If ever there was time when I wished I was someone else, it is when I get embarrassed, which is very frequently. Why do I act this way? Why can't anything be simple? Sometimes I just want to disappear when I do dumb ass stuff. In the moment when I'm saying this shit or doing it, it all seems perfectly fine and reasonable. The expressions on people's faces is sometimes a tip off but other times my own common sense kicks in even as I am doing it. A voice in my head says, don't do that, stop it, stop it but I just don't listen.
Everything that comes as a natural impulse to me ends up fucking me. I don't trust any of my impulses. When I let my guard down, it never turns out good. Is it any wonder I spend so much time by myself.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
Crying Part 1
I don't know how men feel but I imagine their hormones keep them on some sort of roller coaster ride every month, I know mine do. This last Friday night at work, I just could not keep my composure. Fortunately for me, I have a job where I CAN silently or violently weep in relative privacy. I wish I could say this is a recent trend, that my approaching change of life has brought on all this high drama and misdemeanors but that truly would be a grand lie.
"Don't cry" said with barely hidden contempt & hate. "Quit crying" said with the last straw of patience. This topic is so embarrassing and hits so close to home, my edit button is flashing the warning lights and screaming "Abort Abort"!!! I've have always been a crier. My grandma, my dad, my mom, they all loved to tell me to quit crying. What is so fucking bad about crying anyway? If someone feels bad enough to cry, does telling them to stop really help your cause. It can. You can scare them into quitting, that usually works. I get it too, crying can be irritating especially if you don't give a shit about the person doing the crying. Things that make you go hmmmmm....
This I know is true for me. Crying is a release of stress and tension. Frustration often leads to crying. And most of all crying has kept me from telling most of my employers to Fuck Off. I'm telling you this edit button is strong right now. Sometimes crying is all you can do. And for me, if I can't feel anything strong enough about you that could make me cry, I may have given up on you. My feelings of love and sadness are so closely tied together they are impossible to separate.
All my life it has been beaten into my brain that crying is a sign of weakness but I think crying is hope. In order to love someone, you have to be vulnerable. Crying shows an open heart.
I used to think that sex and true love went side by side. I now truly believe love and tenderness rarely have much to do with sex. Sex is all lust and selfishness. Love is adoration and love of time spent together and if someone is inspired with enough emotion and love to get upset enough to cry over you, don't shut them down, look at their open heart. They've just given something you'll never see from 99% of the people you'll ever encounter.
The one who is willing to cry over you is truly the one who will love you and protect you so nobody will make you cry.
I will come back to this but the edit button is too strong.
"Don't cry" said with barely hidden contempt & hate. "Quit crying" said with the last straw of patience. This topic is so embarrassing and hits so close to home, my edit button is flashing the warning lights and screaming "Abort Abort"!!! I've have always been a crier. My grandma, my dad, my mom, they all loved to tell me to quit crying. What is so fucking bad about crying anyway? If someone feels bad enough to cry, does telling them to stop really help your cause. It can. You can scare them into quitting, that usually works. I get it too, crying can be irritating especially if you don't give a shit about the person doing the crying. Things that make you go hmmmmm....
This I know is true for me. Crying is a release of stress and tension. Frustration often leads to crying. And most of all crying has kept me from telling most of my employers to Fuck Off. I'm telling you this edit button is strong right now. Sometimes crying is all you can do. And for me, if I can't feel anything strong enough about you that could make me cry, I may have given up on you. My feelings of love and sadness are so closely tied together they are impossible to separate.
All my life it has been beaten into my brain that crying is a sign of weakness but I think crying is hope. In order to love someone, you have to be vulnerable. Crying shows an open heart.
I used to think that sex and true love went side by side. I now truly believe love and tenderness rarely have much to do with sex. Sex is all lust and selfishness. Love is adoration and love of time spent together and if someone is inspired with enough emotion and love to get upset enough to cry over you, don't shut them down, look at their open heart. They've just given something you'll never see from 99% of the people you'll ever encounter.
