Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting

Everbody assumes that Southerners all have, use, and enjoy guns.

Wrong!

I grew up in Brady Bunch land. Do you see Mike Brady dragging the dessicated carcass of a deer into the backyard, swigging a beer and wearing a wife-beater? *Well, I had a Mike Brady type of father. He went to work in a suit and carrying a briefcase and made pleasant conversation about grades with me.

But something tripped my trigger (a joke, get it?) this weekend. We have indulged in an orgy of violence around Chez Clueless.

It started when I let the girls on Netflix and heard Madeleine prissily lecturing Meredith about Spiderman II having "inappropriate violence." What?

You two little sissies. It's time to take a course in Whupping Ass.

Look, I'm into peace and lurve as much as the next but I am likely to have a child, age 18, walking home to her dorm one day standing all of 5 foot tall and weighing 90 lbs. I want my children to embrace violence as a method of self defense that works.

So off to that great American institution Walmart we went and the girls bought Ninja fighting toys, Indian fighting toys, etc. and I bought a cap pistol that has undoubtedly been embraced by my husband as a harmless way to work off the occasional homicidal urge I feel.

I could not believe that in the safe, gentle, soft, sweet and politically correct world of 2006 I could actually buy Indian accoutrements such as a headband, tomahawk, arrows--and even a tastefully decorated scalping knife.

However, they didn't have any cowboy toys.* Heaven forbid!

*1
I did work with a woman whose husband called her to tell her that he hit a deer on the way to work and she needed to pick the deer up and take the deer to The Place Where They Wrap Up Deer Meat For You.
*2
I take that back. They did have condoms and Astro-Glide lube.

In Defense Of Beauty Pageants

Readin', writin', and 'rithmetic are more important, but looks count too-whether you like it or not

I have never attended a beauty pageant. I have never participated (snort, sheyeah, ME? Dorkalicious me?) in a pageant. My kids have never participated in a pageant. The thought of being involved in any way with a beauty pageant makes me begin to shudder and tremble worse than I do when...oh never mind.

That being said, Ah've just about had it, y'all, and I'm going to shout, and stamp my perky little feet, and cross my arms, and pout about this endless vilification of poor dead Patsy Ramsey and the GODDAMN BEAUTY PAGEANTS THAT JONBENET PARTICIPATED IN.

Let's deconstruct the arguments.

Beauty pageants serve no socially redeeming purpose.

Yeah, and I guess watching Everybody Loves Raymond or Sex And The City or the World Series or reading Danielle Steel does? What were you doing last night at, oh, say...7:00? Were you tutoring inner city children or something else equally saintly? If not, shut up.

Beauty pageants demean women, teaching that that the world is only concerned about their looks.

And the world is concerned about....um....I'm sorry, I'm laughing too hard to write. What do you freaking think the world is concerned about?

People judge each other on looks, and if my kids learn that lesson, then by God they'll be able to deal with it. I'm teaching them to eat right to keep their figures and will teach them self defense so they won't get hurt by men with Tiny Little China Doll fetishes, and I'm also going to teach them that they had better dress nicely and keep their fingernails clean if they want to get ahead in the world.

I can't do anything about the fact that we are biologically programmed to judge each other on looks.

I can teach them that what's in their heart and mind is more important and if you think that a 9th grade dropout can win the Miss American pageant I suggest you take at look at the winners. Each one has a very impressive academic record.

Did you know that the most of the models on Deal Or No Deal have degrees, including one who is a member of the California Bar and one who is going to medical school in the fall? I don't know what that has to do with anything, but I threw it in anyway.

Also, competing in beauty pageants teaches poise. Inarticulate girls don't take home the tiaras.

Patsy "sexualized" JonBenet by having her sing songs at pageants while being videotaped.

Have you actually watched the videos, which I might remind you were taped in front of small audiences made up of friends and family? (Do you think anybody else attends events starring small children? I can tell you the answer is no.)

Anyway, JonBenet sways and twitches while wearing makeup and singing songs like "I Want To Be A Cowboy's Sweetheart." Now if you think that's "sexual", then I think you're the pervert. Sweet Jesus, to hear the howls, you'd think she was performing Britney Spears-like moves and singing about her desire to get laid before her sixth birthday.

