I love the Innertubes sometimes so much I just want to say Squeee.

From WorkShak

Rick Rolls from My Confined Space

Boys, I want you to go here and look at this picture while I and the women folk talk about some important stuff about our lives.

As I get older, I find myself going through the same thing my mother did about 20 years ago. It’s called, da da dummmm, menopause. First of all, it exists. I’m not going to be one of those women that says “Menopause was never a problem for me.”

I cry foul on that one.

Our bodies are changing, we see that we have lived more than half our lives and while we are not old, neither are we young. We are. It’s a transition.

And, my friends, we are fabulous but it’s part of the process of life.

By the time women, and I guess I’m just speaking for myself here, hit my 40s I started pondering the meaning of life a bit more. I could honestly only think about what I had not done in my life not the accomplishments I have fought tooth and nail to get done. I got a bit tired, I wasn’t feeling as well as I did even five years ago. I found myself somewhat detached from who I was really was.

Who was I? Who am I now?

And, as I’ve said before, I’m too tired for an affair and too broke for a red sports car. Yes, I had, and still do sometimes, hit the middle-aged crazies. Of course the middle-aged crazies hits men as well. It’s pretty much a non-gender thing.

We talk about here on the tubes about different waves of feminism, of how women and men’s lives differ as they grow older and the fact that our bodies completely, or at least it feels like it, betray us. It’s a bond women have. Men have bonds too but I’m not a guy so I can’t comment about that.

It’s like our bodies say “Hey make a baby” when we are in puberty and we learn to deal with that part of being a girl and then when you hit 40 it turns right around and says to us “I changed my mind” and on top of that I’m going to make you feel all nutso for awhile. KThxbai.

I have talked extensively to a couple of woman who are going through the same conundrum of juggling emotions, our professional lives, our sexual identities and feeling like poo all at the same time. It’s good to have conversations about real things instead of ignoring them. The reality is that it’s a messed-up thing, that emotions are different and that it’s almost like we find ourselves wondering what we are going through much the same way we did during puberty. And we don’t have the lives of our mothers and our grandmothers which were so different than what we go through now. We have to take care of ourselves financially. There is no white knight on a steed coming into save the day.

And, women need to take care of each other even if it’s just listening to the grim fact that we ain’t getting any younger.

And it’s not all bad.

The uterus is a weird thing campers. I don’t have mine anymore as she was a bit bitchy but we’ve talked about that before.

Now with all of that said, for anyone who hasn’t experienced all this stuff, it’s not fun.

I don’t think people can understand how daunting it is to wake up in the middle of the night sweating like a goat until you’ve been through it. I can’t explain how I was sitting at my desk doing some work earlier this week and felt like my body was being microwaved from the inside out. It’s hard to convey in words to people who haven’t gone through it.

Why do I bring this up? It’s on my mind, that’s all.

I have to tell myself although I’m aging and there is gray in my hair, I’m pretty groovy. I may not look like Cindy Crawford, but I never did anyway.

I am just me.

There’s only one of me so that’s of the good.

And I’m not dead yet.

H/T of the photo to the lovely Aunt B.

Community Development Services, which benefits from the Lions Club Telethon held each year in Paducah, is going through a financial crisis.

Rep. Mark Maddox is trying to help:

State Rep. Mark Maddox, a longtime board member of CDS, has taken up the fight to recoup the losses imposed on community providers by DMRS. Maddox, whose sister Janet is also a CDS client, is sponsoring an amendment to the appropriations bill that would return the 6.1 percent that has been taken away since January.

