Clarification...
I need to stop posting when I'm tired, delirious and pissed off.
I wrote this note to a friend about my last post, and I wanted to share it with y'all.
I'm not an alcoholic. Most of the time my drinking is completely under control. (And yes, I do realize that every alcoholic in the world says this.)
I don't need to drink. I don't have to have a drink to function. I don't crave it, which all alcoholics tell me they do. I could take it or leave it.
But somewhere along the line, drinking has become a necessary feature in my social calendar, and I'm just taking a break from it for a while. When I am sober, I have no tolerance for people who aren't sober. So, I drink because they're drunk, and that makes them more palatable. It's a vicious cycle.
I just need a break. I don't need a meeting, or Cumberland Heights. I highly doubt that I'll ever be a tee-totaller or anything.
I guess I just want to see if any of my friends actually think I'm fun if I'm sober. Remember that episode of "Friends" where Fun Bobby stops drinking?
Can I make it through a Cinco de Mayo without a margarita? Can I watch the Derby without Maker's Mark? Can I skip a month of happy hours? Maybe, but maybe not. Today it still sounds like a good idea. We'll see.
I just don't want to have a shitty birthday. And lately I think maybe "not shitty"="alcohol-free."
Although, not shitty might also mean free alcohol ...
31
Fuck it, I'm going to tell y'all what I need to tell you.
I'm going to be 31 years old in three weeks. And I realized tonight, that it's time to act like a fucking grown up.
I can't let life pass me by while I sit on a bar stool. I can't drink to shut my brain off, ease the pain, whatever else.
For the 31 days of May, including my 31st birthday, I am going to take a break from drinking. I can't spend all my time and money in a bar. I can't cope with my life by drowning in the booze. I need to just stop.
I know that people had plans for my birthday, and I'm sure that'll make them sad, but I need to do this for me. I joke about sharing a room at Cumberland Heights with Keith Urban, but it isn't funny.
I'm not 21 anymore. I can't party like I am.
And, at the least, I'm fucking sick of my clothes and hair stinking.
Smoke rings in the dark
I sat down to write a big, long post, but I'm tired and grumpy.
There'll be more here, soon enough. I promise.
I may have a somewhat shocking announcment soon. I am thinking long and hard about something right now.
I'm also biting my lip and sleeping on other things.
Song of the day:
"Drinking Me Lonely" by Chris Young.
A little political rant for you
Rudy Giuliani is suggesting that if Democrats are elected in 2008 that another major terrorist attack could happen?Does this mean he's trying to cash in on Sept. 11?
Surely, he wouldn't. No. Effing. Way.
I think every single candidate (on both sides) needs to pipe the fuck down because the election's still over a year away, but since they won't at least they're giving me lots of material.
Is anyone shocked? Is there anyone who didn't think this would happen? Surely there's no one in America who thought that Rudy Giuliani's campaign platform
wasn't going to be "I'm the 'Sept. 11th Guy'; I can save America." Seriously, I'll bet he has t-shirts made that say that.
I think it's totally crass and tasteless, but I kind of feel that way about Hillary and Obama, too, so I'm not getting my panties too much in a wad over it. In fact, I'm already kind of
blah about politics in general and I see no hope for an upturn in my mood. This from a woman who used to eat, breathe and sleep elections. I'm over it and it's not even 2008 yet.
Do y'all realize how sad that is?
I am going to sit over here with my other delusional liberal friends who think that Al Gore will toss his hat into the ring after all his Nobel Prize hub-bub. He's a superstar, and he'd win.
But I think the Republicans are on to him, because they sure do like Fred Thompson. That should tell you something; it's what I said in 2004. Whoever the Republicans are afraid of is who the Democrats should support. Duh.
Sidebar: I know Nedra Pickler, the reporter who wrote the story I referenced, from my Detroit days! That's cool!
Nevermind ...
I'd logged on to write through the hostility I'm having.
Then I realized it wasn't worth the carpal tunnel flare-up.
Sometimes you just have to say, "fuck it," and leave it at that.
Song of the day:
"Tennessee" by The Wreckers.
The show must go on...
I don't know if I mentioned it here, but my friend Eric had a show in Nashville last night, and I've been so excited about it since he told me he was coming. We were going to go to his show last night, and then hit the town with him and the guys. I haven't seen Eric since he opened for Jason Aldean last March, and I couldn't wait.
