The Gym, or Please Keep Your Pink Secret to Yourself

So, I was laying in bed this morning, willing myself to get up and go to the gym. Not an unreasonable request as I've done ridiculous amounts of travelling (and therefore eating too much without any real exercise to speak of) in the past 6 weeks. Mags was still asleep, so I could actually sneak out of the house without it having to be to the accompaniment of her wails. But I was tired. So tired. Travelling, or more correctly, sleeping in beds other than my own had really cut into my sleep these past few weeks, and I am still trying to catch up. That, and I feel as though I am coming down with a slight bug, which is draining my energy. So, I got up and creaked down the stairs to the bathroom, already composing a weak-ass excuse to not go to the gym and instead flop about the house for the day. That is, until I got to the mirror. And parts of my body that are not supposed to jiggle...did.

So I got dressed and went to the gym.

I didn't do a full routine, which I probably could've used, but I was honestly still feeling like someone had turned up the gravity, so I didn't beat myself up over it. I did most of my regular time on the treadmill, and then opted to do some stretching, which I desperatetly needed after all those airplanes. After a short while, two other women joined me in the mat/ball room, pulled out mats of their own, and began to do their own thing.

I've been trying to stretch out my lower back and hamstrings, so a lot of the stretches I was doing involved lying on the floor. And like most people, my eyes kind of wander around when I'm holding a stretch for any amount of time. But Lo! And what to my wandering eyes should appear? A little red sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer! I kid -- and also recoil in horror. Because instead of reindeer, I see one big Beaver.

That's right. Off to my right, at eye level, one of the women is lying on her side, doing these frog-kicky things. She's wearing jogging shorts, which are not the longest things in the world, and NO UNDERWEAR. We are talking serious jungle-foliage, break-out-the-machete, lips a-flappin' action here, folks. It was as if a Tribble had landed in her crotch and was chewing gum with it's mouth open! Now, I'm all for the beauty of the female body, blah, blah, blah, and if you want to exercise au naturel, godspeed, but there is a time and place, people! And it is not, I repeat, NOT at 830 in the morning in the YMCA!

What else could I do? I left. I calmly got up, put my mat away, and headed for the door in a dead run. I managed to restrain myself from ripping off my own underwear and shooting it at her off of my thumb slingshot-style. Thanks to the gym, I'm thinking I'll lose quite a bit of weight this week; not because of any sort of regular exercise, but because my appetite is completely GONE. I'm going to call it the 'Leave it to Beaver' weight loss program.

I've got those hap-, hap-, happy feet!

After several aborted attempts to take Mags to see a) see more penguins in the movie 'Happy Feet', and b) give Mags her first theater experience, we were invited to join Whizz and her son yesterday afternoon on a movie-going outing. Mags was totally down with getting dressed to go see the dancing penguins, and was ready in record time, bike helmet and all (mind you, we walked.) The four of us hoofed it over to the downtown theaters, got our $15 bag of popcorn, and were in our seats by the middle of the first preview. I'd wondered how this would go with a two-and-a-half year old, but I figured the chances of success would be fairly high with a movie about penguins, as 'March of the Penguins' is still in regular circulation around our house.

The first half of the movie-viewing experience went smoothly. As expected, Mags sat in her seat, transfixed by the film, mindlessly eating popcorn and still wearing her bike helmet. But after a while, she either grew tired of sitting or just badly wanted to dance along to the music, and crawled over me to get to the isle. As we were near the handicap platform and there were all of 6 people in the theater, I figured a little dancing wouln't be a problem. And it wasn't, until the dancing turned into climbing on the railings all over the place. Oh dear. I had to peel her off the railings and return her to her seat once, twice...aaand third time's the charm. At that point I had to carry a wailing Mags out into the lobby to follow through with my dire warning that if she did it again, we were going to go home. After a long talk in the lobby, however, she agreed to behave and we went back in and actually made it with minimal fussing to the end of the film. Hooray! At which point Mags immediately demanded to see it again. (twitch, twitch)

All in all, and as badly as I was ready to deposit her in the trash recepticle on the way out, it went pretty well. She *is* only two, it was her first time, and it was a less kid-friendly movie than I had expected**. And I got to eat a hot dog (burp.) Plus, she got excercise walking to and from the theater -- well, except for the part where I had to carry her home -- so which is always good. Yeah, I'd do it again, I think. But it makes me glad our attempt to go to the movies with two other toddlers while in WI fell through.

