Insomnia runs rampant, but there are always the plygs, among other people and things, about which to think

I don't think I'll be awake until the sun comes up tonight, but I am still up into the wee hours, and not by choice.

The Colorado City polyg churches look a great deal like mainstream LDS churhces.

Looking at the picture of the polygamous sister wives caused me to think of the time a few summers ago when my pseudouncle, pseudoaunt, and I visited southern Utah for the purpose of catching a little polygamous activity. (It had been a miserable spring and summer for me, with serious injuries that were not healing fast, and this was supposed to be the equivalent to my trip to Disneyland to make up for the not-so-fun times of the summer.

We even attended  one of the Church services in Colorado City. (Looking back. it's hard to believe we had the nerve to even drive onto the compound, much less to barge in on one of their church services.)  The strange specially-ordered cast I had on my leg to allow air to heal my skin infections while holding my bones in place, in addition to the sling on my arm, made me look like a little crippled girl, which made them feel sorry for us.  Pseudouncle has a booming baritone voice, and i had, as I still have, the sweet little-girl soprano thing going on, so after hearing us sing the opening hymn,  the polygs invited us to sing a sing for them. Pseudoaunt bowed out. she can carry a tune but does not perform in public, and probably for good reason. We sang "O My Father" from the Mormon hymnal. The Jeffs' branch of the fundies  use, if I recall correctly, the second-most-recent edition of the mainstream LDS church's hymnal.

We had brought conservative clothing to somewhat dress the part.  None of us own prairie style clothing, but we had on stuff that was sufficiently modest.  We had already planned our "story." I was pseudouncle's daughter. My mother was dead. Pseudoaunt was his new bride, He'd tried out two other brides since my mama passed,  but they both left us to return to the secular and monogamous world.  According to our story, Daddy went to Juarez, Mexico to find a bride because the women there were reportedly more compliant. Pseudoaunt said as little as possible because she isn't good at faking a Mexican accent, but fundies like their women silent anyway, so it worked out well. she pretended not to speak English at all, and the two of us "communicated" through both of our very limited Spanish. peudouncle spoke to her in Spanish a lot, apparently issuing orders. he's fluent. She just nodded. i tried t talk pseudoaunt into pretending to be one of his daughters, too, but she said she didn''t look enough like him, and besides, it would be creepy.

My fondest memory of the entire trip was the homemade fudge that we bought at some mercantile or general store there. only God knows if the kitchen in which is was made was clean enough in which to prepare food for a pet rat, but god, the fudge tasted good. there were several flavors. We bought a bit of divinity, but mostly we bought  chocolate fudge and a brown sugar-flavored kind. I ate so much of it that first night that Pseudouncle made me stop because he was afraid I would get Montezuma's revenge despite not having crossed any national borders. He did swing back by there on our way home to pick up some more of the stuff, which we carefully rationed to make it last two weeks.

Driving through the streets of Colorado City and its twin city, Hilldale, was quite an experience.  The twin cities straddled the border of Utah and Arizona. The reason the cities were originally so located was that in earlier anti-polygamy days, if Utah authorities showed up to raid the place, all the polygs could run across the border to Arizona. If the Arizona authorities showed up for the same purpose, all the polygs would run across the border into Utah. It took the two states and the feds considerable time to coordinate their efforts so that the "run for the the border" plan didn't work.  thus we had the infamous Short Creek Raid." (The place was originally was called Short Creek.)

My feelings about polygamy are that it's difficult to justify making the practice itself illegal when others are allowed to have sex with whomever they choose, and to have children with whomever they choose, with no legal repercussions. On the other hand, I have problems with several aspects of it.  One of my issues is with their reported method of thinning the herd by kicking teen-aged boys off their compound before they really have the job skills to fend for themselves. Another of my issues is with  the rampant underage marriage and even with  those who wait until they are of age to marry but have  no experience with the outside world and, this, think plural marriage is normal and is the only way to live.  Another issue I have is with the inbreeding that occurs -- with the arranged marriages of cousins and even closer relatives, which promote all sorts of health conditions and birth defects, the most notable of which is fumarase deficiency. One of my most major issues with the fundies'  system is with them having, through multiple wives, more children, than one man and however many wives he has can possibly support. Thus, government welfare then becomes the primary means of support. I have the same conflict with the polygs using welfare in this way as I do with single mothers who have multiple babies  who they cannot support and whose fathers cannot contribute to their support. I wish something could be done to stop this abuse, as we're soon going to reach a point where too few of the working people re supporting too many of those who multiply like rabbits.

