Simple Stuff

Since my life is basically the same from day to day, I have a hard time motivating myself to blog. However, I wanna remember a few key things for myself. So here goes.

I am sooooo relieved that the weather has turned from the confining cold of winter to the exploration-friendly warmth of spring!!!!!!! You have no idea how much this has changed my life. I think just about everyone in my biological family has always been seriously affected by SAD (seasonal affective disorder). It hit me really hard this last year because I couldn't get out and do the normal things I would have to alleviate it. Bowen and I were cooped up the entire effing winter, nowhere to go, nothing to do but sit in the same damn living room day in and day out, playing with the same damn toys and reading the same damn books for what seemed like FOREVER.

Tara wrote something on her blog right before winter was over that helped me get through the very last stretch. She talked about the inevitability of spring, the circle of seasons, and the hope that she always felt realizing that winter would always end.

I needed to hear that.

So, Bowen and I have had so much more fun now that the weather is nice. We have gone to the park a whooole lot. There is a really nice one here with a lake (that you can swim in in the summer!), lots of toys for him to play on, lots of walking trails, trees, and space. It's fabulous. The realization hit me the other day that I sorely miss living closer to nature and how funny it is that a few trees in a park surrounded by urbanization can really make me happy.

Bowen is nuts for the park, too. We drive by it every day to and from Brandon's work; and, every day Bowen points the park, repeats "Parka! Parka! Parka!" as we drive by and tells me to "turn right" into the entrance as we go past. It's pretty amazing how much that kid picks up on. Luckily, since we go fairly frequently and I always keep my promises to him, I have trained Bowen to not throw toddler fits about going, not going, or leaving the park. We say "bye bye" to all of our favourite things at the park every day we are there. It's "bye bye swing", "bye bye slide", "bye bye lake", geese, ducks, rocks, boardwalk, sand, and park. God, I love my boy.

And most recently, Bowen got to play in the sand for the first time ever. I bought him a trowel and rake and sifter to play with in the sand, but he mostly just loves to pour it over his leg and feel its soft tickle on his skin. One of his other favourite things about the park is throwing rocks in to the lake. I showed him it once and he's been crazy about it ever since. The only drawbacks are that he wants to do it non-stop from here to eternity and he also wants to touch the water and get in the lake. Obviously, it's been too cold up until now for him to be able to swim in the lake, but I'm really looking forward to taking him swimming all this summer.

I absolutely adore summer. Brandon hates it because it is hot and miserable, preferring the mildness of spring and fall, but I have ALWAYS loved summer. I'll even take the heat for all of the great fun summer offers. I freaking love to swim and have never had the opportunity to do it as often as I would like. I need to live right on the ocean. But I have an intense love for a few summer-related activities and trappings that will endure all my life such as: swimming, barbeques, going to the drive-in movie, watching fireflies, wearing shorts and sandals, the smell of sunscreen, s'mores, camping, hiking, shaved ice and sno cone stands, sitting outside on summer evenings, the sound cicada's make (seriously), reading outside, swimming, swimming, and swimming! There are so many other things, but who can name them all?! I think I idealize summer because it used to be a time of freedom for two months with no school and endless opportunities to do whatever you wanted to do. Some of my love of Florida is combined in summer love with beach, sand, and fun with the grandparents at freakin' Disney World providing probably some of the better memories of my childhood.

Dude, Bowen is so lucky. I am going to do all sorts of fun stuff with him! We're going to have great summers!!!

Reality Bites

Here ya go kids, perfect example of the lack of progress in America's social arena. Go ahead, read it. It's super-short. What say you?

Sodhus

This is where I want to be. Too much sadness. Gone Baby Gone made me cry a lot. I'm too close to the subject and always get worked up about child abuse. I need a vacation.

Or am I just trying to escape like everyone else?

Sad Momma Sad

So I just wrote this on Amanda's Facebook Wall and realized that I just need to get out some thoughts after watching the riveting, question-filled, disturbing piece of cinematic genius that is "Gone Baby Gone":

I am so frickin sad right now. I just watched "Gone Baby Gone." I... dang... I dunno, I just feel so conflicted. Which was absolutely the point, right? I mean, great job Ben Affleck, I will officially stop making fun of him now. lol. But, holy mother of crapity crapkins, saaaad sad movie. Or really: saaaad, sad world.

Let me first just say: see the movie. It is great. Just because something makes you uncomfortable doesn't mean it is not wholly worth watching. Like any good piece of art, it should make you question at the very least.

There are so many things I appreciate about the movie that I want to hash out, but I'm going to stick with one main idea: What is our responsibility, singularly and collectively, to do something about the rampant child abuse occurring worldwide?

