Showing posts with label Capricorn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Capricorn. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Obsession

I had a discussion with Erin about a week ago over perfume.  She loves her perfumes and has a really nice collection of them.  The conversation got turned to me and she asked what I own.

I told her:


That's it.
That's my perfume.
That's all I wear.
That's all I've worn since 1986.
I have no intention of that changing.

I've gone through four perfumes in my lifetime:

When I was little:
  • Sweet honesty (Remember that? The days of Bonnibelle lipgloss...)
  • Charlie (welcome to high school)
  • Trouble (Welcome to 12th grade. I LOVED that perfume and then I think they stopped making it.)
Then Good Ole Calvin Klein's Obsession hit the market with his inappropriate ads and everyone had a coronary -- and then I tried it in a store one day.

It was time.  Clearly, it was time - because as a general rule, I try to avoid the perfume counter people like the plague.

I sprayed it into the air and then walked into the mist and...
That.
Was.
That.

From the time I've been out of high school until this afternoon - THAT has been my perfume.  That's it. It is, without question, my signature scent.

I'm also certain that if I change it, a whole LOT of people are going to get mad at me. It's associated. There are many times where I've received a phone call after someone coming into contact with this particular scent again and it reminded them.  Could be years later.  Yes, I've also been yelled at over it as well.  When a scent is so ingrained into a persons memory and the memory doesn't match the reality in front of you - it will cause people to call you up and yell at you for not being the person they ran into wearing it.

24 years.
That was done for a reason.
Everything should be done with a reason.

It violates my sense of loyalty to even consider something else.
Don't try to fix what's not broken.

----
and welcome to:  Carlow, Ireland - Warsaw, Poland - Pedreguer, Spain and Japan and Jack!

Sunday, January 10, 2010

finally...

I finally figured out what book I should write.  It came to me a few days ago and I can't believe I didn't think of it before now.  It's all so simple and right before my eyes.  I know the characters; practically intimately.

Now I just need a plot.

Poptatari, I might need you to make some inspirational cookies so I can work this out.  You'll be part of making history!

I need the motivational cookies, Poptatari!
is this working?  hint, hint... plead... hint... erm...

I called up Erin and told her the idea and she immediately said it would make a great play.

Then I told my son and he laughed his ass off at some of the characters I came up with.

My daughter asked me if I fell off the wagon (because she's a smartass) until I explained it more thoroughly; then she started throwing out other personality traits they should have and my Florida room turning into a loud sounding board complete with comments like, "WHY ISN'T IT DONE ALREADY?!"

...because, you know, books write themselves over-night...

Erin did the same thing to me, "Are you done with the first chapter already?" - "I just thought of it 10 minutes ago and we're still on the phone, so, no..."

They're a subtle bunch.

If the whole idea falls apart though, blame it on the lack of inspiration cookies...

Yes, I'm willing to go THAT low!
laughs...


Special greetings to:  Zuid-holland, Netherlands - Bratislava, Slovakia - London, United Kingdom - Catalonia, Spain - Ar Riyad, Saudi Arabia - Nova Scotia, Canada -  Baden-wurttemberg, Germany and Nordrhein-westfalen, Germany!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

surprises

I dislike secrets.
Truly.
I don't handle them well either.
I hate surprises too.

I really do hate surprises unless they are REAL surprises. Like, blind-siding surprises. Ones that I have ZERO knowledge of. Because if there's any hint of anything and you're just not telling me, I'm going to think you're being a jerk - and I'm not going to like that.

It's not advisable to torture me.
I know how to torture people right back.

This scenario is usually how it goes when people want to surprise me with something:

Someone that doesn't know me well at all: "I have a surprise for you and I'm not telling you what it is either!"

fuck me... apparently saying this is MANDATORY to the script because it goes down like this 99 out of 100 times...

Me: "I don't like surprises"
Someone that doesn't know me well at all: "I know"
...silence...
Me: "So, tell me"
Someone that doesn't know me well at all: "Then it won't be a surprise"
...it's not a surprise now!...
Me: "Tell me!"

followed by me wearing said person down until they tell me...

I really hate that...

rethinking...

Even the real surprise comment comes with a few rules and regulations - DO NOT HORRIFY ME EITHER. I like being prepared for things. I function MUCH better that way. If it's going to be a total surprise, it's best that it's done privately.

Like those guys that think it's a good idea to propose to their girlfriend in front of 50,000 people at a NY Jet's football game... and she has no clue. And suddenly the cameras are zooming in on her. Waiting. The look on her face leaves you unsure if she'd say yes if the ENTIRE UNIVERSE wasn't focusing on her. Now she's stuck, cornered - the pressure is on!

Oh.
My.
God.

The camera would catch me uttering something about killing said guy when we got home. And really, how fucking good do you look going to a fucking football game. There's a good chance that you're freezing your ass off, your face is all blotchy from the cold, your eyes are sort of glazed over, you hate the people that are clearly too close to your inner personal space and you're wondering where the fuck your boyfriend ran off to leaving you with a bunch of unstable strangers half naked with the team's colors painted all over their faces.

And now you're on camera!
Up close and personal!
Oh My God!

Seriously, this is a free ticket to torture your future husband for a good five years - and every single time you think of it.

Or every time you see the clip on YouTube or fucking CNN as the high-lights of that week in sports.

hyperventilates...

Sort of like it's not okay to announce to some guy that you're pregnant when he's in the middle of a poker game with his friends. I'm just saying you might want to hold off for better timing.

A good compromise, since most people would like to share that sort of news with people that care about them, would be - telling him Christmas Eve by handing him the small square without a word that has the + sign on it. ALONE. If there's a good reaction, you can share with the group - if there's a bad reaction, at least you're the only two witnessing it. You can kill him later.

Same with her. If you ask while you're out in public somewhere or at some family gathering, and the reaction is good - by all means, it's your joy to share. If the reaction isn't good, no one loses face. And you can kill her later.

All men should get down on one knee to propose too.

That's tradition. I don't know who started it - and I don't really care. I like it. I've never had it done - and I've been proposed to a ridiculous amount of times and I'll be proposed to a few more times before I'm dead, I'm sure.

Knights kneel when being awarded honors from Kings and Queens. Offering or accepting a marriage proposal is just as much an honor as any medal or award. Even Kings and Queens kneel to genuflect when entering a church. Proposing on bended knee is a sign of respect and spiritualism.

That's how I see it. That is what's proper and that's what I like.

You can't do that when you're standing on a pitcher's mound and your other half is in a crowd of strangers 50 feet away with a bunch of men in spandex between you. Am I the only one that sees the logic here?

twitching...

Surprises are fundamentally... bad.
Be very, very careful.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

I always want to think I'd make a good hostage, but...

I know that's a long title.
You know how my biggest fear is being misunderstood though, so...

So, yeah.

I always want to think I'd make a good hostage, but...
...there are some doubts that keep creeping in.

Come on, it's not like you haven't thought about it before!
You've been in a bank!

I once lived two buildings away from a corner bank. It literally got robbed every day, for a WEEK before they finally put in bullet proof glass from floor to ceiling. It was like clock work.

Anyone remember Marine Midland Bank?

Broad daylight.
Lots of traffic.
Lots of people walking around.
Not a deterrent.
daily... alarms, alarms, alarms... hello, officer... again...

This was also the building I lived in where I shared a roof with a crack house. I was clearly living with someone that didn't belong in the City too - ever in their life. He use to flip out and worry that our stuff was going to get stolen.

blahblahblah

One day after hearing the same speech for the thousandth time, I said, "Oh my God, stop worrying about it! If our stuff gets stolen, I'll just open the window, walk across the roof and steal it back!"

And I would.
And I told the crack dealers that.
And I never had a problem.
And they never had a problem from me.
BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT GOOD NEIGHBORS DO!

because really, if any of us had anything worth stealing at the time - we wouldn't be living in the City in the first place! Go rob people who actually have something worth robbing.

