I am just going to spit this out so that I don't choke on it: I don't have a Thursday post for today. Whew. That was terrible. I have been doing some blog reading and commenting, but not enough to put together a Thursday post. *So sorry.* I have already explained that in cases like this we BLAME THE MIGRAINE. It turns out that since I have ongoing migraines, and they have been bad this week... it is completely legitimate. I have made myself write some blog posts. Kudos for me. But, mostly I have studied the inside of my eyelids and contemplated ripping off my head with my bare hands. Not doable, by the way. However, I am prepared to throw out more junk for your reading pleasure in lieu of a Thursday post. Yeah, the storm doesn't stop here even while my migraines rage. So, here's the junk (in bullets, just because it is more fun):
*Flash sent me a Friend Request on Facebook. *You don't remember him? Or you are new? He's the ex-boyfriend who cheated on me and stole my pain medication. Yeah, he's a prize. (she says with disdain) *He also sent me a quippy email about wanting to be friends and signed off with my ex-husband's name. *Then he LOL'd and signed his own name. *I think he thought he was being cute. *OMG. This "man" is in his forties but has the maturity level of someone who is ten. *I showed it to my stepdad and he says to me, "Are you going to accept it?" *Is hell freezing over tomorrow? *Does everyone think I am seriously stupid???? As in permanently, irrevocably stupid? As in cannot be fixed stupid? As in a glutton for punishment stupid? *The more I thought about Flash signing the ex's name to the email, the more I remembered the one thing that they both said to me. And that was this gem: "No one will ever love you the way that I loved you." *Both times, I thought to myself, "Thank God. I couldn't take it again. I barely lived through it this time." *And I know that they both thought when they said it "as much as" instead of "the way that" because they considered their love to be wonderful. They both employed the same approach. *Let me share: while you are doing something unloving to someone, you tell them that you love them. Over and over. In fact, you tell them how wonderful they are. It validates the awful thing you are doing as you are doing it. It somehow makes it a loving thing. The idea is for you to start thinking of hurtful things as loving things. It starts out small and just gets bigger. As in more vicious. *They were both right. "No one else will ever love me the way that they loved me." Thank God. *I got an email from the ex-husband after the bowling party. He was concerned that I was angry with him because he made a parting comment about a goody bag when we were leaving. He suggested I take one because they contained candy and I could stand to gain some weight. *I didn't take said goody bag, and I forgot about his comment about three seconds after it left his mouth. *Apparently, he stewed over it a day or two before sending the email. *I wanted to say that after all of the things he said and did during our marriage and after our divorce, that comment on the goody bag just didn't even register on my meter, which is the total truth. *Instead, I just said I wasn't mad. Also the total truth. *My father checked himself into the hospital this morning. He has been having gastro-intestinal issues for quite a while. They are running tests. *My poor brother is just loaded with sick relatives. His MIL is in a nursing home. His FIL has been living with him and his wife and that has been really hard on them. He is not in the best of health and is also in the hospital right now. Apparently, his catheter became infected and they determined that he also needs a pacemaker. *My brother is working 12 hour days at his job and is feeling really overwhelmed. *As for me: I am just worried about my dad. I have this bad feeling I might be spending some time up north. *Our own version of Dumb and Dumber. Sick and Sicker. *Blah. *I will make a better effort to get out the usual Thursday post next week. I just read this over and this is sucky in comparison. *Oh, and one last thing about the Grammy Awards show post. Miss Angie misunderstood one of my comments. They don't base who gets the awards on who shows up. The base what awards get presented on who shows up. In other words, if someone wins, but they are a no-show, that award doesn't get presented. That is why so much of the awards show is filler (aka performances) as opposed to people actually being presented with awards. *Okay, I think I have barfed up every thought that I have on just about everything. *Well, not really, I have other stuff rolling around up here, but it is unrelated to everything else that I have said. I probably should save it for a future post. *Okay, can't save this. I loved your comment, Phoenix, about I LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE, PART 2. Me too. I find the whole thing very enlightening. Moving sideways... what was up with Marshall's pants at the Grammys? The man has a fine behind, but refuses to wear a pair of pants that do him justice. It is just one more thing that makes me want to cry. Seriously. Real tears. *Marshall, I know most women are dying to rip your pants off. Honey, I just want to get you in a pair that fit. *He and I are just about the same age, but now I sound like his mother. *This has to be a good place to stop. *Probably about twenty minutes ago would have been a good place to stop. *Stopping. *Not another word.
