Random Thoughts

Words of Wisdom from a Parent with a Little Sanity

2012-01-12T14:33:21Z

Image: Tina Phillips / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When you become a parent, be prepared to do ALL that stuff you said you would never do. Have you ever said you wouldn't go up to your child's school looking crazy? Well guess what! Sometimes you can't help it because your kids have driven you crazy. You don't look like that on purpose. Hell in some cases, you might not know you look crazy until the school secretary stares at you with a wide-eyed look. True story, my oldest left something at home and I had to take it to her. The lady at the desk looked at me with this crazy expression...I was drying my hair when my daughter called and forgot to remove the wrapping strips from my hair.

Remember saying, "I will never say or do the things my parents said" before you had children? Guess what your favorite words are now..."Because I said so!" "I'm the mama and you're the child!" "Sass me again and the police will have to pull me off you!" "This gun is loaded!" Well, maybe I'm the only one that says the last two. My point is, history repeats itself repeatedly.

If you are successful, you will raise children you are happy to claim. If you are really successful, you will raise children other people want to claim. I look at my children every day and wonder how they made it so far with me as a mother. Then I look at my mother and realize it's because she lost her mind raising me.

The key is to find a happy medium. Say "no" to drugs, but "yes" to alcohol and naps as much as possible. If you put the alcohol in your coffee, no one will know. Learn to take naps standing up, sitting down and while talking to other people. Keep them brief because children can wreak a lot of havoc during a nap. Above all, accept your mistakes and remember you're only human.

Seed

2012-01-02T20:08:16Z

Seed. Ania Ahlborn.

Kindle Edition, 2011.

169 pp.

Available for $2.99 on Amazon

Synopsis

While driving home one night with his wife and two daughters, Jack Winters gets into an accident on a dark, lonely road. Jack totals the car, but no one is hurt. All seems well until one daughter becomes ill. What he thought to be the flu turns out to be something more sinister.

His wife, Aimee, sees something else. She knows something is wrong, but can’t pinpoint the exact cause until she uncovers Jack’s secret. By then, it’s too late.

The Review

In Seed, Jack watches his daughter deteriorate into someone he doesn’t know, or so he thinks. You will like and hate Jack at the same time. You like him for the person he tries to be, but you hate him for what he allows to happen to his family. For example, he’s a patient father and tolerant husband who puts aside his feelings to ease his wife and daughter’s fears. At the same time, he sees his youngest daughter transitioning into something sinister and does not attempt to stop it.

Ahlborn manages to paint an eerie picture without all the gratuitous gore associated with horror. The story flows well, but there are several unresolved storylines. ~Spoiler Alert~ For example, we never really know or understand how Jack’s torment began, or why his daughter experiences the same torment. There’s no real understanding of what the menacing figure in the book wants or why it chose Jack. The graveyard and dark, lonely roads are two overdone clichés the book did not need. You may find yourself liking the minor characters more than the main characters. Jack’s best friend, Reagan, has a likeable personality. In fact, Reagan should have been a main character. His wife, Aimee, has a large role with no real purpose.

Ahlborn is no Stephen King, but this author manages to weave a tale of suspense filled with several “wow” moments you have to read to believe. She manages to keep you hooked until the very end. The final chapter leaves you wanting more from this author.

All I Want for Christmas

2011-11-29T11:32:30Z

A little child stood in line waiting patiently waiting to speak to Santa Claus. He listened carefully as each child named toy after toy. When it was his turn, he walked up to Santa Claus and climbed in his lap. The man under the suit couldn’t help but notice his tattered clothes and the gloves with worn fingertips. He hoped the little boy’s list would be short because he was sure he hadn’t bathed from the looks of his clothes. He didn’t want the filth to get on his Santa suit.

“Ho, Ho, Ho little boy what do you want for Christmas?”

“My name is Justin and I want my friend Jessica to get a new heart because the one she has is filled with so much love that it doesn’t work any more. The doctor says that she doesn’t have much time left and if she doesn’t have the operation she won’t be able to love anymore. I was just thinking if she got a brand new one then she wouldn’t need to worry about it ever again. I told her that she could stop loving me until she gets a new heart, but she says that its okay there is still a little room left in her heart so she will still love me.”

“What else do you want little boy?”

“Just a minute Santa, I am not done. I want her mommy to stop crying because Jessie, that’s what I call her, says that it breaks her heart. If her mother keeps breaking her heart she will become sicker. Her mother can’t help it because she loves her, but I don’t think she understands that a broken heart doesn’t work. Jessica is older than me so she will need a bigger heart than mine. I offered to give mine to her, but she said if she takes my heart then I can’t love either. I want her dad to smile more because Jessie says that it hurts her heart to see him so sad. I don’t think he understands that a hurt heart don’t beat as much. Please make her husband’s heart stronger because he says that it breaks every time he sees her. I don’t want his heart to need fixing too.”

