Happy

For some reason, this video makes me happy. The longer it goes, the more it makes me smile.

Hehe. I'm such a dork sometimes.

22

She was 36 years old when she felt a lump in her breast. She was a busy woman; her alcoholic husband was disabled, so she worked a 2nd shift factory job and took care of their two teenage daughters. She was beautiful, intelligent, and frazzled. She put off making an appointment, and when she finally did go, the doctor told her it was a cyst and tried to drain it. This was unsuccessful, but he told her to come back in a few months for a follow-up visit, that the cyst would probably go away on its own before then.

By the time she went back, the cancer had already metastasized to her brain. There were days the headache was so bad that she couldn't get out of bed, except to run to the bathroom to vomit. She was weak. This beautiful, healthy, athletic woman was wasting away.


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A couple of months ago, I sat in an exam room at a radiology imaging center, waiting for my mammogram. Thank goodness my sister works there, so I didn't have to wait for an appointment, nor did I have to spend any time in the waiting room. At 41 years old, this would be my 7th mammogram, and it is always nerve-wracking. I end up rescheduling several times, my palms are sweaty, my heart is racing, and I have nightmares for weeks. The mammogram itself is fairly anti-climactic; pick up the breast, place it on the piece of plastic, clamp it, squish it as flat as possible, reposition, repeat, and done. The hard part is waiting for the results. Waiting to find out if I've made it one more year.


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The doctors recommended a mastectomy, surgery to remove the brain tumor, radiation, and chemotherapy. Even with all that, her prognosis wasn't good. Her daughters were shocked and devastated. This was their mother. She wasn't even old. How could she have cancer? That didn't make any sense. Her husband responded the best way he knew how. He drank. Not that he wasn't supportive; he was. But he was crazy in love with her, and there wasn't anything he could do to make her better. So he drank. He took her to her radiation and chemo appointments, and sat with her, stroking her head as she sat on the floor next to the toilet, retching her insides out, sick, miserable and scared. And he drank. There were nights their oldest daughter had to go out looking for him, searching the local bars to bring him home.

She lost weight. Her hair fell out. She had always been beautiful, and not only was she sick, but now her vanity was suffering. Her husband tried, he really did, but all his jokes about how one-boobed bald women were his favorite didn't really help. Then she had to start taking steroids which made her swell, so she looked like she had gained weight. And deep down she knew how sick she was, though she fought it as hard as she could.


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A few days after my mammogram, my sister called to tell me that the radiologist wanted to get my previous films for comparison. Which meant that she saw something that she was unsure about, and needed to see if it was a new finding, or if it was stable.

Great. Another couple of weeks of waiting, dreading the word "biopsy", knowing that it's coming, knowing what the result will be. It's my turn now.


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The doctors told her she had 6 to 9 months to live. She and her husband decided to make the best of the time she had left and started spending more time together and with their families, when she wasn't too sick. They went on a couple of trips together. Their daughters struggled. They were known in school as the girls whose mother was dying. Their teachers cut them a lot of slack, too much, probably. They cried a lot, and acted out in different ways. The oldest daughter had a sexual relationship with a much older man, and started hanging out with a different crowd. She drank a lot and was promiscuous. The youngest daughter went through one "serious" boyfriend after another and started smoking pot. If their parents noticed, they just didn't have the strength to deal with it, and never said anything.

She managed to live two and a half years, long enough to see the oldest daughter graduate high school and celebrate their 20th anniversary with her husband, even though she was in the hospital at the time. Two weeks later, they were all at the hospital when she died. She had been in and out of consciousness for days, and her breathing was labored, her lungs rattling and wheezing. Her mouth was drawn in pain. They all took turns visiting her alone, holding her hand and talking to her, kissing her, saying what they needed to say, not knowing if she could even hear them, but praying that she did. It was midafternoon when she opened her eyes, smiled at them, took a breath, and was gone.

She was 39 years old.


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As it turned out, I didn't need a biopsy. Once the radiologist received my previous films, she decided that a six month follow-up would be enough. So I wait, relieved, but still waiting for the other shoe to drop. To be perfectly honest, I think there's been a part of me that never expected to live to see 40. Almost like I've been waiting to die. And that needs to stop. It's funny, until I started writing this, I didn't see that about myself, but it's true.

