As our neighbours to the South hear arguments to repeal Prop 8 & in defense of DOMA, please remember that the LGBT community doesn’t want to special, they want to be equal.
Category: Seriously WTF?
Just A Fool
I’m always amused (and sometimes disgusted) by the internet.
People hide behind their keyboards and tear everyone around them apart behind user names and the like and use the concept of internet anonymity and free speech to defend their rights to be evil people.
I don’t believe in internet anonymity. Sorry, but it’s bullcrap. I use my real name on my Facebook account, Twitter too. I don’t hide behind an alias so employers can’t find me, post on websites like People and EW.com under my real name and my blog’s comments are moderated and my site has security. If you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, you shouldn’t be able to do it on the internet.
Which brings me to my point. People magazine posted a photo a slimmer and more natural Christina Aguilera at the premiere of the Voice. The comments from supposed adults ranged from complimentary to comments of “she’s still a pig” or oinking. These comments are likely from the very same people who wonder where these kids get the idea that bullying other kids online is okay.
I love Christina Aguilera. I’ve made no secret about it. She’s a talented woman who gives no eff about what you think of her. She’s gonna wear tight clothes and dye her hair pink and wear ridiculous makeup and she doesn’t care. Why? Because she is comfortable and happy. I don’t always agree with the clothing choices of my friends (or my 6yo, who dresses in a way that can only be described as her), but she’s happy, so who cares? This is the lesson we should be teaching women. Wear what you want. Cut your hair how you want. Whatever. As long as you show people respect, your body is your own.
We live in this weird world where we judge women by their haircuts, the length of their skirts, the tightness of their tops and their makeup instead of by what we can do and then pretend to be outraged when the news focuses on the “promising futures” of convicted rapists. We hide behind righteous indignation, claiming that we feel for that poor girl for being judged for what she drank or wore, but then turn around and call Kim Kardashian a slut or Chrisitna Aguilera a pig. Why would a man look at a woman in a short skirt and not devalue her when we all do the same thing under a username behind a keyboard?
We can’t teach our children to stop bullying when we do it too. We are adults, we need to set the example and look at how we address people. We need to stop using the excuse that “they’re famous so they expect it” when we call Miley a “butch” or a “troll” and “She knew what she was getting into” when the girl in our friends Facebook photo wore the short skirt. Even if you use a user name and hide behind a keyboard, you know who you are and what you’re projecting and if you wouldn’t want it said to your sister/daughter/best friend, you probably shouldn’t say it about anyone.
My Blog Knows What You Did In The Dark
Apparently I sweat the small stuff.
I don’t get angry or frustrated at huge issues, but the small ones drive me bananas.
When my life is hectic and there are eleventy billion major issues going on in my life, it’s no thing. However, there will be one teensy problem, one minor issue and it will drive me NUTS to the point where I obsess and become insufferable because I just want to fix that tiny problem.
I’ve always had this belief that life is like the messy garage. That garage looks so overwhelming with piles of boxes and crap everywhere and that stack of stuff may just fall on your head. So, I’ll pick up a broom and sweep the floor. For some reason, sweeping the floor will help me want to tackle the giant job because Look! I swept the floor! Sure, it seems so small and really effing miniscule, but I tackled something and good for me! It helps me feel like I can take on all of the big problems.
I always feel this way in my real life. I hate the feeling that I can’t handle my life, because I need to feel like I’m not screwing up. So, I will talk to my friends about the stress of a super tiny, unimportant problem and drive everyone batty, but it’s only because the big stuff feels so…big, so I’ll talk about the little thing because I can fix the little thing quickly. It’ll take two seconds to fix that little thing and then I can fix the big things, because I fixed that little minor issue and that means I have problem solving skills! I’m so determined to handle all of my major issues alone, that I get stuck asking for help. So instead, I focus on a small issue, something that I feel I can fix, which will help me feel confident handling the big stuff.
