NYE at Various Points During the Day

Note: This post was written at several points while I was sitting in vehicles waiting for my roommate.

Part One: Outside the Mechanic's
Today started out fine. As a send off to the year, we were going to Fort Smith to pick up some food we usually can't get here in town. About half way over there, my roommate commented that the tires were feeling wonky. We stopped to check them and, indeed, they were looking low. These are, mind you, the same tires that had air put in them yesterday. Clearly there is a bigger problem than just air pressure.

I'm writing this as I sit in Rabbitkiller and wait for my roommate to find out what's wrong. It's almost noon and I'm hungry and stressed and so, so annoyed that whatever this is wasn't taken care of yesterday. I can't help but wonder if my concerns about the tire were dismissed because I'm a woman. Had my male roommate been behind the wheel, would Ol' Boy been more diligent in his inspection?

Part Two: Outside the Mall

About the time I typed that last sentence, my roommate drove over to tell me we could leave. We stopped by the house so I could drop off Rabbitkiller. We went inside long enough to use the bathroom and ditch our jackets. I suppose we could have just called it a day, but instead we continued on our quest to do SOMETHING on New Year's Eve. It was important to us. We did 't want the last day of the year to be just like all the other days.

The flaw in that theory is that sometimes we just can't control the fuckery that happens every damned day. There were people driving stupid slow on the highway. The place we where we wanted to eat was closed. The drive-in we we to instead . . . I guess they misplaced our order. It ended up being about 1:30 before we ate anything today.  I have no idea if the food was really good. I was starving and would have probably thought my grandmothers "Velveta with Stewed Tomatoes and Shit Sauce" was good.

Right now I'm sitting in the parking lot in front of the mall. We wanted candy and my roommate has braved the mall to get some. People are being inconsiderate. Parking spaces in front of the food court are scarce, and these assholes are just standing around talking about their plans. Seriously, get in your fucking cars and go some place else to talk.

Part Three: Outside of the Papa Murphy's

Somehow the drive from the mall to the grocery store to this place was a nightmare. We got behind the slowest humans in the world. I will never understand why people who insist on driving slow feel the need to also buy the largest most cumbersome truck they can find. Are they just trying to get people killed? Hmm. That is possible.

Speaking of trucks, I will never understand why this part of the country, populated mostly by people who drive huge trucks, SUVs, or minivans, still tries to keep these tiny, narrow little parking lots. Come on people! You know everyone be drivin something huge! At least pretend like you're not trying to get us all to wreck.

Part Four: Later That Night

We finally made it home before four.  We unloaded the van and put away some meat my roommate bought while he was in the grocery store. Then we crashed for a while until it was time for dinner. I slept like the dead because the trip was pretty trying.

Though, as I'm sitting here, happily sated on sparkling wine and candy, I'd like to say there is one thing, above all things, that I am  grateful for. I get to share my life with a wonderful, giving person who has a great sense of humor and a generous heart. There are so many things that happened today that would have been so rough, to the point of day-ruining, if I would have been alone.

Today had some shitty moments, but it also had some wonderful ones. We listened to some great rockabilly music while we were at the drive-in. We talked about candy from our childhood and laughed about a lot of stuff. Our toast for the coming year was, "To no bullshit." It was fitting, funny, and so us. I enter 2014 feeling very blessed, very safe, and very loved. I'm not sure what more I could want.

Goodbye, 2013. Thank you to the people who helped me navigate this year. I love you and I am grateful.

Resolution Discussion Part II

Tonight has been really annoying. Our internet, for some unholy reason, decided to go out at 11.  No one wants to be on the phone to the internet company at 11 PM! Anyway, clearly, we got it fixed. For that reason, you're getting to read this.   I wrote the other day about resolutions I think everyone should make. Tonight, I'm going to talk about two I plan to make.

