Be Nice

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

—Lao-Tze

I've left a group recently online that I had been a part of since I joined goodreads.  It was for those who enjoyed a common romance genre, but in recent days and perhaps weeks and months before that I've found it contaminated with negativity, judgement and arrogance.  I may be wrong in saying that myself, because I am, in the process judging the group as a whole, because of what I've seen.  I do, however, stand by a statement I make quite often: there are both good and bad individuals everywhere.  For me though, the bad I have seen lately greatly outweighs the good.  Remember when you say things online or you speak badly about someone there is a person on the other side of that avatar that is representing them.  Someone is sitting in front of their computer typing those words and they have a heart and a soul and feelings just like the rest of us.  Be kind whenever possible and before you write something putting down someone else, think of how you would feel if the same thing was written about you. 

Online Madness Rant

You know, being online sometimes, especially in certain venues makes me rather happy I am a woman.  Is it just me or does anyone else find it odd that in places like blogs, goodreads and facebook I am never questioned about my identity.  No one has ever asked me to prove who I am.  Which is grand, because I'm sure I would take such inquiries oh so well.  Yet many of my male friends in these same places have been asked to prove themselves.  And my question is why?  Is it less believable that there are *gasp* gay men reading m/m books?  Please, someone explain it to me, because honestly I just do not understand.  Also, why is it the friends who are not in happy committed relationships are questioned less?  Do we as a society believe that only heterosexuals are capable of loving, lifetime commitments?  I certainly hope not, seeing as how that's asinine. 


Another thing I would like to address is online photos.  No, you don't need to say that's me and use someone else's photo, but it does happen and it is not the absolute worst thing a person can do.  Let's be serious.  No one is getting shot down to the sixth circle of hell for putting a hot pic up that's not them.  In the grand scheme of things it's rather inconsequential in my book.  They are online friends and like real life friends their appearances should not matter.  What someone looks like is irrelevant, it's who they are as people that should matter.


All right, I'm done with my rant.  I'll get off the soap box now and put my bitch to bed.  Good day!

Decisions

I'm sure any of you that know me, know I'm an emotional person. Ok, fine, I'm a sap. Sometimes I cry simply because I need to. Sometimes I cry because I'm fighting with my husband, or I'm overwhelmed or hurting or my friends are hurting or my daughter is hurting or I miss someone. I know these things about me. I know I'm sensitive, but I don't perceive it as a bad thing, it's just part of who I am.

Online has become a difficult place for me now and then. For various reasons, mostly lies, deceptions, and disappointments. I still try and give everyone a chance and see the situation through their eyes as much as I'm able, but there are times I find that task more difficult than others. I like to believe that people generally do not lie simply because they can though. Generally there are reasons, sometimes even good ones for a person's deception. I, however, can never quite bring myself to be deceitful. I am who I am, nothing more and nothing less and there are times that is not a good thing. I'm not stunningly beautiful or exceptionally intelligent. I don't have the perfect past or the best mental state. I struggle with depression, anxiety and PTSD and many times I wonder if it's worth the fight. I know it is, deep down, but there are days I battle more than others. I can be short tempered and a majority of the time I react to things emotionally and the logical side of it all takes awhile to catch up. I spent a lot of my life blaming someone else for my faults, but my faults are my own. Your family, your parents, your past; they can effect you, yes, but we can all choose how we'll react and who we'll be in our present lives. Will we forgive, will we judge, will we hate...they're all decisions each of us have to make at some point in our lives and the decisions will be different for all of us. Online the biggest issue for me always becomes, will I give them the benefit of the doubt? Will I believe my friends, these people I have allowed into my heart, simply because they said it. The answer is almost always yes, but if something happens and I find that those I have befriended have not always been completely honest with me, how should I react? Should I be angry, should I judge? Or should I let it go and hope everything else has been real? I think I'll go with the latter.

