Bitchfest Wednesday Returns!!

Nothing fires me up more than someone hurting people I love.  The last few hours have been really stressful for absolutely no reason whatsoever and it pisses me off.  I have managed to cut a lot of stress and drama out of my life in the past year, and I just refuse to play the game.  That’s right.  I am taking my ball and I’m going home.  Suck it.

I am a really direct person.  I don’t do passive aggressive.  I’m not a combative person, but if you step on my toes, I will let you know.  I spent too many years letting someone walk over me to do that any more.  In my advanced age, I have decided that I just don’t have that kind of time.  Also, having a heart attack at 35 years old that was 100% stress induced makes the little things that much dumber.  It just isn’t worth it.  This has meant removing myself from toxic situations AND toxic people.  Even family.

Family is an interesting concept.  Somewhere along the way, we came up with the idea that you can’t get away from your family.  I call shenanigans on that business.  If people won’t respect you as a human being and show you the same respect they would show a stranger, I say they aren’t worth the time or stress.  Let me rewind for a second before I start WWIII and mention that I am NOT talking about my family (this time).  Repeat: If you are reading this and related to me, I am probably NOT talking about you.  I have divorced a few people who share my DNA over the years, I’m not going to lie.  But this isn’t about me.

Guilt is another interesting concept to me.  Families LOVE guilt.  “Make sure you come see Grandma… she may be dead soon!”  WTF is that about??  Shouldn’t I WANT to go see Grandma just for the pleasure of her company?  And if you have to guilt me to get me there, do you really want me there?  Social media has really made Passive Aggressive Guilting into a competitive sport.  People feel no shame in saying things to people online that they would never say to their face.  Cowards.  I don’t do guilt.  I have given it up for my health.  We all make choices in life that we have to live with.  Here’s a tip – If you can’t live with it, don’t do it.  I have made mistakes in my life (BOY, have I!), but I can’t live in a land of guilt.  I made a mistake and I have to life with the consequences of my own actions.  BUT, I also choose to learn from those mistakes.  The bottom line is this:  The first time, it is a mistake.  The second (and so on) time, it is a CHOICE.  So, I don’t do guilt.

But what really eats me up is someone else trying to guilt you into doing what they want.  Sorry folks, but that is called manipulation, and it is creepy and wrong.  Get over yourself.  Calling someone out on a public forum, knowing that anything they say in response makes THEM look like a jerk is a shitty thing to do.  Especially to your family.  And then to tell that person that THEY are disrespectful… suck it.  I don’t buy into this crap, but other people do.  People I love.  People who are too nice to call you out on your shit.  People who are massively hurt by the insinuation that not giving in to your demands makes them a bad person.

You want to see a mama bear come out and play?  Mess with someone I care about.  I can’t stand bullies.  I don’t care how old they are, or if they are related to you.  Bullying is cowardly and just plain wrong.  I will always stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves.  I think I learned that from my uncle.  The only reason bullies have power is that people allow them to keep that power.  People are allowed to get away with this kind of behavior because they are old, or they have some imagined place of power, but in the end, it is just plain wrong.  If someone doesn’t stand up to them, it will always be this way and then everybody loses.

I am a fair person.  I believe in treating others the way THEY want to be treated.  I believe in giving people a chance to show their true colors.  I also believe there is a time to cut your losses and move on to a happier place.  So, that is what I am doing.  I am not going to play games, and I am not going to see my loved ones in pain because they attempted for once to stand up to the guilt trips and manipulations and got attacked for it.  If more people stood up to the bullies of the world, we would probably have a much happier society.

What’s sick is that everyone agrees a kid being bullied at school is bad and shouldn’t be tolerated.  Most people understand that bullying in the workplace is not ok.  Why is it somehow acceptable for bullies to run amok because they are family?  Riddle me that, Batman.

So please take your drama elsewhere.  Stop defending the bullying behavior as somehow acceptable.  And OMG if I hear one more person playing the martyr role, I will vomit on their shoes.  Don’t tempt me, I will TOTALLY do it.  Just grow up and live your words.  Words like “family”, “love”, “generosity”, and “respect” don’t mean a damn thing if you aren’t walking the talk.

