Sugared Harpy

Edy’s Raspberry Chip Royale is the best thing I’ve put in my mouth in a long time.*

*That sounds dirrrrrty. (Dear god, please get my mind off sex…will more ice cream work?)

But I can’t seem to find the entries I wrote for this in my computer. Must be in Mike’s desktop and was written before the laptop. However, THIS is what I’m in:

Description from the publisher’s website:
Sex and love are central to daily life and to all nations. But despite the universality of these sentiments, their expression is largely shaped by the cultures in which they occur. Thus the ancient Greek understanding of love and sexuality is very different from the modern American one, for example, and even within particular cultures there is a great deal of variation. This massive set gives students and general readers a sweeping survey of love and sexuality across periods, places, and cultures. Entries cover a wide range of subjects, including customs and practices, authors and works, concepts and institutions, and various other topics. Thus the Encyclopedia defines love and sexuality in terms of cultural contexts. The set includes volumes on particular eras. These are:

Volume 1: The Ancient World
Volume 2: The Medieval Era
Volume 3: The Early Modern Period
Volume 4: The Colonial and Revolutionary Era
I’M IN THIS ONE
Volume 5: The Nineteenth Century
Volume 6: The Modern World.

Each volume is edited by one or more authorities on the era and includes numerous alphabetically arranged entries by expert contributors. Among the entries are:

# Abortion
# Adultery
# Age of Consent
# Bestiality
# Birth Control
# Bisexuality
# Buddhism
# Canon Law
# Celibacy
# Censorship
# Circumcision
# Cohabitation
# Cosmetics and Perfumes
# Daoism
# Denis Diderot
# Divorce
# Domestic Violence
# Fanny Hill
# Benjamin Franklin
# Geisha
# Gothic Fiction
# Hindu Literature
# Homosexuality
# Islam MINE!
# Joan of Arc
# Lesbianism
# Lust
# Magic
# Marie de France
# Marriage
# Cotton Mather
# Menstruation
# Mesoamerica
# Native Americans
# Ottoman Empire MINE!!
# Painting
# Francesco Petrarch
# Prostitution
# Pueblo Indians
# Puritans
# Rape Law
# Scholastic Philosophy
# Sexually Transmitted Diseases
# Spermatorrhoea
# Virginity
# White Slavery
# William Shakespeare
# Bram Stoker
# Tantric Buddhism
# Tom Jones
# Venereal Diseases
# Wedding Rituals
# Wu Zetian
# And many more.

I ALSO WROTE ABOUT ART, YO.

Because the volumes are multicultural in scope, they invite an easy comparison of sex and love across different groups of people. The volumes are fully illustrated and cite works for further reading. Students will welcome this set as a guide to daily life around the world, while general readers will be fascinated by its wealth of information.

FEATURES AND BENEFITS:
# Conveniently organized into volumes on particular periods.
# Includes numerous alphabetically arranged entries by expert contributors.
# Entries discuss authors, concepts, practices, major works, institutions, customs, and other topics.
# Fully illustrated.
# Cites works for further reading.
# Helps students appreciate cultural diversity.
# Helps students learn about daily life through a topic of popular interest.
# Supports the social studies curriculum by exploring the history and experiences of different peoples.
LC Card Number: 2007023728
LCC Class: HQ21
Dewey Class: 306

If you’re going to email me stating “I’ll do **ANYTHING** to get a higher mark on the exam”, at least have the courtesy of sending a full-length photo of yourself so I can appropriately contemplate the merits of the request.

Courtesy of Rate Your Students

Because I wrote part of it. It’s about HISTORY…and practices…and visual representations.

And I’m letting them read it.

Oh god.

I love reading Hathor the Cow Goddess, a link I found over at Daisybones. This image reminds me of what happens during a thunderstorm, at every BOOM! I pat Brett’s tummy as he nestles in closer. Hathor is a mama with three little girls and a lot of how she parents worked for me. I wish I had known more, or was more deliberate.

When I had two little boys by twenty, I had no idea what I was doing.

I still don’t.

But when they were little, I did what all frantic mamas do…WHATEVER WORKS. I learned that I breastfeeding worked, thanks to buttloads of help from the women in my family. Dude, breastfeeding was like the magic of all magics. Oh, newborn is fussy, here, boob. Oh, six month old bumped his head, boob. Got a new brother and you’re a bit confused, BOOBS FOR ALL. I would have cried a lot more without this magic.

I learned that carrying my babies worked. I had a Snugli carrier and by god, in goes the baby and they were calm, quiet, asleep or looking around. And I had HANDS. Hello, I needed hands when I had two of them. I could nurse them in there, they could talk to strangers who wouldn’t ask to hold them, they could see the world fairly easy, and the baby could always see and feel me (versus when we did the stroller and they sometimes got anxious…Lady? LADY WITH THE BOOBS?!!).

I learned that much contact between us worked. I always thought I just had “good” babies, now I’m wondering if somehow I just stumbled on some attachment parenting by accident. Well, maybe more than accident. My mom breastfed and so did my grandma and aunt. My mom also carried us around in a sling or a backpack.