I was running late from work, as the server decided to freeze up as I was e-mailing a report that has to be finished before I leave Thursday. I rushed home and got ready in five minutes. Then we battled the West End traffic and arrived at 12th and Porter with minutes to spare, thanks to the first highlight of my evening: complimentary valet. ("But you have to tip us." OK, dude that makes it so not complimentary anymore.)
I have been to several shows at 12th and Porter to see various friends since arriving in the Music City. So, I grab a drink, head over to where the stage is, and we wait. There's no one there. All we can hear is that Keith Urban CD with the-drinking-and-crying-song playing over and over. No sign of Eric.
I figured they were running late or the schedule got changed or something. Hell, I even thought that maybe Eric and the guys had car trouble and were stranded in Kentucky. I had no idea what was going on. Kay and I were very confused.
This other band came on and sang three or four songs. Maybe they were an opening act? We still waited patiently.
Finally this girl comes and sits next to us. She tells us her friend said he was playing there tonight, but he wasn't with this band and maybe she mixed up the dates, was at the wrong place, all the things we wondered. She decides that she's going to ask at the door.
That's when they break the news to us. 12th and Porter has a second stage, in a very nondescript, closed-off section behind the door. Oops. I think she caught her friend's last song, but Eric, Chico and the boys were long gone.
Who the fuck has a mystery stage that no one knows about? Because I'm telling you, I've gone there a lot. Not like Crossroads a lot, but more than most places in town, and I never knew about this secret second stage.
I was really sad and depressed. I felt like I let Eric down because I told him I would be there. I felt like I let Kay down because she'd been listening to his CD all week and who knows when she'll get to see him live. And probably the most upsetting part for me was that I missed my friend, whom I have not seen in over a year. We tried to find him downtown, but you know what the end of the week on Lower Broad can look like.
Finally, we gave up and we took in a few minutes of Jewels' show. I love her, but sometimes I think that the tourists get more than they bargain for. She's craaaazzzzy.
Then onward to Legends Corner, where Maurice whipped me up a delicious pizza. Apparently he is trying to put a pre-emptive strike on me being drunk and insane. He kept doing this crazy routine where he made these faces and gestures and screamed when he saw me. I asked Kay what he was doing, and she said it was an impersonation of me from last week. It's amazing he didn't bar the doors when he saw me coming. Kassie and Bobby seem to think it's because I have nice bar tabs.
But tab was not a word in my vocabularly last night, as I met a liquor distributor, and as long as I drank his shit, he paid for it. Probably mostly because he wanted to get in my pants.
He says he's going to meet us there again tonight. Pass me the Southern Comfort.
Reunions
Last week, my friend Jake from high school found me on MySpace. That was very cool. He seems to be doing well. He has a son and he coaches high school basketball. That doesn't surprise me.
Through Jake, I got a little reacquainted with some other classmates. I'm not going to befriend them on MySpace, because I wasn't friends with them in real life. (Although I did take the opportunity to make fun of a few of them with some friends from high school. It seemed like old times.)
Of course, I had another reunion of sorts last week, which seriously caused me to have doubts about a huge part of my life and apparently get so drunk that I don't remember anything, but, according to Kay, I almost took a header into the Cumberland River. It also took me five minutes to figure out how to put my flip-flop back on, which I tried to do in the middle of a street with a little bit of traffic.
Now that I've run the full gamut of emotions after my little blast from the past, I think everything will be OK. It surely won't be as I'd hoped or expected, but it's going to work out. You can't hate someone you spent so much time loving, now can you?
They say all things come in threes, so my third blast from the past arrived in my inbox this morning. It was also from a person who disappointed me and also involved MySpace. Seriously, say what you want, but someone has a lot of balls to ask to be my friend there. Lots of balls. At least Mike apologized profusely before he asked if we could try to salvage our friendship. However, this person did not. She doesn't really have to, because even though she's never asked for my forgiveness, I gave it a long time ago. I had to forgive her so I could move on.
And move on, I have. I have a great job in a fantastic city. I have friends who love me and aren't lunatics, and life is grand. I'm surrounded by music, and every night when I go home I'm met with warm doggie kisses. Things haven't turned out exactly as I'd planned, but my plan seems to suck compared to God's anyhow.
I've forgiven, but forgetting isn't always as easy, and that's a good thing. I briefly toyed with the idea of letting her be my friend on MySpace, although friend is hardly the word I'd use to describe her these days. I'm not sure she ever was my friend, or if she's capable of being one. I checked out her profile, because at first I thought my eyes might be deceiving me. But there she was, along with some other people who weren't so nice to me. Now, why on God's green earth would I befriend them anywhere, even on MySpace, where people aren't really your friends?
I've let my guard down a little more lately, and there are many, many days that I wonder if I'll get burned immensely for doing that. You have to live, though, you know. And when an apology is accompanied by a good explanation, it makes it easier. Some things are excusable and you move past them. Some things you just chalk up to life's examples and move on without ever looking back.
I was just pondering today how paranoid I've become in my life over the past few years. After everything that's happened, how could I not be? I just can't help but wonder what the ulterior motives are when someone you've written off tries to contact you out of the blue like that. You wonder what her angle is, because you know she has to have one. She always does.
I don't have time for games. I'm 30 years old. When I'm not working, I'm having the time of my life. There's really just no time for games, even if I wanted to play them.
Wouldn't it be nice if everyone grew up?
Quote of the day ...
From my roommate, yesterday evening, as we watched the CMT Awards.
"Do you really think that LeAnn doesn't know her husband's gay? How?"
I just turned to her and reminded her it was a very bad subject, and sometimes you just don't know.
She saw my point.
So many questions ...
I am supposed to be writing a letter. I don't have much of an update on the last five years, and I really wish that I were much more successful and/or happy than I really am. Not that I don't love my life, because I do; I just wish that I were as happy as other people seem to be. It's kind of like at your high school reunion ... you wish that you had kids, that someone who used to be really thin was fat, that you'd won more awards ... you know. Same thing. I've done well for myself over the past several years, but I'm not nearly as exciting as I wish I were.
Mostly, I want to ask a lot of questions in my letter. I'm sure it's the reporter in me -- always looking for the scoop. But I know I don't want the answers. I already know what they are, and I'm pretty sure they'll just piss me off.
Maybe I just want to hear him say what I already suspect, but what good would that do? Would I be more vindicated? Would I feel less like a loser? Nah, I know -- unequivocally -- that the answers I'd receive would only make things worse. I don't need to be feeling any worse about myself, really.
Song of the day:
Unanswered Prayers by Garth Brooks.
Friends with benefits
If I'd never met Mike, I wouldn't have...
- hiked on the Appalachian Trail.
- driven over the Mackinac Bridge.
- moved back to Detroit.
- become a Michigan and UT fan.
- gotten my picture taken in front of 1600 Peyton Manning Pass in Knoxville.
- known about the Christmas lights on Ellen Lane.
- gone to the last Friday night game at Tiger Stadium (yay, fireworks!).
- picked daisies at Cade's Cove. (Shhh...don't tell, it's illegal.)
- driven to the Vice President of the United States' house and posed for pictures in his front yard. (Could also be illegal, so shhhh on that too.)
- ever learned so much about water pollution, dioxin, salmonella and hot tubs. (Gross.)
- had a second thought when I throw trash in the bin that could be recycled (not like I actually recycle it, but I do have a tinge of conscience about throwing it out).
- gotten up at 4 a.m. to go to the Thanksgiving Parade.
- followed the Pretty Princess around America for two years.
- learned how to make German chocolate cake from scratch.
- owned a sweatshirt from Charlevoix, Michigan.
- had supper at the Legs Inn.
- had a Mr. Pibb stain on the ceiling of my first new car.
- driven to the beginning of US-41.
- realized that a person's life is not complete if you don't get to Fall Creek Falls at least once a year.
- moved to Nashville.
- ever thought I was capable of being loved. (Ironic now, isn't it?)
I know there are lots of things I'm forgetting. Hell, three years is a long time. And not a second of it was wasted, not at all.
I know that in the last week I've said that if I could I'd go back and erase the day that we met (which will be 10 years ago this week). I know I said that I felt like I wasted three years of my life I can't ever get back.
