The Great Debate

Obama has the right idea and the right attitude, but he doesn't understand how politics work well enough to change the system. It's sad, and it's going to leave a lot of people in a lot of misery for years to come. I love Barack, don't get me wrong. But he is human, and fallible, so things will never be as easy or beautiful as his speeches profess. Obama Drama has always been a multi-sided story, unfolding over the last several years...and in true Hollywood-esque fashion, Barack has been effectively revealing true American values, biases, stereotypes, ugliness, and intolerance for any amount of diversity. Many people choose to ignore these facts, and in so doing, they ignore any chance to make real, permanent change.

Everyone would love to blame "someone else" but what truly matters here isn't what party affiliations you have, or how much money you can throw at lobbyists who will do your dirty work. Any reasonably aware person should understand by now that "The Great Debate" is - and has been - about more than rich versus poor, healthy versus sick, or me versus you. It's about doing the right thing. It's about being humane. Some of the same people who preach about fetal "rights" are the also arguing that people who don't have jobs should not be provided medical care for cheap or free. Really? How the hell does that make any sense? You can't simultaneously argue for and against humanity. This is about people being laid off, underinsured, or just having a stroke of bad luck. We've all been there. It doesn't mean you deserved it. People need to quit blaming the victims, quit believing in the "Just World Theory" (Lerner) and quit being so god damned ignorant and selfish.

How can people be so rigid and say that unless an individual pays for insurance directly out of his/her own pocket then it isn't justified or deserved? What's the difference between someone who marries a person with health insurance and getting spousal benefits (thus "cheating" the system since it's not coming out of his or her own pocket)? What's the difference between someone having an employer that pays most or all of the costs of health insurance for the employees (thus again, the cost is not falling on the individual insured)? Did this person "work hard" and get a good job? Sure. But what has been revealed in earnest lately is the truth, sometimes shitty things happen to good people and there's no reason for it. Or sometimes a lazy ass person marries into the right family, then contributes nothing to society for the rest of his/her life. Ask yourself, did that person work hard for these coveted health benefits?
 
People are so ignorant, they think this is about "poor people" not working hard. This is about reforming a broken system and getting proper medical care to everyone. That is the humane thing to do. Everyone deserves to be healthy and have an equal shot at it. Look, even some people who can easily spend $$$$ on health insurance cannot get the insurance if they want it. That's what this is about. Say you're a student or self-employed and you've had previous medical condition like cancer - with today's healthcare system, you will be UNINSURABLE.
 
 Don't these people get it? They talk about poor people thinking they're entitled....it's those who have insurance and have never had to fight for it, those who've never struggled with being sick and your fellow humankind not giving two shits about you to help, even though you have put into the system just as much if not more than the "average" healthy person. People who need insurance the most don't WANT to need it. They aren't abusing the system. They'd much rather be healthy, you see. It's those people who say ME ME ME and MINE MINE MINE who make me go absolutely batshit bonkers. These people are the most entitled, ignorant, selfish assholes in the world. What they don't understand is a little bit of philanthropy can go a long way. The $10 per month you will likely end up paying into any public healthcare option won't kill you, but it just may save someone else's life!
 
Time and time again, we see examples of people doing the right thing by others. I hope humanity doesn't collectively let us all down.

The boredom, the freedom, and the time spent alone

Someday, if all goes according to plan, I will actually miss these days...my twenties....my single, fearless, shot-out-of-a-cannon, take-no-prisoners, throw-caution-to-the-wind, lonesome, single twenties. The boredom and the freedom and the time spent alone with yourself allows for a kind of deep reflection that is not often available. Even so, the time spent in utter silence doesn't seem to quiet the brain...not as much as I'd like anyway. My brain refuses to shut up.

I wouldn't say that I'm unhappy, just bored. Bored with life. I need more excitement, more to look forward to, more to miss when it's gone. But then, the great tragedy of filling your life up with "events" or "things to do" always results in waking up one day 40 years from now asking yourself where the time went. I should embrace the boredom for boredom's sake. Maybe even buy a TV and entertain myself like most people my age. But entertainment is over-rated too. Boredom should be cherished.

I wouldn't say that I'm anxious, just waiting. Waiting for the freedom to pass. I feel the urge to relinquish my freedom with that thing called 'marriage' and 'kids' and, odd as it sounds, some days I desperately wish I had someone to answer to. Someone who would not only listen to my stories about my day and give me a new perspective, but someone who would also ask where I've been if I come home late from work or find myself mesmerized at the shopping mall for what seems like a few hours too many. Someone who would wonder about me... all the time.

