HAPPY HALLOWEEN, Y'ALL!!!!!!

Bad Poetry About Fat People Engaging In Depraved Acts

Yeah, okay, well leave it to Spike to hijack my blog just when a major incident was taking place on the internet while I was eating stolen Halloween candy.  Okay, I'll link to it, which is just what they want.   Because if you don't know about it, I don't want to put you to the trouble of finding it...

Should "Fatties" Get A Room?  Even On TV....

This piece, written by a sad woman who struggles with anorexia, expresses her opinion, backed and endorsed by her editor,  that well, just looking at fat people makes her lose the cracker and seltzer water she gobbled for lunch, and the thought of them, you know, Doing It is too distressing to even contemplate.  Sing it, my skinny sister!

People have pointed out that TV is rife with shows where the man is allowed to expand like the Goodyear blimp while his TV wife/girlfriend  is required to look more like a Victoria's Secret Model.   You know the drill.  Ever see The Honeymooners?   Nothing new.

The world has revolted against this piece.

From the above article:

The internet is now swamped with thousands of furious blog posts, tweets, and comments slamming her post - with many calling her 'hateful' and 'bigoted'.

'As a former "fatty" and current "chunky girl" I am appalled at your comments,' one commenter wrote on the blog.

'How DARE you judge people for what is going on in their hearts, their lifestyle or how they run their lives. Your flippant comments about how a person can get the weight off make me sick... The last thing anyone needs, skinny, obese or in between, is posts such as yours that make them doubt themselves or question their worth.'

*******************
........ and in the meantime Marie Claire magazine has just earned themselves millions of dollars in free advertising.  One helpful person trying to explain how right-thinking citizens should feel about fat people gets shanked for her well meant efforts.  

Well, not being adverse to link baiting and thousands of dollars in free advertising AND being the self appointed Bad Poet Laureate of the Internet, I feel a poem bubbling up like sewage from the windmills in my mind.

So without further ado, a poem is born.  Sort of like Rosemary's Baby.

P.S.  This is satire.  Why, some of my best friends are fat!*

Bad Poetry About Fat People Engaging In Depraved Acts

Fatties are lazy, gross and slack

I hate to picture them in the sack.

My man rams my pointed hips,

And kisses my plump and juicy lips.

That's the only thing that should be plump,

If you got rolls then keep your junk

Tucked into a XXXX jean,

And if you MUST do it, DON'T BE SEEN.

Oh yeah, you say your partner's cool

Can't you see that you're a fool?

They're using you.  Don't think they're not.

They're praying for a chick that's hot.

I'm really trying to be nice

So here you go, some free advice.

Cover up those icky thighs

Until they reach acceptable size.

Avoid the beach and show some class

Don't make people retch at the sight of yo' ass.

Put down that shake and reach for a cracker.

Raw carrots-now that's a smart snacker.

Oh yeah?  About that baby stuff.

You get two weeks.  That is enough.

Just get a corset till you're size 4.

Kathie Gifford did.*  She knows the score.

Don't tell me that you like to eat,

That steak and french fries can't be beat,

You love life and dieting is work.

Bring on the wine, cheesecake, and pork.

So you don't have time to cook fresh food

Maybe...you say...you're not in the mood.

Well fine!  I'll see you at IHOP

I'll laugh at you, simply nonstop.

Till you get skinny, hugs and smiles.

I've gotta go run fifteen miles.

Smooches!

*Not saying I'd be seen with them in public, mind you.
*Two weeks after giving birth, Ms. Gifford squeezed into a size 4 corset to host the Miss America Pageant.  Bet that was comfortable!

Spike Discusses Pooping Which Should Get Mommy A Million Hits So She Can Buy Me Filet Mignon

This is Spike Da Ladeez Man, guest posting for Mommy who is busy eating Halloween candy.

As you can see I have turned out to be an extremely handsome and classy young gentleman and receive several hundred emails daily from young bitches* asking for a date.

