N is for Not Afraid

A friend of mine emailed me with some comments on the last blog. She indicated, once again, that I am much funnier in bullet points than I am in paragraphs. I think it is because I have a sarcastic personality and you can't really get a good jab in with a paragraph format. It is only in bullet points can you sink one. I am a real fun one at parties, too. Nothing out of me and then *BAM* I nail the sarcastic jolt when least expected. Of course, my friend had a few other comments. I think I shall address those and anything else that comes to mind in bullet points, since I am insanely funnier that way.

• She says that I shouldn't have laughed at H-Girl when she said she was "all about the learning." That sort of behavior on my part is likely just to make the kid angry at me.
• I say that the kid needs someone to call her out on her crap. She needs to know that she isn't snowing me like she is other people. Kids don't respect people they think they are manipulating. I want her to know that I have her number. 'Nuff said.
• My friend also indicated that blogger had this nifty bullet point program. Peeps, I am utterly lost on a computer. Hand to God.
• My mother used to tell me daily when I was a kid that I would lose my head if it weren't attached to my shoulders.
• What does this have to do with anything?
• Well, I know that there are some of you who think I should just learn how to do the design on my website. You are thinking, "It can't be that hard."
• I thought like that, too, for about three hours after I bought the domain name and my web hosting site. Into the fourth hour, I very nearly chucked my laptop out the window.
• Eventually I called the 24-hour 800 number help line to get them to put up a page indicating my site was under construction because I could not figure out how to write that on a BLANK PAGE and put that up.
• Yes, it is that bad. And that is where the head and shoulders business figures in.
• I tell you that and I share you this thing about the bullet points for this reason: I have been on blogger for over a year and didn't know that in the menu bar that it would create bullet points for me.
• Right now I am looking at the quotations and I can't figure out by sheer reasoning what that will do if i click on it. Clearly it will do something regarding quotations, but what? what? what?
• It should be obvious, but it isn't.
• It's hard to believe right now that I graduated with a liberal arts degree from college, isn't it?
• I know. I am having trouble digesting it, too.
• On Saturday night, we went to the pizza place for food and karaoke.
• Our usual karaoke guy wasn't there because his band was playing somewhere so some friends of his were filling in. This was a new experience for us.
• Not so much for them. They have their own business and their own equipment.
• Once again, too many kids were singing for our taste. Pretty much any kids are too many because most can't sing. They scream or talk into the microphone and it is monotone.
• However, the kicker this past Saturday was that there were only 8 people on the sheet to sing, but the teenagers took over every time it came to them. How did they do this? They sang solo, they sang duets, they sang trios.
• Three girls managed to hog the microphone for forty minutes every time the rotation got back to them.
• So, we we were there for three hours and sang three times. You do the math on that one. Eight people. Three hours. Everyone should have gotten to sing a lot.
• We almost didn't sing that third time because my mom was tired of listening to teenagers and kids scream into the microphone. The lady came around with the sheet to get our song to speed up the process, and my mom asked how far out we were. Turns out two kids were ahead of us, one of whom was singing.
• At that point, I was in favor of waiting and singing. We were there for three hours and had only been able to sing twice. Mom was ready to go, and said something about there being too many kids.
• I knew that was a pointless drum to beat. When you go to karaoke at a restaurant, there will be kids.
• The lady said if you want no kids you should go to a place that is over 21, and she was right.
• I said that the real problem was letting small groups of people monopolize the microphone. It was not right. It would be like me singing, my mom singing, me and my mom singing, my mom and another friend singing, the other friend singing, me and the other friend singing, me, mom and the other friend singing. We could tie up the works for forty minutes just like you have let those girls do all night, but we haven't.
• She didn't like what I said, but she admitted that it was a mistake and wouldn't be happening again.
• Now, would it not be happening again because I said something, or would it not be happening again, period?
• I got a nasty comment from the guy running the machine about being impatient to sing when he called me up.
• That tells me that even though the woman was very gracious to me, and admitted that I was right, she didn't relay it back that way to her partner.
• Most people just leave and don't come back if they don't like something. My mom said that if she finds out that our regular karaoke guy isn't going to be there, we will rethink going there in the future. And that was after I said something.
• People don't like confrontation. I didn't like it when I was married. My ex made it so uncomfortable that I eventually stopped speaking out about what I did and didn't like. What is and isn't acceptable.
• I am not doing that anymore. It is unacceptable to hog the microphone at a karaoke joint. I will tell you nicely. You can make one jab at me, but not two. And if it keeps happening I won't come back.
• I guarantee you this: for every one person who tells how it is, there are twenty who are thinking it and just not coming back. Be grateful for that person who speaks out.
• And if you are someone who is afraid to speak out, try it. It feels so good. It if is your truth, then it isn't wrong to say it. It is never wrong to speak honestly and from your heart.
• Trust me on this: the worst thing in the world is losing the ability to speak your own truth.
• The first Marshall Mathers song I listened to was Not Afraid. It was what hooked me on Eminem. The song is about not being afraid to do what you need to do, speak your truth, be yourself.
• Before you say that you hate rap or hip hop, know what you are talking about. I thought that I hated it, too. I hated it BEFORE I listened to it. It is dangerous to make those kind of calls. And it is also dangerous to hate an entire genre of music, because you never know when a specific piece of music will jump out and hit you where you live. Just sayin'.
• My mom has been watching OWN (the Oprah Winfrey Network) and loving it. Apparently, there was something on there about the new Oreo cookie. It is a regular Oreo covered in chocolate.
• I couldn't quite follow if it was on one of the shows or if it was a commercial... Anyway, the entire family sans the mom are sitting around the table eating these cookies and talking in Martian about them. (In other words, my mom had no idea what they were saying.)
• Then the mom came in and she tried one and my mom tried repeating what she said. She kept at it until I figured it out. That was when I realized that the kids and hubs are talking in modern day slang. I hated to break the news to mom that the family were not taken over by aliens.
• What was the giveaway phrase, you ask?
• Shut the back door!