Tomorrow, the 22nd of August, marks 22 years since my mother died. And I still cry when I think of her. I still think I can hear her voice saying my name, or her hand on my back when I'm sick in bed. She was the most beautiful, wonderful woman I've ever known in real life, and I know this blog entry hasn't even begun to do justice to her memory.

This is my favorite picture of her, taken when I was about a month old. She was 20, only a few months older than I was when she died.

Mama, I love you. I miss you.

Yang Peiyi, you're beautiful.

This pisses me right the hell off. How dare anyone tell this adorable, talented little girl that she's not good enough, not pretty enough for the whole world to see her and appreciate her for who she is? It really sickens and infuriates me.

And people wonder why little girls all over the world grow up with low self-esteem and body image issues. Shit like this is why. No matter what other talents and wonderful qualities they may have, they're made to believe that if they don't fit into the narrow view of what is considered "beautiful", well, those other things don't really matter so much.

Assholes.

Olympic opening uses girl's voice, not face


This undated video frame grab image originally aired by China Central Television and taken from the Chinese website Sina.com, shows 7 year-old Yang Peiyi, the girl who actually sang during the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Lin Miaoke lip-synched the song "Ode to the Motherland" in a performance during the opening ceremony, while Yang Peiyi's voice was actually heard. (AP Photo/CCTV)



By Cara Anna, Associated Press Writer
BEIJING — One little girl had the looks. The other had the voice.
So in a last-minute move demanded by one of China's highest officials, the two were put together for the Olympic opening ceremony, with one lip-synching "Ode to the Motherland" over the other's singing.

The real singer, 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, with her chubby face and crooked baby teeth, wasn't good looking enough for the ceremony, its chief music director told state-owned Beijing Radio.

So the pigtailed Lin Miaoke, a veteran of television ads, mouthed the words with a pixie smile for a stadium of 91,000 and a worldwide TV audience. "I felt so beautiful in my red dress," the tiny 9-year-old told the China Daily newspaper.

Peiyi later told China Central Television that just having her voice used was an honor.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Olympics | China | Summer Games | Winter Games | Television News | Turin | China Daily | Bird | Beijing Olympic | China Central Television | Luciano Pavarotti | Peking University | Politburo | Zhang Yimou | Wang Wei | Motherland | Nest National Stadium | Primary School | Yang Peiyi | Leone Magiera | Lin Miaoke | Salt Lake Games
It was the latest example of the lengths the image-obsessed China is taking to create a perfect Summer Games.

In a brief phone interview with AP Television News on Tuesday night, the music director, Chen Qigang, said he spoke about the switch with Beijing Radio "to come out with the truth."

"The little girl is a magnificent singer," Chen said. "She doesn't deserve to be hidden." He said the ceremony's director, film director Zhang Yimou, knew of the change. He declined to speak further about it.

China has been eager to present a flawless Olympics face to the world, shooing thousands of migrant workers from the city and shutting down any sign of protest.

The country's quest for perfection apparently includes its children.

A member of China's Politburo asked for the last-minute change during a live rehearsal shortly before the ceremony, Chen said in the Beijing Radio interview, posted online Sunday night. He didn't name the official.

During the live rehearsal, the Politburo member said Miaoke's voice "must change," Chen said.

"We had to make that choice. It was fair both for Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi," Chen told Beijing Radio. "We combined the perfect voice and the perfect performance."

"The audience will understand that it's in the national interest," Chen added.

He said he felt a responsibility to explain to the country what happened but on Tuesday the link to the video on the Beijing Radio Web site no longer worked.

Miaoke's performance Friday night, like the ceremony itself, was an immediate hit. "Nine-year-old Lin Miaoke becomes instant star with patriotic song," the China Daily newspaper headline said.

Zhang, China's most famous film director, was asked at a post-ceremony news conference about the little girl who swung on wires high above the Bird's Nest National Stadium during the performance.

"She is a lovely girl and she sings well," Zhang said, according to a transcript posted on the Beijing organizing committee's web site.

