FB messenger meme

 I got this FB messenger meme. Not sure if I agree with it. And why doesn't it mention the president's salary?

Please read 28th amendment

Please Read, and forward.   This will only take 1 minute to read!
 28th Amendment, 35 States and Counting.

It will take you less than a minute to read this. If you agree, please pass it on. It's an idea whose time has come to deal with this self-serving situation:

 OUR PRESENT SITUATION !

Children of Congress members do not have to pay back their college student loans.

Staffers of Congress family members are also exempt from having to pay back student loans.

Members of Congress can retire at full pay after only one term.

Members of Congress have exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed, under which ordinary citizens must live.
 For example, they are exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment.

And as the latest example, they have exempted themselves from Healthcare Reform, in all of its aspects.

We must not tolerate an elite class of such people, elected as public servants and then putting themselves above the law.

I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent, or whatever. The self-serving must stop.

Governors of 35 states have filed suit against the Federal Government for imposing unlawful burdens upon their states.It only takes 38 (of the 50) States to convene a Constitutional Convention.

If each person that receives this will forward it on to 20 people, in three days most people in The United States of America will have the message.

Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution:

"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the Citizens of the United States ..."

This is an idea that should be passed around, regardless of political party.

Congressional Reform Act of 2017

1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're out of office. And, no more perks go with them.

2. Congress (past, present, & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress must purchase their own retirement plan, just as ALL Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people (i.e. NO MORE INSIDER TRADING!!!).

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women. Congress made all these contracts by and for themselves.

Serving in Congress is an honor and privledge NOT a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators should serve their term(s), then go home and go back to work … not get all kinds of freebies.

Just hold your finger down then hit forward and send it to everyone you know.  Let’s help get the country straightened out.

Suspected side effects of CBD oil

I took CBD oil in July of 2018 for neuropathy caused by an anticancer medication

The first thing I noticed was that my thumb started triggering again. I had that treated with a cortisone injection two months earlier, which had worked. Then the triggering stopped again after I stopped taking the CBD oil

The second thing I noticed was some strange little bumps on the soft skin right where my inner thighs join my crotch. Again, these bumps, not itchy btw, but sort of hard, disappeared when I stopped the CBD oil

I'm not sure if the CBD helped with the neuropathy, because I also reduced the dose of my cancer med at that point, which also reduced the neuropathy. And I restarted my B12, which my neurologist recommends for neuropathy

My neuropathy wasn't super painful, more tingly

Fortunately, my oncologist put me on a new cancer med that doesn't cause neuropathy

I still have some residual neuropathy from my chemo in 2014, and from some spinal stenosis, but it's minor compared to what I was experiencing this summer on the prior cancer drug

So I don't 100% know that these side effects (thumb triggering and skin bumps) were caused by the CBD, but I strongly suspect so

Also, I spoke with a guy who sells CBD and he told me I was taking too much, so I took less

The high concentration stuff is pricey. Fortunately, I found one that was only flavored with peppermint oil. Some of them have sweeteners and fruit flavorings. The stuff doesn't taste that bad tho

There's another type of cannabis derivative called terpenes. This guy who sold the stuff said the terpenes were important. The stuff I bought didn't have them, though. That might have been part of the issue. But, fortunately, the neuropathy got better from stopping that one drug anyway.

Also, I visited a new yoga class that gave me some ideas for postures that would help, which has alleviated some of the spinal stenosis issues

