Tonight my daughter and I had a girls night out. We decided to go to the movies instead of going OUT out ’cause she’s really over the whole bar scene.

So ANYWAY… When we first got into the crowded  theater, I looked around and thought I spied two seats together up high so we walked up there. Well, fuckity fuck…there were NO seats right next to each other AT ALL.  We were going to walk back down and get some of those seats awesome seats like three feet from the screen when I heard someone whispering loudly. I looked and this guy was gesturing to the seat next to him as he got up and moved him and his kid down, thus creating two empty seats for us.

I’m always floored by such little acts of kindness. I mean, really, most people would have down um…NOTHING. I considered showing my gratitude by sitting on his lap and making out with him but, you know, we had our kids there and I’m all about the family values and whatnot.

We saw The Tooth Fairy and I have to be honest, it really didn’t suck like I thought it would. Of course, I was unduly influenced beforehand by a bunch of reviews that gave it, like, two stars. But it was cute and The Rock is adorable—inasmuch as a gigantic, musclebound man with a slightly pointy head can be adorable.

It was chock full of hijinx and shenanigans and feelgoodyness and a few life lessons thrown in for good measure (don’t piss all over other people’s dreams!!!). Oh, and some hockey, which is one of the few sports I can actually stand to watch and mainly served to remind me that I CAN’T WAIT FOR THE WINTER OLYMPICS!!!

So after the movie, I profusely thanked the dad who made room for us and then the guy on the other side of us tried to chat me up about how he really wanted to see this OTHER movie but since he had his 4 year old with him he had to see The Tooth Fairy and well, you know, it wasn’t so bad but the next chance he gets he’s so seeing the movie with the black guy whose name he can’t remember but you know, it’s definitely gonna be an AMAZING flick and I should see it, too—except the title of it is STILL escaping him… And right about then my nine year old date starts poking me and loudly telling me she’s ready to go. Thank God for perceptive little girls…

So while we were having a girls movie night, my husband and son were at one of those monster truck things at the stadium. A friend of ours had some extra tickets that he bought LAST YEAR (because that’s when you get the REALLY GOOD SEATS apparently) so he took them along with him and his kids.

Honestly, I always thought those things were for, like, the easily amused and/or white trash people (don’t give me that stinkeye…only recently I had not one but TWO non-working refrigerators sitting outside my house so I’m ALLOWED to use terms like ‘white trash’ with impunity) but my friend with the extra tickets isn’t white trash and neither is Mayopie, who also recently attended a monster truck event.

I was wrong. Monster truck events are clearly the domain of a wide range of folks, including but not limited to middle class parents and their spawn. I apologize for misjudging said events as magnets for rednecks, toothless people and those with lower IQ’s. Please don’t hurt me.

Well, my husband and son got home around 11pm and they both fell promptly asleep. My son I can totally understand—it’s hours past his bedtime. My husband’s sleepiness, however, is most likely attributable to vile, horribly overpriced, pee colored American beer *shudder*

Tomorrow is the Superbowl and just to show you how serious I am about avoiding televised sports (except for the Winter Olympics which totally effing RULE), I have no earthly idea who’s even IN the Superbowl this year. WIN!

Lately, I’ve been lost in my head. Daydreaming. Longing. Wishing I had a time machine or some such device that would let me be young again. It’s not that I want to relive my youth; my glory days, per se. I don’t want to repeat history — I got my ya ya’s out before settling down, had a good long stint of married life before having kids. Theoretically, I did everything right and yet, I find myself wishing for something I’ll never have again — a carefree life; a life where the future is but a vague concept; a life where now is the only thing that matters.

I want to get dressed up to go out at midnight. I want to drink without worrying about a hangover. I want to be reckless. I want to sneak backstage and party with the band. I want to hang out of a car window while screaming my head off. I want to go to late night after parties and make out with someone cute that I’ll never see again. I want to go out to breakfast at 4am and giggle uncontrollably because my friends are tripping too hard to order. I want to befriend strangers and have deep conversations with them over too many drinks and too many cigarettes. I want my posse of crazy girlfriends and all the drama that comes with them. I want to flirt with lanky, long-haired boys that have no money or prospects. I want to take roadtrips without any advance planning and too many people in the car. I want to be seduced. I want to get love letters. I want bootycalls. I want to have an urgent need to go to the record store because I just heard the most amazing song. I want to live on pizza and saltine crackers. I want to be idealistic again. I want to be as skinny as I was when I thought I was fat. I want to come home at dawn with five friends in tow, pile onto my bed and sleep with them. I want to feel the feeling of having a crush. I want to feel that feeling of kissing someone in a way that makes you ache with desire. I want to rage against the machine. I want to LIVE.