I don't like that I have to make these resolutions. I'm not upset that I'm making them. I'm upset that I HAVE to make them, because the fact that I have to make them means that I am things I don't want to be . . . ignorant, judgmental, and petty. I don't LIKE being ignorant, judgmental, and petty. Hopefully committing to these resolutions will do something about that.

Before I get in to the resolutions, I want to point out that making changes in your life only happens if you truly believe that changes are needed. Don't lie to yourself (or other people) and waste your time trying to make changes when you don't think anything is wrong. Even if society, your doctor, your pastor, and the whole universe is telling you that smoking is wrong, until YOU, deep inside the core of everything that is YOU come to the belief that smoking is truly wrong, you're going to keep doing it. You may do it less. You may sneak around and do it . . . but you'll still do it because you don't think it's wrong.

I wish I could add more to that. I can't tell you how to change your belief about it. All I can say is not to waste your time trying to alter behavior you don't see as wrong. . . . because chances are, you won't change anything.

Anyway, on to my resolutions . . .

ONE: I RESOLVE NOT TO FORM OPINIONS ABOUT THINGS AND ACCEPT THEM AS TRUE FACTS UNTIL I KNOW THE WHOLE STORY.

This could also be called the Woman Sues McDonald's over Hot Coffee resolution. You see, for years, I, like most people, believed that some woman (who, in my head, was some yippy middle aged woman) ordered coffee from McDonald's, spilled a little bit of it on her hand while she was driving, and then sued them and won millions of dollars. I believed these to be TRUE FACTS and thought it was an example of how awful our whole court system had become.

I believed these True Facts based on just the small bit of word of mouth I'd heard about this story. I knew it was a true thing that happened and beyond that never bothered to get any more facts about it. Why did I need to, after all?

Why? Well, because the woman was in her 70s. She wasn't driving, she was the passenger in the car. Because the coffee was 180 degrees and had been poured over the safe level of the serving line on the cup. When she set it between her legs to open it up, it poured out all over her pelvis. She had third degree burns on her thighs, genitalia, and butt. Horrible, painful burns that resulted in many days in the hospital and months of recovery.

She only asked McDonald's for enough money to cover her medical expenses, something akin to $10,000. She did have a legitimate case, because company policy allowed for coffee to be served at dangerously hot levels and it was pour improperly. The jury rewarded her millions as a message to McDonald's about their recklessness. The amount was based on coffee sales for two days. She didn't receive this amount, only around $700, 000 from the judge.

For her trouble, to this day, people still talk about this woman like she was some evil con artist who probably sued everyone over everything. She's dead now, but while she was still alive, she received all kinds of hateful letters about what she had done. All because people, like me, didn't know the whole story, but accepted the blurb they'd heard about it as the True Facts.

When I heard this whole story, I was horrified. I felt shame for my own participation in the cycle of ignorance. I knew, right then and there, that I needed to change the way I thought about things. I need to begin to study, seek out information, gather details, understand the fullness of a story, before I begin to form opinions about it.

Will this be more work for me? Yes. It may even make things uncomfortable for me from time to time, because my answer to someone who asks me about a topic may very well be, "you know, I don't know enough about that yet to have a fully knowledgeable  opinion." I'll have to sound ignorant to a lot of people . . . but, I'm okay with that because sounding ignorant is better than living ignorantly. I don't want to do THAT any more.

TWO: I RESOLVE NOT TO BODY SHAME.

I'm a fat woman and I should know better. However, I am ashamed to admit that I'm just as bad about this as other people. I think what woke me up about this was when one of my skinny friends made comment about those memes that go around on Facebook that show a heavier girl and a skinny girl and the heavier girl one says, "This is what a real woman looks like."

I know that the intent was to remind people that not every woman is a size 00. The idea was to embrace women who are heavier and accept them as just as worthy as the skinny ideal.

However,  the path to acceptance can NOT be one where we say 'my stuff is better than your stuff' or 'my stuff deserves more than your stuff' or, worst of all, 'my stuff is the REAL stuff and yours isn't.' The solution to getting people to accept you as you are isn't open hostility towards people who look the way everyone thinks they should. That isn't helping you. That's just harming other people.

