Wicked!!!

Tonight you get no rant, no ramble and no annoyed topics.  Tonight you simply get the lyrics to a song that is not only a kick ass song to listen to from a kick ass play on Broadway that people should totally see and a book that is really, really cool that the play is based on but fits my mood beautifully as well.  

Enjoy all!!  Here are the lyrics to Wicked: The Musical's 

 Defying Gravity

GLINDA:(spoken)

 Elphaba - why couldn't you have stayed calm for
Once, instead of flying off the handle!
(sung) I hope you're happy!
I hope you're happy now
I hope you're happy how you
Hurt your cause forever
I hope you think you're clever!

ELPHABA
I hope you're happy
I hope you're happy, too
I hope you're proud how you
Would grovel in submission
To feed your own ambition

BOTH
So though I can't imagine how
I hope you're happy right now

GLINDA
(spoken) Elphie, listen to me. Just say you're sorry:
(sung) You can still be with the Wizard
What you've worked and waited for
You can have all you ever wanted:

ELPHABA
(spoken) I know:
(sung) But I don't want it -
No - I can't want it
Anymore:

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes: and leap!

It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
And you can't pull me down!

GLINDA
Can't I make you understand?
You're having delusions of grandeur:

ELPHABA
I'm through accepting limits
''cause someone says they're so
Some things I cannot change
But till I try, I'll never know!
Too long I've been afraid of
Losing love I guess I've lost
Well, if that's love
It comes at much too high a cost!
I'd sooner buy
Defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye
I'm defying gravity
And you can't pull me down:
(spoken) Glinda - come with me. Think of what we could
do: together.

(sung) Unlimited
Together we're unlimited
Together we'll be the greatest team
There's ever been
Glinda -
Dreams, the way we planned 'em

GLINDA
If we work in tandem:

BOTH
There's no fight we cannot win
Just you and I
Defying gravity
With you and I
Defying gravity

ELPHABA
They'll never bring us down!
(spoken) Well? Are you coming?

GLINDA
I hope you're happy
Now that you're choosing this

ELPHABA
(spoken) You too
(sung) I hope it brings you bliss

BOTH
I really hope you get it
And you don't live to regret it
I hope you're happy in the end
I hope you're happy, my friend:

ELPHABA So if you care to find me
Look to the western sky!
As someone told me lately:
"Ev'ryone deserves the chance to fly!"
And if I'm flying solo
At least I'm flying free
To those who'd ground me
Take a message back from me
Tell them how I am
Defying gravity
I'm flying high
Defying gravity
And soon I'll match them in renown
And nobody in all of Oz
No Wizard that there is or was
Is ever gonna bring me down!

GLINDA
I hope you're happy!

CITIZENS OF OZ
Look at her, she's wicked!
Get her!

ELPHABA
:Bring me down!

CITIZENS OF OZ
No one mourns the wicked
So we've got to bring her

ELPHABA
Ahhh!

CITIZENS OF OZ
Down!

Read the book!  See the play!!  Listen to the soundtrack!!!  All are equally AMAZING!!!!!  (This is my opinion)  :-)

Til Next time!!!  :-)

My Generation and other BS excuses....

Ok, so I'm just gonna jump right in and start on this rant.  No pretty little blurb referring to my hypothetical soapbox. 

My mother is finally able to start planning her wedding to a man she has known since grade school and has been dating since 2005.  She's been engaged to him since 2007 and they have (after 2 years of waiting) been able to set the official wedding date.  It's set for July 17, 2010.  My issue is not the actual wedding or the date but how she's handling everything.  Grrrr!!!  She makes me so fricken mad sometimes.  

My mother is doing everything for him.  He's Catholic and refused to budge on how they were married.  So, despite my mother not being Catholic and standing strong on her unwillingness to changer her religion for him (which I was actually proud of her for doing)  she still went along with what HE wanted and went through the Catholic church to have her marriage/divorce from my dad (back in 1990) annulled.  Because HE wanted it done she went along and did it.  Then they never discussed the ceremony because HE wanted to wait and see what happened with the annulment through the church,  She even admitted to me that he was adamant about not getting married any other way and that HE didn't want to discuss it until they heard from the church.  So, are we seeing a pattern here??  It's all about him so far.  My mother lives in a world of delusion that she can have a beautiful, fancy, classy wedding better than her first.  Tonight I'm even more concerned because of something that she said when I confronted her on  the phone about this whole thing.  She said (and I quote)  "I don't even know what I want cuz I haven't had any time to think about the wedding and I won't until I go down to NH this week and discuss details with HIM."  Umm hello???  Anyone else seeing major issues with this statement??  I want to be happy for my mom fully.  I want her to be happy because I know she deserves it, but I am worried about her.  She's giving up everything and moving down to his home.  She's giving up her furniture cuz he wants to use his own.  She's giving up her job and living in a lovely little fantasy that she will be able to get a job in NH w/out problems.  She's giving up her life to live his and this worries me.  