It’s not that I hate the life I have. I wouldn’t change it for anything. But at heart, I’m a restless soul. I always want more from life than is possible. And this thing…this daydream that won’t stop, this longing — how do I make it go away?

You can call it whatever you want — a mid-life crisis, a housewife’s lament, whatever.

Just tell me I’m not the only one who’s ever felt this way.

I know you turn to Craigslist to find a bargain (unless you’re one of those jackasses that posts nekkid pix of yourself from your Grandma’s bathroom…the crocheted poodle toilet paper cover is a dead giveaway, just in case you were wondering how I knew you were at your Grandma’s house perving it up in her bathroom. Also, FYI, pictures taken in your nasty ass bedroom with the Whitesnake poster on the wall OR a Spongebob blanky anywhere in sight? NOT HOT )

Anyway, I know you folks want to save a few bucks so you look around on Craigslist but seriously, you need to KNOW a few things…

If I’m selling 60 pieces of name-brand girls clothing, all in excellent condition and I’m only asking $20, which, for the math-impaired, is 33¢ an item, I’m NOT taking pictures of every single item and I’m NOT going to answer stupid questions about every item and I’m NOT going to sell it to you for five fucking dollars—especially when I know your sorry cheap ass is probably going to turn around and sell it on eBay anyway. Which is fine. I fucking hate eBay so better you than me. But I’d give it to Goodwill before I’d let you have it for that—go buy it from them. I mean really…have you NO shame? I’d be embarrassed to ask people to give me a SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT price break…

The same goes for the Little Tikes Craftsmen Tool Bench. Dude…it’s in mint condition and I’m asking twenty dollars for it. Do NOT send me an email asking if I’ll take five for it.  Is there anything in my listing that says this is “Let’s Make a Really Shitty (for me) Deal?” If you seriously can’t afford more than five bucks, maybe you should SELL YOUR COMPUTER (I’ll give you five bucks for it) and get rid of your internet service instead of lowballing people on Craigslist all day long.

And finally, for all you assholes that bug the living crap out of me and beg me to not sell my stuff to someone else and then don’t show up… I wish you a scorching case of genital herpes with a nice sprinkling of genital warts. I mean you clearly have a phone, since you called me 17 times to make sure I hadn’t sold the item(s) you so desperately wanted. How about picking up said phone and letting me know you won’t be coming? I might even be nice and understanding and NOT wish you a lifetime of oozing blisters and weird bumpy things on your nether regions. But if you offer me five dollars? All bets are off.

As ever,
Iz

Honestly, I don’t get it. I don’t understand why these  good people have to suffer so much. I know there’s some kind of order to the universe and I know everything happens for a reason—but as a puny little human, it makes no sense to me at all.

Nonetheless, I refuse to give up hope that my friend will be okay. Hope is all we have sometimes and to give it up is just not in my nature…so numerous times a day, I ask the universe, God and anyone else who might be listening to heal her, to make her be okay, to bring her back to us.

Sometimes I even have conversations with Anissa, imagining that her compromised state has given her the ability to tune into the universal radio and hear all the prayers for her AND the messages we’re all sending her to keep fighting. I also like to throw in a few jokes and remind her of all the fun things we’ve done this past year. I even told her not to be too annoyed about missing New Moon in the theater because, like Twilight, it’s supposed to be pretty crappy and when she’s better, I’ll come over and we can watch it on the sofa and totally make fun of it together.

Mostly, though, I just beg her to not give up because the world needs her back, that her family needs her back and that her friends miss her like crazy.

I’m not an outwardly emotional person.

That doesn’t mean I won’t tear up at an ASPCA commercial or shed a tear of pride watching my daughter perform in her school talent show or that I’m not a deeply sensitive person underneath it all.

I just reach a point where I don’t feel like my tears and emotions are helping the situation and I slip, involuntarily, into business-mode. Just the facts, ma’am—my tweets will not be overly gushy and rife with sentiment about Anissa and my blog posts will be mostly well-tempered brain dumps.