I promise my next post will be more entertaining, but it’s my blog and I honestly needed to vent.  And now I am back to the happy place.  Tomorrow will be a fantastic day and we will continue to live a genuine life while treating the people we care about better than random strangers off the street – because they deserve it.

As always, feel free to post your own Bitchfest Wednesday rant below in the comments section!

But this time, it was a little different.  Honestly, I didn’t feel any worse than I had on so many other occasions.  Just… off.  I wish I could describe it better than that, but that really is the best I can do.  It’s a lot like driving your car.  You drive it every day so you know what it is supposed to feel like.  When it doesn’t run like it should, you notice.  Someone else who didn’t drive it every day probably wouldn’t notice, but you do.  You know something just isn’t right.

Well, my body is the same way.  I am pretty in-tune with the goings on.  This was different, and it was weird.  Not super-alarming-weird, but weird nonetheless.

I can’t even really remember what time it was.  After dark, but before super late.  Normal ER hours in our household.  I had really been trying to avoid the ER since my insurance had run out, but when Paul suggested it, it seemed like the right thing to do.  I will give a shout out to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Katy, because their ER really never has a wait.  They are super nice too, even when you are there all the time like I was.  They took the normal info down, hooked me up to the EKG machine and did the vitals.  I got back into a triage room quickly, where they did the standard blood work.  It is also where I wait (sort of) patiently for the morphine to take the edge off the pain.  There is always pain.  It is just a matter of my tolerance for said pain.

Let me also say that I am not now, nor have I ever been a drug addict.  Being addicted to anything sounds really time-consuming and pretty expensive, and I just don’t have that kind of drive.  But, I can totally see why they keep that shit under lock and key.  Damn.

Anyway, once the pain meds took the edge off, I began to drift in and out.  Doctors bustle to and fro, but I don’t pay them much mind because it always takes them forever to come up with what to do next.  But, surprisingly, they came in after a relatively short period to tell us that they were going to keep me.  This is usually when Paul leaves to go take care of the pup, and I call him later to let him know what room I was in.  It was old hat, at this point.  He left and I laid around for a while, drifting in an out, until they came to move me to a different room in the ER.  They told me that they were short-staffed, so a nurse from the ICU was going to hang out with me until they had a room open up.  I really couldn’t be bothered with such information, as I was VERY sleepy.

When I woke up, the ICU nurse introduced herself and told me that they finally had a room ready for me.  It finally clicked that they were talking about a room in the ICU!  “Um… why?”  This was certainly NOT standard procedure for me.  I have been very sick, but never ICU sick.  This began to worry me.  She never really answered me.  She mentioned something about “increased cardiac enzymes” but that didn’t mean anything to me.

After a day or so in the ICU, a cardiologist I had never met before came in and explained that they were going to have to do a Heart Cath on me.  If you aren’t familiar with the term, it is basically where they go up through a vein in your leg to your heart to take a look under x-ray things to see what is going on.  He also explained that they could do the procedure in that hospital, but they couldn’t do anything invasive if something was wrong.  They didn’t do that kind of thing there.  Normally, they would transfer the patient to another hospital to do the procedure, but since I didn’t have insurance…

Mental Note: Never have a heart attack without medical insurance.

But, please note that at no point has anyone said the words “heart attack.”  Ever.  So, my dumb brain just keeps on questioning what they are really doing, and what’s the big deal.

It wasn’t until the next day that a doctor making rounds stopped in to my room (I was moved briefly to a regular room, but back to ICU when I couldn’t stop barfing) that I got my first inkling of what was really going on.  “Doctor, I just feel like CRAP!  Seriously, I usually feel a little better by now, but I am constantly sick!”  She looked at me like I was a little looney and said, “Well, you had a heart attack, right?  That usually takes some time to feel better.”

Floored.  I was absolutely floored.  Here’s the deal – Boatloads of pain meds mixed with anti-anxiety meds don’t lead to the quickest uptake.  Seriously. I didn’t get it.  Why can’t they just freaking tell you these things?

I would also like to mention that all of this was happening exactly one week before Paul and I were getting married!  We had a serious conversation that we might just have to get married in the ICU with my dress thrown over me!  Not great timing.

