Julie Pippert: Using My Words

By Friday of last week, I was a wee bit stressed . In case the spinning head and shrill tone escaped anyone's notice. Luckily, Friday is followed up by that miracle of time known as The Weekend. Our weekend was healing. Other than a Sunday we dedicated to fun, I think the thing that stands out most are three women who contributed something along the lines of restoring my faith in humanity. Random Acts of Kindness Act I The woman was behind the Starbucks counter at Target. She was probably ten years older than me, at most. I'd been dragged into the Starbucks by a wailing Persistence, and I was exhausted straight through my spirit by incessant creative parenting, power struggles, and daughters on the edge. "That milk!" Persistence shriek-wailed, "THAT MILK! Nilla MILK!" Our circuit through the deli-produce-bakery area had been going badly. Persistence is always hungry and thirsty, and a carton of milk will keep her happy through the store. The cooler by the fr...

If you're feeling a bit skeptical about the promise of Spring, please know it is here, and will arrive there soon. :) In fact, it must be nearly there since it's practically summer here, already: "The air's so heavy, It could drown a butterfly." (Grace Potter, Falling or Flying ) The Southern winds are prevailing, pushing back any north wind attempts to get through here, and cool and dry off the air. It's the hot and wet season, now. Just a quick raw photo, then, in case your weather isn't the same: Marriage and parenthood: are we all insane? The Impressive Clergyman: Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam... [cut to Westley, Inigo, and Fezzik] The Impressive Clergyman: And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva... [cut to the trio again] The Impressive Clergyman: So tweasure your wuv. Prince Humperdinck: Skip to the end. The Impressive Clergyman: Have you the wing? [cut to the trio once more] ...

(So. I didn't get this done in advance, as planned/hoped. Apologies. I will therefore put up the linky deal later today and will keep it up for more than just a day, and will repeat it. Okay?) I know someone who was murdered. Considering the murder rate, it seems like everyone ought to know someone who was murdered, and yet, when this (rarely) happens to come up, people are shocked and appalled---most people seem not to know anyone who was murdered. The victim is someone who was close to us. So is the murderer. The murder was brutal. I expect all murder is always brutal, but because I know this one, it seems especially so. Since it happened---and it's been a few years now---I've had a lot of thoughts. Initially, I had frequent thoughts and feelings about it---including anger, especially anger, along with disbelief, horror, sadness, and more---but as is typical, with time, it's slowed down, until something happens that brings it back up. That happens less and less now. E...

The first and biggest mistake that people make about my beloved country is that it is one country, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I realize that there is this pledge that we ourselves use to perpetuate this misunderstanding. But seriously, you know you can't take these advertisements literally. I mean, think of food photography, for example. When you buy those little frozen meals (and I do...I'm like a Lean Cuisine-a-holic), do they come out of the microwave (because we all know nuking food is the healthiest method of preparation) looking as pictured? No. They do not. For one thing, I don't even own that style of plate. For another, notice the little caveat on the image: Serving Suggestion. I found out about food photography ages ago when I first began my career. I was working for the production company and we had a professional photographer on retainer. In fact, we had two. One who specialized in people and one who specialized in objects. These a...

1. Danger Zone -- Kenny Loggins (A song I've never liked.) The air force is out doing maneuvers today. The jets fly low and fast over my house and the windows rattle in their frames. My dog barks uselessly at the perceived threat---anything so loud and unknown must be a danger. I don't mind the jets so much, though. They are on their way to the Gulf, and I'm simply on the flight path. They don't linger here at all, and are gone in a split second, leaving the air vibrating behind them. I mind the helicopters more. They fly low and slow, circling. Sometimes they are so close my skin feels the thud of the rotors, and if I look outside, I can see the mouth of the man hanging out the open door. The rest of his face is covered: helmet, ear phones, and goggles. Often there is a mounted machine gun beside him, and I prefer to think it is unloaded. It makes me think about these men, their helicopters, and communities elsewhere that they fly over, when everyone knows the guns ar...

Let's review the battle of the sexes in the blog world this week (in order to prove it's NOT JUST ME): 1. Mitch McDad--- Reason #1 (of 1) that Men are Smarter Than Women Citing makeup and cell phone abuse, Mitch McDad set out to prove in an eloquent and entertaining post that men do have one arena in which they are superior to women: driving. He was even gracious when I pointed out that car insurance actuarial tables disprove his thesis in four simple words: higher rates for men. Very funny post and comments...have a read. 2. Jennifer, le binky bitch--- Male pattern blindness Finally exposing a degenerative male disease that interferes with the quality of life for men and women alike, Jennifer movingly discusses the common frustration of wives who are married to men who can't find the noses on their faces. Commenters reveal a side disease---selective deafness---among other hilarious conditions and syndromes. Debate rages on whether it is exclusive to the Y chromosome or if ...

