Farewell Party

Clint and I went to a party last night for my 19 year old cousin Michael who's leaving for the Air Force Today. Michael might as well be my younger brother. During his times of wildness throughout his last few years of high school, I was the older sister telling him to call me if he needed a DD or a place to crash. During my times of loneliness when Clint was on the road, he'd stay with me and inevitably wake me up with the sound of either John Mayer of Stevie Ray Vaughn blaring. From the moment he found out that Clint and I were getting married, he was amazingly supportive, even sometimes telling me that I was really lucky to find Clint (instead maybe that maybe being a mutual thing...). He has continued to be a listening ear and a voice of comfort and encouragement to me during some of the hardest times since that then. He makes me laugh, has a heart of gold, and I will miss him every day he's gone.

Good luck cuz. And remember: if you come back a douchebag, I WILL be forced to kick your ass.

Say you're sorry Roark

For those of you who read this thing, you'll remember the night of the artwalk about 5 months ago where I ran into my ex. Well, something else happened that day too that I didn't write about.

A few hours before the incident, I quarreled with my brother Burt. My only brother, my only sibling. I think at the time I was too shocked and hurt to believe what had really transpired between us and I thought for sure it wouldn't stick. Our last few words were full of anger. I told him I didn't deserve to be treated the way he had treated me, and that I didn't want to hear from him again until he was ready to apologize. Silence hung between us before I heard his voice on the other end saying,

"Then you will never hear from me again."

On Christmas Eve, keeping his word, my brother packed up his belongings and moved to Oklahoma without so much as calling to tell me he was leaving.

Tales from Avondale...

To say I’ve been busy these past few months would be an understatement. To give you an example, in two days (last Saturday and this past Tuesday) I did a total of 10 hair clients. About 5 of those were color/cuts and the rest just trims but DAMN, it was some hard work. Very refreshing though. Not the kind of work that leaves me feeling drained and irritable, but feeling successful, prideful, and rightfully tired. Some of my clients these days are people I don’t even know, they just saw someone else’s hair that I did and wanted in on the Liz Well’s Hair Styling Action. Can’t say I blame ‘em really… so yeah, there’s that.

I already let you guys know we bought a house, and that I got a gun (e* I have a S&W “chief’s special”, .38 revolver, snub-nosed, concealed hammer) …. Well we love the house! And there’s been no trouble in the neighborhood. I’ve actually started walking 3 mornings a week around Avondale Park with my friend Leigh and the doggies. They love chasing the ducks in the pond. Surprisingly quiet really, and we have really cool neighbors who just so happen to be the people that sold us the house! And speaking of neighbors: Josh and Abby Westerhold will also soon be neighbors! They came over one Saturday afternoon for some trims and the thought crossed my mind: “I really should show them the house down the street…” So I did. And they totally had a contract on it THE NEXT DAY! Cheers to fabulous neighbors! So overall I would say home owning has been a positive and successful venture so far and I’m excited to see what Avondale looks like in the coming years.

December 4^th was our 2^nd year Anniversary. We both took the day off of work and did some Christmas shopping and rushed home to get our fix of Season 1 of the OC. Yes, we watched the OC on our anniversary and totally loved it. So dig it. Two years. God, I can’t believe the difference it’s made in me. And while my progress may look like inches to others, inside it feels like miles and miles. I can remember breaking down on Clint so many times those first few months over the craziest stuff. I don’t think we’ll ever forget the time I had been doing our laundry about 6 weeks in, then Clint came home and I made us both lunch, and before I could even take a bite I was hysterically crying, pushing away my plate saying, “I can’t do this! I won’t be your slave!”

Clint’s face was priceless… totally that ‘deer in the headlights’ look of “Liz, what the fuck are you talking about?”

Unbeknownst to him, I had sat and watched my mother wait on my father hand and foot my whole life and him taking advantage of her selfless devotion to him. I had vowed I would never let a man use me like that, or take advantage of the things I had to offer. But instead of thinking logically through the fact that Clint isn’t my dad, and I am not my mother I had lashed out and completely cussed out and confused my poor new husband.

Similarly but on a different occasion, we had been out one night and had a great time. We were going to come in and pop in a movie, have some wine and chill out. I walk into the kitchen to put down my purse and keys when Clint calls out from the living room:

“Hey make us some cookies will you?”

I totally had a Bruce Banner moment where my head exploded, my whole body turned green, and all my clothes ripped off (except of course for the cutoff jeans) and I yelled back:

“Hey, why don’t you make your own fucking cookies??”

Whew! I am a crazy one I tell you. I really think Clint is the only person on earth that could possibly deal with all of my neurotic fears and outbursts. Thank you dear, for all of your love and your patience. Here’s to another two years, and to the rest of our lives together!

Other big news: Clint’s going all music next year. He’s already got tours planned densely from February until May. One of those is a trip to San Francisco which I will actually be able to tag along on!! So for all you peoples out there that have been to San Fran and have restaurant, bed/breakfast, things to do suggestions please feel free to leave them here. This will be the first big trip we’ve taken since we got married.

Well that’s all I’ve got for right now. If I don’t write again before then I hope you all have a very peaceful and relaxing Christmas with family and people you love. Clint will be playing with Loose Stone at Café Firenze Christmas Day night around 10 so if you’re tired of turkey and napping, there’s that. And don’t forget: The Spots are playing at Speakeasy New Years Eve. It’s going to be a fantastic show that you won’t want to miss.

Until next time,

Love, Peace, and Ron Paul 2008!