I won’t go into all of the boring details (probably too late, but oh well), but the point is that day really changed my life.  I found that my condition (so rare that none of the doctors I know had ever heard of it – except the cardiologist) was 100% caused by stress.  Long periods of emotional stress can cause your heart to balloon out and you can die (Google Broken Heart Syndrome aka Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy).  I had no heart disease, and no blockages.  I am extremely fortunate that the condition is 100% curable and manageable through stress-reducing activities.

I was released the Monday before my wedding (Saturday) straight from the ICU.  It was actually really funny, because NO ONE walks out of the ICU.  It took them hours to even process the discharge papers because they had never done it before.  What can I say?  I’m a freak!  We were married six days later and ended up returning to business as usual.  I can say that I have taken a lot of measures to reduce the amount of stress in my life, and I have stopped letting everything get to me.

Mostly.

During this month of Thanks, I am thankful for so many things, but mostly I am thankful that I am still here – snark and all.  I am also thankful that we decided to keep pushing to find out what was wrong, even when most of the doctors just thought I was nuts.  You know when things aren’t right – You have to be your own champion in these things.  Just keep pushing and eventually, you will find the answer.

Someone once said that time heals all wounds.  Whoever said this was a sucker.

Anyone who has ever been wounded, physically or emotionally, would tell you this isn’t exactly true.  Let’s look at this physically.  If you get a big gaping cut on your arm, what happens if you just allow time to take its toll?  If you manage somehow to not bleed to death, you will probably start to see horrible things happen, like infection, gangrene, and the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse.

Anyone with an ounce of first aid knowledge will tell you that you need to clean the wound and then manage to close it physically.  You will also need to attend to said wound along the path to recovery to make sure that the zombie thing doesn’t happen.  This is exactly what happens when we are emotionally wounded.  Simply waiting for things to get better will often lead to long periods of misery, and eventually zombification.

I have been working a lot with Misty lately to help her recovery from some pretty severe emotional wounds following her divorce, and it has taken me back to my own experience and how it could have been better.

Two years ago, I finalized my divorce about as quickly and painlessly as humanly possible.  This means that we didn’t have a long, drawn out court battle.  I mean, we literally had NOTHING, so it should be easy, right?  We were separated for 11 months before the papers were signed, so I really thought that all of my time alone had prepared me to move forward and be happy.

Boy, was that a sack of lies!

After the divorce, I immediately jumped back into the dating pool.  I thought I was ready.  I thought I had learned the lessons I needed to learn and that I would be able to make smarter decisions about who I shared my time with.  I was wrong.

First, let me say that I am the WORST dater alive.  I seriously should never be allowed to date.  It is probably a felony somewhere.  I have the worst taste in men, when left to my own devices.  I went out on a few dates, but after each encounter, I felt like shit.  I felt bad about myself, and that is not where I wanted to be.  I realized that the 5 guys I had gone out with were carbon copies of my exhusband.  Apparently, I have a type, and they all belonged to the ever-popular Massingil family of douches.

Then, I met someone.  Someone completely different.  Literally the polar opposite of my exhusband in every way.  He was funny, smart, and liked all the same geeky things that I have always liked, but rarely said because my stupid jock ex thought they were dumb.  He was totally not my type, in the sense that he treated me well, and really wanted to spend time with me (see, stupid).  But, I made a decision to give him a try, because obviously my choices were marred by years of neglect, abuse, and just not feeling that I was worth any more.

Nearly a year ago, I married that man.  He is amazing.  He has been loving, supportive, and the nicest person on the entire planet.

But, it still didn’t heal the wounds.  You see, time passed, and I had a great person in my life, but the old wounds were still there.  Since time is supposed to heal them, I tried (ha!) to ignore them and just focus on all the good in my life.  But, apparently, my psyche had other plans.