My kids wear makeup for their ballet performances. It means nothing except that the audience can see their facial features a little better. Every ballerina wears heavy stage makeup.

Patsy, my Southern sister in distress, here's hoping that you and JonBenet are strolling down the streets of gold holding hands right now.

Requiescant in pace.

p.s. I guess it goes without saying that after 24 years of lawyering, 17 years of criminal professoring (albeit at a community college level so totally without merit or prestige), reading 12 books on the subject, and surfing Mrs. Brady's URLs for years that I have come to believe, along with John Douglas, that poor Patsy was...well...a patsy.

Names Changed To Protect The Innocent

lady madonna, baby at your breast, wonder how you mange to feed the rest....
So.

Thanks for watching my video. You guys rock so hard. I really didn't think anybody would watch 8 minutes of boring kiddie pictures.

I created it with FREE and EASY software--from evil Microsoft. It's called Photo Story 3 and it's a snap to use. It took me hours and hours only because I had to scan all the old pictures into the computer from prints. I highly recommend it--and YouTube was also very easy. Click, click. Thank you, YouTube and Blogger, for joining hands and skipping merrily down the web together.

So. Now. I've been reading the comments on Linda Hirshman's piece and I have a few comments.

1. I have learned that The Internet in no way really reflects the world that I live in. I guess this is going to sound ridiculous but it never occurred to me to criticize the parenting decisions that my friends make.

Ok, one exception--I stand firm in my belief that natural childbirth makes about as much sense as hitting yourself over the head with a hammer for 30 hours.

2. I had no idea that breastfeeding, circumcision, stay at home v. work, diapers, heck, plastic were such hot button issues! I have enough trouble finding cool women friends without alienating them by offering unwanted and unsolicited opinions about their childrearing choices. So, you work? Ok, hope the daycare is going well. You don't? Ok, let's talk about whether pot should be legalized. (It should).

Ok, one exception--I confess that for years, before The Internet, I went around smugly assuring childfree friends that they would eventually drink the Breeder Kool-Aid and want to add the pitter patter of tiny little despots to their life.

Sorry--Debora, Dwayne, Sharon. I apologize. I always wanted kids with a passion that put my love of Virginia Slim Ultra Light Menthols to shame. I apologize. Oh, I apologize. Sharon, I'm sorry that I immediately observed, upon entering your new house complete with a winding staircase, that "you should have a daughter to come down those stairs on prom night." In my defense, I was only 22 at the time. I even clasped my hands together like Al Jolson singing "Mammy." Oh, I blush. I blush.

3. I always felt that I wasn't hired for jobs because the VP's nephew's sister-in-law's choir director wanted the job, not because I was a Breeder-Sure-To-Quit type.

Ok, one exception, and this is the delicious, 100% true story that I want to tell you today.

Tara and I were friends back to the embryo days. Tara and Roger, my husband, worked in the same government office.

Tara got pregnant, sprogged, (I stole that word from the Baby Haters because I just love it) and started on her 6 weeks maternity leave. I knew Tara wasn't going to go back to work, but she doggedly insisted that she was. She investigated daycares, nannies, etc., but sounded about as enthusiastic as Rock Hudson at a Miss America pageant.

Tara had a tree hugging liberal boss who believed with all his heart that women should be cared for and respected and that mothers should be offered flexible, friendly accomodations. Do you know how rare this is in South Carolina? DO YOU KNOW? CAN YOU HANDLE THE TRUTH? YOU TOTALLY CANNOT HANDLE THE TRUTH, Y'ALL!!!

We will call him...Steve.

All righty then! So Tara asked Steve for an extra 4 months maternity leave, and Steve cheerfully agreed. Steve did his job and her job for those 4 months. It was not easy. Y'see, we're talking about LAWYERS here, and you can't hire a lawyer temp.

Tara used up her maternity leave and did what I knew she would do: quit.

I applied for the job. An interview was scheduled.

Now I had to consider the dilemma. Steve and Roger were friends, and Roger wanted kids so much that if he could have breastfed, he would have had milk stains on his shirt. Steve knew this. I also considered the fact that Steve might not have..friendly feelings....towards women in the Breeder years at this juncture in his life.