Yesterday I had my "mental" appt. There were plenty of reasons to get anxious about the appt itself. My parents are out of town. That alone is cause for a meltdown. A friend of mine drove in to drive me to the appt since my parents were gone, and my aunt and uncle had a dental appt. Life is nuts. Yeah, I just wrote that. I am talking about crazy doctors and I said that. Anyway, I talked to one of you about this appt and it really helped (you know who you are). I took your advice and went in there and was me. That meant I only melted down in crying jags three times. I suppose that means the appt went well. You said to be honest and tell them how I feel when they asked the questions. Well, when they start asking about my pain, quality of life, and other stuff like that... I feel pretty good that I only broke down three times in retrospect. It helped that the main person asking the questions is a migraine sufferer. No one understands migraine pain like another person who has migraine pain. Her parting words to me were that I should be on SSDI with the severity of my migraines and bonanza of other problems. She also encouraged me to not give up if they deny me on this first rodeo. So, it was as good a first appt as I was gonna get. I prayed that God let the doctors see my situation as it really was and I feel like that happened. I can't ask for any more than that.
My appt with the regular doctor is after my parents get back in December. I will let you know how that one goes when it happens. I am going to do my best not to worry about it and pray the same way about it. I just want the doctors to see this whole mess as it really is. I don't want a hand out. I want some help up. And, eventually, I want to clean house. But it is all one day at a time.
Speaking of house cleaning... I spent some quality time with customer service on the phone. That would be the hosting service for my website. The fellow understood how ill-equipped I was to fix this problem, so he put up a page indicating my page was Under Construction. It also has my new email address on it. Now, I just need to find someone interested in my project and my site to design it. I am actively praying about that starting now. This thing needs to be a database with code to run a zip code search. That will likely be the most difficult part of the whole deal. The rest of it is just the pretty. There will be other pages that I will want to look nice. There will need to be links and all that jazz. But, the database deal is probably the toughest thing because it is specific and that code for the zip code thing is specific. Of course, lots of sites have it, so it isn't a big mystery; it is just specific. Yeah, if I use that word one more time, even I will puke. Done with it.
Anyway, there is a lot to be thankful for here, in spite of this mind splitting migraine that just won't get lost. Yeah, it is still lingering like a stalker boyfriend. Speaking of which, remember Flash? Well, check this! I don't think I ever gave you guys the full scoop on Flash. If you're confused right now, he is the last boyfriend... the cheater and the one who stole my medication. He was really bad news. I could get into even more bad stuff that he did, but I really want to move along in this story. Anyway, after I broke things off with him, and he swore he would never date again, because I was his one true love, he met someone inside of a week, and there were kissing pictures on his myspace inside of ten days. Yeah, some people move on faster than they think they will. Besides that, he was a cheater, he probably had a little something something going on the side already anyway. Moving on...
He convinced THAT GIRL to marry him. I about fell out when I saw that come through on his announcements on myspace. That happened (also) very fast. I suppose he wanted to seal the deal quick. You know, before she figured out who he REALLY was. You stick with someone long enough and you're bound to see beyond the flash and dazzle and all that. All that glitters isn't gold. This guy glittered. Man he knew how to put the shine on... I do remember it well. *sigh* Underneath all that shine is a big ole pile of crap.
Anyway, I logged into myspace a couple of days ago after not going there in forever, and saw that there was a message from Flash. Honestly, I was shocked. After we split, I didn't read his email. But we had been apart so long that I felt like this one was safe. Turns out that it was not from Flash at all; it was from Flash's wife. She must have sent it out to all of the women on Flash's myspace. It was a general announcement letting all of the girls know that she and Flash were through. Kaput. Getting a divorce. She was not so subtly making a grand announcement that he was back on the market. She didn't exactly say, "And let the bidding begin..." but she might as well have. It made me think of that old Shania Twain song WHOSE BED HAVE YOUR BOOTS BEEN UNDER. Oh, Flash, it looks like you did it again. Swing, batter, batter, batter, Swing, batter, batter, batter, Swing! I am just glad that I moved and he doesn't know where I live. I feel very thankful. Life is good.
This song goes out to Flash's wife. I would have told you what kind of man he was, but you wouldn't have believed me. I am sorry you had to experience that. You will know better next time. You got some painful schooling. I know. Been there. Done that. He teaches a tough curriculum.
I am skipping the letter for Day 20. It is for the one that broke your heart the most. I have already written about that. It is a tough call. It could be my first love. That was quite painful and I wrote a blog about that. You can read about that here if you want to know me better. Or it could be Mr. Electric. That, also, was extremely painful. In some ways, it was worse than my first love because it had no closure. I wrote a blog about that one, too, and you can read about it here. I finally found my own closure and wrote it in my Letters to the Ex-Boyfriends/Husbands. You can read about that here. Whew. You may not care about any of that. If so, just skip on ahead to today's letter. It is a letter to someone you judged on their first impression. Personally, I think this is a bit silly. We tend to judge, to a degree, everyone on their first impression. As time goes by, that impression solidifies or changes. Ah well. I know that Flash has already gotten a letter in this exercise, but he is a classic example of how judging on the first impression can go so terribly wrong. So, here goes...
Dear Flash,
Whenever I think that I would like to be in a relationship, I think about you, and I immediately change my mind. We tend to draw to us people who are in the same emotional place that we live. Right now, I am still sick. I live with chronic pain. I try to stay positive and live in that place, but I know that I don't stick there. I know that the reason you seemed so attractive to me when we met was because you understood me so well. Our situations appeared to be so similar. You had been divorced longer than I had, the circumstances surrounding your divorce were different, but you had chronic back pain, so you understood chronic pain. We shared divorce and chronic pain. You also had just moved in with your mother to try and help her get through her divorce. Your dad left her for a much younger woman and she was shattered. You seemed to be the ideal son and all-around good guy.
One of your best qualities was your willingness to nurture others. You were excellent as a caregiver. As someone who had been doing all of the giving, and not getting anything back, it was wonderful to be on the receiving end of some TLC. It blinded me to some your more obvious faults. For instance, you had no trouble traveling me with one week of every month back to GA so that I could do my job. You had no money to contribute to this endeavor, and you got cranky if we didn't eat out enough, as opposed to buying food, and eating in the hotel room. The crankiness got worse, the longer we were together. After a while, I began to question why you didn't get your own job. I was much sicker than you and I was still working when my doctor had told me that I shouldn't. What was your excuse?
I finally quit that job because it was too much for me. One week in Georgia led to two weeks of severe migraines back in Florida. Then it was one week of less severe migraines and then back to work. Clearly working wasn't working for me. It was also around this time that your real self started bleeding through your disguise. The care giving was over. Cranky ruled the day. Then there was the stealing of my medicine. That went over real well. Then there was the missing cough medicine at my parents' house that you never would cop to taking. Then there was the cheating and lying about it. Then there was the verbal battering to get me to give you another chance with the kicker being that if I didn't you will never become a good person. That is below the belt.