I wouldn't take back the day that I met him. Even though we both hurt each other and things didn't turn out the way I wanted at all, I wouldn't take it back. I'm a better person because he was in my life. And even though he's happy and settled and I'm single with rapidly-drying-up ovaries, I don't feel like I wasted three years of my life. I have a laundry list of major accomplishments that show our time together wasn't wasted. And besides, I wouldn't live here in Nashville if it weren't for him. That, right there, is worth its weight in gold.
I'm still a little pissed. Why shouldn't I be? I know that he couldn't help it. I know it wasn't my fault, but then I get pissed again because I realize it was his fault. It doesn't matter. I've always said there was a reason we weren't together, even though I never really expected that's what it was.
I'd just like to say I don't care what kind of James Dobson, Sean Hannity, etc. bullshit you believe, it's incredibly shitty to spout your bullshit about things not being genetic to me right now. That makes me feel worse, and that makes you an asshole.
All I know is what I know, even though it could just be one more bullshit thing that a man would say, because I'm used to that too.
At least I can feel all warm and fuzzy when I think about what my roommate said to me when I told him: "I think you're cuter, Grace Adler."
Gone
I almost forgot this. Yesterday's song of the day was
"Gone" by Montgomery Gentry.
Hangover
I had all these updates for you planned, and then life came along and hit me with a baseball bat. Thursday, which could've been a great night to get caught up here at the house, ended up being an evening of me getting ridiculously drunk, not remembering any of it and spending time yesterday cleaning barf out of Kay's car.
But after I stopped puking some time Friday evening, I felt a lot better.
Now, I don't advocate binge drinking. At all. I shouldn't have done it, and I know that it's not the reason that I feel better about my situation. I know you shouldn't use alcohol to cope, and I try not to. However, the good thing about not remembering an entire evening is that at some point you forget the reason you were drinking, even if it had made you cry for about 20 hours straight before you picked up the glass.
I don't feel like it's my place to tell you exactly what prompted the world's biggest bender. It involves people other than little ol' me, and I just don't feel like it's my place. I struggle, because it was a huge thing in my life, to learn that something was completely and totally not what I thought it was, for a very long time. I was embarrassed that I spent all that time not knowing. I felt a little like I was a big experiment, and that made me feel a little used. And lastly, I was pissed that no matter what I do, I can't change the situation.
In some ways, I feel like I opened Pandora's box. Maybe ignorance
is bliss. The only reason that I even attempted to say anything was because I had a guilty conscience and felt like I needed to apologize. But let's be honest, when we do that it's because we want everything to be on our terms. Maybe I freaked out a little, when it wasn't.
Maybe things will be fine in the long run. They won't ever be the same, but maybe they'll be fine. Maybe I can stop blaming myself for things completely and totally out of my control. Honestly, I should be flattered.
Maybe someone, somewhere will quiet this nagging fear that I'm going to end up all alone. Maybe. I think that's the biggest issue. It's just one more person to cross off the list.
But I guess knowing that you're going to end up all alone is much better than making plans for the future with someone who can't ever be there for you, no matter what.
Or at least that's what everyone keeps telling me.
Going back to bed now...
The next song?
No, really.
"Lips of an Angel" by Jack Ingram.
I'm going back to bed with a tub of Purity Happy Birthday ice cream.
Actually, no. I need to get ready for work. But any of my friends in Nashville who read this need to be prepared to drink whiskey and/or drive my super-drunk ass home tonight.
Jack and Merle, the only boyfriends who never leave...
No effing joke...
My horoscope that was waiting in my inbox this morning. At this point, I don't know that any of you will know why this is significant, but it is.
Oh, and my current soundtrack for irony is
"Missing Years" by Little Texas, which is playing on GAC as I type this.
I need to get ready for work. If I ever figure out how to articulate my thoughts, maybe I'll share them with you. But for the first time in a long time, I wished I had my very private, paper journal back. Because I need to scream, cry and blame myself before I can put on my happy face, I think...
April 12, 2007
Conscious Openness
Gemini Daily Horoscope You may feel tolerant and liberal-minded today, which could make it easier for you to be more accepting of various beliefs and lifestyles. Being open to the diversity that exists in the world might be because you feel more in touch with the universal nature of the human experience and recognize that there are common threads binding all of us together. As you encounter other ideas today, you might wish to put this sense of receptiveness into action by noticing the thoughts that tend to cross your mind. For example, you might reflect on whether or not you are excited by new ideas, afraid of them, or critical. Knowing how you respond to something that is different can help you break down the barriers you have in your mind and make it easier for you to open up to a new ideas and different experiences.
