Things That Piss Me Off Tuesday ~ the Merry F%$*ing Christmas edition

I'll warn you guys. I'm in a mood today. I can't really pinpoint what is going on inside my head right now, but it's like a gigantic swirling storm of emotions and every once in a while, one of them gets launched out like a projectile. I'm trying to keep it all in, but goddamn.

The truth challenge is kicking my ass. I do it because I hate letting myself off the hook for things I have committed to, because it is a fabulous mental exercise to do a legitimate self inventory and because it's forcing me to confront a lot of stuff that I feel like I should be ready to confront.

Which sucks anyway...but then this morning, one of the people that I write about elusively pops back onto my Facebook feed courtesy of the wonder of a twenty year friendship that went to hell and the fact that when you know someone for that long, you have a lot of shared friends.

I want to scream from the rooftops what she did, I want to tell the people who I know care about me what happened, I want to warn them to keep an eye on this one. I want to, but I don't.

That whole not stooping thing. The fucking high road can kiss my ass.

Sorry, I'm swearing today.

If that offends you, my apologies.

Anyway, I am in a weird place. I still mostly despise Christmas music. I'll be fine one second, then catch the kids playing with one of the Nutcrackers my Mom bought the year she was here. Then two seconds later they will be making a huge mess with all the craft supplies she bought and left. If you've ever been completely heartbroken and angry at the same time, but after the person who makes you feel all those feelings was gone and there wasn't a damn place to put those emotions, you'll know what I mean.

It's not pretty.

Plus, I do this thing. This totally unfair thing where I get my hopes up for some grand gesture. Some magic moment. Something huge. The something I want more than anything in the world and that I know won't happen and I try to pretend like it doesn't bother me because it's getting really old. But it's there. It's always there no matter how much I try to ignore it.

AND THERE'S NO CRYING IN STARBUCKS, KELLY.

PULL IT TOGETHER WOMAN.

Kanye, DUDE....just stop
Yeah, so I've confessed before of my strange love for Kanye. He's an ass, we all know that, but he's a ridiculously talented one. (Although I'm not sure WTF is going on with his new album...seriously)

He's pissing me off. Which is kinda his thing, I suppose. He doesn't care about pissing me off, but he seems to get off on pissing off the world...and if there is one thing he's the freaking best in the world at, it might be this.

Just in the past few days, he has tried to draw parallels between Mandela and himself...then tried to say that being him is as dangerous as being a police officer or soldier at war. 

The guy who designs $100+ plain white t-shirts is saying this.

Kanye...do you even have a mirror?

Speaking of Mandela...
The world lost someone amazing when this man passed away. You may not agree everything he ever stood for, you may feel compelled to nitpick his past and his associations, but don't do it at the expense of his legacy.

In the wake of his death, there are the extreme right wingers like Dick Cheney grabbing soundbytes about how he would still vote to keep him imprisoned and Rick Santorum who tried to compare his fight against apartheid to the GOPs battle against Obamacare.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that, at least on my Facebook and Twitter feeds, this seemed to finally be the one thing that almost everyone could agree on - that his death was something worth pause, that his contributions not just to South Africa, but to the world, are to be celebrated.

I wanted very much to write about him, but I chose not to because I feel like I have nothing significant to add to any conversation about a man like him. I know many who have visited where he was imprisoned, and defer to the voices they lend to this dialogue. Was he perfect? Of course not, none of us are. What he was, though, was a voice for the voiceless. He was a hero.

Songs that stab you in the heart
When you're battling things in your head already,the wondering why they were the way they were, the wishing that they had been different, music can reach into the depths of your being and crush you.

Right now, this song is doing it.

I just can't.


Unless you've been in this place, unless you have been begging for someone to give you a reason to keep trying, unless you've been pushed to the point where you had no choice but to walk away...you won't understand. If you have been, let me just say this - I am sorry. I am sorry that you know. I am sorry that you were put there.

I am sorry.

Liars, Fakers and The Great Pretenders
The world seems to be full of artificiality anymore. I make a point of being as real as I can without it hurting anyone else in all my relationships with people, whether they are in person or online. Sometimes life is totally freaking mindblowingly amazing, and sometimes it's hell on earth. Talking about both of the ends of the spectrum is not widely encouraged or accepted. People want the shiny and happy. People only want to see the shiny and happy. People only want others to believe the shiny and happy about them.

There is actually a thing now, a real thing, called social media depression. Derived from the false notion that everyone else's lives are better than yours, that everyone else is happy, that everyone else has more money, more friends, more of it all.

It's almost entirely based on lies. On half truths. On the shiny happy versions that people want you to see.

I don't live that way. My life certainly isn't that way, and I'm not about to pretend that it is.

Talking about the negative things in life doesn't make us negative...it makes us real.

I've been accused of a lot in the last week. More than is fair. I've been called selfish and self-righteous and stupid and insignificant and ignorant. The one that hurt the most? When someone accused me of being fake.

I wear my heart on my sleeve. It gets me hurt a lot, but I won't change who I am.

Call it whatever you will, but this is me.

Frankly, I don't have the time or energy to fake anything. Do you?