If This Isn't It

It was the black death.

Here's to next month.

You Should Know...

Things I hope to teach my children (this idea has been used many times, but it's something I really wanted to write down):

If anyone ever makes you feel like it's wrong to touch yourself anywhere on your own person, hit them, or better yet, give me their name. I'll do it.

Despite the above, hitting is never appropriate.

Your parents are the ones that love you, not necessarily the ones who provided the sperm and the egg. I learned that the hard way. I hope you learn it sooner and appreciate the people in your life earlier.

You don't have to wear deodorant. Your friends are the ones who will still want to be around you. Your natural smell is nothing to be ashamed of. Keep yourself clean (meaning: don't let yourself get to the point where even I would hand you some fresh-em-ups) and don't worry about the daily musk between baths. "Natural" is not a dirty word.

It's ok to sit around naked sometimes.

Periods are not dots at the end of sentences; they are the beginning of everything. Celebrating your (or the women in your life's) menses will make you and those around you a lot happier. Bleeding doesn't make you dirty, and by the way, masturbation has been proven to help soothe cramps. Hella better than popping a pill.

You are beautiful.

No "expert", book, or parent can tell you when it's ok to have sex. We'll try, but we can't make that decision for you. Be safe, protect yourself and your partner, be gentle, take it slow, think about it, learn about it... Walk into nothing blind, especially sex.

Berating someone is almost as bad as physically beating them. Why do you think there's only a letter difference in the words?

Affection and education are the only things that matter and lead to everything else. Social and spiritual enlightenment, language skills, personal relationships, self-confidence... Be proactive in both these pursuits, and you will be a happier human being.

Success is an empty word with too many things attached to it. "Happy" is a much better goal.

Turn off the technology. Making a fort with branches and blankets outside is really frowned upon as an adult, and really, you can watch tv and play video games when you're old like me.

Miss out on nothing.

Move away. No matter how much I cry... just do it. It's worth it.

Come home. (At least to visit.)

Cigarettes, casual painkillers (like Midol and Aspirin), and caffeine are never the best solution, even if they are the quick one. They may calm you down, soothe your minor aches, and hype you up after a sleepless night, but in the long run, you'll regret it. I promise. Don't hurt your body. It's cliche, but it's true: You only get one.

Hurting your body does NOT include: tattoos, piercings, and funky hairstyles. Do as much of that as you like.

Learn to handle money, but don't save it endlessly. Give yourself a cushion, create a little fund to grow over time... otherwise, blow it. Have fun. Penny pinchers might have big houses and no debt, but they sure as hell aren't having as much fun as the rest of us.

On that note, living without electricity for several days is not fun, but it's not the end of the world. Get outside and enjoy it. Sleep on a friend's couch. Sleep on our couch. Sleep in a tent. Sleep in your car. Go to the movies. That ten dollars wasn't gonna cover the bill, and if you're just ten dollars shy in a few days when it's time to turn it back on, we'll give it to you. Seriously, sweetie, enjoy the wonder of not having everything provided for you, but always know you have a safety net.

Document everything. You might be the dork with the camera, the diary, the blog, or the sketchbook, but you'll never be the one trying to remember what they were like when they were younger. Where you come from does not inform where you go (you make those decisions), but it is important to learn from the past. Plus, it'd be a nice mothers day present for your aging, sentimental mom some day.

Your dad is the funniest person I know, even if his jokes are corny and lame. Don't be afraid to laugh with and at him. Respect him enough not to call him "sir", and love him enough to occasionally fake a giggle.

Your parents used to be rebels. I know... weird, right?

Being cool is rarely a good thing.

Most of all, enjoy life. Be who you are. All that schlock. It's important to create your own identity. Don't rely on your genetics, heritage, or whatever to define you.

Oh, and... hug your mom. Even if you're mad at her. Even if she's dumb, antiquated, overbearing, and maybe a little crazy. Hug her. It'll make her day.

Anxious

Bleh. I'm all off today.

Our donor has been in contact every day, sometimes multiple times a day, but last night I sent him an email saying that we had agreed to use him. Now the confirmation is floating out there, and he hasn't replied.

Boo.

Oh no, Ro!

Rosie Live was a bomb.

I adore just about every person who walked on the stage, and I'm a big Rosie fan. I cried during the documentary about the gay family cruise, because it was just so beautiful. She has done so much for the adoption movement in the US, and she has worked equally hard with gay rights. She produced one of my favorite Broadway shows of all time (Taboo), and her talk show was one of the things my mom and I bonded over. I never missed an episode, and I even stomached the View for her.

I love Jane Krakowski. I love Alec Baldwin. I love Liza. I love Alanis.

However, the show was clunky, poorly directed (continuously cutting to long shots of the musicians right in the middle of the very visual acts! Why?!), and the comedy was more than a little stale.

I'm really disappointed, because I wanted to love it as much as I love Rosie and all her guests. The Urinetown bit was the best with Ms. Krakowski's number following in a close second. Other than that, I found myself checking the time to see when it would be over. I couldn't make myself change it or turn it off, but it was close to unwatchable.

Not gonna lie, I'm a little sad now.

Get Along, Lil' Doggie

Living with dogs is not like living with children.

Children grow, mature, and come into their own.

Dogs don't. They just don't. The best trained dog will still never be able to master the basic skills of a two year old human.

Dogs are like babies that never get past the first few weeks of development. It's a pretty dire situation where a parent is still cleaning up their child's shit after ten years, but with a dog, that's just the way of things. You'll be picking up their shit, one way or another, until the day they die.

Dogs don't communicate in any real way. Barking is so far below human speech; it baffles me when I hear about "dog whisperers" or new technologies that "translate" barking into English. The simple fact of the matter is, dogs make noise. They don't articulate their thoughts and desires even on the same level that newborn babies do.

Dogs are not people; dogs are not children.

I am not Bella and Phin's mom. I'm their caretaker.

I do, however, think it would be a great prerequisite for would-be-parents to own a dog for at least a year before spawning their own tiny human.

That's the thing, really, about dogs. You can't yell at them, because they don't understand you. They're never going to understand you. Teaching a dog to pick up their toy ball when you say "get your ball" is not the equivalent of a baby recognizing the word "bottle". A dog doesn't understand that you are voicing a command for him to pick up the round object on the floor and bring it back to you. A dog recognizes the sounds and, after being trained to do so, associates those sounds with getting the ball. That's why if you said "get your doll" in the same tone, the dog would bring you the ball. This is why vets and the like warn against naming two dogs similar sounding names, i.e. Molly and Dolly or Theo and Cleo.

So, living with dogs forces you to reel in and react differently than you would with a toddler.

Example: A dog knocks a can of soda over, and a few drops land on your keyboard. The keyboard bugs out to the point that a handful of keys no longer work. The keyboard is useless. It was a nice one with a snazzy light under the keys for typing in the dark and a soft, natural aesthetic that made it easier to use. Well, now it's dead. Kaput. Gone.

Do you yell at the dog?

Do you pop the dog on the head?

No. There's just no point. If more than a few seconds have passed, the dog won't even realize why you're popping and/or yelling. Even if you are able to punish him immediately, he'll be too afraid and confused to really make a connection. It would take him knocking over at least a dozen more sodas onto keyboards before he associated the punishment with the offense.

Isn't it just easier to make the desk inaccessible and be more careful about where you leave sodas? Does it really make sense to punish someone or something if the only one who understands what's going is you? It might be cathartic to beat your dog every time he does something wrong, but do you really want to feel better about your situation by taking it out on a creature incapable of defending itself?

What seems right about that?

For fuck's sake, pick the dog up, rub his belly, and set him on the floor. Pick up the goddamn keyboard, try to salvage it, and push the chair all the way under the desk to prevent any further mishaps.

If your reaction to that situation is to shout at the dog about how expensive the keyboard was or to hit him, you shouldn't have dogs.

Your responsibility is to make sure the dog is ok and meet his needs. That is what you signed up for when you brought him home, all cute and snuggly with that new puppy smell. Dogs aren't decoration. They aren't toys that you can turn off or shut away in pens or kennels when you're bored with them or don't have the energy to supervise them.

The same fucking principles apply to children.

Your job is to take care of them, keep them safe, make them feel loved and wanted, and give as much of yourself as you can. If you're not up to the task, forget dogs... forget kids... buy a fucking hamster.

ETA: My dogs are so incredibly affectionate and funny. They keep me constantly amused, and yes... frustrated. It's exhausting to run after them and never have a totally clean apartment. I have met so many dogs who are better trained and calm, but I have never met dogs who were as devoted and affectionate as my own. If you want a dog who will never miss the "potty pad" or a child that will always color inside the lines, go for it. Do your thing. Me? I'd rather have obnoxiously hyper pups who come running if I so much as clear my throat and love to sleep on my pillow, furry chin against my cheek. I'd rather have kids who know they can come to me with problems without judgment and who innately know that they are safe, loved, and treasured.

It's up to you what's more important. Well-behaved and loving aren't mutually exclusive in either dogs or kids, but "training" them to live completely within your specifications is going to squash a part of them. I'd rather clean up a little shit now and then than have my dogs shy away from me every time I raise my hand to pet them, fearing a smack.

