The perfect no-stress environment is the grave. When we change our perception we gain control. The stress becomes a challenge, not a threat. When we commit to action, to actually doing something rather than feeling trapped by events, the stress in our life becomes manageable.
-- Greg Anderson, author of The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness

The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. The heroic cannot be common, nor the common heroic.

Last Friday there was a fund raiser here in South Philly for a young man, 19 years old, suffering from Hodgkins and Non Hodgkins lymphoma. The turnout was tremendous. If well wishing could cure, this one certainly would.

Please keep Pat in your prayers. He needs them.

The party was packed with neighborhood guys and gals. Lots of them dressed to the nines in designer dresses and boots and ultimately groomed.

I made a comment on how my friend should really keep her daughter in doors, possibly in the kitchen, since her attractiveness, including a killer body, seems to me, as a mother of four boys, almost dangerous. My friend commented with destain "Oh NO! Why?, so she can be a slave to some man?!"

you know me..can't say anything without me thinking about it over and over.

I am convinced that a teenager has no idea how vulnerable and enslaving a sexy dress can make her. I am also convinced that some of these rightfully clueless young women are being consciously steered in the direction of enslavement itself by their MOTHERS.

Now I don't want to make my friend any more mad at me than she already is possibly...I just would like to pose putting on our thinking caps..

Have we come so far in the women's movement that our goal is to never belittle ourselves so much as to keep a clean house or cook a fabulous meal for our husbands and children. Some husbands help with those demeaning, menial jobs and some do not. Those terrible ones that do not help, are they hiring the housekeepers so their precious, heaven forbid, wives, do not chip a nail or sweat a brow. How dare they not?! Afterall..do we not want our now children to grow up to be pampered and coddled? What man does that for NOTHING in return. My thinking cap is trying to tell me: that is not slavery, but slavery all dressed up! Now just where is that getting us women?

Even the notion of being a wife or getting married before you live together, have vacations together, and do other things together is starting to be inconceivable. Is it so terrible to cook a dinner together but yet just fine to have a sleepover with your boyfriend (whom you will never cook for) before your 21?

I am not talking about THAT particular girl. I am talking about all girls and boys..ages 14-25. They are thinking the way young girls and boys always thought..but usually with age comes wisdom. I am not so sure anymore.

I know happiness and peace and even thrills come in the little things that you do with care and pride and time and love.

I happen to feel wonderful when my husband slips beneath crisp white cotton sheets that I put in the washer and then the dryer and cradled the mattress while warm with ...just for him. I think my kids appreciate the big pot of homemade tomato gravy and meatballs and braciole I have prepared with great sweat and effort and have sacrificed my probable beautiful hands for...
funny, I don't feel like a slave to any man and I can easily be viewed as an actual one to 5. I live with 5 men.

Just what do we want, us women? Equality. That means we have to work (for equal pay, but also equal effort and time) and the significant others must then help around the house. I am a working girl. My husband helps around the house. Most of the time I am appreciative but some of the time I want him to leave my house to me. I feel quite equal to my husband in many ways, in most ways, but he can out rank me in the work force and I can out cook him in the kitchen and I am damn proud of that and never, ever feel like a slave. I don't feel inferior. I feel in my place. Put me in fishnet stockings and high heels and a teddy and now I feel like the low man on the totem pole, somewhat used. Primp me up and take me to business meetings like a trophy and I don't feel very proud.

We all have our place. We all do what we want to get what we want to have what we want. I want to know what is it that we now want?

Those that refuse to share domestic joy with their kids don't want to work either. Does attractiveness really add up to self worth? Maybe I am not attractive enough, because I can't see how it does?

Is the goal for a girl always to find a guy with money? THAT being the most important issue? Does he buy you nice gifts, take you to nice restaurants, give you a credit card? Oh well then..I didn't know.

Later, when women (and men too that are very vein and superficial)are older and they are doing whatever they can to hold onto their self worth, pity is evident, ridiculous glares. And we all admire the people we see, the older ones, who walk with grace and wisdom. Those who are not afraid that their wrinkles and sagging bosoms or biceps will force them to NOT have anything they want..they are the ones that know what they want..you can just see it and feel it too.

SO my thinking cap is saying find your worth in YOUR worth and keep yourself happy and keep giving, in whatever way that is for you..even in the kitchen.

Finally, what is important to you as a teenager will become evident as immaturity later. Make friends, develop virtues, raise your integrity and build your character.

Live together after you get married, devote yourself to your spouse and your children. Is that so ridiculous? Are we so above decency now? Is integrity old fashioned?

