The Bright Side of Crazypants Interviews and a Bad Economy

I always like to look on the cynically bright side of things.  In case you don't know, that's the bright side, only the version of it that shows positive results that are unusual in nature.  

Example: The fact that hipsters exist and love irony so much has made everyone who doesn't want to be a hipster (because hipsters are SO mainstream these days, hah!) try to find any way other than USING the word "irony" to describe irony.  Case in point, my first paragraph.

Another example of this is how it seems the economy has gotten so bad that Hollywood stars are letting their publicists and spin doctors go.  At least, that's the way it seems.  How else would we get the rants of Mel Gibson or the babbling of Tom Cruise. Okay, in Cruise's case, it's religious zeal. Might be in Gibson's case too. Who knows? Oh, and Kanye. Let's not forget him.

Anyway, these people need professionals to help them filter what comes out of their mouths (or out of their fingers, the case of tweets). And stars used to have these things.  For a long time, scandals were only seen when someone was trying to promote a movie. The rest of the time, they had people following them around, doing their best to clean up the messes.  It's a matter of professionalism, after all. Stars are bankable on image.  Very very few can be bankable on the image of "fanatical jackass" or "raving crazypants bastard."

The bright side to this, of course, is that now we get to hear all the stupid crap these people decide to say.  And then we get to make fun of it, to quote it, and otherwise marvel at the crazy.

Charlie Sheen is the latest example of this.  He called in to some radio show and let his crazy shine with all the bright lights of ten Victorian asylums.  What did he manage to do from this?  Piss off his network and give fodder for a million cat memes.

Sheen is so fun now.  He gives wild interviews where he says things that sound like the lyrics from the psychedelic goth band I had in high school.

Okay, I know this is somewhat mean.  The man clearly needs help, despite his Tiger Blood and Adonis DNA.  I'm sure if someone posted the stuff that I say when I'm at my lowest and most crazy point, I'd sound just as bad.  And the Powers that Be in Hollywood need to find him someone to help him talk about stuff without coming off as . . . well, I think this last cat meme says it all. 

50 Posts In, Things I Like about Blogger

I just realized that I'm not going to be around tonight, so I might as well do an early post.  When I arrived at the Dashboard, I noticed this is my 50th post, so it was time for some reflection . . . and some happydance.

The first thing that I absolutely love about Blogger is the easy formatting.  I used to do Livejournal, where you'd have to actually know at least some minimal code to get things to look snazzy.  As I said, minimal, but still far more than I wanted to deal with in the midst of writing.  I can manage to leftbrain/rightbrain my writing to an extent, but if I'm having to add code as well, it breaks my train of thought.  Eventually, I just got bored and stopped.

Speaking of my concentration, as I have mentioned on other posts, mine isn't that great. My concentration, that is.  Which brings me to another thing I like about Blogger.  It autosaves every few seconds and keeps my posts for me. Or, you know, I can just hit Save Now and it does it then.  And yes, I know that any word processing program would do this for me.  But the sad truth is, I tend to hate them. I liked Word Perfect back in the early 2000s before they added the whole universe to it.  Oh, and I can't afford it now.  Just working on my journal as ideas happen or when I have time and knowing it's floating in the clouds and not somewhere on my hard drive makes me happy.

I also like the interaction with other sites.  Whenever one of the people I'm following updates, I don't necessarily have to go to my Dashboard about it.  Almost everyone posts a link to their blog update to Facebook.  I say almost everyone, because I personally don't. Well, I have a few times, but only when I felt the post was needed to clarify whatever Facebook crazy thing I was doing.

Even though I don't have to GO to the Dashboard to find posts, I do like the Dashboard. It's well organized, allows me easy access to whatever I want to do, and isn't annoying.  Let's face it, quite often the launching points of places like this can be deeply annoying.  I think launching sites should be like personal assistants.  They tell you what you need to know, remind you of what is important, and otherwise leave you the hell alone.

Being left the hell alone is important for blogging.  A site that annoys you will, again, break your concentration and keep you from expressing whatever idea you came there to express in the first place. There have been a lot of blogging/journal places in the past.  I think their need to be or become annoying/user unfriendly is the reason why so many people walked away.

I'm one of those people who walked. Livejournal, Deadjournal, countless others, you name it.  I've started and deleted so many blogging accounts over the years. I'd start them with such good intentions and end up just mehing over the whole thing.  The fact that I am 50 posts into this is a miracle.

Is that all because of my changing perspective in life? I used to think yes. I used to think that my inability to continue to blog rested completely on me.  I'm not so sure though.  Even though I'm in a more positive happy place emotionally and mentally, I'm still lazy and prone to extreme procrastination. Given that, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps it is the nature of the blogging sites I've used in the past that kept me from continuing.  Even though it is my tendency (and the tendency of many people) to place blame completely on me, I don't believe that anymore.

To quote London and Kelly, it's not that you look bad in the clothes.The clothes look bad on you.

Friday List: Baffling Human Things

Oh look! It's time for another Friday List!

THINGS I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT UNDERSTAND ABOUT OTHER HUMANS

1. WHY DO WOMEN WANT TO DATE MEN IN PRISON?
   
   It seems that menz in prison get tons of letters from women who are their fans. Not just a few letters, TONS of them. Women who fall in love with these guys. And I'm not talking about the ones who just shoplifted or whatever. I'm talking about hardcore-killed-lots-of-people-usually-other-women-and-left-them-in-bloody-messes.
   
   Why? What could possibly be the appeal of someone who A. Will never have a job because he'll always be in prison (hopefully) and B. IS KILLYPANTS?
   
2. WHY DO MEN IN PRISON WANT TO BE INTERESTED IN WOMEN WHO WANT TO DATE THEM?
   
   Okay, sure there is the angle of "ohh, I can manipulate these women" and the idea of "hey, I'm in prison and bored." However, when you think about this for more than, oh, three minutes, it gets creepy as hell.
   
   Think about it, if you were a fairly scary and socially undesirable person, wouldn't you be somewhat concerned that people were seeing you as HOT?  What kind of people, what level of mental and emotional damage are they drinking to do that?  Scary.
   
3. WHY DO ALL HUMANS THINK THEY ARE THE ENLIGHTENED ONES?
   
   If you listen to liberal people, they will tell you how enlightened their world view is and how the other people are just being manipulated by their upbringing and the media. If you talk to conservatives, they will tell you they are the enlightened ones and everyone else is just being manipulated by the educational system and the media.
   
   Any given group of religious people think they know the Truth, that everyone else should "wake up" to the Truth. I've seen religious people believe that not just about their religion versus others, but their specific branch of it versus others, down to their own PERSON versus others. Specifically, they are the one enlightened, there to tell everyone else the Truth.
   
   And before you think I'm just picking on religious people, take that last paragraph and sub anything else into it. Philosophy, political perspective, intellectual reasoning, knowledge of music, belief in magic, science, medicine. ANYTHING. They know best. Because they DO. They read books and watched shows and have tons of articles and went to the secret meetings and have the decoder rings and THOUGHT about this more and all that stuff.
   
   Yup, everyone of them.

Okay, so that list was only three things. But you got some good rant along with it. I'm working on a larger, medical related post, but it's cumbersome and I need refs for it. Might end up being a two parter.  

Random February Observations

The roommate and I were driving around today, snarking at each other, and I realized we were almost out of February.  I've always felt sorry for this month. It's so small and it happens so early. It's like the short kid standing at the back of a crowd, raising its hand and trying to get someone to call on it.  Poor February.

It's also a sad month because no one can spell it. OH, I realize I spelled it right, but then again, I have spell check, I can right click and get spelling, or I can just hover over my date on the bottom of my computer. Otherwise?

Feberary.
Febrary.
Feburary.

You get the picture. It's one of those words we have just a little bit of trouble spelling, somewhat like Caucasian, sincere, and conscientious. When it comes to words we get confused about, we really go out of way to avoid them. Probably one of the reasons why people are happy when wee little February is over.  Until then, it' Feb.

Everyone I know born in this month is strikingly beautiful.  Often they may not have what people would consider conventionally beautiful features and usually this is what makes them so beautiful.  All the people I know born in this month have beautiful hair, lovely eyes, expressive smiles.

Perhaps its the Valentine's Day thing, a blessing on those born around the holiday. Maybe it has something to do with that transition from crafty Aquarius to dreamy Pisces.  Both signs tend to be in need of the society of others.  The right type of unusual beauty would aid in that.

Everyone I know born in this month has a very strong sense of individual style.  Even if it seems sloppy or haphazard, it suits them. Most often, this isn't limited to clothing. It carries over into their homes, their scent, even the way they carry themselves. They often have phrases that you find yourself using, books grouped in ways that lend to you wanting to study them.  I once actually found myself fascinated with the fingernail shape of a boy born in February.

