Ancestry and Adoption

In February of this year, Ancestry.com was featuring a 2-week trial to encourage people to get hooked try out their services.  After thinking about it, I decided "what the heck" and signed up to give it a whirl, figuring I could always cancel two weeks later.  After all, two weeks should be plenty of time to suss out a family ancestry, right?   I spent probably 3 days straight staying up till 4 am filling in little links in my husband's and daughter's family trees.  I stayed up late several other nights as well, though perhaps not quite till the wee hours.  A week and a half in, I looked at B and told him point-blank that we would be needing to continue the membership because there was absolutely no way that I would ever be done in time because his family never ended.

Eight months or so later, I'm still not done.  Granted, I haven't exactly been working around the clock on it because my in-laws' line goes on freaking forever--and that's just on the one thread I've followed through so far.  Heaven only knows where the other threads will lead once I've sifted through them all and clicked on every little green leaf waving wildly at me with yet another "ancestry hint."  The damn things are like kudzu; just when you think you've knocked them all out you find them swarming somewhere else.

"Ku-ku-KUDZU!"
"Gesundheit."

So far it's been an interesting journey; turns out my lovely girlie and my spouse are related to any number of European royalty (assuming of course that Ancestry.com is at all accurate), including but not limited to several Plantagenets (including the king who signed the Magna Carta), Robert the Bruce--High King of Scotland, Brian Boru--High King of Ireland, Llewellyn the Great of Wales, William the Conquerer, Eleanor of Aquitaine (think "Lion in Winter"), not to mention assorted other nobles and a few Crusaders as well.  That's the funny thing about genealogy; once you get far enough to connect with one royal, suddenly you're connected with metric crap-ton of royals because they were forever intermingling families for political reasons.  Also--bonus--there is a heck of a lot more recorded information about them.

My grandmother-in-law was big into genealogy and spent years tracing her husband's (B's grandfather's) family history long before the magic Google and interwebs came into being.  She even journeyed to England to look at old records and eventually wrote a book of family history going back several generations.  This record has proved invaluable in my own research efforts.  For example, she insisted that there was a family story that Bonnie Prince Charlie was, in fact, one of her husband's relatives.  The problem was that she could never find any proof.  Years ago I looked into it, but it never seemed entirely plausible because the timelines didn't jive.  There was essentially a generation off between where she'd traced back and where Charlie's line came forward, making it extremely unlikely that the family is directly descended from him (never mind the fact that he was far too busy begetting illegitimate children while in exile in Rome to be taking ship to Virginia where the hubby's relatives first came over).

Interestingly enough, I solved this mystery just the other night, some 20 plus years after I'd first heard the legend.  Turns out there was a relevant Charles in the family tree, just not that Charlie.  Still, good old Chuck was fairly important after all, because he largely bridges that generation gap between documented family history and royal descendents rather nicely.  Good to know that my husband is apparently the 20 gabillionth in line to the throne of England.  (I'd better start packing my pointy hats...)

Pointy Hat of Scotland

This history is fascinating and exciting and intriguing and even a little depressing, at least for me.  When I start with the girlie on the family tree, I can see her dad's name and his family line shooting off across the room on a genetic rocket and back into the middle ages.  It's impressive, really.  Meanwhile, I look down at my name on her tree and see the great, white nothingness that follows it because I was adopted when I was only five weeks old (yay, me!).  I've never had any complaints about being adopted; I always figured I probably came out ahead in the bargain and could only imagine how torturous the decision to give me up must have been for my birth mom even if she was a knocked-up college student as seems to have been the case.   Because I knew I was adopted before I was old enough to really comprehend what that meant, I didn't grow up with any random identity crises or anything like some kids do.  Sure, I sometimes wondered where my various attributes originated--like who in my family had blue eyes or red hair or liked to draw or sing or read.  I also wondered what my ethnicity was, though given my pale complexion it was easy enough to rule out most countries.  But that still didn't stop me from making up nationalities as the mood suited me.  Sometimes I was Irish (hello, red hair and freckles!) if for no other reason than that I was born on St. Patrick's Day.  Sometimes I was French, because I liked the language and because "LaRue" is French.  Being French somehow seemed exotic, at least until some kids at school asked one day what "LaRue" meant.  When I told them it was French for "the street," my darling classmates promptly decided what I'd actually said was "the streak."  Lovely.  I was "Mary the Streak(er)" for the rest of that year.  Kids.  Sigh.

For the most part, though, I never really thought much about finding my birth family.  As far as I was concerned, I already had a family so I didn't seem to be missing anything, nor did I have any great desire to upend either my life or that of my birth parents.  Besides, it's hard to miss what you've never known, and I'm pretty used to the anonymity of my past.  When my girlie was born, I thought more about digging into my past because  a family medical history suddenly seemed infinitely more relevant.  It was one thing for doctors to scrawl "ADOPTED" and slash lines through the family medical history section in all my medical charts, but I didn't want them doing that to my daughter.  Unfortunately, all I could ever uncover was "non-identifying" information, most of which I already knew from the records my mom gave me when I was in my 30s.  These records helped me fill in a very few blanks, such as the height and hair/eye color of my birth mother and "putative" father (it feels so special to know someone was "alleged" to have sired you...as though your existence were somehow a crime).  Because Indiana law does not allow for open adoption records at the time of my birth and because I wasn't in a position to hire someone to pry open the records back then, I filed the new bits of information away and went on about my life in relative peace, at least till I had to keep staring at that giant abyss of blankness behind my name on Ancestry.com while hearing the voice of Duncan MacLeod (of the Clan MacLeod) on a loop as he repeatedly demanded of his adoptive father "Where do I come from?  WHERE DO I COME FROM????" from one of the Highlander episodes.

Who cares where you come from, so long as you come over here.

Perhaps part of my renewed interest is because my adoptive mom passed away in April and I am now (sort of) orphaned.  Suddenly I find myself wanting to know more about who I am and, like the hot Scot above, where I come from.  Everyone deserves to know who they are and what their history is.  Not only do I want to fill in the pieces and thus satisfy my own curiosity, I also the information for my girlie who likewise has a right to know the half of her history she's missing.  So recently, when Ancestry.com started offering limited invitations to DNA testing, I jumped at the chance.  I realized that for a paltrey $100 their testing is not likely to be as thorough or complete as I might like, nor exactly was it gonna turn me into the next Alex Haley.  And that's okay.  But I figured any information about me at this point is far better than the none I currently have.