The one who is willing to cry over you is truly the one who will love you and protect you so nobody will make you cry.
I will come back to this but the edit button is too strong.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Balance off
So here I am again writing. Less than 48 hours after I've started this blog I'm writing my 3rd entry. Let's jump out of my tight wearing kindergarten class and join my "adulthood" shall we? Now could I have planned a better metaphor than what just happened? I hesitated typing and looked down at my hand. I've been wearing a cheapo ring on my left middle finger for a weeks now, every since I bought it. Nothing special, pretty fake stones that go all around in different colors. I believe the fine craftsmen at Target's third world country jewelery supplier made this ring. But as I was admiring it I noticed it. There was no doubt it would happen. Time would make sure it did. One of the crappy little colored stones is now gone. This innocent distraction that twirled on my finger now only pisses me off. Despite all the other lovely ones left all I notice is the one that is missing. How FUCKING typical is that for me?? Not that my constant wearing made one of the little glass gems come unglued but now I don't want to wear it anymore. You would be hard pressed to even notice it was gone. I surely would have to point it out to you. By the way, Molly is really snoring. Just a minute ago she was running and trying to bark in her sleep. If I could bring my pack of dogs, Molly and Maude with me everywhere, I wouldn't be writing this blog. Undiagnosed ADD just kicked in and we're back....
Since my knee has been bothering me so much I've noticed that things have gotten out of balance in my life again. Usually I live in the physical in a lot of ways. My job is merely moving things from one place to another and making wiping motions. This is cleaning. Think about it the next time you're doing some household chores. I listen to music (old music, which I'm getting tired of), I watch TV (mostly cartoons now since there is nothing new on TV I like), and of course listen to podcasts. But these are not singular activities, I am moving at the same time. This might be doing dishes, working on crafts, walking the dogs but my mind is occupied while my body is moving. Lately, however, this body doesn't want to move. The knee is really squawking and making a lot of noise. Guess who's picking up the slack? The whole noggin is getting quite a work out lately. The brain, she is not content to do solitary duty, she drags the emotions along for the ride. For you see, this old broad is just barely keeping her shit together and it's been this way for as long as I can remember. The scale has tipped.
You see, I don't feel like I own my life. I never have. First I was the property of Dave and Ruth and when I turned 18, they signed the rights over to me. Property ownership is a daunting task. First you are giddy with excitement, look at all the cool stuff I can put in it. YES, I'm talking about boys and their, you know, dingily dangles. For awhile I couldn't afford the good "furniture" so I was picking a lot of it off the side of the road, if you know what I mean?? I'd get it home and it would be comfortable at first but by the time morning came, I saw why it was in the garbage. Worn out and not nearly as pretty as I thought. But wait, we'll talk more about the early days of promiscuity later. But that reminds me....
Sometimes I feel like I'm the crazy one and some days I feel like I'm the only sane person in the world. If you don't react to the barrage of crap life throws at your doorstep, you're the fucked up one, not me, you. And you think that by rationalizing fucking strangers on a regular basis is normal to distract yourself from your miserable life changes anything, go ahead but you'll never sit on my couch or my toilet. Being a whore in your 20's is one thing. Being a whore in your 50's ain't nothing but sad. Please refer to my previous blog to understand this outburst.
I'm starting to think that being nice is way overrated. I don't mean become an asshole. I get a lot of genuine pleasure when I think my words, my attitude can help somebody else. But this false face we strut around with all the time in order to fit into civilized society, maybe it's to blame. Maybe if people were allowed to vent a little a long the way we wouldn't have dumb fucks blowing themselves up and teenagers going on shooting sprees in their high school libraries. Fucking rules. They are everywhere. Guess who in my life are avid rule followers....I, on the other hand, revel in the shades of gray. Boring myself again.
