posted something every day this month so far. I thought about writing something cheeky and subversive like, “I declare this to be NoBloPoMo” but what sense does that make, it’s really just an excuse to be lazy, yeah?

I’m officially back on the bike and I’m not making any excuses for myself. Hello, Internets! What’s happening out there?

Floundering

Recently, I received confirmation that, much as I’ve suspected, Ceeya has a sensory processing disorder. We have a variety of problematic issues that have gotten progressively worse in recent months. I don’t talk much about that here, which is a shame, because it might help someone else who is struggling with something similar. But I feel that we are just getting started sorting out her issues and receiving treatment (primarily occupational therapy). It may be a long slog.

I’m teetering on the fence of how much do I share here. How much of this is really her story, but also about how this is such a small part of who she is. She is a sweet and smart and funny (yes, she already has a sense of humor) kid. I love her to pieces. I don’t want this condition to define her, but at the same time it occupies so much of my energy and brain space.

Too often these days, the things that are happening in my life are personal to many other people, and I don’t feel comfortable sharing so much about their lives. Again, rethinking what I want this blog to be.

Thanks for your patience as I sort this out.

Blog Angst

Much has been happening in my personal life and I don’t feel I can share much of it here, although when I sit down to write, that’s all that’s on my mind. Then there’s the larger question: what is the purpose of me writing here? What or who is it for?

When I began blogging many years ago, I did so at the suggestion of some friends (Splooey and Mr. X, and they know who they are). “Blog? What’s a blog?” I said. They knew of my writerly ambitions and thought it would be a good way for me to get started writing regularly, with no pressure. Maybe they thought I would find my voice.

I like to write, and I like to make people laugh. I think I thought blogging might help me write some humorous essays, a la David Sedaris or something. Maybe. But all I know is I’m not feeling very funny these days, and I’m wondering if it’s because writing is an introspective exercise and when I take a half-second to get introspective, I get depressed.

But when there are these significant lapses between posts, a year later I look back and wonder what happened. Hence, I’m writing this so I can document where I am.

I am exhausted in just about every aspect of my being—physically (we just recovered from a family-wide bout with a nasty stomach virus), mentally, emotionally, the end. I no longer enjoy my work. I still enjoy my kids (most of the time). I miss Sweet Dub because he is in the middle of a manic creative phase right now, trying to launch a new career and get a TV project off the ground. My extended family is a huge mess and I’m trying to stay out of it. Work is really making me unhappy and I feel I have no options for fixing it.

It’s just a rough time.

Follow-up to this post: due to liability issues, one can’t actually tell this prospective employee that she needs to do something about her hair. Total can of worms, and what a shame. She was the top candidate for this job but eliminated from consideration for this one reason. (See the comments section for more info if you'd like.)

Blog Neglect

Blog neglect, n. That state of inactivity on one’s blog that makes all regular readers forget that one ever even had a blog. Also, the related malaise that leads to complete inarticulateness when one actually does sit down to write a post

Here is what I must do:
Set a regular schedule and stick to it. I’m aiming to blog Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

And…I got pulled away from this while writing and almost forgot to post it. Ah, the irony.

Back from the Doldrums

Well! I just dropped a bomb on you and then skedaddled away, even though so many of you so kindly took the time to comment and commiserate.

That’s not cool, and I apologize. What’s happened is that Sweet Dub got laid off and that very same day, our modem decided to die. What with one thing and another (oh, the intricacies of health insurance and COBRA and such, and by the way: SUMMER CAMP! You gotta start thinking about it! And by the way: cell phone! Sweet Dub’s was a company phone, so he suddenly didn’t have one and lost all his contacts! And hey: pinkeye! The baby got it! And T-ball! We are smack in the middle of T-ball season! And sickness! Sweet Dub and I are both neck-deep in phlegm! And exhaustion! And, scene.) – well, what I’m saying is, I’m pretty invested in keeping my job right now, so I’ve not been blogging at work, and I’ve had no Internet access at home, and I don’t have a Smartphone, so I’ve been somewhat off the grid in terms of blogging.

But here we are, and ten days post-layoff, we are managing to stay positive. I am trying to avoid thinking about health insurance because it makes my eye twitch, so I won’t go into that, but just know this: the Blah Blahs can’t ever catch a break with something like that. Every avenue I tried came back to this: I must pay through my employer for health insurance, and it is $1,100 a month. COBRA is not cheaper, and we don’t qualify for the federal subsidy because Sweet Dub is eligible for health insurance through my job.

But enough about that. (Already I can feel my blood pressure spiking and my heart rate increasing, just in writing those few sentences.) At least one of us has a job. And we have some severance pay and we have some savings (partly for the hypothetical house which is impossible to buy in Los Angeles anyway) and if worst comes to worst, we have credit lines that are not being used. But I would hate for it to come to that.

Here is where I should insert something pithy and somehow poignant and inspirational. But instead I want to tell you a silly story, because it’s finding the humor in the everyday that’s keeping me going right now, and maybe it will make you laugh, too.

Earlier this week, I discovered that if I said, “Ready, set –“ to Miss Celie, she would say, “GO!”* But she would say it with such force that she would literally rock forward on her toes and the vein in her neck would stand out. And then she would break into a huge grin, as pleased with herself as could be.

