Oh no! Next we’ll be marrying hippos! And monkeys!

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The California Supreme Court used common sense yesterday and overturned their state’s gay marriage ban. Though I’m sure today will be full of religious zealots on cable “news” claiming the end of humanity, let’s all tune them out and enjoy! Why gay marriage is illegal in the first place is very confusing to me (because then we’ll start having sex with animals…really?), so I’m glad learned and wise people have finally decided to agree with me. I knew they’d realize my higher intelligence eventually.

What are others saying about this ruling? Well, I’m sure somewhere Rush Limbaugh is drowning his sorrows in oxycodone, but I’d rather hear some more positive voices:

Ellen DeGeneres:
“I’m thrilled that the California supreme court overturned the ban on gay marriage. I can’t wait to get married. We all deserve the same rights, and I believe that someday we’ll look back on this and not allowing gays to marry will seem as absurd as not allowing women to vote.

P.S. I’m registered at Crate & Barrel.”

T.R. Knight:
Our ‘certain inalienable rights’ are protected today. It makes me proud to live in a country that works to correct its sins.”

Melissa Etheridge:
“I feel they have made an honest woman of me. What a wonderful blessing for us and the gay community. We’re moving forward. It makes me feel happy for the whole human race that we are finally getting out of our differences and coming together and we are putting this all behind us. It really is going to be the thing that we talk to our kids and our grandkids and say, ‘That was the olden days — wasn’t that ridiculous?'”

Marc Jacobs:
” Who to love and how to love should be up to the individual or the couple. Enough said!”

Read more about this landmark ruling here, here, here, here or read the entire court document here.

Updated to Add: This is the best thing I’ve seen regarding this decision. I even teared up a little. So great! Yeah California!

100 Things: The Conclusion

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I started my list of 100 things I want to do before I’m 100 a few months back. Honestly, it was a bit of a cop out. I had just started my new job and was dried up as far as content ideas for this site, so I wrote out a huge list of things I want to do someday. Then, when I had nothing else to write, I would post five or ten of these things at a time. Really, it was all about laziness. Which should be the new tagline for the blog: Crazybananas, it’s all about laziness.

I never kept track of how many things I’d written, just hoping I’d be able to come up with 100 at the end of this whole endevour. Turns out, when I looked back, I had written exactly 95. Yesterday I sat down and attempted to finish up my list. But, CRAP, it was hard. How do I come up with five more things, when I’ve already listed 95? How do I fit everything else I want to do into only five things? Quite the quandry.

In the end, this is what I came up with:

95. Attend a big movie premiere
96. Have a piece of art in a gallery showing
97. Make $100 off of my online writing
98. Live in Europe and take the train to faraway locations during vacation
99. Retire and live a life of leisure
100. Do something that changes the world for the better

You can view the entire list right here, and it will also be posted under my About Me section and on the right hand sidebar of the homepage. I plan to continue to update my list as I accomplish things and am able to cross them off. And I WILL accomplish them, even if Trent hates horses and swears we shall never own one! I noticed that many of my ideas involve travel of some kind, and I wonder why that is? I never thought of myself as a person that craved travel and exploration, but apparently I don’t know myself very well! Have any of you tried to write a list like this? What surprised you?

For those of you who hate to click on links (why is that, exactly?) below is the list in it’s entirety.