Reading

So, I'm reading another psychology book.  I know, I know, you're all stunned by that revelation.  Honestly though, it's intriguing and a little scary too, in a comforting kind of way.  Does that make any sense?  The psychologist that wrote the current book I'm on specializes in the treatment of trauma survivors and it's odd, yet somehow consoling that I've found myself various times throughout the first hundred pages thinking, "oh, I do that too" or "wow, I'm not the only one with the brain of a 90 yr old" or "ah, so maybe that's why I do that."  Arm yourself with knowledge, as they say.  There are a few passages I've particularly identified with.  I guess I can share some.  I marked a few as I was reading.  I do that when I read these books and find something I can relate to.  It makes me feel a little more stable and a little less alone in the weird world of my mind.  Here are just a few, all from The Myth of Sanity - Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness by Martha Stout, Ph.D. which I'm reading now:

"Perhaps worst of all, as time passes we often feel that we are growing benumbed, that we have lost something - some element of vitality that used to be there.  Without talking about this very much with one another, we grow nostalgic for our own selves.  We try to remember the exuberance, and even the joy we used to feel in things.  And we cannot.  Mysteriously, and before we realize what is happening, our lives are transigured from places of imagination and hope into to-do lists, into day after day of just getting through it. Often we are able to envision only a long road of exhausting hurdes, that leads to somewhere we are no longer at all certain we even want to go.  Instead of having dreams, we merely protect ourselves. We expend our brief and precious life force in the practice of damage control.

And all because of traumatic events that occurred in the long-ago past, that ended in the long-ago past, and that, in actuality, threaten us with no present danger whatsoever.  How does this happen?  How do childhood and adolescent terrors that should have been over years ago manage to live on and make us crazy, and alienated from ourselves, in the present?

The answer, paradoxically, lies in a perfectly normal function of the mind known as dissociation, which is the universal human reaction to extreme fear or pain."
 -----
"Prior to recovery some trauma survivors study, buy and stockpile weapons against outside threats.  Sometimes a certain special weapon will be concealed and carried with the person, as routinely as someone else might wear a wristwatch.  The concealed mace or knife or gun seems to be a defense against a horrible, nameless danger that never materializes, but is constantly expected, a testimony to the monstrous threat the individual knew in the past, and was unable to defend herself against." 
-----
"In Julia's case, though she had no questioned her poverty of memory for the past, she had begun to suspect even before she came into therapy that she was losing time in the present.  Probably this is because there are more external reality checks on the present than there are on the past.  From other people - and from radio, television, the internet, date books - there are ongoing reminders of the present time of day and the day of the week.  Markers of time in the past are less immediate, and sooner or later most dates and chronologies for the past begin to feel amorphous to us all.  It is hardly amazing that one should have forgotten something that happened twenty years ago.  But if a person lets on that she has no memory of an event that occurred this very week, friends and associates are unlikely to let such a lapse go unremarked."

A Week

This week has been odd for me.  It's been a huge amalgamate of good and bad and I find that I'm having a difficult time figuring out how I feel about it all.  On the plus side my husband was promoted, I now have a working oven (the oven was fried during a lightening storm last week), my tire is losing air incredibly slowly which leads me to believe the screw that is in it must be a small one and perhaps they can simply patch it, my sister-in-law that is getting married in October called to ask if I could do a reading at her wedding.  I did one at my brother's and at my other sister-in-law's weddings, so I'm not worried about it and I'm counting that on the good side, because we can sometimes have a rather strained relationship.

