Dollars and (a Lack of) Sense

I try, and I try, but I can't comprehend this one:  basically, while our financial system was melting down, our financial watchdogs were watching porn.


According to reports that came out last week, employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission were, quite literally, playing with themselves while my retirement account was vanishing.  That pisses me off!


Apparently, one senior attorney at SEC headquarters in Washington was logging 8 hours a day on porn sites while he was at work.  One accountant, a woman, viewed porn sites 1,800 times in two weeks.  Another employee made 16,000 attempts to view blocked sites in one month.


Out of 31 serious alleged offenders, 17 were senior employees who made between $100,000 and $222,000 a year.
Makes Tiger Woods seems like an innocent little pussycat, doesn’t it?  And the comparison begs the question of whether serial cheaters like Tiger and Jesse James are really sex addicts.


I mean, Tiger was at least working 8 hours a day and winning major tournaments while getting his action on the side.  These idiots at the SEC were working full-time with their porn.  It makes one wonder if the people around them didn’t notice that productivity had taken a nosedive.


I love what author Mike Leahy said about the SEC boys (and girl, apparently).   The author of Porn Nation:  Conquering America's #1 Addiction, he candidly said on Good Morning America, “Trust me, these guys are addicts.”   And for those who must know exactly HOW in the name of Hugh Hefner someone could jeopardize a $100,000-a-year job with pictures of things that make some people lose their lunch, click on Leahy's link.  He explains it well.


But really, I'm not so interested in how those folks got to be so addicted to porn.  I’m just wondering if the whole mess could have been avoided if Bernie Madoff and the boys at Goldman Sachs had just been wearing leather chaps and spiked collars while they were screwing with our financial system.


Come to think of it, Bernie's prolly wearing chaps these days.  Punishment for the SEC idiots should be having to turn their retirement funds over to Bernie's investment expertise.


That would give me a little satisfaction.

Beware of Twastikas!

Given all the rancor I aroused by suggesting that Tiger Woods probably won’t change and that Elin should go ahead and cut her losses, I’ve been biting my lip and sitting on my hands since news broke about Sandra Bullock’s marriage troubles.

I can’t stand it any longer.

Jesse James, Bullock’s husband (who, incidentally, claims to be distantly related to the wild west outlaw), seemed like a good guy and a loving husband. Sandy acted like she adored him, and she even gave up on trying to have children of her own so that she could raise his.

They may have given that acting Oscar to the wrong member of the family. He, obviously, wasn't what his wife believed him to be.

Apparently, the mistress, a tattooed hoochie mama named Michelle "Bombshell" Mcgee who files her fingernails into sharp points, has a Nazi tattoo near her private parts.

A swastika tattooed on her twat? Is she sinister, stupid, or just partial to weinerschnitzel?

Although Mr. Monster Garage has been checking under the wrong hood, I could understand if Sandra Bullock didn't tear up her family over one affair. After all, I couldn’t see divorcing my husband when I found out about his first affair. We’d been married for fourteen years and had three children. And if my husband’s story was to be believed, the girl knew he was a millionaire, and she threw herself at him.

Apparently, the same thing happened to Jesse James. Given the fact that Michelle Mcgee sold her story to InTouch Magazine for $30,000, I had to wonder if she had set her sights on him, this woman with the words “Prayerful Sinner” tattooed across her forehead and he was too stupid to see her for what she was.

To all the “Michelles” of the world: stop trying to steal husbands and break up marriages. Seriously, go get your own asshole. Because do you honestly believe he won’t ever in a million years cheat on you? You’re that special? Really?

And here’s a tip for the stupid men (or women) who believe that your sweet young thing is really in love with you: when your IQ reaches 72, SELL!

But today, another “Michelle” came forward. Brigitte Daguerre claims to have had an affair with Jesse James. And she’s number three.

Here’s my advice: divorce him, Sandra. Do it quickly. There’s no vaccine for stupid, so this serial cheater will cheat on you again. Anyway, weren’t you the one who said that if you’d been Elin Woods, you wouldn’t have stopped with the golf club? You would have gotten the baseball bat out?

And for those who want to bring up some ridiculous bullshit about forgiveness, I'd like to remind you of the old saying, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”?

Or how about the bumper sticker that simply reads, “Fergit, Hell!”

