You wouldn’t know it to look at me (daily uniform: jeans and American Apparel t-shirts), but I adore fashion. After nearly 19 years of being married to an artist, who is also the world’s best web designer, I have become a design snob. Everything from fashion to architecture to interior design to website design will be judged, often harshly. Heck, I’m even a font snob. (Perennial favorite: American Typewriter because it reminds me of the old manual typewriter I used to write my stories on; House Industries’ fonts are beyond cool; but don’t even get me started on the over-use of Exocet and Papyrus!)

I’m usually not a fan of reality shows or contest shows. Quite frankly I could literally not care less about the hair-cutting or cooking contests. But I loves me some “Project Runway!” Last season was rather lackluster and my favorite (Carol Hannah) didn’t win, but this season is shaping up very well indeed. I mostly like Emilio; Amy seems to be quite original; Seth Aaron is as cool as Jeffrey without all the distracting tattoos; but my favorite is Mila Hermanovski.

Mila is awesome–she’s cool, attractive, hip, and around my age. Her designs are strong and interesting; she knows how to draw inspiration from the tiniest of clues and seems to have a real sense of vision. However, she doesn’t get a lot of respect from the other designers. Every twenty-something on the show sees him- or herself as a wunderkind, the next Christian Siriano. Anybody approaching or firmly in middle-age just cannot possibly be any good! You know what? Christian was a one-off. Very rarely do these youngsters have a firm design aesthetic, they simply haven’t had the time to develop one.

So Mila’s first “mistake” was being a middle-aged woman. Middle-age is far more acceptable on a man than on a woman, so men around Mila’s age or older aren’t looked down upon as too old to be hip or cool or fashion-forward. Women, on the other hand, are often dismissed as “too old” and past their “use-by date” when we reach middle-age. It’s ok to ignore us and diminish our accomplishments if we aren’t fresh and nubile anymore.

Mila made a bigger mistake. The inexcusable crime of being self-confident while female. When a man is self-confident or over-confident, people will use words to condemn his behavior–cocky, arrogant. If a woman exhibits the exact same traits, people will use words to impugn her character, her very person–bitch, whore.

If we, as women, don’t diminish our own accomplishments, there will always be others only too happy to do it for us. If we achieve and excel we are expected to be coquette-ish about it. We adopt an “aw-shucks” demeanor, looking at the ground as we dig a dainty hole in it with a dainty toe. We bat our lashes and give all the credit to providence, luck, and all the other people without whom we would be nothing. If we say, as men would, “Hell yeah, I’m good!” we are reviled and someone needs to make an example of us.

This week, poor Mila stated that none of the other designers were interested in how well she was doing before, but she’s getting along with them in workroom now because she’s “more centered” whatever that means.

I think something happened, maybe not a big something, maybe a series of small somethings. There are petty but cruel ways others have to let a woman know when she’s stepped out of line. The lack of congratulations when you do well, the blank stares when they see you’re still there, the likely shunning in communal spaces.

My hope is in all this “centering” that has taken place, Mila hasn’t become humbled, that she hasn’t lost her self-confidence. I hope that she’s simply learned to conceal it a little better, as so many of us have learned to do. It’s a bad lesson to learn when we find out just how different the rules are governing women vs. those concerning men.

Mila Hermanovski is a talented, strong designer and I hope she wins. I hope, out of support and sheer cussedness, that she shows up all the young doubters.

Yeah, go Mila, win this for the cool-middle-aged-woman team!

It strikes me that there are certain things that grown women do that are better suited to teenagers. Things like read silly vampire books, wear skinny jeans, and over-inflate the worth of Valentine’s Day.

Why do grown women do these silly, teenager-y things? Probably to recapture some lost sense of youth. Perhaps the passing years have done to their girlish spirits what gravity has done to their girlish figures. Years of dealing with a harsh, cold world with little regard for the human heart can really grind a person down.

