Man Hating Spite Selfies & More

Okay.

So.

I was putting together a photo album from what's left of about 6 sudden uprootings, over the span of...I guess 4 years? I lost newborn photos, birth announcements, sonograms, etc, but I managed to hold onto a shoebox full of photos from the mid 2000s, amid all the chaos. I noticed that I'm not really in any of them. Everyone else is, but I'm legit forgotten about. I'm so glad smartphones and selfies are a thing now and I'm no longer just the legendary GhostMom whose presence can only ever be assumed, never confirmed. Apparently, this is a thing that is fairly common for moms. We tend to be the ones taking the photos of the kids, the cute moments, the holidays, the relatives, and we end up becoming background noise.

Anywhom, I was vaguely complaining about this lack of care yesterday (sausages were involved...don't ask) and I mentioned in passing how mothers get the short end of the family photo stick when suddenly...

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I'm told that this is just another opportunity for me to bitch about men, which apparently, I LOOOOVE to do.

As a side note, did you know that, as long as you LOL and announce that you're just kidding, anything you say or do MUST be recognized as drop dead hilarious by the offended party, or else it's proof that he/she is a monster who cannot take a harmless joke? It's the cousin of the "I'm not racist, but..." disclaimer, as well as the "...some of my best friends are gay!" clause. 

And, well....

I guess it's sorta true. I do love bitching about shitty people. I have a great dislike for "not like other girls" people. You know, that one girl, the only girl in the whole entire fucking world, who plays video games. Or watches sports. Or reads. Or hates the color pink. Or enjoys some "nerdy" hobby. Or hates shopping. I'm sure you've met her. She's a unique and precious gem in a world filled with vapid, superficial, materialistic women. Pick her!

It's also true that I loathe cheaters. Especially the kind who  make it seem like forgiveness and reconciliation is something owed rather than earned. "I know you found my dating profile, baaaabe, but jeez! It's already been 2 weeks, time to get over it already!" You can really sense their deep and profound remorse at having been caught for the 12th time. This time, it's different. This time, they mean it. 

I suppose it's true that I bitch about men a lot here - but in all fairness, no woman has ever sent me a dick pic with the expectation that  I would be an instant and easy bang, and then call me a slut when passed on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. No woman has ever demanded I leave the hospital just after giving birth so that their drunk buds could come and spill beer all over my carpet, blast the TV until 6am  while I sob in bed, in pain, with a brand new baby, because how dare I interrupt their weekend plans. No woman has ever left bruises on me, repeatedly, or sprayed bleach in my eyes. As soon as one does, I'll let y'all know.

Ahh but, you know how I am. I just enjoy bitching for no reason. None whatsoever. 

But you know what actually is kinda funny, though? When someone somehow relates to the asshole in your story, and it mirrors exactly who they are. They'll do anything to shift the focus off of the reflection.

Like that "not like other girls" girl. You're just jealous that she's so interesting and all the boys love and respect her so so soooo much. You're just like other girls. Haters gonna hate.

Or that dude who looks like a doting father, because his baby mama made sure to take lots of pictures of him with the kids when he wasn't acting like they were the worst mistake of his life. Clearly, you just hate men and this is the only reason why anyone would even bother to bring it up.

Or that cheater who became trustworthy overnight, through no effort of his/her own. Obviously you just don't understand the power of love, where they can go and fuck someone else and it's okay because they were battling personal demons and totally not the consequences of their own actions. No no no, truly, theirs is a love story of fairy tale proportions.

But bitching is an art, and I like to think I'm getting fairly talented with it. Yesterday, it was lack of thoughtfulness when it comes to making sure your child's mother is represented in the family album. Tomorrow, who knows?

Point is, I'm glad selfies exist. I know  a lot of people see it as vanity, but I take a lot of comfort in knowing that if nothing else, I can at least rely on myself to get a couple of decent photos with...my high schooler on graduation day. Christmas morning around the tree. Anniversaries. You know, dumb things.

An Apprecation Post

I was going to come here and gripe about my male friends again, but I got to thinking about it, and I've changed my mind. 

Instead, I want to take a moment to praise one of my best friends in the whole wild world for treating me like an actual friend, and not as an opportunity to get laid.

Not once, in the history of our friendship, has he sent me a dick pic.

