Can The Adults Please Smoke? Chapter 31: Flirty, Purty, and Squirty!!- Page 137

[bdwaygirl]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 1:26pm

Boobs, Babci used to wake me up singing that whenever I would sleep over there.

Ooh! Have to check out that link right now!!

[Q]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 1:29pm

Here's an Hawaiin rainbow (courtesy BrotherQ) for the Easterners to look to as a sign of the end.

[D2]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 1:32pm

Of the bad weather? Or the world?

[Q]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 1:36pm

HA! I meant the rain, but . . .

There's actually a companion photo to that one showing the other half of the rainbow. It was a full arc from horizon to horizon, and he couldn't get it all into one photo!


Updated On: 3/15/10 at 01:36 PM

[Broadwayboobs]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 1:49pm

There's a Thai boy at the end of my rainbow

[SonofMammaMiaSam]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 1:51pm

I'm going for a double.

[D2]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 1:51pm

Which end?

[Broadwayboobs]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 1:54pm

SOOMSY, I figured that this go round you'd go for the triple

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 1:57pm

Well done by brother Q.

As to the number of ends, I will leave that to the experts.

[SonofMammaMiaSam]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 2:00pm

I'm always up for a high degree of difficulty -- perhaps a "landed" quad.

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 2:07pm

C16 has been working hard on her standing backflip which I do not believe that normal humans are meant to do!

Love the rainbows!

[Broadwayboobs]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 2:09pm

Well SOMMSY there's no place like Thailand to land the impossible. I will cheer you on!

[bdwaygirl]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 2:30pm

It's a spectator sport out there?

[SonofMammaMiaSam]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 2:37pm

indubitably.

[D2]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 2:40pm

A Thai version of Basket Ball.

[Q]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 2:53pm

Which makes SOMMS and Boobs Dunking Masters, I presume.

[Broadwayboobs]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 3:21pm

Q, you know us when it comes to balls. The things we can make them do...we make the Harlem Globetrotters look like amateurs!!!

[shira467]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 3:41pm

This is a post on humility. On learning. On accepting my previous elitist and ignorant statements and beliefs, and learning from them as best I can.

I made a mistake. Not an excusable one, and I insulted people. That's not okay. I told my Mom what I'd said, and she said "Shira, some things you keep to yourselves.". I disagree. I say you become aware and change those things that are, in the base statement, prejudiced, elitist, and ignorant.

I'd like to address my original comment and thoughts, and the reaction that was had toward them, the experience that I evidently did not articulate well.

I met a gentleman named Will. He was raised Irish-Catholic in San Diego, and he told me about how his mother lived barely on day-to-day paychecks because his father left when he was 3 years of age. He ate fast food, pretty much 2 meals a day, because his mother worked 4 jobs to pay the rent and bills.

This is a story I'd heard many times growing up, of "how other people lived". People told me that "people like that" just aren't smart, or don't know how to make the best of their resources, and excuse after excuse. And here was someone making every effort, and it STILL wasn't happening, despite tremendous effort.

And it makes me think of my own upbringing, and how despite the sh*t I spew for having a slew of issues with my parents, I never wanted for anything, and I always had extremely nutritious food. I learned about nutrition. I spend most of my life now, in food. The quality of it, the best I can get. It doesn't occur to me not to have it, I need to have the greatest nutritional value I can muster. I learned that not everyone has had that privilege, and while I knew that intrinsically, I had never really encountered people who grew up in a way so differently than I have been.

I was raised to be a snob. My issues with weight notwithstanding, the premise of the purpose of my life was "Go to school. Get good grades. Go to college. If you need to, take a year off and go to Israel. But go to college. From then, go to graduate school. Get married. Have babies. Continue this tradition." Within that, you can study what you want (within reason), and do what you want (within reason), and have fun (within reason). Oh, and don't forget to study Torah, obey all the Jewish holidays, live by a Jewish moral code, and in case you forgot, have babies and continue. It's actually IN a daily prayer, to teach unto your children all this stuff. Not crap, not ****, but this method of life. Not that I denounce it. I love and embrace it. But it makes it difficult to see other pathways that are presented and other ways people have taken.

I have the idea that the above is how you live. Anything else is considered "different". And while different is fine for others, it's not okay for me, or my brother, or any of my friends.

Here's what I wrote.

"Very smart, very inquisitive, despite lack of formal education and a very "lower-middle American" upbringing."