But that's the number two frustration.  She says that I have no reason to worry about her and that she doesn't understand why I'm so worried.  That she's able to handle her own and she knows what she's doing.  HE loves and will take care of her.  Um??  Ok??  I realize that I'm the daughter and she's my mother but I do worry about her because she is my mother and I do love her and care for her.  She keeps telling me that she isn't even sure that this wedding will work out and thats why shes taking her time planning it.  She says that I stress her out.  she says that she gets headaches when WE discuss this.  She seems to think that my way of thinking is because I'm part of this "modern generation" and we as a generation think differently than her generation.  Grrrr!!!!  Seriously??  She wants to go there??  Ok, lets go there.  It will be like bashing my head into a brick wall but let's go there.  I don't buy into this Bullshit excuse for a lack of the ability to think for oneself but lets go there.  After all my mother and I have NEVER seen eye to eye on anything why break tradition now??  Right? 

The "I'm from a different generation" excuse doesn't fly with me.  I don't care what generation a person is a part of to me that is strictly an excuse for the inability to think for yourself.  Complete and total bullshit!!!! Yes, I'll acknowledge that there are cliche resemblances and similarities that statistics have shown are unique to each generation and that there are similarities that we all seem to share in one way or another than vary from generation to generation but no one should be allowed to use this as an excuse for the lack of responsibility we should place upon ourselves.  Don't go telling me that the reason that we are so different is because we come from different ways of thinking caused by being from "different generations"  Forgive me if I find this a complete and total bullshit excuse!!  I do love my mom but I'm most certainly not going to allow "my generation" and there ways of thinking control how I as a person think and make decisions.  I'm my own person with a brain that functions in my own head and perfectly capable of making decision that go against my generations ways of thinking!!  

My mother believes that her generation always made sure that the man had equal say and that HE was always involved in wedding planning.  Funny but I thought that women had fought to get way from that and now I have a mother than wants to bring that all back.  Yes, women now-a-days have a more independent and self-sufficient way of taking charge, planning and owning our own rights to make decisions without a lot of help from man.  Jesus Christ!!  Pick up a God Damn history book and take a look at who and what generation fought to give us these rights.  Last time I checked it was my grandmothers generation who started fighting and my mother's generation who resumed it and essentially helped win  us these rights.  I keep wondering what my grandmother would say if she were still alive and heard what my mom was saying about how HE wants it this way and He wants her to do this and how she needs to be this and give up that because He says its so.  But then again I think back to the fact that my mom and grandmother were total opposites too.  I've been told by numerous people who knew my grandmother than I've got her spirit and her spunk and her fiesty fighting attitude.  My grandmother never, ever allowed my grandfather to control her and boy did he try.  She was this amazing and beautiful free spirit who left England in 1946 as a war bride and came to an unknown country fleeing her family.  I guess I have more respect for her because she always maintained her own ideals and control even when married to that SOB of a grandfather of mine.  My mother is more like my grandfather in some respects.  She is set in her ways and absolutely refuses to budge.  She claimed that she is too old to change and she sees no reason to.  

The last thing that bugs me about this whole situation is that she seems so ashamed of her background and her family.  My brother and I included.  She never comes right out and says it but she absolutely refuses to acknowledge her upbringing claiming that it embarrasses her.  She hates it when I tell people the truth.  She hates it when I bring up her childhood and my own at times.  To me I see things differently.  (something she attributes to her good old stand by that my generation is different than hers) I see my upbringing in a single parent household in a trailer park born to a janitor/veteran father and factory working mother as something to be proud of.  I know that my parents did the best that they could and that's nothing to be ashamed of.  I had food to eat, clothes to wear and keep me warm, and we had a roof over our heads.  My past is a part of why I am who I am today and there is no shame in it.  My mother doesn't see it that way.  She can only see the material parts of.  The outhouse in the woods.  The lack of heat and rickety old steps.  My mother can't see past the things that you could see and look past this to see the things that were important.  Like 2 parents that tried there hardest to make sure their 3 daughters had the same things that she and daddy tried to give me and my brother.  It was just a different format.  She refuses to see anything but what it is.  I never understood any of this and therefore to this day we fight the same battle every few months.  I can see my mother's happiness and that HE has made her smile and for that I am grateful cuz she was miserable and sad and lonely for most of my childhood.  But I can also hear the things she says and how she phrases them and this is what concerns me.  She is relinquishing all her own control and her own ways of thinking because she wants to be loves so badly and he gives her gifts that she has always wanted.  See, I grew up knowing that I wasn't the daughter my mom wanted.  I was outspoken, independent, and broke free of the apron strings very young and this always bothered her.  I started developing my own ways of thinking instead of simply believing what I was told.  I didn't have the manners she wanted me to have and I never truly needed her for much.  Now I'm very aware of how different we are and it seems to be showing more and more as this wedding approaches.   I'm not new to this whole second marriage and step parent thing.  I have a great step mom and step siblings already.  For the past 18 years my dad has been married.  He just did things differently.  He brought my brother and I and my step-siblings into it early.  He wanted all of us to get acclimated before the big day because he knew it was a big step for all of us.  He has never ever separated the two families.  Every year he and my step moms family celebrated holidays as one not two divided.  This is something that I respect about my dad.  I love him more for this.  

