The most Romantic LolCats ever

moar humorous pics

Too much sweetness for me. I hope she said yes.

NIP

This is an awesome post about the whole "nursing in public" ignorance that takes place so often. Go check it out. It illustrates how so many people get all riled up seeing a few centimeters of skin exposed for a mother to feed her baby (honestly now - how many times have you seen a woman nursing in public exposing her nipple for any serious length of time, or at all? I don't think I EVER have) while they will tolerate all kinds of skin exposure in magazines, on billboards, in advertisements to sell beer, jeans, CDs, or whatever.

I am convinced it is not about the real exposure that comes from nursing in public (NIP) that bothers people. Most of the time, if a woman is nursing in public, there isn't much exposure at all, and certainly no more than you will see in other places in hot weather when girls are running around in skimpy clothes. It is, I'm certain, the ACT of NIP - the act of breastfeeding in general - that upsets and offends people.

I don't have the time or energy to go into much depth with this, but I think a lot of it comes from our need, as a culture, to overcome nature, to deny that which is natural and biologically normal. This extends to our obsession with hygiene and showering constantly, shaving every part of our body we can, prefering to take drugs to treat our ailments rather than concentrating on the root causes and fixing our diets or lifestyles. Breastfeeding is the perfect example of what our bodies, our most basic human NATURE, can do if left alone and allowed to do what they need, and it it offensive to many. The baby bottle, baby formula, the sterility and unnaturalness of it all, seems so much more safe, and so much less offensive, to the majority.

Remember Demi Moore's magazine cover, where she posed nude while very pregnant? Remember the uproar? It was beautiful. Remember any of the covers linked to in the post above? Christina Aguilera on Rolling Stone, or Janet Jackson on another issue? Where was the uproar there? There wasn't, because they were presenting breasts in their culturally acceptable context - as sex object - not in their natural context - as objects for feeding and comforting a baby.

We have a visitor

An uninvited guest. I've named him Gary, and I don't know why. I wanted a "G" name, and it was the first one that came to mind.

Eric says he's harmless, and will, in fact, eat bugs (which I've been watching him do), and so, right now, we're keeping an eye on him and letting him have a meal of our insects before kicking him out. These kinds of creepy-crawlies don't bother me at all - I only wish Guthrie was awake to see it. Isn't he cute? Almost?

Go Has a Cheezburger

If you have not done so already, go here. I was LOL, really, so hard Eric wondered what was wrong.

I'd link to my favorites, but the one that had me laughing the hardest was not kid or work appropriate, so you have to find it yourself. The "invisible" tag has some of my favorites.

Oh, dear, why do I find it so funny?

Thank you, Karrie, for guiding me to this site which has sucked so much time from me. It's made me laugh a lot, though, so the time was worth it.

Wiki Birthday Meme

Stolen from Alimum

1. Go to Wikipedia and enter your birthday without the year:
June 27

2. List four events that occurred that day:
1844 - Joseph Smith, Jr., murdered along with his brother, Hyrum, at the Carthage, Illinois jail.

1967 - The world's first ATM is installed in Enfield, London.

1985 - Route 66 ceases to be an official U.S. highway.

1981 - The first paintball match was played.

3. List two important birthdays:
1880 - Helen Keller, American spokeswoman for the deaf and blind (d. 1968)
1930 - Ross Perot, American billionaire and politician

4. List one death:
2001 - Jack Lemmon, American actor (b. 1925)

5. List one holiday or observance:
National HIV Testing Day in United States

And for me, a bonus fictional holiday:

In Shirley Jackson's Novel The Lottery, the annual lottery is held on this date each year.

Why Am I Here?

I've been meaning to address this for awhile, so I'll give it a go now.

Not too long ago, I found out that I had, apparently, offended someone in my family by some of my comments here. That was certainly not my intention, and I did send a long e-mail trying to explain things. I feel the need to do so here a bit too.

I started this little blog here solely as a means to communicate with my friends and family after our move. After we arrived in our new home, I sent a mass e-mail to just about everyone I knew with all of our new contact info, and this site address. In response, my niece and a few friends got back to me to let me know they'd other stopped by or to say hello, glad we got here okay. I knew my mom was reading, because we talk on the phone. The rest of my family, except for one aunt (who unfortunately was the offended party), never got back to me. No e-mail, no phone call, no nothing. Oh, sorry, received one of those totally un-personal Christmas card/newsletters from one cousin.

In the meantime, I started making more imaginary friends - other bloggers whose sites I stopped by to read, and who would return the favor and read what I had to say. I have had more contact with many of these people who I have never met (and, for the most part, probably never will meet) than with most of my actual real extended "family" in the last, oh, 5 years. I know more about these people's lives, and they probably know more about mine, than most of my family. Abby, Karrie, Alison, the Stuntmother, Thordora, Amanda, Amanda, Jill, Ann, April ... and whoever I'm probably forgetting have felt like more of a family to me in the past year than most of my real family.

(And rather than list off the exclusions to the generalization about my family, because I'm afraid I'd forget someone, just know that if I believe you to be reading this, you're not included in that generalization. K?)

So, at some point, when I really didn't feel like the family was reading this at all, or that most of them even gave a crap about what I was doing or whether or not we made it to Texas safely, I figured it was time to say what I wanted, and not worry about who I offended. Because if they're not even going to read it, not going to return my e-mails or phone calls, not going to invite me - when I still lived close enough - to Thanksgiving or Christmas or birthdays - then really, why should I care?

Then I realized that there are members of my family who I do still care about, and who do still care about me. Maybe in the past they didn't show it well, didn't understand what was really going on and therefore judged my actions too severely, or have never been able to adequately express their feeligns about things, but they do care, and I do too.

I know, to some of that family, some of this will have been offensive, and for that I apologize, but at the same time, this needed to be said. This is my little piece of the Internet, and I have used it to say what I feel about things, and to be honest I needed to say what I said here. However, this is also my opportunity to say that in the future, I will not use this as my forum to say what I feel about everything. I am not the kind of person who can say half-truths, or hedge my words to avoid offense when it is something I feel strongly about, so if it is something I feel may be offensive to someone I care about, I'll refrain from saying it here. And if we are all honest, everything is offensive to someone.

Judy's Journeys was the title of a book I had as a little girl, and why I chose the name of this blog. This blog is part of my journey, but for now it might get a little less controversial (as if it ever was, really) and slightly more boring (if that is possible). Keep coming back for updates on the family, on the beauty of South Texas, on the wild ride of being married to a writer, but I'll keep my harsher opinions to myself, or at least away from here.