Ladeez, I will get around to all of you, but pleeze remember that I am on a tight budget with barely enough to cover filet mignon for myself and so you will have to tweet on the date, and I don't mean on one of those phones if you get my drift heh heh heh.  You see I will keep you laffing while you reach for your American Express card.

I have a question and would like advice.

First of all, I need to explain that my Great Aunt once bot a rug which Mommy inherited and frequently exclaims, after discovering another deposit on the rug, "that **** rug probably cost more that my **** car."   I am afraid that Mommy uses words that would cause me or my three sisters (two hooman, one dog) to go to Time Out, or as they fondly refer to it, "the crate." 

I do not. understand. why are adults are allowed to use profanity around my sensitive ears but if I do it I am deprived of one of the few pleasure in my pathetic life which is surreptitiously unraveling a handwoved 20th century neeldelpoint rug which causes Mommy to use even more bad words.

I think my parents are crazy.

But I see that I am digressing from my mane point.

Well first of all let me show you the $29.00 rug that Mommy bought at Kohl's.  It's under the cawfee table.

"If you must poop in the house when we turn our back for one second," she screams, "why can't you poop on the  (alas, more profanity) cheap rug?"

Well, Ladeez and Gentleman, that is because I prefer to give my (ahem) business to a rug more suitable to my station in life, the Immitashun BookHara rug.   Plus, the living room is tastefully decorated in shades of blue and gween and I think the yellow stains (which I left before I finally agreed to pee outside) add a colorful accent.

Not only am I thoughtfully decorating the woom, but the extra exercise Mommy will get when she has to go out and buy another carpet steemer since I ate the handle off the old one will help work off all that candy that she's eating.

(which inspires me to also ponder why it's okay for adults to steal candy from their wonderful children while I am chastised severely for stealing food from my bitchy dog sister)

I think that I am one classy and thoughtful dog.  Don't you?

Peace out and remember to save the last piece of steak for me.  I'm a growing boy.

*bitches being the proper way to refer to female canines, not intending to be disrepectful.  I am extremely respectful.   "Ma'am," I always ask.  "May I please sniff your butt?"   

A Good College, A Huge Debt?

Recently an e-list I frequent with many midlifers who adopted from China has been abuzz with discussions about getting into a Good College.   The list has a large number of damnyankees who seem to be much more fixated on the Ivies than the rest of the country (sweeping, mass generalization.  My blog. Deal!)

I never thought about getting into the Ivies.   Now I wish I had at least tried.  It would have done me a lot of good both personally and professionally to get away from the South at that age.

Let me tell you the Southern viewpoint *I* was raised with.  And remember I was raised by two parents with a total of 2 bachelors, 3 masters, and 1 Ph.D between them, so it's not like I was raised in a household unfamiliar with the caste system of academia.

What do them snooty Nawthern schools have that you can't get down here while slipping off to the beach for a quick tanning session and without being required to buy a winter coat?

First of all, they're too expensive. If you think we're paying your fare back and forth....we have to eat, you know.

Second of all, ywanna be either a journalist or a lawyer?  Well, the University of South Carolina has one of the top J-schools in the country.  (we "insiders" call 'em J-schools.  You can borrow it).   And if you wanna stay in SC, why not attend law school with your friends for the rest of your life? 

Ya think ya gonna come back down heah from Haaavard Law and fit in with all the USC law grads? 

"Well....yes."

No matter about that.  My LSAT scores barely got me into Arnie's Night Plumbing, Deer Dressing, Barbering & Law School.  Good old math, always ready to punch holes in my rosy dreams.   Math idiocy or fibro?  Which has been my worst enemy?  Tie.

When I think about trying to shove the girls into a Good College, an article I read in Newsweek clatters around my dreams like the ghost of Jacob Marley.    Two people received a Ph.D. in Religion.  One from Harvard, one from a school right under Harvard.  Still a very prestigious institution, as I recall.

The Harvard guy was immediately welcomed into a tenure track professorship and given a year to write a book before he had to teach a single class.