Many thanks to Whizz for inviting us to the movies, and to Milo for actually holding Mags' hand part of the way home, as much as it pained him. :)

**I guess I'd been expecting something a little more light-hearted, a little less preachy, and definitely less musical numbers. But there were a lot of funny bits, and baby penguins! Really, you can't go wrong with baby penguins. Mostly.

One person's couch is another person's...

We're into phase 2 of our trip to Milwaukee: staying at Gma's house. We've got a nice room all to ourselves, and Mags and I have been sharing a very comfortable and warm bed the past few nights. But you know what she keeps asking for? She keeps wanting to go back to Goose's house so we can sleep on their couch. Or maybe more correctly: their fold-out bed.

Oh yes, the magical and mysterious fold-out bed. We've got one at home, so she's not completely new to the concept (most recently we used it when Diamond Lil stayed at our house, and she'd never seen one before. As I unfolded the mattress, Lil's eyes got bigger and bigger, until she finally whispered, "Oh my goodness!")
Normally we use ours when its movie time; snuggled up with pillows and blankets in the dark living room, peppering the sheets with popcorn. And when the movie is over, Mags reminds us to put the bed away.

But who knew the bed had so many other uses? A trampoline! I for one am amazed by the amount of air a toddler (or two or three) can get on one of those things. I couldn't help watching the mattress worked over by the kids and thinking, man, if that was a piece of meat it would be CRAZY tender by now! (but I think it was getting close to lunch then, too...) It also makes a great crash pad for catching you after your leap of faith off the back of the couch, a hot rod car clenched in each hand, wearing nothing but a diaper. Hey, where did Mags go? Why, she's under the bed in the 'cave', dodging exposed springs triggered by another crazed toddler. And if you've got a handful of high-back chairs lying about, as well as a bag of clothespins and some sheets -- voila! You've got the base for a fanTAbulous fort!

Whew! All of this jumping and playing has really got me tired. Wait, what's that you say? I can actually sleep on it, too?!? Now that's just crazy talk! Going to bed has never been so much fun. We'd crawl into bed together - no, Mama, that's my Thomas the Train pillow - read some books, and off to sleep we go (well, except for the last night. She didn't fall asleep until 10:45. I think the goldfish was keeping her up, or something else just as ridiculous.) Really, the novelty of waking up and being in the living room was just the be-all-end-all. And like the evil mama I am, I now force her to sleep in a bed. In her room. Quick. Call CPS (yawn.)

I'm guessing she'll live, and we'll all survive this trip and make it back home in one piece. Who knows where she'll want to sleep when we get there, though. Saaay, the couch is far away from our bed, the big bed, the bed she's recently taken to sleeping in all the time, the bed where Husband and I never get alone time together. I'm thinking it may be time to brush off the popcorn and break out the old Thomas pillow for Mags...

Offspring Story of the Day

me in Target: (tired, cranky) Mags, where are you?
Mags: Over here!
me: (sees Mags with only one shoe on) Hey, where is your other shoe?
Mags: (evil villain voice) You'll never find my other shoe! Hahahahahaha! (runs down the main isle with a sherpa hat tied to her butt.)

Of interest

While staying with Goose the other day, I think we both had a bit of a revelation.

One night at dinner, LJ asked me if I had to follow through with spankings for Mags, or if the threat alone was enough to do the trick. Suprised, I looked up and said, "Oh, we don't spank in our house." Just as suprised, he looked back and said, "Oh!"

I'd actually forgotten that most (I think) families still spank their kids. I know in these parts of the midwest its still the norm. And I don't know that Goose and LJ had ever met anyone who didn't occasionally lay their hands across their kids butt from time to time. I think that's a real testament to Husband and I; pretty much everyone who's spent time with Mags and I on this trip so far have commented on what a mellow and well-behaved kid we have. I actually felt really good about it. Hooray for the hippie parenting books! They weren't completely high on patchoulli!

Where am I?!?

This can't possibly be Wisconsin, because I'm HAVING FUN.

