Why I'm Never Buying A Cell Phone Again.

I thought life was much easier with a cell phone. It gave me confidence as a woman that wherever I was, the police were just a phone call away. Or if my car broke down on the side of the road, I could call help with ease. It made me feel safe.

Well, after having lived in this area of the country for, oh, going on a YEAR now, Cingular decided that I was "out of network. I see other people with Cingular phones, but never mind. So they sent me a lovely little paper that said, "After April such and so, we will no longer be your service provider because you are too expensive for us to carry out of network. Regretfully this happens in less than 1% of our customer base (go figure it would be me). We will of course not charge you for the remaining months on your contract (thanks, I think)." The End. No more Celly.

The termination coincided with an out of town trip where I couldn't pick up another one anyway because it would STILL be out of network. Plus I didn't have the random $200 and up to just plunk down on a new one. So I was sans-cell for a week after it was disconnected.

And I loved it.

I realized the feeling of being on call no matter if I was in the grocery store, the ladies' john or a meeting had mildly upped my stress level. Then there was the decoding of the thing: if it rings this way, I've got a new voicemail. If it buzzes and makes a "Ta-DAA" sound, I have a text message. If it starts playing the new Madonna song, that's my boss. If it starts playing the Calypso, that's my buddy in the Navy. If it starts playing the can-can, that's my best friend in Kentucky. If it plays "Hate It Or Love It (The Underdog's On Top)" (which sadly appeals to me in so many ways), it's a general phone call. GACK! I'm done with that.

The house seems quiet.

When I got my next paycheck, I didn't buy another one. I don't plan to. Half the time it doesn't work in the mountains, anyway.

"I Hate To Say It"...Then Don't!

How many stupid, asinine comments have followed after someone started with, "Well, I hate to say it..."? What follows next is the BUT, which they usually make out of themselves.

If you hate to say it, then it probably shouldn't be said, hmm?

I've started responding by cutting people off thusly: "I hate to say it..." "Then DON"T." It usually stops the conversation. Sometimes, though, it doesn't. And in spite of my throwing up a net to stop stupidity, some people just charge right through.

"I hate to say it, but she was advertising and asking for it." One family member's non-brilliant insight on the Duke Lacrosse team's raping of that stripper. While I said bluntly that I didn't care if she was running around the room naked (which I assume she was), that didn't give someone any right to make a concious decision to hurt her. "Well, some men see that as advertising." I was told. "Then some men are STUPID, and need to be sent to a re-education camp." I said. We struck a truce on that note.

If you have to pad your words by saying that you are oh-so-reluctant to mention this, but it simply MUST be said, you are cowardly or stupid. If you believe what you say, say it loud and without qualifiers. If it's stupid, take the verbal drubbing you deserve. If you're just plain stupid, and I can't tell the difference these days, then take a lesson. Smack yourself everytime you say "I hate to say it..." and maybe, like Pavlov, we'll get you trained to shut up.

WTF???

Listen to this completely insane stupid person and you'll understand why I'm steamed. I know about this cat and how he is, but this particular little sound byte really pissed me off. This is in regard to the rape that happened involving some members of the Duke Lacrosse team.

It's bad enough what he called the stripper. But the black woman who is speaking he completely misrepresents, and what's horrid, is that he says: "Did you hear what that thing said?" OK. First of all, "thing" was a derogatory sex term used by white slave holders toward black slave women. And still in use by a (fortunately) dwindling number of white "good ol' boys" today. It dehumanizes a person to the point of becoming a valueless common noun. But the way it was used by Savage references terrible times. I hate this man. I don't know what to do about it, but this struck me as the most disgusting combination of woman hating racism I've ever heard.

For some reason, hearing words like "coon" and "nigger", which are terrible, didn't strike me with as much force as hearing this hateful white man call this black woman speaker a thing. I hate this man.

Did you know that Michael Savage's real last name is "Weiner"? Personality complex, anyone??

