Don’t Cry For Me Argentina…Pants

Most of us have one of these. An item of clothing we hang onto. It usually has nothing to do with fond memories, or that it, at least at one time, looked fantastic on us, and if we just lost those few pounds…

No, we own and wear these for one simple reason. They are comfortable. Never mind that they are old, frayed, and often permanently stained with something. We resist all attempts to purge these items from our wardrobe because, as we reason, we’d have nothing to wear when we are sick, or just feeling fat and lumpy. To consider that that particular item of apparel makes us appear sick or fat and lumpy anyway never seems to cross our minds.

For me that perfect piece of comfy wear was an oversized pair of sweat pants once owned by my ex-husband. I’d borrowed them at some point during the last years of our marriage because I was sick, and wanted something large and not constrictive to my waist. They met those criteria nicely. It ended up being one of the only personal items once owned by the man that I kept after I made sure all his stuff was out of my house.

Those pants were dark blue; paint splattered, and hid my figure perfectly. To my daughters’ horror, which they showed by saying “You are wearing that?”, I was not at all embarrassed to wear those pants to the grocery store or Wal-Mart for a quick errand run. They were worn for comfort and only for comfort. Looking fashionable, or attractive, was not a priority whenever I opted to put them on.

Then I met someone who not only thought I was beautiful, but actually cared about ensuring that I looked and felt attractive. He loathed those pants complaining that they hid one of his favorite features of mine, my butt. He once complained “You could hide Argentina in those pants and have room to spare!”

He was right. There was room for my butt and another fair sized posterior with  wiggle room to spare below the tightly cinched waistband of those pants. One day I had a nasty sinus infection and he insisted on taking me to the doctor. I was, as per my normal habit, already wearing those pants. Gary was sweet enough to not complain about my choice of attire, considering I was already a hacking, snot filled mess. However, when he was doing laundry a few days later, he did mention how much he hated those pants, which he’d since dubbed The Argentina pants.

Yeah, besides telling me all the time how pretty I am and trying to spoil me rotten, he does laundry, and cooks too! One of the reasons I may let him out of my life in a 1000 years or so.

Anyway, I made Gary a promise that I would throw the Argentina pants away, IF I got something comfy to replace them with. As he hated the pants, and was not a fan of the former owner, Gary got me to an Old Navy as soon as possible. I picked out a new pair of lounge pants to replace the old. I got home, and with admitted sadness, threw The Argentina pants away.

There was only one problem. The new pants, although cute and much more form fitting, they were not nearly as comfortable as the Argentina ones.  I missed those big oversized, stained and splattered, hideous looking things. And it was true; I no longer possessed any item of clothing as comfy as they had been.

Well…not exactly.

There are these grey lounge pants with the extra wide legs that I’d ordered a year or so ago. Although not as warm and roomy in the hindquarters as The Argentina Pants had been, they are becoming a great substitute. They are all stretched out. Loose fitting and possess a mysterious stain on the left leg. I wear them every chance I get, especially when I don’t feel all that great, or don’t feel the need to do the hair and make-up thing. I’ve already started wearing them out to run errands.

Such a tough Pill to Swallow

I am a bit confused. Apparently there is a great big bruhaha over something that is a result over something else that people have been bru-ha-ha-ing over for decades. What really has me stumped is how things got to this point, and just who seems to be leading the charge.

Now that I have confused everyone as well, let me clarify. The original bruhaha is over abortion, which has been in the news again, (when is it not, when there is an election in the future) and in the paperwork of several state legislatures as state governments try all sorts of invasive methods to get women to stop considering an abortion. What is happening is that, in the attempt to stop abortions elected officials are essentially throwing the baby out with the bath water by also cutting funding to any health organization that offers services to women, including pregnancy preventative methods because a small portion of their services include abortions. To make it even more puzzling, is that there is even a movement taking place to simply quell the tide of birth control methods available, or to make it much more costly for women.

Am I the only one with a WTF expression on their face?

It is a proven fact that birth control helps to greatly reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. It makes perfect sense to me, that if you want to reduce abortions, then make methods of pregnancy prevention more accessible. But apparently to some that is a false logic.