Advice to young female college student

1. Never be alone in a dorm room or other bedroom with a man unless you're planning you have sex with him
2. Go to your professor or teaching assistant if you don't understand the class material. Don't be embarrassed. It's better to ask a stupid question than to do a stupid thing. It's a lot easier to understand topics explained one on one, than in a classroom or textbook. Don't be afraid to come in frequently. Demand to understand.
3. If you find yourself falling asleep in class, demand that the carbon dioxide levels in the classroom be checked.
4. You are no better and no worse than anyone else. You are not terminally unique. Just because a topic scared you in k-12 doesn't mean you won't be able to do it now.
5. People who pressure you to: drink, use drugs, have sex, drive dangerously, or do any other risky behaviour are not your friends. Find other friends.
6. It's usually better to get assignments in on time, even if they're not perfect, rather than turn them in late. It's certainly better to turn in an imperfect assignment than none at all. If you need an extension communicate with your professor promptly. Get help early. Don't wait until the last minute.
7. If you have writer's block, try speaking your essay into your computer or phone and then type or use voice recognition to convert to text.
8. If you feel very unhappy, look for the counseling services in your college. If you get a counselor, as I did, who seems really off base and not addressing your issues. Tell them they're off base. Request another counselor.
9. Learn about oxytocin and its effect on the body. Try not to get biochemically bonded to a man who doesn't love you. You won't get over it. It's permanent.
10. Learn about contraception.
11. If your roommate is really making you insane, they can usually find someplace else for you.
12. If you have a lot of AP credits, as I did, make sure you understand master's degree options at your college. You may be able to get both a bachelor's and a master's for the price of a bachelor's.
13. Think about the secret thing or things that you most like to do that you haven't ever told anyone about. Think about whether those could be related to a career. Ask a career counselor. It's better to be in something you love, even if it pays less
14. Get enough sleep, even if it means taking naps.
15. Eat three square meals a day.
16. Sugar is an addictive drug. It's not your friend.
17. Sororities can be a great source of lifelong friendships, but be sure to choose one that builds your moral character.
18. Look for the eyes that love you. Spending too much time listening to your critics will get you down. If someone criticizes you, say "Thank you. I'll think about what you said." You can be polite. You don't have to do what they want. You don't have to allow their criticism to affect your self esteem.
19. Authority figures are not your parents. They're fellow adults. Try not to project issues from your family of origin onto strangers.
20. I found that the lies I told myself were the worst ones, especially unrealistic expectations of myself.
21. Get enough exercise. That's usually not a problem, but if there's a shuttle on campus, you might consider walking instead if you have time.
22. Fasten your seat belt
23. Don't get into a car with a young, inexperienced driver and other young people. Inexperienced drivers cannot deal with the distraction of unrelated passengers. An accident is almost guaranteed if there's more than one.

Originally written in answer to a question on Quora 

1 View · Answer requested by 

Meme about immigration

 This is copied from a friend's FB post

“Trump’s obsession with wall-building and zero-tolerance has led Americans to this grim political spectacle. His personal cruelty and political ignorance have created a crisis that will kill conservative immigration reform and lead to future Democratic majorities. More troubling is the harsh reality now staring Americans in the face: Their president is a brutish political boss who has cheapened conservatism, sullied the office of the presidency and called into question the very character of a country once seen as the envy of the world. That so many Republicans still support this depraved man and his malignant movement could be the most damning element of this tragic American tale.”   — Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, now hosts the MSNBC show “Morning Joe."

Commentary copied from a FB post

I didn't write this. I copied it from a friend's FB post

In January 2016, Trump announced that he skipped a debate to raise funds for veterans.  Then, instead of contributing the funds so raised to veterans' causes, he put the money into his own foundation.  Trump then used the foundation to fund his own campaign and to buy things he wanted for himself.  So that's campaign fraud, tax fraud and diverting funds that folks contributed for veterans.  Now many of these veterans and their families have been supporting Trump, and they've been shamelessly used.  I wonder if they'll notice.  In other news, Trump is denying that Manafort ran his campaign.  Manafort did so for 141 days.  Trump said he was barely associated with the campaign for 49 days.  But there's more: the DOJ's Inspector General delivered a report that states that Comey and the FBI were so worried about pressure from the GOP that they trashed Hillary even though they were correct in not recommending that DOJ charge her for using a private email server.  Comey apparently felt that since she was going to win anyway, he needed to throw Trump a bone.  In the process, he forgot that he's the cop and that the prosecutors at DOJ are supposed to make that decision. The IG lambasted him for that. Of course, Trump won and Comey's attempt to protect the reputation of the FBI on a freebee failed.  Now Trump is going around trashing the FBI for bowing to pressure from his supporters to harm Hillary's campaign.  In the meantime, other than Nunes and the Freedom Caucus, the GOP leadership recognizes that the Russians and other foreigners were crawling all over the Trump campaign and that the FBI was justified in running a counterintelligence operation on these foreign agents. Actual GOP conservatives (those who believe in a smaller federal government) are either not running for reelection or getting trounced in primaries by the Trumplicans.  The GOP now stands for huge deficits, tax cuts for the wealthy, no health insurance for the poor, middle class and those with pre-existing conditions, trade wars with China and our closest allies, belittling black athletes who are concerned with police brutality aimed at African Americans, and getting tough on immigration, which means ripping babies from the arms of their asylum seeking mothers, who happen to be overwhelmingly Hispanic.  That will leave the GOP with support from some 35% or so of voters.  Not clear to me why that makes sense to them, but then again, right now I have no idea when and how sanity will return to these United States.  Oh, and if you are one of my GOP friends who dislikes my characterization of current events, I'm in no mood to talk to you today or any time soon about anything other than sports.  How about that hat trick by Ronaldo?

