The newspaper must be desparate for features. Over two pages of the Weekend section (well, half a page and alot of graphics and white space) were devoted to the "Pirate Cheerleaders," six 22 to 24 years who are "getting the message across" about their strong feelings about women's rights and racial injustice.

You'll forgive me if I yawn.

The cheerleaders, attired in cheerleading outfits and the required Riot Grrrl accessories of boots, leather belts, tattoos, etc., perform before concerts and plays, "warming up the crowd and taking on the establishment" with cheers such as "be aggresive/b-e aggressive/b-e a-g-g-r-e-s-s-i-v-e/be passive/be really passive/b-e p-a-s-s-i-v-e/be passive aggressive!"

Oh for God's sake. Do you want to act on your strong feelings about women's rights? Racism? Domestic violence? Then try doing something besides pretending you're taking on the establishment by standing in front of a crowd of synpathetic listeners and proclaiming that you think sexism is bad.

Need some ideas? Volunteer at a battered women's shelter. Provide respite childcare to poor working mothers. Tutor a disadvantaged child. Work to pass legislation that furthers your cause. Vote. Raise money for microcredit banks in the Third World, like Grameen, that use absurdly tiny, low-interest or no interest loans to give women both economic and ultimately reproductive independence. There's a boatload of ways. But please, don't delude yourself that self-important grandstanding is doing jack shit for the cause. What, do they think that after seeing them cheer, a viewer is going to smack her head and confess "My God, racism and sexism are terrible things! I never really realized that before!"

Yeah, I consider myself a feminist, too. And I think that implies expecting a little more from people than vague claims that they are "raising awareness" or sticking it to the establishment. I'm tired of self-promotion and posing taking the place of accomplishment and action. And I think it's terribly condescending to women to essentially pat them on the head and applaud them for doing something, when that something is nothing more than self-congratulatory back-patting.

Guess I'm just getting old and cranky. But you already knew that.

Passed on the information from yesterday's entry to a columnist at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, who wrote back to tell me it was being referred to the reporter covering the race. I hope that they do something with it.

In Richfield, WI the local school board election is shaping up to be a contest with much larger implications. One of two current candidates for one of two open seats is Matthew Trewhella. Rev. Trewhella is a very scary, scary man, one whose views need much more scrutiny by the local press.

Matt Trewhella is best known as a founder of Missionaries to the Preborn. His views on abortion being right or wrong I find largely irrelevant to this particular contest, although his methods of protest call his fitness into question. However, it is his other views that I wish to concentrate on, as they make him astonishingly unfit as a candidate for the school board.

As a US Taxpayer's Party leader (check the Web for some of their positions) Trewhella was videotaped advocating the formation of church-based militias. He presented his own church, which holds firearms classes for its members, as a model. He also suggested that for Christmas, attendees do the "… most loving thing. I want you to buy each of your children an SKS rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition." He also boasted that he taught his toddler as follows: "My son Jeremiah..I grab his trigger finger, and he's sixteen months old, and if you ask him 'Jeremiah, where's your trigger finger?' - he'll go like this immediately".

Trewhella also exhorted parents to stop playing "pin the tail on the donkey" with their children and instead "start blindfolding them and sitting them down on the living room floor and saying, 'Now put the weapons together.'"

After Columbine, Rev Trewhella and members of his Mercy Seat Christian Church went to my former high school and handed out a bullet-shaped pamphlet that promoted teaching children how to use firearms and carrying them at school as an way to prevent future violence.

Rev. Trewhella feels that public education should be abolished. His children are home schooled. I assume that their education is rather light on actual learning and rather heavy on "lets all read our bible and target practice!"

Fortunately, a local busnessman, Tom Touchett, is mounting a write-in campaign against Trewhella. For his part, Trewhella accuses Touchett of having ties to "the education establishment" (oh, the horror) and states that "I guess the people will get to choose between someone who has been handpicked by the education establishment and someone who simply wants to serve and will hold the education establishment accountable."

As soon as find out Touchett's address from the State Election Board, I'm sending this guy a campaign contribution. I hope I'm not alone in doing so.

What is really bothering me, though, is the complete lack of attention the local press is paying to Trewhella's history. The only thing the Milwaukee Journal mentioned was his antipathy to public education and his anti-abortion group. The rest of his history, as I outlined in part above, was never mentioned. What kind of lazy reporting is this?

