A short story about Lisbon I guess

The turn from Hobblers ct onto Quiet rd is tight. Our parents have been telling us since the first time we begged for the keys. That's where Jimmy died, they say. He was my age. He died around prom. That's the only thing anyone remembers about him. That's where RJ died, too. He tried to run from the cops. A three sport star. That's what happens when we put that kind of pressure on kids, grownups said. He smoked a lot of pot, we said, Both were true, and why shouldn't they be? But that turn, that fucking turn, and now that we're grown ups living somewhere with a grid system in a city where nothing ever happens and trying to go above thirty will put a real fucking problem in your suspension, a city where you keep screaming but every scream just mixes in with so many Woooos.  We crave turns like this. We go home and we get hammered and we crank up the Hold Steady and we take that turn at sixty and we don't care and we want to die, kind of, because what's the point anymore, and why are we any better than a 17 year old who could play three sports-- THREE god damn it and I can barely approach life, and the tires scream and the cows stand there and they just blink on the corner, because they have seen it. They have seen the blood and the screaming moms and they have seen the asshole boys trying to impress a girl and they have seen people like me, and their long, long, brown eyelashes just say, what's next? And why?

Take Them Into The Woods: On Boy Scouts and Atheism

    I am pleased that the Boy Scouts are reconsidering their stance on banning gay members, as it is 2013, and that is a horrible policy. Gay children should learn how to make fires and play in the woods and perform good deeds in their communities just as much as straight kids do. That's all there is to it, in my eyes.

     In the wake of this development, I now see people speaking out against the Boy Scouts' policy banning atheist members. It is a similar kind of discrimination, so I understand the connection. Children who are raised atheist have about as much choice in the matter as children who are born gay.

     To me, though, the atheist ban makes perhaps even less sense than the ban on gays. You are not going to change a gay child by teaching him in the Boy Scouts, nor should you be trying to. I don't particularly agree with trying to indoctrinate or change atheist children, either. However, as someone who believes in essentially nothing outside of what I can observe, I can assure you that the best chance you have of convincing someone like me that God might exist, is to take them into nature and let them look around a little.

Now who might be up to that task?

Here's How You End the Debate About Whether Employers' Healthcare Should Cover Birth Control

Facts:

1. The reason most often cited by employers regarding the pay gap between men and women is that women take more sick days, which, on average, is marginally true.

2. The reason most often cited by women when they take sick days is menstrual symptoms.

3. The most common treatment for women with severe menstrual symptoms is hormonal birth control i.e. the pill, nuvaring, etc.


Any questions?

How I am angry: Mass Murder Edition

    I am really mad about the elementary school shooting that occurred today in Connecticut. I am mostly mad at the man who committed this senseless, incomprehensibly evil act. But there is nothing I can do about him or say to him.

    I am also mad at the people who cry foul as soon as anyone tries to discuss gun control after incidents like this. Many say it's not the right time, and that the focus should be on the victims of today's tragedy. Well, I don't know of a better way to honor those victims and others like them than to contribute to a rational, long overdue discussion about the roots of the violence in this nation.

    Policy makers should have been trying to understand and discuss the roots of America's murder culture for... well, forever. When a news outlet posted online today, asking when the Obama administration should discuss gun laws, my immediate response was, "four years ago."

    The rate of death from violent crime in the United States is astronomical compared to other developed nations. Guns are not necessarily to blame. Other countries have gun ownership rates at least as high as the U.S.'s without even a fraction of the gun crime. However, there is evidence that American states with stricter gun control laws experience less gun crime than other states.

    Does this necessarily mean that gun control directly lowers gun crime? No. Am I saying gun control will necessarily prevent mass murders? No. But it has to be a part of the conversation.

    There is information available to us about a correlation between gun control in the U.S. and lower gun crime rates. That is a fact. To immediately refuse to consider that information in discussing how to combat America's culture of murder is, in a word, insane. In another, ignorant. In another, myopic.

    What I really wrote this to say is this:
All information is valuable, even if it has the potential to conflict with YOUR particular world view. In contrast, NO information is valuable unless is it used to seek WISDOM. In order to seek wisdom, all of the facts must be considered. In this case, facts about gun control must be discussed. To refuse to even entertain the thought of exploring the potential for safer gun laws in the wake of the year we just experienced is, in another word, asinine. And it is making me angry.

That is all.
  

My No-Bake To-Die-For Dessert Secret

     Those of you who know me know that I'm a bit of a bakeaholic, but I'm aware that not everyone is as fond of baking as I am. With the holidays coming up, everyone probably has all kinds of family and company events to attend, and many of these events are probably pot-lucks. I have a way for people who hate baking to call dessert duty and impress the pants off of everyone at the party.
    I have been making this recipe for a few years, but I have been trying not to tell everyone how freakin' easy it is because I wanted to keep it for myself. Alas, I cannot keep up the charade any longer. There are a lot of these recipes on the internet, but the one I use is the easiest and best.  So here it is,  Three Ingredient No-Bake Oreo Truffles:

You need:
1 pack Oreos
1 8 oz package cream cheese (I prefer Philadelphia)
6 oz chocolate
(Optional) toppings

    You can use whatever kind of chocolate you enjoy. I am partial to Baker's semisweet squares, but anything that melts smoothly is fine. Dark and white chocolate also suit this recipe.

