The Left Side of the Moon

Up to No Good

I asked Blackstone to keep an eye on the boys while I took shower and got ready to take Trouble to swim class on Saturday. Yeah, I know, I should never take a shower. So I get out of the shower and Blackstone's at the table reading the paper and the boys are upstairs in their rooms. One really wouldn't think this would be too much of a problem. Well, my boys can find and make trouble anywhere.

Trouble discovered that the top pane of the windows can be moved down and that there's no screen at the top of the window. So once he's opened the top of the window, he takes a large container of toys and throws it out the window into the backyard. Where does he come up with these ideas? Then he has the audacity to try to tell us that Little Trouble did it all by himself. Yeah, right. I can't believe a six year-old managed it, I'm certainly not buying that the three year-old did it on his own.

After further inspection we've discovered there are some little gadgets that slide up and down the window tracks that we should be able to adjust to keep them from opening the windows this way. Only thing is there a bit stuck and we need to take the time to unstick them. I told Blackstone we need to make it a priority to get the windows adjusted and child-proofed but he doesn't see why. "It's not like they're going to jump out the window," he tells me.

"You say that like it's never happened before," I remind him. At our old house, Trouble did jump out the window onto the porch roof once. After that we kept him locked out of our room. Trouble was rather indignant about the whole thing and wanted to know why I don't let him have any fun.

"Yeah, but that was different," Blackstone reassures me. "There's nothing for him to jump onto. I wouldn't have done anything like that when I was a kid. They're crazy, not stupid." (I'm paraphrasing here, for some reason I didn't quite process his whole argument.)

Somehow he didn't manage to make me feel any better.

Can you hear me now?

Often as a teacher, once you meet a student's parents their kid's behavior becomes more understandable. And the parent that you really want to meet, the ones that you really want the opportunity to discuss their child's behavior and their work ethic with - those are the ones who never go to parent-teacher conferences and never return your phone calls. It is apparent they couldn't care less about the trouble their child is giving you or the fact that their kid is failing your class or possibly in danger of flunking out of school.

One particular female student I had, let's call her Maria, was such a handful. She was loud, bossy, absent most of the time and a complete and utter distraction when she did deem to grace you with her presence. She could have been a decent student if she paid any attention, showed up more often and did more than 10% of her assignments. But obviously school was very low on her list of priorities. I tried speaking with her after class, trying to persuade her that with just the smallest amount of effort she could pass English. I appealed to her logically, there is no failing English, if you fail English, you fail for the year, you'll repeat tenth grade. When it became obvious this was getting me nowhere and Maria would in fact fail English and end up in summer school or repeating the year, I went to her guidance counselor. The guidance counselor basically told me to throw in the towel, trying to reach this student was useless. I asked about talking to Maria's parents and she rolled her eyes and cautioned me against it.

"It won't do any good," she told me. "Teachers and counselors call the house repeatedly and they never call back or come in to meet with us. Last year when you got their answering machine it would say, 'Sorry, we can't come to the phone right now because we're having sex.'" She shook her head in irritation, "There's nothing much you can do."

"So, if she's going to fail no matter what at this point and the parents are no help, what am I supposed to do with her for the rest of the year? What kind of recourse do I have to keep her behavior under control?" I asked.

"Try to give her some incentive that she could still pass. Otherwise you'll just have to do your best with her. Send her to the office if all else fails," she tells me.

Great, so basically I'm screwed. Because it's not going to be long before all Maria's opportunities to pass are gone for the year and we're only in the second quarter. And sending the girl to the office is only going to piss off the administration because they don't want to deal with her either. It was about this time that Maria's hall pass privileges were revoked. If students are found wandering the halls too often they are black listed by the office. This list was updated weekly and had all the most notorious students on it. Many of them once they'd been added to the list remained there for the rest of the year. This did not stop Maria from asking to go to the lavatory.

"Maria, you know I'm not allowed to give you a pass," I tell her.

"But I have to go to the bathroom. You can't keep me here if I need to pee," she says defiantly.

"Maria, I'm not going to fight with you about this. You have a problem, take it up with the office. It's not up to me. I'm not giving you a pass," I say unwaveringly.

"Fine. Don't give me a pass," she says. "But you can't keep me here. I'm leaving," and she walks out of the room.