Today I am listening to the words of others. Yours. And these. 1. " Social comparison and body image: attractiveness comparisons to models and peers among adolescent girls and boys " (Statistical Data Included) Sex Roles: A Journal of Research , Nov, 2001 by Diane Carlson Jones The empirical relationship between social comparison and body image has been evaluated among college students, primarily for women. The general finding has been that females who have reported more appearance-related social comparisons have been more likely to be dissatisfied with their body images (Faith, Leone, & Allison, 1997; Stormer & Thompson, 1996; Thompson, Coovert, & Stormer, 1999). The linkage between social comparison and negative body image may be enhanced in the research because the targets of the appearance comparisons have frequently been models and celebrities presented in the media (Botta, 1999; Taylor et al., 1998). Media images of thin females and muscular males represen...

So...unless you keep your news reading to high-brow or none at all (and even that's not info-blank safe these days) you probably heard that Max!m released its Unsexiest Woman Alive winner a few months ago and she's Sarah Jessica Parker. (So I'm late to the discussion party. It's still a relevant issue to discuss.) It's deconstruction time. First, let's put this magazine in its place. When I Googled Max!m, this is what I got: Crappy Soft-Porn Lad Mag that, if a man was known to read this frequently and be a big fan and believer of it, should be a real turn-off to everyone carrying double Xs (and by that I mean chromosomes, not porn rating or some other sort of size). Okay okay that's not what Google really said. It really said (and this part is actual for real true): Hot Girls, Sex, Photos, Hot Videos, Sports, Movies and Music, Celebrities Girls, Sex, Sexy, Hotties, Women, Babes, Chicks, Technology, Gear, Video Games, Hotties, Magazine, Maxim Magazine, christ...

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Okay so I have been on Spring Break. That means this girl likes to party all the time, which apparently doesn't include anything relating to blogging other than hanging out with bloggers in real life. Although party has a new definition these days and seems to cap off at 9:30ish, it's about quality not quantity. (I swapped out the image; the first one was freaking out visitors. We can't have that! So I subbed in a nice local beach shot instead.) In no particular order other than as they occurred to me, here are things I've learned so far this week while on Spring Break (which is not finished yet): 1. Men are freaking weird. Some of them are actually turned on by a woman eating an aluminum can. With her bare teeth. I have no words. Okay a few: I would never ever be turned on by a guy eating an aluminum can with his bare teeth. Not even if he wore a really low cut tank top. And was wet. And strongly resembled Adrian Paul. Not even then. 2. The mouse car makes good tim...

And on the ninth day, God created the Expedition and he said, "Ginormous, it is good." The boy is an adorable little six year old, and he was invited over to play by none other than my daughter Patience---of her very own independent voluntary volition. He was excited because he got to bike over to our house. He's a native Texan, too. That's relevant because of the priority system of most native Texans: 1. Church and God and Jesus 2. Motorized vehicles (bigger really is considered better, and newer is the cherry) 3. the GOP and maintaining the status quo, even if it does destroy the planet 4. Football, especially their college team 5. Everything else (Note: I struggled mightily with numbers 3 and 4. Oh which is more important, which which which? I chose as I did because I have lately decided Texans would rather asphyxiate than change one iota of their lifestyle. Football is king, but I've never seen people as passionate about even the UT v. A&M game as I saw pe...

Angela at mommybytes asked about being wronged and reparation. I've written several times on this topic. There was the post about: * the time I followed a good example and stood up to a bad teacher * the time I finally said enough and left a horrible job rife with sexual harassment and hostile work environment * the chapped hide olympics in which I complained about bad customer service and the resolution from the companies that post brought * how I do, and don't speak up at times when I am feeling wronged * the downside and upside of being perceived as assertive * the time I testified to the EPA about the personal effects of a toxic environment It's not always just about me, either. I'll speak up for wronged friends and object to injustice (too many links to insert, LOL). Angela, in all my experience of frequently speaking up, I've learned that you can speak as much as you want, but by the time people act, they have already created a mental rationalization for...

Note 1: The You? Yeah, you, I mean you, or maybe not, maybe I just mean general you. Maybe you just hit 30 and have no idea how fast this decade passes. Or maybe you aren't even 30 yet. Maybe you are 50, and think I know nothing yet. The point is, there is always something more and less on either side of us, however you view it. This past weekend, Angela at Reality Testing and I both wrote about loss, and grief. We wrote about it very differently. I made mine humorous, she made hers poignant, and neither of us wrote about the traditional sort of loss or the standard sort of grief. Then, today, my dear friend Sarah wrote movingly, also, on the same topic. I'm not sure how to put it into words, but there is a loss that occurs, or that you finally become aware of, at about this age. It is the loss of youth and illusion, perhaps, although a corner of me debates that this is what it is. It goes back to that Russo quote , in a way. I don't think we begin to view life backwards...