A Letter to Rep. Michael Speciale

A friend posted this article today on Facebook. As a result, I wrote the following email to Rep. Speciale:

Representative Speciale, good afternoon.

I read an article in the Raleigh News and Observer today ( http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/under-the-dome/article129591629.html) that you felt that the various Women's Marches last weekend were jokes, and that the marches did not represent any women you know.  

That may very well be, but let me introduce myself to you.  

I'm 49 years old; I'll be turning 50 in April, and am having a little bit of trouble accepting that I'm that old! I have lived in North Carolina virtually all of my life; I was born in Durham, but my family moved to Delaware soon after I was born. We moved back to North Carolina when I was four, and except for 6 months in Orlando from 1989-90 and 18 months in New York from 1990-1991, I've lived here every since. While my time in other states was small, it has made me more aware of what a privilege it is to live in this state, where we have long had a strong economy, first class University system, and a breath-taking landscape. 

I was raised, predominately, by a single parent; in my case, though, it was my father who raised me. He taught me to value education, to be honest (oh, boy, do I regret the few times I lied to him!), and to do my best. He also taught me, through his example, that when there's a job to do, someone has to do it. Growing up, it didn't matter our gender; we were expected to chip in and help. We all washed clothes and cleaned bathrooms and cut grass and raked leaves and cooked and washed dishes. I will admit that I was usually the one who cleaned the gutters, but that's because I was the only one in the family who wasn't afraid of heights. 

I am a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, but did not take a direct route through college; after a few years, I was not taking it seriously, and dropped out. I returned in 1993 and finished my degree in History. At the time I finished my degree I was working as a database administrator at a company in Research Triangle Park. I understand how difficult it is to balance work and college, and how lucky I am to have had an employer who worked with me so I could finish my degree. 

I am currently married, but also separated and divorced from my first husband. We have an amicable relationship, and have co-parented our children well, in my opinion. I have two children from my first marriage, and also have three step-children. All five kids, when they were still living at home, lived primarily with my current husband and me. They all went through either the Wake County or Chapel Hill-Carrboro school systems. The four oldest ones also either went to or are currently enrolled in UNC System colleges: one each at Western Carolina University, UNC-Asheville, NCSU, and UNC-Chapel Hill. The youngest is looking at UNC-A, App State, UNC-Greensboro, and the School of the Arts, so it's likely that by the time all is said and done, I will have had 5 children attend 5 different UNC System schools. I love this. 

I hope at this point that you feel you know me a little. I suppose I could add a few more details: I bleed Carolina Blue, though I'll cheer for NCSU as well. I believe that Eastern North Carolina barbecue is the best barbecue, though I love to try other region's specialties. I, of course, have favorite barbecue restaurants - growing up it was Cooper's in Raleigh; later Bullocks or Backyard Barbecue in Durham. When I travel, I love King's in Kinston; Doug Saul's in Rocky Mount, and Bill's Barbecue in Wilson (I actually found a NC Barbecue restaurant in Orlando when I lived there; the owner had trained under Bill!). I have two cats and two dogs, think that tea is, by default, sweetened and iced, and I make collards, black eyed peas, and ham every New Years Day.  I was taught to stand, cover my heart, and sing when our National Anthem is played, and to stand respectfully when another country's is. I'm Methodist, I sing alto, I love to ring handbells, I've just taught myself to knit, and have rediscovered a talent for sewing baby clothes. I used to run, and finished a 10 mile race last April, but have arthritis in my knees, so now I bike and swim. 

I also marched in Raleigh last Saturday. 

I marched because my son has a chronic illness that could cost more than $150,000 per year if he were denied insurance, or if he had a waiting period because of a pre-existing condition. Without the Affordable Care Act, he will be faced with having to cover that money immediately after college, in his first job. My first job (receptionist at the headquarters of a small regional coffee shop chain) certainly didn't allow me $150,000 in disposable income; for that matter my current job doesn't allow me that, and I don't expect his will be any different. President Trump has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and while he promises there will be coverage; he's talked more about repeal than he has about his plan. Without details, I'm scared for my son. 

I marched because I have a daughter who is bisexual. The protections that went into effect under President Obama would protect her from being fired, would allow her to be at the side of a spouse, regardless of gender, should they be hospitalized, would allow her to, essentially, live her life without fear. President Trump ran on a campaign of hatred that included the LGBTQ community. I'm scared for my daughter. 

I marched because I have had men grope me. Not often, and I have never been raped, but from the time I was 10 years old I have had men or boys think that they could touch my breasts on the playground, pinch my rear at a concert, or rub up against me in the subway. President Trump has joked about sexual assault, and used it as a talking point to brag about how manly he is. I'm scared for all women. 

I marched because I hope to have grandchildren someday, and I hope to be able to take them to national parks, or to the beach, or to hike in the mountains. Climate change is real, and threatens our coast. Drilling for oil and logging threaten our national parks. President Trump makes fun of the experts, the scientists, who know this. He thinks that the direction our planet is going is funny, and that terrifies me. I'm scared for our planet and all who live on it. 

Representative Speciale, I suspect that there are more like me in your life than you realize. I know that there are Oriental residents who would be devastated by rising ocean levels. I suspect that there are residents of your district who have been sexually assaulted, and I feel certain that somewhere in your district there are people who identify as LGBTQ. Maybe they're scared to speak out, or maybe the conversation has just never happened. But I am certain that there are people who are similar to me in your district. 

I hope that your Facebook posts and the comments you gave to the News and Observer are an anomaly, or were made without thinking the matter through. God knows, I've made stupid comments before that I regret. However, I would also like to recommend a book to you: Becoming Nicole, by Amy Ellis Nutt. It's the story of a family's life as their transgendered daughter comes out and transitions. I'd love for you to read it before you make disparaging comments again about "trannies". The transgendered are human, and they are people's sons and daughters. I know that it's an issue that is not always talked about, and in fact is difficult for many to talk about, but poking fun at other humans, whether it's a transgendered person or someone who disagrees with you, is not particularly nice. 

But most of all, I hope that you now cannot say, in good conscience, that none of the women you know were represented by the Women's Marches. I hope that, in some small way, you do feel that you know me, and understand both why I marched, and why I am frightened right now. 

Respectfully,
Meg Cohen
Chapel Hill, NC 

Wonder what sort of response I'll get? I'll post and let you know!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

There were a number of pundits, armchair and otherwise, immediately after the election talking about "change". The election, apparently, was not about the Republican party's drift further and further towards the right, it was not about their sliding into bed with ultra-conservative "christians" who care more about a candidate's stance on abortion and homosexuality than fiscal policy. It was not about the implicit racism towards Barack Obama over the last 8 years. It was not about the implicit sexism towards Hillary Clinton in this election.

Nope, it was about change.

Here's the tricky part about claiming that - the word "change" in and of itself, has very little meaning. The Affordable Care Act was a massive change for this country, but apparently THAT'S not the change they were looking for. Allowing the LGBTQ communities to be more open without fear of harrasment was a change, too, but apparently that's not the "right" sort of change, either.

But the election was about change.

OK, so maybe corruption was the thing that needed changing. The problem with that is, the more corrupt candidate won. And has refused to divest himself of the very things that allow for greater and greater corruption.

Hmmm, guess corruption wasn't the issue after all. Must be another change they were looking for...

Well, here are some of the changes that have come about in the first 10 days of the new administration:

• The EPA was told to freeze grant money.
• And then told not to talk to anyone
• Same with the National Park Service
• The press were removed from the West Wing. Oh, except for the ones that Trump likes.
• The term "alternate facts" made it's way into our national lexicon.
• The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was removed from the National Security Council. Because, you know, why would you want the leaders of our military to be aware of Nation Security issues. 
• The presidential chief strategist, on the other hand, an admitted White Supremicist (except he calls it the alt-right, as if it's some kind of trendy '90s music genre. "Yeah, I'm not into alt-country, but man, that alt-right") was added to the NSC. 
• The president refused daily intelligence briefings. To be fair, this happened prior to the inauguration, but I'll throw it in here, too, because: No. Other. President. Has. Done. This.

And then there's the whole executive order thing. To be honest, I don't have the issue with executive orders that some do. I think it's like a lot of things; the thing in and of itself is neither bad nor good, but it can be used to either harm or help.

Mr. Trump appears determined to harm. It's hard to say which executive orders have gotten the most attention, because each new one has a new action. But, the very first one pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act, under which millions of Americans gained health insurance, and others gained the flexibility to not depend on employer provided health care.