So, if I seem overly fixated on my incorrect coffee order, or that issue with my phone bill, or something equally as inane, it’s because there are likely a ton of other things I’m struggling to deal with on my own. Perhaps I need to stop trying so hard to be super human MHC and actually ask for help when things go awry instead of drive everyone crazy by focusing on that tiny, unimportant thing that in the long run seems so pointless. Maybe I need to reevaluate my thinking and find a balance, so I don’t feel like I’m surrendering my independence by asking for help for the big stuff and stop thinking fixing the small stuff will help me handle the big stuff. Maybe then my messed up coffee order or that inane problem won’t become such a sticking point and I can learn to stop sweating the small stuff.
Nothing Left To Say
I hear people say this a lot and I don’t think it’s a statement about society now more than it is about us as a people, in which we genuinely expect people to hurt us.
We live with this ideal of “stranger danger” where people we don’t know are going to hurt us or insult us because of the way we wear our hair, or our clothes, etc. (Drew & I were guilty of this, as we brutally lambasted the frontman of the Neon Trees for this right before he performed Everybody Talks). But we all think of strangers as jerks, people who suck and are mean and are just looking to screw us over. That’s why when a friend or a loved one hurts us, we end up crippled, because we honestly expected them not to.
We trust the people we care about, sometimes blindly. We love and adore them and think they can’t hurt us ever. They will never say a snotty thing, never do something we don’t want them to, never act like a douchebag. We put them up on such a pedestal and think they are perfect and angelic and so freaking wonderful. Then, the reality sets in and they are in fact sometimes a huge, raving jerk. Then they do something stupid and we’re crippled because we just don’t understand how this person we saw so much good in could hurt us so freaking much.
We need to abandon the idea that the people we love won’t hurt us, because they will. People hurt each other, intentional or not, but it happens. The one attribute that I am most proud of is that I am completely incapable of intentionally hurting someone I love. I can’t. I don’t know how to do it and the thought of it makes me so upset to the point that I end up puking. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you, it just means I can’t do it on purpose (It’s not all selfless, for some people, my inability to get pissy and throw shade their way has more to do with the idea that they could get pissy right back and hurt me. But for about seven people in this life, it’s simply that I can’t). I’m sure I’ll lose my temper and shove my foot in my mouth, do something stupid, act super whiny or annoy the piss out of you. It’s just that I can’t do it on purpose. I know many people who are perfectly capable of destroying someone they love, tearing them to pieces until there is nothing left of them, some of those people are my closest friends. It doesn’t mean that one of us is “better” than the other, it just means that I don’t have that mean streak. Some people have a different brand of morality than others and that’s okay.
I think we need to stop holding the people we love to unrealistic expectations. You can love someone and sometimes hurt them. Just because they can’t retaliate doesn’t make them weak or you an asshole, it simple means you’re wired differently. You need to accept that & work on curbing that dark side of you. Just because someone is nice doesn’t mean that they can’t be a raving bitch some days. Just because you are capable of hurting someone who trusts you doesn’t mean that you will always hurt them, it just means you have to be more mindful of how you treat them. Maybe people need to stop promising each other that they won’t hurt them, but that you’ll try hard not to, and if you do, you’ll be really sorry and talk it out together.
Mission Bells
I know I’ve mentioned it a million times but I seriously HATE The Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise. So much.
First of all, I hate how my Twitter TL is all “This is so romantic” or “Poor ____, it won’t last” or “That’s the only type of proposal I want. Neil Lane ring too, because that’s real love.” Please all go die in a fire. Secondly, I hate that it’s considered super romantic to compete with 29 other people for some person who is systematically toying with a whole bunch of emotions. Then you can’t see each other in the really real world after the show, because your “love” must be exploited for ratings. Barf.
None of it is real. None of it. The exotic locations, the phoney dates, all of it is for show. Yes, it has produced two successful marriages, the exception isn’t always the rule (My friend got married on her fifth date, but that doesn’t mean it works for everyone). These people don’t know how to roll with the punches, with the crap that sucks, with the fights and the clogged drains and the communication mishaps, etc. While it all seems romantic, these stupid shows give the idea that love is warm and fuzzy and dare I say, easy.