Why?

Because then it would be admitting that…wait for it…women are having sex!

The Pill has somehow regained a nefarious reputation as a license for debauchery; well if you want to listen to some dude with a radio rant that’s gone on a decade too long. Never mind that for some women, many of whom are monogamous, or even celibate  the medication is used for health reasons that have nothing to do with sex.

Which sends me down this tangent, and a wish…oh if only it could come true.

I wish that every man who is so dead set against a woman’s right to have cheap and easy access to The Pill, would experience for themselves the menstrual cycles of the year of their choice between when I first started having periods to the time I got pregnant with my first child. Pick one, any one.

Not sure? Ok, I’ll give you my Sophmore year in high school. Here’s how the average period would go.

Day one, Wake up, change sheets…you know why. Find the biggest Kotex pad you can find in the box, make it two, and pin them to your underwear. (mind you the peel and stick version wasn’t made yet) Throw up. Go to school.  Throw up at least two more times before lunch, and get a new supply of maxi pads from your locker. You’ve done bled through the first pair. Wish that the cramping didn’t feel like someone was trying to shove your uterus through your pelvis. That is when it wasn’t striving to drive it out your belly button. Never mind that the thought of sitting down fills you with dread. Your bottom hurts that much. But the dread is only slightly less then standing up and realizing that you may experience instant pad failure at that very moment. Discover that your hormonal system laughs at the Tylenol you just took and will plot to have you throw it up shortly. Experiencing slowly reduction in symptoms over the next 6 to ten days until it starts all over again in 21 to 28 days.

One has to wonder how quickly the whole “access to contraceptives” debate would dissipate if all of Congress had just one week of one of those weeks I had on a regular basis. If that didn’t work, I would willingly let them try the “Bubbete and Earlene” phase of my life.

Today when teenagers experience such symptoms, their Mom’s wisely take them to the doctor who prescribes The Pill. Those girls discover that, although they don’t “have a happy period” it isn’t sheer agony. When women begin facing menopause, or in my case, evil squatters in the form of fast growing Fibroid Tumors, a medication like The Pill can be a wonderful help. It of course has the benefit of preventing unwanted pregnancies. It is just one method of contraceptive, but it does have the ability to do more then just eliminating the need to pick out baby names.

Now back to the shock of the realization that….yeah, tis true! Women are having sex!!!

The thing these guys that want to prevent access to contraceptives seem to forget is just whom the majority of women are having sex with.

Figured it out yet? Good!

So will this push to end abortions by making it harder for women to have access to contraceptive, or even more horrifying, insisting that insurance companies give the same kind of discounts for the drug as many other beneficial medications? of course not! Is this really a religious matter, as some are insisting? And if it is, just whose religion? And if whose religion, since when did this nation become single-minded about religious thought or mandates?

Yeah I know, a whole other topic.

I suspect, that if this line of legislating continues that there will be some surprised former elected officials come November. I am a bit tempted to suggest that women all over America do something to show how ticked off many of us are. I suggested to a friend that we could do something like sending a certain talk show personality a rather large collection of used contraceptive packaging. Not the contraceptives themselves, people sort of need them, considering that (SHOCK) women are having sex!

OK, guys are doing it too, but apparently that’s not a surprise.

Just sending the packaging would likely get the point. It would be rather interesting for this person’s mailbox to be overflowing with packaging from devices all over the country.

Here’s the thing though, it is the very people who are often rather ignorant about what actually happens in the confines of the female reproductive system, and who are the most vocally adamant against anything that benefits women, can actually serve to help women. Yeah I know what you are thinking, but in reality, their rants against women’s health, and freedoms, their desire to shut women up, their glaring double standards give the perfect opportunity to use their mission against them.

