Category: Friends of Mine

Friends of Mine, Women Worth Knowing

Meet Miss Pistol

the outside lane

I tell you what, I know some of the most interesting people in the world.  I am just lucky that way.  And you’re lucky because I like introducing people.  I should really get back to work on the Women Worth Knowing Project, but while I am procrastinating about that, I can’t let you miss Miss Pistol.

I was sitting in a training session for work, talking with a colleague, only to find out that she is the owner/operator of the Miss Pistol Ladies Gun Club and Concealed Handgun Training school.  I was giddy and squirmy because I secretly enjoy shooting at things, but I know that’s not politically correct or ladylike, and so often you say “gun” only to have someone shout “control!”  I don’t like shooting at people or animals, and I don’t like video game shooting, but I love nailing targets.  I begged for an air rifle until I got one for my 12th birthday, and I spent a lot of time making my own targets and shooting at cans.

Meet Miss Pistol.

From her website, Miss Pistol says:

I didn’t even hold a real gun in my dainty little hands until my early twenties when I first started living alone. I did do some damage with a bb gun when I was a kid but that’s another story. My dad let me borrow his handgun to try and keep me out of harms way. When I got it home, I literally picked it up with my index finger and my thumb, like you would a dead rat, and gingerly placed it in my nightstand. I felt safer but I worried about it. What if “harms way” literally knocked on my door or worse… barreled through it? The most I would have probably done was point the gun at him for a few seconds until he figured out I was more scared of the gun than him and just snatch it from me.

Luckily for me, my boyfriend wouldn’t leave me alone about learning how to use my dad’s gun, and was a willing and able tutor. He took me to the gun range for the first time and taught me how to handle a gun safely and how to shoot it. He even paid for me to get a Texas Concealed Handgun License, and shortly thereafter, I bought my own gun. In learning how guns work I’ve learned to respect their power yet not be too scared of them anymore. I’m confident in my shooting accuracy and feel safe knowing my gun can help me protect myself if ever needed.

I’m always so amazed at how my girl friends are astonished that I carry a gun, and it finally dawned on me that that many girls (and even men) aren’t as lucky as I am. They may not have grown up around guns, or maybe don’t have friends that could help them out. If they are independent and brave enough to try to learn about guns on their own they are bound to walk into a world filled with confusing terminology, acronyms, and scary looking fellows that could not get on a beginners level if they tried!

Not any more. Every post on MissPistol.com is guaranteed to be clear and concise without using confusing terminology or acronyms. You’ll find helpful images and videos to make learning easy. Together we’ll remove the fear and fog surrounding guns, and have fun doing it!

Tell me this doesn’t look like an awesome gun club!

I know guns are a loaded issue.  They should be.  Guns should be taken very seriously, and gun safety should be taken very seriously.  (I was thinking about that watching Once Upon a Time, last week.  I wonder how many people have accidentally shot someone, copying media interpretations of gun-handling?)  Harm’s Way has come barreling through my door before, and I did have access to a gun, but I was afraid to touch it back then.  My situation was resolved when one of my home invaders chickened out and ran, and the others ran after him, but it could very easily have gone the other way.  Even the 9-1-1 operator was concerned that I wasn’t armed to defend myself.  That’s why I am glad for women like Miss Pistol, who are striving to make it safer for women to arm themselves.

I intend to sign up for her December CHL class so I can learn properly.  And then I’m joining that gun club and I’m going to go shoot at things!  (Like her nifty Flower Power targets–because I really don’t enjoy shooting at shapes of people.  I don’t even want to shoot paper people.)

Follow Miss Pistol on Twitter

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Explaining the Strange Behavior, Family, Friends of Mine, parenting, Thor

What Kind of Pizza do You Like?

the outside lane

I see pizza a something of a perfect food.  You can eat it with your hands, or with utensils.  You can load it with veggies, with meats, with cheeses, with sauces of all variations and nutritional values.  It’s easy to cook.  It’s easy to serve.  And, as a bonus, most people really enjoy it.  Nothing in the world wrong with a pizza.