Acceptance doesn't always come naturally—we need to be consciously aware of our thoughts in order to genuinely cultivate tolerance. For many of us it might be easy to say that we really understand ideas or lifestyles that are different from our own, but to really mean this understanding has to happen on a much more visceral level. Once we are clued into the workings of our mind, however, we can see how to open ourselves up to things that might at first see difficult to grasp, and our understanding unfolds and expands as well. Seeing how you process the world will help you truly embrace the differences that exist in others today.
Speechless...
I think that I'm going to pull a Zellweger and totally not talk about my precious things, thereby keeping them precious.
Or maybe I'm just speechless.
That rarely happens. Of course, it wouldn't be the first time the person in question has invoked that response. It's just totally different this time.
And not like he reads this, but if he did, I can guarantee he'd smile when he saw that today my song of the day is
"Love, me" by Collin Raye.
Updates
I am so far behind on everything right now.
I shut my computer off Friday morning before we went hiking and didn't sit down in front of another computer until work on Monday. And, you know what? It was nice. I cannot wait until October when I go on vacation in the land of crappy Internet access. Yay. Sometimes I feel like I can't live without my laptop, but when I do I realize how nice it is to escape our electronic tethers.
I've been very busy at work. I've been cleaning my house. I've been catching up on my leisure reading (more on my book later!). I went to a few shows, and have plenty to say about that.
I went to the doctor today. He told me I need to lose 50 pounds. I told him I can; I just need to find my discipline again.
I guess I need to do that with my writing too. My book hasn't been updated since I started my new job. My blog is kind of boring lately.
But honestly, when you spend your whole day writing, the last thing you want to do when you get home is sit down in front of a computer and write.
I'll get my groove back, I promise. I do have lots to tell you, and I'm sure you've missed me.
Coyote Ugly?
Did y'all hear about the coyote at Quizno's? In downtown Chicago?
Can you imagine? I live in the city so that I don't have to interact with wildlife. My favorite part of the story is where they say
they find 10 to 15 coyotes in downtown Chicago every spring.
That's a lot of coyotes. I lived on a farm in an area of the country with a serious coyote problem. We had to carefully watch our livestock and our pets to make sure that coyotes didn't get them. And I haven't even seen 10 to 15 coyotes.
How the hell did coyotes get in downtown Chicago? And thank God I wasn't in Quizno's, because I'm pretty sure I'd have dropped my overpriced chicken sandwich!
CHICAGO - For one day, at least, the roadrunner was safe. It seems the coyote was hankering for another kind of fast food. Employees and customers at a downtown Chicago Quiznos sandwich shop were stunned to see a coyote walk through the propped-open front door Tuesday afternoon and lie down in a cooler stocked with fruit juice and soda.
"It wasn't aggressive at all," restaurant manager Bina Patel told the Chicago Tribune. "It was just looking around."
Employees and customers calmly cleared out of the restaurant, though some took the time to finish their sandwiches and snap some cell-phone photos, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Animal control officers took the passive coyote away after about 40 minutes, after a curious crowd had gathered outside.
"This one definitely I will definitely remember forever. A coyote in downtown Chicago," Quiznos employee Rick Torres told WLS-TV.
The city captures 10 to 15 coyotes every year, especially in the spring when they are most active, said Anne Kent, director of Chicago Animal Care and Control. Veterinarians will examine the coyote and, if he is not injured, release him into the wild.
Are bloggers journalists?
With all the hub-bub lately about whether bloggers should be considered journalists and offered the same protections as reporters, I started to think about this.
Are bloggers journalists?
There's a lot of debate on the subject. Lots of experts (and many not-so-expert folks, too) are weighing in. You can type that phrase into the Yahoo search bar and read all about it, because I have neither the energy nor the time to link you to all the reference materials on this matter.
All I know for sure is my opinion, which I'd like to think is an educated one. As you know, I am a journalist by trade. I went to journalism school, worked for a newspaper and write everyday to put food on my table. Really, there's not really any other way to describe me. (Although "hack" works just as well.)