Look at all the HAPPY people in the world. Just who are they?
(where is that cap?)

All I am trying to say..is be careful what you say. Be careful what you wish for...

.... you don't want to learn the things your grandmother did or baked or cooked or sewed or ironed or knitted or said or believed? No? Rather not? Then you'd better learn to work like a man or kiss like a (slave) kept woman because we all need to spend our time doing something and we all better think hard about what we want that something to be.

Our grandmothers may have put up with what seems like a lot to us, but they did it for a reason. They may have done it because it was the right thing to do. All this freedom and liberation forces us to not really think hard about everything.

I always think...one step forward is two steps backwards...with every accomplishment this world has made, with every advancement there has been some sacrifice (another blog) and sometimes I think those sacrifices are too high.

like my father says: You don't get nothin' for nothin' in this world.

and just like a dad
he is (mostly) always right.

and just like a daughter
I always listen.

It's a good thing, too!

As much as I think this country over glorifies sports figures, rap singers, rock stars and other entertainers, I do understand the genius behind some of them. It is just not my taste or preference to idealize the ones I feel are really not good people. Then, on the other hand, I watch a lot of movies. I love movies. And I adore the actors that move the subject to a level that feels quite more than a drama or comedy or thriller. I admire the writers and the directors. What really takes me on a spin is when the subject matter is magnified and brought to my attention allowing me to think about something I may never have thought about, allowing me to care more about an issue or a person or a country or a period of time.

Lots of people read and watch movies to "get away" for a while. I was never comfortable with that analogy. I always felt I read and movie watch to "get into" real life a bit more..to experience even more emotions and feelings and dialogue and prose than I can possibly absorb in everyday life. I am not trying to escape. I am trying to break in. Always.

It is the exact reason why I have to write. It allows me to analyze and put things into some kind of perspective for just a bit.

There are some actors, who, because of the way they conduct their personal lives or their extreme ridiculous politics, I avoid the movies they produce. And then, there are others who I watch no matter what they do (Sean Penn comes to mind immediately), even if I loathe their personal conduction.

Sooooo, when I say I adore Cate Blanchett...it isn't her personal life, which I know really very little about and have no informed opinion of..it is her decisive work and choices and the portrayal of those characters and situations that really make her worthy of praise and gratitude.

The newest movie I've watched of her magic is Veronica Guerin. It is the portrayal of the real life of a reporter in Ireland who single handedly changed the laws relating to the prosecution and arrest of drug dealers and criminals. I cannot imagine it didn't get rave reviews.

Veronica Guerin was a true hero.

There are heroes in the world. They may live up the street, or across the country. They may be, at this very moment, in another country risking their lives and the lives of their young children to do the world better. Maybe they are a soldier or a scientist or a lawyer or surgeon or nurse or journalist. Maybe they are a mom, or an uncle or a nice neighbor or helpful librarian. They are big and small and fat and skinny, they smile and sometimes cry and frown and sometimes act.

We should look for these heroes...in actors and in real people because the world could sure use to know.

Maybe the knowing helps spread the desire.

Maybe when we get all excited about the basketball player who is like fire on the court or a rap star who wears his hat and slurs his words just right, maybe we should look a little deeper and see the real heroes and start cheering for them.

Cate Blanchett favorites:

Babel
Veronica Guerin
The Shippings News
The Missing
The GIft
Charlotte Grey
Coffee and Cigarettes
Elizabeth
Little FIsh
Notes on a Scandal
The Aviator
The Talented Mr Ripley
Heaven

Charlotte Grey was the other movie I saw this week. Any movie about WW11 gets my attention. What some people do in times of extreme stress and danger is amazing. This was not based on a true story although I am sure it is just in what it portrayed. Heroes. Then, now, later.

Heroes. We just have to find them.

Reading, I uncover lots of little tips.
Happiness tips. Can we do it?

free your heart of hatred
free your mind of worries
live simply
give more
expect less

Believe in a higher power
Believe you have the power to have whatever you want
Really think about what you want before you seek it
smile even when you don't feel like it
Pretend to be happy even if you aren't
Let go of controlling behaviors
Take control of your health, you finances, your marriage, your kids and your diet

Relax every day without fail
Socialize and enjoy conversation every day
Learn and share what you've learned

Fixing something broken, whether it is a vase or a marriage, can be a great feeling

Tell your kids what you love about them as often as possible. You might as well tell your wife or husband too.

laugh

laugh out loud.

have convictions
have integrity

practive decency

Know that death is a continuation of life in another realm

Pray

smile even if you have bad teeth

any more?