Even Nicholas Sparks added conflict. While people remember that Noah and Allie from the Notebook conquered every obstacle, including years of separation to find their happy ending, people forget that they fought every day. It wasn’t easy; they fought all of the time! They struggled and worked to endure and they did. But that gets lost along the way amongst the swans and the romance. IMO, the greatest quote from that book and film is this one:
“Well, that’s what we do. We fight. You tell me when I’m being a arrogant son of a bitch; and I tell you when your being a pain in the ass, which you are, 99% of the time. I’m not afraid to hurt your feelings. You’ve got like a two-second rebound rate; then you’re back to doing the next pain in the ass thing. It’s not going to be easy, No. It’s going to be hard. But I’m willing to work at this; because I want you. All of you. Forever. You and Me. Everyday”
Real love, true love is the person who knows you’re a douchebag and still wants you. The person who understands that you probably suck, you’re not as great as you think you are (or as horrible as you think you are) and accepts everything you do, even those things that suck ass. They love you when you’re the least likeable, when you do the things that your friends hate, they hold onto you when you push them away and even when everything sucks and nothing looks hopeful and you can’t even stand that person’s face, you still want to try, one last time to see if it all works out. Yes, that seems a little dramatic, but it’s true. All of the greatest couples that I know have had their shares of miscommunications, problems and struggles. Maybe money was tight. Maybe they didn’t know how to talk to each other. Maybe they broke up and acted like total dicks and in a moment of clarity realized he/she was the right person and started over. We don’t have an instruction manual to help us deal with other humans and we generally mess it all up. But the person who’s right for you is willing to work through all of the stuff that sucks to get to the parts that are amazing and that’s not something you can get from a TV show. You get to do cool stuff and go to pretty places, but how are you going to handle the tough times, when you’re not on the same page and you need to slow down/speed up, or the dishwasher is broken, or you got in that big stupid fight about stupid stuff? That’s the thing that truly defines love.
Truthfully, if someone could love me for me, through my general kookiness, give me a million chances, understand that I’m too nice to get angry and I’ll probably cry 18 times a month, the locations, the ring, the “love story” would mean nothing to me. Give me a garbage tie and tell me you won’t give up even when I’m a douchebag. We need to stop looking @ TV love like it’s any kind of real love and look for the actual epic love; the person who truly gets you, even when you are your worst self, because they make you strive to be your best self.
You Make It Real
“Is it possible that all the horrible things you’ve done have been forgotten by everyone-except yourself?”
Have you ever done something so super horrible that you can’t forgive yourself?
Sure you have. We all have.
Guilt is a funny sort of thing. I have all kinds of guilt. I feel guilty when I’m working because I’m not spending enough time with the kids. I feel guilty for just wanting 20 minutes in the bathtub by myself. I feel guilty for things that aren’t necessarily my control. It sucks, but that’s how life sort of works. We’re always going to feel some kind if guilt.
However, we can’t feel guilt if we don’t care. I love my girls beyond reason so that’s why I feel guilt when I can’t give them what they want. You cannot feel guilty for an action towards someone you do not care about, so when you feel guilty about something, you need to look @ why.
Most of us don’t let the guilt go. We hold onto it, envelop ourselves in it & pretend we’re cool, when we’re actually struggling. We’ll pretend we’re doing the right thing when in reality, all we’re doing is hurting everyone much deeper because we want to punish ourselves for what we feel we have done.
My daughters don’t punish or shame me because I sometimes have to work. We just make the next day better. But humans have this mad desire to make things equal, when no relationship is ever equal. Parent-child isn’t equal, sibling is not equal, and even lover-partner is never truly equal. One will always care more than the other. One will always be more capable of hurting the other. One will always feel like the other is “better”. But the thing is that we should use that feeling to drive us to be better people, the person they see in us, so we don’t have to feel guilty anymore.
