In the process of the current election endeavors being pursued by various individuals, so called, “social issues,” have often been in the forefront. Women’s reproductive health is one of these issues. I would like to point out a few ironic inconsistencies in our society that might make people look at things a bit differently, or at least say, “hmmmmmm.”


Now, the hard line view regarding the abortion debate is absolutely no abortion, no matter what the circumstances and the woman carrying the child in question has no say whatsoever about it. These hard liners are, of course, the same people who say no to contraception in all its forms, and the education regarding the same. Interestingly, these are also the people who rail against any sort of government subsidy for those in need.

And just so we’re clear, of those in need, in our country, receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, about 51% are single parent households. About 17% of those single parent families are headed by teenage girls.

According to a study by the United States Government Accountability Office, 42% of families receiving Aid to Families With Dependent Children are headed by teenage girls.

In light of these statistics – which, incidentally can be found online through Google or your favorite search engine - I have to ask what might have happened if someone had educated those teenage girls about self-worth and contraception? I also have to ask, what happens to them now? Do they stay on welfare? How do they educate themselves when there is barely enough money for food and shelter and no money for day care so they can get a job and go to school? How many of the children these children begat will go on to be single mothers and absentee fathers on the welfare rolls themselves? We won’t even go into the number of these children with children who are homeless. Nor will we touch on the pitfalls of fatherless households. My head already aches.

Ron Paul told Morley Safer yesterday, on Face The Nation, that while he certainly believes women should have access to birth control, he doesn’t believe those who are morally opposed to birth control should have to pay for it. We all heard what Rush Limbaugh thought, loud, stupid and in color. Rick Santorum (have you Googled his last name yet?), doesn’t believe in birth control at all. Nor does he believe in pre-natal testing because it’s a pro-abortion conspiracy. Mitt Romney – well, it’s only Monday, so I don’t know if he’s been briefed on what he believes this week. I’m sure Newt will be setting up birthing clinics in his moon colonies.

So – jokes aside, we have a bunch of right wing candidates – or in Limbaugh’s case just a big mouth – who are debating and, in the case of that lovely all male committee, trying to decide women’s reproductive issues as if we were a commodity. AS IF WOMEN WERE AN, “ISSUE.” I assure you, though treatment of women is an issue, WE are human beings.

Another women’s issue that has come under fire for, oh, God, I don’t know how long, is breastfeeding infants in public. Are we really still having this conversation? Tell me how it’s okay to have commercials like the one for Carl’s Jr. restaurant, showing a half-naked adolescent straddling furniture while tonguing a dripping burger, but somebody is bitching because Beyonce nursed her kid in a restaurant? Explain to me how objectifying women in everything from The Bachelor to Hustler Magazine is acceptable and yet a TSA agent managed to refuse passage to a nursing mother aboard an airplane because she had a breast pump in her bag.

I am autonomous in my world. I choose where I go, what I do, how I do it and with whom I do it. There are times I’ve had to be adamant, if not militant, about it. Most of the women I know are the same in their own worlds. But the fact is, in the bigger world, the real world, women are still, in many ways, treated like a piece of property and our rights are being very seriously trampled.

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, pro-abortion. In my heart and soul, I believe that there is enough for everyone in this world and that only by love and inclusion will we all prosper. We are all connected. I believe that abortion as a form of convenience and birth control is wrong.

However, I believe just as strongly, that the decision of whether or not to carry a child to term has to be between a woman and the God, if any, of her understanding. If I am to be trusted, as a woman and a human being, if anyone is to be trusted as a human being, then we must, as a society, trust women. I believe it’s the first step toward fewer abortions and a healthier society.

Trying to legislate women’s bodies breeds only resentment and hatred. The fact that these right wing conservatives who wish to put a lock down on reproductive health and rights are the same ones who insist we can’t regulate guns sounds insane.

As with nearly everything else we have a choice about in our lives, and especially in an election year, this is about common sense. I hope and pray our country can exercise some when they go to the polls in November

I can talk?

Today, the Susan G. Komen Foundation reversed its decision regarding denying grant funding for breast cancer screenings through Planned Parenthood.


I say a resounding AMEN!

But that’s not what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about a voice.

One voice.

My voice.

My daughter’s voice.

My husband’s voice.

My other daughter’s voice.

My third daughter’s voice.

My daughter’s friend’s voice.

My son’s voice.

My other son’s voice.

Michael Bloomberg’s voice.

Your voice.

Every. Single. Voice.

Each and every voice that spoke out on this issue.

I wanted to cry – I did cry a little – and I sort of can’t stop – when I think of what was accomplished because women, and men, many of whom don’t usually use their voice, stood up and said, wait JUST a minute! This is not right!

I love how my sister, Kate, put it.

“I am Pro Life,” she wrote. “But if you disagree with me, I don’t wish you dead. Susan G. Komen Foundation... SHAME ON YOU!!! You are going against everything you stand for. Make a public statement regarding your beliefs if you'd like, but don't deny women the care that they need. "We will make sure that women stop dying from breast cancer UNLESS they believe x, y, z..." is not what I signed on to support.”

What a voice.

And how about that 24 year old woman who started the on line petition to get Bank Of America to back off the monthly fee it was about to initiate?

One voice.

Consider the voices of the people who stood up and said no to legislation that could have led to government censorship and subsequent shut downs of online sites such as facebook, google and wikipedia.

I was one of those voices. And I was heard.

Imagine if I hadn’t spoken.

Imagine if each of the people who spoke had decided to let someone else speak.

And then no one did.

I don’t know if it’s the phenomenal impact of the internet to get these messages out that has me amazed and thinking, but for the first time in my life – ever – I like the sound of my ability to speak and be heard.

I know I am just one voice.

But I’m loud.

I'm good at this........right?