I am not about to physically restrain this girl or chase her down. I have twenty-three other kids in this class and Maria takes up way too much of my time when she shows up. Now I have to phone the office and report that she's left class without permission and is wandering the halls. The thought that I don't get paid nearly enough to deal with this shit crosses my mind for the umpteenth time that week.

I am relieved when Maria doesn't show up during the rest of the period or the rest of the week. But I know my luck won't hold out forever and eventually she'll be back. It's about a week before she shows up again. She's only received a couple more detentions for the stunt she pulled last week and really another couple of detentions added to all the other ones she's racked up this year is just a drop in the bucket. But yet I'm not surprised to see the enormous attitude she's brought back to class with her.

Because she wasn't suspended I now have to put together all of the assignments she's missed and allow her to make them up. This is infuriating to me because chances are she won't turn them in anyway but I still have write everything out for her. The class is taking a test that Maria isn't prepared for, so I get them situated and then bring her up to my desk and start putting all the work together for her. Once this is done and she has the list of reading assignments and homework questions I send her back to her desk to get started but of course she starts chatting with one of students next to her.

"Maria, you cannot talk during the test. If I have to tell you again you'll receive detention," I warn her.

"I was just asking her about the dance. Jesus, you don't have to be such a bitch," she retorts with a challenging smirk on her face.

At this point all reason has left me. I am furious. In the blink of an eye I am in front of her, leaning over her desk my nose inches from her face. "Don't you EVER speak to me like that again!" The anger is palpable in my voice and flashing in my eyes. "Apologize to me at once!"

"Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she says, squirming a bit in her seat. "It just slipped out."

I walk back to my desk and Maria is rather compliant for the rest of the period. I try to remind myself that all students have a right to an education, but really feel more strongly that they shouldn't have the right to abuse it the way Maria and so many others do. They ruin it for everyone else and bring many other students down to their level. In my mind, Maria should be expelled. It's way past second and third chances with her. She's constantly failing, repeatedly almost caught smoking (they can't actually be disciplined unless you catch them with the cigarette in hand which is almost impossible), cuts classes more than she attends them, swears at her teachers, fights with other students - if it were up to me she'd be out on her ear. But it's not up to me and I have to put up with her for another half a year.

It occurs to me later that going face to face with a student is perhaps not the wisest of actions. That I'm really lucky she didn't haul off and hit me. But also I know I've gained some respect in refusing to allow her to behave that way. I would have lost the entire class if I hadn't dealt with her quickly and firmly. But none of this crossed my mind before I confronted Maria. I suppose she's also rather lucky I didn't haul off and hit her. I'm way too level-headed for that, but I'd be lying if I said the desire to smack her wasn't there. Though I do rather feel bad for her too. Her cry for attention from her parents is deafening and they refuse to hear it.

The Reality of Two Kids

I have several friends right now who have children about the age of two and are deciding whether or not to have a second. One couple is already trying but with some reservations, another is preparing to try with even more reservations, and another has basically decided against having more but with just the teensiest bit of doubt. I get their dilemma, though I never felt all that torn about it. I've been there and decided to have a second child. We didn't do a ton of deliberating on the matter. We had basically decided when we had our first that we would have two kids. Two and no more. Whether we had girls, boys or one of each - two was the number. And neither of us ever wavered on that decision.

After having two boys I did not have the burning desire to try for a girl. I'm really not that girly, perhaps the universe decided this was best for me. And the thought of having three boys makes me want to jump off a cliff. I am not criticizing anyone with more kids than me. That's great for you! Just not for me. And boys are fundamentally different from girls from my observations. My boys already have about a dozen stitches between them. They are constantly bruised, scraped and otherwise mangled from their constant running, fighting, falling, and jumping. There is no calming them down or getting them to stop. They are not allowed caffeine and very little sugar. Almost no soda ever. They are wild. They are boys. They love bugs, dinosaurs, cars and dirt.

I have been questioned repeatedly over my decision to have a second kid. Not that anyone questions my decision for myself but they want insight into how I made that decision and how they can make it for themselves. It's not an easy question to answer. I always knew in my gut two. I didn't want to have an only child. I wanted my kids to have a play mate, a confidante, someone to be an aunt or uncle to their kids some day. I wanted a family with craziness and noise and playing and fighting. And did I ever get it.