photo found at www.weheartit.com

Wednesday with Bullets

I was going to do another alphabet post, but you guys seem to like my bullet post style posts, what I have is mostly mish mash, so it seemed like a better way to go.


*For instance, right now I think Penny Can on Cougar Town is hilarious.
*You don't watch Cougar Town?
*How can this be?
*Oh yeah, you're Chris, and don't own a TV.
*Well, let me help you with some YouTube of Penny Can. This stuff cracks me up. It would be on my Thursday post, if I could work up the fortitude to roll one of those out.
*Roll the penny can footage:



*I love Ellie. She is the one that makes all of the crazy penny can shots. She is da bomb. I want to be Ellie when I grow up.
*H-Girl spent the night last week. It had its good and bad points. It scares me how much she has learned from her father. And I am not talking about the good stuff.
*She basically tricked me into taking her into the mall.
*Yes, I was tricked by a twelve year old.
*Yes, it still stings a bit.
*After she lingered over all of the things she wanted me to buy her... even after I told her before we left the house that I had NO money, we finally ended up at the bookstore.
*We spent over an hour mooning over jewelry. She was hoping I would cave. She never once asked, but she just looked pitiful. And once pointed out the matching necklace (the she didn't have)to the bracelet that she did (and was wearing).
*All of this after raiding my jewelry box at home and getting me to cough up several pieces of jewelry for her... moving on...
*So, after giving up on the jewelry at the mall, we arrive at the bookstore. That place is my personal weakness. I can turn down clothes all day long. Put me in a bookstore and that is like shoving an alcoholic into a bar.
*Naturally, we end up back in the YA section. She starts picking up various books and telling me that specific friends are reading this one and that one. She would like to read this one and that one. Then she says this: "Because I am all about the learning."
*I laughed so hard I nearly fell down and hurt myself.
*She followed it up with, "What? I LIKE to read."
*That only produced more laughter on my part. I started looking around for a chair because I had a kink in my side and it hurt.
*When I was able to speak again, I told her that she should call her dad and tell him just what she told me. I was willing to float her $15 if he would pay me back right away.
*He said he would. He also got a laugh out of that. Unlike me, he seemed to believe her line about being all about the learning.
*I find that interesting. One would think that a person who floats BS all of the time would recognize it in others more quickly. Apparently not. Who knew?
*Back to the trick... she told me that her aunt was going to meet us at the mall. Not true. Not even close. She just wanted to go to the mall and talk me into buying her stuff. Imagine my surprise when I find out that I end up having to take her all the way back to her grandparent's house. It didn't cut my driving at all. That is where her aunt was.
*So, I had H-Girl regale them with the tale of being all about the learning. They all laughed. Apparently, they were all shocked. Her older brother said he was going to read the book and quiz her to make sure she actually read it. Smart kid.
*That one day knocked me out in so many ways. Sooooo tired physically.
*So tired mentally. It really hurts me in the heart that H-Girl does these sorts of things. Her lack of honesty and the way she manipulates people without a second thought really disturbs me.
*As for me, I have been dreaming about sweets. Craving sweets terribly. I know what this means. I am stressed out. Severely stressed out.
*I bought two bags of M&Ms the last time I was at the pharmacy. It did occur to me that my Eminem fascination went from the person to the candy. H-Girl might not be the only "disturbed" individual out there...
*If you received the letter for my future non-profit website via email, please answer me this: did you copy/paste and send it to everyone in your address book, specific people in your address book, or no one in your address book? Whatever your choice, why? You can tell me in the comments or email me. My email is in the sidebar. Thanks.
*I really don't have much dirt. I am thinking about practicing Penny Can. Chris, can I call that exercise? It looks like so much fun to say "Penny Can" when you actually get the penny in the can.
*I really could have been a writer for Seinfeld. It was a show about nothing. I have got an excellent handle on that.