Eventually the test packet arrived; instead of being provided with cotton swabs with which to scrape my cheek, I was given the dubious pleasure of hocking up a nice juicy loogey into a little plastic test tube, after which I was required to dump in a stabilizing agent, seal it in the provided envelope, and send it off.  Once I'd closed the package I started to get paranoid because I realized belatedly that I wasn't supposed to eat or drink anything for 30 minutes before performing my spit-take, which was suspiciously tinged pink.  Hello, Crystal Light!  I feared that I'd screwed up the test and that the scientists over at Spit Genes backward R Us would be sitting around wondering why I'd felt the need to bleed fruit punch into my sample and would ultimately charge me for another one.  Whoops.

Afterwards, I checked the Ancestry.com site every couple of weeks to see if any results had been posted, which they never were.  Watched pot, and all.  I was supposed to get an email when they were ready, which I also never received.  Then one day I happened to be playing around with the family trees and I happened to look over at the testing section on a whim. I was stunned to see their little pie chart all colored in and with percentage numbers emblazoned on the page, informing me that 60% of my DNA was genetically tied to the British Isles and 34% to Northern Europe.  Probably not surprisingly, there was also listed a  6% of "unknown."  Heh.  As if I needed confirmation that I've always been an "unknown quantity."

Is it just me or does that pie chart look a little like a blue Pokemon?

On the one hand, this information is not in the least surprising.  As I've already mentioned, my physical appearance fairly screams Irish or Scottish, and I've had several people over the years comment that my coloring and build also resembles someone from Northern Germany.  Maybe Boris Becker is my long-lost cousin.  So yeah, DNA peeps, good call on those percentages.  On the other hand, even though this information was not exactly earth-shattering news, I was still not prepared at all for the wave of emotions which hit me the moment I saw those results.  It's one thing to make up crap over the years about where you're from, but another thing entirely to have it confirmed in reality.  And it's yet another thing to see the names and faces of people who are genetically tied to you.  I have 4th and fifth and sixth cousins--blood relatives.  Who knew?  Obviously I knew I had relatives somewhere, but before it was always too abstract to take seriously.  Now it's real, and that kinda blows me away.  Mind you, I can't exactly run over to their profiles and start comparing branches on the family tree because I still don't have birth names to share.  Until I do, contacting any of these people to hunt down members of my family tree is largely pointless.  But I'm not gonna lie...just knowing there are actual people out there in the world with my DNA blew me away.  I cried.  I did.  I felt a little like a fool doing so, but I still did.

Now I want even more to pursue my history.  I want more than just a vague "you were here" red dot on a map.  At 47, I don't necessarily have a burning desire to meet or start up a relationship with my birth parents, even assuming they could be found (I'll cross that bridge if and when I ever come to it), but I do want information.  I would like to find out their names and backgrounds so I can plug it all in at Ancestry.com and maybe have a prayer at long last of making all those connections for my own line.  I want to build my own history as a gift both to myself and to my daughter.  I want to be able to stop hiding behind all the masks I've made for myself over the years and discover instead those bits of myself I've been missing all this time.  What would it be like to see my face on someone else for the very first time in my life?  I've never looked like anyone before, not really, even though I'm constantly hearing from strangers that I look like their ex-wife's cousin's brother's mailman or whatever.  But that's not the same.  What must it be like to exchange a lifetime of pseudo-anonymity for a better understanding of one's own history?  Likely nothing will come of it all, but who knows?  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?  Chances are I won't be related to royalty like the girlie and hubs; more likely I'll descend from a McDonald's fry cook or from a long line of people who spent time in the stockade for being a wise-ass.  Wouldn't that be poetic justice?  Still, I'd take it all in a heartbeat, just for the luxury of knowing one way or the other.  Perhaps someday.

In the meantime, the following is a poem I found a long time ago and have always loved; it's dedicated to all my fellow adoptees out there.

Ancestry and Adoption

In February of this year, Ancestry.com was featuring a 2-week trial to encourage people to get hooked try out their services.  After thinking about it, I decided "what the heck" and signed up to give it a whirl, figuring I could always cancel two weeks later.  After all, two weeks should be plenty of time to suss out a family ancestry, right?   I spent probably 3 days straight staying up till 4 am filling in little links in my husband's and daughter's family trees.  I stayed up late several other nights as well, though perhaps not quite till the wee hours.  A week and a half in, I looked at B and told him point-blank that we would be needing to continue the membership because there was absolutely no way that I would ever be done in time because his family never ended.

Eight months or so later, I'm still not done.  Granted, I haven't exactly been working around the clock on it because my in-laws' line goes on freaking forever--and that's just on the one thread I've followed through so far.  Heaven only knows where the other threads will lead once I've sifted through them all and clicked on every little green leaf waving wildly at me with yet another "ancestry hint."  The damn things are like kudzu; just when you think you've knocked them all out you find them swarming somewhere else.

"Ku-ku-KUDZU!"
"Gesundheit."

So far it's been an interesting journey; turns out my lovely girlie and my spouse are related to any number of European royalty (assuming of course that Ancestry.com is at all accurate), including but not limited to several Plantagenets (including the king who signed the Magna Carta), Robert the Bruce--High King of Scotland, Brian Boru--High King of Ireland, Llewellyn the Great of Wales, William the Conquerer, Eleanor of Aquitaine (think "Lion in Winter"), not to mention assorted other nobles and a few Crusaders as well.  That's the funny thing about genealogy; once you get far enough to connect with one royal, suddenly you're connected with metric crap-ton of royals because they were forever intermingling families for political reasons.  Also--bonus--there is a heck of a lot more recorded information about them.

My grandmother-in-law was big into genealogy and spent years tracing her husband's (B's grandfather's) family history long before the magic Google and interwebs came into being.  She even journeyed to England to look at old records and eventually wrote a book of family history going back several generations.  This record has proved invaluable in my own research efforts.  For example, she insisted that there was a family story that Bonnie Prince Charlie was, in fact, one of her husband's relatives.  The problem was that she could never find any proof.  Years ago I looked into it, but it never seemed entirely plausible because the timelines didn't jive.  There was essentially a generation off between where she'd traced back and where Charlie's line came forward, making it extremely unlikely that the family is directly descended from him (never mind the fact that he was far too busy begetting illegitimate children while in exile in Rome to be taking ship to Virginia where the hubby's relatives first came over).

Interestingly enough, I solved this mystery just the other night, some 20 plus years after I'd first heard the legend.  Turns out there was a relevant Charles in the family tree, just not that Charlie.  Still, good old Chuck was fairly important after all, because he largely bridges that generation gap between documented family history and royal descendents rather nicely.  Good to know that my husband is apparently the 20 gabillionth in line to the throne of England.  (I'd better start packing my pointy hats...)