I was told that education was the pinnacle of intelligence. I said "lower-middle American" because that's what I thought his upbringing sounded like. He struggled to get food in his home, his mother worked 4 jobs, and he couldn't complete college because, despite taking many classes, his reliance on unreliable public transportation made it difficult, if not impossible to take the finals and actually receive the credits he deserved.

And it broke my heart. Here was someone with all the capability and intelligence but without the opportunity. And here I am, with it "all", and do I really have anything to show? Not really.

Now, I have shame. I hurt people out ignorance and lack of awareness and an insensitivity that I didn't always know I had.

To quote another "Badly done, Shira, badly done."

Well, yes. Very badly done. So I seek out better learning.

"Nice to know that elitism is alive and well here on the left coast."

Possibly hurtful, yet absolutely true. It comes from a lack of awareness that I'd like to tackle and grow from.

And she continued...

And, my experience has been the opportunity is a much larger determination of success as opposed to intelligence. I try not to assume that I am brighter than someone who has a job that may involve less education than mine. In fact, some of the brightest people I ever met were young offenders in the California Youth Authority who were in jail for drug distribution. Some of them were smart kids, very inquisitive, just lacking the tools and opportunity when they were young.

Yes. Absolutely. I just haven't met many people like that. I don't know what the word is, and I don't always know how to describe my thoughts. I suppose it comes down to opportunity, but I know so many who have opportunity and don't utilize it, so I'm trying to mesh several different ideas of what I thought were distinct actualities and not simply individuals.

"Are you that hungry for attention, Shira, that you would self-sabotage yourself to that extent?"

I didn't even realize that what I was posting was so wrong. Now, I obviously do.

I apologize for insulting those who I consider friends. I accept any anger and frustration that comes as a result, as it is justified. I thank you all for teaching me about life -- things that I need to learn yet have never been taught.

"You've got to be carefully taught", wrote Rodgers & Hammerstein.

I was very carefully taught, but not always in the best way, and I look forward to learning from all of you, if you will let me.

[Q]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 3:51pm

Shira - just to get this out of the way, your mother's response explains a lot (and doesn't surprise me in the least.)

For myself - you may notice that I grabbed your little line for my sig quote, and that's because it could easily describe me (although, the 'very' part is obviously a matter of opinion.) I just wanted a little reminder for you that I'm someone who you have looked to for guidance - despite my lack of education and less-than-blueblood upbringing.

The only thing that stuck out to me was that this wasn't just a case of saying something hurtful, it was indicative of a mind-set that could cause serious repurcussions - not only here, but in your life in general. You seem to understand that, and have put some effort into addressing the issue for yourself.

[shira467]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 3:55pm

This is very eye opening to me, and therefore very important. I do not wish to be like my mother.

[MotorTink]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 3:57pm

Just throwing in my 2 cents for perspective -

Scenerio - By the age of 15 was working well over the legal amount of hours so that she could put food in the fridge for her unemployed alcoholic father, answering the door for the re-possessors, visiting her father in and out of hospitals and rehabs, living in a literal pig-sty, paying partial mortgage payments to keep some type of roof over the family, by 17 working 2 part time jobs while still maintaining a 3.4 GPA... And never went to college or received any post high school learning. So I guess that counts as "Very smart, very inquisitive, despite lack of formal education and a very "lower-middle American" upbringing."?

That was me. It can happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Everyone has a story.

[shira467]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 4:02pm

Thank you for sharing.

This is why I'm here. To know people that are specifically unlike the people I grew up with. People who have stories.

[Q]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 4:03pm

Tink - what that makes you is one BAD ASS BITCH - and the world is a MUCH better place for it

[MotorTink]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 4:10pm

Shira - I love you, you know that, but I'm sorry, this doesn't cut it. yes, you live a bit differently from others, but it is 2010. You have dated women, you lived in NYC for a few years, you have watched 99% of the general movies and TV shows. People being of different economical or family backgrounds is not some new age thing. This can't be some miraculous "revelation".

I'm not doubting that the way your mother or father see things can have an influence on you, but come on, really?

Lol - Q, not quite, but thanks.

[shira467]

Posted: 3/15/10 at 4:14pm

I have no rebuttal, nor care to. It's valid, it's poignant, and it's true what you just said, Tink.

This type of "revelation" has come to me before, but because not in this setting, it's never been challenged and actually had to be thought about.