I wouldn't say that I'm alone, just solitary. But I'm learning to be ok with that. Keeping to myself has never been easy. I've been surrounded by friends, family, animals and random people all through my life. The silence is deafening. When I come home, it is how I left it. Every time. Nothing out of place. Nothing unexpected. Nothing moved. This, to me, is still taking some time to get used to after 8 years of living "on my own." When I lived at home as a teen, nothing was ever in my control and nobody ever left me alone. This is very different. A Chinese Proverb states "solitude is only enjoyed when one is at peace with oneself" and I'm positive this is the undisputed truth.

Someday, if all goes according to plan, these days that I take for granted now will surely be moments to reflect on with great joy, pride, and a sense of nostalgia for what was. I might even miss this boredom, freedom, and time spent alone.

A Follow Up to Breaking Up

Courtesy of Yahoo.com

Lori Gottlieb’s new book, Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough—is an eye-opening story about dating. Gottlieb is a single mother who, at 37, wanted a biological child and had one on her own. She wrote a story in the Atlantic about being a single woman trying to date; based on that article, her new book takes a deeper look at modern relationships and dating.

“There’s a big difference between compromising and settling,” Gottlieb says. “I don’t want the takeaway to be, pick the next guy off of Match.com and marry him. I’m saying, you don’t have to do anything differently if you don’t want. But if you feel like it hasn’t been working and you’re wondering why you haven’t met Mr. Right yet, think about looking for the qualities that are important. You can find someone you’ll be really happy with and fall totally in love with. These guys are all around you but you’re not giving them a chance. You could be passing up tons of Mr. Rights. And you’re going out with all the Mr. Wrongs. It’s less about what you wear or do on a date than it is about having healthier standards. You can still have the fairy tale, but it will look different from what the media portrays as the fairy tale.…The same unrealistic expectations we have about dating, we have about marriage, too. Married people have said that this book makes them appreciate their husbands more.”

According to Gottlieb, Here’s what many single women do that we might want to reconsider:

1. We feel entitled.
Gottlieb: “Women try to be good friends to each other. We say, ‘You deserve this, you’re so great! You’re such a good catch! Any man would be lucky!’ [Men don’t say that to each other.] We are good catches, but we also are human and we’re not perfect and somebody’s going to have to put up with us for the rest of his life. And we forget. My dating coach said, write down all the reasons a guy would not want to date you. At first I didn’t think I had that many things, because you think you’re a pretty good catch. He said, what you think of as quirky, endearing, and cute, is really annoying to someone else. But he would love you so much that he would overlook that. And you need to overlook things in him. Everybody has to compromise.”

2. We think we have unlimited options.
Gottlieb: “You walk into a store and you know you want a sweater and it has to go with this outfit and it has to be this color, and you’d like to be on sale. You find something great, but you wonder if there’s something better out there, so you keep searching. In the end, after three more weeks of searching for the perfect sweater—was it so much better than the one you could have bought originally? Whether it’s with men or sweaters…if you just think you have unlimited options for the rest of your life, of course you’ll keep looking, who wouldn’t?”

3. We’re judgmental.
Gottlieb: “The guys I interviewed for the book said women judge them so much. Women gave me 300 reasons they wouldn’t go on a second date with a guy, and men gave 3. When guys are ready for that stage of life, they find someone who is good enough that they’re totally in love with—but that person may not seem to the outside world to be as appealing in superficial ways—maybe she’s not as accomplished or funny as the last girl. Whatever he sees in her, he does. Guys don’t sit and micro-analyze a woman the way a woman would with a man. He knows she’s not as hot as the last girl he dated, but that’s okay. She’s hot enough.”

4. We’re pickier than men.
Gottlieb: “With online dating, we judge based on objective criteria (height, sports nut), rather than subjective (attraction), which you can’t judge until you meet the person. When you read other people’s profiles, don’t make assumptions or rule them out because of one thing they wrote. You can fall in love with a guy who wrote that he likes Madonna, but you can’t fall in love with a guy who isn’t kind.”

5. We go for the alpha males.
Gottlieb: “In cities where you find a lot of really ambitious, Type A, driven people, like in NYC and L.A., with the entertainment business and Wall Street…you get a lot of ‘maximizers’ [people who keep looking over their shoulder for something better]. Maximizer women date maximizer men. They will be just as picky in a bad and unhealthy way. The men who are actually available and wanting commitment and who are smart and funny and cute—maybe one guy is a little bit shorter, so he’s not getting the women. Maybe he’s not smooth initially or in big groups, but he is one-on-one. These are the kind of people who when you’re 35, 45, 55, that you’ll be happy with when you’re married, and the guy who is super charming at the party and has the crowd of women around him, maybe he’s not going to make as good of a husband. Maybe he’s not going to call you back. That guy is going to be judgmental and picky, and who wants that?”