Pointy Hat of Scotland

This history is fascinating and exciting and intriguing and even a little depressing, at least for me.  When I start with the girlie on the family tree, I can see her dad's name and his family line shooting off across the room on a genetic rocket and back into the middle ages.  It's impressive, really.  Meanwhile, I look down at my name on her tree and see the great, white nothingness that follows it because I was adopted when I was only five weeks old (yay, me!).  I've never had any complaints about being adopted; I always figured I probably came out ahead in the bargain and could only imagine how torturous the decision to give me up must have been for my birth mom even if she was a knocked-up college student as seems to have been the case.   Because I knew I was adopted before I was old enough to really comprehend what that meant, I didn't grow up with any random identity crises or anything like some kids do.  Sure, I sometimes wondered where my various attributes originated--like who in my family had blue eyes or red hair or liked to draw or sing or read.  I also wondered what my ethnicity was, though given my pale complexion it was easy enough to rule out most countries.  But that still didn't stop me from making up nationalities as the mood suited me.  Sometimes I was Irish (hello, red hair and freckles!) if for no other reason than that I was born on St. Patrick's Day.  Sometimes I was French, because I liked the language and because "LaRue" is French.  Being French somehow seemed exotic, at least until some kids at school asked one day what "LaRue" meant.  When I told them it was French for "the street," my darling classmates promptly decided what I'd actually said was "the streak."  Lovely.  I was "Mary the Streak(er)" for the rest of that year.  Kids.  Sigh.

For the most part, though, I never really thought much about finding my birth family.  As far as I was concerned, I already had a family so I didn't seem to be missing anything, nor did I have any great desire to upend either my life or that of my birth parents.  Besides, it's hard to miss what you've never known, and I'm pretty used to the anonymity of my past.  When my girlie was born, I thought more about digging into my past because  a family medical history suddenly seemed infinitely more relevant.  It was one thing for doctors to scrawl "ADOPTED" and slash lines through the family medical history section in all my medical charts, but I didn't want them doing that to my daughter.  Unfortunately, all I could ever uncover was "non-identifying" information, most of which I already knew from the records my mom gave me when I was in my 30s.  These records helped me fill in a very few blanks, such as the height and hair/eye color of my birth mother and "putative" father (it feels so special to know someone was "alleged" to have sired you...as though your existence were somehow a crime).  Because Indiana law does not allow for open adoption records at the time of my birth and because I wasn't in a position to hire someone to pry open the records back then, I filed the new bits of information away and went on about my life in relative peace, at least till I had to keep staring at that giant abyss of blankness behind my name on Ancestry.com while hearing the voice of Duncan MacLeod (of the Clan MacLeod) on a loop as he repeatedly demanded of his adoptive father "Where do I come from?  WHERE DO I COME FROM????" from one of the Highlander episodes.

Who cares where you come from, so long as you come over here.

Perhaps part of my renewed interest is because my adoptive mom passed away in April and I am now (sort of) orphaned.  Suddenly I find myself wanting to know more about who I am and, like the hot Scot above, where I come from.  Everyone deserves to know who they are and what their history is.  Not only do I want to fill in the pieces and thus satisfy my own curiosity, I also the information for my girlie who likewise has a right to know the half of her history she's missing.  So recently, when Ancestry.com started offering limited invitations to DNA testing, I jumped at the chance.  I realized that for a paltrey $100 their testing is not likely to be as thorough or complete as I might like, nor exactly was it gonna turn me into the next Alex Haley.  And that's okay.  But I figured any information about me at this point is far better than the none I currently have.

Eventually the test packet arrived; instead of being provided with cotton swabs with which to scrape my cheek, I was given the dubious pleasure of hocking up a nice juicy loogey into a little plastic test tube, after which I was required to dump in a stabilizing agent, seal it in the provided envelope, and send it off.  Once I'd closed the package I started to get paranoid because I realized belatedly that I wasn't supposed to eat or drink anything for 30 minutes before performing my spit-take, which was suspiciously tinged pink.  Hello, Crystal Light!  I feared that I'd screwed up the test and that the scientists over at Spit Genes backward R Us would be sitting around wondering why I'd felt the need to bleed fruit punch into my sample and would ultimately charge me for another one.  Whoops.

Afterwards, I checked the Ancestry.com site every couple of weeks to see if any results had been posted, which they never were.  Watched pot, and all.  I was supposed to get an email when they were ready, which I also never received.  Then one day I happened to be playing around with the family trees and I happened to look over at the testing section on a whim. I was stunned to see their little pie chart all colored in and with percentage numbers emblazoned on the page, informing me that 60% of my DNA was genetically tied to the British Isles and 34% to Northern Europe.  Probably not surprisingly, there was also listed a  6% of "unknown."  Heh.  As if I needed confirmation that I've always been an "unknown quantity."

Is it just me or does that pie chart look a little like a blue Pokemon?

On the one hand, this information is not in the least surprising.  As I've already mentioned, my physical appearance fairly screams Irish or Scottish, and I've had several people over the years comment that my coloring and build also resembles someone from Northern Germany.  Maybe Boris Becker is my long-lost cousin.  So yeah, DNA peeps, good call on those percentages.  On the other hand, even though this information was not exactly earth-shattering news, I was still not prepared at all for the wave of emotions which hit me the moment I saw those results.  It's one thing to make up crap over the years about where you're from, but another thing entirely to have it confirmed in reality.  And it's yet another thing to see the names and faces of people who are genetically tied to you.  I have 4th and fifth and sixth cousins--blood relatives.  Who knew?  Obviously I knew I had relatives somewhere, but before it was always too abstract to take seriously.  Now it's real, and that kinda blows me away.  Mind you, I can't exactly run over to their profiles and start comparing branches on the family tree because I still don't have birth names to share.  Until I do, contacting any of these people to hunt down members of my family tree is largely pointless.  But I'm not gonna lie...just knowing there are actual people out there in the world with my DNA blew me away.  I cried.  I did.  I felt a little like a fool doing so, but I still did.