A shipowner was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship. He knew that she was old, and not overwell built at the first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she was not seaworthy. These doubts preyed upon his mind, and made him unhappy; he thought that perhaps he ought to have her thoroughly overhauled and and refitted, even though this should put him at great expense. Before the ship sailed, however, he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections. He said to himself that she had gone safely through so many voyages and weathered so many storms that it was idle to suppose she would not come safely home from this trip also. He would put his trust in Providence, which could hardly fail to protect all these unhappy families that were leaving their fatherland to seek for better times elsewhere. He would dismiss from his mind all ungenerous suspicions about the honesty of builders and contractors. In such ways he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy; he watched her departure with a light heart, and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles in their strange new home that was to be; and he got his insurance-money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales.

What shall we say of him? Surely this, that he was verily guilty of the death of those men. It is admitted that he did sincerely believe in the soundness of his ship; but the sincerity of his conviction can in no wise help him, because he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him. He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts.

William K. Cliiford, The Ethics of Belief (1874)

The Milwaukee Journal had such a depressing article in it today. According to a recent poll, 50% of Wisconsin residents were in favor of having a law that would require public schools in Wisconsin to teach "the biblical theory of creation as an alternative to the theory of evolution." 43% were opposed. 56% feel that it would be just dandy if a public school teacher were to post the Ten Commandments in the classroom. 40% think it's a fine idea to post a picture of Mary and Jesus in the same classroom.

Maybe my sister is right. Maybe schools are setting too much time aside to teach non-essentials. Judging by this poll, they sure as hell don't seem to be teaching science, at least, not any kind of scientific thought that lasts into adulthood. They don't seem to be teaching critical thinking skills. The US Constitution and American History also seem to unknown subjects to many of the persons polled.

Yeah, let's teach creationism. While we're at it, we can also throw in the Demon Theory of Disease, alongside Germ Theory. Instead of wasting time on meteorology, how about adding the "God doesn't like you, so he sent a hurricane to your town" school of thought? Explain to the non-Christian kids just why the public schools want them to "have no other gods before" the Christian one. Heck, explain to a class of third graders what commiting adultery actually entails, or what it means to "covet thy neighbor's wife."

I suppose I shouldn't be shocked. Think about the number of people who believe that some guy is talking to the dead over on the Sci-fi channel, or that shark cartilage cures cancer, or that aliens want to abduct and inspect the gonads of hundreds of trailer park residents. I guess I am normally hopeful about the common sense of the average person, and the glaring evidence to the contrary gives me a good kick in the abdomen.

I went to a smut party last night, which was much more innocuous than it sounds. It's rather like a Tupperware party, or a Pampered Chef gig, except that instead of containers and kitchenware you have a charming lady flogging nipple creams and vibrators.

Since I now have all the pay channels (it cost the same to do that as it did just to get Showtime, which is what I really wanted), I thought I would set the stage the night before by checking out some late night soft core. I haven't watched this stuff in a long time, so I was rather shocked when I started channel surfing and immediately came apon a threesome doing it for what seemed to me to be a rather innordinate amount of time. Now, for all I know this was the only such scene in this movie, which may have devoted the last hour to heartwarming character development and a gripping plot. All I can say is that it amazes me what you can show and still not have it considered real "porn."

(And as an aside, why is it that guys seem to find girl on girl action so thrilling? I mean, I can't say that I, or any other woman I know, is that particularly turned on seeing guys getting it on. Not that it's bad - we just don't find it very interesting. All I can figure is that guys are thinking "Wow - those chicks are so horny that they're going to have sex with each other! But if I were to come into the room, I bet they would both have sex with me! At the same time!" If anyone has a better explanation, please share it.)

Anyway, so on the drive down I played music with lots and lots of bass, throbbing my windows and booming out my exhaust, to further set the stage. Once I got to my friend Laura's house (you will recall her as the goomah par excellance at last week's party) it was almost an anti-climax (no pun intended) to see a crowd of nicely, and somewhat conservatively dressed women standing around the hors d'ouvre table discussing dip recipes.

It was rather a nice occasion. For me, though, the real value was less in finally figuring out just what some of this stuff was for, but more in having the forum for discussions with friends about exactly why some people can't wear tampons anymore after childbirth, or what happened to X the night the sponge disappeared into her nether regions. Stuff like that. Girl talk.