The woman, Deanna, was making $22,000 a year adjuncting at four schools.  (I don't remember her real name).

The article contained the most unintentionally hilarious statement I have ever read.  "Deanna," the sentence began, "knew that her concentration, Irish Catholic saints, was a hard field to break into, so with an eye to practicality, she chose to focus her dissertation on the later Irish saints instead of the early ones."

Ya want fries with that, don't ya.

Happily, I googled Deanna a few years later and she had a tenure track job, I think.

But these days young at heart parents have to think about our own retirement and several of us agreed that sending our child to a school where they would receive a  bill for $100,000 in student loans tucked in their diploma holder was simply insane.

My parents had no problem telling me that they expected me to graduate with a degree that had a market built into it.  Their parents told them the same thing.  

We're middle class here, people.  Our last name is not Gates, nor is it Rockefeller.  We have to be practical.

This is all probably moot.  Our girls seem to think that Daddy is the repository of all wisdom here and beyond and since he is a fervent University of South Carolina fan and (I did receive an excellent education there myself so I can't really argue) they are already in love with USC and if they go there I'll be perfectly happy.  

We have lottery help for instate schools and that is exactly where they will be going barring a full ride offer elsewhere.

Meredith would probably do better at a smaller college, but she's in 4th grade so I'll think about that tomorrow just like Scarlett.  And we do have some great small state colleges here, like Winthrop.

I personally have more questions than answers, and the girls will choose their own path so why am I sitting here thinking about it anyway?

I guess I just want them to go to a good college.

In God We Trust

We had to get new tags for Mom's old Buick yesterday.  We had a choice between this and a palmetto tree.

I stared at this tag for ten minutes, flipping the two plates back and forth in my hands while my husband and kid fidgited and begged me to "hurry up so we can get to Radio Shack!"

Isn't this just going to add to the general perception that all South Carolinians are intolerant bigots?

Am I the dorkiest person in the world?

Why am I ashamed of my faith?

Why was I laid off the only job I ever wanted and loved, sometimes more than my kids, to be brutally honest?

Why is Mom, a devout worshiper of God, dying an agonizing death from Alzheimer's?

Why am I, a loudmouth who once got slapped by Daddy for refusing to go to church, suffering so with fibromyalgia?

Why did I come home on September 11, 2001, burst into hysterical tears and declare that I would never worship God again?

"I'll take this one," I whispered, drawing shocked looks from Roger and our daughter, who has heard me rail against the injustices of this world since I changed her first diaper.

Because, in the end...no matter what...no matter what an idiot you may think I am....

I DO.

So You Want To Go To Law School

Just don't do it because you can't think of anything else to do in this economy.  Talk to experienced lawyers.   Buy them a drink-unless they're AA members.  The rate of drug and alcohol abuse among lawyers is higher than the general population, and suicide rates are terrifyingly high.

Show a lawyer with 20 years of practice under her belt this video and ask her for some honest feedback.

The End Of The Innocence

I walked up to the apartment building.  The apartment was originally built as Mitchell-Lama housing.  I lived in a Mitchell-Lama apartment when I was in law school myself.   That means that it was built for middle-low income residents, but after 20 years it could be turned into for-profit housing.

It has been changed to luxury living.  From their website:

Two Bedroom Apartments available from $4100 - $5200

It's beautiful.  Just beautiful.

I walked in at 4:00 and the doorman rang Wayne's apartment and he wasn't there.  Wayne has no phone, no cell, and probably no computer.   I had no way to get in touch.  So I decided to wait.

The doorman and I became instant best friends.  He even allowed me to use the private bathroom for staff.  In New York, this is the equivalent of inviting someone into your home and allowing them to sleep on the floor in your bedroom.

We talked.  Or, to be more accurate, I talked babbled.  He was fascinated.  He had been working there for 15 years.   He knew Wayne well. 

People began arriving home from work.  A couple walked in with their briefcases, a 3 year old in a stroller, and a baby in a wrap.

