"what do you feel about this article?"

nothin. that's what i feel.


if you click on many of the stories on yahoo news, up pops an idiotic question - "what do you feel about this article?" the stupidity of that kills me.

it also proves my point.

my point is, everyone's stupid. stu. pid.

ever since the '60s, everybody feels stuff. nobody thinks stuff. everybody feels stuff. i'm sicka that.

we are supposed to read informative articles and think something. we might also happen to feel something - that's normal - but the primary thing we're supposed to do is think. (if they even make thinking anymore. do they? i feel like surely they must.)  

:)

anyway, nobody thinks anymore but everybody sure as shootin' feels a buncha crap. did i mention i'm sick of it? i feel that i am.

don't believe me? pay attention. listen to a radio call-in show and see how many callers start off with "i just feel that...."

have a conversation with anybody younger than 65 and count how many "feels" they cop. if you get my drift.

go to work and sit in a staff meeting and see if anyone says one single thing about their cerebral cortex.

human beings are not intended to put their feelings first and their thoughts second. that's why we're human beings. God intended us to rise above, not sink below. and while i enjoy a good feeling as much as the next guy, let's be honest.....it's not just the bad feelings that lead us to bad behavior, it's often the good ones that do, too. a whole city called vegas is built on that fact.

and that's the end of my article.

what do you feel about it?

clear pond

my friend just painted her bathroom "clear pond." it takes a coat of primer plus two coats of paint with the primer already in it to paint your bathroom "clear pond." 

nuttin' clear about that.

on the other hand, it makes total sense. we have mucked up everything in life, not just paint. things that used to be inarguably clear have been covered up with layers and layers of arguments that make as much sense as priming a wall to paint it with paint that has primer in it. 

take life itself, for instance. 

i remember back when you'd ask where babies came from and the answer, though sometimes, depending on the embarrassment level of the person being asked, may have lacked perfect biological correctness, never ever once returned  the question with, "what do you mean by a baby? do you mean a zygote or an embryo? or a fetus? how old of a fetus? was the woman using birth control and it failed or was she 18 and still had her college education to complete?"

i remember back when everyone knew what the definition of "is" is.

but, if we can't even agree on those two basic issues anymore - what's life and what's "is" -  then no wonder kate can't achieve her coveted "clear pond" without priming and then painting - twice - with paint that has primer.

depends on what you mean by "pond," i guess.

God for.bid. what you mean by "clear." 


 

kids are germy

everybody always says that kids are germy. and that if you want to build up your resistance, you should work around kids.

excuse me?

kids aren't germy. adults are germy! you should see our staff bathroom! (and probably your staff bathroom, too!)

and speaking of the staff bathroom, apparently adults aren't too good about washing their hands because if they were, you wouldn't see those "employees must wash hands before returning to work" signs everywhere you go. i mean, think. about. it. if every dang fool restaurant in this country has to hang a sign to remind its employees - who work with food - to wash their hands, then what do you think is happening at home depot? makes me shudder to think about it.

kids aren't germy. and if they are, it's because the adults around them are.

we have hand sanitizer machines dang near every five feet where i work. i have practically never seen the adults use them, but the kids use them all. the. time. now......granted......the kids usually have to be reminded to use them - by an adult - but, so, picture this: the adult tells the kid to use the hand sanitizer machine and the kid does. while the adult stands there and watches. and you're gonna go tell me that kids are germy???????

if kids were as germy as everybody keeps saying they are and if being around them builds immunity, i would hardly ever be sick. because i have 5 little grandchildren and i work with kids. and i have worked with kids all my life. and i am always. sick. including now, for instance.

think i'll go buy some hand sanitizer and stare at it.

party?

a political party is hardly a party.

party of the first part and party of the second part? oh, yeah. plenty of LOL there.

pity party? right.

tea party (the original)? i doubt it. maybe after they dumped the tea and went to the tavern but while they were dumping? if that was a party, the guest list sure was in a bad mood.

tea party (current). hard to have fun when you're trying to suture wounds.

