The Blog of all Topics

Yes, ALL Women

2014-06-04T15:47:00.001-07:00

It's a trending Twitter topic, and has been for a while now. It's been in the news, and it's stirring up discussions everywhere it pops up.

This is good.

What's bad is that they are real women and real stories, and the need for these discussions exists at all.

Is it really all women? Probably. A lot of it is likely stuff the women around you barely think about anymore, because it's so ingrained. Carrying keys as a weapon, being leered at/catcalled/harassed by strange men on the streets or the bus, wavering uncertainly between being a prude or being slutty (The Breakfast Club, anyone?). If you try to remain pure, innocent, picky... then you are probably not enjoying life enough. You probably don't know what you're doing. You probably just haven't gotten it good yet. If you embrace your sexuality and try to own it, you're a slut. You're desperate. You're dirty and probably diseased and not worth actual love.

I wasn't as careful as I should have been with men in my life, for a zillion reasons, many of which can be traced back to low self-esteem. I'm often floored by how fortunate I am to have escaped such behavior with as little trauma as I have... and then I'm equally floored that I should feel that way. I was open and trusting and talked to people (men and women) everywhere I went - sounds like a recipe for fun and adventure and lots of new friends, right? And most of the time, that's what it was. Unfortunately, the fact that I still sometimes feel like maybe if I'd been less so, if I'd done x or y differently, then Bad Things wouldn't have happened to me... makes me feel ashamed.

Am I victim-blaming myself?

Sometimes.

It's hard not to, when so much of the rest of the world does it. When you feel like yes, if I had not gone home with that man, I would not have been raped by him. But... that doesn't make it my fault. And it's a struggle to remember that key piece.

I've been insulted many times by boys I was dating, from adolescence through adulthood. I've been told I should dress "more like a girl" - by both men and women. I've been offered unsolicited "makeovers" by more than one woman in my life. I've been held down and restrained when I was upset and yelling at a man I was involved with, and told to shut up, and I was scared so I did.

I thought my worth was bundled up in my body and how much I did or did not show of it, how much I did or did not offer of it. I've had sex because I felt it was expected of me and I wasn't really sure how to navigate my way out of the situation otherwise. The man I lost my virginity to told me I wasn't beautiful, but also questioned my claim to virginity because apparently I didn't act like a virgin that first time. I've had my butt grabbed at concerts by total strangers - once the man didn't even try to be subtle about it, to the point that another man (whom I will always remember and wish I could thank) saw what was happening and stepped between us, glaring at the molester and giving me a sympathetic look.

Just a few weeks ago I honked at some jaywalking young men - maybe late teens or early 20s - because they were, you know, jaywalking. On a rather busy street. I didn't hold down the horn, I didn't flail angrily or yell at the window. I tapped my horn once, rather politely, because they were in the direct path of my car, sauntering along. They didn't react by waving apologetically and scurrying along; they reacted by stopping, turning and walking CLOSER to my car (I had to swerve), gesturing and yelling that they would "fuck [my] ugly ass up."

I had a bit of a stalker for a while. I was raped by a man I'd slept with before (I was reluctant the first time; I was outright crying and saying "no" the second), and it took me almost 2 weeks to recognize that's what had happened and to call a spade a spade. I vividly remember going to lunch with a friend, and as we were chatting, I hesitantly told him, "I.. think I was raped." I remember feeling numb as I said it, and half-expecting him to tell me I was wrong or blame me (thankfully, he did not).

Another boy I'd thought I was dating (in retrospect I realized I was simply a warm bed and body for him when he was drunk) came over one night a couple of years after we'd stopped seeing each other, and forced himself on me - he removed his shirt, he laid on top of me, he kissed me forcefully. He repeated this several times despite me trying to push him off, turning my head, telling him over and over to leave. The first time I told him to leave was when he told me he had a girlfriend at home, which was news to me. For days after the incident (it took me over an hour to get him to actually leave) I was heartbroken that he thought I was the sort of girl who would be into that scenario. Scared that I hadn't been able to fend him off - he was stronger than me, and I was tired, confused, and scared. Should I have yelled? Scratched? Hit? I'd thought we were friends and just catching up. He got in touch not long after, not thinking he'd done anything wrong.

I've been nervous to be alone with men (especially after that last incident). I've wanted to chop off my hair, wear the least flattering clothes I could find, eschew all makeup, just to keep men from leering or making inappropriate comments. Not that I am especially good-looking; I'm not. I'm simply a woman. I have breasts and hips and thus, I am there for the commenting.

I realize it's difficult sometimes to compliment another person without coming off creepy or solicitous, and so I often let a lot of things slide. It's not walking that fine line, though, for a man in his late 20s or early 30s to ask a teen-aged girl working at Wendy's, when she asks if you'd like anything else with your order, how much she costs. It's not walking that line to tell a girl she has "DSL" ("dick-sucking lips," in douchebag lingo) and think she will find that flattering.

It's not okay, and the generations of girls growing up now need to know that. They need to be taught to fight back - and yes, it's awful that my first go-to is that the girls should be taught. In my unrelenting, slightly optimistic, open-and-trusting nature that still has yet to be completely quashed despite all this, I still have this feeling that it should be common sense to teach boys not to treat girls that way. That boys should be raised in such a way that maybe they don't even have to be explicitly told. That they will grow up and be the men who step between the woman and the creepy man at the concert, keeping her safe without being asked. But that leaves the big gaping hole where the creepy men are raised, doesn't it? They come from somewhere, and not all of it can be blamed on mental illness.

What can we do but keep pushing this discussion? Keep trying to drive the point in, because it's not in yet. There are still people who don't know this is happening; women who don't realize they can stand up to it all; men who don't realize their friends and neighbors and co-workers are perpetrators. We just have to keep talking about it, and try to make change where we can.

A Normal Conversation... For Us.

2014-04-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

Genie: oh and! do you know about demon porn? how about dinosaur porn?

Peanut: dinosaur erotica I've heard of
Peanut: but not demon or dino porn
Peanut: wtf
Peanut: who is sharing these things

Genie: oh yeah. what I said "porn" I meant erotica

Colonel Dr: never dino on dino. It's always dino on girl.
Colonel Dr: We saw it in an article, and I was one step away from buying it to see how bad the human race was...

Genie: how does a dino peen even fit in a person?

Peanut: I dunno, people do it with horses and they're pretty big right?
Peanut: maybe like a velociraptor

Genie: boyfriend's stepmom was telling me about it. she does the voices for books on tape...or cd or whatever and I guess she's being approached by a lot of these dino/demon people
Genie: is it sexy because the dinosaur eats you after you do it?

Peanut: maybe it's the thrill/danger of knowing they might
Peanut: or they could do it with vegetarian dinos, they're probably tender and loving

Colonel Dr: No, it's all about taming the beast.
Colonel Dr: Taking that big T-Rex, and making it worship you with the power of the V
Colonel Dr: I get that

Peanut: is it because you fancy yourself a T-Rex?
Peanut: if a T-Rex came around, would you consent to gay inter-species sex just to tame the beast?

Colonel Dr: I do think of myself as the T-Rex of this office. Maybe the state.
Colonel Dr: But no, no interspecies action for me.

Genie: but it's such a tiny V to a dinosaur. it'd be like me trying to do a mouse
Genie: there's no way my peen is fitting in a mouse

Peanut: did you just confess to having a peen?

Genie: I like to pretend I have a peen. makes me feel powerful

Peanut: sometimes I have dreams where I have one
Peanut: and it's always hilariously huge
Peanut: like, won't fit in pants
Peanut: I could do a dino with that one

Genie: a dino peen would be at least as big as a metro bus
Genie: that shit wont fit in me

Peanut: I think velociraptors are about the same size as a tall person
Peanut: I'd have to watch Jurassic Park again
Peanut: I'm sure it's historically accurate
Peanut: so you could do smaller dinos

Genie: ps - you and I WILL be reading a dino sex book in our future. it's a must

Peanut: dramatic reading, of course
Peanut: we can record that shit and sell it as an audio book

Genie: you can do the dino voices
Genie: actually, Colonel Dr can do the dino voices

Colonel Dr: This sounds like a win win to me. Millions of dollars split between us, and I finally get to show off my dinosaur sounds.

Genie: ...but srsly. I need to read one of these things

Peanut: needs to happen

Genie: I hope I dont get turned on

Peanut: I don't see how any of us won't
Peanut: we'll need to make sure all of us have our partners there so we can take care of things afterward

Genie: everything that's happening right now is amazing!

Peanut: best day

On Friendship and Forgiveness

2014-03-21T15:33:00.002-07:00

The other day I was talking to Tumbleweed about the concept of forgiveness, versus cutting people out of your life. Some people are constant forgivers, and some are instant cut-and-run types. I think there has to be a happy medium.

What causes some people to choose one option or the other? She and her sister were raised in the same family, yet they have different approaches. My brother and I were also raised the same way, but he is more forgiving and accepting, and I am more ready to throw my hands up and walk away. I always thought it was because of my military upbringing - we moved so often that I didn't have much of a chance to learn how to develop long-term friendships, the kind that endure plenty of ups and downs and rough patches. But if that's my excuse, why isn't my brother the same way?

I can't speak for Tumbleweed or her sister, but I think perhaps part of the difference for my brother and me is that he has always had far more energy for socializing. He just likes people more than I do. I feel that I have limited energy for other people, and I like to save that energy as much as I can. He's also always been way more confident than I am, and I have struggled with a low self-esteem for as long as I can remember.

Do I ever forgive? Yes, of course. Sometimes it may take me longer to let someone back into my heart after I feel I've been hurt, but I often will. Sometimes I just get overwhelmed with my life and have to take a hard look at who's getting my energy, energy I may need for myself, and make cuts that are more based on me feeling we aren't a great fit as friends than me feeling the other person is awful. The Friend Breakup, if you will. Again, I'm not sure if this makes me a callous person, or a careful person.

Sometimes, though, I think you have to draw the line on forgiveness. If said friend has done the same thing to you over and over, and it hurts you or upsets you every time? If you've talked to this friend about their actions, with only short-term positive results? It's probably time to let go. Perhaps you simply grew in different directions, like many married couples who opt for divorce. It's okay. It happens to platonic relationships as well as romantic. I've certainly been "dumped" by friends when our interests began to prove too different. I've also been dumped because my depression would lead me to hibernate and reject all social invitations for too long. I don't think less of people for this; you can only have someone turn you down so many times before you simply stop asking.

Accepting the level of a friendship is what is often difficult for me. I may think I'm closer to a person because we chat a lot, and we seem to be sharing personal details of our lives. Then perhaps one day it'll dawn on me that this person isn't as willing to open up to me as I to them, or they never seem to invite me out when they're with their other friends. I'm all too familiar with being hidden, as I dated an otherwise wonderful man for over a year who never included me in activities with his friends. Why? Because I wasn't an adrenaline junkie like them. He was ashamed and his friends didn't understand why we were together. "You don't do the things we do," he tried. "They eat food, don't they?" I countered. That was the beginning of the end for us. All this to say, I'm sensitive to that feeling, and I'm not okay with going through it again.

Being vulnerable to another person is difficult for almost everyone, so I won't pretend I'm especially delicate in that regard. I do tend to open up to people quickly, like an eager puppy in a new home, hoping this one will be my forever family. The downside to this is after a while, if I realize it's not mutual, I'm probably more stung by the realization than is reasonable.

For me, a lot of the closeness I feel with someone doesn't come from spending physical time together so much as it does from chatting or emailing. I'm much more comfortable opening up to someone when I don't have to also think about eye contact or body language or tripping over my words or - worse than any of that by far - the potential of crying in front of another human being. Some might argue this is a result of all the Facebooks and Myspaces and Twitters and all that (some who might be in their 60s, maybe?), but I recall having nothing but Juno email in high school. I emailed regularly with a friend from church, and in my mind, we became closer through those lengthy, slow email chats than we had ever been before he left for college. Before that, I was a poetry writer. That was how I felt most comfortable expressing myself. And my best friend in high school and I kept notebooks, which we would pass back and forth, writing each other letters during class. I don't think we got particularly deep, but I do think we communicated almost more that way than we did face-to-face.

My over-sensitive nature to feeling like I'm putting more into a friendship than I'm getting back causes me to withdraw, quickly and sometimes suddenly, when I perceive the imbalance. I don't want to be the one who loves more, because that means I'm the idiot. In my fearful mind, the other person is merely putting up with me, only to mock me with their real friends later. I'm the sad little tagalong who doesn't get the hint.

How do you forgive someone for simply not being as quick to trust as you are? You may feel they've broken your trust by not returning it, but that's not really fair.

I retreat, I lick my wounds. I'm wary of how much I share with that person, and I tend to wait for them to initiate contact for a while.

But forgiving someone who really has hurt me? Who has lashed out at me, or proven themselves incapable of both supporting my sads and celebrating my joys, time and again? That's not just my personal insecurities or fear-based suspicions. That's something that requires real forgiveness, something I struggle with. If I hurt or offended someone and don't know I've done it, I'd want them to tell me... but then I wonder, would I do the same if I were the one hurt? It's hard to own up to that... to say to someone who has deflated and emotionally injured you, "you have the power to hurt me." It takes a lot to tell someone you're sorry, and it takes a lot to tell someone you've been hurt by them.

