The Great Facebook Sisterhood

For the past 20+ years, something has been missing from my life. It didn't disappear overnight - it slowly slipped away while I was busy living, while I wasn't paying attention.

What is that missing thing, you ask? The sisterhood of my Levittown girlfriends.

There are so many cliched expressions to describe how this all happened. But in the end, it comes down to this - you don't realize how important the bonds of friendship and a common background are until years after you are removed from the scene and suffering the timeless indignity of being a fish out of water, so to speak - a stranger in a strange land, a wolf in sheep's clothing.

I've been living in Florida since 1996. I do love it here - it is my home now. And I have formed new bonds and new friendships with some remarkable women from all over the world who have also made this tropical paradise their home. BUT... but... but... the bonds of friendship with those you grew up with cannot be rivaled, no matter why you lost touch.

I'm still enjoying the rekindling of many friendships I long thought lost, and I am too tired for details right now, and I still haven't done any pilates tonight. But I shall return over the next few days with more stories and more feelings to share about these wonderful, amazing women from my past... and my future.

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a Heinous Violation of Your Civil Liberties!

I know that you're expecting some sort of commentary on last night's Vice Presidential debate. I have so very little to say about it though, that it can be summed up in one sentence:

I was digging on Palin and totally buying her "I am a hockey mom just like you" routine (although my kids don't play hockey) and was starting to wonder if I could live with myself after voting Republican, and then she said the word "nucular" 50 times and it was all over, and I still have no one to vote for.

Whew. Now that we're past that, let me talk about what is REALLY bugging me - which is!

(Drumroll please)

The dress code at my daughter's middle school.

You know, at what point does the list of rules (shocking in length) depart from "a list of things kids should not wear so they can focus on the business of education" and become "a total and complete stomping of any sort of individuality whatsoever"?

When we were this age (did I really just say that? Someone shoot me!) we had two rules on our dress code list:

1. Skirts/shorts must not be shorter than the tips of your thumbs when your arms are hanging at your sides, and
2. No bare midriff

Seemed fair then. Seems fair now. I will not argue a fact that some 16 year old boy, upon seeing my 16 year old belly button or 16 year old thighs, would most certainly not be able to learn a blessed thing for at least, oh, say 10 or 15 minutes, or however long it might take the blood to rush back into his head.

Anyway, these two sane items are certainly on the dress code list for Odyssey Middle School in Orlando, Florida (and yes, for those of you who pay attention to the news, this IS the same middle school built on an old Army bomb-test facility that - OOPS! - everyone forgot was there). However, these two items are joined by 17 others including, but not necessarily limited to, the following:

1. No all-black outfits

Those of you who remember me will know that if that had been a rule for us, it would have eliminated at least half my wardrobe.

Why, you might ask? Something about gangs. More about this shortly.

2. No solid-colored shirts. Unless the solid color is grey.

SO - no yellow shirts? No pink shirts? No red shirts?

Again, gangs. Apparently, they choose colors, and by preventing our kids from wearing these colors, there will be no gang problems. Is anyone actually buying this???

3. No designs or statements on the shirts that may be considered distracting.

????? Hello? Isn't everything on a shirt meant to draw attention? What the hell does this even mean?

(Note to my peeps from the old hood - can you imagine what these people would have thought about Jeff Baker's daily Far Side t-shirts? Hmmm...)

4. No outrageous hairstyles (such as mohawks) or hair colors that are not natural.

This is where I start to get incredibly pissed. Who defines "outrageous"? Let's just say, I'm outraged. Are the people making these rules SERIOUSLY the same people who survived the hairdos of the 80s? Because, quite honestly, I do not see how that is possible.

I say, at this point, just make them wear uniforms. Obviously all they can wear is grey shirts with (non-ripped or holey) jeans. So just make it a uniform and everyone will look the same and we can march them all through the meat grinder like it's a Pink Floyd video.

Is there a lawyer out there who wants to help me take this on? Because I really feel like some kind of civil right is violated here. If my kid wants a blue streak in her hair and wants to wear a black outfit, isn't it a violation of her right to liberty, or her right to the pursuit of happiness, to say she can't have these things?

FUCKED UP people.

Skinny Girls Get All the Love - Part Two (in which this skinny girl gets all the terror and loses a toenail in the process)

The amusing part of all of this, to me, is that as I was walking around Universal Studios during Halloween Horror Nights this past Saturday night, I was already concocting this blog post in my head, and it was going to be very cute. Instead, due to events that occurred late in the evening of that particular day, this post, like the evening itself, will end in bloodshed.

Let me start at the very beginning, because I can see you are confused.

Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) is the best seasonal theme park attraction in the world, and I say this without bias. It's a well-known fact. This event closes down Universal Studios early for 5-6 weekends in the fall, and the park reopens at night as a spooky wonderland, full of haunted houses, "scare zones" which are basically haunted roadways, and the best part of course - a place on the street about every 25 feet or so from which you can purchase overpriced but cold and welcoming alcoholic beverages .

Everyone loves it. If you've never been, you need to GO. But I digress.

We got our tickets this year for the first Saturday night of HHN. Brian and I took Tracy-Lynn and one of her friends. This is my second year of HHN and I have to say, I was really looking forward to it. The week prior had been relatively cool and crisp - in Florida, that means 85 degrees - but Saturday dawned hot and humid - a typical fresh fall day in Florida. By the time we headed to the park around 6pm, it was still 91 degrees outside.

Because of this, I made a (bad) executive decision to wear flip-flops to the park. Even though I'm sort of cute and sexy now, I fucking HATE to sweat in public, and my feet are like most people's heads - as long as they are cool, the rest of me is cool. Everyone - even my 13 year old daughter - warned me that this might not be a good idea, but I held firm. What could go wrong? I'm an adult - more or less - and I can take care of my own feet for 5 hours, surely. Right?

Wrong. But we'll get to that part later.

The night started off well. The first few haunted houses had short lines - probably because it was still light out and even in the bible below-the-belt areas, the freaks really do only come out at night. There was a minor incident where my darling husband was attempting to expedite my consumption of a jello shot contained in a small blood bag (that's how they serve 'em up at HHN) by squeezing the bag's contents into my mouth - only to use his brutish golf-champion strength to squeeze TOO HARD and thus EXPLODE THE BAG. The main victim of this explosion was Tracy-Lynn's pair of Converse sneakers. That kid has 320 pairs of shoes - like mother, like daughter - so don't feel too bad.

Creatures was probably the best of the houses. It was not only super-creepy. It also was the longest house in terms of how long it took you to walk through it. It was the first house we went through and I have to say, I was flabbergasted at how many of the "scaracatures" (Universal's word - not mine) came for me. They can't touch you, but they do get right in your face, and every single fucking one of them got right in MY face. Why is this shocking? Well, I'll tell you why. Last year at HHN, I was about 205 pounds of cute but let's face it - blubbery - Lisa. This year, I'm about 139 pounds of been-working-out, eating healthy, sexy-and-I-know-it Lisa, and the attention that I talked about in my previous post was cleary not limited to unmasked men. I guess in my short denim skirt, plaid baby-doll t-shirt, and flip-flops, in the dark I was as cute as hell.

This sort of business happened in EVERY house. We did Interstellar Terror next (sorta lame), then Body Collectors (eh), then Doomsday (okay, this one was scary). In every house, every scaracature was out to get me. Walking from Doomsday to Reflections of Fear (the title attraction this year), I actually got chased into the ladies room by a scaracature with a chainsaw (read: leaf blower with a rubber saw attachment). Yes, for real, and all the way to the stall.

This sort of thing did NOT happen to fat Lisa. Never.

Reflections of Fear was okay - NOT, however, worth the 75 minute wait. After Reflections, Brian and I had to cross the park for the last three houses - Scary Tales, the Hallow, and Dead Exposure. In the process, we took a wrong turn (read: Brian was 5 beers into the night and Lisa was reading the map, a little tipsy herself) and ended up having to go through a Scare Zone entitled The Skoolhouse, and this, my friends, was the scene of my toenail's demise.

A ghoul in a fucked-up hockey mask jumped at me from the left. I clutched onto my strapping young husband from behind, burying my face into his back. Then an altogether different ghoul growled at me from behind, and I lunged deeper into my husband's hindquarters. My left foot jammed under his big lunky tennis shoe and then there was blood, guts, and terror - all foot related.

No one realized what happened at first. I grabbed Brian's arm and was gasping for air. I'm not a crier, but I was on the edge - the pain was something like childbirth via unanesthetized c-section (and yes, I have experienced that) but localized to a toe, so not, I suppose, as bad.

As soon as he realized what was wrong, Brian steered me towards some tables at the side of the road next to a large, but clearly temporary, bar. A drunk young man sitting at a table got in on the action and called for some medics to come and take a look at the disembodied toenail. It took about 10 minutes for them to arrive, during which time I managed to get a grip on the pain, thanks in large part to Lon (the drunk guy) and his lovely girlfriend Shantell (also maybe a little - okay, a lot - drunk).

A bloody bandage and two free passes to return to the park later, we collected our teenagers, who managed to see just about everything in the park while I sat bleeding next to a liquor establishment constructed primarily of corrogated cardboard. Do I begrudge them this? Maybe a little, but they didn't get free passes. So, "nahnahnahnah, *thwppppt* girls!", to you.