tea party (the british kind). hard to have fun when you're drinking tea with a stiff upper lip.


and so.......i have come to the conclusion that, except for an actual party (and plenty of times, not even then......especially not then) there is no such thing as a party. 

even lesley gore knew that. 

synesthesia, part four

what's the weirdest thing i have ever tasted?

there have been quite a few, but i think the prize goes to the word "work." here's what happens when i hear the word "work" (and it is, i think, the only sound that calls into play taste, feel, and sight).....

before i describe this to you, bear in mind that all of this happens in a flash. as soon as the sound is over, so are the sensations. when you read what i am about to describe to you, i think you will agree that this synesthesia is SOME. CRAZY. SCHNIZ.!

ok, so when i hear the word "work," i "see" a very irregularly shaped, very thin piece of frozen whipped cream. the shape of it is very specific (i can't describe it without using my hands to show you). i can "feel" the coldness of it and taste the sweetness of it. then, i see and hear it being cracked against the side of a counter top. it breaks into two distinct pieces, each with their own distinct shape (which again, i can't describe without using my hands) and then i see/hear (all the while still tasting) the two pieces fall to the floor, where they break into hundreds of little tiny pieces. the little tiny pieces don't really have specific shapes, which i think is odd. well, this whole thing is odd!

so, moral of that story is.....synesthesia is a metaphor for work - and life. there's the good, the bad, the sweet, and the broken. we gotta accept the whole enchilada.

:)

other random comments about synesthesia:

billy joel has it. not sure which form. i think he may feel sounds, which would explain part of the genius of his music.

they think marilyn monroe may have had it. that's intriguing.

no matter how much i know that you don't taste sounds, i still can't believe that you don't taste sounds. the tastes are so pronounced and so pervasive for me that it just boggles my mind that you don't taste them, too. i feel sorry for you, really, because i have a rich dimension to my life that the rest of you don't have. course, the rest of you have happy marriages, so there's that.

:)

synesthesia, part three

questions from the peanut gallery:

1.  what does "marissa" taste like? - this one doesn't really exist. kind of like a cross between melted swiss cheese with curly gift wrap ribbons mixed in.

2. can i listen to songs if the lyrics don't taste good? - yes. interesting question. had never thought about it till now. but, yes. i can. that has never been a problem. (but just wait. first song i listen to today......)

3. does synesthesia distract me from what i'm supposed to be doing? - yes. and no. when i was younger, definitely. in college and grad school, i always tried my best not to schedule classes close to meal time. being legitimately hungry (no relation to legitimate rape) AND tasting sounds on top of it nearly drove me to drinkin.'  now, however, i have learned - somehow; don't ask me how - to tune it out. sometimes it's harder to do than others. like when i'm stressed.

4. what does "honey boo boo" taste like? - first of all, NOT GRITS!  :)

5. ok, so what does "honey boo boo" taste like? -  "honey" doesn't taste like anything. however, although i don't actually taste honey when i hear the word "honey," i do think of it. but that's not synesthesia - that's just normal word association. which raises another frequently asked question - am i really tasting sounds or just associating them with food? - yes. i really taste sounds.

6. what  "boo boo" tastes like is kinda hard to describe. very hard to describe, actually. so hard to describe that i can't. sorry.

7. does everyone who has the form of synesthesia that i have taste the same thing with the same sounds? - no. sometimes there are overlaps, but more often than not, no. i am fascinated to understand why the same sound produces different flavors, not to mention how the flavors get produced in the first place. weird science!

8. do the tastes ever change? - for the most part, no. they are constant. however, there can be slight variations. for example, most of the time, my son-in-law's name (eli) tastes like lemon jello when it's still in a liquid form. but sometimes, "eli" tastes a little more like the lemon part of lemon meringue pie.and if a sound has a combination of flavors, sometimes one flavor is stronger than the other flavors and sometimes the other flavor is stronger. don't ask me why. weird science!

