LOVED this

Last night I watched another documentary on Netflix, this one called "The Human Experience". It was a film about two brothers who had rough upbringings in New York City, who are trying to find the answers to life's fundamental questions "Who am I?" "Why am I here?" "Why is there suffering?" "What common threads of humanity link us together across cultures, race, and zip codes".

They spend a week in New York City in February living among the homeless. They spend time with the lost children in Peru (a segment I don't think any person could make it through without bawling) and then the film ends with them visiting a leper colony in Ghana. In between there is really uplifting and inspiring commentary by priests, rabbis, philosophers and humanitarians. The film also has plenty of happy joyful moments that provide a nice balance to all of the suffering that is shown.

The trailer kind of takes makes it look over the top cheesey, but it wasn't cheesey, it was so inspiring!

Definitely, definitely recommend.

RANT

This is the perfect illustration of why me and Isaac's dad cannot communicate.

Last night Isaac's dad texted me (at 12:30 at NIGHT mind you) that he was going to come over for Easter. I told him okay but that I wouldn't hold my breath he would actually show up. He got all huffy like "I hate when you say that." Today I text him to find out if he is still planning on coming. He responds, yes he will be there at 4. I let him know that won't work, that my mom is serving dinner at 4 (an hour away). I let him know we will be home at 7 and he responds "Okay."

.............................................

What would your interpretation of that conversation mean?

Cause I interpreted it to mean "Okay, I will come at 7." And I rushed us out of my parents house to get us home in time, and spent the whole car ride trying to brainstorm things Isaac and his dad could do, (amidst protests from Isaac that "my dad and I don't really play together. I just play by myself at his house."). It's always rather awkward when he comes over unless we are going to a soccer game or something. He generally just sits there flipping through his phone while I try to force them to engage in activities together.

We arrive home at 10 of 7.

7:10 I start to get annoyed but give him the benefit of the doubt because it is raining cats and dogs.

7:20 I call. Sends me to voicemail. I text him "Are you almost here?". He responds "No, it's too late." At this point I am LIVID and I just start calling him repeatedly. I HATE when someone won't pick up the phone but then texts you back. MAN UP. Answer the phone.

Finally he answers and says he never said he was coming. We rehash the whole thing and I am loathe to admit that he is technically right. He will come now if I want but it will be pushing nine when he gets here and what will be the point of that? The conversation ended with him claiming he is coming tomorrow. I'm not holding my breath and I told him this which he doesn't understand. (Hello, in the past month ALONE you are 0/2 on showing up for anything besides your regular visitation!!!)... When he is little he didn't understand but Isaac is to the age where he realizes "Hey, Daddy said he was coming and then he didn't show up." And I go into insane momma bear mode because I want to shield Isaac from any hurt but the worst part is Isaac doesn't even feel hurt. Confused maybe, but mostly indifferent. Which is almost worse. I feel like this is the kind of stuff is going to relating to a shrink when he is 20. His dad wants to have talks about the distance he feels culturally from Isaac because Isaac has my last name (which, according to him, is akin to blasphemy in his culture). HOW ABOUT THE DISTANCE YOU CREATE BY PUTTING YOUR KID LAST ALL THE TIME??? Behind the third cousins who all of a sudden needs him? Behind the high price of gas? Behind the last minute trips to NYC? And why can hebe so attentive and caring with horrible, violent kids at his work and so withdrawn from his own child?

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I'm addicted want to jump inside your love

I think I need to do something to shake up my own life.

It's spring BREAK for crying out loud and I can barely come up with anything interesting to blog about.
But... I can't stop listening to this song: And I'm not usually a big fan of those guys.

So let's see... that's music. I've been on a big documentary kick lately. Netflix has so many great ones available instantly. I think Netflix is the best 10 dollars a month I spend. At least, if I am going to continue to be as anti-social as I have been lately. Neflix has informed me that I like "cerebral" documentaries. Here's what I've seen lately:

* Very Young Girls - which is about human trafficking in the United States. Not super uplifting as you can imagine, but pretty crazy to think about. When you think of girls being forced into prostitution, you think about young girls in Thailand but it happens in the US all the time. In the US, the average age a girl is caught up in that life is 13. Very disturbing, but informative.

* Exit Through the Gift Shop - all about street art. Really good. Highly recommend.

* Confessions of a Superhero - this one was just okay. It's about 4 people who dress up as characters on Hollywood Blvd. (I've never been to Hollywood Blvd, but they do the same thing in NYC, basically panhandling in exchange for a picture). It was a little too long and the camera work kind of made me sick to my stomach in some scenes.

