Pics From Atlanta Trip for Eric Clapton Show

So I guess it's time to post some pictures from our mountain trip.  The weekend of Oct. 14, we went to Georgia for the weekend for the Eric Clapton concert.  We rented a big house in the mountains for all of our friends to stay in before the concert and spend time together.  We left on Friday for a trip that should have taken 7 hours.  Naturally it took us about 11.  We thought we'd never get there, and the last little road up the mountain, I was pretty certain we were all going to die.  

We got there around midnight eastern time, but there was a lovely fire waiting for us, and we spent some time unwinding.  The house was amazing.  It was also FREEZING outside.  But that didn't stop us from hopping in the jacuzzi on the deck.  And we saw the sun rise Saturday morning.  The views were breathtaking.  We just couldn't capture them with my little digital camera. 

We slept a lot Saturday, then I marinated steaks and made bread while Chris and Shane got potatoes ready so that we'd be ready to put everything on the grill and in the oven after the concert.  We all got dressed and headed out for the show.

The concert was awesome.  We were a little late, so we just caught part of Robert Cray's set, but he was really great.  Then Eric Clapton was, of course, awesome.   Derek Trucks was with him, and he was great too.  Our seats were aisle seats on the floor and they were really good, except maybe for the guy next to us who appeared under the impression that he had paid for 1 and 1/2 seats, which he used throughout most of the show, no matter that Chris was underneath him.  Poor Chris.  And bless him for trading seats with me when he did.  I no doubt would have punched the guy before it was over, I'd already given him the look a few times while he was in my lap, complete with the requisite "ahem", but he seemed wholly unmoved.  He was clearly an asshole.  I would have had words and we'd have been stuck there for hours in an uncomfortable situation with this greasy pretty-boy personal-bubble intruder.  Chris just nudged back and tried to ignore him.  It is a strange feeling dating someone who is so much better a person than you.  At any rate, the wonderful concert ended, we met up with friends outside, then drove back to the house.  We had a kick-ass dinner of steak, roasted garlic and rosemary potatoes and onions and toasted bread with a compound butter and bleu cheese sprinkles, a recipe my friend Scottie taught me.  It was all so yummy, we ate at like 2 in the morning.  But it was awesome.  Here are some pictures from our great adventure

 

 

The living room. 

The hot tub. 

 

 

The fire pit.

Mountains....

What? Shane blurry?  I think you've probably had just about enough to drink.

Shane again.  What do you mean he's blurry?  Look, I think you might have a serious problem.  Stop blaming the photographer, and get yourself some help.  I mean, sure it's five o'clock somewhere...but...hey, wait.   It's after five here!  I gotta go. 

Currently reading : Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back By Amy Goodman Release date: 05 September, 2006

Complacency

Does nobody care anymore?  Has the world today really devolved into so many myopic slices of egocentricity, where far too few can be moved to give a shit beyond their own tiny, relative, complacent existences?  That's what I see more and more from where I sit.  People getting comfortable and losing perspective, forgetting the millions and millions of those who aren't.  And just not caring to even give them a moment's consideration. 

 

The other night I had a discussion which at some point degenerated into an argument with two acquaintances who happen to be republicans.   I don't even remember the beginning.  It was the end that upset me so.  We had gotten onto the subject of taxes and I was hearing the familiar refrain of "why should the rich have to pay a higher percentage than the poor," etc.  And then they actually told me that they could see no relationship whatsoever between the corporate fatcats making millions of dollars and the minimum wage workers they employ.  Those minimum wage workers have options.  They aren't forced to work for that company for wages that they can barely live on.  So it is perfectly OK to raise their taxes to a rate equal to that of the wealthy, reducing their income below that required for basic subsistence, and the wealthy should bear no social nor moral responsibility whatsoever in making up the difference.  So we push a few thousand more Americans into literal starvation, so a few more can buy another boat, but hey.  That's capitalism.  They have options.  It was when I realized that these people arguing with me were being glib, flip, even just playing devil's advocate at times and laughing at my passion that I ended the discussion.  This stuff isn't funny.  It's real life.  It means something to me. 