9. does having synesthesia affect my cooking in any way? - it can affect what i choose to cook, but not the actual cooking itself. if i have heard a particular ("particular" tastes like cucumbers with peanut butter on them) word throughout the day, i will very likely go home and make whatever that word tastes like for dinner. because having tasted that food all day long will have driven me so nuts that i just have to finally eat whatever that food is in order to shut my brain up!

10. what's the weirdest thing i have ever tasted?

11. stay tuned.......part four.

:)

synesthesia, part two

other factoids:

the word "nancy" tastes like chocolate cake batter. i owe my parents BIG.  :)

in the course of a sentence, i will taste 2, 3, maybe 4 flavors. the taste only lasts as long as the sound does -  in other words, a nanosecond. so, yes. i am hungry all the time. ("hungry" tastes like hashed brown potatoes.)

non-word sounds that i taste include instrumental music. violin music, for example, tastes like tomato sauce. depending on the exact form that the violin music takes, the tomato sauce may be more or less sweet, more or less garlicky, etc. but it's always tomato sauce. LOVE ME some itzhak perlman!

traffic can sometimes have flavor, but not always. when it does, it's usually when the cars are going fast and the flavor is usually citrusy. mostly grapefruit-y.

mostly, i taste words. and yes. i have to hear the word in order to taste it. just reading it doesn't do it. (although....because i am so accustomed to hearing words and tasting them, i am familiar with which words taste like what. so, when i read, i still get a faint flavor, but it's more like a function of "referred pain" (if you're familiar with that concept; and if you're not, look it up.) than it is a matter of actually tasting it. if that makes sense. (hell, none of this makes sense!)

speaking of not making sense, some of the sounds that i taste don't actually exist. or at least, not in the form that i taste them. take the name "roger," for instance. it tastes like a thick rope with mayonnaise on it. ok, so, yes, i'm weird, but i'm not that weird. i have never seen and certainly have never eaten a rope with mayonnaise on it.

i have food on my mind 24/7. well, that's a lie. not when i sleep. otherwise, yes. it's all food, all the time for me. "food" tastes like applesauce - but not the chunky kind, just the smooth kind. texture enters into the picture sometimes, too. that's part of where my ability to "feel" sounds comes in.

some other examples of feeling sounds are the words "kevin" and "steve." also "kim."  when i hear the word "kevin," it feels like someone is tapping on my front upper teeth. with "steve," my upper left arm burns - sort of like how it feels when you have a sunburn. "kim" makes my throat sore.

yes, i took my synesthesia very much into consideration when i named my daughter. "abby" tastes like apple dumplings. that's kind of a sound-alike....."abby....apple...." sometimes words do taste the way they sound. but not often.

and yes. abby and eli (tastes like lemon jello when it's still in the liquid form).....abby and eli ran all the potential names for their children by me before settling on them. i couldn't be havin' my grandchildren named something that made me gag!

i talk a lot about how names taste but it isn't just names. most words have flavor. it's just that everybody is more intrigued with how names - especially their name - taste, so i tend to talk about that more often.


i had a friend - lisa (tastes like sauerkraut) - in college who wrote a term paper on me and my synesthesia. she talked about how, at that time, there wasn't too much research on the subject and the phenomenon wasn't very well understood yet. she remarked that she hoped that scientists in the future would devote more time to the study of synesthesia (because it's a fascinating subject) and that she looked forward to the day when she could understand her friend (me) better. she closed her paper by saying,

"until that day comes, nancy will continue eating her words."

yes, i will. and writing them, too.

:)

synesthesia, part one

i've gotten lots of questions about synesthesia lately so i thought i'd do a quick run-down of some facts about it, especially about my own experience with it:

synesthesia is basically when at least two senses get stimulated by the same stimulus. it's abnormal. it's not supposed to happen. (naturally, i would get something that's not supposed to happen.) so, for example, some synesthetes (that's what they call people who have synesthesia) hear colors or taste sounds (that's what i do) or feel things they see. like, maybe if someone sees a bridge, they feel itchy. some synesthetes have multiple forms of synesthesia and to an extent, i do. my primary experience is tasting sounds (mostly spoken words) but i also feel sounds, albeit to a lesser extent than tasting them. 