But I do think it would be fun if someone tattooed “Big F*&%ing Deal” across her titties and made a play for Joe Biden.

Whatever is a Girl to Do?

I almost lost a dachshund. If I hadn’t been wearing my red Baywatch swimsuit the other day when Shirley fell into the pond, she would have drowned.

I was sitting on my back porch enjoying a rare day of sunshine when I heard a strange-sounding “thunk.”

I looked up to see that Shirley was in over her head. And given the fact that her legs are two inches long, she was not going to be able to pull herself out.

Thank God I was there. And thank God I didn’t have to do CPR, because there’s no telling what she’d eaten that day. But God knows I would have done anything to save that little dog because I love her and because I need the great anecdotes she consistently supplies, especially since I’m apparently allowed to only write about my pets.

My kids have already extracted a promise that I will not write about them without first securing permission concerning the subject matter. In fact, my oldest daughter didn’t speak to me for several weeks after the Mt. Rushmorgan entry.

My ex threatened to sue me for writing about him. Since he realized that I’m not liable for pointing out that he makes Alec Baldwin look like Mother Theresa, he’s taken to having the kids beg me not to write about him. So I’ll lay off him for a while but with this warning, one of my favorite quotes (and one he abhors): “If you don’t want it told, don’t do it.” That, by the way, is courtesy of the great modern-day philosopher Jimmy Buffett. We’ll cross our fingers, kids.

I can’t write about my church, either. Come to think of it, I’ve never actually written about my church. Probably because this is not a blog about church. But I won't write about my church because I'm tired of silly people thinking my blog is an appropriate place to vent their frustrations about a place I love.

And according to the blog trolls, I can’t write about my divorce, my faults, addiction, my taste for beer, or Tiger Woods. Or sex. Especially not sex.

Thankfully, one anonymous blog troll was kind enough to tell me what I’m allowed to write about. The person wrote, “Can you shut the heck up and focus on talking about your dogs, a bengal cat or whatever?"

Whatever? I wish someone would tell me the topics included in that category.

So Shirley almost died. I pulled her out, dried her off, and fried her an egg to comfort her. She licked the plate clean, then looked up at me and said, “I need to warn you that if you write about this incident in your little blog, I’m calling my lawyer.”

“Your lawyer? Since when do you have a lawyer?” I asked.

“Since I read your blog the other day on animal rights’ attorneys. I called the real estate attorney who lives down the street. He’s got some time on his hands these days, what with the real estate slowdown, and he said it was only a matter of time before we could slap you with a libel suit.”

She looked around the kitchen. “Before long, I’ll own this house, and you’ll be the maid. And I’ll require two eggs over easy and two slices of toast cut into one-inch cubes every morning.”

“Dammit! What am I going to write about now?” I asked my dog.

She burped and said, “I’d write about 'whatever.' But I wouldn’t piss off that cat. She’s already trying to kill you for calling her a tainted pussy.”

Whatever.

Year of the Prom Dress

For her seventeenth birthday, my younger daughter asked me for a prom gown. She’d had it picked out for a long time, this dress of her dreams. But no store in the Atlanta area had the dress in stock, so we were forced to order it online.

I know that ordering a dress online when she hasn’t even tried it on is, well, crazy. But about this time two years ago, a smallish package addressed to her big sister arrived on our doorstep. Big sister called home from work to ask if a package had come.

“Yes, what did you order?” I said.

“It’s my prom dress!” she happily shouted into the phone.

I looked at the box. It was exactly six inches square and two inches thick. Obviously, she wasn’t going to be wearing much to the prom.

But when she got home and opened the box and held that dress up, a long white Grecian style made of silky-sheer organza, it was so breathtakingly beautiful that I wanted to cry. That's her, above.

Ordering a prom dress online worked out in the past, so I confidently took younger sister’s measurements and compared them to the chart before placing the order. I paid for the dress with my American Express card, knowing full well that my pals at Amex really, really like me and that if the dress isn’t delivered to my satisfaction, they will take my word over thepromdress.com’s. Plus, we had just over two months until the prom. What could go wrong?

That was January 23. One month ago. We still haven’t received the dress. And now I’m nervous about canceling this order because what if it takes a month to get a replacement dress? I would have already filed a complaint with Amex and told thepromdress.com people what they can do with their dress, but my girl has her heart set on this dress. So I called the company last Friday and asked what the problem is.

