I am now the mama of a four-year-old.

Happy Birthday to my baby girl.

Some things are cliches for a reason.

Surely you've heard the old line "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"

I've been thinking about it quite a bit lately, and have been mulling over this post for a while. I do not typically discuss teh secks, feeling it something better left as a topic of conversation between the two people who are having it with one another. But there are a few things I want to say.

I am not really a prude. I am on the second lover of my life, though, with no plans to expand the list, well, ever. I enjoy sex...but I am not willing to have it with just anyone. The emotional commitment, to me, has to come first.

I have relaxed somewhat in my generalized views on what's acceptable. I no longer hold sex within marriage alone to be the ideal, as in all honesty I can find no specific prohibition of it in Jesus's teachings. I will not teach my daughters to never, ever consider having sex before they're married, but I will teach them to be damn sure they don't have sex with someone whom they're not willing to have a child with. I have been choosy with my lovers, and (I'm not saying anything here he hasn't himself, publicly) so has my partner.

All this said, I am fairly libertarian in my views on what everyone else should do. I'm at least theoretically OK with things like polyamory and promiscuity. I think they're dumb, but so long as all parties involved are capable of giving informed consent...meh. I'm having sex with someone who has essentially the same outlook on the topic that I do, so as far as he and I go, that's what matters.

And yet...there's the free milk issue.

I have an acquaintance who is dealing with the consequences of this situation right now. As she's only an online acqaintance (and doesn't even live in this country), I don't really feel comfortable with telling her off, but this is the thing:

If you allow men to play with you, they will see you as a plaything. Now, if that's what you want, then more power to you. Play. Have fun. Screw around until you have slept with every single man in your social circle and fucking married men suddenly seems reasonable to you. (It's not reasonable, by the way.)

But realize this: Your actions will dictate how other people--male and female--think of you. And when you decide that you want a Beloved rather than a string of lovers...your past actions will make this difficult. Moreover, your current actions will make it even more so.

If you meet a man and set a date with him and you get drunk and fuck him on that date...Guess what? He's not going to think well of you. (And, honestly, it works both ways--most women I know wouldn't think very much of a guy who got drunk and wanted to fuck them the very first opportunity.) If you make yourself into a sex object, that's what you will be treated as--and the emphasis is going to be on object.

Am I saying you should never have sex? No. What I am saying is this: It is an inalieable truth that people will treat you only as well as you treat yourself--and them. It's about exclusivity. Humans place a higher value on rare or exclusive things. If you are willing to give yourself to just anyone, guess what? You're no longer exclusive, and no one has any reason to place a high value on you.

Neither men nor women, generally speaking, will want to form a relationship with--let alone marry--a person whom they do not see as holding value. Is it sexist? Perhaps, though to be honest I don't know many women with any interest in boyfriends/husbands who screw everything that comes down the turnpike either--at the very least, we want the bad boy gone good. There are some folks out there who will form relationships with folks they don't value...but those aren't the relationships you want to be in.

It's all about value.

Conduct yourself always as a woman who is worthy of love and devotion, and men will see you as a woman who is worthy of love and devotion. It is absolutely that simple.

Heh.

I had lunch today at Jack in the Box with my best friend, Mark, and older two girls. Being right after 3 o'clock, it was pretty dead, but the other occupied table happened to be right on the other side of a divider from us. Just one of those oddities.

Well, I am an inveterate eavesdropper. So we're eating and chatting and with one ear I'm listening to this gal at the other table talking about how something (I think she said a bus) his her in the shoulder and she dropped her then-four-month-old baby girl and when she took her to the hospital the state took her away and this and that and the other...Just a very odd story.

Mark's been out of town for a while. Just got back yesterday, in fact. So, of course, we were talking about the Pistolero.

I guess because of this, or perhaps just one of those random kid things, Bobbie (who was sitting beside me) piped up with "Mommy, I remember one of the Four Rules!"

Never being one to pass up a chance to reinforce safety, I said, "OK, Bobbie, what are they?"

"Guns are always loaded!"

...at this point, the women at the next table went silent...

"All guns are always loaded. Good. What else?"

"Beware of what's behind your target!"

...they turned to stare...

(And yes, I corrected her.)

Now, granted, this was an odd place to be having the conversation, but really. Weirder than their convo? I think not. I honestly found their reaction hilarious. We left soon after, and Mark and I really had a hard time keeping straight faces until we were out the door.

(This was actually only one of a series of strange things about today. My favorite part that did not include my boyfriend was the deputy sheriff who walked past me with a smiley-face sticker on the butt of his gun.)

Wordless Wednesday: Beason's Park

But it's for a good cause!

Lottery Tickets Set to Help Veterans

My policy on the lottery is that it's a stupid tax.

I don't think that we shouldn't have a lottery. I don't have much of an opinion on gambling in general (I honestly don't care one way or another about legalization, though I do think if it's left a crime it should be one of those we just don't bother prosecuting).

This, however, rubs me the wrong way.

It's not that I think we shouldn't have it per se, it's just...Well, here's the money quote:

After the usual deduction for prizes and other costs, 23 percent of ticket proceeds will go to the Permanent Fund for Veterans' Assistance for such services as transportation to veterans hospitals, counseling and housing for homeless veterans.

It's a $2 ticket. So 46¢ from each ticket will go into this fund. It will, I have no doubt, work exactly as advertised. They may even be correct to say that it will inject $9M into the fund. And that's a good thing. But, well, I'd much rather give my $2 to them directly...and so I think I'll skip the scratch-off tickets (that, well, I wouldn't buy anyway) and do what I can locally.

ETA: Huh, found a good answer further down: Toy Drive to Benefit Military Families. Here's Operation Homefront's Texas chapter. Of course, there are beaucoup other opportunities; Blackfive has a good run-down. Any of these, I think, would be better than paying the stupid tax.

Presto change-o

In case you were wondering what happened to that last post...

I got a message requesting it be taken down, and I did so. That simple.

Columbus is beautiful this time of year.

Columbus, Texas that is.

I'm dropping Intro to Chem. I'm not getting the hang of the class. It's part the professor and part me. I'd rather retake it next semester than stick with it and do poorly. This is germane to this post only for one reason: doing this means I have Thursdays off. Also germane only for a similar reason: the ex has been taking the girls Wednesdays & Thursdays because those are the days he has off work. They also, coincidentally, are the days my sweetie has off work.

So Wednesday afternoon he and I were chatting on Facebook, as we generally do in the afternoons/evenings and he asked what I was doing and I told him I was trying not to think about the fact that we both had Thursday off. He said something about College Station being 200 miles away for both of us, and I asked him how something 200 miles away from me can be halfway from a guy who lives only 300 miles away. He said it was the closest-to-midway city of halfway decent size that he knew of. So I pulled up Google and plugged his home town and mine into their mapping system and told him that it looked as if Columbus was about halfway. Columbus is also bisected by I-10.

So we joked around for about half and hour before he said we should hit the road. Are we doing this? Yes, yes we are.

So about an hour and a half later (two hours after the idea was floated, more or less), I was on I-10 headed east and he was on I-10 headed west. We know each others' names, of course, and each others' faces and we talked about what we drove and what we'd be wearing...all of the stuff that I suppose is typical for something like this. Or maybe not, but who cares?

My friend Marie had said of he and I that if we were that into each other, we wouldn't wait around for the planned November visit, we'd get it done ASAP, driving to meet each other halfway if need be. And you know what? I think she was right. Because it got to a point for both of us where the ridiculousness of not putting in the two and a half hours or so to see each other was just overwhelming and we had to do it.

I have been trying to avoid overplaying my hand. Trying to avoid any man I thought might be a real danger to my heart. Fred was never a danger to me that way. My sweetheart is. Not that I think he'd ever hurt me--he is the only other person I know who is as honest as I am, and who values forthrightness as much.

The truth is, you see, that I love him and he loves me and though I'm not going to say "Well, this is how it will be"...hand to God I feel about him a way I never felt about my ex-husband, though I did love Rob.

So we met up at a hotel just off the interstate. I got there first and hit HEB, because that is just what you do in this part of Texas to kill time. Then I went back to the hotel parking lot and read Eats, Shoots and Leaves (the title of which I put in here just to amuse him--I told him I'd brought a book, but not which) and looked up every time I heard a vehicle pass--and being that I was sitting in a parking lot right beside an on-ramp, this was an awful lot. Even growing up here, I never took note of all the pickup trucks until I was looking for one in particular.

But he did get there and I got out of my car as he was getting out of his truck and the Heavens parted and the angels sang...OK, not really. Actually, he wrapped his arms around me and he kissed me and I kissed him and the mosquitos decided it was the perfect time to have a late dinner on my feet.

Other than my kids, I haven't slept with another person in bed with me in I don't know how long. Longer than I'd like to admit. I kept waking up and looking at him in the light that was coming in through the window from the back parking lot. Yeah, he's real. Yeah, he's still there.

And that, my friends, is the short (really) version of how I woke up with the Pistolero in bed with me.

And because, as I said before, the cardinal rule of the Internet is pictures or it didn't happen:

There is more to it--a lot more--but I shall leave it to him to tell what he wants to tell. Suffice to say that him being who he is it involved weaponry and old country music, and that fucking rocks, y'all.

Hey Guys!

I'm throwin' this out there for input.

There was the get-together either late last year or earlier this one at the range up here on the NE side o' town. I wasn't able to get to that one, but I know we were discussing having another get-together.

And so I thought...How about we see how many SA and South Texas bloggers we can get together just for a casual thing? I'm looking at second week o' November time-frame. What say we meet up somewhere like Sam's Burger Joint or somewhere of the sort and have a few beers and shoot the breeze?

Tweaker, Dave, Hammer--I'm looking at you. You too, Albatross, if you're feeling up for it. Of course, I'd love to see my guys from farther out as well, but I know it's short notice.

Believe what I say, not what I do.

Obama again pledges to change policy on gays.

Yeah, I'm not holding my breath. I'll go with Cleve Jones on this:

"He repeated his promises that he's made to us before, but he did not indicate when he would accomplish these goals and we've been waiting for a while now."

I've hit Obama's promises to gays in this space before. I've seen no indication he's not talking out his ass on a very important day for gays.

We may well have women on submarines soon. Just so long as they're not gay. And wouldn't that be a hell of a spotlight, if one of the first women bubbleheads got the boot for liking the kitty? (Again, I've known a lot of submariners in my time, and not a single one who gave a damn about the sexual orientation of his fellows, though I'm sure ones who do are out there.)

Time will tell, but I have the strong feeling the Big O simply is pandering to a constituency without having anything concrete planned. Hey, this sort of thing has worked for him in the very recent past, hasn't it?

I was reminded of this recently.

Way, way back in the mists of time, I published this post: New Rule for Next Time. I amused myself with it, and put it up and thought no more of it.


Well, {Redacted} is spending time in my archives as I am in his, and he's pointed this post out to me a few times. Because, as he says, he qualifies. On every part of it. And even some stuff I didn't think to put in there ('cause, yeah, it wouldn't have occurred to me to say "My next sweetie must needs be heavily armed," but he is, and that rocks).

Honestly, I'd forgotten about it. Wasn't exactly combing through men holding them up against it; I don't do the checklist thing.

But for the record, he had me the second he played me Merle Haggard singing Bob Wills. I mean, how can you not love that?

(Not to mention the fact that he sees gay rights as a 14th Amendment issue. YES!)

In other news, the battery was indeed the problem, and the car is no longer a lawn ornament. Yay me!

Not my daughters.

I don't talk much about immunizations on my blog, because I think others do a better job of it than I.

Routine childhood vaccinations are a touchy subject. The majority of people don't ever question them, simply giving them to their children on the usual schedule. I'm not going to go into that here, though for the record I vaccinate my daughters on a delayed schedule. (Should I have any more kids, I intend to follow the schedule proposed in The Immunization Book, by the younger Dr. Sears.)

What this post is about is this story:

Gardasil Researcher Speaks Out

Gardasil, if you aren't immediately familiar with it, is the new vaccine for Human Papilloma Virus, a sometimes sexually-transmitted virus that can lead to cervical cancer.

Those who promote the vaccine--which they want us to give to our preadolescent daughters--have been doing a pretty good job of painting the opposition to the vaccine as coming from a bunch of buttoned-up far-right-wingers who are terrified of their precious daughters *gasp* having TEH SECKS.

And for some reason, we've let 'em.

Here's the crux of my opposition to this vaccine: It is incredibly new and I am not convinced of its safety. I am not the only one, but a good many of those bitching about it aren't exactly believable (Mercola, anyone?).