How we do it however is key. When they rant, give false truths, scare tactics, insults etc., we should ourselves be respectful, be honest and informative, and thank then for giving us a forum for which to share what is vital to us all. We know that some politicians, religious figures and people who spend their days spitting into a mic, have their own personal agendas. Agendas which have more to do with drawing attention to themselves, so they can win votes, sell books, or get new contracts. I doubt they really care about women, or have a real desire to learn anything about us or our health needs. We can choose to be surprised when they, yet again, go beyond what is decent in their quest for self-fulfilling gratification. We can try to ignore them, or we can recognize the false message they give, mostly ignore them as the messenger, and instead focus on what is really important, in case, an important health care matter.

Read My Story…A Shameless Plug

I am legit! Well as a writer. I just had a short story published with a literary group. Although the pay is what I am used to, the notch added to my writing resume is, to me huge.  Its also a huge boost to my ego. So before I send you to where you can read this story, let me send a few thanks out.

To Tammy Stokes, who gave me the place to send this story, Arthur MacMaster who gave me great lessons in dialog, and to Susan Tekulve who encouraged me to think outside the box as a writer, you have my eternal gratitude. This story was born in part from your help.

The great Stephen King gets credit as well. This is the second story I’ve written where I’ve taken an ordinary idea and turned the ordinary into something else. His memoir helped me consider doing such a thing. For any aspiring or established writer, I highly recommend his book On Writing. If you need to borrow a copy, I think I now own two.

Now to the story itself. It can be found at Dead Mule of Southern Literature. I will be having a couple of poems published there as well, later this Spring. The title is Fields White With Harvest, and is a somewhat unique twist to a concept popular in certain circles. Please read my story and the pieces submitted by other authors. Let me know what you think.

Booking It

A little over ten years ago,  small print publication began where I used to live. The editor was looking for content writers, and I decided to take a gamble and submit an essay. It was about head lice and the parasitic fondness for my two daughters’ long blond locks. That story, as badly written as it was, was the birth of my “well paid” writing career. I was hooked on writing. I have written consistently ever since, for about the same amount of financial gain.

I’ve had some marginal success, mostly when I wrote my Miss Mom Column at the original Spartanburg Spark. But it was there that I feel that I grew as a writer and I began to experiment with genres other then opinion pieces, anecdotal stories, and informative journalistic articles. I began to dabble in poetry and fiction as well. Still where I was the most comfortable was in the stories of my life.

So why do I write in my preferred genre? I have long found writing to be therapeutic, and a hell of a lot cheaper then a licensed therapist. I discovered the satirical blackness of my humor when stressed, yet I still could temper it when I wrote a funny story about an event in my life. I have attempted to dig down into my soul and just pour out what is there, twice. I found the experiences exhausting, but yet it helped me recognize what all I had hidden from myself and others emotionally.

Yet it was because of two essays that I wrote for a Creative non-fiction class last year, that I decided that I needed to do something more then the odd short story or poem, and be content with adding content to my blog. More then one person has told me to do a book. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I realized that I had enough material built up over the years to do just that. It is just a daunting task to consider.

I’ve pretty much decided to keep on the same genre where I tend to spend the most creative time. Stories about the lunacy that is my life. Lord knows I have enough material that I don’t have to write anything new, just edit, expand and compile. It’s just picking which ones to use, finding a good theme, and making it work. I just don’ t have a clue where to begin. But then I wonder if I should do something more serious…I don’t know yet. I am still trying to figure out the what, as I ponder the how.

Ok, I do actually, I am just a bit overwhelmed at how to start it, as well as possessing a healthy case of procrastination where it is concerned. The task is to finally organize everything that I have written into some sort of cohesive organizational format. There is a fair amount of purging to do, some serious categorizing, and then there is the continual state of disorder that is my office.  Then I can more easily make decisions on what the book will contain.

In the meantime I am asking for a volunteer or two. As I begin this project, I will need someone who can edit better then I can. Trust me I am the world’s worst self editor. I discover all my errors ten seconds AFTER I submit a work somewhere. I will need some help picking and choosing what to use, what to chuck, and what new to consider. I am going to be realistic and try to get this done by the end of the year. I’ve been sitting on this idea for well over a year already and haven’t gone anywhere with it. Part of it is not my fault as a new job, personal life changes and a lack of actual time have made it near impossible to do a lot creatively. The rest is, as I have continued to put this off until next week, the next and the next.

It’s time to start. But first I need to clean off the surface of my desk…again.

The Hard Way

You know there are people out there where things just seem to fall right into place for them. Everything they own is in great working order, they can go on a diet and actually lose weight, they always look wonderful, their home is immaculate, when they do a project, they have all the tools handy. There is never the need to utter a single word of profanity because you just lost your contact lens while on an moving escalator. To top it all off, the bills are paid and they actually have money left over each paycheck.

Part of me is jealous of people like that, that is if they actually exist. Then I realize how boring and useless that kind of life could be.

I’m one of those people who wake up each morning and know with complete certainty that something is going to happen to make my day a little more bumpy. The daily question is, as I stumble towards my first cup of coffee , is exactly what will be hitting the fan today.

Today is of course no different.

This morning I went to a new dentist. I have dental insurance for the first time in two years, so I figured it was high time to get some plaque removed from my molars. I called my insurance carrier and discovered that there was a dental group about five minutes from my house. The only catch was that they took mostly kids. I didn’t really care, as dentists don’t generally make any money off of my mouth.

I get there, sign in and sit down to wait. I got out the romance novel I had picked up at the library. Why did I get such a book? They are always light on plot, heavy on throbbing. Oh, I know, the title caught my attention. I’m a sucker for catchy titles. So there I sat, flipping quickly through the unrealistic sex scenes in search of some decent dialog when my name was called.

“Ms. Galloway,” The desk attendant said. “There is a problem with your insurance.”

Crap. After a discussion with the insurance company, it was discovered that my policy had been cancelled, essentially the day it was supposed to be enacted. Double crap. I knew they had needed to make a change because of availability, but I had assumed (silly me) that everything had been arranged successfully. After all I’d been paying for the stuff all month long. So I rescheduled my appointment, then went home to email my HR department in hopes of solving my dental insurance mystery.

All that, just because I wanted clean teeth and gums. Why should have I expected anything different?

I remember being asked repeatedly as a child why I tended to do things the “hard way”. To me it wasn’t harder then another, it was just the way I saw worked for me. As I got older that doing things the “hard way” also taught me that life isn’t necessary easy. Just about every single day, something is going to happen to ensure my best laid plans going awry. I’m actually quite used to things happening “the hard way”.

For me, and I suspect for many of us, life done “the hard way” is rather ordinary.  In fact for most of us it has its very difficult periods. I certainly have lived through enough of those..and I wasn’t even trying. We get moments where things are wonderful, everything lines up perfectly in all aspects of our lives…then normalcy returns.

If I let it, things like the insurance coverage problem could cause me to fall into a deep funk. But I know it is a minor problem that will be resolved in a few days. I’ve lived through worse, much worse. Having it all, all the time, would be nice, but what is there to gain from it? What could I strive for, overcome, learn from if everything fell into my lap? How would I grow as a person if everything was easy? How could I have compassion for the hurting, a desire to help others need, a sense of sorrow for other’s loss if I myself never experienced it?

Those bumps, that doing the “hard way”, the unexpected turns of the day is what makes life interesting. I don’t talk much about my personal religious beliefs, as they are just that, personal, and is about as unique as I am. But I do know that my faith, my beliefs help me get through that grand quest that is called Sylvie’s Life. It took me awhile to grow into the role of seeker of the purpose of my life. However I think I may have an inkling of what that purpose is, and a glimmer of the how to accomplish it. But then, I may not.

It is in the living of life that seems to matter, with all its bumps, warts and impending pitfalls. It is the figuring things out, regrouping, trying another way, the successes that keep us interested in continuing on. It is in the living where we grow, we share, we encourage, we help, we heal. It is in the living where we learn how not to do things, maybe not for our own benefit, but for those that observe us. It is in the living, with all that life has to throw at us, good or bad, that makes it anything but boring or worse purposeless.

One of my favorite old movies is Auntie Mame starring Rosalyn Russell. In the film Mame tells her assistant, “Live, Live Live! Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death.”

While the main character in that film took life a little to firmly by the horns, she lived her motto to the fullest. She looked at obstacles as opportunities. She learned from her mistakes, and she impacted the lives of everyone she met. Yes Mame Dennis was a fictional character, but the theme of her life has tempered the theme of mine.  I have no intention of starving.

 

Primary Conundrum

It’s here, if the television ads and the spammed emails are any indication.  The presidential primary has finally hit my state. Ok its actually next week, but the candidates are pulling out all the stops to try to convince voters what a travesty of misjudgment it would be to vote for any of the other candidates in the field, all while attempting to paint the man they’d like to replace as something even worse.

In other words, their attempts to get me to consider voting for them just reeks in abject positiveness.

That of course leaves me with a choice. I can simply opt out of the upcoming primary election deciding that the whole mess is simply too distasteful, try to decide which is the most palatable out of a group I find almost zero connection with when it comes to ideological ideals, or find someone to write in as an alternative.

Joy!

Now I am sure all the people who are vying for my attention and my vote are nice people, who want to do a job that, in all honesty, none of us really want. Of course all of us really like criticizing the poor sucker unlucky enough to get elected. Everything they do will be scrutinized, and commented about how wrong it is. What they wear, what they eat, what their families wear or eat, what they say, who they invite or don’t invite to dinner if they happen to burp during said dinner will be criticized, given plenty of satirical air time by pundits and comics, and for the most part be considered in poor taste by someone.

And people still want the position.

Their decisions as an administrator will be blamed as horrific by someone, seen as unamerican, and detrimental to the future of the nation. Everything they do will be considered either not going far enough on the policy, or going too far. They will be compared against past administrators, usually not favorably, and just three years into the job, will have to not only do that job, but actively work quite hard to keep it a few more years.

And yet, people want that position.

What I don’t understand however is, why candidates spitefully and with full malice tell potential voters how horrible an incumbent is at their job, or that the others also looking for the job are at best incompetent. What ever happened to being respectful of the person or at least the position?

What I don’t understand is why candidates don’t spend more time on the positives, what they hope to do if they do get the position. I think most of political pundits would be in utter shock if a candidate actually had something nice to say about another candidate or the guy they are wanting to replace, or to act remotely grateful that the person currently sitting in office hasn’t said “the hell with it all” burned the place down in frustration.

So all you candidates, if you are listening to voters, or at least this one, let me clue you in.

If I see or hear an advertisement that says unsavory things about another candidate or the person you hope to replace, expect me to turn the tv or radio to a different channel. Don’t expect me to care about debates where most of what is said is merely you attempting to belittle the other guy. Those marketing strategies have me prompt me to consider voting for the anyone else but you. As all candidates seemed to have decided to use the same strategy, you see my delimma. I am so turned off by the temperment that is this election that I am looking into alternative candidates.

So far what I have found is the guy who wears a boot on his hat,  http://www.verminsupreme.com/and a street performer. http://www.love22.com/ At least their wardrobes and platforms are entertaining.

But back to the ones who seem to be the more serious in all this.

I vote on what you plan to do while in office. I vote based on not only what I feel is best plan of action for the job, but also what I hope would be with consideration for all the people you plan on working for. I vote on things that you can actually do something about, not those social debates that will likely still be raging when your memoir finds itself languishing in the cheap book bin at the local Goodwill. Your personal moral compass and what guides it, who you consider friends, where you went to school or the size of your stock portfolio are of little relevance to me (or at least as relevant as mine is to you). What do YOU hope to accomplish? What do you hope people can say about the job you held in ten years?

I know who gets the job will have to work well with others, have to make tough and often unpopular decisions, get little sleep, and worry all the time if they have royally screwed things up. I would like a person in office who recognizes that, who understands the concept of humility, respect for all people regardless of culture, color, religion or any other social configuration and who is concerned enough with the well being those people to desire that all of us are free, are healthy, and are working together towards a bright future.

Now is there anyone out there who can do it?

I sure hope so.

