PERFECT, OR ELSE FIRED.

I just read an article that a number of people are trying to get a female presenter on a children's program removed. Her offence? Not that she dresses like a tramp, or has been caught doing drugs. No. She has a stump; as in part of an arm. Those who have complained fear that she will upset the children.

Unfortunately, I suspect that most of the people complaining are probably women. Realistically, they would be the ones at home during the day to notice what constitutes children's shows. I've also noticed that this is the sort of thing that women got "wound up" about. With all the important issues out there that could take one's time, this is the nonsense that tends to get the people I term the "happy homemaker brigade" going. I must add that I have nothing against stay at home Mom's. My spleen is being emptied at those women who must have it all seemingly perfect. It must all look good. They'll dither away only about appearance and not substance. The women who will make cutting comments about others in the presence of their children and then be surprised that they grow up to be lousy humans who bully others. They'll also be honestly puzzled as to where it came from.

I hated that process in school when we had to select kids for teams. I was always in shape in elementary school; in fact, I could outrun the boys. Yet, if it was my turn to pick people for the team, I'd make sure to pick the girl who was heavy near the start. For once, I did not want her to suffer being selected last. As I had once gotten teased for my accent, I knew what it was like to be the outsider. I refused to play that game. My mere doing that garnered me a reputation for not fitting in.

Kids don't learn this junk in a vacuum. It's bad enough to be influenced by the crap on television that tells girls that dressing like a tramp and being brain-dead is good. They don't need their parents suggesting the same. Each and every time they make some negative comment on a person's looks, that's what they do. Never mind the I.Q., it's the surface that matters.

While those with physical handicaps are trying to make inroads, this is beyond the pale. Children may be curious as to why a woman has one arm. What a perfect learning opportunity. I suspect that these people are nothing but hypocrites. To suggest that they have ulterior motives--that the kids are scared, is a cover story. I doubt that they have any qualms about sending their little darlings out on Halloween decked out like a ghoul.

Sadly, it's not an isolated case. In the spring there was a story of people complaining that they didn't want to take their children to a public pool as veterans of the Afghanistan war who were using the pool as a rehabilitative tool looked upsetting. These people who had served their country and lost limbs. Yes, the thanks of a grateful nation indeed.

This is a new phenenomena. Not that long ago people expected their children to be able to handle life. My goodness, cities in Europe were being bombed daily and people made it through. Yet, we now cannot handle a less than perfect human being.

I predict that in the near future we will be able to ascertain who has money from those who don't by how they look. The good looking people will be the upper class as they can afford to fix their appearance. It was once breeding and education that marked the difference.

The fallout is coming to companies that are asking women to wear stiletto heels and makeup. High-heels can permanently alter one's bone structure and risk a slip and fall. Note the double standard that men are not being asked to "upgrade" themselves somehow. Yet.

I hope this woman keeps her job. But, I can imagine her chagrin and pain. The BBC had better not backdown to these morons who'd rather have perfect looks over a real human being who loves children.

BETWEEN THE CATS AND THE PLUMBING IT'S NOT A GOOD DAY

THE ABOVE CARNAGE IS THE CURRENT CONDITION. THE GLASS ACTUALLY GOES ALL THE WAY DOWN THE STAIRS. THE DIRT IS ALL OVER THE RUG.

THIS IS TAKEN BEFORE THE KITTENS CAME TO STAY.................................................

It's true that no good deed goes unpunished, I guess. I took in two feral kittens that were literally left on my doorstep because the stray cat that I had been feeding left them there. She had gone and gotten pregnant again. Well, this is the thanks. The rest of the house is worse.

Then, after a terrible day at work I tried to relax in the tub. The hot water tap suddenly flew off and I had the scalding hot water hitting me full force. It's a good thing I have a high pain tolerence and fast reflexes. Needless to say, I did not relax. I managed to get the flow to stop but it's still dripping and I am trying to see if my friend can fix it. This is on top of the dishwasher that doesn't work, the vacuum cleaner that I just had to replace, the leaking steering fluid, the furnace that only wants to turn on if I mess with it (and certainly not when it's windy and cold). Oh, did I mention that I just spent 800 dollars on those kittens and an older cat with cancer?