* Easy A - that one wasn't a documentary, but I really liked it. The writing was very clever. It was sort of a modern take on The Scarlet Letter, a book I am actually pretty familiar with. I had it as a summer reading book the summer before my senior year. I bought the Cliff's Notes and had absolutely no intention of reading it. My mom was not having that though and she would corner me daily and make me lay on the couch while she read me a chapter of it. It's not like, one of my top favorite books or anything, but I am happy that we did read it.

* In the spirit of full disclosure, I have also watching at 22 episodes of Glee that are available. This is very hypocritical after all of the smack I have talked on Glee. I still maintain it is an overrated show with pretty bad acting and ridiculous plot lines. Honestly, I fast forward a lot of the musical scenes because they are just so dumb. Anyways, I have been suckered into a few of the plot lines, so last Saturday after Isaac went to his dad's I sat on the couch and finished off all of the episodes.

Still in my queue: Freakonomics, The Business of Being Born and Tupac and Biggie. Also, I have had Waiting for Superman on my counter for more than a month, but I can't make myself watch it just yet. I'm at about my limit for criticisms of teachers for the time being.

That's all for now. Happy Easter!

Gym fail

So I ate it on the treadmill today.

I stepped off to retrieve the cap to my water bottle and without thinking stepped right back on. Not unlike this guy:

The gym was full of senior citizens and I think I gave them a good laugh. =)

we hate the Lakers... bottom line

E-mail to my friend:

Tonight he declared his favorite basketball player to be Kobe Bryant. I don't know where I went wrong as a parent.....

Friend's response:

I wouldn't worry about it - he's young. However, if he's still a Bryant fan by the time he reaches the age of reason - consider your parenting a complete failure.

cats and dogs

Even though Saturday was ridiculously rainy....

which left parts of the trail looking like this:

I still forged on with my first bike ride of the spring. =)

motherhood rants

Okay, hopefully this blog doesn't offend anyone.

It probably will.

I know I'm leaving myself open to be flamed.

Here goes: So a long time ago (like, over the summer) within the short span of a few weeks, almost all of my good friends who happened to be married (and not LDS) made statements to me about how they simply do not want children. They are all in stable marriages, fairly financially secure, etc. They are just happy being couples I guess and don't want to disrupt their lives. This was around the time when WJM/longtime college boyfriend got back in touch with me and made a similar pronouncement. He declared himself to be "too selfish" ever to have kids and expressed that he had a dog, and that was close enough to a kid (future rant blog on people who compare having pets to having kids is still to come-- that is one of my biggest pet peeves EVER. I hate when people compare the fulfillment of the relationship of a pet, to what they expect the fulfillment and/or responsibility level of having a child will be.)

I try not to judge my friends who don't want children, because I hate when people judge me for getting pregnant, but, well, I think it's a really narcissistic attitude. I don't understand why you would want to sell yourself short of the joy of having kids if you were able to. I really can't wrap my head around their choice to be willfully childless.

Although I have always knew I wanted to be a mother, and although my pregnancy was unexpected, having Isaac is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I recognize that even though I have always have a deep drive and longing to be a mother, that not everyone experiences that same feeling. I think that's fair. But I don't know, (here I go judging again) but it just seems like so many of my friends are choosing not to simply because it would require them to adopt a less self-centered lifestyle and to me that is just tragic. It's an amazing thing to have a child and realize that there is someone in the world now that you love more than you love yourself. I just feel like if you intentionally choose to not experience that on some level, then you are willingly stunting your growth of your character as a human being. There, I said it.

It feels weird to even write this, because I am so not the typical mormon girl whose life ambition is getting married at 19 and cranking out a minivan full of kids before you can even afford to move out of your parent's basement. I think women should have careers. I don't think daycare is evil. And, believe me, I am not trying to glamorize it. I vividly rememver the total shock of coming home from the hospital with the baby in the carseat red faced and screaming and realizing that nothing about my life will ever be the way it was before. You lose your ability to sleep, your privacy, to eat when you want, to live life on your own terms. Pregnancy itself is the ultimate example-- you are not even able to be the only one living in your body, which I guess is a scary thing to some. (Remember the controversial statement Jillian Michaels gave in her Women's Health interview where she said she was planning to adopt so she wouldn't "ruin" her body with pregnancy?) Children involve a lot of time, emotional giving and patience. It's hard work to be a parent and raise kids. And Isaac, is only six, I know I haven't even really gotten to the hard part yet. I get that can be overwhelming at times (believe me!!!) but gosh, in parenthood the good outweighs the bad a million times over. It's such a beautiful thing.

It just makes me a little sad that so many of my friends (for whatever reason) aren't choosing to embark on that adventure.

That's all.