"I am quite illiterate, but I read a lot." J.D. Salinger

From mamabear@home: Hey girl! Just finished A Thousand Splendid Suns. Do you want it back or should I just pass it on? Also, Pet wants to know if you still have The Shack? ~Zoe

When I was a little girl my mom read Where The Red Fern Grows to me and my brother. Every Saturday we would sit on the porch and she would open the book and read us a chapter. I was six, my brother ten.

Our lives we not easy then but those Saturday's were magical to me. I would wait all week, dying to know what had happened to Dan and Ann and their young master in Tallaquah, Oklahoma.

If you have never read Where The Red Fern Grows, a) shame on you! and b) bring a box of Kleenex, it is a major tearjerker.

It is said that you never forget the first book that reaches down into your heart and grabs hold and, for me at least, that is only half of the fact. True, I have never forgotten my first love. But that love wasn't limited to one story, it spawned a love of reading that runs deep in my soul.

It is rare to find me without a book, often reading two or three at a time.

When I discover a new author I devour their entire works, gorging myself on the taste and texture of their imagination but never quite sated.

Mind you I am a fickle stalker. Disappoint me once and I am likely to abandon you on the spot, never to return.

My tastes are eclectic and often unexplainable. I read everything, Kafka and Stephen King, Jane Austen and Alice Hoffman, historical non-nonfiction and chicklit. The only requirement is that you engage me. Make me feel what you are feeling, share you story with me and I will give my heart to you.

Currently I am on a Toni Morrison binge. Sula and Son of Solomon this week alone. My god that woman can write! Her people are real and true only unto themselves. I can see Milkman in my mind as though he were my next door neighbor, a face I see everyday but never really knew until we sat down together and shared ourselves. Sula's walk, Pilate's freedom, Eva's cruelty are as much a part of me as my sister's smiles. They are family now, people I care about and lessons I have learned.

I can forgive bad grammar, poor editing and convoluted plot lines. But do not betray your character. Do not sacrifice the truth of the person on the altar of storyline. For while the writer may have conceived the character, the birth takes place not on the page but in the heart of the reader. And as mothers we will fiercely defend our progeny.

I have been on summer break the last two weeks. My house is a mess, my spring cleaning an entire season past due. There are are letters unwritten and bills unpaid. But I have read. Lord God have I read! I lost an entire weekend in the company of Alice Hoffman's Third Angel, gorged myself on Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate (Como Aqua Para Chocolate). Fell asleep with Sula opened on my chest and The lived The Life of Pi.

I made friends with Sorrow and cried with First Corinthians, basked in the coolness of The Shadow of the Wind.

Classes will start back next week and my free-love affair with books will mature into a solid relationship, a slow lovemaking with staid suitor. I am taking Brit Lit, the textbook alone a solid five inches thick. But at night, when no one is looking, I will set aside the classic and indulge in a fling with it's cheeky cousin. Can't wait.

No Laughing Matter

From: islanddude@bop.com: so did Vida tell you about Robin?

This is how it started. A simple email asking me about a girl my brother dated years and years ago. She had a son she said was his. Turned out he wasn't. Not long after she drifted out of my family's life and to be honest I hadn't thought much about her in a long time.

Robin stayed with me one summer not long after the baby was born. God he was a cute kid. Curly hair, huge dimples, always smiling. Aviante Renee Kennedy Hale. Heck of a big name for a little kid. He had a big sister, Jovanna who watched over him. Not yet five years old she had the little mommy thing down pat.

Robin and I didn't get along all that well. My brother had gotten in some trouble and was in jail, which is why Robin was staying with me. I was nineteen, more than a little spoiled, trying to make it on next to nothing. My big brother, whom I idolized, would call collect from jail and she would yell at him, curse him out, tell him she was running around with other guys (she wasn't) and finally I said, I am not paying for you to torture my brother! No more calls if you can't be nice.