Alright, my impulse is to delete all this but I'm not going to. It's not cohesive and it just a perfect example of being off balance.
Since my knee has been bothering me so much I've noticed that things have gotten out of balance in my life again. Usually I live in the physical in a lot of ways. My job is merely moving things from one place to another and making wiping motions. This is cleaning. Think about it the next time you're doing some household chores. I listen to music (old music, which I'm getting tired of), I watch TV (mostly cartoons now since there is nothing new on TV I like), and of course listen to podcasts. But these are not singular activities, I am moving at the same time. This might be doing dishes, working on crafts, walking the dogs but my mind is occupied while my body is moving. Lately, however, this body doesn't want to move. The knee is really squawking and making a lot of noise. Guess who's picking up the slack? The whole noggin is getting quite a work out lately. The brain, she is not content to do solitary duty, she drags the emotions along for the ride. For you see, this old broad is just barely keeping her shit together and it's been this way for as long as I can remember. The scale has tipped.
You see, I don't feel like I own my life. I never have. First I was the property of Dave and Ruth and when I turned 18, they signed the rights over to me. Property ownership is a daunting task. First you are giddy with excitement, look at all the cool stuff I can put in it. YES, I'm talking about boys and their, you know, dingily dangles. For awhile I couldn't afford the good "furniture" so I was picking a lot of it off the side of the road, if you know what I mean?? I'd get it home and it would be comfortable at first but by the time morning came, I saw why it was in the garbage. Worn out and not nearly as pretty as I thought. But wait, we'll talk more about the early days of promiscuity later. But that reminds me....
Sometimes I feel like I'm the crazy one and some days I feel like I'm the only sane person in the world. If you don't react to the barrage of crap life throws at your doorstep, you're the fucked up one, not me, you. And you think that by rationalizing fucking strangers on a regular basis is normal to distract yourself from your miserable life changes anything, go ahead but you'll never sit on my couch or my toilet. Being a whore in your 20's is one thing. Being a whore in your 50's ain't nothing but sad. Please refer to my previous blog to understand this outburst.
I'm starting to think that being nice is way overrated. I don't mean become an asshole. I get a lot of genuine pleasure when I think my words, my attitude can help somebody else. But this false face we strut around with all the time in order to fit into civilized society, maybe it's to blame. Maybe if people were allowed to vent a little a long the way we wouldn't have dumb fucks blowing themselves up and teenagers going on shooting sprees in their high school libraries. Fucking rules. They are everywhere. Guess who in my life are avid rule followers....I, on the other hand, revel in the shades of gray. Boring myself again.
Alright, my impulse is to delete all this but I'm not going to. It's not cohesive and it just a perfect example of being off balance.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Self
In my previous blog I touched upon self-esteem briefly. I am here to tell you that the biggest sad sack in the room can still have a giant ego. Don't believe it, here I am, waving "Hello". This is not to say I am confident in all topics. Since I am a girl, math does make feel oogy. And science takes a patience I will never possess. You get the idea. But I can sit in a room and gradually, systematically, rip apart every person in there, in my mind. Did I hear a gasp of shock? First censor, my first response is "Fuck you!" Second response is "Oh I'm just kidding". Third response is as follows:
My earliest memories of childhood are just glimpses at this point, the youngest being 5 years old. The first things that pop into my head was being in kindergarten and the tights I wore under my dress were cream colored with some sort of ribbing but they didn't quite fit, a little too small. I was always tugging at them, the crotch (I hate that word) always hung too low. So my mom's solution was for me to wear my underwear on the outside of the tights instead. So unless you were rolling around on the floor, which I was, nobody would know. Big surprise, some kid said "Hey you got your underwear on the outside". It wasn't all that traumatic. I just remember it. I do recall the contempt in the kid's voice though. Besides that there are little memories like the sour smell of a 1 pint carton of milk and how the paper carton broke down so quickly when you pressed your mouth on it over and over. In that same vein, the pure joy of when the cafeteria had chocolate milk for the day. I remember running to the door when the recess bell went off, trying to be the first in line, falling, sliding and cutting my right leg and knee and walking down the hall with my leg caked in gravel and blood dripping down to my ankle. And the very next day, doing the EXACT same thing. But to describe these first few years of school, not much stands out. Things really changed around 8-10 years old, I do remember that I suddenly started worrying about school more and more. Gym class became an increasingly dread-filled experience. And the biggest thing that stands out is how all my quirks and short-comings became fodder for my classmates. "Don't you have any other clothes?" "Carrot top!!" "Your hair is on fire" And who can forget the classic gym class humiliation, say it with me, getting picked last or 2nd to last for teams. You'll never know how many times I survived on the "AT LEAST I wasn't picked last" Come with me won't you while I paint a picture of myself in 1973. Messy carrot red hair, lime green polyester stretch pants (homemade no less by my grandma with a pleat sewn into the front of the pants), peach colored sweat shirt, and tennis shoes from your local K-Mart. Not exactly a princess smelling of cotton candy and sunshine, huh?