So I decided to address the issue head-on. I said, "Steve, I just want to reassure you that Roger and I want children, but I love my job and would NEVER quit. EVER. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WOULD I EVER QUIT MY JOB. Anyway, you know how much Roger makes and (laugh) I don't think we could afford it."

Steve looked at me like...well....like Rock Hudson might look at a Miss America contestant. Cold, ice-blue eyes fixed on me. He slowly nodded his head, shook my hand, and motioned to the door.
I guess just mentioning the C-word, even complete with earnest assurances, was enough to drive him over the edge.

Steve hired...Dan. Dan the single man. (as an aside, I can't resist mentioning that Dan and I had once dated. Soap opera, anyone?)

Dan worked for about a year, married a surgeon, fathered a child...

and quit to stay home with the kid.

Linda Hirshman
mommy wars

Father's Day Video

For the best daddy ever, except for mine (g)

The Day My Heart Exploded

On July 21, 1999, my husband gave a bottle to our daughter. Sitting in a steaming hot office somewhere in Chenzhou, China, I snapped a photograph of an ordinary moment.

But it was a moment that I had long despaired of.

So on Father's Day, I want to thank you, Roger!!

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to stand at an altar in a white dress.

Thanks for turning me from The Poor Thang, I Doubt She'll Ever Get Married into Mrs. W.

Thanks for refereeing the fights between screaming toddlers while I dashed out on the back porch for a cigarette.

Thanks for giving our little girls the opportunity to drunkenly confess to their girlfriends in a bar somewhere in 2026 that they've never been able to find a man that really lives up to Daddy.

You're sort of the odd man out in this family. Your biological parents are still alive, and still married. The three girls in this family will never look a biological parent in the eye.

You'll forgive us if sometimes, late at night, we may lie in our pretty bedrooms, surrounded by the trappings of suburbia, and wonder what it would be like to be able to pick up the phone and call the people who created you.

Behind the dazzling smiles of our family pictures lie unimaginable grief. The grief of knowing that your fertility, and carefree youth, was brutally cut short by cancer treatment.

The grief I feel knowing that I was born unwanted, unfeted, and only saved from a tormented life by the luck of being a healthy white newborn girl.

The grief that our daughter's biological parents must feel, leaving their child in the street, wondering if she is living in an orphanage or...maybe..living the life of a treasured child in surroundings they might not even be able to imagine. A house, a pool, a van, private school, their very own computer...dolls, toys, new bicycles...fancy clothes, a Pottery Barn bedroom...a future bright with unlimited promise.

The grief that our daughters will feel when they realize that their first companions in this journey of life may spend their childhood in an orphanage and be cast into the world at age 14, alone, uneducated, and unloved.

The grief and anger and frustration they will feel knowing that they probably will never know their heritage.

Somehow, our family fought through the smoke to find each other, and we're lucky to have you.

Happy Father's Day!!!

This Used To Be My Backyard

Sur fside Beach 1985-shot with a telephoto lens that I think I used once, for this picture

So when you sit around and idly contemplate winning Da Lottery, I betcha that the first thing you dream of is an opulent beach house.

Well...believe it or not, I used to live in an oceanfront apartment. Yes. Really. I'll even give you the address: 17 N. Seaside Drive, Surfside Beach, SC. The rent was $450. Feel free to pay a homage visit, except that the apartment I lived in now sleeps with the fishes. Hurricane Hugo washed the entire building out to sea in 1989.

You think you want to live at the beach?

No, you don't.

Well, ok, now you're just staring at me like I expressed sincere pity for supermodels being as they are all insanely hot, young, rich, and thin and all.

Ok, ask yourself a few questions first.

1. Do I have a huge circle of caring friends with long life expectancies?

Because you will never make another friend again without wondering if they really like you or just like sitting on your deck, drinking your Bud Light and watching your waves.

Ok, try this: Call up every friend you have now and announce, pitifully, that you're homeless and broke and would like to live when them while you "get yourself on your feet." If they ring off by saying, "Let me just go change the sheets in the guestroom," then you're cool. If they suddenly remember an urgent appointment with their proctologist, you may want to reconsider this beach life stuff.

Honestly, I want to bitchslap myself silly when I think of the way I used to behave during the two summers I lived on the ocean.