So, Mags and I made it to Mil-i-wau-kee just fine. In fact, Mags was a dream and a half. She was well behaved, polite, self-entertaining, and not fussy at all, over the course of nearly seven hours. It was miraculous. I actually read a magazine on the plane while she was still awake! Gasp! We were well prepared with snack and Play-Doh (still no pulse evident in airport security over that one.) Speaking of security, Mags is so used to travelling, that she sat down while waiting in line for security and started taking off her shoes without me having to ask! :)

My mom and her husband Dorney picked us up and took us to my grandmother's house for dinner. Dorney still likes to tralk about inane things, and I thought we might suffocate between the combination of my mom's cologne and the car heater being on 'rotisserie'. Didn't take us long to get to Gma's house. Great grandma looks like she's holding up well, if not a lot more hard of hearing. After warming up to folks, Mags put on her 'cute' show and wowed everyone (although I think she coulda crapped in the middle of the floor and gotten the same reaction, though.)

Our plan for this trip was to spend 3 days with my mom, my cousin, and my aunt, respectively, instead of the entire duration using Mom's place as a leaping point for all other excursions and a healthy dose of guilt. After repeatedly being reminded to check the car lights location and make sure we knew how to use the heater, we`started off to my cousin Goose's house family with Gma's car. Racine, here we come!

Now, Racine is located about halfway between Milwaukee and Chicago. And really, in the entire time I lived in Wisconsin, I only visited one section of it to visit my aunt, and have had a less than impressed impression of it (read: the Sticks. And not in a cute, country sorta way.) Well, Goose and her gaggle live in a really nice area! And there are theaters, and restaurants (Thai! Japanese! Korean!) too. Its super close to L. Michigan, a small zoo, and a kid's park to rival only one I have ever seen before in my life. They live on a great tree -lined street that kid of smacks of Norman Rockwell. They even have a yard! And a garage! I was stuned to realize at one point I found myself thinking that wow, if i HAD to live in Wisconsin again, I think I could actually live here.

Another thing about Racine that really sticks out is that I lived in this state for nearly 20 years and never knew this part existed (partially because I never learned to drive until I was long gone, and also because of my extremely narrow upbringing. But we'll save that for another post.) I told Goose at one point that it really didn't feel like I was even in Wisconsin, because there was nothing that I recognized. Well, that and the fact that I've been having great fun visiting with her, but I didn't say that part out loud. Yeah, family visits are pretty stressful, thanks to my family and their own copyrighted version of freakiness. They're so bizarre, they make Goose and her family feel incredibly normal, which is very impressive considering they are practicing PENTACOSTALS. Yah. Part of that is because Goose is just a mellow bird and always has been, and part of this is because EVERYONE looks normal i comparison, but her husband Little John converted to Pentacostal when he was in his teens, so he kida gets how the rest of the world lives and has managed to interject the safe, happy and fun parts of that into their lives. Oh, and Little John also thinks our family is nuts, too. He and I have discussed on more than one occasion our family visiting there family without telling THE family -- ya dig? I'll tell ya, its tempting. Goose keeps wagging her finger at us, though. Meh.

Goose and LJ also have two boys, a shy, slender 4 year old, and a boisterous bulldozer of a 2 year old. Mags has clicked well with both of them in different ways, and I think they're all having fun with each other. All of them sharing a deep and all-consuming love of Thomas the Train has not hurt. Granted, it's been all of one day so far, but I really do not forsee any real issues. At least not here.

Monday night we're off to Mom's house. This'll be where the mental armor has to come on. I think for the most part it'll go fine (read: I won't be calling Husband 2x a day begging him to never let me come back here again.) The fact that Mom and I are both on meds should help that immensely -- although I'm not supposed to know she's on them...but that'll be covered in the afore mentioned entry to follow too. But it's still tricky.

Historically, staying with them has involved using one of their spare cars, which leads to repeated reminders to use the club as well as locking the doors, and something of a curfew as they insist the car be put I the garage at night but won't let me do it. Then there's their house. They live in an former beer baron mansion/frat house on the north side of town. And by north side, I mean of a darker skin tone, shall we say. Now, if asked to describe my Mom and Dorney, I'd have to say: a) paraniod, b) racist, c) insane, but d) well-intentioned. To say they live in fear would sum it up nicely. They've got an alarm system on their house, which is not too unusual, but they arm it when they're inside the house, too. Getting in and out of their house to go anywhere is an amazing amount of hassle, and rather offputting, to tell you the truth. But because they live in constant fear, they never open any of the shades on the first floor because they think their house is constanly being cased for robbery, which is even more ridiculous when you see the amount of crap these two packrats have in their house! (And not even nice stuff!) So, they're 'safe', but they have to use the lights all the time because their house gets almost no sunlight in it. A very strange place to be locked into, rest assured.