The switch became a hot topic among Chinese and raced across the country's blogosphere.

"The organizers really messed up on this one," Luo Shaoyang, 34, a retail worker in Beijing, said Tuesday. "This is like a voiceover for a cartoon character. Why couldn't they pick a kid who is both cute and a good singer? This damages the reputation of both kids for their future, especially the one lip-synching. Now everyone knows she's a fraud, who cares if she's cute?"

Others disagreed.

"They want the best-looking people to represent the face of China. I don't blame the organizers for picking a prettier-looking kid over the not-so-pretty one," said Xia Xiaotao, 30, an engineer.

"It's the unfortunate reality that these sort of things turn political," said marketing worker Zhang Xinyi, 22.

It was not the first time an Olympics opening ceremony involved lip-synching.

At the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Luciano Pavarotti's performance was prerecorded. The maestro who conducted the aria, Leone Magiera, said this year that the bitter cold made a live performance impossible for Pavarotti, who was in severe pain months before his cancer diagnosis. Pavarotti died in 2007 at age 71.

Also Tuesday, Beijing organizers confirmed that some of the opening ceremony's fireworks display -- 29 gigantic footprints shown "walking" toward the National Stadium -- featured prerecorded footage. The footage was provided to broadcasters "for convenience and theatrical effects," said Wang Wei, vice president of the Beijing Olympic organizing committee.

(NBC also has augmented its Olympic coverage in the past to set the right mood. That fire in the studio fireplace during the 2002 Salt Lake Games? It was just a video.)

Neither of the two little girls involved could be reached by The Associated Press on Tuesday, and it was not clear how the ceremony -- or the controversy -- might change their lives.

Peiyi is a first-grader at the Primary School affiliated to Peking University. Her tutor, Wang Liping, wrote in her blog that Peiyi is both cute and well-behaved, with a love for Peking opera.

"She doesn't like to show off. She's easygoing," Wang wrote. She and other school officials couldn't be reached Tuesday.

Miaoke, however, was a minor celebrity even before the opening ceremony. The third-grader appeared in a TV ad last year with China's biggest gold medal hope, hurdling champion Liu Xiang, and she was in an Olympics ad earlier this year, China Daily reported.

Her father, Lin Hui, told China Daily he learned Miaoke would be "singing" only 15 minutes before the opening ceremony began.

Lin "still cannot believe his daughter has become an international singing sensation," the report said.

Lin declined to answer when asked if Peiyi should be included in the closing ceremony, saying that he was not the director. He said he presumed his daughter was not involved in the closing ceremony, and that she was not doing any rehearsals.

"Yang Peiyi's looks are OK," Lin told The Associated Press by telephone on Wednesday. "In my opinion, she's not ugly. She looks cute."

___

Classic Movie Test

This is kind of cool, and pretty close to true. Yes, I know, I'm a loser geek with nothing better to do than take online personality tests. So? ;)

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

My Real Name

My first name is the same as my mother's, and my paternal grandmother's. My mother went by a diminutive of it, and my grandmother by the formal name, which left me kind of screwed in the name department. Not only do I use my middle name, but I use a nickname for my middle name, so nobody really knows what the hell to call me or who the hell I am. It's odd, when someone says my name, I don't have that feeling of recognition, of knowing that name belongs to me. I feel like a fake, almost guilty, as though I've usurped someone's else's identity.

I've spent most of my life feeling like an outsider, awkward, unsettled, uncertain, displaced. Sure, I was popular in school, but I never felt like the other kids. I aIways felt like I was just pretending to be one of them, and that I would be found out at any moment. I never expected to have the things in life that "normal" people did. You know, the husband, 2.5 kids, white picket fence, the eventual happy retirement enjoying the grandchildren. Don't get me wrong, I wanted those things, but never thought I would ever really have them. There are times I feel ashamed of myself for feeling that way, as though I've created a self-fulfilling prophecy, but here's the thing. I really HAVE always felt that way.

And I wonder sometimes, do I feel this way because my name has never felt like me? Or have I just never felt like me? How closely tied to our identity is our name? Maybe everyone feels this way, and it's just that no one ever talks about it.