I'm going to pause from this description to say, I get no pleasure from describing the previous. It still makes me feel out of control and vulnerable and to retell it as an adult, ashamed too. Ashamed that it still causes me enough grief that I am writing about it now. That being said...
This time period is when I remember the verbal onslaughts starting. Nobody ever beat me up and it didn't happen even every day. This what I can say for certain, my parents never had my back. They never stood up for me. They never told me I was good enough just the way I was and they never told me how to deal with it except to say "Just ignore them". I am here to tell you, playing opossum doesn't work. Silence to a child is little more than a reason to fill the chasm with their clever taunts and insults. Silence makes you a weirdo. Silence makes you invisible until that's all you want to do is disappear. To my adult brain, this all seems melodramatic. But to the child's mind who looks to the parents to navigate them and protect them in this world, it felt like being thrown to the proverbial wolves. As you would expect, the bullied adopt the bullies' techniques.
I did not become a bully. I did judge you in my mind. I judged you harshly. And every new person who was mean to me was just that much more evidence that there was something wrong with me but I could also find plenty wrong with you. And the mind that can torture you with memories can also provide you with a terrific fantasy life. More and more I found myself pulling away from the people who I craved to belong. I created this idea of what a successful life would entail. So anything I deemed as ordinary was eliminated. Having kids was ordinary and why would I have kids so they could hate me too? Why do I want to create another creature just like myself? The idea of reliving my childhood through another person sounded like torture. Reliving these thoughts is painful. There were many other directions in life I eliminated but it just feels like details now.
This is the kind of random thing that has happened to me as an adult that keeps these feelings going. Once I was walking down the highway to get to my boyfriend's job to pick up MY fucking car. I was in my very early twenties. A small child difference in weight. I was wearing baggy sweatpants after working a shift waiting tables at Pizza Hut and some car full of guys going down the road yelled out the windows at me "Hey Fat ass!" "Why don't you join Weight Watchers?" "Hey (insert random fatty insult here)" This hit and run caught me off guard, made me upset, and cry to my boyfriend where I was picking up MY CAR (did I mention that) and he told me to get over it. The more I tried to convince him that I was wronged, the madder he got at me. The madder he got a me....
Here's an example of something that happened within the last two years. I work in a hospital and I used to work the day shift. Like a factory, we had break times and for some reason the supervisors encouraged us to all go to the cafeteria and take our breaks together. I think it was so they could keep an eye us and know if we were taking too long of breaks. As is natural when that many women are crammed at the same table will do, conversations would develop. Unfortunately the topics drove me crazy. One lady would come down and spew the same bitches about the nurses everyday. One lady would recreate the last two hours of work for us. One lady would talk about her fucked up daughter and her fucked up grandchildren and all the bad decisions they made in life. And one lady like to run to management whenever I said the word Fuck. So when I could no longer take the barrage of crazy and getting in trouble for cussing, I excused myself from this break table and went somewhere else in the hospital. And this is the response I got. These things were said to my face. "What, do you think you're better than us?" "How are we supposed to feel since you're not coming to break with us anymore?" This is the reaction I got from women raging in age from 40 to 62 years old. My head hurts now. FUCK YOU Norma. (That's the lady who tattled on me).
