Sharp Shooter vs. Sharp Tongue

Movie star good looks. Swarthy charm. Poised demeanor. Confident style. Inspiring discourse. Unfaltering courage.

We have seen this before and grasped for it in our darkest hour. Deja vu? I was but a growing fetus in my mother's belly when Bobby Kennedy was shot. My parents weren't even living in the United States then. Still, I know what that fateful moment meant. I grew up knowing the weight of the nation then and the gasps heard around the world. Indeed it was the weight of the world. We are oddly at that crossroad again.

I've been mulling over and steaming over the comments Hillary Clinton made about Robert Kennedy's assassination. The Kennedy family is coping with quite enough right now. Invoking the possibility of Obama's assassination due to Bobby Kennedy's June 1968 demise is downright cruel, reckless, twisted, and indicative of her nature during tough times. Someone else has articulated my venom much better, with more insight than vitriol. Thanks to Will for sharing this.

00. The new 0.

So there are apparently enough women out there who are 5 feet tall (like I am) and 88 pounds (definitely not me) to warrant the fashion industry creating a size 00. Now this is not new, though it is newsworthy. I'm not mathy, in fact, I like to say that I'm the only Indian in the world who is bad at math and science. OK, so that schtick is old for those who know me. Nonetheless, while I was no Mathlete, I don't recall learning about a double 00 unless there was a 7 at the end. The integer preceding 0 is -1, right? So why don't we size those doll clothes made for hideously skinny women a -1? Oh, pardon me. I meant those women who are naturally petite. Wink. Wink. I suppose a size denoted by a negative number would carry a negative perception. Because we all know that the introduction of a size 00 is completely positive. I mean, now those skeletons have a place to shop aside from the little girls' department! Oh yeah! But let's face it, even the girls' department is looking more and more hoochie everyday.

Are women really skinny enough to warrant a size 00 or are clothing designers pulling a fast one on us, creating vanity sizing to boost our egos? Either way you look at it, the practice perpetuates unhealthy, unrealistic expectations. Thin does not equal beautiful. Let's get that straight.

I am 5 feet tall. 105 pounds, give or take that time of the month when I consume more chocolate than anything else in the food pyramid. I am naturally petite. Anything smaller is plain unsightly. Unhealthy. Unnatural. Yes, I have my mushy parts, my thighs are practically Siamese twins, my arms jiggle. I can't complain...well, not too much anyway.

The fashion industry has a long history of creating unreasonable physical "norms" in our society. Girls and women of all ages fall into the trap. Present company included. I lived in a sorority house in college that had a designated puking bathroom. There was a silver spoon on the back of the toilet that the girls used to gag themselves. They'd clean up the spoon and lay it back down for the next bulimic victim. It was a secret sisterhood within a sisterhood. Gross on so many levels. I was horrified when I learned of this practice, and the house mother and sorority president turned the other way. I later found out that the sorority president was a frequent spooner. No wonder her figure looked like that of a 10-year old boy.

My childhood friend Lisa died at age 16. She was always taller than the rest of us, though being a grown woman of 5 feet tall, you can imagine that everyone was taller than me my whole life. She was chunky, but in that baby fat way that you knew she'd outgrow. I moved away and lost touch with Lisa. We were living in different cities during those gawky, confusing, teenage years when we were learning to understand our new bodies and struggling to get to know and like ourselves. Apparently Lisa's baby fat wasn't melting away with puberty so she took control of the situation. That's when she became anorexic. Severely so. After a long battle that left her body weak, decrepit, and unrecognizable, Lisa's heart gave out.

This, my friends, is what anorexia looks like. It is not sexy. Or pretty. Or desirable.

That was my first brush with death. And my first brush with eating disorders and the battle to be thin. Granted, I have been naturally thin my whole life, even being force fed protein shakes for a while to try to keep weight on my tiny frame. Ironically, I was downing calorie laden shakes at the same time Lisa was starving herself 200 miles away. One in the name of health, the other in the name of vanity.

Lisa's ideals of pretty and thin were from 1978.