“It’s getting better all the time”

Liz Wells: Certified Gunslinger

Yesterday some friends and I went to the Fraternal Order of Police Shooting range in Pleasant Grove to try out some guns. As we turned off the main road on to the country back road leading to the range, we only had to drive about 100 feet before we came across a confederate flag and a “Happy B-day Gen. Lee” sign. Sheesh. This was not going to be a good experience, I thought to myself…

We pull up in Leigh’s VW Rabbit, Wilco blaring, and as soon as the keys left the ignition we hear the piercing crack of someone shooting a sniper rifle just across the way. By this time I’m getting pretty nervous. We go in the main office and sign waivers and pay (I love how on the waiver it asks: Hospital Preference? To which I replied in all caps NEAREST).

We get our targets set up and my friend David hands me a Ruger .22, semi-automatic. I fired a couple rounds and it was no big deal. Next up, the .38 revolver. I fired once, got really nervous and had to put it down. A minute later I picked it back up and fired off another 5 shots. Then the .40 and the .45. I fired each of these one time and went back to the .38. Just too much kick for this girl. By this time I had gotten pretty comfortable and I set up a new target. Check out the mad skills:

I ended up having a really great time. No scary redneck gawkers, and no random bullets grazing my temple at 500 miles an hour. It’s kind of like going to the batting cages, you get in a good rhythm and its really fun. BTM says I still need to try out a 9mm, which I will at some point I’m sure, but for now, I think I’m a .38 revolver girl. No bullshit, just good ole straightforward shooting – just like me.

Got my 9 strapped to my thigh...

Wednesday marked the 2 week anniversary of our residence in the beautiful city of Avondale. I'm chilling out with Clint last night on the couch, we're watching the evening news via bunny ears and something caught my attention:

"Police are investing a possible homicide that occurred yesterday evening on 4th Ave South in Avondale. A woman knocked on the door of 4100 block home and then collapsed. She was pronounced dead at the scene."

In case you didn't know: that is our street, and about 3 blocks away.

Joy.

So if that's not enough, my neighbor tells me two days ago that a friend of the people who rent the house across the street got held up at gunpoint. The offenders made the guy drive to the nearest ATM and empty his bank account and then dumped him off in a field near the airport.

Again, joy.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been talking to a lot of people about what kind of gun I should buy to keep in my bedside table when Clint goes on extended tours. Thoughts?

Oh how I love plants....

I want all these plants in my yard. Now.


Crape Myrtles

Juniper

Italian Cypress

Japanese Maple

Oak Leaf Hydrangea


Hosta

Nikko Blue Hydrangea

Japanese Magnolia

Boreal Orbit

Glassy white slips into light
Dips into a cold blue night
Swims round and round 'til sunken in
Swallowed up in blackest rim
Tucks into recesses safe
Where from this mind at ease will race
Upward cross a northern face
This cliff is strong and holds its place
A solid arch to upward border
Tapers thin into a corner
Spiral tresses trimming long
Into silver rings dissolve

Ryan Adams

If you’re curious what precipitated Clint’s diatribe on those unforgiving souls who did not enjoy Ryan Adams temperamental performance last night, let me just clear the air: it was me, ok?

Everything was going great. There was no opener, Ryan Adams and the Cardinals just came out on stage and opened with Bartering Lines. It was fantastic, even though I’m not really familiar with Heartbreaker, it was a great performance. Mockingbird: fantastic. I can’t remember whether he did Tears of Gold next or not, but it was ok… he was mostly just tuning his guitar during this one and it was a little boring. Then Cold Roses: amazing. The harmonies he did with his lead guitarist, bass player, and pedal steel player were amazing. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Then comes Peaceful Valley. I LOVE Peaceful Valley. “Can I still smoke cigarettes, and drink my coffee when I get to heaven with a bottle of wine. Cause all my life I’ve longed for forgiveness, but I can never seem to get enough.” And then, like it’s nobody’s business, they all just go into this jam session…..

Waiting…….

Waiting………

Waiting…………

I look around and NO ONE is digging it. As a matter of fact, all the whooping and hollering that had been going on stopped. After a painstakingly long time, the song finally ended. Pissed, I leaned over to Clint and said, “What a self-indulgent prick”.

End of good time watching Ryan Adams.

I understand that when you go to a concert, there is the idea that you’re going to see an artist perform and not some kind of talking jukebox. I get that. However, I think there’s some kind of delicate balance line between fans and artists. Like, it’s understood that you don’t throw full container’s worth of beer onto the guitar player’s pedal board because you’re not getting to hear the song you want to hear (ie. Ryan Adams at the Rhyman in Nashville last year). It is also true, that the songs we fall in love with are subject to a vibe’s interpretation. Goodnight Rose had a much more rock feel to it last night than it does on the record. There was some playful banter between the musicians that really livened it up. I dig that. What I don’t dig is paying $96 (for two tickets) to see a prolific artist who has written so many amazing songs with unbelievable lyrics, sit and waste my time jamming on a fucking guitar like he’s the only one in the room. If I really wanted to spend money watching some asshole wank on his guitar, I’d go see John Mayer.

Also- as always at a Ryan Adams concert- he flipped out about people yelling out song requests and ended the concert early. I get that that’s probably a pretty frustrating thing for an artist, especially one with so many great songs. You’ve got to make a judgment call for your setlist. I remember going to see Hem at Workplay and some asshole right up front kept requesting the same song during every lull until finally Sally Ellyson was like, “Um, security?”, but going to see a pregnant folk singer at Workplay begs for a different set of manners than seeing Ryan Adams at the Alabama Theater. So one of your fans connected to a song you wrote and wants to hear it. Grow some thicker skin and get the fuck over it. Don’t cheat the rest of the people who paid good money to hear you play because you can’t deal with some obnoxious guy in the crowd.

