Movie Quote Wednesday Collides With Lance Armstrong

"I choose to drink! And I blame it on me. I’m happy to. I’ve got an ex-wife and a son I don’t see. Why? Because I choose to drink!"                                                     ~Whip Whitaker, Flight



I read today over on Alex Cavanaugh's blog that today was the day to post your Movie Quote of the Week. Of course, he wanted me to pick a futuristic sci fi movie. Well, that didn't really fit in with what I wanted to talk about today. However, I liked the concept. Furthermore, Alex is one of those people who really praises people on his blog. He is a big encourager, high-fiver, makes wanna-be writers actually perfect their craft, gives big Shout Outs to those who get published, and hosts events for all and sundry to share their work. I admire that. I rarely participate, but I admire. So, I am posting a Movie Quote today. Thank you, Alex.

 Of course, it lends itself very well to my topic at hand.  I posted the trailer to the movie FLIGHT for those of you unfamiliar with it.  I saw it in the theatre when it came out.  So appropriately named.  Yes, it was about an airplane flight that crashed.  But, man that is such a small part of the story.  Whit Whitaker, played so amazingly by Denzel Washington, is literally a man in flight.  Partway through I wondered if they should have called it HIGH.  However, that would have been *wrong.*  Even though he was so high even when he was on the ground.  If you watched the trailer, and I hope you did, you saw that he had this amazing talent that could only be God-given.  Every person who simulated that crash landing killed all of the passengers.  This guy did it drunk.  And that is so drunk that he needed to run lines of coke to get right.  And then he drank more on the plane while it was in flight (obviously prior to the crash).  Imagine what skill he would have clean and sober, but I am jumping ahead.  (BTW, did any of you know that shooting coke would make a person who was drop dead drunk able to present a relatively presentable image of someone sober?  As for me, I had no idea.  These entertainment people are all over this drug scene.)

Here is the thing about alcoholics and drug addicts: you never know where the bottom is.  I would think that a plane crash would be the bottom.  Nope.  Not necessarily so.  Because Whit is still aware that he is THE ONLY GUY who could have landed that plane, it is not the bottom.  He saved lives.  The fact that he was drunk on the job?  The fact that the boozing and drugging had cost him his family?  It didn't matter.  See the above quote.  The man is drunk off his behind when he is screaming it at the only person who still cares a rat's ass about him, and she is on her way OUT.  "I choose to drink! And I blame it on me. I’m happy to. I’ve got an ex-wife and a son I don’t see. Why? Because I choose to drink!"  I AM HAPPY TO.  I HAVE AN EX-WIFE AND SON I DON'T SEE BECAUSE I CHOOSE TO DRINK.

Oh, yeah, he is in flight.  He is in flight from his LIFE.  Things probably got hard and he started drinking and then they got harder and then he ran.  He is in flight. And then he drank more and then he couldn't come home.  And now his son hates him and he is in FLIGHT.  He later says in the film not to worry about him because he lies about his drinking better than anything else.  He's got it covered.  He's been doing it a LONG time.  Or something like that.  It was the classic liar, alcoholic response.  Once you do anything long enough it is second nature.  And to someone who doesn't actually KNOW you, they will believe it.  Of course they will.

I am going to do my best and not ruin this movie for you, because it is well worth your time.  At what point is someone redeemable?  At what point do they deserve your forgiveness?  As someone who has been lied to by the men in my life, I can look back now and say that I know I can't forgive you if 1) You keep on lying (it means you don't actually mean it), 2) Your "truth" turns out to be another lie (so you were still lying), 3) You gave me only a portion of the truth (so you were actually still lying), 4) You only told the truth when I gathered enough evidence that you were cornered (up until then you swore up and down that the other version, which was the lie, was in fact truth). 5)  You cannot say  I am truly sorry for how my behavior hurt you. I need Remorse.  Genuine remorse.

