Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

Hellions On Earth

Becoming a parent is more than a function of biology.

It is a function of love.  It is a commitment to the well being of another person.  It is countless sleepless nights, frightened tears, moments so euphoric you believe nothing will ever top them.  It is a function of selflessness, of a willingness to step between the child and any bullet, train, car, plane that may threaten his/her safety. 

Parenting is a job.  It is a grind.  It is exhausting, exasperating, heartbreaking.

Most of all, it is a privilege.

Or it should be.

God knows there are too many children born into this world not out of love, but out of unprotected sex.  Born to people who have not clue one about being selfless.  Miscreants whose maturity level matches their shoe size.  Careless human beings who marginalize, neglect, take for granted, and fail to nurture the children in their lives.

I love my children.  Beyond reason, beyond measure, oftentimes beyond sanity.  There is nothing I would not do for them, no threat I would not face to keep them safe.  Their happiness, their security,  their dreams are paramount to me.  Their every breath is how I breathe.

I simply cannot imagine being any other way. 

That's why stories of child abuse not only break my heart, they make me see red.  Blood red.  As in the only thing I want to see are rivers of the abuser's blood draining the life from their worthless bodies.

Hell, I'm not that patient.  I would  gladly offer up my Dyson to more quickly suck the lifeflow from their worthless bodies.

This is Jessica Howell of Missouri.  I won't mince words.  She is a sack of shit.  But she is a princess compared to this "Prince," Jordan Prince.

"Sack of shit" does a disservice to sacks of shit.  No, this is the most putrid, fetid, squallid piece of flesh imagineable.

You see, he and Jessica were boyfriend/girlfriend.  She had a four month old daughter named Ashlynn.

Yes, HAD. 

Because she offered her tiny, trusting, helpless child up to Prince so that he could have sex with her.  Text messages sent from her to him are disturbing even to seasoned, jaded police officers.

FOUR. MONTHS. OLD.

Of course, already having earned his sex offender credentials back in 2007, he jumped at the chance. 

She died from her horrific injuries.  I could list them here, but I won't.  She was four months old, he is a fat pig of a man.  You do the math.

They both sit in jail cells.  Which is far more than they deserve.

They deserve pain.  They deserve the brutality they dished out.  They deserve the tortures of the Dark Ages.  They do not deserve consideration, support, or even one more intake of oxygen.

You cannot fix something so broken.  Something this wrong, this unfeeling, this callous, this indulgent, this reprehensible must simply be exterminated.

I am a parent.  A REAL parent.  And all I want is brutal, bloody, painful revenge.

Rest in peace, baby Ashlynn.  I am so sorry this world let you down.

It's Alexandra's Day!

The Lord Is My (German) Shepherd...

Forgive me father, for I am about to sin...

People claim to see Mary or Jesus just about everywhere.  Oil slicks, windows, toast, chicken nuggets, stains - you know, all the places the Almighty and his mom choose to manifest because, well, if you go by location, they are both bored and big practical jokers.

I roll my eyes every time someone opens a bag of crackers and weeps at the sight of Jesus on a Trisket.  I laugh as folks line up to pay to see the Holy See in a molded piece of chicken parts.  And I am stymied by the reverence shown each time a grilled cheese congeals forth the image of God in Gruyere.

I am not religious.  Because religion brings forth crap like this.  Do I have faith?  Yes.  I do.

I have complete faith that God, Jesus, Mary and the gang would not be flattered by this latest sighting.

Yes, that is the ass of a dog.  The Almighty's face actually being made from the orifice.

If I were the person/people who believe this, I would fall to my knees now, start begging forgiveness and praying.

Asses to asses, dust to dust...

 

Oh, Say Can You See ... Beyond The Color Of Someone's Skin?

 The year is 2013.  Since this country's inception we have made tremendous strides in our decency to others, our embracing of equality, our humanity. 

The year is 2013.  We have so very, very far to go.