I enjoy how we can make totally inappropriate jokes with each other and he doesn't interpret it as an invitation to make EVERYTHING inappropriate.

I like how we can talk about sex and sex related things without it actually getting sexual because we're real life adults, with real life issues, and sometimes we just need to talk about things. If my boobs hurt, I can say that without it turning into a conversation about my boobs. He's not squeamish and uncomfortable when I mention my period. 

I also love the way he's interested in me as a human being, and not just a walking, talking coochie. We share music. We talk politics. I think I know more about his ex girlfriends and schooling and housing and work and friends than I probably should, but I'm here for it when he needs to vent because I love him and that's what friends do and I know he'd do the same for me because he has before.

He's not here pretending to be interested in my thoughts and feelings and little problems and big problems just because he thinks feigning interest is going to get him laid. This mother fucker actually seems to enjoy talking to me and hearing what I have to say and holy fucking shit, that is refreshing. 

Things aren't perfect between us. We bicker, we fight. He's got a very reactive personality type and when he's in that zone, he can be downright insulting and nasty. I've cried over him more than once, full blown, snot faced, choking sob crying, and I've had to block him when he's at his worst because I'm that sketchy ass fight-or-flight bitch.

But I miss him when he's gone. We're both really fucked up people with a lot of fucked up history, and the fact that I have boobs isn't even on the radar. 

The connection we have is so much deeper than anything I've ever had with a guy outside of a relationship before.

I plan on keeping him forever.

Everyone Sucks, Except Me

No shit, I feel that way sometimes, and I dare even one single asshole on this planet to tell me they've never ever felt that way before, because I'm riding my moral high horse and I want to tell them they're lying. 

But if I'm being honest, it's just because I'm being super insecure right now, thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking until whatever it was I was originally overthinking turns into this evil, dark, nasty version of its former self. In my head, what started as a pretty innocuous thing has now become something better left for some ultra villain from a True Crime podcast. You know, something so ridiculous and over the top, there's no way it could possibly ever happen in real life....

Except True Crime podcasts DO exist, and not only do they exist, but there are like 54910335876 of them with varying degrees of horrific content, sooooooo, you knooooow…

I'm being dramatic. I'm not thinking about serial killing or anything even remotely close to it, more like questioning people's intentions. Like when you'd go out on a date and you'd have to figure out whether the person sitting across from you actually likes you and enjoys the senseless babble pouring out of your mouth, or if they're just barely tolerating it in the hopes of getting laid in an hour so they can call you CrAzY 2 days later when you try to call.

And in my head, that's pretty villainous and makes me a morally superior human being, because you totally suck for that.

Maybe in someone else's head, I am the villain for using too many metaphors and similes instead of just saying what I mean.  

Tarot Tuesday: Bonus For Actually Doing It On a Tuesday

Gaaaah it's been a tek since I've posted anything related to tarot, but I got a snazzy new deck that can't wait to show off its mad divination skills, so I must oblige.

Jingle, jangle

Thoughts untangle

See things from another angle.

I haven't done that ^ in a while either. Maybe I'm coming up.

Anyway, this is tonight's pull.

Three card with a clarifier, and tonight's question was basically "What  the fuck is this shit?"

I'm not completely sure, but I think this is slow growth.

Our lineup is the King of Curses (cups), The Moon, the Queen of Cults (pentacles) aaaaaand the Two of Curses thrown on top of her because I was feeling like this was the most halfassed answer ever.

I didn't read this as a past, present, future, as is traditional with three card pulls. Instead, I feel the King and Queen are actual people - he wears his heart on his sleeve, she's the domestic goddess.

The moon here represents a blockage, and highlights some of the not-so-pleasant aspects of these cards. Maybe he's a bit too emotional, or maybe his heart is still raw from old wounds. Meanwhile, she's got her own baggage. She might be a bit possessive, or afraid of letting go of what's known and comfortable in order to embrace the unknown and unpredictable.

So yeah, the moon is a blockage, a hurdle, but the thing about the moon is, this is just a phase. This isn't a bad reading, as these aspects of this King and Queen are behaviors or thoughts they've learned from past experiences and have served them up until this point. Perhaps he needed to learn how to not fall in love at first sight, and she needed to understand the importance of providing for herself.