Now I want even more to pursue my history.  I want more than just a vague "you were here" red dot on a map.  At 47, I don't necessarily have a burning desire to meet or start up a relationship with my birth parents, even assuming they could be found (I'll cross that bridge if and when I ever come to it), but I do want information.  I would like to find out their names and backgrounds so I can plug it all in at Ancestry.com and maybe have a prayer at long last of making all those connections for my own line.  I want to build my own history as a gift both to myself and to my daughter.  I want to be able to stop hiding behind all the masks I've made for myself over the years and discover instead those bits of myself I've been missing all this time.  What would it be like to see my face on someone else for the very first time in my life?  I've never looked like anyone before, not really, even though I'm constantly hearing from strangers that I look like their ex-wife's cousin's brother's mailman or whatever.  But that's not the same.  What must it be like to exchange a lifetime of pseudo-anonymity for a better understanding of one's own history?  Likely nothing will come of it all, but who knows?  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?  Chances are I won't be related to royalty like the girlie and hubs; more likely I'll descend from a McDonald's fry cook or from a long line of people who spent time in the stockade for being a wise-ass.  Wouldn't that be poetic justice?  Still, I'd take it all in a heartbeat, just for the luxury of knowing one way or the other.  Perhaps someday.

In the meantime, the following is a poem I found a long time ago and have always loved; it's dedicated to all my fellow adoptees out there.

Blog Awards for Delinquent Writers

Last winter, three other bloggers graciously presented me with blogging awards under the highly flattering (if perhaps misguided) assumption that I am awesome (which I am, though clearly not when it comes to following up on said awards in a timely fashion).  While I tremendously appreciated the nods from all three bodacious bloggers, my problem was that I was expected to identify 15 other awesome blogs/bloggers in the course of accepting the awards.  At the time, I didn't know fifteen other bloggers.  Truth is, I probably still don't, considering that I can't list the bloggers I read most often, since they're among the ones who gave me the awards in the first place.  Little paradoxes like this feed directly into the Procrastination Express; now here I am, some 9-10 months later, belatedly trying to accept these honors while hanging my head in shame for taking so long to do so.  If it's true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then the gates would now be in my backyard and Cerberus would be scratching at my door.  Sigh.

Anyway, abject apologies aside, let's get on with the actual awards, because they're way more fun.    I'm consolidating them here because that's likely the only way I'll get them done and because there's a fair bit of overlap.  The first award, the "Tell Me About Yourself Award," was presented to me last December by both the lovely Lizanne52 over at Words All Day Thru and the truly awesome Naked Mommy over at Naked Mommy Diaries.  How can you possibly NOT love someone who ODs on books or who makes disturbing things out of excess hair and is a Sports Bra Aerobics soul sister?  Go read their blogs. Right now.  Because they rock.

The Tell Me About Yourself Award requires the recipient to:
1.  Thank the person who gave the award.
2.  List 7 things that people may not know about you.
3.  Pass the award to 15 other bloggers and notify them.
4.  Post the badge on your blog.

So then--7 things about me you may not know (and probably will regret asking about):

1.  I can simulate playing "Scotland the Brave" on bagpipes by holding my nose shut with one hand to make a sound like a kazoo and then whacking myself in the throat with the edge of my other hand at appropriate intervals.  I learned this disturbingly awesome trick by watching the comedian Bill Kirchenbauer do it on his show "Just the Ten of Us."

2.  All the money in my wallet has to be facing forward, right side up, with the bills all in denominational order, increasing from smallest to largest.  If someone's head is pointing down or a $1 is swapped with a $10, it makes me twitch.

3.  I have been to England, Scotland, Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Canada, Hungary (for like half an hour), and the Netherlands (if you count walking through the marijuana-scented corridors of the Schipol Airport).  It's not enough--I want to see it ALL now.

4.  I have freckles everywhere, even on my feet.  And when I was a kid, my dad used to "pick" them off of my arms and put them in his lunchbox for dessert on his way to work.

5.  I don't drink coffee (never have) and I don't generally like seafood.  I also don't drink because I could never understand the concept of something being an "acquired taste."  If something is so bad that I have to "acquire" a taste for it, then what's the point?  I'm not gonna waste weeks of my life chugging down bitter coffee till it suddenly tastes good any more than I'm gonna quaff wine by the barrel until it either becomes enjoyable or until I wake up one morning to wonder why I'm naked and my clothes are hanging from the chandelier, stuffed in the microwave, and/or arranged in an artful collage across the trees in my front yard.  Frankly, I'm weird enough sober...the thought what I might do if inebriated scares the hell out of me.  You can drink all you want...I'll get high on my sugary fruit punch and virgin daiquiris and party with you then shove you into my car and drive you home.  Everybody wins.

6.  My mother's married name was Lorraine LaRue.  I used to tell everyone that was her stripper name.

7.  When I was a kid I was obsessed with horses.  I wanted to be a jockey.  I outgrew it...literally.

The second award I received last December was the "Versatility" award, which I received from the lovely Social Lilac over at Papa is a Preacher, who loves the Peanuts and is therefore very cool.

Just like the previous award, the Versatility Award requires the recipient to:
1.  Thank the person who gave the award.
2.  List 7 things that people may not know about you.
3.  Pass the award to 15 other bloggers and notify them.
4.  Post the badge on your blog.

Since I've been so horrifically late in posting these awards, I'm giving you a bonus 7 things people don't know about me.  Aren't you the lucky ones??  You can thank me later.

1.  I carry a fold-up seam ripper in my purse at all times (pocket knives are so passé), because I am just that much of a sewing nerd.  Comes in surprisingly handy sometimes, and so far TSA has never blown the whistle on me for forgetting to take it out of my purse.  Nail file?  Check.  Incredibly long and pointy/stabby knitting needles?  Check.  Mini-seam ripper?  Check.  Nail Clippers or a 4 oz bottle of shampoo?  "OMG you might be a TERRORIST!!!"  Isn't illogical bureaucracy fun, boys and girls?

2.  My real first name is Mary and I despise it when people shorten it to "Mar."  Like 4 whole letters is so long and unwieldy.  Yes, I know it's often reminiscent of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.  I don't care.  Every.single.time. I can only hear "mare" and who wants to be called a female horse?  Better than being called a female dog, I suppose, but still.

3.  I once sacrificed a Smurf.  When I was a kid, I was a bit of a closet pyromaniac and was fascinated by watching flames on candles or in the fireplace.  Notice I said "pyro" and not "arsonist."  Anyway, I hated the Smurfs on TV because they were stupid and because Smurfette was a bimbette.  So one day I found a little plastic Smurf figurine like you might get on a birthday cake from a bakery, took it in the back yard and made a little bonfire out of leaves then stuck the Smurf in the middle.  Not long after, my mother informed me that "those who play with matches pee in bed."  Um, what??  Apparently my mother thought that lighting candles led to a life of nocturnal urinary dysfunction.  Also, if you cross your eyes, they'll get stuck like that.  Just thought you should know.