my earliest memory of tasting sounds was in third grade but i have probably done it all my life. i never mentioned it to anyone because it never occurred to me that it was unusual. i didn't even think about it. but if i had thought about it, i still wouldn't have said anything about it because, well, i figured everyone did it. it wasn't until i was a sophomore in college that i discovered that not only does everyone not do it, practically nobody has ever even heard of it.

the way i found out that i have it is, i was at one of my friend's apartments one evening during my college years at ohio university. she was complaining to me about her roommate and she kept saying that her roommate was a "bitch." after about 15 minutes of hearing the word "bitch" over and over, i finally said what i assumed was obvious - "hey, judi, let's go over to the deli and get some corned beef!" she looked at me like i was crazy. i looked back at her like she was. finally, i said, "well, you know. you keep saying "bitch" and "bitch" tastes like corned beef."

that was the moment that brought the sky down on me. in a good way, but it brought the sky down on me. it was the beginning of finding out that i have a condition that is rare. and that everyone i would meet from that night on would be intrigued by it. nobody less than myself.

coincidentally enough, the magazine "psychology today" came out a few months later with this on its cover: "can you taste or hear colors?" i saw the magazine and thought to myself, no, i can't do that. but i can taste sounds. 

and so i read the article.

that was my first real education about synesthesia. it was the first time i had ever heard the word. (btw, it doesn't taste like anything. not all sounds do.)

i ended up at the university of michigan for a few days to undergo some evaluations to see if i had it and sure enough, i did. do.

basically, what happens in synesthesia is, a stimulus that is intended to go to one sense, say, a sound that is intended to go to the ears, splits off at the nerve synapse, likely due to an abnormally high level of acetylcholine, and instead of the stimulus just traveling to one sense, it goes to two. or more.

as soon as people find out that i taste sounds and to a lesser extent feel them, they want to know what everything tastes like. especially their name.

stay tuned for synesthesia, part two.

("part" tastes like a bit o' honey candy car and "two" tastes like swiss cheese.)

:)

He exists whether you like it or not.

since there is a God, i do not think it is possible to have a significant life without Him. period.

before i finally figured out that not only does God exist but He matters, i thought i had a good life. a very good life. and, according to a lot of you, i did. but a lot of you don't know what the hell you're talkin' about. just like i didn't know what the hell i was talkin' about. even though you think you do. even though i thought i did.

without God, you become god. (or so you think.) without God, you think that everything you think comes from your own intellectual efforts. you think that everything you achieve comes from your own hard work efforts. (well, unless you're obama, in which case you think that everything you achieve comes from the government. or, more accurately, that everything you achieve comes from obama.)

without God, it never even dawns on you that what you have thought or done so far in life had God's hand so all up in it you can barely see straight. without God, you think that what you have thought or done so far in life was all you. and, maybe, your parents. your boss. whoever it was that gave you your "lucky" break. (i'll tell you who gave you your lucky break!)

you think that what you think or do in the future is all you, too.

i used to think like that.

i was wrong.


so are you.

"i'm not gonna."

i asked abby the other day whether or not she had given any thought to how she was gonna do toilet training with the triplets, and she said yeah. and i said what. and she said, "i'm not gonna."

and i said......."what?" and she said, "i'm not gonna."

and, what happened next is why abby thinks i'm a good mom......i listened.

and, what happened after that is why i think abby's a good mom.....she made sense.

she said that toilet training with the twins, as i full well knew, had hardly been the proverbial stroll through the park. and she said that in thinking of repeating any of that with the triplets was more than she - or eli - could bear. so......they were leaning towards a laissez-faire approach this time around.

she went on to explain that, when the time came, she and eli would put the potty chair out and then they'd tell jack and luke and wendy what it's for and they'd see the rest of the famly using the toilet and  beyond that, they wouldn't do too much more than diddly squat. which is kind of a pun. 

