My Most Memorable Halloween

B-52’s

I went to one Halloween party about 22years ago. It was so much fun, my great friend at the time Phillip, I loved him so much, took the entire afternoon dressing me up as the red head from the B-52's. I had this great sparkly little black dress and my hair which is really thick and wavy was pretty long back then, Phillip took my hair and put it up into a beehive hairdo, he must have used two bottles of hair spray. It was great! It took me a whole day to get my hair back to normal.

Herman Cain Sexual Harassment Accusations: GOP Presidential Candidate Denies Politico Report

I read the article in Politico and according to the journalist­, when he asked Mr. Cain outside the Face The Nation studio’s if he had ever sexually harassed women? Mr. Cain stopped, stared at him for a few minutes and then responded with the question to the reporter, “Have you ever sexually harassed a woman?” He then left. What does that say about Mr. Cain, that once again when he doesn’t know an answer such as who is the President of Uzbekistan­, he will turn the question back onto the questioner­? If this is true, I find it doubly troubling that he would have such low opinion of women on top of the fact that he would deny access to an abortion to a victim of rape and incest. What kind of person can think that way? And couch the anti-abort­ion belief behind religion, religion doesn’t allow for sexual harassment­, as far as I know.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

What percentage of who you are is genetics and how much are your choices?

Tags

genetics, life choices, postaday2011

Are you who you are because of your genetics, how you were raised and/or your choices, are they equal amounts? I think that you can probably bet on 30/30/30. I know that I have a lot of my father’s traits and mannerisms. My great-aunt Georgette who adored my father and me, loved telling me how much I was like my father. She babysat both of us when we were young. My grandmother was nineteen when my father was born and my great-aunt never had children, so she doted on my father and when I was born, she loved my mother like a daughter, and was thrilled for my father that he found such a lovely young lady for a wife. So when my mother had me, my great-aunt volunteered to watch me whenever she could, which was all the time.

I digress, so my love of reading, my stubbornness, my sense of adventure are the qualities that I inherited from my father. I’m sure that I inherited much more, but those are the ones that I’ve been told about. These are the basic building blocks that I had to work with, then if you add the way my mother raised me, you get another piece of the puzzle that makes me, me.

My father wasn’t the disciplinarian, he was a presence, yes, but my mother raised me. She was the boss and her way wasn’t to guide, it was to enforce. Since I had an easy time with school, my mother would not accept anything else less than an A. If I came home with a B, no excuses, it was 3 weeks of being grounded. I don’t know if doing well in school all throughout my academic career was more about pleasing my mother or if I wanted it for myself. I know that I still crave my mother’s approval even to this day. I wonder at times, how much of my need to please people is in a result of my own personality, or if it’s a result of my mother’s call for excellence and never saying good job or well done.

My own choices have determined my further development in my adulthood. My first serious choice as an adult is when I agreed to my marriage proposal, I was 22 when I got engaged and 23 when I got married. I made a firm decision in my mind to separate from my parents and embrace life as a part of another unit, mine and my husbands. Not to say that it was all flowers and song, for some strange reason, my husband and my mother have many similar qualities. Just be sure to never tell them that, each one will be very, very put out and insulted.

Aside from that and a few other challenges, marriage has been a growth experience. I’ve developed a great deal of patience and learning to really let things go, choosing my battles very carefully. I should specify that I am speaking of 21 years of marriage, this has been a long process of growth and learning, as much or even more on his end than on mine. Because, honestly in the grand scheme of things, life is simply too short and in my opinion, the family is everything. As long as you are focused on the same goal, the family, that is what counts. We all love each and we are on the same side, that is the basic denominator. I’ve also never had to deal with an issue such as infidelity in my marriage so I can’t say how I would respond to that challenge. I won’t even try to surmise, you never know until you are in that dreadful moment.

Overall, I think the ratio of 30/30/30 is an accurate measurement, since one is more than the sum of one’s genetics, nurture and nature play important roles in providing the foundation where one then furthers the process by the choices made and the experiences one lives through which makes you change, grow or stay the same. At the end, I think the personal choices become more influential when one is no longer under parental care and one knows themselves.

A Risk Worth Taking

WordPress forums

I don't know if most will consider this a risk, but I'm extremely glad that I took the plunge and signed up for a blog on Word Press. I have been writing faithfully everyday, I'm a member of postaday2011, and I'm going to participate in National November Novel Writing Month. I've written about personal things which for me is a risk but I'm happy to say that all this writing has served me really well.

TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

Jason, please don’t apologize. You are sacrificin­g yourself for our benefit, we are thankful. Remember, 15 minutes of listening and decipherin­g Governor Perry would tax any rational man early in the morning. Perry can’t deny the fact that when governing, your actions often belie your campaign rhetoric. His choices on immigratio­n were shaped by the geography of his state.Ther­e is a big difference in the reality of Texas versus that of Massachuse­tts. As governor you are required to balance your states budget, if you have to make the real tough decision of accepting federal funds to plug the hole then you do so for the good of your state. If you don’t have the courage to stand up and say that it was a real politik decision for your state, then that is your problem and you don’t have the intestinal fortitude to be President of the United States.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Do you think that Shakespeare existed?