So yes, a small month, with a difficult name, but it yields some very delightful people. Over all, I would say the trade off is fairly good. And let's not forget, some February babies have the odd distinction of only having a true birthday once every four years.

Exercise in the Happies

I've been in a bad mood lately. I'm sure that's fairly clear from my blog.  Okay, bad mood isn't really quite right. At the risk of sounding emo, I've been in a soul-ache. So much bad stuff, so much uprising, so much violence and wrong-doing and smug people acting like they know so much more than everyone else is just draining me.

I'm tied of feeling drained though, so tonight's blog is going to be about happy things.  And not in some abstract way either. Just things right around me that make my life a great place to be.

The newest thing that makes me just giddy as all hell is a plastic toy wand I got as a party favor at my niece's birthday. It's pinkishpurpish and has a star shape at the top of it.  It is completely silly and will probably be broken within a week or so. In the meantime, I'm using it to "cast spells" on the cats. They think it's an exotic brush.

Then we have my Valentine's Day flowers. Both bouquets are still blooming and it's so beautiful to see them.  Having the flowers in the house has been such a delight. I loved getting them and find the vases both came in to be quite adorable.  They will be keepers.

Next to the flowers are two antique glass lamps. I love them for two reasons.  First of all, they belonged to my grandparents. When my uncle saw them, he said he remembered them from when he was a kid.  So there is a connection between them and the last two generations of my family.  The other reason I love them is because I rewired them myself.  My roommate found them in the barn and brought them inside.  We cleaned them up and bought some lamp kits for them. I did the wiring, even learned how to do an underwriter's knot. So when I look at them, I know there was a collective effort between my roommate and I to make them possible.

Speaking of my roomie, he's another reason I am happy in this space. He hung the curtains, sconces, and art.  None of this was easy, the walls are ancient and I suspect made of dried toothpaste and tend to break very easily. There was a lot of cussing involved, but he pushed through it. Now things look put together and decorated.  My roommate has this real gift for color and pattern.  Sometimes he will show me patterns and I will think he is insane. Then he puts them with everything else and it looks amazing. Love that.

OH! My roommate did this other great thing too. My grandmother had this old gaudy mirror on the mantle. Since we moved here, it sat horizontally, looking wide and old and kinda tacky. My roommate got this brilliant idea to turn it on its side.  Same mirror on the vertical? Awesome. Deeply awesome.  Every time I look at it, I am reminded of how sometimes just switching something around can make all the difference.

With that last idea in mind, I find that I'm in a far better mood now.  I know it sounds hokey, but honestly, if you feel down and rather horrible, looking at the stuff around you that makes you smile and remembering why it does can really alter your mood. Try it some time. Believe me, it's far better to be the vertical cool mirror than the horizontal tacky one.

Ring around the Finger, Pocket full of Creepy

Of all the Dystopian lit I've read of the years, the one that always fills me with the most dread is Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.  Not on a personal level, mind you. As a loudmouthed fat woman, I expect to be shot. Actually, with most other dystopian stories, I expect that too . . . and often in life the way some people act, but more so from the Atwood story.

Back when she wrote this, a lot of people thought it was reactionary and needlessly shocking. Nothing like this could ever happen. Women had achieved more freedom and were now taking care of themselves.

The thing about stripping people of their rights, however, is that it is best done slowly, and under the proper context.  A grand example of this is the religiously based abstinence movement.  While on the surface it proclaims to promote the welfare of the young people, at its core, one finds a very dark stain of traditional patriarchal views.

Fortunately, most of us have something on our side.  I like to call this the DAMN! THAT IS CREEPY reaction.  This usually happens when we see something that looks innocent but is rather wrong and nasty.

Look at the basic pledge asked of young people from the True Love Waits program.

"I am making a commitment to myself, my family, and my Creator, that I will abstain from sexual activity of any kind before marriage. I will keep my body and my thoughts pure as I trust in God's perfect plan for my life."
The pledge is far cleaned up from its original versions, or even later versions that got kind of crazy, but it still has its roots in fairly oppressive language.

There is nothing wrong with making a commitment to self.  That part, I am not upset about, however, the rest?

I will state this hear and now, just in case for some reason people don't grasp this, being overly concerned about or overly controlling about your child's sex life is creepy. The idea that you would ask your child to COMMIT to you about their sexual activity is emotional incest.  This goes for any deities out there as well.  If they are overly concerned with people's sex lives, that's also creepy.

Look, I get the basic idea that what they're trying to achieve here is some level of thought process before 14 yr olds go hoping into bed with everyone.  That can lead to a lot of problems, hurt feelings, babies, and diseases.

However, having them make a pledge that strips them of basic sexual autonomy is not the answer.  This pledge takes their sexuality away from them, tying it to their parents and to a deity. The subtext suggests they have no exclusive ownership to their own sexuality, rather is is something to which all the mentioned parties have rights.

If you follow this path, you'll find yourself not too far away from cultures where parents decide who their children marry, ones where women can be killed for the "impurity" suffered after rape, and ones where mutilation of genitalia is seen as an acceptable practice in curbing female sexual appetite.

However, True Love Waits is a feminist ANTHEM compared to this crap.

Okay, so this pledge is to the girl's father, her future husband, and her creator.  Not to herself. Not even to her mother, just her father, and then to the husband and the deity.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

The funny part about this whole issue, for me, comes back to the fact that all of the people I know who could be sexual but choose to stay virgins, are NOT religious and NEVER took a purity pledge. They are people who simply choose to abstain from the whole relationship thing.  They have watched their families and everyone's families and everyone's relationships and decided it wasn't for them.  Sexuality isn't that important.

I asked them why they felt that way when I was thinking about this post. The consensus seemed to be that the whole thing was never presented to them by their parents or others to be something so forbidden and urgent.

All of them were taught it was something they could control with ease, could make their own decisions about, and would never be judged by their loved ones if those decisions weren't the ones they (the loved ones) would have chosen. They were told about the consequences, were told how to prevent them, and even allowed access to the methods used to accomplish this. In other words, it wasn't forbidden. But it was demystified.

Of course, I suppose for some religions, the last example is even worse than people having sex before marriage.  People choosing of their own free will to opt out of the whole relationship/marriage/sex/baby thing scares them.  They WANT people to be virgins, but they mostly really want them to be virgins until they getmarriedhavebabies. Failing that, they want them to not be virgins, have sex that makes them feel bad about themselves, and then find (or refind) religion and getmarriedhavebabies.

In the end, purity pledges are about one thing and one thing only. Control. The social group (church/school/society/whathaveyou) trying to control the bodies of other people, to control the activities of said bodies, and control the minds and mindsets connected to the bodies. "No sex until marriage" has the implied concept that marriage will (and must) happen. "Sex is there for bonding couples, but mostly for making babies" implies that children should be seen as a certainty.

And more children born into the group means more members to control. And the beast keeps feeding itself.

New Project start

It's been a week since the whole "I get flowers YAY! and the pipe breaks BOO!" thing. I've been somewhat illish and not able to focus on much.  Weird week, all the way around.

This was a sucky week to be a woman. Lots of rapes and loss of funds for poor women to get access to health care stuff. More threats on congresswomen and in general enough crap to where I wonder why sometimes we even bother. Well, I guess we shouldn't say "we." As a woman, I tend NOT to bother with everyone else. It's one of the places where I get very into Ayn Rand's Objectivism because I see culture trying so hard to make women live FOR others instead of living for themselves.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Back to the point.  The Friday post....okay, technically, it's Saturday, but you get the idea, will now (mostly) consist of a small summary of the week and then a list.  The list will change depending on what I want to focus on.  As today is my niece's birthday, this list will be about her.

Five Things I Want for My Niece's Future

1. I want my niece to be independent. I don't want her to feel she has to rely on others, either for her safety, comfort, shelter, or ego-stroking.  I want the main person she finds security in to be herself.

2. I want my niece to be a critical thinker.  I hope she never takes things at face value, never believes something just because she's told she should. I hope she questions, rationalizes, analyzes, and comes to her own conclusions.

3. I want her to hold her safety in the highest regard.  I want her to always remember that her number one priority is her own survival and that this keeps her from making decisions that threaten her life, her liberty, or her future.

4. I want her to have self-esteem.  I want her to know who she is, have a strong hold on her own self-worth, so that when someone tries to threaten that, instead of feeling that threat, she simply laughs the situation off because she knows the truth of herself.

5. I hope she revels in her life. I hope she continues to enjoy her moments, laugh, sing, dance, make jokes, make up stories, play dress up, play pirates, play jedis.  I hope she really tastes the sweet of things, loves every kiss, enjoys every secret confession, marvels at something so simple as the color of someone else's eyes. I hope she keeps letters and cards and mementos. I hope she does this until the end of her days.

Ahh, good list.  Happy birthday, kiddo.  Love you.

