Caterwauling

I don’t blog about news topics all that much. I read it, I have opinions on it, but sharing it? Never really did me much good. While I love to debate a point, sometimes I just don’t care what everyone else is feeling. Unless I’m just flat-out wrong, and quite honestly you’d better be pretty damned qualified to declare that, my views are very much emotionally driven and, thus, I can change my mind but definitely not my heart.

I was reading the Virginia Tech shooter’s plays, at least the ones that were released to the public. I approached them as a professional writer, an armchair therapist and a concerned citizen. And was left with more questions than answers.

The writing is not A-plus work. Plain and simple. As a senior about to graduate with an English degree, his job search was probably going to be a challenging one.

I say this not as a bully, but as probably as an authority figure he would have despised. I mean, there’s a certain amount of creative license you have to allow a budding writer, assuming there’s no one that this might be aimed at. I read his “Mr. Brownstone” tome, and plot/exposition/resolution (or lack thereof) aside, to me it sounded like he wrote Mr. Brownstone as a way to get other kids to identify with him. Kids tend to dislike teachers and others with authority — perhaps he thought people would “get” him or “like” him for putting it out there that he was supposedly just like them.

But was there a human equivalent to Mr. Brownstone, who he used a lot of profanity-laden prose to declare that he wanted to kill?

I don’t know. I know I’ve had my experiences with bullies, and I’ve probably said more than a few careless things in my day as well, whether in response or completely out of context. But whereas these sorts of things make most of us stronger, cruelty often corrodes self-worth in the already-insecure person. And it takes time to build up that confidence and that sort of Teflon outer skin. But that’s what “normal” people eventually do — you develop coping skills, a support network, other things that make you unique and special. You carve out your niche and you start making memories you WANT to have.

What I hope the Seung Cho massacre does is opens up the public’s eyes, once again, to the fact that there are people slipping through the proverbial cracks every day, every minute. Everyone’s getting pushed to the breaking point with pressures to fit in or conform to what others think they should be.

I’m not saying to sympathize with him or even forgive him. It may turn out that he was simply going unnoticed (again, traumatizing) and that he wanted to be known, so he created his fantasy world that squicked people out and didn’t achieve his (possible) goal of making “real” friends. And then he just went and killed people, just to make his mark on the world the only way he felt he could.

What I found about bullies since junior high through now, is that they ain’t all that special. People who annoyed me in high school now live in trailer parks and have five kids to five different baby daddies. Now we’ve got trolls all over the Internet, trying to pretend they’re clever and powerful in their anonymity.

But that brings up something interesting. These people who make threats or try to be threatening, they think they’re doing so with helpless victims. But bringing this full circle, let’s talk about the bullied. Fuck with me one more time, and it might be the time I snap and light up the sky like a Fourth of July fireworks extravaganza. Or something like that.

So that leads me to think that the bullies will keep doing what they do until they are put into their places. And someone needs to do it. The persons who are bullied thus get justice and rid the world of pestilence. My conclusion is that these shooters aren’t trying to be heroes — they’re just trying to get a little bit of fucking peace already.

Now, I’m not saying prison or institutionalization (if it comes to that) is peaceful — let’s face it, they kill themselves in a blaze of glory and the world keeps turning. But the things a person will do to make the pain stop, is a case study in and of itself.

The focus of the nation is how we will recover and go on. And we can fly our flags at half-mast and say prayers for the victims and survivors at length (like Katie Heigl’s character said on “Grey’s Anatomy” Thursday, “I can say Hail Marys till I BECOME Mary, but I can’t stop missing you”), but what’s the plan, going forward?

We haven’t seen a school shooting in nearly a decade — that didn’t mean we’d never see one again. Bullies might grow up and go dark from your life (if you’re lucky), but the next generation will grow a whole bunch more to take their places.

A friend of mine went to school at Thurston High School (the shooting before Columbine), and afterward, someone (ostensibly a student) had written on the blackboard, “When will we ever learn?”

It’s chilling, the double entendre — when will they be able to get back to school and feel safe in it, for one, and two, what are we doing to save these damaged souls from being hurt and, in turn, hurting others?

Will the schools be safe when it’s my turn to send my (theoretical) children into this world? And why am I sitting here thinking about it and not DOING something about it?!?!

So i get this resume in today, from someone who not only did not bother to personalize her cover letter, but she also sent it with long blank lines where the company name and position title would go.

It was basically a, “Dear Hiring Manager, I am interested in the _______ position with _____ company. … Thank you and I look forward to learning about ________ company’s ______ position.”

What, is it Mad Libs time? *squee!*

*slap*

But that? Wasn’t the worst of it.