From there we had The Wall. Supposedly Mexico will wind up paying for it, though when the order was signed, HOW Mexico would pay for it was undefined. Since then, Mr. Trump has said that American taxpayers will initially pay for it, but he will eventually impose a 20% import tax on Mexican goods to recover the cost. There are many problems with that notion (beyond that obvious one that the Mexican government says they will NOT pay for the wall). First is that import taxes tend to do a couple of things: cause the producer to raise their prices to offset the tax, or cause fewer imports. In the case of the former, those higher prices will be passed on to the (American) consumers, in the latter, American consumers will have fewer options (think, avocados, strawberries in January, and various other Mexican exports we've gotten used to). The second issue is that, even if the 20% import tax did, indeed, wind up allowing us to recover the cost, there was no mention of a tax rebate for American taxpayers. So, yeah, we're still out what we, as individuals, paid for it.

And then we have the "immigration" ban. If you haven't read the details, go do so, but the gist of it is Trump decreed that immigrants from certain countries were not allowed in the United States any more. Supposedly, this will make us safer from terrorism. The only problem is, it affected ALL immigrants, including those that had already been allowed in this country, but happened to be overseas at the time the edict was signed. Oh, and also, the countries that were banned? Well, turns out, no one from those countries has killed any Americans. There are some countries, like Saudi Arabia, who do have citizens who have killed Americans, but they were not included. Oddly enough, the countries that do have incidence of terrorism AND were left off the list all have ties to the Trump business empire. Oh, and just by the way, the Geneva Convention requires signatories to take in refugees. But, you know, we don't need to worry about that.

So, yeah, lots of changes. We've lost a hell of a lot of scientific knowledge, paved the way for people to lose their insurance, removed media access to our government, removed our military from discussions of national security, disparaged the notion of truth, ignored the Geneva convention...

And it's only been a week.

I don't know if these were the changes that Trump's voters wanted. I can't imagine that they actually want to lose their insurance, if they are indeed covered under the ACA. I can't imagine that they are willing to see tax monies used for a wall, and I feel fairly certain they don't actually want to either pay higher prices for Mexican imports, or lose buying options. And, I hope, I HOPE, that they don't actually want refugees to remain in war zones. I hope that they don't actually want to deport US residents, who have already gone through the vetting process, simply because they had the misfortune to leave the country. And I hope that they do actually want to allow Iraqis who translated for the US Army to come to this country.

So, yeah, I think, and believe, and hope, that the changes we've seen this week are not the ones that supposedly drove the election.

But in that case, what were the changes?

Well, honestly, a lot of the changes seemed to be to go back to a different time.

Repeatedly, when news outlets interviewed voters in the Rust Belt, or in coal country, they talked about jobs. But they were not necessarily interested in new jobs. They wanted the coal jobs back. The steel jobs back. That's the change they wanted: change us back to a time when those jobs were still here.

I don't know how to argue with that. Many of those jobs simply are not coming back, and not because liberals don't want them to. Coal is a finite resource - it will eventually run out. In West Virginia, they've already gone from digging for coal to lopping off the tops of mountains to get at the coal - it's being mined out. Even without concerns about global warming, coal's time is ending.

I admit, this is very easy for me to wax poetic about, sitting in my nice middle class home in my nice upper middle class neighborhood, with my white collar job, and my well educated family. I don't really know what it's like to see the only job you've ever held, the only job you've ever trained for, become obsolete. Even with the tech outsourcing in past years, there has always been a need for people "on the spot", and I've been lucky enough to be one of those.

But at some point, logic has to take hold. I cannot possibly be the only person who understands that the coal jobs are going to continue to decrease. The steel jobs are going to continue to decrease. The manufacturing jobs are probably going to continue to decrease. And, honestly, I don't think that the "jobs-voters" really care - they just want jobs.

So, why was the refrain so consistent? Bring back "those" jobs? Well, I think for a number of reasons. Mainly, though, because, every time someone says, "Those jobs are gone," someone else says, "No they're not!!!" Whether it's a mine owner or a politician, every time they're told that their lives will be better if only "those" jobs come back, they believe it. And who wouldn't?

But here's the thing. In trying to vote in that change, which is impossible, they voted for a dangerous, dangerous man. They voted for a man who's ego is so fragile that he can't cope with the notion of his inauguration not being the largest ever. Who claims standing ovations when he forgot to tell the audience to sit. Who lies, repeatedly and blatantly. Who is divisive. Who is unkind. Who wants absolute power, and who is already corrupt. Who is already doing those things that many of his supporters said were just talk, or jokes, or would change (that word again!) once he took office.

And, unfortunately, they need to own this. But they are not the only ones who do. Every person who downplayed the reports of ties to Russia, of corrupt business dealings, of assaults on women, of discrimination, and of ethical conflicts, has to own this too. Because those people made it easy to ignore all of those issues, and focus on the nebulous and undefined "change".

Now is the time. We are careening down a slope that we really don't want to be on. If this is not what you wanted, not what you expected, if you are horrified at what's happening in this country, now is the time to speak out. I don't care who you voted for, this is not what we need right now.

Because if we're not careful, this country is going to change more than any of us want.

If at first you don't succeed...

I have a friend who's very creative. She posted the following on her Facebook page today:

Hmmm... I always thought of myself as an artist, but after reading this quote from my class today... Maybe I'm a scientist?

"Science is the action or process of pursuing truth but not necessarily ever finding truth."

The quote in her post is from a nutrition class she's taking through eCornell, and it got me thinking about science vs. art, creativity vs. the scientific method, and various other weighty thoughts.

David has a t-shirt that says something to the effect of:

Experiment
Fail
Learn
Succeed

He got it at a Drum Corps International show in Charlotte; one of the reasons he loves it is that it can apply to both science and music. (For those of you who don't know, he's a career scientist, with a PhD in pharmacology and biophysics. For those of you who know me, I can pronounce pharmacology and biophysics.)  He would, however, amend it a little: he would add "Repeat" and an ellipse between "Learn" and "Succeed", because it actually takes more than one iteration, typically, to get to success.

But I digress.

I also love the sentiment, but I think it actually applies to everything.

We call it a rough draft in writing, we call it a hypothesis in science, we call it an early work in art or music, we call it JV or a D-league in sports, but really, it's all the same.

Experiment.
Fail.
Learn.
Repeat...
Succeed.

But, as with most things, there's a catch.

First of all, you need creativity. Yeah. That. I don't care if you're dream job is writing poetry in a cabin in the woods, discovering the cure for cancer, working for NASA, or painting the next Sistine Chapel, you need a good healthy dose of creativity, thinking outside the box, thinking around corners, or whatever you want to call it. If the only way you know is the way "we've always done it," you're not going to be able to experiment. If the only thing you want to learn is "how", you're not going to be able to experiment. Experimentation involves asking, "What if? Why? Why not?" without necessarily having an answer...yet

Next, and this is a biggie, you need a nice balance of humility and confidence. Wait, what? Do those two even balance? Well, yeah. They can. And you need both. Humility because you have to know you'll fail. And confidence because you have to believe you'll succeed. If we never fail, then we've never pushed our boundaries. But if you're willing to fail, it means you're willing to try.

And then there's intelligence. Without intelligence, our failures are simply failures. With intelligence, they become experience. Incidentally, I don't necessarily mean education when I say intelligence (though I'm all in favor of educating oneself as much as possible). But what I do mean is the ability to think critically. To weigh options. To be open to different perspectives. Going down the same path endlessly may be comforting, but it doesn't really get you anywhere.

Finally, you need perseverance. Because failure happens. And then it happens again. And again. And sometimes, just for kicks, it happens again. And if the only thing you're worried about is not failing, well, you'll stop. But if what you're concerned with is learning, or creating, well, then, you'll keep on. Until you succeed.

The damnable thing, though, is you may never succeed. Your assistant may finish your work. Your symphony may not receive critical or popular acclaim in your lifetime. You may spend a lifetime experimenting, and never find the cure for cancer...but your work may enable someone else to a generation later.

And that, really is the point. So, yes, artists and scientists (and teachers, and historians, and, please God, politicians) have more in common than we might think. When you play, when you experiment, when you push boundaries, when you make others (and yourself) uncomfortable, when you ask the difficult questions, when you look for your own truth, even knowing that you may not get there, well, that's when we transcend ourselves, and move forward into a nobler place.

Indivisible?

There is, obviously, a large amount of angst in our country right now. Despite his best attempts at doublespeak and spin, Donald Trump has the lowest approval rating of any recent president upon inauguration. Congress's approval ratings are even lower. Those who voted for Trump are, many of them, having a bit of buyer's remorse. Or, if not full out buyer's remorse, at least a fair amount of concern about what they've wrought.

And, honestly, they should. Sorry to offend, and all that, but if you voted for Trump, you SHOULD be worried. Since the election it's become obvious that at least one, probably two (Putin and Assange) foreign nationals deliberately interfered in our electoral process. That's abominable. Yes, I suspect some Trump voters voted for him merely to keep Clinton out of the White House, or to keep Republicans in power. But some believed in him; those people were scammed. They should be angry, and I hope they are.