Is it harder having two? Sure it is. They drive you nuts fighting with each other over every little thing. This one took the other's toy, he hit me, he won't give it back, he got more than me, it's my turn. You want to throw them both out a window most of the time. And being pregnant while you have a two or three year-old is terrible. You can't pick them up when they throw a fit in the store, you're forced to just wait it out. They don't care if you're tired or sick in the morning, they want you up and getting their breakfast and putting on cartoons. They will laugh at you while you're dry heaving. It doesn't matter how much your back or head hurts, you have to help them go to the potty.

But for every way they make it harder, there's another way it's easier. Trouble would hold Little Trouble's bottle so I could go to the bathroom. He learned to re-start the battery operated swing. He would give Little Trouble his pacifier or toy when he dropped it. He would entertain Little Trouble in his crib while I was trying to get something done. Now he will get them each a drink and a snack and put on cartoons on the days I just need to sleep for another hour. Little Trouble threw a fit on me one day at the mall. Trouble and I had to chase him from opposing angles and corner him. Then I had Trouble carry my coffee for me while I carried a screaming and kicking three year-old out of the mall. It was so great Trouble was big enough to help me!

And while they fight with one another and get on each other's nerves, they clearly love one another. One will run if they hear the other crying or hurt. Trouble will hug Little Trouble before he leaves for school. And it slay-ed me when Little Trouble started saying, "Be a good boy," when he left.

But if you decide to have that second kid, don't blame me for it later. That decision is entirely up to you. I recuse myself of all responsibility.

Our Anniversary

Today is my eighth anniversary and I almost forgot. I know many women prepare for this day for a month. They will have arranged a sitter, made dinner reservations or maybe the theater, maybe they've even planned a whole weekend getaway. It literally dawned on me three days ago that my anniversary was today. I hadn't given it a thought. I told my husband this and he looked at me with wide eyes and said, "Happy Anniversary, honey." He didn't remember either.

Just about everyone I mention this momentous occasion to will ask what we have planned, what gift did I receive? I plan on making steamers for dinner, maybe even getting a bottle of wine. I bought my husband a card that's still sitting unsigned on a shelf at home. It would be nice if he remembered to get me a card. But honestly, I don't really care much. We went to see John Mayer a little over a week ago, we're going to a "Prom" in a couple of weeks - let's just say that's what we did for our anniversary and call it quits. So many women put all this pressure on their husbands and themselves on this date, and I just don't get it. It's going to be the night you have to cancel because one of the kids is sick or someone had to work late, or you went out anyway even though you were tired and didn't feel like it and the whole event leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Or even worse yet, someone dies. We were sorting through my grandmother's belongings on our anniversary last year. We had to take her off life support. It was awful. And in the midst of this horrible time Blackstone said, "I have something important to ask you. Did you get me an anniversary card?"

"No," I tell him.

"Oh, good. I haven't gotten you one either," he says relieved.

All this pressure for one day. I really don't see why it's so much more important than the rest. And we do this for birthdays, holidays, dare I even bring up Valentine's Day. I HATE going out for Valentine's Day. Every one in the world decides to go out for dinner and you have to fight the crowds, wait for your food, they run out of the special and if you haven't made reservations it could take hours for a table. Why bother? I'll go out next week when everyone's at home.

Not that I don't like a surprise once in a while. Blackstone sent me roses at work on Mother's Day which was nice. He hadn't given me roses since before we were married. And one year for my birthday he bought me this terribly over-priced velvet winter hat that I had fallen in love with but hadn't bought because it was too expensive. But usually I just tell him what I want. I make it nice and simple. Half the time I'll even buy it myself and just say, "See what you bought me for _______ ." He loves it. He'll ask, "So did I buy your ________  present yet?" And I get just what I want and never get disappointed or feel bad about returning something he picked out. I also don't have any terrible guilt or pressure to search for the perfect gift for him. If I'm going to make it easy on him, he gets to make it easy on me.

This year we're getting each other a new kitchen and I couldn't be more thrilled.