I have a long and sad history with toilets and plumbing. It began as a child in Europe. I stepped in a puddle, or what I thought was a puddle. Had I not been holding my mother's hand I would have disappeared into the bowels and depths of the earth. A manhole cover had come off and I kept on going down. As the snow had just melted and the town was up near the Arctic Circle, it was cold. My next misadventure was in a train station as we prepared to leave. I flushed a toilet and some mainline must have blown. Suddenly, the entire washroom was filled with inches of water. It was rising quickly. Had this taken place today they probably would have thought that I was a five year old terrorist plant.

It's been ongoing. I once took part in a student exchange program in order to learn French. Upon arriving at my host family's home I had to use the washroom very badly. When I flushed the tank blew off and the water flew up and hit the ceiling.

I was once woken up by my neighbour because my sewer was backing up into my driveway. You can imagine the joy of having that occur. Everybody was gathering around to watch "the stuff" pile up.

My well went dry once and I had no water for about almost two weeks. Interestingly enough, it went dry the day prior to an earthquake as did several other wells in the area. Hmm, sounds like a topic for Art Bell and "Coast to Coast". In the meantime, just call me stinky. I happened to have water stored in empty Diet Pepsi bottles for flushing the toilet (as where I live, when the power goes out, so does the water), but you only want to boil so much water for washing.

So, that's my day....my week...my month. I have escaped into Youtube and a British MTV special and couldn't help but notice that Pete Doherty's cats are very well behaved (all 13 of them). Mmm, perhaps he's medicated them. Now, there's an idea.... Mind you, the computer's acting up too. Ughh.

WHY THE PAIN?

Some time ago I responded to a post that was on Medusa's blog about cutting. I did so under "annonymous". A comment was given that caused me to reflect and inspired me to write further about what I had stated. I would like to give thanks to Medusa and her blog. She does a great service in providing information and reference material. On a personal note, it caused me to look into an issue that I hadn't thought about for a long time. While it is not something that I have engaged in often in my life in comparison to some people, it should not be something to which one needs to resort at all. What follows is a response as to why people do it and not a personal annecdote. Perhaps I shall blog about that some other time. Incidentally, this is in reponse to the commonly held belief by many people that people engage in this behavior in order to get attention and the issuers of that statement is to whom I direct my comments. I hope that people realize that it's not acting out by their children in order to get "their way" but rather indicative of something more profound. It's not to get attention. Don't ask about motivation. If we cannot even begin to describe how we feel we are hardly going to be capable of telling you what drives us. What follows is an attempt. There is some strange disconnect that happens. It's like living in a parallel universe where we walk and talk and to all those present we seem to be part of the play. But the real action takes place behind the scenes when the curtain is drawn and the audience goes home. We can finally drop the facade. The last thing we want is the stage lights focused on us. We want to be invisible---to pull off the ultimate illusion and disappear in plain sight. Everything seems like an act. We know when to smile and to laugh so that we pass. It's like the animal that camoflauges itself to survive in hostile conditions. We do it to get through life.

We see numb as good. It's certainly an improvement from crushing depression or anxiety or the ever pounding drumbeat that assaults us like a hammer with its message of "no good". That chorus is as familiar to us as the sound of your heartbeat is to you. It is also as constant. Sometimes, just for a second, we find a way to make it stop. It is what we do to take ourselves out of our world and for that brief instant focus on something else. Maybe it's a chemical change, the so-called endorphan rush that others derive from jogging or jumping out of planes. Why are these abuses of the body or risks acceptable while ours is not? Why can you opt to tattoo your body or pierce and brand your skin as a form of self expression or as a way to mark passages in your life? We mark ourselves also, but we do it to express the mundane that we can find no words for in our vocabulary.

