An opportunity and a challenge

When I was little we used to write letters to people. On paper. With pens. In our own handwriting. There was nothing like the excitement of opening the mail box to find a letter addressed to you or the sadness of not finding the one you were expecting. When we're gone from this world, our children will not have an old sweet smelling hat box to sift through as they sit on the floor with a glass of wine, careful not to tear the aged papers that hold our memories and cry soft, quiet tears over the things that remind them of us. They will not have the experience of wandering through the letters from friends and old lovers and wondering about our lives before they knew us. What will they have? A computer full of emails and photos they can't access without our passwords.

So I challenge you.

Find an old friend and write them a letter and ask them to participate in this with you. Let's leave something for our children to hold onto one day. If you don't know someone you want to send a letter to, email me at oldtimeletters@gmail.com and I will give you an address of someone else that wants to write and receive letters.

Come on - it'll be fun! We've also created a site at myspace - www.myspace.com/oldtimeletters. You can see other people that want to do this and exchange addresses there, too.

Do you relish and long for the days of old when people used to drop in with their calling cards, sipped juleps on the patio together in their finest attire, and exchanged hand written letters? Emails and technology are convenient and wondrous but we can't hold them in our hands and clutch them to our hearts on a warm summer night. Let's revive the art and the excitement of letters.

25 Random Things About Me

1. I was really, really bitter about my Phillips University experience but miss a lot of the friends I made there and am glad to have reunited with them on Facebook :)

2. I will drive for hours to see something weird or interesting.

3. I love scary movies. I can't find anyone to watch them with me, though. I also love going to the theater alone because then I don't miss anything - I get REALLY irritated when I miss things in movies.

4. I love the Frisco bar, too. Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name... LOL My husband has tended bar there for nearly 12 years now. We exchange gifts, go to kids' birthday parties, and go on vacations with the friends we've made at the bar. And it's perfectly normal to us.

5. It does not scare me to spend the night in scary places - in fact, I love it.

6. I was on The Learning Channel once with my friend, Tonya, for a ghost hunting show.

7. My favorite thing to do growing up was to get $2 and go off on my bike. I could eat lunch at Pak-a-Sak and go to the library and spend the entire day finding things to do and it made me perfectly happy. I still like to take a book and go to Pak-a-Sak for lunch.

8. I get really irritated when other people ask me what my plan is. I don't have a damn plan. I'll get there when I get there. That way people can't complain because I'm late :).

9. I love light beer. My current favorite is Moldelo Especial and Landshark - which is getting harder to find.

10. I have tons of books. I have them in nearly every room of my house. I bought books for my kids before I had kids.

11. I am addicted to Real Housewives of Orange County. I love to watch how other people live. I think they're ridiculous, yet I am mesmerized.

12. I want to go back to school but I'm not sure what I want to be when I grow up. I think I've decided to get my degree in history and then I can still go to law school if I decide to later.

13. I am a practicing witch. (that is absolutely a coincidence that is #13, LOL)

14. I have a passion for Volswagen bugs. I have a 1965 one and I love it. Besides my wedding ring, it is my most prized possession.

15. My wedding ring was my mother in law's wedding ring and it meant the world to me when my husband gave it to me for Christmas a couple of years ago.

16. I would honestly like to build relationships with people I didn't know very well in school now that we're adults and highschool bs doesn't matter.

17. I don't have A best friend, I have several. And they are all truly the best friends.

18. I love to camp and go on adventures.

19. I have co-authored a book am really excited about it. It's called Ghostlahoma and it just came out.

20. I felt like less of a person because I didn't finish college. But then I realized that raising productive, responsible, intelligent citizens was really just as important. Being a mom is not less than being a college graduate.

21. I wish I knew how to play the guitar. I have one, but I don't know how to play it. I also have a mandolin but I don't know to play it, either.

22. My biological father was the president of the Heathens Motorcycle Family in Santa Maria, California. He was shot defending someone and was buried on his Harley - no shit.

23. I love the theater and really miss being involved in it.

24. I have a life sized leg lamp in my living room window - like the one from A Christmas Story.

25. My friend and I have made plans that if I am ever widowed, we will find a big scary house and become crazy cat ladies together and scare all the people in the neighborhood on purpose. We want to have that house the kids dare each other to run up and touch.

Speaking of Hookers...

I haven't been motivated to blog in a long time, but today I have been a little bit inspired. If you haven't heard, Oklahoma's in the midst of some chaos at the moment. Rather than trying to explain it, I would invite you to look at this blog (http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=30129611&blogId=482361436) - it's a beautifully written account of what's going on here.

Secondly, I heard a story today that made me want to tell everyone that makes excuses all the time to stop! On the island of Kauai Hawaii there was a flood that did a massive amount of damage to the access road that leads to their livelihood - Polihale State Park. Being a tourist driven community, they would have been in dire straits with the loss of income from the park. The government assessed the damages at $4 MILLION dollars and that it would take up to two years to repair. Rather than sitting around waiting on the government to do it, IF the money was available, the community pulled together and did all the work in EIGHT days for FREE. So really, next time you think "oh, we can't do that, that's too hard" or "i just can't" - YES YOU CAN. You can do ANYTHING. You just have to have the gumption to do it.

