Jul 21

Thursday Morning

It isn’t even 8 am and I am writing a blog. Tina’s house has a strange effect on my hours. Never fear I sense I will be napping in just a little bit. Once again this morning I don’t have a cohesive topic to write about. This isn’t going to be one of those great insightful blogs. This is one of those “I committed to write 500 words three days a week so I am going to do it whether it is good or not blogs.”

I am at Tina’s for awhile while her David is going to some classes for his job. I am having a blast. We aren’t doing anything super exciting or even mildly exciting, I just love being a part of this family. Little things like Tina telling Sammie she needs to not tear up the lining around her air conditioner or the bugs will come in at night and crawl all over her at night and then telling Sammie bugs are good but they need to be outside. Sammie is now wandering around saying “bugs are good but they need to stay outside.” Not only is it funny and cute but it also assures me that Sammie is going to be very hard to scar.

Caius is on the floor playing with a toy AT-AT. It gives me hope that I will be lucky enough to have both of my nephews be Star Wars geeks. I have some pretty awesome nieces and nephews as it is, but that would just be flipping epic. My only hope of being the super cool Tia when they get older is if they are both a bit geeky. I can relate and encourage geeky.

I am at one full week of writing with Kathleen. I am so pleased with how it is going. I am about three-quarters of the way done with my massively obnoxious summary outline and I have some research to do, then I will be ready to start writing my first draft. I am beginning to doubt the wisdom of setting the book in Baton Rouge since it has been so long since I have been there. I think I will be begging my Facebook friends to help me with tidbits to make the book feel more realistic in the setting.

Sammie just told me she really cares about me very much and I told her I love her very very very much and she replies “I know because I have a bandage on my albow.” Caius is angry because we are eating without him so he put the side of his face on the floor and scooting along the floor while screaming. I don’t know why it is so entertaining but it just is. Now Sammie is singing “Twinkle Star.”

Seth and Grace are the same way. Grace is a little spitfire whom lives in her own little world. She shows us glimpses of what it is like in there and it is amazing. Seth is my boy. He and I play hard but what I really cherish when he tells me stories or shows me his different Lego stuff.  I love how serious he is and how thoroughly he thinks things through.

I love my kids.

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Jul 19

Monday Night

It is Monday night. I am attempting to be responsible and write something tonight and set it up to publish tomorrow morning.  I have plans to head to the Tina’s tomorrow and I know I won’t get it done tomorrow. I know me. I have a slight problem. I have not a damn thing to write about. I have thought all day. I have nothing cohesive or cool so I am just going to do that thing where I write about about of disconnected stuff.

I realized that I am probably the weirdest person I know. (That is saying something considering Lynsie want to make taxidermy creations from dead mice.) I realized this while I was eating a bowl of fruit loops.  I know it is odd enough that a 29 year old would eat fruit loops but I like eating them for an odd reason. The taste is good but I like to eat them because I like sorting out each spoonful by color. I eat my fruit loops color coded. Of course I only do this for the first half a bowl because by the second half the colors take too long to sort out and the cereal is verging on crumbly moosh.

Also, apparently I talk and write funny. I am getting blame for my best friend’s three year-old saying “nonsense.” I can’t really deny it is my fault. Most likely it is my fault. I also taught her to call a tambourine a dirty hippie. I am the most awesome Tia ever.

My nephew’s 8th birthday is today. My sister and her family are in Turks and Caicos for the week. I think it is fantastic. I might also be a bit /jealous. My sister works really hard for everything her family has and I am proud and happy that they are able to provide their kids with so much.

I went by the library today to turn in some books that I had checked out but never read. I love the books but I just wasn’t feeling it this time. I got some other books that are lighter fun books. I also found out that I am even less capable of carrying on a conversation right now. I have always been a bit harebrained. Sometimes I would catch myself dazing off when talking to people or I would think ahead in the conversation and jump there  without bringing the other person with me. I also was famous for starting a conversation in the middle because I had been thinking about something then made a comment without cluing in the other person. Today I was literally trying to have a coherent conversation and I kept thinking about some stuff I am writing and mess up the thread of conversation.  Really, like I need something else harming my ability to be around normal people.