Perhaps their relationships are deeply unfulfilling. We have all sorts of fanciful notions about life and love when we are achingly young. Especially if life and love treats us kindly when we are young. If you have a sweet and passionate love affair while in the throes of adolescence, then the every-day realities of grown-up love can seem to pale in comparison to the unicorns and cloud-castles of first love. There was a reason Romeo and Juliet were teenagers.

Valentine’s Day may be the only time of the year when matrons feel like maidens once again. If women are partnered, sadly, with men who ignore them or worse, Valentine’s may be the only day on which they can be assured of their husbands’ attentions and affections. One single day that reminds them of first love and possibilities, of shoe boxes filled with cards and chalky candy hearts, of steamed-up car windows and the fear-thrill of maybe being caught.

My son (age 7) loves Valentine’s Day! Everyone in class decorates bags and then gets cards and treats from every single other child in their class. No exceptions, no one left out. I heartily approve of this because when I went to school, it was strictly law of the jungle, babe.

Back in my day, teachers and administrators seemed reluctant to intervene in the kid pecking order. Given enough time, and sufficient lack of supervision, recess would devolve into a mini-Lord of the Flies-scenario. For me, Valentine’s Day was only one more reminder of just how unpopular I was. Other girls’ shoeboxes would be so full the lids would not quite close. My paltry take would rattle around in the bottom and many of them bore messages clearly indicating the sender was being forced to give me said valentine.

Then, when I was a little older, one of my aunts told me that her sons (my cousins) had a habit of breaking up with girlfriends before Valentine’s Day so they wouldn’t have to buy gifts. This reinforced my impression of V-Day, that it is just a manufactured holiday designed to force displays of affection, even if they are feigned.

The media and Hollywood have convinced us that we need these cheap, manufactured gestures to prove that we are loved. Silly me, I always thought that simple consideration for each other and every day affirmations of our feelings for one another prove that we are loved. Nothing says “I love you” like saying “I love you.”

To the poor women out there who hold out for that one day a year when he’ll finally have to look at you instead of the game, take you out to dinner instead of being ungrateful for every meal you make, and spend time with you instead of with his whatever-buddies, you deserve more.

To all the men out there who would rather do anything else than spend time with their wives, rather hang out with fishing-buddies or poker-buddies as opposed to their girlfriends, or begrudge the women in their lives this one day of consideration, shame on you. Seriously, who do you think is going to take care of you if you, say, have a stroke. Do you think your poker-buddies are going to spoon-feed you or wipe your butt? No, if something life-changing should befall you, they will shake their heads, say “did you hear about poor Jim?” and thank their lucky stars they aren’t you.

You know those awful, insipid “chick flicks” she drags you to? She’s trying to show you the kind of romantic behavior she would appreciate from you. And I guarantee that if you pay attention to her everyday, actually say the words “I love you” to her everyday, make tiny gestures of affection everyday, and exhibit actual (not feigned) interest in her life, you won’t ever be dragged to another chick flick.

Personally, I don’t like movies about “romance”, I prefer movies about relationships, human contact, because it is that human contact that fuels us. We need human contact as much as we need food, water, or air. Without it, we die.

Mr. Prairie is very good at the day-to-day maintenance of love. Not a day goes by without an affirmation that he loves me and that I am beautiful. And yesterday, while I was at work, he thoroughly cleaned the kitchen. That man will never have to see a “chick flick” he doesn’t want to see, ever.

It’s not entirely some kind of big favor on my part. When given the choice, I rarely choose the chick flick, I’ll usually go with the sci-fi, the super-hero, or the gothic horror.

Not that we go to a lot of grown-up movies. Getting someone to watch both our kids at the same time is a bit of a production. My parents will do so occasionally but I don’t want to go to that well too often. So while we won’t be going out to the movies this weekend, I know which one I’d being seeing if we were: Wolfman.

You can keep your sparkly vampires, werewolves are awesome!