Arg. I could go on, but I'll stop. While some of the things that drive me nuts will still be there, I'm basing a lot of anxiety about this coming portion of the trip on previous visits (not without some cause, mind you.) I want to have a good time on this trip, and I bet there's a way we can do this. I'll let you know how that goes.

Until then, I'm going to continue to enjoy my idyllic time here in Not Wisconsin.

Thinking of you (a love note.)

So, all of the travelling in the past month has left me sorely behind in my writing. But never fear, little blog, it is nothing personal. In fact, I still think of you often, and find myself composing entries even when the keyboard is not right in front of me. Why, last night alone, I made at least two mental entries to your pages! Sadly, they do not translate as well in the harsh light of day. Nay, the rapier wit and stunning delivery are dulled during regurgitation by the sleep-fog of my brain, the toddler trying to pull off my pants as I write, and the Husband who can't seem to find [fill in the blank.] Yes, by day break, all that is left is the low-rent knock off version of what would otherwise be a true piece of art.

Now, I am leaving town again on yet another journey. And while we may be apart, I will still be thinking of you, keeping track of things I wish to sucessfully recreate on your glossy pages long after they occured. Until then, I will remember your open arms - or should I say bifold binaries?

Can't run from it

So, on Tuesday I registered to start back at school come January. I'm actually really excited about the idea (ask me again 3 weeks after I start.) It was a good feeling to walk back into the building and feel like I belonged there. Oh, sure, I didn't recognise most of the faces, and I'm still at least 10 years older than 95% of the students there, but it felt good nonetheless.

However, in getting ready to go up to the City, I found myself almost stressing about what to wear, and that suprised me. I literally tried on a handful of different outfits before finding something that worked (didn't fit - next, didn't fit - next, didn't fit -- you get the picture.) Have I always been image conscious? Or is it just that I haven't had to worry about what I wore for the past 8 months but now I do? Am I really intimidated by a bunch of 22 year old fashionistas at school? (Turns out the answer is 'yes'.)

I probably wouldn't be wigging out about it so much if I wasn't feeling incredibly unhappy with my bod right now. Husband would call it girl-o-vision, but whatever it is, I do try to pretend that I don't exist below the waist these days. Sure, some are blessed with quick weight loss after having a kid (you guessed it; not me. ) But after wrestling with food and exercise forEVER, I was actually withing striking distance of my ideal weight this past spring. 10 pounds to go! Whoo hoo! I can keep this up for a little while longer!

And then I started birth control. Or maybe more correctly, birth OUT of control. Sure, it may have prevented me from getting pregnant, but it didn't prevent me from LOOKING like I was pregnant. And short of being pregnant, I've never gained weight that fast in my life; almost 20 lbs. in about 6 weeks. No lie. And this was all while I was doing 40, 50, & 60 mile bike rides while training for the AIDS ride. I'm sorry to admit I got so depressed about it that I lost all momentum. Not doing myself any favors, but really, if I'm honestly busting ass and actually manage to LOSE ground? I'm done, thanks. Damn you, evil hormones!!!

Fast forward to present day Metropolis: nothing I have fits. Well, nothing besides the post-pregnancy jeans I had to pull out of storage. Yah. That bad. Even the 'fat girl' pants I bought at the thrift store don't fit anymore. Arg! (Nothing below the neck, nothing below the neck....) And now with school looming, I really honestly do need to go clothes shopping, because the gym pants I wear 4x a week are not gonna cut it. So I tried to go to Mervyn's today. I know, not uber fashionable, but at least I didn't try to discover the softer side of Sears. Let's just say that little adventure did not work. In fact, I left feeling, how do you say... depressed? Yah. No more living the lie. There's nothing like a changing room to bring reality bitch-slapping and screaming into your existance. No amount of chanting my below the neck mantra is going to work here. Ugh.

I have started going back to the gym, and have been religiously tracking my calories. I leave tomorrow for a 10-day trip, which means that excercise will probably fall off and eating will probably increase. I'm trying to be ok with where my body is right now, but I'm really struggling. Really.

I don't even have a point. I just feel icky. Blech.

Which leads me to wonder

Am I making too much of a tomboy out of Mags?

Oh sure, she loves her ratty, pink princess dress, complete with rainboots. And a large majority of the dress up/play fabrics she has are very glittery and/or shiny. And while I don't constantly dress her in pinks and hearts and flowers, I think she gets plenty of exposure to lots of different colors, and plenty of (non-princess) dresses.

