Dear Santa

all i want for Christmas is for the poor kids to get toys so that they have something to smile about and for the homeless to have a hot meal... especially since some of these homeless people are veterans.  i don't understand people that don't want to help these vets who volunteered and risked thier lives for this country and these children who have no hope. instead they spend (what seems to be an exuberant amount) of time and energy worrying about what a Christmas card looks like or what it means? It's. A. Christmas. Card.

Santa, please help these misguided people have a Christmas miracle... like to finally get a conscience.

Merry Christmas to all!

ps: don't tell anyone i said Christmas so many times, there's a war out there.

http://front.moveon.org/republicans-are-furious-about-obamas-christmas-card-wait-till-they-see-reagans/?rc=fb.fan

the real world.

i went shopping for my little niece's birthday today and since i had played Barbie's with her over Thanksgiving i headed straight to the very noticeable and very pink Barbie aisle... and only after a few minutes, i realized that Mattel is freakin' brilliant.

now some might argue otherwise, you know since Barbie's are so perfect and all, that it gives young girls the idea of an unrealistic body image which they will compare to themselves thus causing eating disorders, low self esteem and promiscuity in order to fulfill the emptiness that their inadequacies created... but that is not my point.

i realized in all the 50 different kinds of Barbie's were she is a nurse, a veterinarian, a princess, a popstar, a mother, a bride... there were only 3 Ken dolls.. a surfer Ken, a Ken in a tuxedo and a frat boy Ken... and that's when it hit me.

in all the beautiful, strong, independent Barbie's of the world, she only has 3 Ken's to choose from. one that won't get a real job, one that says he's working late but really is cheating on Barbie with his secretary and one that refuses to grow up and treat Barbie like the lady she is because he's just having too much fun with his buddies.

so thank you, Mattel ...for preparing our little girls for the heartache and disappointment they will soon face in the real world.


ps: i bought the surfer Ken, he seemed to have the most potential. he only came with board shorts and towel, so i also bought him another set of clothes in hopes he gets a real job that would require him to at least wear a shirt.

it ain't easy being green.

Dear Dan Gainor and Eric Bolling, 

First of all, I don’t know either of you and only heard your names for the first time today but I’m truly concerned for both of your sakes. Stupidity is a terrible illness. Are you taking any medications for this? It sounds like you have a really bad case but the good news is, it’s curable!


So, I took my 7-year old niece to see the Muppets… and you know what? She didn’t mention anything about how big and scary Tex Richmon was or how corporations seem bad. She’s a smart little cookie, but frankly, I don't even think she define what a corporations is. In fact, her main comment throughout the movie was about Miss Piggy. How she wanted to live a life a glitz and glamour and make her living singing and dancing... just like Miss Piggy, a strong independent pig.

Using your logic, I guess you'd have to say that the Muppets have a pro-swine agenda because Miss Piggy is one of the main characters and little girls would like to emulate her. Why was a pig cast the part of Miss Piggy? What about the other animals? Why didn’t Fozzy Bear get the part? Is it because he has fuzzy hair? Is it because he was a comedian? He should definitely sue for discrimination. This is America... and I smell a lawsuit coming. 

As far as your issue with the environment, to prove the media is green biased, why don't you financially back a film... about an endangered oil rig, that some tree hugging whale lovers are out to destroy, but if the oil rig stops drilling for oil, the oil company can’t sell oil and people can’t buy oil. *gasp*  Since the world won't know what to do without oil, everyone would turn into savages and eventually end the human race as we know it! 

You’d probably go broke because you would have invested all your money into your making a movie that nobody wanted to see. I mean nobody. Your wife will leave you… because since you lost all of your money, you are now preaching your conservative agenda on street corners for change. "The liberals will never take my freedom!"

Eventually, you'll be forced to beg for money on the streets along side a few fellow homeless folks because no one will listen to you anymore because your movie didn't make any money and since money talks in America, you are worthless. Oh, and since your other buddies (who shun you because they don't want to get 'poor' on them) ousted Obama and all the other socialists out of power, there are no government run programs to feed, clothe or shelter you, the less fortunate... so you eventually die a long and painful death by starvation, if the frostbite doesn't get you first.