The problem, it seems, is the Chinese New Year. I swear to God, they actually said that Chinese New Year has delayed the dress.

2010, it seems, is the Year of the Bad Customer Service.

Now, I haven’t thought about Chinese New Year in years, not since I decided that I like Thai food and sushi better than Chinese and stopped going to the restaurants with the Chinese calendars for placemats.

I remember looking at those placemats when I was a kid and thinking, Wow! 1993 is twenty years from now. I wonder where I’ll be in 1993, if the world hasn’t ended by then.

In 1993, I thought, Wow! The new millennium is almost here, and I wonder if Y2K is really something to worry about. Will the world as we know it end because of a computer glitch?

In 2002, I thought my world had actually ended. I was a sad, sad girl, having found out about my husband’s affair. I remember wondering if we would still be together ten years down the road, and I wondered if I would still hurt so badly in ten years.

I don’t wonder -- or even worry -- so much about the future any longer. I’ve learned that while details are highly unpredictable, I pretty much can set my clock (and calendar) by the fact that I’m in for a great ride. Or, as the Jimmy Buffett/Martina McBride song so poetically puts it:

I’m just hangin’ on while this old world keeps spinning
And it’s good to know it’s out of my control

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from all this livin’

Is that it wouldn’t change a thing if I let go

I do wonder, however, if I will live to see April if a prom dress doesn’t arrive in March. And 2010, incidentally, is the Year of the Tiger. Maybe he can figure out a way to use the Chinese New Year excuse.

Tiger's Apology: Par for the Course?

I sat down to watch the Tiger Woods news conference with a massive dose of both skepticism and contempt. I’d already made up my mind that his apology was going to be a ridiculous horse and pony show timed to sneer at Accenture for dropping his endorsement deal and designed to be the venue for the proclamation that he is returning to golf. Integrity, you see, is sort of like virginity: once you've lost it, it's gone for good, even though you keep the package it came in.

I laughed at Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue last evening. He said, “Tiger won’t be taking questions from the press at the news conference. I think it would be fun, though, to watch him take questions from his wife.”

You see, I’ve been in Elin Woods’ shoes. I’ve been to Family Week in rehab, where the patient makes amends for the bad behavior and the family expresses its support for the recovering addict. So I was watching very closely for clues as to whether or not I believe Tiger is sincere and is going about the recovery process in the right way. After what I’ve been through, believe me, I can smell a rat.

I have to say, I was impressed by his apology for several reasons.

First, he’s returning to rehab, although I suspect he won’t be going back to the facility in Mississippi where he spent those 45 days. After my husband completed his initial stay in rehab (at the place where, incidentally, the expert at Tiger’s Mississippi center used to be on staff), they strongly advised him to check into another place in Los Angeles for two more weeks. It was, I suppose, a sort-of halfway house. He went, unwillingly, but he got kicked out within a few days. The fact that Tiger is continuing therapy and is willing to say that he’s putting his career on hold to focus on his recovery, to me, is a very positive sign.

Secondly, he took full responsibility for his actions and refused to blame anyone else. He stuck up for his wife and made it clear that it is his bad behavior that has caused all the problems in their marriage. That’s huge. In contrast, my husband blamed me. He had a list of things I had done wrong that caused him to seek out the arms (and other parts) of other women. Now, I’m not for one second saying that I was or am blameless. In fact, I wasn’t and still am not. But I know this for goddamn sure – if you’re in rehab and can come up with even a smidgen of blame for any other person as the reason you’re an addict, then the dollars you’re spending on that expensive rehab are doing you as much good as the “mom” jeans did for Jessica Simpson’s figure. We can only change when we stop giving other people the power in our lives. If Tiger truly does blame no one but himself, he’s on the right track.

Next, he doesn’t know when he’ll return to golf. The fact that Tiger Woods has no plans to play the Master’s or Pebble Beach means he’s not trying to hurry though rehab and recovery to check them off his list and placate his wife, sponsors, and fans before getting back to his career. To me, it means the therapists are getting through to him. He’s willing to submit to the process rather than arrogantly and defiantly saying he’s been through rehab and everything’s fine now.