I tell you all this not so you will look at me as a victim or feel sorry for me, not at all. These are the sort of human interactions that still fucking confuse me. I want to call them all out on their crazy. I want to tell them to keep their opinions to themselves. My brain tries so hard to make sense of all this stuff and sometimes, the only way I can survive is to go back into my head and put them down. And on the outside, just ignore it.
My earliest memories of childhood are just glimpses at this point, the youngest being 5 years old. The first things that pop into my head was being in kindergarten and the tights I wore under my dress were cream colored with some sort of ribbing but they didn't quite fit, a little too small. I was always tugging at them, the crotch (I hate that word) always hung too low. So my mom's solution was for me to wear my underwear on the outside of the tights instead. So unless you were rolling around on the floor, which I was, nobody would know. Big surprise, some kid said "Hey you got your underwear on the outside". It wasn't all that traumatic. I just remember it. I do recall the contempt in the kid's voice though. Besides that there are little memories like the sour smell of a 1 pint carton of milk and how the paper carton broke down so quickly when you pressed your mouth on it over and over. In that same vein, the pure joy of when the cafeteria had chocolate milk for the day. I remember running to the door when the recess bell went off, trying to be the first in line, falling, sliding and cutting my right leg and knee and walking down the hall with my leg caked in gravel and blood dripping down to my ankle. And the very next day, doing the EXACT same thing. But to describe these first few years of school, not much stands out. Things really changed around 8-10 years old, I do remember that I suddenly started worrying about school more and more. Gym class became an increasingly dread-filled experience. And the biggest thing that stands out is how all my quirks and short-comings became fodder for my classmates. "Don't you have any other clothes?" "Carrot top!!" "Your hair is on fire" And who can forget the classic gym class humiliation, say it with me, getting picked last or 2nd to last for teams. You'll never know how many times I survived on the "AT LEAST I wasn't picked last" Come with me won't you while I paint a picture of myself in 1973. Messy carrot red hair, lime green polyester stretch pants (homemade no less by my grandma with a pleat sewn into the front of the pants), peach colored sweat shirt, and tennis shoes from your local K-Mart. Not exactly a princess smelling of cotton candy and sunshine, huh?
I'm going to pause from this description to say, I get no pleasure from describing the previous. It still makes me feel out of control and vulnerable and to retell it as an adult, ashamed too. Ashamed that it still causes me enough grief that I am writing about it now. That being said...
This time period is when I remember the verbal onslaughts starting. Nobody ever beat me up and it didn't happen even every day. This what I can say for certain, my parents never had my back. They never stood up for me. They never told me I was good enough just the way I was and they never told me how to deal with it except to say "Just ignore them". I am here to tell you, playing opossum doesn't work. Silence to a child is little more than a reason to fill the chasm with their clever taunts and insults. Silence makes you a weirdo. Silence makes you invisible until that's all you want to do is disappear. To my adult brain, this all seems melodramatic. But to the child's mind who looks to the parents to navigate them and protect them in this world, it felt like being thrown to the proverbial wolves. As you would expect, the bullied adopt the bullies' techniques.
I did not become a bully. I did judge you in my mind. I judged you harshly. And every new person who was mean to me was just that much more evidence that there was something wrong with me but I could also find plenty wrong with you. And the mind that can torture you with memories can also provide you with a terrific fantasy life. More and more I found myself pulling away from the people who I craved to belong. I created this idea of what a successful life would entail. So anything I deemed as ordinary was eliminated. Having kids was ordinary and why would I have kids so they could hate me too? Why do I want to create another creature just like myself? The idea of reliving my childhood through another person sounded like torture. Reliving these thoughts is painful. There were many other directions in life I eliminated but it just feels like details now.
