Jun 19

Challenge Accepted

Oh, I went there, Bitches.

Saturday my friend Sara O’Flaherty challenged me, along with several others to do a “who am I” meme blog. I thought it would be fun to accept.

I’m thirty years old. There were earthquakes on my birthday. It was a sign that this decade is going to be sheer awesome.

I’m a writer and handler of things. I put up with bullshit and make things happen.

I’m bossy as hell. I admit it. I try not to be, but sometimes shit needs to be done.

I’m passionate, loving, kind, driven, and kind of bitchy. I have a lot of fear but I’ve learned life is more vibrant if you try to live through the fear.

Sometimes I have the common sense of a rock. I am pretty sure my friends are afraid that I’m going to walk out in front of a bus.

I have a fat ass. I love it. It annoys or befuddles some people that I am not more ashamed of my weight. Fuck that noise. Life piles enough bullshit on you without adding self loathing.

I am an unwilling feminist. I didn’t set out to be angry about the gender fuck wittery in the world, but I just can’t help it.

I always feel like I am terrible at being a grown up. I feel like a little kid in pretend clothes when I realize I’m thirty or when I say I’m a writer.

Yeah, I’m batshit crazy. I don’t pretend otherwise. I warn everyone who drifts into my life so I can tell them I told them so later on.

I’m a huge dork.

I’m learning that I don’t know nearly as much about myself as I thought a few years ago. I like myself now more than I did a few years ago.

I love to laugh. I try not to take too many things seriously. I make fun of myself avidly.Life can’t destroy you if you can laugh at it.

Yeah, I’m sure there is other stuff but I completely lost focus. Let me sum up: I’m crazy, and I like words.

 

 

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Jun 14

It’s Really Not Complicated

weird love

Kathleen posted this on my FB page. It is a beautiful thing to think.

For obvious reasons, I have been thinking about love a lot lately. There are so many kinds in my life. Some I’m good at; others I still have a lot to learn about.

I’m enough of a dirty touchy-feely hippie to think that love is a gift. I believe we should love as many different people as we can as fiercely as we are capable. It makes our lives complicated, and sometimes it turns our lives upside down, but it worth it.

The purpose of life is not to acquire things, but to find people, build relationships and take care of each other. Families are the meaning of life. I don’t mean the traditional idea of a family with a mommy, daddy, and kids (but nothing against it); I mean people who have found each other and have decided to care for each other whenever they can. Some people are part of your life everyday, like a spouse or parent, some people you only see every few months or years. They are still family.

On the other hand, just because someone is related to you it doesn’t mean they are family. Love as many people as you can as deeply as you can, but only if care enough to keep the trust of that love. If someone loves you, it is a gift. There is a certain kindness inherent in that gift. When you accept love, you accept power over that person and the responsibility to use that power wisely. That all is actually pretty complicated. I think it boils down to the “don’t be a douche rule.”

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot of why love can be such a fearful thing. I think it is two simple things. When you love someone they have power over you. They can hurt you. Also, we make love far more complicated than it really is.

I think we believe that romantic love comes with all of these expectations. We believe if we admit to romantic love we are involving ourselves into this big scary pile of things. We think if we love someone suddenly it stops being about just the two of you and morphs into a mess of future. In our minds, love has to lead to marriage, children, and everything else. If we admit to love, we feel forced to push into this.

Love for me is simpler. Love is that moment of rightness. There is this glorious moment with someone when you feel more right than you ever have. You feel safer, happier, prettier, and more alive than you ever have. Love is that moment when you feel like you could breath in the other person.

Love can change into other things. I think love is an action. If you marry someone, you have to actively work to love your spouse. You have to decide you are going to make things work that day. I think, though, in the beginning before the commitment and those decisions, love is something simpler. We make it more complicated.

I’ve been in love before. My love-life history is a flaming mess. My natural urge is to downplay my past love. I was in love. I learned lots. I moved on. Does that make my current love less valid? No. Because I have been happy before does not make happy times in the future less valid or intense. We can love many many times. The difference is if we chose to commit to the love we are in. Feeling love doesn’t mean we are suddenly tied to another person. We make decisions to be tied to another person.