Last night, I was talking to my mom on the phone and I figured this was a perfect “show off to Grandma” moment, so I said to Miss Celie, “Ready, set –“ and she said, “No.”

Ready, set – NO. It’s kind of appropriate, I think.

* And she doesn’t pronounce it plainly, “GO,” it’s more like “Goh!” which for some reason is more endearing and harder to convey on the page.

Tongue Tied.

I keep starting posts and deleting them today. When I re-read them, I feel they are hardly worth the effort of reading. So I delete. And then I rebuke myself sharply. And then I go sit in the corner and weep hot tears of futility. And then I think to myself, man, that salad I had for lunch is just not cutting it. I wish I had some chips or something. And then I realize that part of the problem is that I am so easily distracted these days. And then I go back to daydreaming about chips, and vacation, and the upcoming Macy’s sale.

Now that I am out of the habit of blogging it seems I can barely string two words together. Oh, noes!

I’ll try again tomorrow.

Mmm, chips.

Greenhouse Gas-X

Hey, it’s Blog Action Day! This year’s theme is climate change, and it’s very timely. Back in the day, we used to refer to people who were passionate about the environment as “crunchy granola”* types. It seems that here in my little corner of Los Angeles, we have more than our share of granola crunchers, juxtaposed with those who drive their Hummers from their house to the grocery store three blocks away. I see plenty of Priuses in my neck of the woods, and even old diesel cars that have been converted to run on vegetable oil.

Something new to me that I’ve been seeing as I drive about Los Angeles in the day-to-day are more and more cars with a “TerraPass” bumper sticker. After I’d seen it more than a few times, I set aside my lazy and forgetful ways for just a moment and – what else? – Googled it.

Huzza! At the TerraPass website, you can purchase carbon offsets (among other things) in varying amounts. TerraPass is evidently the #1 online carbon offset retailer. I can hear you all muttering out there, “Okay, fine, but what exactly is a carbon offset and why should I care?”

Dude! You should totally care because of the environment (love your mother!). Eat some granola and go to TerraPass or one of the many sites online where you can calculate your carbon footprint. This, my friends, is your personal contribution to global warming (see, climate change) via many daily activities you don’t even think about: driving, flying, or even heating your home. Through these activities, people produce carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas (read: no good for the environment). When you purchase carbon offsets, you’re funding projects which offset the environmental destruction your heinous, heinous ways have caused. Brighter Planet does a lovely job (certainly better than I can do) of explaining what carbon offsets are and the kinds of projects they consist of.

Back to the TerraPass bumper stickers: cars and trucks are responsible for 25% of all U.S. carbon emissions. Yeah, that’s pretty bad. By purchasing carbon offsets, you can balance out your daily damage to the ozone and alleviate some of your guilt. (Note I said some of your guilt. Carbon offsets will not remedy any of the following: your unwillingness to call your mother lately, the three consecutive bags of potato chips you ate yesterday, or you tearing up and throwing out your last jury duty summons. The offset thing is not a magical cure-all. Sorry.)

And that is one way you can do your part to counteract climate change. And if you want to eat granola while doing so, I promise not to tell.

P.S. You know what else they sell at TerraPass? Climate Change Chocolate. What’s not to love?


* Hey, I LOVE granola. Not casting aspersions. It’s all good.

Thursday’s Random Five

(1) An old friend of mine that I’ve reconnected with on Facebook just emailed me to invite me to join Tubely. As you know, I can barely keep up with this blog and Facebook, never mind yet another networking site. I took a look to see what the hell Tubely was. It’s an online dating service. Bwuh? Since we are both married, albeit to different people, I find this a bit bizarre. I just sent her a message saying, well, basically, “What?” People should quit smoking crack. Or meth. Or whatever the hot and happening’ drug is these days. I can’t keep up.

(2) How funny is the whole right-wing hullabaloo over teabagging? You can’t make this stuff up! I love it. Now I hear that the hard-core right-wing National Organization for Marriage has adopted the slogan "2M4M", which is supposed to be indicate they’re hip to the young folks with all the newfangled texting and tweeting and whatever it is they do. It allegedly stands for "2 Million for Marriage." Of course, once again, they failed to do their homework and oh, I don’t know, see if this is already in common usage. Others more hip than I have indicated that this code is very familiar on social networking sites and stands for "2 Men for a Man," i.e. two men looking for a third for a ménage-a-trois. I almost feel sorry for NOM – they can’t win for losing. It is highly entertaining.

(3) Two days ago it was 95 degrees here in Los Angeles. Today, we are looking at a high of 68. It’s overcast and a little drizzly in places. I’m wearing a sweater. Happy global warming!

(4) I fell off the 100-Pushup Challenge wagon this week. Boo. I was up to 89 pushups!

(5) In related news, there’s also a 200-Sit-up Challenge and a 200-Squat Challenge. I did the 200-Sit-up Challenge initial test and was able to do 69 consecutive sit-ups. I plan to start doing both challenges next week. In preparation, my thighs have been blubbering in the corner. That’s right, you better be scared!