Good Lord, who cares - I can't even be moved to think about it for more than 5 seconds. Why? Because I already thought about it and came to a conclusion, so now unless some other factor gets introduced, I never need to think about that again.

See how that works?

Which is why I'm still working out the whole hostage thing - because I don't have a working conclusion on that issue yet...

So anyway...
Back to being a hostage.

enough about bank robberies and crack houses for now...

There are still a few delusional brain cells that keep telling me that, yes, I would indeed make a good hostage.

Let's brainstorm.
Where are you likely to be a potential hostage?

- Banks, clearly.
- Airlines.
- McDonald's.
- Possibly the Post Office.
- Train/Subway

I'm iffy on the Train/Subway possibility though. That would be poor planning on the hostage takers part, I think. It's not exactly a scenario where the hostage takers can go, "MAKE A LEFT UP THERE!" to avoid capture or anything.

Oh my God... okay, THERE I would not make a good hostage. There is no way I wouldn't be able to say something like, "You really didn't think this out very well, did you, amateur..."

You're more likely to be blown up on a train or subway anyway, I imagine. In which case, you're just fucked and who cares and it's not worth thinking about. The odds are not in your favor.

It's like if my plane is about to crash.
I assume that I'm just going to wind up dead.

I can't even be bothered to devote any time to calculate who I'm going to eat first. Don't care.

Oh, sure, I'll probably spent the last 20 seconds I have before we all plunge to our deaths to make some kind of rude comment, but in the end, we'll all just resemble a bunch of pancakes and that's that.

And even if I say something in my last 20 seconds left like, "I'M EATING YOU FIRST!" to you - ignore me, I don't mean it. I just want something to laugh about before my guts are raining down over the Atlantic Ocean.

As a side note: if I was on that plane with the soccer team over the Andes, I'd be among the first to die because I don't care about survival enough to eat anyone's thigh - or WORSE have to deal with living in snow for weeks on end with a bunch of strangers that I probably didn't even want to take the 15 hour plane ride with in the first place...

Really, your best case scenario is being involved in a bank robbery.
Fine, forget what I said earlier - we're infusing bank robbery back into the equation...

Would I make a good hostage.

Of course I would!
And why wouldn't I!

I'm fucking charming!
No, seriously, I am...laughs
I'm cute. No paper bag required.
I'm quick witted. I look fairly harmless.
I'm little!

little = you'd look like a big wuss to pick on someone much smaller than you and then you'd lose street cred and all the surviving hostages will make fun of you on TV for being such a coward motherfucker and killing the short girl...in which case, I STILL WIN...

Really.
Anyway.
Could I side up with the people who have the guns?
I think I could.

And I totally talk myself right into that theory!
If Patty Hearst can do it, why can't I?!

Then I think about all the stupid things that could be said to me that would set me off and make me indignant and this quickly degrades into:

Okay, fine - I'd at least make a half way decent hostage.
I'd just avoid eye contact and look bored.

Then I think about how mad I'd get that someone was wasting my fucking time and holding me up and annoying the fuck out of my day. This turns into:

Okay, fine - I'd at the very least not be THE FIRST ONE KILLED.

Because then it would be full on eye contact and I WOULD be bored and that's never good for anyone.

By the end of the debate in my head it's devolved into:

I'm the first one with a chalk outline being drawn around my half dead body while the paramedics are standing over me trying to sop up blood from the head wound I'm bound to receive while the hostage takers are still shooting at me even though they're all surrounded by the SWAT team - because I'm insulting their entire lineage.

I would be SO PISSED...

Well, at least everyone else would be safe.

but there's still a part of me that thinks I could make a good hostage!
I just haven't worked out the details yet...

And just for the record, this line of thinking, makes doing laundry less boring.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

if you love something...


"If you love something, set it free"

This was a passing comment between Grant and myself this morning in the Florida room.

I had to walk into the living room to collect myself. It offended most of my senses and now it's stuck in my head and I find it increasingly irritating. So, you know, the proper protocol is to inflict it on all of you...

This is right up there with the "is the glass half full or half empty" thing to me - which you all know I fucking hate.

And again, it's just simply HALF - no more, no less. It's MATH.

I came back out to the Florida room and said, "What the hell does that even mean?!" - because I don't get it.

He repeated the whole thing - which helped me understand it, not at all.

"If you love something, set it free; if it comes back to you, it's yours - if it doesn't, it never was."
-Richard Bach

Earth sign alert! Earth sign alert!
Terra Firma!
Foundation! Roots!
Structure! Cultivating! Building!
Red alert! Red alert!
All senses fully offended!


If you love something, you don't set it free!

If you love something - you nurture it, you care for it, you love it, you make it feel safe and secure, you make sure it's at least content, you cherish it, you give it a wide range to grow, you protect it with everything you're worth, you don't sell it, you don't trade it, you don't give it away, you're loyal to it, you're devoted to it, you live for it, you're willing to die for it and you don't treat it cheaply.

Oh my God... and if you can set it free, you didn't love it enough in the first fucking place!

My head may explode.

I admit it, I called Richard Bach an idiot.
Sorry, Richard - I'm sure you're a lovely person, on the inside...

Now this quote...

"Love is a fire. Whether it's going to warm your heart or burn down your house though, you can never tell.
- Joan Crawford

...I can at least understand.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Aries people

Something I've been saying for decades now...

"I never met an Aries I didn't like"

I stand by that.

Two of my best friends, strongest supporters and the best listeners in the book - are of the Aries persuasion.

My closest friends are generally Aries and Libras. They're straight shooters. Yet, I'm surrounded with Leos. I married two of them too. I'm related to a bunch of them. I'm PLAGUED with Leos.

I must have a big, "If you're a Leo, come stand by me" sign embedded in the back of my head.

I've had one close great Cancer friend, since 4th grade - the hilarious part is he's my polar opposite and even after 32 years, we don't know each other at all and that's okay somehow - it's peaceful and comforting and respectful and trustworthy...

Unlike Leos though, who can spot me a mile away - I'm the one that can spot an Aries if they are ANYWHERE within my radar. I never know it upon meeting them, but it's always the same thing and in the end when I find out they're an Aries - I'm never surprised.

laughs...
I just thought of an Aries story!

I played second life for awhile. It's a pointless game, but someone asked me to give it a try. Fine. I make enough people do enough things that I tend to return the favor. I played this game for weeks before I found someone interesting.

The hilarious part is, I zeroed in on this guy and we didn't say more than a single "hi" to each other. That's it - but in my head, I said, "I'm going to get that one."

His name was Malice.
laughs... I should have known then...

I ran into him alone on some island a few days later and without saying a word, I targeted him and typed /bite. He accepted and that's when the animation I bought to be a Vampire (yes, because I was bored out of my mind with the game and had to come up with some way to amuse myself) went into action.

The animation caused the following: swung him around by the arm, bit him on the neck and threw him on the floor in a pool of his own blood.

He totally understood and appreciated this means of communication and said hello back by pulling out his abductors knife and slitting my throat. All I could do was laugh while sitting at my desk - and in a pool of my own blood in the game.

Brilliant.
Instant respect.

GAME ON!
These Violent Acts of War went on until we both quit the game.

They went on until we both quit the game of our own accord. We weren't tossed out of the game. Though, for the life of me, I don't know why. I would have banned us. We were nothing short of menacing.

We set fires.
That was our favorite pastime.

We once burned down a forest, a small village, a dungeon, a dance club - and our friend's house. In the process of burning down our mutual friend's house, another mutual friend showed up and ran around the house screaming that he couldn't breathe and we were all going to die.

The owners of the house were less impressed with us, but they did ultimately laugh about it - ultimately.

The dance club we set on fire begged us to come back on a regular basis after sending out a memo to all of their members about what happened because we were a sheer force and form of cheap entertainment. I think a picture of it is still up on their bulletin board.

Erm. Oh, yeah. We did go back to our friend's house at some point and filled it with water since their love of our pyro techniques weren't as well received as we had hoped.

That went over about as well as setting their house on fire. We got no extra points for adding fish to the scene either. They had no sense of humor.

I once whipped out a giant cross that he crawled up on and hung from and then LEFT ME UNATTENDED. This led to me moving the cross all over the island, with him still on it, when he was gone. That's the day he was about to become a hood ornament to a house about 1500 feet up - he came back too early though.

In retaliation, he once teleported me to a Gorean sim where the women are not considered free and left me there. Bastard.

I was in a Church and he decided it was time to have a sword fight.
Fucker.
"WE'RE IN A CHURCH. WHO RAISED YOU?! STOP IT!"

That lasted about two sentences typed to me. I forget what he said, but I couldn't help myself and it was on. I had to ask God to forgive me later.

I kicked his ass, for the record.

If there was a cliff to get pushed off of (he once called me over, said, "D - I love you" and ran into me, sending me flying about a thousand feet. Dick.), a killing field, a means of plummeting to ones death or a way to make the other person look stupid doing something - we were ALL OVER IT.

"Click on that! No, really, it's fine - DO IT!" - oh my God, here's a tip, if you're ever in second life with me and around anything that has tentacles, don't let me talk you into clicking on it. No good EVER comes of it. EVER. And I will say just about anything I can think of just to see if I can get you to do it. I can't be trusted like that. You've been warned.

We were CONSTANTLY in combat. It's not even a combat type game, really. I've gone so far as to climb up on a rooftop and chuck saw blades at him while he shot arrows at me. Then I bought a gun and renamed it, "Diosa's peace keeper" and would shoot him as soon as I saw him.

It was our way of greeting each other.
And even though his name was Malice, there was never any Malice.

Our issue is that we always had to have an audience. Left alone it was like, "So... what do you want to do now?" and we were too stupid to come up with anything of any importance, so it would take a matter of minutes before we found hordes of people.

Ironically, he use to live in Texas and has since moved about 15 minutes away from me in New York to marry another Capricorn.

He asked if we all wanted to meet once and I said, "Phhf - find me" - If he wants to find me that much, he'll go door to door knocking until he does. There will be flyers all around town with my name on it. That's how Aries are.

Every Aries needs a Capricorn!

oh my God, ESPECIALLY in business... all business partnerships should be Aries/Capricorn... The Aries will be all brilliant and shine and the Cap will make their world go around seamlessly.

I know that sounds insane.

I was not a big believer in astrology by any means and would test my one Aries friend for YEARS over it. She can talk to someone for 3.2 minutes and tell me exactly what they are.

Not just sun signs either, she can tell me what signs rule their jobs, marriage, the way they're seen to the public, how they see themselves, what shrouds them.

It's uncanny.
It use to be a little unnerving.

We've been going over this for 10+ years now, but these days - I question it less, if at all.

I told my female Aries friend that I'm referring to above [yes, I'm talking about Erin], about my male Aries friend. My male Aries friend who has been my friend since we were in 8th grade. Again, a friendship filled with brutal honesty.

No malice, but definitely not a candy-coated duration.
Thank God.

The few attempts at sugar coating were met with, "What are you talking about, you know it's not going to work out that way"..."No, I know, it's not going to work that way" - so even if softening the blow gets attempted, the other party can't have it either and generally doesn't have sense enough to play along.

The other party is usually me... fine...

One plays tennis, the other is now interested in golf.

Golf.
Which basically came out of nowhere.

Now, *I* know that it may have come out of nowhere - but I also know that she has thought it to death and probably researched it and has glorified it in her head to equate to all sorts of honorable levels and it's now taken on a grandiose state of its own.

And she will conquer it.

Just like she conquered everything else she seemingly came out with out of the clear blue. Dancing, belly dancing, pole dancing, book binding, wine making, beer making, creating miniature books, the list goes on - none of which has a thing to do with finances or her life, really.

She just got a thought in her head and then it was just about as good as done.

Even when she's been frustrated beyond words, up for days at a time, had to rework something 85 times, taken 8,000 unnecessary steps, destroyed everything to start over from scratch and swore like a sailor - doesn't matter.

I never doubt her.
I never doubt him.

No one should EVER say an Aries has failed at something. They never fail at anything. If it looks like that, it just means that they haven't devoted enough time to it. But they will. That's a fire sign attribute. There's nothing any of them can't do; if they want to.

It's been pointed out to me that my 8th house is in Aries. The 8th house is basically how you handle life. Aries is, of course, the Greek God of War, counterpoint to the Roman God, Mars.

I stole the following four lines from the internet, but they were so dead on, I couldn't change a thing...

A word of advice, NEVER tell a Ram they can’t do something.
You just gave them a mission if you do.

Many an Aries has conquered adversity not for a truly noble cause but simply because they were told they couldn’t do something.

Their ambition?
They win.

There is a deep love of money about all fire signs. They are acutely aware that money equals freedom. Their driving forces are fairly close too.

Aries - driven by being told they can't do something.
Leo - driven by recognition.
Sagittarius - driven by the prestige of money.

Capricorns - driven by security and it has to be something that will better the world at large.
It's hard to separate myself from the fray, I have a lot of fire in my chart.

Fire signs = time is money.
Capricorns = time is everything.

I can think of a time or two when my answer to doing something was, "Because I can..." - so I can relate. Actually, now that I think about it, I can recall saying, "I think you'll find that I can" a few times in the past couple of weeks.

That's what I like about them!

They may not look like the vision of stability, but if that's what you see - you aren't looking close enough.

Even the most stable of them though have some kind of wild card factor and it usually involves speed and danger of some sort. Danger that they only have a logical concept of, they know it's a possibility that they could get hurt - this is not a diversion however, because they don't really believe that will ever be their destiny.

They're also very careful about only taking chances with themselves. They have a large sense of protection about other people they care about.

This is how Caps and Aries differ. I'll be told of some situation one of them is about to engage in and in my head, or out loud, I'll say, "I'd be dead" - full well knowing that that particular activity would be what kills me.

They are unmoved by this.
I usually get back, "Well, that's certainly a possibility..."

This is their version of agreeing with me that, "Yes, it would probably kill me" - not them.
At least they're pleasant about it.

Caps are the support crew. We do all the behind the scenes junk no one else wants to do and it's not work to us. Aries, in typical fire fashion, are the bright lights that invent and don't have a clue what the definition of "No" is.

To them, that word it's more like a shocking discovery - "Really? I didn't even know that word existed in the English language, huh" - before summarily dismissing it as a credible answer to anything and surely, it doesn't apply to them anyway, so who cares.

They are always refreshing to talk to.
I admire them.

Like Scorpios, I don't know how willing I'd be to cross one. Well, being a Cap (none of us fear death - we simply don't, we know there has to be something better than this life - which in some sick way causes us to fucking live FOREVER, probably as penance for having that stance) - it would be a war to end all wars.

Still, would NOT be my first choice or thought.
I can't imagine EVER having a reason to go up against an Aries either.
Too much mutual respect.

I told my female Aries friend what she was in for when she moves into her Capricorn fiance's house. He will be ALL about protecting her and her kids. There isn't a situation or person alive that's going to be able to touch them.

This is NOT work to us.
You PROTECT your family.
You protect them from hurt and harm and as much aggravation as humanly possible.

All we expect in return is credit.
That's it.
Credit.

Her problems have just become his in his mind. It's automatic. Automatic and natural. It's what we're designed to do. And whatever you want to do, as long as it's not killing us from the inside out - we'll ensure you will be able to do.

Oh my God, that's a piece of cake.
We can do that in our sleep.

We'll figure the budget, we'll run the household, we won't expect you to give anything we're not willing to give. Every decision made will have you firmly in mind. We want you to shine. This makes you happy. We're good. We couldn't be LESS interested in shining. We're content simply being good at what we do. We don't relish the limelight. It makes us uncomfortable. We just want to blend, even though this never works out well.

Obama and his wife are perfect examples.
She and I share the same birthday.

He always gives her credit for him being where he is today.
This ensures a long, happy life for him.

And... heaven...help...ANYONE...that tries to get between a Cap and their family.
death wish...

We will annihilate you.
Liquefy.

We are unable to tolerate that.
Ever.

I couldn't even tolerate it when a Leo I married moved into my house and was all sad that his ex-girlfriend wouldn't give him back his stupid cat; a cat that was his before he even knew the ex. I didn't want a cat. I didn't want to see the ex-girlfriend. He tried to do the right thing and the Police told him he would have to go to Civil Court.

Right.
Drive me over there.
Wait in the car, I'll be right back.

It took about three minutes to walk out of her apartment with his cat.
He was happy again and I was the proud co-owner of a cat that hated me for 14 years.

There is nothing on this earth that we can't handle either. We can bear anything life has to throw at us. Easily. ALL we want in return is credit. Don't trample all over that and we'll never leave you. If you take away our credit, however, we'll leave you in a heartbeat.

We're not the best at everything, maybe not even anything, but what we are good at - you should never, ever try to downplay. Say it like it is, but do not ever downplay it - and without question, do NOT downplay it for your own personal amusement. If you do, fuck you - there's the door. If you do give us credit, a little goes a long way because we catch every line spoken.

have I stressed that enough?

Aries never do this to Caps.
Every Cap needs an Aries in their life.
Every Aries needs a Cap.
If you don't have one - go get one.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

get ready...

Because after I wake up in the morning, I'm going to be going off about Health Care. I only have one point of contention after Obama's speech the other day, but it's a big one. It's not against him in the least either. It's about Federal funds and the more I think about it, the more I get irritated by it.

I take that back!
There are two things that irritate me - I have solutions for both of them too.
Seriously, who the Hell do I have to call?

If you can guess which either of them are, I'll be totally impressed with you and dedicate an entire post to you and refer to you as King or Queen for a week.

To give you a head start, I'll tell you that it's NOT over the sea of hideously ugly ties I had to endure while watching the speech.

though I would be interested in knowing if there was some gigantic sale on purple fabric to tie factories this year... Good Lord...

I am a hotel snob - and a tie snob.

Oh, and it's NOT about the fact that grown men should know better than to yell out in the middle of a Presidential speech.

What the hell is wrong with you? No home training? Who does that? - and stop it. Immediately. Never do that again. That's just rude. Don't make me call your mother.

Okay, one more - it's also NOT about having to stare at the TV screen while some heart surgeon proceeds to represent the Republican party. Was he even listening to the same speech? He mentioned five things and Obama addressed four of the five of them. Pay better attention next time, doctor.

I'm going to settle in to read now, before my head explodes.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Fear Less

I am a fan of the author Gavin De Becker. Who, in my rarely humble opinion (what's the point of being humble about some conclusion you've come to as long as you're not following someone around trying to shove your opinion down their throat 24/7?) - is a downright genius.

He wrote the book, The Gift of Fear - which again, in my rarely humble opinion, every female alive should read.

Actually, any male that even remotely cares about a female should read it as well just so you can understand how we have to live in a world of potential violence against us. You'd probably be horrified to learn all of the things we have to simultaneously consider just walking out our front door.

If you're female, the information in the book could very well one day literally save your life.

After 9/11, Gavin came out with the book I'm reading right now - aptly called, Fear Less.

It stresses our natural survival system, like his other book. I'm about to totally plagiarize him and write an excerpt from one of his chapters right now because I think he had some really good points when it comes to breaking down emotions, animal instincts and being able to identify and compartmentalize them.

Come to think of it, it's not so much plagiarizing as it is copy right infringement. Don't tell him! I'm going to pawn it off as free advertisement for his books. Buy them!

To give you some background on his credentials: Gavin De Becker is widely considered America's leading expert on predicting and managing violent behavior. He advises such clients as the CIA and the U.S. Supreme Court, and his 70 member firm has protected clients from terrorism in Isreal, southern Africa, Europe, and South America. This three-time presidential appointee designed the assessment systems used to screen threats to all federal judges and the governors of 11 states, and his work has changed the way the U.S. government protects its highest officials. He is also a senior fellow at UCLA's School of Public Policy and Social Research.

Yes, I even violated the copy rights by taking that from the back jacket of the book. Consider me his new personal PR chick.

---
Beginning of Theft

Intuition has many messengers, but the clearest and most urgent is fear. Nothing in life gets attention as reliably as fear -- and that's the way the system is designed to work. Fear does some miraculous things when we perceive that we are in the presence of danger. First, it gets our bodies ready for action with a dose of adrenaline. It heats up the lactic acid in our muscles for running or fighting, and it even gives us a chemical called cortisol that makes our blood clot more quickly in case we're cut in a fight.

It's an amazing system designed to be a brief signal that gets you to listen, address the risk, and move on. The problem is that these chemicals are toxic, and in America, even more so since the tragic events of 9/11, lots of people are living in fear.

Our imaginations can be the fertile soil in which worry about anxiety grow from seeds to weeds, but when we assume an imagined outcome is a sure thing, we are in conflict with what Proust called an inexorable law: "Only that which is absent can be imagined." In other words, what you imagine cannot be happening in your presence right now, for if it were, you would perceive it. Similarly, the very fact that you fear something is solid evidence that it is not happening in your presence right now.

Fear summons powerful predictive resources that tell us what might come next. It is that which might come next that we fear -- what might happen, not what is happening now. A literal example helps demonstrate this: As you stand near the edge of a high cliff, you might fear getting too close. If you stand right at the edge, you no longer fear getting too close, you now fear falling. To carry this all the way, if you fall, you no longer fear falling -- you now fear landing. When compared with landing, falling isn't so bad.

This reminds me of a friend who used to be afraid of flying because of turbulence. After the four simultaneous hijackings, he told me, "Turnulence now makes me grateful. It reminds me that there are much worse things."

People use the word fear to describe so many feelings that are not fear, so I'll define our terms.

FEAR

  • True fear is a signal in the presence of danger. It is always based upon something we perceive, something in our environment or our circumstance.
  • Unwarranted fear is always based upon our memory or our imagination.
Imagine, for example, that you are about to board a flight when you are suddenly overtaken with dread and uncertainty about the pilot's ability to fly the plane. If the dread is based on a news story you saw three weeks ago about airlines hiring inexperienced pilots, it is unwarranted fear. If the fear is based upon seeing the pilot stumble out of the airport bar, it's the real thing. True fear is the messenger that intuition sends when the situation is urgent, and it's not easily quieted. If you want it to leave you alone, whatever questions it poses must be answered fully and credibly.

The challenge in dealing with anxiety caused by terrorist acts is that answers are hard to come by. Uncertainly is a key component of terrorism; we are left to wonder what might happen next, to what degree, and where. The lack of predictability predictably causes anxiety, which, unlike true fear, is always caused by uncertainty.

ANXIETY

Anxiety is caused, ultimately, by predictions in which you have little confidence. Image that you are anxious about being fired. You might have anxiety about the things you can't predict with certainty, such as the ramifications of losing the job.

Prediction in which you have high confidence free you to respond, prepare, adjust, accept, feel sadness, or do whatever is needed. Accordingly, anxiety is reduced by improving the quality of your predictions. Higher quality predictions increase certainty, and certainty is the antidote to anxiety. It's worth doing, because the word anxiety, like the word worry, stems from a root that means "to choke," and that is just what it does to us.

WORRY

Worry is the fear we manufacture -- it is not authentic, and it is not part of our defense systerm. If you look out the window and see lava from the local volcano slowly making its way toward your house, you don't worry, you run.