I wish there were a way to allow the adults who chose the lifestyle and were able to finance it to live their religion, while forbidding those who attempt to access government funding to support their way of life from doing so. Likewise, I wish there were a way to insure that young people were neither either kicked out of their homes and off the compound without adequate means of support , nor were girls ever allowed to marry before legal adulthood, Furthermore, i wish there were a way of forcing public schooling upon these people so that girls would know if only by association that the polygamous way of life was not their only choice.

Perhaps if the government could force, as a condition for allowing polygamous communities to continue to exist in our nation, , a period of Rumspringa (also spelled Rumschpringe) as the Amish practice, whereby the youth experience a period of life in the outside world before deciding whether or not to continue with the Amish way of life.  Jeffs' church, or the other polygamous sects around, should be forced to provide a decent stipend so that the young people could at least survive while experiencing the outside world. If the young adults wished to experience life more fully nd more luxuriously, part-time jobs could be obtained, but that's not always easy to do in the present economy, especially with no job history. Part-time jobs at Wendy's or McDonald's are not that difficult by which to come, but some subsidy from the church and community would be appropriate as well for a year or eighteen month, as it's doubtless that the church and community have obtained more than their share of free labor from the youth.

I would be more comfortable with a young woman choosing a polygamous lifestyle if I knew that she was aware she had a choice in the matter. Likewise, I'd feel better about the Lost Boys being tossed out were they to receive a year's worth of subsidy while they looked for work or honed job skills.

The current system, at least as practiced by Jeffs' followers and similar cults, is inadequate for all except for the relatively few men (and a few of their favored wives) who hold power in the local communities and in the churches, which are essentially one and the same.

Sleepless in Santa *****/ Other Options for Some of My Favorite People

I kept myself awake all day and actually made it up and down the stairs about twelve times and outside to walk the dog once. Nonetheless, sleep eludes me. It may have something to do with the fact that final exam scores and grades are being posted for my last three classes by noon tomorrow.

As far as Jared is concerned, he can take a flying leap from just about any rock jutting out over the Pacific and land a complete belly-flop, and it would only serve to amuse me. To say that he is the very least of my concerns at the moment would be an understatement.

As far as the Judge  is concerned, he could join up with his Texas/Oklahoma/ Southern California/Georgia/ Tennessee contingent and make a home for themselves --  with or without his present wife  -- I couldn't care much less either way --  right in the middle of  Warren Jeffs' polygamous Yearning for Zion Ranch, and it would only make me happy for all of them, because it would seem that they've all already found their true callings in life, which involve something very similar to that lifestyle. For that matter, with Warren Jeffs locked up for the foreseeable future, perhaps the Judge  would be a suitable replacement to lead Warren's flock. Warren had been doing a pretty good job of leading the sheep himself from his prison cell, but as of late, the system has been cracking down on his ability to rule from the confines of prison. Perhaps this is where the Judge should step in. I suspect he could come up with some creative revelations all on his own with no help whatsoever from Warren. Furthermore, I suspect he would crack down on the pedophilia that has run rampant since the place was instituted. It seems the Judge is not fond of pedophilia, which is presumably his excuse for why he no longer even exchanges pleasantries with with either me or a similarly aged friend of mine.

Business as usual could continue for most of them. The Judge filmed from Texas before. It could be done again. He might be operating his courtroom under a new set of laws, as opposed  to ruling according to the jurisdiction in which a case was filed. The Judge, however, has shown himself to be a quick learner. He could even limit himself to cases involving the ranch and Warren's/the Judge's sect. He could settle which young get thrown off the property with nothing buth the clothing on their bodies and become Lost Boys. He could decided , as Warren for so long did, who gets to marry whom. He could even reserve the choicest of the young brides for himself, although, if truth is to be known, with all the inbreeding that's gone on for generations, not many are all that choice in either the physical appearance department or in the cognitive development domain.  He could also decide, with the widom of Solomon,  which men get thrown out of the faith and off the property, and could divide up their property and wives accordingly. If one really thinks about it, it would be far more interesting than his show under its present circumstances.  Furthermore, I suspect the lifestyle would suit him well.  He never totally seemed all that monogamous by nature, although I will refrain from commenting about any, all, or none of the extramarital activities in which he's engaged himself, because, as a non-stalker, I have no idea what he's been up to in his spare time.