Not long after she moved out, taking the kids with her and heading to Vida's house until Josh got out. A little while later they broke up and she went back home to California. I never saw her again.

I thought about little Aviante from time to time; she would occasionally update Vida and Vida would pass the news on to me. Then she asked for child support, a reasonable request. Josh asked for a paternity test, also a reasonable request. That's when she told him; he's not yours - and disappeared from all of our lives.

Flash forward to February of this year. I get an email from Josh, now in prison. Drugs. Always his downfall. He's married now. To a great lady who has stood beside him. He has children. Grandchildren. They miss him.

The email read "Hey, did you hear about Robin? There's a book out. Page 209." And that's how I found out what happened to her.

Robin was found dead in her apartment. She had been there three days. Her boyfriend had stabbed her to death and disappeared. I don't know where the kids were. I don't know if the killer was ever caught. It happened ten years ago and it is hard to find details now.

What I do know is that the kids, especially Aviante, clung to the only family they had left; Robin's brother John. John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Yes that is his real name. By all accounts he truly loved the kids. But he had problems of his own.

A major gang player in Long Beach, California, he was playing both ends against the middle, heading up the city's gang prevention unit as a "reformed gang-banger" while still having a little too much to do with the gang life. Whether he was simply maintaining ties to keep his street cred and lead more young men out of the gang life (as he claims) or if he was actually using his city position to get inside information to further his gangster life (as the police claim) we'll never know.

What is known is that Aviante fell in with the gangs and was shot to death at at twenty-one years old in a drive-by shooting.

John Kennedy was there in minutes, his nephew's body still on the ground, fighting to get through the police line. They Tasered him. When he came to he was arrested for obstruction.

Three months later he joined several other people in a plot to murder Thomas and Jackie Hawks and steal their yacht. The middle age couple were tied to an anchor and thrown alive in the ocean to drown. John Kennedy was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. Robin's daughter Jovanna testified at the sentencing. She said that John Kennedy was all she had left. She said he was the only person alive who loved her.

It is Jovanna who haunts me. The image of that beautiful little girl standing in my kitchen watching her mom cook her favorite dinner, pork chops and onions, and playing with her little brother. Who could have imagined twenty years later that same little girl, all grown up, would have lost her mother and that precious little baby to violence and would be sitting on a witness stand begging strangers not to put to death the only person she had left.

And it all turned on the actions of one man. An abuser who was likely abused himself. Who took it out on the woman in his life and took her away from those who needed her. Would Aviante have still fallen into gangs if she had not died? Would his uncle have killed those people if his little sister were they to see? Would Jovanna have had to beg for the life of the one man she knew loved her and spend her life wondering if she had said something different if he might still be with her?

We'll will never know. Robin is dead. And countless lives have been downed in the aftermath.

There have been other women in my life, too many, who have also suffered from abuse. Well educated, strong, successful women. Sadly, Robin's story is one among millions. It's too late for her but there are others out there who need our help. The abused. And the abuser. Because even if we get her out, get her help, he will find someone else. Someone who won't get help. Someone else who will die. By helping him stop the cycle we help us all.

Which is why when the opportunity recently presented itself to be a part of the JFP Chickball I jumped at the chance. An annual fundraiser to help break the cycle of violence; it is the worthiest of causes.

I work full time. I go to school full time. I have a family. My husband's job keeps him gone three weeks at a time. I have a life. But this matters. So I make the time. And you can too. Please.

Normally I keep the blog light and funny, I change the names of those I write about and take a bit of comedic license. But not this time. Robin, Aviante, Jovanna and John Kennedy are all real. Those are their real names, this is their real story.