That said, I won’t touch one that has sausage on it.  I hate sausage.  I’m weird about meat, and if there is any potential for gristle, or fat, or anything that resembles where the meat comes from (like tendons, veins, you get the idea), I won’t eat it.  Sausage is a gristle fest.  So, no matter how good it smells, how much the gooey cheese makes my mouth water, I won’t touch it.  I don’t even want to pick the sausage off because inevitably there will be a little ball of it hidden somewhere under all that delicious cheese, and I will be the one to bite into it, and it will be a hidden ball of gristle, which will ruin the entire experience for me.  I just-say-no to sausage pizza.

One of my sweet friends called the other night, worried that her daughter was dealing with a pre-school mean girl.  Meangirl was taunting our Princess, saying she hated her, didn’t want to play with her because she didn’t like her, and (more worrisome, even though they are all 4 year olds) that she’d like to kill her.  She asked me if I would tell the Princess to confront and challenge the Meangirl, or if I would tell the Princess to try to come to some peaceful understanding with the Meangirl.  My advice was to tell that little Princess about pizza.

When Thor was about that age, he had a boy he wanted to play with, and that boy kept telling Thor he hated him and insisting that Thor go away.  When I was trying to figure out how to approach it, I wanted to do a few things:

  1. Explain to Thor that there was nothing wrong with him and help him maintain his self-esteem and self-confidence.
  2. Explain to Thor that other people have the right to avoid contact if they want to.

The first because he is my boy, and I want him to feel good about himself.  I want him to be able to make good choices in the future, and good choices start with healthy self-esteem.  The second because I never want to get a phone call saying that my son has forced himself on someone–get my drift?  So I’ve wanted him to understand that no-means-no from an early age.  He has the right to say no, and so does everyone else.  I talked to him about pizza.

We all like pizza, I told him, but we all like different flavors.  We laughed about my sausage issues, and how he hates veggies on his, but we agreed that any pizza is ultimately good pizza–just sometimes the toppings get in the way.  I said that people are like that.  We’re all good and worthwhile, but some of us have toppings that others of us don’t care for.  You can’t argue with taste.

I told him that if Little Johnny didn’t want to play with him, that was okay.  Little Johnny liked cheese pizza, and Thor was a pepperoni pizza.  I told him that he should leave Little Johnny alone, to stop trying to force him into friendship (or trying to change to be what Little Johnny wanted in a playmate), and to go find himself some people who are into pepperoni*.  And, I told him I bet if he left Little Johnny alone, Little Johnny might see that pepperoni pizza isn’t so bad, and maybe Little Johnny would want to come play later.

Imagine my surprise–and I’m being honest here–when that worked.

Imagine my surprise when I realized it worked for me, too.

In Dianne Brill’s book, Boobs, Boys, and High Heels, she talks about the art of creating the perfect social donut.  Everywhere you go, there are cliques, or donuts of people.  At the center of every donut is the social cream.  The idea is to make friends with the center of every donut so that you end up as the social cream of the most awesome donut in the place–and end up as friends of all the donut rings by proxy.  You can’t be that awesome donut cream if you are a follower, if you are easily led astray by peer pressure, or if you lack self-confidence.

I want Thor to always be confident in his worth as an individual, and not seek to find his validation through the approval of others.  That’s why it is important for him to understand that it is okay if someone else doesn’t like him**.  That’s normal.  That’s the world.  He doesn’t have to conform.  He doesn’t have to change.  All he has to be is respectful of other people, respectful of himself, and 100% Thor.  The same goes for that Princess.  All she needs to be is herself.  It’s okay if Bullygirl doesn’t like her–Meangirl probably just doesn’t think she likes pineapple on her pizza.

What kind of pizza are you? 

