The Church of Your Self is Steam

"I never loved another person the way I loved myself."
~Mae West

Watching people is one of the few things that can hold my attention for more than 36 seconds. Sometimes I forget that I am not invisible and they can see me too. Eye-contact is not part of my people watching, totally ruins the show.

Having watched my favorite story, "The Peep Show", for years now, I've begun to notice the reruns. It's the same storyline, over-and-over, the human struggle for self-esteem.

What worries people the most is how they are perceived by others, the benchmark for normal. What their friends think. What their co-workers think. What their neighbors think. This is the stuff that fills the bottom of our luggage.

Do you want to be normal or do you want to be happy? Imagine if you really knew your true essence, the steam that runs your soul. You would have so much time on your hands to think of other things. Is that a bad thing?

Organized religion has no bedside manner and is therefore of no help. All this "if you do this, that will happen...it you don't do this..." etc., scaring the crap out of me. That's just so much negativity and it wears a person down.

So, I'm considering starting my own church and it's called "The Church of Your Self is Steam". All of my sermon's will consist of me looking at you and saying "You are good, you are beautiful, and you are worthy of happiness just the way you are". If you attend long enough, you will start to believe me, and then you won't need to attend at all. Religion should be like good therapy.

Try to remember: Your self is steam, with no boundaries. Steam can not be molded, and that's what makes you who you genuinely are. If you allow other's to dictate your worth, your steam will turn to water. Once your essence turns to water, someones gonna freeze you into shaped ice. That'll make you a frozen dog at someone else's salvation, and nobody wants that.

So there you have it.

Girls Without Fathers

My father was a brilliant man.  He loved science, the law, history, chess, and jazz.  His untimely death, at the tender age of 36, left my sister's and our mother utterly and totally on our own. My mother, now well in to her seventies, never remarried.

So convinced our family is, that had he lived, he would surely have changed the world. To this day, we still hold his death on par with that of JFK and MLK.  To this day, I still believe it.  It's how his death touched me personally that I had never really thought about.

The last time I ever saw my father was during my ninth birthday party.  He had been suffering from lung cancer for the previous several years, and on this evening, he couldn't breath.  The ambulance was called, and off he went, and that was that, and the party went strangely on. It was a slumber party, and Tam Tam was there, and the only other thing I remember from that night is the hairbrush, comb, mirror, and little string of pearls she gave me for my birthday.

The last time my father ever saw me was from a fifth floor hospital window, as my sisters and I stood in the parking lot behind the building.  I remember looking up, waving as if I could see him, pretending I could see him, when really I couldn't.  Later, I had wondered what the point had been, since I couldn't see my father.  Then I realized the point wasn't so we could see him, it was so he could see us, his three little girls, for the last time.

When he died several weeks later, I became a girl without a father.  The implications of this didn't really hit me until the last several years, almost 30 years after the event.  At some point, I just assumed that everyone lost their father somehow, and that was the way it was.

When I was getting divorced, my sister-in-law, who was also getting divorced at the time, handed me a rather large wad of cash.  My utilities had all been turned off when my ex left, since I naively allowed him to put everything in his name.  I was being starved out waiting for an agreement that would let me refinance the house, putting groceries and gas on my credit card, along with thousands of dollars in lawyer fees.  Still, I have a ton of vanity and pride, and refused the money.

Then she said "Paula, you need to take this money.  You don't realize the difference it makes to have your father behind you, and the impact it has on the outcome, because you don't have one.  If you did, like I do, he would never allow you to be treated this way.  So take this money and don't worry about paying it back."

I've been thinking about it ever since, and that she was totally right.  So, maybe it's time to write about girls without fathers, and allow myself to understand what it truly meant to me.  So there you have it.

Senate Bill 5 in Ohio, Issue 2 Seals the Deal

If Senate Bill 5, in Ohio, is not voted down, it becomes the law.


Senate Bill 5, which strips organized labor in Ohio of most of their collective bargaining rights, is up for referendum tomorrow, Tuesday, November 8. It's important that you know what this is really about.  Bargaining is not just about wages and benefits.

Nurses and teachers, for example, can negotiate patient and student numbers.  Do you want your child in a class with 50 other students and only one teacher? Do you want to be in a hospital ward with 25 beds and only one nurse?  Hey, it could happen, Ohio Governor Kasich is all about cost and control.


Senate Bill 5 was originally pushed through and made into law without a vote of the people.  A huge part of the middle class in Ohio consists of workers who belong to unions.

Now, here's what I want to say to you about this.  If you look back in history, when fascism came-a-knocking, it's always the labor unions the far right goes for first.  The reason why?


