The core of my philosphy

When I was in elementary school and we were learning about pre-WWI American government, I learned the term 'Laissez Faire.' For those of you not in the know, it essentially means minding your own dang business. Here's a more objective defintition:

lais·sez-faire

ˌlesā ˈfer/

noun

1. a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering.

   synonyms:

   noninterventionist, noninterventional, noninterfering; More

   • ECONOMICS

     abstention by governments from interfering in the workings of the free market.

     "laissez-faire capitalism"

     synonyms:

     free enterprise, free trade, nonintervention, free-market capitalism,market forces "an agenda that embraces the concept of laissez-faire"

I thought to myself, "That's how it should be." I'm not sure how our basic philosophies get shaped, but I knew laissez faire to be the right path the second I knew about it.

It seems to me that there are three kinds of people. The laissez faire crowd, the nanny crowd, and the "I don't want to tell you your business, but..." (They are kinda between the two other ones.) I have never understood the nanny people. They believe that people need to be told how to live their lives. They are the ones who were on the playground telling you that you weren't playing right. They are generally silenting judging you even when they don't speak up. When I was in high school, I took a church class from 6-7am. School started after 8, and those of us who went straight to school would sit around in the hall catching up on home work, chatting, or sometimes dosing off. My philosphy? Doze if you need to doze! If you need the sleep, get it! If you don't wake up when the bell rings, I'll give you a friendly nudge. But the nanny ones, oh heavens. As soon as someone's head started dropping, it was, "Wake up sleeping beauty!" Why?!? Apparently, you're not supposed to sleep in the hall, and that's good enough for these folks. They're the ones who make laws that adults have to wear seat belts, who pushed prohibition through, and who want to make sure you never do anything you want to, ever.

The 'I don't want to tell you your business, but...' crowd only bugs me sometimes. They generally mind their own beeswax, except when they really feel it's their duty to speak up. (And I will be fair, sometimes there are situations where anyone should speak up. If I see evidence that a kid is being abused in any way at all, I am certainly NOT going to say, oh well, not my business!) These people are the ones that tell you that you are posting too many pictures of your kids on facebook. That you should really lose weight, or they might subtly offer to help you when you go clothes shopping next. These people are mostly harmless, but still kind of annoying.

Hey, guess what? You know what I do when a friend continually posts 14 pictures of their kid every day. I scroll on past. You know what I do when my insane conservative conspiracy theory friend posts a billion crazy posts? I scroll on by. (While shaking my head and contemplating blocking the person's posts.) You know what happens when someone does something I wouldn't do, but isn't harmful? NOTHING. It's NOT MY BUSINESS. I don't listen to that offensive radio show, I don't lobby to have it banned. I don't write an angry letter to my congressman that people are getting up too early and I think that's silly. I live and let live.

That's why I don't care if my son's room is a mess. Not my room. I only bring it up when he complains that he can't find something or his clothes are dirty. I don't care if you're 50 lbs overweight. I'm pretty sure in our society you've heard the dangers of obesity and I don't need to tell you about them. I don't care if you smoke, as long as you don't blow the smoke right in my face. Especially when I'm eating, I hate smoke in my food.

This Laissex Faire-ness of mine is why I'm a libretarian. I think the government has gotten far too out of control and is nit-picking every little thing ever. It's craziness! So there you go. Now please do what ever you want to do. No skin off my nose.

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

This post is a straight up rant, so buckle up. I will be honest: I LOVE my job. I think my boss is the best, and I get along with my coworkers really well. The kids are so sweet, and I love the random hugs and cute little faces. Most days I come home in high spirits, and I am excited to finally have a career, not just a job that I trudge through. And then there's days like today...

So...you know how you feel kinda crappy when allergens are high? Well guess what! When you work in a school, those days suck hard. (So do full moons. Scientists say the moon doesn't affect us, and I say they're full of crap, but that's another post.) I don't have to check the weather to know when allergens are high. I just have to go work!

I am the school secretary for a very small school. That means that I am also the registrar, the (untrained) school nurse, the cafeteria moniter, and all around good American. What that usually means is that I have to do all those jobs while being interrupted approximately every five minutes, and I do it with a smile on my face and a chipper tone. Today was not only a high allergen day, it was something of a perfect storm of crapitude. Here's what went down:

I sent out lunch account notices on Friday, so today I had a huge crowd of parents in my office first thing in the morning either trying to pay on their child's account, or arguing with me about their child's account (They filled the paperwork out wrong, just fyi.)

On top of that, today we started a new bus route. There were two groups of angry parents for me to deal with: the ones who hate the new bus route, and the ones who didn't get the note somehow and so were angry because the bus wasn't when and where they expected it.

Thirdly, it's really impressive how much paperwork is generated by a child transferring schools. Guess who does all that! It's me! We had two students transfer in recently, and three transfer out. Of course, the ones transfering out want to get everything taken care of right now (understandably so, I mean it's their kid after all.) What that means for me is that they AND the new school each called me a minumum of three times per student today.