This is the kind of random thing that has happened to me as an adult that keeps these feelings going. Once I was walking down the highway to get to my boyfriend's job to pick up MY fucking car. I was in my very early twenties. A small child difference in weight. I was wearing baggy sweatpants after working a shift waiting tables at Pizza Hut and some car full of guys going down the road yelled out the windows at me "Hey Fat ass!" "Why don't you join Weight Watchers?" "Hey (insert random fatty insult here)" This hit and run caught me off guard, made me upset, and cry to my boyfriend where I was picking up MY CAR (did I mention that) and he told me to get over it. The more I tried to convince him that I was wronged, the madder he got at me. The madder he got a me....
Here's an example of something that happened within the last two years. I work in a hospital and I used to work the day shift. Like a factory, we had break times and for some reason the supervisors encouraged us to all go to the cafeteria and take our breaks together. I think it was so they could keep an eye us and know if we were taking too long of breaks. As is natural when that many women are crammed at the same table will do, conversations would develop. Unfortunately the topics drove me crazy. One lady would come down and spew the same bitches about the nurses everyday. One lady would recreate the last two hours of work for us. One lady would talk about her fucked up daughter and her fucked up grandchildren and all the bad decisions they made in life. And one lady like to run to management whenever I said the word Fuck. So when I could no longer take the barrage of crazy and getting in trouble for cussing, I excused myself from this break table and went somewhere else in the hospital. And this is the response I got. These things were said to my face. "What, do you think you're better than us?" "How are we supposed to feel since you're not coming to break with us anymore?" This is the reaction I got from women raging in age from 40 to 62 years old. My head hurts now. FUCK YOU Norma. (That's the lady who tattled on me).
I tell you all this not so you will look at me as a victim or feel sorry for me, not at all. These are the sort of human interactions that still fucking confuse me. I want to call them all out on their crazy. I want to tell them to keep their opinions to themselves. My brain tries so hard to make sense of all this stuff and sometimes, the only way I can survive is to go back into my head and put them down. And on the outside, just ignore it.
Waiting
A good chunk of my life has been spent waiting. Waiting to be noticed, waiting to be loved, waiting to be happy. And what has all this hanging around gotten me? Bitter for one thing. Disillusioned for another. No further along from when I started. So just what keeps me stuck here?
Let's start with the fact that I am a girl and there is a long standing tradition, rule if you will, that girls never make the first move. It is our lot in life to sit along the sidelines like some never ending dance, forever sitting in a folding chair along the wall of our high school gymnasium. So here we are at the dance dressed up, hair piled high, make-up just right, and no takers. Then what? What does a girl do when fate has not supplied her with the honey for her generation? I've been on this planet nearly 5 decades. My looks and the current trend have never yet matched. Didn't I mention being pretty is the highest standard of success for any girl? It is so ingrained into my subconscious that it doesn't feel like it even needed to be said. Oh, don't get me wrong there is a place for the less fortunate looking girl but she is destined to be the breeder, the workhorse of the family, always supporting the husband without a thought for herself, the happiness of her family as her only reward. But I am not a saint or a martyr either. I have the attitude of a super model with the looks of a farmer's wife combined with the aspirations of a man all wrapped with the self-esteem of a frequently kicked puppy dog. A puppy with ADD that is.
