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Day 9 ~

“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” 

~ Allen Saunders


Welcome to the story of my life, the abridged version.

Truly.

This quote and the one by Frost about life going on pretty much summarize everything that has happened to me.

If you would have asked me twenty years ago what I would be doing now, I can promise you that the answer would not have anything to do with living in Colorado, being a writer, having four kids, being without my parents...and a whole lot of other things that happened that I didn't plan for.

I had plans. Lots of plans. Really freaking fantastic plans.

I was ambitious. I was young and in love. We were going to do amazing things. We were going to get married and I was going to finish law school and we were going to travel and I was going to pay off my loans. We were going to save up for a little house close to the beach. We were going to have two kids eventually, but not until everything in my career was settled. I was going to be a high powered attorney kicking ass and taking names.

It was going to be awesome.

Then one afternoon in late 1999, I sat next to my husband in a sterile doctor's office and held his hand and heard the word cancer.

Everything changed.

Every.single.thing.changed.

Most of the rest of it just didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was his health and safety, whether we would be able to have kids at all.

Our priorities were rearranged, completely and entirely. Who we were, changed, permanently and irreversibly.

We had plans. Once.

Life got in the way.

Though where we are now isn't at all where we planned to be, it looks a little bit like this.


And this is pretty awesome.

January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month.

Cervical cancer used to be the leading cause of cancer death in women. Thanks to better screening, detection and treatment, survival rates have increased dramatically. Each year in the US, about 12,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer, and approximately 4,000 die from it. Most cases of cervical cancer are caused by the HPV virus, a disease most frequently spread through sexual contact.

A while back now, my friend Emily confided something in me. She told me that she had cervical cancer and then waved her hand around dismissively about how she had to have surgery again but it was no big deal, right?

NBD. Uh huh.

I knew it was a big deal then, but I sensed that what she needed at that moment was a really inappropriate joke, so I said something naughty about her lady bits and we laughed. Turns out that I was right. It's been a long few years filled with a roller coaster of emotions for her. I asked if she would be willing to share her story here and she was kind enough to oblige.

I must warn you, though, she is my friend. So she's totally inappropriate. And candid. And honest. And real.