Dr. Diane Harper was one of the researchers for this vaccine. She helped bring it to market. If anyone has credibility, then, she should. And she has her doubts:

This raises questions about the CDC’s recommendation that the series of shots be given to girls as young as 11-years old. “If we vaccinate 11 year olds and the protection doesn’t last... we’ve put them at harm from side effects, small but real, for no benefit,” says Dr. Harper. “The benefit to public health is nothing, there is no reduction in cervical cancers, they are just postponed, unless the protection lasts for at least 15 years, and over 70% of all sexually active females of all ages are vaccinated.” She also says that enough serious side effects have been reported after Gardasil use that the vaccine could prove riskier than the cervical cancer it purports to prevent. Cervical cancer is usually entirely curable when detected early through normal Pap screenings.

What it boils down to for me is this: I have daughters. Each one is an individual. Her own person. She has, therefore, an inalienable right to bodily integrity (nope, not a one of my girls has holes in her ears). I'm not gonna fuck with that for the sake of making them guinea pigs.

Fickle.

Sometimes I feel as if I am fickle. But then I remember that it is a woman's prerogative to change her mind.

And yet.

If you had told me three weeks ago that one of my friends would decide to cross that line and would do it in so decisive a manner that I haven't been to sleep earlier than midnight since, I would have thought you were crazy.

And yet.

I just got off the phone with {redacted}, and yes I realize that is a forced, silly little construct...but you know the old internet saying "Pictures or it didn't happen"? Well, we're not claiming it happened until there are pictures to prove it. (No, not that kind of pictures! Ones I can put on the internet!) We are amusing ourselves by being coy, although the dots are there and can easily be connected. TBeck, at least, either has figured it out by now or will when he puts five minutes' worth of thought into it. (And yeah, I'll tell you over on Facebook if you get it, but not here.)

Anyway, we've been talking on the phone since he got off work at around ten-thirty or so, and that means that, between phone calls and text messaging and the internet, we have been out of touch 8 of the past 24 hours, and that's only because at least one of us was asleep. And that's weird. What's weirder is that we haven't run out of stuff to talk about yet, and we haven't annoyed each other yet.

I cannot say with any certainty where things are going from here, but we're having fun and pleading the Fifth. We paused in the mocking of some of the people in my Creative Writing class to agree--again--that we really owe JayG a thank-you note.

I will do my darnedest not to be too mawkish. But when the two of us disappear from the internet for about a week, at the same time, I guess it will be obvious if it isn't already.

I'm going to sleep, and try to get another post up later on. A good rant, just to prove I haven't lost my edge.

What the hell, San Antonio?

Bexar County under flash flood watch.

More than 5.4 inches of rain fell at the San Antonio International Airport on Sunday between midnight and 8 a.m., breaking the rainfall record for the day set in 1942.

I totally missed this. Just...totally. I was on the phone with {redacted} last night from the time he got off work til about 0130. While we were talking, I noticed some lightning & thunder. But I was so damn tired by the time we finally shut the hell up I went right out.

So apparently I slept through the friggin' storm of the century. My mom & the girls were all woken up by it. Apparently there was much thunder and lightning and rain and wind enough to wake the trailer.

We even had a bit of flooding. My mother went to church this morning; she was given a ride to the bus stop by one of the neighbors. They did not go to our usual bus stop, but to one in the other direction. They couldn't go to the normal bus stop, because there was water over the road! There is a drainage ditch that runs alongside one edge of the trailer park. Usually we just get flash floods--it's over the road and then gone. Apparently this lasted a little while, although by the time the girls and I got out this afternoon it was gone.

I was a good little steward(ess) of my neighborhood. I kicked some random crap back into the ditch cleared some debris. There was a rather large piece of a tree wedged up against the bridge. I have no idea where it came from. The only trees in the part of the drainage ditch for as far as I can see are rather small. There's no way it came from in the ditch! Man, I thought that week's worth of rain a little while back was bad, but we didn't deal with the flood over here at that time.

And geez, if {redacted} can distract me this much over the phone, Imma be in trouble when he comes to visit!

One of the great things about the internet

Rhetorical questions are always answered.

My buddy down on the coast just posited one over on his blog. As of right now, he's got three answers to it.

Myself, I find the question intriguing. Having had the living shit burned out of me by my first husband, I'll tell you something like that is the only thing that would stand a chance of getting me to go out on that limb again.

Of course, I wish him the best of luck...