"God, I'm tired."

"Yeah.  Whaddya think?  Italian or Indian tonight?" 

I rejoiced.

I did that!  I had the wedding, the ring, the two adorable babies, the two briefcases, the Christmas cards with the little matching outfits, the beach vacations.  I did it!!  I made my dream come true!!!!

thank you Roger, thank you China, thank you Places in SC who hired me, thank you Places in SC who hired Roger, thank you God!!! kept running though my head like the bottom of the screen on CNN.

I turned back to the doorman and told him my entire life story, except for the time that Mrs. Wood yelled at me in the 2nd grade for picking my nose.   I would have added that in also but he was too busy being interested in a Wayne that he didn't know.

"He had a girlfriend?  You lived with him?"

"Sure, for 2 years.  He just wouldn't put a ring on it," I winked.  "So I went home, cried for three years, woke up,  found Mr. Right, got married, and I'm back up here for a conference, and I thought I'd drop by and say hi, I never got to speak to him after 9/11, and he had terrible asthma, and I was so worried...I finally had a friend contact the doorman on duty after about 6 weeks, and the doorman said that Wayne was okay."

"I don't believe it," he mused quietly. 

"What?"

"Okay, you are going to be like I'm exaggerating and all, but in 15 years I've never seen him with a woman."

"You are kidding me."

"Lorrie, until you walked in here today, I thought he was gay."

"Gay? Oh hahahahahahahahaha......well...um....."

"I got you."

Buzz!!!  Text message from South Carolina.  My sister.

what the h r you doing?

Waiting at Wayne's apt.  Starting new business  Stalkers R' Us.  Boiling bunnies extra.

you had better behave

not blowing my faithful record of 19 years here, k?

no sign of him?

no, doorman says he usually shows up about this time

good luck

will keep ya updated

I held the iphone up and shot a picture of myself so I could remember...what?  

Remember so many things I could never forget. 

Remember the sweet innocent girl who once leaned into her man in the twilight while she was wearing a silky dress and heels, walking to dinner at a French restaurant. 

As Joan Baez sang, "speaking strictly for me, we both could have died then and there."

And like many stories irl, I waited for 4 hours and nothing. 

I slowly walked to the familiar subway station closest to the apartment, boarded it, went back to Cousin Sally's, went to sleep, awoke at 4:00 AM, boarded a plane, staggered off the plane laden with gifts that the kids loved, kissed the man I want to be with me for the rest of my days

and lived happily ever after.

Diamonds And Rust

?
Okay, back to my New York Diary.   

When we left off, I was leaving the World Trade Center memorabilia store.

I snapped a picture of the Stage Door Deli next door to the store, and a picture of the WTC site.

?

I turned the corner and began to walk towards Wayne's apartment.

And there it was.

??And all of a sudden I was 28 years old again.

WE INTERRUPT THIS DEPRESSING TOUR DOWN MEMORY LANE TO CELEBRATE MY HAPPY ENDING!! 18 YEARS TODAY!!!!

If You Like It Then You Should Have Put A Ring On It

Wayne and I visited his cousin in Oakland, California in the spring of 1987.

I was wearing his ring.

I still wear it.   I'm a practical person.  The ring had a beautiful sapphire in the middle of two diamonds.  I tried to trade it when I got engaged to Roger but they offered me nothing for it.  So I had them replace the center diamond.   Roger was cool with that.  To be honest, he had asked me once about the ring and I told him it was an engagement ring.  

He had forgotten about it. 

I knew nothing of black history.  I attended an integrated private school in North Carolina up through 2nd grade.  There was one black girl in my class named Sabrina.  The teachers were mean to her.  I asked mom.  Mom said that she had dark skin.  I could not figure this out.  There were darker skinned students in the class from India and she was nice to them.?

At night I used to stare at my ghostly arm and stroke it and whisper to God, "Thank you for giving me white skin so my Teachers will be nice to me."