I’ve decided not to worry about those decisions right now. They will come when they come. Right now, I’m going to focus on feeling.

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Jun 12

Things I have Learned on the Internet

I’m a creature of the internet, and the internet is full of many many lessons.

  1. Everyone is a moron, aside from you. Sometimes this feels very true, like when you see people arguing against evolution or global warming. There are so many times that I want to tell people that they are wrong and outline to them why they are an idiot. Will it do any good? No. Will it make me feel better? Probably. Is it a huge waste of time and emotional energy? Yes. Generally the folks who argue extreme points on the internet are arguing from emotion, not logic, or you are arguing from emotions, not logic. Read their point to try to see their side, but arguing, like resistance, is futile.
  2. Everyone in the world is fat and lazy, including you. Have good self esteem? Go on the interwebz, it will fix that for you really quick. The internet called Megan Fox a cow, the rest of us are fucked.
  3. You do everything WRONG. All of your instincts are wrong. Every decision you make is wrong.  Normal people don’t feel that way.
  4. Everything give you cancer, and all of the food you eat will kill you. Bitch, your ass is going to die because you drank bottled water, but it will still die if you drink tap water. EVERYTHING will kill you.
  5. You are a bad person. If you don’t read every website for every cause imaginable and give a way your dollars, then you are a terrible person, and the world is going to shit because of you. (On a side note, your dollars need to go here.)
  6. Woman only care about fashion, how to land a man, and how to make our vaginas more pleasing. Men only care about sports and ‘hitting it and quitting it’ with that hot chick at the bar. If you care about something other than these things, you are abnormal.

    Pink Button lipstick for your "other lips"

    Never fear, here is some make-up for your vagina. It is ugly right now, and no one will ever love you or your vagina until you fix that.

  7. Every news source is fair and unbiased; it’s their competitors that are slanted. I’m guilty of this. Fox News shouldn’t have “news” after it. If you want good quality reporting there is always The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
  8. You are screwing up your child. Every decision you make is permanently damaging your kid, and you should have your reproductive organs removed for your crimes.
  9. I’m not the only one who finds those shoes with the individual toes creepy as hell. Toe socks freaked me out enough, but the shoes make me deeply uncomfortable.  I’m pretty sure I should be in therapy.
  10. We all are in need for medical treatment for something. You are not okay the way you are. Go fix yourself.

The internet reminds me of high school, except only larger, like if the entire world went to your high school. The very idea of it makes me need tranquilizers.

Okay, no really, I love the internet. I think there are a lot of beautiful things about the internet. Like this site, this site is definitely one of the beautiful things about the net. Honestly, we all know the internet is a vehicle for pictures of cats and naked people. Viva La Naked People!

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Jun 09

The Brain, It Hurts.

Roosevelt on a moose

You will never be this bad ass.

I was texting with the Viking earlier while he was helping his Tina fix stuff. (Yes, the Viking can fix things, AND he promised to teach me to weld. Score!) I told him he was good people and being good people was highly undervalued now.

[Okay, I’m going to pause here for a second to explain somethings. The kind folks at Rock the Slut Vote linked Thursday’s blog and I got a lot of extra traffic. I am going to assume some might come back. That first bit was full of wonderful things that make no sense to normal people. I will explain. Pay attention. The Viking is my boyfriend (we haven’t official decided we are technically a couple, but I’ve decided it anyway), and he got this nickname from my friend Kathleen because he is 6’5 and blonde. He can also grow one of the most epic beards in the history of beards. Tina is my best friend. She has been a part of my life for many many years, and I consider her and her family mine. One day I want to be a crazy old lady doing watercolor paintings with her. I refer to the Viking’s best friend as his Tina. Clear as mud?]

Also, I do really want to learn to weld.