If you need help please please please try one of these links or call 911. But get out, get help. You are not alone.

http://www.mscvp.org/

Abuse Shelters in Central Mississippi ...................................................................................................................
Jackson
Catholic Charities, Inc.Serving Hinds, Issaquena, Madison, Rankin, Sharkey, Simpson, Warren and Yazoo Counties
800-273-9012601-366-0222
P.O. Box 2248Jackson, MS39225-2248

Mendenhall
Angel Wings Outreach CenterServing Hinds, Issaquena, Madison, Rankin, Simpson, Warren, and Yazoo Counties
866-847-5802
P.O. Box 787Mendenhall, MS39114

Meridian
Care LodgeServing Clarke, Kemper, Lauderdale, Leake, Neshoba, Newton, Noxubee, Scott and Winston Counties.
601-693-HOPE (4673)
P.O. Box 5331Meridian, MS39302

Pearl
The Center for Violence PreventionServing Hinds, Issaquena, Madison, Rankin, Sharkey, Simpson, Warren, and Yazoo Counties
800-266-4198601-932-4198
P. O. Box 6279Pearl, MS39288

Vicksburg
Haven House Family ShelterServing Hinds, Issaquena, Madison, Rankin, Sharkey, Simpson, Warren and Yazoo Counties
800-898-0860601-638-0555
P.O. Box 57Vicksburg, MS39181

http://www.mcadv.org/

For more information on how you can help with the Chickball check out these resources:

To get involved, write chickball@jacksonfreepress.com or check us out at any of the spots below;

Twitter: @jfpchickball
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=67330762685&ref=ts -

MySpace -www.myspace.com/chickball
Blog: http://www.jfpchickball.com/

For more information on domestic violence intervention see:

http://www.theduluthmodel.org/

Sitting Crooked in the Saddle

To: Vida@tothebone.net; Hey, sis. Sorry it's been so long. Been a crazy month. I know, I suck at communication, which is completely ironic since I am, duh, a COMMUNICATION major!


Okay, so it's been a while since I blogged. I know, I suck. But in my defense it has been a rotten couple of weeks. Started out, I got strep throat. From a skank at school who didn't bother to tell anyone she was sick until AFTER she had been on antibiotics for two days. Meaning the threat to her had passed. As had her classmates opportunity to avoid her.

Fast forward a week. I am finally back at work but still not fully functional. I am not, however, contagious. During that period, I - ahem - hint hint - STAYED HOME. So there we are, me and my compromised immune system, when what should straggle into the office? Bronchitis in the form of the wench in the next cubicle.

Yep, caught that too. Now you are talking to a girl who can only seem to catch a Frisbee with her face (and I have the crooked nose to prove it) but let a bug come within five hundred miles and suddenly I am Jose Conseco, catching everything that even thinks of coming my way.

So another week off work, now out of sick time. On the upshot I did burn through several books, some great (The Sex Lives of Cannibals; Adrift on the Equatorial Pacific) and some not (Catching Stars something something. Even the title is forgettable ) and finally caught up on my DVD watching. Vicki Cristina Barcelona? Quite possibly the sexiest movie ever. Also, one to not let my husband see until after I return from my school trip to Spain next year.

Oh, and I somehow managed to gain five pounds (WTF - I couldn't swallow much less eat - not fair), completely avoid any form of housework, fall woefully behind on my Spanish and obviously, my blogging.

So, some random thoughts to get the old typing juices flowing.....

News item: 500 prostitutes have been murder at truck stops in the last 30 years. Yes, you read that right. 500. How in the hell is this just now making the news? The authorities have arrested ten truck drivers in association with the murders. I understand that murders on the fringe of society do not make news. Mr and Mrs Joe Q Social don't care some hooker met her doom on dark road. Even if that hooker may have been the daughter that ran away five years ago. But good god, five hundred? Despite some rotten times, (good times rarely lead a women down the perilous path of self-destruction known as "the world's oldest profession") these women were some one's sister, daughter, friend, mother. And they are gone. Blinking out of existence like an an aged firefly. Take notice they are gone. Give them at least that.

On the local front, a homeless man kept all of his world possessions in a duffel bag; which he left outside a women's clinic for what he thought would be safe keeping, while he went to a local hospital for treatment. Someone saw the bag, thought "BOMB!" and the next thing you know his life has been detonated on a city street in south Jackson. To the best of my knowledge no fund has been established to help him replace what he lost.