Unlike true fear, worry is a choice. Most often, people worry because it provides some secondary reward. There are many variations, but here are a few of the most popular reasons people worry:

  • Worry is a way to avoid change; when we worry, we don't do anything about the matter.
  • Excessive worry helps some people deal with matters they cannot influence. Powerlessness is one of the hardest things to admit, and there comes a point with risk where we have to do just that. Worry helps fight off that dreadful feeling that there's nothing we can do, because worrying feels like we are doing something.
  • You've likely known someone who worried so much that people stopped telling that people anything. "Don't worry your mother" or "I'm worried half to death" are phrases that serve worriers by offering protection from too much reality.
  • Worry can be a cloying way to have connection with others, the idea being that to worry about someone shows love. As many worried-about people will tell you, worry is a poor substitute for love or for taking loving action.
  • Worry is a way to rehearse dreaded outcomes so that if they occur, the worrier believes he will be more prepared. Of course, it doesn't work. Worry simply gives people some of the very same consequences they'd get if the dreaded outcome occurred -- while doing nothing constructive to prevent anything bad from happening. Worrying is not the same as planning; it is not an effective security precaution.
Worry is a choice, but true fear is involuntary; it will come and get your attention if necessary. But if a person feels fear constantly, there is no signal left for when it's really needed. Thus, the person who chooses to worry all the time or to persistently chew on unwarranted fears is actually making himself less safe. Worry is not a precaution; it is the opposite because it delays and discourages constructive action, and action is the antidote to worry.

In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman concludes that worrying is a sort of "Magical amulet" that some people feel wards off danger. They believe that worrying about something will stop it from happening. He also correctly notes that most of what people worry about has a low probability of occurring, because we tend to take action about those things we feel are likely to occur. This means that very often the mere fact that you are worrying about something is a predicator that it isn't likely to happen.

When you worry yourself into an artificial fear about terrorism, you distract yourself from what is actually happening in favor of what you imagine might happen. Since the human imagination is powerful, you can conjure quite a litany of possibilities. Any time you ask yourself the question "Could this happen?" the answer will be yes -- because anything could happen, but there are better questions, such as "Will this happen?" or "Is this happening?"

Is worry an intuitive signal? In a roundabout way, it can be. That's because what we choose to worry about, however bad, is usually easier to look at than some other, less palatable issue. For this reason, a good exercise when worrying is to ask yourself, "What am I choosing not to see right now?" Worry may well be distracting you from something important. For example, someone might worry about unseen terrorists (What will they do next? Do operatives live nearby? Are they engaged in something dastardly right now?), whiles at the same time choosing not to register that she's seen someone videotaping the nuclear power plant several days in a row.

Worry, wariness, anxiety, and concern all have a purpose, but they are not fear. So any time a feeling isn't a signal in the presence of danger, then it really shouldn't be confused with fear. It may well be something worth trying to understand and manage, but it is not likely to be directly relevant to your present safety.

End of theft
---

I love that breakdown! It's clear and to the point. I love when people accurately call things for what they really are. Love it.

I know the overall theme is on terrorism in his book, but the same formula can be applied to other situations in life. That's why I felt the need to share.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

women's bathrooms

You can always tell the sign of a good restaurant/party house/hotel by the condition of their women's bathroom(s).
That's just a fun little fact.

If you want to know if you should plan any kind of event at a place, send some random female into their facilities and just observe the look on her face when she walks out.

If she comes out with a look of total disgust - don't even think about eating there.
It's as simple as that.

The look is unmistakable too. It's that clenched jaw, eyes half closed, every muscle in her body is tense and there is usually some subtle, if not full on, sneer on her face - stance.

For the male gender who may not yet be informed, let me explain.

We take our settings very seriously. We expect it to be clean. We expect to be able to see when we look in the mirror. We expect all the locks on the doors to work. We expect there to be plenty of supplies at our disposal.

We expect room to move. We expect there to be somewhere for us to put our purses and whatever other junk we happen to have with us.

We expect hooks on the backs of our doors - even if some of us aren't comfortable throwing our stuff up on said hook because we also know how easy it is for someone to just reach over and yank our stuff up and out.

NOT THE POINT!

We expect to not feel like we need to shower when we leave a public restroom.
Yes, I said it.
We expect this.

I always crinkle my nose whenever a bathroom is a) some one room thrown together with no thought enclosure or b) co-ed. Bite me. I don't want to share a bathroom with a male in my own house, let alone a bunch of strangers.

No offense. You men are wonderful. I just don't need to know *that* much about you. I see no real need to bond with you in that way. Stop peeing in front of me for crying out loud.

Now, a really well run place who cares about it's guest/clients/customers will build a real bathroom for women.

This will include up to three separate rooms. A foyer, a waiting area and the facilities themselves - which is large and has stalls on one wall and across from the stalls will be an entire wall side to side of mirrors and sinks.

The sink dispensers won't have the equivalent of Lava soap in them. It will be something fruity or flowery, usually some Yardley something or other that you wouldn't bother to spend the money on to put in your own house.

There will be lights - everywhere, so you can actually see what you're doing when you go to fix your make-up. There will be a large garbage can with a swinging lid on it so you don't have to actually see the garbage in it (if not two - one on either side of the room).

There will be a hand blow dryer AND a paper towel dispenser. Half of them have a folding changing table for babies attached to the wall that you can pull down and make your life easier. There is usually a machine that you can get tampons and pads from if you pay the quarter charge or whatever it is these days.

Each individual stall has a metal box for tampons and pads to dispose of and there is usually a huge roll of toilet paper (and another one behind it) and most of the time there will be a dispenser for those toilet seat covers which are more trouble than they're worth. It's nice to know it's available anyway.

There is at least one handicap, over-sized stall. This is not like a handicap parking space. The same rules do not apply. It's acceptable for anyone to use provided that no one is wheeling themselves in to the room before you go to use it.

Our sitting areas contain couches and nice chairs and mirrors with elegant frames on them. Some will have tables that contain baskets with items such as: bobby pins, safety pins, hair spray, spritzer, nylons, handiwipes, cotton balls, Q-Tips, pads, tampons and sewing kits in them. There is art on the wall, low lighting lamps on the table (designed to make our jewelry sparkle, no doubt) and either carpeting in these rooms or very nice tiles; usually carpet.

This is the norm.

Our bathrooms aren't just bathrooms.
They're conference rooms.
and yes, we *are* discussing *you*...

Now, let me set the scene now that you have all of that information floating around fresh in your head.

We were driving from Maryland back to New York. We found ourselves in the middle of East Nowhere, Pennsylvania when we decided to stop at a Citgo.

Seems normal enough, right?
Wrong.

My daughter and I go in search of the restroom. It is, of course, a one room hovel that we both squeezed into.
Fine.

We made our comments and then I looked up at the wall thinking that the dispenser was the usual tampon/pad dispenser.
Wrong, again!

I pointed to the dispenser silently until she looked up at it. When it registered what it actually was, she started laughing out loud.

Condoms!
In all my years, I've NEVER seen condoms sold in a women's bathroom.

But wait!
Not just condoms - adult novelty items too.
That was on the left side.

On the right side was - aspirin.
Seriously, aspirin.

All for the low, low price of $0.75 each.
We found the cracker jack mother of all dispensers!

You may get a condom or you may get an adult item - how lucky are you feeling tonight?! The right side was solely aspirin, but the left side - total guesswork!
She is, unmistakably my child. So we did what anyone would expect us to do left in a situation like this -- We wasted $4.50 on crap we wouldn't buy over the counter and laughed our asses off every time we dropped in three quarters and turned the knob. We had the added bonus of the bathroom wall being 5' from the outside cashier counter too and a full line in front of it.

We didn't care. It was too much for our senses as soon as this dropped out...

Tattoos.
The Ultimate in Fun & Fantasy.

Clearly, I have a lot to learn if tattoos are the ultimate in Fun & Fantasy. I've been doing it all wrong then. I'm going to have to rethink everything!

Grant must have given up on waiting for us because we found him outside at the car checking the oil. We maintained our silence on our newly purchased stash of Black Magic condoms, tattoos and massage oil.

That is, until we couldn't take it anymore and started laughing again.
Then he made the distinct mistake of finally asking us what took us so long.

My daughter and I exchanged a bonding smirk and then I casually said, "Oh, we were buying condoms..."

He rolled his eyes.
Like he didn't believe me.
Then he must have taken a second to think about it.

Because he knows that if whatever I say sounds really off - there is a 99.997% chance that it's 100% true...

Grant: "Did you really buy condoms?"
Me: "Yes."

silence...

Grant: "You did not."
Me: "Okay."

silence...

Grant: "Why in God's name would you be in there buying condoms?"
The two of us in stereo, all excited: "Because we've never seen a condom dispenser before in our bathrooms! It wasn't JUST a condom dispenser either!"

more silence.. at this point I can see why he's confused... I've had my tubes tied for the last 14 years and my daughter is waiting until after she graduates high school at least... this is SO NOT THE POINT!

We produced our bounty so he could bask in our excitement with us.
He still wasn't getting it.

Grant: "You know those are the kinds of condoms you get when you want to get someone pregnant or take your chances of getting an STD from the condom itself from a place like this..."
Me: "DON'T RAIN ON OUR PARADE!"

a whole lot of staring at our excited little faces while trying to figure out what in God's name to say to us to get us to stop...

Grant: "I'm not sure what the big deal is - that's standard in our bathrooms."
Me: "Yeah, we went into your bathroom too (WE HAD TO!). You had a two sided dispenser too. One side, regular condoms. Other side, ribbed condoms, "for her" - no aspirin..."

a whole fuckload of silence...

That's when I felt it was time to break open the marital aid package with the massage oil in it, you know, to break the silence. And what did I get for my efforts?

NOTHING!
That's what!


The freakin' box was EMPTY!
Empty, I say!
What the Hell kind of rip off bullshit is that?!

I looked at my daughter and said, "I think we should go back in and complain!" - being my offspring, she was all for the idea of witnessing that.

Grant: "Get in the car..."
Me: "Fine. I'll write them hate mail instead."

If any of you B&I employees are reading this:

Dear Barnett International Corporation,

You suck. We hate you.
Oh, and you owe me $0.75

Signed,
A Disgruntled & Disappointed Dispenser User

And that, is my condom story.

Oh, and by the way - the tattoo box contained a scorpion and a cartoon kitten playing with a green tennis ball...I don't even want to know who thinks that's the ultimate in Fun & Fantasy...

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

inspired

Since I got out my frustration over the stupid half question in my last post, I was laying in bed trying to sleep (to no avail, obviously) and one thought lead to another in my mind and next thing I know - I was up to another example of calling things exactly how they are, and how that's a GOOD thing.

That may very well be the longest, most convoluted sentence ever written. Read it a few times if it didn't make sense the first time around, because I assure you that it will eventually.

You were forced to do sentence breakdowns with charts and lines in school.

I know you were!
You can do it!
I have faith!

Here's a Cliff Note example of how my mind works:

"Man, I feel so much better after writing that bitch about that stupid, moronic, half full/half empty question on my journal. I've been meaning to say that to the general public for a long ass time.

I should tell Brian that when he comes over tomorrow too; he'd appreciate my little theory on that. He's all about calling things out for what they really are. I suppose that's why he was a kick ass Cop.

Being a Cop would be a pretty cool job. They have to see things in terms that are very black and white. Their job is to take the law and arrest someone that breaks it and then turn it all over to the D.A., Judge and/or Jury for them to interpret the law as they see fit.

If I could take orders, I would have loved to be a Cop!

Wait a minute, who in the hell am I kidding - I could NEVER be a Cop. I've made that declaration a few dozen times. I know it's true. I'd make it on the streets for about 5.5 hours before I took the law into my own hands and shot some jackass who was doing something so fundamentally wrong that it violated my senses.

I could never do that job. I know my limits. Oh, you want to be a rapist - well, it just so happens that I have a few bullets in this gun - and look at that! One of them has your name on it! Today is your lucky day! Sort of...

"Okay, motherfucker!
Time to die!
Make your peace with God while you can!"

Speaking of which, I should watch that movie, "Black and White" again with Gina Gershon. I love that movie. My favorite part is when she's got the guy in her target and she just SNAPS and she's all like, "Go ahead! You shoot him, I'll shoot you - it'll be FUN!"

Erm... and that's the basics of why I could never do that job, because I would be JUST LIKE HER in that scenario.

Yeah, I could see it now - Internal Affairs would have my number and the number of an Arraignment Judge on speed dial. Then I'd have to figure out how to convince a jury of my peers that the guy actually fell on the bullets six times because he's a klutz.

"How is that MY fault, your Honor?!"

Even I'm not sure I could sell that one. Wow though, if I could - what kind of freakin' win would THAT be. Come to think of it, I bet I might be able to sell that story! If someone can actually get away with a "Twinkies" defense... oh my God, what the hell am I going on about... sheesh... next...

I think one of the best compliments I've ever gotten from Brian is him saying that if we were in the Army together and in War, he would trust me to have his back. That's a huge compliment.

Not that I could ever be in the military either - with my whole lack of, taking orders, thing. It was still a good thing to say.

He's right though, oh my God, if someone took a shot at him I'd go insane and that person would have to pay. I told him that I'm the only one allowed to kill him. NO ONE GETS TO TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME!

I'd give that guy part of my liver if he needed it.

I'm never going to get any sleep this way. I should just get up and get some coffee and write or read or plot. Whatever. Something.


...it goes on and on and on like that.

That's not even scratching the surface, but it should be enough of an example to give you a little insight.

Anyway, in the midst of my silent tirade in my head while laying there, things somehow worked its way around to measuring people with their own measuring sticks.

Not mine.
Theirs.

I'm fairly cool with a large, large number of things. You want to be a polygamist, more power to you. You want to marry your own sex, knock yourself out. You want to tell me flat out that you're a womanizing asshole - okay.

I could, and ironically, have had the following conversation:

Womanizing Dickhead: "I think it would be good to tell you that I'm a bottom of the barrel, womanizing dickhead - all in the name of fair play. Oh, and by the way, I'm 100% against animal cruelty. People that hurt animals should be shot and then subsequently dragged behind a bus doing 45 down a dirt road."

Me: "Okay. Noted. Thanks!"

I'm actually happy for you that you know yourself well enough to understand that about yourself and your sense of honesty made you say that to me. We're cool. I will NOT be surprised when I see you doing your thing. I won't get all moral on you. I won't lecture you. Good for you for doing some soul searching and coming to some kind of conclusion about yourself.

I don't really care.
I've been warned.
Fair enough.

Granted, I won't be dating you. I won't introduce you to any female that I even remotely know and if you look sideways at my sister - I may gouge your eyes out with a fork.

In the vein of keeping even, I feel that that's necessary to say to you so we're both on the same page.

Noted as well?
Good.
We're cool then.

I value direct honesty and I have a huge fear of being misunderstood and there's no point in mincing words.

This in no way precludes us from being friends.
I'm sure you must have some good qualities too.
Even if you don't, you still get credit for being honest with me.

Really, we're cool.

Now, you can try to lay every female with a pulse around me and I'll ignore you and you're totally safe as long as you don't try to involve me. Have at it. I'll even try very hard not to laugh and roll my eyes. It effects us, not at all. Don't worry your pretty little head over it for one second.

If you try to involve me or get me to vouch for you being a good, caring, one-woman man sort - I will totally blow you in in no uncertain terms and then go back to whatever it was that I was doing. So, you know, you probably don't want to involve me.

But we're OKAY!

You be the best bottom of the barrel, scumbag, dickhead womanizer you can be, honey!

You can tell me all about it later when you're done doing what you're doing.
We'll have coffee or something.

This is where the problem comes in...

If I see the same guy outside kicking a dog - that's a BIG NO!

From that point on, you will forever be known as the jackass dog kicker and I don't even want to know your name now. You have violated your own honesty and now you're nothing but a real asshole that I want nothing to do with.