she said that they aren't gonna engage in a contest of wills. no sticker charts, no stupid "poopy parties" which some frazzled but horribly misguided parents do. no taking them to the bathroom every however many minutes just so they can "try." none of that. none of the conventional - and even not-so-conventional -  stuff. they're just gonna let it ride.

at first, i was skeptical. taken aback. eager to argue. (me? eager to argue?) but then, it made sense. it made perfect sense. "it'll happen when it happens. no sense gettin' the whole family all upset over it."

besides, i used to always tell david, back when we were "training " abby and he was more eager to get the show on the road than i was.....i used to say, "relax. how many kids do you know who go to school in diapers? somewhere along the way, that behavior drops out of their repertoire."

and david used to say, "yeah, well. why do you think it drops out in the first place? huh?"

well.........david? abby's about to show you why.

:)

tick me off why dontcha?

coupla things here right off the top of my head, y'all:

one. enough already with caring more about animals than about unborn children. my wise friend wisely pointed out that in this pantheistic (that's code for "screwed up") culture of ours, nothing is higher than anything else. so, whereas in milleniums past, God was at the top and then the angels and saints and then human beings and then animals and then non-living things, nowadays......now that we're all so damned smart.......nowadays, nothing trumps anything else. 

except that, it does. everything seems to trump everything that matters.

not that animals don't matter. don't go gettin' all PETA on me. 

but they don't matter more than people. or even as much. they just don't. and if you don't get that, well, look at how short my hair is. you're the reason i've pulled it all out.

two. i happen to own three animals. one dog and two cats. so there.

three. another friend, who is just as kind but clearly not nearly as wise as my other friend, posted this on facebook today: "do more of what makes you happy."


ima go pull (what's left of) my hair out now. 

accident-prone

 "accident-prone" really means you're a frickin' klutz.

"accident-prone." it takes the responsibility off of the person and onto the accident. it's the american way!

with that in mind, then, i propose the following "pronenesses":

• wine-prone
• road rage-prone
• selfish-prone
• stupid-prone
• intellectual-prone
• twitter-prone
• couch-prone
• government assistance-prone
• call off sick-prone
• dis religion-prone
• bounce check-prone
• vote straight ticket-prone
• junk food-prone
• food-prone
• fat-prone
• lazy-prone
• potty-mouth-prone
• stressed out-prone
• upwardly mobile-prone
• shopping-prone
• gadget-prone
• coffee-prone
• gossip-prone
• workaholic-prone
• inhibited-prone
• disinhibited-prone
• night person-prone
• morning person-prone
• porn-prone (gotta love that one!)
• anything but 'fess up and admit it's me-prone

abby's sabby. (i mean, abby's Sabbath. i mean, the bowmans' Sabbath.)

do i tell you what i am about to tell you because i think it's better than how most people spend their sunday? yes. i tell you what i am about to tell you because i think it's better. waaaaaay better. (including waaaaaay better than how i spend mine.)

abby and eli, like most mormons, do not spend money on sunday. nor do they go to places where they themselves wouldn't necessarily have to spend money but other people choose to. like a festival,for example. 

this leaves out just about everywhere.

they don't go to the movies on sunday. not to the grocery store. not out to eat. not to a fair and not, as i said, to a festival........they. don't. go. any.where. (well, except to church.)

they discourage others from buying them things on a sunday. they prefer that others do their Christmas shopping for them on any day other than a sunday. but. they are not rude. they do not allow their sunday practices to trump gratitude. if you buy them something on sunday, they will not refuse it. they will say thank you. they will be grateful to you for it. and they will wait till monday to use it.


but, "avoiding the marketplace," for them, goes far beyond simply shunning the transfer of money from one hand to the other on the Sabbath. not spending money is just a part of it. if all they did was not go to pizza hut, where would the big deal be in that? not going to the mall, without replacing that activity with a holier one, would pretty much be "big hat/no cattle." and they know that. so, they don't just stay away from the fair.

they concentrate even harder on their obligations as wife,husband, mom, and dad. they read more Scripture. they pray more. they center their entire day on their family. as opposed to centered on the mall - with their family tagging along.