But, you know, liberals need to do a fair amount of soul searching, too. We LOVE to talk about how we're inclusive, and enlightened.

Except, we're not always so much. And our outrage at the moment proves that we're not quite as enlightened and aware as we might like to think we are.

This article, from the New York Times, states it way more eloquently than I can. We liberals are shocked by what's happening in our country right now, but sadly, for many, this is the norm. Oh, you're shocked that we might register Muslims and put mosques under surveillance? Hmm. Guess no one's ever stepped away from you when you walk into an elevator. Or crossed the street when they saw you coming. Feel like you're a stranger in this country suddenly? Well, you know, let me (or, actually, someone who really knows) tell you about this thing called the Trail of Tears. Or Little Big Horn. Or DAPL.

I marched in Raleigh last Saturday, and I loved it. I felt better afterwards than I have in three months. And, yes, I've tried to continue that good mojo. I've called. I've written. I've spoken.

But all of that, truly, doesn't mean crap if I can't at least acknowledge the fact that there are people who have been fighting for what I take for granted, for centuries.

Last year, there was outrage when a Texas social studies textbook hit the internet, because they talked about the "immigrants" from Africa who helped make America great. That's idiotic. Unless you're talking about someone who came here VERY recently, no one from Africa was an immigrant. They were slaves. They were kidnapped, thrown into ships where they were treated as less than animals, sold, and beaten. They were treated as property.

Think about that for a moment. No, really. Think about that. These were human beings that were treated as property. They could be sold. They could be disposed of. They could be inherited. They. Were. Property. No whitewashing (pun very definitely intended), no talk of "good" masters, can take away the fact that they were property.

I don't know if it's worse to be African-American or Native American. One involves being kidnapped from your home, another involves being driven from your home. I can't judge that, because I've never been either. Yes, I'm female in a world that doesn't really care that much...but I'm a white female. And, sadly, that distinction may make all the difference.

So, what do we do? I can't stop being white. And, honestly, I don't feel like anyone is asking me to.

But they are asking me to listen. REALLY listen. That means I don't jump in with my own stories, as if my piddly little, "oh, I didn't get to play football when I was 8" is the same as being told to go to the back of the line. Or moved from my land. Or told that I don't matter, at all, ever. It means I recognize that there are people who have been fighting this fight since 1972, and 1968, and 1954, and 1948, and, yes, 1919, and 1860, and 1776, and 1492. It means that I acknowledge that my white skin, as well as my middle class up-bringing, has given me opportunities that others haven't had. It means that, even if it makes me uncomfortable, even if it doesn't fit with my "oh, but I'm a LIBERAL" image of myself, I need to acknowledge when I jump to conclusions. It means I need to recognize that there may be biases, racial or otherwise, that I'm completely unaware of...and when someone tells me about them, I need to think rather than deny.

I don't mean this to be an indictment of white, middle class liberals. I actually think that we may be at a turning point where, amazingly, many of the left-wing, liberal, whatevers may be able to band together to move our country forward to a place where more of us are empowered and enfranchised.

But, oh, my sweeties - we can't do it if we're scared to look at ourselves in the mirror and confront our shortcomings.

One nation, indivisible? Yes. I believe that with all my heart. We CAN get there... but not as long as we're scared of the others who make up this complicated, conflicted, country.

Just a friendly little post

We are coming out of a very disruptive and divisive time in our country; not only the election, but the eight years before it.

I've lost friends because of this. Sometimes because I've chosen to distance myself, either physically or electronically; sometimes because they have.

There's a meme going around the internet right now showing two stick figures. The caption is something along the lines of "Jane and Sally are friends. Jane voted for Trump and Sally voted for Clinton, but Jane and Sally are adults, so they're still friends. Be like Jane and Sally."

The thing is, I'm not always able to be like Jane and Sally.

I strongly believe that we are all entitled to our opinions, and our votes. But, you know, opinions are things like, "Murmur was REM's best album," not things like, "Obama is not a US citizen," or "Obama is a Muslim," or "Climate change isn't real". It is a fact that President Obama is a citizen. It is a fact that he's Christian (for that matter, it's a fact that he could be President if he were Muslim, Budist, Hindu, Jewish, Bahai, Wiccan, athiest, Secular Humanist, or followed the Force). Climate change, and humans' role in it, is accepted fact by the vast majority of scientists - you know, those people who have actually spent their lives studying this stuff, as opposed to the rest of us who need it broken down into tiny little words to understand it.

So, yes, we all have a right to our opinions, our votes, and our political views.

But that doesn't mean I have to like yours. And, honestly, it doesn't mean that I always have to like you (or you me!).

Friendship is based on a multitude of things, and can shift and change over time. I have friends that I've known since I was four, or 18, or 30, or 49. I have friends who are my age, and friends that are significantly older or younger than me. But friendship is also based on shared values. Not utterly, or completely; we are, after all, individuals, and it's doubtful that any two people will share all their values.

But values matter.

President Trump campaigned on hatred and divisiveness. He did. There is no way around that. He called Mexicans rapists and murderers and drug dealers, though he did acknowledge that there were probably some nice ones. He made horrible comments about women, and not only the comments from several years ago. He called women pigs, and implied that their only worth is through their appearance, or that menstruation made them incompetent. He made jokes about sexual assault. He spent eight years perpetuating lies about President Obama. He has a history of shady business dealings, discrimination, and narcissism.

And all of this was brought out before the election. And many people voted for him anyway.

I don't need to know who any of my friends voted for. Votes are private for many reasons, and they should be. And even if I knew, I would not drop a friend because they voted differently than me. I might not necessarily even drop a friend if they voted for Trump.

But, I would take it into account. I would use it as information, along with many other things, to judge if that person shares my core values. A vote, in and of itself, does not make a person. But, it can be looked at in combination with other actions (or inaction), with other comments, with other information.

So, yes, I'm all for unity. I'm all for moving forward. But you don't get to vote for a demagogue and then three months later expect me to be happy. If you voted for him and regret it, say so. Show support for causes like Planned Parenthood, or the Sierra Club, or the Trevor Project, or the National Endowment for the Arts, or any of the many, many organizations that will suffer through the next four years. Speak up when his press secretary lies. Call out his racist or sexist comments. If you want me to believe that your vote for him was not a vote for racism and sexism, show it through your words and actions over the next four years.

Because those of use who did not vote for President Trump are watching.

Resolved; or, perhaps, not.

I know people who love New Year's Day. The whole notion of a fresh, shiny, New Year stretching out ahead of them, with all the opportunities that that implies.

Me, not so much. It's not that I don't like it, it's more that it's kinda just another day. Yeah, I get that the calendar changes and all that, and I like watching the ball (or acorn, or pickle, or possum) drop, but I don't know that January 1st is any better or worse than any other first of the month for beginning new projects.

To make it worse, there's the whole notion of resolutions, and what they imply. Are we resolved for ourselves, or for others? There's an interesting article in this week's New York Times that talks about the implications of knee-jerk resolutions for women, primarily, though I believe that all of us suffer from this.

We should be fitter. We should do more. We should be better. Kinder. More balanced in our work-life balance. Feed our children better snacks, limit their screen time more, have more substantive talks with our spouses. Read the right books (has ANYONE ever finished an Umberto Eco book other than Name of the Rose?).

I fall victim to this as much as the next person, and the older I get, the harder it gets. 2017 is a milestone year for me: I just hit a 20th work anniversary, and I will turn 50 in April. On the one hand, this is somewhat liberating. If I really wanted to, I could take an early retirement (fun fact: I don't want to, and even if I did, with 3 kids under 20, it would not be realistic).

But on the other hand, this is a little scary. I have a limited number of years left to do something with my life. I have limited years to take up photography, learn to play the piano, buy a loom, or any of the myriad things I've thought "oooh, that'd be fun" about over the years. I'm at a point in my life that, realistically, some of these won't ever happen. And, probably more importantly, many of them I will decide I simply don't care about any more. I've been assigned Moby Dick twice in my academic career, and have tried to read it at least three other times. I've never, ever finished it. At this point, I'm OK with that. However, I'm a little regretful that I've not read as much Wolfe as I would've liked. Hopefully, it all balances out.

I am, however, going to make some resolutions for this year. I think they're all attainable; more to the point, they are ones that are meaningful to me, regardless of what "society" thinks I should be resolving as I finish my first half century.