Messages from Above

I did a post a while back about how it's a good thing that I'm not your deity.  In that post, I talked about plagues and it was fun! Very fun.

While I'm cooking up some new possible plagues for people, I wanted to talk about the signs and wonders I would send people.  

You hear people complain a lot about how they don't feel connected with their deity. Oh yes, and there are also the people who claim  to talk to their god all the time, but a lot of them have shifty eyes, so you gotta wonder. Anyway, were I the god in question, there would be no doubts. I'd talk to people all the time.  IN FACT, I'd make notes appear in front of their faces so the messages would be clear.

Examples:

Dear Billybob,

What, are you kidding? You are buying ANOTHER truck?  You own six. None of them work. And you're buying this one from the same guy who sold you the last two trucks, that two legged dog, and the old Atari game system he put a Playstation sticker on? NO! Just stop! There is no reason to do this. PUT THE KEYS DOWN.

Kissies,
Your Creatrix

Dear Heaven-Destiny,

DO NOT try out for American Idol. For one thing, it's not really the best way to get into the music industry.  Kinda lame, actually. Second of all, you can't sing.  You can dance pretty well and you make great fried pickles. Find a way to work with that.

Hugs forever,
Your Creatrix

Dear Scooter,

What's up with the dogs?  You have ten. They bark all night and keep your neighbors up.  How can you possibly see this as a good thing? Do you not grasp the ripples here?  Your neighbors can't sleep, they go to work groggy, they smart off to their boss's mother-in-law, they get fired. Pretty soon, they move out because they can't pay their mortgage and you're living in an abandoned area . . . with ten barking dogs. Wait, this might solve itself. Nevermind.

Sending some dog treats,
Your Creatrix

Enough of that, on to more plagues.

Aside from the disturbing plagues of badness, I would also have some good ones . . . just to spice things up.

 THE FORTH PLAGUE

Breath Mints from the Sky
When this plague happens, as the title suggests, breath mints fall from the heavens. I think as a nice godlike touch, it would be those strips that melt on your tongue. They would just waft down from the sky and land in your mouth when it was open.

Of course, this being a plague, even if they intentions were nice, the application would still be chaos. Some people would get the strips in their eyes. Some would have them sticking in their hair. They would land on cars and houses. I'm seeing flies really being into this. OH HEY! Plague of Flies for free! I didn't even have to do anything. Awesome.

THE FIFTH PLAGUE

Smiling
Yes, life is always better when people smile.  So in this plague, you see far more smiles than you're used to.  People smile at you no matter where you go. Wide, happy smiles.  Sometimes, they knock on your door and when you answer it, they just smile and walk away.

Again, while it has great intentions, this plague is deeply creepy, especially for anyone suffering from PTDS after the First Plague.  Look, we all know the truth of this. No matter now many times they tell us in elementary school that smiling is a wonderful thing, and no matter how much we may believe that, there is a fine line....a very VERY fine line.....that once crossed, smiling just becomes creepy and disturbing.

Face it, if you walked into a room and everyone was smiling . . . would you go in?

I think we all know the answer.

Anyway, I think I've given you enough to be grateful for here.  Sleep well. Happy smiles.

The Same Deep Water as You

There's been a lot of upheaval lately.  My emotions have been all over the place . . . well, okay, my emotions have been in the Great Dark Forest, my mind somewhat up ahead, basically stirring things up as we go along. I've been barky, angry, snide, and in general broken. I've written five posts that I deleted before publishing. One that I deleted after publishing.   It's just been that way and this sucks because things were so damned victorious on Valentine's Day.

Then I read this and it somewhat changed things for me.  I didn't feel less fractured, but I felt less alone in it.  I think the problem is that I tend to try and move forward FORWARD FORWARD all the time.  I try so hard, want to see proof of change, want to know I'm a stronger woman than I was yesterday and the day before and the day before.  And not just that. I also want to be funny and creative and insightful. All at once.  All the time.

Which brings me back to one of the best lines of any song ever, and my favorite love song. If you can call it that. Of course my favorite love song would be about people's last moments before they drown.  Anyway, The Cure:

"Swimming the same deep water as you is hard."

How can I express, and accept (in a non-emo and defeatist way) that, quite often, it is rough to be me? All the brain activity, all the physical pain, all the poverty, all the chaos and past crap and tubing and unrequited dreams and EVERYTHING EVERYTHING and not supposed to be bitching about it and supposed to be changing it and supposed to be getting better....that composes me....it is hard.

I'm sure to an outsider, being me isn't that hard. I mostly just sit here, play Facebook games, and make snide comments.  That's just the surface though.  That's not all the worlds of other stuff going on.

Of course, I wouldn't want to be anyone else. There are some decisions I wish I would have made differently, or, more often, things I wish I would have actively decided about instead of just passively letting them happen.  I know my life is good, despite all the stuff mentioned above. I'm usually quite happy.  I'm even happy writing this.  It's just that my mind gets so bored with my surface thoughts. My mind loves to lure me back into the depths.  We swim deeper and deeper, hitting the maelstrom of everything at once, all the little bad spirals I've found for myself.  And as much as I know I need to pull myself out of the pattern, and as much as I know I CAN, sometimes I get so tired, or so overwhelmed, that I just can't.

Oh, darling brain, Robert Smith was so right.  Swimming the same deep water as you is hard.

Advice for the Advice-Givers

In all of our lives, we have people we go to for advice.  This is usually one to maybe three people.

THEN there are all the other people who feel they have to give you advice anyway. And you usually don't like them.  For one thing, you didn't ask. For another, their advice usually sucks.

Now, if you find yourself quite often dispensing your wisdom to others and they didn't ask you . . . it's not that they forgot . . . they really didn't want your opinion.  Really, they don't.  However, I doubt you will believe that. So I'm going to try and help you to find a way to better communicate your wisdom.

RULE ONE: IF YOUR ADVICE WILL END WITH ANY VERSION OF "AND THEN YOU'LL BE SO PRETTY" DO NOT SPEAK.

Oh, I'm sure you are a major fashionista/o and are just oozing with how everyone can look better, but telling someone how to improve their looks and adding some form of "and then you'll be so pretty" gets you no where.

When you say "and then you'll be so pretty" to someone, they hear one of three things.

1. You think I'm ugly. 
2. You want to make me conform.
3. You are threatened by my looks and want me to look less hot.

No matter which of these thoughts happens, you've completely lost the person on taking your advice. Either you've sent them into spirals of self-doubt, or they no longer trust your motives.

Instead of trying to give your advice with the "and then you'll be so pretty" ending, try working on their self-esteem.  Play up their positive features, everyone has at least one.  Tell them when they look nice. This is slow, very slow, but if you establish a rapport with them, eventually they may ask you for advice.  Then you can help, but without that phrase.

RULE TWO: IF SOMEONE HAS BEEN HURT, DO NOT PLAY CAPTAIN HINDSIGHT.

How many times do we hear of someone being raped and then some jackass saying, "Well, if she hand't gone outside, maybe that wouldn't have happened." Or whatever they say. The point is, many people have this tendency to blame people when bad things happened to them. "Oh, if he'd been nicer to his boss, he would have kept his job." Never mind that 300 people go laid off. "Oh, if they would have gone through their kids' room, they wouldn't have been doing drugs." Even if most junkies have very clever ways of hiding things.

Look, even when whatever tragic thing happened to this person was their fault and it's very clear what they could have done to prevent it, still keep your mouth shut. More than likely, they've figured this out themselves already. They don't need more people braying at them.

Considering what you're trying to really do here is help, do just that. Help them. Bring them over some flowers. Buy them a coffee.  Lend them a book to distract them. Just let them know things can still go on and be good in their lives.  When something tragic happens, this is the very best thing you can do for them.

RULE THREE: IF YOU FUNDAMENTALLY DO NOT AGREE WITH SOMEONE ABOUT SOMETHING, DO NOT GIVE THEM ADVICE ABOUT IT.

I kind of have a deep loathing for child beauty pageants.  I think they're creepy and exploitive and just deeply disturbing.  With that in mind, I know that any advice I would give to someone on the topic of "Heaven Destiny Madonna isn't lettin me wax her brows so she can be in Little Miss Potato Wedge" would be snarled from my mouth as "WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULD GIVE HER OVER TO CHILD SERVICES BECAUSE YOU SUCK AS A PARENT YOU MONSTER." Which, while I do feel this way, it's not exactly helpful advice.

If our goal is to communicate, my example is a complete failure.  The parent of Heaven Destiny Madonna will see me as someone who only places negative value judgments on them and will avoid me.  Anything we could have talked about outside of pageants will now never happen.

The solution is to find common ground.  This doesn't mean compromise about your own beliefs, but you can make it clear that you don't agree about subjects in a calm and rational manner, then find things you do agree on.   This builds trust and true communication.  You may begin to understand more of why this person does the thing on which you disagree.