If I know I've been a jerk, I feel I'm a big enough person to apologize. If I don't know, I'm helpless. And if I'm the one hurt? Well, so far I'm only really capable of telling Boyfriend when he's hurt me (funny how being naked on the regular with a person can make you more comfortable with them in other areas of life, eh?). Anyone else, I'm scared they'll laugh at me for being too sensitive, or make it clear that was their intention in the first place. Scared little Peanut, still acting like a stray dog after all these years.

Birthdays!

2014-01-23T13:32:00.001-08:00

First post of 2014! Yaaaaaay!

I decided to write what I can remember from my past birthdays... because I love birthdays. If I know a co-worker's birthday, it goes on my calendar and I bake them something. It's just not a birthday without baked goods, dammit! The exception is my friend who is gluten/dairy/other-stuff-free, and I'm not brave enough to delve into that world of baking, yet. Luckily she's quite good at it so she makes stuff for herself. :)

But: BIRTHDAYS!! They were always a big deal in my family, so I love them. Not necessarily my own, but everyone else's. This morning I started thinking about past birthdays, and decided I have at least a few that were interesting enough to write about. I'd also love to hear stories of other people's birthday celebrations, so leave those in the comments if you'd like! Unless it involves barfing. I don't like barf stories.

I don't remember most of my childhood birthdays, of course. I do remember that when we lived on Guam, my neighbor was my best friend by default. She was exactly a year younger than me, and I had a crush on her older brother, who sometimes babysat for us. He wore leather pants, and that is almost all I remember about him... I was 4-6 when we lived there, so you can see my boy-craziness started super early (hell, I had a crush on my brother's best friend in Japan, and I was 3-4 there).

16: I was grounded for my 16th birthday, because I briefly ran an underground newspaper at my school. We'd just moved to this city and I saw some show on underground newspapers on MTV. Somehow I decided this was a GREAT IDEA! It didn't last long before my best friend wrote a nasty bit about a cheerleader she hated, and the cheerleader found out about it and reported the whole thing. I don't know how it ended up getting linked to us, but a few of us were caught, and I got 3 days of in-school suspension, a thorough yelling from my mom, and grounding. This was the most trouble I'd ever been in, and I cried so much and got so stressed out I barfed (oops, I said no barf stories!). My dad wasn't even home for my 16th birthday... at the time he was working in another city that was far enough away, he just came home on the weekends. My brother was in college. I got a phone for my bedroom (big deal back then) and I think a nightgown. Not really the big "sweet 16" you expect from movies and TV.

17: Senior year of high school! My brother and some of his friends came down for the weekend. I remember one of his friends was very nice to me the whole time, and all day kept telling me I could do what I wanted because it was my birthday. He opened doors for me and paid attention to me, and it was lovely and sweet. The boy I was dating was a fantastic artist, and drew me an awesome picture that he taped to a Wendy's tray he'd stolen (I think we ate there together or something - it had significance). I still have said picture and tray in a box in storage.

18: I know this one is supposed to be a big deal, too, but I don't really remember it. At my university, there was a fountain on campus with a little pool around it, a couple of feet deep. It was tradition to be thrown into the fountain on your birthday, and I believe I was thrown in twice that day. Two of my friends spotted me and scooped me up (an easy task, honestly - I think I was maybe 100 pounds at this age), dumping me in ceremoniously. As I was getting out, another friend - a guy I had a giant crush on because holy shit he was HOT - came along, saw us laughing and me dripping wet, and ran over to dump me in again. I didn't even care. HOT GUY PICKED ME UP.

19: They'd revamped the fountain so there was no longer a pool around it. Booo. Just fountain, and a surrounding area that dipped in the center and had lots of drains. My mom pestered my roommate and sent her some money to have a surprise party for me, but my roommate asked me who she should invite. The party was held at the university apartment that we all hung out at, all the time. Since the fountain pool was gone, the guys had filled one of the bathtubs, and dunked me in that. Somewhere there is a photo of me, laying fully dressed and laughing in a full bathtub.

20: Um. I don't remember. I was a junior, I was dating the guy who would become my husband and later my ex-husband. I think he took me to a nice dinner somewhere and we dressed up and he gave me a rose? He reads this blog. Maybe he remembers. I think this might have been the year one of my friends picked me up and ran through the fountain spray with me, in lieu of a dunking, which was hilarious.

21: I lived in a 3-bedroom duplex with 2 other girls, one of whom was awesome and the other of whom was insane (but we didn't know that yet). I'm phobic of cockroaches - not just "eek" but hyperventilating cannot deal oh god oh god. I can't even deal with pictures or drawings of them. CANNOT. DEAL. Mom says this goes back to an incident when I was a baby, but that's another story. Point is, the week before, one of the roommates mentioned to me she'd seen a roach in our garage, where our washer and dryer were. There I was, in the garage, doing my laundry and looking everywhere, scared and ready to bolt, when they MOTHERFUCKING CLOSED AND LOCKED THE GARAGE DOOR. I panicked. Completely lost my shit. I don't remember why I couldn't get to the big door to get outside, but I couldn't. By the time they opened the door to let me out, I had pulled down the attic ladder and was halfway up, intended to climb through and bust through someone's bedroom ceiling or something to get out. I was pissed as hell and terrified and crazy. Turns out, they'd locked me in there to let some of our friends in for a surprise party. *sigh* I was a bit embarrassed by all the yelling and door-pounding I'd done, not knowing there were people gathering in our living room with cake and Blue's Clues gifts.

I've learned that in Seattle, people do something called a "21 Run." Maybe they do it elsewhere, but I never heard of it before I came here. Basically the point is to get completely drunk, which doesn't sound fun to me anyway. My 21st birthday had the theme of a children's show I liked, and involved lounging about in my living room with friends. I think it was perfect.

22: By this time I was both married and separated from my husband. I was living in a double-wide trailer with 2 guys I'd worked with previously. They took me to dinner at Denny's or IHOP or something, and we had Monsters, Inc. hats and little party favors. I also drove up to see my parents for my birthday, and got pulled over (didn't get a ticket). This was just less than two weeks before I attempted suicide for the first time. Parrrtyyyyy.

23rd birthday, I have no idea. I was back together with my husband, but we were both unhappy. I guess we probably went somewhere... we lived in Colorado, that's all I remember.

24: Husband and I were separated again and definitely planning on divorce. I still sometimes joke that the divorce was my birthday present. I think I did something celebratory with my best friend at the time, with whom I stayed for a couple of weeks while I looked for my own place. She's a rad girl. Just over 2 months later I attempted suicide again.

25: I'd lived in Seattle for less than a week. My parents were upset I moved out of their house literally days before my birthday, but I was READY TO GO. I drove across the country with my cat, and was sleeping on the futon of a family I barely knew. Their wedding anniversary was the same day as my birthday. I think they had people over and I met their friends (many of whom I'm still friends with).

26: Living with college girls in a college town. We had a slumber party in our living room, watching 80's Brat Pack movies that, for the most part, they had never seen before. We got Little Caesar's Crazy Bread because that shit is THE BEST, and they got me a pint of my favorite ice cream. My boyfriend at the time was there, too, even though we had 2 dogs and 2 cats and he was allergic to all of those things. He went and got us donuts in the morning.

27th birthday, also a blur. No idea what I did. I know where I lived and where I worked, and that's pretty much it. My co-workers - there were 3 - surprised me with a cheesecake, not knowing that I don't like cheesecake. It was a nice gesture, all the same.

28: I think this is the year my co-workers (new job/company) all chipped in to get me an iPod Nano, knowing I'd been trying to save up for one. They decorated my cubicle, surprised me by singing Happy Birthday the second I walked in the door (I nearly had a heart attack), and a bunch of us went bowling. Afterward, some of us went back to Genie's apartment, where we got fairly drunk, played Wii, and attempted to make both cookies (disaster) and funnel cake (hilarious, and who doesn't like to cook with hot grease while drunk?). One girl got me flowers, saying every girl should get roses on her birthday. It was pretty much excellent. I can't remember if it was this year or the next that I also went to a hockey game with a bunch of folks and got my picture taken with the team mascot, telling him it was my 21st.

29: karaoke at my friend's bar. She was a bartender there and kept sending drinks over because she'd never seen me drunk. I would drink a little and then give them away. This was a really, really good birthday. Another friend whose birthday is the day before mine merged celebrations with me and so we had tons of people. Lots of fun, lots of friends, and one of the girls I met way back on my 25th birthday showed up because we hadn't seen each other in a while - and ended up meeting her future husband. *schmoopy*

30: Decade birthdays are worth making a big deal over. I invited pretty much every person I knew in the entire state to my "regular" bar for karaoke, instructing them to wear their pajamas. I'd just started a new job, and a couple of my co-workers showed up, which made me happy. People sang to me on stage and I got brownies and blew out candles and hugged a lot of people and it was delightful and good. A boy I'd sort of been seeing walked me home and kissed me (he was only brave enough to kiss me when he was drunk) and gave me a rose he'd made out of paper and a weird awkward card. He wanted me to spend the night but I looked at his twin bed and his single pillow and turned around and went home.

31: Basically the same as 30, but without pajamas. Someone gave me a bottle of nice rum that I still have because I drink at home that rarely. I met a guy that night that I ended up dating briefly. He was a total flake and I finally got sick of him canceling plans or simply not showing up, so that was that. I'm a sucker for curly hair, though. *sigh*

32: This was the year I realized 30 is when you stop celebrating birthdays in a huge way every year. A friend who was turning 30 the day before me wanted to combine parties, so we invited a lot of people to a bar, then migrated to the regular karaoke bar after. It was super fun, but the next day - my actual birthday - I was weirdly depressed and ended up drinking with a random weird dude I didn't know very well. Since it was my regular bar, I got my drink for free, but I remember feeling distinctly uncomfortable with this guy and deciding I didn't really want to be friends with him. He went on to date a friend of mine, and sure enough, he's a complete and total asshole who lies and picks fights and treats people terribly. Whee!

33: I went to a cabaret show with just a few friends, and one of my besties paid the performers to pull me up on stage halfway through. I was brought up with one performer, with whom I did a shot of vodka, and then I sat onstage while he danced around me in spandex zebra-print pants and a huge 80s hair-band wig, lip-synching. He got random guys from the audience to come up and play air guitar for me. One of them told me afterward it was his birthday as well, so he was happy to have been a part of it. It was pretty much the best thing. A week later, I took a solo vacation to New Mexico, which is hands-down one of the best decisions I have ever made in my entire life.

Which brings us to now, 34. Tumbleweed decorated the shit out of my desk at work, and I had dinner with Boyfriend and his kids. Quiet, simple, and awesome.

The nice thing about having done this list and thinking back on all of it is seeing how much has changed. I went from an awful, depressed existence, where suicide attempts were A Thing I Did; to some wonderful, vibrant, friend-filled true celebrations; to strongly independent, quiet, love-filled birthdays. There's something truly fantastic about that, which makes this a bit of a sappy post in the end, but fuck it - why not? What are birthdays (or thinking about birthdays, in this case) for if not considering how far you've come in life?

Now, seriously, I would love to hear other people's stories. Because, I don't know if I mentioned, I LOVE BIRTHDAYS!!

Pet Store-ies!

2013-12-04T17:19:00.001-08:00

Apologies for the pun in the title, but in my defense, I didn't come up with it myself. About 432 years ago (give or take), I asked on Facebook what else I should write about here. One of the suggestions was stories from my pet store employment days, and someone responded with that.

I've worked at 2 major chain pet stores in my life. I was at the first chain for about a year and a half in Colorado, and the second chain for about a year in Washington. At the first chain, there was a LOT of drama. Oh dear god the drama. It was like being in middle school, but wearing a uniform covered in various animals' pee and/or poop, and getting a paycheck for your suffering. I was 22-23 when I worked there.

The Operations Manager there was a girl just a little younger than me, who took smoke breaks as often as possible and had a baby with her common-law husband - she complained about him constantly, broke up with him regularly, and I know at least a couple of us suspected him of physically abusing her but she would never admit it. She would still sometimes go to "raves" with another girl who worked there (also a little younger than me, married, 2 kids).

This was the kind of girl I'd heard existed in high schools, but that I don't remember actually knowing personally. She was nice to people, and acted like we were friends. I even had her and her baby over to my home once, and would take smoke breaks with her so we could chat. (I learned quickly in retail that if I wanted to actually take breaks, I had to pretend to be a smoker and bond with my chimney managers.)

Another girl who worked there had Bitch Face. Not Bitchy Resting Face - just Bitch Face. It was rare to get a real smile from her that made her look like for at least that moment she did not, in fact, want to kill you and everyone around you and set your corpses on fire for no reason. There's a theme going here - this girl was also younger than me and had a young child. She and I were both shift managers and "specialists" for different departments. She apparently took this to mean we were in competition for the General Manager's affections. Maybe the Ops Manager thought I was after her job, too, because these two girls had it out for me.

At some point, I thought I'd won over Bitch Face. We hung out outside of work and I made her laugh a few times, and we seemed to be getting along instead of her just glowering at me every time we passed, or snapping if I asked her for any sort of help at work. Progress!

Nope.

One minute I was cheerfully cleaning hamster cages; the next I discovered there was a rumor around the store that I'd slept with one of our stock guys. Why? Because I'd been the closing manager one night. There were 2 guys on my closing shift. One of them was a high school student working part-time, so as soon as I had his register closed, I sent him home. There was still cleaning to be done, but I figured I was being nice. The stock guy was still mopping, and I had the rest of the safe count to finish up.