About finding your HP in program

A sponsee asked me some questions about finding HP in program. These were some answers I gave.

I personally find HP more easily in nature, particularly in places where there is a nice view.  Though there is this one spot in my kitchen, between my sink and my refrigerator, where I was struck abstinent, that seems to be fruitful.  I also find that going into places, like houses of worship or retreat centers, where lots of people have prayed, but when they are empty, is often good.  I feel like places where lots of people have prayed retain a lot of spiritual energy. Personally quiet appeals to me.  Some people prefer to be there during a service when there is music and verbal ministry.


I saw one exercise that might be helpful.  Take a piece of paper.  Make a vertical table with one box for each decade of your life.  Write in each box the best things that happened to you during each decade -- ignoring the bad things.  Then, after you've filled out all the boxes, imagine all the things you've written down rising out of the paper and swirling together.  Try to imagine that swirling thing as HP.

It takes some practice to sense the intuitions that program asks us to look for.  In most cases, I think this is because I have a natural tendency to suppress myself and feel ashamed of my thoughts and feelings.  I feel that this stems partly from dysfunction in my family of origin and partly from my mild autism spectrum disorder.


Perfectionism here is the enemy, though.  Expecting a perfect relationship with HP is one of those perfectionism things. Lingering on step 2 -- or jumping to step 11 without doing the earlier steps -- is not going to work.


There's a saying I learned in Al-anon "anything that's worth doing is worth doing poorly."

Why don't you smile more?

She was always my vocal ideal -- and, of course, very successful in my childhood. I'm seeing, and indeed remember, that she almost always had a smile on her face.  

On the one hand, I've learned in voice lessons that that facial expression is helpful for internal mouth position for singing, but, on the other hand, I think there's more to it than that.

I was recently watching an interview of Joan Crawford

I notice she's always smiling, too, and she's not singing.

I remember that my ex used to have a book called Saving Ophelia.  I never read much of the book, but I did read the cover several times.  As I gather, the book was about preventing teen suicides in girls.  One of the things that they were concerned about was the insistence that girls always be smiling.  They felt that the requirement to smile when actually you're miserable could be a contributing factor in suicide.

I've noticed a fair number of videos with male performers, where the primary purpose of the females in the video is merely to smile and look pretty, for instance:

This all relates to my earlier post about cancer and the positivity police:

http://annalisse-mayer.blogspot.com/2017/12/cancer-and-positivity-police.html

As I've gotten older, I notice that my mouth has sunk into a natural frown.  When my face is relaxed, the corners of my mouth turn down.  I often get people asking me if I'm ok, when I'm fine.  I'm not doing this on purpose: but I'm also not feeling positive about the necessity to always be smiling.  Constant smiling seems nervous to me, plus it's a source of facial strain.

Lies about the meaning of the colors of the pussy hats

I wish to address this calumny against the Women's March that the color of the pussy caps is racial in nature. The reasoning goes that white women's skin is really pink so that the color of the hat actually represents "white" women. 