Here’s what’s going on:

They look forward to it every year, but this year, for the first time in three decades, the clients of Community Developmental Services were unable to attend the annual West Tennessee Spring Dance, held last Thursday night in Jackson.
At least 1100 people attended the dance, held at the West Tennessee Fair Grounds, but 150 clients and staff of CDS – a community-based, nonprofit organization in Martin serving the needs of developmentally disabled adults in Northwest Tennessee – were conspicuously absent.
“The dance is the social event of the year,” says CDS Executive Director Cathy Cate. “Our folks anticipate it all year long, and this is the first time we’ve ever not been able to take them.”
CDS is also skipping out on its annual participation in the state’s Special Olympics, being held this weekend in Nashville, and has made the decision to reduce its upcoming summer camp from four nights to one – all because of recent financial pressures.
“We can no longer afford to pay for the overtime of our staff, and for all the gas it takes to participate in these events,” says Cate.
In January, Tennessee’s Division of Mental Retardation Services enacted a 6.1 percent payment reduction to community providers caring for some of Tennessee’s most vulnerable citizens. The cuts, intended to last through the end of June, have translated into a $13,000 per month loss for CDS.

“To get itself out of debt, DMRS is putting the agencies in debt, and the people we serve at risk,” says Cate.

This is tragic. CDS has a long history of helping people all over west Tennessee. Cate told me that her staff hasn’t had a raise in four years.

Programs are taking a hit.

CDS is a good organization. I hope they can get what they need to survive.

I’ve written about this before and I’m not going to go into it more than just to say that I really am so disappointed in the national press focusing on the actions of Bill Hobbs and the Tennessee GOP.

I’ve lived in Canada and In Europe for long stretches of time. I guess I’m not your typical Tennessean. The stereotypes of Tennesseans is a reality because I’ve seen how we are perceived outside of this country’s walls. It’s something we have anyway. Not everyone in the state of Tennessee, for those of my readers that live outside the state line, is like the way we are being portrayed.

When industry is looking to move to Tennessee, are they going to be looking at the Obama bashing that we’ve seen over the last few months and think, “No, I think I’d rather move to Minnesota.”

I’m a Tennessean. I love the way the mountains in the east side of the state have lazy clouds hiding the tips of their peaks. I love the color of winter wheat which is impossibly green that is so vibrant and alive that it makes one wonder if you could swim in it’s buttery softness. I love the feel of Midtown in Memphis where there is a subtle urgency that makes you pick up your feet. I love sitting in the juke joints with people who talk about their parents, and their parents’ parents and how the first time they heard The Beatles they thought they had died and gone to heaven. I like that in Nashville I would go to Pancake Pantry and see Lyle Lovett eating chocolate chip pancakes not once but numerous times and that no one bothered him. I love the way the wind whips off the river in Chattanooga as you walk downtown. The cypress knees that line Reelfoot Lake are incredible as you see hundreds of turtles neatly lined on fallen logs.

It’s a good state really. We are not the crude lines that are being portrayed by the national media right now. That is not the Tennessee I live in.

I make fun of Hooterville, but I stay here because, at this point, I choose too. It’s flawed but it’s also not too bad and I love the people here. I do. I feel such affection for my home. When people are struggling to make ends meet and I see that the state branch is making a short-term funny (I don’t think it’s amusing in the least) I can’t help but wonder what the long-term cost will be.

Our area lost a plant several years ago because of James Hart being written up in a Florida newspaper. The industrial folks who were looking to bring industry here didn’t like that a (former) alderman talked to Hart and said he agreed with Hart’s blathering. Hart has been denounced by the GOP and that’s not my point, but it was that two men’s words made a difference that impacted thousands of people’s lives.

My state is not a one-note joke.

Well, I guess it’s a bad thing to use a small gold statue of Jesus Christ as a weapon. Want to know how I know?

It happened tonight on Lost.

Too much to think about in these initial moments after the conclusion of tonight’s episode, so what I have to say goes after the jump.

Ahh, Richard Albert, how you snuck up on me tonight. I didn’t expect you to show up with all your peeps who were all dressed in brown. And, I love your eyeliner. Of course I still listen to The Cure so that’s how I swing.

First of all, I was glad to see The Others show up. We haven’t seen them in awhile and they haven’t been around lately. I was worried about them. Of course, I knew they were there. I also know there are coyotes round these parts but I only see them about twice a year. Thus, I was glad to know they were still alive and kicking.