It matters not that we elected the first President with dark skin.  (Sorry, those of you who are still peeing down your legs at losing - TWICE - he may look black, but he is half white.)  Bigotry, and it's support system:  Ignorance and Hatred, are alive and unwell in these United States.

Fear of "the other,"  the embracing of nonexistent bogeymen (someone tell me, when IS Obama coming fer yer guns?), a complete lack of acknowledgment of FACTS, and a complete acceptance of willful stupidity still run rampant.

Exhibit A:  This amazing, beautiful, gifted child.

His name is Sebastian de la Cruz.  He is 11 years old, a mariachi singer, and yes, despite his tannish appearance, IS, and always has been, a citizen of this country.  His father served in the Navy for this country as well.

Question:  I guess if being a mariachi singer and wearing the outfit makes him an illegal alien from Mexico, does that make all the girls who strap on those fake curls, hefty shoes, and costumes leprechaun illegals from Ireland?  NO.  It makes them what they are, what he is, a citizen who pursues a hobby, a passion, probably in a strip mall in suburbia somewhere.

But back to Sebastian.  He sang the National Anthem at the NBA playoffs and did a masterful job.

What happened next is sickening, although not surprising.

The Twittersphere puked forth its assholes, racists, rednecks, KKK applicants, and glut of absofuckinglutely STUPID cretins.

These are the same folks who are having strokes over the latest study showing that there are now more brown people than white people under the age of 5 in this country.  (Fuck faster, white people, fuck faster!) They should be ashamed, but as they prove over and over, shame is not something with which they are familiar.  Neither is history, decency, or the level of their own inbecility.

And yes, Sebastian is aware of the ugliness directed at him.  But Sebastian has, in his 11 years, more maturity, grace, and intelligence than these walking sacks of anal leakage ever will.

His response?

“On the positive remarks, I just want to thank everybody for their support. With the racism remarks, to be honest, it’s just the people how they were raised. My father and my mother told me that you should never judge people by how they look. You should judge them on the inside. And the saying that I go by is never judge a book by its cover.”

 

This child, this AMERICAN, is one to be proud of.  Not just because he is talented, but because he is hope that the voices of a new generation will eventually drown out those losers who may have been born in this country, but truly have no right to sing its song.

Final thought:  I am so proud to have raised three daughters who do not live a life bathed in fear, homophobia, bigotry, or ignorance.  And yes, of course they see when someone has a different skin color than theirs.  But you know what?  IT DOESN'T MEAN A THING TO THEM.

The Eyes Have It (And Probably Need Some Ointment)

It takes all kinds.

But as I have said on countless occasions, "I don't know why."

On a planet as peopled as ours, it stands to reason that someone, somewhere will get into something, regardless of how alien, ridiculous, or gross it may seem to you or I.

Yes, yes, yes - that may be a food, a reality TV show, a sports team, or a reality TV show about a gourmet sports team, but that's normal.  Tame.  Expected.  I may not get the appeal of the Kardashians, but obviously many do, and it doesn't hurt anyone else that they love to tune into the escapades of stiletto shod garbage.

Not that I have an opinion.

No, what I am talking about right now takes us into the murky, TITillating, scintillating world of fetishes.

And lord, there is definitely a plethora of "pleasureable" pasttimes out there.

We have all heard and joked about whips and chains, leather and lace, an errant plug here and there (you know where there is).  And we roll our eyes and wrinkle our noses in disgust when we hear of those who find sexual stimulation via the Fritoed feet of another.  (Unless, of course, that's your thing, and I just lost you as you fantasize about someone's chipped up, scaley, calloused love hooves.)

I may not get the appeal of being painted with latex only to have it peeled off like a five day old sunburn.   And I personally don't correlate asphyxiation with anything that would pique the curiosity of my nippleage either.   But that's ok.

Just like the old trash-treasure axiom, it can be said that one person's nausea is another's ecstacy.