For instance, maybe the parent wants Heaven Destiny Madonna to get into a good school.  You will agree with them that this is a good thing.  Over time, you might bring over applications for contests outside of the beauty realm she can enter, like essay contests or other non-baby-shakes-her-sequinned-booty talent contests.

If you help them in finding ways to achieve their goals without doing the thing you so hate, all the while not dispensing your "I REALLY HATE THIS" advice on them, over time, you will probably see true results, and have a strengthened relationship with this person in the process.

RULE FOUR: NEVER GIVE PEOPLE ADVICE ABOUT ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS.

I'm not going to address this in terms of one or both people are being harmed. That is a whole other post, probably just one to itself.

I'm talking more about the general day to day stuff of relationships. "Oh, Sam never talks to me anymore." "Oh, Helen goes out with her friends all the time."

First of all, if said person has not asked your opinion about their relationship, do not give it.  There are many reasons for this, but they mostly come down to the fact that when it comes to romantic relationships, most of us give crazytalk advice.

This is because we filter all relationships in general through our own bias.  Of course, this applies to all the situations I've mentioned, but with relationships, it's even more cut and dry.  We all have strong opinions about men, about women, about how men should be in relationships, how women should be, what should happen, what shouldn't happen. And all of these opinions boil down to one thing: We always think what we most want is what is best for everyone.

Now, in some cases, this may be true, but in others, it's really not.

For example. I hear women all the time saying things like, "Oh, you need a man who really communicates with you and talks all the time about how he feels. You want to know what he wants and what he is thinking."

This is what they want and how most of them would probably frame advice. But it's not what I want.  Even though I blog a lot about communication, I know that in a relationship, especially one where you live with someone, constantly telling someone what you think and feel can be draining to the point of toxic. I would hate that.  So in this case, their advice just won't work for me.

OR....you have motive about this relationship specifically. This is a down and dirty little thing to face about yourself, but it might just be true. What if you have feelings for one of the people in the relationship? What if you have a desire to not be the only single person in the office/family/church? What if you want one of the people in the relationship to be involved with someone else? What if you are jealous of the attention this person is giving to their relationship when they should be paying attention to you?

Any motivation you have about the relationship is going to taint your advice. You might try to keep that from happening, but eventually, you'll probably rationalize why it should.

The solution here? Simple. DO NOT GIVE RELATIONSHIP ADVICE. It always backfires in one way or the other.

Which, I guess is somewhat caustic, but it's still true.

By the way, to conclude this, I do see the irony in giving all this advice about giving advice when it wasn't asked for. However, I'm guessing that if you're 40+ entries into my blog, you're probably actually interested in my advice, so this counts as asking as far as I am concerned.

And also, I do grasp that many people are not trying to be harmful with their unsolicited advice, but the sad thing is, often we still do harm with it.  I don't think that is really our goals.  And if it is, I suggest you go get a more positive hobby. I hear balloon making is fun.

Valentine' Day in Reflection

As you know, I set a goal for myself this year.  I wouldn't be sour and snide about the holiday. Honestly, there is no point is being negative about it any more.  Instead, I decided to Bask in the Love.  You know what? It worked.

So here are my highlights from my Valentine's Day celebrations:

• I posted on Facebook and invited people to tell me how they met the one they love.  I got some really good responses.  Every time I read one of the stories, I smiled. Even if it was just a simple thing, I smiled. And you know what? Part of why I smiled was because I could tell the responders were getting to relive that moment that changed so much for them.
  
• I later asked people to tell me about their favorite Valentine's Day memory.  One of the neatest responses I got from this came from a friend who's husband is blind. She told me that when the first got married, they didn't have much money and decided to just give gifts from the heart.  He'd expressed how he missed driving and so she cleared a parking lot for him and let him drive around. She sat next to him and guided him to keep them safe. I think this story will always stick with me.
• Two of my friends wrote their own posts about the holiday. One wrote about other gifts from the heart. Even with its own bit of snark, it was a very sweet post and he always has great pictures and videos and stuff.  His follow up post today was mostly nifty pictures. Loved it. Another friend wrote a post about things that really should be shown love on Valentine's Day. I liked this post because I often make speeches to my purses and stuff. When I told her this, she jokingly called me a weirdo.
• I encouraged people to think about those who are without an SA this year and get them a little gift.  I was thinking of widow(er)s, people recently divorced, those who are perpetually single, and the like. I'm not sure how much of this happened, but I did get two bouquets of flowers myself, so I know it worked somewhat.
• I participated in the Inner Beauty Project and wrote a very painful but soul cleansing love letter to myself.  I feel very committed to this glorious idea. I really encourage everyone to do this.
• I helped a friend online come up with a Valentine's Day gift for her boyfriend.  I made quite a few suggestions to her and I think she took a couple of them.
• Tonight, my roomie and I did our traditional eating of Valentine's Day candy after pasta. Hah, I almost left that as "paste." Totally changes the idea. This is very important to me, as all traditions with the roommate are.  Neither of us celebrate any holiday in normal ways, as we didn't have normal childhoods. What we do with them always makes me happy.
• While looking through the pictures of people's gifts on Facebook, I liked them, and I meant it.  Instead of being selfish and sulking about the holiday, I was happy for people because they got pretty things. Things that made them feel special and loved. That is beautiful. 
• My sister-in-law saved all the broken crayons from the last year and helped my nephew to make hearts out of them for his classmates.  They looked really cool and I complimented her on them.

Wow. Look at that. And I may have even missed some stuff. But seriously. LOOK AT THAT. I took this holiday I rarely give a care about, often just am annoyed with, and turned it into a real celebration for me. Something that moved me, changed me, gave me stories, strengthened my ties with people, strengthened my ties with myself.

And all this, just because I choose to alter my perspective.  Happy Valentine's Day. 

More discussions of sucking

SO....a while back, Monty Python put all of their work up on Youtube so everyone could watch it for free. Since then, sales of their dvds have gone up 23,000%. Article about it is here if you're interested.  I read about this just a few hours after I watched Neil Gaiman talk about why he was cool with people pirating his writing online. That is here, if you're interested. Good video and Neil has a very hot voice.

Anyway, so in both cases, one finds proof that putting things online for free in no way harmed the sale of the works. In fact, just the opposite is true.  We find that both with Monty Python and Gaiman, their sales showed vast increase, despite the free access.  And why is this, you may ask, how can this be after countless others have screamed and whined and moaned and gnashed their teeth about how piracy is draining money from artists?

Gaiman makes a good point as to the why of this. He talked about how and why people get exposed to certain aspects of media. He would invite his audience members to think about how they found their favorite author and noticed a trend. Most of us tend to find our favorite things, authors, musicians, movies, through exposure from others.

I know this has been the case for me.  I can't even count how many of my favorites happen to BE that due to friends.  I can also tell you that for all of the mix tapes and borrowed comics and whatnot, of the things I really loved, I bought my own copies. I needed to have them with me, close to my person, so any time I needed to experience them again, I could.

And in an economy where people don't have a lot of money to spare on things like books and music, having someone give you a sample of it before you make the purchase is quite helpful.  If you're having to decide if you want to have a new dvd or, say for instance, gas for your car, you're going to opt for the car if you know nothing about the dvd in question.

However, if you got to watch a good selection of said movie online? You may know it's special enough to give up driving your car for a few days.

So this is the conclusion I've reached about this, and it's shitty, but oh so true.  There are people who suffer from online piracy and things being posted for free. There are people who see a vast cut in their sales and feel used and taken advantage of . . . these are the people who just really aren't that good.

Yes, there. I've said it.  The people who suffer from piracy are the ones who will only make money if you're tricked into buying what they are selling without prior exposure to the work. These are the people who want to lure you in and trick you into buying their mediocre novel or lackluster fail of an album knowing full well it sucks but that once you've bought it, they still get the proceeds. Sure, you'll never buy their stuff again. Their offering of fail will take up space on your shelves until you sell it to a resale shop or something. But they still got their money.

Look, I am in no way encouraging people TO pirate the work of others.  While it may work quite well for Python to put their stuff on Youtube for free, the big bad evil record company drones and those other shades of drone who run other media still see this as illegal.

However, as an artist, there might be other ways to look at the issue.  When it gets down to it, intellectual property has its merits, but piracy and whatnot are really the best form of  free advertising you're going to get.  If you are GOOD, you will still make money because people will STILL want to buy what you're selling. And if you don't make money . . . maybe you should rethink you're career choices.

Or, you know, find a way not to suck so much.

I've been using the word "suck" a lot lately. Must have something to do with Valentine's Day.  OH, and it's midnight. Happy Valentine's Day, darlings. Hope you get what you want.

The Days of Suck and Not-Suck

 Above you will see the beautiful flowers sent to me by my Aunt and Uncle for VD.  As I have mentioned before, even the most simple of things can make someone's day so wonderful. This was one of those things for me.  The gift was completely unexpected and instantly loved. I felt loved. This was a moment of certain Not-Suck.