The best I can do is some observing about things tonight that I noticed. This was one of those episodes that was setting things up. I don’t think we really gleaned a lot of new information but we set up the narrative for the the finale. I’m cool with that.

• Everyone that is part of the Oceanic 6 are in different locations. I wonder how that’s going to work out.
• Rose and Locke got better however Ben and Jack got sick. Jacob (or the island) is non forgiving.I’ve said that before, however, when Sawyer saw Jack he brought up that the crazy Keamy freighter people came after Othertown ” … just like Locke said they would.” It was a subtle (well, it’s Sawyer so take that for what it’s worth) validation that Locke was right and Jack, well, Jack was wrong. Jack is constantly wrong. Being wrong might be Jack’s Constant.
• Seeing Kate with Aaron in the real world is weird but I also felt sorry for her during the homecoming. I have no idea what it’s like not to have a family and friends. She seemed very alone.
• We heard whispers before Hurley picked up Jesus to deck somebody. WHISPERS!! I love the whispers.
• The look on Sawyer’s face when he realized that Hugo might be in trouble.
• The odometer on Hurley’s car with a badly wigged Cheech. Ooooh, and the coconut. I thought Charley might show up and sing “Hello Everybody.” Seriously, I thought he might. Boy was I wrong.
• Today is Frank Baum’s birthday. Baum brought us the Wizard of Oz. What did Dorothy say to get home? I think you get where I’m going here.
• Guys, both Squirrel Queen and I have had appendectomies and I have to tell you. The nurse told me I had to walk the day after surgery. I said sure, no problem. MY GAWD it was excruciatingly horribly I have to tell you, the whole Jack surgery thing is dramatic license and I get that but I didn’t buy it. I was out for the count and SQ’s ruptured. No, you don’t go dancing through the jungle after this. Jack, you annoy me.
• Jack now knows that Claire was his half-sister.
• Was Sun seeing Jin for the last time as she stood on the boat.
• Desmond yelling out “Michael” and not Kevin struck me. Why is the boat wired to blow? Is that box that Mr. Friendly set to go “Ka-boom” if the boat guys try to get to the island. I’m thinking yes but I’ve been wrong before.
• What’s that thing on Keamy’s arm? Will it made the island/freighter blow if he messes with it.
• I wonder why Locke’s mother hasn’t show up lately.
• The others, while wearing brown as it was apparently the preferred color during this fashion season on Lost, were not in theatrical make-up.

So, initially, this is what I have.

Two weeks before the finale.

Dang.

John Phillip Law has died. He was in Barbarella as Pygar.

Man, he was pretty. He died at age 70 which has more than make me ponder my own mortality. Or mentality. Or both.

Anyway, he was groovy.

I found this site through Brittney G’s fancy new blog in San Francisco.

Big city, little town, it’s all the same.

How can I get on the front page?

This is what Spots says:

“What’s your name?”

“Beth.”

“Who are you with? Newspaper? TV? Website? Media?”

Oy. “The Chronicle.”

“What do we have to do to get on the front page of the Chronicle?”

Oh god. What the hell do I say to that? Beats me, sketch comedy guy. Probably bomb a government building day care center. So I went with the obvious.

“Nudity?”

I mainly did this for my girls, giggling behind me.

Andrew, who had remained on stage then proceeded to undress, making it only as far as his yellow man-panties, which is why he’s only ending up on the Culture Blog.

I have to become more clever when I get this question like she was. Every day. I live in the South in the Bible Belt. No one is going to get nude except that one lady who they keep throwing out of the local juke joints for conducting, let’s say, business practices that aren’t quite legal.

Most men I know don’t wear “yellow man-panties” but if they did, I’d probably put them on the front page.

Yes, we would love to put every story on the front page. But there is, you know, just one front page thus it being called the front page.

Oy indeed.

And Chris Matthews is the voice of reason? I echo what Attaturk said at his post.

