Or memesploitation. 🙂 Either way, both the title and the meme have been hijacked from Lachlan. Because after 12 hours of work? I can’t come up with nuthin’ on my own. …
But first, this song (Sheila Nicholls, “Elevator”) came to mind while I penned this manifesto:
[audio:Elevator.mp3]From “10 Things I Hate About You”:
Chastity: I know you can be underwhelmed, and you can be overwhelmed, but can you ever just be, like, whelmed?
Bianca: I think you can in Europe.
Word. Or, en Francias, “le mot.”
Some days I’m glad when people just can’t read what I’m thinking. But nonetheless, I appreciate it more than they know when they ask, even if I just can’t give them the real answer.
But that doesn’t stop me from doing them!
Meme swiped from Boutrous at Nookie Cookie:
Yay for cryptic bullshit! 🙂
An IM conversation today, with details removed to protect the guilty:
Me: “I swear, he lives in his own world, and it is called (name removed).”
Friend: “Ha.”
Me: “That’s where he hides until he’s ready to come out.”
Friend: (details of convo removed)
Me: “OMG, he’s so full of SHIT!”
Friend: “That’s (name of world)’s biggest export.”
Strapped for something to post about today but wanting to post *something,* I was perusing old Caterwauling archives and alternating between feeling annoyed with how much life seemed to suck at the time but also being really pleased with how well I captured it. Sometimes I look back on the past few years of my life like they were so surreal — like, I HAD to have imagined some of that crap. But no, the emotions were as raw and exposed as could be — earnest and unscripted.
I don’t know when the change took place in me, but I really put my foot down on a lot of things. I raised my standards in every level of my life. I saw a number of posts about a then-friend who had nothing but nasty things to say to me under the guise of supposedly telling me the truth (“tough love”), but it really (in retrospect, and even something I seemed to have grasped then) was a way of putting me down and stripping me of wanting to find different, better people to hang out with. That I should be chastised for having a limited number of good friends because it meant I was pathetic, but GAWD forbid I make friends, because there was a list of criticisms about them a mile long, not to mention complete jealousy when I chose to share myself elsewhere.
Ah, I could go on and on (and ON), but I was talking to my best friend for a few hours tonight, and her husband gives her the same crap about keeping a super-small circle. I said, you know, you can have a circle around you a mile wide, but if the lot of them don’t measure up to one single, quality person, then you shouldn’t brag about your own supposed popularity.
The thing is, I think the change in me started with her becoming my best friend. It was instantaneous — with some people, you just *know* from the first conversation that they are not to be let go of. That they are to be cultivated and nurtured and cherished. That if you respect them so damned much, you know you are one lucky person that they respect you and want you in their lives as well.
One thing with us is that we tell it like it is, straight up, 100% of the time. But the thing is, we don’t resort to supposed tough love. There is no tough. There is no “I’m telling you this for your own good” prefacing tirades of “this is why you suck,” as I saw so much of in my blog archive. Ours is in the vein of, “I am going to remind you of this because you are forgetting how fabulous you are, and I am going to continue holding you to this high standard because I know you can meet it because you HAVE met it and you can EXCEED it.”
I saw a lot of “I love this person BUT” in my archives. And I don’t deal with that anymore. There is no “but.” Nobody’s perfect but it’s kind of like how I envision love, in that if said significant other’s faults exist, you’re too enamored to really be distracted by them. You know they exist but you don’t love them “anyway” — you love them more and you learn to love those less-appealing things (it’s only your view. And your opinion really doesn’t matter, does it now? Because who has the right to critique you?) until they become just another of their charms.
Translated back to my friend — and any friend in my circle, really, as damn it, it IS an honor to be important to me! — I can’t let her for a moment feel bad about anything. I have a million things I can remind her of to build her right back where she belongs. And likewise. God, there are so many times when I flounder, wondering if I’m good enough or if I’m ready for certain things or if maybe I aim too high sometimes. She’s the first one to not stroke my ego in any way but instead give me almost like a resume of things she’s witnessed me achieve to ensure that I go into battle with my confidence at full speed.
I’ve gotten a lot of hateful e-mails from the “I love them BUT” person, mostly in the form of snotty blog comments, one of the nicer ones being the March 26 missive of how happy he is to supposedly watch me implode when I happen to write about a bad day on the blog.
I can’t imagine my good friend (or anyone with half a conscience) ever enjoying me having a bad day — most normal friends, if they can’t outright prevent a meltdown moment, at the very least do everything in their power to assuage the boo-boos. And not to mention, but also cheer for the successes. Because those are what count — those successive, small moments of triumph that add up to culminate in true victories when that’s what you’ve busted your ass to earn.
Today I give thanks for all I’ve earned. Even though they’ve been a long time in coming, I’m still so grateful to have good things in my life and people to share them with. For small moments as well as big ones — they’re all equally memorable. For unexpected connections and hoped-for recognition. For times of uncertainty that become increasingly distant memories. For sighs of relief that never seemed like they would happen again.