Mom forgot the good cameras, so here is a picture from a disposable camera of Dante's new favorite toy. It's a Doodle Monster you can write on with markers and then wash off. My son spent 3/4 of the money he had the week I was in to buy a Doodle Bear for his little stepsister, Hailey. He even put back the really nice Yu-gi-oh cards for a cheaper pack so he could afford the bear. Generosity has always been one of his traits.

Hula hoop fun! The grin on his face is precious.

Aww, shucks.

I've been sidebarred in Hell's Daily Newspaper here.

I ran across part of this post:
"First I've been reading the blog of a woman whom I find fascinating. This is my nomination to go in the blogroll for this week. Dante's Virgil. She's witty terribly human and quite funny. Best of all despite being trapped in a cult for many years of her life she is rational. Reading her blog caused me to make several appeals to the boss to put a NO HSB banner on the website. Note there are no snickering anti-Bush banners as much as we don't like the President and talk copious amounts of shit about him we make readers read for the good tidbits. But the Pearls, and I refuse to link to their "ministry" in my posts, are of the smarmy type that think they can get away with anything if it is couched in the majority religion of America. This stinks to high hell what they are trying to do to children in the name of well I have no idea what."

I wonder if they just liked me because my quote is Hell's quote in Dante's Inferno: through me the way that runs among the lost. When I formed the blog, I nearly put "abandon all hope ye who enter here," LOL. Not that I'm complaining about making Hell's sidebar, it's just amusing to me sometimes how my name gets places.

Unfortunately, now I have to write something that is terribly human, witty and quite funny. Right now I'm drawing a blank.

As a side note, if you don't have statcounter now, you really should get it. It's very complex and quite neat.

But be careful. You might learn how some people got to you. Apparently people have googled everything from "brother sister incest" to "rapper proof body" and got me. How, I don't know. And somebody close by googled my name and found my blog that way, and because that creeps me out, I'm removing that post. Just FYI.

Spring Break '06
Sandy toes.

Complete Dumbass or Technology Miracle?

At the same sit-and-spin dinner meeting, my resident hypochondriac and psychosomatic attention-starved nutjob--my husband calls her a "malingerer"--made my jaw drop onto the table. Either she knows something I don't, or she's a complete dumbass. You tell me:

A woman was mentioned to head up a fundraiser. I ask if she has cancer. No, I'm told, she has crippling arthritis. Well, that must not be the same one I'm thinking about, sez I, because I'm thinking she's the one who I called recently and had just returned from a harsh chemo treatment. So that must not be the same one.

Not necessarily, jumps in the malingerer, always wanting the last word. I give her The Look. Which says, are you stupid, or what?

They use chemo to treat crippling arthritis, too, she says with a shit eating grin on her face.

Wha??? I can't pass this one up. I have never heard of that in my life, I sez.

It's true! Malingerer protests. My brother-in-law has had it done.

Malingerer, I sez, chemo destroys your cells. It has terrible side effects. Why in the HELL would they give chemo to somebody who has arthritis?? Malingerer just sits there with the same shit eating grin. I never get an answer to my question.

So: medical miracle or does Malingerer add complete dumbass to her growing litany of woes??

--Virgil

Live in the Real World, People!

Last night I went to a dinner meeting at a Mexican restaurant to discuss our future as a non profit. We basically all got on our sit-and-spins for a couple of hours and got nowhere. Well, there were two long tables near us full of kids (and their parents). One table was rowdier than the other, but they weren't out of line. Their voices were just pitched a little higher than everyone else's.

Well, in walks a Tori Spelling look-a-like and her Neanderthal boyfriend. They get seated close to both tables, and before the poor guy gets the menus on their table, she's already waving her hands in a "nix this deal" kind of way. She hisses "Can we be somewhere away from the kids??" The waiter wasn't sure what she meant at first, so she hisses some more. "The kids. The kids. We don't want to be anywhere near the kids." "Away from the kids?" The guy answers. "Yes. No kids." And she speed walks away from the table.

This pissed me off. If the kids were being snots, well, I understand. But they were just being kids. And this early twenty something acted like they all were dripping with bird flu. Good luck avoiding kids in the real world, twit.

If society would be more kid friendly, we'd have less problems in the world. Dumbasses.

--Virgil

Join the Fun!