i have not adopted their sunday practice, but i admire it. the reason i admire it is - there's no good reason not to. and, there's no good reason not to do it.

there are plenty of "that's really not necessary" reasons not to do it and plenty of "why is enjoying your family over a nice meal at a nice restaurant so bad" reasons not to do it.

but there are no good reasons not to do it.

sometimes the grass IS greener on the other side!

i heard a wonderful analogy recently and wanted to share it with you:

before a baby is born, he or she (and from here on out, i'm gonna say "he" cuz this he/she crap drives me crazy, not to mention that it's INsane. i hate that whole gender neutral idiocy. get a grip, libbers.)......

ok, so anyway, before a baby is born, HE lives in an enclosed world with no "big picture" perspective. he relies on someone he cannot see to give him everything he needs. 

he can't see her, but he knows she's there. he can hear her heartbeat, he can feel it when she rolls over. he can hear her voice. 

he knows she's there. and he is utterly dependent on her.

he might not think that he's utterly dependent on her, but what he thinks is irrelevant. what he thinks is wrong. he is utterly dependent on a power higher than himself.

the world he's living in meets his immediate physical needs and, presumably, his "emotional" ones as well. he's in no hurry to leave.

in fact, when the day comes that he has to leave, he usually resists. he can resist for hours - sometimes even days. he sees no good reason why he should leave.......aside from some crowdedness and a bit of boredom, he's got everything he needs right here.

he comes out kicking and screaming.

and then he begins to see the bigger picture. he sees, first of all, his mother. the one who has been taking care of him all this time while he's been on a 9-month pool party.

he eventually grows up and begins to see and learn about everything else in the world. 

and he doesn't want to go back. if you asked him, hey, do you want to go back into your mother's womb, he'd say, hell no.

but why not, you'd say to him. why not go back? you had it made in the shade (no pun) in there. when you were in there, you didn't want to come out.

because i didn't know what the hell i was talking about, he'd say. i didn't have perspective. 

i didn't know.


so, too, it is with eternal life. we think it's better here. 

and then one day, we finally see our mother. or, in this case, our father. Father.


and we won't wanna come back, either. 


(haven't  you noticed that no one ever does?)

can't tolerate tolerance!

the weird thing is, in this age of "tolerance," everyone seems waaaaay more intolerant than before we all got "tolerant." with friends like this, who needs enemies?

facebook, for example, has become "in your face, 24/7."  everybody is just so, so right all. the. time. 

you used to be able to go anywhere and not have to constantly frickin' worry about what words came out of your mouth or what words came out of somebody else's mouth. now, everybody is just waiting to pounce. waiting! eager! 

the world didn't used to be this angry. it just didn't. your average, everyday, normal life did not used to have vitriol splashed all over it. it just didn't. 

my vote is, let's go back to the age of intolerance. 

we were so much more tolerant being intolerant.

nancy, but not with an "i."

for the record, i like anne spelled with an "e" better than i do without the "e" unless it's ann as in mary ann or beth ann or lee ann or some kind of ann like that in which case, please drop the "e."

i like catherine better than katherine but kate better than cate.

i like kathleen better than katherine but cathleen better than kathleen.

i don't like it when you get high and sit around making up syllables and come up with nonsense for a name.

i like jacob better than jake. i do not like inventive spelling. i like marcus better than mark but mark better than marc. i do not like it when you get high and sit around making up syllables and come up with nonsense for a name.

i like jane better than jean, sara without the "h," and under no circumstances and no manner of spelling, brittany. ie. britney. ie. britainknee.

if your name is matthew, please use both "t's." if your name is michelle, please use one "l." michele. see how nice that looks?

i like charlie, olivia, jack, luke, and wendy better than any other names you can come up with.

high or not.

tape

well, after 9 days of the olympics, i have come to a conclusion: tape.

no matter what the sport, if you get hurt -  and in many sports, to prevent the hurt in the first place - you gotta wrap yourself in tape. grease ain't the word (and neither is plastic, mr. hoffman)........tape is the word.