Good news is the writing is working crazy well. Kathleen and I spend hours every day writing. We are writing separate things but we are hanging out in a chat program to talk to each other and be responsible to each other for actually writing. My pre-writing is smashing a long awesome sauce. Things got so much easier when I decided to just write something fun. I decided that I was okay with not having a super awesome plot and just trying really hard to write a funny book with good characters.  Actually, right now I would just be pleased to get a book written all the way through the first draft. I feel like that would be a major accomplishment.  World changing literature can come later.  No sparkling vampires… I promise.

Ramble accomplished. Time to go do some more summary outline writing….. woo woo

 

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Jul 16

Long, Strange Journey

Crappy Paint Cake

I made a cake for the occasion!

Welcome, Gentle Readers, to my 100th blog post! Anyone who has stuck with me from the beginning knows I love me some retrospect and reflection. What better time to think about the progression of my site than the 100th post?

This blog started out as a place to host my Thematic Experiment blog. Thematic Experiment was an idea cooked up with Tina to showcase my ability to write about anything repeatedly on a regular schedule to show potential employers.

It started on a normal free WordPress blog site until I was picked to contribute for the fantastic Urlybits.com (then dailyshite.com) and I decided I needed to have my own site too. I have been incredibly slack contributing to Urlybits but I owe so much to Sara and Paul O’Flaherty. I learned a lot from working with them and I got some great friends out of the deal.

Anyway, I bought the domain name for the site and set off on this odyssey. I found a few surprises a long the way. I realized I really enjoy building WordPress sites. I also realized that I do not know nearly enough about them. I still live in fear when I decide to make changes to my site. Second, I found that not only could I write on a schedule about a specific theme but I was actually pretty good at it. I am not going to pretend that all of my stuff was gold but I was expecting far worse. Third, and by far the biggest surprise, people read it.

I wrote six full-ish months off theme blogs until (through some prodding by Sara) I decided to go to my more personal blog. I think those six months were very important. I had to prove something to myself and I think I did. Something happened with April and beyond though and I actually started to put myself into my blogs.

In reality, I am a simple creature. I am a pain in the ass and I am crazy but my motivations are pretty simple. I like making people happy, I like praise and attention, and I like to think that I am special. (Tyler Durden be damned.) I think do varying degrees we are all motivated by these things. Some social pundits call blogging narcissism and look down on it as self aggrandizement. (I know I talk funny damnit. Stop making fun of me.) On the surface these people are right. It is narcissistic that I write thing about myself and those around me and expect people to care. I do get a feeling of gratification for the praise I get. It does make me feel good to think that what I write might matter to someone else. So, in some ways they are absolutely right, but in the important ways, they are very very wrong.

Most humans need connections to be whole. We need to feel like people care about us and to care about others. We need to know that there are other people who are like us or who have gone through the same things we have. Nothing is more terrifying and awful than to feel like you are the only one. (Go watch that Brene Brown video on TED.com if you haven’t. Just do it, okay and stop arguing, I am right about this.)

It is hard in a society of false faces to feel these connections. So much of our society is obsessed with appearances (I do not just mean purely looks) that we have become so disingenuous that it is hard to feel connected to people. Some people can not even truly connect to the people closest to us because we are so concerned with appearance and being correct that we just do not open up. We worry about privacy. We worry about what happens if people find out. We worry what people will think. We start to judge, and forget to try to understand, and it becomes so hard to allow ourselves to be truly open with anyone that it becomes almost a heroic feat to tell the truth about some human experiences. Screw that. I hate this silence and disconnect, it breeds shame and shame is generally the most useless and destructive emotion we humans have.

That is why we read and write blogs. We get to share. We get to talk about our kids, our food, our pets, or anything else that matters. We feel connected to people when we read people’s blogs about experiences like ours. It does not matter if it is unimportant or inconsequential, it is genuine sharing. We get to have those connections we need and we feel less alone.

The blog post Strong Woman changed everything for me. I had harbored so much pain, shame, and confusion deep inside myself that was eating at me. I wrote something of myself for the first time and put it out naked and raw.  I was terrified. It was the most liberating thing I have ever done. The response was overwhelming and life changing for me.