The fact is, people of all sizes are of equal value. Women with curves are women. Women with a mountain for an ass are real women. Women with no curves are women. Women with their breasts removed are women. Women with no more reproductive parts are women. Women who are in men's bodies who self identify as women are women. We are all real women.

Now, as I can recall, I don't think I've ever been, personally, that harsh on the skinny girls. This is probably because I have a punk/goth sensibility and have always found the waifs very beautiful. I can be, however, quite harsh on women who have had a lot of plastic surgery done. That is where my mouth and my mind can make some HARSH judgments.

I have a real issue with women who've had a lot of work done. I make a lot of snap decisions about the kind of people they are and the lives they lead. Most of these decisions are not based in True Facts, but in watching reality TV.

"They don't even look human anymore."
"The surgery never looks good, and if it does, they all look the same. Just carbon copies."
"Clearly having that much work done is a sign of an insecure personality."
"If you've had that much work done, it's really sad. I feel sorry for you. Clearly you aren't and never can be a happy person."
"I bet she was really pretty once."

I have thought these things. I have said these things. And I am angry at myself for being the person who did this. Who the fuck am I to judge what someone else does with their body? Who am I to make comment or think shitty things about how someone else looks? I've spent almost my whole life being overweight. I've faced jokes, mockery, hatred, hostility, and discrimination over this.  And yet, it seems that none of that has given me empathy towards others. That's damned sad.

So from now on, I will make it a point to not body shame. I will not do it out loud. I will try not to do it in my head. How they look shouldn't be my measure of their worth. That is petty and shallow and very ignorant.

So there you have it, in very long, verbose, and cringing detail. I don't want to be a shitty person. I'm going to do my best not to be one.

The Music of that Soundtracked my 2013

I listened to such a weird eclectic bunch of music this year. Seriously. And not all of it was even music released in 2013. In fact, most of it wasn't. It was, however, MY 2013. Here are ten examples.

1. C2C "Down the Road"  I think I first heard this song in a commercial that involved dancers, horses, and nail polish. It's a very cool mix of old school music and the new stuffs. I obsesses over it for quite a while.
   
2. Vitalic "My Friend Dario"/ "Poison Lips" Vitalic is addictive. Once I started listening to their songs, I just couldn't bring myself to stop.  I couldn't narrow it down to just one song, so I listed both of these.
   
3. Bats for Lashes "Laura" Gah. This song still devastates me. It's one of those songs that I will probably never separate song from video in the way I consider it. The video talks about the feeling we have as we're watching someone we loved with all of our hearts grow older and begin to fade. It's heartbreaking in the most beautiful way.
   
4. Bigbang "Fantastic Baby"  Ahh, the song that sparked my obsession with Kpop. I don't even know or care if anyone else likes this song. I adore it and the boys are so pretty.
   
5. Jack White "Love Interruption" / "I'm Shakin" Again, I couldn't just pick one of these two songs as THE one I was obsessed with. I think every time I would listen to one I would listen to the other. Both songs are amazing on their own, though I believe the video work is excellent on both of them.
   
6. Justin Timberlake "Only when I Walk Away" This song has been my most recent obsession. I'm not the biggest JT fan in the world, but I really fucking love the mixing and darkness in this song.
   
7. Peaches "Boys Wanna Be Her" Peaches actually did a video for this song, but I like the fanvid for the world's hottest lesbian instead. It suits the song and suited my mood when I was listening to it.
   
8. Amanda Palmer "Do It with a Rock Star" Speaking of girl on girl action, Amanda Palmer certainly found her own happy place with alt porn star Stoya. I love the power of the song and how unabashedly AFP it is.
   
9. Adam WarRock "Magneto was Right" / "The Rains of Castamere"I am so happy this man exists. He raps about fiction that I love and does it in a way that is evocative and personal. These two are my favorites and I've listened to them probably a million times this year.
   