Even before I ever even worried about getting married, I was the kid next door beating on your door "Hey you want to come out and do something?" And realistically that's how I still make my friends. I see somebody and just keep beating on their front door until they let me in or they call the cops. Just ask somebody I know named Vera, he'll attest to this fact. In a lot of ways this worked until I was 10 years old and then somebody changed the rules. All the crap my parents had been presenting to me as fact for years, suddenly they're telling me, remember all that fun stuff like Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, yeah, that was a bunch of bullshit and why haven't you figured that on your own by now? Life is hard, quit being so silly, and grow up. And growing up for a girl means shutting down all your natural impulses to be the center of attention, asking for what you want, and the willingness to be embarrassed by your mistakes. Suddenly this very clumsy goofy girl is being told pull in the reins and be worried about your clothes, your hair, your behavior. Okay, I understand this the natural maturation process but not to be given the skills to make these changes makes me call FOUL. To this brain, this unsophisticated mind, all I heard was you're not good enough just the way you are and you better hope somebody notices you as a diamond in the ruff. So by 12 years old, I was no longer a person, I was a girl.
The next best thing to getting the cute boy in your class was being friends with the girl who did and this was my lot in life for many years. God, what a fucking drag, however, being the sidekick did make it necessary to develop a personality, a trait many go to their grave without ever achieving. This is not to say I did not participate in the "Oh my God did you see what she was wearing today?" game. Oh no, I was just as judgemental as the gorgeous girls. You know there's a hierarchy even amongst the losers. Anyway, I'm starting to bore myself. None of this new stuff. All this background to say the following.
As of say 2 years ago I decided to join the 1990's and check into this new finagled thing called the interwebs and not just for shopping but actual computer to computer virtual interaction. And what did I find? A whole new group of neighbors where I could pound on their door and say "Hey, do you want to come out and do something?" Throw in different time zones and then different countries, you could "Up all Night" just the old USA overnight movie tag line. Let me tell you, at first everyday was like my birthday. Balloons, streamers, all the attention and cake, just for me. But as time passed, I was no longer the shiny new toy in the room and other people had their birthdays and who the hell is this new person infringing on my territory. Just like little kid who is being ignored will resort to bad behavior to get attention, so does the impatient female. Virtually jumping up and down in the corner waving her hands wildly screaming "Look at me Look at me!" This resulted in me revisiting those same old feelings of desperation, loss of control, and just being a girl. A girl who has to be content with whatever comes her way, the scraps, the leftovers. Believe me when I say this, it's not to be melodramatic or get your sympathy, it just honestly feel like my "buying power" is quite small and my resale value is greatly compromised by today's market swings.
So if we accept the previous to be true, where does that leave a girl? This one speaking has always felt suspended in time, in life's purgatory, not quite hell but certainly not heaven. Lurking around always searching for someone to come and save her from herself. To put it simply, life is like a bag Lay's Potato Chips. When you first break the seal, you get the puff of air from the fresh crispy chips and you grab the first one, the salt hits your tongue, melts ever so slightly, and the snap as your teeth bite the chip. That's as good as it gets. At first you don't even need a drink, it's not too salty yet. But as you continue down the bag, you need a little soda to get it go down. And that Pepsi is tasty, what a nice combination, sweet carbonated cola with the salt of the chip. But now you get to the bottom. The chips are getting staler, less whole pieces, the burnt ones are rearing their ugly heads and then finally the crumbs. And nothings gonna bring back that feeling of the first chip, no soda, no beer, nothing. So if life were a bag Lay's Potato chip I'm staring at a pile of crumbs.
Let's start with the fact that I am a girl and there is a long standing tradition, rule if you will, that girls never make the first move. It is our lot in life to sit along the sidelines like some never ending dance, forever sitting in a folding chair along the wall of our high school gymnasium. So here we are at the dance dressed up, hair piled high, make-up just right, and no takers. Then what? What does a girl do when fate has not supplied her with the honey for her generation? I've been on this planet nearly 5 decades. My looks and the current trend have never yet matched. Didn't I mention being pretty is the highest standard of success for any girl? It is so ingrained into my subconscious that it doesn't feel like it even needed to be said. Oh, don't get me wrong there is a place for the less fortunate looking girl but she is destined to be the breeder, the workhorse of the family, always supporting the husband without a thought for herself, the happiness of her family as her only reward. But I am not a saint or a martyr either. I have the attitude of a super model with the looks of a farmer's wife combined with the aspirations of a man all wrapped with the self-esteem of a frequently kicked puppy dog. A puppy with ADD that is.
