As I grew up parts of her influence have always remained deep inside.  I have a pension for metal chains, dark eye makeup, and if truth be told my hair for the past few years has been very Joan Jett shag like.  But I’m a grown woman now with children, and a husband, and responsibilities that limit my Joan Jettesqueness to an occasional rock and roll blaze busting out of me in the middle of my living room much to the embarrassment of my children. My dressed in all black rebellion days of the past are far behind me.

However, years ago my husband I had an opportunity to see Joan Jett in concert, an opportunity I had never had living with very strict parents in Oklahoma. My husband worked for a major travel company, and at least once a year we headed to Las Vegas together for his work and our enjoyment. One of the major perks in working within the travel industry is that occasionally you get things like free tickets to amazing shows in Las Vegas.  And while we were at one of our trips to Vegas my husband announced to me that he had scored tickets to see Joan Jett, tickets that I had asked him to purchase earlier that month. I was going to finally see Joan Jett live in all of her glory.

I was beyond excited, but when we got to the window the lady who was supposed to have tickets there waiting for us apparently did not do her job, the show was sold out, and I was denied seeing Joan Jett.  I was heart-broken, and really I never got over it.

Earlier this year as I was doing my training run on a trail that runs right by River Spirit Casino in Tulsa, Oklahoma I saw a giant sign that said, “Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Friday, November 18th.” I let out a yelp that about gave my running partner a heart attack.  After telling her about my love affair with Joan Jett and my denied concert experience, knowing that the 18th was the day before my anniversary, I just knew the Joan Jett concert gods were looking down upon me and that this upcoming concert would be my chance to see Joan Jett live in all of her darkly hypnotic ferociousness.  It would be fantastic.

I immediately called my husband and said, “For our anniversary (November 19th), Christmas, and my birthday (which follows in January) all I want is from you is to buy us tickets to see Joan Jett.”

His response? “OK.”

I reminded 2 more times in the following months to buy the tickets.  He always said, “I got it.”

So a few weeks ago he said to me, “My company’s holiday party is November 18th this year.  I know we had to spend our anniversary last year at the company party, and this year it is happening again, but I have not control over it.  Please add it to your calendar.”

I replied, “I would love to, but that’s the night of the Joan Jett concert.”

There was a huge pause, and I looked up from my computer and saw his face.

He had not bought the tickets.

And when I went to buy the tickets myself later that day?  They were sold out.

Sold.

Out.

Denied.

I was denied again.

DENIED!

Needless to say I was pretty irritated with my husband for this screw up of his. It happens a lot in married couples who have been married a long time; they become lazy. They forget to take the time to remember the one and only thing their spouses have asked for in years. They forget to take time to pay attention. They forget to take three minutes to order two tickets for one concert.

And in my anger I felt my inner Joan Jett emerging from the mist of my soccer mom trappings, busting at the seems, begging to be released and show the world her former glory as one of the “Queens of Noise.” And for a long time I thought about all of the options I could have if I would simply let her out to play.

I also thought about one more option.

It was the option to spend an exorbitant amount of money at the spa, come out feeling all mellow, and categorize this post under a pretty popular Twitter hashtag called #whitegirlproblems.

After all, there really is only one true Joan Jett.  And I am not her.

“Queen of Noise” by The Runaways with a young Joan Jett

So needless to say her father and I this year, 4th grade, when we checked her grades on-line for the first time we were shocked to see that she was suddenly flunking all of her tests. Sure she was getting perfect scores on her daily work, but her test scores were shocking.  We contacted her teacher and her solution? “4th grade is a hard year. She needs to learn to study.”

I did not know how to respond to this as this teacher obviously did not know my child at all. So we set up a parent/teacher conference, and about 5 minutes in we got the “she needs to learn to study” comment again. That’s when I pulled out the tests we’d been collecting and showed that perhaps that it wasn’t that she needed to learn to study. Perhaps she was having reading difficulties as the questions she kept missing? They were styled exactly the same way. Then we got a “Maybe she has a processing disorder. I’ll watch her.”

A little while passed and nothing changed.  So knowing the way the school system works I knew that if I really wanted anything done I had to contact the school counselor.

Warning:  If you were unaware the school counselor acts in a similar way as the HR department in a corporation.  On the outside they present themselves as there to help your child.  But really helping children is their secondary function, and their main function is to protect the school.  It is important that if you ever have experiences with the school counselor you know this fact.