We had to get rid of our old sofa sectional recently. It had been a good and faithful friend for many years. We got it right after we got back from Chicago. The kids literally grew up on that sofa. It gave me a comfortable place to sleep when I was uber-pregnant, I timed my contractions (for Monkey) on it, and I nursed both babies on the chaise part of the sofa. And it became my bed when my poor hip joint couldn’t take side-sleeping anymore.

Eventually it began to show its well-used years. Mr. Prairie did something to the back cushion on his side; it became a misshapen lump only vaguely resembling a sofa cushion. I had to stomp it into submission whenever Nana came over, just so she could sit there. The seat cushion on my chaise first developed a rip in the fabric, then gradually the deeper layers of foam began to separate until it also got uncomfortable to sleep on.

My parents, bless their hearts, go through den furniture like nobody’s business. This latest time when my mom decided to redecorate her den, she informed me that we needed her old sofa and comfy chair with ottoman. The chair and ottoman is pretty comfy even though it is totally not my style and will be replaced as soon as we get around to it, but the sofa, while rather innocuous looking, is evil.

It hurts my hip, my back, and my sense of aesthetics. It will be replaced as soon as humanly possible. In the meantime, I have dubbed it the Widow-maker.

I think it’s trying to kill me.

As you may know I have a love/hate relationship with children’s TV programming. My daughter watches the “valuable lesson”-type shows on Sprout, Noggin, and Nick Jr. and she seems to enjoy most of them. And as I think that everyone needs a little harmless, mindless diversion occasionally, I put Boomerang on at least once a day. She likes some of the cartoons I grew up with, like Scooby Doo, Where Are You, Yogi Bear, and Popeye, and Tom and Jerry and Pink Panther are so loved that we bought them on DVD so we can watch them whenever we want. And by we I mean Pumpkin. Just yesterday, during a game of involuntary Ring Around the Rosy instigated by her brother, I heard her yell, “Jane! Get me off this crazy thing!” I’m so proud that my 3-year old can quote the classics!

But before school and in the evenings, we watch some shows that my son prefers. We are a Pokemon family and watch Pokemon: Battle Dimension before school. In the evenings, we watch iCarly which I highly recommend as truly funny and well-written and… I have sat here for several minutes trying to figure how to admit that I watch this show and find it both ridiculous and hilarious, much to my chagrin, so I’ll just quit hemming and hawing and spit it out, I’ll just own up to it, I’ll cop to it, I’ll bite the bullet, I’ll…. Oh for heaven’s sake, it’s Spongebob Squarepants. There, I said it.

We sing the song to each other, do our impressions of the characters, and try to guess who does the various voices. Mermaid Man is voiced by Ernest Borgnine and Barnacle Boy is done by Tim Conway. Patrick Star is voiced by exactly the actor I thought, Bill Fagerbakke from Coach and The Stand. M-O-O-N, that spells Patrick! The one voice that threw me for a loop was that for Mr. Krabs. Mr. Krabs is The Kurgan, from Highlander. Clancy Brown has quite an impressive list of rolls on IMDB, including a lot of voice-over work. But when you think about him, isn’t The Kurgan the first thing that springs to mind? Now, on top of hearing Mr. Krabs say, “I’ll save you, money!” and laugh, “Ack, ack, ack, ack, ack, ack, ack,” I’ll also picture The Kurgan ripping the top off a car and saying, “Mom.”

Now there’s some cognitive dissonance for ya!

The economic stimulus is going into the Senate, and it is a dreary certainty that republican know-nothings will make their usual bleatings about tax cuts. Of course the tax cuts republicans venerate are the ones designed to reward large corporations for exporting our jobs overseas and to make sure that those who can afford to consume the most resources (gas for their Hummers, wasted energy in their McMansions, fat bonuses for driving their companies into the ground) bear the least financial responsibility for the society in which they consume those resources.

