1 year old
Category

• Facebook Fights

  

  If you really want to piss someone off, verbally assault them in front of other people.  Having an audience makes any confrontation infinitely more dramatic then if you two were having a private disagreement.  You can exchange the foulest oral assault, with phrases like cunt sucking dick hole being flung around, but if no one else is around to witness this display, chances are it will be a lot easier to let it go.

  But if someone insults you in a public setting, then the pressure to defend your honor is inflamed.  The scorching desire to attack back surpasses the pacifist in you, mostly because no one likes to look weak in front of others.  Being part of an aggressive altercation is stressful, but more often than not, pride is more powerful then the fear.

  I think this mentality is what got people into duels back in the day.  A little shit talking while drinking malt barley liquor, and then all of a sudden you were back to back with someone ready to kill or be killed in the next 30 seconds.  Slap the wrong guy with your glove and your dead by the end of the afternoon.

  So in today’s post-modern times, this behavior has been replaced by Facebook fighting.  Not quite as noble as taking 30 paces and then shooting some dude in the heart because he asked your lady for the time, but equally entertaining.  Sometimes people are fighting on your news feed, which is quite a joy to stumble upon.  You can go through the 64 comments, eat some popcorn, and count the “likes” to determine who won.  Then there is the rare event when people fight on your wall, which feels like the ultimate battle royal.  But alas there are also the times when someone writes fighting words to you, and that is when it is time to show the world what you are made of….

  “Mama… I am in two Facebook fights on both computers.  One is because my “friend” said I didn’t share in the sandbox which is so not true… I share some stuff, and the other is because this girl is trying to tell me that I keep screwing up my ABC’s… you know, the “m m m m p” part?  Total BULLSHIT”

  

  June 18, 2012 • 1 year old, Musings, Relationships • Views: 1929

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• Artistry vs Industry

  

  We are all born artists.  Every human has the capacity for creativity, and as children we have this unbridled freedom to express our inner aesthetic.  Mostly because no one is telling a kindergartener that their drawing lacks composition and their color choices fall flat.

  When we are young, artistry is encouraged not judged.  The exploration of imagination is celebrated and applauded by parents who are amazed by your singing of the ABC’s and hang your pictures on the refrigerator.  When you are a young kid, no one is judging you, or commenting that the feet you drew are disproportionate to the length of the legs.  They don’t say that your scaling is skewed and smiles don’t curve at that extreme of an angle.  I have seen a lot of shitty drawings from kids or had to listen to some crappy version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star where they forget half the worlds, but I still make them feel good for trying!

  As a child the act of creating art is an end in and of itself, and the outcome is less relevant.

  But at some point, the art you make starts to be considered either “good” and “bad.”  The opinions of others infiltrates what you think of your creation, and then ultimately your creative process.  There comes a point where the audience begins to matter more than just the simple act of making.

  Of course, not all people who were discouraged from becoming an artist lets that stop them from pursuing their dreams.  There are many examples of those who persevere past the disapproval of others and turn out to be epic socially relevant masters of their field.  But that first time someone judges your work, and isn’t impressed by what you have done, can be soul crushing.

  Not everyone can make a living off their art, not should they, but I feel like the fact that art programs are being cut out of our public educational system is more about preparing people for a lifetime of working in the industrial field then there not being enough interest or money to support the arts.  The less connected we are to our own inner artist, the more complacent we will be in jobs that having nothing to do with creation.  It is not like you will ever see someone telemarketing for free in their off hours, but you will see someone singing their heart out despite the fact they can’t commodify their talent.  The passion to live your art is something that I hope everyone can maintain in at least some aspect of their lives despite this seemingly deliberate effort to eliminate  artistry.

  Munchee ART! The picture on the top right is obvi a buffalo running in the prairie, the top left is an alien space ship landing and the mother spirit floating back into the stars to warn the others, the bottom left is a self-portrait, and the bottom right is some soft core porn.

  

  June 15, 2012 • 1 year old, baby brain, Current Events, Education, Musings • Views: 1895

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• Corporate Take Over

  

  Breaking news!!!! Our president is in bed with big business! Right now Obama is jiggling the balls of multinational corporations, petting the taint with his middle finger, and just ever so softly licking the tip getting ready to take it fully into his mouth.

  Aren’t you so surprised?

  The relationship between politics and business is so obvious it is almost comical, but in a sinister dark end of the world kind of way where you are laughing, but also crying.  All environmental regulations are really just words guys ruling the world say so they can keep fucking us in the ass without any lube and barely enough spit.