Ugh, ok. End of rant

Fabulous songs from the rest of the concert:

I See Monsters
Nightbirds
Rescue Blues
I Taught Myself How to Grow

Grace

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

Jeremiah 2:13

“You cannot make me happy, not when I’m empty inside of me. Cause there’s a hole in the cup that holds love inside of me.”

David Wilcox – Hole in the Cup

A friend asked me last night what I wanted more than anything in this world. Hesitantly I shuffled the sleeping child on my chest and shifted nervously. “To be chosen… to be wanted, I suppose. I don’t know...” A strange answer coming from a married woman, I’m sure. The three of us sat in silence and mulled over what it is to be a woman, the ideas of continuity, seamlessness, and we tried our hardest to just listen.

I went home and as I lay in bed, Clint’s arms wrapped around me breathing softly at my side, I lay awake and fought a loneliness that even at my most loved and cherished, plagues me with its aching emptiness. The curse of man, I suppose: to work and never reap the merits of a hard day’s labor, to be born, only to spend each fleeting day every-swiftly moving towards our impending demise, to love and be loved, only to want more, need more, and feel every ache of disappointment when our lover fails us.

I am told that this is a beautiful longing that I have: to be chosen, to be wanted. I also see the destruction and the despair it wreaks. It’s times like this where I wish I had a store of grace, my own private stash to dole out as is needed. Instead I find in this heart of mine that there is only law. There is only vengeance, malice, and scorn. There is no forgiveness, and the weight of apologies falls as lightly as a feather, their meaning lost to the most hardened of hearts when it should come crashing down like a hammer.

Who can heal this heart of darkness? Who can bear its crushing weight?

I think I know, and yet my fear will not let me believe. And so the love seeps out, taking it with it the memories of all the times love did not fail, and my hope that one day, things will change.

Lord let me believe.

Lord help me remember.

Lord give me grace.

So....we bought a house.

After closing October 1st, the Wells family will be official homeowners and residents of Avondale.


















Ahh, dishwasher and backyard here I come!

Coulter Ray Morris has arrived!

Born September 15th at 10:02pm, weighing 8lbs 7oz.

I Love Being Fought For

I ran into my ex at Artwalk this weekend.

It was the first time I had seen him since Clint and I have been together. For a little background, this guy is a real asshole. But he's not one of those obvious assholes, no. See he's a a soul-sucker, a joy-taker, a thunder-stealer. He's the kind of guy that leaves you empty inside and makes you feel like it's your fault. He's a subtle abuser. He is the antithesis of Clint.

I was out with my old friends Nicole and Jesse and my cousin Michael. My ex passed us no less than four times, and each time I would duck out of whatever venue we were in to get away from him. So we go in the next place up and are talking to one of the artist's daughters about her mothers fantastic stained glass pieces and out of the corner of my eye I catch a shot of red hair coming my way. He reached out his arm to touch mine and a wonderful thing happened: Nicole reached out, slapped his arm down and put her finger in his face "Don't you touch her. Don't you EVER fucking touch her. Don't speak to her. What you're going to do right now is turn around and walk away."

I'll admit I couldn't even look at his face but I can imagine the surprise as he walked away. I let out a sigh of relief an put my arms around Nicole's neck. I look over and Jesse and Michael's eyes were wide and Jesse says, "Man, there was a chair right there. I totally could have broken it over his head" and we all had a good laugh. We decided that we'd had enough art for the night and headed up to Speakeasy to celebrate.

Cheers to balsy friends.

*Pictured: Jesse, Nicole, and me.

Like so much water

I feel like every day I am talking to a woman who is completely overwhelmed, involved in a serious relationship with a man who is mostly experiencing the same things but seems to be dealing with them much better. What is that about?

I come from a long line of depressed women. My grandmother, when she found out she was pregnant with my mother (her surprise 3rd child), had a nervous breakdown and began her daily supplement of valium and the occasional tip-toe through the tulips. In turn, feeling the weight of being the unwanted child, my mother has also struggled with the old familiar ache of hopelessness. I can still remember when she started taking medicine for it for the first time… it was like the stifling cage of the bell jar had been lifted and maybe I wouldn’t suffocate under its pressure. It was a freeing experience for my whole family.

I can sum up the men in my family in three words: sexist, stoic, and silent.

I think at some point my parents began to recognize that I was a very emotional child and they both in their respective ways tried to teach me to not be so. And for most of my life it worked – that is, until I married Clint.

Clint has a wonderful gift. He has the amazing ability to cut directly to the heart of things. He can be standing in the swirling madness of my fury and somehow with shocking precision he manages to put his finger directly in the eye of the tempest – and with surprising regularity. All of the bullshit I had managed to conjure up to keep everyone out of the innermost places of my mind and soul, he has managed to dispel with softness, kind words and patience. In a really cool way he’s actually taught me more about how to be a woman, or maybe it’s just in his way he’s given me the freedom to poke around at the idea of being a woman. In a lot of ways he has given me the keys to myself, to be who I really am.

And yet, somehow, the weight of freedom has taken its toll. In the subsequent deluge of emotion that has flooded our marriage, we have struggled greatly. I have mostly died on every one of my own hills, caring not for the manner in which I obtained so-called victory, but only for the shreds of pride I could grasp at the end of the day telling myself that I was strong, and caring not for all the ways I had truly harmed Clint with my belligerent fear. To feel is so very beautiful, but to feel so much is…terrifying. It would seem that every day I am actively working to sabotage what I have gained because mostly it is too much for me to bear.