This is her story.

~~~~~~~~~~

While I was sitting in Starbucks waiting for her to come in, I realized that I hadn't written down a list of questions to ask her. I figured that it wouldn't much matter since the two of us rarely have a hard time finding things to talk about, and this time, we had a specific topic.

A serious one.

We usually tell each other fart jokes.

No, I'm not kidding.

She sat down and I could tell she was nervous. This isn't a story that she has told many people, not even really to me, not in much detail anyway. I told her that I was completely unprepared and didn't write any questions down. She winked and whispered, my vagina still works. Everyone always wants to know about that!

Tension broken.

Before we got to the story, she promised herself she wasn't going to cry, immediately teared up, then told me why she hadn't really told anyone. It's a reason I completely understand.

She didn't tell anyone because she was afraid that if she said the words out loud that it would be real. It was easier to pretend like it wasn't happening when other people were none the wiser. If other people knew, they would ask how she was. She didn't know how she was and she didn't even want to think about it. She didn't lose her hair. She didn't have to go through chemo and radiation. She just had to have surgery, so she felt like it wasn't even a real cancer anyway. It was all weird and she didn't want it to be weirder than it already was.

It was easier to tough it out alone than to face reality and say the words out loud.

Em has three children, all boys. Her middle son is one of Mini-me's best friends in the whole wide world. They are just like peas and carrots.

None of their deliveries were simple or easy. She went septic after the first and needed an emergency hysterectomy immediately after the last was born through Cesarean section.

She has never really even processed the loss of her future fertility and admitted as much. This whole experience is forcing her to do it now. The finality of it all sinking in. At the time of the hysterectomy, the gynecologist removed her uterus and about half of her cervix, needing to leave part of it because of swelling.

A year and a half later, she needed to have the remaining portion of her cervix cauterized for bleeding.

She was always on top of her annual checkups and Pap smears. She had never had a single abnormal Pap.

In the fall of 2012, she knew she had to go in to the doctor to have her check up before her insurance stopped. She was in the middle of divorcing her husband and wanted to make everything was taken care of while she was still covered. Had the Pap on a Friday, got a phone call on the next Tuesday. Never a good sign. There was some concern.

She needed a biopsy.

It was cancer.

Confused, she asked him how could this happen? I've been married forever.

The answer? HPV can lie dormant for years, decades even, then show up and cause trouble without warning.

In some ways, the impending divorce saved her life.

Her doctor sat her down and talked about options. It was early, it hadn't spread. Instead of doing an invasive surgery, he could try and remove what was left of her cervix in an in-office procedure. As long as the margins were good, this might be all that was necessary. She agreed, had the procedure, almost all of the cervix was taken.

Of course she sent me a text with a picture of the pieces of her cervix in a jar.

Of course.


Because that is the kind of relationship we have.

The margins were clear, everything looked good. She was relieved and ready to move on with this scary episode behind her.

Three months later, she had to go in for a check up. She was supposed to be declared cancer-free. She wasn't.

The cancer was back and she was out of options. She had to have the full surgery.

She's now had four surgeries in four years.

This time, both fallopian tubes, one ovary and what was left of her cervix were removed. The procedure was slightly complicated by the fact that her cervix had fused to her bladder. The healing was rougher this time around. A few weeks later, I sat by the pool with her and told her really bad jokes. But not the kind that make you laugh too much because that hurts.

Some of the jokes just presented themselves through no fault of my own. And that's totally an inside thing.

Just after the surgery, she used the C word for the first time with her boys. They'd known that Mom was sick before, that sometimes she didn't feel good, but this was the first time that they were told what was actually going on.

The first time that Mom and cancer were put in the same sentence.

Trying to explain why she was emotionally all over the place, she told them that when women have hormone changes, like when they have a baby, their bodies can't always manage the changes well. Since one of her ovaries was taken out and her body wasn't really sure what was going on with the sudden hormone drop, she was crying a lot for no reason.

Her middle son went to Sunday School at church the next day and said this:


She hadn't told hardly anyone at church anything, and all of a sudden had a lot of explaining to do.

As word began to spread, months after she had actually been diagnosed, she realized in a hurry that having other people know wasn't all that helpful. She still didn't want to talk about it.

There was more though, this other part of it, the fact that this is the type of cancer that carries a stigma with it. People make assumptions about women with cervical cancer, none of which ever applied to her. She was married, monogamous and had been religious about checkups. This wasn't supposed to happen to her.

But it did.

We talked about this aspect of it for a while, because we both feel like all the education towards vaccination against certain strains of HPV has actually attached more of a stigma to cervical cancer than there ever was in the past.

It isn't just a cancer that women get from a virus that most people carry as adults anymore, it's a cancer that women who have sex get from partners who are infected. It's an STD gone bad now.