 But that was only for a while. Above you will see my NEXT unexpected "gift." Later this same day, I went to the bathroom sans headphones. This is something I rarely do . . . the headphones part. I got to the bathroom as often as any 37 old woman does. But on that day, I was lazy and didn't bother. I also didn't bother to turn on the heater. Because of these two factors, I could hear the strange sound in the pipes, like something was turned on, when nothing was.

My roommate went outside to inspect and discovered that one of our outside spigots was gushing water.  LOTS of water.  It was also, mind you, Friday afternoon, past five. So any plumber who was going to show up would be doing so on after-hours pay.  This was a moment of PURE SUCK.

We ended up getting the issue fixed that night. Thank all that is holy because otherwise the water would have been off and I already mentioned I pee like a 37 yr old woman. It cost a lot of money and all  I got was a bit of broken piping and sustained hours of Panic Mode.

I'm working on getting past Panic Mode, but I'm still not very good at it. Everyone handles Panic Mode differently.  I tend to get very quiet, shut down somewhat, and become very fatalistic.  I think I get kind of abrasive too, but as I'm not on the receiving end of that, I'm not quite sure.

Due to my Panic Mode response (and the logistic difficulty of transporting someone of my size), I have very little fear of being the target of a serial killer.  And if I ever am one, I think it will go down something like this:

Serial killer: Bwahahaha! I'm serial killer! I'm here to kill you . . . serially!

Me: *flatly* Yeah. Okay.

Serial killer: Bwahaha, you're gonna die in a very creative, twisted, and demeaning way. Bwahaha!

Me: Evs. Get it over with.

Serial killer: Bwaha.....wait....what?

Me: Listen, bucko. I'm a fat girl. People get so damned judgy about why people die. So as long as I die in ANYWAY that isn't a heart attack or cancer or some other fat-related crap, I'm kinda Zen about it.

Serial killer: But . . . you're supposed to be scared and weepy and begging for your life.

Me: Tell you what, you want some begging? Bring me my iPod. Please.  I'd kind of like to hear Sisters of Mercy as you're chopping me to bits or whatever. It seems apropro.

Serial killer: OMG, isn't Andrew Eldritch  the BOMB?

Me: No one says "the bomb" anymore. And yes, he is.

And that's how we would become friends.  Until, you know, he went to jail for killy-related things and I died of a heart attack. Then the day would suck.

This one goes out to the one I love

I was inspired by this contest. I hope everyone does this as well. I'm posting this through tears. It's been a beautiful experience. Thank you, Iman.

Dear Lil,

I want to talk about that day. You know the one. Your mother was recently dead. Your grandmother was ill.  You were laying on a broken down, single bed in a cold, nasty trailer.  You were unemployed, so heavy you were perhaps unemployable, hopeless, depressed, and broken.

You couldn't breath.

For three days, you'd been struggling for air. All breathing was shallow, grasping, gasping, and never enough.  Your heart would race in terrifying ways, and then slow to almost nothing.  You were blacking out, fading out, falling into fits of unsatisfying sleep. You were starving for oxygen.

In your hand, you held your phone.  You needed to call for help. You needed medical assistance in the most serious of ways.  It was so easy to dial and you knew you still could.

Before you dialed though, before you reached out to ask for breath, there was a deeper question that you asked yourself.

Did you really wish to continue to live?

You asked yourself this, knowing full well you had total control over the situation.  It was quite clear that if you didn't do something about your lack of oxygen, you would die.  It would be easy to do so. Painful, surely. Scary, certainly. But easy. Perhaps easier than living.

You felt hyper real in that moment. You felt so much control, so much rationality. Life or death. All in your hands. There were so many good reasons to let the phone slide away. So few reasons you could think of to dial.  Only one reason really, the main, most important reason that suddenly grabbed hold of you and shook you with its intensity.

I love you.

I love you and I always have. Even when no one else was there for you, I was.  Even when all the world seemed out of sorts, I was there. Maybe I couldn't always come up with the best way through things. Maybe sometimes my plans were lacking, my motives lazy, my protection shoddy, but even then, I gave you what I could.

I love you, and for that reason, you decided to live.  You dialed your doctor and within 24 hours, you had oxygen, you had tests and results and new plans for making things better.  And all the while you were getting better, I was there, completely loving you, and so happy you would continue.

We've never talked much about that day. It happened and it's always in the back of the mind that it happened, but we don't discuss it.  Maybe we haven't needed to. Maybe the silent, but binding commitment made between us was enough. Sometimes hitting a moment of such deep passion is too hard to put into words.

I hope you're not upset that I decided to talk about it.  It's been almost three years now, and I felt it was time. I wanted you to know how proud I am of you.  When you decided to call your doctor, when you decided to live, it wasn't about continuing to live the life you had. We both knew you deserved better. It was time to take steps, to move forward. Or, at least, it was time to choose a path.

I look at you today and I marvel at what you have become, how your definitions are changing. You are letting go of reactive in favor of reflective, you are letting go of indulgent in favor of independent. You are letting go of defeatist in favor of planner.  You share more of yourself, your life, your thoughts.  You give shelter.  You give smiles to those in need.  You are a bringer of joy, hoping that others can find the love you have found, the love that was always there for you.

You mean everything to me. You amuse me. You entertain me.  You keep me awake at night telling me stories. I wouldn't trade you for the world and I'm so glad I didn't have to. And now every time we take a breath, I am reminded of how precious that is, how deep the fear can be at the thought of it now happening. I'm so thankful for the breathing, even if it involves tubing sometimes.

I'm thankful you choose to live your life with me, every second, every day. It makes me the luckiest person in the world.

Love,
Lil

Days of Plague and Snarking

If you are ever feeling down and think you have nothing in the world to be thankful for, repeat the following statement. "I am so grateful that Blackhaired Barbie is not my god."

For I would be a cruel, cruel mistress.  Okay, I wouldn't be so concerned about your misdeeds and crap like that,  unless you were rather annoying, but I would venture into lots of random chaos and send plagues.  I've been thinking about this for a while. Plagues should be a truly disturbing thing and not just some event where a lot of bugs or something show up. With that in mind, I give you:

THE PLAGUES OF BLACKHAIRED BARBIE

THE FIRST PLAGUE

Ventriloquist's DummiesIs there anything out there more creepy thank ventriloquist's dummies?  With their movable (and therefore, split open) mouths and twisty eyes and strange little voices coming from seemingly no where? Oh, they say it's the human with them. But how do we really know?

This wouldn't be a plague where they fell from the sky or anything. No, no. You would just randomly see them. For instance, you might be getting into your car and look in the rear view mirror and SURPRISE! DUMMY!!!  Or you might be walking into the bathroom in the middle of the night, needing to relieve yourself so badly....and sitting there on the toilet SURPRISE! DUMMY!!

OH, this makes me laugh just thinking about.

THE SECOND PLAGUE

TelemarketersDuring the 1990s, this plague was quite common. No matter what you were trying to do in your home, you'd get tons of calls from people wanting to sell you siding or funeral plots or baby lemurs. Okay, maybe that last one is just wishful thinking on my part, but you get the idea. This stopped after the DO NOT CALL list came out. Come to think of it, that's probably one of the best things the government ever did.

With my plague, I would spice it up some. Instead of calling you, the telemarketers would speak directly INTO YOUR BRAIN. They would come on at random times and start pitching products to you . . . like when you were taking a test . . . or performing brain surgery . . . or having sex.  The products would either be something you would never want . . . or something you DID want, only very overpriced.

As your god, my point with this plague would be to help you to consider what was truly important.

THE THIRD PLAGUE

CriticsCritics actually have a valid place in our society. They give reviews of food and movies and music. When the critic is informed and noble in their analysis, this can be a wonderful thing.  The rest of them tend to just be assholes.

During the plague, each person would have seven critics around them at all times. And they would give critique over every aspect of your life.

"I watched as Sasha brushed her teeth today.  Can we say boring? It's like she doesn't even try any more. There is no variety to it. No spark. It's like at some point she just decided tooth brushing worked one way for her and there was no point of further exploration."

"Ho hum. Another day, another moment of Kale getting into his car. Note the way he just slides in, as if it were common place. Where is his sense of adventure?"

Of course, the critics would be able to discuss you with each other and argue about your various merits.  They would never come to any type of consensus and place the blame completely on you.

For many people, I hear this is kind of what it's like when your parents stay married.

Anyway, enough of my godlike evil for today.  I think you get the idea. Whenever you think things couldn't get any worse, just remember, they seriously could.

I could be in control of your destiny. Bwahahahaaha.....hah!

Eye of the Beholder

Played with the look of the blog some today. I wanted my image in it, just all big and bold and snarky. It somewhat sets the tone for everything that follows.