I don’t like my news yelled at me. I’ll make up my own mind. Matthews was the voice of reason.

Umm, today.

But still, it’s about those crazy pundits talking about… well, dude didn’t know did he?

Heh.

Gee. Going to look at zombie pictures. At least they are quiet.

If you can make it through the whole thing, I’ll be surprised.

Never give up.

Make your own at Toonlet.

From the BBC.

Dwight Shrute as John McCain’s VP has demands.

Presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, John McCain, made a bold announcement last week when during an interview on THE DAILY SHOW he announced that Dwight Schrute would be his running mate on the ticket come November. It was an obvious choice and one, frankly, we all saw coming. But what Senator McCain didn’t anticipate was the list of demands that Mr. Schrute would enforce prior to agreeing to appearing on the ticket as the nominee for Assistant President.

Go see the video at Give Me My Remote.

In my little neck of the woods, I have to tell you, the John Edwards endorsement of Barack Obama is a bigger deal than you might think. And I agree with Goldni that I think the timing of this was very much balanced for positive press after West Virginia.

Prior to Super Tuesday, I really had to give a lot of thought between Edwards and Obama. I read the issues (including Hillary Clinton’s) and when Edwards dropped out January 30th, my decision was pretty much made for me. I’ve also said that if Clinton won the nomination, I would throw her my vote. It isn’t much but it’s mine.

The people that I know really like Edwards and here in northwest Tennessee, he has always been very well-received. The populist platform, regardless of the $400 haircut that keeps being brought up, resonated with a lot of folks here which does have a blue-collar base.

Now, will his endorsement make a difference? Yes, but news cycles these days don’t last very long. The video for Chocolate Rain has had a longer life-span than political news stories these days.

He has 19 delegates. He does seem to balance the two remaining candidates as well. When Bill Richards came out earlier for Obama, he honestly took a beating from the Clinton camp. With Edwards waiting, he won’t go through what Richards went through. Someone asked me yesterday did I think Obama would name Edwards as his running mate.

I told them no but then again, I’ve been wrong before. I just don’t see it. Of course, I also thought Mike McWherter would run.

With all of that said, Obama got the cookie he’s been waiting for with Edwards’ endorsement.

How long will the buzz last in the blogosphere and in mainstream media?

Hard to tell.

I have long been a connoisseur of bad art. I don’t know dingle about art I just know I likes what I likes.

And I also know that sometimes the combination, of let’s say paint and velvet, is hysterical.

Charles Nelson Reilly, I’m smitten with you on black velvet. And of course, it reminds me of Jim Reams.

Jesus and Elvis. An oldie but a goodie although I don’t know why, this one seems to make the rounds. Of course, I have to agree with the person that posted this that Elvis looks like Gene Simmons and has the holy light around him. I mean, he is Elvis but shouldn’t Jesus be basking in the glow.

Just wondering.

There are a ton more at List of the Day, including about what seems a gazillion velvet delights of Kenny Rogers and, of course, Jesus and and 18 wheeler.

Homer: I read your blog.

Me: I’m glad someone does.

Homer: Why the fascination with Cousin Oliver?

Me: I don’t know. We watched him before it went in repeats. How’s 40 treating you?

Homer turned 40 on Monday.

Homer: It’s fine.

Me: John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama.

Homer: Yeah. Folks are talking about it.

Me: Yup.

Homer: But it seems those folks on your blog would rather talk about Cousin Oliver.

Me: Yeah.

Homer: How I see it is if Cousin Oliver is the harbinger of death for Bryant Gumbel and The Brady Bunch, maybe he should endorse John McCain and then a democrat will get into office.

Me: (wheels turning) You have a point.

Homer: You gain wisdom at 40. I have become instantly wiser.

Me: (rolling my eyes) Yeah.

I’ve gone back to this post by Malia at live. laugh. love all morning and especially to these two sentences which say so much.

Wanted: the edge I never had.

