Category: Uncategorized

On my way back from a networking meeting, I turned on NPR and caught part of the Diane Rehm show.  Today, Diane was talking about bullying and her guests were (from the website) Kelby Johnson, a gay teenager from Oklahoma whose story is featured in the documentary “Bully.”  Lee Hirsch, Sundance- and Emmy-award winning filmmaker, directed the documentary “Bully.”  Dr. Joseph Wright, pediatrician, senior vice president, Child Health Advocacy Institute at Children’s National Medical Center.  And, Duane Thomas, assistant professor, Applied Psychology and Human Development Division of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, consultant to the documentary “Speak Up!”

A caller dialed in to talk about how her daughter was harrassed into hysteria (and a cafeteria-table jumping outburst) over the AIDs related death of her father, and how ill-equipped, or unwilling the school was to protect the 9th grade child from her personally global torment.  It reminded me of my 6th grade year, and how ill-equipped, or unwilling the school was to protect me from my own tormentors, culminating in my own hysterical outburst in the middle of a classroom.  It tells as a funny story now, but at the time I was beside myself with anguish, frustration, and absolute helplessness at the hands of the girls who had made it their day’s fun to see me cry.

Diane’s guests talked about the bravery of the 9th grade girl for just getting up and going to school, and the bravery it took to make a scene at all.  And, having made a similar end to my own hurt, I agree with them.  But that’s not the bravery I want to talk about.  I want to talk about the bravery of two other people.

I don’t usually call out full names on my blog, but I think Camilla Boatwright and (a girl whose name I think was Lena Inoue, but I may be confusing Lena with another girl from the year prior–Camilla ended up at high school with me, so I had a deeper connection to her) deserve the shout-out.

After my insane outburst (screaming, throwing books across a room, and quoting Merchant of Venice at the top of my 12-year-old lungs), Camilla and Lena did something that no one else had been willing to do.  They stood up for me.

First, they came and found me.

I had gone to hide in a bathroom, and was trying to figure out how I was going to make it out of the school without being completely vaporized for my outburst.  I had decided I wasn’t going to come back.  That was going to be my last day at school, I didn’t care what my parents did to me.  Nothing they could have done was worse, and if you’d met my parents then, you understand what a personal declaration that was for me.  I was ready to tell my mother to stick it.  I wasn’t going back.  I might have ended up as a little grease spot on our kitchen wall, but I wasn’t going to be at Hockaday for another hour.

Fortunately, I never had to find out whether I was right or wrong because Camilla and Lena came and found me, cleaned me up, helped me down the hall and told me to stick with them.  From there out, they gave me a place to sit, walked with me in the halls, and made a tiny buffer between Me and Them.  And I made it.  I finished out the year.

I really don’t know what would have happened if not for the two of them, and even though we did not ever become friends (understandably, I didn’t really think I was worth their friendship at the time, and was ashamed of how much I needed their protection–but had enough sense of self-preservation to accept it!) they saved me from much worse than I’d already suffered.

If you’re reading this and you know someone who is being bullied, don’t wait for the outburst because some kids don’t make it that far along–and even if they do, by the time they get there they are so damaged it might take twenty years to recover.  Be the Camilla.  Be the Lena.

You don’t have to be aggressive.  You don’t have to be a hero.  You just have to be present.  You just walk up alongside and usher.  You just show that there is a dissenting face in the crowd.  You never have to say a word. 

You get your friends together, and you make a buffer in the warzone.  You become the UN.  You become the Peace Corps.  You become the Red Cross.  You make a difference in a life that can be the actual difference between life and death.

Doing nothing is the same as doing something in these situations, so let your something be the right thing. 

That goes for you adults, too.

Be Camilla.

I haven’t heard anything back from the National Anthem audition, and since it happened Feb. 21, and they told me letters would be sent out to winners within 3 weeks, I’m pretty sure I won’t be.  Nothing wrong with that, though.  The point was to have the experience, and I had it.  Yay!  I also gave myself the experience of submitting a video-audition through the X Factor’s website–accidentally.

That is, I fully intended to submit an audition, but I thought I was just doing a trial run, so I did it in my jammies, having just rolled out of bed, and answered the Simon Cowell questions with bemusement from under a fan, so my voice is nearly drowned out with static sounds.  I did not realize it was the actual audition.  Bwahahaha!  The interns whose job I’m sure it is to cull through the chaff will likely have a great laugh over my Buddy Holly frames and Fraggle hair.  I will be the Why Factor.  If I can figure out how to pull the video, I’ll link it.  Why should interns have all the fun?

I think I could re-record and re-submit, but I haven’t found the time yet.  Maybe I should go do that now?

Lookie here.  Look what I found.  You have to suffer through my inane answers to the interview questions to get to my 45-some-seconds of God Bless the Child.  If you click the button to “watch with questions” it will make more sense.  Well, it will have some continuity anyway.

Enjoy.