The Pieces of Me

This is just a quick heads up that I am not dead. Also, I do plan to return to blogland. I just need to get my head together first. Everything still feels somewhat staticy up there. I did make the decision to get busier with my email campaign for my non-profit. So, I started going through my friends on facebook and writing down email addresses. I got tired about the time I hit the "Bs." That might not sound like a lot, but I have quite a few friends. I even went so far as to send out the email. And I sent to everyone already on the list.


Chris, over at A Deliberate Life, talks all of the time about how much of this living this is a head game. If you are not reading her blog, I have to tell you that you are missing out. But, there are some people who always miss out. Heck, I know that there are some really awesome blogs being posted right now that I am missing out on. I may backdoor into them someday... lol. I digress. Anyway, you can only do what you can do, but you probably can do more than you think you can. Or maybe you need to push yourself into doing more than you think you can. Or if you can do anything at all, do something important. I am not really sure what I am saying here, but I just decided that my time out of bed today was going to be spent writing down email addresses and sending out the email for my non-profit. And if I only could do it for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, one hour. Whatever. It was all better than nothing. It's a head game. And I need to get back in it if I want to win it.


Yeah, this whole thing with my dad had knocked me right on my ass. I am not going to lie to you and tell you different. It has. Just writing that sentence made my eyes fill up. I think about him all the time and I cry. I keep thinking about that line from Grey's Anatomy when George's dad died from cancer and he says, "I just can't imagine a world without my dad in it." I may not have gotten that quote exactly right, but it is close enough. I keep telling myself how lucky I am... how I had my dad in my life longer than SO many people. That I had a dad who loved me and I knew it, etc. But, here's the thing: this is one of those landmark times of your life. From this point forward, it will be events that happened before my dad died and after my dad died. Sort of like BC and AD on the Christian calendar. I am not suggesting that my father was the Messiah for those of who going into shock. I am just saying that this is one of those HUGE events in my life that changes everything. Before college. After college. Before I was married. While I was married. After I got divorced. Before my dad died. After my dad died.


I might be closing in on someone to design my webpage. Yay. I keep throwing out that net. I figure eventually something is going to come back.


My crush on Marshall Mathers is still alive and well. That really isn't pertinent to anything. However, I thought someone might want to know.


I reconnected with my best friend from college, Jennifer, after not speaking since 1999. Turns out that there were some misunderstandings there and we aired out a lot of stuff. It felt really good. Tracy is so right about pushing love toward a situation. That always makes it better. I think that maybe we are going to be okay. I realize that I have slowly, but surely, been pulling my friendship family back together. They are still scattered all over the globe. However, I am reconnecting with my family of choice. It has been ongoing process over the last year or so. It feels really good.


I know that I have been a really lousy blog reading friend. I am still reading your posts catch as catch can. I have been a terrible commenter (that translates into not commenting at all). However, I am working my way back into a place of being able to read your posts with a joyful heart. Not quite there yet. When I get there, my regular Thursday posts will come back online.


Don't give up on me. I am putting the pieces of me back together.