Or maybe I'm just full of shit, and have been screwed up from the get-go, and would have been no matter what my name was.

R.I.P. Skip Caray

I can't remember the Braves without him; it's going to be weird. I'm really sad.

Johnny Cash

He was all kinds of awesome.


'Nuff said.

Field Therapy

When I was a teenager, we lived in a small college town. Even the college was small; it was a junior college division of Emory. It was the kind of town where our parents felt comfortable letting us roam free. We walked to school, to each other's houses, rode our bikes all over town and were perfectly safe. They thought nothing of us meeting a friend to go for a walk at 9 or 10 pm during the summer.

The college had a beautiful, old campus (it's been there since the early 1840's), with adjacent tennis courts and a soccer field. A soccer field without lights, and not many street lights nearby. PFS lived about halfway between my house and the soccer field, and we would frequently make plans to meet there for what he called "field therapy". I would grab an apple and he would sneak a piece of aluminum foil, and we would both head out after dark, meeting at the stop sign at the end of his street before heading on the the field. We would then take our seats on the bleachers, which you couldn't really see from the road, and he would fashion a device with the apple, foil, and his pocket knife. We would then partake and have a disposable, innocent looking apple we could toss into the woods if need be. Although there was little risk; there was only one police officer in town, and he lived one block away, it was easy to tell if he was at home or on patrol.

We would lie back on the bleachers or on the grass and look up at the sky. We could and did talk about anything and everything, and my god, did we laugh. There is still no one in the world who can make me laugh like he does, and vice versa. He's always said we should have our own radio show, we're that damn funny. He's been my best friend since I was 14 and I don't know what I would do without him. But I still won't let him read my blog. ; )

I miss field therapy. I miss feeling safe enough to go for a walk after dark. I miss being able to just lie back, relax, and talk and laugh, just enjoying the moment for what it is. I think I miss my youth. I need to find a way to feel like that again, and I wonder if it's even possible.

Daffodils

When my sister and I were children, our parents would load us into the car every Sunday afternoon to visit our grandparents. We couldn't get to all of them every weekend, so we took turns. Our very favorite visits were to our maternal great-grandparents, who lived on a farm that was, in retrospect, kind of run down, but we didn't care at all; to us it was like Disneyland. There were horses, cows, chickens, goats, even peacocks!

Those poor peacocks. They got to where they would run when they saw us coming. We couldn't resist chasing the males and trying to get their feathers. : )

Granddaddy Jack used to take us out in the barn with him to collect eggs and feed the chickens, which we loved. It made us feel so grown up and helpful, although I'm sure we were in his way more than anything, but I don't think he minded. I remember him laughing a lot. He always wore a straw hat and overalls, and kept hard butterscotch candies in his pockets for us. He was something else. He had been a blacksmith and horse trainer back in the day, though by the time we came along he was pretty much retired. He ran for sheriff once, way before I was born. He didn't win, but even when I was a kid in the 70's, his campaign was legendary for being so entertaining. He would show up at events with his horse and perform majic tricks. The kids loved him.

Grandmama Ruby was the sweetest little woman. She had the longest hair I've ever seen. It was steel grey, and she wore it in two long braids that she wrapped around her head and secured into place. Even braided, her hair reached nearly to her waist. She used to have me read to her, and she would sit there smiling, rocking in her chair and knitting as I sat on the ottoman at her feet. She was so proud, there was never anything she picked out that I couldn't read. She used to tell me that my mom was the same way. She kept her pantry full of canned foods. Seriously, I've never seen so many canned goods outside of a grocery store. I wonder if it had anything to do with living through the Depression and being afraid of running out of food?

Our favorite time to visit was springtime. There was a field on the western side of the farm that wasn't used for anything anymore, and we could play freely there. Our parents had a rule about going barefoot; we weren't allowed until the evening temperatures had been above 65 degrees every night for a week. So we would watch the weather and keep track, and on the first day we were allowed, off came the shoes! We couldn't wait to run in that field. And every spring, it would explode seemingly overnight into what seemed like acres of gold. We would run around, picking daffodils until our arms were full. Then we would run back to the house where Grandmama Ruby would put them in water for us, and go back for more. It was our very favorite springtime ritual.

