Tales of Money-less Woes

September 10, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’m having trouble making my ends meet this month. It’s not a good feeling. It’s not something I’m proud of. But it is a fact of my current existence.

There are two very good reasons why I’m having trouble this month. One, this bill period saw 3 1/2 extra bills (car sticker renewal, website renewal, a domain fee for a domain I thought I’d completely deleted but apparently I didn’t and of course that sort of thing isn’t refunded, and a little extra added onto my cell bill because I had to change plans mid-billing cycle). Two, I’ve only started one of my three new day jobs.

Had I not had one or two of the extra bills, I would have been fine. Had I started one or both of my other day jobs, I would have been fine. The combination of the two has me scrambling. If I had a couch, I’d be raiding the cushions for change.

It doesn’t help that sales have been slow the past couple of months. Books sales, jewelry sales, eBay sales, nobody is spending their money on the stuff I’m hocking. That money would have been both welcome and necessary.

Here’s the thing…I know I’ll land on my feet. The bills will get paid. They always do. I’ll find a way. I’m clever and resourceful and I know I’ll find the money I’m missing. Maybe I’ll borrow it. Maybe someone will come through in the clutch and buy something. Maybe I’ll luck out and get a quick odd job. Whatever happens, the bills will get paid.

When I was 22, this was a challenge. I didn’t like it back then, but back then I was 22. I was young. Now I’m 32. I shouldn’t be running into these problems at 32. I shouldn’t be scrounging to pay bills or borrowing money. I should be in a much better place financially and I’m not.

There are a lot of reasons why I’m not and I take responsibility for all of them that are mine. Not holding a regular 9-5 job like other grown-ups is one. My life would be so much easier if I could just be normal and work a 40 hour a week job and get that steady paycheck. But the older I get, the worse I get about submitting to that life. A flexible part-time gig is more my speed. As soon as I get all three of my jobs going, my bills will be paid and I won’t be working more than twenty hours a week.

Being very optimistic about selling myself is another reason I’m broke. I have this stupid idea in my head that people want what I sell. That friends and family know people that want what I sell and will pass my info to those people. The reality is that those people are probably out there, but they aren’t getting word about me. And if they are, they don’t have the money to indulge themselves with my goods. My inherent awkwardness about promoting myself doesn’t help this cause.

I could go on, but I won’t. Nobody needs to see my list of money failures.

And that’s what this is. The culmination of many failures. We’ve already discussed how much of my self-esteem is tied to my bank account. Being called an ugly fat cow can’t even come close to doing the damage to my ego that borrowing money can.

Particularly now. I’m too old for this. I shouldn’t be here. Yet here I am.

With no one to blame but myself.

I’ll get through this month. I’ll get rolling on all of my jobs. I’ll sell a few more things. My bills will return to normal.

And slowly but surely I’ll find some self-worth once again.

Fat Health

September 3, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

In the course of the past week I saw two good articles about fat people and health.

The first pertains to a doctor denying to take a woman on as a patient because she’s fat.

The second is about the “thin paradox”: how thin people get diseases that only fat people are supposed to get.

Now, in regards to the first article, I’ve never been told by a doctor that they can’t treat me because I’m fat. But I know that it happens and I’m not surprised by it. The disdain for fat people is palpable beyond the mall and fast food joints. I’m taking up too much space with my rolls and it disgusts people no matter where I go. I’m not surprised that it disgusts doctors, too. After all, they are people. Worse, they’re people with years of medical training that has educated them to believe that fat, any and all fat, is bad.

Which leads me to the second article. If you’re fat and you do find a doctor willing to see you, then the automatic cure for whatever it is that ails you is to lose weight. High cholesterol? Lose weight. High blood pressure? Lose weight. Painful menstrual cramps? Lose weight. Sinus trouble? Lose weight.

If you’re thin and you have these problems…I guess you get actual treatment? Because if you’re thin then you must be really sick. If you’re fat…well…you’re just fat and that’s the cause of all your trouble.

So, let’s review…

If you’re fat, you don’t necessarily deserve a doctor’s care because if you’re fat then you clearly don’t care about your health and would just be wasting the doctor’s time. But if you want a doctor to see you then you should lose weight first, then you’ll be worth the appointment. If you can find a doctor with reinforced tables and whale scales and Paul Bunyon blood pressure cuffs and whatever else it is that doctors think they need to treat fat people, then whatever your complaint is can be cured if you lose weight.