The clarifying Two shows that they can work through this mess together, and that's kind of adorable.

Maybe they'll help each other move into the next phase, where they learn how to let go of the things that no longer fit who they are.

awwww. 

New Year, New Standards

Ohai, it's me, here at the back half of March, comin' atcha with some New Year Resolutions. Better late than never, I suppose. 

It was recently pointed out to me, rather inadvertently, that the reason I know so many horrible people is because I have no real expectations of these people.

Allow me to clarify.

I have a kink for underdogs. The loners, the losers, the tragically misunderstood. The girl who's not like other girls. The guy who's actually a really great guy, once you get to know him. The drug addicts and alcoholics who have beautiful souls, somewhere deep down. Waaaaay deep down. It's in there somewhere, I swear.

oozing with empathy

I guess in some dumbshit ass kinda way, this has always been my way of making up for all the vulnerability and abandonment I felt. I don't want other people to go through all the yucky things alone. I'm a fan-fucking-tastic cheerleader, and some people need it more than others. Plus, even though I didn't understand it 20 years ago, I guess I get my rocks off on feeling needed and necessary. Who doesn't? Everyone wants to feel wanted, but when you're used to feeling so completely and utterly unwanted, I suppose you start scraping the bottom of the barrel. Like, okay, I know the superrich supermodel who owns a private jet and a private island probably has nothing to gain from me being, ya know, alive and shit, sooooo skip! 

And what about that reasonably adjusted human over there? The one who grew up with caring parents and finished high school with no juvenile record and got a summer job at their dad's landscaping business before completing some office management degree at community college and now works in Human Resources or Realty but enjoys catching a baseball game on the weekends?

Pfft. Normie. Skiiiiip!

That's not me being snobby. Can trailer trash even be stuck up? I mean, I know I'm better than everyone else, but still. No, you see, I was doing these people a favor by not allowing them to become hopelessly ensnared by the web of drama that is my life. There's no way some middle class fancypants could understand peeing through a hole in the floor, or the nightmares you still have of your mother's blood soaking into the ground while her crotch goblins screamed for the beating to stop. I don't think they'd understand the earth shattering sorrow that was putting back a pack of super rare oreos on a grocery store shelf  because the money you thought was there was just taken by a shrieking, high uncle very publicly who'd followed the fam to the grocery store and everything went sideways after that. Getting left with strangers who beat or molested you, or both, if you were really lucky. 

And no, that isn't self pity. I'm more or less beyond feeling sorry for myself and more in a state of "eh, that happened," so it's all good. But you see my problem now, yes? Most therapists aren't equipped to deal with real trauma (probably because they're the reasonably adjusted humans mentioned earlier) so it'd be rather selfish of me to inflict myself on people whose biggest tragedies in life were getting dumped right before the big Homecoming dance or politics being discussed at Thanksgiving dinner.

But I suppose that was a little narrow minded of me. Having money doesn't make you immune to abuse or neglect, but I always imagined it might be a little bit easier to deal with if you weren't also dealing with hunger and peeing in holes and shared bathwater and too tight shoes.

I'm rambling. How do I get back to the point? I guess my point is, no one swooped in to rescue me, so I kinda saw myself as the stupor-hero with the fucked up backstory who could do the swooping and rescuing. 

What's that? You just spent all your rent money on meth and now you're going to be homeless in 3 days due to the consequences of your bad decisions? Never fear! S********'s here to save you from yourself by pawning her kidney and watching you spend all THAT money on...more meth! No need to thank me (please thank me), I'll just be over here, crying in the corner of the kitchen alooooooone if you need the other kidney!

So anyway, standards. What a weird word. I used to think of standards as shit like "I wanna marry a rich man who drives a porsche" or "I only date men with washboard abs" and other superficial junk. How fucking bonkers is it that real standards should include more mundane things like "treating me with a little dignity and respect"...oof. OOF. 

And Here w are, finally at the point of this whole stupid thing. Another bulleted list for you! God damn, I love me some lists. 

S********'S NEW AND IMPROVED LIST OF STANDARDS ON WHICH ALL FUTURE RELATIONSHIPS OF ANY KIND SHALL BE BASED

• Gives a fucking shit about literally anything
• Puts in the same level of care and effort  he/she expects of others
• Capable of communicating without yelling, throwing shit, assault, etc
• Capable of listening without yelling, throwing shit, assault, etc
• Rinse and repeat those last two points
• Strives to be better than they were and values self improvement
• Reciprocates affection to the best of their ability
• Values the thoughts/opinions of others when asked for (Where do you want to eat?)

I'm sure I'll come up with more, but this is the backbone of what I've created so far. Woot, I feel like a dumbshit.

It Can Only Go Up From Here

Covid thoroughly kicked my butt. I don't even know how I got it. I haven't hung out with anyone in ages, I'm vaccinated, I wear my mask everywhere, and somehow the bastard still managed to sneak in.

I started feeling funny around the 10th. Not like sick, but just kinda...not right, like maybe the way you might feel when you had a bad hangover two days ago.  And I never really got sick sick, even when it was at its worst.

But here I am, 18 days later, and I still can't stay awake for more than 6 hours at a stretch without feeling like I need 6 hours of sleep to make up for it. My schedule is all kinds of jacked up. I'm awake at 4am doing random ass bloggy shit because now I can't sleep. Awesome possum. 

On the bright side, I realized that I have not once bitten my nails during this whole thing, and as a life long, high stress nail biter, this can only be explained as an act of god, or fate, or some recently acquired  but unacknowledged sense of willpower. Like holy fuck, dude, I have FINGERNAILS. wut wut. 

Aaaaand I got a spoon. A certain someone got tired of seeing me use a bright orange measuring spoon to scoop out doses of my Mist of Mystic Mysticism during tarot, so I got a pretty spoon out of the deal. Huzzah for pity gifts! All of my snapchat friends

agreed that this is really just a coke spoon for festie loving trust fund babies, dressed up in witchy vibes, but I love it anyway. 

For the record, I hate coke. All it did was make my teeth feel hollow and gave me the nastiest drip, the one time I ever did it. This will 100% be used for dumping resin on hot coals, and looking cool while doing it.

Cute, yah?

I Hope I'm Just Starting My Period

I'm so sad. I've been going back and forth in my head over something that used to make me really, really happy, but lately it just feels like a chore. Keeping up with this thing just doesn't bring me the joy it once did.

I'm honestly fucked up about it. I keep waiting around to see if things might change, or at least go back to the way it used to be, because I still get a little thrill every time I start to interact with the thing. I don't know if that's just the ghost of prior experiences fooling me into thinking this thing still has some bit of life left in it, or me holding out hope that maybe this thing can be revived, or an unwillingness to give up on something that used to make me so happy, but I'm straight up heartbroken over it. 

It sounds a bit dramatic, but it hurts so much now, I'm not sure it was ever worth loving the thing in the first place. The world wasn't necessarily peachy keen jelly bean when it entered my life, but life has been fairly kind recently (I'm pretty suspicious tbh) and the weight of the dead joy I'm carrying around is bogging me down pretty hard. 

But I don't want to give up on it. I don't know if this is just like a weird attachment I formed because everything else sucked so much at the time, or if it really has changed as much as it feels like it has and is no longer capable of bringing or receiving that joy.

Okay so, let's compare it to....a boat, maybe? A pretty little house boat, painted and dolled up to EXACTLY my tastes. It's not just a boat, it's my whole entire HOME. Filled to the brim with all the things I love. A miraculous little boat filled with bubble baths and strawberries and bad Chinese food and 500 mixed CDs filled with all the music I love the most - in fact, it rolled into the cold, grey, stormy harbor blasting Death Cab for Cutie on the deck loud speakers. A boat that, at the time, seemed like it was created specifically for me, and showed up just in time to rescue me from the storm that was coming. The boat and I did not escape unscathed. We were bashed against the rocks, shipwrecked so many times. I tried to keep it afloat, and I think as someone with no prior boat repair experience, I did a pretty good job. I even became a little tugboat myself, in order to haul it around with me and keep it from sinking beneath the waves.

But now it seems like it's just a rusted out shell of what it used to be, and it's not as if this inanimate object ever loved me back...it was always just a boat, even if it was home to me. My heart lived there when it couldn't live anywhere else. I don't want to watch it go down and be gone forever.

That's how it feels. I'm dramatic when I'm hormonal, sue me.