It's not defamation. It's protest. It's honesty. Deal with it. War = bad.

via Flickr

Please read on to see the story of a young Afghan girl who is having to fight for her freedom, who lives in fear of what the future holds, of the very clear possibility that she will no longer be her own person.

I cannot tell you how angry stories like this make me, or how outraged I am that there are still people in this world who are forced to learn in secret, who are forced to choose between living and learning, who are forced to offer to sell themselves, just so they can continue their education. Think about that for a moment: when you were sixteen, would you have faced possible death and humiliation from your community, from your family, just so you could have the right to go to school, to educate yourself, to be a free human being? I doubt it. Most sixteen year olds would be more than happy to never have to go to school again. How  do we take our lives for granted; how do we overlook the people who are still being forced to believe that basic human rights, education, and marrying for love are privileges?

I am heartbroken and angry all at the same time. However, I am not going to sit by and watch as these things go on in the world. I am going to put my outrage to good use – I want to, and I will, help women such as Heroine Anonymous (as she is referred to many times in the comments) fulfill their dreams. I will organize fundraisers, I will write letters and articles – I will do whatever it takes to help women be women instead of objects.

What will you do to help?

http://awwproject.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/i-am-for-sale-who-will-buy-me/

I was reminded of that very fact today, when I learned that my absolute favorite patient, and one of my favorite people, period, passed away last night. I make it a point not to cry at work, but today, I seemed to do little else. I also make it a point to not become involved with patients in any way, but I just couldn’t help it with this one; he was the nicest person I think I’ve ever met. My job involves scheduling medication refills for high risk patients, so I would talk to him once a month to set up his deliveries, but there were days where he would just call me to say “Hi,” because he wanted to hear a cheerful voice. When I saw his phone number pop up on my phone at work, I would always take the call, and for the same reason: he was a friendly voice, a real person instead of a patient ID and an address. At one point he offered to set me up with his son, and I honestly think he was somewhat serious when he mentioned it. He was just that kind of man.

About a week and a half ago, I noticed that I hadn’t heard from him in a while, so I called to check in on him and to see if he was ready to order some more medication. Two days later I received a phone call from his very kind wife, who told me that he had been in the hospital for the past two weeks. My heart fell; I knew that he hadn’t much longer, but the news came as such a shock. His wife spoke with me for several minutes, and paid me the sweetest compliment I think I’ll ever hear: she told me that her husband would talk about me at home, that he was always so happy to hear from me, and that he spoke about me as if everyone knew who I was. After hearing the news of his hospitalization, I immediately asked two of my supervisors if I could, for this patient only, send a card to let him know that I was thinking of him. After jumping through some hoops, they allowed me to do just that. The card was simple; it had a flower on its cover, and the inside read, “How’s my favorite person today? Better I hope.”

Due to weather and holiday delays, his wife didn’t receive the card until yesterday morning. I found out that he passed away this afternoon.

It was at least two hours before I could return his wife’s call. It took that long to compose myself enough that I was confident that I wouldn’t start crying while on the phone with a very sweet, newly widowed woman. I told her that she and the rest of her family would always be in my thoughts, she told me that her husband had been so, so happy to know that I had been thinking of him, I told her that I was sorry for her loss, and she apologized for giving me bad news. She knew that, even though I’d never met her husband before, he was very dear to me. It’s amazing how you can form a bond like that with a complete stranger, when all you know is their name and the sound of their voice. I still have the voicemail that he left me when I first took over his account, thanking me for being so helpful and for “letting an old man get some frustration out of his system.” I don’t think I’ll ever delete it now.

Mr. P___ , whatever there is after this life, whether it be an eternal heaven or reincarnation or just the sleep of death, I’m so very sad to know that there will be no more random phone calls from you, to brighten a dreary Wednesday. I’m sorry for your loss – because it is as much of a loss to you as it is to your family. And, sir, I’m so very sorry that I didn’t get to say goodbye properly. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your life for such a short time, and thank you for all the smiles that you brought into my life.

Selah

Here’s how this is going to go down – I will gladly share the new link (to the blog that I really will be posting on) with you, but I am not going to publicly post it. Email me at lestliepalooza (at) gmail (dot) com and I will reply with the link.

*muah!*

“Are we really that old?” asked Matt, in disbelief.

I, on the other hand, only had two thoughts running through my head:

1) Do I really have mom hair?
and
2) Shit, I knew I should have worn something low-cut.

Background: Matt and Andrew are discussing the merits (or lack, thereof) of the book Pride & Prejudice and Zombies, during which they get off on a rather interesting tangent.

Matt: So you’re saying that if you saw Jane Austen at a party, you’d stick it in her butt?

Andrew: No. I’m saying that I respect Jane Austen.

Matt: So, you’re saying that if you saw Jane Austen at a party, you’d stick it in her butt….but you’d call her the next day?

Andrew: Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.