(I am a half cheese, half pepperoni with pineapples and green olives.)

 

*Note that this isn’t a situation where another child was actively seeking to hurt Thor.  It was just a kid who didn’t want to play with him, and only became vocal when Thor tried to insert himself.

**It’s okay if people don’t like you because you just aren’t their taste.  That is normal.  If you never meet anyone who likes you, then there might be a greater issue at hand. 

 

A Day in the Life, Friends of Mine, GNO

Mother, Monet I?

the outside lane

I kept seeing photos of friends at corporate team-building painting parties, and I was so jealous!  So, I decided to find one of these painting party places and organize an adventure.  For my October GNO, I invited about a thousand people to come along to Painting With a Twist in Dallas to paint a scene from Monet’s Venice.  We would be doing an impression of the great Impressionist himself.  Fun!

Painting with a Twist is BYOB, so I bought a massive bottle of Lambrusco and a couple of bags of Ghirardelli chocolates to share, and picked up a Cosmopolitan magazine because the cover looked like hilarious amounts of fun, and off I went.

 

 

Me, all smocked up, showing off the femur-length bottle of wine I brought. It’s fancy. You can find the Reunite Lambrusco served in fine establishments, such as the Olive Garden.

At Painting With a Twist, you walk in to find your place set up with your canvas on an easel, your paint and paintbrushes waiting for you, and a super friendly, super helpful, super supportive staff there to walk you along from blank canvas and your terrified googly eyes, to a masterpiece and face shining with pride (or too much wine.)  Our team was Victoria, who guided us through the painting process, and Amber, who walked among us offering encouragement, tips, and clean-up supplies for those of us who needed them.  (I only dropped one paintbrush full of paint on the floor, narrowly missing Karen’s purse.)

You come to paint, and the shop prepares. That’s my sweet friend Amy peeking out from between blank canvasses there.

 

If you are intimidated by the blank page, I think this is a great way to overcome the fear of the empty and start making art.  You’re surrounded by friends (or just friendly people, as the come-alone-guy who sat to my left discovered–he drank a LOT of my wine) and support, and fun outweighs the fear of failure.

What’s more fun than getting a little dirty with your favorite friends? Especially when you don’t have to think about the clean-up!

 

We all ended up having a terrific time, and produced varying likenesses of Monet’s work.  But I must emphasize that it was the fun that made this $45 of worthwhile.  I will definitely be going again.

Karen, Leslieann, Amy and I all had a great time. I love how different our paintings are, when we were all following the exact same instructions.

 

Our instructor had a lot of suggestions for what to do with our finished work:  In-Law Christmas present, White Elephant Exchange, Bathroom Art.  Thor claimed mine, but said he’d like to put it in his closet.  Ha!

My masterpiece resides in Thor’s closet. Facing the wall. I think he was taking one for the team by claiming it, and he knew exactly where to put it.

 

 

Friends of Mine, guest article, Politics

Droning On Indefinitely

the outside lane

As you know, my husband used to blog for Free Air and Water with his friend Jon–they really need to bring that back.  Let’s start a petition!  Jon is a favorite of mine to read when it comes to–well, anything he writes about.  So, I thought I would do us all a favor and ask him to write a guest article for The Outside Lane.  I asked Jon to write about the Obama Administration’s war policy, drone strikes in particular.  I am distressed by the casual dismissal of civilian life as acceptable collateral damage, and truly concerned with indefinite detention of citizens.  

This isn’t your usual Lip Gloss blog from me, but it is extremely important information.  Neither Jon, nor I will tell you how to vote, how we think you should vote, and I won’t tell you how I am voting (other than to say, “Ugh! Is this all I have to choose from?!”), but as Jon said, no matter which party or platform you support: “The power you trust ‘your guy’ with will be exercised by the other guy.”  Be informed about how we are treating innocents during wartime, and how we are gearing up to treat our own citizens.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Jon:

Since September 11th, 2001, the United States government has launched at least 330 drone strikes on Pakistan and at least 28 in Yemen. The uncertainty exists because this program, despite being commonly known, remains officially secret. These drones, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), are relatively new and raise a number of troubling questions. The manner in which they are employed raises many more.