The prep:
1. Blend the Oreos and cream cheese together. The easiest way to do this is in a food processor. I have a Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor (Google Affiliate Ad) that I adore. A blender also works. In a bind, throw those suckers in a big, sturdy ziplock bag and bash them with a mallet. In the end, you want the mixture to be smooth.

2. Roll the Oreo mixture into 1-2 inch balls

3. Refrigerate for half an hour. The balls should be sturdy enough to withstand being rolled in your palms

4. Melt chocolate over low heat until smooth.

5. Roll Oreo balls to desired roundness, and roll in chocolate until coated. Remove the coated balls to a plate or baking sheet and refrigerate until hardened.

*Optional: Before refrigerating chocolate-coated balls, sprinkle with desired toppings. Decorative sprinkles and toasted almonds work well. You can also put aside a few Oreos and crumble the chocolate part to be sprinkled on top. If you're feeling fancy, melt another kind of chocolate and pipe designs onto your truffles. (A plastic bag with a small part of the corner cut off works just as well as a professional piping bag.)

That's it. These things are seriously delicious. Everyone will be asking you for the recipe! Bon appetit.

A Letter to my Almost-two-year-old Son

Dear Almost-two-year-old,
   
     Everyone warned me that the terrible twos would start around this age, and they have. Lord, have they. I don't think they should be called "terrible", though, because I understand.
     I understand that, when you wake up screaming bloody murder at 4:30 am after I managed to trick you into sleeping in your own bed for a few measly hours, and you are furious at being duped, it's because you like the Thomas the Tank Engine sheets and pillows and plushies and comforters that we bought you to try to cajole you into your own bed, you just don't like like them.
     And when you crawl into bed with dad and me, I understand that you try to push my head away from you with all your might while clinging to my body like a genetically enhanced leech because you need the warmth and comfort of my body, just without the meddlesome presence of my face.
    I get that, when you are crying and begging for something that you are already holding in your hand, it is because you need me to hide it behind my back for three seconds to fifteen minutes before presenting it to you in order to restore your sense of wonder.
     I understand that, when you are lying on the floor, kicking and screaming simply, "Again! Agaaaaain!" it is because you want to have or see something you have had or seen before in your lifetime, and you are too distraught to specify what exactly that might be.
     I get that the absence of trains is unacceptable.
     I know that sometimes you like to pull the dogs' tails for no reason because it just feels good be a straight-up jerk from time to time.
     More than anything, I understand that you are completely overwhelmed by the grown-up emotions you are sprouting.

   I think the terrible twos should be called the "question-why-you-wanted-to-be-a-parent-in-the-first-place twos." Trust me, I have, but I have an answer; I can see past the towering mountain of "TWO", to the slightly less-craggy peak of "three", all the way to the sloping foothills of "four", and beyond. And I know that you will come out on the other side a real, functioning little person, and I will feel privileged to have loved you all along; mind, body, and face.

Love,
Mommy



If you enjoyed this, you might enjoy my slightly-more-serious Letter to the Grown Up Version of My One Year Old Son
   
   

Why I Cried a Little When The O's Lost Game 5

I cried a little bit when the Orioles lost game 5 of the ALDS to the Yankees tonight, and it had very little to do with baseball. I don't care very much about baseball. I find the season to be too long to give any kind of gravity to games in general. Baseball is my husband's game. He loves it.

That said, I followed, at least in some abstract way, the Orioles' "magical" season this year. Baltimore was fired up. Maryland was fired up. My HOME was fired up.

A lot of people move away from home to live their adult lives, and there is nothing tragic, or pitiful, or particularly interesting about it. I don't ask, in the day-to-day, for people to recognize me as a non-Orleanian. I've no problem with embracing at least the superficial culture of this place I have adopted.

At the same time, I'm not sure there is anywhere else in this country that is as outside-culture-sucking as New Orleans. New Orleanians, and particularly New Orleans transplants with a hard-on for the culture down here, are eager to discredit the uniqueness or flavor or, goddam it, validity of other American cities. Of regions. Of other countries, for godssake. I wish I could count on my fingers the number of times someone from New Orleans has explicitly said that Nola is the only American city with any culture. I cannot.

So, Growing weary of people telling me that Marylanders can't cook or are a bunch of yanks (SOUTH of the Mason Dixon line, motherfucker, though I'm not sure it's something to be proud of), I feel just a tad attached to Maryland phenomena that unite my home people. Particularly in an election year full of just the most annoying shit, The Orioles, with their miraculous extra innings wins were a bright spot.

I recall the last time I watched Orioles playoff games. I was an awkward moody little thing. I remember home. I remember my mother being there fixing me an after school snack while I guess Mike Mussina pitched? I don't know, I remember cheering Moooooose. Like I said, this isn't about baseball.

This is about seeing people I love from home uniting over a sports thing, and it's about feeling valid and normal and human for missing the people I grew up with, and the hills, and my family, and the culture, the real, valid, actual culture that informed my childhood and that still informs me today.

I was sad to see that O's season end, because it had equated to all those feelings for me for a while, and, you know, baseball is pretty great, too, when it matters.