The others could continue their normal day-to-day activities, most of which I have no clue as to what they might be.  I understand that the YFZ Ranch is an excellent place for breeding and raising cattle. The judge would be on site to determine which specimens he wanted named after himself.  The YFZ ranch needs a choir every bit as much as does Dunwoodie , Georgia, and would similarly be in need of nightly weather reports. The Wicked Witch  Beautiful Christian of Tennessee could just as easily function as the Wicked Witch   Beautiful Christian of  YFZ.   Facilities accessible for morbidly obese people could easily enough be constructed there.  English grammar is not at a particularly high premium on the YFZ ranch, so various members of the Judge's coterie would find themselves right at home among the under-educated population who speak and write as though the concept of subject/verb agreement has yet to be invented and their formal educations were cut off somewhere between fourth and sixth grades.. Warren Jeffs had excellent security for himself while he was there. That same force could be used to give the judge much needed privacy from his stalkers when he so desired it.

The only flaw I see to the plan is that, under the present regime, neither the present bailiff nor the one he replaced would be all that welcome on the ranch due to pseudo-religious beliefs and simple bigotry of the population at large. The Judge would have to work tirelessly to enforce racial equality in order for either of them even to visit, much less to make their permanent residences there.

These are merely musings on my part. If it suited him better, the Judge could, like Jared, take a flying leap off some rock jutting high above over the pacific and, likewise, land a perfect belly-flop, ideally into shark-infested waters.

I'm no closer to sleep than I was when I began this discourse, but I've at least accomplished something constructive.

Favorite Song from a Children's Book/CD

I hope this turns out right. If so, the song is from a Sandra Boynton book and CD, Dog Train.  The sound quality, on my computer anyway, is a bit choppy initially,but it does get better.My mom has it in her office at school, so I can't give as much information as I'd like.  Some of Ms. Boytnton's songs are better than others, but she has an amazing knack for getting people like John Ondrasek, Kate Winslett, and Kevin Bacon to record songs for her CDs that acompany her books. (I think the late Davy Jones of The Monkees even recorded something for her.)

This  particular song was recorded for the book-accompanying CD by Alison Krauss. Even though I'm really too old to like it so much, I do. It reminds me of a favorite childhood book The Runaway Bunny. I don't thnk that is just because of the rabbit pictures next to it in the book; I believe thesong itself reminds me of the book. It's one of the things my mom sings for me when I can't go to sleep. Usually only things in the key of A major put me to sleep, but this one is an exception.  My mom has a bigger voice than does Alison Krauss, but she can produce a similar effect when she holds back. When you're singing a lullaby, you don't sing as though you're trying to be heard by the last row of the auditorium anyway.

Incidentally, another favorite of mine from the Dog Train CD is "Pengin Lament" as sung by John Ondrasek of Five for Fighting.  If a person didn't listen closely, it would sound like a regular  Five for Fighting song. One of the university courses my mom teaches is Children's Music Education. She spends time in preschool and elementary classrooms to research for it, and she says that children tend to love this song even though the key, as written, tends to be such that almost any normal person who sings on-key has to change octaves. It doesn't seem to bother the children, though. She plays it on the piano or a keyboard in a more singable key. Regardless, it's a totally cool song. I'm not sure who is responsible for this  particular video. (Has anyone who reads this  ever traveled to Antarctica or, for that mattr, had any desire to tour Antarctica, by the way? Sometimes I think about it.)

Father's Day

Even by PDT standards, it's no longer Father's Day, but I'll pretend for the moment that I'm in Hawaii, which doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time, and is therefore three hours behind us.  It's 10:26 p.m. in Hawaii as I begin this post, and Father's Day is still going strong.  There's still plenty of time for my tribute to my dad.

If you watched House, M.D.,you know that this  is a picture of the character Wilson, as played by Robert Sean Leonard, and not a picture of my dad. I've posted it because I don't have permission to post a picture of my dad, and all the girls at The Loony Bin, my name for the in-house facility where I was treated for PTSD, insisted that my dad is a doppleganger for Dr. Wilson. I should note that my dad's eyes are not brown, as are Robert Sean Leonard's, but are dark blue. 

