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People with a disregard for common courtesy often like to tout that you don’t have to explain yourself to anyone. And this is sometimes true. But I know how easy it is to have your feelings hurt if you’re just left out in the cold with no explanation for behavior whatsoever. So here is my explanation. I didn’t call you back because you called later than I care to talk. I didn’t call you back because I already needed to call my aunt back, and I had no intention of doing that, either. I didn’t call you back because I was fixing supper, and I wanted to read a minute, and I still hadn’t showered, and I had an early morning today. I didn’t call you back because I was afraid you’d want to talk a long time. I didn’t call you back because I’d had a busy, socially filled-to-the-brim kind of day already. I didn’t call you back because I had company. I was talking to my neighbor. I didn’t call you back because I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to talk to you. And there are your reasons, since you so desire them. So now I hope that the next time you want to ask someone why they didn’t call you back, you’…
Hard to handle. Direct. Ruthless. Stubborn. Impulsive. Selfish. Strong willed. Bossy. Sassy. Confident. Outspoken. Snobby. Bold. Too-smart-for-your-own-good. Assertive. Uncompromising. Unapologetic. Did these words cause you to stiffen? Did they make you feel defensive? Would you feel more at ease if I had started with meek, ambivalent, selfless, passive, harmonizing, delicate, reserved? What characteristics would you rather have at your side as a partner? Or what about in an active shooter confrontation? Don’t you want the stronger willed person fighting for you? I don’t even know how to be anything else. Now go back and read it again but picture those words being applied to a man (well, maybe not sassy and men are somehow exempt from bossy, too. And nobody ever thinks of “handling” men, only women require handling 🙄). Because the first time you read it in my voice and you knew I was talking about myself. So read it again. In a male, isn’t that what they look for and call them “leadership qualities”? Yeah, I thought so. Why aren’t all women “difficult women”? I’ve asked myself this ever since I realized I had been branded with this label (around the time I went to work for the Co-op). I don’t mean to imply I dislike the branding, quite the opposite. To me, it just means I have a backbone and I express my (sometimes…
I’ve changed my mind. The gateway drug isn’t alcohol. How could I be so stupid? It is, of course, love. Love will make you do some crazy shit. And once you lose it, you try to get it back. Enter alcohol. But love is definitely our first drug. It produces feelings of euphoria. It makes us hallucinate- we see things through rose-colored glasses, do we not? Everything is touched with gold. Everything is surrounded by warmth and light and goodness. And we can’t get enough, we want more, more, more. We burn with it. We spend money on it, trying to make sure the object of our affection sees how much we’ll sacrifice for it. We cut ties with people who don’t like our love interest. We stop seeing friends in order to see our “soul mate” more. It’s not healthy. Nothing is in excess. But when you are enjoying riding the high, you don’t think about the repercussions. You don’t want to temper it. We trade passionate love for other kinds of love when we can’t get the kind of love we want. We shower love on family, on friends, on pets, on making a home. Sometimes this is enough. And sometimes it’s not. And when it’s not, what then? Do you seclude yourself and play music? Furiously scribble some angst-y poetry? Maybe…
Y’all probably think I’m a ridiculous sap, but I just want to say that I’m despondent over East Town Mall closing. Even though its glory days are more than a decade past, I’ll never forget the good ol’ days of walking around in a pack of best girlfriends all day Saturday, giggling and looking cool in our stone washed Guess jeans with layered slouch socks, crimped hair scraped back into neon scrunchies, and an armful of jelly bracelets every color of the rainbow. We’d hit 5-7-9 and Merry Go Round first, then the music store (singles tapes!), fawn over the puppies and kittens in the pet store, then maybe have a slice of pizza in the food court. We’d get mildly freaked out by the weird witchy stuff in Crystal Visions, check out clothes in Express and Limited, try on leather pants in Wilson’s Leather, buy some glitter nail polish from Claire’s, and pretend we were punk enough to pull off the tank tops in Rave. We’d point at boys with their long skater hair and follow them around till they went in the game store behind the waterfall. We’d go smell erasers in Hello Kitty and widen our eyes at the displays in the windows of Fredericks of Hollywood then make for Victoria Secret, pretending we were just there for lotion. We’d share pretzels…
I want to drive on roads with no traffic. And if I do pass someone, I want them to wave out the open window of their pickup truck. I want to be able to apply eyeliner like a pro, not like a left handed raccoon. I want to be able to do all the yoga without quivering. I want to live in an old house in an old city on the ocean with a widow’s walk, though I am no widow. Although I sometimes feel like one. I want to always work at an honest job. I want to keep the one I have. I want to grow things and tend to them with my hands. Tomatoes, aloe, squash. Lilies. Okra. I want to sleep without dreaming. I want to listen to good music and lay in the grass and watch the clouds and hunt for four-leaf clovers all afternoon and not wear shoes at all. I want people to adore my accent, always. I want to be called Amelia by people who love me. I want to go on a trip and not come back until I feel rested and healed. I want to eat cupcakes every day. I want to ride fast horses and read good books and have the softest bath towels in three counties. I want my glasses to stay put. I want to admire trees the rest of my days, and listen to wind chimes and not the honking of cars. I…