Labor Unions are the only organized body out side of government big enough to support a dissenting view.  If you have no vehicle to disagree with your government, you can not have democracy. Once you silence the labor unions, you silence all the millions of people that have no other connection in life for representation but that union.  

So, if you live in Ohio, you really need to read the below article, and make sure you vote in November.  You have no idea how much work went into just getting it on the ballot so you could exercise your constitutional rights. 

The below article, released last summer, by the Associated Press, clearly explains the intent of Senate Bill 5.

OH Voters Will Decide Fate Of Union Law July 22, 2011 By Ann Sanner, Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio voters will get to decide in November whether to repeal the state's new collective bargaining law, which would let public worker unions negotiate wages but not health care, sick time or pension benefits. The state's elections chief said Thursday that opponents had gathered enough valid signatures to put the question before voters. The measure is now suspended from taking effect until voters have their say. The law signed by GOP Gov. John Kasich in late March affects more than 350,000 public workers, including police officers, firefighters, teachers and state employees. Aside from restricting bargaining, it bans strikes and gets rid of automatic pay increases, replacing them with merit raises or performance pay. The group We Are Ohio delivered more than 1.3 million signatures to Secretary of State Jon Husted, though the opponents needed roughly 231,000 valid signatures to get the question on the ballot. He said more than 915,000 of the signatures were valid. The opponents' successful campaign proves that the legislation was "a bad bill that was passed by extreme politicians who are out of touch with hardworking Ohioans," said Melissa Fazekas, a spokeswoman for We Are Ohio. The measure was approved by the Republican-controlled state Legislature in March amid shouts and jeers from protesters in each chamber. But the overall response by protesters in the Rust Belt state, despite its long union tradition among steel and autoworkers, paled in comparison to Wisconsin, where protests topped more than 70,000 people. Ohio's largest Statehouse demonstrations on the measure drew about 8,500 people. That difference has been attributed to Madison's labor legacy and the proximity of the populous University of Wisconsin campus to the state capital. The fallout from each state's bitter fights over collective bargaining restrictions have also differed. Unlike in Wisconsin, Ohio voters cannot recall state lawmakers, so opponents are pushing for repeal through a referendum. In Wisconsin, nine state senators — six Republicans and three Democrats — face recall elections. GOP Gov. Scott Walker's collective bargaining law eventually survived a court challenge and took effect. A Quinnipiac University poll released this week found that 56 percent of Ohio voters say the new collective bargaining law should be repealed, compared with 32 percent who say it should be kept. The We Are Ohio campaign says 10,000 volunteers and some paid workers circulated petitions to get the referendum before voters. The coalition of labor groups and others contends the law is an unfair attack on workers. Kasich, a first-term governor, and his GOP colleagues argue the legislation will help city officials, school superintendents and others control their costs at a time when they, too, are feeling budget woes. Kasich has said he plans to play a visible role in defending the law. So far, he has directed his supporters to a website for Building a Better Ohio, a group that wants to keep the new law in place. Jason Mauk, a spokesman for Building a Better Ohio, said Thursday that certification of the signatures puts the focus back on the law's merits. "Ohio voters now have a choice to make," Mauk said in a statement. "We can keep the unfair, unsustainable policies that are bankrupting our communities, or we can change direction and give them the tools they need to create jobs and get spending under control." The referendum's clearance for the ballot came as the head of the AFL-CIO met in Columbus with community organizations, religious groups and representatives from the Ohio Conference of the NAACP. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka would not say how much money the nation's largest labor federation planned to spend in the ballot effort, only that the organization planned to devote resources and people to help repeal the law. "This is a battle of over the conscious and the moral character and the direction of the country," Trumka told reporters. "And we think that the people in Ohio and the people in America think that people like Gov. Kasich is going in the wrong direction — that he overreached, that he used a tough budget time to try to scapegoat public employees and try to destroy a ladder into the middle class." Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said the law was about restoring fairness and balance between the private and public sector employees. "Mr. Trumpka does have to live in one of Ohio's cities or towns that are hanging on by their fingers, struggling with high costs," Nichols said. The state's labor groups have turned to their members to help pay for the repeal campaign. Ohio's largest teachers union in May agreed to a one-time, $54 dues increase. The move by the members of the Ohio Education Association was expected to yield an additional $5.5 million. The Fraternal Order of Police also anticipated raising $1 million from their roughly 200 local lodges around the state. And the Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters asked its 9,600 members to voluntarily kick in $100 for the repeal effort.