I like praise and I like being good at things but this went so much deeper than that. I realized how hungry we all are for honest, genuine human truth. I realized that I was not alone in all those emotions that went along with the abuse.  I realized I liked the honest me that I put into the rawness there and in posts after that. Also, I always knew that my friends are incredible and my friends who read this site are invaluable to me but after that, I realized that you guys are more amazing than I ever thought.

I started writing this blog in November for Tina. I kept writing in the beginning to prove to myself that I could. I found that now I write it because I believe in it. I don’t have delusions that my writing will ever bring change or effect the world. I write now because I hate our world of polite society and polite conversation. Now, I don’t think we should run through life telling everyone we meet every detail of everything that has ever happened to us. I just think it stupid that we are afraid to be open even when we should be. I think it is stupid that we have let ourselves be so isolated and shamed that we lock ourselves into boxes. I am done with it. Fear of being judged or ridiculed sucks. I do not think it is worth giving up the chance to truly connect with those around us though. I have been advised that it would be smart of me to unlist my blog or stop writing my blog because it could hurt my chances of finding a job. It is brilliant advice that would be smart for me to take. I am not known for doing things the easy way that makes sense.

I absolutely did not mean this blog to become a big ass rant about blogging and openness. Tangents happen. I do want to say one last thing though.

Thank you.

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Jul 14

Blog or Death

“Sorry, we are all out of blog.”

“So my choice is ‘or death’?”

Sorry I had to channel and ruin Eddie Izzard there.

So, time to point out something obvious: I have been a damn slacker lately and I missed TWO blog posts in a row. The interwebs gods are writing on their little tablet computers and marking me down as a terrible internet person. How do I ever intend on becoming on of the nerd queens of the internet if I do not write when I say I am going to write?  Bah! I do have reasons…. Kinda.

Saturday I was helping babysit my niece and nephew. We did not leave to go to my sister’s house early in the morning or anything. I just did not wake up early enough to write before we left and we did not get home until late Saturday night/ early Sunday morning. It was a blast. I love those kids. My gentle readers are just going to have to suck it up and deal. The lesson I learned was that if I want to do something like that again I need to plan ahead and write the blog the night before and just set it up to publish that morning.

Tuesday I was very busy not getting a job. I had a second interview for a job I was wanting. I woke up early-ish for me and put on my grown up clothes, grown up make-up, and did my hair in a grown up style. I showed up early with a really cute business serious woman purse. The interview took far less time than it took to get ready for it. The man conducting the interview was incredibly nice but I could tell my interview was a formality. He called me later to tell me that they had decided to offer someone else the job. I was disappointed. I had liked the idea of a job and a paycheck.  I decided to take a nap in my new bed in my newly redone bedroom.  Things always look better after you sleep on them.

Here is what I decided when I woke up: I was disappointed but I was not crushed. The job market sucks right now, especially around here. I am not going to starve or be homeless. I decided to be happy that next week I get to spend some time with Tina. My mom also has made me read awful books that she bought on the cheap for her e-reader. It was torture and it was enlightening. People will buy absolutely anything for 99 cents and you can make a decent amount of money for selling your stuff cheap. I also learned that people are far more willing to buy short stuff on e-readers than they are in actual paper books. I decided I was going to use my unemployed time to do cool things.

With e-readers a person can self publish. I am going to learn how to self publish. I am going to write some crappy romance novellas and sell them cheap (under a pen name of course) just to get started and then, after I get a feel for it, I am going to try and publish my good stuff. I just need to actually do it. For me, follow through is always the sticking point. Also, I have been informed that it is nearly impossible to tell me that I should do something or that something is a good idea. Apparently, one has to lead me to the conclusion so I can see it for myself. I am a pain in the ass, it is part of my charm.

I have major insecurities about my writing. I have things tripping me up in my head.  I know, I know, everyone has these things, and I should be bold and go forth. Well, as fore mentioned, me knowing something and me actually coming to the conclusion to myself are two completely different things. So I am trying to stare the dumb self-defeating shit that resides in my head directly in the face and try to work around it.