6. We think, “I love me more.”
Gottlieb: “We don’t need a man. We don’t. But if you want one and you go around with this attitude of ‘I love me more,’ [what Samantha said in the Sex and the City movie, after she dumps a hot guy who helped her through cancer (and female audiences cheered)] well, a relationship is about reciprocity, so you need to love yourself and you need to be able to have some selflessness and love somebody else. Women take Samantha’s message as really empowering. If you don’t want to be alone—maybe Samantha does—that’s a dangerous message.”

7. We think he needs to share every interest.
Gottlieb: “We say, ‘I’m a writer, but he doesn’t read! I’m creative.’ But people can be creative in different ways, and the fact that he doesn’t read the same books that you do, well, maybe he wants someone who he can talk about the baseball game with but you’re not that person. The guy doesn’t have to be one-stop shopping. You’re not going to share every single interest, and that’s okay. The shared interest should be, Do we want the same things out of life? Do we both want to be married right now?”

5 Breakup Warning Signs

Courtesy of Yahoo.com

Have you ever found yourself in a relationship where the frustration level and the number of times you butt heads with each other seems to increase by the second? You say blue, she says red, and the fights just seem to be going in circles.

If the answer is yes, then you may be at what I call "the breakup point." Here are five signs that your relationship may be past the point of fixing. Whether you are living together, married, or just dating, these breakup signs are usually loud and clear.

1. You stop relationship-building behaviors. In the honeymoon stage of a relationship, which we all know is the first 90 days of pure bliss, you are learning about each other and making efforts to create romantic moods and nice evenings. When you're in that stage, you are really working at building your relationship. Then, at some point, you start to butt heads with each other. Critical relationship elements deteriorate. Maybe you stop kissing each other goodbye or stop texting each other during the day. Instead of adding things to the relationship, you start to resent each other like two five-year-olds who stop sharing their crayons. This is a breakup point.

2. You don't understand each other anymore. The fighting escalates to a place where you no longer feel like you're understood by your partner. Physical intimacy stops, communication stops, and you are living like roommates. You're at the point in the relationship where you are trying to understand each other, but you get so frustrated because you feel like you just don't understand each other anymore. This is a breakup point.

3. You start punishing each other. When you get to the point of no longer understanding each other, what happens is that you end up just kind of coexisting in the new dynamic. Resentment builds and you get in your head too much. You are no longer about feelings, and you start punishing each other. "Well, he hasn't done this for me, so I'm not going to do this for him" are the kind of thoughts that take root. The longer you stay in that dynamic and the further away you get from the dynamic you had during the early part of the relationship, the less likely it is that you'll ever get it back (and, after a point, you won't). You have hit the breakup point.

4. You fight less. When you get to the breakup point, you actually fight less with your partner. You fight less because in your mind and heart you start detaching yourself from the other person, and you don't care as much anymore. You have already made a determination that they don't understand you, that they will never understand you, and that the relationship just won't work out. The minute you get into a fight, you just walk away from it. That is a sure sign that you are at the breakup point.

5. You've taken the time to think it through. When you think you might have hit that breakup point, you must tell the person that you're disconnecting from them. You need to be honest and raw. If you don't think the relationship is going to work, or you know you've already disconnected based on how things have been going, then you might want to consider walking away for a week. When you're in the thick of things, they never seem to be able to work out.

So take a break. Spend a week without your partner. Take the week to ask yourself some questions. Go visit some friends or family. Really think about what life would be like without that person. How would you feel? Then, go back and either take a stand for the relationship or break up.

Whichever decision you make, you need to be honest with yourself. Life is too short! There are a lot of wonderful, amazing people out there ready to meet you.

I'm still an all-or-nothing kinda girl

I've been thinking about relationships lately. Not that this is anything new. It's what consumes most of my free thought. Those who know me well know this.

I've come to realize that all my life, I've been an all-or-nothing type of girl. I like to have something in its entirety if I'm going to expend effort to have it at all. Emphasis: I like to have something in its entirety. That's the ideal state for me. But do I get this? No, not really.

My goal is simple. I want to know a person inside-out, anticipate his thoughts, fears and joys, and be able to feel like I really know what this person is all about. And that takes time.....Precious time.

There are different levels of spending time or energy on a person. Here are a few:

• I feel like he is accessible when I need him
• He wants to be accessible when I need him

(These first two desires are both pretty standard, in my opinion)

• He should continually make himself accessible at a moment's notice, in case I need him

(This last one is pushing it...and borders on nutty)

See, I can disambiguate non-crazy from crazy, passionate from psychotic, caring from obsession. I am not a control freak. I am not possessive. I am not dependent. I would argue that all the ingredients for a successful relationship are there, in my head. More than likely, the trouble is that I meet people who desire different quantities of these ingredients, or want them put in a different order. But on this issue, I know I have the right stuff. I just haven't found the ideal mixture yet.