I started 3rd grade in 1967 at a newly integrated public school in Blacksburg, Virginia called Gilbert Linkous.    I spent 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade there.   Every week a bomb threat would be called in (I am serious.  Every week.)   We students thought it was great fun.  I'd bring a Scholastic paperback in my purse and read it on the bus while they brought the dogs over to sniff out the school.  Then we'd all cut up and have fun.

I was stunned when I learned about Brown v. Board of Education because the decision was issued in the mid fifties.   I could still hear the sirens and the dogs panting with excitement as they prepared for another fruitless hunt for a bomb.  Couldn't they have integrated the school earlier?   Sure, the bus trips were nice, but I paid for that when my math SAT scores came in.

Needless to say I learned nothing of Black History in those days.  I remember pictures of slaves in the cotton fields and I got to see Gone With The Wind when I was 10.   It looked like the slaves had a lot of fun joking with each other.  And after all, Ellen O'Hara took such good care of them.

Woo alert!!!!  I visited a reputable, licensed psychologist with a PhD from the University of South Carolina, approved by Blue Cross,  and she conducted a past life regression. I flashed back to being a house slave, a mulatto who was sleeping with the master.   He eventually bred me to the biggest slave on the plantation and I died in agonizing childbirth because the son we created was too big.  

And I always wondered why I had no real desire whatsoever to give birth in this life.  Wayne was my true love in that lifetime.  He was a slave.  He caught me shopping in town one day (I had special privileges being the master's girl) and begged me to come with him to the North and marry him.  Terrified, I refused.  My master had told me that he would throw lye in my face if I was caught having a romantic relationship. 

It sure sounds like some dreadful paperback novel but I dropped everything to move to New York almost as if I was in a trance.  I walked away from my law career, my family, my friends, my entire life without a second thought. 

Okay.  I was naive.  When I first visited Wayne he had a picture in his foyer of a black man.  It was a picture merging Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.  I said, "Is that you?"

He patiently explained that the two men in the picture were merging and it was meant to symbolize that at the end of his life Malcolm X and Dr. King began to see eye to eye on their philosophies.

Back to Oakland.

Carol took us to a wonderful restaurant called the Gingerbread Man.   I was happily shoveling in food when the discussion turned to discrimination.

"I've been reading Malcolm X, " I chirped, "and he seems to think that the black man should never wait patiently for the white man to move over and voluntarily grant him room in his garden.  White men aren't ever going to voluntarily say, 'Here! Here's what you rightfully deserve, sorry about that whole slavery thing.'  Black people ought to support their own communities, visit their own professionals, and create power by building their own house.  I think he's right."

She sprang to her feet.

"YOU GD MF B!" * she screamed quietly, if that makes sense.  "HOW DARE YOU ACT LIKE YOU KNOW ANYTHING, YOU SPOILED LITTLE WHITE GIRL FROM THE SOUTH!"

The evening progressed from horrible to Defcon 10.  Wayne and I slept in separate beds that night.

It was over, but I didn't know it.  We continued to live together.

Spring 1988 was coming, and I wanted to hear wedding bells.  Now.   I was ready to start my family.

Wayne kept wavering.  Finally he said that he would tell me his decision in May, 1988.

I bet you can guess the ending of the story when I show you this picture.   Body Language much?

One Sunday morning we went out to brunch and over pancakes he told me that not only were we not getting married, I was officially dumped and I should start apartment hunting.

I left New York in July of 1988 a broken woman.  I spent three years mourning him.  I should have gotten psychiatric help, but in those days, I believed that only crazy people did that.

Would you believe that we continued our "friendship" for another several years?  We chatted on the phone, I visited him three times, and it was just as wonderful as when you slooooowwwly rip off a bandage that's stuck to some hair on your skin.

Finally I had my happy ending when I married a nice white boy.  My parents were delighted.

Their prodigal daughter had come home.

Looking back, if I had kept my mouth shut in 1987 and not asked for marriage I believe we would still be together.  We'd have two kids and we'd be living happily ever after.