10.  Ed Sheeran "I See Fire" I was waddling out of the theater when this song began to play at the closing credits of Desolation of Smaug. It captured everything I loved about the fear and bravery of the story and I knew I needed to listen to it until my ears bled.

These are by no means the only songs I've listened to obsessively in the last 12 months. I left off whole genres of stuff. However, these are the ones that helped pull me through some of the more difficult moments. They are the ones that altered who I was and added to the person I am becoming. I love them all so much and I'm glad they are now a part of my life. 

Resolutions for Everyone

It is the decidedly annoying time of year when people decide to make New Year's Resolutions about the things they want to change. Most people decide to lose weight, quit smoking, or handle their money better. And most of them don't really change anything past the first week or so. I think it's time we evaluate the idea of resolutions and come up with some things that might actually work. I'll talk about that more in a later post. Tonight, I want to talk about the things I wish everyone would commit to doing.

RESOLUTIONS FOR EVERYONE.

In 2014, how about we all commit to doing the following:

• I resolve not to be an asshole.  I will not be rude to other people. I will not bully other people. In fact, I will do my best to be as pleasant as possible.  It may not be in my nature to be decent, but I'm going to try. Being an asshole to everyone is getting me no where in life, other than with people who are crazy and have low self-esteem. With that in mind, I'm going to stop my assholish ways and just be easy to deal with.
• I resolve not to try and make decisions for other people. I'm going to respect everyone's autonomy. I'm not going to try and make my decisions about things EVERYONE'S decisions, whether they like it or not. If I decide to go on a cleanse, I won't make everyone in my household do it. If I decide to become a vegan, I will do so quietly and privately. I won't involve every other human I know. If I decide to get in shape, I'll do it on my own. I won't insist that my family does it with me. I'm my own person and they are their own people. I get to make decisions for me, not for them.
• I resolve to keep my hands to myself. I won't touch other people unless invited to do so. I certainly won't touch people I don't know or just met. I will respect everyone's right to private personal space. 
• I will resolve not to be negative all the damned time. I won't say things just to bring dark clouds over every situation. I won't point out flaws. I won't bring up politics just to complain about politicians or constantly dwell on social issues. I won't talk about everything wrong with the media. I won't dwell endlessly on everything that is wrong in the world. 
• I resolve to, as much as possible, keep my drama to myself. I won't post about it on Facebook. I won't talk about it, loudly, in restaurants. I ruin hanging out with my friends by endlessly discussing the crap happening in my life. I won't cause scenes in public. I won't turn seemingly innocent conversations into some makeshift therapy session where I whinge about everything wrong in my life. I will realize that sometimes this kind of thing is okay, but not always.
• I resolve not to waste time fixated on hating groups of people. I won't dwell on hating gay people or bigoted straight people or women or men or this race or that religion or this political group. Whenever I start to indulge in this hatred, I will remind myself that life is short and I shouldn't let people I dislike eat away at my time. There are better things to do.
• Finally, I resolve not to constantly assign blame. I will stop blaming others for getting me sick. I will stop blaming the government for all of my problems. I will stop blaming my parents, my spouse, my siblings, my children. I will even stop blaming myself. Assigning blame serves no purpose other than to keep one from resolving whatever ill has made you decide TO assign blame. Let it go. Fix the problem. Move on.

See? Honestly, if we would all do these things, we'd all live a far more peaceful life this year. I am certainly going to try and do this. 

A Year Later

This is the first anniversary of Alice's death.  Emotionally, it's been a really rough day. I went through the motions of it, trying to behave like a normal human, all the while just broke up inside about her passing. Losing Alice meant losing a lot of light in our home. She was a strange, fierce, and beautiful kitty. She loved my roommate a lot and completely doted on him as being 'her human.' She was very loved in this house and even now, she is very missed.