As my moniter is dying, it may be a bit before I post again. Salut!

It Is So. Stinking. Cold.

Thoughts running through my head while watching "Franklin" with my daughter:

Why do they keep saying that "Franklin could count by twos, and tie his shoes," when he doesn't even wear shoes? Doesn't Bear ever get tired of being around such a weenie of a friend? I think that he could do better. Though not Beaver. She is such a bitch. Why does Franklin get a name, when all of his friends are called what they are, like "Bear" and "Snail" and the like? Shouldn't he just be called "Turtle?" How can Franklin get a pet - why don't the puppies or kittens at the pet shop talk? How can you have a talking snail, but not talking dogs?

It of course, doesn't stop with "Franklin." On "Dora the Explorer," is Benny the Bull in the witness protection program? On "Maisy," does Maisy own all the means of production in Maisyland? She certainly seems to have cornered the transportation sector. Why do all the animals and inanimate objects talk in English on "Blue's Clues," except for Blue and her other doggie companions? Come to think of it, all the animals on "Little Bear" talk except for Mitzi the dog. Is it the legacy of Scooby Doo that none of the dogs talk on these shows? Is it just rank discrimination?

I need to get out more.

In his article about George Orwell in today's New Yorker, Louis Menard writes "'Down and Out in Paris and London' is a powerful book, but you are always wondering what this obviously decent, well-read, talented person is doing washing dishes in the kitchen of a Paris hotel." Having read "Down and Out" more than once, I must confess that the thought never crossed my mind. Perhaps not in Mr. Menard's world, but certainly in mine, "decent, well-read, talented" people work in jobs that are not so nice as, say, writing prize winning books or reviews in The New Yorker. During the Depression, when "Down and Out" takes place, I would imagine that working in a job that did not match one's experience was not uncommon. And perhaps, maybe, the protagonist wanted to be doing what he did.

The best job I ever had in my life was one I took after I left practicing law. I worked in a small, independent bookstore/coffeeshop, and I also made the bakery for them. God, I loved that job. Straighten shelves, talk to the customers, make lattes, wash the floors, clean the dishes and process books. Biggest decision of the day was what the coffee of the day should be - my favorite, vanilla hazelnut, or something else? The woman who owned the shop never thought that I would last, and I ended up being there for over 3 years, to the bitter end when she closed it. Didn't make much money, but at the time it didn't really matter. The perfect combination of the mundane and the cerebral, with your only stress coming from the occasional Saturday latte rush during the holiday season.

I miss it still.

My friend Laura said that I need to write about the dinner we were at last night, and "Do it funny!" Great. Nothing like an ultimatum to send whatever vestiges of wit and intelligence I have left running screaming out the door.

Actually, dinner parties like these are rather fun. The people there are friends from school and their spouses, so even if you drag yourself in looking dreadful everyone realizes that you can look better, and they don't hold your current state against you. And the conversation is always good - after 13 years, we've had alot of practice.

Yesterday's theme was Italian, so of course that ends up being Mafia night. I mean, what else are you going to do -- go as Leonardo da Vinci? Lucretia Borgia? Thank God for The Sopranos, or else the only other frame of reference for me would have been The Godfather, and I hate dressing up as Marlon Brando.

Laura and Pep went the Sopranos route with Pep doing a low-key black-sweatered Tony, while Laura rendered a stunning goomah in snakeskin pants, big hair, and enough gold to star in her own video. Bling Bling, baby. Our hosts, Pam and John, went the bygone elegence path, with John sporting his grandfather's hat and Pam in a 1920's inspired model. (God bless you John, for wearing a suit, as that did limit the "I wear a suit all week why did I have to wear one tonight" tirade from my husband to a mercifully short 15 minutes on the way home.) Edie and Pat accessorized with a glorious 2 month old child and an insouciant air of "I'm a new parent and you should be insanely glad we're here wearing some type of clothes to begin with." Though Edie, in the spirit of the event, did rat her hair to an impressive fullness.

And moi? Well, Mafia chic is not, perhaps, my best milieu. "Slobbing around the house in grungies" is one I carry off particularly well. "Oh Hell, I forgot to shower and dress today" is another. When pressed, I can even do an impressive "North Shore Nancy with a distainful lip curl." However, having neither the face, figure, nor demeaner for tonight's theme, I tried my best.