The point, and the whole piece of the disturbing pie is that the movie is not just a movie - it is a reflection of real life events and ongoing problems we have in this world. I feel like a lot of people will just walk away from seeing something like "Gone Baby Gone" and feel like they are not big enough, powerful enough, significant enough to make a difference in relation to an enormous problem like child kidnapping/abuse/molestation/rape/mistreatment/abduction/etc. And I feel like that is honestly the wrong response. It's just like the "my one vote doesn't count" mentality, that one voice is not significant or capable of achieving anything versus the ethereal idea of some sort of predestined election outcome outside of one's control.

Am I making any sense? Whatever.

The point is: we have a short time on this planet and we ARE responsible. For everything. I don't care what you believe, but most people pretty much agree that God is not gunna reach his Almighty hand down and influence anything happening on Earth anytime soon. So if I don't do anything, life is basically going to be the same or worse for my children and all the other precious lives that were started after mine. Now, I'm not talking about taking on the weight of the world, shouldering all the responsibility/guilt/burden for every mistreated child in the world, but if we don't allow some of our shame and discomfiture to do it's work and take SOME responsibility, nothing will get better. Women did not get the vote (disgustingly less than 100 years ago), people of color did not get the vote (disturbingly slightly over 100 years), the Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin did not come about (LESS than 44 frakking years ago!) because people sat on their bums and did nothing.

We are still sitting on our bums and doing nothing about all sorts of inequalities in our own "free" nation, not to mention seriously disturbing atrocities like child abuse that I'm pretty sure we can all agree on despite race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin or any damned other feature.

Dammit, I don't know what to do at this time in my life. Maybe I am just going to have to be a hell of a lot more informed voter, adopt our next kid, donate to worthy charities, and run for office when I'm sixty years old and have more time. lol. Nobody would vote for me, I'm so damn liberal. What can we do? I dunno. Something. I'll figure it out.

I Need to Take Out the Trash

I'm so sorry. I am such a slacker. I have not been posting mainly because of my despicable and irreversible addiction to the Sims2. I recently reacquired the game and have been spending ungodly amounts of time playing God to my little sims. Man, that game rocks.

On a quick side note:
I watched Waitress this evening. It really was as good as all the hype has made it out to be. Now I want to eat pie and play with my silly little toddler.

???

Why am I the only one up at this hour??? What happened to all you crazy college peeps staying up all night, avoiding your homework??? Why is Brandon, an even more extreme night owl than myself, passed out right now, snoring happily??? The internet just makes me lonely. I quit.

Good Grief, Peggy Sue

So, I was watching "Peggy Sue Got Married" on Netflix View Instantly tonight, relaxing for a bit after putting my kiddo down and before playing some SimCity Societies. I remembered liking it from when I was younger and thought I could laugh at Nick Cage's crazy, goofy performance again.

About 23 minutes into the movie I'm all relaxed and enjoying the cheesiness, marveling at the ability of unrealistic cinema to make me nostalgic about a childhood that was not mine. I alternately appreciate and abhor this theme that directors like to use in old, 50's era pieces. Everyone likes to look back on the early twentieth century and make it out to be some sort of Garden of Eden. I am constantly receiving forwards from older generations lauding the simplicity, honesty, and purity of that period. And they are always wishing the characteristics of that time into the modern age.

But it irritates me to no end because it is so, so wrong. I certainly do not long to be living in a time when one of the greatest flaws was a severe lack of equality between all people. We have enough of that now, we don't need to revert back to a time of pronounced inequality for people of color, women, and especially any other variation in religion or sexuality. But, Peggy Sue has warped back in time to her high school days, the always ideally represented 50's, and is alternately confused and excited to see everything the way it used to be. She walks into her house and (I'm anticipating this from watching it previously) finds herself face to face with her mother. And in spite of the hated idealization, I find myself misty over the thought of a non-existent mother, loving and supportive, with whom I could have been overjoyed to see again in the setting of my youth. It made me chuckle at myself, thinking that if I had experienced the same thing as Peggy Sue, I would run screaming the other direction before walking back into my old house during my high school years.

Yet, on walks Peggy, up to her room to peruse all her lost treasures of old. I've dismissed the notion of nostalgia for my own life, promising in the back of my mind to be the mother I never had, when in walks Peggy Sue's sister.

That's the kind of thing that just brick wall's me because it is so unexpected. I find myself with tears streaming down my face as Peggy Sue fawns over a sister with whom she never had a relationship, trying to make up for lost time by playing a board game with her. As an adult, Peggy realizes what she didn't know as a teenager: she really loves her sister and wants to know her better.

Damn it.

I would go back in time. I'd give anything to do it, even brave the hell hole that was my old house, just to see her again and maybe spend some time with her.