Before I begin, let me say that I am deliberately starting with the basics and am not trying to condescend to anyone. Lane has been kind enough to offer me her audience and I do not mean to talk down to you, however, this issue is so important that I want to be certain I am as clear as I can be and that everyone, whatever their previous level of engagement with this issue, is able to understand the issue and the arguments I am making.

Much has been said about drones and their capacity for “remote controlled death.” In itself this is hardly new; artillery crews have been bringing death from afar for centuries. However, these aircraft are able to remain airborne for long periods, are relatively unobtrusive, are inexpensive compared to conventional aircraft, and most importantly do not put American pilots at risk. They are not, in Yemen and Pakistan, being employed in lieu of artillery or conventional aircraft. Their greater precision relative to artillery and conventional airstrikes makes them more tolerable for the Yemeni and Pakistani governments, which see the targets of these strikes as a common enemy. If drones did not exist or were not employed, we would not be shelling or bombing Pakistan and Yemen; we simply would not be engaged in these countries. Therefore, the common argument that these strikes are “better” because they “spare” civilians is fallacious.

Further, how many civilians have been killed? Despite claims of certainty, we simply do not know. Whenever you hear administration officials or media personalities claiming that these strikes have killed some vanishingly small number of civilians, remember that the administration officially classifies all dead males as militants unless proven otherwise. That is to say, if a drone strike kills fifteen men, all fifteen are classed militants unless they are conclusively proven not to be. They are guilty until proven innocent, and no effort is made to prove them innocent. Considering that these societies often strictly segregate men and women, they feature few mixed gatherings, and thus these strikes- usually targeted on a man- will generate large numbers of male casualties, casualties that are all described, by the administration and by the compliant media, as “militants.” The unfortunate truth is that we simply have no idea how many innocents have been killed in these attacks.

The use of drones to expand the battlefield and the near-certainty that they are killing more innocents than we are told are in themselves troubling enough. However, the Obama administration has expanded their use in another, extremely troubling way- these drones have been used to carry out the extrajudicial killing of American citizens.

Here I want to digress into history. The idea that a government cannot put citizens to death without trial is an extremely old one. It is not a modern notion. It is not a right created by the ACLU in litigation before the Supreme Court. It was not dreamed up by hippies, left-wingers, or bleeding hearts. It dates back, in the West, to those sternest of stern, hard men, the Romans, who exiled Cicero for executing rebels without trial upon the advice of the Senate. It was first claimed in the Anglo-Saxon world not by starry-eyed dreamers but by the English barons at Runnymede in 1215, who in the Magna Carta asserted that “no free man shall be taken, imprisoned, or in any other way destroyed except by the lawful judgment of his peers.” In its modern form, as the writ of habeas corpus (Latin for “you shall present the body”), it dates to 1640, when the English Parliament, outraged by King Charles I ordering the imprisonment and execution of Englishmen from his secret Star Chamber, passed the Habeas Corpus Act.

The right to free from imprisonment and execution without trial is a right older and more fundamental than freedom of speech, freedom of religion, or freedom from slavery. It antedates by centuries such basic notions as women’s suffrage and the abolition of serfdom. And it is under attack.

The Obama administration has established a new Star Chamber and called it due process. Targets for drone strikes are chosen in secret meetings of administration officials, with the final decision resting with the President himself. So far, this Star Chamber has ordered the execution of Anwar al-Awlaki and, in a separate attack, his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. This man and his son were both American citizens, and they were both executed by the American government without trial and without even the opportunity for trial. Neither was ever indicted. The elder al-Awlaki created a number of videos for YouTube and authored a number of articles calling for jihad against the United States government. The younger was nothing but his father’s son. However, what is important to keep in mind is that our government is not supposed to be permitted to kill citizens without trial, whatever henious crimes they are accused of. We try unrepentant child molesters, confessed serial killers, armed robbers caught on camera.