I'll try to avoid telling the story of the birth of my twin and me, as it's a story that has probably been recounted more than enough in this blog already, but I can't start any tribute to my dad as a father without again mentioning that his hands were the first human hands to touch me. He was scrubbed up, gloved and in the operating room for our Caesarean delivery.  The decision was made to take the tiny baby first if I was accessible -- and I was -- because I would need the most immediate treatment.  So my dad reached for me, while almost immediately after, my Uncle Jerry removed Matthew. Matthew  and I have an ongoing argument as to which of us is older. He was conceived in an earlier cycle. He says that makes him older. I was the first one out of the womb. I say that makes me older. While we both have identical times denoted on our birth certificates -- Dad and Uncle Jerry worked fast and got us both out in under sixty seconds -- also noted on the long form of the birth certificate is that I was the first of the twins delivered. I'm older. End of discussion.

Getting back to my original point, though, there's a special significance to my father's hands being the first to touch me. The story goes that I was initially suctioned, and immediately began wailing as loudly as the average three-month old baby with a serious mad-on is capable. Uncle Jerry remarked, as he was removing Matthew,  that I was going to be a singer just like my mommy. Once I was screaming and breathing, my dad held me so that my mom could see me. She sort of recoiled, as I was tiny, with the transparent skin early preemies have that allows many of their veins to be seen. "She's going to make it, Erin," my dad reassured my mom, who had, less than two years earlier, lost twin micro-preemies. He turned to the neonatologist -- the one of the two who had been present for the births of our older twin brother who didn't survive because they were born too early. At the point Nicholas' and Christopher's births were imminent, it was known that the odds were heavily stacked against them.  When Christopher, the firstborn, was delivered, my dad whispered to the neonatologist, "No extreme measures." He didn't even have to say the same for Nicholas, the second twin, as he didn't even survive the second Apgar scoring. He was allowed to go quietly.

When my dad handed me off to the neonatologist for suctioning, Apgar testing, and whatever else it is that they do, he quietly said to him, "I want extreme measures for this one."

Though the neonatologist replied over my screams, "We won't even need'em, John. This one's a strong baby."  It is significant to me that my father, in addition to being possessor of the first human hands ever  to touch me, was also my very first advocate in my entire life. Even though it hasn't always seemed that way to me in my very biased eyes, he's probably continued to be my greatest advocate throughout my life.

My relationship with my dad hasn't been entirely one of sweetness and sunlight. I was not the easiest child to raise, and my dad has always dealt with a highly demanding profession and, for several years of his marriage, with a very sick wife.  My mom had her first kidney stone on their honeymoon. He said he should have taken that as an omen.  Then there was the tragedy of Christopher and Nicholas.  We were born and, despite early issues with my premature birth, everything worked out. Then my mother became very high-strung almost to the point of being manic.

My father -- more, I'm told, than the average physician, which is probably one of the attributes that makes him the outstanding researcher that he is -- has the ability to step back and look at things relatively objectively even when his own family is concerned. While most doctors, or even most husbands in general, would be phoning the first psychiatrist  whose number they could locate, my dad knew that physical causes needed to be ruled out first.  It was a wise decision on his part. My mom had become extremely hyperthyroid. Symptoms were controlled through drugs while an endocrinologist waited for long enough to ensure it was not thyroiditis and would not soon burn itself out. It didn't, and the diagnosis of Graves' Disease was given.  That was taken care of easily enough with Radioactive Iodine therapy, but she then developed thyroid eye disease. She had radiation at one point, in addition to steroids, to reduce the swelling of her optic nerve. The measures were not enough, and to relieve the severe bulging of her eyes and to preserve her vision, she had done an extremely invasive surgery known as orbital decompression, whereby through means of which I'll spare you the details, the eyeballs were removed from their sockets, tissue and bone were removed, and the eyeballs were replaced.  this surgery was successful.

Then, about three years later, She began to lose weight, and she was thin before experiencing any symptoms. She also was having unexplained nosebleeds. She fainted a few times at work and once at home when just Matthew and I were there with her. We called 9-1-1, which angered her somewhat once she regained consciousness, but ended up being the very best thing that could have happened, because it started the chain of testing that revealed her leukemia.

She had chemotherapy, which slowed the progression, but was in need of a bone marrow transplant.  Every living adult relative - siblings, aunts, uncles -- was tested. No one was a close enough match.  She insisted that she did not want bone marrow from either Matthew or me -- that it was too hazardous a procedure through which to put five-year-old children. Now it's quite a bit simpler, but back then, it involved an overnight hospital stay even for the donor, and the site would be painful for quite some time. My father weighed his options and had us tested without her knowledge. I, as he had predicted, was a near-perfect match.