There's some interesting discussion going on over at The Atheist Mama's place. We're having a "game" between Christians and Atheists. A general discussion, really. There's 70 posts on there and counting, come on and join in! (All other types allowed, too!)

Come Home, Mama!

UPDATE: Mama's home!! But she ain't in a good mood, so fuck off, you people who fuck with her!

This is a sticky post. I'm boycotting Butch's absence. Scroll down for new posts.
OK. I can't take it anymore. She's just got to come back. I've even composed a song for her. Well, OK, I stole "Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey" lyrics and redid them to suit my purpose. Which is to bring her home. I can't go on too much longer without her.

Play the really bad Midi file that I found here. It's crappy, but that's all I could find. Once you get the tune in your head, you can just substitute my lyrics:

Won't You Come Home, Butch, Honey?

"Won’t you come home, Butch, honey, won’t you come home
I’ve moaned the whole night long
I’ll make the sandwiches, honey, I’ll buy the beer
I know they done you wrong

You remember that rainy evenin’
When you went out....with nothin’ but a final post
Ya, I know who's to blame, now... ain’t it a shame
Butch, honey, won’t you please come home

(instrumental break)

Won’t you come home, Butch, honey, won’t you come on home
I’ve moaned that whole day long
I’ll make the sandwiches, honey, I’ll even buy the beer
I know, that they've done you, oh so, wrong

You remember that rainy evenin’
When you went out...with nothin but a final post
I know who's to blame, now... ain’t it a shame
So baby, won’t you please come
I said now, won’t you please come
Butch, honey, won’t you please.... come on home"

Maybe if we all sing it loud enough, she'll hear it and come back.

Get back here, Mama, I miss you too much!!

--Virgil

Where Was I?!

Holy Crap! Where was I when the felony annoyance provision came about?! After reading this online news article, I got really worked up. At first I was semi-excited, because I thought about how I could post after anonymous jerk wads and tell them they were breaking the law. Anyone who annoys me online could potentially be locked away. That felt good for about two seconds.

Do we not have enough trouble to deal with that Bush has to go and make it illegal to annoy someone online? Well, he annoys the crap out of me, but until he posts under a psuedonym like "Duh-bya" or something, I can't charge him with anything. Who gets to decide what's annoying? This could clog up the courts for years.

I recently wrote my senators and state rep about child abuse in Iraq's Abu Ghraib. Seems they're picking up children as young as 8-10 years old and sexually abusing some of those children. Check out the story here. I'm tired of feeling politically impotent. But as a citizen what can I do? I can write letters, I can vote for politicians who will listen to me, and I can stand in front of the courthouse with a sign and a megaphone. I can try to educate fellow voters. It seems like the problem is beyond the touch of a little everyday citizen. There must be something more I can do.

On the other hand, with regard to the felony annoyance provision, Butch sure has one hell of an airtight case, doesn't she?

Not Without My Son!

Because her own daughters have rejected her cult, Mom has turned her attention to her only grandson, in an effort to at least drag ONE of us kicking and screaming into paradise. I normally don't get concerned about her dragging him to meetings every now and again. Unless the JW's put in a live drum band, like his black Southern Baptist relatives see in church, he will remain unmoved. I relaxed when I found out why he was going in the first place.

Dairy Queen.

Yes, my son takes bribes for church. If it weren't for the Oreo Blizzards afterward, Dante would have zero attendance at "church". When I learned the other day that Mom had picked Dante up to stay with her on a different night than usual, I got suspicious. Then I realized it was Witness Memorial time, the only official celebration they have.

You basically sing and pray a lot at sundown on Nissan 14 of the Jewish calendar, then you pass around a plate of unleavened bread and a glass of wine that's supposed to represent Jesus' body and blood. (Gross.) You don't actually EAT it, unless you are one of the chosen few going to heaven instead of staying on earth. Then you get to nosh on it. Although I do know for a fact that the Witnesses who take the objects home munch the bread and guzzle the wine afterward. Apparently it's only symbolic for 45 minutes. It's incredibly boring.