  Even when you think you aren’t supporting big business, you probably are.  Oh you are brushing your teeth with Tom’s of Maine?  Well you might as well buy Colgate because that is who owns it.  Wow, you are eating a delicious organic granola bar?  Well why not eat some Kraft Macaroni and Cheese instead because that’s who acquired the company that made your favorite yummy num nums.

  So many natural companies suffer the fate of being bought out by bigger companies because of investors wanting a pay out.  Countless news sources sell out for the same reason.  Big business has its tentacles in every aspect of our lives.  Big pharma companies that create all the medicines for your diseases are all invested in chemical/life science companies like Monsanto that cause them.  There is someone making money off of getting you sick, and then those same people make money from getting you better.

  These companies buy politicians, control information, dictate legislation, deteriorate our health, and destroy the planet.  The banks that invest all YOUR money into these corporate giants keep getting government bailouts to flood the river of Wall Street with more and more blood money.

  So okay people in power…. I get that you want to stay in power, that you want to keep making money for your secret societies and weird lizard like alien ancestors.  That is understandable.  But how about you take these shit shitty shit companies and give then all an eco-makeover.   You can still be your richy rich rich selves and have your masonic ceremonies, but the products you make can maybe not be toxic or cancer causing.  Perhaps you don’t have to suck ALL the oil out of the earth so the planet becomes a dried up raisin, and you can own all the alternative power.  We can stay minions… but we just want to survive.  Like keep living.  With water, and other things we need, like veggies that don’t have fish genes and Agent Orange in them.

  Thanks.

  

  June 14, 2012 • 1 year old, Current Events, Environmental Impact, Musings, Political Banter • Views: 1934

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• Happy Memories

  

  Everybody wants happiness.  Probably more than any other emotion, we all crave to be happy.  Not just content, but feeling the effervescence of joy percolating past our cells and into the very core of our being.  And we don’t just want ourselves to be happy, but we also want other people to be happy too.  We can insult them, rip apart their lives, bash their lovers, critique their career, all under the guise of caring about their disposition.

  “I just want you to be happy!”

  It can almost feel oppressive all this expecting, yearning, longing, and wishing for happiness; especially considering there are so many gradations.  There is a manic exaltation of ecstasy, a more mellow matriculation of delight, or a meditative moment of pure bliss.  There are so many different ways happiness can manifest that we may not always recognize and appreciate the joyfulness right under our noses.

  But maybe happiness is so important to us, because the happier we live our lives, the happier memories we make?  And perhaps memories are more meaningful then functions to entertain our minds when we are alive, maybe memories are all we have after we die?  That when we break on through to the other side, our consciousness doesn’t continue to make new memories, but rather drifts through the ones we created for eternity.

  So I am grateful for The Munch and having the pleasure to spend my days with her, because even the ones where she is being a complete asshole, there is always at least one memory where I am the happiest human in the world.

  

  June 13, 2012 • 1 year old, Mommy Mind, Musings • Views: 1909

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• Why Do We Hate What is Good For Us?

  

  Toddlers can be violent creatures.  Especially when you are trying to make them do something they don’t want to do.  This is a hard dynamic because technically I could kick my baby’s ass if I really wanted, but because I don’t, I end up allowing her to beat me up.  The best I can do is try and restrain her, but 2-year olds are strong little fuckers that will flail their legs and arms ferociously at all parts of your body.  Even at your ta-ta’s and hoo-ha…. Thank goddess I don’t have to worry about having a ding-a-ling.

  You might be saying to yourself “Toni! What are you doing to this poor innocent child to make her so upset?” And perhaps you are picturing me forcing Munch to watch my performance art piece where I eat a calf’s liver through my belly button while reciting a poem about the migration of moths, but I say it backwards because that is what makes me truly artsty.  But you would be wrong!  She loves that one!  She behaves like this when I am doing things to improve her life! Not mine! Hers!!

  These are the main offenders that really get her volcanic anger erupting into a lava filled rage.

  • Changing her diaper
  • Brushing her teeth
  • Washing her face
  • Trying to put on shoes when she doesn’t want to wear them even thought she is at the park where there are potential splinters and gross little kids peeing randomly everywhere because they are disgusting and poopy faces
  • Putting her hair back so it is not in her eyes
  • Changing her clothes that have peanut butter, jelly, pickle remnants, hummus, and drooled out cheesy puffs on the front and a half-chewed granola bar stuck in the armpit

  She is not doing me any favors by allowing me to help her out so she doesn’t sit in shitty pants with a gross face, moss growing on her teeth, bleeding feet, and a vomitus explosion on her shirt. I am just looking out for her, but I get punished!  I think this says something about how we resist things that are good for us and gravitate towards what is more dramatic, exciting, and complicated.  Or maybe Munch just really isn’t concerned with hygiene?  Where does she get that from?  You will have to excuse me though… I have to go eat the sandwich I just found in the crease of my pants right near the crotch area.  I hadn’t seen it earlier because my hair was in my eyes.