Gee, fat people. I guess we can save a whole lot of money and cut out the middle man if we just lose weight.

Reasonable, right? Sure.

I know of someone who is a size zero, doesn’t exercise, and makes mention of eating once or twice a day and that consumption might be a candy bar or a cupcake or a diet Coke and some pretzels. Meanwhile, I’m a size 20/22, exercise five days a week (most weeks), and make a conscious effort to make my meals somewhat healthy in both content and portion size and number. However, based on the two articles I linked to a doctor would be more likely to see her and more likely to treat her better because she’s thin.

Doctor’s perpetuating the myth that thin=healthy is a huge disservice to the masses (pun intended). Fat people are being led to believe that weight loss will cure everything and thin people are being led to believe that they can’t possibly be unhealthy. It’s criminal bullshit, really.

With all of that said, I’ve never had any of this happen to me. I’ve never had a doctor refuse me because I was fat. The only doctor I’ve had that discussed weight loss with me was the plastic surgeon that did my breast reduction surgery. He asked if I tried to lose weight to reduce my breast size. I wasn’t insulted by it. He wanted to make sure I’d explored other options before surgery. (FYI: I did try to lose weight to reduce my breast size. I lost twenty pounds. None of it came off of my chest. When I gained it back, it went to the boobs.)

Granted, I don’t have a lot of doctor experiences in my adult life. Not because my fat keeps me from going, though. For me it’s usually lack of insurance/short on money/I don’t go unless something is hanging off by a thread because I’m pretty sure it’ll be fine in a day or two even if it is the plague that keeps me from going to the doctor.

But that’s another story.

The point is I’ve never personally been doomed to ill-health by a doctor that refused to treat me because I’m fat or by a doctor that thinks weight-loss will cure whatever ails me, and I don’t think anyone else should be either.

Fat doesn’t make people unhealthy. Doctors that don’t take fat people seriously do.

Remember High School?

August 27, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

It’s back-to-school time again and that seems to provoke adults, even ones without children, to remember their school days.

I remember high school. Somewhat. Sort of. It’s been a while. I can remember a few things about freshman year, a few more about sophomore year. Junior year has it’s blurry moments. Senior year has a few more clear memories. For me it wasn’t the hell hole some make it out to be. It also wasn’t the glorious, best-time-of-my-life experience either. I walked the line, I suppose. I had some good times, I had some crap times. I wasn’t bullied. I wasn’t popular. I had my friends and my insecurities just like everyone else.

It wasn’t my best period in life, but if it was, that’d be a real downer. Who the hell wants their life to peak at 16?

I didn’t go to my ten year class reunion. Not because I couldn’t, but because I didn’t want to. I still live in the same town I went to school all my life in. Many of the people in my class still live in town. Working at Wal-Mart I saw a lot of them. To me it didn’t feel like ten years was long enough to get together and pretend life was a strawberry picking festival back then. Especially, since some of the people I’d be seeing at the reunion acted like they didn’t know me when they saw me around town (and maybe they didn’t recognize me, maybe I’m that easily forgotten; but I know that’s not the case for all of them).

And there’s some people that even after all this time, I just do not like and I’m not going to like. Period. Not even for an evening of good times.

Sorry. No amount of booze makes me want to play nicey-nice with you.

Now, this isn’t to say that everyone I went to school with was a jerk. Some of them were. Some of them still are. Time doesn’t change everyone and the ones that time does change don’t necessarily change for the better. Through the magic of Facebook, I’ve found that several people that I got along with and hung out with in high school have become people I don’t care for very much. (It should be noted that this doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad people. It also means that I’m not excluded in that whole change thing. Personalities that once worked together mature, grow, change and end up no longer meshing. That kind of thing happens. What I’m saying is that this sort of judgment is subjectivity at its finest.)

However, there were some people I went to school with that hold a special place in my timeline. They were truly lovely people that made an impression during a turbulent time in my existence and I’m happy to have known them. I’m friends with some of them on Facebook and I’ll be honest when I say that they still give me warm fuzzies when they pop up on my timeline.

Oddly enough, those are the people I haven’t seen in person very much since graduation.

Apparently, there are plans to attempt a 15 year reunion next year. I’m not sure if I’d go if it happens.

On one hand, I don’t feel like 15 years has been long enough either, though I got out of retail and don’t see a lot of my old classmates around town as much as I used to. Now I see them on Facebook and that’s kind of good enough for me.