There are two morals to this story:
1. Don't wear flip-flops to HHN. Yeah, I know - duh.
2. If you meet some nice drunk people who help you out in a crisis, get their phone numbers! You could turn out to be lifelong friends! (Yes, we did exchange numbers - who wouldn't? I really need to call these people.)

HHN on November 1 with B and me, anyone? I won't have much of a toenail by then, but what I have will be contained in a tennis shoe - I promise.

Skinny Girls Get All the Love

Some of this may be controversial. I'm prepared for heated discussions. If you know me, you know I actually welcome them. But my life as of late has become a long-winded sociological experiment, and here is my well-researched and expert hypothesis:

Skinny Girls are treated more nicely by people (both male and female) than chubby girls.

How do I know this? Well, let me remind you that six months ago, I was a chubby girl. Now, even though I'm not skinny per se, I am much skinniER. I went from a size 20 to a size 10. BIG difference - literally. And although I may not be THAT hot, the difference from then till now is striking. You should see the looks on the faces of people who haven't seen me in a few months.

Too cool!

Anyway, here are some observations I have made that support my hypothesis.

1. When you have a nice bod, men hold the door open for you. All men. All the time.

By the way, this is not necessarily true when you are chubby. Trust me.

2. When you are kinda hot, people smile at you. ALL THE TIME!

When you are chubby, they just sort of look at you with sympathy. Unless they were chubby once themselves. I'll NEVER do that to a chubby person. These days I smile at everyone.

3. When your legs are fit, trim, and muscular, oh my - men stare at them.

This is not a bad thing if you like that kind of attention.

All that stuff was pretty obvious and you are probably nodding your head thinking, yeah, it's not nice, but it's all true. Now, this is where things perhaps become somewhat controversial.

4. When you are a fit and attractive woman, people just take you more seriously, even in a professional setting.

Sorry folks - but this is so true. I have always had important, useful input into conversations at work. In the past, people have listened to me politely. Now, they hang on my every word. Did I suddenly get more brilliant? Hell no! But something about my tight little ass says "Listen to me! I know things!" Now everyone and their office assistant wants my opinion on everything from what to eat for lunch to what to wear to the football game.

And finally, the kicker:

5. When you are a fit and attractive woman, you don't really care what other people think of you. You know you are hot.

This is the best part, my absolute favorite part. When I was a chunky girl, I used to spend all this time wondering what people thought about how I look. Not anymore!

Because I know I'm FABULOUS!

But people are telling me a lot these days how great I look and quite honestly, it does not get old. I cannot imagine a time when it will. So if you have a friend who has lost some weight or got a new haircut or did something to improve the way they look, help them out by telling them you noticed! Don't be shy. A little love goes a long way.

The Color of Stupidity

It's either black, white, yellow green, or (I think) orange.

These are the colors that students are forbidden to wear at Odyssey Middle School in Orlando, Florida. Tracy-Lynn is a student at this school. More than once, she has had to call home to have a shirt brought up to school that is not of one of these colors. Even when she wore a black shirt with a Thundercat on it (yes, my daughter has some eclectic interests - you wanna make something of it?), she had to replace her shirt with a grey shirt.

She's a straight A student. Honor roll. First chair oboe player in the band. Student assistant to the band director. Highest honors all around. And this is a public school, folks. But for some insane reason, the Thundercats on a black background are considered "gang attire".

In fact, the clothing items showing the colors listed above all qualify as "gang-wear". Seriously. The kids cannot wear, for example, a solid yellow shirt. They cannot even wear a white shirt with an innocent, innocuous design on it. Like a white t-shirt with a picture of a butterfly on it means you are a Latin King and want to fuck some people up. Or something.

Well, I guess it makes sense to attempt to eliminate gang activity wherever possible. I suppose that my confusion comes from the fact that I just don't see how forcing kids to wear grey will eliminate gangs all together. The members are just going to think of newer, better, more subtle ways to declare their affiliations. Does anyone think that punishing a bunch of nice kids for what they are wearing is going to stop the bad ones from doing what they are doing? Really????

Obviously, the people making these decisions are NOT parents, or they would know better. You can't treat a staph infection with a bandaid, folks. You actually need to use a powerful antibiotic. How about figuring out who the gang kids are and working with them to remove the gangs? Why is this concept so unfathomable?

Oh wait, but first you'd have to identify the gang members. By their shirts. Which they are not allowed to wear.

My Son Has a Cool Ikea Bed But Look At Where He Likes to Sleep

Does that fact that my son prefers to sleep on the floor rather than his bed make me a bad mom?



Seriously, it doesn't matter how many times Brian and I send this child back to his bed. He will eventually sneak out of his room while we are working (read: playing poker and sending flair on Facebook while sitting across from each other using our respective laptops at the kitchen table) and fall asleep on the floor.

