Gasoline and Matches

My heart broke last week when I heard about the elementary school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. My daughter is the most precious thing in the world to me, and I can't imagine what it must have been like for these parents to send their babies off to school on a morning like any other, to only have them not come home again. I cry when I think about it. I cried again on Monday, when I dropped the baby off at her school and got a letter explaining the security protocol in the wake of the tragedy.

"We keep the doors locked."

This morning, when the baby and I were leaving the condo on the way to school and work respectively, a guy got in to the elevator, holding at least three guns, and several duffel bags. I can only imagine what was in the bags -- ammo, more guns? Instinctively, I pulled the stroller closer to me, away from the guns. What would have happened if this guy was angry, violent, unstable? We would have had no defense.

We live in a world where merely riding in an elevator puts my daughter at risk. How are such things even fathomable? And, perhaps more importantly, how are such things preventable?

Whatever it is that we're doing isn't working.  But what, exactly is it that we're doing? The conservatives/Republicans/pro-gun-advocates and the liberals/Democrats/anti-gun-advocates are busy calling each other names, lying to the people, ignoring the facts, ignoring reality. No one is talking about compromise or trying to find solutions that can and will work in real life.

The NRA just held a press conference where they said all sorts of ridiculous things. That the Newtown tragedy was the result of violent video games, and that guns are not to blame. That what this country really needs is a database tracking the mentally ill -- not, for argument's sake, a database tracking gun owners.  There should be armed police officers in every school. That the cure for gun violence is more gun ownership and less regulation. I could go on, but it makes me ill to think about it.

And, almost simultaneously, there was another mass shooting taking place, this time in Pennsylvania.

Almost everything said in the NRA press conference makes my head spin because it defies logic and reason -- and statistics. There is no statistical link between violent video games and gun violence. (Note: there is, however, a link between violent video games and being desensitized to violence.) Countries with stronger gun regulations have less gun violence. More guns means more gun violence. And, compared with other developed countries, the United States is particularly violent.

"Violence begets violence." --  Martin Luther King, Jr.

To be fair, I am not a particularly strong advocate for guns. Back in the days when I used to write with more regularity, I wrote about how, a billion years ago, in my last semester of law school, I worked as an intern in the office of the public defender. When I was working there, defending my clients against various misdemeanor charges, many of my friends were interning on the other side, in the State Attorney's office, and several of them thought that I needed to get a gun, or at least learn how to fire a gun, for my own safety. But I resisted. I was scared of guns in general, and wary that just by my having a gun, I would be able to protect myself. At 5'2" (in shoes) and (at that point in time) 115 lbs (soaking wet), if someone wanted to overpower me, they probably could, gun or no gun. In my mind, rightly or wrongly, the consequences of letting them get my gun were worse than my not having one at all. (Note: according to the statistics, I was probably right.)

I also wonder about the mix of guns with violence and instability, the sort of things that people don't talk about in public. But I know about that too. I have siblings, and one of my siblings had a difficult adolescence. That sibling was angry and unhappy, and often threatened violence. It was in the days before Columbine; in the days before such things were even thinkable. But there it was: many times, my sibling threatened to stab me in my sleep, threatened our parents the same way, threatened to hurt others, threatened self-harm. We all came out of it okay, thanks to therapy and the fact that adolescence does, eventually, end, and whatever it is or was seemingly became more manageable in adulthood. But when I think about it -- which I try not to -- I am glad that my parents didn't keep weapons in the house. In a rage, a gun would have made it too easy for something awful to happen. Instability, mental illness, violence -- they might be gasoline, but a gun is the lit match.

So, we're back to the guns and the violence, and whether there is anything we can do about it.

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." -- Wayne LaPierre, the chief executive of the National Rifle Association, Dec. 21, 2012.

I heard him say that during the press conference and I chuckled. It may be true, but you know what?  It's much easier for the good guy to stop the bad guy if said bad guy doesn't have a gun in the first place. The statistics maintain that keeping the bad guy from getting the gun is likely to stop the fiasco before it starts: "Making crime even a little bit harder made it much, much rarer."

Given the opportunity, I would want guns to disappear from the earth, or at least the country. But that's wishful thinking: guns are legal, abundant, and, as my husband said to me, "You can't put the genie back in the bottle."

That's not to say that I think all guns and gun owners are bad. For example, I don't necessarily agree with hunting for sport, but I know avid hunters, and, with the laws as they are, I have no problem with them having guns. The hunters I know are responsible gun owners. They bought their guns legally, they know how to use them, and they keep them safely locked.

Responsible gun owners know that the "right to bear arms" is not absolute:

 "Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."  -- District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008).

(Note: I don't necessarily agree with the majority in Heller; I tend to think that Scalia's interpretation of the Second Amendment's language and meaning is a little tortured. But it is the law of the land, and it at least represents an acknowledgment from our most Conservative Supreme Court justice that the government can, in the right circumstances, enact reasonable limits to gun ownership.)  Responsible gun owners realize that, with any right comes responsibility: they are not the ones buying crazy insane assault weapons, high capacity magazines, and bullets designed to tear through body armor. They are not the problem.

But what about the Newtown shooter? His mom acquired the guns legally, and shot them as a hobby. But was she a responsible gun owner? In my view -- based on the "facts" as we've learned them -- no. Forget the number or type of weapons, or the size of the magazine. She taught an ostensibly mentally unstable kid how to shoot, and did not secure her weapons from him, or at least didn't secure them well enough. She dropped the lit match on the gasoline.

And for other recent mass shootings? All of them, legal. The gunman in Oregon borrowed his weapon, which was legally purchased. The Colorado theater shooter stockpiled his guns and ammo legally. The Virginia Tech shooter got his gun from an online dealer.

This country is between a rock and a hard place. We have a society where mental health issues are stigmatized and often left untreated. We have lax gun control laws because the Second Amendment allows for gun ownership, subject only to undefined (and largely un-enacted) "reasonable" limitations. We have a weapons market that permits guns to be obtained legally obtained and used in increasingly horrific, violent crimes.

We can't ban 'em, and we can't control 'em. Gasoline and match.

The passage of time

Today is my mom's birthday. Or today was my mom's birthday. Or today would have been my mom's birthday. Four-and-a-half years later, and I still don't know what tense to use.

In some ways, it's easier: it's a quiet undercurrent instead of the focus point of everything. With the passage of time, I no longer feel so utterly without mooring. But every once in a while, the loss hits home in new, unexpected ways. Like when I think about how my mother never got to meet her two amazing grandbabies, to see what an amazing mother my sister has become, or to look into my daughter's eyes that are so much like hers. She'd have loved it all, every second of it.

Something New

For the Scriptic "something new" quick challenge, instead of writing, I went out of my comfort zone and tried something new: black and white photography. The actual "something new" is the baby swing that my husband put together while I was at work today, for our little someone new, whenever she gets here.

Missing my mom

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a picture of my mom, holding me, when I was one day old:

I miss her. Especially today.  And especially now that I'm going to have a baby of my own.

My mom, the anniversary, and the Super Bowl

This week is always hard for me: the anniversary of my mom's death. It's hard to believe it's been four years.

This year is unusually strange because, right before my mom died, the Giants played the Patriots in the Super Bowl. In fact, the last conversations Mom and I had were, in part, about the chili my dad made for the Super Bowl party and how happy he was was with the outcome.

I've been a Giants fan my entire life (Thanks, Dad), but I'm not sure I can bring myself to watch the game tomorrow.

New Blog, Old Blog

I know, I know. I'm a crappy blogger. I only posted 18 times in 2011, which means I posted, on average, 1.5 times per month. I can't -- or won't -- promise to be better this year, at least not here. I love this blog with all my heart, but I've been cheating on it with a newer blog. But I have a good reason. Really.

You see, we're having a baby. And, as we're wont to do, we decided to start writing about it at The OliRue Baby Blog. If you miss me, or even if you're just curious, you should probably check the new site out.

On occasion, I will still update here with non-pregnancy and non-baby related items. And then, there's always Tumblr, where I share random nonsense from the internet, perhaps more frequently than is called for.

On how we met

Everyone keeps asking me how I met my husband. It's a tough question, because I don't actually remember meeting him.