I'm not sure I like the new colors, but I'm really too lazy tired and cold to take it any farther than I did.  As I said, the important thing was I put the image on it.

This doesn't look like me, not really.  I'm no where near this pretty or even this thinnish, though I allude to not being thin, even in the pic. You'll notice it has not clear chin.

However, I think in my head this is how I look. And, weirdly, I think this is how I look in most people's heads as well.  Hey, this is true. You know how perception goes. Just because you rationally know what someone looks like, that doesn't mean it's how you really see them.

If you love someone, you always concentrate on their better features. If you dislike someone, you focus on flaws.  It's so, so true.

For instance, check out this list that Sid Vicious made about his wife Nancy. Most people probably laughed at this, especially considering he probably killed her.  I didn't though. Even though when most people thought Nancy was fairly nasty, Sid didn't. He loved her. And like I said, when you love someone, you mostly see the good stuff.

Shivering as I Type

No long life altering post today. It's just way too cold for that.  The winter has been rough (on almost everyone, from what I understand) and I think it's really starting to get to me.

As much as I love the snow, I'm tired of the isolation. When I do leave the house, it's somewhat with my life (and limbs) in my hands.  I've had to prioritize when I would go out, and that's really put a dent in my usual (if rare) activities. This means I've missed therapy for two weeks in a row and tomorrow will miss seeing my best friend.

This is wearing on me.  I am a triple Earth and I need my patterns to be followed. I've spent so much time trying to establish some order to my chaos. I need that order, however marginal it is, to help me hold myself together.

As I said, a rough winter.  There was this kind of dark banality to December that wandered into a rather robotic holiday season.  Now everything is still and stagnating under this blanket of snow.  I need my routine back.

I'll write more tomorrow.

The Great Mental Disconnect

Spent some time reading this article about Paul Haggis leaving Scientology.  As with my last post that concerned religion, I am not going to discuss the merits of the religion, but some of the other issues the article brought forth.

One of the things that Haggis talked about was how he would feel bad and like nothing was changing, or very little was, but he still kept acting like everything was fine.  From the article:

Since resigning, Haggis had been wondering why it took him so long to leave. In an e-mail exchange, I noted that higher-level Scientologists are supposed to be free of neuroses and allergies, and resistant to the common cold. “Dianetics” also promises heightened powers of intelligence and perception. Haggis had told me that he fell far short of this goal. “Did you feel it was your fault?” I asked. Haggis responded that, because the auditing took place over a number of years, it was easy to believe that he might actually be smarter and wiser because of it, just as that might be true after years of therapy. “It is all so subjective, how is one supposed to know?” he wrote. “How does it feel to be smarter today than you were two months ago? . . . But yes, I always felt false.”

He noted that a Scientologist hearing this would feel, with some justification, that he had misled his auditors about his progress. But, after hundreds of hours of auditing sessions, he said, “I remember feeling I just wanted it over. I felt it wasn’t working, and figured that could be my fault, but did not want the hours of ‘repair auditing’ that they would tell me I needed to fix it. So I just went along, to my shame. I did what was easy . . . without asking them, or myself, any hard questions." PROFILES, “THE APOSTATE,” THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 14, 2011, P. 84
The core issue here is how he knew this wasn't working, that the thing he was supposed to be experiencing wasn't happening, but he went on along with the program, pretending that it did.  This struck a chord with me because it's something I've done myself and have watched others do over the years.

Humans have a lot of frustrations in life, but one of the key ones seems to be the disconnect between what should be working and what really is.  What Haggis described about his own experiences with religion and enlightenment is something many people go through. People commit to a faith, they start a diet or an AA program, they read self-help books . . . so so many things that seem to work for other people, but somehow don't work for them. There is a lot of failure and shame that grows from this.

And maybe that's why so many of us lie about it.  We pretend to be making progress, when, really, we're just completely confused and have no idea what is happening. We watch others and see the whatever program working for them, and we start to wonder one of three things.

1. Is there something I am missing here? Was there a step we didn't get or a pattern that someone else grasp hold of that we somehow didn't catch.
   
   The danger in this idea is that we begin to desperately try and play catch up. We often wear ourselves out with participating in whatever activities our program has going for it. Often we will find ourselves pouring money or time we really can't afford to lose into activities, hoping this will make it happen.
   
   When I was trying to learn to knit for the first time, I bought some needles and set out to knit.  I could crochet, so surely this couldn't be that hard.  It didn't work at all.  So I started buying more things. I bought How To books and more needles (I think with the idea that the ones I had wouldn't work for me), I even bought more yarn (I can't even remember the logic behind that one). But even with all of the new and nifty things, I still couldn't knit.
   
   It wasn't until I sat down, with the promise to myself that I WOULD LEARN THIS and studied an online guide, a knitting for dumbies, and and I think a couple of other things all at once, that I finally understood the process.
   
   In the end I realized that it wasn't the money or the time spent in frustration that got me to understand this, it was calming myself down and having the concentration to actually process what I was supposed to do.
   
2. Is there something just wrong with me that I can't make this work?
   
   Often if we make this assumption, we begin to question our own abilities for self improvement.  Instead of blaming the program, we assume that all failure rests in us.
   
   The danger with this is that it can lead vulnerable people into an even worse headspace. We begin to feel that failing is all we can do. We look at those around us who seem to be making this program work for them and wonder why we are doomed to never achieve what they have found.
   
   I think the best personal example I can give here is my weight issues.  Like most fat people, I've spent almost my whole life on a diet of some sort.  Probably MOST diets, really.  I try them, I fall off of them, I think I'm a failure, I eat more, and then I usually decide I am doomed to never be healthy and go back to eating whatever I want.
   
   One of my active goals in therapy right now has to do with breaking this pattern. I think one of the most important statements I ever made was when I finally stopped babbling about my weight loss goals and admitted that I didn't think I really COULD lose weight.  My therapist seemed pleased with this and told me that I could, but it was going to take some time for me to realize this.  And I still haven't. It's some big magical thing that will never happen to me right now.  But I have faith that our next series of sessions will help me to change that thinking.
   
3. This seems to be working for everyone else, but are they faking it?
   
   The danger in this is basic and rather primal distrust. If everyone else is faking, then everyone else is lying . . . to themselves, and to us.  While a healthy level of skepticism is always a good thing, in terms of any process where we are trying to better our lives, having no one to trust makes this very difficult. We find ourselves closed off to everyone else in the program.  After a while, we lose all reason for even wanting to continue.
   
   When I was in grad school, I took a class over advanced educational theories.  Several of us had time to burn between classes and we'd sit out in the lounge and talk.  As the class progressed, I noticed that we stopped talking. We would withdraw from each other, even though we still sat in the same places.  We would read quietly or . . . well, okay, I think I would doodle or read comic books.
   
   I knew I was maybe a little in over my head in the class. It was theory I'd never dealt with before and I was having some trouble understanding it. I self-identify as a smart person, so this was pissing me off. It was also really making me resent these other people, who I suspected didn't understand this any better than I did, but pretended like they did, the losers!
   
   One night though, one of the other women sat down in her usual place and looked at the rest of us, "Okay, look," she said. "I have read chapter 17 three times now. I have no idea what this person is talking about."
   
   It was so freeing! I had no idea either! No one did!
   
   We started working through the chapter, picking it apart piece by piece, and finally grasped the whole theory.  Afterward, we discussed our distance and frustrations.  Actually, we basically all did this rapid fire confession of it. We were so relieved by the fact that everyone else was as confused as we were. 

We hate, we LOATHE to admit that we don't understand things, that we don't get it, that it isn't working for us.  We will go through such great lengths to fake out the process, to hide our fears and confusion, to make it look like we know what is going on.

Let me tell you though, admitting to failure and idiocy? It can be quite freeing.  Accepting the fact that you have no earthly clue what is happening?  This is very liberating. We risk so much embarrassment in admitting our failings and mistakes, but it is so worth admitting to.

One of the most powerful quotes I ever read was this:

“Each of us has the right and the responsibility to asses the road which lie ahead and those over which we have traveled, and if the feature road looms ominous or unpromising, and the road back uninviting-inviting, then we need to gather our resolve and carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that one as well.” - Maya Angelou

VD and the Happy Bubbles

When you're a kid, Valentine's Day is just another Candy-Related Holiday.  In this case, candy usually came in two basic forms. The first is candy message hearts, which I think everyone kind of hates . . . but eats anyway. The second is chocolate. Chocolate is good to....questionably good.

Valentine's Day was also a craft related holiday.  A week or so before the actual event, everyone would be asked to bring a box or brown paper lunch bag or something to school.  About half the kids would remember to do this. The rest of the bags would be supplied by teachers.  Said teachers would then pull out the white, red, and shades-of-red construction paper.  We'd all get out our paste and safety scissors and perhaps some markers. There would always be those two or three kids who would spend the next few minutes getting high off the fumes.

