Oh, Kat, I could not have said it any better.* Go girl. 
*Kat has a blog post today on the imbalance in male/female sex drives as we age and how we seem to move in a different rhythm from one another throughout the decades as our bodies and hormone levels change.
Okay, so it is not Sunday. But here’s the meme from the 21st. Visit Sunday Stealing to get a copy for your blog and sign the Mr. Linky:
1. What is a nickname a former (or present) lover gave you? Gatita (means little kitty, because of my hazel eyes and my love of stretching/cuddling), also Margarita
2. How do you style your hair? If you just would say “cut” what style is it? It’s a shoulder-length layered cut. I am lazy. Usually I blow dry and flat iron it every day but my preference would be air dry with the windows rolled down as I drive.
3. What’s your least favorite Christmas song? Jingle Bells
4. How many colors are you wearing now? Three
5. Are you an introvert or extrovert? Extrovert
6. What was the last book you read? Manslations: Decoding the Secret Language of Men
7. What’s one piece of fiction that changed your life? I cannot pick one. Blubber
8. If you are attracted to someone who is already in a relationship (or married), what might do you do? I’d like to say that I would resist the attraction. Having been on the cheated on side of that stick, I’m not sure I could live with myself. I also think that someone who is willing to give up their marriage or relationship up for me would probably do the same to me and I would deserve it. Karma’s a bitch.
9. Is there anything that has made you unhappy recently? Ha! Do you have a few hours? 
10. What’s your favorite dessert? Anything that mixes chocolate and fruit
11. How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? About an hour mostly because I have to do a lot with Pumpkinhead in between flying around doing my stuff.
12. Name one website that you visit daily. Why do you read it? NY Times, to keep up with the latest news and to read the editorials. I like the way the site is designed as well – very user-friendly.
13. What was your last job before either your are at home or at another job?? I don’t understand this question. But I have been working at least one job, if not two, since I was 16. My last job was as a legal secretary at a large law firm. My first job was as a behavioral therapist for an autistic child (met with him four days a week to do his behavioral therapy as taught by his mother and psychiatrist).
14. Do you like to clean? No way.
15. What was the last song to get stuck in your head? I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas
16. What’s the last movie you saw? Yes Man
starring Jim Carrey. Soooo funny!!
17. Pirates or Ninjas? Pirates are hot but Ninjas seem much less dirty. Hard choice!
18. What is your least favorite thing to do that you have to do everyday? Get up
19. Best time of your life? Anytime I am playing with my son. I don’t know that I’ve reached the best period in my life yet. I turn 30 on Sunday so maybe it’s coming?
20. What are you most looking forward to in the coming year? I’d like to think I will get a handle on life, figure out what I want, what I’m doing, where I’m going, etc., but I just do not know. So I’m just looking forward to a year of nothing else going horribly wrong. Or at least hoping desperately for that kind of year. There are a lot of work-related initiatives I am super excited about and hopeful that they will turn out as well as I want them to since they are kind of on my shoulders. That would be a “look forward” item.
The New York Times has an editorial today commenting on the fact that Obama’s cabinet picks for homeland security, labor, and commerce seem aligned to tackle the immigration issue. I hadn’t looked at the group together, but they are all well-versed in the practical issues of border states and the complicated tangle between the need for workers and the lack of legal entry options for them. The author makes the following important points:
The confluence of immigrants and labor is exactly what this country — particularly, and disastrously, the Bush administration — has not been able to figure out.
In simplest terms, what Ms. Solis and Mr. Obama seem to know in their gut is this: If you uphold workers’ rights, even for those here illegally, you uphold them for all working Americans. If you ignore and undercut the rights of illegal immigrants, you encourage the exploitation that erodes working conditions and job security everywhere. In a time of economic darkness, the stability and dignity of the work force are especially vital.
I went to the mall this morning to pick up a few items for next year that my mother wanted, such as wrapping paper and gift bags. The mall was very lightly filled… I think that the anti-immigrant sentiment is set to only get worse as jobs get scarcer and it will be interesting to see how Obama proposes to fix this. Just as important as finding a legal and humane way to deal with the people already here is finding a way to incentivize companies to keep jobs in this country and not seek out cheaper labor in other countries where the working conditions are substandard and the pay insulting. The question will be whether the country is willing to face the fact that most other countries pay significantly more for goods and that, if we want to “keep jobs in America”, we have to be willing to pay the higher prices that come with that (and pay our low wage earners more to keep them here – see editorial on teacher wages). We’re in for an interesting few years.
Got through Christmas. About that misery fit I threw Christmas Eve, I managed to push it back and decide to take it as it comes. What precipitated it was a tearful call from former-SIL informing me of things that made me view the situation in a different, and much more upsetting, light. I can’t say more on the blog. Just pray or send strong wishes out to the world that Chapin doesn’t do something super-stupid.
Anyway, Christmas Eve with the extended family was okay. Everyone was kind of in a bleh mood, probably because we all worked that day. Also because few of us had seen my two great-aunts since they lost their homes in Ike and they looked like they’d aged 20 years. My great aunt Pauline is already 96, so you can imagine how scary that was. 
It also turned into a bit of a pity party, oh joy. “Oh, you think your year was hard? My house floated away.” “Oh yeah, well I got divorced.” “Oh yeah, well I graduated last week and still don’t have a job.” “Oh yeah, well I’m just biding my time until the youngest is out of school and I can offload this nag.” “Oh yeah, well my clean-cut Air Force fiance disappeared and here is my new mohawked, tattooed lover.” “Oh yeah, well guess what, family? Not only have I decided that my dream career is in mortuary sciences, I am also a lesbian. Meet my life partner.” Big fun night! May stay home next year… We left around 10:30 and I got lost driving home. Made it back around midnight and was in bed by 2 after a screaming long distance phone call with Chapin and Santa duty.
Christmas Day was better. Blue Eyes came over to join us and take pictures (will post later when he sends them). We have a tradition of tea, fresh fruit and scones. This year we substituted a blueberry/cream cheese butter braid because my cousin has to sell them several times a year for band and our freezer was overflowing. Pumpkinhead was sooooo excited that Santa left him a letter. He read it to each of us individually and was practically jumping out of his skin. 
Then he opened all the fun things in his stocking and raced around waiting for Blue Eyes to arrive so he could open his presents. We did a lot of homemade stuff this year. Pumpkinhead made me some BEAUTIFUL hand-stamped stationary (notecards and envelopes) and decorated the plastic container with “World’s Greatest Mom.” It was the most special present and will come in so handy for notes to his teacher or aftercare. My mother made me a memory ring, which is a gold ring with ribbons, beads and bells attached. You hole-punch the bottom of each ribbon and attach a notecard with a memory, a photo, etc. It is so cool! Dad got me a motion-sensing floodlight so I don’t have to walk to the main house to pee in the dark.
Pumpkinhead was spoiled rotten, as usual. Actually, he got less this year than normal but he didn’t notice. He loved his Nintendo games (especially Playground and Kung Fu Panda – thanks Aunt Ashante!). He also got a lot of clothes that he needed anyway (hey, we’re practical) and some board games his therapist wants him to play to learn to anticipate consequences. Blue Eyes got me some beautiful candles that I am not sure I can bear to use because they are so lovely! He also made my parents a gorgeous framed art print of a shot he took of me that he manipulated in Photoshop to make it look like a painting. They were raving. He also Photoshopped one of the pictures he took of me and Pumpkinhead. He says it didn’t print the way he wanted but I love it. I went out and got a special frame today.
I turn 30 in two days. 
Tomorrow my Dad and I are going to get pretty at my salon. My Mom made me get an appointment for Dad to get cut by my stylist because he’s shaggy and she wants him to buy into the theory that he needs at least one “good” cut every few months and then the cheap place can maintain it. I don’t know that I buy that but whatever. I have a color at 12:30 followed by a cut. I have to pick up the yummy lemon cake I ordered from a local bakery by 4 p.m. and then I’m meeting a group of friends at 7 p.m. at a restaurant downtown. Can’t wait! Now off to continue playing PlayDoh and watching SpongeBob: Pest of the West with Pumpkinhead.
