The biggest, most insidious lie I ever believed and supported - for almost thirty years! - was that the teachers’ union had my best interests at heart and would stand by me. I also believed that our superintendent of schools was an honest, ethical person. Boy, was I ever proven wrong on both counts!

It’s a secret. I can’t tell you. I have someone in mind, but if I say it out loud or put it into print, the entire sentient universe would laugh at me.

It is a sad commentary on our nation that the self-esteem and rights of the bullies are considered more important than the self-esteem and rights of their victims. I hope this family presses charges and accepts no ‘settlements.’ Pin the bullies to the wall. They’ve done it enough times to their victims.

Be thankful he didn’t offer you a ride. Some women never make it past the river.

She told a blatant lie and got caught. If she’d just admit it and apologize for choosing to do it I might have a little respect for her. Not much, but as much as she deserves. As it stands, I have no respect whatsoever for her. Respect must be earned, and she just hasn’t earned any.

Milk is so expensive now; I worry about the health of the many, many children whose families can no longer afford to buy it. The ever-rising price of gas has hit us the hardest, because we live way out in the country, so we just quit going anywhere except to work and back. We did look into going to a movie a week or so ago, but the price of a MATINEE is now the same as the price of the evening showing, so forget that. I can buy the movie a month later for the price of the theater ticket, keep it if I like it and sell it on eBay if I don’t, and sometimes make money on the deal.

I am fiercely protective of my personal space. As a child, I had nothing that was my own, even if I bought it with my own money, and now I probably go too far the other way. I will not patronize a restaurant that consistently seats people right next to each other when there are plenty of empty places farther away. I don’t shop at stores if the employees ask me more than once if I need help. I instantly loathe people who park right next to me when there are empty spaces all around. In a waiting room, etc, nice people do not sit right next to someone else if there is anywhere else to sit. I do not appreciate parents who allow their children to run wild and intrude upon other people in any way. I always assume that people who have no concept of personal space are idiots and I try to avoid them at all costs. Ironically, I am a people person and I love crowds, as long as everyone in the crowd minds their own business and tries not to touch each other, while still smiling and greeting each other. :) I would probably divorce - or possibly murder - my husband if he ever opened my purse or my mail or snooped in my drawers or jewelry box, etc, because it would demonstrate a complete lack of respect for me. I have no actual secrets; I just require something that is wholly mine. I also run with scissors, hate pencils, and have never shared well.

I voted for lip gloss, but I don’t really use lip gloss. I use pure vitamin E in a tube, but lip gloss was the closest to it on the list. I would have voted for moisturizer, but it wasn’t one of the choices. Sorry, but makeup isn’t one of my “must haves.” I own a blow dryer, but if I couldn’t have one, I’d just cut my hair shorter. I use facial Nair for the bristles, and tweezers are for splinters.

For me, it’s any excuse to have a family reunion! We’re all meeting at our mother’s house in the afternoon, each of us bearing food to share. My two grown children will be here Saturday night, so they won’t miss their Sunday morning Easter baskets. They might be adults now, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still their mommy, and mommies do as they please, and it pleases me to still create an individual Easter basket for each of them, just as I’ve done every year of their lives. And with the same baskets, too. (Pre-made Easter baskets (and Christmas stockings, for that matter) are for lazy mommies.) I do love a holiday!!!! And I do love creating and keeping traditions for my “children.”

Clinton would be a huge, fully loaded, gas-guzzling Rolls Royce Phantom, the car of choice for people who have not the slightest clue how most people live from day to day, and with plenty of room for her to enable her husband’s “disease.” Obama would be my very own Honda CRV: sporty, efficient, economical, getting 35 MPG, smiling at all the other cars on the road, willing to give others a ride, and with a six-disc CD player and fantastic speakers that would play the songs I wanted most to hear. McCain? I’m not sure. His genuinely awful radio program that wakes me up every morning puts me off him so badly, I can’t even hear his name without shuddering.

When the trust is deliberately broken - and cheating is always a free choice - the love is compromised to the point that even if it’s still there, it’s not intact and never will be again. There would always be doubt, and misgiving, and wondering if he’s telling you the truth, because once a person begins to lead a life that requires him to lie to the person he promised, in a legal contract, to be always faithful to, it could never be as good again. Fidelity isn’t only a word banks use. It means ‘faithfulness,’ and a man - or woman - who proves himself/herself incapable of it isn’t a person who knows what genuine love is. No, I would not stay with a man for whom loyalty and trust were such flimsy things that he could choose to destroy them for a good blowjob from a stranger or co-worker or neighbor or any whore who was willing to do a married man. I wonder sometimes about such women, and their blatant disregard for the wife and family of the men they have affairs with. I do not believe women are going to be able to change the world until we start changing the way we treat each other.