On the other hand, there’s this theory that when you get people together in a class reunion situation, the old cliques and social hierarchies come back, like an instinct, and I’m half curious to see in person if that would happen. I suspect that it would, despite the time passed and the changes everyone has gone through.

There’s something that hasn’t changed since high school.

I’m still the weird girl that thinks about things from a totally different angle.

Having Illicit Fun

August 20, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

This isn’t nearly as illegal as the blog title makes it sound, but I do feel like I’ve been breaking some rules.

You see Cubs fans don’t think their team should have any fun during a losing season. Seriously. No fun for you. They want their team to carry the weight of the misery of losing without so much as a smirk. Never mind the fact that they all predicted this team to lose 100 games, but by God, they’re not supposed to ENJOY any of it. You’re not supposed to have a good time if you’re losing.

So if you apply this logic to my life then I’ve been having illicit fun since about 1994 because that’s when my losing seasons really started in earnest.

That’s when I stopped having boyfriends. That’s when I started gaining weight. That’s when my social awkwardness really became exposed. That’s when my anxiety skyrocketed.

And it pretty much went downhill from there.

My parents separated and divorced and left me to my own devices. I chose not to go to college in part because I didn’t think I was good enough to get a scholarship and I knew I couldn’t afford to pay for it myself. I also didn’t go to college because I’d been busting my ass all through high school with no reward and I was tired. I wanted to take a semester off. I also put off going to college because I didn’t know what I wanted to go to college FOR.

From there I’ve worked several “crap” jobs, engaged in a relationship that was doomed to fail and put me off any sort of serious relationships for a very long time, dealt with depression, never moved out of my dad’s house, avoided many adult responsibilities, dug myself a hole of debt to chase a dream, and generally failed at every endeavor I’ve ever attempted. I’ve never been out of the country, never been farther west than Kansas City, never taken a cruise.

I am the poster child for losing seasons.

And yet, I’ve had more than one good time.

While I was boyfriend-less and rudder-less going into my senior year of high school, I had a blast sleeping in the hallway in the mornings before school, playing Spit in study hall, going to my first Monkees concert, and rocking a 60’s vibe all year.

While working at Wal-Mart instead of going back to college after a semester, I colored my hair a rainbow of colors, went to a lot of wrestling shows, raided Chicago with my Clique, and ran Wal-Mart with the rest of the lowlies.

Then I blew a lot of my money supporting an indy wrestling fed when I maybe shouldn’t have. But I had a great time doing those shows and spending most of my weekends in the Chicago suburbs watching guys wrestle before heading downtown to roam and not getting home until 5AM, meaning I was up for 24 hours.

During my last go round at Wal-Mart (which to most people is the equivalent of losing every day), I spent many days off and vacations going to Wizard World and DragonCon.

Even broke and unemployed, I managed to get to a Cubs game.

My point is that according to Cubs fans, I shouldn’t have been any of these good times. I didn’t deserve them. Because I was losing.

At first, I felt a little guilty about that. Here I’d had all of this fun that I didn’t deserve. I was supposed to be miserable, not alleviating the pressure of my mounting losses. I wasn’t happy with losing. Frankly, I’d rather be doing a lot more winning. It’s easier to have fun while you’re winning than while you’re using. I guess that’s because you’re not supposed to have fun while you’re losing.

And then I thought, “Fuck that shit. I’ll have fun whenever I can.”

Having fun in spite of losing doesn’t mean I don’t want to win. It doesn’t mean I’m happy with losing.

It means you’re not the boss of me.

And it means the fun I’m going to have when my losing seasons turn to winning ones is going to be a cause for jealousy.

I look forward to people going green.

A Boobies Birthday Story

August 13, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 8 Comments

Today is the 10th anniversary of my breast reduction surgery and I’m going to celebrate by telling the one boobs story that my friends love best.

As detailed in a previous post (because I often talk about my breasts), my breast reduction surgery involved a free nipple graft. In short, this means my nipples were removed and at one point during that day, laying on the table next to me. They were then reattached.

Now, a couple of years prior to this surgery, I had my left nipple pierced. When your breasts were as big as mine were, you tend to get less shy about certain things. Flopping my tit out to have someone ram a needle and then some jewelry through my nipple seemed like a good idea. If I went back, I’d do it again. To me, there was nothing embarrassing about it, though I’m sure that piercing guy probably still tells the story of my massive boob. He was pretty impressed.