4.  Though I've had a few voice lessons here and there and am considered a decent singer now, when I was a kid my father used to turn up the volume on the radio in our car to drown me out and the choir director at my high school once told me to "mouth the words" for a musical I was in.  So naturally I did--during rehearsals.  For the performances, when there was nothing he could do about it, I sang out (off-key) loudly and with gleeful abandon just because he told me not to.  Big mistake, dude...big mistake.  Never tell me I "can't" do something, because I will do it just to prove you wrong.  I'm contrary that way.

5.  Most of the time, I'd rather be in my pajamas.  But then who wouldn't?

6.  I am an accomplished seamstress.  Over the years I have made prom dresses, graduation dresses, children's costumes, elaborate Madrigal/medieval costumes, bridesmaid's dresses, curtains, bedding, and altered clothing, including wedding dresses.  I also used to do alterations on the band uniforms for the University of Memphis.  (Yay, stinky, sweaty feet!)  I once made a Celtic knot wall hanging to enter in the arts portion of my daughter's Irish Dance competitions.  It did quite well.  Heck, I even re-upholstered a chair for my mother-in-law once...It was interesting, but not something I'd like to make a habit of doing.  I'm even considering going back to grad school for a new degree in Historical Costuming.

7.  I love British television, whether dramas or Masterpiece Theater or Doctor Who or comedies such as Blackadder and Are You Being Served.  I love. them. ALL.

And now onto the bloggers I would like to award.  I'm gonna be hard-pressed to find 15 who haven't already received these awards, much less 30, so my list is gonna be shorter than it should be.  Doesn't matter.  Go read these blogs, because they ROCK.

  1.  Words All Day Thru--she may have awarded me the "Tell Me About Yourself Award, but she just as easily deserves the Versatility Award because she not only blogs about books but other interesting things as well, in addition to helping host multiple podcasts of awesomeness.

  2.  Professor Dave's Ark In Space.  A terribly entertaining group of people presents thoughtful (and occasionally frivolous) commentary on a wide variety of programs and pop culture phenomena on both sides of the Pond.

  3.  Scandalous Katie is spectacularly cool because she can make people's noses bleed from a distance when sufficiently angered, and because she has a talented iPhone which autocorrects words into works of extreme entertainment value.  Also, her kid is obsessed with Doctor Who, so she's clearly doing something right.

  4.  The Adventures of Not Supermom is a very versatile blogger.  At last count, she hosts at least 5 blogs that I know about, in addition to being a new host of Doctor Whocast.  She writes scathing letters faster than a speeding bullet, has a kid who loves locomotives and can bake more bread than a tall building's worth in a single bound.  What's not to love?

  5.  Diary of a Renaissance Seamstress  Someone who creates both Renaissance clothing AND Doctor Who costumes?  Yes, please!

  6.  Crafty Thoughts from Pixie Lynx--Follow my SCA buddy as she writes about her crafty medieval experiments!

  7.  Been Gardening...Bin Gardening:  Follow Dr. K as she writes about her experiments in gardening.  I'm not a big gardener myself, but she has some great ideas and she is an outstanding photographer.  You should look at her blog just for the amazing pictures, if nothing else.

  8.  Winnie's Inky Fingers:  For all you crafty people out there, check out Winnie's fabulous stamped card pictures for all sorts of ideas.

  9.  Red Dirt Kelly  Recipes and ruminations and other forms of fabulosity.

10.  Four Hens and a Rooster  I just found this blog, and I can't wait to read more of it.

Okay, maybe this isn't 15/30 blogs, but it's a start.  Look around, and enjoy them.  And thanks for the awards!!

Blog Awards for Delinquent Writers

Last winter, three other bloggers graciously presented me with blogging awards under the highly flattering (if perhaps misguided) assumption that I am awesome (which I am, though clearly not when it comes to following up on said awards in a timely fashion).  While I tremendously appreciated the nods from all three bodacious bloggers, my problem was that I was expected to identify 15 other awesome blogs/bloggers in the course of accepting the awards.  At the time, I didn't know fifteen other bloggers.  Truth is, I probably still don't, considering that I can't list the bloggers I read most often, since they're among the ones who gave me the awards in the first place.  Little paradoxes like this feed directly into the Procrastination Express; now here I am, some 9-10 months later, belatedly trying to accept these honors while hanging my head in shame for taking so long to do so.  If it's true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then the gates would now be in my backyard and Cerberus would be scratching at my door.  Sigh.

Anyway, abject apologies aside, let's get on with the actual awards, because they're way more fun.    I'm consolidating them here because that's likely the only way I'll get them done and because there's a fair bit of overlap.  The first award, the "Tell Me About Yourself Award," was presented to me last December by both the lovely Lizanne52 over at Words All Day Thru and the truly awesome Naked Mommy over at Naked Mommy Diaries.  How can you possibly NOT love someone who ODs on books or who makes disturbing things out of excess hair and is a Sports Bra Aerobics soul sister?  Go read their blogs. Right now.  Because they rock.

The Tell Me About Yourself Award requires the recipient to:
1.  Thank the person who gave the award.
2.  List 7 things that people may not know about you.
3.  Pass the award to 15 other bloggers and notify them.
4.  Post the badge on your blog.

So then--7 things about me you may not know (and probably will regret asking about):

1.  I can simulate playing "Scotland the Brave" on bagpipes by holding my nose shut with one hand to make a sound like a kazoo and then whacking myself in the throat with the edge of my other hand at appropriate intervals.  I learned this disturbingly awesome trick by watching the comedian Bill Kirchenbauer do it on his show "Just the Ten of Us."

2.  All the money in my wallet has to be facing forward, right side up, with the bills all in denominational order, increasing from smallest to largest.  If someone's head is pointing down or a $1 is swapped with a $10, it makes me twitch.

3.  I have been to England, Scotland, Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Canada, Hungary (for like half an hour), and the Netherlands (if you count walking through the marijuana-scented corridors of the Schipol Airport).  It's not enough--I want to see it ALL now.

4.  I have freckles everywhere, even on my feet.  And when I was a kid, my dad used to "pick" them off of my arms and put them in his lunchbox for dessert on his way to work.

