One thing that absolutely amazes me is the amount of emptiness that consumes the brains of so many people I encounter everyday. Women with only thoughts and conversations pertaining to fashion, celebrities, and calories. Men with only thoughts and conversations pertaining to redwings, flavors of chewing tobacco, and what season you can kill a certain animal. How can so many be devoid of any type of cultural influence to at least hold up a half way decent conversation? Even pop culture trivia? I am absolutely perplexed by this. No matter how many times I discover people like this it never ceases to amaze me. It does not matter the level of education. I’ve met some extremely stupid people that were very well educated. I met a woman the other day who I thought would have many interesting stories to tell as she was very well educated and had traveled the world. We talked about shoes. For an entire hour we talked about shoes. I tried to change the subject. Weather’s a safe one, mentioned how we needed the rain which led to the topic of global warming. She then stated “That’s like where it snows a lot, right?” So then I felt perhaps it was better to discuss something current in the news so as she might better understand and to avoid the shoes again so I brought up the fires in CA. She then stated “There’s a fire in CA?” I then stared at her, trying not to give my condescending gaze that I’m so good at bestowing upon people and reverted back to a safe topic for her, that being shoes.
The lack of depth was actually uncomfortable for me. Like, how can nothing be everything you talk about?

Things I've learned thus far.....

Things truly will look clearer in the morning.

Words spoken during anger can’t be taken back and are seldom forgotten.

After an intense yoga session the answers to some of the most difficult questions become obvious.

Don’t waste time trying to maintain friendships you’ve outgrown.

Nothing cleanses the soul like going for a long run in a heavy rain.

Airport brownie will not kill you.

I'm kind of a variation of the OCD of Monk and the clutziness/ditziness of Lucille Ball. I go to great lengths to antibacterialize my house, carry hand sanitizer at all times and compulsively wash my hands. Even though I do have some hobbies that wouldn't be typical of a person like me such as 4-wheeling and fishing, I still have antibacterial wipes in my tackle box so my compulsion does not escape me. I hand mop my floor to get all the bacteria out of every little crevice and then forget I've mopped it, (The Lucille part kicking in) walk across it and then proceed to fall on my ass or worse slide into the sliding glass door. (Then I have to clean the smudges off so it's even more work) I can't let crumbs sit on the counter or floor for more than a minute. I'm also probably inflicting my offspring with future OCD problems on their own as they have to wash their hands after touching even the most trivial things. (My daughter has learned to just roll her eyes and ignore me but my son is still under my influence) All of this painstaking work to try to make sure that there are no nasty little bacteria waiting in the corner to invade and cause illness. To further compel my insanity I work in a hospital and watch TLC constantly which is not a good combination. Out of all of this effort, I would think that some of my cleanliness and germaphobe mentality would have struck my son. However walking through the airport I realized it has not. My son was hungry begging me to get him a snack. We were in a hurry to catch the flight so I kept saying to wait until we got on the plane, trying to make those stupid little bags of peanuts sound better than steak. In his impatience for my reluctance to walk back out to the vending machines he discovers a solution to his problems. A brownie, unwrapped, half smashed into the floor, cobwebs rising from its surface probably circa 1995, laying in the corner of the floor. He decides that this will be perfect to sustain his hunger until we get on the flight. As he places the brownie into his mouth I start yelling "NOOOOO!!!" at the top of my lungs and running at him in what seemed like movie slow motion, tripping over a luggage bag (Lucille Ball again), finally reaching him, grabbing the remainder of the brownie out of his hand, and demanding he spit it out. In defiance he swallowed. I thought my heart was going to fall out of my chest, speechless running a quick list through my head of every bacteria that could have possibly been on that brownie, my daughter all the while laughing her head off in amusement and my son sitting there with a sly grin on his face. After the initial dismay at what my son did finally parted (and after religiously scubbing his hands and mine for touching the brownie) I watched him for the remainder of the vacation for any signs of fever and lethargy. Long story short he survived unscathed, no illness, and upon recounting the story to my mother she informed me he's done things of this nature before and she didn't tell me so I didn't get my OCD panties in a wad. So maybe I need to relax a little, maybe throw a few of those containers of antibacterial wipes that safe guard my life away and let a little dirt invade. I still can't let the ones in my purse go, or the ones in the car for that matter. Maybe I'll get rid of the ones in the tackle box. Baby steps, baby steps. Monday I even let some crumbs sit on the floor for about 15 minutes longer than I usually do before I wiped them up and resanitized. I'm even going to try to go for a day without cleaning at all. (Although I do realize statistically my compulsion will probably win over maybe I can go for at least a few hours) Maybe I won't change over night, maybe never, but one thing people can say for now, you truly can eat off my kitchen floors.

TSC is not for the Pseudo Princess

Why doesn't life come with a little instruction book? One with definitions and pictures? Last night I decided to take advantage of having a sitter for a few hours and went shopping. My mother called to ask me to do her a favor and pick up some flyblock for horses from the TSC store. Not "A flyblock" mind you but "some flyblock" which led me to think that it was a spray especially after she told me it was to keep flies of the horses. (Even though I grew up on a farm I know nothing about farming) I walk into the TSC store, dressed in a flowery sun dress and open toes stiletto hills, (I'm a girly girl, can't help it) painfully obviously out of place, looking for the spray section of the store. No store clerks were in sight which was all the more better for me because I hate asking for assistance or directions just like most men. I walk over to the fly sprays but I can't find exactly what Mother is looking for. No sprays have the name "FLYBLOCK" on the label. Reluctantly I decide to ask for help. I find a man and ask him for the "flyblock for horses" He directs me to the back of the store. There I find these strange looking blocks all stacked on each other. Then I'm pissed because this man obviously wasn't listening. I walk back up to him with a little condescending look on my face and say "I need the flyblock for a horse to keep flies off, you know, like a spray?" He then looks at me as though I'm Kelly Bundy and states in a very dry tone "Honey, the horse licks on the block, chemicals are released throughout its skin which detracts flies. That's why they call it Flyblock." I then sheepishly respond okay as I follow him back to the blocks. Then he offers to carry the block for me. I ignorantly responded that no I could get it because I wasn't getting anything else, never taking into account the weight of the thing. (33.4 pounds in case you're curious) So he then hands me the block, which I proceed to drop on my foot since I didn't anticipate it being quite so heavy. My poor little open toed stiletto covered foot. I'm sure a blank stare then registered across my face as the sheer magnitude of the pain of a 33.4 pound block landing on my foot registered through my body. The nice man (who I'm sure thought I was the blondest redhead he'd ever met in his life) lifted the block off of my foot and carried it to the register for me, most likely out of pity) me quietly limping behind. He even carried it out to the car and loaded it for me, as we exited the store I could hear snickers of laughter. As if that wasn't bad enough as he was loading it he noticed my metallic hot pink fishing pole in the back of the car and said "You actually fish?" Never going back to that store. Ever. Any future request from my mother to pick up anything from TSC, Southern States, or Feed and Seed in its name will be denied.

Pointing Fingers

Blaming your parents for the way you behave as an adult today as a way to deflect responsibility for your own actions is just ridiculous. Using this as an excuse to not be held accountable for anything is just pathetic. Parents do have an influence on us but when you become an adult you have the ability to make decisions for yourself and decipher right from wrong.

Chasing Phantoms

Living in the fantasies of the past is often more comforting than contemplating an uncertain future. Reminiscing about past memories and wondering "what if" is pointless. Past opportunities don't come back to you again, no one can go back in time, erase the slate, and start over. Each day is a new day to make a new memory. Sometimes you're right where you need to be in your life, you just don't realize it yet.

Need Advice?