My sisters both hit the road for Easter weekend; Vida to Cali to spend time with her kids and grandkids, an Easter tradition. Shel to Mexico with mom and aunt Kale for a much deserved vacation. Me? Stayed home and raided the kid's Easter basket.

While brushing my teeth I had an epiphany: Hookers and Debutantes? Much in common. Big hair. Seriously overdressed. Life revolves around balls. Hmmmmm.

President Obama? Still rocks.

Anderson Cooper? Still hot.

Why hasn't Mayor Melton been impeached?

Why can't I grasp Spanish? I love the language, the culture, the music, the art.

What will I be if I ever grow up?

Why am I still getting calls for some guy named Earl when we've had this number for ten years?

Could it be I have had to much caffeine?

Maybehuhmaybeyathink?

Is my Photoshop shot cool or what?

How is it possible the fifty year old clerk at Borders actually thought Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were from Pelahatchie?

And that's all I got.

Okay, so not my best blog ever but sometimes you have to jump up on that horse even if you land crooked just to get your ass readjusted to the saddle.......

Pinch Tail and Suck Head

To Vida@tothebone.net: Okay, so my friend Suki got engaged last month and decided instead of an engagement party they are having a crawfish boil. Seriously. They are going to boil a bunch of disgusting looking giant bugs alive and then... eat them. Eeeeeeeeewwwww. But I am the matron of honor so I guess I have to go. And not gag. Also I am bringing dessert. So what goes with beer and bugs?

Turns out: brownies. Also turns out to be the most fun I have had in years. We drank; we danced (HEY- macarena!) and we ate. Bugs. Big freaky looking beady-eyed crustaceans known around these parts as Mud Bugs.

Okay, so I only ate one. But hey, I was a sport and that's what counts, right?

So, for the uninitiated. let me give you a run down of how this works:

1. Beer. Lots of beer.


2. Crab Boil - a VERY spicy mix added to the boiling water to give flavor to the crawfish.


3. More beer.


4. A large pot and big oar-like stick.


5. More beer.


6. A second Crab Boil-filled pot with potatoes; corn; mushrooms; onions and beef sausage.


7. Beer.


8. Drop the mesh bag filled with live crawfish into the boiling water and press down with the stick. Secure the stick to a bar attached above the pot. This keeps the bag underwater. When the bag no longer tries to float the crawfish have absorbed all of the spices they are going to absorb and are now ready to eat.


9. Beer.


10. The mesh bag is lifted out of the pot with the stick and immediately placed in a large plastic garbage bag to retain the juices. Since Suki never does anything half way she went all out and provided a crawfish table; which looks like a stripped pool table but instead of side pockets there are two large round holes side by side in the middle with removable lids. Beneath the lids (and holding up the table) are two large barrels. After dumping both the crawfish and the veggie/sausage pots onto the table, the lids are then cleared off and removed, thus giving you a place to dispose of the shells and a place to put your beer. GENIUS!


11. Beer.


12. Everyone gathers around the table and starts grabbing up mudbugs. They remove the heads and legs (some suck the heads, me - not so much) and pinch the tail to expose the meat which actually looks a lot like a shrimp. They then pop it in their mouth, chew, swallow and wait. Generally within five seconds or less the spices kick in and your mouth either a) burns or b) goes numb. Mine? Both. At which point you immediately reach for your beer and pray for the best. Repeat until either all the mudbugs are gone or you die.


13. Did I mention beer? Lots and lots and lots of ice cold beer.

Add a group of really cool people, great music and understanding neighbors (Real fun? Rarely quiet.) Mix well and feel the burn. Oh, and the snotty little attitude?(ahem...yes Me, I am talking to you). Check it at the door.

Shower Dancing Syndrome

voicemail for Shel: Hey sis, sorry I missed your call. I was shower dancing......