The high school guy mentioned that the next day to one of those girls - I still don't know which one was primarily responsible - and next thing I knew, everyone thought I'd done that so that the stock boy and I could bonk in the store. I was called in for a chat with the GM and had to defend myself, and after that we always had to lock up the store with at least 2 employees present with the closing manager. Awesome. Now people couldn't go home until everyone was done with their closing duties, and somehow this was my fault. I was popular.

Problem 2: I was married at the time. Now I was getting a reputation not only as a dirty girl who slept with her coworkers in the store, but also as a liar and a cheater. Fantastic. Just what I wanted.

Problem 3: the Merch Manager was a pervo guy about my age (yeah, this chain hires young) who thought that since I had (allegedly) slept with the stock boy, now he could openly leer at me, make suggestive comments, et cetera. At the time I didn't have the guts or the know-how to point out he was sexually harassing me and make it stop. I put up with it.

At a holiday dinner, I was chatting with the girl next to me and somehow we got on the topic of uncomfortable bras, I think it was. Bitch Face had apparently been eavesdropping and announced loudly, "GOD, Peanut, why does EVERY conversation end up being about your BOOBS? YOU HAVE HUGE BOOBS. LOOK AT HER BOOBS." I remember staring at her, literally open-mouthed, flustered and sort of half-laughing awkwardly because seriously did that really just come out of her mouth what the fucking fuck?

Our GM moved to another store, and took Bitch Face with her. I stayed behind with Ops Manager, but soon learned that the two were still backstabbing me by calling each other and gossiping/making things up/spreading these things. It shouldn't surprise you to learn that the next rumor involved me and the Merch Manager. Later we hired a lesbian stocker, and it would seem I had a thing for her as well - in fact, when she started dating one of our other employees (which was a scandal of its own because the stock girl was in her late 20s and the other girl was still in high school), I found myself accused by the younger girl of trying to steal her girlfriend... all based on things she'd heard from Ops Manager or Bitch Face.

I was fed up. We'd hired a new guy to work in our fish department, and he was adorable. About 19 or 20, I believe, and fit and cute. Ops Manager, a fish fanatic herself, developed an immediate and obvious crush. She was completely enamored, even though I think she and her guy were back together at that point.

I wasn't very good in the fish department, so I often had to ask him questions. We closed together a few times and became friends - close enough that he confessed to me one night that he's gay. I don't remember how he broached it or exactly what I said, but I do remember we were in the office counting out the safe and he was my witness for that. I remember just kind of looking at him and saying something like "okay," and then continuing to count.

After we hung out a couple of times, I realized I was getting super dirty looks from Ops Manager all the time. I knew what was coming. I warned my friend, and we decided to get her back. We began leaving work together holding hands, talking about going shopping together or seeing movies together in front of her, that sort of thing. Steam was practically coming from her ears. SEETHING is the only word for how she reacted when we did these things.

Sure enough, I heard from my former GM, now at the new store, that she heard from Bitch Face, who heard from Ops Manager (are you lost yet?) that I was bonking the new fish specialist guy. Just a bonk fest. Every day. All over each other. MAN, I was such a cheating slutty slut-slut.

Once we were sure it had been passed around, my lovely friend "came out" to the Ops Manager. She never apologized to either one of us (especially not to me, that's for sure), but she seemed a little sheepish for a few days afterward. Tiny victories, people. Tiny, tiny victories.

Being and happiness

2013-10-29T13:11:00.000-07:00

Peanut and I had an interesting discussion today that reminded me of something.

Being happy is hard. I think it takes more energy than being unhappy. Maybe other people are different, and maybe this is just my Crazy Mom influence, but "happy" is not my natural state of being. I have to look for reasons to be happy, and I actively argue with myself in my head whenever I feel myself getting upset. It takes a lot of internal head-discussion to convince myself to let go of something when I'm bothered by it.

I choose to believe that's something that lots of people struggle with. Don't ruin my delusions.

So Peanut mentioned that it's hard to avoid comparing her situation in life with other people around her. Let's be honest; most people do the same thing. But it's fun for everyone when a crazy mom does it!

Some highlights:

If you don't have a house on the beach like your sibling does, it's because your spouse has failed to provide for you!

And if you don't have at least $2,000 of free spending money every month, it means your spouse is cheating on you! How else would all of the money disappear?

Everyone else in your city drives clean cars! When your spouse spends all week working in another city and drives back home on the weekends, make sure you start by nagging about how dirty his/her car is! Remember: it's incredibly thoughtless to pull into your own driveway with a car that hasn't been washed in 2 weeks.

Everyone has cable! If your own daughter doesn't have cable at her apartment, she's a heathen. In fact, it's too embarrassing for your own child to not have cable. You'd better call the cable company yourself and arrange for them to install cable for her, so she will realize the error of her ways. (To be fair, this one happened before the advent of Netflix. But still.)

How dare the neighbors bring you packets of hot chocolate at Christmas? They must not buy anything nicer because they don't have as much money as you do. It's a good thing you have lots of money, so you can buy the newest electronics every year.

That new TV in the store looks so much better than the one you bought a year ago, and it's bigger! Better grab it while it's on sale. It can just sit in the box until you figure out which room it should go in.

Those houses on TV look so nice with their exotic flooring ideas! That means your house would look great that way, too! You might as well buy all of those materials now in preparation for doing that yourself. And a shrimp sink really helped that one place, so it couldn't hurt to pick one up so you'll have it ready when you come up with a good location for it in your own house...

The coup de grâce? Did you know that if your spouse isn't bringing home at least $1,000,000 a year, it must mean he/she's hiding money from you? Go, tell your significant other about this wonderful new knowledge! Do it now!

Seriously, though, there is always a reason to be unhappy. The real trick is figuring out which reasons really matter, and then ignoring the ones that you know you won't remember or care about in 3 months. In honor of Crazy Mom, let's all take 5 minutes today and think about reasons to be happy.

The List of Insanity

2013-10-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

I promised a list! Everyone here loves lists, right? Good!

But there's really only one list that I'm capable of writing.

I want to make this clear: none of these points make anyone a bad person. But they do mean you (or your loved one) should seek advice from a trustworthy professional. Remember: it's okay to not be normal. Just be aware of that fine line between "eccentric" and "batshit crazy."

Signs that you (or someone you know) might be crazy:

Your house is in a decent neighborhood, but there's wax paper over all of the windows "so no one can see in"
Your house is covered in security cameras
You never leave your house (and you have a new excuse whenever anyone asks)
You crouch down in your car if you do leave your house, "so no one will notice"
You're always afraid of something
The Enemy (the culprit behind all of your unhappiness) changes on a weekly basis
You have proof that The Enemy exists: it's a grainy, pitch black image taken by a cheap security camera at night
Those dirty smears on the skylight (which hasn't been cleaned in years) are actually threatening messages written by The Enemy, but no one believes you
The police "never do anything" with your police reports (which means they must be in league with The Enemy)
The Enemy is "pure evil"
You never get rid of anything (and you say you're "about to start going through it" if anyone asks)
You use an old SUV that can't move anymore as a large trash container
You always think that if someone asks for one thing, they actually need a box of those things
Your house is full of things you don't need and don't have a place for
You keep buying more things because it makes you feel better
As soon as anything goes missing, even inside your house, you immediately think it was stolen
You use a shovel to scoop your cat's litter box
You keep a plastic bin full of cat hair that you brushed off of a cat you had five years ago
Family and friends watch the news/hoarding shows expecting to see you on TV
The cat puke on the rug has been there for five years
You think you're the only person who can stop The Enemy/catch the thieves/save the kittens
You believe no one will take you seriously unless you exaggerate things a little bit (but it's not the same as lying, because you'd never lie)
You're capable of justifying anything that you say or do, because you'd never say or do anything wrong
When your family brings up the possibility of therapy or something being wrong, you get defensive and claim they need therapy
You are the unhappiest person you know

If you want to hear more about any of those points in particular, just leave a comment. Otherwise, I'll start going through stories as I see fit. Mwahahahahah!

Adventures in Medicating

2013-10-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

Skip this post if you're not interested in my ongoing medication/therapy/mental health roller coaster. THERE. You've been warned.

A little over a year ago, I started a new medication. It's one commonly used to treat bipolar disorder, but in my case it was being used for, as my doctor put it, "treatment-resistant depression." At first, this drug seemed to be doing the trick. I don't remember if I updated later, nor do I currently have the energy to look, but in any case the initial high that I seem to get with any new anti-depressant once again didn't last. I stayed on it, and felt like maybe I was just able to cope better than before, and thus it was certainly helpful, right?

At some point, my company switched insurance companies and the doctor who prescribed this medication didn't take the new stuff. Figures. I found a new place where they use nurse practitioners for the medication part of mental health wellness, and once again went through the intake process. She asked me questions about feeling manic, but since my answers were all negative, I didn't think anything of it. I didn't like this nurse much, so when she transferred offices and I was assigned someone new, I was happy. I did sort of a mini-intake with the new nurse, since she had the notes from the previous woman, and when she made mention of bipolar now and then, I simply thought she was being general or thorough about what this medication was for and could do - I didn't realize right away that she inferred by the prescription itself that someone, somewhere, had actually diagnosed me as bipolar.

Several months ago, we tried weaning me off the medication, but I had a bit of a breakdown so that decision was reversed. I went back on, but at a lower dosage, and added in anti-anxiety pills. By now, there's a girl at my pharmacy who knows me by sight. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that, although I suppose it's kind of nice not to have to spell my last name every time anymore. If any of the other employees now recognize me and remember my name, they at least hide it.

Between these 2 drugs, I once again felt like I was, at least, capable of handling stress. It was better than before. But, sidebar, let's talk about my cat's health for a minute. This last year he was diagnosed with IBD, which is actually kind of a funny thing to say a cat is "diagnosed" with, because the loose translation of IBD in cats is "we don't actually know what's wrong, but it's definitely something with his digestive system." The treatment is quite similar to that of mental health treatment for people: try these drugs... see how it goes... maybe try these drugs with those drugs... how's that? no? okay, let's try these and maybe some of that... It goes on like this until you find the right cocktail. Guess and check.

The other similarity is the question, for the patient, of where to set the bar. With my cat, it's his poop. Yep, I managed to take this very serious post and put some shit in it. Awww, yeah! Now that's finesse. So IBD means my cat has un-good poos. With the various combinations of drugs and shots and supplements we've been going through, the poos have improved, but about a month ago I found myself wondering, where do I set the bar for quality of poo? It's better than it was, by far, but is it good enough? Can we do better?

And that's the big question, isn't it? Is this good enough?

In my cat's case, the answer was no. I went in to the vet and, no joke, asked him to look at my cat's poo and told him I needed to know where to set the poo bar. THE POO BAR. Yup, this is how I talk to professionals. And in the end, I'm glad I did, because his answer was, "we can do a LOT better" and now we're trying new cocktails of drugs for him.

And that's where I'm at now. Last week I had the kind of horrific breakdown that hurts everything about me, inside and out, and I even looked up the number for Hopeline on my phone as I sat in my car, sobbing and shivering. I ended up deciding I was entirely too cold, so I would call when I got home, and then when I got home, the aforementioned cat was loud and demanding and wanted food and attention RIGHT MEOW, and I thought, "welp. There it is: my reason to stay." But that night made me realize: this is not good enough.

I took the next day to work from home, cry fairly steadily, and think things over. Had the medications really helped? Sure, I felt like I was coping better... I could continue to function through the depression... but the depression was still there. It's kind of a constant fog in my life, from which I can sometimes emerge for a while - a day, a week, even a few weeks if I'm lucky - but it's always there, and it's always just one bad sleep, one rough day, one upset away from engulfing me again. The meds gave me the ability to remain standing and moving and getting through the basics of life, but the fog never went far from me.

After this breakdown, I decided that wasn't enough for me. The poo bar had been set way too low and I needed to address this.

Today I went back to my nurse practitioner and I told her all of this - "my base level of functioning seems to be depression. When you ask me if I'm doing okay and I say yes, it really just means 'I don't want to kill myself right now.'" She took all of this in carefully and thoughtfully. She mentioned something about bipolar and I interrupted, finally, to tell her that if anyone has ever diagnosed me as such, they didn't tell me. That I was on the current medication because of depression, not bipolar disorder. She looked surprised, and went back over her intake notes with me, and those of the nurse before her. After some quiet review, she turned to me and said, "you're right. There's no indication anywhere that you're symptomatic for bipolar." Funny how even though both women had asked me questions about it before, neither had then said, "you don't appear to show signs of bipolar disorder, so why are you on this medication?" Maybe they just thought that was a sign it was working! And I learned my lesson about speaking up with my doctors.

In the end, I'm adding yet another pill to my repertoire, with the plan that once it's in my system, I can ease off the others - again, like with my cat, "we don't want to make too many changes at once."

If anyone else is reading this, and struggling, and wondering if this is how everyone feels... ask yourself, is my poo bar set too low? One of my best friends told me once that being on medication for mental health is no different than needing glasses or contacts - there's no shame.

Crazy Talk: Prologue

2013-10-15T13:58:00.000-07:00

I have to preface all of this by saying that I love my parents. They dedicated the best years of their lives to making sure I would have a chance to enjoy mine. I do appreciate that. I don't blame them for when things went awry, and I believe they still do the best they can with the options they're comfortable with.