Cervical cancer has always been most commonly caused by HPV. People have always had HPV, men and women. It's just that now everyone talks about it. Which is good in some ways, certainly, but bad in others because it makes this cancer more than just a disease...it makes it something that, to some degree, is shamed.

Think about it.

It's impossible to have any conversation about the vaccines without it turning into some religious debate about condoning promiscuity and teen sex. Married, monogamous women can still get HPV, can still get cancer, can still die. Period.

Emily is proof of it.

When asked what she wants people to know, aside from that truth, she said that just because you are married or monogamous does not mean that you should feel comfortable waiting longer between Pap smears. She had never had an abnormal result, and had been dutiful about annual exams, before her diagnosis.

Next month, she goes back again. For another checkup.

She's been to the checkup where everything was supposed to be fine and it wasn't. She's scared.

That's the thing about cancer that you learn the hard way. Once you have been there, you live in fear of it coming back. It changes everything.

If you want moral support, Em, I'll go with ya. I can't imagine what the doc would do with both of us there though. That's got to be too much inappropriateness for such a tiny room.

Thank you for being brave enough to share your story.

Love you.

Day 8 ~

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” 

~ André Gide


I love a good story. I love a good real life story even more. Andre Gide, a writer I was not familiar with prior to this quote journey, was someone truly fascinating. He wrote about liberation of the self from within the constraints of religion and seemed to have been a bit of a walking contradiction at times.

Born to a Protestant family in Paris, he published his first novel at only 22 years old. He discovered and came to terms with his homosexuality, and was at one time was partnered with Oscar Wilde, one of the other people I have discussed in this series. He had a child from what appears to have been a very short heterosexual relationship, then was married to a woman though the marriage was never consummated. One of his later books was based on that relationship.

After traveling extensively, he wrote in opposition to colonialism. He became a Communist, then spoke openly against it. The Catholic Church put his works on the forbidden books list, and he won the Nobel Prize in literature.

As I said before, he was an exceedingly interesting person. What I wouldn't give for a time travel machine and a few hours in a bar with a guy like him.

Now, for the quote.

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” 

It's one that I have always loved anyway, and knowing a bit more about him now, I think I love it even more.

As a writer with a public persona, I've had to grow a thick skin. It takes a lot to put yourself out there, to open yourself up to constant criticism. I suppose that there would be some incentive to embellish, to spin stories, to lie, to exaggerate things about one's self to appease an audience. I don't do that. There are people who do. I'm not one of them.

I cuss when it feels right. I don't do it for effect.

I reveal things when it feels right. I don't do it for views.

I commit to the truth. I don't spin things to over-sell them.

I won't compromise my integrity for numbers.

I don't want a bunch of fans around just because I state totally obvious things or talk about the same manufactured debates everyone else does or because I said shit and fuck and bitch a lot. I'm not going to humiliate people I love just to tell a funny story that will get me three seconds of fame but scar them for life.

I strive for accuracy in everything I write, whether it's about me or someone else or something in the news. I've been known to retract things in posts, go back and edit them, write apologies when something was incorrect and pull entire posts when there were errors. I don't set out to hurt people with what I write, and when it happens, I'm devastated.

I'm a dork and a nerd and an introvert and occasionally a hot mess. But I'm always real.

Some people seem to like it, but not everyone does. For as many fans as I have accumulated over the years, I have made plenty of enemies too.

There are those who hate everything I stand for, who have accused me of lying, of falsifying stories, of being melodramatic. There are people who think I talk too much about equal rights and feminism and rape and lost babies. That I should just write about happy things and positive stories in the news. Who wonder why I have to question things the way I do, why I have to stir up trouble.

Hate on, haters.

It's fine. Really. It doesn't phase me, and it sure as hell isn't going to change how I do things around here.

People might not like the truth, but that's their problem, not mine.

I'm writing this mostly on Monday afternoon in the hopes that nothing new will come along and piss me off before tomorrow. So be cool, you guys...be cool.

I just finished an epic IM conversation with a friend from high school who is a lawyer like me and we basically figured out how to save the world.

Ready? I'm about to blow your minds.

Give every single adult a joint and a book. At the same time.

People would calm the f*ck down and maybe learn something. Maybe they'd be able to talk to each other and be reasonable and shit.

I don't know why I censored one but not the other, but it's that kind of day, dammit.

Now that I've dropped that knowledge on you, let's get on with the business of the day. I mean of yesterday. Whatever. You know what I mean.

Also.

I made this graphic almost two years ago when I started the TTPMOT series and keep forgetting to use it. Maybe if I put it here, I will remember. Maybe.


The Polar Vortex, what does it mean????
First things first. You have to say polar vortex like the double rainbow guy says double rainbow. What does it mean??? If you haven't seen double rainbow guy, here.


...and you're welcome.

Anyway, the polar vortex is this historically huge low pressure system that is sagging down and currently parked over the Eastern half of the US. Every time I see someone claim that the fact that it is really cold right now proves that global warming is a hoax, a fairy dies.