I wonder where those kids are now . . .

Anyway, we would cover our boxes or bags with the construction paper (often poorly) and then start cutting out various sized valentines to put on it.  We'd add our names and a place for the valentines to be slipped in. Often we'd make the hole large enough to handle any possible candies that might be given as well. Everyone always liked the kids with the overly ambitious mothers.

For the most part, everyone received the same valentine. Flat cards with some picture on the front and the To: and From: on the back. Most often, these weren't even filled in. The kids were handed a box of the cards and told to stick them in each slot.  Everyone got the same thing.   So in elementary school, no one had any reason to hate Valentine's Day.

The changes came in the later grades, as people began to think about things in much more basic and individual terms. With middle school, there was a lot of secrets and intrigue. People would receive Valentine's Day gifts of candy or flowers, often from admirers. I think in all of our lives, Anonymous is never more sexy than during middle school.  The whole three years could have been one big masquerade ball and we would have been happy . . . actually, as bad as most of us were at putting on makeup, it probably was a lot like that.

Valentine's Day in high school was, depending on your station, either very fun or a day of hell.  Okay, I guess that was true for ANY day of high school, but this one especially. The hour before lunch time, the secretary would come onto the intercom and begin to name off everyone who had gifts to be picked up, stating that this would be done again the hour before school let out.

Everyone listened to that intercom with such intensity, hoping for their names to be called. You could see the hope on their faces, wanting the gift so much, no matter what it was. . . . and then the look of either delight or disappointment when the results became clear.  In terms of cruelty, I give that to the first announcement. Hands down.    If you received no gifts on the first list, it was like being cut, but given assurance that you would either get stitches or cut even deeper later in the day.

Those of us, alone and giftless, would walk out of the school on those Valentine's Days and watch the  Beautiful Ones glide to their cars with their bounty.  Roses and other flowers, red, white, and/or shades there in-between of Teddy bears holding freaking hearts, boxes of candy, balloons shaped like valentines, with garish lettering of how much they were adored.

I remember sitting in my car one year, watching as a giddy creature had the daunting task of trying to stuff twelve helium balloons into her car. I told myself that this was just a moment in time and someday, I would be the one with balloons....and that instead of trying to put them in my car, me and Perfect Weird Boyfriend would sit on the ground outside of it, sucking the helium and singing songs to each other while we laughed.

Of course, I never found Perfect Weird Boyfriend.  And over the years, as I watched as even the innocent hurt of high school VD gave way to "get-candy-and-whatever-boyfriend-is-resentful-but-I-give-him-sex" that so many seemed to experience during this holiday, the snark factor rose.  The whole concept became one of bitterness and bile.  After a while, that was more or less what the holiday was for me. Let's face it, I call it VD. That should tell you something.

This isn't to say I don't currently have a tradition with Valentine's Day. My roommate always buys up the most silly and gaudy things he can find and we eat them subversively, like we're stealing them from the mouths of the In-love Ones.  Today he bought mini cupcakes that had pink and red icing and a smattering of tiny hearts on them. They were precious in the most godawful kind of way.

However . . . I'm letting go of my venom and bitterness for the holiday.  Even if Valentine's Day has been a source of pain and rancor for me over the years, I've come to realize that it was only because I was letting it be.

I may not be in a romantic relationship with anyone, but that doesn't mean I can't bask in the love of others.  And so I shall do just this. In fact, I plan on celebrating it, rejoicing in it, spreading as many happy bubbles as I can.

Because, here's the thing . . . most of the stuff in my life that works, are because I found a way to make them work for me. Life is rarely, if ever, an easy fit.  Valentine's Day has never worked for me because I was trying to take it on the terms as described.  That's not how things work for me.

So I'm reinventing how I view it. VD is now me basking in love, no matter who's love it is.  And damn, do I feel good.

The Patterns of Life (not to be mistaken for the fabric of our lives)

When I was six, my parents divorced. I stayed with my mom and saw my dad on the weekends.

During those first years, while I was still Daddy's girl, this was hell on me.  He would pick me up and I would spend the weekend with him. When he took me back to school on Monday morning, I would always cry my eyes out. There was nothing more painful in the world than that to me. I would sit on this swing before first bell was called and cry for him.  I've often wondered what that was like for him.

Eventually I got to where I wouldn't cry. I wish I could remember the day or why I stopped, but I don't.  I do know that for a few years after that, my mom and her husbands were causing so much drama that any time with Dad was mostly just a release from that.  I never felt comfortable at home.

But the Away Time was special.  I got to go places and do fun things. I got to be talked to and visit people and get things.  Most of all, and this was the very most of all important thing, I was safe.  Any time I was away from my mother and her abusive situations, I was safe.

Over the years, my father and I have grown distant.  We speak probably about once every three months or so.  We see each other on holidays or at my brother's children's birthday parties. I've not been to his house in some time.

However, the basic pattern of visitation has stayed with me.  I go to see my best friend once every two weeks. We hang out and basically watch movies and talk.  We eat expensive stuff and drink and laugh as loud as we can.  It's this time of escape from all the adult stuff that happens (well, in her life at least. Probably very little about my life is adult).

Here is the difference though, and the part that DOES make me the adult.  I am safe when I am with my friend. But in my own home, I am still safe.  There is no scary drama caused by people like my mother and her menz.  All of that is gone and far away from me now.

It's good to know that while some patterns never leave us, we have the ability to step away from the ones that could cause harm.

O.O...............WOW

Well, would you look at that! I made it a whole month and I'm still blogging. Amazing. Almost unheard of from me.

I'm such a flake about things.  Well, an obsessive flake. I'll be SO INTO something...and then....meh.  I've kept with knitting fairly well for the last couple of years and I still play Sims all the time, though maybe not as much as I once did.

I was always somewhat flaky, but the meds make it so much worse.  Now my mind flitters and drifts all over the place, as I've discussed before. It makes me happy I don't have kids because I'd probably just lose interest. That sounds harsh, but less harsh as I don't have any to TRULY neglect.

I think it's important when people realize they shouldn't have children.  Often you are looked at like you just said something horrific.  One time, I actually regarded the person staring at me for a full two minutes, hoping their expression would change. It didn't. Finally I said, "I said I didn't want children, not that I wanted to chop children up and eat them."

The Staring Person: How can you HATE CHILDREN?

The thing is, I don't hate children. Okay, I hate some children, but mostly I hate their parents for allowing them to be megabrats. Most of the kids I'm around on a daily basis though, I'm fine with. However, I realize that I wouldn't be a good caretaker of children, therefore I do not have any.  To me, this is the responsible decision I could make on the matter.

Wow, how did I get off on that?  That's not the point of this! The point is yay! YAY!! YAY!!!! I blogged for a month. Good for me.

And by the way, when we laugh at ourselves, we're also laughing at you.

I was reading this article today, thinking my usual deep thought of snark about it. . . . until I got pissed off.  Mind you, that wasn't over the topic.  Honestly, I'm rather happy the Fat, Ugly, or Slutty site exists, because it places the due humor on the issue.

For anyone who is thinking, tl;dr about the links, the basic idea is that Fat, Ugly, or Slutty chronicles the various asinine insults that male gamers send to female gamers on livechats.  Mind you, trash talk is always a part of these things, but it seems when the menz realize a OMGchick! is in their game, they get really threatened and, instead of the usual insults, begin a line of misogyny. The folks at FUS think this is funny, and set up the site so people could post the various things sent to them and everyone can laugh at them.

The point being, one of the backlashes of Feminism has been this intense line of verbal attacks from men who feel threatened when women begin to walk into what they see as their territory (as opposed to the olden days when usually women just experienced verbal attacks from men they were married to/related to). And while this worked for a while, it seems lately women have more or less started blowing the whole thing off or laughing at it because it's just so stupid.

There is only so many times someone can tell you to get into the kitchen and make them a sandwich before you just laugh at it. Now I always here them in Cartman's voice.

As for the "fat and ugly" insults.  Ehh, I know I'm fat. I know you assume I'm ugly. Usually women are only deeply devastated by said insults if they place their self-worth in their beauty/thinness, which they usually ONLY do if they were told how "pretty/skinny" they were as kids....and if they were told this, they probably really ARE this which means the insults are untrue. For the rest of us, we tend to place self worth in other things. Mine tends to be in my ability to be a smartass.

Oh, but back to the part where I got mad.  Yeah. The one thing that did piss me off about this whole article was one of the comments when someone suggested we "toughen the fuck up."

I take issue with that because since when was humor not a way of toughing up?  Honestly, it is most people's method of toughing up.  The website isn't there so everyone can cry. It's not there so everyone can be outraged because what has been said (though, often people are rather shocked at the vitriol displayed in the comments), it is there so people can laugh at them.  People are owning these comments and making their own bits of sarcasm back.  They are making light of them and reducing them to what they really are . . . petty statements made by petty people.  To me, that IS being tough.