But you know what?

I believe in marriage.  I did not want to have children with a man who refused to put a ring on it.

Beyonce agrees with me.

And I believe the same thing today.

And maybe one day loving homosexual couples will be able to legally say their vows in South Carolina.

Naw.

That's about as unlikely as having a black President.

Oh.

My bad.

....to be continued.  9/11, Stalkers R' Us..Visit to Wayne's apartment in August 2010

*I agreed to not curse on the blog as a condition of my advertising contract with Blogher.

Magnolias and Harlem

Me in 1985, just before my whole life changed

Here's the story of a lovely* lady* who went to New York in 1985 and met a guy who had been raised in a cold water flat in Harlem,  African American, 17 years older, and the love of my life.*

His name is Daniel Wayne Moorehead.

The whole thing was a fluke.  Our office secretary was from Jamaica and I wanted to go with her but she didn't have the money so she decided to take me with her to visit New York.  Her husband is a minister and their church was having a convention.  I went with her and Wayne was there to pick up his mother, Velma, who was visiting from Virginia.

We looked in each other's eyes and fell into.....casual conversation. He offered to show me New York and I accepted.  Two days later we were in love with each other.  For real.   For life.*

I kind of fell in love with his apartment and New York and his view too.  I was in love with everything.  It was like coming home.  I had spent many lifetimes in this city.

He lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with great light overlooking the Hudson River, on Greenwich Street.  Just below Greenwich Village and just before Wall Street.  Here's the view from his apartment building.

And here's the WTC shot from his apartment balcony.

I flew home to South Carolina intending to get a job, move to New York, marry Wayne, have two gorgeous children, and live happily ever after.

It took me a year to get a job.  I moved to NYC in 1986 and began working for the NYC Commission on Human Rights.  I loved my job.  My best friend was Adimu Amili, a gay cross dresser who was in the process of a lenghty sex change operation.  We were both in love with men named Wayne.  

His Wayne, sadly, had decided to marry his high school sweetheart and have a family, so Adimu (later Arielle Makela) was most distraught. 

We had great times chatting over coffee and margaritas.

Most people in the office had never met a Southern woman and it took some time to warm them up, but eventually we all became best friends.

Time flew, and suddenly it was Christmas, 1986.  Wayne invited me to live with him.   I began picking out names for our children. 

I saw Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner at a tennis tournament.

I was too shy to speak to them. But how I wish I had!  Especially since I ended up being operated on for the same disease that killed Gilda Radner, ovarian cancer.  I didn't have it.  All went great.  Well, except that the operation to remove it kicked off  fibromayalgia which has rendered me a near invalid, ended my beloved career, and has caused me agonizing pain, but other than that, I'm fine.

We took a trip to California in 1987 and stayed at his cousin's apartment in Oakland. * I was in heaven.

We went to Napa...

We went to the Bahamas...

?We were in love.  We were madly in love. 

There was one little thing that I slowly began to realize...

Everybody else hated us.

My parents threw a fit.

"You taught me that all men were equal," I argued.

"Don't get me wrong.  We love black people. We watch The Cosby Show every week."

I am not making this up.

"So...I want to marry Wayne and have his children.   You in or out?"

"Absolutely not.  We will not accept children of a different race as grandchildren."

Little did they know.  Two of their grandchildren aren't even from the same species.

Eventually they met Wayne and fell in love with him, and gave us their blessing.

People in South Carolina were simply horrified.  To them, I had gone over to the Dark Side.  I guess literally.

"You stole a single, straight, employed, handsome black man," said my black friend at work.   "Shame on you!" 

"But we're in love.  Love overcomes all,"  I reassured myself.

Not so much.

...to be continued.

*lovely may be exaggerating

*lady is a total lie

*so I thought

*yes, for life.   But I love someone else a whole, whole lot more.

The guy in the pool.  Our 18th anniversary is on 10-10-10.
*This visit is forshadowing. We'll be talking about it later.