 

The people these two hecklers insist have options are the very foundation of our economy.  None of our big businesses can exist without products and services produced and provided at the lowest cost therefore the highest profit.  Somehow profits keep going up, the cost of living keeps going up.  Wages don't.  Someone has to make up the difference.  As long as companies aren't willing to take care of their own, the taxpayers have to.  Those who are already living at the poverty line can't pay more taxes.  They just can't.  How can people of good conscience ask them to?

 

It goes beyond taxes.  I don't profess to be an expert on fiscal matters.  It all seems pretty common sense, really.  In my opinion, it all boils down to greed.  People are greedy.  Corporations are greedy.  I worked for one of the world's largest communications companies.  I went to quarterly meetings.  I tried to cheer and be excited as we heard about yet another quarter of record sales – sales I made.  But that's tough to do when I'm barely paying my bills, and from one year to the next my income went down 5,000 dollars because they restructured their commission payouts.  My hourly rate went up, a little, not as much as inflation, but my annual income literally went down, significantly, because they decided to pay less for the people who were on their front lines, dealing with their irate customers, selling their products, the very lifeline of their business.  Their annual income?  Record high, of course.  I'm afraid I don't see how that's fair.

 

You have full-time employees of the world's largest retailer being encouraged by their managers to rely on public assistance for their healthcare because they simply aren't paid enough to afford their own company healthplan.  And if they complain, they're fired.  Unionize to better their positions?  Fired.  These folks are a dime a dozen and they're told as much from the get-go.  They are individuals who do not matter to society until they inevitably become a burden to society.  Then society has plenty to say.   

 

It happens everywhere, everyday.  Retail.  Manufacturing.  Telecommunications.  Hospitality.  Wage-laborers, though vitally important, get the shit end of the capitalist stick.  And someone else bitches about having to provide their healthcare, or food stamps, or pay more in taxes.  Greed.  And I'm sick, tired, weary of it. 

 

Why do I have to care so much?  This is more than some after-dinner sporting event to me.  More than a chance to throw around statistics in a pissing contest, a chance to see who's smartest, who can outwit who.  This isn't some debate club for the pushing-30 who didn't make the real debate club – arm-chair politicking.  These things keep me up at night.  They break my heart.  I look at the world around me and don't recognize it.  I wonder how things got this bad.  I wonder why other people can't or won't see it.  I cry.  Oh, man, do I cry.  I wish someone, or something, would just fix it all.  Make everything right.  I wish someone would give me all the answers instead of so many troubling questions

tired

I am so damned tired of feeling so damned SAD.  Will this constant black cloud EVER lift itself from where it seems seems so content lately right over my life?  Despair the depths of which I am growing accustomed to lately are of use only to poets, to artists, to blues singers maybe.  I am none of the three, (those of you who were at Pockets that one fateful karaoke evening can absolutely vouch for the latter).  Point is, why?  Why can't I just be happy again?  Why can't I stop the tears?  Why am I even writing this?  Who am I even talking to?

Roe. Wade. Whatever...This is Just Plain Wrong

Pro-life.  Pro-choice.  Most of us have by now developed a position on abortion.  For many, it seems that position is quite a passionate one on a subject that remains mercifully abstract, never giving us cause to test it.  Others, thousands of others, are not quite so lucky.  They come face to face with an unplanned pregnancy, and whatever their convictions once were, they may find them coming into question.  Women look for help in reevaluating their situation and making the best choice they can.  Seems to me we could at least give them the truth.  Just the truth.  

I read the following article a few moments ago.  It pisses me off a little.  We fund these clinics.  And they LIE.  They take away a person's right to make a decision about their own life with all the information available to them. And then, we abandon them.  Clearly these people's agenda is to discourage abortion.  But who's taking care of the babies?  Because it certainly isn't those 17-year-olds.  And it certainly isn't the politicians who are oh so eager to cut social programs right and left.  OK.  I think it's time for angry Amanda to go to bed.  

