Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/323481
JUNE 4-10, 2014 UCW 23 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM ADVICE GODDESS Are We Having Fund Yet? I'm a single mother with a 12-year-old son. Four years ago, when my boyfriend fell in love with me, he would buy me clothes and jewelry. He also promised to build a house for my son and me to live in. (We can't live with him, because he repairs motorcycles from home and it's loud day and night.) Well, he is building the house but now says it's for his mother — a woman living perfectly fine on her monthly Social Security checks. I work six days a week and still have trouble making ends meet, despite my boyfriend's giving me $400 to $500 a month. He keeps making promises that get me excited and make me want to stick around, like that he'll take me to Hawaii one day. I love him, but I fantasize about having a boyfriend I could live with so he could help me with the rent and bills. — Conflicted There's looking for love, and there's looking for some man to take over where Daddy left off on your allowance. You do say you love this guy — well, somewhere in there, between all the grumbling over money, clothes, jewelry, trips, and elderly moms getting houses. Compare your kind of love with my favorite definition, by sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein: "Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." This implies a level of effort — beyond waiting around, frowning, with your hand out, for that other person to slap a handful of $100s into it. The truth is, money actually can buy happiness, because the possibility of having real love starts with not having to choose boyfriends according to which provides the best financial aid package. Monetary independence would also allow you to have higher standards for a partner than you can now. Though no man owes you a home or a trip to Hawaii (are you dating a man or a game show?), promises should mean something. You wouldn't have to stick around to see which promise your boyfriend breaks next if you could go to the ATM and get a stack of your own money. Consider taking steps to become independent, like living a more "European" existence. (Europeans seem content with far smaller living spaces, fewer appliances, and not living life as a mad dash to get the next shiny new whatever.) You could get a roommate or move in with one — perhaps some other single mom whose values you seem to share. And you could figure out and work on ways to improve your earning power. It won't be easy street, but it should eventually prove far more satisfying than sitting around feeling cheated out of a house and resenting some old lady (already living the high life on her Social Security checks!) for not reusing more of her tea bags. WEEKLY HOROSCOPES BY HOLIDAY ARIES (March 21-April 19). Most of those you'll be interacting with will have an attention span of about seven minutes, give or take a few. Your effort to keep it brief but vivid will be well received. TAURUS (April 20-May 20). You may find that you are hyper-aware of a certain someone and tuned in to this person's every move. This level of attention could come off as flattering or scary. You'd better play it cool. GEMINI (May 21-June 21). The opportunities that arise may not seem so different from one another, but one thing that is noticeably different is the level of excitement you feel for each of them. Act on these feelings, and they'll guide you well. CANCER (June 22-July 22). You are skilled in the art of making the right people look good. For instance, when the boss looks good, it's a plus for the entire team. Think and plan to this end. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). You'll bounce between being the creative mind on a project and the technical expert. You'll be both the social strategist and the research team. How many roles can you possibly fill? All of them! VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Nature is an integral and necessary part of feeling whole. The time you spend with other species, in the elements, feeling the weather, looking up at the sky instead of the ceiling — it all restores you. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). The day has an episodic feel, and you will go from scene to scene, chasing after something. Honor your need to process what you are learning. Seize opportunities to stop along the way to discuss what just happened. SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). Just as moments of sunlight make you feel bright and alive but hours of sunlight deplete you, everything powerful needs to be taken in moderation today. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). An environment that is less than pleasing is dragging you down more than you realize. It's more than you can finish in a day. Make a plan to get it done over the next three weeks. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). Even though you are very professional in your dealings, you also give the human touch. Each person has unique needs. You can't address them all, but you can shed a little warmth on the matter. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). You're not trying to make a memory, but you'll make one anyway. Knowing that the person you're spending time with might remember your interaction for decades to come, how do you want to design it? PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). Every problem is a growth opportunity, though some problems are hard to feel that optimistic about. That's why you should focus on one thing you can fix at a time; it's a strategy that will have miraculous results. NEWS OF THE WEIRD by CHUCK SHEPPARD A week before the National Football League held its 2014 Draft Day in May, a large contingent of junior and senior boys staged their own draft day at Corona del Mar High School in Newport Beach, Calif., "dividing up" the available girls to ask to the upcoming prom. As in the NFL, the drafters "scout" the draftees, and a "rule book" notes the draft's boundaries (e.g., this year, sophomore girls are eligible). The girls, of course, can decline the invitation, but the draft, as in the NFL, is designed to discourage a selected girl from being "poached" by "competing" boys. Obviously, many in the community expressed horror at the draft, with the principal denouncing it and urging parents to rein in their sons, but one of the drafted girls wrote that the whole thing was just "fun" and "is not, was never, and will never ever be used to objectify the girls." [Orange County Register, 5-7-2014] Can't Possibly Be True The downfall of Russia-sympathizing Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in February (which eventually provoked Vladimir Putin's retaliation against Ukraine) accelerated when his countrymen learned of his startlingly opulent lifestyle (e.g., gold toilets, a private zoo), including catching a video glimpse of a nude portrait Yanukovych had commissioned of himself by artist Olga Oleynik. Yanukovych, a not- particularly-buff 63-year-old man, was portrayed reclining and with an undersized male endowment. (Oleynik told Agence France-Presse news service that she had done a similar portrait of Putin, more generously endowed, but was "afraid" to show it in public or to disclose whether it was actually commissioned by Putin.) [Agence France-Presse via Global Post, 3-27-2014] Skylar King, 28, filed a lawsuit in Clayton, Mo., in April against dentist Mark Meyers (and his Same Day Dentures clinic) for a 2009 session in which Meyers somehow obtained King's consent to extract all 32 of his teeth and provide dentures, promptly after obtaining $5,235 on King's mother's credit card. King, who was seeking treatment for an abscessed tooth, said Dr. Meyers warned that he was at risk of "fatal blood poisoning" unless all teeth were yanked. Dr. Meyers insisted that King actually requested the procedure, even though X-rays revealed that at least 28 of the teeth were treatable. [Courthouse News Service, 4-23-2014] Amy Alkon Chuck Sheppard