And the average conservative on the street marches in lock-step with these ideas even to his or her own detriment! When corporations are rewarded with ridiculously low tax obligations do they take those savings to reinvest in American jobs? Not so far. So excuse me if I don’t trust in the better natures of these companies and those who run them. We have seen companies approach the federal government like some kind of Oliver Twist, “Please, sirs, may we have the tax-payers’ money so we can stay in business and keep employing those tax-payers?” And then we hear that the bailout money has gone to provide fat bonuses to the very people most responsible for their companies’ troubles!

I recently un-friended someone on Facebook for the kind of subtle racism-laden “joke” that he can later claim, “What? It was about my dog. You liberals just can’t take a joke! I hate this PC crap.” Before I un-friended him he repeated the classist, racist, and damnable lie that he makes more money than poor people because he works harder and therefore shouldn’t have to pay a higher percentage of taxes than those poor people. And this person claims to be a christian. I happen to think it isn’t very christian to expect that someone who earns a fraction of what you do should be required to pay the same percentage of taxes as you. What is an inconvenience for someone who makes 100K a year is an unbearable burden for someone who makes 20K or less per year. Your decision to buy a new car or not this year becomes a “choice” between paying for food, medications, or shoes for the children. And a christian is ok with this?!

So, let’s talk about why no one should grouse about paying taxes. Taxes are the dues we pay to live in a civilized society. Taxes are what we pay so we can get from point A to point B without paying usage fees to every property owner we pass. Taxes are the price we pay for the privilege of interacting with the vast majority of US citizens who are literate even though their parents couldn’t afford private schools. Taxes are what make our government function for the greater good of the people, and that is, full stop, a good thing. Some examples of what can happen when government doesn’t function for the people anymore: anarchy, fascism, oppression, violent revolution.

I don’t mind paying the taxes necessary to functioning in the modern world so I’m going to put forth some ideas for those of you who like to whine about taxes, bearing in mind that what we pay for in taxes belongs to each of us.

Get off of my roads. State highway systems, bought and paid for with the help of my tax dollars. Ditto on the Interstate highway system. Hope you don’t have any trouble negotiating on surface streets and toll roads to do all of your traveling .

Take your children out of my schools. Oh, I realize that some of you already have. Incidentally, if your religion can’t survive your children being taught evolution then it isn’t much of a religion. And even if you manage to send your kids to private schools or homeschool them, you and they will still be forced to function in the world with people who went to public schools. Isn’t it in your (and your kids’) best interest to make sure people (like me) coming out of public schools are literate and competent. Don’t you want your surgeon and your pilot and your bus driver to be able to read and think critically?

Hope you are never the victim of a crime, because all of those tax-payer supported police officers and FBI agents? They work for me.

Better invest in a sprinkler system for your house and buy lots of fire extinguishers, because that thoroughly socialist concept known as a fire department? Yep, mine.

Wouldn’t want you patronizing the library, what with all that tax money being “wasted” there.

Are your children prepared to care for you in your dotage? I assume you invested all of your retirement savings in the stock market because of your faith in the free market system. Well, we’ve seen what has happened there, haven’t we? And since you are so opposed to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, I know you won’t miss that safety net.

And when all the rest of us decide that we are ready for a single-payer healthcare system because we don’t mind getting beneficial things for our taxes, you can just sit that one out.

I hope you are never flooded out, FEMA and the National Guard? You guessed it, they’re mine.

So unless you decide to chuck it all, move to a remote mountain cabin where you can scratch a barely subsistence-level existence out of the soil, and never burden polite society with your anti-tax, anti-government, anti-poor, anti-people, anti-children, anti-elderly, anti-knowledge, anti-safety, anti-health, nutty blatherings then you are politely invited to keep your poorly thought-out opinions to yourself.

But if you enjoy NOT living in a third-world (now politely called “developing”) country, then pony up. You have to pay your share, just like everybody else. And if your share is larger because your income is larger, then consider yourself blessed and dig out your wallet.