They both passed away by the time I was 12. Recently I rode by the old farm and was amazed at how small that field really was. It always seemed so huge to us, but it was probably only half an acre or so. No matter. For a few weeks a year, it was like a fairyland to us.

Every spring, I put daffodils on their graves. And they're still my favorite flower.

Frustrated.

I've had plenty of time to write lately. I have written lately, a lot. I just can't use any of it, none of it makes any sense. I realize the reason for that is that I don't know what the hell it is I want to actually say, and that kind of pisses me off. What point am I trying to make? I was working on a post about flirting, and no lie, I took a break from it to do some heavy-duty flirting. Seriously.

I'm clearly not ready to talk about that.

So writing has been kind of a bust lately. I've jotted down a few ideas, but that's about it. How awful is it for me to feel this way so soon into it? You know, in school, if an exam was an essay, I had it made. Practically a guaranteed "A", they were really easy for me. But that was different in a way, because we were given a subject, and I knew what I was trying to say, to prove. That's not the case here. I have to come up with my own ideas. I have to figure out my own voice, what I'm want to say.

Trust me, it's harder than it looks. And I'm a little frustrated.

First Kiss

There really is nothing like one, is there? I vividly remember my very first kiss. I was 15 years old, and desperately in love with K. I don’t even know why; he wasn’t that good looking, and though he was fairly popular and talented, it’s not like he had girls falling all over him. But I had met him, locked in on him, and said to myself “He’s the one.” I couldn’t help myself, I was in a hopeless puddle whenever I was around him, and it soon became obvious.



Here’s the thing – when I was 15, I was hawt. And it was the first time I had been. I was a pudgy kid, but that summer, I lost weight, grew a few inches, spent my summer money on an expensive haircut…and really. I looked head-turning good, and I enjoyed it. I had one guy follow me out of the grocery store, get my tag #, and send me flowers a few hours later. Strangers used to stop me to tell me how pretty I was. It used to piss my friends off. I say this not to brag, but to establish my hotness at the time. Because K. refused to fall in love with me.



And did I mention how pretty I was? He didn’t deny that. He liked me. He was attracted to me, thought I was beautiful. But he didn’t love me.



He was my first kiss. It was during a football game my sophomore year in high school. I remember it was cold. We were holding hands, and we walked out to his parents’ car, borrowed for the night. We sat in the car, waiting for the heat to kick in and listening to the radio. It was on an AM country music station, because that’s where he worked after school as a DJ, but I hated the music. I didn’t say anything, though. I didn’t want to say anything bad, anything that might irritate him. It seemed like I was always irritating him. We had been holding hands as we walked, and I can still remember the smell of the cologne he must have splashed on earlier, clinging to my hands. I have no idea what the scent was, but to this day I think of him when I smell it.



We were quiet for a few minutes, and I could tell that was irritating him. So I think I nervously tried to make small talk, and I remember him asking me what I thought would happen when I got in the car with him. He reached out and pulled me to him, and I was trembling so hard he was startled, he thought something was wrong with me. I convinced him no, there wasn’t, I was just a little nervous, and he kissed me. Lips only at first, then adding his tongue.



I was lost.



I swear, I think my heart stopped beating. That, that feeling right there, at that instant, with that first kiss, with him….is the most aroused I’ve ever been. Ever. I loved him and wanted him with all my heart. With every fiber of my being. I would eventually give him my virginity. He was my first everything. My first kiss, my first lover, my first love. I was crazy in love with him. And my innocent, teenage, romance novel reading heart really thought he was just being stubborn, and would one day admit how much he loved me, and we would live happily ever after.



But he didn’t love me, and he never would. And though we would continue to stay in touch, and sleep together occasionally, and even joke about having a baby together, for the next 20 years, one day he called to tell me he was getting married, and we would no longer be friends. I hear he and his wife have a baby boy now, and I’m happy for him, but it still gives me a twinge, I can’t lie.