You would have already lost custody of your kids by then.  Although scarred for life, they will somehow muster up enough courage to be able to watch the sequel to the movie you said will wash their brains out... "Ew! Are you going to use the same soap you used to wash my mouth out when I repeated that word you said when President Obama got elected? That was nasty, Daddy. I don't want to see the Muppets!...even though the movie is about old friends reuniting together to bring happiness and joy to me and other kids." *wahhh* "I'm scared!"*tear* "I want my Mommy!" *sniff*

But then again, maybe you are right. Kids will see right past such trivial lessons of hope and friendship and see right to the blasphemy of corporations. They will probably hate such a feel good movie that teaches us how to work together as a team, despite our differences, to get something accomplished. Psst. Why do kids need to be taught that anyways? I suppose it's just another meaningless lesson kids learn that doesn't really apply in the real world. 

Get well soon, 
Me

Kermit for President!

with a little help from my friends

i don't understand the people who say that high school was the best time of their lives. seriously? we were complete assholes in high school. we, as teenagers, were like cats who couldn't find their way out of a paper bag or as the gays like to say, we were a hot mess, girl! that awkwardness was the best time of your life? as if!

i recently ended a 7-year friendship with someone i thought would be a friend that i'd be an old lady with.  i'm 32, so you do the math as to how old i was when i met this friend... it was WAY after high school, that's for sure. that 7-year friendship was one of my longest friendships in my life. not just an acquaintance friendship, but a true honest to goodness friendship... or so i thought.

as i was reading an email from this said friend, in which she told me that i had replaced her and had a new best friend, i was imminently surrounded by (i suppose) what she considered her replacement(s) even though (... and this is the kicker) said friend and i have had a long distance relationship for the majority of our 7-year friendship. so obviously, we've had to live without each other in our everyday lives. so it came news to me (and the 'replacements'), that it must be an unwritten law in the best friendship world, and unlike Lays potato chips, you can only have just one.

i was sadden at the end of our friendship, yes. she was the first person that i could totally be my goofy self with, without feeling like a total outcast.... but those days were long gone by the time i was reading that email.

i've always said, that you can't make your best friends when you are in high school because you don't even know who you are much less who anyone else really is. you have to go through more life experience with each other to form the bonds that will last, the bonds that make a friendship. you have to live a lot more life than you live confined to those institutional walls. you just can't come straight out of the barrell with guns blazin' and make the right choices, you have to make a couple of the wrong ones first.

i thought i had that bond... but like many other things in life, it wasn't as it seemed. we had different values, wants and needs out of life. values, needs and wants that friends should have in common... if you don't then what the hell is the friendship bringing to the table of  your life? there comes a point where you have to think, is it even worth it to call anymore? what do we really have to say to each other?

it was like breaking up with a really nice boyfriend. you had wanted to end it for a long time, but didn't want to hurt his feelings because he was such a nice guy and you felt like you should want to be with him, but deep down inside you knew it would never be anything more than it was. so you tell him, then he calls you a bitch and then you're like, hey... what a minute because now he's not kissing your ass anymore and you see a different side of him and you wonder if you gave him a fair chance. then your wing-girl comes up to you and makes you remember that there was absolutely no sparks between the two of you and there are plenty of other fish in the sea. and you're all like, oh... yeah. thanks, wing-girl.

as all this is going through my head, i look around at my wing-girls who have been in my life for many years and who have recently come into my life (all came into my life at the exact time i needed them too) i felt so thankful. so lucky that i had found and surrounded myself with such strong, secure and smart women. i've never had to 'break-up' with a friend before and i was anxious to see how my other friends would handle it. they could not have been more... more everything. words can't express how much their support, guidance and understanding meant to me and will always mean to me.

they made me realize what true friendship is and that they will always have my back. they didn't judge me. instead they told me the truth as they would expect the same from me. that was an important factor missing in my ex-best friendship... it wasn't a two way street and no matter how old we were when we became close (high school or no high school), we both had a lot of growing up to do. the good news, we grew up. the bad news, we didn't grow together. it just goes to show you that right when you think you have it all figured out, you realize you don't understand it at all.
so, no. high school was not the best time of my life. how could it be? i didn't know any of the kick ass friends that i have today. i wasn't me then. i become more me with each passing day. now... the present is the best time of my life. everyday i learn more. everyday i love more. and everyday i am more thankful that i get to go through this journey with a handful of wing-girls that i'm so honored to say - are my best friends! ...plural, of course.