The other night, after I got home from work, Mr. Prairie and I watched “Making Over America With Trinny and Susannah.” There are no words for how much I love them. Trinny and Susannah are bold and funny and are apparently bringing their brand of makeover to the U.S. While I often feel that “makeover” shows are all about sucking every ounce of individuality out of people and making them adhere to a socially acceptable, conventional beauty, I don’t get that from T & S.

But I digress. In this special, they were making over a very cute mom/waitress from New Jersey. Off the clock, the New Jersey mom, Denise wore baggy boring clothes. She wanted something different for herself, but like all moms, put herself dead-last on her list of priorities. Denise didn’t think of herself as pretty, she referred to herself as “plain.” And she had body issues as a result of the changes that come along with having two children.

While listening to Denise disparage some body part or the other, Mr. Prairie exclaimed, “What is wrong with her?!” Then he looked at me and said, “You know, I blame Hugh Hefner. Because of him, men think they should have some perfect, airbrushed girl that doesn’t even exist in real life! And women wear themselves out trying to be like that!”

My jaw dropped, in a good way. “You get it! You actually get it!” Then I said, “You know what this makes you, don’t you? A feminist!” He laughed, because he’s been one all along.

The next night we watched another show, this one about a wedding. The bride’s father talked about the ceremony representing the passing of his authority over his daughter to her new husband, who then has authority over her. Hubby asked me, “What did I just hear?”

I answered, “You just heard a wedding being described as a transfer of property between the father of the bride and the new husband. And the property is the bride.”

He said, “That’s twisted.”

It would never have occurred to Mr. Prairie to ask my dad for permission to marry me, because I was a grown woman. We told my folks, together, that we were getting married. It never even entered our minds that my father had authority over me as an adult and that the non-existent authority could be transferred to someone else. I told the pastor that I wouldn’t promise to obey anybody and he’d better leave it out of the vows or there would be a very awkward silence in the ceremony. And I told him to leave that submission crap out, too. Marriage should be a partnership of equals who love each other, not a master-and-servant arrangement.

So I asked Hubby, “You weren’t laboring under the mistaken idea that you have any authority over me, were you?” He started laughing and said, “Are you kidding me?”

You see, he believes that marriage is a partnership of equals, too. Because he’s been a feminist all along!

Well, bless his pea-pickin’ little heart! I was browsing the CNN website this morning when I came upon this little article, Working from home: Not for every ‘Mr. Mom’ by Josh Lubin.

He correctly points out just how difficult it is to accomplish anything remotely like work while caring for a newborn. That’s because caring for a newborn is work.  He gets first-hand experience in just such when he agrees to work from home for a few hours while his wife goes to an unspecified early appointment. In the midst of his work requirements, other requirements pop (or poop) up: diapers need to be changed, tummies need to be filled, crying needs to be interpreted.

Then he says this:

“I realize that the ability to work and be a nanny simultaneously is a skill requiring practice.”

Did he just say “…be a nanny…?” Why yes, he did! Does he equate parenting with being a paid help? Does he consider what his wife is doing, presumably on her maternity leave, as nanny-ing? Obviously, judging simply by his choose of words, he considers caring for his child being a nanny, while I consider it being a parent.

I don’t deny that different parents have different parenting styles, but I find this tendency to refer to those times when fathers care for their children by themselves as “babysitting” or in the author’s case as “be(ing) a nanny” infuriating to say the least.

And what of articles that praise the massive amounts of time (6.5 hours per week) modern fathers spend with their children, relative to their own fathers (2.6 hours per week)? Well, Arlie Russell Hochschild’s book The Second Shift neatly puts them in perspective. When mother goes back to work, the majority of parenting and household tasks will be her responsibility. But no one will ever consider the performing of her responsibilities as being “a nanny” or a housekeeper; no one will ever give her a cookie for doing her duty.

Not that Mr. Lubin is asking for a cookie. I just hope that this instills in him a measure of appreciation of the shear amount of hard work his wife will face in the ensuing years and inspires him to contribute his share during that second shift.