 

Walking the Tight Rope

I recently read an article in Newsweek about how women who left their careers to be stay at home moms for a number of years had trouble re-entering the work force. Some of these women really seemed surprised that with their college degrees and prior work experience they were over-qualified for entry level positions that they didn't want anyway because they didn't pay enough, but yet were unable to find jobs equivalent to the one they had years before. Really? They were surprised? Because it didn't surprise me.

I don't mean to give these moms too hard of a time. Being a mom is difficult whether you work outside of the home or inside of it. But some of these stay-at-home moms criticize working moms like me and I feel compelled to defend myself. When I've discussed my choice to only take six weeks of maternity leave with each of my kids and I am candid about the fact that half or more of my paycheck goes towards health insurance and child care, I'm frequently asked why I don't just stay home. For many reasons.

First, my husband is self-employed. My having a steady paycheck, even though it's much less than his is important because it IS steady while his is not. And while I pay through the nose for my health insurance, we have good health insurance and we haven't had to worry about having to pay for our own health insurance on one unsteady paycheck. Also, because I've invested five and half years and thousands of dollars to educate myself and find a career that worked for me and I have no intention of ditching it. I like what I do. I like being mentally stimulated and challenged at work. And because for most moms, if they leave the field to stay home with their kids, they eventually go back. And realistically going back after six years at home will not be easy. I work in the tech industry, in six years your skill set is obsolete. You don't only lose the income for the years you stay at home, you also lose the income over the next how-ever-many years as you work yourself back up to where you were when you left. Most women have to start all over again. If you can find a flexible job, maybe part time, at least you keep your foot in the door and your head in the game.

I've been lucky enough to have a flexible job and a great and understanding boss. For most of the past six years I've been in the office three days a week and working from home two days a week. And while working from home can be difficult, I was able to make it work. Really, my hours were more part time with full time responsibility. My boss understands that while I have a very full plate trying to be the primary care giver for my kids and work full time, I am an excellent multi-tasker, fast, reliable and can get projects done in half the time it would take many of the other developers and programmers he's hired. His perspective is, "If you can get the job done in half the time it takes someone else, why shouldn't you be rewarded for it? Why should I try to force you to work more hours?" (I know, not everyone is so lucky.)

But even though I've stayed employed, I still feel that I have made sacrifices for my kids where my career is concerned. I've stayed with this small company because of the flexibility and great boss, but that came with some concessions. I've received no job training or educational reimbursements in the last six years. The company's too small for that and with the crash the tech industry felt in the past six years it's rather remarkable our little company made it through it at all. I could've made more money going to another company, I could've gotten better training, but I would have lost my flexibility and I just couldn't give that up. And while I may have pursued some classes or training on my own time and dollar, I haven't been able to afford the time or the money while my kids have been so young.

That said, things are starting to change for me career-wise. Business has picked up tremendously in the last year. Now that so many web development companies have gone out of business there aren't as many options as there used to be, especially if you want to work with a small, local company where someone answers the phone from 9-5. As business has increased, I received a raise and promotion. I'm now in the office four days a week and in September when my youngest starts pre-school and the oldest first grade, I'll be in five days a week again. I've also started taking the occasional class to broaden my programming background.

I feel like I've put my career on the back burner for the last six years and been majorly focused on my kids, and I DIDN'T stay home. But if I feel like I've made some professional sacrifices, I can only imagine how it is for women who left their fields altogether. I think before a woman makes that choice to stay home, she really needs to consider the full impact that choice will have on her life. You cannot afford to naively think you will sashay back into your career after a six plus year hiatus. It is a HUGE sacrifice. Thinking you can just pick up your career again at the blink of an eye is up there with waiting for your knight on the white steed. As Polly would say, "Miracle no happen." And it makes you completely financially dependent on your spouse. As much as I love and trust my husband, I don't ever want to be completely dependent on him financially. I want balance - in my family, my life, my job, parental responsibilities, financially. I want my husband and I to share the burdens and responsibilities and the joys and bonding time with our kids.