So, I typed out this paragraph attempting to explain what I meant by undervaluing being a good people. Yes, I am writing ‘a good people’ on purpose. It is wrong, but it is wrong deliberately.  I realized after I read the paragraph it was crap. I believe in what I said, but my brain focus is too broken to write a well thought out blog.

I decided to reassert my purpose for the new kids in class. (I am determined to believe I got new readers. Your facts and logic have no power over me.)

I’ve had this blog for awhile now. It started out with a theme thing. I wrote about a theme three days a week for a month then switched. You can go back and look at them, some of them are good, but a lot are kinda awful. Well, I went through a break up with a Juice bag (douche bag) and kind of melted all the way the hell down. I did this very publicly on my blog. It was glorious.

I realized that people responded to my openness. As I moved forward, it became apparent that everyone feels like I do sometimes, but we are all forced to be something different than what we are so we can fit in. I got lucky by being too damn weird to ever fit in, so I decided to throw up my hands and stop trying.

I still do my best to write three days a week. I generally succeed on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but lately my Saturdays have been taken over because everyone I know is having a baby or is getting married, and the fore mentioned Viking. I dig you cats, but I will skip a blog to see him. If you truly loved me, you would understand.

Anyway, sometimes I write good stuff like I did Thursday, but sometimes I write strange things like today. On really bad days, you will get a picture or some utter crap.

My purpose isn’t to always be thoughtful and well written. My purpose is to always be myself. I am trying with everything I am to show you guys me, because I believe everyone deserves to be who they are and be loved for it. It is hard sometimes. Sometimes it is scary as hell. Sometimes I am so bored with myself I become convinced that I will kill my blog. Sometimes I am so ranty and preachy I annoy myself. I hope, though, it is always me.

I have a suspicion Tina will straighten my ass out if I ever start not being me.

 

 

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Jun 07

Listen Up, Bitches!

Okay, my pretties, it is time for us to have another talk about that dreaded feminism thing.

I assume that anyone who reads this regularly is either a feminist, loves a feminist, or is a masochist that likes to read terrible rants about gender issues, so I’m not going to outline why we need to give voice to gender issues. (Though, if anyone needs a refresher, I will gladly give it.) I want to discuss the state of feminism.

We need to talk. *Pats seat beside her*

1. The patriarchy is bad. Inequality is bad. Some men are bad. Some men are very very good. Some men are insecure douche bags and need to have their ass kicked by a woman, but many men are well meaning. I think most of us understand this, but we are still trying to shake off the stigma of ball-snatching, man hating bitches. Maybe some of our focus should switch to educating, instead of just fighting.

2. We are doing half of “their” jobs for them. Women can be evil to each other, and we judge the hell out of each other. We need to stop. We want the same things; the right to be what we chose, be it a CEO or a stay at home mom. All facets of womanhood are beautiful, and we need to learn to embrace them. This goes double for mommies. You guys can be sharks at a time when you need each other most. Life can be a fight. No one is making it out alive. It is time to start helping each other.

3. We need to take the power of “their” slurs from them. Rock the Slut Vote is a brilliant movement fighting the war on women and demonstrates what I am talking about. Slut is hurled at us to degrade and marginalize us. I say we take it, along with words like bitch and whore, and use them like the middle finger. We give them the power. It is time to take it away.

4. Be kind. This relates back to number two. As a society, we look at kindness and nurturing as a weakness. We hold ideals of ‘survival of the fittest’ on a pedestal. So much of what is beautiful about humans, especially women, is soft and warm. We have to stop looking at it as a weakness. It feeds into the bullshit about everything female is weak and inferior. (Seriously, Kathleen turned me on to Eve Ensler on Ted.com. Go watch.) If we keep worshiping all that is sharp and selfish, our world will eat itself alive. We should be the ones who start the movement back to balance for everyone, not just woman.

5. Go vote! Tell our politicians to get out of our lady bits! While you are out there screaming, though, try and listen some, too. It makes for more progress.