Which brings me to where I started: that so many women are completely overwhelmed by all the things that they feel, whether it be guilt, shame, anger, bitterness, sadness, or hopelessness. What is going on in the dynamic that allows two people to share the exact same experiences and yet the women seem so much more burdened by them? Is it honesty? Is it harder for women to lie to themselves? Do they feel things differently because of our sex? Or is there some disparity in the man/women relationship that causes this gap? I have known many men that feel deeply and are married to wives who end up feeling just as desperate as those who are married to men who seemingly feel nothing. Sometimes I wonder if being a woman isn’t like being a broken pot continually being filled and continually running dry from so much water.

Or maybe that’s just to be human.

A Very Good Answer

Asked whether he agreed with President Bush's portrayal of the current global struggles in terms of good verses evil, Obama said there is a risk in viewing the world in such terms.

He said he believes that the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, were the result of evil. But he said that the United States' treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay is unjust.

"The danger of using good verses evil in the context of war is that it may lead us to be not as critical as we should about our own actions," Obama said to applause.

But if you try sometimes… you just might get what you need

There have been some changes in my life recently. Some very good, some….well some I’m still waiting to see how they’ll turn out, but I’m hoping for the best, which says a lot coming from a true pessimist.

Lately I’ve started taking 6 a.m. walks with a friend from my apartment complex with our dogs. It’s been surprisingly easy to get out of bed for and we have had a great time being early morning chatters together. It’s quite therapeutic! A weird thing happened today though right after we reached Rushton Park and turned around to walk back: a white work truck hit the concrete median on Highland Avenue and totally flipped over! It was craziness. The two guys in the truck were totally unharmed, thankfully, but all of the morning walkers and runners formed a big circle around them and were all abuzz.

Another new thing I’ve taken up is playing tennis with Clint. I know: me… tennis…(or Clint and tennis for that matter) doesn’t really seem like a likely pair but you know, it’s really pretty fun and something that Clint and I can do together. And good exercise too! Let’s just hope I don’t turn into the female version of John McEnroe “YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS?!”, although so far I have been able to keep my overbearing, competitive side under wraps since I pretty much suck. Not to mention the fact that Clint’s tireless and unceasing praise for my bumbling efforts is very encouraging. I think he actually used the word “hustle” during one game though…

Gardening has also fast become one of my favorite new things to do. It all started with some drama though…the middle of last month all of the inhabitants of the Virginian Court received letters in the mail saying that because the courtyard had been demolished by the dogs, they were giving us 30 days to find new owners for them or to vacate the premises. Well, since we love our dog and we also just spent a shitload of money moving into this place in January, I have made it my mission to ‘beautify’ the courtyard in hopes that my efforts will appease the management at JH Berry and maybe they’ll leave us alone. So far it’s working. A week and a half ago, me and two of my upstairs neighbors, Liz & Van, actually tilled one half of the courtyard by hand using a shovel and a rake and threw down some tall fescue mixed with some shady lawn mix seed and said our prayers. By Thursday of that same week we had achieved greenery. Bright greenery. One half of the courtyard actually bears a striking resemblance to a chia pet at this point…

Man, what is it about making things grow that just makes you feel so damn good about yourself?

So yeah. That’s what going on with me. In between all that, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the implications of a new FDA amendment that re-established the drug user fee (an act originally established in the 1990’s that essentially put the FDA on the payroll of the industry it supposedly regulates). The amendment renewed the act which would have expired later this year and increased fees paid by drug companies in order to give the government program “sweeping new powers” in keeping the public safe, but contained another amendment that got tacked on at the last minute that would also restrict the importation of drugs from other countries – countries that get prescription drugs at a strikingly discounted price from what Americans pay for theirs. I am deeply troubled that the Congress is citing a tainted cough syrup distributed in China that poisoned 300+ people and killed over 100 as a reason for not allowing imported drugs when Vioxx (an FDA approved drug) alone caused over 55,000 drug related heart complications and upwards of 28,00 deaths. What is that story about the speck and the plank again…?

Here’s to sunshine, rain, exercise, cool dogs, and ethics reform. Peace.

Quelquefois

Sometimes I feel good about myself.
Sometimes I feel ugly.
Sometimes I feel proud of the things I do.
Sometimes I'm very ashamed.
Sometimes I'm a little too honest.
Sometimes I don't say enough.
Sometimes I think I'm impossible to love.
Sometimes I feel very blessed by the deep, meaningful relationships in my life.
Sometimes I feel doomed to fuck everything good in my life up.
Sometimes I feel like it's getting better.
Sometimes I try really hard to do the right thing.
Sometimes I do nothing.

Today, I feel like this

My Last Post

Ok, so it came to my attention last night after having a phone conversation with a very tipsy M. Smith that I may need to clarify what my last poem is really about (he said, and I quote, "I was in Florida on a bad gig and when I read your poem it tore my world apart"). This is because he thought my poem was about me and Clint. Let me just assure everyone that this is NOT the case.

The poem is about a young boy who has a homosexual encounter and tries to tell his very conservative and close-minded parents that he thinks he is gay. Hence the "I won't let you be this way". I wrote it to be obscure but I still felt it's meaning was explicit. Apparently I was wrong.

So anyway, thanks for those who read my poems and my blog, and to you M. Smith for caring that much about my marriage. = )

No Choice

I would really like to know what you think this poem is about. I feel like I'm being pretty explicit, but maybe not...