"what would you think if I sang out of tune, would you stand up and walk out on me? lend me your ears and i'll sing you a song and i'll try not to sing out of key."

blame it on the rain.

i believe you have to experience all different kinds of people, emotions and situations to really know what you want out of life. i think people who stay inside their safe and comfortable bubble are short changing themselves. how do you know what you want, when you never had to go find it or fight for it, it was just right there staring you in the face saying, "hello. i am your life. nice to meet you. listen carefully, this is what's going to happen for the next 60 years." you never had to wonder what life holds for you or struggle through endless, lonely days of wondering if it really was going to be okay... because everything was just laid out there for you - like when you were in kindergarten and your mom laid out your clothes for you to wear. you didn't question it. you just did it.

maybe i'm jealous of people who seem to have life figured out early in life because when i was younger, i thought i knew everything but as i've gotten older, i'm realizing that i don't know anything at all. i do believe life is a continuous journey. a journey of finding yourself, loosing it, then rediscovering yourself... only to find out that you are the person you had always been... just older. a journey that sometimes requires you to go at it alone.

life gives us obstacles to make us grow. they are chances to make us smarter, wiser and stronger. they are absolutely never fun or enjoyable, but are always totally worthwhile in the end. i feel sorry for people who settle and go around life's obstacles rather than over them. they sweep them under the rug because they don't want to upset the All-American apple cart that society tells them they should have. they have no idea what they are missing. but maybe one day, they will.

side note…for those of you who are now asking yourself, what the hell am i supposedly missing? you are probably the same person who didn’t get the series finale of LOST either. just sayin’.

hau'oli.

one simple word, but the meaning is anything but simple. most people say they believe in it, but do they really feel it? i came to a point in my life where felt it so much, i had this one simple Hawaiian word tattooed on my body so it will be apart of me until the day i take my last breath.

it was a long journey for me to find the meaning of this word and really (i mean really!) believe in it. i seem to find it everywhere now... yet sometimes i find it so hard to believe in it for other people. they seem to find it so easy and say they are as if you just say it, that means you are. anyone can say how they feel, but i don't think the people who are so easy to say it, really take the time to go deep down inside and decide if they really feel it. it's just so easy to say without looking and finding out the truth. why are people so afraid of finding out what their weaknesses are? that's how you grow as a person.

or maybe, i'm just jealous of these people who find it so easy. maybe they really do feel it and didn't have to take the long and tumultuous self-analyzing emotional roller coaster of a journey that i did. is their journey easier since it happens so fast? i will never know but time has been the best friend to me.

i do not wish that my life had gone any different than it has. everything does happen for a reason, and it all made me who i am today. a strong, independent woman who has found true happiness within herself.

"no one is put here on this earth to make you happy, they are simply put here to share in your happiness." --thank you Momma for teaching me the most important lesson that i will ever learn in life... and thank you to Stephen for being the one i'm luckily enough to share it with.

tweens: the new birth control

for my eldest niece's 11th birthday party, my sister asked me to assist her in taking my niece and three of her friends to the movies. of course i said 'sure! i love going to the movies.' oh, but i did more than watch Diary of a Wimpy Kid on Saturday night, i watched Diary of a Terrified 30-Something... and the sequels, Diary of a Heartbroken 40-Something and Diary of a Where Did I Go Wrong 50-Something.

when i rolled up to my sister's house for this little adventure, my tween niece was busy playing basketball with the other tweens and didn't even notice me or say hello until her little sister said, 'hey. did you know Aunt Allison is here?' at that point, she stopped just long enough to say, 'oh. hi.' then went back into her own little tweeny world. it was there at that very moment, that i realized the transformation had begun. i was no longer the cool aunt, but just another adult that can't get away with saying, 'when i rolled up...'

now, i must admit... i once practiced the tween lifestyle. however, there were no cell phones, no texting, no internet and no spacebook. me and the other tween-lings had to pass hand written notes in class, ask our parents permission to use the only phone in the house and weren't privy to information that happened after school or at night until the next day at school. and the only influences i had were my older brother, my older sister and HBO... let's face it, i practiced tween-ism long before parental control on the television was invented.

i remember having sex education sometime in middle school and my mother explaining the 'Becoming a Woman' book to my sister and i.... but to be honest, i really didn't understand it all until my late teens. and even then, i really couldn't see the forest through the trees but thankfully somehow i made it out of high school pretty much unscathed. but how? how in the hell was i able to get where i am today?

i asked myself this when i overhead one of these tweens say, 'my boyfriend cheated on me so i ripped up the teddy bear he got me.' WHAT? you are 11-years old! do you know what cheating is? wait, how do you even have a boyfriend. you are 11!?! granted i said i had a 'boyfriend' in the 5th grade too... but we never even talked in class or out of class or went anywhere together. now that i think about it, maybe it was a one-sided relationship. WHAT? i was in the 5th grade... what the hell did i know about relationships? to be honest, again... i'm 10 days shy of 32-years old and i'm just now understanding what healthy relationships actually mean.