Dress like stuffed animals and rut like wild boars.  Shower in the liquid leftovers of your lover.  Wear a mask, make a fist, pull some hair, drip some wax, plug a hole, clamp a nip, or burn through some Duracells.

If it makes you and your partner happy, no one's getting hurt, and all are consenting - then draw the shades, close the doors, and ride that furry squirrel to Happy Town.

Now, I like to think I have an open mind, that I am not exactly a prude, that I have a fairly wide knowledge of what passes for kink in this world, but I must admit that tonight, I was once again reminded that there are still so many things for me to learn...

For there are, scattered across this big blue marble of ours, folks who want to eyeball you.

And I do not mean stare at your fineness.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but in this case, mouthmeat is in the eye of the beholder.

Yes, there is a fetish call worming.  And it involves having your eyeball licked by another person for sexual gratification.

Let me repeat.

HAVING. YOUR. EYEBALL. LICKED.

I'll pause while you reach for the Visine.

One young lady interviewd for the story - Electrika Energias (pardon me whilst I roll my eyes and think that's not her real name) says, "My boyfriend started licking my eyeballs years ago and I just loved it. I'm not with him anymore, but I still like to ask guys to lick my eyeballs.  I just love it because it turns me on, like sucking on my toes. It makes me feel all tingly."

But lest you think she goes around making bedroom eyes at just anyone, think again.  She may not be monacled in her view of this fetish, but she only has eyes for a select bunch.  "I don't ask just anyone to do it. Guys I like a lot are more likely to not think it's so weird. I've never had anyone turn me down though."

Geez, my eye is watering again.  Hold on...

Look, anyone who wears contacts has been admonished to NEVER use saliva to moisten their own contacts.  There's a reason.  Our mouths are full of bacteria (and leftover lunch) that have no business anywhere near our retinas.

Oculolinctus (yeah, like the tongue gymnastics that Michael Douglas claims gave him throat cancer, only for the windows to the soul) can literally be a sight for sore eyes, not the least of which is conjunctivitis.

But just like the idiots who abound on Youtube attempting to down a huge spoonful of cinnamon - you are just a single search away from endless videos of peeper porn because folks like Electrika like to tempt fate and always keep an eye out for eye candy.

"I got some weird offshoot of TB in my eye once. I ended up with corneal ulcers and I spent like a month in the hospital," she said. "Nobody really knows why. Well, I got over it, and I'm fine now. That was like six years ago.  I'm just safer now, I guess ... Live and learn. I mean they don't really make tongue rubbers, but maybe they should."

Tongue rubbers.  What's next?  Lube by Bausch & Lomb?  Feast your eyes on THAT.

Electrika, honey, we will never see eye to eye about this one.

Hope.

Darkness set in, yet the digging continued. 

Darkness set in, yet we stayed awake waiting for updates.

Darkness set in, yet the light that distinguishes us from all other life burned bright.

HOPE.

Hope is what spurs the rescuers on. 

Hope that they will find yet one more survivor to add to the 101 who have been dug out by hand since yesterday's storm.

Hope that a child may yet be found alive in a void in the wreckage that remains of Plaza Towers.

Hope will keep us glued to the news today and in the days to come.

Hope will tell the fatigue in the rescuers muscles, the exhaustion in their minds to take a hike.

Hope will turn ordinary citizens into rescuers.  Hope will allow strangers to turn their backs on their own loss in order to help another.  Hope will galvanize a community, a state, a nation, a globe.

Hope will find survivors amid the rubble, and hope will be what also finds further loss of life.  Hope will give joy today, but it will also give grief.  But in that grief, there will ultimately come closure. 

Hope is our greatest asset.  It is why, even in the face of repeated hardship, trauma, devastation, loss of life, and unimaginable horrors, we the people survive, reach out, rebuild, and move forward.

Because with each breath we are able to take, we cannot help but breathe in life. 

And as long as we have life, as long as we have our humanity, we have what insures our survival:  HOPE.

Gone With The Wind

Like people around the world, I have sat staring at my television screen this afternoon and evening, mouth agape, hand to my heart as the extent of the devastation visited upon Oklahoma has been revealed.