On the much less than lovely side of the week, a Marine flight student passed away during survival water training, which as much as my husband likes to pretend doesn't affect him, does.  He becomes quiet and very stoic when he's upset about something and has been behaving that way for the past few days.  It's understandable, I may be scared if it didn't affect him.  I also had a death that affected me personally, as well.  It was a little odd, in fact, that on another friend's blog one of the contributors to the blog posted about a friend that had committed suicide when he was in high school.  That was Wednesday.  The next day, I received a call from a close friend of mine telling me that a friend of ours from high school had committed suicide.  It was a friend that we were all aware, even all those years ago, had a lot of problems and all of us who were her friends at one point or another tried to help her and she had pulled her life back together for awhile.  She moved away from home, became a chef, married, but then she ended up divorced and went to live with her family again in our small hometown, probably more depressed than ever.  She committed suicide by purposefully ODing in another friend's front yard.  It's tragic.  If you knew her, you may think even more so.  She had problems, yes, but is there anyone that doesn't?  I mean, really?  As a person though, she was one of the sweetest people I've ever known.  She was a very kind, empathetic and sensitive woman.  I hope where ever she is, she's happy now.  I often find that suicide is one of those strange phenomenons where even if you yourself have been that low before, still becomes hard to understand when it's someone else.  I know my mother never quite comprehended why my uncle took his own life and it always haunted her.  Wanting to be able to do something, to stop it, questioning if she could have, but living with those questions plaguing you is toxic.  Some things simply are and when you can't change them, obsessing over them only harms you.

I hope both Patrick and Beth are at peace now.  Maybe next week will be a happy one.  *crosses fingers*

For Beth, because she loved Journey.

Changes

I feel rather bad for those of you following my blog, because I must admit I am a rather awful blogger.  I can't come up with things to say every day and mostly I don't have much news or anything exciting to pass along or talk about.  So, my posts will probably be spotty and only one or two times a week.  I apologize.  If I become a more thrilling, news-filled, adventurous person you all will be the first to know.  I wouldn't hold my collective breathes were I you though. 

A Favorite

Years later and this still makes me smile.  I love Christopher Walken.

Back

Well, I'm back from a weekend away with the wee one, which can't really be classified as anything other than comically disastrous. Still fun though, thankfully.

The ride home was a bit rainy and windy, but it was off and on, so again, not too bad. Other than the half hr drive through the middle of nowhere Florida, where I really really had to go to the bathroom and there was honest-to-God nowhere to stop. I actually considered pulling over on the side of the road, in the rain and running into the woods (yes, I was that desperate), but then I remembered a rather unfortunate incident when I was ten and on a car trip with the fam. I had to go to the bathroom then too and after much begging and pleading convinced my father too pull over. He did, at which point I jumped out and over the guard rail, hunkered down to do my business and upon standing, with panties still around my ankles, mind you, slipped and rolled head over feet down the hill to the gulley below. It was a high point in my life, obviously. One that I recollected as I was debating doing just that and decided very quickly against that course of action! No worries, I made it. LMAO. I don't need depends just yet, people! Give me a few years!

Anyways, upon arriving back home, I found my husband with my very pathetic dog who had apparently been starving himself since I left Friday afternoon. My husband said he was refusing to eat anything and the food and water in his bowls was the same food and water I put in right before leaving. It's ok, my poor pup is no longer on in starvation mode. I went and sat down by his food bowl and hand fed him. He ate it all in a matter of minutes.

Going back to the car ride I was telling you about though, during it my daughter was asking questions about those less fortunate. She's been asking more and more questions like that recently and we were discussing it in detail and during the conversation, I explained again how if you have more than you should give more to those in need. She agreed, but the whole conversation kind of reminded me of this Phil Collins song, which is one of my all time favs.

Mich Has Been Thinking

So, I've been thinking. I know. *gasp* Thing is, I've been reading a few psychology and behavioral books lately and I now find myself wondering more and more about society, specifically western society.

I read a book recently titled The Sociopath Next Door and in it the psychologist discussed how the tendency to become a sociopath is merely 50% genetic, at the most. Then the other 50% is what exactly? Learned? It seems more than likely when you look at the fact that eastern countries, where the group as a whole is focused on more, have a lower case of sociopaths than those in the west. What are we doing to ourselves? And when did the focus shift from caring about each other, to caring solely about ourselves, or was it always this way? And I don't mean caring about your best friend or your husband or your child. I mean caring about others simply because they are human, strangers and loved ones alike.