This time, I used a flash phrase.

“a galaxy of longing.”

that’s an interesting phrase. lonely and chilling, yet surprisingly tender. have i ever felt that way? have i ever found myself wandering through a galaxy of longing?

yes.

we all have, i think. i believe that we are all longing for something, yearning for our heart’s desires. we all feel lonely from time to time, but i don’t necessarily think of longing as just being loneliness. although, longing….galaxy…..maybe this time it does mean loneliness. maybe it’s meant to incite something altogether different.

or maybe i’m just thinking too much about it. i do that – think too much. i wake up with a million different thoughts in my head, i spend nights (like tonight) awake, thinking about everything and nothing all at once. i think about the next day’s tasks, work, money, and all of the other things that probably keep millions of other people awake at night. but when i think i’m done, when i think i might actually be able to free my mind enough to allow sleep to slowly come to me, more thoughts come rushing in and i’m awake for another hour. the second wave of thoughts is darker, more morbid at times. i think of death and losing loved ones, natural disasters, pain. my heart races and i am having nightmares…but i’m awake…and it’s guaranteed that i will be awake much longer.

maybe i’m thinking too much about it, or maybe i’m just not doing it right; “a galaxy of longing.” i experience a galaxy of longing every night when i lay in bed, thinking about myself and my family and the world around us all, and i long for peace, happiness, freedom from pain and death and anger and fear…for all of us.

what about the great lovers and writers? have they felt a galaxy of longing? and if so, what was the object of their longing? what did hemingway really long for? or gwenivere? did juliet truly long for romeo, or was it something else: mere teenage rebellion?

I got hired on full-time at my pharmacy, after four months of temping here, and what seemed like a lifetime of temping at other places. I had a very Jim Carrey “You like me! You really like me!” moment when the initial offer was made, and I may or may not have cried a little when it became official yesterday afternoon, after a whirlwind of emails, pee tests and background checks had made my life a living hell for two weeks.

It’s strange for me to think that I have an official job – with vacation time and PTO and, gasp! insurance. Dental and vision, even!

But, despite the happy news, I’m still under some major stress, but the sweet pay raise will hopefully help out with the money problems, too. 2008 wasn’t a bad year for Matt and I, so I guess it’s karmically fair that we were handed this shit year that has been 2009. My way of thinking is, it’s turning around. Maybe there will be a little good to come out of this year, after all.

Stay tuned…

After almost two years of being ignored at family dinners, I finally got my confirmation: they actually do dislike me. Apparently I try to hard, according to one parent and I don’t try hard enough according to the other. Okay. I’ll bite: How can be a) trying too hard and b) not trying hard enough…at the same time? To be honest, when I’m around his parents, I’m no different than I am around my family: I don’t curse and I avoid all religious and political talk because I know it means trouble. I don’t say anything around Matt’s parents that I wouldn’t say in front of my own. That’s not really trying too hard – that’s showing respect to my elders.

The news that they officially dislike me did upset me, but not for the obvious reason. I don’t need to be loved and adored by all. There are a lot of people in the world that I don’t like, so why should I lose sleep over the fact that two people out of the billions of people on this planet think I’m not good enough to date their son? It could be because their son plainly informed me that if I can’t make nice with the parents and make them like me, a relationship between the two of us isn’t feasible. Seriously, if I knew how to make them like me, I’m sure I would have employed those skills months ago. No one likes to be a member of a four-person brunch and be the only person to whom no one talks. I don’t even think I got a “Please pass the salt” or “How’s your meal?”

I understand that, by entering into a long-term relationship with someone, you also agree to take on the family of your significant other, but at no point in our relationship did I agree to date my boyfriend’s parents. I have enough trouble keeping Matt and my my own family happy, let alone another group of people whose only solution to my little problem would be to “Just break up with her, honey. She doesn’t treat you right.” If by not treating him right they mean cooking him dinner every night, buying him gifts, telling him that I love him several times a day and gushing about him to any and everyone who will listen, then yeah, I’m a terrible girlfriend. Just terrible. Because who would want something like that for their son?

I’m just going to go ahead and stop here because I can tell that I’m starting to get kind of angry, despite the calming music and the breathing exercises, and the last thing I want to do is create an even bigger rift. My blog isn’t anonymous, after all. I’m ok with opening up my life for all to read, but this is more than just my life at this point. It’s a given that I’ll talk about Matt here, but his parents are another story. I’m not really trying to villify them – I just need to get this off my chest and maybe get some advice from people who have had similar situations occur. I cannot overstate the fact that I know that I’ll never be welcomed with open arms into his family, but it would be nice to not feel awkward and left out at family functions. (Take my family, for example: they truly love Matt and treat him like family – that’s sometimes good and sometimes bad, but he’s always made to feel welcome.) How do people do it? Is there some secret that I haven’t been told? Is this going to be like the time that I tucked my skirt into my pantyhose and no one told me?