But...

My mom has never introduced my brother and I to HIS family.  We know nothing about them.  We're being tossed into this blindfolded on the day of her wedding.  She knows that HE isn't a big fan of kids and doesn't really want to be a grandfather and yet he kind of will be.  I have a beautiful little boy and we're a packaged deal.  My son comes alone with me.  My mother has never even told HIM that HIS future stepson is gay.  Yes, my baby brother is gay and to me this is a really cool thing.  I'm proud of my baby brother but to my mom it's an off limits topic that she has time and time again said has nothing to do with HIM.  She keeps telling me that it doesn't matter.  Well, I hate to say this but it does.  Yes, my brother and I are adults now but we're still HER kids and her family.  What does she expect us to do say "ok mom you're married now have a nice life, see ya on the other side when we get there."???  I mean to me yeah!!  this does involve HIM and it does concern HIM and THEM.  We (her kids) are not going to drop out of her life just because she's married to a homophobic Catholic!!  We're her kids for goodness sakes!!  She and she alone technically made the choice to bring us into this world and her life and whether she likes it or not she's stuck with us for life.  I personally have no intention of dropping out of her life just because she's marrying HIM.  I'm her daughter and I have her only grandson and I do plan on seeing her even after she's married to HIM.  Just because we fight and don't agree on practically anhything doesn't mean I don't love her.  I DO love her a lot!!!  For God's sake she's my mother!!  Jeez!!  But I also don't think it's fair to my baby brother that he be asked to hide who he is!  That's just not cool!!  He is who he is and if HE can't accept that then he can go to Hell!!  I want to like him and I want my mom to be happy but she's driving my nutty with her bullshit excuses and her casual attitude toward all this...especially when it comes to her family. 

This family may drive each other nuts and be a bit maddening at times but show me one family in this world that isn't like that in some way, shape or form.  To my knowledge there is really no perfect family in this world!!  That's just how it is!!  I love my family regardless of how they and that includes myself act.  I've decided that things might never change and she and I will always be battling over something that we can't see eye to eye on but that's what mothers and daughters do.  

So, I really hope that in the end my mother will just accept who she is and see that all is right with the world for us.   I hope that this wedding/marriage will work out and over the next few months things get better because I do love my mom and want her to be happy.  I hope that this guy can make ger happy and that I'm wrong about him because my mom does deserve to be happy and loved.  Everyone does.  

Thank you for allowing me to ramble and vent once again.  Till next time and thanks again for reading this **hugs** to all of you!!  :-)

MLW

I do love my mom

The Kindle.

So, here I go again.  This time my rant is on soemthing apauling.  Something that is also making me a little sad.  Something that to me is an unnecessary item in todays culture.  Here we go again....my soap box has been placed on the floor and my feet are now up on it.

Tonights subject....The Kindle.  

For those of you who have no clue what the Kindle is here is an explanation.  The Kindle is a demon device designed to allow the lazy people of the world as well as the modern people who live for the "conveniences" of todays society so they don't have to slow down for the worl the ability to read books.  This is a flat screened, palm size piece of equipment that allows "modern day" people to go to sites like Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com,  choose a book, pay for it via credit card, and low and behold within minutes it's transfered to this little piece of devilwear.  No mobility required.  No using your brain to choose a title.  No excersizing your arm muscles to pull it off a shelf.  No brain activity required.  A simple and thoughtless process for those people who have conformed to a society of technological innovations designed to keep us moving faster than the speed of light.  I hate this damn piece of equipment.  When did we get so lazy??