What is amazing is that I bought that for a while. I allowed you to sell me on the fact that I was responsible for making you a better person. I remember sitting you down and making you confess to all of it. Every rotten thing you'd done. There was a lot of rotten to confess to and it made me ill when I got the list. My response to all of this was that once you start out making bad choices, they get easier to make. I think of it as a moral line. Once you cross it the first time, the second time is easier, the third time is easier yet, and the fourth time you don't even think about it. And that was where you were living. I told you that your moral compass was gone. You had chucked it out the window a long time ago, and you were going to have to redraw your line. I could not do this work for you. You had to look at your own list and decide if these things were okay or not. If they were not, then that was stuff that was now on the other side of the line.
My problem was that you were still lying to me about cheating on me. I just can't abide a liar. I knew in my heart that you would have left me for her had she not lost her job at that last possible moment. You still weren't working and were looking for someone closer to your kids, and who could support you in a lifestyle you would like to become accustomed. It was just bad luck that her company had to let some people go and she was one of them. Good luck for her, bad luck for you. Really bad luck for me. The fact that you never would admit to any of this only dug you in deeper as a liar in my book. Eventually I realized that I had, once again, come full circle. I was only with you because you had emotionally blackmailed me into being with you. I no longer respected you and really didn't like you very much. There was no love in my heart for you. How can you love someone who steals from you, lies to you, cheats on you, and then pins you into a corner when you make it clear you want out? You can't.
So, the next time I left I had some help. You made that necessary. We talked to the pastor at our church and he was the intermediary. I made it so that you had someone to talk to other than me. And he taught me how to break up with someone like you in the future. It's harsh. When someone just won't accept "no" or "I don't love you" or "it's over," you have to cut off all contact with them. Don't listen to their voicemail. Don't read their email. Don't call them back. Don't write them. In a few months, you might be able to do those things if they have let go. Give them their closure. I suppose that is the one thing I can thank you for: you taught me how to break up with manipulative men. So, thank you. That doesn't mean I want to hear from you, because I don't. Just sayin'.
I had a plan for today's blog and I WILL STICK TO IT. However, I want to detour for just a second to respond to your comments on yesterday's blog. I am so anal that I would normally link it, but it was yesterday's blog so I think you can find it if you didn't read it. I agree with what each one of you said. Let me explain something to you and see if it makes sense. After I divorced my ex, who I think I will call from now on "The Operator," because it fits, I started dating in Florida this guy who seemed really nice. In actuality, he was just a more polished version of The Operator. We will call him Flash. Not because he left quickly (if only) but because he was all flash and no substance. Anyway, eventually, push came to shove, and I couldn't stay with Flash any longer. There was just nothing there. I didn't actually have to tell him to take it through the middle finger, but just about everything but, in order to get rid of him. The difference between Flash and The Operator was that Flash really couldn't "hurt" me. There was no emotion left and he had no pawns.
With The Operator there is no emotion left, but he has two pawns. And each time I gear up to tell him to take it through the middle finger, he reminds me of that. Would it hurt me if he yanked the kids out of my life? Absolutely. Would it hurt them more? Definitely. And this is where The Operator has the power and knows it. He hasn't hesitated to make the threats. Threats and follow-through are different things. I know that. I suppose I won't really know if he has it in him until I push him to the wall the next time (metaphorically) push comes to shove. We pretty much argue over email these days. Although, all it would take is me publishing something on facebook about him and he would hit the ceiling. (It's not like it would be hard.) Basically, if I was as brave as Lucy March, it would be war. Then again, Lucy doesn't talk much about her ex. Their situation is/was different. If I talked about my ex like Marshall Mathers does, well I think it would be wise for me to move to Ohio and live with my dad. Better yet, my brother. Make that my cousin. He's been to jail a few times. He's scary looking and wouldn't mind killing The Operator. He's already offered once when we were married, but on the verge of divorce. Maybe I shouldn't write that on here in case The Operator shows up dead all mysterious-like. For the record, I turned my cousin down on the killing.
