The venting session to end all sessions

I'm seriously tired of all these political news articles on cutting funding for all these programs that I happen to need and listening to these crazy GOP candidates/senate/congress people who swear they're God-fearing telling me that more is going to be taken from my paycheck and more is going to be taken away from my kids in form of education cuts, food program cuts, cuts for everything!  I have no shame in saying, yes, I receive money every month for food.  It's not much (less than $200 for 3 people) but it helps tremendously.  I live paycheck to paycheck like most Americans and I still don't have enough money at the end of the week for almost anything.  I've fallen behind on rent and every day I wake up wondering if this is going to be the day I won't have a place to live.  How am I suppose to be a decent mother if I can't even give my girls a place to live?  My girls have health insurance but I apparently make too much to qualify for health care so I can't get the root canal I've needed for almost 2 years, can't see a doctor about the pinched nerve in my shoulder and back that causes me pain on a daily basis no matter how much Tylenol or Aleve I take, can't seek out a doctor about the nagging depression I had after my daughter was born and her father passed away, can't get any antibiotics when I get a massive sinus infection and can barely breathe.  My car died on me months ago and it would have cost more to fix it than what I paid for it so I junked the car to help pay for bills that I've still haven't caught up with.  I take the bus every morning at 6 AM to drop off my girls at the day care so one can stay and the other get picked up for school.  I then ride the bus/metrorail/bus another 1 1/2 one way to get to work do have to do it again in 5 hours (because I can't work full time since I don't have anyone else to pick up my kids after the day care/after school program closes).  I don't get home with them until after 9:30 to put the baby to sleep, make sure my eldest has everything done and ready for the following day, make sure she sleeps, try to clean up a bit , get my things together for the next day and collapse into bed for (if I'm lucky) 6 hours of sleep.  When I spoke to my case worker about applying for a bus pass, I was told funding for that was cut and if I'm working, I can't apply for one for me or my daughter.  If I didn't work and went to school full time, I could get one and more food stamps but no help to have a place to live because the state of Florida only allots $260 a month in cash assistance.  What is $260 a month suppose to do?  Meanwhile, every person who holds some sort of seat on a government board here in Miami (since it's all about who you know,not what you can actually do) got raises again and make over $100,000 a year minimum.  And don't even get me started on the freaking MDT. The buses never run on time.  If they break down (which they do often), there are never any replacement buses so people can get to work or home on time.  You're basically left standing around with your thumb up your ass wondering what happened since when you call the customer service line (305-770-3131), 9 out of 10 times, you happen upon total incompetence.  Everything I get goes to my girls.  The last time I even bought myself anything was a $3 shirt from Walmart because I happen to need new clothes for work.  And that was over a month ago. What I would give to be able to buy myself a new pair of jeans and a new pair of shoes I can wear to work.  I can manage with the sneakers I've had for the last 5 years.  They really aren't in bad shape. I would love to go get a hair cut and maybe color my hair myself but the thought of spending the $20 in Supercuts and then another $10 for color at Walmart makes me think twice because that money could be going into something else.  A mani/pedi?  Ha!  Never gonna happen.  As much as I would love to be in a relationship, who am I kidding?  What guy wants to deal with all of this?  The last date I went on was with a guy who is now back with his ex-girlfriend because she turned up pregnant.  My luck just goes all around, doesn't it?  I would love to be able to take a day off and just spend it with my girls without having to worry what my check is going to look like at the end of the week.  I don't have anyone to turn to.  I don't have any place to go.  What am I suppose to do?  Worry myself sick into a hospital?  Of course not.  I can't afford to.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Higher Ground

I remember owning the Mother's Milk cassette and playing over and over on my walkman (yes, this horribly dates me but has to be used as a visual) while at the beach with Susan Rainho and I can't remember who else after a long ass bus ride. How I even remember this is beyond me but that was my soundtrack for the day and this began my teen aged angst.

Exhaustion, Be Thy Name

I don't think I've hit a REM cycle in over 4 months.  I don't know what happened to my little one's sleep pattern but it has gone out the window.  While I know she gets enough sleep with nap time in day care, I manage to wake every morning at 5:30 to start my day of endless walking to and from buses/day care-summer camp/trains and back again with cheerleading practice and supermarket/bookstore/uniform store/etc peppered in for good measure to collapse into bed around 10 - 11 o'clock at night.  And it's not even a solid 6 hours of sleep.  I get woken up no less than 4 times, sometimes for more than 15 minutes.  I feel as if I'm about to shut down and not get up again but I fill myself with coffee, sugar, Red Bull/Monster, and what ever else I can get my hands on because if I don't make it through the day, there is not another person who will do it for me.

Breakfast of champions!

For that matter, I doubt there's another person who would even be able to keep up.  At this point, I think I would give my left ovary for a full night of 8-9 un-interrupted hours of glorious sleep.  A night of sleep that my body wakes up from feeling fully rested and ready for the day, not one kicked out of bed by a blaring alarm clock and high volume TV. 

Shoot me, please!