I started getting sick (again).  I couldn’t figure out why, but I was really sick.  Like in the hospital a minimum of once a month, and as often as three times a week, at one point.  I couldn’t figure out what was wrong!  Neither could the slew of doctors that I saw more regularly than members of my family.  I had every test known to man, but they still couldn’t figure it out.  “Maybe it’s an ulcer,” “Maybe you have cancer,” “Maybe…shit we just don’t know.”  Once these so-called experts had exhausted everything they could think of, they said, “Look, if there isn’t anything physical, maybe it’s mental.”  I kept telling them, “I’m not crazy!  I am sick!”  But to no avail.  And trust me when I say that I FULLY explored that option too.  Because when you are desperate, you will try just about anything. (More on that later)

And then, it happened.  I felt bad again.  But not really any worse than normal, but it seemed logical to hit up the ER again, just in case.  Turns out, that time, I had a heart attack.  A freaking heart attack at 35 years old.  The cardiologist told me that I had no heart disease, no blockages of any kind, but that STRESS had caused my condition.  Apparently, years of emotional trauma can, in fact, kill you.

Luckily, I didn’t die.  Since that happened, I have actually been extremely healthy, for a few simple reasons.  I had to let go of the emotional pain of the past.  It wasn’t a matter of time, but a matter of doing the work.  Actually looking at all that pain, and working through it.  It is hard.  So. Freaking. Hard.  It is examining the life you led, and not just blaming someone else for your situation, but truly looking at the role you played in getting into the situation.  It meant forgiving myself for my choices, but it also meant forgiving HIS choices.  Forgiveness is hard for me.  It always feels like losing.  But, the thing about forgiveness is that is isn’t for the other person, it is for you.  It doesn’t mean that what they did was OK, just that you aren’t going to hold on to that pain anymore.

Carrie Fisher, in her book Wishful Drinking, said that resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.  I think that is 100% true.  It wasn’t hurting him that I was holding on to the pain.  It was only hurting me.  And I don’t like being hurt.  Seriously, ask my mother.  She once laughed in the face of a doctor who was concerned that I might hurt myself and told him, “She would never do that.  I have never seen a child who put so much effort into NOT getting hurt.  There is no way she would ever inflict intentional pain on herself.”  Thanks, Mom!

But, I kind of did inflict pain on myself.  By allowing all of the old wounds to fester, I created a world of sickness and pain that was completely unnecessary.  If I would have just addressed the issues, I could have cut this whole thing short.  It took a lot of reflection, journaling out the pain, and really addressing the issues to get past it.

And today, nearly a year after my heart attack, I am healthier and happier than I have been, maybe ever.  I am able to devote my love and affection to the man I married, and we have a great relationship.  Sure, I still have things that make me anxious.  It’s a family trait, and that may never go away.  But I have been able to handle most of that without flying off the deep end. I am sure that the hospital system misses my frequent visits, but I swear once you have a heart attack with NO medical insurance, it will motivate you to get the hell better.

Misty has been challenged to get to know herself.  In essence, to date herself, before she gets back into the dating game.  She asked me, “Well, how long will this take?  Like six months?”  My answer to her was, “Until you are healed.  There is no time period.”  I kind of think she wants to stab me for that, but it really is true.  I hope that through this experiment, she can find the healing and closure that she needs that will allow her to move forward without the Louis Vuitton steamer trunks full of emotional baggage blocking her path to the future.

Photo Credit: ©Elizabeth Blessitt Photography

Tomorrow, I will be back to my own writing project.

And writing, I fear you have suffered the most.  I haven’t gone back to count, but I am pretty sure I have posted all of four blogs in 2012.  It is November 3rd and that is just plain pathetic.  And it sucks, because writing is probably the thing I think about the most, and do the least.  That and exercising [shudder].  Now, I have a book that is already 90% written.  It’s a good book.  Funny as hell, and probably guarantees that no one will ever hire me again.  Where is it, you ask?  Sitting on my business partner’s desk.  Why?  Well, she is a brilliant writer and edits shit for a living.  So she is editing my book.  The problem?  She’s in the same category as I am – Can’t focus.  But, we are really pushing ourselves to get things done for a change.  Hence the reason I am writing this today.

I am done with setting goals, because without deadlines, they are pretty pointless.  I have sat here for 10 months saying, “Oh, I should write about that time I visited the hospital” and “Man, that’s a great idea for another book” but have written absolutely nothing.  Unless I can’t sleep at my Mother-in-law’s house, which means I sit down and write a novel about all the things I need to do for this site, my books, craft projects, sewing… you get the picture.  Much ado about nothing, so to speak.