I guess what I am getting at is that it is a very healthy thing to tell people to take a hike that are bad for you. It is when they are holding people you love hostage that it gets tricky. Particularly if they are more than happy to not play by any rules. Or they make the rules. And then bend and twist them. Whatever. Everything is cool between me and The Operator so long as I don't make waves. As long as his life is smooth sailing he leaves me alone. Period. End of story.
Now, let me move on to Inspirational Song Day. Don't you feel inspired? I may not go with my original music choices after all of that. I had a plan, damn it. Let me take a minute and try to recover my zen.
Okay, I think inspirational song day is more fun if there is a story to go with the song. It seems like I always have lots of stories to go with songs. What can I say? This story is about me and my friend, Megan, from high school. Megan became one of my best friends in high school. She wasn't one of those instant connects. It was a friendship formed over time and a love of music. Megan is also a person who is somewhat hard to get to know. I was always a throw it out there person and she was always a play it close to the vest kind of person. Well, you know that intrigued the crap out of me. I had to get to know her. People that I don't understand I must figure out:-)
Turned out that she was really smart and funny. That was always strange. She was the person who always delivered the joke with the totally straight face so you never saw it coming. She was also on the quiet side. I am more quiet now than I ever have been, but then I talked constantly. So, it is safe to say that I carried the bulk of the conversation. Naturally, when Megan did talk it meant that whatever she had to say was WORTH listening to...lol. I admired her so much. I spent about six months trying to adopt Megan's personality traits into my personality. I had gotten fairly good at this once I figured the whole thing out. (Figure out what you like about your friends and then adopt their best stuff into your personality. It is all part of becoming a better person, friend, etc.) What can I say? I was theatre geek and it worked. Megan was the one person that it did not work on. Our personalities were too far afield. It made me admire her more.
Anyway, her parents bought her this sky blue Ford Mustang. It was a stick shift and I was her most frequent passenger. Sometimes other friends got the back seat, but I always got shotgun. What did we do? Nothing. We were high school kids with no life. We rode around town blasting music and talking about the lives we didn't have. Yeah, we sucked. Whatever. However, Megan always had awesome cassette tapes. Yeah, I said cassette tapes. We were pre-CDs. I am that old. Step off. If I were MM, I would have inserted a curse word there. I restrained myself. Anywhooozle. There were lots of choices. However, I am going to give you one that I had NEVER heard of before, and probably would never have found, if not for Megan. Megan loved music. Megan went on to a music college after graduation. Megan heard things in music that I will probably never hear. She did really well at a music college. That music theory class wouldn't have had her crying every day. No... Megan and I were two very different people.
I am having to put in an aside about the photo of the car. I thought it would be easier to find a Ford Mustang in good condition. Not so. Of course, I began to remember Megan's vitriolic hatred for that car as time went on. It was very cool in high school and at the beginning of college. As it started to break down, their relationship began to strain. At the end, that car was held together with duct tape and paper clips. The maintenance was ridiculous. It was constantly in and out of the shop. She finally threw up her hands and spent time underneath the behemoth herself. When she found the source of the trouble it got duct taped. Yeah. She went through a lot of duct tape. When they finally parted ways, she loathed that car. I compare that relationship to a marriage. The dating was great. The beginning of the marriage was fun. The end was a nightmare. And the divorce was looked forward to with anticipation and then relief. So, I am not surprised that most of the photos were of rusted out Mustangs or ones with their hoods up. This was as close as I could find, but it doesn't look right. Oh well. Moving on...
Keep in mind that we were children of the 80s, so we listened to popular radio, alternative 80s, we even found some 60s, 70s, and other stuff that I don't even know how to classify, that went through her sound system. Whatever it was... it was always LOUD. Don't forget to turn off my music player at the bottom. Sorry for the inconvenience...