The reason I have chosen to write this blog on yet another of society's "make life easier" items is because someone (who shall remain nameless to protect them from anymore scutiny from the rare "others" who think like me) asked for one for Christmas.  This person is smart and so much better than this.  Her explanation for wanting one was that her life was just too crazy and she wanted to read a book but had no time to get to a bookstore to find one.  This piece of technology she said would give her the ability to read again.  OMG!!!!!!!!  Seriously!!!  Take a look a that last statment and her explanation.  There's my point exactly!!!  SLOW DOWN PEOPLE!!!! Take a minute and breathe!!  Breathe in the beautiful aromas of leather bound vintage books, breathe in the scents of the way life used to be before we (the human race) needed and just had to have everything faster and on the go.  

Bookstores are a fantastic place.  A place where magic happens.  A place where dreams can become realities if even for a few hundred pages.  A place where weddings can be planned and dresses can be made and art can come alive with the flips of a few pages.  A place where smells of the old and new combine into this musty and rustic fragrance of days gone by and days yet to come.  A place where history and the past meet the present and the future.  A place of wonder for both the young and the old.   When did we stop loving this??  To me the smells of a bookstore are timeless.  A place where the fast-pace world outside disapears and everything slows to a kings and queens style waltz.  I'm not talking about a huge corporate bookstore like Barnes and Noble where modern conveniences combine with modern day books.  I'm talking about that fabulous place where bookshelves are unfinished and theres a rustic appeal where old books and new books lie side by side on floors and shelves.  Where layers and layers of books line walls.  Where the colors are simple and basic.  Where there's always that semi-damp feel in the air but never enough to put you out.  Where the chairs face the sidewalks and cars go by.  Where cats sit in windows and purr at customers ankles while they peruse the aisles and tables of vintage and antique books.  Ya know!  That beautiful little hole in the wall, shop around the corner, small, family owned bookstore where every sense a human being has is brought to life.  There's no glitz.  No glamour.  No coffee shop and no singers.  Just the simplicity and quiet of a tiny little shop.  Usually these places have a string of jingly bells on their doors to let them know they have customers and the employees are friendly heart-shape faced happy people that have greyish hair and always seem happy to see you.  

When  did this type of wonderful experience get replaced with the "convenience" of online ordering and in a flash it there type of shopping??  If you can't find an hour (hopefully longer...an hour never cuts it when I'm books shopping)  to go out and look in a bookstore then maybe it's time to re-evaluate your life.  Cuz you're a heart attack waiting to happen if your life is that crazy.  People!!!  There is always time to go out and shop for a new book to read.  Make time!!  Books are wonderful peices of a person's imagination.  Better than any TV show and there is always somethint for everyone.  

I've said it before and now I'm gonna say it again.  It's ok to slow down and fall behind a bit.  Dare to be different people.  Dare to go without a cell phone.  Dare to go a day without internet.  Dare to go back to the old ways of living.  Take it from someone who has done this...it's truly a wonderful, mind blowing experiemce.  Go sit on your lawn or on a beach somewhere and open the pages of a book and allow your mind to wander aimlessly.  It's a truly life-altering experience.  

BTW...There is this truly wonderful and absolutely amazing bookstore in Lyndonville, VT where all those features I described in an ideal bookstore come alive called Green Mountain Books!!

Thank you once again for reading yet another ramble and rant.

Til next time!!  8-)

Business and the Gaggle of Gigglers.

Ok boys and girls...here I go again.   Another frustration is up for discussion.  Another annoyance is about to be placed in front of all of your pretty little blues, hazels and borwns.  My soap box is being puled from the top shelf of my closet and placed on the floor and I'm about to take that step up onto it.  

Here goes!!

Tonight I'm annoyed with the complete and total lack of respect for people in my class.  There are these girls in my Intro to Business class (they are also in my Tuesday night history class as well...they don't act nearly as disrespectful in that class though)  we'll call these young women the Gaggle of Gigglers...hence the title of this blog.  I'm completely annoyed this evening.  We had our business plan reviews tonight.  We were given the chance to sit one on one with out teacher and go over the progress on our business plans and ask any questions we might have about them.  This business plan is our final project.  Our final exam essentially.  We had our reviews before the actual lesson.  Things went rather well during the reviews.  The class chit chatted and talked about random topics while one by one we sauntered down the hall to greet and meet with Mr. Fucci.  The lesson started directly following the reviews.  Now, I take my course work and classes seriosuly.  I'm 27 years old.  I'm an adult.  To me these classes are important.  I get an assignment and I go home and immediately start it...especially if it's something as extensive as this business plan.  So, when I'm sitting in a class with a teacher teaching us the lessons this to me is a huge deal.  Well, this gaggle of girls was completely disrespectful to not only the teacher but to the other students.  One of these young women brought a lap top into class.  Now this is fine if the student is using it to take notes because they just don't feel like writing everything that the teacher says down.  That's an appropriate use of a lap top in a class room setting.  I can even understand her bringing it to do research for her business plan while the reviews were taking place.  But for this student (or students as it turned into by the end of the lesson) to be using it for what they were using for in a class setting was highly inappropriate and disrespectful.  These girls were googling the teachers home and looking up information on some boy.  That to me is inexcusable.  I was about to lose my cool.  I smiled and tried to concentrate through the lesson but by the time I walked outta the classroom I was fuming.  I'm paying good money to be istting in that classrom every Wednesday and would like to be able to learn something about the topics being taught without these immature women interupting.  