And while it’s sad that there’s always the fear that someone might try to do something to take all of it away, it just emphasizes the importance of living in these moments and not for some future time that might or might not come in the way we thought it would.
Life’s never come easily for me. And that’s not to say that it’s going to start doing that anytime soon. But it’s coming in spurts and gushes and renews my faith in greater things every single day. The best days are still yet to come, but these days? Not bad. Not bad at all.
1. What is the first blog you remember reading?
Oh gawd. I vaguely remember reading Fark quite a long time ago. I also loved something called MightyBigTV, which was the predecessor to Television Without Pity, although I guess those aren’t blogs. Hmm.
There were a ton of “big” blogs back in the day that I won’t bother linking, but then somehow a big ol’ free-for-all sprung up and everyone started flinging poo about each other. I think the one blog (to me) that rose out and above it all was A Small Victory. I don’t really read it anymore, but I’ve interacted with the site owner and she’s what they call “good people.”
2. If you have a blog, how long have you been blogging? If you don’t, how long have you been commenting on blogs?
First blog: Summer 2001. Lots of pain, heartache, woe, agony. Diaryland.net deleted it after I didn’t log in for a coupla months. So then I started the first incarnation of Caterwauling in early 2002, although the current version only starts in August 2004 ’cause I said some stuff that’s better left off the air.
3. What do you think are the best aspects of blogging?
It defines a part of me. It’s “mandatory fun time” in which I can take a brain break and throw it out there for people to read or not, whichever. For me, it’s a living diary, as I don’t have time to write in my “real” journal. I say little things that I can look back on and remember the subliminal message that probably no one else got. I guess the blog lets me just air stuff without actually *saying* it in so many words.
4. And the worst?
Knowing that not all of your readers have your best interests at heart. That you can only dole out *so much* of yourself before putting yourself at some kind of risk. That words you wrote in an impassioned moment expose you to not even just debate, but also some hurtful stuff too, not to mention that anything you say can and WILL be held against you — even costing you your livelihood if you’re not careful.
5. Do you find yourself censoring what you write (either in your blog or in comments) based on who you think will see what you’ve written, or do you tend to throw caution to the wind and bare your soul?
I used to do the latter. I wanted to share as much of myself as I could. I’d gotten many a compliment that I “put it all out there” and didn’t apologize for who I was, what I thought and what I wanted. Now I start typing entries and realize that there are people out there who obsess over every word, just like in your life how there’s always someone who gets to know you so intimately, only to wallop you over the head with what they perceive is one of your weak spots.
Tiff said something interesting to me recently, about some cretin who sent a couple of messages that were on the obnoxious side, that I’m too good of a person to really fire back on the level that said attacks deserved. I appreciated that. Even in my head, I just rolled my eyes and hoped that they’d just get laid already and get the hell out of my backyard.
6. Have you ever written anything you wish you hadn’t? Have you ever deleted your posts or your comments?
I go back and edit just because that’s in my nature. It goes back to the theory of writing a letter when you’re angry and tearing that bitch up before anybody sees it. I used to put stuff in draft mode, but I’m too afraid of it going live accidentally, so I don’t bother with that anymore.
I vaguely remember having someone demand that I rip down a post because I had (in my opinion) told a comical (TRUE) story that didn’t exactly paint that person in the best light. I took it down not because I wanted to, but because I needed for the whining to go away. The bottom line is that I only tell stories that somehow affect me, and therefore I feel like I *can* comment on them and, thus, should be able to give it my own personal flavor.
I’ve kept a lot of stories offline, from the stressful to the happy moments. There are lots of both, but not only do I not share my lows, I really don’t feel like giving it up for all the special moments either — they’re mine to cherish.
7. About how many hours a week do you spend blogging or and/or reading blogs?
I visit my NewsGator file a few times a day, spending all told about a half-hour to an hour daily. (There’s a special place in heaven for those of you who publish full RSS feeds.)
I spend equal time doing my own blogging. I type as quickly as I think so it’s not cumbersome. I probably spend more time thinking about what I’m going to write than actually writing it.
8. If you blog, do you think there will come a time when you just stop doing it? If you don’t blog, do you think you’ll ever start?
Everyone stops blogging here and there, and I don’t. My life sometimes spirals out of control and shit happens, but my blog is my comfort. I hate when I feel like I’m getting attacked on it because it’s my sacred space. I don’t go crap on other people’s sites if I disagree with them and I don’t use it as a method to *get* to people who might not want to talk to me in real life. Meaning, I don’t publish my e-mail address for a reason, and if you want to try to get my goat via a comment, do so if it makes you get to sleep at night, but comment moderation and outright blacklisting prevents people I do care about from seeing inane bullshit that has nothing to do with them.
9. Do you share things on your blog or in comments that you don’t necessarily share in your “real” life?
Sometimes. I mean, I tell my mom and my best friend practically everything, but some of the day-to-day stuff I’d forget about if I didn’t capture it here. Most of my real-life friends don’t read the blog, so I get to share stuff I don’t necessarily want them to know. I mean, it’s out there — everyone knows I have this page. And it’s neat that disclosure has meant having more privacy than I’d ever imagined.