But underneath my well-tempered exterior is someone who feels a lot, sometimes too much, and is terribly sad for my friend. I will NEVER understand why she has to go through this. Again.

Please think of Anissa every day and send her your thoughts of strength and encouragement. She is SO MUCH MORE than just a cause of the month—Anissa is our friend and loved one—PLEASE don’t forget about her. She needs you now more than ever.

Updates on Anissa’s recovery can be found here: Hope4peyton.org

Anissa and I at BlogHer 09

This is a post that I really don’t want to write. But yet, I have to because Anissa Mayhew is a special person in my life and I can’t NOT do this.

If you don’t know already, Anissa suffered a massive stroke on Tuesday, Nov 17.  She is in the hospital, in the intensive care unit, and it seems the whole world is waiting for her to wake up. There have been some signs of progress but I will not fully exhale until she does.

Anissa came into my life about a year and a half ago and she literally appeared out of nowhere. She left me a few blog comments and when I saw that she lived in my city, I was halfway psyched and halfway freaked out because hello? IN MY CITY.

Soon after, she hit me up on Twitter and before I knew it, we were making plans via email to drive to the regional BlogHer conference in New Orleans (since I had missed the BlogHer 08 conference in San Francisco due to a broken foot). That conference ended up getting canceled but it didn’t matter. We became fast friends regardless and one road trip to Orlando later, it was like we’d been friends for years.

Anissa always jokes that she stalked me before befriending me and I always say that I’m glad she did. We’ve had this same exchange more times than I can count and my answer will always be the same.

Why? Because Anissa is one of THOSE people. You know…the kind that make everything fun, even when it sucks;  the kind that everyone wants to be around; the kind that has never met a stranger and makes everyone feel welcome.

But also? Because she gets me. She understands all my idiosyncrasies and she makes me feel loved in spite of them.

I know I’m not special. We’re very close friends but Anissa makes EVERYONE feel loved and THAT is why there is such an outpouring of  support for her. Because every person she comes in contact with is touched by her bright spirit, generous heart and of course her ability to ALWAYS make you laugh. If you read Aiming Low or  follow her on Twitter, you already know about Anissa’s trademark gift of humor…

The world is, quite simply, a darker place without Anissa actively being a part of it. She has three amazing kids—Peyton, her youngest, just one year into remission of childhood cancer—and they need her. Her husband? Needs her. Her friends? Need her. We ALL need her.

In addition to all her other sterling qualities, however, Anissa is, hands down, one of the strongest women I know and thus, I have to believe that she will fight her way back to us. Again.

It may take a year. It may take two years. But she WILL BE BACK. And I cannot wait because I miss her SO. DAMN. MUCH.

I know not everyone is into praying. I know some feel like they have to be religious to pray. I’m here to tell you that you don’t. All thoughts are a form of energy and when a large number of people focus that energy on one thing, it DOES make a difference.

So please—pray for Anissa, send positive thoughts to her, dance naked under a full moon for her; light a candle in her name; do whatever positive thing it is that YOU do…for our friend Anissa.

For the most current updates on Anissa’s condition, please check Hope4Peyton. For the PO Box address and other info on how you can help the Mayhews, please visit her Caring Bridge site.

11/21/09

My most recent post about Anissa can be found here.

11/20/09

For the most current updates on Anissa’s progress, please check her blog, Hope 4 Peyton. Anissa’s husband will be updating as necessary.

•••

As you may have heard, Anissa, our beloved friend and leader here at Aiming Low, suffered a massive stroke on Tuesday afternoon. She is in the hospital right now, in the ICU.

More than anything, Anissa needs your prayers and positive thoughts but to the many people who have offered help to the Mayhew family, here is some info on what you can do:

Things that would be helpful right now are gift cards (AMEX and Visa are most flexible) or gift cards to restaurants and the movies or to Blockbuster (to help keep the kids’ occupied).

If you would like to give a restaurant gift card, the following restaurants are local to them: Chick Fil A, Beef O’Brady’s, Hooter’s, Applebee’s, Moe’s, Ruby Tuesday, Red Lobster, Cracker Barrel, Panera Bread, Sonny’s, Burger King, Zaxby’s, McDonald’s, Subway.

A P.O. Box has been set up to receive any items you wish to send, the address can be found below. Please don’t send anything to the hospital or the Mayhew home. If you have questions, please email helpforanissa@gmail.com

We ask that you please respect the Mayhew family’s privacy by NOT calling the hospital and we thank you all SO MUCH for your outpouring of love and support for Anissa and her family.