Of course, I haven't mentioned yet that the day started with one girl who threw up and then laid on the floor in my office crying while I tried to get ahold of her parents. (This was a girl who was old enough to know better.) When the mom finally calls me back, she reams ME out about how she can't be taking off work to pick her daughter up all the time if she's not really sick. Like I'm the one who's supposed to make that decision.

In the afternoon, a teacher threw up and had to go home! FUN! I had all the standard paperwork combined with a bunch of end-of-the-six-weeks paperwork and of course the afore mentioned transfer paperwork. And of course, with it being a high-allergen day, I had about a gizillion kids come in to have their temperature taken. (Not a single one had a fever.) Also with it being a high allergen day all the kids were cranky, all the parents were cranky, most of the teachers were cranky, and I was cranky. BUT I'm the school secretary, so like I said at the beginning, I have to smile and pretend that everything is awesome.

I came home exhausted. But the lady who lives a few doors down from me was getting baptised tonight, so I needed to go to that. Baptisms, for those of you who don't know, usually take about 30 minutes. This one took 1 1/2 hours. It was amazing and spiritual, but not terribly relaxing. Especially since I am fully aware during all this that my son has homework he's not doing.

So then I go home. I look at my son's homework. Algebra 2. Which to me might as well me ancient Hindu. My brother usually tutors my son, but he's gone out of town. My brother calls and tries to explain to my son what to do. My son hangs up and immediately has a melt down. I know that this homework is SUPER IMPORTANT because the six-weeks ends on Friday, so he won't have extra time to get it in. I finally send my son to bed, homework undone. I text my brother trying to figure out this math. He texts me more Ancient Hindi. Then he calls. And I lose it. It's 10 pm and I can't smile anymore false smiles or comfort anymore angry people (not that my brother was angry, but anytime someone tells me that math is simple I have a tiny aneurysm. So I guess in this instance I was the angry parent.) In short, I'm done. I have nothing left. You see, I have bad allergies, too.

So now I've ranted my rant, and taken my shower and I'll go to bed and believe that tomorrow will be better. It HAS to be.

Barbie Bru Ha Ha

I haven't been on here in a while, but I've had some thoughts percolating that I needed to get out and it just seemed too long for FaceBook. I'm gonna just lay it out. I am sick of people baggin on Barbie. No, wait! Hear me out!

Yep. I longed for this kind of body when I was a wee one.

When I was young, I would look at the women on TV and in the cartoons and I would see, in general, bodies that were stick thin. No boobs, no hips. Basically, it seemed to me, the perfect woman looked a little like a boy with just a few curves. Then there was my mom. She did not look anything like a boy. She had boobs till tomorrow and a ghetto booty that she practically needed a wagon to carry. Even when she was thin she had those dominant features. I was not stupid. I saw what my future was, and it was confirmed when I was out of my training bra and into a regular bra by the end of 4th grade.

Luscious and lovely was more my destiny.

Now, I didn't get my mom's booty, but (when I was thin, which I'm not right now) I literally had an classic hourglass figure. No matter how much weight I lose, I will never ever be model or even actress thin. The smallest I have ever been as an adult is a size 11 (size 12 is considered "plus size" in case you weren't aware), and at that point people started telling me I needed to gain weight. I'm not complaining, I love being a curvy woman (although at the moment I wish my belly didn't curve out quite so much. lol). Today there's a big ole "curves are beautiful" movement. My son tells me that I'm a BBW (Big Beautiful Woman). All over the media people are telling you to love yourself how you are, but I was living in the 80's. That message was nowhere to be seen at that point. Yes, I know that the women in hairband videos were curvy, and that's great and all, but I didn't have MTV. I was watching regular TV and looking at regular movies. And everywhere I looked, there were women who were thin and didn't even really need a bra to constrain the ladies.

Enter Barbie. Barbie was beautiful, successful (in her imaginary world), and could be anything, she wasn't tied down to traditional female rolls. I never heard any controversy about whether or not Barbie would change HER name when she and Ken married! But bigger, and far more important than all that was that BARBIE HAD BOOBS! Barbie was built the way I was destined to be built someday! I loved her for that. And people rant about her waist being so thin, but guess what happens when you make clothes for Barbie? The fabric is super bulky on her because she is much smaller than people. When you gather up the cloth, it makes her waist look normal sized.

Released in 1981

Current Barbie

 Now compare these Barbies. The first is the Barbie model that was actually my very favorite Barbie. It's because the curly hair was easier to style. What do you see? Ok, the neck may be a little swan-like, but other than that, when Barbie is wearing clothes, she looks like a woman, one who has boobs and hips. One who looks like (the ideal) me.

And then you have modern Barbie. The one that has been made "more realistic" to appease nay-sayers. You know what I see here? Yet another completely unrealistic stick-thin, boobless, hipless, gap between the thigh having example of why women like me are clearly lower-class than those fortunate enough to have inherited the stick-thin gene.

Way to go, Mattel. Good work "fixing" that situation.

Just in case you were curious, this was my other Barbie. Her outfit could change to make all these combos and more! I chopped her hair off so it was a cute chin length bob, though.