That said, my mother is crazy. She wasn't always as crazy as she is now, and it's an uncomfortable topic for the rest of my family. I have so many stories. I want you to know that it's okay to laugh when you think it's funny. I laugh about it sometimes, too. Sometimes, that's all I can do. It's a horrible situation, and it might make me a horrible person, but a sense of humor helps keep me grounded in reality. It helps to remind myself that no, it isn't normal. I'm actually afraid that if I start to think it's normal, I'll end up the same way.

There were some early signs that things weren't quite right. But first, if you find yourself thinking that you're the most worthless or unhappiest person you know, please talk to someone about it. If you read the rest of this or any of my later posts and think it sounds eerily familiar, seek out a trustworthy professional. You owe it to yourself and to the people you care about. Just by doing that, you'll be taking a huge step toward helping yourself live the life you deserve to live.

I really wish that my own family had recognized the warning signs before it got worse.

We'll start this journey with a little bit of history about my mom. Take it all with a grain of salt, because she lies often enough that I don't know when she sincerely believes something. I don't actually think she knows the difference, either. I don't believe she could even admit to herself that sometimes she's just trying to get a reaction.

That's the first thing to know about her. She does say things to get a reaction. If she doesn't get the reaction she wants, she'll just keep digging, trying to find weak spots, with no regard for how her words make anyone else feel. When any of us got into a fight with her, she would verbally lash out until she was satisfied, then storm out of the room, only to come back a few minutes later to continue the argument. She always stood in the doorway so you couldn't escape. The cycle would continue until either you were in tears or you found a way to put a locked door in her way (and also hid all of the tools she could use to open it). It went on until she felt like she had "won."

I grew up thinking that was a normal way to treat family.

Her father (my grandfather) was committed to a mental institution late in his life. I don't know the definite reason for it, but the reason I was told was that he had beaten his wife. Supposedly, he hit her and left a bruise, then forgot the bruise was his fault. He insisted it was a hickey and accused her of cheating on him. He demanded that she see the doctor to have his suspicions confirmed. The sad truth came out at the doctor's office, and he was taken away. My grandmother was afraid that he would escape and come after her until he died in the institution. The whole situation caused a deep rift among my aunts and uncles, because the older ones remembered him as a stern but kind father while the younger ones remembered him as a tyrant.

My mom and the younger siblings were often beaten by him when they were children. Consequently, she was opposed to physical punishment when raising her own kids. However, she didn't believe emotional abuse was a problem. She'd say there was no such thing as emotional abuse; it wasn't abuse if it wasn't physical. That's the only kind of abuse she understood.

I think she never felt like we appreciated her when we were kids. She constantly gave us money or random things. It's like she tried to make a place for herself in our lives using money. Part of it was also probably about making us think our parents were doing okay financially, which wasn't true at all. They were almost always in debt, and I didn't learn that until I was in college.

Debt carried other consequences. My parents argued constantly when I was a kid. Full-on shouting matches. They didn't even try to hide the fact that they were fighting. It seemed like it happened every night if both of them were home, although I'm sure it wasn't quite that frequent. My dad had a serious temper when he was younger, too, and he used to throw things. He didn't hit anyone, but he'd hurl a chair against the wall or throw a hairbrush across the room. Mom stood up to that with words alone.

They fought about money, or about my dad traveling too much and leaving the rest of us behind. Mom was very insecure, so her jealousy often got to her while Dad was gone for work. She was jealous of his co-workers, or of his secretary. As my sister and I grew up, she started getting jealous of us. She called us his "minions" and accused us of trying to drive a wedge between her and Dad. It was a vicious cycle: no one wanted to spend time around her because of her belligerence, and she became more belligerent because we didn't want to be around her.

To make matters worse, my mom seemed to give up her personality while raising us. I'm ashamed to admit that I don't actually know much about her as an individual. I couldn't even tell you a movie she has really watched in the past 15 years. She has never shown a personal interest in doing things while I've been alive. She didn't want to watch TV with us, and she didn't want to go on trips. She did whatever we needed her to do, but she never acted like she wanted to do anything.

Instead, she tried to make my dad take us out to do fun things, like going to see movies. She seemed to think we'd enjoy it more without her, or she'd say she had too much work to do at home. Later, she'd get mad at us for leaving her behind. If we tried to help her with something around the house so she could come with us, she'd act like we didn't do it as well as she would have. Sometimes I wonder if that was her goal all along - just an attempt to get leverage for being upset.

I literally can't imagine what childhood would have been like with parents who didn't seem to hate each other, or with a mother who didn't hate herself.

All of those things should have told us that something was horribly wrong. Ideally, my mom would have realized she was always unhappy and she would have sought help.

Instead, over the years, she convinced herself that she was the only normal person in the world. Everyone else was out to get her.

With the backstory out of the way, we can start on the crazy stories! But for my next post... A LIST!

Sometimes I Don't Think... Period

2013-09-19T16:32:00.002-07:00

First of all, while I oppose the concept of victim-blaming, I also believe in taking responsibility for being a fucktard. And I was a fucktard.

...okay, sometimes I'm still a fucktard. Shut up. In fact, I think the entirety of my 20's can be written off as a long series of frequent stupid decisions, slowing down into less-frequent-but-still-not-bright decisions in my 30's.

A good friend of mine is in Missouri right now, and it made me think of when I lived there. After a bit of a breakdown, I moved in with my folks for a while to recoup. Missouri was not exactly the most fun place I've ever lived, plus I was living with my parents.

This was so long ago, of course, the details are fuzzy in my mind. Right before I left Colorado, that dickhead who moved out while I was at work got back in touch and wanted to try long-distance until I was ... I don't know, better? ... and the plan was that I would then move back to Colorado and we would be together and la la la happiness and flowers and crazy people. I was all about it. I was desperate to be loved and wanted and whole and was basically insane.

Who was surprised when he pulled another disappearing act? Sadly, only me. It didn't take long for him to stop answering or returning my calls, to block me on AIM, to just drop off the face of the earth without a peep. Now I was in Missouri with no friends, no job, nothing to do, and now no hope for this stupid false relationship I'd been clinging to like a blind bloated tick.

EVERYTHING IS RUINED FOREVER.

Yeah, I was pretty much that dramatic. Of course I was! Because I was playing Life Failure Bingo and I was winning like a blue-haired old lady at the casino with 14 cards and a blotter in each wrinkly hand. Never mind that I still had: (A LIST!)

plenty of friends I could chat with online or talk to on the phone any old time
my awesome cat
my health (in fact, I gained 15 much-needed pounds living in MO)
parents who loved me enough to not only let me come live rent-free with them for as long as I needed, but also came to get me when I was incapable of existing on my own anymore
parents who also loved me enough to loan me a couple thousand dollars and a night of calling credit card companies to help get me started digging my way out of crushing debt
a paid-in-full, working car
any number of other things that many people in this country don't have and that I was taking 100% for granted. Because: WOE IS ME.

So there I am, living in a master suite in a nice house with no rent, eating amazing home-cooked meals, hanging out with a happy dog, watching movies all night with my cat, chatting online with friends all day, and feeling extremely sorry for myself. I eventually got a part-time job at a used video games/movies/music store, but I still wasn't connecting with people that I could hang out with.

There was a girl around my age who worked with my dad - I think she was a secretary or something - so he decided to introduce us. She insisted I come out to some bar with her and her boyfriend and their friends. I have this vague feeling that it was somewhere around Valentine's Day so things were particularly bleak for pitiful me. Just bear that in mind when you judge me for what's coming up. BLEAK. PITIFUL. WOE. These are key words.

I remember being at the bar and feeling overwhelmed, so I definitely had a couple of drinks. I may have done a shot - I probably did. I remember I was talking to some guy and I thought he was pretty cute. I remember that I was desperate - desperate for attention, affection, admiration, [other a-words?]. And I remember that I was kind of drunk. Not sloppy blackout drunk (I've never been that far gone), but pretty tipsy.

The guy walked me to my car, and I remember we made out there in the parking lot until someone - and I'm pretty sure it was a cop - flashed his headlights at us. I said I couldn't drive and I, being the brilliant, sad, tipsy, desperate person I was, totally agreed with him that he could drive us to his place and I could hang out until I was sober.

I know, I know. Classic.

(quick defense: I was 24, but I didn't go out to bars or booze-filled parties in college, and I was married from 21-24 so this was really the first time this line had been used on me.)

Here is where things hit that fuzzy point between "I made really, really, really bad decisions" and "if someone does something horrible to you, it's their fault for being a horrible human being." I should have made better decisions. Please note the title of this post. I'm not pretending here.

He's driving my car. I'm okay with this. I didn't quite know where I was, being brand-new to the area and also being geographically challenged to an alarming degree.

Just a few blocks from the bar, we get pulled over. I think he ran a red light, but I don't quite remember. He starts freaking out - his license had been revoked for some reason or another. Now I'm freaking out because what the hell? Next thing I know, dude is getting arrested. Right in front of me. While I'm standing there, still very tipsy and now confused and scared. There are two cop cars now, and handcuffs, and oh god. My parents are pretty anti-drinking, and would've been asleep, and how could I explain that some guy I met an hour ago had been driving my car and was now arrested and I need them to come get me? A mere month after needing them to drop everything and come get me from another state?

My car was pulled over into a parking lot (whether he did that or one of the cops did, I couldn't tell you, but there are parking lots everywhere in Missouri). One cop car toodled off with my would-be suitor and the cop with the other car asked if he could drive me somewhere. Oh HELL no, I am not getting dropped off at home by a cop! I asked if he could take me back to the bar where my "friends" were, but he said legally he couldn't do that. Instead, he called a cab, and let me sit in the back seat of his car while we waited.

Now I'm tipsy, scared, and sitting in the back of a cop car.

And of course, I ask the cop how many people barf back there. In fact, I think that was my first question. He assured me it was cleaned regularly. Then he asks where we were going and I told him the guy was taking me to his place so I could sober up. I guess when they booked the guy, he had to tell them where he lives, because here's where this shit gets really scary: when I told the cop that, he gave me a funny look and said the direction this guy had been driving us? Not even remotely the way to the guy's place. "I don't know where he was taking you," he said firmly, "but it wasn't there."

OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD

I try not to think about that night very much... what might have happened to me, had he not run that red light. Rape? Murder? Nothing? Since we hadn't gone very far, I thought it was surely possible the guy had just made a wrong turn and it could've been the way, eventually... but the way the cop looked at me, the way he said "I don't know where he was taking you..."

I'm kind of getting twitchy remembering what bits of that night I can remember - it was almost 10 years ago, and I'm pretty sure I'd blocked it until just recently.

The rest of the story isn't so exciting... I rode in a smelly cab for the first time in my life and it cost me about $2. The girl who worked with my dad had left the bar, so I got a ride home with 2 of her friends (for the record, Crazy Arrested Guy was not someone she knew). One of them kissed me when he let me out of the car (2-door, so he had to get out to let me out of the backseat), but I dodged his calls afterward even though I thought he was cute. I called the girl (I couldn't tell you her name now if you paid me - I think we talked maybe 3 times after that, mostly her asking why I wouldn't go out with her friend who'd kissed me) and told her if anyone asked, she and her boyfriend drove me home. The story was that I'd left the bar all by my lonesome, but after a couple blocks felt like I was probably too tipsy to drive safely, so I pulled over and called her. You know, like a good, smart, safe person. My parents accepted this story and drove me to my car the next day. All was well in the world.

Except...

"I don't know where he was taking you..."

Know your limits

2013-09-12T00:40:00.000-07:00

Last time, I talked about my decision to be "forever alone" when I was 11. Everything seemed so clear when I was a kid. "No" was my very first word, and it served me well all throughout my childhood. No, I didn't want to wear a dress! No, I didn't want to go to church! No, I didn't need help with my homework; I could do it myself! No, I didn't want to try smoking!

So really, the decision I made to suddenly stop seeing John was typical for me at that age. I knew what he wanted. I knew what I wanted. Those two didn't match up, so I removed myself from what I considered a no-win situation. I didn't look back, and I had no regrets. It was easy to see those things as a kid, and the solution was wonderfully obvious back then.

As I got older, situations became more muddied. I gradually lost sight of the little girl who had made seemingly tough decisions with no regrets. I became less confident. Relationships got... complicated. And, occasionally, terrifying.

I was 15 years old when I met Jake. I had moved a few times by then, so my family was living in a quiet suburb between two large cities, with real city things like hospitals and shopping malls and police forces.

Jake was anti-social and introspective, just like I was. He and I didn't go to the same school, but we lived close by and we chatted online daily, even while my family continued to move between school districts (we at least stayed close to the same cities). Jake and I had an on-again/off-again pseudo-relationship for the next couple of years (mostly "off" because we couldn't drive, plus I still didn't want to have sex yet and Jake was a fully hormonal teenage boy). We spent much of our time ranting about typical teenage gripes, like how our parents didn't understand anything and things would be different when we got older.

But because of my family's moves, I didn't have any long-term close friends from school. Jake quickly became the person I had known the longest. He became my best friend. As we got older, we started talking about college. We wanted to go to the same school, so we applied to a lot of the same universities.

Inevitably, we hit another "off" period. Frustrated, he lashed out by having cybersex with my closest girl friend in high school. She was terrified that she would never get a boyfriend and would die a virgin, and she decided that it was a low-risk way to relieve some of her anxiety.

Seventeen years old at the time, I reacted as you might expect. I decided that our roller coaster of a relationship was over permanently and there would be no recovery. Again, it seemed very cut and dry. If they wanted to pursue any kind of relationship, that was between them. I refused to be involved. I moved on, and I spent the last semester of high school dating someone else. I made new friends in the short time we had before going our separate ways for college.