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postaday2011

My first encounter with Shakespeare was when I was about 13 or so, I was home alone searching for something new to read to pass the time. My parents had a beautiful bookcase that housed all their books. I went through all those books until the only book left unread was the Complete Works of Shakespeare. I picked The Tempest as my first reading, I didn’t get very far but it did interest me enough to push me to continue reading on my own and then I took Shakespeare as my English elective in Senior year.

My professor was great, the first order of business was teaching us the Shakespearean language. Once I mastered the language, I was even a bigger fan. My professor taught us that Shakespeare was the everyman of the time period, that he had a great sense of humor and was committed to addressing the common people as well as the nobles of the time. There wasn’t even a question of his existence.

When I was at N.Y.U, I took advantage of the study abroad program during the summer of my sophomore year to go to the University of London where I took British Art and Shakespeare. I was so fortunate to have had the privilege of seeing Jeremy Irons as Richard the Second, Derek Jacobi in the Merchant of Venice, which he performed at the Shakespearean theater at Stratford upon Avon and Anthony Hopkins as Anthony in Anthony and Cleopatra. I must add that I also was lucky enough to have seen A Midsummer’s Night Dream performed under the stars in Regent’s Park.

With all these experiences with Shakespeare, I believe in his existence. Shakespeare could have been a woman, I don’t care. All that counts in my book is that the material exists, it is wonderful to listen to, wonderful to behold on stage, wonderful to think about and write about. It has stood up to the test of time, something that trumps the question of whether or not Shakespeare really existed.

In the end, I believe that the question is just another part of the legacy, something else to add to the conversation. As long as it doesn’t detract from the brilliance of the material and it being performed for future audiences, what is the harm in speculating? I don’t have to worry because as I have said, I believe in Shakespeare.

How do you know when it’s time to go?

Tags

postaday2011

Nowadays, I know it is time to go when I’m yawning or my brain starts disengaging from the conversation and all I can think about is going home to lay down. Gone are the days when there wasn’t a time to go, when time didn’t really have any meaning. All that mattered was the here and now, a great conversation between friends or someone just met. When personal chemistry was a powerful component in relationships. Those days have been replaced by a husband of many years, two children who occupy my thoughts and heart, pets who need my attention as much as the children do. I am not saying that personal chemistry isn’t important any more, it has just been tempered by a new appreciation for rest and sleep in order to replenish these older bones and brain cells.

I remember the weekends during college when, even though there was work the next day on Sunday at Conran’s-Habitat, my friends and I weren’t worried, we were having too good of a time talking and laughing. By 6:00 in the morning, it was time for breakfast, coffee than shower, get ready for work and off to the store to sell furniture to customers in the village right at Astor Place. A good conversation outweighed the need for sleep in those days. Nowadays, with age comes awareness of my limitations. It isn’t that a good conversation has diminished in value, I just need to have these conversations during the daytime so that I can be awake for them and appreciate them.

Isn’t it amazing what a change two decades makes, physically, emotionally and mentally? Does anyone ever correctly predict how their future will turn out? All the choices, risks and paths taken and somehow you end up where you are, it could be good or it could be disappointing. The question is, were the times spent in putting off leaving the party worth it? I say yes, because without those experiences, good or bad, they make up the who you are now. It is always better to be here than nowhere. As long as you are here, than there is always the possibility of something, anything, be it more of the same or something new. It is up to us to decide, to stay or leave or just be.

My Favorite Scary Movie

Day 88 – Scary Movie

I don't have a favorite because I really dislike scary movies. My dreams by themselves are very intense and I remember them all so I don't need any help from scary movies. I like my dream world as it is, calm and soothing, I do not need or want any nightmares disturbing my sleep.

The Voices of Occupy’s March Against the Millionaires

What is great about the whole movement and already one enormous win for the 99% is the redirectio­n of the national conversati­on towards lack of jobs, income inequality­, crony capitalism and more. Another exciting aspect is watching the movement grow and transform on its own timetable. MTV is going to do a “documenta­ry” on 3 young protestors­, taking it to the airwaves. The occupiers had their generators taken from the NYFD did they give up? No, they are still on track but they are going with bicycle powered generators which should be up and running by Monday. I don’t think that this will stop even if for example, the American Jobs Act got passed or the Bush Tax cuts were allowed to expire. This is bigger, I think that this is a deeper protest, this is about getting the true freedom of opportunit­y back into the social contract. The economic mobility dream that was seared into every American’s brain has been shown to be a myth, we want the dream back and money and politics have been a huge factor in killing the dream. There is so much to be done and changed, it is exciting to watch.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Pentagon: Afghanistan Strategy Remains ‘Risky’

I have two questions, are these reports at all influenced by the hawks we have in the military command and in the congress? Secondly, is the Taliban’s continued strength a result of a war that was badly managed from the start, when instead of keeping the focus on Afghanista­n, we shifted to Iraq and lost whatever momentum we had in Afghanista­n and we never were able to recapture it? The Iraqi’s government wants us out by the end of 2011 but what says the Afghanista­n government and its people? Two completely different wars, people and scenario’s­. I don’t have an answer only questions.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost