First, some Army officer snaps and shoots at people at Ft. Hood, Texas, killing 12 and wounding 31 others…

Today, some disgruntled former employee (is there any other kind?) opens fire at an office building in Orlando, Florida…

What is this world coming to?

In the case of the Ft. Hood shootings, it appears that the man responsible was a doctor who counseled soldiers returning from the war zones, and was upset by the things he heard. He was scheduled to deploy himself later this month, and didn’t want to go.

And people are freaking out because Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is a practising Muslim. To some people, that automatically means “terrorist”, but this man was born in the United States. According to news reports,

An imam from a mosque Hasan regularly attended said Hasan, a lifelong Muslim, was a committed soldier, gave no sign of extremist beliefs and regularly wore his uniform at prayers.

In my humble opinion, I think this man just snapped. It happens, especially in times of war. You see too much, you hear too much, and your mind can’t process it all.

I’m not excusing what this man did… he killed and wounded people on a military base. The one place you’d think people would be safe.

It’s just a tragedy all around.

There will be more on this in the days to come. As for this shooting in Orlando, it’s still a developing story, so I don’t want to say anything more about that until there are more facts.

That’s all from where I sit.

–MorelaterZ–

There is a display here at UCO today about abortion. It is meant to educate people about what abortion is. Included in this display are posters of aborted fetuses and parts of fetal bodies. It is not pleasant to look at. In fact, it upset me.

Before you jump to conclusions, I must tell you that I have never had an abortion, and would never advocate it to someone else. You should also know that I was raised as a Roman Catholic, and the Church is vehemently opposed to abortion. This is something that I would never and have never chosen for myself, but if someone is thinking about it, then I think that person should have the option to end their pregnancy.

But, a question was posed to me today by one of the volunteers at the display: does an unborn child have human rights?

If it’s not okay to kill your child once it’s born, why is it okay to kill it before it’s born?

I have to admit that I had no answer for that. What’s the difference? If, as I believe, an unborn child is a human being and therefore has human rights, then who am I or anyone else to decide to end that child’s life?

I think that’s where I have a huge problem with Roe v. Wade. Hell, even the woman who inspired the law had a change of heart and is now a pro life activist.

I don’t know what I believe now. Should women have the right to terminate their pregnancies, and have that procedure done by someone who is medically trained to do so? Or, should Roe v. Wade be overturned and we go back to the alternative of back alley abortions by people who probably watched a video about how to perform the procedure, and have women dying because they’re desperate, scared, or think they have no other alternatives?

What if you were the mother of a woman who died as a result? How would you feel?

What if you were the parent of a woman who had the procedure done safely, and you found out after the fact? What if you were the parent of the man who fathered the child? What if you were the father of the now aborted child and didn’t know about it until after the fact?

Yes, I know that there are lots of people who pressure women into getting abortions for one reason or another. I’m not talking about them with the questions posed above.

As many readers of Where It’s @ ! know, I am the mother of four sons. Three of them are adults. What if a girl one of them was dating found herself pregnant, thinking that whichever son she was seeing wouldn’t want to be tied down with a baby in that point in life, and felt she had no other choice to terminate the pregnancy?

This is why I want to get to know the girls that my sons date. I want these young women to know they have a friend and ally in me. That they can come to me with a problem or a question or a concern, even if it doesn’t involve their relationship with whichever son they happen to be dating.

I know this is a loaded post, and a lot of people will find this subject uncomfortable. I know that some may want to debate me on this. I do want to know what my readers think about this, but if there are flames in the comments, then expected to be deleted. Name calling is stupid and gets nothing accomplished. I know I have mature readers out there.

That’s all from where I sit.

–MorelaterZ–

If I thought I had to update this post every year, I may not have even written it.

In February of 2008, I had a really wicked case of the flu. Just the flu, not H1N1 or anything like that. I wrote a post about the stages of the flu based on my own experience, and it is clearly the most read post on Where it’s @ !

People are bugging out over the H1N1 virus, the vaccine (or lack thereof), the bottles of hand sanitizer everywhere you look…

I mean, c’mon, people, use some common sense! If you’re sick, stay the hell away from me! If that means you miss school or work, then so be it. Don’t give whatever it is you’ve got to anyone else. If you feel the need to go to the doctor, then, damn, GO ALREADY! H1N1 has killed people, and since I’m kinda addicted to life, then go see your doctor and get it taken care of post haste! I’d like to see some of you around the interwebs when this stupid pandemic is over.