What it comes down to is control. This time, I control the pain, not those women who shoot me looks as I dare to cross their path during the course of my day, not the news telling me of yet another lost species, nor a job which holds its employees in contempt. I get to dish it out on my terms. There is an incredible amount of relief derived from this abililty. Perhaps the sense of safety is a false one but it is the only net available. It is our source of power. We don't want people to see it. You so rarely see anything else about us, why would we want this, of all things, to be noticed? What arrogance to think that we seek that attention.

Most of us can remember the first time we did it, the way others recall their first experience with sex or alcohol. I was ten and a green glass vase had fallen off the table during a fight. I was now alone in the living room and the slivers on the floor were somehow alluring in the light. I picked up one of the shards and looked at it for merely a second before something drove me to apply a small amount of pressure and drag it down my forearm. Like the glass itself, the pain was somewhat pristine and pure. It was just a scratch. Contrary to the song, the first cut isn't the deepest. Maybe some people can do it the one time and then walk away, but others are like the addict who knows where the cure is. At some point, we come back to it. And like the addict, we all have our drug of choice. Ours just might be the razor on the arm, the flashlight to the forehead or the hot lightbulb to the wrist. We use it to make ourselves a calm little spot within the hurricane around us. Pain becomes our buffer zone. But it's our hurt; we control it. Like all junkies we hide our disease from others because we feel as though we cannot cope without it. We wear long sleeves in the summer and have ready excuses of accidents incurred should anybody actually notice and ask. People so rarely do. Our coping mechanisms have become so limited that the thought of losing our little "trick" scares us. We have no other outlet with which to express our anguish or lack another person with whom we can share our grief. It's not to get attention.

THE UNKNOWN INFLUENCE

.....We've been inundated with talk of

Obamamania these last couple of months. The media is reporting that he is having a huge influence on people. It was said that Kennedy managed to influence a generation. They signed up for the Peace Corp and asked what they could do for their country.

.....This got me wondering about the possibility of being influenced by people we've never met. Does somebody we don't know have the ability to alter the decisions we make over our lives? Surely many people sign up to fight in battles because of the actions of people like Hitler, but what about in normal, everyday events?

.....I would say that I have had somebody influence me in that way. She'll never know it because she is dead. When I was in highschool, there was a party. Many people of my graduating class attended, although I did not. It was held in an open field not far from where I lived. During the course of the event, a girl was killed. She was reported missing and after a search her body was found some distance from where people had been drinking. In fact, I had gone for a walk the afternoon right by that area.

.....Everybody was talking about it at school. People knew who did it but nobody told the cops. In fact, nobody told the police for a really long time. Even at the ten year highschool reunion when some guy got drunk and started to rail about it, somebody else hushed him up and said,

....."Be quiet, it was an accident."

.....I had planned on studying English at university as I have always loved to read, but I changed my major to Criminology. It wasn't to study evil people. They are boring. Who was it that made the comment about the banality of evil? Ann Rynd? What fascinated me was the people who knew and kept quiet. At the time, it was a small town. These were very middle-class, very white kids. None of them were hardened gang bangers. This wasn't the mob where somebody would be planted in the drink and swimming with the fishes with cement shoes for talking.

.....So, this dead girl inspired me to change my career. This choice was reinforced by the fact that I met her father when he came to my parent's house. It turns out that my father knew him. The fallout of violent acts had a real face and real consequences.

.....I have also been influenced by Simone de Beauvoir. I picked up one of her memoirs one day and I was hooked. Here was a woman who wrote about what was important to me; that with rights comes responsibilities. That doing nothing sometimes makes you more guilty than those who act.

.....And no, despite my problems with eating too much or too little, I have never had a model as an icon.

NOT THE PRINCE

`````We all know somebody who has a type. It's usually a guy who is steadfast in not dating somebody that isn't a hottie or lacks large breasts. There's nothing wrong with having standards and sticking to them. For instance, ruling out racists or people who won't pick up a book is a good rule of thumb. But, what of those odd decisions that guide our choices?