It happened on a summer night
Awoke desire I couldn’t fight
A tangled twist of longing lips
Tied up in a forbidden kiss

And then the roaring fights ensue
And you blame me, and I blame you
You throw the vase into the wall
You don’t try to hear at all

You say ‘I won't let you be this way”
That this is all some big mistake
I’m really too confused to know
What this is, but you need to know

It’s not your fault, and not my own
It’s something that I’ve always known
So please don’t try to fix me now
There’s never ‘fixing’ anyhow

And no amount of prayer or faith
Or bible verses in my face
Can ever make me change my mind
Or change the way I feel inside

So please try and always know
I never tried to hurt you, no
That was never my intent
I only wanted to be lent

Some courtesy, like you were me
Like shoes and miles, and other feet
In hopes that love could interpose
Make open doors that once were closed.

Tell Me Something...

Do you believe that people get better?



Why or why not?

Wilco, the dog

For more pics of our kickass new dog, or Clint's equally kickass new hairdo, click on the my photos link on the right.

Part D- And by D, I mean Disaster

This is part of a CBS interview with U.S. Comptroller David Walker that I think everyone should read:

"I would argue that the most serious threat to the United States is not someone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan but our own fiscal irresponsibility," Walker tells Kroft.

Beginning next year, and for 20 years thereafter, 78 million Americans will become pensioners and medical dependents of the U.S. taxpayer.

"The first baby boomer will reach 62 and be eligible for early retirement of Social Security January 1, 2008. They'll be eligible for Medicare just three years later. And when those boomers start retiring in mass, then that will be a tsunami of spending that could swamp our ship of state if we don't get serious," Walker explains.

To illustrate their impact, he uses a power point presentation to show what would happen in 30 years if the U.S. maintains its current course and fulfills all of the promises politicians have made to the public on things like Social Security and Medicare.

What would happen in 2040 if nothing changes? "If nothing changes, the federal government's not gonna be able to do much more than pay interest on the mounting debt and some entitlement benefits. It won't have money left for anything else – national defense, homeland security, education, you name it," Walker warns.

Part of the problem, Walker acknowledges, is that there won't be enough wage earners to support the benefits of the baby boomers.

"But the real problem, Steve, is health care costs. Our health care problem is much more significant than Social Security," he says. Asked what he means by that, Walker tells Kroft, "By that I mean that the Medicare problem is five times greater than the Social Security problem."

The problem with Medicare, Walker says, is people keep living longer, and medical costs keep rising at twice the rate of inflation. But instead of dealing with the problem, he says, the president and the Congress made things much worse just three years ago when they expanded the Medicare program to include prescription drug coverage.

"The prescription drug bill was probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s," Walker argues. Asked why, Walker says, "Well, because we promise way more than we can afford to keep. Eight trillion dollars added to what was already a 15 to $20 trillion under-funding. We're not being realistic. We can't afford the promises we've already made, much less to be able, piling on top of 'em."

With one stroke of the pen, Walker says, the federal government increased existing Medicare obligations nearly 40 percent over the next 75 years.

"We’d have to have eight trillion dollars today, invested in treasury rates, to deliver on that promise," Walker explains.

Asked how much we actually have, Walker says, "Zip."

Another Good Reason to Hate the FDA

I read this today and I just had to post it.

In 1992, Marcia Angell, noted senior lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School wrote this about the FDA in a Boston Globe article :

"It passed the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, which authorizes drug companies to pay 'user fees' to the FDA for each brand-name drug considered for approval. Nearly all the money generated by these fees has been earmarked to speed up the approval process.

"In effect," Angell continued, "the user fee act put the FDA on the payroll of the industry it regulates."

She indicated the agency fast-tracks approval of brand-name drugs, resulting in a backlog of some 800 trials for generics, which she noted "is worth billions of dollars to the drug companies whose high prices depend on not having generic competition."

As a result of the pressure from fees to speed up trials, Angell wrote, FDA trials approve drugs with less evidence than in the past. Some are even approved contingent on the companies' conducting further safety studies after the drugs are on the market -- an unfulfilled contingency, Angell noted, that the agency has ignored in 70 percent of about 1,200 such studies.


In addition, the FDA refuses to release unfavorable research results it possesses without the sponsoring company's permission.




Wow.

24, and I don't mean the show...

I turned 24 on Saturday. I occurred to me that next year I will turning a quarter of a century years old. THAT, my friends, is weird.

Aside from the fact that Clint was out of town, it was a good weekend. Saturday, my mom, my aunt Terri and I crammed into my mom's Ford Ranger (correction, they sat, I crammed myself into the cubby--not the seat--in the back where my mom's 170 pound Great Dane usually rides. Awesome) and drove to Atlanta where we spent the whole day shopping at IKEA and West Elm (my new favorite of favorite stores). I got a new dining table and chairs , and I'm gonna be honest: they're pretty fantastic. See for yourself:

The actual chairs look like the one on the far right with no arms. Very comfy.

So anyway, clearly after a whole day of shopping we had acquired a lot of stuff. The bed of the truck was being occupied by the dining table and chairs so in order to get home with the rest of the stuff, I had to climb into the cubby, and my mom and aunt literally packed all of our shit up around me so that I could not move from the middle hump. They climbed in the truck and got ready to go and I looked at both of them and said, "Alright, time to stop at a gas station. Liz is getting drunk for the ride home." Two Smirnoff Ices, a Chik-fil-a sandwich, and some AC in my face later and I no longer felt like having a claustrophobic meltdown. We laughed and talked the whole way home.

I mean, do birthdays really get any better than that? No way folks. No way.

