I decided from the beginning that I wanted to try to have a natural birth. This stuck with me from my liberal, granola-leaning women’s studies class I took in college with my best friend who also wanted a natural birth.  I’m not really granola leaning otherwise, so I wasn’t sure why I want this so much.  However, part of the childbirth class helped me realize that I just want to take in this whole process, not be scared of any part of it and enjoy it.  How do you enjoy natural delivery you ask me?  By feeling empowered of understand and accepting all of what it means to grow a baby inside you, deliver it and raise it to be a confident, productive, contributing adult.  As much fun as I know parenthood will be, none of it is easy.  It’s messy, complicated, time consumming, draining, and at times, scary.  So why do many people sign up for this evil institution?  Because the rewards are so worth it.  I already knew it even before  my baby was conceived.  I want to enjoy the adventure.  When you think of adventure sports, it’s not that they’re easy that people do them.  It’s because of the thrill of preparing your body for such an extreme and the exhiliration in knowing that you’ll do it.  Yesterday, I watched the snowboarder, Shawn White, on Oprah.  He discussed his signature double flip move that requires a full committment before the takeoff that he will land.  Pretty impressive since after flipping through the air, he lands blindly.  When it doesn’t work out, all he wants to do is get back up and do it again.  And when he lands it, there’s no bigger thrill.  That’s part of parenthood.  And what will it mean to land it in parenthood – your child’s smile, achieving a milestone, becoming independent and confident.  All those things will be an indication of a job well done.  So why do I want to take shortcuts in any of it?  I want to experience every bit of it, down to the last poopy diaper.  But who says you can’t start potty training as soon as humanly possible?

I never knew I had so many until I watched my tape.  When I get excite – my forehead wrinkles get very excited right along with me.   I never understood Botox, but now I’ve started wondering…  I used to think that when the wrinkles came, they would be a grand reflection of the life you live.  Afterall, I love people with crows feet; they are usually the ones who smile and laugh a lot.  Shouldn’t that be celebrated?  Ah, the naivite!  Now I’m obsessed with scrutinizing people’s foreheads.  It’s obvious how many of the hollywood set must get Botox, and I’m starting to not blame them.  I don’t think I’ll every get Botox.  Luckily, the prohibitive costs of most maintenance procedures prevents me from those things.  Stocking up on covergirl makeup makes me feel guilty enough, I could never go in for regular Botox.  But now I can’t be so judemental about it.  If I was on camera all the time I wouldn’t want forehead wrinkles to distract people from even hearing a word.  Yet, the false images they project are also distracting.  No one can look that good naturally right.  I mean how much water can you drink?

As a child, I never understood why Adam and Eve were told that they were free to enjoy the bounty of Eden, but the one thing they musn’t ever do was to eat from the tree of knowledge or the knowledge of good and evil.  Why was knowledge so bad.  In fact, wasn’t I supposed to go to school for the very purpose of gaining knowledge.  Wasn’t I punished when I didn’t know the difference between good and evil – well I knew the difference most days, but some days I heard more chatter on the devil’s shoulder and followed the noise.

Maybe this goes to the battle between the heart and the brain.  Sometimes if we are only chasing facts and figures, we lose the true meaning of what’s in front of us.  H.G. Wells said in Undying Fire, “Satan delights equally in statistics and in quoting scripture….”  For some things, we just have to have faith – faith of what is right and faith in the truth.  You have to trust your faith because without it, you’re nothing.  I still think of the line in the movie Contact about if you could prove everything, then prove that you love someone.  How do you prove it with facts and figures.  Somethings just are.  With all this, I’m not making a point for teaching creationism vs. evolution in the schools.  There’s another example that two people just might be looking at the same fact and coming up with different perspectives to prove their point.  Like most things in life, it might not be an all or nothing, but more of a mixture that can’t be explained with just one simple answer.  However, that would go against Occam’s Razor or the simplest answer being the right one.  However, as complicated human beings, it maybe be that the simplest answer is the most difficult to discern.  

I’ve never understood the tree of knowledge.

Sarah is seriously one of the most beautiful women on tv with limited competition.  However. that was until General Beckman ordered Plan 49-B.  Plan 49-B called for a replacement for Agent Walker.  Tricia Helfer (I didn’t realize until after that she was on Battlestar Galactica and also Burn Notice.)  guest starred on the show as Agent Alex Forrest, who evaluated Agent Walkers’ work to see if she had gotten too close to the Asset.  I’m sure that as soon as Tricia arrived on the set, the fans started blowing with her every move.  She was extremely skinny with very angular facial features.  It’s as if she tells her face muscles to drop and give her fifty every morning.  Also, I wasn’t sure if her lips were really hers either.  Everything looked a little..welll…let’s say I would serve plastic food before offering her up as a real woman.

Am I being catty….well maybe.  However, it started with me praising a woman because I actually felt she represented.  How could a 5’9, skinny blond beauty represent?  Sure it was a Hollywood representative, but Sarah isn’t all about her looks.  She uses them as a spy weapon, but then doesn’t obsess about them.  Chuck isn’t just in love with Sarah for her looks (although it doesn’t hurt) but becuase she is also very sweet and caring.  That’s her charm.  That is all something we should aim for right, smart and sweet?