My father lied to my mother about whose bone marrow she was receiving. I can't recall whether he told her it was an aunt or whether he said it was a random donor match.  Regardless, the procedure was undergone, and it took. She underwent an additional round of chemo that took a heavy toll on her, and I  became ill for a variety of reasons, but I recovered and so did she.   My part in the procedure was to be kept a secret from my mom, but I blurted it out on Christmas morning of that year when I felt slighted because my mother appeared to like the Christmas present my brother had made for her at school  more than she liked the one I had made.. My mom was mad at my dad, my dad was mad at me, and Christmas was essentially ruined, but the bottom line is that nearly thirteen years later, she's cancer free. Other than still having kidney stones and not being terribly energetic, she's as healthy as she's ever been in her life. My dad had made the right call.  He said the rationale was that no amount of pain from a procedure could be as harmful to a child as losing her mother. He was 100% correct, as he is more often than not.

My father, eminent oncologist and hematologist and esteemed researcher that he is, is not without flaws.  His work is never very far from his mind. he can be mid-conversation with one of us about something fairly significant, and his eyes will get this look that they always get when a revelation of some sort comes to him. He walks away and goes immediately to his computer, types in information, does whatever it is he does with his data, and comes back half an hour or so later, having forgotten that an important conversation was ever taking place. He does the same thing in social settings, although under those circumstances he does politely excuse himself mid-conversation before walking away.  People who know him well have come to expect this of him. It makes the behavior no less irritating, but we know it will happen.

The funny thing about this is that he hates all medical TV shows, and has a particular loathing for House, MD, which is still around in reruns.  (It's not unusual for people of a particular profession to find flaws with any TV show relate to their field. My cousin who is a District Attorney hates  Law and Order and all its spinoffs. Another cousin who's a firefighter hates Chicago Fire. These programs supposedly have actual people from the field advising them on technical aspects of the profession, but those expert consultants  apparently are not allowed enough input, as it's practically a law of nature that doctors detest medical dramas in particular.) Anyway, my dad said House  jumped the shark with the very first episode: that the whole premise of having a diagnostics department with several highly paid doctors, who collectively deal with only one patient at a time, would bankrupt a hospital in a matter of months. He's probably right about that part. Additionally, he was fond of screaming stuff like, "A protozoa is not a fungus, you moron! Who writes this garbage, anyway? Someone with a sixth-grade education?"

The one thing that House got right, though, at least as comparing Dr. House himself to my dad, was the way House would be talking to someone -- usually Wilson or Cuddy -- and something they said would trigger something in his mind. He'd get that weird look in his eyes, he'd walk away, and then he'd immediately cure the patient of the mystery illness. In my dad's case, it's not quite so dramatic; he walks away, types something into his computer, re-configures data, and maybe somewhere two years down the road someone will be saved as a result of his inspiration. Still, it's a similarity, and acquaintances outside the family have even pointed it out.

Another manifestation of my dad's humanity is his vocabulary. By this, I don't mean that he speaks in monosyllabic words or sounds like a hillbilly. What I do mean is that words most of us would consider profanities are far from foreign to him. He managed to restrain himself reasonably well until my brother and I were about six. He considered that, for some arbitrary justification, to be the age of reason.That was the age, he decided, that Matthew and I could hear naughty words on a regular basis and understand that just because he said them did not give us license to use the words ourselves. For the most part, it worked. My mother, who was still pretty sick at the time, didn't have the energy to fight it. She merely told us, "I know Daddy says those words, but they're adult words, and if I catch you or hear of you saying them, you'll have your mouth washed out with soap." That was all it took to keep us from turning into the verbal equivalent of miniature sailors. By the time we were in high school he even unleashed his full vocabulary in front of our friends. They thought he was absolutely hilarious and wanted to hang out at our house all the time.