Am I guilty of saying random things without thinking?  Yes, of course.  I'm also willing to admit that I'm guilty of laughing at these girls in the classroom when they have said random and funny things.  Most of which have little or nothing to do with the lessons being taught.  I'll admit that these young women are a funny group.  I'll also admit that I myself am guilty of giving TMI.  I also leave the classroom and make a solemn vow not to do that again because in the end I do have a tendancy to replay the day and realize that it was not an appropriate topic for that setting, Tonight I was annoyed with the girls.  Tonight I belieive that they crossed that invisible line into a disrespectful interuption.  They should not have been allowed to have that laptop on using it the way they were.  It was not something that needed to be done.  

I'm not perfect.  I don't claim to be perfect.  I joke when in the presence of friends and family that I'm as close to perfect as one can get but of course it's mearly a joke.  I am human.  I make mistakes.  I say stupid things that shouldn't be said.  I make innapropriate comments in setting that these types of comments should not be spoken in.   This is what makes me human.  I also know enough to not do these things more than once.  I know that I'm percieved as a teachers pet.  I'm blunt and to the point.  I have a no holds barred type of personality.  I communicate the truth.  I try to learn everything I can about a subject.  I have a thirst for knowledge.  I start assignments the day they are given and always give it 200% effort.  I work hard on projects and have been known to read text books ahead because I get bored.  I plan ahead and do homework ahead so that if something happens (such as an illness, my son gets hurt or sick, I have an emergency where I can't make it to class)  I won't fall too far behind.  I'm the classic type A personality and over-achiever.  I always have been.  I'm not happy unless I know that I've given projects and assigmments my all.  I won't hand something in unless I feel it s absolutely 120% worthy of being passed in.  I hold myself to high standards always trying to prove that I can do and be better.  This is a trait I get from both parents.  My father thirsts for knowledge and my mother always makes sure she does the best damn job she can do before finishing.  Together this can be a deadly and exauhsting combination.  

So tonight when these 3 young women were sitting there goofing off on a laptop I got a little angry.  Yes, at times they were giving the correct answers but they were also interupting the lesson too.  I'm alsmost certain Mr. Fucci saw the expression on my face and I'm sure he heard me huff and gafaw under my breath.  I want to learn.  I might not always say anything in class.  I'm an observer.  I like to take things in.  Sometimes I do speak but for the most part I take everything in with all my senses.  Tonight I found it extra difficult to concentrate cuz in my mind I was fuming.  Thinking about how I wanted to handle the situation.  I would have asked them to either use the laptop to take notes or simply put it away.  I would have made these three young women an example.  Held them accountable.  But then again this could be because in my mind I was chucking that lap out the window and hearing it crash and smash into a million little peices on the sidewalk below.  I had a lot of trouble paying attention with the commotion going on.  Google earth?? Seriously??  This was absolutely not an appropriate thing to be doing in a classroom setting where a lesson was being taught.  Looking up the teachers house via Google Earth as he was attempting to teach a lesson is not something I would deem as acceptable.  I am pretty sure that Mr. Fucci heard my sigh and gafaw of shock as he willingly gave up his address to them.  Which I'm almost certain he gave up simply to shut them up so he could continue on with the lesson.  But either way he shouldn't have had to give it up for any reason because this situation should never have happened.  To me that was abolsutely none of their business.  I never meant to gafaw and look as irritated as I know I must have looked but it just kind of happens sometimes. I suck at hiding what I'm thinking/feeling and my face shows everything that I think/feel.  I was a lousy journalist. 

Ok well now that I have given all my readers the jist of my annoyance I'm going to go grab a bite to eat cuz my tummy is talking rather loudly.  Once again I want to thank all of you who actually read this and send out a virtual **hug** in return for you actually making it through another random, annoyed, long-ass blog.  :-)

Stepping down off my soapbox, placing it back up on the shelf, closing my closet door and heading out of here for the night.

Til next time!!  

MLW