Okay, not really.

Fairies aren't real.

But seriously. I've seen more than a few claims of this pop up online, most notably by the climate change deniers. Which would make sense if you just thought that one storm could negate everything else going on in the world. Or if you didn't understand why the jet stream is all wonky right now, which is what caused this to happen. Or if you ignored the fact that even though it is summer at the South Pole right now, there is a research boat trapped in ice at the same time that it was 129 degrees in Australia. Which makes no sense.

It is happening, people. How much of it we have caused, how much we can do to stop it...not a damn clue. Everyone who has enough money to pay for research in the area has a dog in the fight, so the objective rational people of Earth can't get many straight answers.

In the meantime, stay warm, my friends. Unless you're in Australia. Then strip down to your unders and run in the sprinklers.

The Price of Ethics
Chris Kluwe is a punter in the NFL. Strike that.

Was a punter in the NFL.

He played for the Vikings until he was released in May of last year. He's been in the news before for his advocacy in support of the LGBT community, but that's not why he's in the news this time. He released a statement, an accusation actually, that he was released from the team not because he couldn't compete at that level anymore, he aged out, couldn't hold the position on merit, but because of his advocacy. 

I encourage you to go and read the statement in its entirety if you haven't done so already.

He's fully aware that there were consequences to what he said. He stands by his words, even though they very well may have cost him his career.

I admire him. I admire him a lot. There aren't many arenas in public life more often accused of rampant homophobia than professional sports, football being the worst of them here. It takes a hell of a lot of guts for a guy, a straight one at that, to stand up and say what he did. How many other players took and chance and stuck their necks out, stood with him?

Not many.

I've been fired before for sticking to my guns on ethical issues. I get it. Good on you, man. Good on you.

Tragic Deaths and The Misunderstandings After
There is a case right now that is troubling to say the least. As someone who worked at a hospital and primarily worked on ethics issues regarding perinatal mortality and morbidity, it hurts my soul to know that things like this still happen. As I doula, I cannot even begin to imagine the horror. As a mother, it brings me to my knees.

The details of this case are horrific, so if you can't handle them, please scroll down now.

I'm not kidding.

Last chance.

Honest.

Rachel Melancon was due on Christmas Day, pregnant with a little girl that she and her fiance had already named Olivia. Only 4'11", she was concerned about the delivery and had asked about an elective c-section, only to be told that wasn't an option. Days later, while in labor, and running a fever, Rachel tried to push out a baby that wasn't going to come out. Rachel's mother alleges the baby was face up, making labor and delivery even more difficult, and that the doctor tried to manually turn the baby.

After pushing wasn't doing the trick, the doctor took matters into his own hands and elected to use the forceps to help deliver the baby. The family claims they heard a loud pop. Still unable to deliver the baby, she was rushed to surgery. The baby's skull was fractured, her spinal cord severed. Olivia was not breathing and the otherwise healthy little girl died five days later.

Her parents are suing the hospital and the doctor.

What has happened is that the case, now garnering national attention, has been shared all over social media. It is horrible and tragic, yes, but it is not at all representative of standard obstetric practice in 2014 in the United States. Forceps deliveries are very rare here because of the risk of injury. Surgical birth is almost universally preferred to forceps. It seems, particularly in the facts of this case, to be a tragic example of provider negligence, though the courts will ultimately be the ones to determine that.

This case had nothing to do with insurance arguments, with Obamacare, with any of the other issues being tossed around in the comments of the posts people are sharing. This case had to do with a dangerous (and some would say outdated) method of assisting a delivery gone horribly wrong. Please don't turn this tragedy into a political argument.

Love and support to the family as they begin to mourn this heartbreaking loss.

What Do Commercials Say About Advertisers? What Do They Say About Us?
There are two new commercials out this week that made me contort my face into strange expressions and made me want to bang my head on the wall.

The first one, the Taco Bell commercial with the boy running down the street munching a giant nacho pocket thing while the girl's dad chases him.


Parents came home early! Oops.

Sooooo funny, right? Not so much. Let's just reinforce all those stereotypes about horny teenage boys and the girls that we need to protect them from, shall we? Let's make fathers look like crazed lunatics. Let's joke about a grown ass man putting a beat down on a kid (assuming of course that he can catch him...) Let's promote teen sex and make sure everyone knows that the perfect food for after the naughty sexy time is Taco Bell. Let's make sure that we air this as many times as possible during football games so that all the teenagers can see it over and over.

Who wants tacos now?

Mmmmmm. Tacos.

In all seriousness, I know a guy this happened to when we were stupid teenagers. Sans giant nacho pocket. Dad did not catch him or give him the subsequent beat down. But still.

Then you have the Old Spice commercial. I saw this one for the first time yesterday and was horrified. Literally.


So, fathers of daughters will hunt down their male suitors and mothers of sons are just batshit crazy.