NEED ADVICE? Current mood: exhausted
After yet another late night call to counsel and console yet another brokenhearted friend with the same words of wisdom that are always ignored I've decided to type it all up in a blog. I'm tired of losing sleep, those who know me well know that I suffer from insomnia so when I finally do get to sleep I'm not exactly thrilled at being interrupted. So to spare myself from future exhaustion I'm typing this. From now on when I get relationship advice calls I'm going to just simply say refer to the blog and hang up.
You know what I believe kills every potentially good relationship? When things are absolutely perfect, you've got the chemistry going, everything is great, all the initial nervousness is gone, usually reached within a few months, and then someone decides they must have "the talk" The where is this going talk, are you seeing anybody else talk. And once you've had that talk it's the point of no return and things aren't fun anymore. In my opinion many pitfalls could be avoided if this conversation never came up. If two people are into each other the likelihood of one actually cheating is very minimal, and when things feel that they are going great chances are good that they are, in fact, that great and there's no need to discuss it or psychoanalyze it, once you start doing this the fantasy begins to fade. And all of it initially boils down to the thought, "will he want to marry me someday or not?" I like the way it was in the old movies, when a woman knew the guy wanted to marry her because he surprised her with a ring. They have this romantic courtship throughout the whole movie and then the romantic climax when he surprises her with a diamond. There was none of this insane are you ever gonna marry me, are we exclusive to each other shit. No agonizing over the tone of his voice during the last phone call or the way he looked at you when he told you he loved you. I don't know how many times I've heard the "Well, he said he loved me but the look on his face said he didn't." WTF? In the movies he just whipped out a ring and she knew. Perfect. No drama, no bullshit. Wow, what a concept. That's pretty simple. This isn't rocket science.

Yet another blonde moment.

Yet another "Blonde" moment
I decided I wanted to move my television to the corner of my living room. This in itself was going to be a major feat since I have a huge television that is very heavy. I thought about waiting for a friend to come and help me however it then struck me that I need to get used to doing things on my own and how hard could it be to lift it anyway? After all just one of the movers was able to carry it several feet when I moved in here so how hard could it be? (He was a man though, and this does make a difference) So I get the bright idea to move the piano bench over beside the entertainment center that way I won't have to lift it down very far since it is so heavy. Well the piano bench is about 24 inches shorter than the entertainment center so I had no problem lifting the TV up slightly (more like sliding it down) and placing it DOWN on the piano bench, but then after moving the entertainment center it became painfully obvious that I did not have the strength to move it back UP the 24 inches to get it successfully back onto the entertainment center. It was at this moment I discovered that some jobs can only be accomplished by one person if that one person has the arm strength of a man (which I do not) and I should not start such jobs late at night so as to not wake up whomever I have to call to finish what I started. I couldn't leave the heavy television sitting on the piano bench all night so I then sheepishly had to get a neighbor to come over and help me lift it back up. I think for any future furniture moves I will buy an appliance and then rely on the kindness of the Lowe's delivery men to move whatever I need moved while they happen to be there to deliver my new appliance. This could get to be expensive though so I should just cut the redecorating down to once a year.

Going through the motions.....

Often how you represent yourself is what you want others to see, without too many glimpses into what is really going on and how you feel because you must maintain the acts of the play you've gotten so used to participating in. Life often becomes a repetitious play of sorts, where you play the character you've been cast as perfectly and as expected but that isn't really who you are. Inside you are miserable and suffocating but you selflessly maintain character so as not to disrupt the balance of the other characters. But then if you decide to start living your life for yourself, to where you can truly attain happiness, often the environment you've been pretending in becomes hostile, and produces a hell quite worse than what it was just pretending to be someone you aren't. Sometimes it appeases you to fantasize about something or someone far removed from the situation. It's like a breath of fresh air, and a dream that you can have to escape to, known only to yourself and no one else. It takes your mind off things and for a time and you can breath instead of going through the suffocating constraints of pretending. However eventually the fantasy fades and reality comes flooding back in. The question that must be answered internally is which is easier, maintaining the façade and keeping all the other characters happy or pursuing your own happiness no matter what destruction that decision will cause.