To keep myself honest, here they are, in no particular order:

• Swim more. 2016 was both a high and a low in my running career: I finished a 10 mile road race in April, the furthest I've ever run, but then pretty immediately began having issues with my knees. Turns out I have arthritis in both kneecaps. I'm not sure at this point if I will run again; but there are these cool open water swims. I plan on doing at least one this summer.
• Write more. There was a fantastic comic in the 1980/90s called For Better or For Worse. At one point one of the kids in the series was writing in his journal; his sister asked him if that helped him figure out the answers. He replied, "No, but it helps me understand the questions." 2017 is going to be a tough year, my friends, and I'm afraid that 2018, '19, and '20 will be as well, with questions that many of us never thought we'd need to understand. I don't pretend to be a world renowned pundit, but writing does help me find balance. So, expect more of these musings as the year progresses. My goal is to miss no more than one day in a row.
• Spend better. I'm not necessarily talking boycotts, though I'm not opposed to that. But, money talks. I am in the enviable position of being able to, within reason, spend money on what I wish to. Which means, donations to causes that will, hopefully, protect our nation and our planet. Or my children. 
• Do what I like. Yeah, I've never gotten through Focault's Pendulum. Yeah, when I'm stressed, I re-read Harry Potter, or Dorothy Sayers, or LOTR. Sue me. It makes me happy. 
• Not be quiet. This is, without a doubt, the hardest for me. I do not have the gift of an icy temper - when I get upset, you know it. Speaking up is scary, and I frequently do it badly. But it's important.

And, yes, I will probably try to exercise more, weigh less, etc. Can't help it, I'm human. But hopefully, by this time next year I will feel less regret at the ice cream I've eaten (or the martinis I've drunk), and rather be proud of the things I have done throughout the year.

Happy New Year, my friends.

In my mind, or, Thanks a lot, Pandora.

Music has a power that is, for me, anyway, beyond all other art forms. Other bards and scribes, from Shakespeare to Dumbledore, have commented on this as well, and usually far better than I.

For me, it's two-fold. A good piece of instrumental music can evoke emotions without words; by the same token, a good piece of writing can hit at the heartstrings without need for a background score. But put them together, and the right song, at the right time, can turn me into a blubbering mess.

We know this, all of us. It's why we make mix tapes for our friends, it's why we turn the radio up for certain songs, it's why we have our happy music and our angry music, our falling-in-love music and our break-up music.

I stream Pandora when I'm at work, typically (fun fact, cube farms are highly distracting, even for those of us who work well in chaos). I also, in a previous work-life, used to write software, and periodically when a user would ask for feature that would call for the computer to be a mind-reader, we'd joke that the neural transmitters would be in version 7.

Well, I think Pandora has developed the neural transmitters, and worked with Sony to implement them.

For many of us, our college years are somewhat golden. It's the first taste of independence; it's frequently when we're exposed to people and ideas that may be very different. It's when we are free to protest, experiment, and do things for the sheer hell of it. It's when many of us meet our best friends or our soul-mates.

And most of us have a College Soundtrack. Mine includes such lovelies as The Violent Femmes, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Connells, and, of course, REM.

But the song that most brings back college for me is Carolina in My Mind. And, no, South Carolina, you don't get that one - Mr. Taylor grew up in Chapel Hill, and he did NOT mean South Carolina, Columbia, or the University of South Carolina when he wrote that one!

It's been nearly 31 years since I made the drive from Cullowhee to Chapel Hill with my Dad, my sister, and my niece. 31 years since we madly threw all of my belongings into my dorm room so that we could scamper across campus with my sleeping bag and pillow to the Campus Y, where I and about 200 other freshman would spend a couple of days at Camp New Hope. Freshman Camp gave us an entry into the larger Carolina world; we were taught the cheers, the fight songs, Hark the Sound, and, of course, Carolina in My Mind.

In 8 days, I will get up early, so that I can be at Koury dorm by 7 am, so that we can madly throw all of my son's belongings into his dorm room, before scampering across campus with his sleeping bag and pillow to the Campus Y, where he and about 200 other freshman will spend a couple of days at Camp New Hope, where he will meet friends, learn cheers, and sing Carolina in My Mind over, and over, and over.

There are a few differences. It's Carolina Kickoff now, not Freshman Camp. There's slightly more time for move-in, so hopefully I can have time to make up his bed (for whatever reason, that's my moment of closure with all of the kids. I just need that last act of mothering!). I live in Chapel Hill, so I have a plot to park on Franklin Street and walk him to the Campus Y, rather than just stopping long enough for him to get out of the car, as my Dad had to do with me!

Of course, the biggest difference is that it's 31 years later, and I'm the parent. And as much as I think I'm coping, that, my friends, is a HUGE difference, and a very tender one.

And, dammit, if Pandora is not pushing my buttons this week! I kid you not, Carolina in My Mind has come up on my stream at least once a day for the past week. I've gone months before without hearing that song, but somehow, it's everywhere this week. Neural transmitters is the only explanation.

So, for the next week or so, please excuse me; there are signs that might be omens that I'll be gone to Carolina; 31 years ago in my mind, but right here and now with my son.

A valediction: forbidding crazy

Read this.

A couple of years ago, I got out of my step-son's band concert, went to turn the volume on my phone back up, and saw about 4 texts from my son. He and my daughter were at their youth group, on Franklin Street; there'd been an incident on campus, an armed person was heading towards F. Street, and the church was locked down. Initially, he didn't know where my daughter was, so that was a fun kind of terror; I knew one child was fine, but not the other. Pretty quickly, though, he and I were able to figure out where she was, and that she was with an adult, and safe.

Eventually, they figured out the guy only had a knife, and he was caught pretty quickly, so in terms of true panic, it was pretty short-lived. Yeah, people can kill with knives, but they can't kill as many innocents with a knife as they can with a gun. And knives are unlikely to break through a glass window and kill someone who's trying to hide.

Those 20 or so minutes, though, of trying to keep track of my kids via text, without any of us actually knowing what was going on, were horrible. No, I don't really know what it would've been like to be one of those parents who hear about a shooting at their child's school, text, and never get a response, but my experience and my imagination can allow me to think about it. I don't know how you cope with that.

And I don't know how you deal with a world that tells you you mustn't think about how it happened, or that you shouldn't try to stop it from happening again. In any other grief, we encourage and applaud activism, and call it brave. Lose a child to a drunk driver? Form MADD and become a hero. Lose a parent to cancer? There are walks, and runs, and fund-raising out the wazoo. For that matter, it's not just life-ending causes. When a loved one has autism, diabetes, Crohn's disease (my own "cause"), if you choose to write letters, lobby, walk, or otherwise raise both funds and awareness, no one tells you that you should just take time to grieve.

I don't really care if you own guns or not. I don't really care if you're a responsible gun-owner. I know plenty of people who do own guns, and are responsible. Great.

Guess what? I'm a responsible driver. I'm careful, I follow the rules, I try to be aware of other drivers, and if I happen to ding someone in the parking lot, I leave a note so I can make it right. I've taught my kids to follow the rules, be aware of other drivers, and if they ding someone, make it right.

What I do NOT do is lobby against things like speed limits, Driver's Ed., automobile insurance, graduated licensing, driving tests, mandatory insurance, etc. I recognize that just because I'm careful, and just because I would take responsibility for my actions, doesn't mean that every other driver on the road will. And I recognize that, to ensure the safety of not just all drivers, but also all pedestrians and cyclists, there need to be rules and (wait for it) regulations.

I'm tired of the crap. I'm tired of people dying. I'm tired of politicians saying that to talk about regulations is politicizing grief. Don't treat me like I'm stupid. Many of those same politicians had no trouble politicizing the grief of the families of the people who died in the World Trade Center. Or the grief of families of journalists who've been killed, whether in Syria, or Afghanistan, or wherever. Or, quite frankly (yes, Mr. Bush, I'm talking to you) of Terry Schiavo's grieving parents. It's not that they don't want to politicize grief, it's that they only want to politicize the grief that helps them.

And don't tell me the answer is to put more guns in the hands of "good people". Yeah? Cool. Who decides who's good? Me? You? And how do you know that the good guys will be able to stop the bad guys? Oh, they'll be trained. Yeah, because no one who's been trained has ever panicked when they find themselves in a real-life situation. And, for that matter, what makes you think that having armed good-guys along with armed bad-guys is going to do anything other than confuse the situation? Whether you believe the increase in police killings is because of police brutality or because the police are under attack and scared, I simply can't believe that in our current climate if a cop hears about a shooting in a school, goes to help, and is confronted with not one gunner but two, or three, or however many, the cop will somehow magically be able to know who's good and who's bad. No, it just sounds like a way for some well-meaning vigilantes to get themselves killed, too. And potentially more bystanders.

Our system is broken. We're allowing our own people to be killed because we're not willing to...what? Fill out some paperwork? Delay our gratification for a few days? Say to an adult that, no, they really DON'T need that military-grade weapon just because it's cool? Say to the responsible gun owners that it's time to admit that there are a lot of incredibly irresponsible gun owners out there?

If you want to hunt, fine, hunt. I don't care, as long as you eat what you kill. Heck, in the case of venison, I'll even help you eat what you kill.