The catch: Jake and I had both already accepted offers from the same university. It was a very prestigious school, halfway across the country from our families and friends. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for both of us.

We both took it. He was suddenly the only human being I knew within half of the country. I was confused and conflicted. I still wasn't comfortable with the choice he had made with my friend, but he knew me better than anyone else. He still felt like my best friend. I wanted to preserve that familiarity and stay friends with him, but he made it clear he wanted to be more than friends.

For the first time I could remember, I didn't know what to do, and I didn't have anyone close by to ask. I had never been so far away from everyone. Throughout my childhood, I felt like I had been so independent, so confident, so sure of myself and what I wanted from life. Now, I was none of those things.

I didn't know how I wanted the situation to turn out. I continued to spend a lot of time around Jake, but I wouldn't sleep with him, and I wouldn't agree to a relationship. I'm sure there were a lot of mixed signals in the beginning, and he was probably just as confused as I was. We each started making some new friends at our school, mostly overlapping because we shared a lot of the same interests.

But I continued to dismiss the idea of a relationship, and Jake became very depressed. I began spending more time with the new friends I was meeting, trying to avoid him. He reacted to my distance by talking about being suicidal. He began to blame me for his suicidal thoughts. He would intentionally cut himself on everyday things when I was around, seeking out anything sharp, like keys or brick corners. He IMed me constantly until I blocked his account. He then changed accounts and kept IMing me. This continued for a few weeks.

At this point, some of my old friends from high school had started to get the impression that something was wrong. I was almost never online to exchange IMs with them. When I was online, I responded to their IMs with short messages before logging off. If they asked me what was wrong, I responded with something cryptic and noncommittal. One of my old friends thought I was involved with drugs and told her parents, and they told my parents, who responded by calling me up and demanding to know if I was using drugs. I was offended by the accusation, and I stopped talking to my old high school friends at all. Similarly, I talked to my family less frequently.

After all, I had been able to handle weird circumstances using my own judgment before. Why would this be any different? I had always been able to remove myself from situations I didn't like. I just needed to avoid him long enough for him to get the picture.

I was sure it would all blow over. I had known him for years. He would get over it.

Of course, the problem was that he didn't. During the few years we'd had in high school of our unpredictable relationship, he'd had to "win me back" every time we broke up. Encouraging that behavior was the biggest mistake I could have made. He thought this was just a more severe instance. He tried harder.

He started calling my dorm room when I didn't respond to IMs. My poor roommate screened all of our phone calls. She was a devoted Catholic, and I didn't like making her lie about where I was, so I spent more and more time outside of our dorm room. Jake began waiting outside of my classrooms, so I stopped going to class. He waited at my dorm building. I crashed on other people's couches. Jake went around to the apartments and dorm rooms of our mutual friends, trying to find which one I was staying in. My grades plummeted.

I still thought it would be okay. I was a smart girl, right? I could recover. I could start going back to class as soon as he stopped hanging around and looking for me.

Then the IMs started getting more aggressive. One night, he said "I want you to hurt and seethe and bleed as much as I have." I will never forget that phrasing. I finally started to get scared. I realized I wasn't in control of the situation after all. That didn't sound like something he would say. Not the person I had known for years.

I tried to get my mind off of it. I played video games in other people's apartments. I spent more time around my new friends. I went out to a school play with them one night. As we were standing in line to get our tickets, one of them asked, "What's up with the guy over there in the bushes?" I looked. It was Jake, lurking in the shadows of a tall shrub.

I started having nightmares. Jake always wore a black trench coat, and in my nightmares, I was being chased by a floating black trench coat. No person. Just a coat.

I don't have any good explanation for why I didn't seek help. In retrospect, I know alarms should have been going off in my head. I should have known. But I wanted my parents to be proud of how independent I was. I wanted my old high school friends to still see me as the calm and independent girl they had come to expect me to be. I couldn't just cause a scene, or run screaming back to my family.

And, honestly, I felt like I had brought the situation with Jake upon myself. I realized I had encouraged a very dangerous mentality when I had made him feel like he had to win me back every time we broke up. I thought I had gotten myself into this mess.

I continued to let my grades suffer while I tried to figure things out. I didn't actually make the connection between my grades and the situation with Jake. I just thought it was my fault for not being smart enough to keep everything together. I thought I wasn't trying hard enough to make it work.

So I fought the university, which was trying to put me on probation because of my poor grades. I tried to make an appointment to see the Assistant Dean for my part of the school. It turned out he didn't want to meet with students who were failing their classes. I tried to talk to his secretary, but she acted like I was wasting her time by wanting to set up a meeting about my impending probation. She told me to write a letter outlining why I thought I shouldn't be put on probation. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to be treated like a person, but I was being treated like a foregone conclusion.

I felt like my life was falling apart, and I knew everyone else would see me for the horrible, weak person that I must really be if I couldn't fix this. I believed this was the kind of situation that any reasonable person should be able to handle in the real world.

Salvation came from the outside. One of my professors pulled me aside one day and asked me what was going on. He had wondered about the other student he always saw out in front of the classroom. He knew it was someone I had been hanging out with at the beginning of the semester. He was curious why I was almost never in class anymore.

I told him. I didn't blame Jake, because I didn't think it was his fault. I thought it was my fault. I told the professor everything that was going on, and I admitted I didn't know what to do to get Jake to leave me alone, given our history. The professor asked me if I thought Jake would hurt me, and I said I didn't think so. For all of the scary things Jake had said, I thought he was more of a danger to himself than to anyone else. I didn't want to get my oldest friend in trouble.

Then, the professor asked me a very important question: "Have you outright told him to stop?"

I hadn't. I had missed the most painfully obvious solution. For weeks on end, I had assumed Jake would get the picture just by me being less accessible, just by me focusing on other people. I thought the problem would go away if I just ignored him long enough, even as it escalated. I confessed that I hadn't even thought to be so blunt. I felt like the world's biggest failure.

The professor wasn't the least bit judgmental. He put me in touch with the Dean of Student Affairs, a wonderful woman who listened attentively to everything I had to say. She talked to me about stalking. In spite of everything, it had never occurred to me that I was being stalked. That was something that happened in movies, not in real life. It wasn't something that normal people had to deal with.

She handled everything. She scheduled a meeting with Jake herself, and I never heard from him again. Like magic, she made it all go away.

Thus ended my first semester away from home. Yep. All of that in one semester. The nightmares persisted for a couple more years, but eventually it was all just a memory.

The good old days

2013-09-10T22:41:00.000-07:00

I'm not Peanut, obviously, but Peanut has kindly given me permission to write things that you probably shouldn't read. Yay!

Let's start with a story for people who idealize "simpler" times, before the hustle and bustle of cell phones, when neighbors helped each other out and families worked the land to provide for themselves. Want to know what it's like to live off-the-grid and have a family in a quiet country area? I can help! As a bonus that surely isn't at all related, I can also tell you about grade-schooler pregnancies!

For some back story (bear with me), I grew up just outside of a rural town with a population of 450 people. We didn't have cable, or the internet, or even 911 service (because they needed fancy city luxuries, like street names). The public school, however, was amazing. It raked in obscene amounts of money from oil, meaning we took a lot of field trips and had so many books. (Teachers were still a bit of a crapshoot. While I was there, three teachers and one principal were accused of being a little too friendly with students.)

We had pretty normal school crushes, despite our options being naturally limited by math. But once you had a "boyfriend," you were permanently attached to that guy. Sure, you could fight and break up like people did on TV, but you always got back together. Always. These matches were locked in by the 3rd grade at the latest and could only be shaken by drastic events, like a new kid moving into town.

I paired off with a boy who had the same hair color as me, which seems like as good of a reason as any when you're in first grade. We'll call him John. John was "the rebel" of my class. His parents were divorced, which was unheard of there. He lived with his dad, wore torn jeans and a black leather coat, and liked skulls.

John was the perfect boyfriend for a tomboy. We had lots of fun exploring abandoned houses and catching lizards. I had two best friends (who were also appropriately matched off), and we all played together like normal kids.

Years passed like that. We entered the 5th grade. One of the girls in my class was mysteriously absent for a while, and when she came back, she had a baby with her. How cute! She was seeing a guy who went to college in a city about 30 minutes away.

This didn't strike me as odd. I was 11, still at an age where I accepted most things. My parents weren't ready to explain why it should've been unusual.

Unconcerned, I continued to spend my free time reading lots of books and playing computer games. My friends were more adventurous. John started smoking and pressured me to try it (note: we're still 11). Unfortunately, my parents were already heavy smokers and I thought it was gross, so this became a huge point of conflict in my relationship with John. His friends started getting frustrated with our weekly breakups.

Two of them finally approached me one day during lunch. I was sitting in the elementary school cafeteria. "You need to hurry up and have sex with John soon," they said.

I was stunned. No one had brought that up with me before.

They explained. "You need to do it before you get your period so you won't get pregnant."

I don't remember what I said, if I responded at all. It suddenly felt like my friends were living on some other planet and had left me behind. Half of my sister's friends (2 years ahead of me) either already had kids of their own or were about to. A few years further, the girls turning 16 were getting married. Why? Because those girls wanted to move out of their parents' houses, and they had to get married to do it without being considered runaways.

None of that seemed unusual. It's what I grew up around, so of course it seemed like a perfectly normal choice for them to make. To me, they were just growing up. But I still believed in fairies and unicorns. I wasn't ready to grow up.

So at the age of 11, before my parents had even thought to sit down and have "the talk" with me, I broke up with John for the last time. I didn't want to start smoking. I didn't want to have sex with him. That was final.

I was an instant outcast. I no longer belonged with my friends. I couldn't just move on to someone else, because all of the other boys in my age group had already been matched up. Like any good pre-teenage girl, I dramatically accepted the fact that I would be alone for the rest of my life.

Two years later, my family moved to "the city." Population: 100,000! There, I finally learned that it wasn't normal for girls to have kids by the time they leave high school.

(John called me a week or so after we moved away. Before you think it's too pathetic for a guy to call a girl two years after she broke up with him, note that when I made the decision to break it off, knowing I wouldn't have anyone else to date, I also similarly doomed him. He was forced to be single for those same two years because of math.

Okay, yeah, it's still kind of sad.

Anyway, when he called, something didn't sound right. I asked him if he was drunk. He replied, "No. Well... maybe." I hung up. That's the last memory I have of my first-ever boyfriend/crush/whatever. I was 13.)

Guest Posts!

2013-09-06T14:24:00.004-07:00

I'm sure I still have stories, and things in my head that want to get out, but other people have amazing stories as well. I'm opening this blog up for guest authoring!

There are two options... one, if you have a few stories and would like to contribute a bit more often, just let me know and I will send you an invitation to be an author on this blog. Two, if you just have one or two really good stories, you can email them to me and I will post them, with a note that the story is from [whatever name you choose].

I'm trying to convince a friend who has some amazing stories to guest blog a few times, so if you want some interesting stuff about real stalkers, middle school pregnancies, and more - please leave some comments encouraging her to write!

PS - your stories don't have to be about dating or relationships; this is, after all, The Blog of All Topics! And I of course have written about everything from dating to depression to standing up for slut rights, plus a bunch in between (muffins are NOT frosting-free cupcakes, people!!).

When I Try To Sleep

2013-09-01T00:32:00.000-07:00

Going to a therapist to try to redeem your self-esteem means having someone ask you when it all started. When did you start disliking yourself? When did you start hating yourself? What happened to you? What was your childhood like, your parents like, your whole fucking life like?

But I don't remember. I don't remember most of it. I'm not blocking traumatic events; I have an older brother and I feel like we were close growing up and he remembers loads more than I do. If something traumatic happened, he'd tell me. I just... have very few memories. There's one here, one there... my brain seems to have a knack for remembering the negative portions really well, the awkward moments, the punishments for being bad, the actual being bad. The good stuff seems to have gotten lost in that haze somehow. Is that genetic? Chemical? To have a brain that clings only to what makes me feel like shit, and discard freely anything that might remind me that things were okay? That I'm okay?

It's all too easy to blame having a military father. "My dad wasn't around when I was growing up," I can say flippantly, and people make their assumptions. Well, of course I'm messed up! Of course I've always sought affection from male figures in my life! My dad wasn't there! But you know, he wrote me letters. Lots of them. I remember that when I stop to think. He called me by cute nicknames (which I remember), he hugged me a lot when he was home, he told me he loved me all the time - I'm sure he did, even if my brain isn't letting me remember it specifically. I remember counting down with Mom until Dad would come home. I remember waiting at the dock (the pier?) with the other families and being excited. I remember wanting him to be the one who brushed my ridiculously long hair because he was more gentle than Mom. I remember having a night shirt that said "Daddy's Little Girl."

What I don't remember is when things changed. I mean, at some point I was too old to sit in his lap anymore. At some point I know we still wrote letters but I don't remember them anymore. Maybe I was the one who stopped, stopped writing him back; maybe I was the one who broke his heart. Maybe he wasn't prepared to have me keep growing up every time he left. But is that really why I have problems with men? Is it because Mom had to work? Did I not have enough of a positive female role model, either?

My first crush... there's a vivid memory. My brother's best friend, when I was 3 or 4 years old. Do people even have crushes that young? Sometimes I joke that I probably winked at the doctor who delivered me, but let's be honest: I wasn't very good at flirting until much later in life. Another crush, kindergarten, a blond boy in another class. Every year of school I had a crush. As I got older, there were more.