For example, not to rip on my husband, because I do love him and he is a good person, but he's very resistant to helping others sometimes. Partially because he feels they should learn to help themselves, but also because it's not something he feels should be his problem. When we discuss the fact that I help out our elderly neighbors when they need it he seems a bit puzzled as to why I feel the need to help in the first place. He'll say things like, “why can't their kids do it?” or “they can hire someone.” Yet, if one of his friends needs help, he's always the first too offer assistance. We've helped move friends of his on various occasions, loaned money, allowed a few of them to crash on our couch when they needed to. Now, I know the difference is that he has an emotionally attachment to his friends, but shouldn't we all have an emotional attachment to each other simply because we're all people? Am I the only idealistic loon that feels this way?

Attack by Pancake

Tonight, since my husband is working late and it's just my daughter and I, I asked Nora (my daughter) what she wanted me to make her for dinner.  "Pancakes, Mama!" was her rather enthusiastic reply.  Shocking.  9/10 times she will request pancakes when I say she can have whatever she wants.  Maybe I should just start taking the pancake mix out and then asking her, just to be polite.

So, there I am, in my "Mama mode" making her favorite chocolate chip (the chocolate is a must) pancakes and sporting my rather ruffle-happy, cherry pie apron. And all was well, until I handed her the fresh out off the skillet breakfast treat and she forked a piece on the side (you know the little extras you get sometimes when some of the batter decides it doesn't want to join in with it's other pancake batter friends) and somehow launched the hot doughy morsel at my face.  Accidentally, mind you, which is why I wasn't having a fit when said pancake piece hit me in the mouth.  Now, that wouldn't be bad, just a rather hot mouth to pancake contact.  However, those chocolate chips I was talking about?  Yes, well, one raging, I swear lava-filled, piece stuck to the direct middle of my top lip and seared the crap out of it!  I now have a chocolate chip sized burn on my lip.  It's even puffed up a wee bit to let me know it's going to blister soon.

Oh and yes, before anyone asks, I did tell her it was hot before I gave it to her.  More than once!

Good Friends

So, I had a bit of a morning.  A long-time friend asked me to write a character affidavit for her in the custody battle she's having with her ex.  I chose not to do it.  Not because I don't love her or that's she's not a good friend, but because the father is actually the better parent of the two.  He's more responsible, more attentive and seems to put their son first all the time.  She's not a bad mother, she loves her son, I know she does, but she's not the most responsible individual in the world and sometimes her son ends up taking a backseat to whatever else is going on in her life.  It was hard.  I debated and I thought about it a lot and it took me a few days before I could actually work up the nerve to tell her no.  I'm not sure I did it as eloquently as I could have, but I did try.  She's my friend and I care about her, but kids have to come first, right?  I'm not sure she's going to be able to forgive me ever for saying no and I'll honestly be very surprised if she does, but I thought it was the right decision.  The right thing to do. Saying it sounds so simple doesn't it?  Do what you think is right.  It should be easy, second nature, in fact, but I've found in some situations, such as this, what is right is so damn difficult to do.  I lost a friend and I was crying and feeling downright miserable, when I emailed an online friend.  One that I tend to email frequently on those bad days, or when there's something I want to discuss, or when I need a pick-me-up or for no real reason at all really.  It helped, it always helps.  Then, three of us (two online friends and I) began to banter back and forth and tease one another.  We always tease and I was laughing.  Honest to go belly laughing.  I love that even when you're having a crap day there are those friends that can kind of pick you up and make you feel a bit more normal.  I have two online friends that I tend to email more than anyone else and I love them, they brighten my days with their wise ass remarks and peculiar humor.  It's strange to me, in a way, that two friends that know me better than most have never even met me, but I won't question it.  Good friends are hard to find and I'll take 'em any way they come!