Okay, for the uninitiated shower dancing probably sounds like pleasurable experience. A little music, a little scented soap, shaking it under the flow. Um, no.

Think more along the lines of St. Vitus Dance with a side of Tourettes. Shower Dancing is a rarely spoken of disorder that is limited to those unfortunate souls who are the sole source of estrogen in a testosterone heavy household. For reasons best left to the scientific community, when the female of the clan enters the shower, the sound of the rushing water awakes in the male of the species a sudden and, apparently, irresistible urge to proceed immediately to the closest bathroom and flush the toilet. Upon which action the water in the shower will inexplicably (at least to the male) switch from a comfortably warm temperature to a searing hot attack on the nude body of the hitherto oblivious female.

At which point the female will jump, twist, and thrash about; wildly searching for the source of the pain while being blinded by the soap inevitably running in her eyes ; introducing a combination of sudden pain and immense frustration which will cause her to issue forth a stream of invectives not matched since the Osbourne's family reunion.

Eventually, she will find the hot water spigot and slam it to it's furthermost right position. This generally occurs approximately five seconds before the water temperature would have returned to a bearable level. Instead, with the hot water now off, the soaking wet female, gasping for air and fiercely rubbing at her burning eyes; will now find herself being assaulted by a frigid stream of icy needles, made all the more intense on her still singed skin. And the dance begins again.

To date science has yet to find a cure for this heartbreaking disease. Shower Dancing Syndrome (SDS) is known only to strike in single-female households. In homes with even one additional female present, the syndrome rarely occurs. It has been hypothesised that the additional estrogen brings the natural response to the male's bee-line for the commode of "Don't even think it about Buster!" thus preventing the initial attack from occurring.

There have been several attempts to stop this awful disease in it's tracks, unfortunately shy of women being given their own separate home, the future of those suffering this disorder is not promising.

I Am The Grammarian About Whom Your Mother Warned.

mytextlife@twitter re: pet hates @johncleese.com: People who use the word "irregardless" then get angry if you ask them if the GED was hard.

Alright, so I'll admit it; I'm a bit of a snob. At least when it comes to language. I am not speaking of persons denied access to higher education who are simply handicapped by a limited vocabulary. I am speaking of highly educated professionals who have no excuse. Well, them and my ex-husband.

Don't misunderstand, I was not born with a silver thesaurus in my crib. Quite the contrary. My siblings and I grew up hardscrabble. My grandfather was a farmer, my grandmother a housewife. My mother raised four children completely on her own, often times working two and three jobs at once.

However, Mom is a reader and she passed that gift to her children. When we were ten and six respectively, mom read my brother and me Where The Red Fern Grows; a charming coming of age tale written by a man who obviously has anger issues with man's best friend, as he killed every last dog in the book.

Mom would read a chapter; my brother and I sobbing openly as yet another furry friend got bumped off (a fact my brother denies to this day.) Mom would dry our tears, give us an ice cream cone and the next day we would be back begging for more (little masochists we were.)

This love for reading quickly grew into a love of language. And, as with any love, one becomes angry when it is disrespected. Example:

(local news anchor who shall remained unnamed as I am sure she has been humiliated enough already): And today in sheerie lank a...

Me: I'm sorry, did she just say "sheerie lank a"?

My poor husband: Uh oh.

Me: No, seriously is that what she just said?

Him, trying to ease out of the room: Um, yeah. Why?

Me: The word is SHRA-lon-ka

Him: Are you sure?

Me: Yes

(second anchor appears on screen: Thank you _________, for more on
Sheerie Lank a go to our website.....

Me: No he didn't.

Husband: Uh oh.

It's not that I expect everyone to know how to pronounce Sri Lanka, or even to know where it is. I do, however, think that if you are a professional newscaster someone, somewhere, would have told you how to pronounce the name of the city in the lead story.