My sister had a harder go of things, but she was also with a man she hated, was depressed, had a very difficult labor, had nurses and “lactation consultants” that completely sabotaged her nursing and her confidence, you name it. However, my sister is a fucking fantastic mother because she pushed through all that shit and she found her own attachment parenting strategies.

And one that has been there for both of us is sharing sleep.

When my boys were babies and toddlers, the family bed isn’t something we thought about. It was just something that let me have precious sleep. And if their dad didn’t have to get up in the night, he didn’t give a hoot that two boys were in our bed. Breastfeeding in a shared bed is the only way to go for me.

And I could never get Daniel off the boob and into a crib to save my ass.

Books told me to never nurse him to sleep so I could lay him down in the crib. That I could warm the crib first if he didn’t like its coldness, that I should put him in the wedge thing we bought so he feels likes he’s not alone, and to swaddle him so he felt secure. A pacifier for when he wanted comfort. When he was a bit older, I saw sound boxes that simulated a mother’s heartbeat.

Um, books? I can do all that by sleeping with him myself. Here, baby, stay on the boob, I’ll just stay asleep and you can fall asleep when you want. Warm, snuggly, heartbeat, all here and I don’t have to stop this dreaming I’m doing.

I learned much, much too late that I didn’t need all the fun baby equipment I bought. Our crib was virtually unused until Brett was a toddler and then Daniel just climbed it to get in with him, breaking the bars. We had toddler beds for the two of them, but you betcha one crash of lightening, one odd sound, a dream gone wrong, and they were in bed with us. It was fine, more than fine.

We haven’t had the dedicated family bed that Hathor and her family had, but it was always open. Their had their rooms and their beds, and still do, but if either one wants to sleep with me, they do.

In fact, they still sleep with my mom.

At her house, the two boys have their own bedroom, my old bedroom. Ashley has her own, her mother’s old bedroom. But at eleven and thirteen, they have no issues sleeping with Nana. No issues with sleeping with me. Ashley is eleven and has no issues sleeping with her mom, her grandma, me: her aunt, or on her own.

I asked them what they thought of it:
It’s comfy
Pillows are poofy
I never get cold at night
The cats sleep with us
I get to actually be with my family, instead of the crazy of the day

And I tell you what, I think our kids are better for it. They are all three independent, will sleep with one of us or on their own as they want, they are fine if we say, “not tonight” or “yes, scooch over!,” they are confident in who they are (even if Daniel is a typical thirteen year old and getting more and more unsure of his actions, he knows who he is and likes it), they are good, good, good, kind considerate kids. The act of sharing, sharing in sleep even, makes you more aware of how to treat others, how to get along in a small space, and how to hold and snuggle someone else. And they enjoy it.

Brett will say, “I’m gonna sleep in the family bed tonight.”

Yes, sir.

I am gearing up for my courses to start this week, bumming about my one course that I’m going to lose because of enrollment issues, and I decided to procrastinate take a break, read up on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s columns…

Which led me to RateMyProfessors.com for a lark…

Which led to me noticing that I now have a CHILI PEPPER next to my name:

Average Easiness: 3.7
Average Helpfulness: 5.0
Average Clarity: 4.7
HOTNESS TOTAL: 1
Overall Quality: 4.8

I am most likely going to lose a course, and the experience and pay that comes with it. It needs one more student to enroll.

Anyone interested in Modern and Contemporary art?

Damn, damn, damn. This is the adjunct’s life. Waiting all the time to see what your income and schedule will be semester to semester, and still having no guarantees when you sign that contract.

I just went to my boys’ school to pick up my older son, Daniel. He is sporting a headache after his darkly lit, but with bright computer screens class.

There has been evidence for a long while that a new subdivision of houses would be built near the school, which seemed fine. It always looked like the houses would not be built too close to the school. But today, I saw otherwise.

A fairly large house is being built virtually on school grounds. It is a house with those giant windows up and down the back facade of the house, windows that stare right into the windows of the school across a very small, narrow parking lot.

It looks like a child molesters dream (observatory) house.

Have you seen what Bossy wants to do?

I say, HOW COOL.

Of course I invited her to my house in the ‘burbs.

So, Bossy. Here is a little slice of my life:

I have kids.

Ha! Gotcha! These are not all my kids.

These are my kids.

I have cat.

Who have a baby loofah.

I have a sister.

She doesn’t live here, so I ply her with liquor to hang out.

I have a boyfriend.

He doesn’t live here, either. Thank god.

I know people who do fun things.

I didn’t go to this fun looking event.

I DID go to this one.

Where I tumbled down a hill on purpose. TANDEM STYLE.

See, there are two of us clutching for dear life.

See! Am super fun! Not at all scary and stalkery. Uh, come anyway!

(I could put some pink in your hair for ya. Bossy goes wild in the suburbs! Ohhhhh yeah.)