Dinkin’ Flicka

My Top Ten Most Favorite Ridiculous Rap Lyrics of All Time:


1) I love you like a fat kid love cake- 50 Cent “21 Questions”

2) Inside peanut butter, outside jelly, seven days of the week, seven different Chevys- Cadillac Don “Peanut Butter & Jelly”

3) I’m from the ghetto homie. I was raised on bread and bologna- B.G. “Move Around”

4) Watch me make yo’ face beat up my hand- Dem Frachize Boyz “Lean Wit it Rock Wit it”

5) Me, I’m a pimp I ain’t payin’ for no sex, I’d rather buy a car or a new rolex- David Banner “Like A Pimp”

6) Ever since I can remember I been workin’ these hoes and they better put my money in my hand- 36 Mafia “Poppin’ My Collar”

7) I’m the type of girl you wanna chew all of my bubble gum. I’m the type of girl you wanna take to ya mamma’s house- Rasheeda “My Bubblegum”

8) N**** I put you in a coma, smoke yo ass like marijuana- Triple Six Mafia “North”

9) Do yo chain hang low, do it wobble to da flo. Do it shine in da light, is it platinum, is it gold?- Jibbs “Chain Hang Low”

10) Chicken noodle soup, chicken noodle soup, chicken noodle soup with a soda on the side- DJ Webstar “Chicken noodle soup”

All in a Wells Weekend

Just a couple things that happened this weekend:

Woke up at 5am Saturday to an explosion which turned out to be a car on fire in the parking lot next door.

Someone hit my car making a 6-8 inch gash in my rear driver’s side door and drove off. My lease is up in two weeks and I have a $500 deductible. Sometimes I hate my life.

We got a piano (thank you Brian Murphy).

Allie peed ON our bed and then got a beat down from the Westerhold’s 12 week old puppy Jackson (of whom I have posted pictures on my flickr).

I watched my friend pump milk out of her breasts. Definitely have never seen that before.

Watched a record 8 episodes of The Office.

Warning: This is a soap-box post

Bush wants to cut $70 Billion more dollars from Medicare and Medicaid issuing what amounts to a death sentence to many health care providers in conjunction with the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act and Medicare Part D (which turned over prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients to private companies) that went into effect last year. As if the the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 didn’t reduce Medicare ($6.4 billion) or Medicaid ($4.7 billion) funding from 2006 to 2010 enough, he’s doing it again. This time cuts with be aimed at hospitals (of which 2/3’s are already losing money treating Medicare patients), the Children’s Health Program, and pharmacies (who are already underpaid on each Medicaid transaction by an average of 36%). I read this yesterday and strongly agreed:

"As he proposes $70 billion in cuts to these programs, President Bush will say that he is trying to address long-term financial problems in these programs," Davenport said. "He is trying to treat a symptom, not the disease. The real problem is that health care costs in the United States are out of control. The president hasn't offered any meaningful solutions for controlling health care costs." [link]

And how would the president go about doing this you may ask? Simple: follow the old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Take for instance the Asheville Project, a pharmaceutical care demonstration project conducted in North Carolina to prove that greater concentration of community pharmacists’ roles in health care can actually reduce health care costs considerably. A group called NCCPC offered to train community pharmacists in diabetes management and to offer pharmaceutical care services for city employees with diabetes. Employees who enrolled in the program agreed to go through formal diabetes education program and also agreed to meet on a regular basis, usually every month, with one of the specially trained pharmacists, who they selected from a list of those who had also gone through the training.

At the end of the project Average hemoglobin A1c results for the 40 City of Asheville employees decreased from 7.6% to 6.2%. Total cholesterol averages dropped from 210mg/dl to 198 mg/dl. The LDL average decreased from 118 mg/dl to 98 mg/dl. All of these averages exceeded the American Diabetes Association goals of <7%>.

So instead of treating the “Medicare/Medicaid” problem by making tax cuts, Bush is actually cutting off help at the source.

And THAT is because he’s in bed with everyone from big pharma companies like Pfizer and Merck to pharmacy benefit managers like Caremark and Humana (who reported net income of $487.4 million, up 64 percent from $296.7 million a year ago thanks to its burgeoning Medicare Benefit Program). And speaking of record profits, who else but Exxon Mobil is raking in a fortune! The juggernaut’s earnings are up $3.4 billion from 2005!

But that’s not the only place the money is going…

“…The committee calculated that the $12 billion in cash, most of it in the stacks of $100 bills, weighed 363 tons and had to been flown in on wooden pallets aboard giant C-130 military cargo planes [to Iraq]. “Who in their right mind would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone?” Mr. Waxman said. “That’s exactly what our government did.”

This government needs some help. Seriously. Hillary? Obama? ANYONE??

The thing is: Women really are Worse than Men

Clint and I have been having the same conversation over and over since we started dating: the one where we argue over which sex really the more of a threat to a marriage in a bar type situation.

Clint’s argument is that it does not take much to encourage a man to make a move on a woman. Perfect example, there was a particular night before Clint and I were ever dating that I got invited to dinner after church with a big group and apparently touched Clint’s arm while I was saying something. He totally took that as a sign that I liked him and went around to the whole group that night asking what they thought it meant. We still laugh about how much he freaked out about that to this day.

I, in that instant, was an exception to the point that I’m about to make. Whereas Clint thought the world of me touching his arm, I don’t even remember doing it, didn’t even think about it when I did it! Well of course, since we’re married now I think about these kinds of things a lot. I try and think critically about my behavior and what I’m communicating with my body language. Usually I’m mulling over the men at the bars where he plays that approach me and different things I can do to make myself look, well, unapproachable. This mostly involves me frowning and not making eye contact (read: making myself look bitchy). And for the most part, it works. There is the occasional guy that is too inebriated to read my body language that will come up and start talking to me but usually lasts about as long as it takes for me to say: see that guy playing guitar up there? We’re married. Buh bye now.