The final thing that made me think this apology might be genuine was his mention of getting back to his spiritual foundation. I realize that most of my readers are not Buddhists and might scoff at its teachings on sin and redemption. But when it comes to dealing with addiction, I don’t believe it matters which spiritual practice you follow – it’s following a spiritual practice that makes the difference. And as Tiger pointed out, “Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint.” Learning to control his impulses is the whole point of his rehab, right?

Addiction has been wisely defined for me as a lack of intimacy with one’s soul. I don’t know if Tiger has reconnected with his soul. And I don’t know if the tears in his eyes were genuine. His wife said it best, that his apology will ultimately not be in words but in how he lives. So we’ll have to wait and see if it’s real. What impresses me is the simple fact that he seems to be acting so very differently than my husband acted during and after rehab.

For the first time in my life, I actually find myself betting on and rooting for Tiger Woods.

Screwing with Forgiveness

Although I’m not in the habit of replying to comments by those too lily-livered to reveal their identity, a comment regarding my “Open Letter to Elin” must be addressed.

Anonymous wrote: “Yeah, Screw forgiveness. That’s just some 2000 year old ancient concept anyway.”

The English major in me is screaming that I cannot overlook the glaring punctuation errors in your post. But since we’re on the topic of forgiveness, I’m going to completely and utterly forgive you for those errors.

See, according to my dictionary, to “forgive” is to “stop feeling angry or resentful toward someone for an offense, flaw, or mistake. And I’m not feeling the least bit angry or resentful because you don’t know how to correctly punctuate a sentence.

Now, your reference to a “2,000-year-old concept” leads me to believe that you are a Christian and that you believe Jesus Christ, who was born just over 2,000 years ago, is the author of forgiveness by becoming a sacrifice for our sins. But if you’ll check your concordance, you’ll find that the word “forgive” and all the derivations of it are used more in the Old Testament than in the New. So, at least for Christians, it’s more like a 6,000-year-old concept. Again, I forgive you for the error.

I also find your opening sentence interesting: “Screw forgiveness.” Were you using the word “screw” as a verb or a noun? I’m assuming from the rest of your comment that you meant it to be used as a verb, much like the way I would say on this 24-degree day, “Screw this cold. I’m going to Key West for a few days.” In other words, you are saying my advice to Elin about getting out of that marriage is my way of ignoring God’s command to forgive others the way He forgave us.

Are you implying that Elin and every other woman married to a serial cheater should just stick around and hope her husband doesn’t give her herpes, AIDS, syphilis, or the run-of-the-mill skank crud? Really? Is that what you’re saying?

Or maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe you intended for “screw” to be a noun, implying that we need to invent a whole new brand of forgiveness, one called “Screw Forgiveness.” I kind of like that. Finding out your spouse is cheating is such a horribly heart-wrenching experience that it really takes a lot more effort to stop feeing angry or resentful toward the offender than, say, someone dents your car. “Screw Forgiveness” could define a whole new level of forgiveness.

All our quibbling about semantics aside, I think our real issue goes back to the definition of forgiveness. While the dictionary's first definition of forgiveness is to “stop feeling angry or resentful,” the second is, simply, “to pardon someone.” The word “pardon,” of course, means to “release from punishment.”

I can do the first kind of forgiveness. In fact, I must, and not just because God says to. I have to do it for my own mental health. But releasing someone from punishment, negating the consequences of the offending action? Only God can do that. And for me to try doing God’s job isn’t forgiveness. It’s stupidity.

A child whose parents unfailingly shield him from the consequences for his actions, incidentally, often grows up to be a full-blown narcissist. And go check every sex addiction treatment center in the country. I’d be willing to bet they’re all full of narcissists.

Another erroneous belief about forgiveness is the idea that forgiving and forgetting are synonymous. Three years ago, I visited Notre Dame. On the back side of that magnificent old cathedral, out in the garden, is a memorial to the French citizens who were taken away during the Holocaust and never returned. In blood red letters are the words Pardonner mais ne jamais oublier. The translation: forgive but never forget. Those words helped me sort out my feelings about forgiveness.

I’m passionate about pointing out these errant concepts of forgiveness because I struggled with the issue for years. I forgave my husband when he confessed his first affair. I forgave when he went back to the girl the next week. After that, there were more women. The simple truth is that my “forgiveness” didn’t help a single person on this planet. It just let him believe he could keep getting away with it. It actually made things worse.