I realized it was Memorial time again when I asked Dante what he'd done that day: "Oh, it was great, Mom!! I had a slushy, an Orea Blizzard, some ice cream bars and some pop!" What kind of event warrants that kind of bribe? He didn't mention the actual "celebration". I wonder how she strung the rewards out? Did he get them throughout the day, or was there one big indulging session?

You have no idea how much I was hoping his curious nature would get the better of him and he would nosh the bread and sip the wine and then say "Yuck!"

--Virgil

Cannibalistic Ritual Time Again...

Cannibalism, Sacrifice and Ritualistic Killing! I wonder how some folks would react to that kind of a holiday. The background mythology goes like this: first we chose a victim for the ritualistic killing, which involved public humiliation, stabbing with spears, driving iron into the hands and feet, and other miseries until the victim died. It's a pity we can't repeat that every year, but I guess once was too much for some people. However, there are some fantastic movies and plays out about it, and some people even take their three year old children to see it, so it must be appropriate. Then, we all get to gather around and show our respect for this ritualistic sacrifice by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the victim! Won't that be great?? Of course, some people are just going to pass the flesh/blood objects around and stare at them without actually eating them. And some will have a big fat dinner of other things, but it's all the same, really.

Happy Easter, y'all.

Honestly. Sounds more like the Xtians took a page out of the Aztec playbook to me. And, yes, I already know that Easter was a pagan celebration to begin with co-opted by Xtians. Well, more like the Romans to keep the people happy.

Nothing says Death Cult like making images of the Original Victim of said cult, carrying them around (like obsidian and jade idols from Central Mexico), and then reenacting a cannibalistic ritual to seal your belief. Some don't wait until Easter to cannibalize their god. They do it weekly. Pretending to eat someone's flesh is just wrong. Worshipping death at least explains why Xtians are so obsessed with it: afterlife, crosses, sacrifice, persecution, "Blood of the Lamb". Ew. Take out the references to God/Jesus, replace them with animals or something and tell me it doesn't sound psychotic??

--Virgil

Senior Citizen Day

I had to table recently at a Senior Citizen Expo. I think if I didn't do illiteracy as my non profit, I would definately do Senior Citizens. Wait, that didn't sound right. Oh well.

When you sit at a table all day watching SC's, you get a good hard look at what it's going to be like when you're old yourself. Because of theater makeup one time where I played Goody Somebody in the Crucible (I was the old lady who got burned at the stake because of a poppet!!), I got to see a reasonable approximation of what I was going to look like as an old lady, liver spots and all. Yikes.

But watching SC's go by, you get a more robust picture of what aging will be like. And on that note, here are some things I've decided.

No one will ever put bunny ears or any other cutsy headress on me just because I'm 85 years old and toodling around the mall with other Seniors. If some middle aged jerk approaches me with sparkly antennaes, I hope I still have the presence of mind to whop her with my cane. I hope that cane is made of steel.

If I end up in a wheelchair, I hope that I'm freewheeling like old lady Maybelle who was at the SC Expo. She was flying down those aisles, and was actually a danger to other Senior Citizens! Somebody yelled, "Hey, Maybelle!" She stopped on a dime and whirled around, "Hey, what??" I hope I can master the art of sit-and-spin when I'm that age. If I don't have to be in a wheelchair, I hope I can do the laps around the mall one couple was making. With an Ipod.

I hope I'm not a greedy bastard. Some old goat cleaned me out of pencils at my table. "Oh, I love pencils!" He croaks. And took them all. Greedy old bastard. My director says, though, that they (SC's) love free stuff and will take whatever you bring in whether they need it or not. They didn't take any volunteer applications, though.

I hope I remember not to buy bad polyester suits for myself when I'm old, but to stick with those nice, soft velour track suits. They're so much more flattering, and seem to be more comfortable. I also hope I have my sense of identity nailed down, as it must take a strong sense of self to pull off wearing pink hair and three earrings in each ear (but with flowery, antique earrings, LOL) with my track suit.

Obviously, I hope I'm not half deaf, senile or dangerously diabetic.