Moore has been destroyed.  Leveled.  Neighborhoods, businesses, stables, farms - and most heartwrenching, schools.  Schools that were filled with frightened children at the end of their schoolday.

At this writing, they are saying there are 51 confirmed deaths so far, 20 of them children, 7 of those are children who were in the Plaza Towers elementary school that was obliterated. 

Like Sandy Hook, when we all tried to wrap our minds around the nightmare visited upon the parents of those sweet children, it is simply impossible to truly grasp the horror, the anguish, being experienced by the parents whose children were in Plaza Towers, whose children may still be trapped beneath the rubble of Plaza Towers.  24 children still remain unaccounted for in that school alone.

There is no estimate of those missing or dead in the warzone that spreads for miles.  This town has not simply been mutilated, it has been amputated.  What it was this morning has been cut down, cut off, destroyed.  The thriving suburb is gone.

Lives have been changed in the blink of an eye, the blowing of the wind.  Rudy and I have been there.  We know what it is like to have one minute, to not have the next.  But what we lost were things.  THINGS can be replaced.  THINGS do not matter.  Not TVs, not cars, not silverware or dishes, not even your photo albums or bronzed baby shoes. 

THINGS DO NOT MATTER.  Things may make life more comfortable, but without life, THINGS matter not.  Without breath, a home and hearth are empty.  Without laughter, a school is just a building.  Without heart, without soul, a community cannot exist.

People across this country will rally to their aid.  THINGS will be replaced - clothes, shelter; comfort will be given, aid will be rendered.

But tonight, with each life that is confirmed lost, as a parent tries to take that next breath without their child in it, as entire families have left this world together - I know you join me in sending your thoughts, prayers, hopes for survivors, love, and light to Oklahoma.

If you would like to donate to Namaste, I pledge to match your donation and find the best source for our funds to aid in the relief efforts. The link can be found on the left side of this page.

Lives, as bright as candle flame this morning, this afternoon were gone with the wind.  As for anything else right now?  Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Today Is My Mother's Day

21 years ago Mother's Day fell on a Sunday.

21 years ago I became a mother.

Though due two days earlier, Culley waited to make Mother's Day 1992 a day to always remember.

My life changed forever that day.  I became more than I ever realized I could be, and I found a wellspring of love within me - endlessly deep.

For 21 years I have watched her grow into an amazing woman.  First steps, first words, first day of school, plays, dates, proms, college.  I have had the privilege of a front row seat.

It has not always been perfect, this make-it-up-as-you-go thing called parenting, and I know there are moments, scenes, challenges she and I would both change if we could.  But moving to each new day with the experience of the one before is how we each learn and become better.

Life has not been particularly kind of late.  Since November Culley has faced down demons, changes, restarts, and a recent health crisis.  As her mother, I had been privately wrailing against the fates that pushed her so far off course. 

But as I said, each experience further shapes the ones that lie ahead.

Being pushed off course led her to security, stability, a place to get her bearings again.  Being pushed off course led her to a summer of amazing opportunities that will stretch into the New Year.  Being pushed off course led her to a stairwell and a meeting one can only describe as serendipitous in which she finally found her smile again.  And being pushed off course meant that when her body turned against her three weeks ago, she was here, with me. 

And in reading those lines I realize that perhaps she wasn't really pushed off course, but that she was simply set on a new one.  Because life is not a straight line.  If it were, it would be like the road to El Paso - boring and endless.

Rather life is full of twists, turns, potholes, hills, valleys, boring stretches, and then stunning vistas.

Life is ... life is a scribble.

And today, I am thankful that 21 years ago, I was given the privilege of becoming tangled up in Culley Sharp.

Happy birthday, Culley.  As you raise your glass with Dip in DC tonight, know that I am silently toasting you with these words:  I love you more than you could ever possibly know. 

 

It's Deanna's Day!

It's Carri's Day!