5.  I don't drink coffee (never have) and I don't generally like seafood.  I also don't drink because I could never understand the concept of something being an "acquired taste."  If something is so bad that I have to "acquire" a taste for it, then what's the point?  I'm not gonna waste weeks of my life chugging down bitter coffee till it suddenly tastes good any more than I'm gonna quaff wine by the barrel until it either becomes enjoyable or until I wake up one morning to wonder why I'm naked and my clothes are hanging from the chandelier, stuffed in the microwave, and/or arranged in an artful collage across the trees in my front yard.  Frankly, I'm weird enough sober...the thought what I might do if inebriated scares the hell out of me.  You can drink all you want...I'll get high on my sugary fruit punch and virgin daiquiris and party with you then shove you into my car and drive you home.  Everybody wins.

6.  My mother's married name was Lorraine LaRue.  I used to tell everyone that was her stripper name.

7.  When I was a kid I was obsessed with horses.  I wanted to be a jockey.  I outgrew it...literally.

The second award I received last December was the "Versatility" award, which I received from the lovely Social Lilac over at Papa is a Preacher, who loves the Peanuts and is therefore very cool.

Just like the previous award, the Versatility Award requires the recipient to:
1.  Thank the person who gave the award.
2.  List 7 things that people may not know about you.
3.  Pass the award to 15 other bloggers and notify them.
4.  Post the badge on your blog.

Since I've been so horrifically late in posting these awards, I'm giving you a bonus 7 things people don't know about me.  Aren't you the lucky ones??  You can thank me later.

1.  I carry a fold-up seam ripper in my purse at all times (pocket knives are so passé), because I am just that much of a sewing nerd.  Comes in surprisingly handy sometimes, and so far TSA has never blown the whistle on me for forgetting to take it out of my purse.  Nail file?  Check.  Incredibly long and pointy/stabby knitting needles?  Check.  Mini-seam ripper?  Check.  Nail Clippers or a 4 oz bottle of shampoo?  "OMG you might be a TERRORIST!!!"  Isn't illogical bureaucracy fun, boys and girls?

2.  My real first name is Mary and I despise it when people shorten it to "Mar."  Like 4 whole letters is so long and unwieldy.  Yes, I know it's often reminiscent of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.  I don't care.  Every.single.time. I can only hear "mare" and who wants to be called a female horse?  Better than being called a female dog, I suppose, but still.

3.  I once sacrificed a Smurf.  When I was a kid, I was a bit of a closet pyromaniac and was fascinated by watching flames on candles or in the fireplace.  Notice I said "pyro" and not "arsonist."  Anyway, I hated the Smurfs on TV because they were stupid and because Smurfette was a bimbette.  So one day I found a little plastic Smurf figurine like you might get on a birthday cake from a bakery, took it in the back yard and made a little bonfire out of leaves then stuck the Smurf in the middle.  Not long after, my mother informed me that "those who play with matches pee in bed."  Um, what??  Apparently my mother thought that lighting candles led to a life of nocturnal urinary dysfunction.  Also, if you cross your eyes, they'll get stuck like that.  Just thought you should know.

4.  Though I've had a few voice lessons here and there and am considered a decent singer now, when I was a kid my father used to turn up the volume on the radio in our car to drown me out and the choir director at my high school once told me to "mouth the words" for a musical I was in.  So naturally I did--during rehearsals.  For the performances, when there was nothing he could do about it, I sang out (off-key) loudly and with gleeful abandon just because he told me not to.  Big mistake, dude...big mistake.  Never tell me I "can't" do something, because I will do it just to prove you wrong.  I'm contrary that way.

5.  Most of the time, I'd rather be in my pajamas.  But then who wouldn't?

6.  I am an accomplished seamstress.  Over the years I have made prom dresses, graduation dresses, children's costumes, elaborate Madrigal/medieval costumes, bridesmaid's dresses, curtains, bedding, and altered clothing, including wedding dresses.  I also used to do alterations on the band uniforms for the University of Memphis.  (Yay, stinky, sweaty feet!)  I once made a Celtic knot wall hanging to enter in the arts portion of my daughter's Irish Dance competitions.  It did quite well.  Heck, I even re-upholstered a chair for my mother-in-law once...It was interesting, but not something I'd like to make a habit of doing.  I'm even considering going back to grad school for a new degree in Historical Costuming.

7.  I love British television, whether dramas or Masterpiece Theater or Doctor Who or comedies such as Blackadder and Are You Being Served.  I love. them. ALL.

And now onto the bloggers I would like to award.  I'm gonna be hard-pressed to find 15 who haven't already received these awards, much less 30, so my list is gonna be shorter than it should be.  Doesn't matter.  Go read these blogs, because they ROCK.

  1.  Words All Day Thru--she may have awarded me the "Tell Me About Yourself Award, but she just as easily deserves the Versatility Award because she not only blogs about books but other interesting things as well, in addition to helping host multiple podcasts of awesomeness.

  2.  Professor Dave's Ark In Space.  A terribly entertaining group of people presents thoughtful (and occasionally frivolous) commentary on a wide variety of programs and pop culture phenomena on both sides of the Pond.

  3.  Scandalous Katie is spectacularly cool because she can make people's noses bleed from a distance when sufficiently angered, and because she has a talented iPhone which autocorrects words into works of extreme entertainment value.  Also, her kid is obsessed with Doctor Who, so she's clearly doing something right.

  4.  The Adventures of Not Supermom is a very versatile blogger.  At last count, she hosts at least 5 blogs that I know about, in addition to being a new host of Doctor Whocast.  She writes scathing letters faster than a speeding bullet, has a kid who loves locomotives and can bake more bread than a tall building's worth in a single bound.  What's not to love?

  5.  Diary of a Renaissance Seamstress  Someone who creates both Renaissance clothing AND Doctor Who costumes?  Yes, please!

  6.  Crafty Thoughts from Pixie Lynx--Follow my SCA buddy as she writes about her crafty medieval experiments!

  7.  Been Gardening...Bin Gardening:  Follow Dr. K as she writes about her experiments in gardening.  I'm not a big gardener myself, but she has some great ideas and she is an outstanding photographer.  You should look at her blog just for the amazing pictures, if nothing else.

  8.  Winnie's Inky Fingers:  For all you crafty people out there, check out Winnie's fabulous stamped card pictures for all sorts of ideas.

  9.  Red Dirt Kelly  Recipes and ruminations and other forms of fabulosity.

10.  Four Hens and a Rooster  I just found this blog, and I can't wait to read more of it.

Okay, maybe this isn't 15/30 blogs, but it's a start.  Look around, and enjoy them.  And thanks for the awards!!

Procrastination Express

A few weeks ago, not long after the Summer Olympics ended, I was hanging out with the cast of my choral society's summer show.  While we waited in the Green Room between numbers, someone mentioned procrastination.  I commented that if procrastination were an Olympic event, I would be the Michael Phelps of it.  Everyone laughed.  Sadly, however, this is far truer than I am really inclined to admit.

