If You Belonged Here

Contemplating My Philtrum

Seriously. I've been really busy writing my novel. Really busy. And I was trying to figure out a way to describe a face that sounded cute or something so of course I had to talk about that little cleft about the mouth and below the nose, you know, the one right in the middle of the whole shebang.

That's a philtrum.

Sounds dirty but not sexy-dirty just gross-dirty so the word doesn't exactly lend itself to enticing descriptions. I hate describing faces. I always just want to tell the reader to picture Matt Damon or a young Marlon Brando. I mean, describing faces always feels like such a waste of time. It's not like the person reading the description is a police sketch artist.

I just had a wonderful idea. I'm going to describe Bookgirl, Diosa, and The Dol. Let's see if we're still friends when it's over.

Bookgirl
A study in brown: glossy brown curls that she never even tries to tame, chocolate brown eyes, and skin that bronzes in the slightest hint of sun. Her eyes are too-wide circles set over a small round nose and she has a Cupie doll mouth that never leaves the house without lipstick, even though she can't be bothered with blush or mascara. Her cheeks and lashes don't need the help anyway.

Diosa
One curve on top of another. She's five foot ten inches of woman packed into a five foot four inch package. Her medium brown hair is just long enough to be feminine, just short enough not to be in her way. The widow's peak at the center of her forehead emphasizes her heart-shaped face. She's got big blue eyes that look far more innocent than her smile, which is just a touch wicked and a little too knowing.

The Dol
A decided redhead. Her sleek angled bob belies her naturally wild curls. She's like a wolverine, small and cute from a distance but don't think of messing with her. She's got pale Irish skin and if you look close you can see just the hint of the ghost of freckles past, but only a hint. She looks like a ascetic saint until she smiles and then she's the sister you always wished you had.

I seriously don't see how that really gives anyone any idea of what they look like. Let's go more like this:

Bookgirl
A grown up Shirley Temple with brown hair and brown eyes. But don't let the dimples fool you.

Diosa
Marilyn Monroe from the neck down and a brunette Swiss Miss from the neck up.

The Dol
Kind of a really petite, serious-faced Nicole Kidman with a dark auburn angled bob.

Anyway, Alice has been giving me the "ah-hem," and I take that to mean she wants me to post something. Although I sent her the first hundred or so pages of my book and you'd think that would keep her busy. Apparently not.

And I've been thinking about all the people I'm going to have to acknowledge someday when the time comes and I get a million dollar book deal and Obama remembers that he wanted to make my birthday a national holiday (it's soon, people, in case you forget, which of course you didn't). Anyway. I'm thinking that I'm going to forget to acknowledge people and so I'm going to start making a list but I'll tell you right now, you might not be on it, people, even if you should be because seriously--as The Dol recently indirectly pointed out--I've been drinking diet coke from aluminum cans for decades now and that stuff catches up with a body.

Also, I was pregnant before and as anyone whose ever been pregnant will tell you, you never really get quite right again.

It's a wonder I have any friends at all.

Scared Skirtless

I went to a school board meeting in The Dol's town last night. It was kind of drive, like over an hour, which I mention because I want full friendship point credit. I sort of even got there on time. I mean, I was totally on time but there was no parking for like a five-minute walking-distance radius around the school. I had no idea that so many people actually went to school board meetings.

This was standing room only, can barely press in through the door, thank Hank The Dol and Baby Doc saved me a seat, if only I could see them. I have never been more glad that The Dol is a decided redhead (as in one day, she decided to be a redhead) because it makes her a lot easier to spot in a crowd.

The gist is that the school board is revisiting every statute that ever got put on the books to make sure it's current and up to date. There were two such statutes on the docket for the evening. I'm not sure what the one about head lice was about exactly, but it was surprisingly uncontroversial and PETA didn't even bother to show up, so I guess the head lice had it coming to them.

Whatever.

But the one about informing parents when their children leave the school for confidential medical services--mental health visits, out-patient drug and alcohol treatment programs, doctor appointments--this one got peoples' knickers in a real twist. The idea is that the more conservative parents didn't want to change even one word of the prohibition, and absolutely expected to be informed if their kids left the school. Although, at my high school that would never happen--the kids might not be able to get permission from the school to leave but noone was calling home if they took it upon themselves to not show up. We called it bunking. Some people call it skipping. I can tell you from experience that it is possible to do this as many as 22 times in a semester without anyone calling home.

The more liberal among us thought those were exactly the kind of parents who blindly send their "good" kids off to prom pregnant to have babies in the girl's bathroom and chuck them in a trash can. Because, yeah, some kids would rather give birth in a prom dress than admit to their parents that they are pregnant.

You know where I stand on kids who get pregnant because it is better to be careless than to plan to be bad. But the thing is that most kids tell their parents when they need medical services. I really hope that Secret Lulu will tell me, you know, so I can provide moral support, transportation, and any necessary co-pay. At least I like to think that. But if  Secret Lulu really didn't want to tell me about needing medical services, I'd much rather she get them without my knowledge than forego said services.

I think a teenager who thinks it would be the end of the world if they told their parents they might be pregnant, an alcoholic, or suicidal isn't particularly likely to tell their parents just because they can't get out of school for a doctor's appointment. I think they'll just skip school, skip the appointment, or google a home-remedy for pregnancy or order antidepressants from a doctor in Florida. Given my druthers, I'd rather that at least the school nurse know where to find them in case of an emergency.

Of course, the school board voted to protect parent's rights. That's what they call it: parent's rights. But what about the kids? What about making confidential medical services available on campus? I swear my high school had such a program. I mean, for sure, it has been decided, that kids absolutely have the right to confidential medical services. For sure, some kids only prefer that the services are confidential, some kids don't care what their parents know, and some kids would be in an unholy world of hurt if their parents found out. I mean, seriously, am I the only person that realizes that "parent" and "nurturing, responsible, safe adult" aren't synonymous?

But the feeling I got from the conservative parents isn't that they were protecting their children's safety so much as they wanted the chance to yell at their kids if they did something naughty, that they wanted the opportunity to interfere with the child's right to confidential medical services, which is all the more reason in my opinion, for the schools to allow kids to leave to get birth control because, seriously, some of these parents really seemed to prefer their kid get pregnant or diseased (they called it facing consequences) than plan to have sex and take precautions against such consequences.

On one hand, I don't expect my kid to ever need to have her privacy protected from me; on the other, if she thought she did, the last people I would hold responsible would be the administrators at the school. If Secret Lulu couldn't come to me, if she could be nine months pregnant or strung out on meth without me noticing, then I would be feeling like a pretty poor excuse for a parent. I think that's what these parents who are against giving teenagers access to confidential medical services are afraid of; they aren't so much trying to protect their kids as they're trying to protect themselves. They want to believe that all kids would prefer not to talk to their parents about serious issues than admit that there might be something broken at home.