“I see,” said the man under the suit ashamed and fighting to hold back tears.

The little boy continued, “Jessica is a very special person because she comes to see me every week at the orphanage. She plays with me and tells me stories. She says that the stories are from her heart; so you see Santa she needs a new one so that she can keep telling stories. Don’t worry if you can’t do it Santa I understand that you have a lot of wishes to make come true. Jessie says that she needs a miracle so I figure if I talk to you and pray to God she will get the miracle she needs. I put my faith in God first, but I figure you can help too.”

The little boy started to climb down from his lap and then realized that he forgot something.

He handed the man in the suit a crumpled piece of paper “In case you can’t find her here is my address. You can leave the heart with me.”

The next day the boy was sitting in Jessie’s hospital room reading his favorite book to her when a man walked in. He said that he was a doctor and he was there to fix a heart filled with love. He walked over to the boy and handed him an envelope. Inside it was a letter:

Dear Justin,

Your Christmas wish was touching and selfless.

So I spoke with a friend and he decided to grant your wish.

He said to enter his kingdom you must humble yourself like a child.

The fact that you requested nothing made him smile.

So this Christmas he grants you the one thing that you ask

Someone that can fix your friend’s heart and make it last.

He also granted your friend’s wish too.

She asked for a little boy just like you.

I am honored that you made this request of me.

But I do not work alone you see.

I almost gave up on Christmas and God sent me you

You see Justin, I pray too.

Santa Claus.

By: Patrice Davis

Erotic Poetry? I Will Pass!

2011-11-21T13:00:25Z

After I made my decision to become an author I began reading everything I could get my hands on; mysteries, romance, how-to-books, poetry and sci-fi. The one thing I realized was that I do not like poetry, but let me clarify what I mean. I absolutely hate erotic poetry, well not all erotic poetry, but most of it. And why? Because there is no mystery to most erotic poetry. Beautiful metaphors that refer to a woman's intimate parts have been replaced by words like "p****" and "c***." The words no longer inspire a person to make love; it inspires them to "f***." Please excuse the language in this post, but it is necessary to get my point across. Why have poets resorted to such ludeness to describe something so beautiful?

I often find myself comparing modern poets to the poets of yesteryear like Lascelles Abercrombie's Emblems of Love:

She

ONLY to be twin elements of joy
In this extravagance of Being, Love,
Were our divided natures shaped in twain;
And to this hour the whole world must consent.

Image: Louisa Stokes / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Matthew Arnold Longing:

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me!

Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth,
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say, My love why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Robert Browning Meeting At Night:

The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

After all, isn't sex a mixture of emotions and feelings shared by two people who desire to be close with one another? Eroticism is a state of anticipation for sexuality. It's sexual desire, sensuality, and sexiness. It is not "f******." Animals f***. People make love. People desire each other. At least they should.

I am not saying that erotic poetry is a wasted art because that is not true. Real erotic poetry makes a woman look at her man with longing. It makes a man daydream about holding his woman in his arms and kissing her gently from her forehead to her lips. Erotic poetry creates anticipation of that special moment. Words like "f***" and "p****" and "d***" remove that anticipation and turns sex into an emotionless act devoid of longing, desire and most important...love.

Some argue there is no difference...sex is sex. I beg to differ. Making Love and Having Sex (f******) is very different and if someone says it is not that means all they have ever done is had sex. They have never made love.

Having sex is getting up and putting your clothes on when you are finished.
Making Love is falling asleep in your lover's arms, fully content and satisfied.
There is no kissing involved in having sex.
A kiss is worth a thousand words when two people make love.

Image: Dynamite Imagery / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Now keep in mind, this is just my opinion. I am not putting down poets who like to write about f******, a**, t**s, p**** and d***. I am just saying I don't want to read it, which is why I exercise my right not to read or purchase it.

Copyright © 2012. Random Thoughts All rights reserved. Share Reproduction of any post on this page are strictly prohibited without the author's permission.

To promote individuality, Arizona would have to prohibit the teaching of American History.

2011-11-21T12:38:42Z

Image: porbital / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Arizona passed a law prohibiting a school district or charter school from including courses or classes that either promote the overthrow of the United States government or promote resentment toward a race or class of people. There are four provisions to this law:

Promote the overthrow of the United States government.
Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.
Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.
Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.

Arizona would have to prohibit the teaching of American History to avoid creating resentment towards rich (class) white (race) Americans.

