Birthmother; Reprise

Wednesday, February 6

Hi Jana,

Next week, I will be in California at a training at Boeing. I fly out from work at noon on Monday, and return 5:00 pm Thursday. Elsie has a new job, which requires her to be at work from 2:00 – 6:00pm. Since I can not pick the boys up at 5:00, and since the boys would love to see you, it is great you can help.

I would like the chance to talk to you too. It has been a while. Would you be able to come Sunday, or even Saturday, and stay through Thursday evening or Friday? Suki can come too. (leave Cory behind though, this time)

We will have a private-ish room for you somewhere. I think I can even find the spare bed.

Let Elsie or me know what your travel plans are. (I will even spring for the train ticket if you need me too)

Elmer

I haven’t seen this movie yet. I REALLY want to see it. But I am also terrified.

A friend just sent me an Op-Ed from the New York Times called Sex and the Teenage Girl:

Juno finds a yuppie couple eager for a baby, and when the woman tries to entice her with the promise of an open adoption, the girl shakes her head adamantly: “Can’t we just kick it old school? I could just put the baby in a basket and send it your way. You know, like Moses in the reeds.”

It’s a hilarious moment, and the sentiment turns out to be genuine. The final scene of the movie shows Juno and her boyfriend returned to their carefree adolescence, the baby — safely in the hands of his rapturous and responsible new mother — all but forgotten. Because I’m old enough now that teenage movie characters evoke a primarily maternal response in me (my question during the film wasn’t “What would I do in that situation?” but “What would I do if my daughter were in that situation?”), the last scene brought tears to my eyes. To see a young daughter, faced with the terrible fact of a pregnancy, unscathed by it and completely her old self again was magical.

And that’s why “Juno” is a fairy tale. As any woman who has ever chosen (or been forced) to kick it old school can tell you, surrendering a baby whom you will never know comes with a steep and lifelong cost. Nor is an abortion psychologically or physically simple. It is an invasive and frightening procedure, and for some adolescent girls it constitutes part of their first gynecological exam. I know grown women who’ve wept bitterly after abortions, no matter how sound their decisions were. How much harder are these procedures for girls, whose moral and emotional universe is just taking shape?

I’m glad this author (Caitlin Flanagan) gets it. I just finished reading The Girls Who Went Away; I think watching Juno immediately afterwards would be like diving into arctic waters.

I’m sure I could search around blogland and find some of your reactions. If you’ve written a post about this movie, please send me a link. Thanks!

Just wanted to pop in and say no, I haven’t officially stopped blogging. I fully intend to return (hopefully sometime soon).

Also, GO OBAMA!

While I’m here, I just ran into this [Google-powered] search engine called Blingo where you can win free stuff just by searching. Each day Blingo’s prize program chooses a bunch of winning times (usually several per hour). The first person to search after a winning time wins the prize.

It sounds like a hoax, but I assure you it is not! There are no strings attached to using Blingo: you don’t have to register to win, they don’t send spam, and there aren’t any offers you’ll have to sign up for. There aren’t pop up ads either.

I personally know someone who has won two $5 Amazon.com gift certificates, ten movie tickets, and a $25 Visa gift card.

Anyone else out there winning anything on Blingo?

I HATE SHIT LIKE THIS! The worst part is that it was emailed to me by my dad. The homeless people in Chicago must be a lot happier than the ones in Michigan, cause I can’t remember the last time I saw one laughing, singing, and dancing (much less holding a press conference?!).

A new twist on an old story:

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

This one is a little different.. Two Different Versions! Two Different Morals!

OLD VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

——————————————-
MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.

Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him because he doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote

Lately I’ve come to realize that being around Cory all the time doesn’t just use up all my blogging time, it uses up all my thinking time too. It feels difficult to drown out the chatter and activity and dogs and internet mind-sucking; sometimes I can’t even remember what I want to be thinking about.

I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. I feel in-over-my-head for sure.

Anyhow, here’s a look at what I’ve been up to lately, at least on the surface: The Udderly Impractical Scoot