When I contacted the school counselor, I told her about the fact that my super, self-disciplined daughter who loves school went from being a straight A’d student to flunking all of her tests. After receiving my e-mail the school counselor then called my super shy daughter who won’t talk to strangers in to talk to her before talking to me first. She asked her if there was anything in the classroom that bothered her, and of course my daughter says, “No.” She doesn’t know this lady. Why is she suddenly going to open up to her? She’s not.

The counselor then talks to my daughter’s teacher, and the teacher tells her that there might be a processing disorder. It is finally at this point that the counselor contacts me a couple of days after my e-mail. I tell her about my concerns once again. She tells me about what she’s learned from my daughter and her teacher, and she says that they are going to make up a TASK group for my daughter.

A TASK group is a group that basically consists of the school counselor, the child’s teacher, and two random teachers.  They observe your child and look for ways to help your child improve in school.

After several months of observations, if my child has not improved the school moves to the testing stage to see if indeed my child has a processing disorder and needs an IEP. So basically my daughter’s school has figured out they can delay spending the money necessary to help my child through an IEP by putting forth a very, very long observation period. Meanwhile, they allow the child to flounder and get further and further behind. What a great solution that have developed to get past the fact that the Oklahoma government doesn’t give them enough money to function properly.

So the TASK group has been in place for a while now, and quite frankly I see no change what so ever in the way my daughter is being handled in the classroom. I have received zero communication from the school counselor. I have received minimal communication from the teacher, usually started by me. And at home she is studying 2-3 hours a night minimum just to keep up.

My daughter now cries on a regular basis calling herself “stupid,” and last night she told me that she doesn’t want to study any more, and she no longer cares if she passes her tests.

This “evaluation” process that her school as come up with to delay testing has broken her. And my once self-motivated, self-disciplined child?  She’s gone, at least as far as school is concerned.

When talking to my husband last night about this situation he succinctly summed up the problem.

• My daughter was a self-confident, straight A’d student who loved school.
• My daughter is now flunking her tests,  does not care about school, and calls herself “stupid.”
• We at home have done everything we know to do to help her.
• Half of the school year is over.
• We have not seen any change in the classroom since the school got involved.
• We are on the verge of permanent damage when it comes to school and her attitude about it.
• Her Oklahoma school needs to become active now in helping my child, not months from now.

So last night I sent another e-mail requesting an update from the counselor and her teacher.  I offered the “I’m so stupid” comments up as a desperate plea hoping to tear at their heart-strings  so that something would actually happen.  Furthermore, I offered up my own plan for my daughter in the classroom as I feel like they are taking entirely too long to come up with something for my daughter themselves. Hopefully they’ll hear me, will care, and will take some action.

In the mean while I’m researching and talking to experts outside of Oklahoma trying to figure out what to do for my child. Call me cynical. But I just don’t trust that Oklahoma has my child’s best interest at heart.

*****************************************

Update November 15, 2011:  I talked to my daughter’s teacher the day that this posted.  I ran into her at school as I was there to pick her up early for a doctor’s appointment.  She was upset to hear about my daughter crying in the evenings, and verbally went over her science test with her verbally.  She passed.  She also offered to help to tutor her daily,  so that she wouldn’t have to spend so much time at home studying.  I was grateful to have this exchange with her, and was pleased to see that she was concerned.  

I have yet to hear from the school counselor.

But what they don’t tell is you what happens to that skin you feel so comfortable in after you turn forty.

It sags.

It sags and wrinkles.

It sags, wrinkles, and slowly betrays you, exposing your years of abuse to your body.

OK, OK.  Everyone pretty much knows that it wrinkles and sags.  You lose skin elasticity as you age, and many doctors say now also say that the loss of bone density can cause saggy, wrinkly skin.  Most women are prepared for the sags around the face, the boobs, the butt, and the stomach.

But no one talks about the knees.

photo credit: feifeilee

Did you know that they sag and wrinkle too?

I’m going to give you a moment here to absorb this for all of you not to the saggy, wrinkly knee stage.

*****Insert the Jeopardy theme music here*****

It’s pretty traumatic when it happens to you, especially if you’ve always had small legs that look okay in shorts or short skirts.

Saggy knees are especially awkward as unlike your boobs, your butt and your stomach there are no undergarments that can help with the saggy knees.