So, rather than setting a goal, I am borrowing a page from my friend Rowan and am setting my intention, instead.  Not what I would LIKE to do, but what I am going to do.  I am going to write every day.  It may not be long, and it may not be interesting, but I am going to do it anyway (Day 1 – Check!).  And I am going to figure a few things out.  And maybe make some mistakes along the way.  Doesn’t matter.  The only way to succeed is to just start doing it.  Writing for myself, my business, and even collaborating with my brilliant partner on a new topic (more to come on that very soon).

So feel free to chime in if you have any topics of interest.  I have some exciting things coming up in the next few weeks, so I am really looking forward to putting that out there.

Hopefully this picture will tide you over until I can get a real post together. Meet Beyonce Jr (also known as Rihanna

(She is known as Rhianna because she is like Beyonce, but not quite as big)

If you have no idea what I am talking about, check out The Bloggess and the original big metal chicken.

Madison: Nee, I love you more than the birds and the trees and flowers and butterflies and God and Heaven and Jesus!

My Sister: Madison! Don’t say that!!

Me: Shut up! I win!

All those years of bribery and competitive aunting have totally paid off! Nee for the win!!

It’s the beginning of another year.  And thank God for that!  I don’t know about you, but 2011 was probably the weirdest year to date… for me, anyway.  It was simultaneously the best of times, and the worst of times.  Damn you, Dickens… you always pull this shit on me!  I promise that I will not do a 3 million word recap of the past year, but it went a little something like this:

• Got engaged!!  (Plus)
• Was in the hospital at least once a month for the whole freaking year (Minus)
• Left the crappiest job in the history of forever! (Plus)
• Left a job = ummm… where’s all that money I used to make?? (Minus)
• Got to plan a wedding to my sweetheart (Break even… Tons of fun, but also very stressful and expensive)
• Had a heart attack at the ripe old age of 35.  Oh yeah.  That totally happened. (Massive suck fest)
• Got married to the sweetest guy in the world less than a week after said heart attack in a super fun wedding (Win!)
• Holidays… my favorite time of the year, but without my brother & sister and their families, it was a little sad.

[End Scene]

So, yeah.  Needless to say, I have been too pooped to really do much in the way of writing, which really brings me down.  But, in an attempt to set GOALS, rather than resolutions this year, I have decided to devote more time to writing.  Or bitching via blog… take your pick.  My goal is to post at least once a week, even if I don’t have much to say.  I will at least put up some kick-ass pictures, or a dog in a dress, or something random to make you go, “WTF?”

So back to the obscure Jedi reference – It turns out that all the medical crap I have been dealing with for the past two years has to do with an undiagnosed cardiac condition (Thanks a lot, Dr. Hottie, and Dr. Not-a-Hottie for all your help… jackasses), and not me losing my mind or not being able to cope with life.  I guess it is a good thing to check off “Be invited to a psych hospital for a short visit” on the old bucket list.  Character building, don’t you know.  Anyway, turns out, I had a condition called Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy, or the aptly named “Broken Heart Syndrome”.  Apparently, in Japanese, that is the name for an Octopus Trap, since your heart balloons out weirdly and looks a bit like an Octopus head.  [shrugs]  This can come on after periods of prolonged emotional stress, like the death of a loved one, or the loss of a relationship.  In the past few years, I have had my fair share of stress, for sure.  But, after an extremely expensive medical stay, I was told that the condition is completely treatable via medication.  Score!

7 days after the heart attack, I married the knight in rusty red armor.  After months of planning and re-planning the wedding, we finally settled on a “Mexican restaurant party room” theme, and I think we nailed it!  80 or so of our closest friends and family joined us as we said I do.  The wedding started off very elegantly, with the bride and her party emerging proudly from the men’s room (hey it was twice the size of the ladies’ room – don’t judge me!), to shuffle awkwardly down the make-shift aisle, to our altar… in front of the tiki bar.  Also – beware – When you book a JP online, sometimes they feel they need to make the ceremony funny.  Mostly, it was just awkward.  But, it didn’t matter.  We got to stare lovingly at each other, say the words, and do the deal.  Of all my weddings, this was my favorite.  Ok, so I only had one other one, but when they groom actually wants to be there… it really just makes the day that much more amazing

Also, ladies, if you want to look thinner on your wedding day, take a little tip from me – Have the largest wedding party on the face of the planet!  It totally takes 75 lbs right off you!  Don’t believe me?  Check this out:

I also highly recommend, after pictures, changing into a track suit.  I did.  I guarantee you I was the most envied girl at that party!  Comfy clothes and a veil are totally the way to go.