For anyone who has ever said they love my writing and asked me why I have not had my book published yet; for those who have told me I am one of the best singers they ever heard and wondered aloud why I never became Reba McIntyre – I have the answer.


I am an idiot.

When it comes to marketing myself, I am absolutely incompetent.

Case in point, my guru.com profile. They asked for a tag line to post on my page. This threw me into total panic. I’d just written several chapters for the current manuscript I’m working on. I’d blogged, written a snail mail letter and had been writing all over facebook. You know – I was good and warmed up. The engines were revving and I almost broke my nose hitting that creative wall.

After 30 agonizing minutes of staring out the window, this is what I came up with.

“If you need it written, I’ve got the pen.”

Oh. My. God.

Yeah, that’s like, when I sat down with an agent at a writer’s conference in September and she said tell me about your book. My opening line was, “uhhhhhhhhhhh……”

I’ve always had a problem with any kind of self-promotion and I’m not entirely sure why.

I remember being on a lunch date in high school with a kid named Steve Ingalls. I was fine with him in class, could say hello in the halls and had the wherewithal to get a girl I knew to help set the date up. We got in the car and I was paralyzed.

“Where do you want to go for lunch,” he asked.

“Don’t know.”

“What are you hungry for?”

“Don’t know.”

“Do you want to eat?”

“Don’t know.” I did elaborate at that point. “No.”

I don’t think another word was uttered the entire hour. Needless to say, Steve lost interest quickly. Though I managed dates over the ensuing years, I always had this sort of trouble – speaking. I consider it somewhat of a miracle I managed to find a man who would stay around long enough for me to form an actual sentence.

When people heard me sing over the years, they loved it. I knew I had a gift, wanted to – and did – perform professionally, to an extent. In order to take things to another level, however, I needed to be able to promote myself.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……….

People lost interest quickly.

I have recently gone back to work for a company I was employed with a few years back. I’m very good at what I do there and enjoy it immensely. However, when a new opportunity within the company came up and I was offered said opportunity because, in the words of those offering it, I am, “very good at what I do and highly skilled,” my first response wasn’t, “sure, great, thanks.” It was, “I’m highly skilled?”

Because I didn’t know?

I knew! I did! Honestly, with that response I’m probably lucky they didn’t just move on down the line to someone else.

If you can’t convince someone that your product is unique and they need it more than they need the next person’s, they lose interest quickly.

Mark thinks I’m actually afraid someone will say yes to my books or my voice. I’d like to believe that’s true, because it makes me sound tortured and artistic. The truth is closer to my incompetent theory.

However, I will keep trying. Even though everyone and their brother’s cousins’ maid’s hairdresser is a singer and you can’t swing a dead cat without smacking a writer, I believe what I have to say/sing needs to be heard and people will love listening.

Is that too long for a tag line?

In Honor of an American Holiday

Because I can add nothing of any eloquence, sincerity or spirituality, I give you this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with love and hope for our world, for humankind.

"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.......  Hate cannot drive out hate.  Only love can do that."

I'm young. I'm hip. Or I need a younger hip........

In the last couple of years of his life, my Grampa Elmer was very ill much of the time. A sweet, articulate man, who, as his body broke down, seemed compelled to share the details with anyone who was around. I managed to escape the most graphic descriptions, but my cousin and aunt were not so fortunate. The episode that always left me gasping for breath from, first, laughter, second, dry heaving, had Grampa holding out a Dixie cup full of lung butter for color inspection. My cousin beat a hasty retreat at a full gallop before viewing said specimen. Auntie, however, felt, somehow, bad about the idea of running screaming from the room. She stayed. She looked. She earned her place in Heaven.


The upshot of hearing about/living through this and other such occurrences was that I vowed, out loud, more than once, to keep my shit to myself as I grew older and aches and pains became an issue. And, let’s be clear. By, “older,” I meant 80. At least.

What I did not count on were the complications pre-menopause can cause, not to mention the genetic stomach issues I inherited from my father and grandfather. Ones I was sure they either exaggerated or brought on themselves. The results of the aforementioned afflictions have had me sick and/or bitching about feeling sick for close to a year now.

I didn’t think too much about it – much less equate it with Grampa’s ill-health epilogues - till last night when I found myself telling my 25-year-old nephew about my goddamned gallbladder attacks.

WTF

I am still a vital woman. I still have many active years ahead of me and I’m as young as I’m ever going to be. Those are only some of my positive mantras and let me tell you, I believe them. I live them.

I hiked 2/3’s of the way up a mountain last week, for God’s sake, slowed only by that raw place in my abdomen. It would have been fine had I not tried to sneak a Texas Hot (for those who’ve never had the pleasure, it’s the best thing that ever happened to a hot dog and the real ones are sold only in Wellsville, NY), bacon and baby back ribs past it in a 24 hour period. Unhealthy for anyone – masochistic for someone like me, who has a testy gallbladder and intestinal tract.

And, honestly, that’s basically everything I said to Casey, my nephew. Plus he’s a doctor, though not that kind of doctor. He was either thinking, yuck, overshare – or maybe nothing, really, because he’s known me his whole life and realizes that, post-glass of wine, thought vomit is just one of my charming (?) habits.

It was a brick over the head to me, however.

“Just call me Elmer,” I thought. Minus the sweetness, charm and loving gratitude displayed to those caring for him during his illness. Not to mention the 30 years he had on me before he started complaining.

At least I realize, right? I now know what to avoid. No more stomach soliloquys. No more speeches to my daughters about what they have to look forward to in the female department when they get to my age and how fortunate they are that I’m giving them a heads up.

I’ll go forward and live my life.

As soon as I can get up.

I strained a muscle in my hip and it’s been difficult to get around the last few days………

God, where’s the tequila?