Fast forward 30 years to what our little girls (and grown women) see now. Bratz dolls, Victoria's Secret Pink ads, Britney, Lindsay, Lauren, Miley, the list goes on. Even DQ has gotten into the act. An entire generation of girls worships celebrities and tries to emulate their outrageous diet fads and styles. Seriously, we're subjecting our children to unrealistic ideals from such a young, tender age. A 5-year old girl should not be worrying about her big belly, as a friend's daughter does. Such influences are coming from the flippant ways we degrade our own bodies, the flurry of inescapable marketing messages, the Disney princesses with waists the size of my upper arm, and those damn celebrity rags.

Look in any catalog, magazine, billboard, movie. You'll see women who don't relish the pure joy of butter oozing on hot bread or giggles over strawberries and homemade vanilla ice cream. What's worse is those women likely smoke to keep the weight off. And we pay them TOP DOLLAR for it. Be thin, be pretty, make a shitload of money. Be smart, be healthy, eek out a living. The pretty girl visions our children conjure up are detrimental to them both physically and emotionally. Lisa starved herself to be thin, simply a manifestation of larger, deeper self-esteem issues. It's our responsibility to arm our children with confidence, self-worth, and dignity.

What messages are we sending to girls these days? Are we encouraging them to be smart, assertive, passionate, powerful? Or pretty, demure, silent, passive? Isn't it our responsibility to society, to our girls and boys, to reinvent the definition of beauty and femininity? To establish the difference between "fit" and "skinny?" Sure, there's a severe problem with obesity in our country. The focus should be on FIT, regardless which side of the weight coin you land on.

A size 00 is an outrage. And that's coming from a girl who wore a 0 until she bore two healthy children. I've come to grips with never wearing a 0 again. I donated all those clothes, with no remorse, tears, or regrets for not having done more crunches or time on the elliptical machine. And I'm cool with that. My body carried and delivered two healthy children. Nothing defines beautiful more perfectly.

A Bad Mom Trying

Am I a bad mother if....?

I let Deal wear sunshine yellow socks to school with his gray New Balance sneakers?

I add a wee bit of sugar to my kids' cinnamon toast in the morning?

I let Bird and Deal see me naked through the glass shower door?

I use the TV as my own personal mute button to make my kids settle down so I can (pick one): breathe, pee, poop, cook dinner, check email, bid on a Trina Turk dress on eBay, order new sheets from Pottery Barn, call a friend, pet the cat, shut myself in my closet?

I tell my kids when their behavior disappoints me?

I scream at my kids just shy of letting the f-bomb drop?

I pretend to be asleep when Deal peeks into our room in the morning before 7:00AM?

I look forward to my nanny time?

I sometimes want my children to STOP. TOUCHING. ME.?

I pretend to have to go to the bathroom just to get 3 seconds of peace?

I let my kids eat Spiderman fruit snacks before dinner?

I rarely (pick one): vacuum, dust, mop, sweep, change sheets between cleaning lady visits?

I don't feel guilty for working part-time?

I don't feel guilty for missing bed time to meet friends for drinks instead?

I don't feel guilty for not feeling guilty?

I pick the books at the library that have the fewest words?

I nap during a movie at the theater, after being overstuffed with popcorn?

I don't make home baked birthday cakes, cookies, or other treats?

I don't keep a scrapbook?

I have more pictures of Bird than Deal?

I sneak fries while my kids eat fruit?

I will never make a home made Halloween costume?

I already hate of my sons' future girlfriends?

I forgot for a wee moment that I had kids while away on my girls' weekend?

I don't want to be on the PTA?

I kiss my husband in front of my kids?

I don't tolerate Raffi or other such kid tunes in my car?

I don't say bed time prayers?

I am saving for my kids' future therapy?

I stopped trying to be perfect?


Let's face it. I can't compete with the uber moms of the world. You know who you are. I used to spite you. Then I was jealous, with a hint of envy. Then I became disinterested, thinking that if I pretended you didn't exist you would go away. Now I surrender. I stopped caring. Not about Bird and Deal. About competing.