if tape can propel gabby douglas to a gold medal, i wonder what it could do for my heart? my dreams? what's left of my life.

perhaps my new hobby will be tape collecting. i'll collect scotch tape and knock-off scotch tape and masking tape and packing tape and electrical tape and medical tape and duct tape.

they make duct tape in fun colors now so, who knows, maybe pink tape really can make a person stop crying.

don't want that piece of paper/want that piece of paper

this post is not about whether or not i think gay folks should be allowed to get married. this post is about isn't it ironic that straight folks have been arguing since the '60s that marriage is archaic and unnecessary and now gay folks are clamoring to do something that straight folks say is archaic and unnecessary.

i remember back when i was in college and how pretty much the last thing you wanted to say out loud was that you hoped one day to be married. saying something like that - out loud - could get you a thump on the head from ms. magazine. not to mention from every girl up and down the dormitory corridor.

folks started "living together" and they argued till they were insane in the face that "living together" was just as good - better, even-  than getting married. better!

and now, along come gay folks telling us that getting married is better. or, more specifically, that having the right to get married is better than not having the right to get married. which is strange, really. because why do gays  want to have the right to do something that their straight friends keep telling them is worse?


the point is, we always want whatever we don't have. because we are so, so self-centered.


jeeze. you'd think after all. this. time we would've learned something from adam and eve.

feeling blessed

it's a relatively new thing for people to say that they "feel blessed" or that they're "too blessed to be stressed" or something along those lines. (which is kind of intriguing - that it's a relatively new thing - when you think about it. given how secular we've become.).

(not that people haven't felt blessed in ages past - just that the use of the specific words, "i feel blessed," is pretty new.)

the good news is, people are saying that they feel blessed. the bad news is, only when something good happens.

i have yet to hear someone say, "i'm blessed because my kid is sick" or "my heart is broken - what a blessing." and that's a shame. a very big shame. because suffering is good. it is, well, a blessing. here's why:

the first reason why suffering is a blessing is because Christ says so. "blessed
are the poor in spirit, blessed are the persecuted, blessed are they who mourn, (and just in case any of those examples go over the top your head....) blessed are they that suffer...." 


for those of you (and there are plenty) who need a better reason than "because Christ said so," there's the simple fact that, well, He's right. 


i have suffered for 2 and a half years - actually a little more than that now - in a way that i never dreamed i would suffer. in a way that has boggled my mind ever since my nightmare began and which, by the way, has boggled the mind of every. single. person. to. whom. i. have. told. my. story. nobody can believe the kind of suffering i have, well, suffered. least of all, me.


people want me to be angry - and i have been. still am on more than just an occasional basis (but i'm working on that).


my friends want to "posse up" and go shoot him in his sorry ass. (believe me, it's been tempting. except that we can't find him - that's part of the boggling part of the story. but i digress.)

others want me to take him to the cleaners, milk him for all it's worth, and let. justice. be. served. (and i fully intend to!)

but i also fully intend - no, intend is not the right word. intend implies something that hasn't happened yet, but this has happened........i fully quote unquote intend  to be (but i already am) grateful for the suffering. i. am. grateful. for. the. suffering.

i have become, through this real-life torture, the person that - far as i can tell - God has wanted me to  be all along. except i was too busy feeling "blessed" by the good stuff to see that the good stuff was hiding the bad stuff, which would lead, by God's design, to the better stuff. the blessed stuff.


buddha said that "life is suffering."

Christ said, "blessed are they who suffer."


wow. see the difference? 

rejoice in your pain.

you are blessed to be stressed.