With thanks and love,
IzzyMom & the Aiming Low Team

If you would like to send something to Anissa and her family, we have set up a P.O. Box.

The Mayhew Family
860 Johnson Ferry Road 140-184
Atlanta, GA 30342

Please consider making a donation to the Mayhew Family to help with costs.
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Posts about Anissa. Please add yours to the list:

My husband and I were in bed watching the Doctor Who special (yes, we’re geeks and I kinda love David Tennant so SHUT IT) and this particular story was set in the year 2059.

I didn’t give the year 2059 a second thought until my husband randomly noted out loud that our daughter will be 59 in 2059.

For some reason I was compelled to do the math in my head and I realized I would be 92 in 2059. And most likely dead.

I will be dead someday. Intellectually, I KNOW this. But for some reason it hit me particularly hard.

There will come a day that my kids are very much grown up and I won’t be here.

And I really wanted to cry.

……

Want a peek behind the veil? Want to see how I REALLY live? Go here…

As I was saying, I’ve been busy. I went with eight other Aiming Low team members to Boston and New York and we hosted a couple really great parties with HP. We worked hard, we played hard and it was awesome. But alas, all good things must end so I came home after being gone for six days and had to hit the ground running. Apparently, life goes on even when I’m not here and shit continues to pile up when I’m not around to deal with it.

Okay, I know I got back 13 days ago already. Since then, I’ve just been playing catch up and trying to be a better mom and wife to my always understanding family. I haven’t quite achieved that goal but hello? I’m an Aiming Low girl. That should say it all…

We miss you, Maddie

Far more important than anything I’ve been doing for the past several weeks—today is Maddie Spohr’s second birthday. Maddie passed away on April 7, 2009 and she is missed terribly by so many. If you would like to do something to commemorate Maddie’s life and this special day, please consider a donation to Friends of Maddie, a charitable organization established in her memory. Friends of Maddie provides much-needed support to the families of critically ill babies in hospital neonatal intensive care units.

Before I go any further, though, let me ask if you, as a parent, make a habit of letting your 5-7 year olds (or even 8-10 year olds) watch movies like Nightmare on Elm Street or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Friday the 13th or Saw or Hostel? I’m sincerely hoping the answer is no and I’m just going to assume that the vast majority of you are responsible parents who would never do something so reprehensible.

So, that said, you probably wouldn’t be able to explain to me WHY THE EVER LOVING HELL why the aforementioned national party store chain is selling Freddy Krueger (of Nightmare on Elm Street) and Jason (Friday the 13th) costumes for FIVE to SEVEN year old kids and Leatherface (of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) masks for children?

Can you tell me? Because I sure as hell can’t figure it out. In any case? It’s messed. the fuck. up.

5-7 years old??? Even 8-10 yrs old is effed up.

Fits Most CHILDREN???

Nice

And riddle me this…even if you haven’t let your kids see these movies but you DO buy them the costume, out of some kind of twisted nostalgia, I assume, WHAT do you tell them their costume is, exactly? Do you say “Oh, Leatherface is this guy in a movie that dismembers and kills tons of people with a chainsaw. Oh, and his mask? It’s made from the skin of his victims!”?

I mean seriously, I’d LOVE to know.

And yes, it’s very likely that I AM judging you for that. I admit it.

But I’m judging the store that sells this crap for little kids even more more harshly—what the hell are they thinking?

—–

On a lighter note, me and mah girls from Aiming Low are having a couple of awesome parties in Boston & New York next week with amazing swag bags and BIG ticket item giveaways from HP. Come join us. I PROMISE  you’ll have fun!

Let me preface this story by saying we have every parental control available set on our TV. I’m a firm believer that kids are exposed to too much too soon in this world and I do everything I can to slow that down. They’re children. They’re just not equipped to process and understand so much of what is freely available on TV and every time ANY child is exposed to violence, sex or other adult-oriented things, I honestly believe it chips away at their innocence and shortens their childhood a bit.

So anyway…my gripe with Verizon’s On-Demand service is that when you go to the On-Demand menu, they immediately start showing trailers for movies that are otherwise blocked by the parental controls I’ve set. The trailers themselves ought to be rated R based on their content.