Even before I ever even worried about getting married, I was the kid next door beating on your door "Hey you want to come out and do something?" And realistically that's how I still make my friends. I see somebody and just keep beating on their front door until they let me in or they call the cops. Just ask somebody I know named Vera, he'll attest to this fact. In a lot of ways this worked until I was 10 years old and then somebody changed the rules. All the crap my parents had been presenting to me as fact for years, suddenly they're telling me, remember all that fun stuff like Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, yeah, that was a bunch of bullshit and why haven't you figured that on your own by now? Life is hard, quit being so silly, and grow up. And growing up for a girl means shutting down all your natural impulses to be the center of attention, asking for what you want, and the willingness to be embarrassed by your mistakes. Suddenly this very clumsy goofy girl is being told pull in the reins and be worried about your clothes, your hair, your behavior. Okay, I understand this the natural maturation process but not to be given the skills to make these changes makes me call FOUL. To this brain, this unsophisticated mind, all I heard was you're not good enough just the way you are and you better hope somebody notices you as a diamond in the ruff. So by 12 years old, I was no longer a person, I was a girl.
The next best thing to getting the cute boy in your class was being friends with the girl who did and this was my lot in life for many years. God, what a fucking drag, however, being the sidekick did make it necessary to develop a personality, a trait many go to their grave without ever achieving. This is not to say I did not participate in the "Oh my God did you see what she was wearing today?" game. Oh no, I was just as judgemental as the gorgeous girls. You know there's a hierarchy even amongst the losers. Anyway, I'm starting to bore myself. None of this new stuff. All this background to say the following.
As of say 2 years ago I decided to join the 1990's and check into this new finagled thing called the interwebs and not just for shopping but actual computer to computer virtual interaction. And what did I find? A whole new group of neighbors where I could pound on their door and say "Hey, do you want to come out and do something?" Throw in different time zones and then different countries, you could "Up all Night" just the old USA overnight movie tag line. Let me tell you, at first everyday was like my birthday. Balloons, streamers, all the attention and cake, just for me. But as time passed, I was no longer the shiny new toy in the room and other people had their birthdays and who the hell is this new person infringing on my territory. Just like little kid who is being ignored will resort to bad behavior to get attention, so does the impatient female. Virtually jumping up and down in the corner waving her hands wildly screaming "Look at me Look at me!" This resulted in me revisiting those same old feelings of desperation, loss of control, and just being a girl. A girl who has to be content with whatever comes her way, the scraps, the leftovers. Believe me when I say this, it's not to be melodramatic or get your sympathy, it just honestly feel like my "buying power" is quite small and my resale value is greatly compromised by today's market swings.
So if we accept the previous to be true, where does that leave a girl? This one speaking has always felt suspended in time, in life's purgatory, not quite hell but certainly not heaven. Lurking around always searching for someone to come and save her from herself. To put it simply, life is like a bag Lay's Potato Chips. When you first break the seal, you get the puff of air from the fresh crispy chips and you grab the first one, the salt hits your tongue, melts ever so slightly, and the snap as your teeth bite the chip. That's as good as it gets. At first you don't even need a drink, it's not too salty yet. But as you continue down the bag, you need a little soda to get it go down. And that Pepsi is tasty, what a nice combination, sweet carbonated cola with the salt of the chip. But now you get to the bottom. The chips are getting staler, less whole pieces, the burnt ones are rearing their ugly heads and then finally the crumbs. And nothings gonna bring back that feeling of the first chip, no soda, no beer, nothing. So if life were a bag Lay's Potato chip I'm staring at a pile of crumbs.
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