The City of Enid just settled a lawsuit wherein they are required to spend a LOT of money on making the City ADA compliant and to all the people bitching about it - may you never lose your ability to function normally because you have no idea what it's like and the least the City can do is accommodate people with disabilities, not to mention, it's the goddamned LAW, Assholes!

Now, on with the current events - I have been seeing a doctor in Oklahoma City to try to determine if in fact I have Lupus. I have had the symptoms for several years but until lately it had not really flared up. The last year or so I've had several flares and they are becoming more and more common. Right now they are calling it "connective tissue disease" but I am taking medication that treats only three things: rheumatoid arthritis, malaria, or lupus. I don't have malaria, so... Anyway - there's no definitive test for it, but it's pretty apparent that I do have the Lupus and I'm just trying to get enough rest and take the medicine. I'm looking at seeing a naturopathic doctor as well because I've heard she's had success with other Lupus patients.

I still have two extra kids at my house and that situation is a little chaotic and stressful, but we're managing.

We released the book. I think it's going to do well and we're already starting on the next book or even the third book in the series.

I have some other community things in the works - a couple of fundraisers for Scare on the Square that I've mentioned before, the dodgeball tournament and a pop culture quiz bowl and am trying to put Dillinger Day together. If anyone wants to get involved, let me know.

I think that's about all for now. Carry on.

On a More Serious Note

I stumbled upon this blog (http://www.racialicious.com/2008/12/21/original-essay-the-not-rape-epidemic/) and it struck a chord with me. Please take the time to read it. It's about "not rape." There are almost 200 comments, nearly all of them relating similar stories. One commenter stated that nearly every woman they know has a "not rape" story. Think about it - it's likely that most of the women you know have one, too. I do. As the mother of young girls, I can only hope to protect my girls from having one of these stories. I would encourage you to read it whether you are a woman or a man and talk to your children - whether they are girls or boys - and make a difference in their lives. If they're girls, let them know it's OK to tell if someone treats them inappropriately and if they're boys, teach them to respect personal space and that when a girl says no, she really means no, even if she's wearing a short skirt. It's absolutely sickening to me that so many women can relate to this story and it's sickening to me how many men laugh off their antics as some normal manly thing to do. As parents and responsible humans, we need to change that with the younger generation.

Important Message Brought to you by Jesus/Jack Black

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

What the hell???

What the hell??? This is what's happening here, in ENID. It's absolutely revolting. A woman was seriously asked to leave an Enid establishment because she was wearing an Obama shirt and had some Obama campaign items with her.
It's one thing to be a republican and totally another to be a repulsive, redneck, piece of shit pig that is too stupid to understand that other people are afforded a difference of opinion and the freedom of speech granted to them by the United States Constitution. Last I checked, the Constitution was not only for white, Christian, male Republicans.
Ignorance is forgivable - it means to not have knowledge about something. Stupidity is not forgivable - stupidity is a conscious choice to be ignorant and that is just wrong.

Revolution afoot??

If you have ever wanted to do something good for your community but haven't known how you could help, now's a good time to get involved.

About a month ago, the citizens of Enid voted to pass a bond issue that would be paid off in 20 years. The money comes from our property taxes and was going to add about $15 a month to the property taxes to get this thing paid off. We all pretty much felt like that was a doable thing. THEN this week, the City Commissioners passed a decision to pay it off in 5 years instead - that means a LOT more than $15 a month now. They say it will save a lot in interest in the long run. You know, that's great, but that's NOT WHAT WE VOTED ON. We voted on paying it out over 20 years.

The fact that they can make these kind of decisions without bringing it to the people is just wrong. That's called a DICTATORSHIP. They claim that they talked to a vast number of people - bullshit, they did not. They claim they surveyed people. Really? No one seems to have gotten this survey...

People say "well, you should go to the meetings if you don't like it". BS again - in a normal city , maybe. But I've watched those meetings. I've seen people get up and give very impassioned speeches and then the mayor will cut in and say, "You have three minutes". Then when they are done, he grunts and says "Next!". He could give a shit less about anything anyone has to say.

There is a small faction of people that are doing the research necessary to recall the mayor and the city commissioners. I don't know that this has ever happened in Enid and I imagine that's why they get away with it. We have to show them they cannot be shady and lie like that. We cannot back down from their Nazi antics. So if you are presented with an opportunity to sign a petition to recall the mayor or the commissioners, I hope you will take it.

As I mentioned, the research is being done and there have to be a certain number of signatures and then they get presented to the city clerk for authentication and then there has to be an election within like a month. What sucks is that they way I understand it, the mayor's name goes right back on the ballot, so we have to have someone willing to run against him. If no one will run, we get the same crappy treatment we've been getting.

I realize these people volunteer to do this and they may have had good intentions when they went in, but you CANNOT go against the wishes of the people like thay have done - they are why people hate politicians. They are why the city council in Enid is likely to never be trusted again. So please, exercise your civic responsibilities and get these people OUT.