But I watch her around Lil, and she just seems so far on the other end of the scale. She likes to play in the dirt more than LIl, is much more physical, plays with trains way more than dolls, and the only kids she gets any regular exposure to are all boys.

See, I'm doing that thing where I'm comparing again, which you just can't do with kids (hell, you shouldn't really do it with anybody.) I know that a) all kids will get there eventually and b) no two kids are the same. And really, I only have the one other girl to measure up against; maybe there are tons of future GLOW toddlers out there just waiting to meet my daughter and become fast friends.

And I don't really want her to turn into an ultra-fembot either. Tomboy is great. Fine. Wonderful. But should I expose her to more girly things and let her decide to go tomboy on her own? Less knife throwing and more tea parties? Less Burning Man and more ballet classes? Less pirates and more unicorns?

I guess I can't really get into too much trouble here. My guess is she'll either a) pick up new stuff from her peers and decide to go that route, b) decide anything her parents have exposed her to is uncool and swing wildly away and become a Young Republican (not to be confused with D. Bowie's 'Young American',) or c) will be completely happy with who she is and will end up having to tell her mom to chill the fuck out and stop worrying about it all the time.

Oh. I guess I feel better. I...think.

Release the hounds!

I am this close to having a nervous tick in my eye. As it is, I think I've ground a fair amount of enamel off my teeth.

There are two two-year olds in my house, and will be for nearly 3 solid days.

Months ago I/we offered to babysit Diamond Lil whilst her mom, Mrs. Booty, went off to some retreat-esque type thing at Harbin Hot Springs. Historically, Mags and Lil have gotten along fine. We've taken them camping together, and we've toddler-swapped for a couple of weekends as well. There's always been the usual toddler behavior, but no real blow outs, tears of the damned, or anything like that. And really, that's pretty much where we're at with this adventure so far. Its just bizarre how its almost gotten more difficult the older they get, though.

Things are definitely easier in the facts that they *can* be quite self entertaining, they can feed themselves, they're much less likely to seriously injure themselves, and overall there's just a lot more going on behind the eyes to interact with. Really, so far the issue has been with Mags. There's someone on her turf, using her toys, getting attention from her mom, and just using her air in general. Not suprising, really. Then there's also the fact that it appears that Mags has a bit more of an aggressive personality than Lil, who is much gentler. Every request from Mags to Lil comes out as a bellowed demand, regardless of how begnin the request. And Mags constantly wants to wrestle with Lil, who silently pushes Mags away with all her strength, her eyes filled with confusion and alarm. So of course, Mags is acting out. She's being incredibly bossy, grabs things away from Lil all the time, and is just being difficult and stubborn in general. I've been feeling like a real hag, constantly having to ride herd over Mags; do this, don't do that, do you want a time out?, that's not ok, we need to share -- you get the picture. I've done a real good job of not totally losing my cool, but I'm a lot more taxed than I thought I'd be at the end of the first (half) day. Whew.

This is not to say that there haven't been fun and silly things that happened today. Watching the two of them tire themselves out on the bed was pretty funny. Playing 'ghost' with some white fabric in front of the blacklight was entertaining all around too. There have been many impromptu hugs and kisses from one girl to the other, which warms my heart. They both went down for their naps like angels; the three of us lined up like sardines in the double bed, a toddler on either side (and really, there are few things as wonderful-feeling as the warm, heavy weight of a toddler snuggling with you.) Lil's got some great one-liners, too: "That's freakin' cute!" And now, they are under the magic spell of the dvd player (I am not above 'cheating'. In the event of loss of cabin pressure, place the mask over your own mouth and nose first before slapping your child in front of a movie.)

I think (hope!) tomorrow will go well. A lot of things were closed today, thwarting our plans to do stuff. The library, the park/zoo in Palo Alto, and something else (I forget.) First thing tomorrow: the park. Run 'em ragged. Home for lunch, then nap. In the afternoon, the mom's club is holding a family dance/tea party that I am dragging the girls and Husband to. That reminds me, I need to check the chemicals in the hot tub to make sure its not too funk-tastic to sit in either tomorrow evening or Sunday (Husband and I crawled into it last night in the dark, and lasted about 10 minutes before the smell drove us off. Pretty funky.) I know Mags enjoys 'swimming' in the little pool, and I can't see why Lil wouldn't enjoy it either.

Anyhow, I'm off to have a nice glass of whine, or something. A good night's rest will make everything doable for tomorrow. Oh, and BOY am I glad we didn't have twins! God DAMN!

idea!