Why is that? Do other kids do this? I just don't get it. I mean, I can sleep on the floor if I HAVE to. Certainly I can recall various nights as a college student when I woke UP on a floor (drool oozing down my chin... oh my, these moments are best forgotten...), but I never in my life, I don't believe, preferred to sleep there.

The transition to the bed has been a difficult one for Bryce. I really do wish we had just left him in his crib, but no - when we moved him out of the nursery and into his "big-boy" room, even though both crib and bed were available, the boy who slept 11 hours per night in his crib suddenly wanted to sleep sporadic short bits of time - in (or as the case may be, out of) his bed.

In other news, I caught a glimpse of my ass in a mirror today and was not utterly disgusted. So that was a good thing.

It's time to go move my little boy into his bed. It is a guarantee that in the morning, we will find him in one of three places:

1. Lying on the floor outside his room
2. Lying on the floor in Sheridan's room (this is common and, I must admit, pretty adorable)
3. Banging on our bedroom door yelling "Mama! MAAAAAAMAAAAA!"

We certainly will not find him sleeping in his bed. Please, someone, tell me that my son will have a bright future as a talented, highly respected (and of course, highly paid) field researcher who travels the world discovering new species and/or cures for diseases in the jungle and LOVES TO SLEEP ON THE GROUND.

Sarah Palin May Have a Vagina. But That Does Not Make Her Hillary Clinton Any More Than Jack Black's Penis Makes Him Leonardo DiCaprio.

And that sums it up in a nutshell.

Scary Point #1 - Republicans are crafty and clever aren't they? They actually got someone like me to consider voting conservative for a few minutes. Yikes.

I am absolutely elated about two things related to Sarah Louise Heath Palin.

1. First and foremost, because I am a horrible narcissist, I am elated that so many people are calling/emailing/texting me to see what I think about Palin's addition to the Republican ballot as the VP nominee. Wow, they love me! They really love me!

2. It must be said, and I'm not ashamed to say it. ANY TIME a woman appears on a ballot, I get my rocks off, just a little bit.

But I'm not going to vote Republican (probably) and I'll explain that shortly.

Two embarrassing confessions must be made here.

1. I considered it. God help me, I actually gave it a thought. I apologize to myself and all the other liberals who respect me. It was, as they say, a momentary lapse of reason. My deep-burning feminism sometimes gets the best of me.

2. I like Sarah Palin as a person. She's cute, she's got personality, she's got flaws I can live with. If she wants to slaughter innocent marine life for kicks, hey, whatever. At least she eats what she catches which is more than you can say for a lot of other people. If she wants to be the pistol packin' pinup mama, more power to her. I have had my own dreams of appearing in Penthouse (forever unrequited). She's not evil or anything. She's who she is - a woman who thinks being a Republican is okay. I have friends like that and we still get drunk together. No biggie.


I just can't vote for Republicans. I just can't. I'm sorry. I can't. Even if I decided to, even if the thought of a female (possible) president got the best of me, I'd get into that booth, and my hands would start shaking, and sweat would roll across my brow. And I'd flash back to my years as a Young Democrat and my marches on Washington to support gay rights and to support a woman's right to choose. Seriously, I'm sorry. I can't do it. Can. Not. Do. It.

But I can't vote for Obama either. This has NOTHING to do with his lack of experience, or his being black (in fact, that's my favorite thing ABOUT him). Nor do I think he is a terrorist or anything crazy like that. I just have this gut feeling that he is NOT good for our country. I cannot back that statement up, or I'd be working harder to convince other people to see this my way. As it stands, my gut drives me but I don't expect it to drive YOU.

So I'm considering two possible options. Please comment and let me know your thoughts.

Option #1: Voting for the Green Party and the McKinney/Clemente ticket. They stand no chance of winning. This I realize. However, I feel that by doing so I could make some statements. First of all, that a black woman is MY CHOICE for the best leader in America. Secondly, that ecological issues really do concern me more than anything right now. Most importantly, I feel like if I do this, I will be able to walk away from the polling place with my head held high and good things in my heart.

But this is ME we are talking about, so this choice enters my mind:

Option #2: Like it or not Lisa, either Obama or McCain WILL be the next president. I hate them both but why not capitalize on the facts? I'm thinking of putting my vote up for sale on eBay and selling it to the highest bidder. Why not? Maybe I will not be able to look at myself in the mirror for weeks after the election, but will that really bother me when I walk out of Neiman Marcus with new Prada heels? I think not.

Not sure what I'm gonna do yet.

So those are my thoughts today, right now, on the election. What are yours?

(A note to the people who will tell me "Not voting for Obama is the same as voting for McCain!" - learn some fucking math people. It is not the same, you idiots. Get off your high horses and leave me the fuck alone.)