Hiding from guilt doesn’t make it disappear. Pretending it isn’t there only means you’ll feel it later. The only way to truly be free of guilt is to face it, atone for it & do your best to make it right. I can’t always make it up to the girls when I have to work, but I can do my best to make the next day better, because what they need is time with me & they’re happy. Chances are, the solution is simple & the guilt will be gone, because you’ve finally done what will make everyone happy, & you’ll be happy because you don’t have to live with that feeling of regret & remorse anymore.
Flapper Girl
Today is International Women’s Day.
As a mother of daughters, I like to remember how blessed I am to live in a nation that allows gender equality. So many women are denied basic human rights & democratic rights. Please take a moment to look into these issues & help when you can.
Every year, I like to address an issue that affects women. This year is no different. We as women need to start taking care of each other. Stop the combative nature. Stop hurting each other. Stop bullying each other.
We tear each other apart. We belittle other moms, we belittle our friends relationships, we give advice that shames, because we don’t support each other. We pick apart every action another woman takes & it needs to stop. We blame the victims of assaults instead of supporting them & we need to stop.
Women need to stop hating & shaming other women. Resist the urge to be catty & build each other up. If we as women show the younger generation that we can support each other & not bully, shame & hurt each other, maybe the younger generation will do the same.
So, let’s stop calling each other fat, ugly, desperate, a loser. Stop pointing out flaws & build each other up. I think Madeline Albright said it best:
“There is a special place in Hell for women who do not help other women.”
The 2013 30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 29
Day 29: Something most people misunderstand about you.
I AM NOT WRITING ABOUT YOU.
This is the one thing that people misunderstand. I am not writing about you.
I won’t lie and say I have never written about people in my life; Hell, just yesterday I wrote something very personal. I do sometimes write about people and my life. But for the most part, I am not writing about any particular person or thing. Even things that reference my life are usually a series of events, not one particular event and generally high level. Most of the things I write are based on conversations with my close friends (mainly Drew & Dawna) and my own observations of the world around me. I spend a lot of time assessing my surroundings. So that blog about relationships may have been about a couple on the bus, or a composite of the marriages of every single person that I know. That thing about looking into one’s self may be about a friend’s career dissatisfaction (or my own). That random blog about random nothing that seems to come together may just be a bunch of things I was thinking of that turned into mush.
But I have always had people tell me I am writing about them. I am writing about a certain moment, a certain thing and normally they are wrong. Most of the time they are wrong. I don’t like to write about the people in my life very often. I wrote a post last year that EVERY SINGLE PERSON THAT I KNOW assumed was about their relationship. EVERYONE. Actually, it was about a picture I saw on Facebook of a guy I know and his girlfriend with that quote posted as the caption. The photo was sweet and it inspired me. I know people who think everything I’ve written is about them. Truthfully…none of it was about them.
This actually extends further than my writing. People will read the Quotes of the Day or lyrics from my Song of the Day on my Twitter account or my Facebook status and assume it some thinly veiled comment about where I am in my life. In reality, I read something cool and I like the song. I often wonder if social networking has made people vain, needing the validation that people are talking about them.
Every time someone tells me that they think something I write is some thinly veiled message to them, I just want to ask them why they feel that way. Honestly, I’ll start writing a blog post about something and later it will turn into something else based on a song I hear or something I see out the window, or Jeopardy. Truthfully, these people spend more time reading about what I’m supposedly thinking about them than actually thinking about them. It’s like they NEED me to be thinking of them, writing about them. They NEED to know that they are important to my life. Honestly, the more important you are to me, the less you are mentioned in my writing, save for Drew, who is of course part of the team. I’m not a thinly veiled statement sort of person. I’m more of a “long-winded, analytical, over-thinking,” sort of person. If I want you to know something, I will reach out and tell you, get nervous and babble for half an hour, or write it all down on paper and read it to you and it will be five pages long. I wouldn’t waste my time with subtle subtext, because truthfully, I’m not subtle about anything.