Me: Hey, you - LYING lowlife animal kicker, there's a bus outside waiting for your ass! I hear he's taking the back roads to his next stop! He's got a gun in his glove compartment too. Hurry!"

You broke your OWN rule.
I have no use for you.

No one else put that rule on you, that's something you came up with on your own. If you didn't want to be held to it, you never should have said it to me!

No sympathy.
None.

If you were a dog kicker, you could have just said, "Oh, yeah - and in my spare time, I like to kick animals."

Sure, I would sit there and stare at you to see if you were serious or not. I'll probably suggest a new hobby, like, watching paint dry or sniffing glue - but I'll take you at your word.

I won't be shocked if I see you do it then either. I'll stare again, and possibly throw a rock at you - but I will be forced to say to myself, "well, he DID tell me... I can hardly say I wasn't warned..."

I don't personally know any dog kickers, but my point remains the same...

Say what you mean, mean what you say - and expect that I'll hold you to it.
Otherwise, really, what's the fucking point.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

1-2-3

I've been brainwashing my kids for a long time now. They are *not* living in my basement at 40. Forget it. That's just not going to be happening.

So these are the rules:

You *will* graduate from high school.
Period.
After that, you have three choices:

  • College - if you're in college, you will be going to the one my ex-husband works at. It's one of the Top 10 colleges in America. Your tuition is free because he's staff. They have a phenomenal program in place - they're connected with close to 160 other colleges that they'll cover tuition for after you get a couple of years of schooling under your belt.

    The stipulation from the college is that you have to be a dependent. You will still be a tax deduction. Therefore, I still own you. The rules of the house still apply. How lenient they become depends on your GPA - just like elementary, middle and high school. You should have the hang of it by this point.

    If you don't wish to go to any of these schools, you better get some full scholarships because I'm not paying for any other school. Hell, at 40-50K per year, I couldn't afford to pay for this school if my ex-husband didn't work there. The books at this college alone are going to kill us. You are allowed to live on campus and leave all your crap here. This is still your home.

    As long I stay married to my ex-husband (for this journal's purposes, I refer to him as my ex-husband since we haven't been together for the last two years and he lives somewhere else - however, we are still married because of the kids), you can go to college for free. The college extends this until the age of 30. You could conceivably walk out of school with a couple of Ph.D.'s worth close to a half a million dollars, if you apply yourself. I know you don't understand exactly what kind of tremendous opportunity he has ensured for you. You're going to have to trust me on this one.

    I'm not entirely sure I like the idea of a career student. Pick a direction and work towards it. I'm all for bettering yourself, but you have to have some focus. You've got a year and a summer to get a grip on what that direction might be. Choose...something. You're not living here for 30 years, nor will you want to. Believe me.

    Though, I go back and forth on this one...If you find you're exceptional at something and really want to go to school for years on end so you can specialize in it, we'll see about trying to buy a rental home by the campus where you can live and still benefit. I'll have to see if it's allowed. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. It better be something worth-while though, no basket weaving specialist or anything like that.

  • Military - if you don't realize the opportunity in front of you as far as college goes and you want to join the Military - that's fine. The Military automatically emancipates you in the eyes of the law (just like marriage).

    You can get your mail here, leave your stuff here and come home whenever you get leave. This is still your home. Subject to change should you decide to make the Military your career. You're not living here for the next 20 years.

  • Full time job - if you've decided to wave either of the above options, you've got one month after you graduate from high school to get a full-time job. This is what my Mom did with me. I'm passing it along to you. Congratulations.

    You will not even entertain the idea of getting a job that doesn't offer medical insurance. You won't believe this is important, but I'm not playing with you. I will sit down with you before you go on your interviews and discuss the things you should be looking for. I don't expect you to just know.

    You will pay rent. The rent you pay, I will let you believe is gone after you give it to me. What will actually happen is that I'll put it into an account for you. At some point you're going to want to buy a house and it'll be a nice portion towards the down payment.

    You can do this for approximately a year. At which point, I expect you to be bright enough to think to yourself, "I'm paying rent and still have rules - why in the hell don't I pay rent on my own and not have rules?". I have faith in you.



    Regardless of which option you choose, I expect you to do the best you can to think over the choices of your life. You will be picking your own branch of the Military (if you fail to make a choice, I will sign you up to the Army). You will be choosing your own classes and major. You will be finding your own job. Do your research.

    I always said that you would each get a used car for your high school graduation present. Something checked by our mechanic and that I trust won't break down on you. I'm not asking your opinion on color or type. You get what you get. Be happy you're not riding the bus and you don't have payments to make on it.

    You will be responsible for taking care of the maintenance on your car and your car insurance. We will pay for AAA. You will be less likely to be a jackass driving if you're paying for it.

    You will be allowed one credit card that's solely in your name and you will take it out from your own bank. There will only be a $250-300 credit limit on it. We'll see how long it takes for you to fully understand, 'only use in case of an emergency' - you will screw it up, undoubtedly.

    You will have your own savings and checking accounts. You should know how to manage your money by now, however, for the first few months, I'll sit down with you and help you with your bills/schedules so you don't do what nearly everyone else does and fuck your credit the first year you get it - which you probably will anyway.

    If you are overseas, I will handle your car and finances for you until you get back to the United States. I'll also give you all the details about everything I did for you to double check to make sure there isn't something else you owe that you forgot to tell me about.

    Do not ask me for a cellphone. I am not putting you on our plan. Neither of you can be trusted with a phone. My suggestion for you is to get a pre-paid deal until you can learn the value of minutes. There's a reason why I don't let you touch mine.

    If you lose your mind and plan on getting married at an early age, you better make sure you have a home set up. If you can't handle things on your own - you should take this as an indication that you have no business getting married yet.

    If you are really sick, have been in some sort of accident or are pregnant (being diabetic) - you are more than welcome home. I will take care of you.

    You can always turn to me for anything. This does not mean that you'll get exactly what you want though. My job is not to become an enabler. My job is to guide you into becoming a decent, responsible and productive human being - one that I'll want to have dinner with out in public. I'm your Mother. I'll always help you in some way. It just might not be in a way you expect though. That's all I'm saying.

    I recognize that you have to make your own mistakes. Trust me, you will. It's inevitable. I'll let you, too. Oh, I'll make a few remarks here and there to try to prevent you from doing whatever stupid thing you're about to do, but don't expect me to prevent you. Some things you just need to experience to get. This is a waste of time, but you'll do it anyway because you're young.

    That said, if I don't see you correcting the problem and instead find you digging a deeper hole - I will be likely to step in and verbally smack you in the back of the head until you see what you're doing.

    If you continue on with said stupid thing after I point it out to you - you're on your own. I will have done my part as your Mother. You can come tell me I was right later in life.

    Welcome to adulthood.
    Fun, isn't it?
  • one down, one to go...

    Friday, July 17, 2009

    jury duty

    I'm scheduled for jury duty starting Monday.

    I've been selected 6-7 times in my life and it's always the same thing.
    Selected, not required to show up.

    I did get an extension that led to this time around. I got the notice back in May when I had my ruptured disk and I told them that there was no way in hell that I could sit in a hard wooden chair for 8 hours a day for 5 days.

    Wasn't happening.
    I offered to show them my MRI as proof.
    They didn't care.
    They just rescheduled me for now.

    So either one of two things are going to happen.

    1) I won't be called to go in.
    2) It will be the second coming of an O.J. trial and I'll be sequestered for a year and a half.

    That's the ONLY way my life would go.
    All or none.
    Not at all or I'll have to bring a sleeping bag.

    Welcome to my world...

    Saturday, April 25, 2009

    Capricorns - an Aries point of view

    Erin did a write up trying to explain Capricorns to other people, for their own benefit. She wrote this about a year and a half ago and it was so accurate that I had to save it.

    Accurate and funny - because it's all true.

    Every now and then I'll still laugh about the IRS sex/taxes comment randomly. It could not be more DEAD ON!

    Anyway...
    I am said Capricorn.
    She is said Aries.
    And I have no idea who the other Aries was that she was talking to.