1. Learn to play the guitar
2. Purchase my own house
3. Get my scuba diving certification
4. Visit all 7 continents
5. Skydive
6. Get over my fear of boats by going on a cruise
7. Learn to snowboard
8. Blog everyday for a month
9. Write and publish a fiction novel
10. Take Trent to Amsterdam and eat lunch on the lawn of the Van Gogh Museum
11. Give a stranger $100 on Christmas Eve
12. Go on a honeymoon
13. Own and train a horse
14. People watch at the duomo in Florence with Lucy
15. Take the train to St. Louis from Kansas City
16. Stand underneath a waterfall in a tropical location
17. Take photos of someone famous
18. Attend a taping of the Oprah Winfrey show
19. Vote for a woman for president
20. Give a speech honoring my dad
21. Grow my own cantaloupe like when I was a kid
22. Spend a day at a spa
23. Play in a real rock band
24. Buy a brand new Mac computer
25. Send my daughter to college
26. Work on a horse ranch
27. Go white water rafting
28. Teach Lu how to ice skate
29. Report from a foreign country for NPR
30. Live in a “green” home
31. Turn off my phone for a day
32. Organize a family reunion
33. Go on a mother/daughter trip with Lucy, my sister and her daughter
34. Pay back my and Trent’s parents for all they’ve done for us
35. Ride a camel
36. Attend P. Diddy’s white party
37. Be content in my life
38. Cross 50 items off this list
39. Buy a very expensive pair of shoes just because they are pretty
40. Take a university level design or photography class
41. Hold a leadership position in local politics
42. Take Lucy to the circus
43. Teach English at a school abroad
44. Visit Washington DC
45. Attend a political rally
46. Donate to charity anonymously
47. Drink wine in Central Park
48. Renew my vows on a beach
49. Live in a house on the Italian Coast
50. Reconnect with an old friend
51. See the Earth from space
52. Get my masters degree
53. Hug a koala bear
54. Visit the Grecian ruins
55. See a Broadway play
56. Sell a piece of photography
57. Go to New Orleans during Marti Gras
58. Cook every night for 7 days
59. Drink a pint in an Irish pub
60. Find out about my lineage and visit where my family comes from
61. See my mom’s old house in South Chicago
62. Ride in a rickshaw
63. Throw a keg party
64. Write a screenplay
65. Learn to bake apple pie
66. Go camping with the family
67. Learn to surf
68. Raise Lucy to become a strong, independent woman
69. Have more kids
70. Take a road trip of the United States in an RV
71. Run a marathon
72. Gamble in Vegas
73. Kiss Trent at the Eiffel Tower
74. Visit the Grand Canyon
75. Volunteer in a third world country
76. Live in New York City
77. Have a girls vacation with friends
78. Throw Lucy a sweet sixteen birthday party
79. Surprise Trent with a gift for no reason
80. Throw an elegant dinner party
81. Relearn how to speak fluent Italian
82. Attend a wedding in India
83. Ride an elephant
84. Learn how to fly an airplane
85. Meet a famous blogger
86. See the pyramids in Egypt
87. Hike through a tropical rain forest
88. Make enough money to support my family DONE – February 2008
89. Take Trent to Cinque Terre and go on a hike there
90. Visit Canada
92. Drink a fancy cocktail on the roof of an apartment building in NYC
93. Go to therapy
94. Go for a week without checking email
95. Attend a big movie premiere
96. Have a piece of art in a gallery showing
97. Make $100 off of my online writing
98. Live in Europe and take the train to faraway locations during vacation
99. Retire and live a life of leisure
100. Do something that changes the world for the better

OMG

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I don’t even know what to say about this….click here. (It’s fine for work)

Rockabye: A Review

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Ha! Did you see that post title. Tre professional, don’t you think? Hey, cut me some slack, this is my first big book review. And my creativity is at an all time low due to the several hours I spent in the basement last night with an onery toddler and a hungry Rottweiler hiding from tornados.

I first saw a plug for the book Rockabye: From Wild to Child on a fellow blogger’s links (sorry, can’t remember who it was). The cover alone caught my eye. Before I even get into the amazing writing in this memoir, will you look at the cover art?

Rockabye Cover

If that doesn’t make you want to pick up this book immediately, then there is something seriously wrong with your eyes.

OK, now that I’ve hurled some insults at you lovely readers, let’s get back to the book.