You tell me, which affair should be the final straw for Elin? The first mistress, or the thirteenth, or whichever number we’re up to in the skank count? I’m all about Elin forgiving if we’re talking about her learning to stop resenting her husband, but screw the notion of forgiveness as pardoning forgetfulness. The whole point of my post was that he’s probably not going to change. She needs to save herself and her children from any more heartbreak so that she can begin the process of forgiveness.

Yes, forgiveness is a grand (and ancient) concept. But I don’t believe it’s possible to fully forgive until you’ve removed yourself from the offensive situation. And for that reason alone, I would encourage her to leave.

Screw stupidity.

An Open Letter to Elin Woods . . .

Oh, girl, what a mess you find yourself in.

I don’t have all the facts, but here’s what I think happened. You met a handsome, charming, very wealthy and very famous athlete, and he asked you out. For some reason, you turned him down at first. He continued to pursue you, and the whole world started screaming in your ear: Are you crazy? He’s Tiger-freakin’-Woods, the greatest golfer of all time!”

You couldn’t put a label on it, that feeling that something wasn’t quite right, so you ignored your gut and went out with him. And then, when he asked you to marry him, you asked him, probably over and over, what it was – that something – that was making you hesitate.

“I’m the greatest golfer of all time, quite possibly, and I’m handsome and charming and fabulously wealthy, and perfect. Nothing is wrong, sweetheart,” he said. “Now please marry me.”

So you married him and had two children with him, all the time thinking how silly you were to doubt him. Anyway, since you loved him so much, your love could fix everything. But still, something was bothering you.

And then there was a rumor. Or maybe two. But he laughed it off, saying that people always want to take down greatness. He probably said, “People are always looking for dirt. It’s a tabloid world, and we’re famous. Ignore them. Just keep being gorgeous and fabulous, but don’t ever mention to anyone that something is bothering you. Keep your mouth shut and your makeup on at all times.”

So you did. You ignored the rumors and the feeling that something was wrong. Until the day you found out the truth and couldn’t ignore it any longer: Tiger is a bad apple. And all your hoping and wishing and praying and loving couldn’t make him a peach.

A few years ago, my sister and her husband noticed that one of their toilets wasn’t working properly. Sometimes it flushed, and sometimes it didn’t. Their children were young and newly potty trained, so the possibilities were endless. The Barbie doll torso on the floor of Faith’s closet? Her head and lower extremities could have been the potty clogger. Hell, it could have been anything, perhaps even the puppy who had “run away.”

Kevin used a plunger. He used a pipe snake. Every time, the problem would resolve itself for a day or so, but in the end it always came back. This went on for weeks: the toilet worked sometimes, but just as often, it was clogged horribly. Finally, he took the entire toilet out of the bathroom, turned it upside down, took it apart somehow, and found the culprit -- an apple with several bites out of it. A child had apparently been eating an apple on the potty, dropped it, probably shrugged, and flushed.

See, dear Elin, an apple is the most natural thing in the world, a nearly perfect food. But in some circumstances, it’s a huge problem. Tiger may be the greatest golfer in the world, but being a great athlete has never made anyone a good spouse or even a good person.

I’ve learned not to ignore that gut feeling that something isn’t quite right about a person or a situation. I believe it’s God’s way of telling you to walk away, or at the very least, go beneath the surface and dig deep until you discover what’s making you uneasy. Quite often, the cause of your uneasiness is that a person is not what they claim to be. It’s a lack of integrity that’s at the core of every bad apple and also what, according to the proverb, “spoils the whole bunch.”

But you already ignored that nagging little voice, and you know what I’m saying is true. How does that help you now? You’re probably hoping to save the marriage for the sake of your kids. You want to give him a chance to turn things around. I hate to say it, but all the expensive rehab in the world isn’t going to coax an apple out of a toilet or reverse the damage that has already been done to your marriage. And please pardon the obvious pun, but a Tiger never changes his stripes. Despite what he and his therapists are telling you, I’m betting that your gut is still telling you that things aren’t right.

And although I’ve learned not to ignore the feeling that all is not right, I’m still not sure what the proper term is for it.

I just call it a “crapple.”