There's always hope...

I have been doing Project Feederwatch for three years now, and I got an email newsletter today about avian conjunctivitis:

Project FeederWatch Electronic Newsletter-October 25, 2006Since mycoplasmal conjunctivitis was first observed in House Finches in1994 the bacterial disease has caused eye infections in several other species of wild birds including American Goldfinches, Purple Finches,Evening Grosbeaks, and Pine Grosbeaks.

The same bacteria is suspected of causing this conjunctivitis in House Sparrows, too.In October 2006, the Lab of Ornithology received information that there may be an emerging epidemic of conjunctivitis in House Sparrows in the Chicago area. In order to determine if an epidemic is beginning in House Sparrows we are asking citizen scientists across the continent to report sightings of House Sparrows with eye infections.

***

Wouldn't that be nice? All the house sparrows just dropping dead? As long as all the native birds are spared, bring on the conjunctivitis.

***

I didn't take any photos today. The weather was just too gray, too crappy, too depressing.

But I found my favorite picture of myself, the picture that makes me

both angry and hopeful, all at once.

Geoff took this outside the Blue Oyster Cult show at Annie's in Cincinnati in 1999, just a few weeks after we started dating. I was 26, full of hope for the future and this guy I had met. I was also full of dismay at a lot of bad, scarring relationships. I wanted so much for Geoff to like me for who I was, not the jaded tart I appeared to be. I used to be a Bum Magnet, finding every guy in a 50 mile radius who didn't deserve me. They were drug users, or abusive, or just plain stupid and unevolved, brow-ridge Neanderthals. I made choices in the name of what I thought was love, to change these guys into the men I thought they could become. I learned, eventually, that I couldn't change someone into something that they were not meant to be. Ever notice how a relationship that turns out bad, doesn't start out that way? It starts out all flowers and rainbows, because if it started they way it ends, we would never hang around.

Sigh...I didn't mean for this to become a therapy session. Sorry.

Anyway, here's my former hotness:

5 foot 6 inches, 130 pounds, 40, 28, 38. And the attitude to go with all of that. Brazen, free (at least outwardly), fun, with lots and lots of moxy.

I have changed, both on the inside and the outside. I may not be a hottie anymore, but my spirit has started to evolve into the person I wanted everyone to see, all those years ago.

Maybe I can re-attain some semblance of hotness. Growing two kids in my body morphed me into a body that doesn't feel like mine, but that old figure is in there, somewhere.

But what's more important? Being the life of the party and fitting into the below outfit (the photo doesn't show it, but the skirt was long, with slits all the way up, and I was wearing "hooker heels"...big mistake, by the way. Had bruises on my soles for days afterward)

or reaching for self-actualization, being a role model for my girls, being a better wife to Geoff, kicking ass and taking names in my life?

There's always hope that I can be and do both.