And I would love to tell him that this, too, shall pass. More quickly than he can imagine, and sooner than he wants, his child will grow up. He might want to re-address the idea of working from home in a few years. Eventually, she will be able to sit on the potty by herself and get her own snacks from the kitchen. Then, before he knows it, it’s off to school and, inevitably, she will be all grown up and he’ll be wondering how it happened so fast. Wasn’t it just yesterday that she cried in the middle of his conference call and cracked everybody up?

Enjoy it now, Mr. Lubin, this time will not come again.

As I sit here on this historic day, watching that history unfold on my TV, I am struck by the utter disregard my daughter has for the solemn events we are watching. So far I have received one request for Pink Panther, one for “Pongo” (101 Dalmatians), and two crying fits when I told her “No.” Now she is rapidly emptying a tissue box and making a small mountain out of the tissues.

Well, it’s ridiculous to expect a toddler to appreciate something I consider exciting but that she has proclaimed boring. And it is exciting, instead of gazing longingly to a past that never really existed, we, as a country, are once again looking resolutely into the future. And once again we will have a president who addresses the American people as the adults that we are.

I think the chief failing of the out-going administration (and most conservatives) is that they do not see the American people as adults that are capable of making our own decisions, they do not trust us to handle the hard stuff. The Great Depression could have destroyed the country but the strength of the citizenry kept it alive. During WWII, the tough-minded American people did what was required to defeat the greatest threats our world had ever faced. Tire-rationing, food-rationing, women taking over “man’s work” to free men to fight, Civil Air Patrol, black-outs, the American people coped very well, soldiered on, made do, made it work.

After 9/11, did the administration ask the people to sacrifice any material comfort for the good of the country? No, they told us to go shopping, to travel, to spend money as if there were no tomorrow. Oh, we sacrificed all right, our civil liberties, the assumption that our private telephone calls were truly private, our dignity at the airport, too many of our brave service men and women. We weren’t even asked to forgo paltry tax cuts so our troops could have little luxuries like body armor. But now many people have unwillingly sacrificed much of their life savings, many have sacrificed their homes.

Were those who benefited the most from the CEO-president asked to sacrifice their golden parachutes when their companies began to falter? Are you kidding me? The CEO-president asked us, the tax-payers, to bail out his buds!

At a time when it was easy to blame the “other”, were we asked to set aside old prejudices and come together in unity? No, grievances were allowed to fester, bigotries were encouraged. We were told to fear the “other”, to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. Innocent people, whose only crime was practising a different faith than most other Americans, were detained in airports and escorted off planes.

I interrupt this post with the joyous news that Obama is now officially our president even before he takes the oath of office. Great day in the morning!

The old administration did not trust us with the truth, they did not trust us with their mistakes, they thought we were too weak to handle the difficult road ahead and tried to deceive us that the road was a smooth one.

President Obama trusts us enough to admit that the road ahead is a tough one, but that we can meet and exceed the challenges. He understands that we come from tough stuff. Every single American born in this country is the descendant of people tough enough to cross land bridges during the last ice age, to make perilous ocean voyages, to leave the comforts of home to carve a new life out of the wilderness, to survive and surmount slavery, to fight for independence, to fight to keep our country united, to survive deadly epidemics and find cures for them, to claim, demand and fight for the inalienable right to be treated as full and equal citizens, to rise up and demand the right to vote, to walk The Trail of Tears, to retain their sovereignty in the midst of hostile forces, to have their land taken away and forced to move to reservations and survive, to endure internment with dignity. Our naturalized citizens all took the difficult steps to leave their homes and start a new life here. No matter how desperate their previous existences may have been, no matter how war-torn or destitute their old homes were, it is still painfully difficult to pull up stakes, forsake roots, leave family and friends, say farewell to familiar sights and faces, to chose to live among strangers, to learn a new language, to adapt to new ways of doing things, yet thousands of people do just this every year.