I hope I have good stories to tell, and appreciative whipper-snappers to listen to them. I heard about a 65 year old marriage, a WW2 Vet's time in Belgium, and so much more. I want great stories to tell.

--Virgil

The OT Puts the "Fun" in Fundy!

Of all the things I like to poke at about the Bible, the best thing has to be the Old Testament. If you ever want to get a God Botherer going, point out the bizzaro behavior that goes on in the OT, and watch the excuses fly. For some fantastic examples, check out the Evil Bible link on my sidebar.

If the God Botherer is more liberated, they'll tell you that the first part of the Bible is mythology. Which begs so many questions that one barely knows where to begin. If the person is more Fundy by nature, well, that's even more fun to play around with. For example: why does God allow incest between Lot and his daughters, when the OT clearly says that is a punishable sin? These, by the way, are presumably the same daughters he offered to the crowd who came to his door asking to "know" the angel visitors. Fortunately, they end up only raping some maid servants who were pushed out the door. Whom, I guess, Lot steps over on his way out the same door to avoid fire and brimstone raining like Tennessee hail down on Sodom and Gomorrah.

If the preceding example is too complicated for them to handle, simply ask...where did Cain get his wife??

--Virgil

Gadzooks!!

Recently, I shopped in a Gadzooks store at the mall. The brand they carry is forever21, and while I don't feel forever 21, and don't want to, they have good deals on soft cotton muscle shirts and jackets I call Military Proletariat. We'll have to discuss my bizarre sense of fashion elsewhere, as it varies somewhere between Ellen DeGeneres and Common, the soulful rapper, with a touch of Workers of the World, Unite! thrown in for good measure. I live a weird life.

Anyway, I was taking the clothes out of the bag, and my husband said, "What the hell is that on the bottom of the bag?" I flip it over, and there it is in black print: "John 3:16". I thought, have I shopped at a Jesus store and didn't know about it? I didn't notice crosses on shirts and WWJD bracelets at the counter. I googled the brand and found nothing in their mission statement about being religious. So I emailed them about it. We'll see what they say, if they ever bother to reply.

But WTF?!? I don't want to be proselytized anywhere, especially if my own damn dollars went into it! Are Xtians that hard up that they have to sneak the message in on the bottom of shopping bags??

Maybe it was the quality control guy's number, you know, John looked at this. Batch 3. Lot 16. Somehow I doubt it.

--Virgil

Long Ass Posts

I've had some long ass posts recently. I know it's my blog and I can ramble on, but I exasperated myself with those last two entries. I want to be more concise, but sometimes I just have to put in all those details, know what I mean?

Also, although I love love love the black background, it was getting really hard on my eyes, so I switched my template. I like it. Plus the former template gave me the illusion that my paragraphs were really thin and long, and it seems more balanced now. But if anyone knows how to lengthen the sentence space in the paragraph, I'm all ears.

So much for Dante's Virgil, Makeover Edition.

--Virgil

Confessions of an Ex-Jehovah's Witness

I've been stewing over Jehovah's Witness related events recently. My 10 year exit anniversary is coming up in June. Even though nearly a decade has past, I realize that there are a few things I haven't gotten over yet. And I wonder if I ever will.

One is the exquisite pain and betrayal of my mother in this situation. I've excused it every which way, because she's my *mother*. She means well, I say, she doesn't really understand what she's doing, she's lonely and tired and sorrowful, and she's just lashing out that things in her life aren't better. Well. Still. That doesn't give her the right to treat us as untouchables.

I still can't believe I was in a cult. I have to say it to myself over and over again to make it seem real. Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult. The fact that most of their believers have no idea of what goes on or has gone on in the Society is only one of many proofs that they're a cult. For a long time I would say that they were cultISH, but not commit fully to the idea that they were a cult. They are a cult.

I have what I refer to as an "Armegeddon Complex". It works like this. The time of the end is coming SOON, like next week, maybe. So you have to hurry and get in everything while you can before it all goes up in flames.