 

tolerance doesn't equal PAR-TAY!

the word "tolerant," when you get right down to it, isn't much of a compliment. what it means, basically, is "i don't believe what you believe and what you believe makes me livid but i'm gonna try and act like it doesn't make me livid." that's pretty much it in a nutshell.

but our culture has decided to re-define the word "tolerant" to make it something it's not - acceptance. and to re-define the word "acceptance" to make it something it's not - celebration.

if i'm a conservative and you're a liberal and you are tolerant of me, are you throwing me a party? of course you're not. you're not even sending me a greeting card with the words "thinking of you" on the front.


if everybody would get honest here for just a sec, we'd all have to admit that tolerance isn't what we want at all. what we want is for the whole wide world to jump up and down for joy.

the alphabet gets a makeover!

i use the alphabet for a whole lot more than just spelling words. you should, too!

for instance, while i am falling asleep, i might go through the alphabet and for each letter, i'll think of something that happened that particular day for which i am grateful. even on very bad days, i can come up with something. i remember one bad time in particular......i got stuck right off the bat with the letter "a." but then.........i thought about air.

other times, i'll go through the alphabet and think of someone i know whose name starts with that letter and i'll pray for him or her. it doesn't really matter that i don't know anyone whose name starts with "u" or "q," because i usually fall asleep before i get to those letters anyway.

still other times, i'll do stuff like (and i did this last night, after gabby douglas's gold medal win).......i'll do stuff like think of someone i know and then go through the alphabet and for each letter, i'll try to come up with what name i think they look like. i was stumped right way with gabby and trying to think what name she looks like that starts with the letter "a." gabby douglas doesn't look like any name that starts with the letter "a." -  so i guess it's a good thing her parents didn't name her one.

anyway, the alphabet is great fun - not to mention a wonderful sleeping pill -  and it really doesn't get half the attention it deserves.

but you can fix that.......

starting tonight!

:)

 

what's wrong with me?

what's wrong with me is what's wrong with everybody - sin.


what's wrong with me is, i'm having chest pain. or maybe discomfort is a better word. chest pain slash discomfort. my chest feels funny, ok?

i don't think i am having a heart attack. if i thought that, i wouldn't be typing this. i do think i need to see a doctor. and i am waiting to hear from mine so that he can determine if i need to go the e.r. or just come see him or what.

(so, what does any of this have to do with sin? plenty.)

i am likely having chest pain slash discomfort due to personal stress. the personal stress is being caused by another human being. the other human being is a sinner. because, really, what other type of human being is there?

if human beings weren't sinners, we wouldn't have any chest pain. or discomfort. or slash discomfort. not only would we not have anyone mistreating us and thereby causing our chest to hurt, we wouldn't have anything called high cholesterol and plaque and arteries that get all clogged up. 

and we wouldn't have anything called diabetes. or cancer. or even a cold.

we wouldn't have people going into debt. or houses getting broken into. or hurricanes or floods. or stupid ass humidity! 


we wouldn't have an.y.thing. bad. were it not for sin. sin brought down the whole shootin' match.

but nobody wants to believe it.


so, when i go to the doctor or the e.r. (or maybe both......what would that be called? the doctor slash e.r.?)......when i go to the doctor slash e.r. today and they ask me why i'm there and i say, "because you guys are sinners," 


don't be surprised if they have a heart attack.

chick-fil-a day

i have absolutely no problem with a private company believing what it believes. and neither should you.

i have absolutely no problem with a private company believing what it believes and if people believe that what it believes is wrong they boycott it.

and neither should you.

this principle is so incredibly simple to me that i am barely able to keep from falling out of my chair long enough to even type this. what part of "free country" don't you understand?

being tolerant somehow seems to confuse everybody. here's what being tolerant means:

being tolerant means not thinking that just because you think something you have a right to shove that something that you think down the throat of someone who doesn't think the same something that you think. period. that's what being tolerant means.

so if you think marriage is something that's between a man and a woman, fine. and if you think marriage is something that's between any sex and any sex, fine. and if a private business thinks the former and you think the latter, fine. don't go to the private business and feel free to raise as much holy hell against the private business as you want.

and if a private business thinks the latter and you think the former, don't go. and be sure to raise hell about not going.

and if the private business thinks what you think, by all frickin means, GO!


in other words, in the chick-fil-a war?

both sides are absolutely right.


and both sides thinking that the other side is absolutely wrong is.......

absolutely right.