We met in middle school, when I first moved from New Jersey to Florida at the beginning of the 8th grade. I mostly remember him from the bus, when he was sitting next to the boy who set my friend's hair on fire. On that same bus, later in the school year, he taught me the ingredients in a screwdriver.

I also remember him from classes -- mostly English classes -- both in middle school and high school. In 9th grade gifted English, he sat in front of me and had long hair that he would flip onto my desk. I had a brief crush on him -- but my crushes were always transitory, fleeting things.

We were always friends: we traveled in somewhat different circles, and we weren't particularly close friends, but I can honestly say that we always liked each other. (In retrospect, it's a little puzzling to both of us that we weren't closer friends when we were younger.) And then we left school and went in completely different directions, but somehow, 23 years later, we wound up here, together -- and now, married.

It's a pretty remarkable story, even if I can't remember the very beginning.

Eloping

When we first started talking about getting married, I said that I loved the idea of being married to him, but I just I didn't have it in me to do a wedding: I have enough stress with work that I didn't want to plan anything, especially anything major. Plus, the families are all over the place, and that's a pain to deal with.

So we would elope.

The next question was where. Vegas is cliche. Going down the street to the local courthouse seemed so boring. On a beach somewhere warm and tropical? Yes, please.

Then it became a question of when -- and the answer was that we didn't want to rush into it. But then, the perfect scenario presented itself: I had an upcoming work trip to the Caribbean, and he could take off a few days to go with me. Hmmm . . . .

We read the requirements for getting married down there. It seemed easy enough. We rushed around to fill out and send out forms and certified checks, to find an officiant, to get a dress and a suit and rings. And then the preparing was over.

We flew down to the islands. We picked up our license the next morning, and then I went to work. The next morning, Saturday, the officiant came to the hotel, picked us up, drove us to a beach, married us in between rain showers, took some photos, and drove us back to the hotel. He sent our paperwork back to the courthouse for certification.

I spent the rest of the weekend divided between work and touristy pursuits. On Monday, a full day of work.

Tuesday, we picked up the certified copy of our marriage license, and caught a plane back home. And here we are. Married.

I wish everything could be this easy.

Halloween

In February, when my boyfriend moved here, he found a federal government job almost immediately. They pretty much offered it to him instantaneously, with a catch: it was going to take some time for them to be able to get all of the paperwork done and have him start. Well, we know how this goes -- government budget issues, threats of shutdown, yadda yadda yadda. So, in the meantime, while waiting for the government to get its act together, he found a job with a moving company -- at the beginning he mostly worked as a mover, but now, most of the time, he schedules and supervises the movers. His job sucks, mostly because he generally works 12 hour shifts starting at 7 am.

This morning, on his way out the door, he told me he hoped that he would be home early tonight. I said, "Of course. Who moves on Halloween evening?"

In all seriousness, he said, that they have one job this evening. A guy named Vlad.

This can only end poorly.

A Portrait of Domestic Tranquility

Usually, my boyfriend has to get up very early for work. This morning, he did not have to be in until 10, so he made me very cute eggs and peppers for breakfast. He is very good at sneaking vegetables into my diet.

Right before I left, I told him that one of the things I loved most about him was that I am confident that, in the event of a zombie invasion or apocalypse, he will protect me and our theoretical future children. He then started planning our theoretical future weapons cache.

This is why he is my boyfriend.

Remembering

Today would have been my mother's 65th birthday.

Happy birthday, mom. I miss you.

Spiraling Towards Chaos

I've been reading a ton of stuff about Occupy Wall Street and We Are the 99 Percent. You should too.

As it stands, I have no room to complain. I have a steady job with a salary that, allegedly, puts me in the top 10% of all American wage earners -- although, to be completely fair, my salary is probably in the bottom 25% of people with my educational background who have been working for as long as I have. I have health insurance. After years and years, I finally paid off my student loans in January, and I have no other major debt.

I am finally financially stable enough that I bought a condo, and now, just before my 36th birthday, am thinking about having kids.

But here's the rub: I have a mortgage that, if I were to be out of work for longer than a month or two, I could no longer afford. And with the government on the verge on a shutdown -- again -- this is becoming is a real possibility to me.