Trying to be perfect, or fit someone else's version of it anyway, sucked when we were in 8th grade. It sucked more in high school. It still sucked in the sorority days of college. I figured at the ripe age of 39 I'd be over the Queen Bee drama of womanhood, motherhood, peoplehood. I am done. I can't and won't compete. I'm in a good place, even if that means being a not-so-great mom once in a while.

How about you? Tell me your shortcomings and victories.

Tracks of Dirt and Noise

Hey, check out my mix tape! I know the fact that "mix tape" is in my vernacular ages me. I'm OK with that. I used to have one of those hand held tape recorders with the little square speaker on top and a retractable handle. That was way before the days of the Walkman, much less the iPod that I'm rockin' out to as we virtually speak. And did I mention that I'm really OK with being on the cusp of 40? Really, I am.

Here are a few melodies that comprise our theme music at Chez Dirt & Noise.

Thanks to Cara at Working Moms Against Guilt for pointing out this fun site. You too can make your own mix tapes at Mixwit.

IBC is not a rootbeer.

Few people know that three years ago I found a suspicious lump in my right breast. This was just a few months after Deal was born, so at first I thought it was just a nursing/hormonal thing. Something told me otherwise. I took my health into my own hands and got in to see my Ob/GYN immediately. Talk about listening to your body. A few days later the surgeon removed a lump almost the size of an egg. An egg! It had been hiding in a place my monthly self exam would have never detected. It was only after the lump grew and shifted that I felt it. That egg was heading over to pathology for a biopsy. A biopsy?! I'm too young for this, I thought. Why am I the youngest woman in the waiting room, I wondered.

I banished all dark, negative thoughts lurking in my 2:00 AM sleepless psyche and willed myself to think about something else any time my thoughts veered to thinking about Bird and Deal growing up without me. Mac Daddy and I barely spoke, lest we erupt in tears of fear and worry. The anxiety was eating us alive. Yes, I jumped the gun, but feeling a giant lump in your breast that wasn't there a week ago on top of having a newborn and a 2-year old can make a girl's mind do crazy things. Luckily, that lump was a lipoma. Just a lump. Nothing at all related to the dreadful C word. Bullet dodged.

Lesson learned: listen to your body and be your own advocate when something doesn't seem right. No one knows your body better than you do.

I came across the following post in the blogosphere. I am reposting it in its entirety. The post is written by a fellow mom of two boys. She is fearlessly fighting a form of breast cancer that I didn't even know existed until I read her post. Applaud her courage. Say a little prayer. Hug your children just a little tighter. Now take a look and pass it on. Consider it your good deed for the day.


"We hear a lot about breast cancer these days. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes, and there are millions living with it in the U.S. today alone. But did you know that there is more than one type of breast cancer?

I didn’t. I thought that breast cancer was all the same. I figured that if I did my monthly breast self-exams, and found no lump, I’d be fine.

Oops. It turns out that you don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer. Six weeks ago, I went to my OB/GYN because my breast felt funny. It was red, hot, inflamed, and the skin looked…funny. But there was no lump, so I wasn’t worried. I should have been. After a round of antibiotics didn’t clear up the inflammation, my doctor sent me to a breast specialist and did a skin punch biopsy. That test showed that I have inflammatory breast cancer, a very aggressive cancer that can be deadly.

Inflammatory breast cancer is often misdiagnosed as mastitis because many doctors have never seen it before and consider it rare. “Rare” or not, there are over 100,000 women in the U.S. with this cancer right now; only half will survive five years. Please call your OB/GYN if you experience several of the following symptoms in your breast, or any unusual changes: redness, rapid increase in size of one breast, persistent itching of breast or nipple, thickening of breast tissue, stabbing pain, soreness, swelling under the arm, dimpling or ridging (for example, when you take your bra off, the bra marks stay – for a while), flattening or retracting of the nipple, or a texture that looks or feels like an orange (called peau d’orange). Ask if your GYN is familiar with inflammatory breast cancer, and tell her that you’re concerned and want to come in to rule it out.