I know. That wasn't what you expected, was it? Turns out that my Nylons tape got a lot of play my freshman year in college. We would play euchre in our little lounge area of the dorm. I know many of you are doing some head scratching. What is euchre? It is a card game, people. The south is clueless about it and everyone in the north plays it. What is up with that? I went to school in Michigan. I could have majored in euchre. I would have done significantly better in euchre than Music Theory, that is for sure!
Well, on to our last inspirational song for the day. I have decided to make the first song personal for me, and the second one to be a song that I think was significant insofar as videos go. Right now we are sticking with the 80s. MTV has just come to life and we are looking at the artists who are using it as vehicle to build momentum OR the artists who made just really cool videos. Last week we looked at a really cool video that should have propelled a band somewhere and...didn't. Don't know what happened there. This week we are looking at an artist who did.
The first video I remember of Madonna was Borderline. People, I would look up this crap up if the details were important. They aren't. It is about what I remember. What can I say about that video? It was intriguing. It told a story (sort of) and she dressed oddly. But cool (sort of). She had the indefinable something. It wasn't long before Like A Virgin came along behind it. I could cheat and watch that video, but I won't. All I remember was a lot of black lace and rolling around on a white floor (I think) and lyrics that would have made my mother go, "I miss the 60s." And I knew that was when she would be a star.
In hindsight, Borderline was taking the temperature of the people. It was good. So, they came out with Like A Virgin and the tops of teenagers' head's exploded. In a good way. After that, it was all about pushing the envelope for a long time. Eventually, though, Madonna did what I call "reinvent herself" and she became the queen of that. In other words, she hit a point in her career when she knew she that had arrived and she could call the shots. At that time, she started doing things her way. And it meant constantly reinventing herself because she didn't want to be boxed in to anything. She did movies. She did movie musicals. She pretty much did whatever she wanted. It is a wonderful place, when you know that you are free to tell everyone to take a hike. In the words of Frank Sinatra, "I am going to do this my way."
both images of Madonna were found here As an aside, before we watch the video, I just read a post on a literary agent's site, about novels that break all of the rules they keep pushing for debut novels. This agent put the hammer down concisely. Mind you, all of these novels people threw in his face are classics. His answer was that even those classics were not debut novels. All of those writers had published many times over before they whipped out their rule-breaking novel. In other words, they had a following. They had people buying their novels (aka a fan base) and a publisher that might not like it, but was going to give it a whirl, because this person had become a master at their craft. The literary agent says that when you have enough "wins" under your belt, and a huge following, and are a master at your craft, then you can break all of the rules and play the game the way you want to play it. Until then, listen to your agent and your publisher.
I guess what I am saying is that even Madonna, the queen of the rulebreakers, wasn't always the queen of the rulebreakers. She played it their way for quite a while. She built her fanbase. She stretched herself by being in some really good movies, and showed that she could pull her weight even when she wasn't singing and cut some more records doing it their way. When she felt that she knew enough about the business, had the fan base she needed, she made the break and did it her way. I present to you the Queen of Reinvention:
Of course, now that I spent an hour cruising through Madonna footage, I am wondering if Lucky Star wasn't actually her first video.... A mind is a terrible thing to lose. It all sort of blends. I also had to watch the music video for Burning Up. It was one of her early songs, meaning it must have been on the first cassette tape, and it got blasted frequently out of Megan's car as we rode around town. Yep. I still know it word for word. It is funny what sticks and what goes. There are some days (the bad migraine days) when I can't quite pull up the right word for normal every day objects. Then there are days like today when I know every single word to a song I haven't heard in almost twenty years. Go figure.
Vogue was not the video I intended to show you. I was shooting for Material Girl, but I could not find a single version that would embed. I like it because it is a lovely example of Madonna reinventing herself. You expect one thing; you get another. For those of you who are too young, or just don't remember, Vogue is off the Dick Tracy Soundtrack. However, this video shows no elements of the movie in it. I do really like the lyrics, though.