Saturday would roll around and the phone would ring:

Shallow Person Pretending To Be My Friend: Hey! Wazzzzzup?
Me: Well, not much...seeing as how I'm still asleep....
SPPPTBMF: Whacha doin today?
Me: Well, I was planning on having coffee, reading the paper, and maybe picking my nose.
SPPTBMMF: How about if we drop by for awhile?
Me: Ok.

This was, my friends, in the days before Caller ID, affordable answering machines, and before I actually grew a spine. Today I'd either let the phone ring, or answer the Wassup question by earnestly informing the caller that I was googling "cure for running open sores."

I never saw most of these "friends" again after the summer ended.

2. What would happen to my possessions if I filled a large humidifier with salt water and turned it on full blast?

Sea air destroys everything after awhile. Go out to your car and drench every inch of your engine with salty water. Be sure to include the undercarriage. Put your cherished books in a room and watch them mold. Don't forget the air conditioning/heating unit! They work much better after salty air/water gets into them.

3. Can I pack up every sentimental possession in a small box that can fit into the back of a car filled with kids and pets while I'm fleeing the imminent hurricane?

I have friends who lost everything in Hugo. Everything. And I guess the word Katrina rings a bell, too.

and the most important question of all...

4. Can you think of anything in life that doesn't become routine after awhile?

Sadly, the human mind simply lacks the capacity to operate at Full Thrill Mode for long. Yes, the first night we lived at the beach was magical. By the end of the week it was routine, boring, mundane.

I still want to be insanely hot, young, and thin.

But I never want to live at the beach again. 

The Bee

DATELINE: 9:30AM, Wednesday, May 31

Isabelle: Good Morning, Clueless Community College.

Me: Hi! It's me. Just calling to remind you that I'm taking a sick day today. It's the awards ceremony. Madeleine is going to be entering the spelling bee. Of course, I *am* practically sick...with nerves. (hysterical, nervous giggle). You know she's so shy and she'll be getting up in front of all these adults.."

Isabelle: (firmly) Goodbye Lorrie.

11:30 AM. The inlaws and my mom arrive at the house.

MIL: What a lovely fireplace mantel.

Me: Why thank you. It's from this old house out in the country that Mom and Dad bought back in the 70s. They were going to fix it up. I always thought that Daddy had illusions of being like Oliver Wendell Douglas on Green Acres. (hysterical, nervous giggle). Anyway, it was this old dilapadated wreck that a self respecting ghost wouldn't be caught dead living in. Although I guess ghosts are dead anyway, aren't they (HNG-hysterical, nervous giggle). Anyway, I had to tell you that it was this old wreck of a house because when I first started dating Roger and I mentioned "our country home" his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree (HNG) because I think he thought he was dating a rich girl (HNG) and THAT wasn't true! (HNG). But anyway, they bought it for like $18K and the last I heard the new family that bought it was trying to sell it for $180K..but anyway I'm glad they never moved there because I am so not a country girl, I mean Marie and Donny used to sing about "I'm a little bit country, and I'm a little bit rock and roll and I used to always paraphrase "I'm not at all country"....(HNG)

MIL (desperately): Isn't it about time that we leave?

1:00 PM The Bee

I'm videotaping and standing in a long line of videotaping parents. I've shot zillions of videos. Once, when Madeleine was two, she started lifting her skirt to her waist and swinging it gaily during the Christmas show and I started giggling so hard that the camera shook. Now I'm losing control again. I was literally gasping for air.

Woman standing next to me: Honey, are you all right?

Me (gasp, pant, gasp, pant) I (gasp) guess (pant) so. That's my daughter up there!!

Sydnee got the first word. I couldn't tell you what it was at gunpoint.
Madeleine got the next word. Shriek. S-H-R-I-E-K. Shriek.
Sydnee got Naughty. N-A-U-G-T-Y.

MADELEINE IS THE WINNER!!! Of course I began sobbing loudly.

After the show, Sydnee's mom and I came face to face.

Me: We have some smart kids.
SM: Yes, but look who they got it from!
Me: Laughs.

To myself: Yes. Some nameless, faceless man and woman going about their day in Chenzhou, China.

Thank you, whoever you are.

Thank you...for my life, my love, my joy, my reason for living.