If you think you need a gun for protection, I'm going to disagree with you, because in most areas of our country, you just don't. But even with a hand gun, OK, fine, I think you stand a greater chance of hurting yourself, or your family, but if it's in your house, OK.

But if you honestly think that there's a reason for any civilian to have military grade weaponry, and lots of it, then I'm not only going to thing you're wrong, but I'm going to consider you dangerous. If you honestly thing that the Second Amendment gives you the right to bring a gun anywhere, I'm going to consider you dangerous. If you honestly think that there should be no limits on gun ownership, I'm going to consider you dangerous. Because whatever your reason is, it winds up allowing the sort of loopholes that enable the dangerous, the racist, the misogynist, to get those weapons.

We take away the alcohol licenses of bars who sell to people who then drive while drunk and then kill. We require pool owners, whether private or public, to put up fencing, and locks to keep others out; if they don't, and someone drowns in their pool, they're liable.

Yet we can't even talk about stricter regulations on owning guns. Sorry, that's crazy, and I'm not going to be a party to that kind of crazy anymore. We need better rules. We need to act, and we need to do it now.

Channeling my inner Sara Bareilles

Two years ago, two days after her 13th birthday, my daughter created a Facebook profile, and we became FB friends.

Last year, I wrote a rather lovely (if I do say so myself) post to her on her birthday.

She turned 15 two days ago. She's wondering where her post is THIS year. And therein lies the problem. Because, while I can be guaranteed to rant about any number of things on any given day, and while I get choked up and emotional on a more than regular basis, it's not always easy to write those lovely, emotional, posts. You don't want to just repeat what you said the previous year, but honestly, I don't know that I could do much better than that.

And, you know, I haven't done well writing on command since I finished college. I write when I'm moved to, and my brain doesn't always keep pace with my life, or my emotions. Don't get me wrong, I love my girl, but nothing was coming to me other than, "Good Lord, how is my baby 15?" She is blog-worthy, but I dunno that that sentence is.

So, I've mulled. And thought. And watched her when she wasn't looking. All the things Moms do. And, I think I'm ready for her 15th birthday post (though, there's still that subtext of "Good Lord, how is she 15?").

A Love Letter to my Daughter (sorry, Sara, I'm better at epistles than lyrics).

My darling Grace, Gracie-belle, Graciella Isabella,

This is an odd time for you to live in, my love. On the one hand, you have opportunities that women my age never really had. You spent your early years on co-ed soccer, baseball, and basketball teams. When I was a little girl, those things were, in the best cases, not taken for granted; in the worst case, they were still being fought for. You live in a world where there's a possibility of an American presidential election between two women, yet women still, on average, make less than men. You live in a world where the notion of women as sexual creatures is finally beginning to be accepted, yet you, more than your brothers, are judged by who you love. You live in a world where competent, strong women are becoming the norm, yet you, more than your brothers, will be judged on your clothes, your voice, and your face.

Some of that sucks. And yet, to quote the old Virginia Slims commercials, we've come a long way, baby.

You come from a long line of strong women (if I do say so myself). One of your great-grandmothers was a flapper, hung out with bootleggers, and married when she was ready, at the ripe old age of 29. In 1928, that made her nearly an old maid. Another great-grandmother worked for Ma Bell before there were Baby Bells, and by doing so guaranteed not only her retirement, but also your Great-Gramps'. One of your grandmothers was a single mom before it was "normal". The other was independent enough to insist on paying off the debts she had before marriage...even if it meant spending the first six months of her married life 1000+ miles away from your Granddaddy.

You have all of their strength, and more. You are independent, courageous, strong, and vibrant.

And, at times, you're scared. Or anxious. Or stressed.

And that's OK, sweetie. Because, you don't have to be strong all the time. All of the strong women in your lineage have had their moments when they're confused, or scared, or whatever. Trust me. We have.

Because, honestly, that's what makes us strong. The ability to admit weakness, fear, anxiety, or uncertainty, all show that we're strong enough to deal with our doubts. Or other's doubts.

You, my love, are a rock-star. You have already dealt with more than anyone should. You already have a greater sense of self than many. I wish that I had had half your assurance when I was your age.

But, you know, it's OK. Because while I may not have had the self-knowledge that you have, I have you. You have no idea the joy it has been to watch you grow, particularly over the past couple of years.

You are not me. But, Oh, my love. You have made me a better mother, and a better woman. You are, and will ever be, my Grace (in every sense of the word).

So, go forth, and do, and be wonderful. Don't accept the status quo, and don't forget where you've come from. Be yourself (unless you can be Batman), because you, my dear, are pretty damn wonderful.

And, never forget that your Mama loves you. Even if I'm late with your birthday post!

The missing leaf

When David and I mixed our families, it wasn't just a matter of finding bedrooms for everyone (which was quite a task, incidentally). We also had to combine two house's worth of stuff. A lot of it was duplicates, but there was the occasional singleton.

One of the singletons was David's oak dining table. I love it, for a number of reasons: it's gorgeous, it reminds me of my Nana's dining room table, and with both leaves in it's large enough to seat 8 easily, and CAN seat more if we get creative. As a family of 7, who've been known to have over 20 people in the house for holidays, that was pretty critical.

Even with the two older girls off in college, we always kept both leaves in. 5 people, after all, is not a small amount, and it gave us space between for the food dishes, etc. Also, as the three younger kids grew, they took up more space at the table, or brought over friends, or whatever.

But this August, we took the first of the leaves out. Geoffrey, David's youngest, is now a freshman at State. And four people sitting around a table that can seat eight is just a little weird. Also, it makes passing plates difficult!

Here's the thing about parenting.  It's a bit like riding a roller coaster. Except, of course, I hate roller coasters, and being a parent is absolutely the best thing I've ever done in my life.

But think about it. You're waiting for a roller coaster, and the line seems to stretch forever. You move forward slowly, speculating about what the ride will be like, maybe talking to the others around you in line if they've ridden it before, maybe even thinking about your past rides. And as you creep towards the ride, it seems HUGE; surely it will be a really, really long ride.

And then you're strapped in, you creep up that first hill, and you react with a mix: exhilaration; laughter; screaming; terror, perhaps...

And then it's over. Done. That ride that looked so long from the line is over in a flash.

And that's parenting. You go through a pregnancy and think you'll never get there. And, honestly, there are times (diapers, terrible twos, worse-than-terrible threes, teen drivers) when you think it'll never end.

And then suddenly one day you're moving them into their dorm and taking a leaf out of the table because you just don't need the space anymore. At least not till winter break.

This has hit me harder with Geoff than with his sisters for a number of reasons. They were 14 and 17 when I met them; already young adults, or nearly so. Either thinking about college or just around the corner from thinking about it. Geoffrey was 10. He wasn't a little boy any more, but he was definitely still a child.

And, honestly, because if parenting is like a roller coaster, step-parenting is that same coaster, but you only get half the ride.

Here's the thing about step-parenting, in my experience, anyway. You meet your step-kids first through their parent's eyes. One of the two people on earth who have known and loved them longest and best. You see them first through their parent's love, pride, worries, and dreams. By the time you meet them in person, you've already formed an emotional tie to them, on your end at least (whereas they're probably wondering who this odd person is at the dinner table, and how polite do they need to be to them). So, you've got a head-start on creating a relationship with them, and on loving them. But you never, never, have enough time with them, because you're starting halfway through the ride.

But I think the main reason this is striking me with Geoff is because, while our five kids cover a 10 year age-span (youngest is nearly 15, oldest is nearly 25), the three youngest are clumped together in only three years. Geoff's the one that caused the first leaf to be taken out. And in a year, Peter will go to college, and we'll take the second leaf out. And then in three years, when Grace goes, who knows. We'll be out of leaves, but maybe David and I will start to eat at the kitchen table. I don't know what our dinners will look like over the next 3 years, but I know that they will get progressively quieter, and less silly, and less wonderfully chaotic as our numbers diminish.

The thing of it is, none of this is bad; I certainly want the kids to grow, to become independent adults. I'm ecstatic that Geoffrey is at a college he loves, and is enjoying his classes, is involved, and is growing into a fantastic young man. David and I have never had a relationship without one or more kid living with us; I'm kinda looking forward to that empty nest.

But all the pride and excitement and expectation doesn't quite take the place of those missing leaves.

My dress code: if {tailored} then {good};

I got an email "of a sensative nature" yesterday from an administrator at my kids' high school. It was a forward, with an preface, of an email that the students were sent that day. Apparently, many of the students are violating the school's dress code. Wow, I'm shocked. Surely, this has NEVER happened in the history of US Public Education.

All sarcasm aside, though, this pisses me off royally, for so many reasons, on so many levels.

I'll look at just the email to begin with.

First of all, the tone of the email was incredibly condescending; it reminded me more of the double-speak that Dolores Umbridge would write than anything else. I've written about this before, but I'm trying to teach my teenagers to act like young adults, and it doesn't help when they're treated as if they're children by their school. And, when you treat ME as if I'm a child, you completely lose any chance of getting my buy in.

Secondly, there were grammatical and punctuation errors in it. Again, I am a stickler for this stuff, and they were pretty minor, but damn it, if you're the principal of one of the top 20 high schools in the state, learn to proof-read. Or get someone else to proof-read. And accept the fact that it won't go over well if an email to your parents and students is not as polished as something you submit for publication would be.

Finally, the email included a link to the Dress Code. Which was initially broken (it has since been fixed). Yes, I'm a geek. Yes, I make my living telling computers what to do. I understand that not everyone is this way. But again, if you are sending a communication to your world, and you're including a hyperlink, take two seconds to confirm that it works. In this case, it looks like the link she included was to a section of the document that could be edited, because when I tried to get to it, I was told that my google account didn't have access. But that's still the sort of thing that you check before sending it out.

Luckily, I am smarter than the average bear, so I went to the school's website and looked up the dress code. Here is it (notice how I don't risk a link not working, and give you the entire policy):

Carrboro High School has a standard student dress code. While attending school or participating in any school-sponsored events and activities, student dress and appearance must be appropriate to the activity and must meet basic standards of health, safety, cleanliness, and decency. According to our standards of appropriateness, prohibited dress includes but is not limited to the following:

• clothing worn to reveal underwear, cleavage, or bare skin between the upper chest and mid-thigh;

• bare feet, bedroom slippers;

• strapless tops, halter tops;

• see-through, mesh garments;

• pants worn below waist level;

• excessively baggy or tight clothing;

• excessively short skirts and shorts (i.e., usually those shorter than mid-thigh)

• sunglasses inside classrooms;

• any clothing or accessories displaying profanity, promoting drugs, alcohol, violence or firearms, or demeaning specific persons or groups;

• and any other article of appearance that is physically revealing or provocative.

In keeping with CHCCS School Board Policy 4315, students are not permitted to wear or display items that represent or display weapons, drugs, alcohol or tobacco products, or gang membership, or that promote violence or that are sexually explicit.
The principal may require a student to change his/her dress or appearance for failure to comply with the dress code. Repeated violations will result in disciplinary action.

There is so much about this policy that makes me angry. But before I start my rant, please pay attention to the following quote: "While attending school or participating in any school-sponsored events and activities..." It's important.

On the snarky, smart-ass side, there's so much language in it that's just stupid and should have been re-written. No pants below waist level? Um, so, we're supposed to wear our pants on our heads? I pretty much ALWAYS wear my pants below my waist! Yes, I know that what they mean is don't have your pants half-way down your derriere. But you know what? You can say that by saying, "The waistband of pants, shorts, and skirts will fall within two inches of the student's natural waist", or whatever distance the administration feels is appropriate. Oh, and what exactly is an article of appearance? Article of clothing I understand, but what the hell is an article of appearance? And if you can't demean specific persons or groups, does that mean if you're a UNC fan, you can't wear a shirt that makes fun of Duke or State? Or vice-versa?

But on a less snarky take, this policy is so subjective as to be, in my opinion, completely meaningless. What, exactly, is excessively baggy, tight, or short? Who decides? Oh, excessively short is "usually mid-thigh" or higher. OK, so when is it NOT mid-thigh? Again, who decides? The parents? The kids? The administration? Where is the upper chest? If my son wears a collared shirt, does he need to button all the buttons? If not, you'll see his chest below the collarbone, is that not the upper chest? Or do we only mean women's upper chests? My son's boxer waistbands are pretty much always visible above his shorts and pants, and if he stretches, jumps, or raises his arms in a certain way, that is noticeable. Is he in violation?

And here's the kicker. Remember that bit about "any school-sponsored events and activities"? So, are football pants too tight? Or the volleyball team's spandex shorts? If shorts that fall above mid-thigh are too short, why aren't the running shorts that the track and cross country team wear too short? Or, for that matter, the cheerleader's skirts? Are there no strapless dresses at prom? No haltered? What about the color guard in the marching band? Oh, wait, never mind, you KILLED the marching band program (different rant).

Yeah, it's stupid. When you break it down, what it boils down to is, if someone bitches and the administration feels like it, they'll bust the kids. If no one bitches, or they don't feel like it, they won't. I'm sorry, I have a real problem with that.

But I have a larger problem, too.

Humans are sexual creatures. Shocking, I know. I, personally, am a middle-aged, heterosexual, female. You know what I think is attractive and provocative? A guy in a well-tailored suit, with a shirt and tie that complement each other and the suit (which, for me means anything but a white shirt with a regimental striped tie). Oh, and well-coiffed. And cool shoes. And you know what? I periodically encounter males in well-tailored suits and fashionable shirts and ties and cool shoes during the course of my workday; in meetings, in the hallways, in the breakroom. Do I look occasionally? Yes. Does it keep me from doing my job? No.

Get.

Over.

Yourselves.

This is what I want my children taught: You will encounter HUNDREDS of people you find attractive during the course of your life. Some of them you will date, and you'll have a level of physical closeness and intimacy with them that you don't with the others. But even when you are in a monogamous relationship, there will still be people out there other than your partner, who you find attractive. If you can't go through a normal day because of this, you need help. I don't care if you're male, female, young, old, gay, straight, bi, pan, or anything else that I've forgotten.

You know what else I want my children taught? There are standards. If you wear gym clothes in the office, you better be heading to the workout room. If you have a presentation and you come in in shorts, Chacos, and a t-shirt, you'll get dinged on your grade or annual review. That there's a difference between weekend wear, business casual, professional, and formal when applied to clothing. But I want them taught that these standards exist as a way for them to project an image of themselves, or to follow a tradition, NOT because someone else is uncomfortable with, distracted by the sight of their body.

So, would I have a problem with a teacher telling my daughter, on the day of a presentation, "Grace, typically when presenting to a group, spaghetti straps are considered too casual. You should've worn a jacket or cardigan over your tank."? Nope, not at all. Nor one dinging my son for his Chacos. Nor an invitation to a wedding specifying a dress level, nor a bar or bat mitzvah requiring a yarmulke, nor a cathedral or synagogue requesting that heads or shoulders be covered.

But do I have a problem with anyone, male or female, student or teacher or administrator, telling any of my children that the sight of their legs, or shoulders, or boxer waistband, or bra strap, is distracting? Yes. I've been in this high school, and I've got to say, unless I'm just missing the days where there's nudity and debauchery in the hallways, I've seen nothing there that I can't see at the mall. And quite frankly, less there than you can see in any Calvin Klein underwear ad.

So, here's the deal. If you want a dress code, and you want my support, you'd damn well make the thing completely objective, AND enforceable, AND make it about self-image, not someone else's "distraction".

And for God's sake, proofread your emails and check your links!

Teach your children well?

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.
- Carl Jung

Hey, guess what? We're screwing our kids. And not just here in North Carolina, though we're happily leading the charge. Everywhere. At every level.

We're screwing them because we're not even treating their teachers like second class citizens; we're not even treating them like afterthoughts. We're treating them like a scourge that needs to be destroyed.

We're screwing them because we've turned their curricula into the modern day equivalent of cod liver oil. It doesn't matter if you like it, just hold your nose and get it over with, it's good for you.

We're screwing them because we've allowed them, or their parents, to build tiny little homogenous worlds for them to live in, where they're not really exposed to anything that might challenge their thinking and they're taught that the individual is more important than society.

And please, don't say that it's not you. Yes, it is (and me, too). We have all done this at times, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not. Whether it's not paying attention to a politician's record on education funding until it's too late, or asking your high-schooler if they can take that non-honors, non-AP art class pass/fail, or leaping in to "protect" them from a teacher (or another student) they have a personality clash with. We all do it.

There are many news items about this lately. Two that have particularly set me off are this one from the Washington Post, and this one from The Atlantic. The first highlights the differing course offerings in high-income vs. low-income schools; the second speaks to the inability of our college kids to accept challenging views, and the harm that is doing to their psyches.

Now, let's be clear. I'm not suggesting that we move back to a world where the teacher is always right, at the expense of the students. I'm all in favor of a rigorous academic schedule. I'm not suggesting that we ignore a child's background, and the traumas that they may have experienced, and expect them to cope without help.

But I am suggesting that when freshmen at one of the top schools in the country can just decide to not read the summer reading assignment, because it challenges their religious beliefs, then something is wrong. (For what it's worth, I'm also of the opinion that if your religious beliefs can't withstand challenges, they may not be as strongly held as you think.)

I am suggesting that when my kids have, as their choice of arts electives, ceramics, line drawing, painting, theater, technical theater, chorus, choral ensemble, symphonic band, jazz band, orchestra, and more that I'm not even aware of, but schools in, shall we say, less-affluent areas get a single class, because someone, somewhere, thinks they're not spending enough time on "the basics," then something is wrong.

I am suggesting that when my son comes damn close to a perfect score on the writing part of the SAT, and not only can't write as well as I, but can't write as well as I did at 18 (sorry, Peter, but you don't), then something is wrong.

I am suggesting that when we claim to be concentrating on math and the sciences, but ignore research that ties arts education to strong performance in math and science, then something is wrong.

My husband has a favorite t-shirt, which reads, "Experiment. Fail. Learn. Succeed." He would add "Repeat" in between Learn and Succeed. He loves it because he's a scientist, and that's the way he works, but the shirt actually comes from a Drum and Bugle Corps. That's pretty much the way music works as well. And writing, and sports, and drawing...

Except we've taken the first two steps out of our kids' lives. We don't have time for them to experiment; we don't want them to fail. We don't want them to take plain old chorus, because an A in chorus is "only" worth a 4.0. We claim to want them to challenge themselves with AP courses, but we hover over them as they do, keeping up with whether they've done the work, or getting them a tutor, and by doing so, ensure that they'll never fail.

Let's be honest, we got here through the best of intentions. I know that when I was growing up, there were kids who needed accommodations who just didn't get them. And, my kids benefit from certain accommodations now. I enjoy drawing, but I quit taking art class as soon as I could; I hated the first week in May, when we made Mothers' Day cards. Not because of the card (I made one for my Nana, and was OK with that), but because, for that split second, I was reminded in front of the world (my world, at least), that my mother was dead. Would I have liked a trigger warning? Yeah, probably.

So, we have made accommodations, and we've warned, and we've removed obstacles. We've concentrated our budgets on what "matters". We've somehow gotten the notion that being a good parent doesn't just mean protecting our kids from the electrical outlets and cleaning supplies when they're toddlers, but also means protecting them from those who don't think like they do, and even from their own mistakes. Even the ones they haven't made yet.

The result is, we're teaching them that to stretch themselves, to push themselves, to challenge themselves, are all risky, and we must avoid risk. I know 14 and 15 year olds who debate whether it's "better" to take an honors class that they know they'll get an A in vs. an AP class that they might get a B in. Seriously, doesn't anyone else think that's just twisted? They don't look at whether they'd enjoy one class over the other, they don't look at who's teaching it, they wonder about what a hypothetical admissions counselor, at a college they've not even chosen to apply to yet, might think of it.

In Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad writes that the way to "be", to achieve our dreams, to live, is "...to the destructive element, submit yourself...." His meaning is that, if we only stay with what is safe, we will be crippled by our own dreams, because we'll never realize them. He uses as an example a man thrown into the sea; struggling against the waves will exhaust him, and he'll drown. But by submitting to the ocean, and using his arms and legs to tread water, he will survive.

We, as a society, won't let our kids out of the house without a life-jacket. So we shouldn't be surprised when our world is made up of people who can only bob along directionless in a current not of their making.

On Loss

If the fourth Thursday in November is Americans' day for thanksgiving, then today, September 11th, has become our day for grieving. Our national loss is inescapable, whether it's in the reflecting pools, or the changed NY skyline, or in the first-responders doing stair-runs today.

Many, many people have written about our national loss, most better than I ever could. But today I've been mulling other kinds of loss, our inability to recognize them, and our collective discomfort with them.

I can hear you now - "Oh, no, I'm not uncomfortable with loss! I accept it as an integral part of life!" I'm going to beg to differ. I think most of us are, myself included. Part of it is the way we've decreed that loss = death, and refuse to see, acknowledge, and mourn the other losses in our lives.

Yes, death is the most obvious bereavement. And I will say that we are probably, as a society, getting better at accepting the grief that goes along with a loved one's death. We are far from perfect, though, particularly if the death is "uncomfortable": a suicide, or an overdose, or the death of a child.

But death is not the only way we experience loss. There's a fantastic bit at the end of the Harry Potter series. Harry is watching the train pull away with both his sons in it, and walks beside it for a bit, "watching his son's thin face, already ablaze with excitement. Harry kept smiling and waving, even though it was like a little bereavement, watching his son glide away from him...."

And that's it, exactly. We suffer these bereavements all the time, but we're scared to label them as such. The loss of a marriage. A job. That sweet infant that slept in our arms, and is now the teenager who's leaving our home as fast she can. The dreams that we had for our children, as they are replaced by their own dreams. The parent who now needs the help and care they once gave us. We don't allow ourselves to grieve these things, even in our heart-of-hearts. We think that we need to cope, handle it, deal with it, move on, etc. And even when a sympathetic soul tells us, "Wow, that's hard. I'm sorry," we tend to blow of the sympathy. "Yes, but it has to be done." "Yes, but we're co-parenting." "Yes, but now I'll go into consulting." Yes, but. Never just, "Yes, it is hard."

I have struggled with many of these. Yes, I've struggled with death. I lost my mother way too early, and the pain and memories may lessen, but they never fade entirely; I lost my father way too recently, and that pain and those memories are still sharp enough sometimes to leave me breathless.

But there are other losses.

Some are conflicted. My step-son, bio-son, and bio-daughter are all close in age, so we will go from a family of 5 to empty-nesters in span of 3 years. Each one will be its own bereavement (my step-son's has already happened), but each one is also an opportunity to sit back and bask in some parental glory at how well they've turned out. My two step-daughters are either out or nearly out of college, and are leading independent lives. Again, parental basking ensues...but we don't see them like we used to, and that's hard.

And then there are the less conflicted ones. My children (bio and step) have grown up within divorce; they have lost their birth families, and I grieve their losses. My son has a chronic illness; I grieve for his loss of taking his health for granted. My daughter's childhood and "tweenhood" were marked by anxiety and depression, which she still struggles with. I grieve for the loss of a carefree childhood for her. And, yes, along with the grief, there is anger, and guilt, and a feeling that I should've done more, or differently, or better.

One of my favorite scenes in Inside Out was when Bing Bong was grieving toddler-Riley-that-was; Joy tried to force him to be happy, but Sadness...just sat with him. And that was what he needed. Those feelings of guilt and anger and sadness that go along with loss are hard to sit with, but sometimes that's just what we need.

Because when we just sit with them, we can possibly find a way to live with them. That doesn't mean a fatalistic or apathetic acceptance; my daughter is in therapy to ease her issues; my son has lobbied on Capitol Hill for IBD research; my husband and I have worked to make our blended family as successful as possible, without ignoring either birth family.

But I think it does mean that we give ourselves the time and space, either physically or metaphysically, to grieve, to be scared, to be guilty, to be angry. And then we act. Because too frequently, when we act immediately, we only make things worse.

I spent the first couple of years after my son's diagnosis trying to make sure he ate, and ate a lot (one of the effects of his condition is that his gut doesn't absorb nutrients as it should). He hated it; he doesn't like protein shakes, protein powder, carnation instant breakfast, or any other dietary suggestions we were given. I worried, and guilted myself, but he was thirteen, and short of hospitalizing him, there wasn't much I could do to make him eat. This summer, I made a comment to him that if I had pushed harder at the beginning, I thought he would be and inch or two taller than he is, and probably more muscular as well.

He replied, "Yes, but I'd probably hate you." My son is frequently smarter than I am.

I was not sitting with my feelings about his illness; I was trying to jump in and do, and fix, and manage. Because just sitting with the reality was terrifying. He forced me to sit with it when I wasn't ready to, because it was what was right for him. And in the end, the balance between doing and sitting was not only what was right for him, in the long run, it's what was right for me, as well.

My friend Bruce Reyes-Chow, a Presbyterian minister, wrote the following prayer last September 11th:

Every September 11th
my soul wrestles with loss, anger and guilt.

May my loss become compassion, not hate
May my anger become advocacy, not revenge
May my guilt become action, not apathy

God, let us all know Your peace.

AMEN.

(original link here)

That prayer speaks to me in many ways as I sit with my losses, both large and small. Add debilitating fear in with the hatred, revenge, and apathy, and that's what I worry my losses will become. It's hard to be compassionate, to advocate, and to act. Sometimes it's nearly impossible. It's easier to hate, whether it's an illness, or a person, or God, or Fate; to want to "make it right" rather than make it better; and it's certainly easier to do nothing than to do something. But too much of that sort of ease, and I'd become someone I'm really not comfortable being.

So on this day of grief, I wish that we all are able to name our losses, both the large and the small, and that we are also able to find the space to sit with them. That space may be with a loved one, on a mountain, in a place of worship, in meditation...it really doesn't matter. But let us act with compassion for ourselves and others as we struggle with all the losses in our lives.

If the Doctor can do it, why can't I?

Yep, my blog's getting a reboot.

Why, you ask? (Those of you not asking "Who?" because you're confused by the title, that is...)