I have a chance to be what I wanted to be when I grow up. I have support and people who truly believe in me. I think I have a chance of being good and finding a place. The good thing about being so harsh on myself is that I know some of my faults and I can work to figure out how to handle them before they arise.

I have cancelled all gaming accounts. I am not going to play Rift or World of Warcraft. I downloaded Plants Versus Zombies and that satisfies my computer entertainment needs.

I know certain things about myself. One of those things I know about myself is that if I am only accountable to myself I will not do it. I also know that if I have some I care about to be responsible to I will do what I can not to disappoint them. It is why I have stuck with this blog for so long. I told Tina I would do it. Every time I miss a blog I feel like I am letting her down a bit. This is my 99th post because I told her I would.

If I am going to do this e-publishing/ crappy novella writing thing I know I will only succeed if I have someone to be accountable to. This is where the strange miracles of late come in. So Kathleen. She came back into my life. She is also a writer. She is an amazing writer and is the direct opposite of me creatively. We are going to be responsible to each other. I feel a chance for it to work out well for both of us.

Not doing something because of fear of failure is dumb. I am filled with trepidation writing this because of that nagging voice that tells me that it could be another one of my harebrained ideas that go nowhere and now I have put it out on my blog which means that people will know I had this harebrained idea that went nowhere. I told you my head is full of dumb voices.

I have learned something about myself through blogging about myself since my life blew up: I am bravest when I am the most honest about my vulnerable self and I create things I am the most proud of when I am honest. That is why the Brene Brown video Kathleen showed me meant to much to me.

My biggest fears are failure and missing life because of fear. (And falling from heights, I am the only person I know that has panic attacks standing on chairs changing light bulbs and it is a damn good thing I am tall.) I do not want to look like an idiot and I hate feeling like I am clueless. I also do not want to not do something great in life because I am afraid that I might look like an idiot or because I might be bad at it. I have decided the second fear is far more likely to help me be happy.

Part of the reason why I crashed into the wall was because I stopped being genuine. I lost touch with that truth that I found in vulnerability. I have decided that I am going to go crashing forth in life , like I do, with the grace and delicacy of a bull in a china shop with that heady freedom and power I found in being honest and vulnerable and genuine in some of those early post explosion posts. Part of me shudders at that idea. I am not afraid of vulnerability, I shudder because I have seen some really bad honest and open writing. Some people expose their souls and they do it with bad writing.

Not writing  because you fear writing badly is dumb.

Damnit.

I hate it when I have to accept logic.

Epic ramble done.

 

 

 

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Jul 05

Smash (Turns Out)

First, watch this. It is twenty minutes long but it is an amazing twenty minutes. Trust me

I know most of you did not stop and watch it. Oh ye of little faith. Just know that this will inspire a few blogs after this one.

Saturday I reconnected with an amazing woman that had been an astounding friend for many years with. (We just went a really long time between phone calls.) She linked me this and it made me think. Thinking gave me panic attacks and yesterday everything went smash.

I felt like I had done some crazy Wiley Coyote stunt where I attached myself to a bungee cord attached to a brick wall and turned on my jet pack and eventually the bungee cord and the brink wall won. BOOM.

I am Selina, Handler of Things. When there is a problem I handle it. I sit down and look at my options and figure out a plan of attack. When I am struggling I come up with multiple plans and go through them one by one caring little about actual success just caring about keeping moving. I do this with the people I care about too. It is why I seem bossy or controlling, it is because I am trying to handle things because I want to make things as good as possible for those I love. It is just what I do.

Turns out you can’t just handle heartbreak.

Selina, Handler of Things met her match with this one.

This is how I explained it to my mom after the cord smashed me back into the wall and I realized I was hurting: I am only three blocks of better trying to run fast and be one mile of better. Eventually something is going to happen and snap you back and wake you up. I was working so hard to push push push push things to make them better, to make them move, that I lost track of were I was and stopped being honest to myself. I was so busy trying to be okay that I forgot to actually help myself be okay.

Turns out that doesn’t work so well.

It also turns out that I have to be okay with that. My tendency when bad things happen to me is to downplay them. It was just a stupid break up. He was not right for me, everyone knew (including me.) He was a big bag of jerk and I am free of him. I deserve better anyway. He was holding me back an now I can be and do whatever I want.