Rockabye is the memoir of Rebecca Woolf, a young mom and writer from Los Angeles. Rebecca was a 22-year-old party girl, who loved smoking cigarettes, hanging out at bars and listening to local bands at the latest hours of the night when she found out she was pregnant. This book follows her journey, from who she was to who she is today, a young mom still working every day to figure out how to be the best parent and still not lose herself.

OK, so I’m sure you’ll all seeing the connection here. 22-years-old. Check! Pregnant unexpectedly. Check, check! Marries boyfriend and father of the baby. Check, check, check!

I know it’s pretty obvious why I would like this book, as Rebecca’s story and mine are so eerily similar, but that is not the only reason. Rebecca tells her story with such beauty and honestly, not glossing over the dirty parts of unexpected, unplanned parenthood as so many writers do. She gives you humor, yes, but she also gives you the bare bones tale of what it is to be forced to change your entire life overnight, without any warning or time to comprehend anything. The intro alone is something I dearly wish I could have read the day I sat on my bathroom floor, face blotchy and eyes red, shaking my head in total fear and disbelief. Because even to this day, I have never met anyone that “got it.” Anyone who could understand how awful and horrible and wonderful and frightening it is to be in that position. How there was no way I could be happy about it. And how hard it is to deal with something that makes you unhappy, when everyone thinks you should be happy about it.

“It’s OK to be afraid. It’s OK to mourn your single life and all your yesterdays, to look in the mirror and find your self unrecognizable, to feel as if you are sleepwalking, sick to your stomach, speechless. There is nothing wrong with silences and blank thoughts. There is nothing wrong with being afraid.”

Now, for those of you that aren’t unexpected, young parents, don’t count this book out just yet. While the first half of the book deals with Rebecca’s pregnancy, the second half deals with raising a child in a society that says every baby must be perfect. She struggles with milestones and expectations, while trying to decide if they are even worth paying attention to. One of my favorite lines from the book is, “Who are we to tame our children before they even understand what it means to be wild?“ Exactly.

If you are a young mother, I definitely recommend this book. You’ll find yourself smiling and crying along Rebecca’s journey. And if you’re any kind of mother, young or old, you will also enjoy this story. Because really, what comes out of this book is the fact that all mothers struggle. We are all looking for a way to be the world’s best mom and the world’s best me. And I think while this book doesn’t give all the answers, it poses questions that can only help us in the long run.

You can buy Rockabye: From Wild to Child at Barnes & Noble or Amazon, or check your local bookstore. You can read Rebecca’s blog, Girl’s Gone Child, by clicking here.

BPP

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My morning routine is pretty bland. Wake up way too early. Get dressed. Attempt to tame hair. Grab a snack as I’m running out the door. Commute to work while listening to NPR or bad local radio stations. Sounds pretty exciting, eh? Bet you wish you had this life.

But my mornings are significantly uplifted by a certain radio program out of NYC. It’s called the Bryant Park Project (found via dooce) and it plays on some NPR stations and NPR XM satellite radio. Of course, none of my local stations carry it and I’m way to poor to pay for satellite radio, so I make due with the podcast on my laptop. The show is a mix of news and entertainment, and the main host was a former VJ and news anchor for MTV news back in the 90s. I believe Allison Stewart was the person who first made me think that voting was cool, and now I get to hear her gorgeous voice every morning. Yipee!

To give you an idea of the awesomeness (technical term) of this program, let me give you a few examples of last week’s segments. First we had a rousing game of Pope trivia. Followed by a story on some Canadians angry about a fixed coffee contest. Along with some great musical performances. They are also pros at finding funky fun (and funky fresh, word) websites, like this one featuring an ode to movie credits. Ending the week was a dance party for host Allison, who is off on maternity leave. Apparently (according to the BPP blog, it’s still too early to download the podcast) today there will be a story featuring squirrels singing gospel music. Yes, there is real news as well, but when you add in those elements, who can miss it?!

You can check out the BPP blog here or you can download the podcast here. Try it, you’ll love it.

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