Initially, the results were less than perfect. I was trying to go for a "Carm goes to Jackie's funeral" look. I ended up with "Lisa looks exactly like herself except with slightly more makeup." Chastened, I turned myself over to my sister's capable hands, and with the help of a shawl, a hair scrunchy, hairspray, and more gold jewelry than I've ever worn I think I managed a "Carm gone to seed going to Tony's funeral after she's offed him for cheating." Then again, that's probably wishful thinking. I'm assuming it ended up more like "the lady who makes ziti at the St. Lucia's church fair gets all dolled up for her big night on the town." At least I tried, and the shock of seeing my hair in something other than the bob I've worn it in for the last decade and a half muffled the group into a respectful silence.

The rest of the evening proceeded well, with excellent food, wine, and conversation, which perhaps dwelt a bit excessively on my end on achievements I accomplished a minimum of 15 years ago. Given my current track record of sloth and unfocused effort, one must work with what one has. Then again, isn't that the whole point of having friends like these? No matter what you've done, or how you are, they're still pretty willing to forgive you. Bad hair and all.

"Screw the Buddhists and kill the Muslims--and put that in the minutes!"

--South Carolina Board of Education member Harry Jordan, in a proposal to display the Ten Commandments in state public schools (May 13, 1997)

Eeeewww. And people wonder why folks like this scare me so.

I think I need to get Showtime. And soon.

On January 24th, Showtime is going to debut "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" 13 episodes of them exposing fraud and chicanery. And not on the easy topics. They're taking on chiropractic care, Feng Shui, creationism, alien abubductions, and more. And no "well gee, it might be true" wishy-washyness aimed at not offending anyone. Nope. Not them. Just honest, unadulterated contempt for the bullshit among us.

That's ma' boys.

Ahhh, the sweet, sweet warmth of financial solvency.

After a somewhat dicey period, the waters are smooth again. Bills can be paid in full, haul out the checkbook, baby, slam that payment out there as soon as the demand rolls in. Untroubled sleep, and a nightgown warm from the dryer.

I just can't be cranky tonight.

Happy birthday to my dear sister Susan.

Yet again, my husband is turning down another job offer, primarily because of my refusal. This one would have let him work at home initially, but any future advancement would have required a move to Florida. As such a move is out of the question for me, I told him that I didn't wan't to have him take the job, then have to find another a year later.

I feel bad, in that I don't want to be holding him back. As he said, he can't be turning down everything that comes up. But a better prospect seems to be in the offing, and I don't think we're in a position yet where I have to say yes.

I also have finally understood that no-one is going to speak up for me and my needs if I don't. It's taken a long time for me to get to that realization, and I'll be damned if I'm going to give it up now.

Weeks when my husband is out of town suck.

So far, since New Year's Day, he has been home a grand total of a day and a half. I used to be fine with that type of schedule, as I'm generally pretty self-sufficient. Then I had a child.

Now I'm just tired. Really, really tired.

Reading the "Lifestyle" section of the paper today was a good way to get the day off to a cranky start.

First off, let us be honest about what it is. It's the Chick Section. Or "The Woman's Page" if we're going retro. Reagrdless, it's 95% written by women. It is, with the exception of Dave Barry's column and possibly Jacquelyn Mitchard's, aimed at women. Call it for what it is.

Actually, I'm more than happy that there is a section directed towards women, though I wonder at a policy that puts profiles written by men in the Metro section, while relegating those women write to the Chick Ghetto. What truly pisses me off is the crap they put in it.

Let's look at today's section. What fun - in the "How I Did It" section is a profile of a local psychic entitled "Pyschic is attuned to spititual nature." There, of course, are no pointed questions, not a whiff of skepticism. Instead, it's just her own story of how she "had been experiencing a lot of psychic and spiritual awakening" and thought "I should be getting paid for this." Might I add, this is the second puff piece that has appeared on this person in the last 6 months.

What else? An article on Luddiitism that exhorts how we (read women) should be washing dishes by hand, as the dishwasher is "a perfect example of the wrong kind of technology. It leaves you with the the non-creative work, the drudgery, which is scraping the plates and loading and unloading them. And it robs you of the only interesting aspect of dishwashing, which is how to get off that piece of cheese that's stuck to the plate." Excuse me? I've always found that using the dishwasher frees up time to spend on far more interesting things than scraping cheese. If you like doing dishes, more power to you. Go nuts. As for myself, I guess I'm just a prisoner of technology.