Vigilante

Little Trouble had his second brush with the law yesterday. For anyone who doesn't know the first time happened just before he turned two. It was just the two of us at home. Normally I would have the door to the back hallway chained closed but I had been going up and down to the basement and hadn't chained it. Little Trouble unlocked the back door, went outside, down the driveway and was playing on the sidewalk. We lived on a busy street and it couldn't have been more than a minute or two before someone stopped their car and brought him up to the door. I was terrified, mortified. I couldn't believe he'd gotten out on me. The guy who brought him up to the house must have thought I was some degenerate mother and he called the police. So, I had to explain the whole situation to an officer who showed up a few minutes later who told me I should have child safety knobs on the doors. Now I did at one point have child safety knobs on the doors, but Trouble while unable to use the child safety knobs was completely capable of pulling them off the doors. And since he knew well enough to stay in the house or suffer the consequences, I hadn't put more on.

I related this whole story to Blackstone in tears that afternoon. He, while a bit disturbed, was mainly glad that it happened to me and not to him. I was always giving him a hard time about not watching the boys closely enough. So I tell him we need to get new safety knobs for the doors and give Trouble a good talking to that he needs to leave them on the doors and that until we do we have to watch Little Trouble like a hawk, make sure the doors stay chained, etc. The next morning I ask Blackstone to watch the boys while I take a shower. I get out of the shower and Trouble is watching cartoons, Blackstone's on the phone in his office in the basement and the back door is wide open. I going running outside soaking wet in my towel, it's the first week of March and it's like 40 degrees out, and my neighbor is walking up the path with Little Trouble, he'd been in their yard. I put the safety knobs on that afternoon and we never had a problem after that. He had to open two locked doors with safety knobs in order to get to the backyard, so you'd hear him working at the doors trying to get out and be able to stop him in plenty of time. He also learned that he wasn't allowed outside alone and eventually gave up.

Well now we've moved and we live on a quiet street with a patch of woods directly across the street and a daycare just beyond that. Little Trouble hears those kids playing on the other side of those trees and is tortured. HE WANTS TO GO PLAY WITH THE OTHER KIDS!!! Every time you take you're eyes off him he's headed over there. This is not helped by the fact that Trouble is spending weekdays at camp. I could have enrolled Little Trouble in camp too, but the kids have to be three (which he is) and potty trained (which just happened four weeks ago), so I figured we'd just wait for pre-school in September. It also requires me changing my nanny's hours and I wasn't sure he was ready and I didn't think it'd be that big a deal. Well it is that big a deal. And now the camp sessions for his age group are full. So I'm not overly surprised that he took off down to the day care on Tuesday and was escorted home by the police.

He was home with our nanny and she's watched the boys for two and a half years. If she was new I might fire her, but under the circumstances we just had a long talk about what we have to do to ensure it doesn't happen again. And I know it's not just her fault, it's ours too. It's our fault because since we moved and the house is under construction there is litany of people in and out of the house everyday and it's practically impossible to keep the doors locked. Because the locks are in the kids reach and we need to get safety knobs or something to child proof them (one of the doors isn't even a knob but one of those handle deals). Because we've been so busy with everything we haven't properly set and enforced the boundaries with the kids. Because I didn't warn our Nanny not to let Little Trouble outside to follow my father-in-law whose been helping out with yard work. Little Trouble's more capable of taking care of him than he is of taking care of Little Trouble.

So, now he's had his second brush with the law and I'm hoping it will be his last for a while.

Summer Bliss

We took a break from the craziness to go see John Mayer in concert last weekend. We hadn't been to a concert in about five years. We went to see No Doubt when Trouble was two. I love Gwen Stefani. She did one-handed push-ups in the middle of the concert. You just gotta have respect for a woman that can do one-handed push-ups. She also pants-ed her drummer at the end of the concert. We're talking full male nudity (which I consider completely appropriate at a concert but not at school). She's so cool.

Before that we saw Third Eye Blind and Vertical Horizon the night before I found out I was pregnant with Trouble. We also saw U2 whom I love, but with such a large crowd it was a bit much and kinda took the fun out of it. I've also seen the Violent Femmes a few times, (can you believe one of their songs is used in a Wendy's commercial these days?), Ten Thousand Maniacs, and a couple other small, local concerts. I'm probably forgetting a few.