Our newest Celebrity Liar asking for Mea Culpa is Lance Armstrong.  No, he didn't kill anyone.  However, he was perceived by many as a Hero.  And he accepted the title willingly enough.  He was even a Cancer Survivor and had legions of fans in that arena who expected him to "represent" them in some way.  I would use words like Honor, Honesty, Integrity.  He gave none of those things back to the people who supported him so ardently.

I watched a good bit of his interview with Oprah asking for his side of the story to be heard.  He admitted to doping during all seven of his Tour De France wins.  He agreed that the doping wasn't particularly honorable, but it was easy.  In fact, everyone was doing it.  However, since this was about him, he didn't want to go pointing fingers at anyone else.  Hmmm.  Counterpoint: there were a handful of guys running clean on the circuit and "I really admire those guys."  Apparently he didn't admire them enough to run a clean race himself.  But, he admired them.  Well, okay.

He also readily admitted to being a bully and tearing into ANYONE who discovered his doping.  Woah.  What a nice fellow.  Someone we can all look up to: a doper and a bully.  I can't decide which aspect of his personality is now my favorite.

And then we got into the semantics over whether or not you could be on HIS team if you doped or not.  We must remember that he was Team Captain and that you lead by example.  Several non-dopers said that you could NOT be on the team if you didn't dope.  A fellow doper claimed that they regularly doped in the tents right outside, with people all around and none the wiser,  and NO ONE knew.  He related this in his book.  Lance said he had no memory of these events, but if the other guy said it then he wouldn't deny it.  WTF?  Lance also said that he didn't feel as bad about HIS doping because he only MINIMALLY doped.  I guess that means he was a light doper.  And he also said that, at the time, he was able to justify it after his cancer because he lost his ball.  You know, he had less male hormone, so he needed it more (the dope). After all, he was the only guy out there riding around out there with one ball.  I can see his point.  Not really.

So, let's look at my criteria.  (#1-5).  #1 You keep on lying.  Well, the guy lied long enough to win seven Tour de France competitions.  I would say that is a lot of lying.  #2 The truth is just another lie.  Well, that also qualifies here.  He said repeatedly and forcefully that he was not doping when he was.  Not doping was his truth.  #3 Now that it is all out we are getting portions of the truth.  "If so and so said that we doped in the tent, we doped in the tent, but I have no memory of that."  Seriously?  Is that owning it these days?  #4  You only fess up if you get caught, and there is no way out but the truth.  This guy got caught.  If he hadn't, would he still be doing it?  My gut says he would.  He doesn't really think anything he did was all that bad.  Everyone was doing it.  He was doing less.  And, let's face it, he was only working with one ball vs. other guys with two.  #5 Remorse.  I didn't see any.  The only thing he seemed to work up any emotion about was getting caught again in 2011,  Maybe he was doping then and maybe he wasn't.  But who can believe him?  He has zero credibility.  His mommy should have read him the book about The Boy Who Cried Wolf.



The best quote from the interview with Lance Armstrong: "I'm not the most believable guy in the world right now."

Ya think?

It Goes Down Best With Bullets.

This is by no means a regular deal ~ yet ~ but I have gotten your lovely emails and whatnot and I miss you, too. The thing is that reading is difficult for me right now. Writing (aka typing) is also not a walk in the park. So, I feel a bit guilty throwing out a post with no intention of reading what you have going on in your blogs. With that in mind, you need to catch me up in your comments or send me an email. I just can't do a whole lot of reading these days. I am hoping that will change soon. The other reason I haven't posted is that I really haven't felt like it. That is as honest as I know to be. I am just not really thinking in a straight line and it always seemed "hard" when I thought about it. With that in mind, I did have some blogging ideas for the future that I will mention as you will see....

So, let's do this post the way that I do best when I don't really think straight: yep, bullet style. That way I can just throw it out there.

• I have mostly been playing memory games on facebook. I got the idea about a year ago when my memory sucked so bad that I was grasping at words. It has helped. I think working that memory muscle is like every other one.
  