10. Ask me something blog-related.
Would you still be working with the she-troll if life hadn’t taken its course the way it had?
Quote of the day:
After hearing a wonderful little story that I’d spun about someone special in my little life, my best friend said, “Damn it, he just needs to get down on one knee already!”
My response? “I’d be OK with it if he just got down on two.”
Ba DUM bum. *bows*
I’m not the type of person to hate on a Monday simply because of what day of the week it is. No sense starting off a week with a piss-poor attitude — might as well distribute said sourpuss-ness equally throughout the week!
That said, Maddie took a wet, whopping shit while I showered this morning. Not only did she not bury it in the box (she never does), but she also thumped straight into the bathroom, onto the toilet and up onto the sink, where she sat her wet, steaming ass on my makeup bag. How do I know? There’s a series of wet brown spots from her asshole that I once dubbed “shitty kisses.” It took FOUR feminine wipes to clean her monkey butt, and now I see she also ran around the living room once before bringing her foul ass into the bathroom. Whee.
I’m going to go light a match, spray more room deodorizer, put my hair in a ponytail, cut off said ponytail and hang myself with it now.
Myriad weekend adventures:
Goddesses’ Night Out, or ‘We’re With the Band’
Sabre took me up to Baltimore on Friday to see the sublime Supine. And may I just offer that said city offers up quite a bit of tasty man morsels up there? *fans self*
When we got to the bar, I realized how OLD I have gotten because the band that was onstage made me wish for earplugs and a Xanax. I’m sure they were good — back in the day that I listened to speed metal, I am sure my 15-year-old self would have loved them — but my 32-year-old self decided that if it’s too loud, then I’m too old, and I was fine with that. All the band groupies were wearing shirts that said “Got Tung?” in reference to the band name. I saw that and thought, Lord, I hope not. Got TASTE?!?!
Supine was slated to play last, but due to some karmic intervention, they came on next. The lead singer used to be in the band “Jimmie’s Chicken Shack,” so I figured they couldn’t make my ears bleed like the opening act. And thank god, I loved Supine — just good, old-fashioned alternative rock with a variety of soulful influences.
I had been talking to one of their band groupies when Sabre got the go-ahead that we could go hang with the band in their dressing area. The girl I’d been talking to had sworn she’d met me somewhere before, and had decided she must’ve seen me at a JCS concert back in the day. So there I went skipping away to go hang with the musicians (in a move that really felt like old times as, yes, I was a groupie of my own right in my day), and the girl thought I must’ve been somebody all important and shit. Which, duh, of course I am, but that was Sabre’s connection, not mine.
Everybody was way cool. One guy spent a lot of time talking to me, so I didn’t really mingle much, but it was OK — I was sort of out of my element because I hadn’t done an “I’m with the band” in probably a good seven years. But given that the next book I want to write is about that, I figured it was a good research opportunity. 😉
Anyway, we’d parked by the Inner Harbor and as I’d never been in the city proper before, I will definitely drive my ass up there to take photos and partake of the very Pittsburgh-like atmosphere. It felt oddly like going home, so I’ll make it a point to go there this summer. And besides, that guy I met had some ideas of things we could do when I come back. … 😉
Perhaps the highlight of my evening was when this lovely gal Becky grabbed me and complimented my eyes and told me I should be a makeup model. She won me over right away!
Old Haunts
I’m not a real big fan of looking back — it usually hurts or if it doesn’t, that’s because you’ve gotten some false sense of possibilities that never really existed. But with my car now legal and me being broke but still having a full tank of gas, I drove back to my old ‘hood to see what’s going on with the apartment renovations.
As you’ll recall, I’d hightailed it out of Alexandria, Va., three months ago because we were being evicted en masse in an attempt by management to make the complex more uppity than its current demographic could afford. Needless to say, when I drove by yesterday, they still hadn’t finished the very first building (I was about the seventh or ninth), but they’d made good progress. As far as my place, they’d put in a new bedroom window, no more and no less. I saw my old couch was still in there — I had half a mind to go up there and get it, as I miss it terribly. 😉 I probably could have, as the balcony doors were open. Funny how I’ve paid upward of $3,000 on rent elsewhere in the time that place has stood uninhabited. Geniuses!
Perhaps the most-complimented license plate around (I think, anyway!), this was mine until yesterday when I registered my car in the District. *sniffle*
It was Pratt who’d given me the idea for this plate, which I got when I started my most recent job — as a tangible reward for surviving the previous phase of my life. I’ve gotten all kinds of smiles and stares with it, all good. In fact, last week, some guy was tailgating me in a strip mall, killing himself to snap a photo of the plate. Which means it might’ve been Flickr’d already, but tough — my plate, my photo!
Tiff left a great comment the other day, how someone at the church where we attended her wedding saw my plate and mused that it just had to be one of her guests. *grin*
Anywho, Samantha (my car) and I have decided to retreat back into anonymity (i.e., no more vanity plates) for sanity’s and perhaps even safety’s sake, but it was fun to shine while it lasted. … 😉