 

Report: Women Misled on Abortion Risks

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., talks to reporters

WASHINGTON - Women who consult with pregnancy resource centers often get misleading information about the health risks associated with having an abortion, according to a report issued Monday by Democrats on the House Government Reform Committee.
Congressional aides, posing as pregnant 17-year-olds, called 25 pregnancy centers that have received some federal funding over the past five years.
The aides were routinely told of increased risk for cancer, infertility and stress disorders, said the report, which was prepared for Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
Only a small fraction of the more than 4,000 pregnancy clinics nationwide get any federal funding, mostly for promoting sexual abstinence.
With a few exceptions, the federal government doesn't give money specifically for the counseling operations, but Waxman's staff said 25 centers got "capacity building grants." Thus, Waxman said, they should be held accountable for the information they dispense.
Of the 25 centers called, two could not be reached. Eight told the caller that abortion leads to a greater risk of breast cancer, the report said.
Care Net, an umbrella group for evangelical pregnancy centers across the country, instructs its affiliates to tell callers there is a possibility that abortion can lead to greater risk of breast cancer, according to Molly Ford, an official with the organization. She said there have been several studies that say it does, and several that say it doesn't.
"I know the report is wanting to say that it's conclusive, but it isn't," Ford said.
None of the pregnancy centers the committee staff called was identified, and it could not be determined if any were linked to Care Net, which has helped about a quarter of the nation's pregnancy centers begin operations.
One pregnancy center told a congressional aide the risk of cancer after an abortion could be 80 percent higher, the report noted. Ford said she doubted a pregnancy center would go that far, but the Web site for a pregnancy center in Albuquerque says the risk for cancer after an abortion is 50 percent or greater.
In February 2003, a National Cancer Institute workshop concluded that having an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman's subsequent risk of developing breast cancer.
The report from the Democratic aides also said the pregnancy resource centers provided false information about the mental health effects of abortion, telling the aides that it could cause severe long-term emotional harm.
However, an American Psychological Association panel said, "Severe negative reactions are rare."
But Ford said that pregnancy center counselors don't need statistics to tell them that many women undergoing an abortion experience severe emotional trauma.
"This isn't about a medical statistic to us. We do post-abortion counseling every day," Ford said.
The Administration for Children and Families within the Department of Health and Human Services funds the abstinence programs overseen by some of the pregnancy centers. Aides referred questions about the report to Wade Horn, a Health and Human Services assistant secretary, who did not want to comment until he read the report.
Waxman said that Americans are divided on the issue of abortion, but no one should support misleading teenagers about basic medical facts.
" It's wrong to pour millions of federal dollars into organizations that are providing false health information to vulnerable teenagers," Waxman said.
___
On the Net:
Committee on Government Reform report, minority staff: http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/
Care Net: http://www.care-net.org/

May the 3rd

Well here it is.  May 3rd.  Today my life becomes different again. I got the notice last month that he was being released from prison today.  May 3rd.  He has served his time.  Paid his negligible debt to society.  And today he rejoins us, rehabilitated or not.

It's been almost 4 years since he raped me.  I thought I was past it.  But I guess I never will be, not completely.  It's hard to adequately explain what it feels like to have someone violate you in such a way, to effectively seize and possess all that is you.  Hard to express the devastating vulnerability you are left with, knowing that you were unable-remain unable- to protect even something as basic as your bodily integrity.  It is impossible for anyone who hasn't been there to fully appreciate the utter and total humiliation that is inherent to the entire legal process.  So many times, I just wanted to give up.  To pretend it never happened and move on with my life.  But something in me knew I couldn't.  

 I wasn't his first victim, and I knew I wouldn't be his last.  He had to be stopped.  If the last girl's parents hadn't backed down, the sick fuck never would have been out of jail to hurt me in the first place.  She was only 4.  So I stuck it out.  Took more than a year of hell to ever even get to trial.  The plea bargain he eventually took only added insult to injury.   House arrest?  Ironic how he commits the crime and we both effectively get the same punishment.  His was mandated, mine somewhat self-imposed.  I was afraid to leave the house.  Sometimes the fear would sneak up on me, totally unexpected, and park like a cement truck on my chest 'til I couldn't even breathe.  That was the worst part.  Never could tell when some tiny detail of some seemingly innocuous situation would trigger a memory and send me into a panic attack.  I hated, too, always looking over my shoulder.  Never feeling safe the way I used to, the kind of safe that you don't even have to think about.  You just are.  You are capable of being carefree.  He took that from me forever.  Changed the way I experienced myself.  Before him, I just was.  And since, I have remained acutely aware that I am a woman.  And acutely aware of how that fact limits my movement.