The life I had built for that year plus died. That Selina that I was died. I gave that relationship everything I had and I went into it with my whole heart. It causes damage.

I honestly do not miss him. I see my life as better with out him. In my mind, I know I deserve better. I thought this meant the damage should be better and I should be able to move on. Yeah, so maybe I was a little wrong there. The damage is still there and it still hurts. Turns out making plans and handling things do not work on feelings of being unworthy of love and of feelings weakness. Turns out that planning and handling just hides them.

Push push push. It pisses me off so bad. I want to be better and I should be better but I am not. I should have a job. I should have plans. I should be skinner. I should be writing my great whatever the hell it is that I am going to write to change the world. I should be out making a bevy of new friends. I should, I should, I should.

I was doing the ugly cry (the one with the red face and snot) while talking to my mom and I realized I have a massive double standard for myself. If I saw someone else going through this I would say I was doing fine. I would give them far more leeway than I give myself. I would tell them they are trying hard and that these things take time. I would tell them to stop worrying about should. I would tell them that after a crash it is okay to take a few days and hide and heal. I would tell them that sometimes in life merely doing what you can is enough. Turns out I am kinder to others than I am myself.

I am hurting. I have no plans to handle it. I am just going to feel it. I am going to take a few days to hide and heal. I am going to try to be more honest with myself and try to be kinder to myself. I am going to write what I feel and not what I think I should. Beyond that, I don’t know.

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Jul 02

Curiosity and the Cat

I have sworn off of men for at least a year because it seemed like the logical decision to make.  I love men but they do nothing but create chaos in my life and I am doing a good enough job creating my own chaos thankyouverymuch. I still think about what I want in a man (like every single straight woman does) and on occasion I look at a dating site on which I have a profile just out of curiosity. Curiosity killed the cat and I don’t think there is the needed satisfaction to bring it back.

I know dating sites are all the rage with the hot young singles these days. I have had the strangest luck with it. It is has been all bad and it has all been just weird.

The Boys of the Internet:

The mail I ever got on that site came when I was 27. The man was 56.  I when I looked at his dating preferences I noticed that he wanted a woman between the ages of 25 and 35. Ugh. I could tell he was looking for a real intellectual soul match. I felt a bit ageist about brushing him off until I realized even he didn’t want to date someone his age. Seriously, though, there is little a man nearly thirty years my senior could have in common with me mentally or emotionally. I know women closer to his age and most of them are beautiful, dynamic, smart women who would make him happier.  Plus, it would feel pervy dating someone my mom’s age.

The second guy I connected with was a nerdy, smallish man who was working on his doctorate. He was very busy (so he said) but he was very smart, interesting, and charming. One night we were on the phone and he was telling me how everything in the universe was made of the same particles that were created in the big bang. He told me everything in the world was star dust. I know, I know, I am a dork but that was freaking hot. We made a date and he chickened out and I never talked to him again. I have been told his behaviors were indicative of someone who was in a relationship and was looking to cheat. /le sigh

Third guy is known as “Hatchet Boy.” That should be your first clue that things were not awesome. We sent a few messages back and forth and we exchanged myspace pages. He had some of his writing posted and it was bad angst-filled teenage “dark” crap but with slightly violent undertones. His picture was of him holding two hatchets. It gets better. Turns out he was one of the regulars at the library and he had creeped me out there too. When he realized who I was, it got awkward and a bit scary in my head. I told him I was seriously talking to another guy and I wanted to see where that went first.

I was talking to another guy, so I was not lying to Hatchet Boy. This guy was special, the bad kind of special. He dropped out of high school in ninth grade and liked Twilight. He had a daughter and baby momma drama. He also told me on our first date that his ex-girl friend might also be pregnant. As we talk over the next few days things just got more insane. He had to go rescue his daughter from his crazy ex. He found out that the wall of his heart was too thick and he needed medicine and a transplant.  His truck broke down. He had a cousin that lived near the nerd convention in Anaheim, CA that I was going to in a few weeks. Something was going on with his neighbors dogs and shot guns. I decided that either this guy was a big liar or a drama magnet and I needed to not go there.