I knew I wasn't attractive. I wasn't one of the pretty girls. In elementary school I had glasses with huge, ugly plastic frames. I wore cheap plastic headbands that my hair was constantly escaping from. I had an overbite, big front teeth, ridiculously crooked front teeth. Skinny, all elbows and knees and ears, these goddamn ears. I knew I was awkward. In 5th grade, I'm ashamed to admit that I took part in some bullying of the class "fat kid," writing him a letter to tell him how awful he was. I just wanted the cool kids to like me. I just wanted someone to be lower on the food chain than I was.

Middle school - is it really horrible for everyone? Because I felt like there was a group of kids for whom it was great. They were popular and wore the cool clothes and I remember feeling so special when any of them talked to me, even though it was usually just to get some bit of info for homework. I was never bullied, not the way they show in TV and movies. Teased a bit, sure. But I wasn't harassed, physically tortured, given horrid nicknames... not really. My looks were compared to a rodent's more often than is ever pleasant, but mostly I was left alone, I think. Maybe that's the part I've blocked?

But boys.. always the obsession with boys. I have this very exact, detailed memory of being a pre-teen, of my brother getting his first girlfriend, and of thinking to myself - even writing in my sad little purple diary - that I would never have a boyfriend. I was too horrible, too ugly. No boy would want me. I remember thinking if I had a twin sister, I would feel sorry for her because she, poor thing, would look like me. What sort of way is that for a kid to think? What on earth made me think that way?

In high school, I said yes to almost any boy who asked me out. YES! Thank you for paying attention to me! YES! Thank you for noticing me! It made me feel good, powerful, worthwhile, almost pretty (but not quite, not really). I didn't know why they liked me - I was still skinny and awkward and I spent a couple of years in braces - but they did and that was the single most attractive feature of every single one of them. Most of them, I "went out" with for a week or two before realizing I didn't like them. I wasn't allowed to date, so we just held hands at school or church, made out whenever and wherever possible, and talked on the phone. Once the thrill of being liked, of being chosen, had passed... well, I was done. I didn't honestly believe I was hurting anyone. I know, that's horrible, but I didn't think they liked me that much. I was probably just a fleeting interest, someone to make out with during those hormonal years. I believed that.

Can I blame it on my first boyfriend cheating on me? Is that too easy, too? It is a hell of an introduction into the world of romance for someone who thought she'd never even get a foot in the door... at least give me that.

Now, as an adult, I still feel like I lack so much. Why? Is it genetic? Chemical?

The therapist asked me to write a list of my good qualities. She was fascinated by my process of first crowd-sourcing the answers because I couldn't come up with a single damn thing on my own; then forcing myself to say thank you instead of arguing; then writing everything down without censoring or editing. All of this took a couple of weeks - just to make a list! I know the next step is internalizing, believing, owning this list... but it's been a couple of months now and I'm not even sure where it is. How do you undo whatever it is that's done, when you can't pinpoint how or when it was done? If it was done? I'm not sure that anything in my life caused my self-esteem to plummet. I think maybe I just missed or glossed over or daydreamed my way past all the parts of my life that should have bolstered it up from the original point of zero. So when the normal course of life happened, I let it beat me up and wear me down and my points went negative, because I hadn't stored them up like nuts for these winters; was I just not paying attention when points were being handed out?

I don't blame my parents, for the record. I think if I told a succinct version of my childhood, any armchair psychiatrist would immediately blame them. I admit to feeling a bit of a pain, a bit of emptiness and jealousy, when I see my mother leave so many effusive messages of love and support, messages just dripping with compliments, for my brother's kids and my cousins on Facebook. I'm not sure why, since she does the same to me. My brother insists our mom was encouraging and supportive, and I do remember a lot of that. Am I just jealous because she simply has more time for them? Logically I understand that my parents sacrificed a lot for us, that they both worked hard to support us financially - neither of us had any idea that our parents were struggling for money when we were growing up. But emotionally... just... what the fuck is WRONG with me?

My parents tell me they love me all the time. They support me. They let me move back in when I needed to, and I know they're proud of me despite all the mistakes I've made. I'm extremely fortunate and I know that and I don't blame them for ... well, how I am.

So what the fuck is WRONG with me?

When I try to sleep, all of this, all of this, goes through my head. In circles. Along with all the things I can remember that depleted me, all the things I've done wrong, all the poor choices I made. How do I ever sleep? How am I ever supposed to convince my emotional side what my logical side is trying to say, that I'm successful and good in so many ways? Instead, when I try to say "yes, I'm a good person," my emotional side says "Um, excuse me! You are incredibly selfish, and need I remind you of that time you were a bitch to that guy? And what about how you suck at faking friendliness with people you don't like? You make people feel bad when you decide you don't like them. Can't you just fucking FAKE it? For an hour? Is that so HARD? You selfish bitch. Oh, and let's not forget that time that you......" on and on.

That's quite a verbose side to go up against.

And so I try to fight back, I try to sleep. I take my little pills, operating under the theory that it's chemical. I visit my therapist, operating under the theory that it's mental. I ... well, I'm pretty much just buggered if it's genetic, aren't I?

I know I'm not alone, but you know how sometimes it really, really, really feels that way? I'm the only failure. I'm the worst failure. I'm not fit for relationships, romantic or platonic. Changing my selfish ways is more difficult than trying to change my diet or exercise (all things I have failed at, by the way, multiple times). Telling myself I'm anything more than "okay" feels like I'm lying, and how can you lie to yourself? You know it's a lie. You don't even need to look for tells!

And so I try to sleep, and I try to quiet my brain, and I write in this blog a thousand times every night in my head but just once, just this time I manage to sit myself down with no distractions and try to get it out so maybe my brain will shut. up. for a little while. (but it won't. I will re-write this very entry a thousand times in my head tonight, I can promise you.)

So maybe I type it out in the hope that someone else with a noisy brain, someone else with a jerk brain, someone else who just for once would like to be able to fall asleep without swirling into a vortex of mental self-flagellation because they can't stop reviewing the day and everything they did or said wrong and of course that leads to the previous day and then it just keeps going like a bad movie in reverse - maybe that someone else might be able to find at least a few minutes of peace knowing that there are other asshole brains out there, shouting and clamoring and hiding all the good things.

Goodnight, and to whomever is bothering to read this: I hope you're able to find the good things.

Muffins Vs Cupcakes

2013-07-26T13:33:00.003-07:00

Genie: there are a good number of women out there who really need to start thinking about better hygiene!
Genie: I just went to the bathroom. One stall smelled like an Indian buffet. One was a gargonzola cheese factory. One was a can of fermented cat food
Genie: and it's not even 10am!

Peanut: ewwwwww
Peanut: this is one of those times I'm glad I work with mostly dudes!
Peanut: so far all that's happened to me is I got a donut, and had a convo about whether donuts = deep fried cake or not

Genie: I'm pretty sure they're just deep fried cake
Genie: and muffins are just huge cupcakes w/o frosting

Peanut: noooooooooooo
Peanut: Genie you are blaspheming right now

Col. Dr.: I usually agree with Genie on most things, she is a modern day sage. But muffins are not large cupcakes. Muffins are healthy or hide in the appearance of being healthy. Cupcakes are pridefully aware that they are trying to kill us.

Genie: I speak only the truth
Genie: when I grow up, I'm going to open a stand called 'Genie's Muffins' and I'm going to sell cupcakes w/o frosting

Peanut: I'm going to open a stand next to you called Actual Cupcakes and sell the same thing

Col. Dr.: I'm going to gain 50 to 60 pounds and visit every morning. I may need a rascal

Peanut: Genie says she will buy you a horn for your rascal

Col. Dr.: that horn will be be the center of my all my rascal decorations

Genie: I'll also get him a bumper sticker for the rascal that says "I brake for muffins"

Peanut: except then I have to get an addendum sticker that says "...and cupcakes"

Col. Dr.: right next to my "Hooray for boobies" with a blue footed boobie bird sticker

Peanut: should we get streamers for the handles? wait. that's a silly question. of course we should!

Genie: pshhhh
Genie: like you had to ask
Genie: and a basket on the front

Peanut: oh yes
Peanut: and some sort of animal tail on the back
Peanut: perhaps a zebra

Col. Dr.: I was thinking a rhino tail
Col. Dr.: just a fat gray stubby thing
Col. Dr.: and a horn on the front
Col. Dr.: next to my other horn

Genie: I saw a motorcycle over the weekend with real cow horns on the front and a real cow tail on the back
Genie: and when you pushed a button, it would mooooo
Genie: ...I'm working on doing the same kind of thing to my truck

Peanut: that is the best idea I think you've ever had in your entire life

Col. Dr.: This may be the greatest idea ever from humanity

...the point of this entire post is whether or not donuts = deep fried cake. The muffins vs cupcakes thing isn't even up for debate because muffins and cupcakes are very much like apples and oranges in that THEY ARE NOT THE SAME, GENIE. And I have the blog, so I win.

Everyone Loves a Genie

2013-06-20T15:52:00.002-07:00

I've been in a relationship for a while now, and while I admit that huge chunks of this non-traditional relationship would make for some great blog entries, that's not going to happen. I don't like to write about things that are Current Events. As a result, BORRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIING. Genie, though, has been using eHarmony, and meeting some really, umm... interesting guys. She's awesome enough that she's letting me write about her latest crazy.

The guy seemed okay at first. They emailed a lot before meeting. She was a little concerned about the idea of dating a single dad, but I assured her that many things about it are fantastic. So they finally met, grabbing drinks at a happy hour somewhere near her workplace, and chatting for roughly an hour or so.

She said he was pleasant, funny, not at all put off by her crass jokes. A bit scruffy for her taste, but I told her that the guy is a single dad with a toddler - haircuts and clothes shopping for himself are really, really low on the priority list for him.

She felt like he was okay, but wasn't excited about him. There were little things that concerned her, but nothing major. Then the day after they'd met, he told her that both his father and his grandfather were avid collectors of "all things Dixie." That's right: these guys proudly collected and displayed anything they could get with the Confederate flag on it. And this was okay.

Genie and I discussed this at length. We were both kind of horrified. If nothing else, we posited, the guy she was dating should at least be embarrassed by his family. He swore to her they weren't racist or assholes, yada yada, just liked collecting ol' Dixie... but still, we both had this annoying feeling that Single Dad's family should at least recognize what that flag represents to the vast majority of people and maybe not flaunt that shit. We also really felt like Single Dad should, again, at least be embarrassed by the whole thing and not be all, "what's the big deal? They like it."

(Sidenote: he gave some defense about how he was raised "with Southern values." Seriously? Don't use "the South" as your excuse for being ignorant or a jerk. I've lived in a few Southern states and I have loads of friends from all of them who are not racist, close-minded, homophobic, or any other brand of asshattery.)

That kind of cinched it: Genie decided there just wasn't enough about this guy that appealed to her. Considering they had met all of once, she figured turning him down for a dinner invitation and then easing up on the texts would be all that was required to break it off. There was no relationship, there had been no dates, and they hadn't even been talking for more than a few weeks.

Didn't work.

She eased up on responding...

Genie: from tues - thurs. I'd respond to 1 out of every 3-4 of his texts w 1 word answers. by that fri I decided I pretty much didn't like him. so I sent him 1 "I'm busy" text on fri, 1 "your kid is cute" text (after he sent me 10 pics of her) on sat, "I'm not going to dinner with you" and "sometimes a girl needs some space" texts on sun and that was the last time I texted him.

That conversation was a full week and a day after the "I need space" text, and yet, he was still texting her.

Genie: about 100 pics on Wednesday of some cake he made for his daughter's b-day and more asking how my day was.
Genie: Thurs was a 'hi' and a 'hows your day going?' Friday asked how my short week was. sent a pic of a pig that said 'roses are red, bacon is red. poems are hard. bacon.' then sent a few texts about how funny he thought that was.
Genie: Today [Monday] it was just the how was your show kinda texts.
Genie: and whats really weird (well him texting 100x per day w/o over a week of no reply from me is weird) is that he and I met once. ONCE. for an hr or 2. and it was just ok when we met.

Peanut: I am SO glad he doesn't know where you live [we guessed he'd have shown up at her doorstep by now if he did]

Genie: RIGHT!?!?!?
Genie: I really wonder what's going on in his head
Genie: even the may or may not be gay guy I went out with last week... he sent me a few texts and I was all 'I had fun but the next for weeks are kinda busy' so he said 'understood. let me know if you want to hang out again'. haven't heard from him since. that's how its supposed to be

And the next day, Tuesday....

Peanut: please tell me Single Dad is still texting

Genie: you know it!
Genie: I got 2 "hi" texts last night

Apparently that finally did him in. Over a week of absolutely no responses from her, and yet he sent her more texts than I do in a month. I've had my own experiences with totally clueless guys, and I have absolute faith that I have been a clueless girl, but I have to say that I am almost impressed with this particular dude's perseverance. What's your Most Clueless Wannabe Suitor story?

(oh, and of course I texted her "hi" a few days after all this, just because I'm an asshole that way. "hi" texts are the worst.)

Otter Talk: Real Talk

2013-06-18T15:47:00.000-07:00

When work gets too stressful, you gotta have an inane convo with a co-worker, amirite?

RC: this on the other hand
RC: is for you
RC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=H8S4KMHSW6s

Peanut: OTTER!