So, the other day I bought an armoire (which I think is french for cabinet with too much self-importance) off of Craig's List to replace the entertainment center in the living room. It's not top of the line, but it's nice in a simple and slightly used kind of way. I'd been wanting one on the premise of out of sight, out of mind for Mags, plus if you close the doors, the whole area just looks less cluttered. And it forced us to do more purging of unused items. Yay purging!

Anyhow, Husband helped me move everything around this morning (or maybe more correctly, I helped him.) A few feng shui discussions later, we decided on its placement and hooked everything up. The doors are nice in another way: they block out a lot of the light mmediately around the screen, so the image seems to stand out more. Nice! Sort of darkened the area like a theater.

Which of course led me to imagine nice red velvet curtains on the inside of the doors. Maybe a little bit of the gold fringe trim too? I also imagine the curtain coming in a bit over the edges of the tv as there is space on either side. Not enough to cover the screen in any way, but enough to make curtains seem like they're not floating in space next to the tv.

I'll get right on it.

Hey look! Even MORE stupidity!

I just cannot believe the level of stupidity in this country. Or better yet, the complete and utter loss of common sense. Really.

%$#$#@%$#%@#%$#%$@!@!@#!%@$!

I got so incredibly angry today. I'd gone to Long's to pick up a prescription. There was only one person in front of me; a crusty old fellow in a wheelchair. I was slightly uncomfortable as he seemed to be getting into it with the woman behind the counter. 'Oh great', I thought, "he's complaining about not getting some senior discount or something.' Boy, wsa I wrong. All he was trying to do was buy cold medecine. Sudafed, to be exact. I'd forgotten about that pesky new federal law that says you have to have approved photo ID in order to buy anything with phenadr...no, pherad...nope, umm, how about phara...fuck it. The stuff used to make meth.

So here you have a 75-year old wheelchair bound veteran with the sniffles, and he's being told they can't sell him Sudafed because he doesn't have the correct ID. He's got his veteran's card, complete with photo, but that doesn't qualify. "I used this at the airport and they had no problems," he said. "And it gets me in and out of the hospital too." No luck.

Now, the women at the counter were polite but firm, and I can't fault them for doing their jobs and following federal stupidity -- pardon, I meant to say laws. But it kind of creeped me out too. Like, did they really believe this guy was gonna go home and cook hisself some meth and throw a party with the other vets or something? No! Man, if that was me, I'd so have let him just buy it. I mean really. And if he was some cracked-out meth fiend; if he was really gonna ramp up his stash by buying it one box at a time from different Longs Drugs around the peninsula, in a wheelchair, then shit, I think he's earned the right to get fucked up!

Have I mentioned this just irritated the everliving crap out of me? Because it did. To the point where, when I went up to the counter I asked for my prescription and the box of Sudafed. There was no way I was gonna be a party to making that old man have to come back to the store with proper ID just to get some fucking cold medication. But he rolled out of the store and was gone before I could give it to him. And do you know why? Because it took nearly 15 minutes to complete the transaction. Oh yeah! They've got to enter which type of approved ID you have into the cash register (which she didn't know how to do,) the number of your ID, and then, after all that, there's a FORM you have to fill out too! I was seriously grinding my teeth by the time it was all over. I even apologized to the cashier and told her I wasn't mad at her, but that all of these hoops were ri-di-cu-lous. She didn't disagree.

I swept the store twice to see if my veteran was maybe still shopping for beauty products, or even reading Maxim in the magazine section, but no luck. I even asked the cashier, "Which way did he go? Which way did he go?" to no avail. So if you're reading this, wheelchair guy, I tried! And I still have your Sudafed in my truck!!

Now, I know there is an idea that if you are going to be critical of an idea or a plan or whatnot, that you have a suggestion if not a solution to that which you are being critical of. I'm not gonna pretend that I have a solution to the US meth problem (or math, for that matter.) But FUCK, people! It just totally feels like the government and law enforcement can't do their jobs, and so *everyone* has to pay the price. And can I offer you a side of Big-Brother-is-watching-you while we're at it? Or how about a steaming mug of We-don't-trust-any-of-our-citizens!

It just *bang!* makes me *bang!* want to *bang!* smash my head *bang!* into a *bang!* brick wall! *bang!*

And I'm sure if I wait long enough, there'll be a law against that too. I do SO like having my government shove rules and laws down my throat because they think I can't take care of myself or anyone else. F U C K !