I have asked Drew a million times how people see so much of themselves in my useless ramblings. He says I should tell people that if they see themselves in every word I write, then chances are that’s how they feel. If you are taking my useless ramblings and seeing yourself, then chances are you need the lesson, prompting me to laugh at the idea of anyone taking my advice on anything. But he’s right; if you are reading something and you see yourself in it, then chances are it’s what you were thinking all along. Chances are that you see yourself in those words because those are the words that you need to hear to get where you want to be. If you genuinely believe that every little thing that I put out to the universe is about you, then maybe you should question why you are analyzing it all. Maybe that’s what you want, someone to be thinking of you, most likely because you are thinking about them. Drew’s logic is that if you think everything written by one person is about you, then it’s because you are thinking about them so much that you’ll read into things that aren’t there in the hopes that perhaps you are on their mind, which means you are super vain, or you’re projecting your feelings of devotion on to them. Either way, he’s right. If you consistently find something you can apply to your life here, then please apply those lessons and maybe you’ll be a little happier.
***Disclaimer. I am an idiot with a blog. Please do not take anything I say as a helpful life lesson. If you do for whatever reason decide that I actually known what I am talking about and take anything I say here and apply it to your life, then I hope it works out better for you. I would honestly apply more knowledge from Jerry Springer’s final thought than anything I say as wisdom.***
The 2013 30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 28
Day 28: What is your love language?
***Dear readers, I apologize if this is more personal than the general crap that I produce that I pretend people enjoy. I promise to bring my vapidly endearing brand of self-depreciating wit back tomorrow.***
My love language?
I don’t.
My former husband calls me a lot of things; frigid, cold, and a bunch of insults I won’t publish here. I guess in a way, he is right.
I love my daughters, I love my friends. But I don’t love men. Well, not in the conventional sense. I base my relationships on logic. I choose mates based on what makes sense for me, my daughters, does it work on paper, with one exception. My love life mainly consists of first dates that I leave early or never call. The last guy who made it to date two told me that he thought he wanted to get to know me better; I told him I wanted to go home. They didn’t meet my ridiculously long list of criteria that makes the ideal mate. I loved my husband as a companion, as a friend. He offered security in a time when I had none and I became dependent on him for the air I breathed. I took most of his rage because I thought I deserved it because I couldn’t give him the validation he wanted because it just wasn’t there. So, I would be nicer, try to be that perfect wife, but I couldn’t do it. When the marriage was over, I didn’t cry. I missed our friendship, but I didn’t miss being his wife. Matrimony was never high on my list of priorities anyway. It never has been I got married because it’s what you did; you date, you get married. I’ve only wanted that once, for about a month, and then I got really scared that I was going to ruin it and wanted to stay in one place for awhile. I’m scared of the big steps and like to stay where I am. I’ll get excited about the idea of moving forward for a little while, but then I’ll wanna stay in the happy moment, right there and just “be”, because I struggle with the idea of someone getting too close to me, wanting to get inside of my head. It scares me. Even my closest friends don’t know much about me. I claim I’m an open book, but I’m not. I am about my current life, and some of my younger years, but that’s it. I put up walls to keep people out, because I have a heightened fear of abandonment and I’m afraid if people got to know the side of me that is much darker and sadder than the socially awkward, happy go lucky dork, they won’t love me anymore. Anytime someone gets close to me, I get scared that they won’t want me anymore and end up sabotaging the whole thing. I don’t mean to…I just get…scared that if I’m not super woman and just a normal human girl, then I’m not going to be “good enough.” So I go overboard trying to be the best possible MHC so they won’t want to understand why I’ll get so scared over the tiniest thing or sometimes want to stop and be reassured that you won’t go anywhere.