But, now comes the hard part… Life.

As I already mentioned, I don’t plan to set any resolutions this year.  If I did, I would have already broken them all, and it isn’t even mid-January.  I have set goals, though.  Things that I want to accomplish, and a plan on how to do those very things.  My goals for this year are very simple – Get physically and financially healthy, and work on things that I love.  Those things include my writing, photography, and my marriage.  P and I have decided to start the year off right by getting financially in shape.  Truth be told, I have been saggy in this area for, well, forever.  I don’t really think I was ever taught what to do with money.  If I am being totally honest, money scares the shit out of me.  I usually ignore it, hoping that it will go away – And it does.  But never in a good way.  We are going to take a page out of Dave Ramsey’s book and work on getting financially fit and trim.  Please pray for our souls.

As for the physical part, I am happy to announce that as of 2012, I am down 45 lbs from my heaviest weight.  That is the good news.  The bad news is that it has taken about 5 years to get here.  Stupid weight has always been a struggle for me… ever since that fateful day when Mother Nature came knocking on my door.  Bitch.  The doctor wants me to work on losing at least another 30 before we start a family… so I should be there before I am 50.  But, in all seriousness, having a heart attack at 35 really is an eye opener.  I was fortunate to find out through a Heart Cath (Google it) that I didn’t suffer any permanent damage and have no heart disease or clogged arteries, or anything like that.  I really want to take this year to get those 30 lbs off.  If another 50 want to join them, I won’t complain.  My plan includes those radical ideas of eating healthier and moving more.  I know… I never bought into the hype, but they do seem to actually work.

So, fair readers… if any of you still exist after my many months of silence, I would love to hear your goals for the year… or what kind of dogs in dresses you would like to see… really anything would be super.  Comments are always appreciated, welcomed, encouraged, and sometimes – coerced through bribery.  I’m not above it.  Just sayin…

OH!  I almost forgot… Paul got me this as a stocking stuffer for Christmas:

Again, I am not above bribery, so one lucky reader (aka COMMENTER) may just receive their very own Cuddly Bantha (if you aren’t a Girl Geek, that is the second little guy on the left)!!!  That comment button looks just a little more appealing now, doesn’t it?

*Wedding photography provided by the lovely and talented Claire Kennedy Photography*

PS – I have also been asked to start pod-casting, or video blogging, or something to that effect for both this site and for a new project, where I translate for my dog Lucy, since she doesn’t speak English very well.  Let me know if you are interested in seeing such nonsense.

I would have never counted myself among the super popular kids in school, but I had a lot of friends.  I went to the same schools for 12 years, so throughout the years, I circled around and was friends with nearly everyone at some point.  Still wouldn’t click off “popular” on a survey.  I also grew up knowing that I was a pretty smart cookie, even if I wasn’t in every one of the smarty-pants classes.  But, I got by.  High school wasn’t always the best of times, but  it wasn’t always the worst of times, either (See, Ms. Swalin – I read that book!  At least the first page).  Growing up is tough at the best of times.  Why do things that make it even harder?

Back to my original hackle-raising point: These stupid slogan t-shirts, while meant to look cool, or perhaps help you fit into the “it” crowd are really setting us (women) back.  A lot.  “Oh honey, don’t worry about passing the eighth grade!  You are so pretty you will never need to know how to balance a checkbook!”  And she won’t.  Because no one learns that anymore.

I started this blog, Self Saving Princess, so that women and girls alike could be empowered to stop waiting for the handsome, yet often terribly tardy princes to come and save them.  Slip on a pair of running shoes… shimmy down the drain pipe on some sheets… and get the hell out of there!  Save yourselves!  Half the time the Prince is a dim-wit anyway, and who needs that kind of stress?