That was the guy that broke my desire to date. (I am amazed that it took that much.) I stopped looking at the site and forgot about it then I got the latest ex-boyfriend and cancelled my account. One night in a moment of weakness after the break-up I reactivated my account.

I have only had one contact after I reactivated it and that was enough to make me roll my eyes and swear not to use the site seriously. The guy was 47 and he was a poet. If being a poet was not bad enough, his poetry was terrible. It was rhyme scheme dependent drivel. He told me his biggest frustration in life is that all the women notice him for his hot body and not his mind, rhymes, and large man bits. Do I need to explain why this did not get very far?

I still check the site on occasion just when I get curious. I always find the same assortment of strange men who can’t spell and have nothing in common with me. It helps me with my decision to stay single.

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Jun 28

Lessons in Awesome

As anyone who has read more than a few of my blogs knows, I have a slightly different take on the world. If you don’t know what I am talking about go read my post on kids shows. I forget this on occasion until days like yesterday remind me.

I am playing a new game called Rift. It is a pretty cool game, I just don’t have the friends in the game that I did in World of Warcraft, so I spend most of my time in game playing by myself and not talking to anyone. In the game you run around talking to these computer run characters and they give you little missions or quests. This questing is part of the way you get to the maximum level so you can start doing torturous things like gearing up and raiding.

Yesterday I was all hopped up on caffeine after not having any on Sunday and questing like a mad woman. I was questing in a place called Iron Pine Peak which is this pretty mountainous area with snow and plenty of bad creatures wanting to eat your face. I began to think about how the conversation between myself and the computer run characters (Non-Playable Characters, or NPCs) would really be if I was somehow a hot little humanoid with purple hair and cool tattoos that could use my hand like a flame thrower. This is how it went:

NPC: So I need you to get on that road right there and turn left. Be careful because there are wolfman beasts that want to kill you on the side of the road. Anyway, just a little up the road is a place that has caves/secret creepy laboratories on both sides. You will know you are there because the wolfman beasts are directly on the road. Anyway, I want you to go into the left creepy cave/secret laboratory and break some of their shit and kill this one guy. Then I need you to go to the right cave/secret laboratory and  steal some stuff, let some folks out of cages that apparently do not have locks but the prisoners just do not know to reach through the bars and free themselves. While you are there I also need you to kill this one chick. Oh, one more thing, the caves are full of the wolfman beasts and crazed angry people in far too little clothing and stupid hats. Can you do that for me?

Me: What do I get for doing all of this?

NPC: A tiny bit of money, some experience, and a piece of crap that you do not need and will take up space in those bags you are somehow carrying but that dude over there might buy it off of you because he like to buy useless stuff.

Me: Sweet action! Count me in!

(Later at a different groups of NPCs in front of a different set of creepy caves filled with crazed people wearing far too little clothing and stupid hats but no wolfman beasts.)

NPC: Hey, I need you to go to that cave, spend ten minutes killing everything in it, and grab this thing off the ground, and bring it back to me.

Me: Will do!

(Twenty minutes later after killing everything in that cave and two more exactly like it, the first NPC has another quest for me.)

NPC: You know that cave I sent you to and made you kill everything so you can pick up that thing for me? Well I need another thing from the back of that cave. Can you get it for me? Oh yeah, everything you killed before is alive again so you are going to have to kill everything all over again.

Me: You are such an ass.

Yep, this is the stuff I sometimes think about while left to my own devices. I shared this with my guild (a merry band of fellow online gamers) and I think I scared them a bit.

Okay, so I ran out of coffee on Sunday. I was also almost out of Splenda so I could not make tea unless I used sugar. Sunday I refused to do that so I went the day without caffeine. Yesterday I gave in and made some tea. I got pretty hyped up on the caffeine and sugar. Anyway, I needed a wal-mart run but it is only slightly cooler than the surface of the sun outside during the day so I decided to wait until last night. I got there at about 10:30 pm and had one of the most pleasant wal-mart experiences in awhile.