He violated his ridiculous excuse for a sentencing arrangement just about the time I had finally become able to make it through a whole day without something reminding me of him, of IT.   A resurgent flood of overwhelming emotion accompanied the call advising me that he was in prison.  But after, once I finally accepted the news of his incarceration, I relaxed a little.  I may not be able to completely lose the fear, but at least I didn't have to fear him.  Things got better; I was able to talk about it.  I went whole weeks without thinking of it.  Life was nice.  And now, in a few hours, his sorry disgusting ass gets out of prison and my sentence has only just begun. 

I used to think hatred was unhealthy, that forgiveness was the answer. 

I haven't forgiven shit, and I will never stop hating that bastard for all that he stole from me. 

All this crying is going to give me a huge migraine tomorrow.  I think I'll go ahead and hate him for that too.

:o)

I am so happy these days!  Sure there's the regular stress of daily life, but then there's him.  And he puts a smile on my face that is so big, and he does it without even trying too hard.  It's nice.  I'm not happy FOR somebody, not happy BECAUSE of somebody...I'm just happy WITH him.  I hope that never changes.

He Has Arrived!

Pics of my brand new nephew, Brayden, and his very excited big sister Haylee.  Brayden got here around 7:30 pm Thursday March 9.  He weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces.  I'm really not sure why that matters so to everyone, but they always seem to ask.  So I figured I'd just throw it out there.  Man, it doesn't seem possible that I could possibly love two little people as much as I love Haylee, but I guess it must be.  Scary thought right there.

He's finally here!!!!!

Pics of my brand new nephew, Brayden, and his very excited big sister Haylee. Brayden got here around 7:30 pm Thursday March 9. He weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces. I'm really not sure why that matters so to everyone, but they always seem to ask. So I figured I'd just throw it out there. Man, it doesn't seem possible that I could possibly love two little people as much as I love Haylee, but I guess it must be. Scary thought right there.

Pics From the Concert in P-Cola

The boys sold out the Saenger and rocked it!  And we had a great time in Pensacola.

rock star

Paparazzi

Setting up for soundcheck

More setting up

Not that average groupie

Marcus



Loading up after



chillin' like a villain at the afterparty



Me and my awesome Uncle Shane



Mini-Quiche and Mega Music

So I went home this weekend for my sister's baby shower.  Nothing personal, but I HATE baby showers.  I'm not sure why, but I always feel incredibly uncomfortable at them.  They are largely boring.  The food usually sucks.  (I've never been a fan of the finger sandwich.)  Then you play a silly game.  And you watch someone open a bunch of presents that generally mean nothing to you unless you have children.  SO, i hate showers, but I go anyway because that's what you gotta do when you're a woman with friends and family.  This one was better than the average shower.  The food was nicer, the game wasn't completely lame, and my niece was there to entertain me. 

Shane went with me, and Saturday night we went to the Beta Bar to see my friend Pedro's band, The Soular System, play.  They were great!  They always are.  There was a band opening for them called Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings and they friggin' rocked!!!  They're from Brooklyn, and worth the drive to Brooklyn to see.   Truly.  I bought the CDs, which are great, but  they are infinitely better live.  Same with The Soular System.  They know how to put on a great show.  This was by far the best show I've been to in quite a while.  If you ever have the chance to check either of these guys out, you'd be a fool not to.

Tax Time Fun

Dear Internal Revenue Service:

Enclosed you will find my 2005 tax return showing that I owe $3,407.00 in taxes. Please note the attached article from the USA Today newspaper; dated 12 November, wherein you will see the Pentagon (Department of Defense) is paying $171.50 per hammer and NASA has paid $600.00 per toilet seat.

I am enclosing four (4) toilet seats (valued @ $2,400) and six (6) hammers valued @ $1,029), which I secured at Home Depot, bringing my total remittance to $3,429.00. Please apply the overpayment of $22.00 to the "Presidential Election Fund," as noted on my return. You can do this inexpensively by sending them one (1) 1.5" Phillips Head screw (see aforementioned article from USA Today newspaper detailing how H.U.D. pays $22.00 each for 1.5" Phillips Head Screws). One screw is enclosed for your convenience.

It has been a pleasure to pay my tax bill this year, and I look forward to paying it again next year.

Sincerely,
A Satisfied Taxpayer

Poker Night Pics

Even when you lose, you win. 

Me and my Jessica, one of my favoritest people ever

Scotty, Me, Jess.  I heart them.