• That is not to say that I still don't get stuck on spelling words that I should know how spell or other things equally annoying. It just doesn't happen all of the time like it used to, which is something of a relief. For instance, right now the word hundred is in my head. Did I spell that right? It feels right, but I am just not sure. And that crap makes me nuts. I used to KNOW.
• I just finished the first season of THE PRACTICE on DVD. It was written by David E. Kelley (the same guy who wrote Ally McBeal). I didn't watch it from the beginning so a lot of the shows were new to me. However, I loved that show. And still do. He is such an amazing writer, with amazing characters, storylines, and always leaves you debating yourself over some moral question at the end. Love it. I wish more shows did that. I love a show that makes you think.
• Of course, I moved on to MY NAME IS EARL. Yeah, I finally got Season 2 on Amazon on sale. That show is Hilarious. Not sure it makes me think a whole lot, but it makes me laugh a ton. And I really need that. Laughter is good for the soul.
• My mom switched our regular TV from DirectTV over to cable. Eventually the cable in this area will pick up more channels. The only big loss as far as I am concerned is OWN. Yeah, that is the Oprah Winfrey Network.
  
• And that brings me to the blog I was thinking of writing, but could never think in a straight line long enough to do it... Actually it was a series of blogs based on Oprah's Lifeclass. Yeah, that show hit me in a PROFOUND way. I didn't know this until Oprah stopped interviewing and started talking that she is Amazing.
  
• Anyway, she did this show called Oprah's Lifeclass that was on at 8:00 on OWN (it's in reruns now) and she chose a few "lessons" that she learned from her guests and then picked footage from her shows to highlight these lessons. Talk about Eye Opening. I had an "A Ha" moment every night at 8:00 pm.
• Meanwhile, I thought, "I have to share this awesomeness with my blogger friends." Her page has clips from each show. So, my idea was to have Life Class right here with the video and my thoughts and then to challenge each of you to post the video and right your own thoughts on it. (Look what I just did. "right your own thoughts" This is why I am not writing anymore!!!!! I am an English major. This mutilation of the language makes me insane!) And then sit back and watch the "A Ha" moments spread across the world.
  
• No point in dreaming small.
• For the record, I haven't given up on that one. I have merely shelved it until I can think in a straight line again.
• So what is my biggest problem, you ask?
• Right now, I am freaking dizzy. As in my spacial orientation sucks. As in I am holding onto walls. Like right now I have head planted into the back of this recliner to keep the world in check. And, of course, my migraines are freaking off the charts.
• Due to this ear thing, I have a test called an ENG scheduled for next week that requires that I be off of all my migraine and other meds. You read that right. So, I am titrating down right now and go cold turkey on Friday.
  
• As I have quit them, the dizzy, the migraines, and the general pain has gotten worse. As has my ability to think clearly (hence the bullets).
  
• On a totally different note, I feel almost completely certain that Mr. Electric is thinking about me (aka Right Guy turned Not Right Guy after I gave up on him). However, I think he might still be Right Guy. Don't know about that. Definitely Mr. Electric.
  
• Anyway, it just came to me a few days ago. I haven't even thought about him in forever. And I KNEW he was thinking about me. For those of you who doubt my psychic ability, feel free. Anyway, this has happened before, but it was several years ago.
  
• That time I repeatedly imagined him calling me. Well, he did. Only I left the house and forgot my cell phone and my stepdad and answered it. It was the one and only time my stepdad has ever answered my cell. Mr. Electric has trust issues and that tore it for him. He was convinced I will still involved with the liar, cheater, ex-boyfriend.
• Anyway, I am back to imagining him calling me and me answering my phone. Sometimes you have to take the imagery further.
• For a long time I was really ticked about how that went down. Now I realize that he wasn't ready for me and I had yet to fully understand (aka process) the lessons that both of my exes taught. There was a lot of stuff in there. In fact, I am not really sure I got it all until recently. Hmmm. Timing really is everything, no?

Well, I will try to keep you in the loop about my test sooner. That means posting something next week or so, rather than next month or so. I don't know when I will be back to reading your blogs. Just bear with me. Let me know what you think about the series of blogs on the LifeClass. I will probably do my own thing anyway, but I am still curious. I have found it is good to get the opinions of others, but best to do WHAT YOU FEEL in your own gut.