Relationships are a layered onion and learning the idiosyncracies of a person is not a passive process. It's work. All I ask is that someone will mutually put in the work, over and over and over and over and over.....

I hope to meet someone soon who I can sit across from and feel that this connection will change my life forever. Someone who will put in the work and never give up on "me" or "us." This person will allow me to close my eyes, take a deep breath, and fall backward. And he will be there to catch me (almost) every time.

Tell Me Something Good

Ever have one of those days where you just need to hear something good? This has definitely been one. It started with a very minor, early morning earthquake (tiny, really, at 4.4) about 40 miles southwest of San Diego. It wasn't actually the earthquake that upset me, seeing as how I slept right through it. It was how everything else just didn't seem to fall into place throughout the day... as if a small earthquake had happened inside my life, or my head. It's one of those days where the people you least want to talk to call every 30 minutes, and the ones you do want to talk to are too busy or don't care enough to chat it up today. It was one of those days that if it lasted any longer than the mandatory 24 hours, it would have lasted entirely too long.

To use Alexander's words, it was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. My eyes were itchy, my face is broken out, I'm tired even when I sleep 9 hours straight, my hair is frizzy, none of my clothes fit, people look at me funny, I have tons of work to finish and no energy to do it, I don't want  to see anyone tomorrow but have meetings scheduled aaaaalllll day, I missed my cooking class, I found out I owe the State of California Franchise Tax Board $73 [ugghhhhh], I worked 10 hours and still don't feel like I've accomplished anything, I didn't really like eating leftovers for dinner AGAIN, and I just want to be left alone (but not really alone... ). Go figure.

Here's to tomorrow not sucking so incredibly!!!

Education is the key to ending poverty

I listen to NPR a lot. And one of the things that struck me recently was a story about Africa and poverty. It was horribly sad, but inspiring ...shocking, but real ...sobering, but difficult to accept .... and everything in between.

The part of the story that most intrigued me was about the village girls and the education they lack because of their culture and "role" as women. The article said it better than I can....

The United Nations hopes to bring the number of girls being educated up to the level of boys by 2015. Malawi [in southern Africa] has seen some success since free primary education was introduced there about 12 years ago.

But challenges remain. Many girls who complete elementary school can't afford high school, which isn't free. So they drop out because they see no hope of fulfilling their dreams -- of becoming doctors, teachers, school inspectors ... and even presidents.

During my walk through Malawi's tiny Mnjolo village, the little girls kept running up behind us, touching our clothing and giggling. I thought something was wrong, but when I asked, Kalichero, she told me that they were touching us with the hope of being like us. "They see us as powerful women, as role models," she told me with a smile. Then she pointed out that it was only girls and not the boys following us around.

All over the continent, the goal of gender parity in education is lagging, with severe consequences for eradicating poverty. Some blame a lack of political will; others cite resources or a combination of the two.

This is not a trivial issue. The horrific tragedies that young girls in Africa are subjected to everyday makes these education injustices all the more palpable. Poverty is directly correlated to high childbirth rates. High childbirth rates are moderated by education, access to contraceptives, and being free from human rights abuses (i.e. rape). These girls are never given a chance. They are subjected to a life of continuous poverty from day one, with no hope to ever transcend this sentence. That makes my blood boil. This vicious cycle is nothing if not abominable, disgusting, and heinous.

Another segment from the article really touched me...

In the end, however, there is widespread agreement that the most fundamental way out of poverty for women and girls is education. It's often said in Africa if you educate a man, you educate an individual, but when you educate a woman, you educate a nation.

The reason?

Because educated women see to it that their children are educated and when their children are educated, they become contributing members of the society. They're much more aware. They're much more likely to advocate for things, including their own human rights, which are still being abridged broadly throughout the continent when it comes to girls.

This was the part I found so fascinating and inspiring. Women are able to see past all these tragedies and press on. So it's women being empowered by education. Educated women just have much more to contribute to the country that they are in, as well as the continent. So that's why it's so important.

I am saddened by the fact that women have been suppressed for so long and seen as commodities to be traded to the highest bidder. I am saddened that 55% of women in sub-Saharan Africa are living with HIV or AIDS and that the rate is much higher for women than men because of involuntary transmission. I am saddened that the world outside of Africa turns a blind eye to this and the widespread belief seems to be "well, we can't help everyone."

At the same time, I am hopeful and empowered to act on the behalf of women in Africa. I am not going to forget about this and I will find ways to help, donate my time or money, and raise awareness wherever possible. Because, after all...

... hope lies in the women on the continent who are finding voices for their aspirations, especially through women's movements like the Foundation for African Women's Advancement. And they are bolstered by the emergence of women leaders -- still small in number...

The full article is available at:  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5634432