The snob in me -- the one who went to a top-ranked journalism school and knows she's a good writer -- has always believed there should be some sort of licensing for journalists. Especially in public relations, which has been my area of concentration. Too many people who can't write their way out of a paper sack end up with PR jobs, and that's not cool. Good PR should be good writing, and the people with those jobs should be trained writers.
I read a lot of blogs. Some of the people whom I read are not formally trained, but are damn good bloggers. (Actually all of the people I read are damn good bloggers, or I wouldn't be reading.) Most of them are just recounting life's observations and aren't tackling the nitty gritty. I don't know if I'd call them journalists, but they are good writers.
What I do here on my blog is not journalism. I don't interview sources and write well-researched stories. All you get here are my observations on life. And sometimes they don't suck. So, for the purposes of my blog, I'm just a blogger, not a journalist. At work, I'm a journalist. But all in all, I'm a writer.
I think some bloggers are journalists. And I think some journalists are using blogging software as their medium to publish. I don't think all these folks are trained as I've been, but that's how it was at the newspaper too. Some people had college degrees and some people just had a damn good writing style and a lot of contacts. It just depends.
If someone is treating their blog as an honest-t0-goodness publication, with interviews, sources, fact-checking and editing, then yeah, they're a journalist and should be protected as such. If they somehow manage to leak trade secrets in between their rant on their morning trip to Starbucks and a muffin recipe, then they're not.
I believe deeply in a free press and grass-roots journalism. If it weren't for anonymous, grass-roots journalists, we'd probably all still be English. I think what the bloggers who are reporting is great for our society and for journalism. I love that the blogosphere makes it so easy for people to share their insights with us. However, with that there is good and bad. I have seen those who have a pretty good story hiding behind anonymity. And a lot of it's not straight-forward reporting. There's a lot of good writing out there, but I don't know that it's all journalism.
Protected speech is protected speech, but it tends to be a gray and murky area, especially in the digital age. That's why we need to support the
Electronic Frontier Foundation and stay up-to-date on the work they are doing. If you haven't been over there before, I suggest you check it out. Oh, and give them money, because they are a nonprofit and they are protecting all bloggers' rights.
For those bloggers (or anyone else for that matter!) who'd like to be considered journalists, I want to remind you that there are responsibilities to being a journalist. You can't just start writing, hit publish and -- voila! -- instant journalist. There's a reason I'm trained not only in grammar and editing, but in ethics and media law, as well. The pen is a very powerful tool. It always has been. And we have to be very careful what we do with our words.
For more on the responsibilities of being a journalist, you can click on the
Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics. If someone's doing all that (or at least striving for it, because ethics codes are living, breathing documents that you work toward), then let's call them a journalist. Fair, unbiased, balanced news. And not the kind you find on Fox.
Yummmm...birthday cake
Speaking of Kenny's birthday (OK, I know we weren't, but now we are), I wanted to share a picture with you.
Toward the end of the night, my not-so-sober self realized that we needed some sort of proof that we got to eat birthday cake off KC's hand.
Laura pointed out to me that I still had blue on my tongue from the icing. Proof. Good.
So, I stuck my tongue out for a picture. And then as I'm getting all Gene Simmons on her, I realize I need to do devil horns too.
This was the result. I'm so sexy. How am I single?
A quickie...
I have to get back to work, but I wanted to give a few updates while I was thinking about them.
I am still working on my story at work. I turned it in, and my boss liked it but she wanted me to add some more sources. Of course, those sources haven't been calling me back. I'm still scrambling a little, and now I'm actually stalking two of our members to get quotes. My boss is still aggravated because she said I should've interviewed them months ago. Of course, I couldn't interview them months ago, because she didn't suggest I talk to them until Friday. In fact, the one person we'd actually made a conscious decision not to interview because they'd recently done a feature story on her facility before I came. Oh well, it'll all work out, I hope. We're already out of space for our magazine as it is, so I'm not quite sure where we'll put these extra quotes. I'll try to stalk them again later, I guess.
I know I fucked up on that one. I just dusted myself off, and I keep going. I'm even trying to get a head-start on some other stuff while I wait. It'll all work out.
So, as many of you know, I ventured back on over to KennyLand a few weeks ago. Considering that all the Nashville-based KennyLand folks were invited to KC's birthday party and I had a blast that night, I'd say it was well worth the price of admission. However, I noticed something in KennyLand that I felt like I should bring up. Yes, for the second time in a little over a week, KennyLand was resposible for bringing me yet another moment of clarity. See, it's not all bad.