RC: a helpful otter even

Peanut: seriously wtf I need an otter

RC: yeah, it could probably be trained to grab you baking ingredients while you cook
RC: how awesome would that be
RC: you'd have your own show and you could leave us forever
RC: wait
RC: no otter for you

Peanut: BRILLIANT
Peanut: at least you're not having to deal with all these damn XMLs

Peanut: so! I am going to watch that otter 5 more times

RC: well...
RC: at least you have a Otter

Peanut: who squeaks

RC: you need an Otter that writes XML
RC: XMLOtter!

Peanut: holy shit yes
Peanut: I need a slew of otters
Peanut: a peck?
Peanut: a herd?
Peanut: an XML Otter, a Baking Assistant Otter, a Litter Box Cleaning Otter, a Laundry Otter...

RC: Answer: A group of otters is called a family, romp or raft.
RC: I like a Romp of Otters

Peanut: totally
Peanut: I'm going to have both a romp and a raft
Peanut: the raft will be my work otters
Peanut: the romp will be my home otters

RC: The collective nouns for otters are bevy, family, lodge, or romp, (being descriptive of their often playful nature) or, when in water, raft
RC: oo, there are more
RC: apparently they are only rafts in the water
RC: An otter's den is called a holt or couch. A male otter is a meowter, a female is a queen, and a baby is a pup

Peanut: a meowter.

RC: lol
RC: yeah

Peanut: okay, so my couch actually has storage thingies underneath the cushions; thus, the otter couch can be IN MY COUCH

RC: A baby otter asking permission from its dad:
RC: "Meowter may i?"

Peanut: I can't even
Peanut: I will name the alpha otter Steve
Peanut: so when otters refer to his den, they can say "STEVE'S HOLT"
Peanut: with their little otter fists in the air

RC: lol
RC: love it

Peanut: so my home otters will be a romp, with a subsection of baking assistant otters, who will be a bevy. a baking bevy.
Peanut: the work otters will be a lodge and will wear fezzes.

A Good Boss is Priceless

2013-06-06T15:48:00.004-07:00

Boss to me around 3:40: "What time do you have to leave for your appointment?"
Me: "I dunno. 4ish? I might leave sooner. I don't want to start a project at this point..."
Him: "Yeah"
Me: "So basically I'm just watching a bunny chew."
Him: "HA!"

Then I demonstrated.

Just an Average Friday Morning

2013-05-24T11:36:00.000-07:00

Genie: can we talk about virgins?
Peanut: of course!
Genie: would you ever date one?
Peanut: I have
Peanut: I wouldn't *now*
Peanut: but in my 20s I took ... 3 virginities
Genie: you minx!
Peanut: I do what I can
Peanut: someone has to teach these boys!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peanut: god will get rid of acne, too
Peanut: but only if you promise to ONLY have sex for procreation
Genie: thats what I do! sex only for procreation
Genie: weird how it doesnt seem to be working. i'd better keep tryin
Peanut: you can't do it in any position except missionary
Peanut: other positions are deviant
Genie: ooohhhh...well that there's gonna be a problem
Peanut: you do it in a sex swing, don't you?
Peanut: I knew it
Genie: no way. people break legs on those things

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Col. Dr.: I just have a few good stories, mostly about trying to break up without it being my fault and revenge on a best friend who started dating an ex
Peanut: oh yes, the "try to get him to dump me" move
Peanut: I'm very good at that
Peanut: what was the revenge?
Col. Dr.: it was multi stage monkey shining
Col. Dr.: signing him up for gay magazines, not porn, but "gay teen life" "Out" stuff like that, so that his parents would see these magazines being delivered for him
Col. Dr.: lunch meat in his car
Col. Dr.: bought him a goat
Peanut: wait
Peanut: really?
Col. Dr.: had it delivered to his house
Col. Dr.: yup
Col. Dr.: tried to buy a sheep, but they were much more expensive
Col. Dr.: but the farmer dropped the goat right off
Col. Dr.: left a blow up doll outside his window in the yard
Col. Dr.: left notes to teachers from him, about how much he liked them
Col. Dr.: at some point it became more about the next prank than the revenge

------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, and as of this morning, I can now add +1 to people I've seen shirtless at this company. *sigh* He was changing in the parking lot...

Embrace the Sex, Religions!

2013-05-15T15:23:00.001-07:00

Recently I read a really fantastic article/personal story that I think everyone who was raised in, is being raised in, or is raising children in a religious-minded home should read and consider: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/06/my_virginity_mistake/

I won't claim to be an expert on religions - I'm nowhere near that. I was, however, raised in a strict, Southern, conservative, very religious home. When I was in elementary school, I started reading Sweet Valley Twins. To this day, I remember being confused by a part in one of those books where the family slept in on Sunday, had breakfast, read the paper, toodled about... but didn't go to church. What.

Doesn't everyone go to church? I thought. Isn't that what Sundays are about? We went Sunday morning for classes and a nice long "worship service." Sunday lunch was a big affair, then usually there were naps, and then it was back to church for evening services (no class). Sunday morning involved dressing up - and for me, as a girl, this meant dresses/skirts. Sunday night was a more casual affair with jeans, but never, ever shorts. Wednesday nights were like Sunday nights, except we usually had class followed by a short service. This was my life: church 3 times a week, every week, for over 17 years.

Once I was old enough to be in the "youth group," I was going to those activities and basically, that was my social life. All God, all the time. I didn't fight it - I couldn't. I questioned it, I wasn't sure I believed in it, I wanted to know what else was out there... but I obeyed my parents and did the best I could and ended up at a Christian university and married to a preacher's son and all that rot.

But sex! You want to know about sex!

So did I. My sex ed was pretty much "don't do it until you're married." Being the closeted heathen I kind of was, I did plenty of things that weren't, technically, sex. I even almost gave up my virginity on senior prom night like a good little cliché, but both my virgin boyfriend and I chickened out in the hotel.

The problem with all of this lack of education about sex and guilt about sex and lack of sex is that it breaks people. Sexual urges are part of us, but let's face it: sex can be dangerous. It's like being given a welding torch at puberty but not being told how to safely handle it. Nobody would do that to their kid, right? I hope? Hello? Wait, maybe I'm supposed to compare this to a pet python or something... too obvious?

Kids who are simply told "don't have sex" don't learn about safe sex. Sex becomes something forbidden, and for some people, this guilt remains even after marriage. Girls don't learn they can say "no" - yes, even to their husbands. Seriously, I cannot even wrap my head around the myriad of possible psychological damages that must result from spending your formative years being told nothing about a major part of yourself except that you shouldn't do it, unless you're married. The end.

My junior year of college I was in an "advanced" Bible course. I was the only female; there were about 10 of us in the class total. All the guys were Bible or youth ministry majors, and all were either engaged or already married. I should also point out that only a few of these guys were old enough to legally drink (not that they could - this particular religion/university is a no-drinking-no-dancing-no-instruments-in-church variety).

You get married young and have it drilled into you that you cannot get divorced, no matter what, sorry... there's going to be a lot of unhappy marriages. My brother and I are both divorced because we finally just bucked it, but yes, we both got married right after college. It was what you do. I'd already been having (unsafe) sex (religion never did quite suit me), but for most of the religious kids, either this is the way they get to have sex, or this is how they deal with the guilt of having sex - "I have slept with this person, now I must marry him/her so it's okay."

I ended up losing my virginity when I was just shy of 19. I was seeing a boy who was also seeing someone else, someone I knew. It was all very much on the up-and-up, but I hated it. I've never been good at sharing; I'm definitely not mentally or emotionally built for polyamory. One night, I remember feeling like if I gave him this, he would have to like me better. Surely he would stop seeing the other girl and choose me.

It was not fun. It was not beautiful, or touching, or meaningful. It was painful and the next day, when I asked if he still liked the other girl, he said yes (of course). He was honest, I'll give him that. And I was stupid, I'll own up to that. But should I have waited until marriage? What if I had, and then my wedding night felt like that? Painful, unpleasant, emotionless... no passion, no chemistry... at least at 19, I wasn't bound to that guy in any way. We only slept together twice more after that, over the course of a few months, and it never got better for me. I can't even fathom trying to put up with that sort of sex for my entire adult life.

I'm getting rambley. I do that. You may have noticed. I'm also distracted by a conversation with a friend about strip clubs and stereotypical bachelor/ette parties and all that bullshit that I hate a lot (but not because of religion), and it's for another time.

I do know some people who waited, and they are still completely happy in their marriages. They tell me their sex life is great, and I pretty much have to believe them because I am a lot of things but a voyeur is not one of them. I think those people are lucky, and I'm happy for them... but I can't help thinking they're exceptions.

So I'd like to hear what you people think. Were you raised with a ban on premarital sex? Or were you raised in an open communication, sex-positive home? Somewhere in between? If you have kids, or if you're planning to, how do you think you'll raise them?

Nice to Meet You - DING!

2013-04-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

There's been some interest in hearing about my speed dating adventure, so I figured it was time to tackle that one. It was almost 3 years ago so my memory is a little hazy, but I'll do my best to express the full awfulness of the whole thing for you.

I went because that summer, I was spending a lot of time with a girl I'll just call A. She was an incredibly friendly, outgoing person who was, like me, divorced and struggling in the dating world. The summer we met, I happened to be in a perfectly content single state, but I had a lot of fun dressing up and going out with her, playing wing woman, sharing dating stories and woes. I thought I'd found a kindred spirit and finally a close girl friend who lived just a block from me so we could spend time together.

That friendship fell apart after a few months, and I won't go into that out of respect for her - I've seen her since, and she's changed a lot. Unfortunately it turns out we happened to meet during a really difficult, dark time in her life, and she wasn't her true self. The disappointment I felt when we parted ways just after my 31st birthday was akin to the heartbreak of a romantic relationship breakup, and I still occasionally feel a pang of regret that we never reconciled.

Tangent over; one night A really wanted to try speed dating. She and a male coworker, whom I'd met before and thought was rather nice, were going and she insisted I come along for support. I in turn insisted she pay my entry fee. Fair's fair, bitches! I reeeeally did not want to go. I had no interest in meeting anyone at the time and how much could I really play wing woman when we were always at separate tables?

We arrive, and there are two lines to sign up, divided by age. I believe the cutoff for the younger group was 36 but I could be wrong... I do remember that the guy we were with was a year older than that but went to the younger group anyway because he didn't want to end up talking to 50 year old ladies.

Before we were sent to tables, there was a little mix time. The 3 of us stuck together, but talked to a few other people. There were at least 2 guys there in those hideous "banker's shirts" ... you know, the ones that are a color but with white collars and cuffs. Holy fucking Christ, I hate those shirts.

When A and I went out on the town, she was earnestly seeking a connection with any men we met; however, since I was just along for the ride, I often gave a fake name and made up weird careers. I almost had a guy on her kickball team convinced that I photographed nostrils for anatomy textbooks for a living. He kept trying to trip me up with questions and I kept answering. He was stumped. One night I informed a guy wearing a t-shirt with pancakes on it that I was going to call him Pancake all night and had no interest in knowing his real name. While A and the other fellow chatted about their real lives on the other side of the table, Pancake and I (going by Waffle) just told funny stories.

I used my real name at this event, but the career I chose was embroiderer. Hard to say, but I felt it was sufficiently dull enough that I could avoid my part of the 5 minute conversations I was going to have to endure with all these random strangers.

This particular event chose to make the women move tables. We had numbers assigned when we signed up, and that was our starting table. Everyone had a little card and pen. After 5 minutes, a bell rang and one of the event coordinators hollered out, and we moved to the next table. Some people lingered; I practically leapt from my seat every time and then meandered to the next. I don't recall how many tables there were, but it felt like 50. I kind of (really) hate 1:1 interaction with new people unless it's some cute guy I want to flirt up, and here I saw none. (Those of you who know me "in real life" have probably noticed how often I sidestep invitations to hang out 1:1 and now you know: I get wicked anxiety about it. I'll try to invite more people if at all possible to reduce the pressure I feel about OMG WHAT DO I TALK ABOUT. Ridiculous, yes, but no one ever said I wasn't insane.)

For the most part, my plan worked - my supposed career was dull enough to not get any questions past "what's that?" From Genie I've learned how to ask loads of questions about anything thrown my way to just keep the other person talking, so I stuck to that. Most of the guys were perfectly happy to yammer on about themselves. One guy whose first language was definitely not English was actually genuinely interested. He asked me question after question - how did you learn that? how do you get into that kind of work? what are the busy times of year? ("a nice older lady I met when I moved here taught me." "she retired and gave it over to me." "oh, you know, Christmas is crazy, and wedding season of course - monogrammed robes and towels.")

There was another guy who I suspected had also lied about his age, and whom I could barely understand. It wasn't just that English wasn't his first language; I'm pretty sure he had just started learning. That conversation was stilted and difficult, so I just tried to ask a lot of questions and nod a bunch. The room was really loud so everyone practically had to shout to be heard, which didn't help. Those 5 minutes felt like 30 and I felt awful for the poor guy.

A weird moment was when I cycled over to the table with A's coworker, because we already knew each other. I tried to just joke around with him, but he surprised me by asking genuine questions about myself and seeming sincerely interested in my answers. He kept deflecting my jokes and steering me back to actual conversation. That sort of thing is really uncomfortable for me with new people, despite how nice he was, so I was grateful when the bell rang.

Another one who stood out was the last guy I had to talk to. By then I was grumpy and bored. He was wearing some fancy button-up and had gelled hair and was clearly a bro. He was also pretty full of himself, so I think I may have said 3 words - "hi, I'm _____." At least he bought me a drink!