Well, mainly because I feel like it. I started my blog nearly 12 years ago, and wrote in it regularly for just over six years. When I started, I was married, and my kids were 5 and 3. In the years that I was blogging regularly, I separated, divorced, began dating again, and (obvs) my kids moved from toddler/childhood to tween-hood. And in the six years since I stopped, I've gotten remarried (increasing my kids by three), saw my son diagnosed with a chronic illness and my daughter struggle with anxiety and depression, lost my father, became a dog-owner, and (again, obvs) my kids now range in age from 15-25.

That's a lot of life, folks.

To paraphrase a character in For Better or For Worse (a sadly unappreciated comic), writing doesn't always help me find the answers, but it does help me understand the questions.

"OK, fine, but why blog?" I hear the skeptics ask, "If you blog, people have to come find you; if you post on Facebook, the whole world can see you (depending on your privacy settings, of course)."

Well, yes, and that's kinda the point. I have posted on Facebook, lots, and I still will. But Facebook's news feed is weird; between "Top Stories," "Recent Posts" from two years ago that someone just recently liked, and promoted stories, I admit to some confusion about how on earth the stories in my News Feed get there. Plus, periodically Facebook wants me to read stories about, say, ultra-conservatives (I'm not), or constipation pain in kids (my son does have GI issues, but trust me, constipation is NOT one of them). Let's just say that I'm not entirely sure that Facebook really understands my world.

And Facebook is somewhat, shall we say, in-your-face. I have in the past, and will in the future, write about difficult topics. On Facebook, I need to be aware that my kids, my husband, my ex, and my siblings are all FB Friends. I don't completely censor myself, but I am at least cognizant that they may not want to get hit with a particularly over-the-top post first thing in the morning. With a blog, people choose to come and read, which gives me a little more freedom. Plus, I can always post a link on Facebook!

I will try to be insightful and witty at least some of the time. I will quietly rejoice if I occasionally bring a reader to tears, either of emotion or laughter. I will typically use standard grammar and spellings, and if I don't, it will be deliberate, to make a point. I have no illusions that I either have all the answers or know all the questions, but neither does anyone else, so we're all good there.

So, here we go!

OOoh!!!

I found a list of the 10 geekiest T Shirts today!

I want them!!!!

Well, actually, I don't want ALL of them.

Just 8.

Kudos to anyone who can guess the two I don't want....

Milestone night!

So, tonight was a milestone night in the Cohen Household.

First, Grace was due to move up in ToShinDo, from her yellow-black belt to her blue-white belt. She was VERY excited -- this one wasn't just getting a new belt, but was moving into a new level, too.

She did a good job during the test part of the graduation, then got her new belt and certificate. Oh, and the list of things she needs, now: a book, a wooden knife, a wooden hanbo, a foam sword, a helmet, and padded gloves. Oh, and a DVD! And a bag. Sheesh.

Peter also had his first Scoutmaster Conference and Board of Review for Scouts, to get his Tenderfoot Badge! Boy Scouts is very different from Cubs -- the boys aren't required to do the requirements on their own (there's tons of adult help), but they're expected to do them under their own initiative. So, yeah, Mom, Dad and the Scoutmaster aren't going to reming (too much!) or force a boy to do anything.

The boys are also required to set up a Scoutmaster Conference and Board of Review for each rank. Now, these are pretty easy to set up -- Peter basically went dressed in his class A, and was able to do it tonight.

So, yes, I now have a blue-white Belt and a Tenderfoot in my house!

You've got to pay attention...

So, coming home from ToShinDo tonight, here's a synopsis of the conversation I had with Grace.

Background info: Grace has two friends named Rachel, both from preschool. One also goes to her school now, and goes to the same church we go to, so Grace sees her nearly daily. The other we see every year or so.

Coming up Raleigh Road:

G: "This song is Bring on the Dan!"
M: "Actually, Bring on the Dancing Horses" (we were listening to XM Radio)

(As we're driving past the Bell Tower):

G: "What road is Gimghoul Castle on?"
M: "Gimghoul Road"
G: "Where's that?"
M: "Near Playmaker's Theater"
G: "Where's that?"

I tried several ways to explain where that was. Finally I said:

M: "Do you know where Carolina Friends School is?"
G: "Yes"
M: "Near there"

She was satisfied with that, and we were quiet for a bit. Then:

G: "Rachel must hear SPOOOOOKY noises, then!"

I correctly interpreted this as a reference to Gimghoul Castle, but as the first Rachel that I think of is, oh, I don't know, the one she sees DAILY, I said:

M (quizzically): "Rachel?!?!?!"
G (Condescendingly): "Yes! She DOES go there!"
M: "What??? Oh, Rachel C!"
G: "Of Course! Rachel M. goes to MY school!"

I didn't even bother trying to explain, but just sat quietly. About 2 minutes passed, then:

G: "Here comes the R"
M: "What?"
G: "Here comes the R"
M: "Did you say here comes the R?? What does that mean?!?!?!?!"
G: "This song! It's called Here Comes the R!!!"

It was, of course, Eurythmics, Here Comes the Rain Again. I didn't even bother explaining.

She keeps you on your toes....

Um, you're off by a few months...

I swear, someone decided it was April Fools' Day, and didn't tell me.

Here are some of the news stories out there today:

• Jon Gosselin thinks that being on a reality show in the midst of their parents' breakup is detrimental to his children. Nah, you think????
• Someone tried to extort money from Letterman for sleeping with women. Before he was married. Consensually.
• Ted Williams' head is in a cryogenics facility (weird enough right there), and is supposedly being "abused", including having a tuna fish can that was stuck to it (a flaw in the freezing process, perhaps?) beaten off with .... a baseball bat

and best of all...

• Jacques Chirac has had to give away his dog, a Maltese Terrier (little white ball of fluff) because it has become "violent". Apparently the dog has bitten Chirac three times, once in an "unnamed body part". Chirac's wife says the dog is depressed, and is, "finding it difficult to come to terms with leaving the Palace Elysee".

OK, please people. It's just October!

I'm not a doctor...

But my email apparently thinks I am.

I got a GREAT job offer today! High 500K salary, less than an hour from a major metropolitan area, with international airport, opportunity to life on a golf course OR a lake!

Problem is, they want a cardiologist.

Yeah, not so much.

I share a last name and first initial with a cardiologist at UNC, and the cardiology clinic is in the same building as my office, so I periodically get mail, of both the e and the snail varieties, that are meant for him. Typically it's junk, as the job offer today -- it was one of those ACT NOW!!! offers.

But my favorite was the letter asking me when I would like the jet to pick me up to fly my to Rocky Mount for my presentation? LOL! THAT one I forwarded on!

I knew I should've take more science in college!

And so it begins

I try to keep this blog light-hearted, more or less. I've had my moments, sure, but I tend to NOT blog about things that are bothering me. Partially it's self-preservation: I'm just not that comfortable baring THAT much of my soul in public (that's what sisters, friends, SO's and therapists are for, and I'm blessed with very good ones in each category!)

And, partially, it's because sometimes the baring of my soul will involve other people, and that just doesn't seem fair.

But, tonight, I'm going to break with tradition somewhat. Not sure why, other than I'm feeling a little melancholy.

This weekend (actually Sunday) marks the first in a series of related milestones for me.

My mother died when I was not yet nine. She was 42. I was the youngest of her children (and, I guess, still am!)

I'm now 42, and on Sunday, Grace, my youngest, turns 9. This will be followed in a few months (ok, 6) by my birthday, when I will be older than my mother ever was. Technically, I suppose, that day will come sometime next January (she died in October, before her birthday in January), but I think that my birthday, when my age changes, will be the day that brings it home for me.

So, yes, in a sense this is a good milestone; other than the fact that it's Grace's birthday, which is always a good thing, it means that, regardless of what else happens, she will be older when I die than I was when my mother died.

But that's a really morbid thought! My Nana always used to say that once her husband died (in 1946 or so) she wanted to get her youngest, then 4 or 5, out of high school, and considered any time after that to be bonus. She lived till 1992, so she had, by my calculations, about 30-odd bonus years! But I always, as a teenager, thought that that was the darkest, most morbid way of looking at things! Why think about when it's OK to die!!!

I now realize that it's not that simple. The death of a loved one affects us in ways we'll never completely understand, at least partially because it affects us forever, and we're constantly changing. I remember what I felt at 8, and I know what I feel at 42. The feelings are very different, and I'm sure that at 52 and 82 they will be different still.

So, no, I'm not sitting around checking off things on some karmic bucket list (Got both kids past age 8, check.) I haven't decided it's OK to die now -- quite frankly, I plan on getting grandkids to age eight and beyond, and that better be decades from now! And, yes, I will cherish every day I have with my children.

But I'm also really glad that my daughter will not have to go through the death of a parent as young as I did.