Losing Alice was the first of many rough things that have happened in the last year. We had a lot of automobile trouble. I went through the horrible and scary tax nightmare. Fluffy got sick and stayed sick  for months, which was very difficult on us. Then he passed, which was equally difficult.  His passing was a blessing too, because he died peacefully and it meant he was no longer in pain or confused.

Another mixed blessing has been the fact that the owners of Ruffian (Pumpkin) have been keeping him inside most of the time. This is sad for us because it means we don't see him any more. My roommate has only seen him twice in many, many months. However, it also means that he is better protected and safer. Kitties who live indoors have far less risky lives. I'm glad he's safe, but I do miss him.

Miss Tinkerbelle (who came from the same neglectful house as Alice) has moved in, but as I've written, Tink doesn't like us much. She's pretty standoffish and still seems unhappy about this 'living inside with the humans' thing. Despite her antisocial nature, she is interesting to have around. She sings to the toys she plays with, purrs when she's being combed for fleas, and makes really cute noises when she wants attention.

I miss Alice. I miss the joy she brought to my roommate. I miss watching their relationship. She told him off a lot. I miss how she would chase Rowan around the house and I miss how fat she would get during the winter.

Alice, where ever you are now, I hope you are happy. I would love for you to come back to me someday.

Acts of Frustrating Art

My sister-in-law wanted me to paint a tree for her. The tree is part of this project at showers (or other parties) where everyone dips their fingers into paint and makes the leaves on the limbs of the tree. It's a cute idea, but not that easy of a project. In fact, it's weighed on me for about a week now.

My roommate and I have discussed this damned tree so much. We came to the conclusion that the tree she liked was probably either some large stamp, some large stencil, or something photoshopped and printed onto canvas. All of these things have nothing to do with the loose, swiggly, and somewhat sinister painting style that I happen to possess. This caused a lot of frustration over the last few days.

I don't know. Maybe if I had owned some smaller, tighter brushes it would have been easier. Maybe if I'd just painted with more confidence. The later edits looked somewhatish better, due to me pretending to have more confidence about it and just forcing myself not to leave hesitation marks. Maybe if I'd had more time . . . no, actually, I don't think more time would have served to do anything but make me soulsick.

Due to innovation with stencils for lettering and filigree, blessed help from my roommate (he ended up stenciling the names because that part was driving me so bonkers I was about to set the canvas on fire), and magic markers, the end result looked decent.......ish. My SIL seemed happy with it when she picked it up, but she teaches little kids so I'm sure she's really good at faking enthusiasm.

The important thing is that the project is over. The canvas is out of my house, out of my hands, and past the point where I can do anything about it. YAYYYYYY!! Now we can go back to our quiet, happy lives where we only paint zombies.

Christmas

Christmas is over and I'm left with the same feeling I always have about it. My big gift events, my birthday and Christmas, happen at almost the same time. Given that, I usually just let it happen and then feel a mix of relief and sadness. I'm never even really sure what I'm so sad about.

This wasn't a bad year. I wasn't so sick I couldn't make it to the parties. I didn't get hurt or insulted. I tried my best to engage with my family and talk to them. I tried my best to participate. I'm just not really that good at it.

I always feel very exposed after parties. I feel like I allowed myself to be seen for too long, stayed away from my comfort zones for too long. Maybe this is all just introvert stuff. I'm really not sure. All I know is that I don't want to be around people for a while. I just need some days of hiding. I want to hide in the darkness, bury my head under pillows, and shut the world out for a while. I want silence and stillness.

Since I turned 40, I've suffered some strange injuries. I burned myself with a hot pocket last night and I ripped cut my arm on my cd drive tonight. Seriously, who does these things? I usually get cycles of weird injuries whenever I'm stressed. Clearly, on some level, I'm stressed.

Anyway, Christmas is over for another year. My birthday is over for another year.  Now we're on the downhill slide towards another summer. Sighs. Is too early to start talking about how much I hate summer?