`````I had a friend that wouldn't move in with somebody due to one item of furniture that he would not part with. They had been dating for sometime and this was the next logical progression. It was being discussed. However, Bob had a wagon wheel coffee table. It wasn't an antique that had borne his relatives across the great plains or anything. It was manufactured. My friend was studying at a fashion institute at the time and was interning with a woman whose name frequently came up in magazines as a consultant for future trends. Think "The Devil Wears Prada" and you'll get an idea of the work environment. There were certain boundaries she would not cross and her fine tastes coexisting with Bob's table was such a line in the sand. No cocktail parties could ever be held with that----thing---in the middle of the room. The relationship faltered as a result.

`````A male friend of mine, who was gay, just couldn't get over how "straight" one of his interests dressed. He always wore sneakers instead of dress shoes, wailed my buddy. I digress, but I always figured that there was a market like "Ger-Animals" for men. Those are those clothes where, if one bought an item of clothing that had a tiger on a label, it would be guaranteed to match with all other clothes that bore a tiger on the label. It would probably sell well for the newly divorced guys forced to shop alone at Walmart.

`````As shallow as it may sound, we all have our own Rubicon. One of mine happens to be country music. I loathe it. It's up there with telemarketers on my list of things that may one day inspire a spree shooting episode. Like people with severe peanut allergies, I cannot risk my being exposed to it.

`````I also have an aversion to mullets and bad facial hair. It's been my experience that said hair style is usually sported by a certain type of male. That guy tends to cross into my category of big picture reasons for avoiding somebody (redneck, proudly uneducated and a hater of cats).

`````When partners attempt to kill each other after snapping because they couldn't take the cap being left off the toothpaste one more time, I think it's important to be honest with oneself about this stuff at the very start. I guess I'd rather be single then have to listen to Shania Twain any day.

FELINE FELON

I'm a criminal. I keep the blinds drawn so that people won't see in. If the door goes I only open it a bit and I stick my head out to talk to whomever is out there. Does it sound like a check sheet to a grow-op? Well, I'm a dastardly (to use a word of Brad Pitt's) felon. A feline felon.

Far too many people in my town do not look after their animals. The dogs bark constantly and run around off leash. I am forever feeding the poor strays that show up as the owners are too cheap to fix them and perceive them as being merely "barn cats". I don't know how many times I've gone for a walk and had to fight off a dog attack.

The solution? Not to enforce any existing bylaws. No, they created a brand new one. They limited the amount of pets any household could hold to two. Watch out you owners of too many guppies. They're coming for you.

When asked about how in the hell this would be enforced, the erstwhile Mayor said that people would come to your house to check. Mind you, The Supreme Court ruled that even to enter the home of a suspected grow operation the police had to have a warrant and had to knock to announce their presence.

I guess it's easier to go and attack the homes of Cat Ladies. That along with seat belt infractions must be a serious crime, given the constant checks ongoing for those.

And what to do with the criminal? Or the pets? Death to the animals, I'm sure.

I'll be damned if anybody is coming into my house. Should some idiot show up on my door and try to gain entry, flashing a little laminated badge announcing them as the Pussy Patrol, I will defend myself as though they were Joe Rapist. My pets never go outside and they are much loved. The vet in the town thought the town council were idiots. She refuses to disclose or talk about ownership.

I hope my cats learn the rules of "life underground". Stay away from the windows. At least three of them are black, so if they go to the window they had better learn that it's one at a time. With any luck, the neighbours may think they're the same beast. Or go and peer out at night. Close your eyes if car headlights go by. We wouldn't want all those eyeballs lighting up at one time.

This is so ironic given the fact that the people on one side of me have five children. The people on the other side also have five. The people in the area are fixated on the repair of pickup trucks. Noise, idling, reving. This is accompagnied by very bad country music played at a high volume. The lawn obsession causes the massive overusage of very toxic fertilizers. Even when there's burn bans on, people not wanting to pay for pickup burn their crap in the yard. Chainsaws are obviously the male version of the vibrator.