I've always had a tendency to procrastinate, whether with finishing papers in college or sewing projects or whatever.  And I always get things done on time, or at least enough done as makes no difference.  For example, I spent most of two days cleaning my house before hosting a small gathering.  And by "cleaning," I mean "de-toxifying" and "picking up piles of crap from every available flat surface and relocating them to a more appropriate location."  But I still didn't get completely done.  I still had a couple of rooms to dust (that they would never be in) and floors to steam and bits of soldered-on cheesy chicken casserole to finish scraping off the ceiling, none of which ever happened.  It seems that years of living with slobs has caused my tidying skills to seriously decline.  I mean, why fight a losing battle?  If you can't clean them, join them, right?

When we moved here, the new caveat was that the main floor, which people might actually see on occasion, would remained picked up.  In fairness, the hubs (or B as he shall now be known) has done reasonably well about maintaining this stricture.  Meanwhile, I had all sorts of junk piled on the dining room table:  stuff to go downstairs, stuff to go upstairs, pictures still to be hung when I got around to it, stuff to be put away, etc.  Heck, I still had the table cloth from last Christmas covering part of the table, conveniently rolled down to the end so it was out of the way.  Because I, you know, procrastinate.  Currently that table is still tidy, but who knows how long they will stay that way.

Meanwhile, procrastination has also been the main theme of my blog lately, considering I haven't written a post since August and even then I only posted once or twice.  Well, that's not entirely true--I've "written" several blog posts.  In my head.  To which people do not have consistent internet access. This is a bit of a problem.  So now I have a whole backlog of potential and half-composed posts queued up in my brain awaiting freedom.  The problem is that unless I sit down and start writing shortly after something interesting happens, that something rarely makes it to the page.  First I don't want to try typing it up on my phone because while it's great for texting and FB mobile, it's honestly kind of a pain to do long posts on it.  Then I get distracted by other things, not the least of which is spending a crap-ton of time on FB because the majority of my friends are apparently trapped in a 27" iMac.

"WMD" sounds like it ought to be a birth control device.  I'm just sayin'.

Excuse after excuse piles up until the next thing I know, it's nearly 6 months later and I still haven't eulogized my mother.  Or I still have pictures and a catchy tagline for my daughter's birthday post all lined up and going nowhere, even though her birthday was over four months ago.  Or it's almost a year later and I still haven't written about the blog awards I received.  Or I get stuck in a holding pattern because I am just obsessive enough that in my mind, I have to do things in the order in which they occurred to me, so it makes no logical sense for me to write about the dude with the zipper earrings I saw last week when I haven't even done those other things yet.  I know, I know--get a life.  (Working on that.)

So here I am, with a whole stack of incomplete posts that I now have to find a way to commit to writing out, knowing full-well that they will likely never turn out as awesomely as if I'd written them when they first occurred to me.  The zippy phrases and wild metaphors will have slipped away and I'll be left with inane crap like:  "I saw this dude.  At a restaurant.  With zippers.  Weird." instead of what I pretend would have been far more witty and mellifluous in scope.  But such is life, I suppose.

If the Avengers say so, it must be true.

My hope is to spend this month both catching up on all those "lost" posts (like "Lost Boys" but less filling) before they reach their sell-by date, as well as creating new ones and generally being just as frivolous as I usually am.  As a result, I've re-committed to blogging every day and will be cross-posting at Blogher (not that this is particularly meaningful, considering I've now signed up for daily blogging for three months running and have failed miserably thus far) and on Ginger Doodle's Facebook page.  So feel free to stop by and poke me if it's 11 pm EST and I still haven't thrown up a post.  Or make requests for things you'd like me to consider writing, though I make no promises.  And don't ask me to write about politics, because I won't.  People get pissed off enough about politics without my equal-opportunity lampooning involved.  So just don't.  (Besides, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert do it about 1,000 times better than I ever could anyway.)  I'll just stick to my random and quirky observations about life if it's all the same to you.

Speaking of random and quirky, have some "yellow curved fruit."   You're welcome.

Time to disembark the Procrastination Express.  See you all again soon.  Or not.  (Start a pool.)

Procrastination Express

A few weeks ago, not long after the Summer Olympics ended, I was hanging out with the cast of my choral society's summer show.  While we waited in the Green Room between numbers, someone mentioned procrastination.  I commented that if procrastination were an Olympic event, I would be the Michael Phelps of it.  Everyone laughed.  Sadly, however, this is far truer than I am really inclined to admit.

I've always had a tendency to procrastinate, whether with finishing papers in college or sewing projects or whatever.  And I always get things done on time, or at least enough done as makes no difference.  For example, I spent most of two days cleaning my house before hosting a small gathering.  And by "cleaning," I mean "de-toxifying" and "picking up piles of crap from every available flat surface and relocating them to a more appropriate location."  But I still didn't get completely done.  I still had a couple of rooms to dust (that they would never be in) and floors to steam and bits of soldered-on cheesy chicken casserole to finish scraping off the ceiling, none of which ever happened.  It seems that years of living with slobs has caused my tidying skills to seriously decline.  I mean, why fight a losing battle?  If you can't clean them, join them, right?

When we moved here, the new caveat was that the main floor, which people might actually see on occasion, would remained picked up.  In fairness, the hubs (or B as he shall now be known) has done reasonably well about maintaining this stricture.  Meanwhile, I had all sorts of junk piled on the dining room table:  stuff to go downstairs, stuff to go upstairs, pictures still to be hung when I got around to it, stuff to be put away, etc.  Heck, I still had the table cloth from last Christmas covering part of the table, conveniently rolled down to the end so it was out of the way.  Because I, you know, procrastinate.  Currently that table is still tidy, but who knows how long they will stay that way.

Meanwhile, procrastination has also been the main theme of my blog lately, considering I haven't written a post since August and even then I only posted once or twice.  Well, that's not entirely true--I've "written" several blog posts.  In my head.  To which people do not have consistent internet access. This is a bit of a problem.  So now I have a whole backlog of potential and half-composed posts queued up in my brain awaiting freedom.  The problem is that unless I sit down and start writing shortly after something interesting happens, that something rarely makes it to the page.  First I don't want to try typing it up on my phone because while it's great for texting and FB mobile, it's honestly kind of a pain to do long posts on it.  Then I get distracted by other things, not the least of which is spending a crap-ton of time on FB because the majority of my friends are apparently trapped in a 27" iMac.