Now I might be a little naive on this subject, but wasn't the United States founded through rebellion? I guess Arizona will not teach children about the American Revolution. The history of the United States is filled with atrocities that children are taught early on, such as the taking of land from Native Americans. We also have that pesky issue of slavery that spanned over 400 years. In fact, many would argue that the United States was built on the backs of slaves. Yet, years later African Americans had to fight for their Constitutional rights.

Remember how Japanese Americans were taken from their homes and placed in internment camps during World War II. Those internment camps were surrounded by barbed wire. They lived in windowless shacks with many other families. These shacks had no ventilation, no bathrooms and no electricity. Often times, these Japanese-AMERICANS were given spoiled food to eat. Take away the genocide and that sounds like a concentration camp.

Image: Tony Dowson / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Aside from Martin Luther King, Jr and the occasional mention of Harriet Tubman, U.S. History talks about prominent white men and their contribution to the United States. There is no mention of Garret Morgan, the African American who invented the gas masks used in these important wars fought by the United States (like WW I and WW II). Nor is there any mention of Severo Ochoa's contribution to the medical field (he became a U.S. Citizen in 1956). Did you know Will Rogers was a Cherokee who was in the Guiness Book of World Records and wrote over 4,000 nationally-syndicated newspaper columns?

The point of my ramblings is this: Arizona would have to prohibit the teaching of American History to avoid creating resentment towards rich (class) white (race) Americans. Is that fair?

How many of us actually took an ethnic studies class in elementary school?
Is the removal of ethnic studies creating solidarity or discord between the races and classes?

It’s Not Cheating if We Don’t Touch

2011-11-21T11:20:15Z

Image: Michal Marcol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Trina possesses the qualities of a devoted woman. Every Sunday she sits in the third pew and listens intently to the minister’s word. Every third Sunday, she sings lead in her church choir. She’s a diehard friend to the end, something she attributes to the fact she was born a Scorpio, and she loves her man. Yet, one day almost a year ago, she came close to throwing her relationship of two years away all courtesy of a private chat request. Normally, she ignored them, shaking her head at the desperation, but that night she clicked “Accept” and unwittingly started her first “affair.”

She was in a committed, and seemingly happy, relationship. After several late night computer conversations with a male chatter, she began to question whether she was happy. He convinced her to show him a picture of her. Although reluctant, she chose her most flattering picture. Her computer beau told her that she was beautiful and complimented her smiles every chance he got.

“What could it hurt,” T said softly. “It’s not like we were face-to-face.”

It was all so innocent, or was it?

Trina found herself rushing home from work just to talk to him. When her boyfriend fell asleep, she eased out of bed and turned on the computer. Some of their conversations lasted until the sun came up. Oddly, Trina said, “I felt fulfilled when I logged off the computer.”

Then the inevitable happened. Trina wanted to see him face-to-face. They made the arrangements, he was in Georgia, she in Texas. Her heart pounded at the thought of seeing him, but it also pounded at the thought of getting caught. Her morality led her to chicken out at the last minute. Eventually, she severed all ties of communication with him. In all her years of dating, Trina had never thought of cheating on her partner.

Why now?

“It was just easy to do. My boyfriend wasn’t computer savvy, so I didn’t have to worry about him checking behind me. I’m ashamed of my actions now, but at the time I felt a sense of danger and I liked it.”

The Internet has introduced a new dynamic into relationships. It provides the discretion of an affair without the human contact associated with a sexual encounter. A chat room provides an individual with non-stop conversations and the ability to talk about any topic, without the fear of embarrassment. Chatters talk about their relationship problems and reveal intimate secrets about themselves. With the help of a cheap webcam, some users can carry out their sexual fantasies.

With over 252 billion Internet users, infidelity on the computer is a major issue among people in relationships. Infidelity in itself is a problem many people face. Add a medium that requires no physical contact or ties and the lines are further blurred. Some consider intimate online relationships acts of betrayal, while others see no harm in them as long as sexual intercourse does not take place.

Monica Whitty, of Nottingham Trent University, said there are two types of infidelity. “Sexual infidelity is considered to be engaging in sexual intercourse with someone other than one’s partner. Emotional infidelity is understood to be falling in love with another individual other than one’s partner,” she wrote in her article, Emotional and Sexual Infidelity Offline and in Cyberspace. In 2003, Whitty conducted a study in which she asked the participants to rate whether they believed some online activities were a betrayal. The participants rated cybersex as high and almost as severe as actual intercourse. In a follow-up study conducted in 2005, she found that emotional infidelity was just as detrimental to the deterioration of a relationship as sexual infidelity. She concluded that online interactions have serious consequences in offline relationships.