I was looking at the coffee and decided to browse a bit since I was practically alone in the store. I like wimpy flavored coffee and the stuff I normally buy is fairly expensive. I decided to look for a different brand in order to be a bit more fiscally responsible. I found a new brand that was three dollars cheaper for the same size bag. I bought it and was proud of myself for trying to be a better person. This morning when I looked at it I realized it was cheaper because it was whole beans. Since I do not have a coffee grinder, I spent some time this morning grinding a bag of coffee with a hand blender. Some of it is a fine powder, some of it is almost whole beans. The coffee tastes fine, I just happened to learn a lesson about smug self satisfaction about trying to be more grown up.

I love being me. (That is not actually sarcasm. I do actually love being me.)

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Jun 21

Y R U So Srs?

I have been on a serious, well, serious streak as of late. I looked back at my recent blog posts and they are either about being too hot or being frustrated with society in general. Where the hell did my funny go? I am blaming the CNN and the MSN. I think it is important to be aware of what is going on in the world and to seriously think about the state of things, not just accepting what we are told as fact. I believe with all of my heart that it is vital to take responsibility for your place in the world. I can be okay with the fact that I have an increasingly feminist voice to my writing. Dood, seriously though, I need to lighten up every once in awhile.

So this weekend Oklahoma City helping Tina with stuff. Saturday morning we went to Wal-mart to pick up a metric ton of stuff she had ordered. I looked like major crap. I had an old t-shirt on and my hair was back in a hasty bun. One of the guys that was helping Tina with her stuff was flirting with me big time and, damn, it was awesome. I honestly believe my worth has nothing to do with my attractiveness and all that jazz I have been writing. I am not going to lie, though, it was nice to be chatted up by a really good looking guy while I felt I looked like crap. Sometimes I just need reassurance I did lose all of my geeky charm even if I have no plans to use it anytime soon. What can I say, I guess I am human.

MSN has a picture of a woman getting a snake massage and it is really freaking me out. No, I mean it is really.freeaking.me.out.

I bet some women out there pay a lot of money to lay on a table and have someone put snakes on their backs. Rich people are nuts.

A big news item is the new warnings on cigarette packs. This is almost as dumb as snake massages. All smokers know smoking is bad for them, they just choose to do it anyway like people who eat too many carbs and don’t wear sunscreen. People make the life decisions they make no matter facts and logic. Just look at the state of politics. Just saying.

Eeeew snakes crawling all over your back. ON PURPOSE.

I was about to talk about the latest bad behavior from some beautiful Hollywood starlet *Ahem*MeganFox*Ahem* but I realized that I should feel sorry for her. She may be beautiful and rich and possibly not completely stupid (just makes bad life decisions and doesn’t understand when to STFU) but I bet she is hungry. I bet she would be much happier and less of a caustic bitch if someone fed her some bacon or chocolate, maybe both at the same time.

Why do you supposed all of the Jacksons got the same terrible nose job? Did they not see it on their siblings and go “oh that just looks wrong?” Or did they decide that if they all got it they could pass it off as some strange hereditary disease that morphed into something that looks like it belongs on a cheap barbie doll rip off?

One last thing

STFU – shut the fornication up- please be quiet immediately.

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Jun 20

Woah There

Yes, yes, I know it has been over a week since I have written anything. I started to write something last Saturday and just decided to spend sometime with my best friend and her family instead. I have the post I started saved and I think it could be something really interesting. I decided it just wasn’t something I wanted to write right then. What about the rest of the week, Selina? Well, two things were going on last week.

I went on a job interview on the seventh and I was excited. Last week started the waiting game. I am terrible at the waiting game. It makes me a bit edgy. Some people have implied (or flat out said) that I am a bit of a bulldozer when it comes to getting things I care about done. I do not like waiting. I found out Wednesday the officer in charge of hiring for the position was calling all of my references. After hearing what he asked two of my references, I realized that he knows more about me than most of my boyfriends with no context in which to put it. I shouldn’t admit it but I am a bit amused by the idea of what the man must think of me.

The second thing that happened last week was that it was slightly less hot than the surface of the sun in my house. I generally prefer the heat to the cold. I will take 90 over 40 any day but 104 is just freaking ridiculous. Seriously, triple digit heat is just crazy talk. It should stop. Factor in that neither my computer room or my bedroom have air conditioning and I am cranky as hell. I love writing and I love my blog but it was hot and I had no desire to roast to write some whiny bitchy blogs.