Creepy and gross and weird and pathetic. I get that it's supposed to be funny and I'm not exactly ecstatic about the reality that my children will eventually all become adults, but I'm not going to turn into a stalker.

Can you smell that? It's manhood.

Take a deep whiff.

Normally, I love the Old Spice commercials, so I'm not sure what went so horribly wrong here. But eww. Like eww. Like totally eww.


You Have The Right To Self Defense, Unless You're Too Good At It
MMA fighter Joe Torrez was at home with his fiancee, his son and a friend on New Year's Day when he received a phone call threatening his life. The caller showed up shortly thereafter with three other guys. When Torrez's fiancee answered the door, they pushed her out of the way and promptly received a beat down, MMA style.

So much for that home invasion.

Torrez did such a good job defending himself and the others in his home that he stabbed and killed one of the assailants. One of the others was sent to the hospital with major facial injuries. The other two were scared into running, though they were tracked down by police eventually. Torrez suffered only very minor injuries himself.

Sounds like the good guy won, right?

Maybe, but Torrez may now be facing charges in the case.

All four assailants are known gang members and there had been previous altercations between them and Torrez, even before the phone call threat made earlier that day.

Makes you wonder....some people get away with shooting others in far less threatening circumstances. This guy took on four intruders to protect his family, did just that, and he might be on the hook for it?

Torrez stopped cooperating with the authorities.

Can't really say I blame the guy.

The Stories We Aren't Hearing
A teenage girl in India was gang raped not once, but twice. Before any of the suspects were even arrested in either case, she was set on fire by friends of the accused men.

She died last week as a result of the burn injuries. 

And you probably didn't hear anything about it.

Yes, it's disturbing. Yes, it's hard to hear and read about atrocities like this one. It's even worse when you realize how prevalent this kind of violence against women is all over the world.

Except that most people, in all likelihood, haven't heard much about it at all.

Our media filters more than most people realize. If you really want news these days, you've got to go looking for it.

If only we had a bunch of 24 hour news channels or something....

Oh. Wait.

Never mind.

Day 7 ~

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” 

~ Oscar Wilde


Hey there. We're a week into this and I'm having a blast with these quotes. Well, with most of them anyway.

Up today, the 7th most popular quote about life according to Goodreads, brought to you courtesy of Oscar Wilde, the well-loved Irish writer and poet. From a well-to-do family, he was highly educated and wrote of his experiences and perspective.

He's best known for his works The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest, as well as for his conviction and imprisonment for the crime of sodomy after he sued his lover's father for libel.

He was an interesting person as much for his personal life as for the body of work he produced. He died poor at the age of 46, spending what money he had on alcohol.

These quotes are so much more interesting to me when discussed relative to the people who spoke them.

His, this:

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” 

To start any discussion of this quote, I think it's important to figure out what he might have meant by living at all. I highly suspect that it would have been his view that living pertains to those things that occupy the time of people that they would choose, outside of the encumbrances of reality.

By that, I mean, living isn't how you stay alive, but what you enjoy in the process. Extending, this would infer that the vast majority of our time spent as adults in generating income, maintaining our homes, cooking, cleaning and all the other necessary actions aren't truly living in the sense he's discussing. 

I sense that he'd be a work to live, not a live to work kind of guy.

Which is fine, for those people who can relate to a quote like that without thinking it to be a bit presumptuous. Which it is, in reality.

Wilde came from a wealthy family. He eventually died poor, after being cut off from his income stream by those who disapproved of his lifestyle choices, but lived most of his years with a certain level of comfort and cushion. 

With money comes freedom, with freedom comes more opportunity to pursue the things in life that made him happy.

The luxury of time and money comes with the ability to wax poetic about how time should best be occupied.

The truth is that most people (at least the ones I know) don't have enough money or hours in a day to pursue what they want all that often. They have to work to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. They have jobs to do, houses to maintain, meals to cook, and so on and so forth.

That's just reality.

I will say this, though: there are many hours in a day. Not all of them are spent doing what we must. Some of them can be spent doing what we want, subject to the other constraints of life.

I mean, if your passion lies in sailing across the ocean, but your budget only allows you a pedal boat at the local marina once a month, they clearly aren't compatible. You may not be able to live to fullest extent of your imagination, but you can spend the time and money you have on the things that you love that will get you the closest.

Who we are shouldn't be defined by what we do to keep food on the table, but by what we are passionate about.

The world we live in says otherwise and seeks to categorize us, limit us by a label.

The only way to avoid that limitation is to fight to overcome it. Do what you love when you can. Find the time. Find the energy. Find ways to find your joy.

Work isn't life. Don't be so caught up in existing that you forget to live.

Easier said than done, I know, particularly for those of us who aren't already independently wealthy.