So here I am, scrolling to get to the kid and family movies and they’re showing trailers for shit like “Last House on the Left” If you’re not familiar with that film (the original OR the remake) it’s a delightful story about rape, torture and revenge. Of course, that’s not the only completely inappropriate trailer that’s come on while my kids are sitting beside me hoping to find “Horton Hears  Who” or “Wall-E” or whatever. It’s just the one that finally made me Lose. My. Shit.

My odyssey into the world of corporate buck-passing started with a phone call to Verizon customer support. I demanded to know how to change my settings so we won’t have to be a captive audience and watch said previews while searching for children’s entertainment. I’m told, “Sorry!  There is no way to do that”.

Not satisfied, I comb Verizon’s web sites searching for some kind of venue in which I can file a complaint. Nothing but a general form that limits you to 700 characters—gah.  I leave a message asking someone to contact me. They do. I tell them my issue. They say they’ll have someone call me.

They do. I tell the person who calls me my issue. They can’t help me. They transfer me to someone else.

They can’t help me. They transfer me to someone else.

That guy says he’s NEVER heard anyone complain about the trailers on On-Demand before. I tell him I find that hard to believe. He tells me there is no venue for a complaint like mine and to basically GIVE UP.

Infuriated, I ask to speak to someone else. I get thrown back into the customer service phone hell that I originally called and I tell my whole story AGAIN and of course,  (everyone say it with me!) THEY CAN’T HELP ME.

I ask to speak to a supervisor.

I’m told by the supervisor that my best bet is to send a letter via snail mail. I tell her that’s not good enough because my letter will end up in a stack of other letters, I will never hear from anyone and that will be it.

She is sympathetic and says she will have HER supervisor call me on Monday. (Shockingly, nobody ever calls me)

That same day, I get on Twitter and start raising a stink about being given the run around by Verizon, about how their customer service is terrible, about how I have a legitimate complaint that involves children and families. I include every official Verizon username on Twitter in my 140 character diatribes. I figure if Dooce can use Twitter to make Maytag jump through hoops of fire and replace her lemon of a dryer, maybe little old me can get someone from Verizon to at least HEAR ME.

Nothing happens. Nobody from Verizon replies.

A week later, someone from Verizon FINALLY replies to one of my tweets.

I ask them point blank how to block the trailers on On-Demand so that they reflect the settings on our parental controls. I expect the same answer I’ve been given over and over  (sorry, that can’t be done!) but I figure it’s worth putting it out there and getting it on SOMEONE’S radar screen so maybe someday they will change that.

Well, lo and behold, he sends me back a link and says “this will tell you how to do it”.

I follow the link and it takes me to a page on the Verizon site and there it says that “And recently some have been e-mailing us here to say that they object to some of the things that are out there” (that’s not what it said when I went there last month—they’ve majorly edited the page and completely changed the wording) and how they are super duper concerned about shielding children from inappropriate content yada yada—and here is how you change it…instructions follow. I try it and it works. But I also note that the option to block promotional material absolutely DID NOT EXIST previously in that menu

Also? It says THIS, which I can assure you is wholly inaccurate (also known as BULLSHIT). They showed whatever they damn well pleased without a second thought to who might be watching for the entire three years that we’ve had their service. THREE YEARS:

First, let me note that Verizon has long had a policy that we will not air questionable content in our on-demand trailers.  We edit out mature content, and try to keep our on-demand trailers family-friendly.  In a few cases where that policy was not followed, we made changes as soon as we were aware of the problem.

So anyway, I go back and look at the date on the post on the Verizon site and it’s exactly ONE WEEK after I spent 2 hours on the phone with a minimum of five Verizon employees being told repeatedly that there was NO WAY to do this and that NOBODY else had ever complained about this issue. ONE WEEK after being told someone would call me on Monday (and never did) and ONE WEEK after I twittered myself silly addressing all available Verizon usernames.

Call me arrogant, call me delusional, call me Don Motherfucking Quixote if you want but I firmly believe that *I* made Verizon change their system. If there was no way to do it before and NOBODY had ever complained about it before, according to THEM, then it was me. *I* brought this issue to their attention and *I* made them fix it and honestly, I’m way proud of myself for not giving up on this and I’m even prouder to have proven that one little voice CAN make a difference.

But really, I can’t take full credit. Some of it goes to the Verizon rep who told me to GIVE UP…  So THANK YOU, O’ STUPID VERIZON GUY. I owe at least a fraction of my awesomeness to you.