M is for Memories

*I read over my last blog and decided to tackle just one topic. All of you said to go and just spend quality time with my dad. Focus on the good stuff, i.e reminiscing over the good times. I was set because I had a plan. I got thrown for a loop when I saw my dad for the first time. He looked really sick. Grey. Thin. Frail. However, I bulked up my internal reserves and pushed through. I don't think I have shared this, but I have my father stuck in my brain at 45 years old. I know that it is unreasonable, so it is always a shock when I see him and he doesn't look 45. Since I am in my early 40s, this is particularly unrealistic, but I can't help it. Each time I see him, I go running to the mirror, because he is OLD, and that means that I am OLD, and it makes me look for signs of aging anywhere and everywhere. Eyes, eyebrows, frown lines, hair. Yeah, I am a girl. This time I got sucker punched and couldn't make the trip to the bathroom. I had to sit down. Anyway, I made it out to see dad every day but one. *It quickly became frustrating for both of us. The thing is that I don't think my father suffers from senile dementia. I don't think that that his memory issues are a result of the cancer. I think that adrenal episode that he went through back in 1978 did a lot of damage. He didn't get migraines. His symptoms are different than mine. But the whole thing is otherwise the same. Except for this: he was in a chronically stressful situation at work that finally brought him to his knees. It took him about a year to get over it by living in a non-stressful environment and taking a boatload of vitamins. I lived in a stressful situation for three years (clearly I have a harder head and didn't really understand what I was doing to my body and my recovery time) and five years later my adrenal gland is still barely hanging on. *Fast forward for my dad: that one year plus the year or so of chronic stress has wiped about forty years of his memories. How do I know this? Because all of this reminiscing that I was looking forward to in order to get me through this enormous heartbreak was denied me. Instead it became an exercise in frustration and irritation. I would say something like, "Dad, do you remember the time I learned to drive the stick shift car and I kept stalling it out in the driveway? It was hilarious. Even the neighbors came outside to watch the show." And he would say, "No. I don't remember that." And I would say, "You were the only one brave enough to come outside and get in the car with me. That was until I shook up your insides sufficiently that you couldn't stand it anymore. Remember now?" He now gets agitated. "No. Don't remember that. I drop it. So, I would pick up another one. And it was always the same. No. Don't remember. No. Don't remember. Finally, I asked him what he remembered. It was precious little. Not enough to converse about. *However, he seemed to remember a lot about his childhood. Well, that was a good thing because I had a bunch of old photo albums from his apartment that needed labeling. Well, that got old REAL fast. It didn't take long at all. He always recognized his father and brother and my Uncle Jerry. After a while, I got good at recognizing them, too. I was more interested in his grandfather, grandmother, uncles, and aunts. He didn't do so well there. And after about a day he was tired of that. Unfortunately there were three boxes of pictures. So, what I hoped would lead to lots of stories of his childhood was just another annoying project. He was frustrated because there were people he felt like he should know. And then there were people that when I found his dad's obit that he didn't know at all (like an uncle), he was super annoyed. Mostly it was really hard to know that my father forgot just about all of my childhood and young adulthood. *That being said, he remember just about every episode of the Dukes of Hazard. So, we watched TV. And then it occurred to me that was what we did most of my childhood. All of the vacations that I tried to get him to remember, the activities I was involved in, etc. Well, they just didn't take up the same amount of time as the time spent in front of the TV. My dad loves me. With his whole heart. I know that. And I love him. With my whole heart. But he will never really know me. And I will never really know him. He spent his whole life keeping the world at bay and he succeeded. *There is a lesson here. And I don't think we have to look too hard to find it. *If you are a friend of mine, keep telling me about our shared memories. *I don't want to forget you or what we have. This blog is becoming more and more important by the day. I don't want to forget my life. Even if I have to read it like I am reading about someone else. I figure the only plus side is that all of those people that make you have to scrape out your brain because they end up doing something mean in the present, and you can't quite shake them because you have ties to them. Well, you might forget them entirely. There is always a silver lining. I have been listening to the ACM Awards on and off. I did catch Sara Evans and her new song. I kinda think that it might be off of the Country Strong soundtrack. Don't quote me on that. I am going to look for a video. That song was pretty awesome and hits the spot for Inspirational Music Sunday. Maybe by next weekend, I will have the MTV part rolling, too.