The Lure

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So what drives people to start and continue intimate online relationships? The Internet offers the convenience of conversation in real time. The moment a comment is typed and sent on screen the other user receives and responds. It gives the user mobility in because they can talk to people in any country, from anywhere. Internet Cafes and university libraries can serve as safe havens for the user. Cell phone users can access the internet almost anywhere.

Anonymity allows the users to transform into someone else without the worry of discovery. A married man or woman can instantly be single. A couch potato can become an avid rock climber all from the convenience of their home. A shy person is suddenly an outgoing conversationalist with a witty comment for everything. No one would know, unless the relationship goes offline

Users can find other likeminded people. Through conversation, they develop tight bonds. Chatters have a sense of control online. They control how much information and what type of information to share through emails and instant messaging. When the affair is over, the user can press the delete button.

“When I found out my husband was cheating I felt anger. How could he do this to me?” Amber described the feelings she felt after finding out her husband had cheated on her. “I had to check my email real quick so I asked if I could use his laptop. He said yes. Stupid move. I logged on and his MSN Messenger logged him in automatically. No sooner than I opened the browser, there was a blinking orange box at the bottom of the screen.”

Amber says that she was hesitant to click the box. She did not want her husband to think she was spying on him. “But that little voice said ‘click it’ so I did. It was a woman he was planning to meet later in the week. She wanted to let him know that everything was set. He was to pick her up at the airport in Nashville.”

Careful investigating turned up emails and IM messages that detailed explicit sexual acts they wanted to do to each other.

“I was sick.” Amber made gagging noises. “He never asked if he could do those things to me. I would have said ‘no,’ but my point is he never asked.” When she confronted him, he told her that he met the woman online. They had not done anything so he did not consider it cheating.

Some users feel that internet relationships give them all the benefits of an affair without compromising their honesty. Many people in relationships are concerned with the physical factor of cheating. “Did you sleep with her/him?” is the main concern. The other partner can answer without hesitation, “No I did not.” However, as Amber’s story shows, internet relationships have the potential to continue offline.

Online Cheating Sites

Image: Tina Phillips / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Several sites designed to help the weary cheater have popped up on the internet, but AshleyMadison.com is the most popular with over 5 million anonymous members. The website’s slogan is easy to remember: Life is short, have an affair. Applications for iPhone and Blackberry make it easier to cheat than ever before. Unlike most chat rooms, ashleymadison charges a fee to cheat. The site is free to join, but if you want to engage in a chat session or send personal emails, you have to buy their credits.

Joining is easy, and members can choose their limits: short-term, long-term, cyber affair/erotic chat, whatever excites me, anything goes, and undecided. If you are not happy with your offline affairs that you found on the Internet, you can get a refund. CEO, Noel Biderman, said Ashley Madison did not create infidelity. Biderman asserts that his site doesn’t make infidelity easy or convenient. People stray because their “primary” partner is not providing them with what they need. So if a person is going to cheat, why not cheat on their site.

“Sites like this promote infidelity and blame the unsuspecting spouse,” Amber stated as she read their FAQs. “I do not understand how they can sleep at night knowing they are encouraging this.” Easy. AshleyMadison states, “Our role is to keep them (cheater) from taking unnecessary risks while they explore the feelings that got them to our website to begin with.” The site advises their members to practice safe-sex by informing their members of acts considered “safe.”

AshleyMadison advises singles to try harder and build trust. Attached members overlook single members because a single person has no ties; therefore, nothing to lose.

Noel Biderman states his site did not create infidelity, and that much is true. However, the fact they dissuade single users from using their site indicates their primary purpose: to promote infidelity. Their target market is the married man or woman. This means any contact made on this site might lead to the destruction of one’s marital vows. AshleyMadison makes it easy to find that other person, thereby opening the door for the inevitable divorce, mistrust and dishonesty.

When asked if she would have visited this site, Trina said she would never visit a Web site like ashleymadison. “I wasn’t seeking someone to cheat with, it just happened—almost happened. If you go to a site like this it means you WANT to cheat.”

The secrecy and lies actually deterred Trina from taking that final step. “I would never get caught up like that again.” However, Trina’s experience helped her realize the truth. She loved her boyfriend. “I went to him and told him that I felt our relationship was over. We talked and I cried, but in the end we were closer than before,” she said as she held up her engagement ring.

As for Amber, she is still working to rebuild her trust in her husband. “Sometimes he tells me that he’s going to hang out with his friends and I immediately think he’s lying. But I know if I want this to work, I have to trust him at some point. I don’t know how long it will take but each day is getting better.”