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Jun 05

Fear

I’ve learned that it is far easier to love someone than be loved. For me, the act of loving someone is simple and comforting. Showing kindness and warmth is rewarding. Wanting it from someone else is scary as fuck.

I don’t understand how that works, but it is just how I am.

I guess if I love someone and care for them, and they take advantage or turn out to be a an asshole, I didn’t lose anything. I still got to love. I might get hurt but that act of loving them was worth it. If I want love in return, things get terrifying.

I’m so tentative about wanting to be loved or be taken care of. We are trained as women that we should be strong women and not want those things. Strong woman and I already have some issues. Truth is, it is okay to want love and to want a partner. I think we confuse the desire for weakness. Its healthy. The problems arise when we don’t feel whole without it.

We are told to go out, make ourselves whole, and find happiness by ourselves, then love will come. So, we go forth and make our attempts. Some people find partners when they are broken and heal together. Some people find love when they are young and grow up together. I’m probably still a little broken, and I am still totally a mess, but for the most part I am whole. It still feels really scary to be in love.

I remember a conversation I had with a friend one time. I’m a protective person, and when I care about someone, I need to feel like I can help them. This friend was very independent. I told her that I wanted to be close to her, but in order to do that, she needed to let me take care of her.

I think of myself of this big ball needy mess. I feel like I swoop from person to person in my life making them take care of me emotionally and physically. I think because I am passionate and emotional, I need to control how I react to people and what I ask from them. I feel like I burden people with my emotions. I’m terrified of being needy.

Truth is, I am needy, but only to a select few people. Tina is definitely one of these people. After many years, I feel like I can go to her when I need something emotionally. I’m not terrified to rely on her. The big basket of crazy knows that if I burden her with my emotions, she will love me anyway.

I’m not entirely sure it is sane to look at my emotions as a burden to other people. That, in its self, might be fucked up.

Now, I am looking at things logically, and seeing I need to learn to ask for love and things I need. I need to give others the chance to love me, like I do them. I have no clue how to do that. How do I switch my mindset from “I will be easier to love if I require minimal energy, so the more I go without the better” to “I want you to love me, so let me allow you to care of these things.”

How do you do that?

It is a pretty big freaking deal. No close relationship, romantic or otherwise, works without it. You have to be willing to ask for things and be willing to receive things. I love giving gifts to people I care about. I love doing small things to make them smile. How do I learn to receive these things and ask for them when I need them?

I have no fracking clue. I’m going to try to learn. It should be interesting.

 

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May 31

I should probably stop talking now

Everyone gets songs stuck in their head. I happen to also get random phrases. Sometimes a sentence or phrase will stick in my head and I will have it randomly cycling through my head all day. It becomes part of my brain’s screen saver. Most of the time, it is pretty innocuous, but sometimes they are strange enough to make me wonder about myself.

I don’t want to go to your gay ass pony party.

Where the hell did I even come up with that?  I don’t know but it has been running through my head all day. I think that is a big reason I can’t come up with anything to write about.

Mostly I am really tired, happy, restless, distracted, and sleepy again. Allergies hate me. Yeah. I got nothing.

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May 29

Spin

I’m not alone in having a soundtrack for my life. There are several musicians that I’ve written about like Ani Difranco, Amanda Palmer, Liz Phair, Karen O, and Florence and the Machine that keep circling in my life, but Kathleen gave me a new singer to add to the vagina squad of awesome: Ane Brun.

She is from Norway, but lives in Sweden, and her voice is amazing. I could get lost in it forever.

I go through these periods of my life where I feel like I am moving through life with my shoulder down, not plodding per say, but moving with a sort of steady pace. I feel in control, and I know where I am putting my feet. I know what I want, and I work for it.

Then things come in and spin me all around.

My brain is so full of thoughts and emotions. It isn’t all the Viking either. I mean, it is him and it isn’t him. My thoughts aren’t all him, but he brings it out in me. He spun me out of my orbit and is forcing me into a different pace. I’m no longer controlled.