Call your local health department to find out when or if your community is having clinics for the vaccine. Find out if you or your loved ones are in the target groups (young children, children with underlying health issues, pregnant women, etc.), then go get the shot/nasal spray. You may have to stand in a line for a while, but isn’t your peace of mind worth it.

Of course, this is just one woman’s opinion. If you’re vehemently opposed to getting the vaccine, then don’t. But again, if you’re sick, stay home. Call your doctor. Then do what he/she tells you to do.

Ya follow…?

That’s all from where I sit.

–MorelaterZ–

P.S. there is other stuff on this blog other than that post about the flu. Check out Where it’s @ ! and tell me what you think. Deal?

…for a change!

=====

I dickered around with some elements of poetry, trying to make them all make sense… but all I was able to come up with were related fragments of my own desires…

This all came from thinking about things and people in my life.

One of my Facebook statuses last night was something along the lines of :

I believe that if you want to make the time, even when you think you have none, you can. If I can do it with all I have to do, then anyone can.

But choosing to not make time for fun, or rest, or something not related to one’s work is entirely on the individual involved. Nothing that I or anyone else can say will change that. People just want to have to change.

I also wrote out a list of adjectives that I think describe me… among those are:

• loyal
• friendly
• smart
• sassy
• loving
• giving
• sensuous
• dedicated
• sincere

And then I started to do it for people I know, and realized that they may not see themselves the way I see them. That my perception of *you* (whomever you may be) is totally different that your perception of you, or of others’ perceptions of you.

Are you (again, whomever you may be) projecting to others what you want them to see, or are you letting them draw their own conclusions about you that may be totally wrong?

=====

Am I seeing the real you, or the you that YOU want me to see?

That’s all from where I sit.

–MorelaterZ–

I still have to go to the store, do homework, take a nap…

I went to bed early last night, thinking I was going to get all this good sleep…but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I wake up to go pee and discover to my horror that it’s not something like 5am, but not even 1am!

After that, I tossed and turned all night long. Not even hot milk helped (plain ole hot milk is kinda boring, IMHO).

I rewrote my Radio and TV Writing assignment in my head all night long.

=====

You know when your kids are growing up when Halloween doesn’t interest them like it once did. My almost 16 year old went to a party instead of taking his cousins around my mother’s neighborhood trick or treating.

And: most people watch horror flicks on TV or DVD on Halloween. I watched game 3 of the World Series… a horrorfest in and of itself!

Is it just me, or the officiating by the umpires just bad? It’s almost like they want the Yankees to win.

BTW… I hate the Yankees. They have two of the most overrated players ever: ARod and Derek Jeter. I don’t think either of them are anything to write home about, IMPO…

I was really hoping for a freeway World Series between the Angels and the Dodgers. Now THAT would have been worth missing Steve McQueen in “The Great Escape” for!!

That’s all from where I sit.

–MorelaterZ–

My homework is never gonna get done if my computer doesn’t want to cooperate and play nice.

I only have an assignment due tomorrow, that’s all. Sheesh!!

=====

Spending time alone gives me ample opportunity to think about things, like for example, where my life is headed and who should or should not be in it.

*My family. Definitely.

*People I’ve come in contact with in the last 5 years either thru school or working (lots of the former; not so much of the latter). Depends on who they are.

Where is my life headed? I honestly can’t answer that with anything that makes sense. At least not to anyone but me. The only thing I can say is that the journey to wherever that is is an adventure in and of itself.

Right now the road is bumpy and filled with obsticles that I must overcome in order to move forward.

Please bear with me while I figure this out. It will be worth it, I promise.

=====

Halloween was, um, interesting.

Only Amalia and Joey are doing the trick or treat thing now. Scott and Daniel were working, and Marc went to a party with some friends.

So Jeff dressed up like a butler and handed out candy, Tori and Dean took their kids around Mom’s neighborhood, and Mom and I watched the World Series until we got disgusted with it. We then watched “The Great Escape” on OETA (Oklahoma’s PBS cooperative).

I should have asked Tori and Dean to take me home, but I didn’t so I had to wait until Daniel rolled in around 2am (after the time change).

All in all it was a pretty good day. At least it wasn’t raining.

That’s all from where I sit.

–MorelaterZ–

This phemonena that I’ve been calling The Itchies… this has gotta stop soon or it’s going to earn me a one way ticket to the Funny Farm!

I’ve been bitching about this a lot on Twitter, because it’s easy to say that the constant scratching is making me crazy in 140 characters or less, but this is the first I’ve written about it here (that I know of).