  “Eat More Kale? I want a bite of that sammich!”

  

   

  June 12, 2012 • 1 year old, baby brain, Behavior, Disciplining, Parenting • Views: 1729

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• Take It To The Limit

  

  If there is a line to be crossed, you are going to see me waving from the other side.  In fact, I always carry a bale of hay just in case I come across a camel.  I don’t only push boundaries, but detonate them with C4 explosives.  There is just this part of me that can’t stop even once I have had enough. Woo!

  So needless to say I have pushed my body to the limit many times before in life.  It was not uncommon for me to get so wasted I would forget what my face looked like, then pass out underneath the DJ table, only to wake up and find out daylight savings had happened while I was sleeping and took that as a sign that I had an extra hour to party.  I would also do things like skateboard 18 miles, take 3 dance classes, and then go out clubbing until 5 in the morning.

  Although that makes me sound a little intense, this type of extremism can also work in my favor.  I can do 12-day fasts, 10-day silent meditation retreats, push through any challenge in yoga, swim 2 miles, give birth….  My tendency to always go beyond can be just as healing as self-destructive.  Perhaps the main distinction is where my motivation is coming from?  When my intentions are pure the rewards are semi-divine, but when they are driven by the ego or escapism I will suffer the consequences.

  I know I am not the only person who is like this.  Probably a big part of this mentality is youth.  When you are young you exist in a perpetual state of denying death and wanting to believe that you can handle any challenge.  But as you age, you start to feel the abuse of your body and soul, and realize that you aren’t going to live forever and should probably to take better care of yourself.

  After getting my fever and pushing my body to film my movie, do a dance performance, work, host an event, all with a headache that I swear was spawned from the innards of a swamp monster… it is time accept that I have new limits.  Although I never wanted having a baby to change me, or turn me into an annoying pussy, I do have to abandon my hubris and admit that I expend a lot of energy raising a part tyrannical-part angelic being.  I have to respect that now my line is closer than it use to be, and maybe I should just stick to straddling it.  That can still be a lot of fun.

  “He Mama! Check me out! I climbed as high as I can… help me get up that tree!”

  

  June 11, 2012 • 1 year old, Health, Mommy Body, Mommy Mind, Musings • Views: 1937

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• Politics Schmolotics

  

  I am trying to follow the election and stay abreast of what is happening, but my other breast keeps getting in the way.  I don’t buy the stories I am being told, and the mainstream analysis of our political culture seems like the real conspiracy theory to me.  I will believe every word in Ancient Aliens, but getting me to trust CNN is impossible.

  It is not like there aren’t people talking about the insanity of campaign finance and the influence of corporate culture on our government.  There is the comedic approach of John Stewart and Stephen Colbert who are trying to uncover the blatant purchasing power Big Business has over legislation and the political process.  There is the academic method that Noam Chomsky, Christopher Hedges, and Jeremy Rifkin employ which is to educate people on the details of why our current “democracy” is an absolute illusion.  Information is available that is attempting honesty and transparency, but that doesn’t mean that is the collective story the public is hearing.

  A lot of people talk in clichés when if comes to expressing their political beliefs, because they don’t really examine the minutiae of what is happening.  It is hard to admit that the entire system is a joke.  What I find so monumentally depressing about it all is that it the world is needlessly crumbling because of the insatiable greed of the few.  So many terrifying statistics like the rising sea levels, peak oil, mass extinction of wild life, all don’t seem to factor in to any of the decisions being made by those in power.  All the “concern” about the environment is cosmetic, rather than making true systemic changes.

  I find it hard to believe that anyone that is as powerful as the president isn’t a somewhat compromised individual.  There is no way Obama can accomplish everything he may want to, because there is too much bureaucracy and too many fat cats he is beholden to.  Obama was more about the rebranding of America then anything else.  One man can’t change the New World Order set up by many.  When Obama became president it was like we revamped our logo.  From a global perspective he made us seem like a somewhat reasonable nation, and from a national one, he helped defuse the growing discontent of the progressive left.  American is no longer a country, but a corporation.  One that has to considering marketing to appease the public, but in reality is continuing as business as usual.