And here is where I get to how women really can be worse than men. For a married man, this scenario has the potential to look MUCH different. Women are much more likely to talk to a married man than they are to talk to a single guy. For starters, married men are generally “safer”, what with being married and all, they’re probably not looking [realistically] to take you home. But here’s the really sick thing: a married man is much more attractive to women because that little gold/platinum/titanium band around his finger shows that he can make a commitment. Women love that. If you think I’m making this up, please come out to one Loose Stone Show and watch how many drunk girls crowd around in front of Clint as opposed to the other 3 unmarried and good looking men up on the stage. It’s ridiculous. Sometimes the cave woman in me wants to go up and start making out with him onstage just to stake my claim. Anyway, the ring also suggests that he’s a family man, maybe he likes/wants/has children. He’s racking up major babe points and he hasn’t even opened his mouth yet. Then comes the conversation. Inevitably, being the good husband that he is, he starts talking about his wife, how much he loves her/misses her/wishes she were there. BAM! He has just scored sensitivity points. He is looking very, very good.

The dangerous thing about most men at bars is that, yes: most of them are there looking for sex, but you know that. It’s understood, it’s explicit. The dangerous thing about women at bars? You don’t really know why they’re there. Most of them, I’d say, are there to connect with some guy and get an ego boost, not necessarily sex and as I’m coming to understand, this can be much more dangerous because a) it’s not as obvious b) can seem harmless and c) can be written off pretty easily. But the thing about marriage is: nobody’s doing it perfect. There’s got to be some area where maybe your needs aren’t being met, maybe you’re feeling a little insecure that you’re not attractive or interesting or funny and this girl that you’re talking to is making you feel all of the above. Now THAT is dangerous. This is how marriages really end. You start thinking, “Wow, this girl does x-y-and z so much better than my wife, and she’s not complaining about all of the stuff that I don’t do.” Yet…

And the thing is, this chick is totally digging making you feel like that. Why? Because women LOVE to be preferred. We love to feel like we’re better than the next chick and that we’re being chosen above someone. That’s another part of the allure of talking to a married man: instant competition with an instant advantage. I’m telling you, you can’t make this crap up.

So where it may seem like men are the real bad guys with the bedroom angling and the cheesy lines, it’s the women that take the cake for posing any kind of real threat in my book. After all it’s a no-brainer that there’s danger in entertaining conversation with a guy that you know is just looking to score, but how about a seemingly innocent woman with whom you’re having a seemingly innocent chat about your wife?

A Time I Once Believed

What happened to the stories
I heard of as a child
The ones about the savior come
To save me from the wild

Or is the wildness
Really just a part of my own guile?
My own demons cast out the hope
I clung to as a child.

Black and white become
The mattered grey that fills our lungs
From cigarettes and past regrets
And lies upon our tongues

I run up to the table
To feel I still belong
Sluggish, weary, bearing
All the wrongs that I have done

But can the Bread and wine
Remind a sinner there in need
That I am not alone
Even if I don’t believe

What happened to the fairytale?
Why did it come to this?
Funny how a drink can make
A cynic reminisce.

Love is hard, regardless of the relationship

"So we stood there not knowing either how to stay or how to go, and felt the weight of that failure. We felt sorry for Roy who was a quiet, smiling, unhappy man and sorry for Cecelia who was a beautiful, unhappy woman, and sorry we could think of nothing that would help." Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

This is a song by a guy named Bob Franke. Not the best voice in the world, kind of hokey at times...but man, I think this song has something to say to everyone.

Hard Love

And I recall the gentle courtesy you gave me as I tried
To dissemble in politeness all the love I felt inside
And for every song of laughter was another song that cried
This ain't no easy weekend, this is hard love

It was hard love, every step of the way
Hard to be so close to you, so hard to turn away
And when all the stars and sentimental songs dissolved to day
There was nothing left to sing about but hard love

So I loved you for your courage, and your gentle sense of shame
And I loved you for your laughter and your language and your name
And I knew it was impossible, but I loved you just the same
Though' the only love I gave to you was hard love

It was hard love, it was hard on you, I know
When the only love I gave to you was love I couldn't show
You forgave the heart that loved you as your lover turned to go
Leaving nothing but the memory of hard love

So I'm standing in this phone booth with a dollar and a dime
Wondering what to say to you to ease your troubled mind
For the Lord's cross might redeem us, but our own just wastes our time
And to tell the two apart is always hard, love

So I'll tell you that I love you even though I'm far away
And I'll tell you how you change me as I live from day to day
How you help me to accept myself and I won't forget to say
Love is never wasted, even when it's hard love

Yes, it's hard love, but it's love all the same
Not the stuff of fantasy, but more than just a game
And the only kind of miracle that's worthy of the name
For the love that heals our lives is mostly hard love

I don’t think it could have been a warmer, January mountain trip than it was this past weekend.

Friday morning we set out with the Woods and Westerholds for Gatlinburg and the Murphy’s joined us that evening. We stayed in the River Rock lodge of Chalet Village. It ended up being a really cool place save the fact that the walls were so thin I think all of the couples had to make good use of their pillows or socks at some points if you know what I mean. We pretty much spent the whole time doing one of the following things: reading, playing chess/ pool/ video games, making and eating delicious food, drinking adult beverages, smoking, relaxing in the hot tub, climbing the two story river rock fireplace in the living room, looking for hidden treasure, and dancing in the kitchen to hippity hop music. I actually have video of the entire group doing a drunken version of the chicken dance from arrested development. Yes…..

