There are many, many ways I can think of that women are not yet equal to men. We still only make a fraction of what men do on a per-dollar basis. (76 cents I believe?) We are not allowed into full combat in the military. We are judged on our/… Read full post »

Warning: Contains graphic nudity and blatant displays of lactation behavior 

Yesterday, MaryTKelly did a spectacular piece about young women being generally unladylike on Facebook. If Facebook is the new place to debase yourself as a woman and a repository for porn, it begs the question, wh/… Read full post »

By now, most of us have heard about a Westchester County, New York mom, Madlyn Primoff, kicking her two daughters out of her car at a busy intersection because they were fighting. The girls were twelve and ten-years-old. The girls were three miles from their home. The 12-year-old ran after the… Read full post »

For eight years my taxes funded a war I opposed which was fought under false pretenses, begun with false information and driven by false motivations. Never once did someone scream, “LIAR!” at the President of the United States during a Congressional address.

I watched as my last president/… Read full post »

  

This is the story of how the sweet baby girl above was recently indoctrinated into homophobia.

When my first two children were in elementary school, they were haunted by my bad decisions. Well, really ONE bad decision - I homeschooled them/… Read full post »

There will be no images in this post.
The images were always the worst.

In the summer of 1999, in Jackson, Mississippi, I entered the culture wars in a way I'd never imagined.

I had been married for five years and had two children, the youngest was one year old. I found… Read full post »

 

 

As most of you know, my “real job” is as a food writer in Jacksonville, Florida. A large part of that job is staying on top of restaurant openings and closings, food trends and the latest Martha Stewart/Rachel Ray outrages. I spend a good deal of my time reading… Read full post »

When I was two - almost three -  we moved to Hollywood Beach, Florida. A little boy named Cooper lived in our apartment complex. Cooper had every single toy in the world. When you walked into his house there were little paths that his mother had carved through the knee deep… Read full post »

  

Image: ljcfyi.com

Forgive me, Lord - for I have gone meta.

This morning, over my frozen waffles and reheated coffee, I checked my email and dutifully read the Salon Newsletter. The above-the-fold article, which I don’t normally read because I don’t “know” t… Read full post »

 

There are many, many things women do to appear more attractive. I freely admit that most of the crazy stuff I do (eyebrow plucking, toenail painting, cuticle moisturizing, foot pumicing) go largely unnoticed by The Man. They are things I do to prevent me from being LESS attractive. The… Read full post »

 I have talked about The Man in almost every post I’ve ever written here on Open Salon. He considers himself a “character” in my blog and he rather enjoys that. Today, on the occasion of his birthday, I would like to show everyone, once again, why I married him.

This is what/… Read full post »

I have freely admitted in the past that I am the product of illegal immigrants. I don’t mean that in the “I am white, liberal and guilty because I'm not Native American” sort of way. I mean that in the past 100 or so years, one (or more?) of the people/… Read full post »

I have often been accused of defending some of the most vile things in the world - Wal-Mart, racist costumes... once, I even appeared to defend men! (What the hell was I thinking?)

It should come as no surprise that I've decided to throw caution to the wind yet again. After all, today's subj… Read full post »

 

Image: BigBoyChild - Age 2 - He is perpetually frozen at this age in my mind - with this exact look on his face - though he is now ten and a half.

Today, while I was nursing Pudge, the school called.

Vice Principal - "Mrs. Kasten - We're just calling to… Read full post »

 

Back in September, Tropical Storm Fay tore off part of my roof. Quite a few shingles were blown off. It rained in my living room. It sucked. I wrote about it. In fact, it was my very first post.

Before the skies had even cleared, I called my… Read full post »

On the night of Friday, March 6, 2009, I had the privilege of hosting Cartouche and her art rep and friend Jeffery for dinner.

She was on her way to Atlanta for an “Art Liberation” excursion which sounded vaguely militaristic in nature. Her “North American Art Representative”… Read full post »

Believe it or not, my husband is a farmer, and I am - without a doubt - a farmer’s wife.

Our land is small, less than an eighth of an acre, but we farm our crop year-round. We live in Florida, so the climate is optimal for farming, but we aren’t very good/… Read full post »

 


I strive to be an extremely polite person. Really, I do. The last thing I want to do is hurt anyone's feelings. But, I suppose that I was born lacking the gene that allows me to enjoy talking on the phone. I love whiling away twenty or thirty minutes giggling with/…

Read full post »

My sweet little Schnitzel died this morning.

He was fine when we went to bed last night, at almost 1 a.m..
When The Man got up at 6:30 to rouse the BigKids for school, there was blood everywhere. I don’t mean blood everywhere like, “Bobby cut his finger and got blood everywhere.”/… Read full post »

The Man is accident prone. I’ll admit that “accident prone” is a charitable phrase. From the moment he could crawl he was getting hurt. His mother has told me stories that leave me amazed that he is alive at all. She has actually said to me (with all the love

… Read full post »

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10. “Please step out of the car, Ma'am.”

9. "We don't have a public restroom.”

8. “Your account is overdrawn.”

7. “You'll have to see the registrar about what credits you're missing.”

6. “We don't serve Jägermeister.”

5. “It… Read full post »

 

Jealous?

 Get your own!

Today, we're getting married, Nation.
We're placing a bet that the guy we picked won't beat us up, steal the remote, drink too much or screw our sister.

Today is about hope, unity and love.
We're meeting on the steps and joining our lives.
Back in the good 'ol… Read full post »

 

 


A Tylenol tablet does not cost a hospital $26. You are already paying for everyone else’s healthcare. Moving on…

If the Mayans knew anything about the apocalypse, they would never have given that Spanish guy a fruit basket.

There is a fine line between telling the tru…

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Why, as Americans, are we so unhappy and hostile? We’re better off than ever before in terms of equality and freedom. Racism, sexism and other “isms” aren’t gone, but we have a black president and a female Secretary of State. The economy may be in the toilet, but/… Read full post »

  

 

Instead of trying as I usually do to avoid offending anyone, I am working today to offend everyone equally. Hopefully this will avoid any unpleasantness. I figure that if I get all my faults out in the open, I can relax in the knowledge that anyone still speaking to… Read full post »