Is there anything better than lawn seats to an awesome concert on a perfect summer night? It was warm but not humid with the a light breeze. There weren't even any mosquitoes. Just thousands of people, relaxed, drinking, getting high, dancing, making out and chillin' to the music. There was a girl in the audience with a sign that said, "Finally Legal July 14th." John actually sang an impromptu little song about it. He's totally cool and an incredible musician. I like him more now than I did before. He joked with the girl saying, "So what? Now we can go buy cigarettes together? I'm a little slow, you'll have to draw me a picture." Isn't he cute? I can completely see what Jessica Simpson saw in him, just not what he saw in her. Okay, of course I can see what he saw in her, which is probably why they're no longer dating. I think she'd get on my nerves after a while too. "Is this chicken or tuna? It tastes like tuna but it says 'Chicken of the Sea'."

pH Testing and Fresh Meat

  I did my student teaching in the spring of my senior year. I turned 21 towards the end of that semester and was only a few years older than some of the students. Being a young, female teacher in a high school is a tenuous position indeed. I was smart enough to keep my distance from the students. Those who aren't smart enough to do so put themselves on mighty dangerous ground. The kids, and you really need to see them as kids, want to break down that barrier. They will test, needle and continually make your life a living hell in an attempt to do so. But if you let them you're basically throwing in the towel on your career. (Really you could make the case that a career change would be to the teacher's benefit, but for the sake of argument we'll say it's not in the teacher's best interest.)

I was warned that one of the boys in my tenth grade class had "issues with women." He was notorious for harassing female teachers and had been purposely placed in a male teacher's English class only to have lucky me step in for the semester. "Jason" was a young teacher's worst nightmare. He was just smart enough to be a real pain in the ass. He interrupted constantly, asked for passes to lav so often they had been forbidden him (which of course didn't stop him from requesting them repeatedly). He loved to make a scene and was constantly out of his seat, making inappropriate comments and joking with class mates. As much as I had a terribly difficult time controlling him, I fared better than other women had before me. Jason had made himself notorious among teachers and students in science class a year beforehand. They were doing an experiment using pH strips to test the baseness or acidity of certain substances. Well, Jason found this so interesting that he decided to test the pH of his urine. So right in the middle of class he unzipped his pants and peed on the pH strip. Can you imagine being the teacher trying to handle that situation? As the teacher I was working with explained to me, "If he hasn't whipped it out in front of you yet, you're doing just fine."

Jason was not the only difficult student I had to deal with that semester. I had two seniors that were also a handful. I made the mistake of asking the class if they were going to the Freshman Dance. One of the boys responses was, "Of course, fresh meat," with a devilish grin. To which his friend replied, "Oh not me, Miss Diosa, I like older women," feigning sincerity. I swear I can see how female teachers who weren't popular with boys in high school or maybe even in college can be seduced by a male student. I'm not saying it's right. It's illegal and wrong, wrong, wrong. But if you were say the slightly over-weight wall flower or the nerdy girl with glasses and braces that sat home on Friday nights (luckily I was not) and now you're the young new teacher and the captain of the football team is flirting with you, who is seducing who?

I think we could make a real case for quarantining adolescent boys until they are able to control their hormones and behave in a public arena. At least until they can contain themselves from publicly exposing their genitals at school and referring to freshman girls as "fresh meat." And yes, this would go for my sons too. (As far as flirting with teachers goes, I do see that as the responsiblity of the teacher to squelch immediately.)

P.S. - I feel compelled to confess that Trouble publically exposed himself on the school bus this year, but I do believe we've put an end to that already. At six it's excusable. At fifteen, not so much.

Where are the Women?

Once upon a time there were women, and those women found mates and became mothers. As such, women were viewed as creators, as givers of life. There was Mother Nature, Mother Earth (Gaea), Athena, Aphrodite, Hera and many other female goddesses. There were also male gods and in some religions, like Greek mythology, the leader of the gods was male. But there were many female goddesses and they held a strong, prominent place in religion. And then along came the Roman Catholic Church, and there was only one God and He was male, and the women all but disappeared from religion.

I take major offense at the role women are given in the Bible. There is the lovely Eve who allows sin into the Garden of Eden. There is Mary Magdalene, was she a whore or wasn't she a whore? In some cases referred to as a devoted disciple of Jesus, aren't most of us conditioned to think of her as a prostitute? And then there's the pure and innocent Virgin Mary who I find more offensive than Eve, the bringer of sin, and Mary Magdalene, the questionable whore. There's nothing virginal, serene or innocent about being a mother and I resent motherhood being personified that way. Being a mother is hard, bloody, back-breaking work. It is not happenstance that the early religions related nature and earth to women, it was common sense. Women brought life into the world, it only made sense that the concept of "Creator" was female.

