Solitary in Sanity

this is a great way to thank your host or hostess!

via books, paper, scissors

Those of us in the blogging world know what it means to have friends you’ve never actually met. For me, the term ‘friend’ sometimes carries more weight in the Internet world than it does IRL. I have over 200 Facebook friends, but only a dozen of them know about my miscarriage (excluding family) and even fewer know a thing about my struggles with alcoholism.

On Saturday, I received a package from someone who reads my blog. I knew it was coming, because of course she had to ask for my address, but when I heard Jim say “You have a package from California,” I was so excited. I won’t go in to detail about who it came from or what it was, because some things are still sacred, right?

I’ll just say that it warmed my heart. This woman who I have never met reached out to me in way that most of my real friends have not – this entire year.While the realization of that might make some women sad, it doesn’t do the same to me. I feel lucky. I don’t just get to have a few friends in the area – I have friends all across the world, checking in, sharing wisdom and imparting personal stories.

I have another Internet friend that emails me often. Rather than leave a comment, she’ll type up a whole letter relating to a post I’ve written. She’s older and wiser and she lives on another continent; she’s my friend.

This year alone, I’ve received several personal emails from women who were touched by things I’ve written about. Sure Dooce probably receives six an hour, but who could keep up with that?

I’m not a joiner. I don’t join things, attend anything regularly and committee member, I have never been. This year when my cousin asked me to join the team of her 3 year old charity, saying yes was a no-brainer. I’ve watched closely as the past two events came together after careful planning and grass roots-style promotion. I’ve contributed by attending, finding a sitter for her girls or donating decor from my wedding. Now, with less on my plate and more time on my hands, she wanted me to take on a bigger role. Over the course of the past 8 months, a group of 5 women have met up, sent countless emails back and forth, brainstormed, promoted and sometimes begged to pull the third annual event together. This past Saturday all of our work paid off. The event was beautiful. From the weather to the decor to the food and entertainment, it was perfect. Best of all, despite the lowest attendance, we raised the most money ever. $2,600 will go towards granting a wish via The Make a Wish Foundation for a local family in need of a little cheer. So Saturday was just the beginning, now I get to look on as the fruits of our labor pay off – big time.

So I guess now I am a committee member and a joiner and a charity organizer. I was, I am and will continue to be (for as long as they’ll have me) a part of something great. Now I see what all the hype is about.

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GoodRaise.com

Make-A-Wish Foundation of New Jersey

The beautiful Clara over at Seekingclarav tagged me in the Cherry on Top Award. I was so pleased to discover this! I came across Clara’s blog through Stefanie Wilder Taylor’s Don’t Get Drunk Fridays. Hers is one of the few blogs that I subscribe to via email, rather than in Google Reader. Sometimes, you want certain items to stand apart from the crowd, well, because they do.

Anyhoo, onto the Cherry on Top:

1) Thank the person who gave this to me: Thank you, Clara!

2) Copy and insert award into post and on blog. Done and done!

3) Name three things you love about yourself. Here’s mine:

• I love my sarcasm.
• I love my new found positive world. Lately it’s been crushing the ol’ negativity in a one-on-one match.
• I love, love my always-on-point style sensibility.

4) Post a photo that you love.

This is a photo of my niece, captured by my sister. I love that my sister has taken an interest in photography. I always admire hobbies. She’s getting better and better, I bet she even read the manual that comes with her camera. I like to think of this as her Mona Lisa. Check out Ava’s smirk. If you know her, it’s clear that that this is definitely an almost smile. She was probably about to say something like, “Moooommy NO, I am eating my sandwich.” Even though she really did want to have her photo taken anyway.

5) Tag 5 people you wish to pass this award on to:

(in no particular order. and mostly just because i want to hear their answers/want to force them to do number three because it feels good*)

• Coma Girl @ Comagirl
• Lisa @ Seeking Elevation
• Amanda @ See. Want.Take.Destroy.Repeat
• Sarah @ loveyouinthefall
• Whiskey @ Whiskey Marie

*thank goodness the what you like about yourself part wasn’t the second item on the list. wink.

Man, I’ve been missing all week, huh? Let’s talk about TV shows, shall we?

There isn’t a single show on TV right now that can hold my attention. In my holier-than-thou moments, I like to proclaim (to Jim) that I am too intelligent for these silly shows. Writers, creators (whoever) collectively treat us like we’re dumb – recycling the same premise, the same type of characters, the same dilemmas and passing them off as new.

I’ve watched LOST for years (catching up with Season 1 on DVD and going from there), but I’ve been bored for two seasons. I got into Glee last year, but the newest episodes literally make me throw up in my mouth. I swear there are twice the musical numbers as there were last year because they are trying to appeal to American Idol/Dancing with the Stars fans.

We’ve been watching The Wire on DVD and it’s nothing less than amazing. It keeps me entertained, it leaves me guessing, it gets me thinking about important issues, I laugh and sometimes, I cry. This is a show. It’s no surprise that it never got great ratings when it was on HBO. This is in line with my belief that the average television watching mind is – to put it nicely – simple. Make jokes about mothers-in-law, raise bratty kids, sport a glamourous wardrobe, do a few song and dance numbers, and your show is a success.

Don’t get me wrong,  I love a nice light-hearted comedy. Modern Family is great….but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before they jump the shark with something like a teen getting pregnant or grandma moving in.

So now that I’ve rambled and perhaps insulted your favorite program, tell me what you think about television. And if you watch Glee, I’d love to know your thought about this year versus last.

I am so cheating here…because March is oh, so over. I just had to get one more in, but I am fresh out of words, so I will use the words of my fourth and final Women’s History Month subject instead:

“It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.”

- Margaret Mead

Years ago I had to do a report on a VIP. I cannot remember what grade I was in, but if I had to guess I would say it was the 7th grade. I chose Margaret Mead. She was cool. Google her. I like this quote because I think of this lesser evil as a stand in for the drink. Of course I do.

Thanks for following along on my little project, sorry for shortchanging you a bit with this one.

wednesday –  I am grateful for Yoga. After a tough strength training workout on Monday, it was wonderful to stretch it all out

thursday – I am grateful that Jim has an opportunity to do what he loves. Watching him play drums on stage is just the best

friday – Google. Google, you are amazing

saturday – I am grateful that I was faced with a challenge (socializing with new people, while sober) and that I made it with little uncomfortability (a new word)

sunday – I am grateful for my Grandmom’s (in law) ham pies and more specifically – gaining family/holiday traditions from my in laws.

monday – I am grateful that I am not wealthy. Some wealthy people are downright selfish

tuesday – I am grateful to be married. I love falling asleep each night with him by my side

please excuse the lack of an apostrophe in the title…and tell my wpress theme to go scratch.

Loving your children appears to come naturally and has to be quite easy. I (a puppy mom) know that my love for my little guy has no limits. Even as I stared at the large hole in the side of my yoga mat this morning, I loved him still. It was just too cute how he darted out of the room once I turned my frightful gaze towards his furry, black body…but I digress. Loving someone else’s kids can be quite easy too. I love 3 little ladies that aren’t my own, with all my heart. However, loving someone else’s three halfway grown sons…not so fast. This brings me to the topic of the third installment of Women’s History Month: Women who care for other people’s children as if they are their own. Now since I only know one personally, I will share with you, the story of my sister.

I forget the details because I was in college/drunk through most of it, but sometime, about 9 or 10 years ago, my sister met an older man with 4 children (though for the sake of this, we’re only talking about 3 of them). For more than 6 years (again the deets are hazy) she has raised his three boys as her own. Seeing them through their awkward pre-teens, attending countless hockey games, meeting a few girlfriends and acting as ambulance driver to at least a dozen emergency room trips. She has done more for them than their own mother has, all while raising her own daughter for the past 4 years. She threw the boys their first birthday parties (seriously, they never had birthday parties), looked on as they graduated from high school, and filled out college applications, while the woman who gave birth to them was consistently absent. Her youngest son, who was just a small boy when his mother up and left, calls her by her name – but it’s clear that in his heart – she’s “Mom.”

Sometimes I wonder what the hell she will do with her time once the last two boys are on their own and she only has one child to care for…but then I remember we’re talking about my niece, who is a lot like her one and only aunt. That little one should be able to fill the shoes of three needy boys in no time : )

I guess I will never know if I could love a man enough to love his children. I can tell you that even if I could, I would never be able to unselfishly dedicate myself to running their lives, their household and eeek! doing their laundry. For this, my sister is an incredibly strong, loving and devoted wife, mother and woman.

If you care to read more about the day to day of a stepmother, check her out here. I hope you enjoyed my story of her story…maybe the next time you complain about your darling children, you’ll stop and think of all of the woman out there tirelessly dealing with whiny little brats that aren’t even their own.

*i know there should  be an apostrophe in the title, try telling that to my wordpress theme!

After this post I decided I wanted to do something here to record what I am grateful for each day, or at least regularly. Barb has been checking back in to let me know what she is grateful for…and well, I am grateful for that : )

For now I am thinking I will gather up a few days worth of gratefulosity (gratefuliciousness?) and post them here at some point during the week. Sound good?

friday 3-19 i am grateful that i am not a child in school. that i am not a kid that lives on someone else’s schedule or that has to take the bus – anywhere

saturday  3-20 i am grateful for facials, massages and the comfort found in spas.

sunday 3-21 i am grateful for the best inlaws in the world

monday 3-22 i guess i was an ungrateful bitch this day, because i.got.nothin. recorded

tuesday 3-22 i am grateful for peanut butter kandy kakes

*somebody, for the love of baby jesus, tell me how to get apostrophes to show up in my titles!

Mary Pipher, {PhD} is absolutely brilliant. Reviving Ophelia Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls has been with me for well over a decade. I just pulled out my copy and found notes from a paper I wrote on it back in my first or second year of college. I love them. I love reading things that I wrote long ago. At any rate, I recently came across Writing to Change the World at my local library (shout to the old man crew that I hang there with on the regular. fist pump!). The book is perfect. I renewed it, just because I don’t want to give it back until my copy is here. The next day I happened upon yet another Mary Pipher book in the mental health section (of course I’d hang around there). Letters to a Young Therapist: Art of Mentoring – another gem.

How can one woman write so eloquently about writing, therapy and adolescent girls? More importantly, why can’t she be my mom? These are the questions I may or may not address in Week 2 of Women’s History Month. (Please turn off all cell phones and if you need to use the bathroom, you must ask for a pass).

In Ophelia, Pipher uses her years of experience in counseling teen-aged girls to tell their heartbreaking tales and the culture that surrounds them. In fact, she blames our culture for most of their problems, writing that it’s America’s sexist, “girl-poisoning” culture that gets in the way of their search for their true selves. In the notes I found inside the book I wrote “One would think that nowadays things would be easier for young women, since they’ve been born decades after the women’s movement…Things should have gotten better over the years…My generation has grown up in a world where women have had a vast number of opportunities…”

I go on to talk about Britney Spears as role model (look how that turned out. and we thought ‘hit me baby one more time’ was a bad influence). I mention this, and reiterate the words of 18 yr old me, because in the (almost) decade since I wrote them, things have only gotten worse. (Reality TV, anyone? ) It’s sad and it’s terrible and the only thing we can do is share books like these and the wisdom that we’ve gathered with younger generations of women.

So this post is really long and I haven’t even talked about the other two books. Finally, it doesn’t resemble a middle school paper, because those damn kids will use any bit of BS to fill the margins.

In summary (couldn’t resist) Mary Piper is a woman to honor. Her writing is down to earth, uplifting and makes you feel like a real smarty von smarty pants. You put down the book feeling more enlightened than you did before – and to me that’s what a good book does. Next up, I plan on reading The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding Our Families.

If you have any interest in any of the above mentioned topics, or if you have a daughter – do yourself a favor and check out Mary Pipher’s work.

Side note, or alternate timeline, if you will. Losties? Hello?

I had to mention this because that course, like this book, changed my life. After that it was all feminism, all the time. It inspired me to take on Women & Gender Studies as a minor. Not to mention, it helped me become awesome.