Perhaps the objection will be made that these citizens were beyond the reach of the American government. First, this claim is demonstrably false by the fact of their execution. Second, other criminals beyond the reach of our government are not summarily executed. Roman Polanski, accused of the oral, anal and vaginal rape of a young girl, has not been executed by drone. Instead the legal forms are observed, his extradition requested, and when denied, statements are issued. Perhaps attempting the capture of the al-Awlakis would have risked the lives of American soldiers. We routinely risk the lives of American policemen who attempt to apprehend armed and dangerous suspects; we do not simply rocket the house we believe the suspects to be in. We do this because these legal forms are not mere formalities; they are the very foundation of liberty, of what it means to be free men and women. If our government can execute at will, we have lost our freedom and exist only on the sufferance of whoever the President happens to be.

Perhaps you are saying, “So what? I’m not a terrorist nor do I associate with terrorists, and besides, it was only two people.” It is important to remember the tremendous significance of precedents in our system. These executions, if allowed to go unchallenged and unpunished, will establish ordering the deaths of citizens as one of the powers of the President provided he thinks very hard about it and talks to a number of his appointed lackeys about it first.

Perhaps you trust President Obama with this power. That has been the response of certain administration lickspittles to concerns about extraconstitutional activities by the President. However, even if you have absolute faith in Obama and the Democratic Party, remember that just eight short years ago this country re-elected George W. Bush and will no doubt elect another Republican president before the decade is out. The power you trust “your guy” with will be exercised by the other guy, and having defended their existence now, you will not have much ground to stand on then.

So what can you do now? At this point, the most important thing is spreading awareness. I would like to thank Lane for giving me this forum and if you, having read this essay of mine share my concern for the ancient right of free men and women to be free from the threat of execution without trial, feel free to share it further or to write your own. Discuss these attacks with your friends and family and consider them before you cast your vote or advocate for a particular candidate in November. I will refrain from advising you how to vote, but you should be aware that both major party candidates support these drone strikes as well as the extrajudicial killing of American citizens. Once the right to a trial is lost, it will be very difficult to win back, and we are at the point of losing it if we do not stand up and defend it.

books, Explaining the Strange Behavior, Friends of Mine, Inside Lane, Politics, Religion

Books, Cures, and Poor, Poor Baby Jesus (Updated)

the outside lane

I started a new book.  I can’t tell yet if it is good.  I’m two chapters in and the story has my attention, but the writer writes exactly the way I speak, and I find myself-in-other-people annoying, so I can’t decide whether or not to enjoy it.  I will end up with a grudging appreciation for it, as I do most things that remind me of myself. 

It is funny how we can be repelled by our own personalities.  My dearest friends are usually very different from me.  I gravitate toward big personalities (admittedly, I am one of those), but behind those big personalities are methodical, organized, slow-burning characters.  I have come to realize that the reason I get so irritated with short-fused, paranoid, self-effacing, mercurial talkers is because I am a short-fused, paranoid, self-effacing, mercurial talker.  (Thus, the heroine of the new novel is infuriating, being the poster child for above flaws.)

I do idealize solid people.  I idealize people who are doing the jobs they went to college to learn, and who have done the same jobs for entire career spans.  This fascinates and intrigues me.  To date, the longest I have ever stayed with one industry is five years.  Granted, I have returned to that industry (it also being the industry I most enjoyed), but I don’t feel like that counts because I only returned one peg above where I left it off 15 years ago.  I am in awe of people who commit to a course of career and keep it.

(Telaryn let me know that, “Reports are coming in that the statement is a parody and not, in fact, attributable to Akin.”  Good to know!  I found this retraction/correction.)