Coulda Woulda Shoulda

I've been thinking alot about why I became so enraged by a story that was all over the news a couple of weeks ago. It was a medical organisation that was making a formal statement that woman who choose to delay pregnancy until after 35 are putting themselves and their unborn babies at risk. The first shot in the tv story was male doctor going on passionately about how women need to understand the risks they are taking if they are having children over 35. Read: We realise that now 51% of the population are actually getting educated and into the workforce and might actually become the dominant sex in the next 20 years so we need to figure out a way to keep them barefoot and pregnant. You laugh, thinking I'm a crazy bra burning feminist but as Reese Witherspoon said, 'my grandma did not fight for what she fought for, just so you can start telling women it's fun to be stupid.' Woman - and perhaps society in general - seem to quickly forget that less than 100 years ago,...

Umm, as much as I would love to be a novelist, I think this may in fact be one reason why I never will be: http://www.ayeletwaldman.com/log.html Who actually has time to read that much!? How much would I love that?

This tends to happen to me. I start having all these wonderful thoughts I want to write down and where am I? Walking. Driving. Eating. Drunk. Always it seems in a place that I'm not able to clearly get them down. I've decided when I get home tonight, in between clearing emails and preparing for meetings in Dublin at the end of the week, I will also write out some entries. Then, while I'm flitting around the country, all I'll have to do is try to get to a place that has internet and wham! my thoughts will be live. The busyness brings back my creativity but it also can prevent me from finding the time to get it all down. It also prevents me from remembering that I've left my tea to stew a bit too long in the kitchen and that ... oh wait ... I just did it again. Off to have some builders brew.

The fumes from the burnt out cars must be getting to my head. Here I was all angry that I couldn't get to my email for many reasons, ONE OF THEM was that I wanted to send birthday wishes to an old friend. (Old in both senses of the word as she too has entered her 30th year..ooooo) I finally got into my email this morning and wrote an email, all apologetic as it was NOT MY FAULT that my provider decided to have crappy service for 4 DAYS STRAIGHT and not let us know what the problem was. And it was only right now, this afternoon, that I went DUH sometimes THIS is what a blog is for. My friend A-M has been in my life since high school. She was the girl I would spend many hours on the phone, contemplating life and how it was that the two of us could make a difference. She was also the one who had a 'cool mom', you know, those moms that seem to let all the friends do the coolest things? One of THE COOLEST things she did was let A-M paint her room white and have her friends make ...

How out of the loop am I? I wandered the streets near the city hall in Belfast on Saturday night, happy as Larry, taking in the sounds of the Last night of the Proms . It was only when Noel Thompson, the commentator told the crowd that there was no need to panic but the buses had stopped going I thought huh? uh why? For those of you who may be following the news over here, Belfast erupted in riots on Saturday night, albeit only in certain parts of the town which left this Canadian totally oblivious to any sort of danger that was going on. I am unable to get to my email (which is a completely CANADIAN ISSUE eh hem hello canada.com!!) but am completely happy and safe. I don't know what type of media coverage is happening, if any outside of Ireland and the UK but thought since the media can blow a lot out of proportion, I would state for the record here that the craic is still good in jolly old Belfast. And I did get the bus to work today.

I have no words for the emotions I feel right now. I read one comment that said something like: "The first 2 days of Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster. The next 5 days have been a man made disaster." The sadness, heartache and anger is incomprehensive. If I feel this way, miles across the ocean, how are people actually living through it? The Fug ladies have done a great job at compiling a list of places where we can all help. http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/