I imagine I acquired my language snobbery from my mother whose greatest pet peeve, (even greater than white shoes with black pantyhose, although that is a close second) is the use of the term "hot water heater". Every time she would hear it, she would roll her eyes, sigh and and say, "If it were hot, it would not need to be heated, now would it?" We figured out pretty quickly not to use that phrase. And sher-bert? Sher-bert would get you grounded.

When other kids where playing Twister and LIFE, we were playing "Dictionary Tag". Seriously. We would all gather in the living room and open the dictionary. We would then search Webster's for a word no one else knew the meaning of (yes, that is a dangling participle -I am not a grammar snob, well okay, yes I am but hey, no one's perfect). Personal favorite? Zygote; (a fetus from conception to two weeks).

And yet, even with this innate language snobbery, I manage to marry quite possibly the biggest idiot ever born to two otherwise normal human beings. He had the irritating habit of only listening to about half of what I said. I imagine this is a normal percentage rate for married couples however Rick (who gives a whole new meaning to the term "Rick-rolled") also liked to pick up random words he had heard me use and drop them into conversation. Of course he never bothered to learn what the words actually meant. Thus it was pretty common that I would be standing beside him, stunned, as he told the store clerk she was being ostentatious or when he asked his best friend if he had ever masticated in public.

Now one idiot is bad enough. Get two of them together and what you get is complete verbal homicide.

For a short time Rick and I worked for the same company: a tire store run by a suave old drunk with a third grade education and a nasty temper. One day, after a particularly long visit with Jack Daniels my boss made me cry. Over what, I don't recall. What I do recall is Rick's angry response:

Mr. O, you need to leave her alone! You're just being facetious.

Fa- what the hell did you just call me?

Facetious - look it up, it's under "V"!

At which point Rick was fired and I was given the rest of the day off with pay, (presumably allowing Mr. O private time with the dictionary I kept on my desk, perusing the "V" section for facetious.)

Oh, Oh, Oh, Listen To The Music...

Email from sweetboy89@home: Hey Mom, I Googled that song you wanted. The reason you couldn't find it was because it is called "Tush" not "Looking for some touch". Also, Hootie and the Blowfish aren't really a new band, since they haven't had a hit since the nineties.

So, it probably started all the way back when I was five and singing "Joy To The World". Not the Christmas carol, the hippie anthem. Joy to the world/olive was a girl. Yep, that's what I sang. Cute for a five year old. Weird when you're twenty-five and your husband looks at you with that cocked puppy dog head look and says, Excuse me? Did you just sing "Olive was a girl?" Well yes, those are the words. Um, no. Um yes. Umm, really, no.

Turns out the actual wording is All The Boys and Girls. As soon as he said it, I could hear it plain as day but for twenty years I had been singing the words wrong. (Although in my defense, it IS a song about a wine-mooching frog, how right can any words be?).

This was not, unfortunately, an isolated incident. I have been misunderstanding the words to songs my whole life. There was Barry Manilow's Looks Like Tamata's, the Stones' Two Fuck Hero, and of course, that England Dan and John Ford Coley classic, I'm Not Talkin' 'bout the Linen.

And let's not forget the aforementioned "Tush". I truly thought the words were "Lord, take me downtown, I'm just lookin' for some touch." I loved that song. So raw and honest. The story of a man who just wants someone to reach out to him. Just to feel that touch. Yeah, no he's just lookin' for some TUSH. Little bit of difference.

But, the centerpiece of my idiocy artwork has to be Me and Bobby McGee. I used one line from that song as my motto for years. "One day of miscellaneous, I let him slip away." Wow, how perfectly does that describe the tragedy and triumph that is life. One miscellaneous day, a nothing day if you will, one simple choice makes it a day you will always remember. The day you let love slip away. Beautiful. Powerful. And wrong. Kris Kristofferson, that genius of a songwriter (and a right-proper hottie in his day) actually wrote the line "One day up near Salinas" Well, crap. Now I need to find another theme song. What's that new one by Hootie and the Blowfish?