Truthfully, I’ve only truly loved one man. I was attracted to him from our second meeting, so much so, that I had to keep a certain distance (as I was you know, married). He was the exception, he didn’t meet my criteria, was the opposite of everything I had ever looked for. I loved every good, bad and even cruel thing about him. Even when he tore my heart out, I loved him & blamed myself, because he wouldn’t have done it had I not deserved it. I thought he loved me, truly loved me, even though I’m a scatterbrained, sort of crazy nitwit who cries a lot. He even saw that part of me I don’t show people and he still seemed to love me. Because I thought he loved me, I would have given him anything and bent over backwards for him, maybe too much, because he was just so good in my eyes, & I wanted to make him happy. I guess I wanted so badly to make him happy so he would never have to fear getting hurt. If I got hurt, I didn’t care, as long as he knew I couldn’t hurt him ever. I believed every word he said, especially his promise to always come back for me, because even if we got the start wrong, we’d get the ending right. When he was gone (& I realized he wasn’t going to keep that promise), I felt like someone had hacked off a limb, it was like a part of me was gone & I broke down. Me, the girl who didn’t cry when her marriage fell apart, who didn’t cry at the absolute worst moment of her life, just stood there back straight, refusing to give anyone the satisfaction of showing pain, cried like a lost child who didn’t know where to turn. Sometimes I think I’ll always be lost. Never is such a short word but such a long time to live without someone. Ironically, always is a longer word & even longer time, when the one you’ll love always is also your never.
I write about the idea of love, because it fascinates me. The idea of one person who doesn’t share your DNA that you want to spend your life with, are miserable without them and better with them? It sounds so easy but it’s actually so hard. I watch people in love and wonder why it’s not easier. If you love someone, you would do anything to be with them. But no, we let our own baggage, insecurities, hangups, get in the way. We won’t swallow our pride when we fight and admit we were wrong. We don’t tell people when we’re scared.Sometimes we don’t even like that person, but we can’t live without them? People always tell me that you work to make love work, but I’ve never seen anyone do it, myself included. We just walk away when it gets a little hard, then we pretend it’s not eating away at us, but it is. I look at my foster parents, who are still in love after so many years and wonder how we can do that in a disposible world. I could, for the right person, but both people would have to want to and generally that’s not the case, even amongst most of my friends who are married. One is trying while the other isn’t.
“We have to allow ourselves to be loved by the people who really love us, the people who really matter. Too much of the time, we are blinded by our own pursuits of people to love us, people that don’t even matter, while all that time we waste and the people who do love us have to stand on the sidewalk and watch us beg in the streets! It’s time to put an end to this. It’s time for us to let ourselves be loved.”
The 2013 30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 20 & 21
Day 20: Describe Three significant moments from your childhood
1. The death of my father. It’s hard enough to lose a parent, especially when you’re little. Daddies are supposed to be invincible. They’re supposed to be able to do everything and they don’t get sick, let alone get cancer and die. I remember my mom telling me that Daddy went to Heaven when I was five and I cried and laid in bed for days. It was brutal. As I got older, I felt the void more, because I knew he wouldn’t walk me down the aisle when I got married, he wouldn’t meet my daughters, etc. Maybe I would have grown up into a better person.
2. Foster home. Nothing like that stigma of being some sort of screwed up kid! Going into foster care was scary and embarrassing and all of a sudden I felt sort of different. I was like a girl without a family, and all I ever wanted was a family…well, a normal one. I was scared and I both wanted and didn’t want to go home. Those are a lot of emotions for a 12 year old girl to process. But I made it through.
3. Moving in w/ my “parents.” Moving in with the foster parents I eventually looked at as my family was the best day of my childhood. I finally had a real family, with two parents and no worries about where the next meal was coming from and parents who helped with homework and vacations and hugs, lots of hugs. This is the family I based my future family around and for the first time in my life I was confident and happy and I felt like a regular teenage girl. My problems were grades and lame boys and fights about shirts. It was the most wonderful part of my childhood, the seven years I spent there.
Day 21: If you could have a superpower, what would it be?
I already have one. I live my life and I haven’t developed a drinking problem yet. I’d say that’s pretty super hahaha.
The Misadventures of MHC 