We are, all of us, tough-minded people, capable of surmounting any difficulty that we face. And I have complete faith that President Obama’s administration will treat us as competent adults. I believe that his administration will trust all of us to make our own private sometimes difficult medical decisions for ourselves. I hope that his administration will usher in a new era of tolerance, compassion, and acceptance for all people.

But my little daughter doesn’t grasp any of this because she has no knowledge of the past eight years. And apparently neither do these people up in Wyoming and many others just like them. People were so concerned about Bill Clinton “taking away their rights” that militias multiplied like cockroaches. But it was Bush who presided over the biggest retreat on civil liberties in decades. And now these same types of folks are worried about Obama infringing on their rights!

I wonder exactly what sorts of rights people are concerned about losing. The right to have guns? Contrary to popular opinion, Democrats and other assorted liberals do not want to disarm the public. We want hunters to have their firearms, we want law-abiding citizens with the proper training and permits to pack heat, when appropriate. We just want to keep the criminals, the mentally unstable, the rage-driven nutjobs from having easy access to guns. We want waiting periods and cooling-off periods, we want children to make it through childhood unscathed even if daddy has a handgun, we want places of business to be able to keep guns out of the workplace if they so choose. WE DO NOT WANT TO TAKE ALL YOUR GUNS!!!!! Please get over yourselves.

Are they afraid that now with a black man in the White House, they won’t feel as comfortable making racist jokes? Good. Discomfort is a sign that you should stop. Are they afraid they will have to stop hating gay people and, you know, start treating them like human beings? Hatred and fear are terrible things to harbor in your heart and your soul will shrivel and die as a result, and we can’t make you stop hating, but we can insist that you treat other human beings with dignity and respect.

They seem to be afraid that their religious liberties will be compromised. I simply don’t get this. This country was founded without requiring religious tests for holding public office and without establishing a state religion. Our founding fathers had seen first-hand the dangers inherent in a state religion and many colonists came here to escape real religious persecution, not the “persecution” some modern church members claim to experience. Religious persecution tries to keep you from practising your faith. Not being able to force others to abide by your faith is NOT persecution. Get over yourselves.

Are they as worried about leaving a huge national debt as they say? Too late, baby! Bush already did that for you. It’s a little late to be getting your underpants in a wad over it.

I’ve got it! They’re afraid that all their trans fats will be replaced by olive or canola oil, that the air they breath may become cleaner under a president who doesn’t despise the EPA, that some of those lazy, useless, good-for-nothing endangered species may be protected. After all, who needs healthy oceans and diverse habitats? Soylent Green, anyone?

Wow, imagine the affront to one’s dignity should the partially hydrogenated oil in snack cakes be replaced by polyunsaturated fats! The horror.

Honestly, can’t the right come up with anything better to be concerned about? Oh yeah, terrorism. Well those wars have totally turned out great, huh? There have totally not been any more terrorist attacks anywhere since….oh, wait, there have.

We already live in a surveillance society, unless you never leave your home, you are photographed or filmed in lots of public spaces, from banks to department stores to parking lots. Your banking habits are subject to scrutiny, as are your overseas calls. And all this happened way before President Obama was even elected.

I personally am looking forward to the next four years, the new era we are entering promises to be exciting and scary and ultimately fulfilling.

Congratulations, Mr. President, you earned it!

As you may know, due to the presence of two small children in the House, I watch a lot of children’s programming. Some of it I like, some of it I can stand, some of it is “meh”, and some of it is actively awful. But I have resigned myself to my odious fate. Occasionally, I can sneak in the odd rerun of “Project Runway” or “Matlock” (I loooove me some “Matlock”!) but there is one type of TV show I avoid like the plague.

Soap Operas.