I met her at the library, so I knew instantly she was good people. She looked like a mom, but turns out I was wrong about that. She looked like she knew about life, and I was right about that. We have gone on to be cohorts in crime, obsessive texters, and foodies from the get-go. We share book recommendations and pretty much the same taste in music. She does listen to a podcast about small town murders that I haven’t been able to enjoy on the same level. It’s pretty grim, Karen. 😐 We challenge each other to spin more, drink less, and not be assholes. We are known as sloth & honey badger. Baker is gazelle. We tell terrible (politically incorrect and inappropriate) jokes, modify our yoga poses, and share a common interest in dogs, cupcakes, and men. Probably in that order. I’m a problem creator~…well, that’s not precisely true. Problems gravitate to me and I think they’ll go away but they only get worse and then I have to ask Beth for advice and she just calmly untangles the whole mess and folds it up and places it in a Rubbermaid box. With a label. And an expiration date. She’s an accountant. I’m an artist, per se. She’s the closest person I’ve got to a ride or die, because Lisa has kids and lives two hours away…
I was the girl who found the genie in the bottle a few years ago. You probably read about me, or heaven forbid, saw me on TV. I’m not much to look at, what with my unruly hair and more-to-love waistline. And yeah, my spectacles and the prominent nose they perch upon. My ears stick out. I should use the past tense. I was all those things. All that has changed now, and my looks change invariably. With every little thought in my head, actually. It’s hard to get things just right and sometimes I revert back to my old look, that God gave me, because it’s so exhausting being things other than what I am. I sometimes wish back to my old life, too, but it’s a double edged sword. I bounce around because it’s impossible to be content when you know things can be better…or at least different. I was fishing, is how it happened. I thought I’d found an urn of somebody’s kin they no longer wanted to be responsible for that they cast out. Maybe a long dead relative they had no memory of. I could understand, I don’t want no bad ju-ju, myself. I was rubbing the goop off the side to see if there was any engraving and out pops this dude who looked like Cheech of Cheech and Chong. It was clear…
I get a bit of a break today. ‘Bout time. I read the other day that many don’t adhere to Lent on Sundays. I have been, primarily because I don’t attend church, and I have a whole bunch of people to pray for! I need every day. All I had to do today, besides pray, was meet my selected friend for breakfast (at my favorite breakfast joint) and get to work on time. That last part is easier said than done. But I was close enough if it came to horseshoes or hand grenades. AND I was a whole minute EARLY to IHOP. So that counts for something, right? The prayers are simple. I am to pray for her friends and family that are facing trials and tribulations. I was thinking on the way up the road this morning that we ask for a lot of things, but when we’re sick, that always rockets to the top of the list. When you’re sick, truly sick, not one other thing matters. You just want to be well. So I’ll pray for those first, and probably a bit more fervently in my mind. I don’t know what the rest of her tribe is going through, but I imagine it’s just life. Life can be daunting. I attended a funeral once, I think it was Joe Woods’, and the preacher said, “You’re either going…
I’m here to help because I’m totally exasperated with the male race who pretend not to know ANYTHING about women. Here’s you a How-To. That’s how to make your woman happy. #1) Tell her she looks pretty. Because she does. #2) Tell her her hair looks nice. Because she probably did spend more than thirty seconds on it, like y’all did. We have A LOT MORE HAIR AND IT’S ANNOYING. #3) Hold her hand and open her doors. Take her coat. Walk closest to traffic. Manners. #4) Pick the restaurant. For the love of all things Holy, PICK THE RESTAURANT. We will find something to eat, I assure you. We just don’t want to have to make one more decision on this day. And if we’re craving something, rest assured we’ll tell you what it is. #5) Chick-fil-A is never wrong. #6) Find out her favorite wine and surprise her with it frequently #7) Buy her a pony. 😁 You might wanna put this in your back pocket to save for when you’ve screwed up. #8) Stop by her work. It’s ok to show up empty handed, as long as you’re smiling. #9) Offer to pick up milk and bread. #10) Text her regularly. If you think of her, text her. Even if it’s just an emoji. She won’t mind…
There’s a guy here in the office with me. He likes to talk. He will not stand still when he talks to me, he paces and peers outside and is just a twitchy human. He likes to tell me stories about hunting. I’ve grown up listening to hunting stories, and I tire of them easily. However, we don’t have anything in common so as long as I let him ramble on about his turkey club (not that kind) and camper, I don’t have to come up with anything to say. He’s trying to be nice, I get it. I’d rather hear about his skydiving adventures, but he’d rather talk about hunting. So. He has also kept me up to date about this friend of his vacation progress. First he was coming to Pigeon Forge. Then they decided to go to Florida. Then the tropical storm hit, so they changed their plans back to here. So they all went out to eat last night (Holston’s, if you’re curious. I didn’t ask what they ordered, even though I really wanted to know). As he was telling this story, I wondered how he knew this guy. I remembered he’d told me, but I couldn’t recall how it was. And I couldn’t ask, because then he would know I hadn’t been paying attention, and so he…