the more the tweens talked, the more scared i got. murmurs of 'he's so hot!' and 'i'm desperate for a boyfriend!' filled the mini-van on the way home. i turned to my sister in exasperation and asked if she heard what was going on? she didn't seemed phased by it at all. was she deaf, i wondered?

in this world wind of 'you're not old enough to say that', i remembered a conversation i had suppressed for several years about giving my then 13-year old nephew a pseudo sex talk after he said that he was never having sex because he saw pictures of STD's on.... guess where? yep, the internet. i realized it's not just sex though. what about drugs? what about peer pressure? what about education? what about driving? what if they turn out to be an asshole?

regardless, i made a life altering decision at that very moment... i can not have children. not that i don't want them, i do... but i can't. i've only had a few anxiety attacks in my life and i was on the verge of another one. i always thought i would be the cool parent but flashes of my future self being an overprotective, controlling parent that tries to shield her child from the terrible, influential world we live in, where they will rebel against me and my controlling ways in every way imaginable. which then cause a lifetime of anguish for me and my family and thus further causing me to become an alcoholic to deal with the pain of having my child hate me because i ruined their life. i lose my job, my husband divorces me and my other children have to go live with my disappointed parents because i can no longer care for them because i'm in rehab... again. my parents might be disappointed in me, but how courageous there were to even have me.

"there are two lasting bequests we can give our children. one is roots. the other is wings."

like a good neighbor, passive aggressive is there.

when i woke up this morning, i found the following note written in all caps on a purple envelope taped to my door:


"Please be mindful of your footfall. There have been several nights that the loud noises form your apartment have kept up my child and myself awake. I see patients early in the morning and my child has school. We need to be able to go to sleep and stay asleep. The office has been notified. Thank you"


my response is as follows: (and please note, i work in the office she supposedly notified and because of this, i'm privy to certain information... like how she is a psychotherapist. which i find ironic.)


"We live in a multi-unit building that was built in 1903; therefore you are going to hear people walk, talk, etc… I know I do, and I am very mindful of my actions because of this. I’m sure since you notified the office; they stressed this very same point.

The ‘loud noises’ remark is completely absurd because I am a quiet person. I go to bed around 10 –10:30 pm on most weeknights and get up around 7:30 am. Which is completely in the normal range of ‘quiet hours’ for apartment living. Again, I’m sure the office also stressed this point.

You can leave as many notes on my door and contact the office as many times as you wish, you will get the same response from me. Actually, this will be the only response from me. I am a very conscious, responsible tenant. I have been renting apartments for over 10 years in a variety of different buildings and not once I have ever had one complaint about my living habits.

I’m sorry you and your son are sensitive to noises, maybe you should find an apartment on the top floor with no shared common walls or a single-family residence so that you are not bothered by others normal day-to-day activities and can sleep soundly.

If this has somehow found the wrong apartment, my apologies as the note did not have a name or apartment number to reference. I’m not sure how one tries to resolve a problem, if they do not know whom the problem is with. So I am assuming that this kind of compliant could only come from the apartment directly below mine as it is the only apartment I share a wall and/or in this case, a floor with."

i signed my name and my apartment number... and at lunch, i will tape it on her door.

"your actions speak so loudly that i cannot hear what you say."

if i was prezident.

i wood not rekomend xtending tax cutts four the top too purrcent of the wellthiest Amaricans whyle inn the same breathe sayin that teechers arr geting two much monie and two many benifits. that makes no cents to me, does it to you! i jus dont understand them peeple that think that way. what Amarica is they from! not mine? is that the realz Amarica them bee talkin bout? where the wellthiest git moore monie and the teechers git shatted on? i been two alot of places here inn Amarcia butte i dont think i want to go thier.

you want moore jobz, and you want moore monie - then we shud envest in new energi policys. four enstance, enstalling smarrt eletric meters that cumunicate wit smarrt apliances in youre howse so that Amarica is moore energi ifficient. if energi is needed in one place, youre meter )that is konnected to a centrall energi plant( will realise this and reducce youre energi so that they )the energi plant( can redistributte the energi where needed. ohh, snapz. i just dropped the redistributtion bomb. them people who want to cut teechers benifits dont like it when we say that. we be socialists. we wud bee socialists with jobz and monie... and our neeghbors two. 

noww that me thinks bout it, maybee we dont need no edukation... we dont knead teechers to teech us nothing. becuz obviosly everyone )isspecially in the meadia and pubblic office( is natturally smarrt and knows how to fixx problemz. they must no sumthing we dont. i weesh everyone was as smarrt as thems. they didnt have no teechers: did they!

