Your simple job is to identify, by line, each work and the artist.

80’s Teenage Angst

1. Mama, mama, I keep having nightmares.

2. The virginal brides file past his tomb,

3. Just because he didn’t want to learn things.

4. Give the past the slip.

5. Rocky picture has lost his gun.

6. Falling on my head like a memory

7. The face you wore was cool.

8. I read you books and talked for hours.

9. And when I die I expect to find him laughing.

10. It’s no better to be safe than sorry.

11. Sordid details following,

12. It takes a second to say goodbye,

13. The message is perfectly simple

14. as a bodyguard grabbed me.

15. It’s the only way to live.

16. Scheme those schemes,

17. Luring disco dollies to a life of vice.

18. Two eyes staring cold and silent,

19. Don’t just sit there on your ass,

20. Weeping for the memory of a life gone by.

Please identify only one line and the artist per comment. And no cheating by resorting to Google; you’re on your honor.

You could say The Carpool Heretics show is still going on, it’s just not being recorded.

Recently we listened to the audio-book “Escape” by Carolyn Jessop. If it had been a regular copy of the book, I’d have stayed up all night to finish it. As it was, it occasionally caused an additional trip around the block. Carolyn begins her tale with the night of her escape. Even though we knew going in that she already had escaped, we were still gripped with fear for her as she struggled to get her eight children into a car that didn’t have enough gas to get to town and was only able to reach her meeting point with her brothers by coasting the last part of the way.

From there she starts over at the beginning. What it was like to grow up as a 6th generation polygamist. Stories from her grandmother about the 1953 Short Creek raid, mishandled by the government and resulting in a public relations debacle, that reinforced on members of the community the dangers of the outside world and the mistrust of outsiders. Though written before the recent raid in Texas of the YFZ group (a group started by her ex-husband Merrill Jessop) her stories of the Short Creek raid were almost identical.

She describes in detail her unwanted and unhappy marriage. The power battles between the wives and even the children. The deterioration of the FLDS to a bizarre cult (this is her perspective, though she does now agree it was a cult all along it just wasn’t as bad before.)

After thirteen years of bondage and abuse, it was her fear of Warren Jeffs that finally motivated her to flee. She was convinced that Warren Jeffs, the Prophet, was preparing the FLDS for a mass suicide.

It’s a tale like this that starts an internal debate in my head between personal freedoms, which I believe in to an “extreme”, and the desire to protect people from fraud, predators, dogma, pedophiles, etc. In my opinion the government shouldn’t “marry” anyone. I didn’t originally have this opinion, and I forget how it was introduced to me, but it was a sufficient argument to change my mind about the Gay Marriage issue. Governments shouldn’t perform marriages–period–for anyone; they should only acknowledge and record legal contracts such as “civil unions”. Be they male-female, same gender, polygamy, polyandry, or communal units. The key in my perfect imaginary world is that the people entering these unions are all informed consenting adults.

Second, I do believe that everyone should be allowed to believe whatever woo they want to as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. Do you want to practice Hoodoo? Go ahead. Santería? Fine. Celestial Marriage? Enjoy.

The problem and the internal debate is how does a fair and free society insure that people are allowed to become “informed consenting adults” at the same time as protecting everyone’s religious freedom? Carolyn Jessop was of legal age when she was “married”, the ceremony was performed by The Prophet so it wasn’t a legal ceremony. But the social pressure she was under from her family and her religion didn’t give her the ability to say no. The Prophet reveals what God wants and who was she to question God? Who was she to bring humiliation to her family by being willful and disobedient? It took her 13 years to discover and develop the strength to break away.

While I would love to see all children receive a secular-only education and leave the religion in the home I have to acknowledge also that our school system sucks and, for many responsible and irresponsible parents, home schooling an affordable alternative. Plus, since I don’t have children, I’m not really in a position to lecture others in this area.

However, a book like Escape does open up a wealth of talking points regarding Religious Freedom versus Individual Freedom versus Parental Control versus Governmental Control. A book that has you thinking and debating with others or just yourself is definitely worth a recommendation.

Doodle and I have been adventuring.  We got onto a conversation about “eating locally” which lead to prickly pears appearing on the cacti.  This led to Doodle discovering a pancake breakfast/workshop given by Phoenix Permaculture with pancakes made from mesquite flour and syrup made from Prickly Pear juice.  They were a suspicious alfalfa green color covered in a neon pink.  The workshop was at someone’s house.  Everything in the front garden was edible and there were 4 solar cookers working on different things.  Some were drying out Mesquite pods, another had a closed enamel pot that could have contained anything from stew to bread.

Doodle has been doing some experimenting with solar cooking.  So far she’s made cookies.  

Once they covered that pretty much everything on the cactus is edible, except for the spines, we had the courage to go pick our own.  The company Doodle works for has a resort with cactus growing on the grounds.  They don’t use pesticides and don’t mind people picking the cactus fruits.  One afternoon after work we went and picked a… well not a peck because a peck is 8 quarts… but a shoeboxish amount of fruit.

We found a recipe on-line for pies.  The one I chose described pouring in the batter first and then pouring the filling into it, allowing the crust to “magically” surround the pie on cooking.  It did, sorta.  I think it was because I used a tart plate instead of a pie plate which is much bigger.  But it still looked nice.  What I didn’t do was remove the seeds from the fruit.  I was thinking it would be like a berry pie; a little crunchy but still good. 

Prickly Pear seeds are like stones.  Very, very hard unfriendly stones.

I had a tasty but inedible fruit-stone pie.  Which was really disappointing since I spent so much time carefully scooping out the insides and not getting pricked more than a few times in the process.  I nibbled a little bit of the crust – which was way too sweet — so if I do ever make this again I’ll reduce the sugar by half and the seeds by all.

But lately there has been a little writer in the back of my head saying it wants to be heard. So at least once a week, I’m going to let it out.

UPDATE: So aparently the entries from Live Journal didn’t migrage as cleanly as I’d have hoped.  I appear to have lost my embedded YouTube movies and I don’t know if it’s just my work firewall that’s blocking images from photobucket or not.  Plus there’s that lovely &apos everywhere.  Obviously further cleanup is required which may or may not ever happen.

UPDATE 2: I’ve gone through and changed all the &apos and changed people’s names since this is a more visible site than LJ.  I think the inner circle will be able to recogize who I’m talking about.

Ironically I emailed my supervisor the day before I came back from Belgium checking (sorta tongue-in-cheek) if I was still employed because if not, I’d rather continue my vacation in Belgium. Now a little more than a week home and I’m part of a 300 person downsizing.

Coincidentally, I had an interview with [removed] that same day. I had applied with them a month ago, mostly on a whim since we’ve lost several people from our department to them because they pay better, and the day before my vacation I got a call from their technical recruiter. I arranged to call them from Belgium for a phone interview which went well. I’m not employed yet, but I am hopeful since I have Sweargin, my ex-work husband, pulling for me there.

FYI, I don’t have a cell phone anymore, so only call my home number. I’m not the sort that’s ever going to buy their own cell phone if they can get one free from work.