I will be at the polls, maybe, for the SC Presidential primary. No I am not going to tell you who I will pick. I’ll hold my nose and make a selection. Then, if my primary voting record is true to form, that candidate will shortly withdraw from the race; unless its a write-in candidate, where the poor guy will simply fade into obscurity. After that I will do all I can to ignore the influx of marketing that will be flooding the airways, in increasing increments well, until November when Americans who are secretly sick of it all will vote, if only to make the ads go away.  Meanwhile  I suspect that more then one of us will be wishing they’d spend all that “campaign” money on something actually meaningful. If anyone asks, I can provide a list of options.

Smell Me Later

This morning I was feeling a little extra energetic so I decided to mop my kitchen floor before I left for work. I swept the floor then filled the sink with hot water. Then I got out the bottle of Mop and Glo. I had forgotten I’d had that particular floor cleaner product. It had been relegated to the back of the cabinet under my kitchen sink. It took having the garbage disposal replaced for it to be brought to the front row of the cabinet.

And before you ask, no, I did not get brave OR stupid enough to attempt the task myself. I know my limits when it comes to home improvement projects, as any of you regular readers, OR my family can attest. Replacing a small appliance that was hooked up to a source of electricity was well beyond my skills. Instead my sweet boyfriend and his uncle took on the task. It only took them a few hours. I would have a deconstructed sink, electrical burns, and a flooded kitchen if I had attempted the task. The replacement disposal would be sitting on the counter mocking me, one still hanging by  a thread under my sink would be snickering. That’s why I am glad I had help from people with skills, tools and testosterone.

The floor cleaner I used to mop my floor had lost its lid some time ago, and there wasn’t much left in the bottle, so using what was left should prove perfect to give my floor a shiny clean up.  Within ten minutes my floor was damp, and gleaming. Within 12 minutes I was wheezing. Goody!

One of the things about being asthmatic, having no sense of smell AND chemical sensitivities is that I never know what will trigger symptoms. One thing I have noticed however is that since I left my job at the salon, asthmatic episodes have been reduced in frequency and severity. I suspected that might happen, so it was pleasant realization to discover how true that turned out to be. In the past month, I’ve had only one other major chemical sensitivity episode. That was with my brand new, expensive, professional brand shampoo and conditioner. Apparently it had a very strong scent. I didn’t know that. I have no sense of smell. I bought it for what I hoped it would do for my hair. I used it and within five minutes I was in a full blown attack. It now resided in the guest bathroom and I bought some cheap shampoo, but only after letting someone else smell it for me first.

I know that I am not alone with this problem of chemical sensitivity. It is simply amazing how many products there are on the market that have a wide variety of purposes that have a chemical component contained within it to provide a “pleasant” smell. As I am discovering, I can react negatively to more then someone’s cologne or what hair product they are using.  I am also beginning to experiment with different toiletries to see what my skin likes better.  Switching from a traditional foundation to a simple tinted moisturizer helped with a dry skin issue I’ve been fighting for years.

Cleaning products are starting to have me  much more aware of what my lungs really hate. The MopNGlo incident reminded me that I just can’t always assume that just because I’ve used it before with no trouble, it means that any future uses will have the same respiratory results.
The problem I now see is one that many like myself are noticing. It is not always easy to find products free of irritating scents (at least to us), that work as we’d like them to and are not more expensive then their aromatic counter-parts. It is often an exercise in trial and error. When one also lacks a sense of smell, like me, it makes that experimentation that much tougher. I have to rely on others to do that all important smell test for me, and then its still a gamble.

I will try something else next time to use when I mop my floors. I’ve used those liquid pine or lemon based general cleaners with no ill effects (so far) but they don’t tend to add a lot of shine to my vinyl floor. My floor has a bit of age to it, so putting a little shine to it, does make it look better.

So here’s where you come in. I’d like your help, your input, or even your free samples. I am looking for things that I can use in my home or on my person that is scent free or scent reduced, that isn’t over priced, can be found without a trip to a special store or only available by mail order, and that does what it is intended. If it is something that can be easily made, I’m game for it as well. Just remember it needs to be EASY and CHEAP.

I will be the test dummy, and share my results. If nothing else I will have a list of dos and don’ts for my own personal benefit. Maybe, that list will help others who are on the hunt for that product that doesn’t irritate as well.