  “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.” – Christopher Hedges

  “That’s funny Mama because your breasts get in the way of my political views too!”

  

  June 8, 2012 • 1 year old, Current Events, Environmental Impact, Musings, Political Banter • Views: 2053

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• Being A Mom Is A Full Time Job

  

  I have been burning the candle at both ends, which is weird because now I have to hold this candle horizontally and wax is getting everywhere.  I have been dealing with this fever and three-day head ache while also trying to live my life, and I feel like I am wading through molasses while wearing flippers with my feet tied together.

  So I was complaining to one of my wisest sages about this feeling of total depletion, and their response has haunted me all day.

  “Well Toni, being a mom is a full time job.”

  I know that is a cliché statement, and also quasi annoying and pretentious- but it is true.  Having a child pushes your patience levels to maximum capacity and beyond.  You have to think about their needs constantly, manage the lunacy of their emotions, clean up after them, cook their every meal, dress them, wash them, entertain them, and keep them alive.  It is a lot of work unconditionally loving another being.

  So when you have another job, some artistic passion you want to pursue, a physical practice that nourishes your body and soul, it is like every second of your day is planned activity.  I love dancing, I love making movies, I love writing, but all those are secondary to the working part of life, and the caring for Munch part of life.  So when I try to manage all those things, I guess sometimes my body can’t handle it.  I hate to admit that, because it makes me feel like a big baby, but I don’t know how else to explain how often I seem to break down.  Or maybe I just have crappy genes.  SORRY MUNCH!

  

  June 7, 2012 • 1 year old, Health, Mommy Body, Mommy Mind, Parenting, Working Mommy • Views: 2053

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• Musings on Modern Medicine

  

  I am one of those self-righteous people who refuses to take the white man’s medicine when I am sick.  I haven’t taken an Advil or Aspirin in at least 15 years.  Nothing. Not Nyquil when I have a cold nor Pepto when I have explosive anal leakage.  I always turn to hippy berries, elven tinctures, sorcerer potions, and chewing on bark.  I believe that all illness is in the mind, and it is up to you to learn the lesson your body is trying to tell.

  Cut to…..

  Last Thursday night I watched this documentary called “The Last Days of Lisa Left-Eye Lopez” on VH1.  It was a film that Left-Eye from the band TLC did right before she died.  Something drew me to it an eerie way and I stayed up way too late to finish it.  I felt like she was a kindred soul.  During the movie, she kept having these premonitions about her death.  She felt a spirit following her.  And when she died, the camera that had been filming her was in the car, and you are with her in the moment of her death.

  That shit is too much for me.

  I maybe should have guessed it was coming, but after I watched that, I did not feel right.  I went to bed and could not sleep.  Could not stop thinking about what I just saw.  Sure, from a film makers perspective if you have the footage of her last seconds on earth as the car goes off the road you are going to put it in for shock value-but from as a viewer, I did not need to be there for her death.  I couldn’t get her out of my mind and I felt haunted all night.  At about 2 I got a fever.  I just knew it.  I didn’t even sort of sleep- just hallucinated and felt like death.

  So I had a raging fever for a few days, but a really busy weekend a head of me because I was filming this movie I have been working on for three years.  It was a serious effort to coordinate all the actors, and I was freaking out because this film is like a baby to me.  I was trying to will myself out of my suffering and power through it because I had been planning this for months.  In the end, my ambition, artistic drive, and adrenalin took over, and I was able to make it through the next few days and accomplish everything I wanted.  I just ignored that I wasn’t eating, sweating while shivering, and that my skin was gray.

  So after everyone left today and I had a moment to breath the worst headache I have ever experienced crept into my life to smack me around.  I could hardly see.  I couldn’t stand up.  It was so painful it made me feel like puking.  I started to panic.  I felt so desperate.  It was some of the most intense pain, and I had given birth to The Munch naturally.

  So I took an Aleve.

  This is a big fucking deal in my world.

  I then fell asleep for an hour, and although I feel a bit better now as I am writing this, it is like I can still feel this insane headache underneath the Aleve.  My headache hasn’t really gone anywhere, and I can feel it if I move a certain way or get up too fast, but the Aleve makes it so I am disconnected to it.  Like it hasn’t cured my headache, just made me momentarily unaware of it.

  It just makes me think of modern medicine and how it does have its place, and it can be affective, but more from distracting you from your pain then taking it away.  The only way to truly heal is my facing your pain, but tonight I just didn’t have it in me.  🙁

  

  June 6, 2012 • 1 year old, Health, Mommy Body, Mommy Mind, Musings • Views: 6338

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