Some day to day expressions of the Armegeddon Complex include the following:

1. Scheduling three times more activities into your day than you can possibly do.

2. An greatly increased chance of high risk behavior (why not smoke and drink it up and screw your health into a wad? It isn't going to matter in the end anyway). When I went to college, I did a double degree while working full time with a child under 5. I was also in several groups I either joined or started. I didn't do this because I was an overachiever. I did it because the phrase "life is short" goes double for ex-Witnesses. I have ex-JW friends who do all kinds of high risk behaviors from incredibly dangerous personal behavior to bungee jumping. For some of them they can't feel anything unless it's risky.

3. Armegeddon Complex also means that you'll probably have nightmares about the time of the end. I did. Although mine would end up on the comical side, they were pretty freaky. Picture every overbearing elder you've ever met looming around you in your dream which ends with a demon musical song and dance. Looney bin, here we come.

4. It also means you continually look back on your life and ask "Have I done enough?" And the answer to that question is always NO. Because it's drilled into you at meetings--the end is near, are YOU doing enough for Jehovah? And there, too, the answer is always NO. So it's hard to feel satisfied when you're outside the organization, but still have Armegeddon Complex.

5. And last, I'd have to say that there is always this inner feeling of being late for something. And this is truly the most annoying part of a contracted illness like the Armegeddon Complex. It's like you're always running behind. The psychological tick is probably that you feel like you're running OUT of time, or something. I hate Armegeddon Complex.

Next to last, I lived with an unconcious fear of being apostasized. For new people who don't know what that is, search my blog for Apostofest. It wasn't really that I feared being branded a lesser imp of Satan. More that it severed whatever ties are left with your family, pretty much for good unless they come to their senses. This caused me to lay low. I just didn't want trouble. Now I'm sorry I didn't make trouble. I may make trouble yet. The very fact that I haven't turned into a pillar of salt is troubling for some.

And last, and this is going to be funny to some people, I have real physical trouble saying the words "peace and security" together. There's a scripture in the New Testament that reads something like, "and when it is that the nations will declare 'peace and security', that is when destruction will be instantly upon them." Or something like that. Anyway, in Witness mythology, it marks the start of the times of tribulation that culminate in Armegeddon. When I was a teenager and heard Bill Clinton say "peace and security" on the radio once, I nearly pissed my pants. Now, I literally trip over my tongue when I try to say them together. I try never to say them together. It makes me look like I have a speech impediment.

--Virgil

::Sigh:: Here We Go Again

Whilst visiting my son, I stayed in my mother's house, which is where we usually go when we come for a visit. Sister was able to come down for a few days, and we had a lovely time talking, making up for lost time. My mother, to put it bluntly, had a candle up her ass the entire time we were there. She hates to see me and Sister together. Always has, not sure why.

In fact, she invented several "emergencies' while we were there that ONLY required Sister's help, which fell through as soon as I reinvented an excuse for Dante and I to be there. All she wanted to do was get Sister alone and lecture her, cajole her, make her feel bad for not going to culty meetings anymore. She doesn't want her anywhere around me because she believes I poison the well. I would if I gave a crap, but she doesn't realize I don't care. Sister just has the brains enough to figure it out for herself. Moving away from the hole of a town she lived in helped, too.

Since we've been out of the lie they call the "truth", Mom's been very distant to us, downright cold. She wants to shun us, but can't quite pull it off properly. She wants to treat us coldly when we come around, but she never tells us not to come, and acts as though she wants us to visit. But that's primarily so she can try to exert some of the rules of shunning on us when we get there. Behavior modification.

I thought Sister was through the hardest part when she dodged the elders and came away clean. I thought they'd just forget about her, call her "inactive", and go put a bug up somebody else's ass. I forgot, though, that this isn't the hardest part.

Mom is the hardest part.

She gives backhanded love and attention. Along the lines of "I'll always love you because I'm your mother, but things can never be the same between us." Sorry, Mom, you don't get to have it both ways. You can't claim maternal affection and then withold it to try to sadistically change our behavior. Which isn't bad behavior, by the way. We both work. We both volunteer. We're smart, and we're good people. I have a generous and compassionate boy in the face of a jaded world. Sadly, we have to tell ourselves this because we get nothing but criticism from her.

It could be worse.