More Important To Be Right Or Be Loved?

I am always amused and awed when I get an email from one of asking if I am okay. It makes me realize that I haven't blogged in a week or so and you are wondering if I have kicked the bucket. Blogging friends truly are wonderful. My regular friends can go months and not think anything of it. Kind of a sad commentary, no?

I think I mentioned that my mom has been watching the Oprah Network. Well, she has sucked me in, too. I like "the story behind the story" and I like shows that are digging for personal truth. Sort of like what I try to do here. If you are having difficulty in your life or your relationships, work it out. A show that is now ending on OWN is The Judds. Apparently Naomi and Wynona have had a volatile relationship forever. There are so many reasons for it and they get into all of them. I try to imagine being a teenager and having my mother for a mom and a boss. So not cool. That made the transition from mother-daughter to mother-friend an unnatural one. They love each other like crazy BUT...

I think about how hard it would be to work that out on television. On the other hand, if no one worked out their issues publicly, other people wouldn't have the opportunity to learn. If Chris didn't write her weight loss/life blog, no one else would have all that great information. If Phoenix didn't write her love each better blog, I wouldn't stop and think I could be doing that better. If Shoes didn't write his crazy ass blog, I wouldn't laugh every day. If JJ didn't write his philosophical stuff, what would I think about? If Lira didn't post her struggling actress tips for others, they wouldn't have that foundation. [I could go on and on about all of your great blogs but my hands would lock into position over this keyboard. ALL of you are amazing.] This is what we do for one another. We live our lives out loud for ourselves and other people. Some do it in writing and others on TV.

I have learned so many things watching Naomi and Wynona interact. First of all, people often are the most cruel to the people that they love most. Second, if there were a device to take words back, everyone would buy one. Third, revelation is a slow process. I think it is because you have to understand yourself before you can understand another. Think on that for a while. Yikes. Fourth, it is essential to speak your truth. Until you do that, you do not feel free. You are shackled by silence that eats your soul. It is only in speaking your truth at all times that you can remain free. That doesn't mean shouting it with the most pain and bitterness you can throw, but speaking it gently with the solidness of its truth. That is all.

Last night, Wynona said how important it was to her to be right. All of these years it has been so important to be right. She never saw before that if there were a choice between being right and being loved, being loved was so much better.

The answer here is not to cave in to everyone else on everything just so that you are loved and they feel good about themselves. That just makes you a doormat and you lose your truth (#4). However, everyone deserves to be heard and both can be right from their viewpoint. Acknowledging another person's rightness is okay, too. It is saying I hear and love you. And that is where Naomi and Wynona arrived. Some people never get there. One person is right and another is wrong. There cannot be two right viewpoints on the same situation that are different!

Look at what that little bit of learning did for their relationship. Now they can apply that to all of their relationships. Everyone who watched that show can start processing that in their relationships. Powerful stuff.

I called the kids on Saturday just to talk to them. I had been trying to get hold of H-Girl all week. I had talked to C-Man last weekend. My ex called me yesterday to wish me Happy Mother's Day. He told me that the kids said we'd talked the day before AND that they'd said they'd wished me HMDay then. I corrected him by telling him that I had called them, but nothing had been said about Mother's Day. After we hung up, H-Girl's cell rang. It was C-Man calling to wish me HMDay. He was rushed b.c. it was close to their bedtime. I thanked him and told him to go on and get ready for bed. I asked about his sister. She came to the phone, but she was clearly ticked off by her tone of voice. I asked her how she was, etc. I could tell that she was not going to say HMDay, so I just told her good night and she said good-bye. And that was that.

I sent my ex an email asking him not to do that in the future. The kids are old enough to know the holidays. If they want to call, they will. If they don't, they won't. But forced expressions of love are not love. And I am hoping that H-Girl unwittingly employed tactic number one on me. People are often the most cruel to the people they love the most.

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