She spelled her company name wrong.

The word was “financial.”

To boot, I WORK in the financial field!

Yep, you’re gonna go far as an editor, sister. Something tells me you’re getting fired for your incompetence and you actually think someone else is gonna be dumb enough to hire you!

NEXT!!!

Heh. When you’re typing a word like oh, I don’t know, “calls,” inserting “balls” doesn’t make your editor happy, but it does make her giggle like a fourth-grader. Yay toilet humor!

All right, I guess you had to be there.

Heh heh heh. Balls!

To say a friend of mine married someone who isn’t good enough for her is the understatement of a lifetime. Don’t get me wrong — I love him to death, but he’s not the person I would have thought was most worthy of her.

And to add to this bizarre week, I’ll refrain from sharing why we’re plotting to take a machete to his balls and gold-dip them so she can have some “fuzzy” dice to hang from her rearview mirror, but I will use this opportunity to share the quote of the week that came out of it.

She called me yesterday to say she was on on her way to the hospital, and knowing the immediate danger that her husband’s scrotum is in, I said, “Oh, my god. Did you wound him?!?!”

And she shot back, “No — if I had, I’d be on my way to the morgue, not the hospital!” 😉

So I have this cousin, whom I loved, who ran away and joined some freaky religious cult a few years ago. She had a normal life; gorgeous, educated, great husband (high-school sweetheart), beautiful little boy — fucking fairy-tale life.

I remember when she split from her husband, my innocence died that day. I mean it — she was my idol, back then. I wanted so very much to be her when I grew up. And I believed that if THEIR love couldn’t last, well, the rest of us probably didn’t stand a chance.

So then she meets this loon. I mean, Jesus freak and just all-around oddball who left you feeling creeped out. I was in my teens at the time, so yeah, I didn’t want to be left alone with him. Anyway, she married him, and had an adorable daughter. (The daughter looks like her, thank God.)

So anyway, they were trying, one by one, to brainwash us into their way of thinking. I don’t know — instead of knocking on your door and talking your ear off, they invited you to them for a nice lunch and great talks about this weird little sect they’d just joined. Bizarre.

Anyway, I don’t remember the whole story, but my cousin decided to cut connections with all of us. Whatever — in my family, disowning someone is pretty regular, so nobody really thinks about it. But her sister and best friend was at the top of the list to be booted out of her life, and on down to her niece and nephew and finally her ex and her son. Strange.

Then, they evaporated from town. I vaguely remember the people in their neighborhood accusing the loon, who was a stay-at-home type, of looking in people’s windows and in particular spying on all the women of the street. I could believe that, but I think some more serious allegations were made, which I really didn’t buy — I think that was just suburbia being suburbia.

So they upped and left. *poof* No forwarding address, no contact, nothing. Rumors abounded that they left the state (Pennsylvania) and joined some sort of group in some mountains somewhere. (This was 15 years ago — I really don’t remember.)

So my mom calls me and said she heard from the cousin’s sister, who never really wants anything to do with anybody. Minus my mom and my grandfather, this is not an affectionate family — we immerse ourselves in our heads and do our damndest to hold the world at arm’s length. So that my cousin V. wasn’t interested in having a relationship with any of us, it was fine. At least she didn’t fall off the earth like her sister D.

Mom called me yesterday, to say V. had finally, finally reached out to her. She just wanted to know her sister wasn’t dead, that goofball hadn’t killed her. Goofball did surface recently — the grapevine passed it along that D. left him recently. So he called V. to say if he hears from her, tell her to come back to him.

So she tells my mom all of this and says she doesn’t know how to find her. She doesn’t even want to talk to her — she just wants to have some peace that her sister is OK. So Mom calls me because, by necessity, I know a thing or 20 about finding people in their little foxholes.

And my little tricks basically went to no use. I found her on the first try.

And she’s only two towns over. Maybe a 30-mile drive, if that. That’s as far as she got.

I did find her based on what I thought she was doing for a living. I kid you not — powerful career, which is how I found her — at work. No wonder goofball stayed at home. He never needed to leave the house, not with what she was capable of doing in the workforce.

So Mom called the number I gave her. She answered, and Mom hung up. It was her voice, no doubt.

I know Mom was going to call V. to tell her. I mean, there’s no real hiding in the Internet world, but it’s not something they know thing one about.

Anyway, I just tell this story to illustrate the bizarro week around these parts. This doesn’t even scratch the surface of the chaos that has reigned in my world this week.

