We got so burnt! Look at (e:Mike)'s back...I'm the same way...

Nope, these are just pictures from our day at the beach. The weather was so great, just enough of a breeze to lull you into thinking that it wasn’t hot and you weren’t getting burned to a crisp. Okay, well I’m not too burnt but I will definitely be sporting the lobster chic skin until my redness turns to tan (I hope). Anyway, enjoy the pictures of (e:Mike)…I know you are all jealous that I got to beach it with someone so hot!

I was working on a fundraiser for an organization that I routinely support and I decided to look them up online. I came upon this link which I’m posting. It’s a report by Elliot Spitzer about professional fundraising for 2001-2002 and it has lists and lists of statistics about the percentages of donations that actually go to charity. It’s pretty amazing and a site worth bookmarking. Enjoy…or be horrified.

I used to love the show Made on MTV. For those of you who have not seen it, it’s basically a reality show that takes kids (usually in high school) and gives them a chance to get made into anything they want. They get a coach who is an expert in whatever they want and in three months they work toward a major goal. In the end there is a final test or event that proves how well they have been “made”. In the first season there were some really interested kids with fantastic goals. One football player wanted to become an opera singer, a prissy girl wanted to be a BMX biker, etc. I loved trying to think of things I would be Made into if I could be on the show (of course I would never ever want to be on tv). It was such a departure from all the other reality tv shows that exploited people and showed how greedy and cunning humans are. This show highlighted the capacity for people to have dreams; it showed how hard work can help you achieve something more important than money or peer acceptance. But now Made is so disappointing. The new kids seem to basically want to be made popular. Each week it’s like one wants to be the prom queen, another wants to be class president, etc. I used to love Made because I felt like it showed people (especially vulnerable high school kids) that they could do something completely unexpected and really be good at it. Now it just feeds into all the stereotypes about what kids should want. I used to give the kids so much credit because they were reaching outside of the norms of their peer group, but now they are just getting professional help to run a student council campaign. Sure, some kids still have neat goals, but it’s become much more diluted. I miss the old days of Made, when kids were really putting themselves out there and achieving more than they ever thought they

Sometimes I think I might be a little too afraid of ending up alone. I’ve already started to worry about not getting married or having children and I’m only 22. Recently I realized that it’s probably because of my mother’s circle of friends. My mom has 6 best friends that she stays in close contact with from college. Out of those friends, three have never been married or had any children and three have been married once and had two children. Basically that’s like a 50/50 shot at either having a family or being totally alone. My mom is the one who straddles both groups. She did marry and have one (perfect) child but then got divorced almost immediately, thus living most of her adult life without a husband. Although I can see from all of my mom’s friends that being married and having kids does not ensure happiness (at least one married woman is very discontent with her marriage and kids), I know the women who didn’t have kids now wish they had. Furthermore, they have told me that they wish they weren’t as picky with the men that they dated because now they realize that having someone can be nice even if they aren’t perfect. Now, I’m not saying all my standards are dropped because I am just terrified of not getting married (not yet anyway) but I feel like looking at them can be a cautionary tale. I know some women can be perfectly happy if they are childless and unmarried, but I know that I want to at least have children. I was born wanting to be a mom. To make matters worse, I know I could never be as happy as these single women because they are all extremely close with their siblings and their sibling’s children. I will never have any nieces or nephews if I don’t get married since I am an only child, so I can’t really rely n family to keep me company. Although I’m sure that my mom’s friends aren’t the best sample of how women end up, I think that growing up see so many single, childless women has made me scared. Thank goodness there are so many more ways to have a child without a man now. I wonder if my mom’s friends would have had children if they could have used sperm banks? Then again I think most of them kept thinking they were going to get married and the time just drifted away. Anyway, I need to shake off this fear for a least a couple more years since there is no way I am getting married any time soon.