The middle class is something of an illusion. Unless you are really rich, you are just a few paychecks away from utter chaos.

But it's bigger than that: how are we supposed to function with our livelihoods, our government, our nation in such disarray?

Adventures in Carsharing

After much debate, I sold my car. I had been thinking about it for a few years, as I barely drive, but it was somehow reassuring to own a car, just in case. Plus my car -- my shiny blue Volkswagen -- seemed to be a part of my identity. So I kept the car -- for ten years (and only 47,000 miles).

When boyfriend moved in, we found ourselves with a new problem -- two cars and only one parking space. It became a constant cycle of searching for -- and paying for -- parking. Saturday mornings were the worst, since neither of us had to get up for work, but one of us had to get up by 8 to feed the meter, and you know, sometimes you just want to sleep in.

Last weekend, I finally wound up selling my car to a friend of mine who had recently bought a place just beyond the beltway. So this week, I embarked on a new, car-free era. I will walk, take metro, and ride buses. Perhaps I will take cabs in case of emergency. And, to some extent, I can use boyfriend's car -- on mornings when he works and I don't (Sundays and the occasional holiday) if I need the car, I can get up early and drive him to work.

There's also car sharing. Zipcar is in abundance in my neighborhood -- pretty much every street corner has at least one of the orange signs indicating that a zipcar lives there.

Today was my first zipcar experience. When I enrolled, I got a credit that expires at the end of the month, and so, I decided to rent a car as "practice," so that when I really need the car, I won't have to figure out the process -- or worse, figure out that some part of the process doesn't work right. And so, this afternoon, I brought lunch to my boyfriend at work.

The car-sharing process was the easiest thing. (1) Apply for zipcar membership (which took about a week). (2) Reserve car (using internet or iPhone app). (3) Walk to the car (when you reserve, you are told which car and where it is parked). (4) Use your zipcard (or iPhone app) to open the car. (5) Drive. (6) Return car. They even sent me a text message 30 minutes before my reservation ended to remind me to bring the car back because someone had a reservation right after me. And if I needed to put gas in the zipcar, it has its own gas card.

The only downside that I experienced was that, when I went to go make my reservation this morning, I found that of the 20-or so cars parked within a six-block radius, only two were available. I wound up reserving a silver Nissan Sentra named Sinbad, parked about three blocks from my house. (Yes, all the zipcars have names. How quaint.) So the lesson learned was to reserve early, or face the possibility that a car will not be available.

So, car-free week one was a success. On to week two . . . .

Six Months Ago . . .

Just before Thanksgiving, I was sitting in the atrium of the National Building Museum having lunch with a friend of mine from high school. We were discussing our plans for the holidays, when I mentioned that I would probably be spending my New Year's Eve with my best friend from high school, having a party at her house, in Pittsburgh. My friend thought it sounded like fun, and started thinking that if he had nothing better to do, he might join us. And then suggested that we invite a third friend, who didn't live too far away from Pittsburgh.

When I told my best friend, she thought it was a great idea, but cautioned that our third friend would probably not be able to join us. I sent him a message anyway.

Ultimately, that friend did join us, and after a long New Year's weekend of drinking -- and subsequent crazy, random happenstance -- he is now the best boyfriend I've ever had. More than that, really -- he's the best boyfriend I could even imagine. And so, every day since then, I am thankful that I decided to go back out to the living room to check on him. And I am equally thankful that he decided that he wanted to kiss me when I held out my margarita glass for him to refill while saying, "I'm an excellent drinker." Mostly, though, I am so exceptionally thankful that he decided to move here and give this crazy thing a shot.

Happy six month anniversary.

Kryptonite

I haven't written anything of substance in weeks. Oh sure, I post the occasional quip on twitter, link on tumblr, picture on pinterest, but nothing of substance since this -- and even that was a half-assed attempt.

Even my notebooks lie fallow.

It's not just because I'm busy. It's because I'm content. And, naturally, contentedness is kryptonite to my writing.

Even last week, when I was all aggravated with United Airlines, I couldn't muster enough frustration to put together an entire blog entry. The most I could come up with was a series of tweets to express my dissatisfaction. How weak.

This must end, and soon.