So what is a woman to do when the knees start sagging, she lives in a place that had 90 to 100 degree temperatures in the summer, and on top of that she is beginning have hot flashes? Should she give up the shorts? Maybe, but here are few other options to try first.

Seven Ways to Minimize Saggy, Wrinkly Knees

1. First thing you can try is exfoliation and moisturizer.  Exfoliation is supposed to expose newer fresher skin cells and moisturizer is supposed to help maintain those pretty new cells. Some even suggest putting a heavy level of moisturizer on and wrapping rags around your knees at night to make it soak in. Now that could be a funny sight for your partner when you come to bed.
2. Drink lots of water. Hydrated skin stays softer and fresher looking.
3. Loose weight slowly.  Give your skin a chance to recuperate by losing those extra pounds the slow, healthy way.
4. Get a massage.  Regular skin treatments from a professional can help get rid of fine lines and wrinkles.
5. Build up the muscle around the knees is another option per the saggy knee experts. I find this pretty funny as many other experts tell you to be careful exercising your knees too much at this age as you have to worry about joint damage. So I guess you’re supposed to work them out, but not too much?
6. Apply sun screen.  So this works great for future skin damage, but yeah…for those of us who already have saggy knees I guess this keeps it from getting worse? I hope so.
7. Use Botox or have knee lift surgery.  Everything I have read about knee lift surgery is not good. Apparently there is no good way to do the surgery because it is impossible to hide a scar which could end up being as ugly if not uglier than saggy knees. Botox might be the better option of the two if you’re not afraid of putting poison in your body. Also, I read that it can help if you have joint issues. A Two-fer! But of course the cost can be something else for Botox. I’ve priced Botox before, and it is not cheap for something that you have to keep repeating.

So what is the actual solution for the combination of saggy, wrinkly knees, hot weather, hot flashes, and shorts?

Accept that you have saggy, wrinkly knees and move on.

Also, you can write a post about saggy, wrinkly knees while feeling grumpy and irritated about it. It won’t really make you feel better, but it might make some other 40-something year old woman feel a little less alone.

Oh excuse me.  I just fell asleep just thinking about him talking about his job.

And for him my job is the same.  He could care less.  It works for us.  After all, we didn’t marry each other for our jobs.

But then I saw this fantastic video by Vera Sweeney, owner of I’m Not Obsessed.com and Lady and the Blog.com, describing the life of a blogger.  After watching I decided that my husband needed to see it in order to motivate him to become more involved with my blogging.

Here’s the video.

Me, “So pretty funny, right?  Isn’t her husband great?”

Him, “Sure.”

Me, “You don’t think it’s funny?”

Him as he is walking out of the room, “It would be funny if it weren’t so real.”

So there you have it.  I don’t think he’ll be joining me at Kellyology any time soon.  Maybe if I offer to join him on an audit or something?

What do you think?

Yeah.  I don’t think so either.

*********************************************************

Disclaimer:  In case you were unaware, the husband was joking and actually laughed out loud at the video, a feat for a man who tells me “I’m laughing on the inside” on a regular basis when I tell him a story that I know is laugh out loud funny.  Yeah.  I’m suspicious of him myself. 

It was at this point a gentleman whose Twitter ID was @AndyBellati decided to jump in and present his point of view.  His bio on Twitter says the following:

Registered Dietitian with whole-food & plant-centric approach. Into sustainable agriculture. Food policy activist. Love to call out food industry nonsense.

So you can completely imagine what his point of view was (don’t eat at restaurants and cook solely at home.) On a superficial level his point of view is one that pretty much anyone could agree with. I mean who doesn’t want their kids to have the best as far as nutrition is concerned?But unfortunately  for most this idea of Andy’s is just completely impractical. “Why?” you ask. Well the easiest way to explain it is to show you my family’s schedule from this Saturday, which should be noted is not an unusual type of daily schedule for my family, with the exception of Sundays which in fact I do insist that everyone gets to sleep until 9am.