There was an intermission (hooray!), and I sprinted for the bar. A was driving so I didn't care. In line I began joking around with an older guy - probably close to 50. He ended up buying my drink and was definitely the most fun and interesting guy I talked to the entire night.

The cards everyone was given were to write down the names of anyone they wanted to see again. If two people wrote down each other, it was a MATCH! YAY! and the coordinators sent out emails to everyone letting them know if they got any matches. The deal was that they could release your email address and/or phone number to someone you matched with so you could keep dating and fall in loooooooove. I know A had a couple of matches and went on a few dates, but I wrote down exactly no names, so I got a sad rejection email about not having any matches at all, woe is me.

So there you have it! Speed dating! A boring, sweaty (it was so fucking hot in that stupid little room), loud way to spend a super awkward evening - AND pay for it!

Am I Still Breathing?

2013-02-06T15:17:00.000-08:00

I feel really lost lately. There are some times of okay-ness, but mostly? Lost. The cause of this isn't my subject... it's something I only feel comfortable talking about with 3 people at this point. Maybe 4, though only a couple of this already small group really fully understand and support - oddly, people I wasn't close to before; one I only recently met. It's a rough spot to be in, but I at least I have them.

This feeling makes it difficult to think of funny stories to tell. I feel this blog is dying... or died long ago. I never wrote about divorce, really, but lately I've been hearing a lot of stories about divorces, or people who "stayed for the kids," or various other unhappy situations. I've also heard some stories of people who are grateful to have gotten divorced, who have found love and happiness that they didn't think they'd ever have again.

All this to say, lately I've realized once again just how fortunate I am to have married a kind man (obviously it would have been better to not have married at all, but the way we were both raised simply led to that). Not the right man for me, nor I the right woman for him, but still - he is kind. I'm grateful we didn't own property together (a futon, TV, and DVDs don't count). Grateful we didn't have children (just pets) or a lot of financial tie-ups, being we were in our early 20s and still in that post-college struggling phase. Grateful our divorce was easy, amicable, inexpensive (I think? I didn't pay for it, but there weren't lawyers or anything). And most of all, grateful that after some time had passed, we are friends again. Not close friends - geographically or emotionally - but I think if either of our lives simply collapsed, he'd be there for me and I for him. We have a certain bond and I hope we always will. I'm fortunate that he is the sort of guy who treasures old friendships, maintains connections with all of his exes, and has (I hope) forgiven me for my part in our troubles as I have long since forgiven him.

Gah, I can't seem to be funny today. Have I told the story of the creepy airport employee who hit on me in October? Maybe the story of that awful night I spent at a speed dating event, thanks to a then-friend I was very close to twisting my arm to go along with her? The guy at the bar who actually attempted to use the line "didn't we go to high school together?" Help me out here, my handful of readers!

Sunshine and Rainbow Farts

2013-01-10T12:20:00.000-08:00

I keep trying to write here, but I'm having trouble thinking of funny dating/sex stories from my past. I know I said I would write about divorce, but every time I try, I get all worked up and pissed off and that just sucks.

Part of the problem is that this is a really hard time of year for me. As a perpetually single woman, I often get really sad about that fact. The holidays make being single that much rougher, not to mention the shitty weather here (and knowing the shitty weather has another 4 or 5 months to go), the fact that I hate the cold (but I love sweaters. Except hand washing them. I'M SO TORN), and oh yeah - fucking Valentine's Day crap already in the stores and that shit looming in the near future. AND as we all know I'm predisposed to some pretty awful bouts of depression anyway, which makes everything SO MUCH MORE FUN.

SO

my point is it's been hard to update this damn thing. But today! TODAY! an update! Right now I'm picturing the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where there was much rejoicing (yaaaay). I'm still a bit rusty on the writing, though, so I'm copping out and giving you a chat log from this morning.

Peanut: I was thinking about my life last night and trying to think of the good stuff
Peanut: and really, my life is pretty okay. there's bad stuff and I'm always stressed about money, but it's still pretty okay.

Genie: I could hug you right now
Genie: I feel like what you just said has been the theme of my week
Genie: it's just really easy to focus on the bad things that are happening
Genie: but there's always going to be shit in your life and who wants to be (or be around) a person who bitches about everything in their life
Genie: and you're right - we really do have a lot of good things going for us

Peanut: like how we did tiny lists of things we're grateful for the other day. but I was trying to think bigger picture
Peanut: I have a small number of friends I consider close
Peanut: then I have loads of people who are friends that I'm always happy to see
Peanut: then even more people that I enjoy interacting with on FB and such, and I'm happy to see them a couple times a year
Peanut: I have a family that I mostly disagree with but they love me and would support me if I needed it - Mom is always trying to send me money, and I know I could move back in and they'd help me if I really fell apart (they've done it before)
Peanut: I have a brother I never see but we get along and we love each other
Peanut: I have a fantastic cat, I can afford to live alone in a great neighborhood, I have a car and I never go hungry and I can afford small luxuries. I like my job most of the time and I think I'm good at it. I think my coworkers respect me.
Peanut: so what if I'm single? is that really the worst thing in the world? it gets lonely sometimes but I know I'll meet someone someday.

Genie: you're SO right. we have A LOT
Genie: and you're also right that being single = being lonely but there are much worse things than being lonely every now and then

Peanut: yep! we could be stuck with the wrong partner and be lonely but feel trapped and sad
Peanut: we could live in a giant house with 20 other people
Peanut: in a closet sized bedroom
Peanut: we could have to live on Ramen! I've done that. it's lame.
Peanut: I was very, very skinny
Peanut: more than once in my life I've had to work 2 part time shit jobs just to pay my bills. I feel like I've come really far

Genie: amen!
Genie: you HAVE come really far
Genie: i think it's sometimes easy to foget how far you've come
Genie: I know it is for me

Peanut: okay, your turn then!
Peanut: it feels good to list it and remind yourself

Genie: a list of all the good things? here it go...
Genie: i have 2 pretty wonderful parents who love me unconditionally and would give me sweet moolah if i ever needed it. i have a huge wonderful family who provide me w love and entertainment (because those fools are crazy). i have a pretty amazing horse who really is my horsey soul mate. my cats are pretty great too (even if I cant get their hair off my pants today). i have a job thats easy and...
Genie: allows me to do whatever i want on a daily basis. i have health insurance. i have a beautiful place to keep my horse at 50% the cost is should be. my boobs dont sag
Genie: and i have amazing friends
Genie: ahhhhh...that was nice

Peanut: right?
Peanut: I think we just wrote my next blog post, since I haven't updated in eleventy billion years

Genie: i love that idea!
Genie: and yeah...update that shit. i need more blogs to read

Peanut: I never did write the one about divorce
Peanut: because every time I tried to I got really angry
Peanut: and that makes it hard to be funny

Genie: true that
Genie: maybe wait on that shit. why rush it?

Peanut: no need to bring everybody down!

Genie: right? you can be real and honest about something w/o making everyone who reads it want to slit their wrists

Peanut: true dat yo

The P word and the D word

2012-11-07T22:04:00.002-08:00

And by that, sadly, I don't mean penis and dick. Sorry.

Politics and divorce! What fun! I mean, really, those are everyone's favorite topics at a dinner party, aren't they? Casual banter with a stranger on a bus ride? Holiday topics with family?

Huh. Well. I'm gonna go ahead and write about them anyway. I feel qualified because I both voted and got divorced... one much more recently than the other, of course.

Politics first. And I'll keep it short. I'm not a political person. If people do try to engage me in a political conversation, I'm quick to make some weird (often offensive) joke and change the subject. I'm not good at serious conversations in general, but I just don't get most political things. You may as well try to explain foreign exchange rates to me, and believe me, it doesn't work. Smarter people have tried. That shit just will NOT click for me - that particular shit being foreign exchange rates - and I stopped giving a damn about 10 seconds into the attempted explanation. And the guy trying to clue me in was really cute and sweet and not pretentious at all, too. That's how much I don't care.

So when I care about something that's in the political realm, I still end up completely baffled. Not because I don't understand what it is I care about necessarily, but because I don't understand why it's even an issue. I'm sure you can guess which things I'm thinking of here - same-sex marriage and legalized marijuana.

Okay, okay, I know why they're both issues... conservatives who believe that for some reason there's a crazy entity in space who can tell us what to do, based on a giant rambling book supposedly written by men a bajillion years ago who could apparently hear his voice. I mean, COME ON GUYS. That sounds completely plausible, right? Why shouldn't we pick and choose the stuff we like out of that fat piece of mostly plot-free literature and claim it's somehow The Way Things Ought To Be? (fyi, I'm not an atheist. I'm agnostic. I have no idea if there's a deity but I definitely don't think the bible is anything to take seriously, and don't even get me started on the concept of prayer.)

And of course, marijuana is evil. It's a drug. It is completely and totally different than legal substances like tobacco and caffeine, both of which cause physical withdrawal symptoms if you stop, or alcohol, which can actually kill you in any number of ways if you drink too much of it, and oh yeah! Also causes physical symptoms if you become addicted and try to stop. Sweat much, buddy? You could argue states are getting revenue from being able to fine people, but aren't they also losing money by arresting people? (please don't answer that. I don't actually care.)

But I don't understand why they're issues because I can't fathom how people can think that way. Why can't everyone get married? Marriage is mostly stupid anyway (more on that under D). What people want is the ability to declare their love (that's a simple way of putting it); save money on taxes (I think this is stupid); and have the rights necessary to visit their loved one in the hospital should tragedy strike, and make the big decisions in that sort of scenario, and all that sort of thing. I absolutely loathe the idea that someone wouldn't be able to visit his or her partner in the hospital if something awful happened.

And marijuana... I'm sorry, but do you ever hear stories about high drivers? Don't smoke and drive! Or stoned fights? Most people are going to smoke and settle in on the couch for a movie. They don't want to move, much less try to operate a car or fight anyone. And if someone does drive stoned, they'll be driving like a little old person - ssssslllllooooowwwwwlllllyyyyy. Yes, some strains make you more energetic, but in my experience, that just means I'm going to get up and clean my apartment. From what I'm heard, things like that are pretty common reactions to the more energizing strains.

I'm disappointed in the number of people in our nation that are still voting against those things, but especially the marriage one, because that's about people and love and entire lives, not a nice recreational activity. Yet, more people voted for legalizing pot in Washington state than did vote for same-sex marriage. WHAT. THE. FUCK. Not to mention the presidential rage I read today - there's an article sharing tweets from people saying really awful horrific racist things about Obama and I almost cried because I just couldn't wrap my brain around the fact that there are still so, so many of those people out there. Adults, teenagers - people not living in caves. And they have friends who laugh and agree with them and say even worse things. I just don't get it.

And now, dear friends who may not in fact be very dear nor even friends, I'm going to be a big ol' cock tease and not write about divorce yet. That's one I've been stewing on for a few months now, as I've talked to more friends who either are miserable in their marriages, or know people who are miserable in their marriages. The summary of my thoughts is: holy shit, people, divorce does not even remotely carry the evil home-wrecking stigma it used to! Yes, it's scary and yes, it's hard, but if you're that unhappy - especially if both of you are - then fucking do something about it! You have kids? So what? A. your kids will pick up that their parents aren't happy and don't want to be around each other, so you're not really saving them from anything and B. kids whose parents are still together are probably more of the minority these days. Getting a divorce doesn't mean you have to stop being a good parent.

Hm. Okay, soon I'll devote a whole post to my feelings on marriages (some are good! some are wonderful! I have friends I can look at and think, those are people who are really meant for each other, and they should and will have a long and loving relationship) and divorces (seriously) later. Anyone who might have input for that in advance, go ahead and comment or shoot me an email (bunneh.d at gmail).

Brain Drugs Rule

2012-09-27T16:29:00.001-07:00

The new medication I've been taking for a while now is pretty much amazing. I'm hoping it holds up - in the past I've tried anti-depressants, and they seemed to help for the first month or so, only to give up and become pointless. Much like many of the men I date. *rimshot*

I still have (often very strong) anti-social tendencies for sure (I'm still an introvert at heart, after all), but they seem less frequent. At work I'm definitely friendlier and more willing to engage with coworkers, whereas before I often tried my best to avoid interaction whenever possible. And I recently had a situation very similar to Asshat, with a couple of notable exceptions. First, we were friends for quite a while before anything happened. For a brief moment, I considered him a close friend and confidant. Another exception is that this time, when I realized I was being used and minimized, I called him on his bullshit and walked out. Done, finished, over. No looking back, no blaming myself (even though he tried to blame me), and no agonizing. To be fair to myself, this is definitely not entirely due to chemicals - I'm in a much better and stronger place emotionally than I was 3 years ago.

I was a little sad that I'd once again been used when I thought I was actually someone of worth to this person, and I was angry as all hell for a few days, but then... I was fine. My only real mistake was caring about someone and believing he might mean the things he said to me, and what's the fault in that?

I've been rocking socks at work, although that's led to many late nights at the office lately, but I'm totally okay with that. I no longer feel exhausted from being around people all day and need to scamper home at 5 on the dot just to regain my sanity.

There's still some depression, anxiety, feelings of self-doubt, jealousy. This is not a magical solution that will solve all my problems. It is, however, thus far giving me the energy to deal with those issues when they crop up, and seems to be keeping things from dipping quite so low when they dip.

So yay! I know this isn't a fascinating or funny post, but hey, they can't all be amazing, right? Then you'd hate me for being so incredible! Or something..