For me, I’m happy knowing she’s alive and well and that she left him. Good for her. I’m also proud that she managed to rise to the top of her game, despite whatever brainwashing that fool was trying to do to her. I guess I tie everything back to how fragile life is, and how the decision to associate with someone can really, if not put your life in danger, really fuck up the other good things that you have going for you. Who you marry, what college you go to, who you befriend — everything’s a decision. Do it wisely, I guess is what I take away from all of this.

Honestly, what the hell is going on this week? It’s not a bad week, by any means, but man, it’s off-kilter.

My friend just called to say her cousin is in the local burn unit. Turns out that he was trying to fill a lighter with butane, while he was smoking crack. Burned off most of his face and blew up half of his apartment, while he was at it. Brilliant.

I have no problem with self-destructive people. Really, don’t share your stupidity with the world. It’s those assholes who think their life’s mission is to ruin yours that I have a problem with. (Like that Virginia Tech shooter — man, how many creepy assholes have we come across in our days? That could have been us, at any time. Some nut with a few screws loose and look what happens. It’s a wonderful *snerk* case study for the counseling field — oh wait, they couldn’t help him either. Blah blah blah I’m not blaming anyone but the little whackjob himself, but really, why doesn’t society listen to not only the crazy when they cry out, but also the perfectly sane who try to alert people to it? Why do good people have to die because someone’s on an imaginary warpath?)

I digress.

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, back to my friend’s cousin. Look, the crack-smoking? Stupid. Really fucking stupid. But blowing up himself now has his family going berserk, trying to figure out how to advocate for him in the hospital while wondering if he’s even worth saving at this point. You can’t burn bridges while you’re standing on them and expect people to rally around your sorry ass. And that little habit of his? Endangered the lives of everyone in his apartment building, because there was a bona fide explosion. Not to mention that his family members are fairly prominent in the area — lord knows we house the bulk of the nation’s elected officials in our various suburbs. I hope this bullshit doesn’t get out, because it’d be a freaking mess.

My friend said her cousin has these charred boxes on his arms. She asked the medics what that was all about, and they said it was burned skin. *shudder*

I don’t know what’s worse — people with evil intentions or the dumb idiot who has no freaking clue how his actions affect the world around him. Well, bad intent is definitely worse, don’t get me wrong, because you can choose to be civilized and if you don’t, you’re walking away from your God-given responsibilities to the world. You can try to forgive the happy idiot who’s oblivious to the rest of the world, but either way, it feels like people have no freaking clue what their actions (or inaction, depending) does to throw the world off its axis for the unfortunate few who happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time who either tried to help or didn’t even know to run when the anvil was hurtling toward their heads. …

I pulled the password-protected entry, although it’s not like hitting the “undo” function. I’m not ashamed of it — hell, I think I did some of my best writing in it. But I forgot HOW MANY people have this password. 😉 And I love and trust you all, but seriously, I wasn’t thinking that one through when I made it quasi-public. *shakes off the “ick”

Blogging drives me batshit anymore. I’ve gotten into so much trouble over this stupid space, professionally and personally, and I keep meaning to keep it bland. But I got bold, and I shared TMI. Stuff that I actually wanted to keep to myself. But I couldn’t. Not at the moment that it threatened to burst forth.

D. and I were just sitting here talking about it. (Work? They pay me to do WORK!?!?) Even she’s like, whoa, where did all that come from? And I’m like, yeah, that’s what I wanted to capture. The moment Goddess officially freaking lost her mind, archived for eternity.

And it’s not that it needed to be hidden. I guess I could have posted it live, or even just left it up in its protected state. I wouldn’t type anything that I wouldn’t say to someone’s face. You guys know that about me. You’ve watched me grow up in this space for the past five-plus years. I give you my heart, every last piece of it. I come from a pure place. I can keep others’ secrets, but mine? A lot harder to conceal. Impossible, even.

Thank you, everyone, for the comments and e-mails. I really missed the positive feedback. I’m glad to know you’re still out there, cheering me on. Maybe I’ll keep hiding more posts just so I can get more comments. (Ponder the irony of THAT statement. HA!)

It never once occurred to me that I could open up the comments on my password-protected entries. I miss hearing from you guys! Not enough to open up the regular comments, though — I”m happy to silence 100 so I don’t have to hear from one specifically — but yeah, I do love me some locked blog entries right about now. 😉

Alternate title: Putting the ‘twit’ in Twitter

Are you guys on that thing? Like I need another damn distraction in my day! 😉

Too freaking busy to think. I’ll call it a victory that I actually showered, clothed and cosmetized the body all before 8 a.m. today, and that after an hour of work. 🙂

Nothing new to report or, at least, nothing I can succinctly say here in fewer than 40 million grafs — and who has the fucking time to do that? — so let’s just say that you can get Bon Jovi’s new single on iTunes now. *squee!*