I'm no expert on religion, but I truly believe that Christianity is a religion created by men, for men. This is one reason I found "The Da Vinci Code" so compelling. Now I know it's a work of fiction and I certainly don't take it as fact. But doesn't it make a certain amount of sense? I love the concept that there were women playing an important role back in the day and that it was purposely and consciously taken away from us. Now maybe Mary Magdalene was a prophet and maybe she wasn't, maybe she had Jesus' baby and maybe she didn't. Honestly, those theories are only mildly interesting to me. What I find exciting about the novel is that it brings women back into the forefront of religion. Gives us back a little of the power that was stripped from us.

I loved "The Red Tent" for the same reason. It takes the biblical story of Jacob and his family, told in the voice of Jacob's daughter Dinah, and expounds on it giving the woman's perspective. Dinah is mentioned ever so briefly in the Bible. I'm not about to go look it up, but I believe it's only a few lines that state she was raped by the son of the ruler of Egypt. In the novel we get the whole back story of Dinah, the women that she comes from, the mother and midwife that she becomes, the love and loss she experiences in her life. It's the story or type of story the Bible seems to be so sorely lacking. One that shows a woman and her strength. Now, I suppose you could argue that "The Book of Ruth" does this, but really it seems more a story of how loyalty is rewarded than one that is about women and their strength. And this is just one story in the Bible.

What I'd really like to see in the Bible is an equivalent to the Greek goddess Athena. Athena, daughter of Zeus, goddess of wisdom, war and weaving. I want to see a strong, intelligent woman who plays an important role, a prophet perhaps. A woman who is unquestionably female but also strong and smart and fierce. But alas, this is only a hope, a dream, a fairy tale ending that does not exist.

Apple Anyone?

In a society so harried and full of stress, is it any wonder some of us give in to our vices? Whether it's sex, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, porn, gambling, shop lifting or something I've left out - do any of us not understand the inclination to give in and let pleasure rule our lives? To forget the rules and what's good for us, to not worry about what others will think, not worry about hurting someone's feelings, to forget our responsibilities - to just give in. Of course we judge people harshly for this, and you risk losing everything, including yourself, if you completely surrender. So many of us don't. Many of us try to indulge in these vices moderately, with restraint, because giving in just a little bit is okay. And giving in not at all, well I suppose that's a life for some people.

For most people drinking socially or moderately, even the occasional drunken stupor is okay. And just about everyone has sex, no one's saying that's wrong, but start screwing everyone you meet and you bet you're going to have a reputation. Cigarettes and drugs, of course they're bad for you. But how many of us have been stoned at least once in our lives? And cigarettes while they cause cancer are still legal if you're over 18. I, personally, have never understood gambling. I can't stand to throw money away, but I know for some people it's a real high. And porn, well I know a lot of women in particular seem to feel that porn tends to be offensive and demeaning, but I've always found it a turn on (not in all cases, some porn is demeaning and offensive). I wouldn't want my husband obsessed with it, mind you, but again in moderation . . . . And food can also be a vice and I can be a stress eater too. But seeing as my mouth is killing me from having my braces tightened and I can barely eat, there will be no stress eating here at this moment.

I'm sure you can see the stress is getting to me lately. And the harder I work, the more stressed out I become, the more my vices show their tempting and evil faces. Like the snake luring Eve with the apple in the Garden of Eden, my vices are calling to me offering sweet release and euphoria. They will make me forget my stress with a blissful nicotine high, a hazy drunken stupor, a mind-blowing orgasm. I will temporarily forget my disastrous house, my busy job, my screaming children, the contractor that's been MIA for three days. Oh, how I want to forget all those things right now. I want to lose myself, forget my name and surrender completely. But I will not.

I will try not to pollute my lungs more than I find absolutely necessary. I will not drink myself into oblivion so I am unable to take care of my kids. I will have lots of sex and indulge in porn only with my husband when the kids are already asleep. And once my life finds its normal rhythm again, I will find my release once again in exercise instead of alcohol and cigarettes. (Notice I didn't say anything about giving up the sex and the porn. And the alcohol, of course I mean drink less not stop altogether.)