But no, my cats are the risk and threat. I guess it's that Black Panther group behind it all.

THIS IS HARD

I've known for some time that I'm very much in the wrong over an issue. Yes, the person who goes on about her disdain of hypocrites finds herself in the position of acknowledging that she is allowing evil to continue. In fact, I suspect that I have a legal duty to report. By not doing so I honestly see myself as no better than the low-life who drives the get-a-way car. The accomplice after the fact.

When I was ten I met the new girl on my street. She lived with her father in a large home at the top of the lane. There were so many trees in the yard that it encased their house in permanent shadow. The air itself seemed denser. The blinds were forever drawn. Their backyard had a patio shielded on one side by a huge outdoor fireplace and chimney with landscaping which prevented anybody from seeing into the yard.

Fabiola told me that her mother had left when she was two or three, not to be heard from again. Her mother had been Spanish, which may have accounted for Fabiola's stunning and exotic looks.

But her eyes were always sad and seemed focused at times on something just out of view. Unlike most pretty girls, she seemed to want to disappear. This was made virtually impossible by the fact that she was fully developed and the only girl in our class who truly needed a bra. She was pained by the reaction her body got her.

Fabiola invited me over and it was thus that I met her father. He always seemed to be around after that and his modus operandi was consistant. The man was a pervert. He was forever trying to put his hands up my top or elsewhere. I would have none of it and wriggled away when he tried to grab me. I'd not been raised to be compliant to this sort of thing but at times it was a struggle as he would literally hide and then grab.

My friend was mortified and stressed. She told me that at her previous residence, she'd had a playmate called Pam. Evidentally, what her father had done to Pam was ongoing and "very bad". I guess Pam did not know that a person could say "no" to adults when appropriate.

I remember odd things began to occur at about this time in my own behavior. Fabiola and I once tossed a hard, metal bucket back and forth in her backyard with all the force we could muster. My mother later noticed the severe bruising all down one side of my body. Where did this need to hurt myself come from? This wasn't playing on our parts; this was pent up rage. It was also at this time that a profound depression descended upon me like those fogs of old that would beset London for weeks. I recall with clarity wanting to die. I found respite in books such as "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" and "Lisa, Bright and Dark."

Fabiola suddenly began to call herself Yvette and kept to herself. I stopped seeing her as did most people. My family moved from the area and I don't know what happened with her. I've tried to find her name in the usual search engines, but she isn't there. Given her opting to use a different name already at such a young age, I can imagine that she has no desire to be found. I had a call from somebody a few years ago and I asked about Fabiola. Sandra had not seen her, but her Dad came up in conversation. She too thought, given his moves upon her, that he was a pervert.

Thus my quandry. I've taken the courses, read the books and met the monsters. I know better. I know that people like him do not change. They enter crime cycles and become emboldened when they are not caught. I feel like I need to report him. But, if his daughter hasn't done so, will I do more harm? Or is it me I strive to protect? I know the system. I know that they will have to inform my employer and not one individual there can refrain from gossip. I have never told my parents. It would kill them. For what? The man is probably dead. Given his age, even if I provided any evidence that corroborated Pam's or Fabiolo's, he would be given the usual slap on the wrist.

I grieve for Fabiola. I know as an adult that he molested her. All the signs are there. And I see what my very brief exposure to him was like; how it seemed to have changed me. I cannot imagine the horror she faced being alone with that man every day. To this day I hate the show Kojak as he looked like Telly Savalas. To what extent can I blame the sudden change in my behavior on him? My issues with food? My reluctance to trust people? My forays into self injurying? There were no hints of any of these problems until I met that man.

I hunted out of yearbook from Grade 8; the last year I knew her. I hope she made it and didn't fall into the usual pitfalls that so many girls exposed to these monsters become encased in.

She was so smart and had so much promise. And I hate that all these years later I am still somehow weighing the options because of his behavior.