I, personally, would rather be empowered to do my homework (aka LEARNING), and have self-confidence rather than prance around in a little bubble of “pretty” that is supposed to get me through the rest of my life!  BTW: The lack of learning leads to brain rot… which invariably offers a fair comparison between your brain and a box of rocks.  PS – The rocks are smarter.  Oops… I guess that was a spoiler alert.

So, my advice is that moms stop BUYING these silly shirts.  I get the value of a snarky slogan t-shirt and my closet is filled with them.  However – Going back to just being a pretty face?  How many years have women struggled with their own civil rights and the right to a harassment free workplace where she could actually become the boss based on her accomplishments and merit?

Here’s a hint to those who want to “pretty” their way to the top – Pretty may land you a job, but you will instantly be seen as incompetent once they realize you can’t DO the job.  The second that happens, you will hit that glass ceiling so fast you will be picking glass out of your frosted tips for the next 18 years.

You rarely see a high school age boy wearing a t-shirt that says “Too Handsome for Homework.”  Why is that?  Because boys are expected to learn as they go, marry the pretty but rock-headed wife, and take all the cool corporate jobs?  I call shenanigans on that mess.  Girls in this country have every freedom freely awarded to boys.  But we have to work harder for the recognition, fight harder for our sports to count, and then we have the dishonor of being paid less that what a man in the same job is paid… all in the name of a man taking care of his family.

I have always been a primary bread-winner for my family.  Both when I was married and supporting my deadbeat frog, and then again when I became a single working woman trying to make it on her own.  Now, I am a self-employed person engaged to another self-employed person – We HAVE to make ends meet.  How could I do that if I let my looks turn me into a totally self-absorbed space cadet??  The answer?  I couldn’t.  I don’t want to sit around and hope that some big, strong, rich man will save me from the tower so I can live happily ever after… staring at my own reflection in some big creepy Disney mirror somewhere.

Being a self saving princess means being smart, and not afraid to SHOW how smart you are.  It means taking pride in yourself and your own abilities, and never letting someone tell you that you are less than.  The prettiest girls I know are the ones who are smart, confident, and sassy.  They are gorgeous inside and out because their value shines like gold on a crisp Spring morning.  They aren’t afraid of a little hard work and understand that is how you get where you want to be.

I will happily prance off my soapbox now and await the multitude of comments from mom’s who are reliving their uncool teen angst years through their tween daughters who will think that I need to get a chill pill and probably some Botox.  Because I have always LONGED for a face that looks both dead and surprised all at the same time *snark*.

So flame on.  I will take intelligent, witty, funny, and sassy over pretty and super popular every. day. of. the. week.

(PS – Ever notice the dude wearing the “Too Kool for Skool” skater t-shirt also works at the gas station?  Strangely enough… he has been working there since YOU were in high school.  Think about it.)

Saturday, I went to go look at a car I found on Craigslist that looked like it might be a good deal.  When we got there, however, the car was a piece of crap.  Covered in dents and scratches, the racing tires gave it away that someone had been drag racing a 2004 Chrysler Sebring.  Stupid.  I decided I was far too lazy to try to sell my car, as I have no intention of dealing with people from Craigslist.  So, we took the car to CarMax to get an estimate.

While I was waiting, I went ahead and test drove a small, affordable car.  Totally not something that I would have ever picked out.  Ever.  But, the price was right and it was a lot newer than anything I could find online.

So, I bought my first new-to-me car, ever.  I am also taking on my first car payment ever, which kind of sucks.  It is a pretty cheap one, though, so I think I will manage.

It’s just strange to do something so grown up. It makes me feel like an actual adult.  An odd feeling, being as I am months away from turning 35.  I always thought there would be a day when I would actually feel like an adult, but that age has always slipped into another position, as I neared it.  I still feel like we sit at the “kids’ table” at Thanksgiving!  I guess to my parents’ generation, we will always be kids.  Even when we are old enough to vote, drink, have kids, and own a crippling mortgage.  I guess since I have never done those last two, I hadn’t crossed the line.

Somehow, the car note has drug the line back to me.  Weird.

So… here she is.  I haven’t known her long enough to give her a name yet.  Suggestions are appreciated via comments:

2008 Chevy Cobalt