A Final Gift

When I was at my dad's house in February, I was cleaning through some stuff, just like every other time I've been down there since my mom died. This time, though, it was with a little more urgency, because Dad wants to sell the house. So I spent the week down there packing things into boxes, and deciding which portions of my childhood were to be kept and which portions were to be thrown away.

I threw a lot of stuff away. I mostly kept photo albums and books, a few housewares -- finally, an improvement over my college silverware from Walmart! -- some knick-knacks. I left the stuff I didn't know what to do with -- the collectible dolls, the artwork, the furniture.

I gave my Barbies to my friend's daughters and I brought some Beanie Babies for my nephew and cousins to play with, but I put the rest of the stuffed animals and Cabbage Patch Kids in a green Rubbermaid bin with a note that said "free to good home."

After all that, I went through some files. In the drawer, I found my birth certificate, my parents' ketubah, other various and sundry mementos that my mother held on to. I also found a red box with a pair of tiny, gold, hoop earrings. They were not my mother's taste, or even my Nana's or my sister's. They were clearly mine. In all likelihood, my mother had bought me a present and forgot where she left it. But in that moment, it was as if she knew that one day I would be going through all of the stuff, and wanted to leave me a token of her appreciation, a thank-you for coming in and trying to make order out of her chaos. A final gift.

Pain Meds

I hurt my knee and my hip, basically doing nothing. Maybe it was because I wore the wrong shoes, maybe it was because I tripped while walking, maybe it's because I'm getting old and fat -- but for whatever reason, I've been in pain since Sunday night.

It interfered with my sleeping a bit on Sunday night, but it got worse on Monday. In fact, I was in so much pain when I woke up Tuesday morning that I literally cried. Instead of pouring myself a bowl of cereal or drinking the coffee that my boyfriend was attempting to hand to me, I just sat on the couch crying like a baby. If I weren't in so much pain, I would have smacked myself.

So last night, to avoid a repeat, I took a pain pill. It was the good stuff -- the addictive stuff. Twenty minutes or so after taking it, I was relaxed and mumbly. A few minutes after that, I was asleep. I slept well, deeply. I had the most amazing dreams. I woke up refreshed -- although, admittedly, my knee and hip still hurt when I try to move.

If these pills were available without a prescription, I would probably take them all the time. I can see why they're dangerous.

Things Better Left Unsaid

A few weekends ago, the boyfriend and I spent the weekend visiting his family. For reasons involving late-night pouring rain, a puppy, and his niece, I wound up forgetting my cute little polka-dot umbrella. When I told him about the umbrella, he sweetly volunteered to ask them to send it to me.

I declined.

I should have stopped there. Instead, I explained -- which is a rookie mistake.

Here is what I said:

"I have another umbrella. Plus, I'll see your family again, and I'll get the umbrella then. Or whatever: if we break up, oh well, it was only an umbrella."

It Could Have Been Different

As one of the editors of IndieInk, I again agreed to participate in the weekly writing challenges. This week, my challenge was from my co-editor James Whitaker, who challenged me to take my pick from the following writing prompts: "unthinkable." "somewhere...out there." "it's never meant to last..." "tomorrow." "they'll never know..." "it could have been different."

The choice was easy for me.

You see, I have an unhealthy fascination with the movie Sliding Doors. Before I understood anything about Schrödinger's cat or parallel universes, I found myself completely fascinated by the concept that one little chance occurrence – whether the movie’s protagonist caught the elevator or the train, or had to wait for the next one – could totally change a life.

As a result, I find myself constantly thinking about how things could have been different. “If only I had caught the earlier train. . . ” “If only I hadn’t accepted the invitation . . .” ”If only I had not gotten in the car. . .” “If only I had made the call. . .” It’s an exhausting way to live, trying to figure out which decision was the one that derailed everything – or worse, trying to augur whether any decision you make is going to be the one that changes your life. And, ultimately, things that seem inconsequential have deeper import; things that seem important turn out to be meaningless in the end.

Case in point: New Year’s Eve. I had spent the entire day (and the day before) catching up with an old friend, which mostly involved drinking and talking, then drinking some more. In the wee morning hours, I found myself getting up off of the couch, taking out my contact lenses, and diving face first into bed. But something held me back, and, as a result, I made the decision to go back out to the living room to check on him.