The reason the zombies aren't interested

No good deed goes without headaches. Sometimes those headaches lead to brain explosion.

A while back a friend asked me to set up a Facebook account for her. I did....only to find it already existed.  She shares email with her husband and he'd set the account up to....I dunno, stalk someone or something.  Anyway, that was creepy so instead, I linked her Facebook to an old email address of mine. I'd not used it in years.

Anyway, after I did this, she decided not to play with Facebook and abandoned it for over a year. Last night, she IMs me.

Friend: So....what is my Facebook password?

Me: ...............um.................

I knew if she was ever going to get on, it would have to be my doing and not hers. She hates computers and their various protocols, so I logged out of my account and started trying to get into the one I set up for her. It had been over a year.  I had some basic guesses, so I tried them. Nothing.  I tried some more. Nothing.  At this point, I was afraid FB was aiming lasers at me, so I decided to hit the I forgot my password button.

This takes me to a little form for me to fill out, stating my email addy or user name or some other stuff that I forget as I think my brain caught on fire after that.  Once I did this part, I had to fill out one of the little boxes that makes sure you're not a robot.  As I've stated before, my status as a robot is sometimes questionable, but in this instance, I passed.

I send it to the linked email without thinking and go to open that.....only to find out that said abandoned email account now resents passwords every 70 days.

So for the second time, I start the whole find the password process over again. Evil little boxes, confirmations, all that jazz. FINALLY, I get that password reset so that I can get the other password reset.  I finally do all of this, taking time to make notes about it in Word so that I won't lose the blasted things again.  I send the whole mess of email addy, passwords and whatnot to my friend and wait.

Friend: Um....it's not working.

Me: *brain explodes*

Friend: Oh wait. Yeah, there it goes. I'm in.

I only read this IM much later, after I'd finally picked up all the little bits and pieces of my brain from the floor.  As I was pushing them back through my nose (hey, it worked for the Egyptians to pull brains out, I might as well do the opposite), I told her she could have the old email account and explained to her how she could do all of this stuff herself.

And I have faith she will do it alll on her own too. She will. She will. Or my brain will explode again.

The Road to Hell is Paved with Angry Hate-Puppets

Recently, Bill O'Reilly has been in the news and on blogs about his asinine comments concerning "why atheists are wrong."  I think everyone has heard the story.  He started talking about how the tide comes in and the tide goes out and this is proof of an orderly god running everything.  Then someone explained to him basic science, about how the moon causes tides.  After this, he said other stupid things and more or less challenged the atheists to explain to him how all of this works if not for God.

You know, I'm not even going to approach this from a religious perspective. I will speak of the failure to communicate.

Christians (and other groups, I suppose, but I'm mainly around Christians and most often hear them talking) seem to hold a deep anger towards atheists. I've heard a lot of reasons for this. They believe atheists to be smug or arrogant, always going about spouting their nonbeliefs.  Does this have some validation? Of course. In any group of people, a percentage of them will be smug assholes. That's just life. Most often, these smug people will also be the loudmouths. Squeaky wheel and all.

Christians will also complain that atheists are seeking to end their religious rights.  Atheists stamped out prayer in school, protest when God is mentioned at social functions, that sort of thing. I'm always bemused by the prayer in school thing. When I was in school, I think I prayed all the time. Probably not the most mature or deep of prayers, but prayers nevertheless. It was all silent though. Praying can be, and often should be, like doing Kegel exercises . . . you can do them alll you want and its probably more productive if no one knows.

Deep down though, I think the reason why Christians get bent out of shape about atheists is that they know this is a sign of their own failure. These are the people who haven't been reached through witnessing, prayer, or living a Christ-centered life.  Now, many Christians will say this is because the atheists have hardened their hearts against Christ or because they just want to be wicked and sinful....and in some cases, that might be true.  Then they meet some atheist who is kind and generous and living a fairly meek and moral life. And no, I'm not saying that will "get you into Heaven" but it does fly in the face of the usual atheists stereotype.

So why are these people atheists?

And see, that single question is where many Christians suddenly begin to fail in communicating.  They suddenly get on the defensive (which, by the way, is not Christlike) and go on the attack (also...not that Christlike).  Instead of sitting down with the atheist and opening up a discussion about their beliefs and trying to find a common ground so they can start to really communicate, the whole Bill O'Reilly thing happens.

What kills me, is I think I know what Bill was TRYING to say. It would have been something like this, "Look, there is a lot about life I don't get. The world can be chaotic and freaky and very difficult. But sometimes when I'm on the beach, I'm struck by how no matter what is happening in the rest of the world, the tide goes in and comes out as it always does.  There is an order to things, a harmony, a certainty. This gives me peace. Even when I'm scared, even when I'm sad, even when everything feels like it's about to fly off its hinges, I can look at the tide and find peace.  And this deep peace, to me, is proof of God."

Something like that may not convince someone to change their beliefs, but . . . it also doesn't turn them away from what you're saying. Why? Because instead of being accusatory and sanctimonious (which always shuts people down from listening to you),  it is open and inviting. It isn't a blanket statement about the whole world, but a personal statement about yourself. And that is what Christianity is supposed to be about...your relationship with Jesus.

Will we see this type of communication on shows like his?  Probably not. It requires vulnerability and sincerity. It requires being able to get past your anger at someone else and opening up to let them see a part of you.

While this example is about religion, I think the concept is a problem in a lot of the way we try to talk to one another. Very often as Americans, we have opposing political or social views.  We're all quite sure ours are correct and often get angry, fairly quickly and irrationally, when someone doesn't see it our way.

The worst thing we do at this point is try to demand they prove to us WHY they don't believe the way we do.  O'Reilly made this error as well. It's not up to the atheists to prove to HIM why they don't believe in God.  It's for him to find a way to help them see why they should.  When you are the one wanting someone to change, they owe you NO justifications for why they won't. You are the one who is there to persuade them.

If you truly want someone to change their opinions about something, don't yell and scream at them. Don't insult them and try to bully them by surrounding yourself with people who see things the way you do. That might drown them out and it might keep them from making decisions . . . hell, it might even get them killed. It doesn't change their minds though. It doesn't persuade them to do or believe anything differently.  So really, you've lost the argument. And if you are inclined to believe this way, you may have helped someone to lose their way.

Snark on Ice

I have a long history of falling down.  My mother almost named me Grace Elizabeth, which would have been the ironies of ironies as I am as clumsy as any human can be.  And I don't mean in that Bella-Swan-MarySue-Out-of-Sequence kind of way. I mean, real fall on your ass clumsy.

The night of my junior prom, I was doing some level of giggle and tickle with the boy I adored and somehow managed to fall and break my leg.  And this was after I was already out of high heels and the dress.  I spent the remaining days of my junior year hobbling around in a cast.

When I was in college, one of my friend's lived in a house that existed at the bottom of an incline.  When it would rain, the  sidewalk leading to the house would be covered in mud, sludge, and slime.  On the day I found out my GRE score, I went over to said friend's house to happily report my success. I was so elated with my intelligence (okay, let's face it, my LUCK in getting questions I knew) that I discounted the slimy hellpit that was the sidewalk and slipped headfirst into the quagmire of nastiness.

So as you can imagine, it is always with much trepidation that I venture out into ice covered streets.  Honestly, I'd planned not to do this at all, content to just sit in the house and ride out the slick.  But my roommate had an emergency dental issue, so I rode with him.  I thought it was the least I could do. Yes, as usual, the least I can do is......sit.

Of course, the ride was deeply scary.  We fishtailed a couple of times. He described me as "white-knuckled and silent" during the trip.  I wasn't exactly silent. I seem to remember a lot of unintelligible wailing, but it may have been too high pitched for my roommate to hear. I saw a lot of dogs staring at the van though.

We stopped midway to FS and he decided it would try and calm me down with chocolate and coffee. While well-intentioned, the coffee became more of a burden than a blessing.  It was too hot to drink and so I just kept it in my hands, trying to make sure I didn't spill it on myself as we skitted along.

However, in the end, the coffee did turn into a blessing. When we got to the denist office, I needed to use the restroom. All the jostling and fear, I guess.  My roommate got out and informed me the parking area by my feet was covered in ice.

I opened the door and footed around, finding nothing secure.  I knew if I could just find a non-icy-evil-threateny place to step, I'd be okay. Hopefully.  I just didn't know how to accomplish that.

Until I remembered the coffee.....

I took the cup and poured it all out, letting the blistering hellish temp of it melt the ice around me. I smiled just a little as I stepped out . . .then I almost slipped. . .but I grabbed myself and made it in just fine.

Honestly, me on ice should be its own reality show.  Or its own warning tale. Either way, at least I'm home and safe . .  .until tomorrow when we have to go and pay bills.