I keep writing and rewriting this entry, but I think the best thing to do is just to link you to the story I keep trying to write about.  In short, the Texas Women’s Health Program is over.  It is yet another finger thrown at women by politicians and special interest groups lobbying against women’s health care (unless the care is exactly what that special interest group thinks is in the best interest of the woman), and a sucker punch to under-insured, uninsured, impoverished women and families.

You know what?  If my tax dollars fund wars and build highways, what is the difference if my tax dollars fund someone’s health?  I would gladly, gladly (and do through charitable giving) share in the burden of healthcare costs.  I would much rather fund someone’s flu shot, than someone’s ammo clip to be emptied into innocent citizens in a warzone.  I don’t care if some people are too lazy to work for their own money–I care about the people who try hard and still can’t help themselves.

Bite me, Mitt Romney.  Bite me, Rick Santorum.  Bite me, Newt Gingrich.  I would vote for Hillary Clinton over any of you in a heartbeat.  Without question.  Without regret.  Without looking back.  I would rather socialize the entire medical system than see this.  I cannot believe I ever carried a Republican Party registration card.

Big Church, you can bite me too.  Jesus healed the sick, you morons, without ever asking which god they believed in.  He didn’t take away their access to healthcare because of how they came to need it.  I would rather dance naked in the woods and honor nature than share a pew with you.  You are disgusting.  And I understand more and more why Jesus spent his time with loan sharks and hooligans–because your sparkling clean collars are filthier than a $2 whore’s underpants.

Writer, Andrea Grimes, posted on her Hay Ladies blog today:

By the end of April, the Texas Women’s Health Program will either be a thing of the past or a shadow of its former self, as I report today for RHRealityCheck.org.

If a Republican tells you the loss of the Women’s Health Program in Texas is the Obama administration’s fault, ask them to answer one question:

1. If Republicans in Texas care so deeply about (1) saving money and (2) women’s health care, why did they slash the family planning budget, thereby increasing unwanted pregnancies, increasing abortions and increasing overall cost to taxpayers who will now be funding Medicaid births?

Guess the [frick] what: Planned Parenthood isn’t going anywhere. (And shouldn’t.) But access to reproductive and preventative care for low-income and uninsured is. As of tomorrow.

I am home earlier than usual and was flipping through channels when I came across a show that I thought was about plastic surgery.  I had watched for a few seconds before I realized it was not.  It was Big, Rich Texas.  It was horrifying.  This must be how the people of New Jersey feel about Jersey Shore.  Horrifying.

I don’t even know where to begin.  I’m still aghast at the one “character” who looked like a version of The Joker accidentally injured in an accident in a Mary Kay plant, rather than falling into industrial waste.  Whoever did the airbrushing on the photos at this cast page deserves a prize or a prison sentence for false advertising because those photos in no way represent the swirling vortex of whatinthewhore that was tottering around on too-high heels in today’s episode.  Unholy use of eyeliner, Batman!  Dang.

Please, children, do not try to emulate a group that looks like it crawled out from under a Wet ‘n Wild factory after a rough night at a half off sale in Charlotte Russe.  How is this entertainment?  It isn’t even well acted!  How could it be?  None of the faces move.

Good night.  That was just terrible.  Terrible.

I keep starting posts, then getting interrupted and forgetting they were ever begun.  Since I’m sitting up with some nasty symptoms, I may as well write a little.

I have been reading the Great Brain books to Thor at night.  We’re nearly finished with the first one and he is loving it.  I am loving that we grew ourselves a reader, who can usually be found in the wee hours cuddled up to a book, with one paw curled around a flashlight.  The boy loves to read.  If I could have hijacked myself a fairy to give him a birthright gift, I think a love of reading would have been in the top five, after health, happiness, optimism, and winning lottery numbers.

He is off at his grandparents’ house tonight, spending a few days of Spring Break with them.  I miss him like crazy when he’s gone, but we all know it’s good for kids to get a break from parents now and then.  And vice versa.

Not much else is new.  

I’ve been doing yoga a couple of times a week.  Ouch.

I need to get back into the pool, but I just don’t want to be wet.  I have too much hair now.  I know that sounds like a really lame excuse, but it’s true.  When my hair is short, or at least shorter than this, it’s easy to dry and fix.  But this long and it takes forever.  And at this length, I have to be careful of the ends, and lap swimming does nothing to their health.

Bryan keeps sending me photos of places that have shark aquariums.  I had a nightmare the other night, that I was swimming in a pool and realized it was glass-bottomed over an aquarium full of sharks.  As I was scrambling to the side of the pool and out of it, I was yelling, “What kind of crazy F invented this?!”  Because my subconscious mind is a smart-ass, it piped up into my dream that since I was the one dreaming it, I was the crazy F who had invented it.  I left the dream premises.  Didn’t even want to sit on the side of that pool.  Geez!

With that said, it’s time to try to go back to bed.  Here’s hoping I dream of something nice and happy.