My entire life changed as a result of that split second decision. And I am completely aware that it could have been different.

Stereotypes and Self-righteousness

As one of the editors of IndieInk, I agreed to participate in one of its weekly writing challenges. This week, my challenge was from Sir: “He/She placed the stereotype on the anvil and began hammering it into something sharp and deadly that could be used to open the minds of the self-righteous.” And, while that’s poetic and all, it doesn’t really fit with this blog or my writing style. But it does lead into the idea of stereotypes and self-righteousness -- and, with that, a story.

When I was in my last semester of law school, I worked as an unpaid intern in the county public defender’s office. (I've mentioned it before, in passing.) I had great, lofty goals about what I would be doing there – the kind of lofty goals that only a 22 year old with no real-world experience could have. Mostly, they were along the line of defending the wrongfully accused, reforming the criminal justice system, abolishing the death penalty, etc., etc. Oh, the naïveté of youth . . .

The internship was jointly supervised between the assistant chief of the office and one of our criminal law professors. We had a classroom session each week, where we learned, essentially, the basics of how to practice law as criminal defense attorneys. And during the week, we were required to work a certain number of hours at the office. In bigger cases, we were required to work under the actual attorneys – and generally, they were busy enough to be thankful for whatever help we could provide. In smaller misdemeanor cases, the clients could agree to let us act as their lead attorneys, with assistance from the supervising attorneys.

Early on in the semester, the professor asked us what kind of cases we were uncomfortable with. My answer, as an upper-middle class sheltered suburban girl was easy: I wanted nothing to do with domestic battery. I didn’t want to envision a world where men hit women, where families were anything less than happy and stable. And, of course, if a fight escalated to the point where an arrest was made, in my mind it was clear that the man must have hit the woman. Accordingly, I, perhaps self-righteously, did not want to defend those men.

Of course my professor saw that as an engraved invitation to assign me to a pretty horrible domestic battery case. And lucky for me, the defendant had agreed to let me be his lead attorney. Worse yet, even though it was a misdemeanor, my client had been sitting in jail for days, because the arrest was a violation of his probation, and if he plead guilty or lost at trial, he was facing mandatory jail time.

My client was a stereotype: a young black offender with a history of violence and drugs. I remember going to the county jail to see him. I was frightened out of my mind. I remember the security, the sound of the doors closing behind me, the fear as I was led to a private interview room where I was to meet with my client – alone, without any of the guards to protect me. When my client was brought to me in shackles, I was scared to death.

I finally relaxed enough to start talking about the case with him – whether he would be interested in a plea deal if it meant that he would have a reduced sentence. But he kept maintaining that he was innocent. I didn’t believe it, not for a second. Not with his violent background. Not with the photo in the case file of his cute little girlfriend with bruises on her face and arms. I firmly believed that his desire to fight the charge was posturing, or a fear of having to do real jail time.

But then I remembered that I was there to do a job. I also remembered, from our classroom sessions, that we needed to examine the facts of the case carefully, avoid responding instinctively and jumping to conclusions, and instead, use our intellect. And so, I started digging through the files, interviewing witnesses, piecing together a defense. First I researched my client's alibi for the night of the attack, but it was a bit shaky.

But then the tide turned: I found out that the alleged victim, my client’s ex-girlfriend, was also the mother of his child, and that she had been pressuring my client to sign away his parental rights to the child. I also found out that the officer that helped her fill out her statement was her new boyfriend. The officer-boyfriend had taken the photo of her injuries, handwritten the affidavit detailing the fight, had her sign it, and one of his co-officers witness it.

After I interviewed her, the prosecutor dropped the charges against my client.

Do I think that the ex-girlfriend was a victim of violence? Unequivocally, yes. After all, it was before digital cameras, and the police report had that horrible, horrible picture in it. On the other hand, do I think that my client was innocent of the charges? I’m still not sure, but I am firmly convinced that the outcome of the case was correct.

If I learned anything from the case, it’s that not everything is what it appears to be. And I am certainly glad that I opened my mind enough to prevent stereotypes, prejudices, self-righteousness and biases from getting in the way of doing my job.