Assuming: it comes with the courage to use it.

I know how she feels. I do. Sometimes I wonder what the definition of an edge, or strength for that matter, is. Sometimes I feel all saucy but I’m not so sure that’s an edge.

On my time on this planet, I’ve often pondered what I think I am in comparison to how others perceive me. Then I realize that it’s really none of my business how others’ feel about me because I’m the one who has to lay my head on the pillow at night. The edge, I’m thinking as I’m all introspective about her post, doesn’t have to be with sharp rims that stab. Edge can be being true to ourselves without abandoning our core essence.

That’s courage. To be who we are.

Of course I am flawed, flawed, flawed, so I have to do things that scare me sometimes to keep me on my toes. And then other times, I move into the shadows of my world watching from the distance.

Thus flawed.

So here’s a picture of The Edge:

Sometimes that’s the only edge I can find.

Russ McBee says:

Yesterday, both the House and the Senate voted overwhelmingly to force the Bush administration to stop buying oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The Senate voted 97-1, and the House voted 385-25; even after a threatened veto from the White House, Republicans in both chambers bolted from the President’s veto threat to strike what amounts to a meaningless election-year pose on the issue of gas prices. Although I believe the bill will make absolutely no difference in retail gas prices, the fact that so many Republicans ignored the President on the issue speaks volumes about his shattered credibility and their party’s collapsed leadership.

Today, the House approved a $300 billion “farm” bill (which actually had relatively little to do with farming); over another veto threat from the White House, the bill passed by a vote of 318-106. This means over half of House Republicans ignored the Bush administration and voted for the bill.

Russ is digging that the GOP isn’t voting the way our current White House administration wants them too.

Badger and I were talking about Cousin Oliver on the Brady Bunch the other day and about the Cousin Oliver syndrome as a whole. We both agreed that when a television show adds a cute and snarky kid, the show is doomed.

No one knew what happened with Cousin Oliver, not that we cared but then again, me being me, had to go and look up Robbie Rist. I know. I have some sort of blogging ADHD. I guess I did care after all.

I’m a child of the 70s. We may have had LSD in the water back in the day. One never knows.

I found this interview with the Washington Post from a couple of years ago with Rist. This kind of made me laugh.

RR: On occasion. Susan Olson and I talk maybe a couple times a year. We talk about her kid and whatever I’m working on. I think the last time I saw Mike Lookinland was at a shooting for the CBS Morning Show. They had all the Brady guys on, so it was Barry [Williams], Chris Knight and myself in New York with Mike on a remote TV screen and oddly, with that episode, I was on the morning Bryant Gumbel quit. Coincidence? I don’t know.

Liz: Cousin Oliver strikes again.

RR: I’ll take credit for it. What the hell?

I think Cousin Oliver might indeed be the best pop culture term ever and that he might just be the greatest “harbinger of death” ever.

After “bloated whitey” which is a pop culture term I invented but hasn’t taken off yet. Anyway, here is Robbie Rist’s MySpace page. He apparently has been a busy boy.

In the spirit of disclosure, I think saying “bloated whitey” just flows off the tongue. Followed closely by “fishsticked.™” invented by Sara Clark and I which is a great word. It never took off either.

Dang.

The Catholic Church is saying some things. No, not about communion, but about aliens. From Mars.

The Pope’s chief astronomer says that life on Mars cannot be ruled out.

Writing in the Vatican newspaper, the astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space.

Father Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory near Rome, is a respected scientist who collaborates with universities around the world.

The search for forms of extraterrestrial life, he says, does not contradict belief in God.

As you know, I always wanted to work for Weekly World News. Then they shut down. Then I became shiftless, started drinking too much, lost my way, tried to write bad poetry about Yetis and attempted to seek BatBoy out by myself.

Alas, I lost my funding. It was only $3.64 but it went towards the cause.

One of these days, some big outfit is going to hire my happy self to cover big stories about Bigfoot. And we know, of course, now this photo is true.

The truth is out there.