Some Witness parents shun their children completely, not even telling them that their family members are sick or have died, not speaking to them at all, or cutting them out of their wills. I would charge Mom with mental insanity if she tried to cut Sister and I out of more than a century's worth of heritage. In a heartbeat.

I think, though, that I would almost prefer Mom just shunned us completely rather than give us the pittance of her affections. I don't want her widow's mite. I have a child. I can NEVER imagine telling him that things had changed between us and I would still talk to him, but not truly connect with him.

Mom waffles between crying and asking where she went wrong to threatening us with that ever elusive "time of the end" when there's no turning back. At this point, destroy me at the end of it. I don't want to live forever with these people under their version of Jehovah. Not that I believe that crap anyway, but still. So basically, it's guilt trip you into thinking you're killing your poor mother because you won't conform to her cult, make you feel like a worthless person, or terrify you with the loss of your afterlife. My lowest point from her was "You want to see your dead Daddy again, don't you?" No, the lowest point was when she called my son a "sin" recently, because he was born out of wedlock. Well, again, you can't love sin, Mom, so do you love your grandchild or not??

Present success doesn't amount to a hill of beans to her because it's "worldly" accomplishments. So, two college degrees, helping run a not for profit, a great kid, a great husband, a short story collection--nah. None of that means anything. Sister's sharp brain and bouncing up the corporate ladder, one of VERY few women in her male dominated field to do so and still in her mid-twenties? Her passion for helping people and going out of her way for them? Nothing to Mom. So what's left? Nothing but her cult religion. And if you ain't in, you ain't nothing.

And that's how she's treating Sister now. And I don't think Sister was ready for it, even though she knew it was coming.

I remember going through it at 19, 20 years old. Not fun. It's hard to be your own wellspring of pats on the back, and good job, honeys. If the most significant people in your life don't think it's worth much, why should you think it so?

The climax is coming to where Mom is going to have to decide: the organization or my daughters? I had hoped that with Sister, the answer would be daughter, and maybe it would ease Mom's eyes open. I knew with me what the answer would be, that's why I never asked, and just found my own way without counting on support. Sadly, here recently through phone conversations and my last visit, I think her answer is going to be the organization.

It hurts again like it was brand new and I was 19. Only this time I hurt for Sister. I hope now, though, that she can lean on my experience and come through it a little softer than I did. After all, she was only 16-17 at the time when it happened to me. I had a few close friends plus I guess I was just too damn stubborn to relent (unrepentant attitude??), so I got through. I don't want her to suffer like I did. It was hell on Earth for about three or four years.

I had not foreseen this happening to her, and it's sad.

But, hey, that's why she's got a Big Sister :). Family is what you make of it.

--Virgil

Observations

Some things I've observed during my time away:

1) Kids are messy. Even if the messy kid doesn't mess on you, you will still get dirty by doing kid related things. I currently have washable marker and banana cream pie blizzard on my expensive-on-sale new shirt. Both of these things are simply the result of being around the child. The blizzard belonged to me. Not sure about the marker.

2) Kids grow FAST. Good lord, an inch and 1/2 since the last time I measured him!! When he's grown, he'll rest his forearm on my head!

3) Everyone needs time just for play. Four days of basically play, play, play. No work, no grocery shopping, just undivided attention.

4) I hate Yu-gi-o cards. Too many cards that require other cards to play the game. To many big words for beginning readers. Too many make up the rules as you go incidents.

5) I've said it before, but I truly mean it: if I could've picked out a kid, put him together myself, I couldn't have got a better fit.

6) Jay-Dubs are some scary people. I recommend you pretend to speak in tongues when they come to your door. The fact that they can be well integrated into normal society is a scary thought. I'm starting a Jay-Dub recovery/socializing/let's get together and release our anger group in the town where I live. You WV girls who know somebody who might fit the bill, send 'em my way.

Also, April is Child Abuse Awareness month. I can think of no better way to raise awareness than to stick by your guns and refuse to condone abusive behavior like that advocated by the Pearls. Click on my anti-HSB icon to read why!

By the way, for those searching for a label, I'm a free-thinking atheist.

--Virgil