I wouldn’t trade any of it. The memory of that first kiss is priceless to me, and never fails to make me smile.Every first kiss I’ve had since then has been measured against it, and none have matched up. I keep hoping, though. I want that intensity, the rubbery feeling in my body, that heat, my heart beating through my chest, barely able to breathe…yeah. I want that first kiss feeling again, and I know it’s out there somewhere.

Cynically Romantic

I suppose that sums up the way I feel about things right now. I've always been a romantic at heart, though I've tried to hide it. I've honestly never had a boyfriend who "romanced" me in any way. I've never gotten a Valentine's Day or birthday gift from anyone I was seeing. So I've pretended it didn't matter, that those things are silly.

But they do matter. They matter to me. The small, thoughtful gestures, the cute nicknames, the expressions of affection, adoration and lust....I want them. No, more than that. I need them. I hide that part of myself, because I don't believe that it will happen, that I will ever find someone who feels that way about me, who knows that I deserve to be treated that way. And I do deserve it. There have been times when it was so close I could almost touch it, it was just within reach, but it slipped away. And so I continue to pretend I'm not soft and romantic.

But baby....I am.

So I'll keep waiting for it, while keeping a healthy dose of cynicism at hand to keep me from wanting it too much. Maybe real romance and love don't exist. But I'm hopeful.

Ssshhhhh. Don't tell anyone. I do, after all, have my cynical reputation to uphold.

By the way, I have a blog.

Transcript from a text conversation with my best friend, S. From here on out known as "PFS", Platonic Friend S.

Me: By the way, I have a blog now.
PFS: No, you don't.
Me: Um, ok.
PFS: Why would you have a blog? What's it about?
Me: I have no idea.
PFS: Give me the link.
Me: No.
PFS: What?! WTF?! Why not? Am I in it? What did you say about me?
Me: Hehehehehe. Not telling you,'cause I'm all evil like that.
PFS: I love you when you're all sweet and stuff. So cuddly.
Me: Stop it! I am NOT sweet! Bite me, asshole!

Blogging. I don't know about this.

It seems like a strange concept to me, really. I read other blogs, of course. The first one I ever read was, naturally enough, Jefferson’s. I don’t even know how I found it, but I found it fascinating in a voyeuristic way. He and I have even corresponded from time to time, which is really strange when you think about it. Complete strangers, who will in all likelihood never meet, but who are sort of friends only because of the written word, and the amazing powers of the internet.

But I digress. I do that a lot, by the way. I ramble. My brain skips around from subject to subject, too quickly for even me to keep up. I should say, I’m not a writer. The written word does not come easily to me. I’m not poetic, I’m not profound, I’m not even terribly opinionated. To be perfectly honest, I’m boring as hell. I read other blogs, and these people are deep. Or funny and entertaining. And have interesting lives. Or their blogs at least have a point, or a theme. So who am I to have a blog? Who cares? I’ve hesitated to keep any kind of journal since I was 16 years old and my parents read mine, discovering that I was having an affair with a 28-year-old man.

It wasn’t pretty.

So I’m hesitant. Combine that with the fact that (probably due to that specific incident, now that I think about it), exhibitionist tendencies aside, I’m actually intensely private. I rarely share my real emotions, or even my real self. I keep people at a distance. I’m afraid that the better they get to know me, the less they’ll like me. And while I long for that kind of intimacy, I really doubt that I’m actually capable of it. I’m 41. I’m not likely to change at this point, so like many others, I’ll just continue to want what I can’t have. Not because it’s not possible, but because I just can’t seem to make it work, to let go enough, to trust someone enough to let them that close. So how likely is it that I’ll be able to have an “honest” blog? Or at least an open one?

I don’t know. We'll see, right now it's just a work in progress.

I don’t know what kind of blog it will be, what I’ll be talking about. I just need an outlet. I spend some time on a forum that has an “Isolated Blurt” thread, where you just blurt things out randomly. Maybe it’s something that’s bothering you, or something that makes you happy. Maybe it’s a favorite quote, or a song you like, or just a memory you want to share. That’s what I’m leaning toward here. Just random thoughts, memories, and blurts.

We’ll see.

Now, I’m off to grill some tequila lime chicken wings. Yum.