From one moment to the next, I am somewhere different. Mostly I bounce between elation and terror. I’ve tried very hard to accept that I am an emotional creature, and it was easy when my emotions made sense. When I could look at what I felt, turn it over in my palms, and know what I was feeling and deal with it. I can’t do that with this. Everything is spinning so quickly, and I am trying desperately to figure out where I am. I am trying to make things move in a way I understand. Tina quoted “Labyrinth” at me and told me I had no control.

So, my choices are to let go and let the spinning take over, or stop it and walk away. I can’t walk away. Giving over control and power scares me. It actually terrifies me, but I can’t give up something that could be wonderful because I am scared.

If I let go and spin off and he isn’t there, I will hurt, probably a lot. I will feel silly because I felt so much so passionately. I’ve hurt before, and I survived. I’m tougher than I think. Feeling silly for being emotional and passionate is useless. I am passionate. It makes me crazy and unpredictable but it is also why I can love so many people and care so much. I’ve known I am all or nothing. I chose all.

I’m going to spin and hope he is there. I am going to shut off my thinking and stop trying to right myself. I’m letting go of my control and my power. Like everything else in my life, if I fall and hurt myself, at least I tried.

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May 24

A day of reminding myself of things I knew

Where's the keg?

How can this not make you happy?

I keep finding myself swaying between what I think I should be/do and what I actually am. I keep fighting my natural inclination and try to be something different. Like three minutes ago, I typed that first line then erased it because I feel like I write about this a lot and I must have bored the hell out of the four of you who read this regularly. I realized I am not about being good or interesting, I am about being me. Being yourself is a constant struggle, turns out.

Two months ago, I sent a short story to a publisher. Yesterday, I got the best rejection letter in history. I printed that shit out. Honestly, I knew I was going to get a rejection letter, because the story was rough, but I also wanted to get my first one out of the way. I didn’t expect the editor to be so kind, encouraging, helpful, and to tell me to work on it and send it back. I had lost a lot of faith in my abilities and had almost given up on becoming a writer. Yesterday, my faith was renewed. It cracks me up that a rejection letter made me feel good. I might frame it.

I keep rushing and pushing and trying to make things happen before I am ready. I am trying to rush this novella, and it just isn’t something I should rush. Doing it right is more important than doing it quickly. I had told myself if I haven’t had some sign of success by my 31st birthday I was going to give up and get a real job. That might be a dumb thing to say to myself. I think my next step is to read over the project as a whole then take a step back and go back into another project. Things take the time they take.

I am also going through another “I need to remember that I am me and people love me the way I am and if they don’t I don’t need them” phase. I am such a people pleaser. I want to make people I care about happy. I forget to make me happy too. (There is a dirty joke in there somewhere.) I forget that I need to remember that I have to not change myself. It is unfair to expect other people to be responsible for that, and it ends up hurting everyone. Also, as Tina reminds me, someone needs what they need, good or bad. (I’m so glad the Viking is damn near perfect, or I would be in a world of crazy.)

Life is good, really good. I just need to keep looking for my center and reminding myself of things I already knew.

 

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May 22

Schedules are for Suckas

I went to bed last night at 3 am and woke up at 7 am and could not get back to sleep. I have spent the day whirling around like a coked-up squirrel.(Except for that hour or so long mini-coma.) I have things to make fabulous! Seriously, I talked on the phone with someone at 8:30 am and was pleasant and coherent.

I’m back to baking. I made brioche bread. This bread is good enough that it might get me laid. It is kind of labor intensive, because you have to kneed it four separate times, but the kneading is part of what makes it baking therapy for me.

I’m also almost done with a damn novella I have been almost done with for ages now. I think that part of my hyper waves today are driven by being so close. Until I am done, I will be alternating states of high energy with states of unconsciousness. The only cure is to take a nap, make some coffee when I wake up, and crank through the last few scenes of my story.

Yeah, focus done. Maybe I will have a real post Thursday.

I’M SO EXCITED. ABOUT EVERYTHING. Someone try and catch the asshole who slipped me the speed, please.

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