    ---------------------


    So says Erin:

    "Anyway, I met someone today that got me going about Capricorns. It was an Aries of course. It's like peanut butter and jelly. It's like water and fish. It's like .. whatever.

    I SPENT a lot of damn time in 2007 trying to understand the Capricorn's DECEPTIVELY SIMPLE words.

    No tricks.
    No big words.
    No complicated theories.
    No double-talking statements for them.

    Just quiet little sentences.
    Probably 6 words or less.

    They just drop these MASSIVELY IMPORTANT DEADLY SERIOUS STATEMENTS AT YOUR FEET WITH ZERO CEREMONY AND LET THEM LAY THERE and EXPECT you to never forget them.

    Deceptive...
    so deceptive...
    if blunt and brutal honesty delivered with a steady voice can be labeled deceptive.

    But like I told my friend, "no one ever HEARS anything a Capricorn ever says. "

    And, no, I don't have ALZHEIMER'S, like that one Capricorn I love recently suggested to me .. or rather he said, "SEE? THIS IS WHY I'LL NEVER KNOW IF YOU HAVE ALZHEIMER DISEASE..," referring to my quaint habit of not hearing much he ever says to me.

    He said it in an awful sweet way tho that made my ears prick up at the time .. kind of charmed me, it did... fuck it made me dizzy. He's got this delicious way of saying things that make my insides melt and my brain turn upside down.

    Uh.. what was I saying?

    See, that's what they do to ya. Make it sound sexy, reassuring, soft, funny, witty, exciting, controlled, low.

    The words, next to the grounded pulsing animal energy from them, seem - as cruel as it sounds - ultimately meaningless.

    But they aren't.
    That's the trap.

    Here's another great way of distinguishing if what a Capricorn is saying is of grave important to you.

    They'll never say something sweet that's relationship-threatening.

    It will sound serious.

    You won't be listening anyway, so I don't know why I'm bothering to say it, but if it's important it will sound less like sex and more like taxes.

    Yes, that's a good way of explaining it.

    If they sound like the IRS, telling you something you know is life or death serious TO YOU, but NOT THEIR PROBLEM IF YOU DON'T LISTEN (see the IRS connection?) -- pay rapt attention.

    Because like the IRS, they don't have to be mean about what they say.

    Or threatening.
    Or violent.

    Yeah, it's got that much consequence behind it.

    But yes they are terribly STUCK on, and ADAMANT, about the stuff they SAY to you.

    Except, trust me, NO ONE EVER HEARS WHAT THEY SAY. I'd say, "I don't know why they even bother to communicate with other humans," but I KNOW WHY.

    It's the way they can detach and keep things so nice and neat after they destroy you if you've been found guilty and deserve their wrath.

    In their stubborn heads, they are leaving you behind saying to themselves, "I told ya so."

    It's a great skill.
    I love it.
    I'm learning it.
    Makes life so SHARP.
    Like eggshells.
    Like living with God.

    "Hey! I told ya so!!! I warned ya!!" - God. ..and Capricorns.

    Because if you're really interested in keeping one, your actions must match your words explicitly. Because they never forget a promise or a slight.
     

    I told my OTHER cap friend, "Yes, understanding a Capricorn AND hearing what they say is like having a finely tuned superpower... "I HAVE THAT SUPERPOWER. I'VE CULTIVATED IT!! I CAN HEAR CAPRICORNS!"

    ...to which she said, "You never hear a fucking thing I say. How many times have I told you the same thing tonight?" (--this OTHER Capricorn friend she's talking about would be yours truly, razors and vines...)


    Those Capricorns can be a little testy when they have to repeat themselves. It's a damn good thing they are so useful and sexy or sometimes that... "pow, right to the moon thing" comes to mind...

    And she was right.

    She did tell me the same thing 19 times and I still didn't understand it.

    BUT I KNEW what she was saying was important. I got the feeling. the spider-sense. It's almost like a force of will. they are WILLING YOU TO GET THE IMPORTANCE OF IT.

    I knew that part.
    I felt the command to MAKE A NOTE OF IT... and I did.
    Tho of what, I wasn't sure until 8hrs later.

    This, tho, is a habit I've noticed many Earth signs (of which Cap is one) possess..

    ...they only tell you THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE CONCEPT THEY WISH TO IMPART.

    The guts, the gist, the one sentence you may, and are expected to, repeat to yourself as you brush your teeth three times a day.

    Granted, they get snaps for underlining verbally the most IMPORTANT PART, but often 99% of the story is left to your imagination because they don't think that:

    a) they need to explain it to you (or 'again', as some of them claim)
    b) it's beneath them to explain because they told you once, ten years ago.
    c) it's their little mental test and ironic sense of style to SEE IF YOU WERE LISTENING!! WHICH YOU WEREN'T!! because no one hears Capricorns at all!!!


    You'd think they'd know by now that it's hard to hear anything and have it make a lasting impression when it's imparted to you in a mega-sexy way.

    They don't consider their mega-watt sex appeal to be an impetus to communication tho.

    Wrong.
    Sorry!!!
    CAN'T HEAR YOU WHEN YOU'RE BEING SEXY!!!

    I've come to the conclusion, this is what Capricorns have to do to be heard:

    Decide what is MOST IMPORTANT for someone else to know and take to their grave and then:

    a) grab this person by the shoulders and shake them hard about 4 times until it starts to really get annoying
    b) say the MOST IMPORTANT THING THEY NEED TO EXPRESS
    c) make the person repeat it back to them
    d) then just full-out punch that person in the face


    This is possibly the ONLY way I can see anyone EVER hearing anything a Capricorn says.

    See as you go along in your relationship every time she/he punches you, you'd think back to "what the hell did they say??" and you'd remember and you'd possibly reflect upon it as something important to recall because it's going to come back to bite you in the ass soon.

    See?
    Pain equals remembering.

    Because Capricorns DON'T KNOW THE MEANING OF LETTING THINGS SLIDE SO YOU GET THE HINT THAT SOMETHING BAD IS APPROACHING.

    They don't get that NORMAL PEOPLE start to slack off.

    When stuff isn't running to a Capricorns satisfaction or delight, they are just as solid and as great and as polite as ever.

    I tried to explain this to more than one Capricorn.

    "Ok, like maybe if you're unhappy... like.. maybe show it? Like maybe let some stuff slide. Slack off. Disappear. Be unreasonable and unreliable."

    They just stare at you like you asked them to get a sex change.

    So, so much for that.

    They don't let the mask slide UNTIL THEY LEAVE YOU.
    [NOT FAIR, NOT FAIR.]
    Anyway...

    I don't care what any of them say.. I have a super sensitive power to anticipate trouble with Capricorns.

    Now there's a book title...
    or better yet..
    a reality TV show...
    "Trouble with Capricorns."

    I should probably host a retreat for people married to Capricorns. We're on a mountain. We've meditated. We sang kumbaya.

    Now, the 'My name is Max and I married a Capricorn..." starts up...
    I listen.
    Then I say...

    "No, no, no, she didn't mean that. NOW, WHAT DID SHE SAY? No, no, no, I didn't ask you to think. I said WHAT DID SHE SAY. Ok? Is that it? Then that's what she meant. NEXT!"

    No one ever gets it.

    I swear to god there is something in the voice of a Capricorn that's like a Siren. It's soft and it's gentle and it's funny too.

    They never let on how serious they are until the knife is all the way thru your chest.

    It's either really great or really traumatic.
    NO in between.

    I told my friend this, my Aries friend, that she needed a Capricorn. She blathered on about his shoulders and how he coaches some softball team, but still somehow manages to be a bit icy to her.

    She never heard a thing I said.

    I don't know how to end this except to say... Capricorns seem to be the one sign where no investigation of their words for an ulterior motive is necessary.

    I really don't know how to end this post.
    I guess I'll just end it kind of anti-climatic and just leave.
    Yes, like a Capricorn. lol"