It was a fantastic time, and as usual I learned a couple things I didn’t know. In no particular order, here they go: sometimes my directional skills are somewhat lacking and I have a hard time deciphering between Highway 411 and 441, apparently it is a good idea to bring at least one set of summer clothes on a mountain trip in January as it may be 70 degrees Fahrenheit during the day, Abby Westerhold is way better than me at chess, my husband cannot scale a two story river rock fireplace without the help of some friends pulling his ass over the rail at the top, and last but not least Brian T. Murphy is a pool shark. I don’t care what anybody says, he may seem like all he’s good for is tickling the ivories, eating babies, and sporting green and yellow plaid shirts, but no, he is a damn fine pool player much to my dismay.

Oh, and how could I forget: the meaning of the term hand***. Ha.

To see some more digital photographs of this weekend and others, visit my flickr.

How do you trust God when you don’t trust him?

I have this thing that I do, or sometimes just want to do and don’t do even though I want to REALLY bad. Pretty much as long as I can remember I have wanted to save people. This is not in the “saving the soul” kind of sense, but more saving people from making bad decisions. I realize that this facet of my personality, while [sometimes] good intentioned, can have terrible repercussions.

The thing is, I’ve been a pretty shady person at times. I’ve done some things that I would not suggest anyone else on the earth duplicate, but I’ve never really called them mistakes. I really believe that if you come out of a situation wiser, then it really wasn’t a mistake; maybe not the smartest shit you ever did, but not a complete waste. Well the older I get, the more I find myself hoping that by sharing my past experiences with people, I can somehow save them from making the same poor decisions. This never works.

I am realizing that people NEED to make poor decisions, they need to fall, need to pick themselves back up again, and all they REALLY need from me is an open ear and a shoulder to cry on when shit gets hard. Thinking back, that’s all I wanted when I was in the thick of all my craziness. Why can’t I just accept that?

When you hit your limit

The day after New Years we moved with help of Changing Spaces movers (they did a fantastic job, I highly recommend them) and also started the process of making the new apartment more homey by painting and cleaning. My mom, my Aunt Terri, and I worked until around 11:30 that first night and got the bedroom done and the cabinets primed. Wednesday we started on the kitchen and the dining room, and last night mom and Aunt Terri finished up the bathroom, the living room, and the hallway. At about 9:00 last night, I was coming to the end of my rope. I was trying to put up the backsplash in the kitchen and needed a Phillips head screwdriver so I put down the aluminum flashing and went to look. I looked everywhere: the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, and on and on and on….finally I was in the spare bedroom digging through the boxes in the closet and I just started crying. I felt so…unglued, like the haphazard state of my apartment was a reflection of the chaos inside my head. I was ready for some order, some organization, some sanity! I had finally hit my limit.

Read any poll regarding the top 10 stress- causing events and undoubtedly moving will always be at the top, following divorce and death of a family member. There’s so much that goes in to moving, the organizing, the packing, the cleaning out of unneeded items. I was really surprised at the two things that stressed me out the most though: the amount of dust and dirt lurking behind all of my furniture that I never knew was there, and the fact that we had movers moving our stuff for us. I somehow felt guilty that they were carrying my stuff…even though I was paying them to do so. I can’t tell you how many times I actually apologized to the movers for having to move our stuff down 4 flights of stairs. I would find myself cleaning extra hard or moving small stuff just to feel like I was doing something too. For the past 3 nights, instead of coming in and chilling out after being up early and at work all day, I’ve come home to my mom and my aunt at my apartment working so I immediately began working too.

Through the events of the past few days I’m coming to understand two things: one is that I have a really hard time letting people do things for me. I either come out feeling guilty or like I need to do something of equal importance back. Two is that I’m starting to understand that deep inside there’s a little bit of OCD in all of us. I’m always making fun of Clint because he literally CANNOT relax if our apartment isn’t picked up. He could work a full day at the store, play a gig until 2 in the morning, and if he came home to a messy apartment he would not be able to sleep until he had put everything away. My OCD is more focused on symmetry and the actual cleanliness (read, if it’s not cloroxed or dusted, it’s not clean). And the thing is, a house is never really clean. It’s an endless job, so I start feeling frustrated that I can’t ever really accomplish anything. I could spend all day doing laundry and at the end of the day, the clothes on my body will be dirty. I could do the dishes, but we’re just going to eat again in a little while. I can scrub the bathtub but it still looks dirty ‘cause it’s an old tub.

It’s weird how the older you get, the more anal you get about stuff. I hate it. I was telling Clint the other night that I really want to learn how to rest. I honestly think I don’t know how. I want to learn how to be ok with not always being in control. I don’t want to think at 23, how could I ever have kids? They would ruin everything. Is restfulness a personality trait written in our DNA? I can think of a couple people whom I would describe as “laid-back” people. Were they born that way or did they learn how to be that way, and if so, how the hell do you do that?

Before Clint and I got married we had the talk in counseling about how we would do the whole money thing. I had hoped that we could keep our separate accounts as money is a big control area for me, and said so. Brad (knowing my issues) looked at me and said, “Liz I think that not only should you have joint banking accounts, but I think that you should hand over the checkbook to Clint for a whole month”. I had a panic attack right there in the counseling room.

I think the hard truth that I don’t want to think about is that to learn how to rest is to experience a lot of pain first. It’s like Eustace, the boy in the Chronicles of Narnia who is turned into a dragon and longs to be a boy again. In the story, Aslan the lion doesn’t wiggle his nose or shake his magic wand and the boy is healed. No, he tears into his scales with his claws until Eustace thinks he will die.

So I guess that more than wanting rest, I want to be able to stand the process it will take to get there. I hope that I’ve got it in me.