Here’s the problem, I used to be seriously into, nay addicted to, “Days of Our Lives” in college. Marlena, Roman, Kim, Shane, Patch, Kayla, Bo and Hope, Jack and Jennifer, Victor Kiriakis, Ma and Pa Brady, Julie and Doug (from when I was a child and my mom used to watch it), and who could forget Calliope and Eugene (the incomparable John de Lancie). Who could not watch in fascination as all the bad karma in the world descended on the hapless Brady clan week after week? Who could not try to fathom not just the tragedy, but the utter weirdness swirling about Salem? What was that? You could? Well, maybe that was just me.

Anyway, I have purposely avoided getting re-involved with soap operas, especially as a SAHM. I’d get even less housework done than I do now! I have indulged myself by reading the blurbs in the back of the TV listing every week. The familiar names and the comfortingly kooky predicaments all felt like postcards from my younger self who used to structure her class schedule around “Days”(I kid you not).

Today I accidentally watched a few minutes of my old friend, “Days”. No, really. It was a total accident. This morning I had the TV on whatever morning “news” show is on NBC. I wanted to watch the weather and see more footage of that amazing plane crash in NYC. When Pumpkin finally reached her boring, old grown-up show limit she pulled her favorite “Pink Panther”(animated) DVD out of the cabinet. She watched it while she colored in her big coloring book and munched on the occasional crayon. When it was over, I switched it back to the TV so I could make her lunch in relative peace. And what should be on? “Days of Our Lives!!!”

I found myself in the warm embrace of old friends. There was Kayla and Marlena, discussing John Black’s latest bout of amnesia. Nothing had changed! Including my little problem. My eyes glazed over and I sat motionless on the edge of the couch. Where I would’ve watched the whole thing if my daughter had not reminded me, rather forcefully, that she was ready for lunch.

So the next time I grouse about having to watch children’s programming, I’ll try to remind myself that it is better than the alternative.

You all have been privy to one of my dark secrets and it’s your turn: What do you absolutely adore yet avoid like the plague? It can be anything, guilty-pleasure-TV, verbotten snack, luxurious indulgence, run-of-the-mill vice, whatever, just share.

As you may know I turned 40 this year, and thus begins my third decade as an official adult. Every decade, every year is uncharted territory at its very beginning. And it is usually only in hindsight that we understand each year, each decade and the lessons we drew from them. It strikes me that there are some people who never recognize those lessons and blithely carry on their lives in a kind of stasis of mind. As if at some point in their lives they reached a level of learning they were comfortable with and froze their development in amber. Never evolving past a certain point, never changing, never becoming more than the simple sum of their parts; their years are simply an enumeration, not a teaching tool.

I do not want to become one of those people.

Mr. Prairie and I married when I was 23, so the majority of my twenties were about learning how to be a married person. Together we learned how to forge a partnership of equals, a team. The two of us against the world.

We began trying to have children when I was 29, so my thirties were consumed with the babies. First with the thought, “Are we ready to do this?” When the answer came back, “Ready as we’ll ever be,” we jumped in, both feet, eyes closed. It was not as easy as it is in the movies. Five years of trying, tests, procedures, drugs, heartbreak, disappointment, giving up, then giving back in, hoping, crying, and miscarrying. Then success, we triumphed, I triumphed over the body that had thus far only betrayed me. I not only struggled with infertility, I wrestled it to the ground and kicked its ass. Then followed eight months and one week of fear and high-risk status.

But the consumption by everything baby did not end with my son’s birth. There was a year of post-partum depression, undiagnosed of course. I had no idea until the fog of hormones lifted and I got to experience “normal” again. And just when I was getting used to being “normal” again, I got pregnant (planned) with my daughter. Another ride on the baby-go-round! Luckily, I did not experience PPD that time around.

Now, facing forward into my 40’s, I wonder what the future lessons will be. But I suspect this decade will be about learning how to be the grown-up version of me. Wunderkind, wild child, young woman, those times have come and gone. It is time to let go of any remaining shred of reticence or timidity. It is time to reach for the things I want. It is time, and long passed, to claim the title Writer for myself.

And I want to triumph over my body once again, this time making it fit my self-image. But I will save that struggle for a future post.