This is going to be awkward, because that name for the private parts was not one I had ever used prior to this march last year.  I grew up with a sense of delicacy about naming private parts.  Only medical terminology was allowed in my house growing up: long, Latin & Greek root words. The word "pussy" and other slang terms were not allowed in my home.  Still, given that 4.2 million people were publicly using that word last year I've been forced to add it to my vocabulary.

Now as to responding the calumny.

First off, the color pink was chosen because traditionally pink has represented baby girls while blue has twisted baby boys. It had nothing to do with skin color. 

Second, skin is not normally pink.  Perhaps if one is over heated or sunburned, skin may be pink or red, or there may be pink patches, such as on the knuckles, but normally it's some shade of beige or brown. 

Now I've got the word "white" up there in quotes, because no one's skin is really white, either, unless perhaps they're dead, or very sick. 

I find the whole concept of people being black or white troublesome.  That's how our thinking is: black and white.  Our skins are generally not those colors. 

I'm including a picture of the skin on my abdomen. I'm not actually going to show the private parts, because I don't allow them to be photographed, but the skin down there is the same color.  Also, these parts of my body tend to be pale as they're never in the sun.

I've also got a white handkerchief and a pink bandana next to my skin, so you can see that I'm neither pink not white. The skin is not a consistent color, but it is predominantly beige.  My hands are a bit more colored, because they're out in the sun more.  But that region of my abdomen between the two handkerchiefs is the  relevant color.

The only parts of my nether regions that are truly pink are the mucous membranes, which are unpigmented. 

Now I have not examined the bodies of other women, but wouldn't they be the same? In other words, wouldn't women of other races have unpigmented, pink areas? 

I tried doing a little searching online but found no relevant images.  Medical images of vaginas that I could find were all of white women.  Apparently my browser is protecting me from something.

The idea that somehow the pink colors in these hats relate to the color of the body was obviously invented by someone who was trying to undermine the Women's March. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were Russian trolls. 

Moreover, there's nothing saying someone couldn't wear some other color hat. Indeed, many of them were plum or purple colored. If a person were identifying with brown or black, there's nothing to say they couldn't wear a brown or black had.  Or people could wear some other hat, or no hat at all.

It's sad to me that those seeking to undermine opposition to Trump by fomenting division amongst his opponents can succeed so easily in driving people of color away from the marches. I wish we could all be smarter than that. 

Still, it was white women who voted Trump in, so perhaps other white women are the best people to change their minds, so we still have to go forward with our marches, despite these calumnies about our motivations.

Racism destroys USA

Racism will destroy our country. 

Racists so hate Obama that they want to undo everything associated with him. They don't believe intelligence reports developed under him regarding Russian meddling in our elections. 

Now they're trying to go after the whistle blowers criminally. 

Totalitarianism triumphs so that Republicans can continue to please their billionaire donors. 

The tax law is rammed through with no opportunity for public input to benefit those billionaire donors and hurt blue states. 

The whole Republican party is complicit. The party of Lincoln becomes the party of fascism. 

Sinclair takes over local news. Despite clear monopoly effect, no antitrust enforcement is undertaken. 

Evil wins. 

Only four million people sign Steyer's petition. 

I feel such despair. Racism has destroyed my country. 

Trying to write book 4

A big decision I will have to make in book 4 of the Elves in Detroit series is whether 2 major characters will actually get involved in relationships or not.

In my prior novels, there were always these romantic denouements, where characters got married; but that isn't my personal story. My personal story is that I've never succeeded in getting into a serious relationship since my divorce.

I feel that, in my novels, in some sense, all of the characters could represent me -- though in this series I thought of Laurielle as being my character.  She's an older single female with Asperger's Syndrome.

Still, I'm realizing that I identify with Billy as well.  Billy represents my rage, my bad side, even though he's a black, male child and I'm a senior, white woman. 

Do I want to pretend that somehow these characters who represent me in some fashion can just be married even though I myself don't seem to be able to manage it?

Or, do I want that to be left in suspense, or even precluded?