Up to this point, I've mostly illustrated what a flawed human being my father is. There is far more to him than just his flaws, though.  When I had multiple fractures from a freak hurdling accident about three years ago, he was at my bedside all night every night until I was released from the hospital. He even had me moved into a larger room so he could set up a miniature work station in my hospital room and be there most of the daytime as well. When a nurse mistreated me during that hospital stay, he used his influence (which was unusual for him; he doesn't take his influence terribly seriously and doesn't like to throw his weight around) to have her censured and transferred to another floor.  When I had an auto accident last year (THAT WAS NOT MY FAULT!!!), he made other relatives and near-relatives promise to provide round-the-clock coverage at the hospital and not trust the staff to look after me until he and my mom could make it back from Australia.  When I was in third grade and lost a math textbook (to this day I have no clue as to where it could have gone) and my teacher was making my life miserable over it, he personally went to the school office, asked the price of the textbook, forked over the cash, and asked the principal to guarantee that the teacher would stop giving me nightmares about a stupid missing math textbook. When 9-11 happened, he drove nine hours through  heavy traffic from San Diego to the Sacramento area to be at home with his family. When CPS showed up at our house because (it's along story recounted elsewhere) I had strange bruises on my bottom from sitting on my brother's Mardi Gras beads all the way from Las Vegas to  a place near Fresno. and a junior pervert girl looking over the bathroom stall saw them  and reported it to the office,  he first tried to bribe me to show the CPS worker my body, then, even after he had to restrain me so that she could look, gave me the money he had offered anyway, and let me stay home from school that day and watch videos and eat pizza for lunch because he knew I was traumatized by having a stranger who was not a medical professional look at my nude body. When the thugs propelled the rock and brick through my window with a high-powered slingshot the night after I was attacked, he was on a plane from New York  two hours later and was home before the sun was up even though the conference for which he had paid thousands of dollars to attend still had two remaining days.

My dad has been there for me when I needed him most. Though I don't even like to think about it, as my father right now to me seems ageless-- someone who will never grow old -- I hope I can do the same for him when he needs me.

It was past  Father's Day in Hawaii when I finished this, but, if my understanding is correct, it's still June 16 @ 11:14 in Pago Pago, Samoa, so I made my deadline.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy.

depression by any other name, though my mom says it's situational rather than clinical depression, whatever the hell difference that makes

I've never been a huge Carpenters' fan, although I think Karen's voice was lovely. I wasn't around when this song came out,or, for that matter, when Karen Carpenter was alive, but the song  suits my state of mind right now.

Does the course of true love ever run straight and smoothly? For that matter, does the course of true like  ever run without all sorts of twists, rapids, and hidden and unexpected drop-offs?  I'm not sure where my relationship with Jared falls  I would have said somewhere between like and love, which I believe is a song title, but it wasn't a song I especially wanted to hear tonight, since I'm less certain of our relationship than I was before the evening began.

The weeks finals have taken their toll on me, and I haven't been up to doing much of anything since Wednesday evening. nevertheless, I dragged myself out of bed, showered, put on actual clothing, and dried and straightened my hair, as Jared has never seen me with curls, and I wasn't ready for a total freak-out on his part. I may as well have stayed in bed and slept, which is what I felt more like doing anyway, as he did a complete no-show.  Also a no-call, no-explanation, and no apology, I might add.  I would not have minded so much had I not gotten out of bed and made myself presentable when it was the last thing I actually felt like doing, but I did it anyway because it was a previous obligation.  s of this morning when we spoke briefly on the phone, his visit was still on.

My mother says that I need to do two things. The first, she says, is to give Jared a bit of a break, as he's going through all sorts of emotional struggles at the moment, with his father still not speaking to him, his parents' marriage still suffering a bit as a result, and the only religion he's ever known somewhat turning its back on him. She also says I need not to put too many of my eggs in Jared's basket, so to speak. I should not allow him to think he owns me or that I can't find anyone else to date if he stands me up or otherwise flakes out on me. Time will tell, my mother says, whether or not Jared is decent long-term relationship material, but at this point in time he has shown himself to be  more than a little flaky. She says the two of us have all the time in the world to sort that out, but that by limiting myself to dating him, I'm giving him the idea that I have no other options, and it's not a good thing for him to think, whether he has my name tattooed on his arm or not.

What my mom is ignoring is that the boys who are my age or older are just graduating from high school. They'll hit the university campus in the fall, but even when they do, I'll still look a bit like jail bait to them.  I don't need to get too heavily involved with anyone right at this moment, as medical school (ideally) or law school (if medical school doesn't work out or if I chicken out at the last minute) will happen in just over a year most likely. Between that, I have relatively few difficult courses but two different senior recitals on which to concentrate. A serious relationship that makes concentrating on my recitals and makes it tough to leave town to attend whatever program I end up in will not be an asset to my future. Still, I need someone with whom I can attend an occasional event, or just to hang out with so  I don't turn into a hermit.