There's this person in KennyLand that I used to be friends with. I wouldn't have taken a bullet for her or anything, but I considered her to be a friend of sorts. Anyhow, today I was over in KennyLand and someone asked a completely innocent and totally valid question. I was scrolling down to answer and be helpful (sometimes I let my good nature get the best of me, but not very often!), and I noticed that several people had done a very good job of informing this person and addressing his or her concerns.
Well, except this person I used to be friends with. She was an asshole. A total jerk. Her reply was terse and condescending. Sometimes I'll be snarky with the folks in KennyLand -- especially the ones who know better -- but she was just a dick about it. The person had like 5 posts, how the fuck were they supposed to know, oh wise and wonderful wizard?
My curiosity got the best of me, and I clicked on her username where I could pick the option to see her other posts. And when I did, it was more of the same. She did this in all kinds of threads about everything. It seemed like the only time she ever posted anything was to exert her "superiority" on everyone else. I thought about calling her out, but I didn't want to stir up the drama. I thought about complaining to a moderator, but that's pretty low and tacky too. So, I just let it be. She's not worth it anyhow.
With every post I read by her, I felt more and more vindicated in my decision to distance myself from her. I am sitting here thinking now if she was that big of a jerk when I was friends with her and I didn't notice. Or maybe she's just an asshole to people she's not friends with. Regardless, I was reminded of a song on my new Angela Hacker CD I bought today: "Losing you ain't a total loss."
Sometimes we're sad when someone leaves our life, and rightly so. But the more we think about it, the more we realize that it's all going to be OK, and maybe even a little better than it was before.
Oh, that reminds me. It wasn't two; I've had three moments of clarity in the last week or so. Because I realized that I'd be OK when I went to Jackson two weekends ago and found the Perkins all by myself. I don't need a man to have pie. (Well, most kinds, anyhow...)
I still can't erase that text message he sent the day he left, though. Maybe someday... I need to, but it's all I've got left, you know? It's like proof that someone, somewhere, at some point cared enough to miss me.
Well, maybe someday on that, too.
Song of the day: "Johnny Cash" by Jason Aldean. We're hoping to go on adventures this weekend, and if we do, I'm sure we'll be hearing enough Johnny Cash that this will need to be our theme song.
I'll leave you with some famous last words, overheard last night: "Just stop by Legends for one drink on your way home."
Thanks to Glen, Marc, TJ and Todd for stealing two hours of sleep from me. And singing "Livin' Our Love Song." Twice. I guess I have to thank Timmy for that, too!
Google Images Meme
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| Answer the following questions, then using Google Image Search, choose one image from the first page that comes up from your search. The questions: 1. First car  That looks just like my first car, but I have no idea who that guy is. 2. The place you grew up  That's the feed store from the closest town to my parents' farm. 3. The place you live now  One of my favorite places here! 4. What shows up when you type your name in  Pulitzer Prize winner Laura Richards 5. What comes up when you type your grandmother’s first name in  6. Favorite food  Chicken marsala 7. Favorite drink  8. Favorite book  From the movie, not the book. 9. Favorite smell  10. Favorite color  |
Six months and some change...
This is Maria Bluff. Our villa's up there somewhere.
I signed a contract today. Yay, vacation!
(Ironically, they didn't get our check until Monday, which was Kenny's birthday.)
Song of the day:
"On the Coast of Somewhere Beautiful..."
Advice
I have two huge memory cards for my computer, and I hadn't deleted them since sometime in 2005. Well, last week at the Jason Michael Carroll concert, I had to replace my first card. And between that and Kenny's birthday party, I was seriously running out of space.
I had to clean my cards off tonight, and that meant making sure that everything had gotten downloaded to my hard drive.
While I was doing that, I found a few random photos that had never made it off the camera. There were the pictures of my daddy and his friends building my mom's new green house for Mother's Day last year. I'll have to send those to him.
But more importantly, there was this picture. I happened to have my camera in the car when I drove past a church down the street last fall. The sign out front struck a chord with me, so I took a picture really quickly, praying that the red light would not change.
When I think about where I was in my life then, it's funny that I just now got around to sharing it with all of you.
Without further ado, here it is:
