The Things We Said Today:

I totally recorded this with my phone at the concert the other night... lol!

Don't thing I've ever heard this song before, and it's quite the catchy tune. I stumbled upon it while trying out new channels on satellite radio in hopes of finding one that comes close to "Sirius Disorder". Today, it's been the "Underground Garage", a welcome relief from my days of previewing "The Loft" (which is NOTHING like Disorder as it's been touted to be, BTW--it's more like the REM sleep inducing "Coffeehouse"-- ack, bleck!). I've grown so attached to my satellite radio that it's been hard to cut the cord, so to speak, and call and cancel since it's looking like all my favorite channels are gone forevermore. Sigh!

I've been kindof stuck in the house today, even though the weather wasn't too bad. In my efforts to be superwoman and work while I was sickly all week, it seems I picked up yet one more affliction that requires me to stick fairly close to home, wheeeeee! Not like there's a whole lot going on in these parts (I really missed bowling last night with the Irregulars tho; ironic that this is the crux of my troubles of late, ho ho no!)... but I wouldn't mind going shopping and pick up a few more cold weather clothes. Since I've been shrinking, I don't have all that many shirts that fit me properly-- the most fun and least fun part of dieting (I'm not much of a shopper, go figure! And my favorite store is packed to the gills on the weekends). Mebbe the latest installation of my sickitude will bring me thru my weight loss plateau in spite of all my carb eating, the silver lining I'm trying to find at the end of a pretty nasty week;-)

p.s. the neighbors got a dog, so ours of course has been barkingbarkingbarking all the day long-- gar! Make her stop!

p.s.s. what is it about this time of year that makes me feel like a crabby old woman? Everything irritates me, and it's not even that special PMS time... I guess for starters: I hate the holidays with a mad passion, and I don't even know why-- it's not like my parents didn't buy me a pony for Christmas or got all sauced up on Christmas eve and beat us or *anything* like that. I have a deeply held suspicion that it's because I'm the cheapest and laziest girlie in all the land and don't want to spend any money on anyone or go out of my way to do anything I don't feel like. And sadly, once the mercury dips below 65 and there's no sunlight, I don't wanna do ANYTHING except maybe eat and sleep (so maybe a trip to parts south would increase my festive spirit-- no?)

On a serious note, a large part of it right now is that I see all these appeals for food drives, making donations, etc, everywhere-everywhere-everywhere and it rankles me, offends my stingy sensitivities... and then of course, throws me into fits of guilt for the rest of the season that I don't move out of my comfort zone and give my stuff away. And what would be more painful: giving away my $$ and missing it, feeling like an ass, or the guilt I feel at not donating? Cause for me, both are about the same.

I used to be bone poor, too, and it was a very traumatic experience for me; hated it, fear it constantly to this day, and thus my fear motivated me to take the opportunity to return to school. I was a single parent to a very demanding baby, racked up all kinds of school and living sorts of debt, had to drop my precious baby off at the daycare (which broke my heart of course), and now make as much in an hour as I made in a DAY at the job I was working just prior to starting school. Did I want to be a nurse? Was it the fulfillment of my dreams and hearts desire to be exposed to infectious body fluids and have my heart ripped out on a daily basis? Nooooooo. I picked nursing from the community college catalog and Occupational Outlook Handbook, calculated the choice carefully to select the best paying, most mom friendly occupation, and have wrestled with the benefits and consequences ever since.

So I think I'm just the slightest bit bitter when I hear of people living in poverty, not taking advantage of the opportunities to better themselves that they have, that I had, that would pull them out of poverty such that I wouldn't feel obligated to give above and beyond the programs funded by my tax $$. When I was poor, I lived a very spartan life and thus always had enough so I didn't go looking for free turkeys or presents; I didn't smoke, go to bars, wear brand new clothing, drive an expensive car, bla bla bla, so when I see people with nicer things than I even have now lining up for free stuff it kindof bugs me-- and it bugs me that it bugs me.

Even now, we watch every penny, have little debt, so we will be prepared if the economy bottoms out even more than it does (and it will, I have no doubt): so when the fun-living, recreating, "live for today", and/or self-actualizing folks start lamenting, I'm sure I'll feel even less charitable, and I'm tired of feeling bad about that. Cause at the heart of all this angst is my contention that when you make poor decisions (as I did when I married a meatball and ended up a single parent), it's precisely the pain of those bad decisions that will motivate you to better yourself: get an education, get a better job, pare down expenses, make wiser choices. And every time someone rushes in to save your ass and take care of your responsibilities, how motivating is that? Feel the burn: learn a lesson, change your life, the lives of your children. My Existential Dilemma of the Moment is not so much that I don't want to part with my hard earned money (although that's certainly part of it, I won't lie to you), but that giving it away won't be terribly useful anyway.

I would rather shove a stick in my eye than give my children a gift someone donated, eat beans out of a can for two months straight before asking for free food with a $4 pack of smokes hanging out of my leather jacket I got from the mall (even now, most of my jackets and those the kids wear are second hand); I would suck it up and take that opportunity to teach the kids about responsible spending and the true meaning of Christmas, and hopefully leave them with a lesson about how un-fun it is to be poor. And I'm tired about feeling bad about that, too.... it's not even fricken Thanksgiving yet, and I'm already awash with guilt and wrestling with the conflicting messages of the season. Maybe I'll donate to the local church that's holding a holiday meal and be done with it, until the appeals for saving the starving children in Africa start rolling in. At which point, I can get thrown into an even faster twirling tailspin at how large and hopeless this problem really is, and wrestle with even more complex issues such as saving AIDS babies, rapes in refugee camps in war torn Darfur, the conditions in Iraq, and make this season even *more* filled with soul scorching angst. I'll be sure to send an extra special thanks this year to the little bebbe Jesus for candy cane martinis and Tom and Jerry's... looks like I'm going to need a steady infusion from now until January 1st, oy!

On a while 'nother note, if our economy is so washed out that the elderly can't pay their bills, afford their medications, etc, then we need to take a look at that and fix whatever it is that's the cause of it. I'm guessing a large part of it is the medical system for these folks, the consequences of how the pharmaceutical industry is run and what our medical system has become as a result of it, etc and etc. I have a lot more charitable inclinations regarding the elderly, but even less resolution for them than the able bodied people standing in the turkey lines.

Is it too early for a cocktail (it's 10 am the following day...)? Really?