There is more than one kind of breast cancer. Inflammatory breast cancer is the most aggressive form of breast cancer out there, and early detection is critical. It’s not usually detected by mammogram. It does not usually present with a lump. It may be overlooked with all of the changes that our breasts undergo during the years when we’re pregnant and/or nursing our little ones. It’s important not to miss this one.

Inflammatory breast cancer is detected by women and their doctors who notice a change in one of their breasts. If you notice a change, call your doctor today. Tell her about it. Tell her that you have a friend with this disease, and it’s trying to kill her. Now you know what I wish I had known before six weeks ago.

You don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer.


P.S. Feel free to steal this post too. I’d be happy for anyone in the blogosphere to take it and put it on their site, no questions asked. Dress it up, dress it down, let it run around the place barefoot. I don’t care. But I want the word to get out. I don’t want another young mom — or old man — or anyone in between — to have to stare at this thing on their chest and wonder, is it mastitis? Is it a rash? Am I overreacting? This cancer moves FAST, and early detection and treatment is critical for survival.

Thank you."

Disheartened

Today I am a bit disheartened.

Yesterday I took Deal to the doctor for a nagging cough. That led us to the hospital lab for some testing. Nasal swabs on a 2-year old is not pleasant, yet Deal was an utter super champ. He even thanked the nurses as they gave him a firetruck sticker and a Dum Dum lollipop. It was of course no big deal for us to go the doctor, pay the $15 copay, head to the hospital lab, get a $7 prescription filled. We are thankfully well-insured. Mac Daddy's company takes good care of its people. Plus, though we are not wildly wealthy, we are among the top echelon of Americans who live more than comfortably.

Mac Daddy and I spend wisely and are not frivolous people (as long as you don't count the occasional shopping spree -sales racks only). We believe in donating money and time because there are plenty of lives that are worse off than whatever self pity we feel. We are the world's best tippers. We treat our nanny as part of the family, not as hired help. Think about your creature comforts. A cleaning lady? DVR? 100 pairs of shoes? Sure, we splurge and waste money. We treat ourselves to luxuries. That's because what are necessities to us are luxuries to a whole host of others. And I'm not just talking about the Sally Struthers kids in ads in faraway countries. I mean right here. Under our noses. Among us.

I have never in my life worried about where my next meal would come from. My family answered my growling belly with plates of chicken curry and rice, spinach lasagna, and the occasional Doritos or Oreos. I have always had a roof, a very nice one at that, over my head. I took college for granted. Of course I was going, and of course my parents would pay for it. Same for boarding school, trips abroad, and vacations to Hilton Head and Palm Beach. I never was denied medical care, no matter how big or small the ailment.

Now what about all those people who don't live like I do? What about the kids who wouldn't have the benefit of going to the doctor, much less the hospital? Deal just had a nagging cough, nothing life threatening. That's because we can afford to get him the care he needs to prevent minor ailments from exacerbating into something nasty. Deal and Bird also have a bedroom to themselves, with full size beds no less. A loving, secure, comfortable, clean home. Emotional and financial security go a long way.


The state of our healthcare is shameful. A disgrace. Shambles. We have hit rock bottom. Are you listening in your ivory towers on the Hill? A basic level of healthcare is a right, one that our forefathers promised us. Now imagine if your son died because you couldn't afford to take him to the dentist. The dentist! One thing leads to another so the seemingly simple toothache could point to bigger issues. I once volunteered with a boy whose cancer was spotted by his dentist. Think about how many parents must weigh the expense of basic medical care with dinner on the table. This is a reality, not some media hyperbole. We, as a nation, are in denial.

Don't get me started on the insurance business. What a deplorable bunch of louts.

For now, I will be angry until I find a way to transfer this rage into something more productive. Luckily Deal is doing well. There's nothing that a humidifier, some meds, his teddy bear, and a giant dose of TLC won't cure. And let's not forget the follow up doctor's visit next week.

More on why Obama got my vote.

A must read.

I know the North Carolina primary is over, but the general election is nipping at our heels. The link above articulately states the many reasons I support Barack Obama. Take a look and make your own judgments.

Here's more fodder to consider.