A bath in calamine lotion or a tub of hot oatmeal sounds really good right about now.

I know that it’s not related to the kind of laundry soap I’ve been using, because I know my skin is sensitive, so I buy the stuff that is dye and scent free. And it’s literally been going on since the Ear Infection from Hell I had in the spring.

And I know it’s not just simply dry skin. Any kind of lotion would take care of that, and that doesn’t seem to help.

Often I look like I’ve been in a fight with a cat and lost, as I am usually covered in scratches… some so bad that I’ve actually drawn blood.

That’s in addition to the bruises, the fatigue, and the eating one meal a day and not being hungry for the rest of the day.

Then there’s those little red dots. There’s not a lot of them, but I don’t know what they are. I think it might be related to the scratching, I don’t know.

It’s probably nothing to be worried about, but I’d sure as hell would like to know what it is and how I can get rid of it.

Who knew a stupid ear infection could cause so many problems?

That’s all from where I sit.

–MorelaterZ–

had you told me that last semester, things this semester might not suck.

I went to Advisement yesterday, and found out some interesting stuff. Like:

• I could’ve taken Spanish I again, but not for credit since I already passed it.
• That I don’t need to take a class that I had been told I had to take even though I had it at Rose State.
• That I could attempt to CLEP out of  what I called “College Math for Dummies” because those classes don’t count towards my GPA. If I pass the placement test with a 75%, I could go straight to the class that does count. I can take the placement test up to three times. So, I’m going to take it next week sometime just to see how much I remember, and if it’s not 75%, study up and take it again in the spring. I’d love to only have to take one math class and not three (two zero level classes and one class for credit).
• That it may take longer than spring 2011 to get my degree, and I was happy about that, because I want to take my time and do it right, and not get burned out to the point of dropping out of school all together. So if I don’t graduate until 2012 or 2013, so be it.
• That I have to take a “life skills” class. I was presented with a variety of choices, and I found one or two that sound doable.

I just wish the broadcasting school credits transfered over to UCO like they did at Rose State.

Can’t win ‘em all.

That’s all from where I sit.

–MorelaterZ–

(With apologies to Third Eye Blind)

Boy, does my life stink as of late or what?

It seems like my turn to have all this crap fall on me all at once. I’ve even questioned if the stress and pressure I put myself under to work on this damned degree is worth it, because I feel like I’m getting majorly burned out.

I need a vacation, a leave of absense (because I’ve already taken leave of my senses, apparently), just some quiet to deal with all this.

Add on top of all this the medical sh!t I’ve been trying to get corrected for the last several months, and it’s not a pretty picture, IMHO.

And what’s with this hypersensitivity lately? That’s the thing that’s puzzling me. I take things that people say and turn them around so much that it doesn’t even resemble their originial intent. I’m sure there is at least one person who’s questioning my sanity at this point (besides me, of course).

I just don’t know what it is. As if extreme exhaustion, bruising, the Itchies, the one meal a day thing wasn’t enough, I have to add DRAMA to it too?

Hell, I should have named this post “Confessions of a middle aged drama queen”.

This all confuses the crap out of me, and I hate it with a white hot passion. It’s right up there with moving and dealing with Jon.

I just want to tear my hair out! Arggggghhhh!!

Something’s gotta change, and damn soon. Or else I’ll be buying my ticket to the funny farm…

I don’t even know what size straight jacket to ask for.

What a dilemma!

That’s all from where I sit.

–MorelaterZ–

PS: the problems I’m having are real, but without a sense of humor, I’d really be a drama mama!

I asked a friend to have lunch with me today, and apparently I screwed that simple task up because they said no. I’ve asked this same friend on several other occasions, and all I get is a negative response, usually followed by “I’m too busy”.

Why do I even bother anymore knowing that my efforts will be in vain?

I just got off the phone with the Student Health Clinic at school. The clinic recently came under new management, and I’ll have to see yet another doctor and explain my problem all over again; then they’ll decide if I need more bloodwork done.

So what was the fucking point of going at all? I can’t pay for all new stuff…the last time it was $200.00!! And I have no insurance, and my financial aid money will be depleated after the first of the month, so I just can’t do it.

Why did I even bother going at all? Oh yeah, it was because I’m constantly exhausted, bruise easily, and want to sleep all the damn time. Not to mention the constant itchiness and generally feeling like crap.

I feel like I’ve failed Basic Life 101. What’s next?

That’s all from where I sit.

–MorelaterZ–