Then this past Saturday I was at Tina’s again. I normally do write when I am at Tina’s. I bring my laptop and normally write something about what is going on.  They may not be my best blogs but I do generally have something to show. Saturday Tina made me work from the moment I woke up at 7:30 am until I went to bed at 2 am. Wait… No, that was her, except she woke up at 7 am. Tina worked me from the second I had had three cups of coffee and food at about 8:23 am until I totally wussed out at about 9pm. I had nothing to write except I was tired, her livingroom looked super badass, and I hate having to try and figure out how to put drawer tracks on furniture from a box.

Now, today, it is not any cooler, I am still waiting, and it is Monday. Why am I writing a blog? I don’t know really. I think I was anxious and it is too flipping hot to do anything else productive like clean or exercise. Besides one extra blog after skipping four won’t hurt anything. I think I also figured I would get my complaining out today so tomorrow I can write something witty and insightful that will change the world, well, if it isn’t too hot.

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Jun 09

Humble

I spent over a year with someone I loved very much constantly insinuating that I was dumb. He very rarely straight out called me stupid but he would make little comments about things I did or would tell me things like “when we got together you were always so full of intelligent conversation and witty observations, what happened?” (I should have pointed out to him that he made it very clear that he had no desire to talk about things that did not directly relate to him or the the game and that he also made it very clear that I was pretty dumb about the game.) Honestly, he was not the first man to treat me like that and I was never very confident about my intelligence in the first place.

I am finding myself trying to rebuild my self image and part of that is trying to make myself believe I am smart and trying to relearn to interact with the world as Selina McSmartypants. My writing is helping immensely. The problem is that I was raised in this strange culture that it is uncouth for women to take too much pride in their intelligence. We are supposed to be humble about it and pretend that either we have no clue that we are as smart as we are or hide it. It is almost a sin for me to hint that I am smart or, even worse, that I might be smarter than other people and therefore don’t fit in with everyone around me. I live in a part of the world where few people read and the majority of people have different social values than I do. I don’t think I am better than most of these people. I actual admire people who work hard and build things from nothing. I think taking care of your family is one of the most noble things you can do. I am just a wuss and I know it. I do not believe not having a college degree means you are unintelligent. I just think I am different. I’m a geek.

Right now I need to tell myself I am smart. I am not telling myself that to lord myself above other people, I am just trying understand myself and figure out who I am again. For some reason, I am not allowed to do this simple thing. It distresses me. I can think of myself as tall and no one gets offended or feels the need to slap me down or I can like my fake red hair and it is okay. What is so damn upsetting about me taking pride in my brains?

I get the strong feeling this is a feminist issue many women face. I know I am not the only one that has been made to feel that being anything but humble to the point of lacking self worth is unfeminine and opens us up to ridicule. Women can talk about how good their kids are or how well they cook and it is perfectly acceptable. We can take pride in our homemaking skills and sometimes even our business skills and it is okay. Why is it when we say things like I am smart that it is okay to smacking us down? This is not just evil men either, the two people who make me feel bad for making comments about my intelligence have been women. Why do we do this to each other?

If we are made to believe that it is not okay to take pride in our intelligence then we slowly begin to believe that either we are dumb or that being smart is something shameful. If a man knows he is intelligent, it is completely kosher for him to take pride in it and to speak with authority. I feel like I should talk with downcast eyes and my face hidden when I know a lot about something. If I try to participate in a conversation other men are having around me, I have to offer my input almost apologetically. Why do I have to fear appearing arrogant about my brains so desperately? Men are arrogant about their mental prowess. Other women are arrogant about things other than intelligence. (Don’t believe me? Go look at the comments on mommy websites. Mommies are arrogant AND cutthroat with each other.)

I do not really know where I am going with this. I am just hurt and frustrated with it. It feels like a double wounding to be squished so low by one person then being made to feel guilty about building myself back up by another.  I feel a big serving of “go screw yourself” coming for the next person who does it. I would rather be arrogant than squished.

 

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