When you're on your deathbed, you won't be worried anymore about what kind of car you drove. You'll be worried about what legacy you are leaving to those who knew you, how many lives you touched, how many things you taught others. 

Existing isn't enough, it isn't living.

Work isn't life. The pursuit of money isn't all there is, not by a stretch.

It's just a piece of who we are, the piece that enables us to be whoever we are when we aren't on the clock.

If you love your work, that's a gift. Truly. For most people, it's a paycheck. No more, no less. 

Do what you must so that you are more able do what you love.

A while back now, I got a message from a dear friend of mine. She wanted to know what my favorite scents were. I asked her why. She demanded answers. Fine, I said.

Turns out that she is now a consultant for MiA Bath & Body and had something up her sleeve.

She listened carefully to the things I said, took all her other knowledge about what I like and dislike and mixed up some custom lotion for me. It has mango, sparkling mojito and coconut scents all blended together perfectly and it smells just like my fantasy beach somewhere with a cabana and umbrella drinks. She even named this combination Wonder Woman in my honor!


Seriously, how rad is that?

I will admit that I was skeptical, with all the delicious smells mingling together, that I was sure that I'd be allergic to it. I am, you see, allergic to everything and I'm always nervous trying new products for that reason.

This? Perfect. No reactions at all.

And it smells like paradise.

MiA is a a full line of spa-grade home and personal use products inspired by nature and customized for each customer according to their own scent recipe. They focus on quality, purity and individuality. All products are SLS and paraben free. Every product comes with custom labels and a complete list of ingredients.

There are seven different colors you can request to be added to your recipe, as well a shimmer for extra special occasions.

MiA is a fairly new company and is also looking to recruit new consultants. Please contact Michelle directly for information if you are interested on getting in with this fantastic opportunity early on. There are less than 500 consultants nationwide right now, this could be a great start to a home based business! You can find her on her Facebook page or Website.

If you need a nudge to order, she is running a special right now. Mention the code WWHive and you will get 10% off your order. You will not be disappointed, I promise.

You'll love it and it would make a fabulous gift for someone else!

Michelle sent me a bottle of lotion for free, but didn't ask me to do a review. I'm just doing it because it's just that good.

Happy shopping!

Day 6 ~

"Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.” 

~ Narcotics Anonymous


Before we get to the actual quote, I need to just tell you all how much time I have spent trying to figure out who actually said it.

This is one of those quotes that you see floating around online all.the.time, and it seems like every time you see it, someone else is credited with it.

It's been linked to at least all of the following people: Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain and Rita Mae Brown, but most likely was actually said originally by someone affiliated with either Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous.

Or someone else. Who knows?

Anyhow. On to the quote.

One of the more lengthy discussions of this quote was on the site Psychology Today where the author spent much time basically saying that the definition of insanity isn't at all like doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome.

Insanity is actually a legal term having to do with a defendant's inability to distinguish between right and wrong, to appreciate the gravity of their actions, and is not in any way related to a specific clinical diagnosis.

Compulsions to repeat behavior can come from several different mental illnesses.

So, technically, it's wrong. Doesn't stop people from using it.

Words aren't always used in the manner according to their technical definitions in our society, and they never have been, so in some ways discussion of the actual book definition of something isn't nearly enough of a discussion at all. We rely on slang here, on regional usage, on phrases and sayings that often take words out of the context for which they are intended.

There are insanity workouts, which are especially common every year in the month of January. I mean, if you type insanity in the Google search bar, insanity workout is the first thing that autofills. I can't imagine that this type of exercise actually has a goal of making anyone crazy or of staving off actual mental illness, so I'm just going to go ahead and assume they mean it in a more flippant way. More like, this workout is really intense, but saying it was a really intense workout didn't sound intense enough, so we're going to throw insanity in there to drive the point home.

People often complain about the traffic being insane, gas prices being insane, crowds being insane, family members being insane (okay, so that one might technically be true), grocery prices being insane, and so on and so forth.

It's clearly a word that is used without actual connection to its meaning.

Since most people use it wrong, we'll start here, at this assumption of improper use, and discuss the quote itself.

I've used this one a few times in my writing here, usually in reference to something the government is doing, or some societal compulsion to keep having the same arguments but doing nothing to actually remedy the situation.

Gun rights/control debates, for instance, are a prime example of this societal insanity. Every single time a shooting happens, everyone and their brother hops up on their soapbox, rants about whatever their opinions are, postulates about whether anything could change things, then gives up after a few days.

Then what happens?

Not a damn thing.

Nothing happens until the next time it happens, then the soapboxes are drug out, dusted off and the cycle starts all over again.

You'd think that at some point our collective selves would figure out that we're getting nowhere.

Or not.

And, that, my friends, is insane.