• 5:45am  Kelly, aka Mom, gets up, fixes herself an oatmeal, and gets dressed to run.
• 6:15am – 9:45am  Kelly gets picked up by her running carpool, spends 3 hours stretching and running 12 miles, and commuting to and from the running path best suited for long distance running.
• 8:15 – 9:00am David, aka Dad, and the two children get up, eat a fast breakfast, and leave for the soccer fields.
• 9:45am – 10:40am Kelly gets home, takes a fast shower, leaves for the 1st of her children’s soccer games stopping at the drug store to pick up some ibuprofen.  (Muscles were stiffening up after 12 mile run but there was no time for more stretching or an ice bath.)  She arrives late to her daughter’s soccer game and misses the first 10 minutes.
• 9:30am – 12:00pm David, also known as the soccer coach, and the kids are at the soccer fields for warm ups, the first game, and a post game meeting with the parents.
• 12:00am-12:30pm  Team including David and his daughter stops at a fast food restaurant because they only have 30 minutes before they have to drive to a town an hour away for his daughter’s second soccer game of the day.
• 12:30pm – 1:00pm  Mom takes her son and his friend to another store to cram in some more Saturday errands between soccer games.
• 1:00pm – 5:00pm  Dad and daughter go to the town an hour away totaling a 2 hour commute, play another soccer game, and on the way home stop at another store to run another Saturday errand.
• 1:00pm – 3:30pm Mom and son go to the soccer fields for pre-game warm-ups, the game itself as shown by the awesome iPhone picture above, and post-game talks.  Mom has a massive allergy attack despite taking her usual anti-allergy attack medication from being outside in Oklahoma from 6:30am until 4pm and takes two Benadryl pills.
• 3:30pm – 4pm Mom takes son home to change his clothes and then drops him off at a birthday party sleep over.
• 4pm – 7pm  Mom crashes after taking two Benadryl pills, worried as she didn’t have time to finish running her Saturday errands.  She wonders when she’s going to get that task done as being sick puts her behind and the next day’s schedule is full.
• 5pm – 7pm Dad and daughter clean up after being outside all day, eat dinner out with friends while watching football.
• 7pm – 10pm Mom gets up, but is still groggy and is still sick with allergies.  Dad gets daughter out of the house to play with a friend so that Mom can rest.
• 10pm The whole family goes to bed.
• 11pm -12pm The whole family is woken up by an earthquake. We all watch the earthquake coverage on the news.
• 12pm  The whole family goes back to bed.

Now I know what many nutritionists would say. Meals could have been prepared the night before. But think about this. My Saturday was pretty similar to Friday which was pretty similar to Thursday which was pretty similar to Wednesday and on and on and on. Many families are like mine and at what point are they supposed to take hours out of their days to grocery shop well, plan, and pre-cook meals with a schedule like that? They can’t.

There is no time.

So when McDonald’s asks what they can do to make life better for their consumers I for one am glad for the help. And to persons who demand perfection from families and offer a non-tolerance attitude towards those of us who are really truly doing pretty great as is I have one piece of advice.

If you want to change the world and make it a better place, take some time to get to know your audience who you seem to want to reach. Step inside of their shoes and try to fully understand the lives that they and most like them live. Until you completely understand that lifestyle, you have no business passing judgment. Furthermore until you completely understand that lifestyle, your advice will always need some work.

This post perked my interest for two reasons. The first of which is that the person being interviewed was a woman blogger from Oklahoma I used to follow when I first began blogging. She was one of the first nationally popular Oklahoma bloggers that I knew of, yes, before Pioneer Woman, who was really doing a great job of representing my home state, but like so many before her she rarely enters the blogging world these days due to personal reasons unknown to me. I was curious to see what she had to say in her interview.

The second reason I was interested was a little more complicated. You see I’ve been sitting on a post for a little while now. It’s a post that causes me to pause as I discuss something very near and dear to my heart, but because I know my opinion does not agree with many who live locally near me I fear of the ramifications of making public my more non-mainstream ideals concerning this very emotionally charged topic. Because of this I was curious to hear how this former Oklahoma blogger found the courage to write about another emotionally charged, controversial subject.

Shannon Lowe’s, the Oklahoma blogger’s, explanation was very simple.

“I find it frustrating that there is so much “shouting” over this issue (on both sides). I wanted to speak my piece in a way that was reasoned and calm.”

And like her I too want to present a reasonable piece that carefully expresses my opinion about my own personal subject. And I believe I successfully did so. The problem is I cannot bring myself to hit the publish button.