"modern cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing."

you're so gay, you probably think this blog is about you.

as i was perusing the local newspaper's website (not the be confused with an actual newspaper) on how Malcolm X's daughter had been arrested in one of Western North Carolina's mountain counties... i came across another article regarding civil rights... gay marriage.

at a recent local city council meeting, they passed a resolution calling for creation of a city registry for people in same-sex relationships and endorsing more rights for same-sex couples. a step in the right direction i say... however, others feel differently. our own mayor (a black woman, yes. a historically double suppress-e) even voted against it saying, "i can’t say that i support gay marriage." i wonder what Malcolm X would have thought to hear her, a black American, say that she can't support equal rights for all? or what would Susan B. Anthony say to her, an American woman, when she heard she believes in denying rights to a selected class?

another attendee, a Reverend (a never been suppress-e, not to be confused with a never nude) commented, "where will we go from here? will we go to (protecting) pedophiles? will we go to sex offenders?"

wait... what? how in the hell do you automatically go from allowing people that love and want to have a recognized union to pedophiles and sex offenders? i'm sure, in fact i am certain and would swear on my own life, that there is more than one heterosexual pedophile and/or sex offender that is or has been married. *breaking news!! this just in* - your sexual preference does not have any correlation to your morality.

i am also extremely certain that a gay union will not desecrate the sanctity of marriage... since the divorce rate in this country, with only allowing heterosexuals to marry, is 50% and rising... and that my friends, is some weak sauce to argue with.

so how does ones mind work when arguing gay marriage? i'll tell you how. these people live in a bubble. these people are content in their bubble, so their mind can only be opened as far as the bubble will allow. you have the utmost right to not agree with gay marriages, but no human should have the right to deny love and happiness to another human.

"if you prick us do we not bleed? if you tickle us do we not laugh? if you poison us do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

a three Sunday weekend

when you lose someone you love, you feel so many emotions. pain and sadness for the loss; happiness and joy for the memories; and stress from dealing with the emotional roller coaster. but like all the other experiences in life, there's a reason. there is something you need to learn, discover or change in your life. finding that particular reason isn't always easy, it might take years or the rest of your life. yet at other times it's right in front of you. this time, for me... it was right in front of me.

over the last couple of days, i had a lot of time to reminisce thanks to the many, many family stories that were shared. during these stories, i wished so hard that i could not only be with Pop, but with all my grandparents just for one moment from the past to soak in all the details of that memory so they would be fresh in my mind to carry with me for the rest of my life. but i quickly realized i will never loose those memories. they will always be there when i need them.

my most favorite story that was told this weekend was about the mysterious handkerchief that my Pop always carried. he didn't use it for anything, but he always had it. so one day my aunt decided to investigate. every night before my Pop went to bed, he would kiss a picture of my Nanny, then take the handkerchief and wipe the kiss off. he would then go over to his bed and lay the handkerchief underneath his pillow. shouldn't we all be so lucky to have that kind of love.

neither Pop, Nanny or any of my grandparents will be at my wedding nor will any see the birth of my children.... which saddens me, but the rest of my family will be and i'm so thankful for that. it does seem that mourning the loss of someone brings people together. we are all reminded that the most important things in life aren't things at all, they are people ...and the memories that bind us to one another.

"that it will never happen again, is what makes life so sweet."

name calling 101

to all political pundits,

would you kindly stop referring to everyone on the left and everyone on the right (whomever is your arch nemesis) as a Nazi or anyone who was involved with the Nazi's because you are completely disrespecting the lives and memories of those that suffered when the REAL and ONLY Nazi's were in power. had you actually seen the inhumanness, the cruelty and the utter devastation that dominated the Nazi years, i would love to see how easily you would throw that name around.

as our President said in last night's State of the Union, yes we all have our differences and as f***ed up as things might seem, no one would want to trade places with anyone else in another nation because everyone knows just how good we have it here in the Not-Really-United States of America.

so why don't you put your (what, I'm sure was a very expensive and highly reguarded) education to work and make up your own red, white and blue names to condescend your fellow Americans with and leave the Nazi's were they belong... in the past.

regards,
Me

"those newspapers of the nation which most loudly cried dictatorship against me would have been the first to justify the beginnings of dictatorship by somebody else." ~Franklin D. Roosevelt