One of my longtime blog readers sent me an e-mail this week asking how I could afford to make charitable donations if money was really tight for me as a single mom. Well, I thought I would just e-mail her back directly. But then I thought, nah, if she is thinking this, so are others. So here’s the deal:
In November, I got hit with massive expenses between the law school demanding $2,500 repayment for summer classes, the deductibles for my car being broken into, the car payments I was making for Chapin, the need to replace my purse, makeup and other items stolen, etc. When I wrote on my blog “I’m financially fucked”, I was whining about my immediate situation. Fortunately, as I knew He would, God showed me a way out of each of those situations and I was able to make all of the payments through creative money movement and other blessings that came my way. In addition, I continue to pay $140/week for cognitive behavioral therapy for Pumpkinhead, plus $40/month for his medication, each unexpected expenses that I had not budgeted for (and we won’t even talk about my stupid meds!). I would say that no matter how much money a person makes or does not make, unexpected budget hits hurt, correct?
As for the charitable donations, I recently got paid for some contract legal document work I did this summer. It was a sizeable amount that helped with Christmas and some upcoming tax payments and homeowners association dues I must face. But I have a policy that whenever I get a large sum of unexpected money, I give some away. Sometimes that means helping a friend fulfill a dream that they could not otherwise afford; sometimes it means buying my brother’s college textbooks in the hopes that one day he would actually graduate and get a life; sometimes it means a little cash sent to my sister-in-laws in Guatemala so they can travel by bus to the city and buy some pretty shoes to counterbalance the hard life they live with no running water or electricity. Usually it also means giving to charity or two or to a local church. I hope not to grow out of this as I get older or more cynical but I believe in karma and that you get back what you put out there. I like to help people, always have. Whether it’s a lead on a job opening, a tip about a life-changing book, an invitation to join my Divorce Care group, etc., I believe that compassion is one of the gifts God gave me and it is something I like to show to others. Whether I can actually afford to do so in reality is another story. But the Lord provides. I don’t live life for tomorrow, but for today. I might (okay probably will) regret not putting that money into some sort of savings account in case of emergencies like that I faced in November, but I know that what I did feels 10,000 times better than hoarding the money for myself.
One of the things I really like about Barack Obama is his idea of attaching charitable work to a variety of financial gains. For example, students will be able to finance their educations but in return must dedicate time to charitable service. I think mandating that is an excellent idea that serves not only the student but also the nonprofits (assuming they start to actually put plans in place to properly utilize interns, which I have heard can be a challenge). I also feel some guilt about not regularly attending church (this is where the religion part comes in) and not tithing so my charitable giving throughout the year, whether as planned donations to United Way, one-offs to Dress for Success or fundraisers throughout the year, or end-of-year charitable donations, makes me feel like I’m doing what I am supposed to do.
So there’s my answer. Not sure if that is what you are looking for. Yes, money is tight many months. Fortunately sometimes I get little surprises that make things better. Other times the surprises suck and I’m living on credit. I think many people live this way. It may not be smart but it’s my life. Now, readers, go forth and buy all your Amazon products through my sidebar, get your sensual side taken care of through the Babeland links, or clink on any of the other ads to send a few (really, just a few) dollars my way and I will be sure to send the karma back your way. I’m not a hypocrite, no matter what the questioner who asked me all of this may think. I always click on someone’s affiliate banners before I shop (like Melting Mama’s ads for all my vitamins and protein!) because I feel like someone should be getting that percentage, so why not someone whose blog I read? I bought my Christmas cards through Trannyhead’s VistaPrint sidebar ad (go, buy! The cards turned out great, as did the address labels and playdate calling cards I ordered, and you can’t beat the prices.)