A night of dreams that I might or might not remember the next morning but I know I had rather than wondering if I can even remember the last time I had a dream.  A night where my body and mind has time to rejuvenate itself and I don't wake up with my skin looking beat up and bags under my eyes that no amount of concealer can cover up.  A night that I have the entire bed and covers to myself and I don't have to worry about rolling over onto anyone.  A night of sleep that lasts throughout the day and I'm not falling asleep sitting up at my desk by 3 PM.  I use to hope for love to find me so I could have that great relationship.  To hell with that.  Right now, a full night of sleep would do me more justice that a mind blowing orgasm.  That is just sad.

Tough Gals: Do They Still Exist?

Posted: 8/11/11 01:03 PM ET

Women are girly. Again.

Don't believe me? The proof is in the blogosphere: Women who blog about cupcakes! Women who blog (okay, rant) about gardening, Hello Kitty, and knitting! Even BUST magazine is sponsoring a Craft Fair in NYC. Women who blog about cats! And then there are cats who blog, but let's not get into that just now. Don't get me wrong, these are all lovely blogs, smart and entertaining. And some blogs, like the wonderful Jezebel, keep us on our toes pointing out what a long way we haven't come, baby (like in this piece on how female superheroes are sexualized). But.. seriously... cupcakes?

What happened to our hard-won bad-assery? All those years of being suffragettes, bra-burners, free love artists, corporate queen bees, supermoms and women-who-wanted-and-got-it all? I mean, hadn't we arrived and become a force to be reckoned with? Okay, maybe that model of a superwoman that rose to prominence in the 1980s was a myth (think Sigourney Weaver's Wall Street ball-breaker in Working Girl). Maybe "having it all" was a silly fantasy that ultimately made women feel exhausted and inferior. Maybe we just wanted to sit on our asses and knit and eat cupcakes in our Hello Kitty jammies.

And now that so many women have seemingly retreated from our reign of awesomeness to immerse themselves in the feminine past-times of yesteryear, it does indeed appear that we've lost sight of what it means to be a badass, strong, tough woman. Not that our pioneering foremothers were not bad-ass... have you seen Meek's Cutoff?

Maybe it's the "new" (crappy) economy, or our fear of the imminent zombie-vampire-Tea Partier apocalypse, or the realization that teaching our kids self-reliance instead of whiny entitlement really is the best approach to parenting, but there's so much emphasis on, well, ultra-femme domestic activity these days. This weird retro world of cooking, heirloom tomatoes and Jane Austen is starting to feel a bit smug and smothering. Where's the fun?

Oh, we still drink: why, we're doyennes of vintage cocktails. We still go dancing: why, we take pole-dancing classes from burlesque starlets now. But somehow we've lost that righteous indignation born of centuries of oppression. And take it from me, ladies, we're not fully equal yet. But we have become complacent. We're not tough anymore; we're soft (Pilates and yoga classes notwithstanding).

Maybe being called "tough" makes some women uncomfortable (sorta like being called a "bitch," right?). Well, too bad! There are tough times ahead, and we need to be tough bitches to face them. Growing vegetables is useful; but so is learning how to shoot a gun, hot-wire a car, and manipulate our way into a bomb shelter.

Remember our tough gal role models? They were strong, sexy, and took no crap. They wore leather and sang rock and roll. Chrissie Hynde, Joan Jett, Grace Jones, Courtney Love. They kicked ass in the movies: Sigourney Weaver in Alien, Sally Field in Norma Rae, Meryl Streep in Silkwood, Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich. (See, what's cool is, those last two films were based on real women.) They battled monsters on TV: Xena: Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Lately women on TV seem to be all about glamor and acquisition: cougars, not tigresses. Mad Men, bless its arty vintage soul, retreads our humiliating recent past (though 1967 approaches, and things are heating up). And really, glamor has limited practical value; do you want to be left behind when the revolution comes, back to the wall, crippled by your stilettos? Hell, no; you want to be on the run with a sackful of penicillin, Kruggerands and organic chocolate bars.

Thankfully, television has some new tough gal role models. There's Jemma (Katey Sagal) from Sons of Anarchy, the matriarch of a clan of California bikers, who keeps the peace with an iron hand and a heart of chrome. A phenomenal actress, Sagal's success after 50 belies the Hollywood myths about middle-aged actresses.

Then there's Mireille Enos, star of the new AMC series The Killing (based on a successful Swedish series of the same name). With her slight frame, flame-colored hair and ivory skin, she seems frail and fey. But as Detective Sarah Linden, she exudes quiet courage, intelligence and no-nonsense grit.

And check out the lusty bunch of vamps and their foils on HBO's True Blood. Sookie Stackhouse may be a nubile blonde waitress, but she's tough as nails. Her troubled badass pal Tara is a force to be reckoned with, as is vamp-lesbian Pam. Actresses Anna Pacquin, Rutina Wesley and Kristin Bauer are but three standout performers in this show that portrays strong, tough women, which says a lot for a genre normally full of victims. Let's hope tough gals become a new trend.

A Tribute to Sassy Magazine | BUST Magazine

A Tribute to Sassy Magazine | BUST Magazine

Sassy magazine for me growing up was my bible. It got me out of my bedroom and into the world. I found comfort in knowing there were other girls like me who had the same questions on boys, sex, life, etc. The Ask A Boy section was one of my favorites! The people they would interview made me happy. The crazy styles and fashion with the DIY section most likely led to my eclectic fashion sense now at 35. I wanted to be Jane Pratt for the longest time because, in my eyes, she had the coolest job ever. I miss Sassy magazine.