Sorry, I needed to make this little addendum, because I'm in a very conflicted angry/loving mood right now. I'm angry at the state of certain things in my life and just so in love with my pooches, no matter how many keyboards they've ruined.

I (Don't) Want Candy

(This is long, self-involved and silly.)

I'm sucking on a Chick-O-Stick. It's the most bizarrely addictive candy I've ever tasted. I swear I've never had one before this week, and I'm probably right about that. I used to avoid all cellophane wrapped candies with the awkwardly vintage logos and striped packages. I swore they were the most disgusting things I'd ever had, trading them five to one for half a fun sized chocolate bar every Halloween I can remember.

Now, though, I think... did I ever really bother to unwrap a single one and try them? All those peanut butter bars and flakey fruit flavored affairs just seemed so unappealing based solely on appearance.

Old people candy.

Not for me.

My fascination with these treats makes me wonder a lot about myself. I know... it's weird to fixate and analyze my reaction to a particular sweet as though it were some truly telling and vital piece of my personality.

The truth is, it feels that way.

As much as I remember hating all the cheap-o neighbors and their pathetic excuses for "treats", I can't remember ever eating one.

I can't say that I really hated the Chick-O-Sticks and their ancient, post-apocalyptic aesthetic. (Society says cockroaches will survive... Family Guy says Twinkies will prevail... All my money is on the Chick-O-Sticks of the world, the last unscathed portion of our late culture, bearing witness to the early demise of our taste buds thanks to cigarettes and anti-depressants.) I have so many memories centered around bad food: my first bite of fried rice, lurching toward the bathroom after a trial of black licorice, etc. I hated the "old people candy" so much so that it changed the way I saw the people who had the nerve to hand it out, but I don't remember ever trying it.

I say all that to make a very long, silly point that seems relevant only because, as previously mentioned, I'm sucking on one right now.

The point is, for all the self-righteousness I carried with me from an early age, I ultimately judged a book by it's clear, striped cover.

A lot of people do that, obviously. Pretty much everyone has, and for all the racism and sexism and various other scary "isms" in the world, a sin of candy bigotry hardly seems life-changing.

It is, though. I like to say I'll try anything and give everyone a fair shot, but ultimately, I need to fix that, adding a small addendum that says: Even if it takes a decade, all persons and things shall be given a fair fucking shot.

So, I reevaluate. I recognize that this isn't a perfect world, and I'm not a perfect me. I'm not stating the obvious here. I'm not saying that I'm not perfect. Obviously, I'm not, and even if I were, the idea of "perfect" is so insanely subjective that there's no way I could be perfect at all times to everyone. I've never tried to be perfect. I don't want to be.

Really, I want to be the perfect me.

Part of that has always been truly believing in and living up to my own ideals. Unrealistic in hindsight, but I made that promise to myself at the age of twelve after a particularly self-involved bout of soul searching. I decided, according to a composition book marked "B.N.R.", to be happy with me since no one else around me seemed to be (happy with themselves). Admittedly, that probably led to a decade of egocentric monologues about "loving my curves" and "embracing my flaws", but thus far, that little oath has worked out.

That is, until those moments when I'm forced to look at the stark reality of my life and my personality.

When those times come, I don't feel the metaphoric brick wall or slap in the face. I just feel a little less like a self-assured 21 year old woman and a bit more like a scrawny 12 year old who wrote things like "why isn't it easy to save the world?" I'm filled with doubt about every decision I've ever made. I'm overcome with guilt that I didn't save the world or even make a noticeable imprint on a single person I've come in contact with. I'm desperate for change that I've ultimately put myself in a position to never make.

And I wince at the fact that I've been in denial for so long about the very simple truth that I'm not a better, enlightened person, capable of looking past someone's ideologies and skin color.

I judge every book by it's cover.

I sit, and I judge.

I have friends of all shades, but I'm incapable of doing more than giggling at my husband's genuine interest in a donor of African, Asian, or Pacific Island decent. I act like he's joking, but ultimately, I'm afraid of the awkward conversations and cruel jokes biracial children endure... that their parents endure.

I have republican and fundamentalist friends, but I refuse to bring up topics that would make anyone involved uncomfortable. I'm afraid I'll be forced to face the fact that I don't like those people as much as I'd like to think I do. I know I'll judge them for their beliefs.

I say I don't like the way Chick-O-Sticks taste, but really... I don't like the way they look.

Or the way they've made me look at myself.

Sketch Diary -- 2 (Evolution)