So we're stuck with pieces that are didactic to the point of irritation, or credulous puffery that insults my intelligence, all in the name of appealing to my gender.

This, of course, isn't limited to my newspaper. In a recent issue of "Real Simple," a magazine that I would guess has about the same male readership as "Glamour," its "Wise Woman" feature describes a woman whose wisdom seems confined to following the "Fit for Life" diet plan and frequently wearing black tights. Another describes a woman who beat cancer, with one of her techniques being not wearing antiperspirant as it "blocks the toxins" from leaving the body. This all, of course, is reported with a sense of gravitas worthy of the nuclear situation in North Korea.

I swear, sometimes we are our own worst enemies.

When you are behind me in the left hand lane on the freeway, and there is a solid line of cars in the right hand lane, driving your automobile a foot and a half behind mine is generally not a good way to get me to do anything, especially when I am already going 10 miles over the limit. Not only will I be likely to drive slower, but I will not be inclined to move into the other lane once the way is clear.

This notice applies especially to the unattractively droopy-faced old bat with the $3 perm-and-dye job who took the I-43 Mequon exit at about 10 AM this past Friday.

Yes, I'm petty. And I don't care.

Not that anyone noticed I'm gone, but I'm back.

The computer room is now a lovely shade of moss green, which generally looks quite good. In bad moments, however, it does put me to mind of a hospital operating room. Or possibly a morgue. I hope that new carpeting will help.

I have come to the conclusion that as a mom, I'm generally not that good. I mean, I'm not really bad, in a "leave your kids alone for three weeks while you head off across country to find your Internet true love" kind of way. I'm just not as good as most of the moms I know.

Good moms play Raffi, or Sesame Street, or classical music in the car. Good moms do not play the Talking Head's "Swamp" and bounce their heads around like a particularly demented bobble-head doll and growl an off-key "Hi . . . hi, hi, hi, hi, hi!" I think that good moms, if they do chose to make fools of themselves, at least do it to music that has come out within the last 10 years.

Good moms enjoy taking their children to the Big Wheel Skate Palace on Kiddie Day. They do not run out after an hour, traumatized by the unending stream of Disney music, the hollow mockery of "Red Light, Green Light" games that never end, and the miasma of despair and extremely greasy nachos that hovers in the air. Then again, most moms do not have a child that ignores all games, toys, and other blandishments in favor of climbing the skee ball ramp and taking over the snack bar.

However, I am raising a child who thinks a trip to the bookstore is an afternoon well spent. If I can raise a child who still thinks that way at 20, who knows that the earth is more than 6000 years old, and realizes that space aliens are probably not crossing the galaxy in search of intergalactic nookie, I will feel that I've done a decent job.

For Your Consideration:

Sleeping With Extraterrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety, by Wendy Kaminer

"How can you distinguish science from junk? Science posits hypothesis and tests them. Pseudoscience assumes conclusions and finds evidence to back then up. . . . If you somehow lead (junk science users) to admit their research is flawed, you will never get them to question their conclusions. Stripped of all evidence, their beliefs will persist. You can tell that people are relying on junk science, when they're not really relying on it at all."

One of my sisters read my entries, and informed me that I seem unnaturally crabby. Guess I've hidden this side of my nature all too well. However, in the spirit of family harmony, I will mention a few things that I find to be gladsome.

I'm happy about the recent elections in Kenya. Moi's handpicked candidate went down in flames, and although he seemed rather put out about it, he didn't start a civil war. At least not yet.

I'm happy that my local grocery store stocks both a less sweet and a caffine free style of chai. (Being that I live in Sheboygan, this is saying alot.) I would be happier still if I could find one that combined both these attributes, but I'm not holding my breath.

I'm happy our mortgage refinancing came through.

I'm happy I'm going to Woodman's tomorrow. I dislike shopping in general, but large-scale grocery shopping does give me a rush. Must be those Eastern European, let's-stock-up-before-the-invaders-destroy-our-crops genes.

I'm happy I will not be living in Philadelphia.

Happy now, Laurie?

Not that anyone is necessarily reading this, but if I don't post for a couple of days it's because our computer room is being painted (yet another bright spot in my day) and I may have to shut it all down for a while. We'll see.