I heard a comment recently that Angelina Jolie diets because she likes her angular features on the screen.  I don’t know if she really made that comment or not, but given that her arms are the size of my fingers, I don’t doubt it.  I don’t even think it’s vain necessarily.  If it was my job to be on tv and be photographed from every angle, who would be obsessed to some extent with the way they looked.  And knowing how the camera adds pounds, why not be a little under weight to look normal.  The only problem is that most actresses took this to the extreme so now after the camera adding weight some of them still look like Sally Struthers should be doing a PSA to collect money for starving actresses.

The trend in the ultra-skinny look started with Friends.  When the show first aired, Lisa Kudrow was a beanpole, but it looked natural.  Both Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston were coveted for their looks.  We all remember the “Rachel haircut” that women everywhere ran with picture of to their hairdressers.  No one thought they looked fat.  However, as the show became more popular, the two actresses went on Friends diets and came back half their size.  There excuse would be that it was just baby fat, but although they were babes, they weren’t babies.  The next phase after losing their round cheeks is the protrusion of the ribs and collarbones.  How can anyone see their ribs sticking out and think that looks sexy?

Friends started many trends and unfortunately, the age of emaciation became mainstream. Sure there have always been Twiggy supermodels, but they weren’t playing real women.

The sad thing as I was watched Chuck was that as soon as Agent Forest appeared on screen, I started wondering if Sarah had gained some weight.  I mean her face wasn’t sunken in like she had vacationed at Aushwitz – what a slob!  I had to stop myself and not get sucked in as far as Tricia’s cheeks to say no, it wasn’t that Agent Walker was fat, it was that Agent Forest was too skinny and unnatural.  We all have to stop thinking this is the direction we need to go.  I atleast empathize with actresses like Tricia whose livlihoods depend on them fitting in the slinkiest dress and the camera panning up every inch of their body.  However, we need to band together and let them know they don’t need to do this.  In fact, most men don’t need their women to be this skinny.  But why do we get so obsessed with this trend. I suppose if my friends are that skinny, maybe i should be too.

Our sustainable vs. esthetical debate made me feel guilty.  Would I really not want him to make use of the space in the back yard because it didn’t look pretty enough?  Especially after he had put in so much work to prepare the land – he was sure to remind me of the difiicult of the task.  However, as a good wife, I reminded him of other difficult projects he undertook and completed, but didn’t look good – the outdated oak bathroom cabinet above the toilet.  Yet, if I decided not to plant vegetables in that space now, it would stand empty and accusatory for months.  As it stood now, we were already using seeds from 2005, the last time I had a big idea to plant vegetables and carried through on the project by watching Curb Appeal on HGTV. So, in went the New Mexico Tri-Variety Chilis and snap peas in the back.  If they come up, the pride on our face will be more beautiful than the dahlias I would have waited to plant after years of finally deciding what flower should go there.  If the shopping trip we take in a few months takes us to our back yard instead of the local Vons – I’ll be ecstatic!

I’ve found four or five blogs that I read and long to be in their world. Maybe they just have better material. However, if they are writing about their lives and what they know, then would I really admit that they live a better life?  No, I like my life – the parts that work and the parts that have been waiting for help in the repair shop for a few years.   It probably just requires greater observation and gratitude.  A common thread through each blog seems to be babies and a love for the simple life – growing your own vegetable, learning to do small repairs around the house, enjoying the outdoors.  I suppose when you have a baby, they help you appreciate the simple joys.  I must admit this is what I long for – evny – in my own life.  Reading about their life reminds me what I’m missing in my own.  Yet, when it comes to living a simple life, I don’t need to create life to do that – unless it’s the kind that can grow in soil out of seeds.

My husband and I both desire getting back to simplicity.  The past years almost seem a waste.  Oh, we had fun – oh did we have fun – that’s for sure!  Yet today, I wonder what we gained since I feel so lost. Yet, again, I need to remember feeling gratitude for what was.  No regrets.  Each of our steps, even the wrong ones, make you who you are and who you will become.  It’s just important to remember that there’s not finish line.  Us Americans have a hard time understanding that concept.  We’re all so busy trying to get somewhere that we forget to look out the window and enjoy the ride.

Back to the blogs….All of them are written by women, gifted writers who have created the life they wanted for themselves.  They don’t feel a need to prove them to anyone else any more. Maybe they do, but they sure seem to hide it well.

These women probably don’t know that I covet their blog.  Well… some write well enough and know that adding their poingnant pictures is going to get others drooling.  However, they are probably just doing it for themselves.  To document.  To be.  What more needs to be done?

I labored through college, fascinated with chemistry and biology and all those subject, but never knowing what I wanted to do with them.  But I couldn’t visualize molecules or the vascular system.  In fact, the BodyWorks exhibit was the first time I could understand why asprin worked even if I had a toe ache.

Two weeks ago, I started working at a public access station.  I fell in love.  It wasn’t exactly a dream job.  A local station on the north side of town.  Even my dad’s not going to watch this one.  Yet Tami has been a dream, smart, ambitious, driven, friend, giving, guiding…I couldn’t ask for more.

So I feel a sense of relief that yes, I am a hard worker.  I can keep track of things and love what I do.  I just have accept that I love it and keep doing it.  It such a sense of peace.