The Risk of Blogging About Controversial Subjects

These days when hitting the publish button, I can’t help but think about the ramifications of each and every post that I publish. Because of the heavy monetization of blogging I think this happens to many after you have been blogging for a while and have developed a pretty solid readership. I have known bloggers who have lost sponsors and paid writing gigs because they offended the wrong people with their posts. It didn’t matter how reasonable their opinions were, the topic was just too controversial and people who pay bloggers either cannot or will not take the risk of being perceived as supporting the wrong side.

But for me what also worries me is that in the piece I’m hesitating to publish I am discussing a subject that is mostly locally focused. I know that many of my friends, neighbors, and others near me read my blog. I worry about being ostracized locally as people take my opinions in this post, either wrongly or rightly, personally. Having been through a period in my life in which several friends became extremely angry over what I have said on my blog and simply cut me off rather than having a frank discussion over what had upset them, I am always aware of how my writing affects others who are reading my blog. But more importantly I worry about how the results of my writing can affect my husband and my kids. Sure it is fine for me to deal with such ostracization alone, but other’s previous behaviors also affected my husband and my kids. I always think about my family when I choose to hit that publish button.

The risk in such a local incident happening again has always ridden in the back of my mind with every post that I have written for the past few years. And for many other bloggers the risk they took caused them to lose much more than just a few friends. I’ve seen people lose jobs, and in the worst example I have ever seen I saw a blogger lose a foster child that she was trying to adopt. The risk of being completely transparent, even while trying to be “reasoned and calm,” seems just so great these days as blogs have become so mainstream.

Blogging and Self-Censorship – The Questions

As the interview with Shannon Lowe went in a different direction, it did not cover these worries that I have in my mind and that I so often struggle with regarding self-censorship, blogging, and the ramifications concerning being transparent on your blog. So I’m asking you,

How you handle writing about controversial subjects?

Do you hesitate when you hit publish?

Do you simply avoid controversial subjects all together?

Do outside forces such as money, advertisers, local pressures cause you to censor yourself?

Is there such a thing as a truly free personal blog any more?

I have to think that it does not. But I could be wrong.What do you think?

What I found through participating is that forcing yourself to write daily is pretty tough, and by the end of NaBloPoMo I was ready to be done with writing for a while.  However, I also found that writing everyday like that proved to be really beneficial to my writing as like with sports or music, the daily practice really improved my writing chops.   Like myself others improved as well, and I found my google reader to be expanding by ten-fold, a fact I really enjoyed and also a fact that over the years has improved my own blogging experience.   I really enjoy reading what others have to say, and I feel challenged by good writing.

This time around, however, I’m looking for different things out of NaBloPoMo.  Sure it is still challenging to force yourself to write daily, especially in the month of November which for me is filled with holiday goodness.  But I thought that with the re-launch of Kellyology it would be a good idea to get back into the habit of writing for the sake of writing.  Too often these days I think about the writing, but I’m also thinking about S.E.O., networking, getting paid to write, etc. And sure NaBloPoMo can be about writing while still focusing about the business of blogging, but here on Kellyology I’m going to try to forget about the business of blogging and focus on just the writing.  I want to see what it feels like to be back in the place where I just wrote to write.  Sure it may not be possible to get back to that place.  Perhaps too much time has passed, and I’ve developed too many business blogging habits.  But I’d like to try, and the why is best summarized by answering NaBloPoMo’s challenge writing prompt of today.

What is your favorite part about writing?

My favorite part about writing is what I call The After.  The After is the place where you exist after you are done putting forth your best effort to produce something good, something that takes a little piece of you and exposes your underbelly, forcing you to feel things that maybe you hadn’t felt in a while.

I used to be a musician, and every once in a while a piece of music that I would play would create huge emotional response for me.  It was as if I had turned on a fire hose from inside of my belly, and pouring out would be all of the pent-up emotions, frustrations, and joy that I had. When I was done after such an experience I would feel at peace and I would feel free, probably the most peaceful freedom I had ever felt.  Back during my beginning blogging years I used to get that feeling quite frequently.  The After probably is one of my favorite places to be.  But like all perfect moments, The After is only sometimes reached and these days is often difficult for me to find.

By participating in NaBloPoMo this month I’m going to try to once again find The After through my writing.  I’m going to try to dedicate this blog to writing only, forgetting about business of blogging just for a little while, just for the month of November.  I want to see if I still can write for writing’s sake, and I am really excited to see what comes flying out of my fire hose this time.