When I was 18, I couldn't wait to get the hell out of Dodge. Shake the dust of Wisconsin off my feet, and not look back. I went to college in Philadelphia. After 3 months, due to financial reasons I ended up back in Wisconsin. Although I had been fairly miserable for the first few weeks, by the end I was genuinely sorry to leave.

At 29, I left again for the East Coast. This time I headed to Maryland, where my fiance was. I count the 9 months I spent there as among the worst in my life.

Saturday, as I was playing with my daughter, my husband called from a trade show. He'd been offered a position in Philadelphia, with a large pay increase, a terrific title, and excellent potential for advancement. I thought about it. Alot. And called him back to say no.

There's many reasons why. Our child. My family, and friends. My parents, who are both 78. The cost of living increase. But mainly, I just don't want to. And it's not just Philadelphia. It's Texas. It's Florida. It's any number of places that have been dangled in front of me at various times within the past year.

Am I limiting myself? Or am I just being honest with myself? Is this a function of age, and increasing responsiblities, or am I merely a child of the Midwest, with roots that just wouldn't grow well anywhere else?

Whatever the reason, it'll take a crowbar pry me loose now.

Heard on "Christian" radio this week:

George Washington said, "It is impossible to rightly govern without God and the Bible."

The average life span of a gay man is 41 years.

That's just a smattering of the outright lies. I won't even begin to go into the half-truths, the disinformtion, the distortions, and general deceitfulness.

I find it truly amazing that people with such a frightening devotion to posting the Ten Commandments in the public spaces of America have such a cavelier attitude towards the one the goes "Thou shalt not bear false witness . . . ."

There are all kinds of stupid in the world. Most of it doesn't even faze me anymore. God knows I've done my share. But what still amazes me is when you see the renounciation of all reason and logic, the "abandon your brain, all ye who enter here" variety.

Last weekend I went to pick up a visiting friend of mine, someone who I've known since grade school. She was at her father's house, and I ended up having to stick around there for about an hour while he finished a tape for her. He's a retired engineer, and we've generally got along well. The conversation started out pleasantly enough, about organic gardening, the pleasures of a sun-ripened cantelope, and what type of tomatoes I planted. Without warning, he suddenly jumped up and ran upstairs, returning with a handful of differently colored books.

He then began to expound on his new direction in life. The books were written by God, who apparently has suffered a dramatic drop-off in his/her writing skills over the last thousand years or so. Be you talking about the Qoran, the Bible, or the Bhavagad-Gita, there is a distinct difference between the sonorous beauty one finds there, and "Hello, rainbow people."

So he went on, talking about the negative polarity of the sun's rays, and how we are all descendent from the people of Atlantis, who had ray guns and TV and psychic powers, and what else I don't recall, as most of my efforts were directed between swallowing my lip and trying to recall exactly how I felt when I heard my father was going in for emergency surgery and might die, so that I wouldn't burst out in a bray of hyena-like guffaws. I even tried to look through his books, but was stopped cold by the declaration that "pain in childbirth is a result of imperfect will and connection to the spirit." (Oh, really? I thought that it came from trying to stuff a watermelonlike object through a hole the size of an orange.)

How does this happen? The man was trained in scientific thought. He raised a daughter who is a paragon of sense and a nosegay of all virtues. I didn't even attempt to voice any kind of coherent reply, other than assorted "Hmmms" and a strangled "Well, everybody has to find their own path." Yeah, it's a moronic, idiotic path, and it's his.

She doesn't know what happened to her father. I sure as hell don't either. Do you?

New Year's Resolution #1: Start posting.

Adam, this first one is for you, as you are the one who started me on this, albeit 3 months ago.

Whether anyone will read this or not, don't expect much. I am not given to pithy observations, or words of lasting importance. I don't discuss politics, at least here. My writing skills pale in comparison to people such as Adam, and I'm generally funnier in person than I am in print. I can't spell. And daily posts are beyond my abilities.

On the flip side, I will not regale you with amusing things my child has said, as nobody will or should find them of interest, barring grandparents and aunts.

What I will be is cranky. In spades. In person, most people find me to be tolerant, soothing, and empathetic. I am known for having total strangers confide their inmost secrets to me. Inside, however, I'm screaming "You blithering idiot! What in God's name were you thinking!"

Welcome to my inside.