"WMD" sounds like it ought to be a birth control device.  I'm just sayin'.

Excuse after excuse piles up until the next thing I know, it's nearly 6 months later and I still haven't eulogized my mother.  Or I still have pictures and a catchy tagline for my daughter's birthday post all lined up and going nowhere, even though her birthday was over four months ago.  Or it's almost a year later and I still haven't written about the blog awards I received.  Or I get stuck in a holding pattern because I am just obsessive enough that in my mind, I have to do things in the order in which they occurred to me, so it makes no logical sense for me to write about the dude with the zipper earrings I saw last week when I haven't even done those other things yet.  I know, I know--get a life.  (Working on that.)

So here I am, with a whole stack of incomplete posts that I now have to find a way to commit to writing out, knowing full-well that they will likely never turn out as awesomely as if I'd written them when they first occurred to me.  The zippy phrases and wild metaphors will have slipped away and I'll be left with inane crap like:  "I saw this dude.  At a restaurant.  With zippers.  Weird." instead of what I pretend would have been far more witty and mellifluous in scope.  But such is life, I suppose.

If the Avengers say so, it must be true.

My hope is to spend this month both catching up on all those "lost" posts (like "Lost Boys" but less filling) before they reach their sell-by date, as well as creating new ones and generally being just as frivolous as I usually am.  As a result, I've re-committed to blogging every day and will be cross-posting at Blogher (not that this is particularly meaningful, considering I've now signed up for daily blogging for three months running and have failed miserably thus far) and on Ginger Doodle's Facebook page.  So feel free to stop by and poke me if it's 11 pm EST and I still haven't thrown up a post.  Or make requests for things you'd like me to consider writing, though I make no promises.  And don't ask me to write about politics, because I won't.  People get pissed off enough about politics without my equal-opportunity lampooning involved.  So just don't.  (Besides, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert do it about 1,000 times better than I ever could anyway.)  I'll just stick to my random and quirky observations about life if it's all the same to you.

Speaking of random and quirky, have some "yellow curved fruit."   You're welcome.

Time to disembark the Procrastination Express.  See you all again soon.  Or not.  (Start a pool.)

An Open Letter to Always

Dear Always:

I have been a loyal customer of your feminine hygiene products for probably close to thirty years now, ever since I switched from a competitor's products in my late teens/early twenties so I could experience the joy of winged flight--or at least winged protection.

I even stuck beside you when you introduced the wildly ill-advised "Have a Happy Period" campaign because, let's face it, NO woman has a "happy" period.  We have periods laden with unpleasantness, whether from bloating till we puff up like Violet Beauregard in the Willy Wonka movies and can no longer fasten our pants or from becoming dangerously homicidal in our pursuit of the Holy Grail of menstruation:  chocolate.

"Communists in the funhouse" is now the code phrase de rigeur among my women friends.

We do not find aching backs and saddle areas "happy," and I think I can safely speak for the majority of my sisters when I say that neither do we consider having cramps which squeeze our collective uteri like someone trying to stuff an elephant in a meat grinder even remotely contenting, much less "happy."  Nor do we wish to strip off bits of paper with some random corporate exhortation to happiness every time we need to deploy the wings on yet another sanitary device.  If you want to give us fortune pads, try emblazoning them with more useful comments like "Your kid has a chocolate bar hidden in his desk" or "Hormones are not for Homicide" or "Be happy these aren't Poise pads" or "Put down the knife." 

Admit it, Always--that ad campaign was created by a bunch of men who think they have the first clue about what it's like to be a woman or to have a period.  Because no woman would ever be so foolish as to implement such ridiculous marketing as "Have a happy period."  We would be more likely to support a "Don't Get Arrested This Month" campaign.  And let's face it--the only woman ever likely to have a "happy" period is the one who trembled in terror that she might have accidentally gotten knocked up.  That woman will be "happy" to have her period--for maybe two hours, by which point the cramps will have kicked in and she will once again want to stab someone with a sharp stick for getting between her and the chocolate.

You want us to "have a happy period"?  Start selling these.  It'll be just like getting the prize from a cereal box.

Still, in spite of the "happy period" debacle, I remained loyal.  I kept using your products, even though I had to roll my eyes every month when I was again subjected to the asininity of your sentiment.  Eventually you desisted and instead began decorating your sticker tape with ribbons and your infinity logo.  This seemed appropriate to me because after some 35 years of this menstrosity, "infinity" seems exactly how long I may be consigned to continue it.

So aside from this one gross error in judgment, I have never had any real problem with your products.  Until recently, that is.  My problem currently is that in tweaking your products to maximize their performance, you have actually made them too effective.   Oh, sure, they still leak on occasion because unless you make the wings two feet long and out of Saran Wrap, Mother Nature is still gonna sneak in a few laughs at our expense.

No, what I am referring to now are the "improvements" you have made to your adhesives.  Admittedly, in the past I often became frustrated with pads which would not remain securely fastened to my undergarments, and for obvious reasons.  Now I have the opposite problem--I can't get the damn things off!

The last thing I want to do every two hours is spend an additional fifteen minutes sitting on the throne and attempting to detach my sanitary pads.  If I'm lucky, your products will come loose after only a slight struggle--in which the adhesive stretches to the breaking point like a Command Strip being removed from a wall--that leaves sticky residue and tape soldered to my underpants and requiring industrial solvents to remove.  And God forbid I attempt to place a new pad without first removing the remnants of the old (a process which can take anywhere from 10 minutes to three hours, depending upon the strength of the adhesion and the length of one's fingernails) because if I don't, then the next time I attempt to rip off a soiled pad half the backing will remain behind, causing a storm of little bits of pink and red cotton to erupt from my drawers like candy from the world's most macabre piñata.

This piñata is one rainbow you do NOT want to taste.

As if that weren't terrifying enough by itself, now imagine the pain involved when one of  your customers receives an unintentional waxing because she has just had the misfortune to get some hair caught in the epoxy you appear to be using to keep your pads in place.  Trapped, she can do nothing but await that excruciating moment when everything shifts and the hair is freed forcibly from her fragile follicles, hoping all the while that she can keep the shrieking to a minimum.  On the plus side, you could perhaps find a new niche in marketing your products for a DIY Brazilian.

While I'm all for progress, I would appreciate it if you would consider dialing back your enthusiasm for NASA-grade adhesives to "moderately functional" tapes so that I can avoid future deforestation and/or piñata panties.  If you do, I will love you.  Always.

Seriously.

Stickily yours,
Ginger