Freshman boys, bring it on!  I'm waiting.

never made it to the beach / time for a new edition of column

I haven't been able to come up with enough energy to make it down the stairs,much less back up. My mom has been delivering food to a sitting area or loft just off our staircase (I don't allow food in my bedroom) three times a day. At some point I eat it,then go back to sleep. It's an exciting life I lead  Anyway, for the most recent edition of ASK ALEXIS:

QUESTION #1:

What if a male's penis is too large in circumference to fit inside a female's vagina?

ALEXIS' ANSWER:


In cases of casual relationships, there are plenty of both male and female fish in the sea. In cases of committed relationships, dilation therapy or even surgery can alleviate the problem to some degree.

QUESTION #2:

Does sex hurt?

ALEXIS' ANSWER

Ask the author of Question #1.


Credit: My mother's best friend's husband, who teaches middle school science, in which human reproduction is covered, gave me a few choice questions from the proverbial "Question Box," into which middle-schoolers may submit anonymous questions.

people who follow you and then don't, Judge Alex Ferrer in this case

Judge Alex used to follow me on Twitter. Then he deleted me without notice or explanation. I just happened to notice it.  I don't know why he did, but it was apparently easy as a click of a button. I happened to notice that now he doesn't follow me. It wouldn't bother me if he had never followed me, but when he followed me and then deleted me, it got to me.  I never sent PMs except twice in response to ones he sent. I tried not to bother him.  It was more trouble on his part to delete me than to just leave it alone. I wonder why he went to the trouble of deleting me.  I've gone back and forth on the "he's a nice guy/no, he  isn't" pendulum enough times that almost anyone would be dizzy.

He has "fans" who bother them with their asinine remarks almost daily. He continues to follow them. I wonder why? Is there something that they can do for him that I cannot? I really don't know. In many cases, it's not because they're especially good-looking, because many, in fact most of them are not. Even considering their ages, they're not physically attractive. Many are grossly overweight if not morbidly obese. Some of them show up at events where he will appear almost to the point that they are practically stalkers.  I don't do any of such things. If I did, would he like me better? I cannot help wondering.

I don't  really believe  it's the perception of being a pedophile that causes him to distance himself further from me than he was in the first place. I am eighteen now, and furthermore, I never threw myself at him in any way, much less in the way that some of those whom he follows do.  Nor do I believe his wife went through his list and deleted anyone who was pretty, because if such were the case, I'd still be on his list. I'm not butt-ugly, but neither am I beauty queen material.

Either he or someone else, and I believe it was he, because I choose to believe he controls his own Twitter followers, made a conscious choice to click a button and un-follow me.  I cannot help taking it personally. I did nothing to earn his wrath or even his rejection. Perhaps if I were to convince my father to dedicate his next journal article to Judge Alex, he would follow me again. Or, for that matter, my godfather is an owner of a very large dairy operation. If I begged hard enough, I could possibly get him to name an entire dairy cow line after the Judge and his progeny, or after various aspects of his TV operation.  Since dairy cows are female, they would have to be  "Alejandra," "Masonia," etc., and I could incorporate his family names in as well, although I don't know how his wife would feel about having a heifer named after her. If I were she, I wouldn't be crazy about the idea.

Regardless, I would never stoop to such levels. If he will only like me if I manage to have journal articles about multiple myeloma dedicated to him or dairy cattle named after him, he was never really even my "Twitter" friend, much less my real-life friend.  Maybe it's different with the middle-aged women who drool over him.  Perhaps their adulation boosts them over the top to the extent that he actually likes them. Somehow I think if I did that, though, even were it not beneath my dignity, I think it would creep him out.  Maybe if my family were a Nielson rating family, he would ignore the"creep out" factor and not kick me off his list of people he follows. I'll never know, though, because my family is not among the elite few whose choices impact what stays on TV and what goes off for the entire nation. I'm merely a lone unimportant eighteen-year-old girl or woman.

I can't help wondering if Judge Alex has any idea that a simple click of a button actually hurts a person's feelings. I've read and heard that the true measure of a person's character can be measured in how he treats someone who is not in a position to do anything for him or her. If such is the case, Judge Alex's character comes up short.