I’ve never been fired from any job I’ve held in my long life, but I probably would have been fired after 26 years in the public schools if I hadn’t walked out in a huff and slammed the door, myself. Our schools have been turned into factories, and our children have been turned into a product, and if a product isn’t perfect, it isn’t considered valuable. Our bright and gifted children are considered liabilities because they “already know” most of this stuff and that’s demeaning to kids who don’t know it and hurts their fragile delicate precious little self esteem. Kids who really are average and above spend about fifteen minutes a day learning something new and about six hours just sitting there waiting, waiting, waiting, for the slower kids to finally get it, or sitting out in the hall tutoring the slow kids, because no child can be left behind. But you really don’t want to get me started on that issue… . Teachers who are genuinely caring and work overtime to help kids in any way they can, are viewed with suspicion these days, and any “knowledge” about their students, outside of the classroom, is looked on as deviant. I can’t deal with a mentality like that, so I walked out.

Wealthy people usually harbor under the impression that everybody has money to invest. This is not true. Most people live from paycheck to paycheck, and while we don’t wish ill on anyone, EVER, it isn’t possible for us to feel all that sorry for the rich people who had money invested in places like Bear Stearns and are now upset because their investments have gone bust. I’ve never had any investments except the futures of my children, and my students. After 26 years in the public schools, I made 49,000. It wasn’t worth the peripherals of NCLB and the unbelievable parents I had to deal with (most were great, but those few losers destroyed me afresh, daily) and I quit. Was immediately snatched up by the local community college, where I make as much as $16,000/yr and sometimes less, but my blood pressure is down and my general health has much improved. I can’t afford to go anywhere or buy anything, but I’ve never looked back. People with money to spare for investments and even savings accounts are out of my realm of understanding. Where am I putting my money? I frivolously give it all away for luxuries like electricity, food, gas, and car/house payments. I’ve worn the same shoes and carried the same purse for eight years. Haven’t had a new stitch, except for what Mom gives me for Christmas, in years. My husband has been teaching for thirty years and makes less than our neighbor who is a courier in a military base. (H.S. diploma!) Where do I keep my money? I don’t get to keep any of it.

People are saying this man made a MISTAKE? No, he most certainly did not make a mistake. A mistake is done accidentally. We do not intend a mistake. To quote Sigourney Weaver from the movie “Dave:” ‘There’s no mistake… When you hurt someone intentionally, that is not a mistake.’ If he’s sorry for anything, it’s probably that he was caught.

When did it happen that people started to genuinely believe they had a right to all the sex they wanted, no matter what the circumstances and no matter what the cost to those who loved and trusted them? This seems like a really, really, really, really selfish attitude. Sex is natural and sex is healthy and sex makes people feel great, but I truly believe that unless sex is accompanied by love, then sex is reduced to a bodily function along with urinating, defecating, sweating, belching, snoring, and farting. None of these are attractive, and all of these are best done alone. We do not admire people who overeat, drink too much, use drugs, and abuse others, and we rightfully scorn them when they claim it’s in their nature and they can’t help it. Nobody believes that excuse. Why are we so lenient when it comes to sex? There is a time and a place for everything, including sex. Sex isn’t a “right.” When people whine and tell us it’s not their fault, it’s a “condition” that they can’t keep it in their pants or out of their pants, they’re lying. What they have is a bad case of “me, me, me, it’s all about meeeeeeeee,” and as long as they have that pathetic case, there isn’t room for genuine love anywhere in their lives. People who go to whores or whoremongers are weak, and frankly, I don’t want a person that weak in charge of anything important. People who pay for sex are telling their spouses “You’re not good enough for the likes of meeeeeeeeee.” Staying with such people is enabling their selfish, petty behavior. I’m not a prude. I’m just a person who believes in trust and in love. Those who don’t, seek personal satisfaction outside the marriage bed. Those who don’t, believe a good blowjob from a stranger is worth more than the trust their families put in them. Remember when restaurants used to have a sugar bowl on each table? Do you know why they don’t do that any more? It’s because clean and decent people don’t like to dip into the same sugar everybody else dips into.