Anyway, as is a risk with piercings and despite my best care (and maybe because I have terrible luck with any piercing not in my ears), my nipple ring grew out. Basically, my body rejected it and forced it out. It got to the point where there was only a thin layer of skin keeping the jewelry in. So I took it out and the piercing healed, leaving a scar (as most things do on me). Nothing major, just two little indentions on either side of my nipple.

Which brings us back to my breast reduction and my nipples being taken off.

After the complication of having the skin on my left nipple die, slough off, and heal, I was able to really see the handiwork of my plastic surgeon.

And I realized, by the position of the old nipple piercing scar, that my nipple was on cockeyed. It’s in the right position, but the scar points more to 4 and 10, rather than 3 and 9, if you take my meaning.

It’s probably something that happens a lot with free nipple graft surgeries, but most people probably don’t have the means to recognize it.

So, what did I do when I discovered it? I burst out laughing and then told all of my friends that I’d been keeping up-to-date on my boobs.

The consensus? They thought it was the funniest thing ever. To the point, that if a related conversational topic comes up (you’d be surprised how many there are), they will call upon me to tell the tale. Because it’s funny and bizarre and unlike anything anyone else has ever experienced.

I don’t have many one-of-a-kind experiences in my life, but that one is definitely everyone’s favorite.

Fat Acceptance

August 6, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

A link to this tumblr post came across my Twitter timeline last night. I’m still not sure what tumblr is or how it works, but thankfully I have friends that have mastered it so they can pass along things like this. And thankfully I’m literate so I can read what they pass along.

If you’re too lazy to click the link and read, I’ll sum it up for you. Researchers have discovered evidence that fat acceptance blogs and sites actually can actually have a positive affect on some people’s health.

Go ahead and read the link. I’ll wait.

I didn’t lie, now did I?

The misconception of fat acceptance is true. Accepting fat is a bad thing because nobody wants to be fat and you’re not supposed to be fat. Being fat is bad. No one wants to be bad. By accepting fat, you’re accepting bad.

Except that’s not what’s happening.

Fat acceptance means that you accept that your fat and that the number on the scale is not an indicator of your worth as a human being.

Being fat doesn’t mean that you’re not caring, intelligent, funny, generous, sympathetic, passionate, beautiful, and/or supportive. Being fat doesn’t mean that you can’t be active, sexy, fashionable, confident, desirable, healthy, successful, and/or loved. Being fat doesn’t mean you can’t have a life. And it definitely doesn’t mean that your life is worth less than someone who weighs less than you.

Fat acceptance promotes a healthy self-esteem. And that in turn promotes a healthier view on life, which leads to healthier choices.

Shocking! Who knew that making someone feel good about themselves instead of running them down and making them feel like a worthless piece of shit could have a positive effect?

I’m sure to the guys that like to moo at women in the mall and the girls that give fat girls a dirty look while they eat their Cold Stone, this is of no consequence and won’t change their minds in the least. We’re still all disgusting fat pigs that don’t deserve anything good in life and certainly shouldn’t waddle our fat selves out in public where we inflict our gross body mass on society.

But to the people who need the support, it’s a life-saver. It means not being shamed into not doing things that you want to do just because you’re fat. It means not being afraid to live just because you’re fat.

It means knowing that you have value no matter what the number on the scale says.

You know the old saying, “worth their weight in gold”?

It applies to fat people, too.

30 Things About Me

July 30, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

This is one of those Twitter trending topics, like 50 things about me and 100 things about me, that clogs up my Twitter stream like an unfortunate accident on the log flume ride at Six Flags. And while I’m egotistical enough to want to share 30 things about myself, I’m conscientious enough not to cram it all on my Twitter timeline.

Besides, someone might miss one.

30 Things About Me

1. I still have my tonsils. Despite repeated bouts of strep throat and tonsillitis, I never had them out.

2. I can touch my tongue to my nose. It’s a family trait. My mom and my cousin can do it, too.

3. I broke my dad’s index finger pitching to him when I was a kid. I played little league fast pitch and Dad insisted that I pitch three or four times a week. When your kid can hit 60 on the gun and you don’t have a proper catchers mitt, you sometimes get your finger broken.

4. I also broke a window and put a few dents in the siding while pitching. Mom was surprisingly okay with the broken window, considering she was standing right next to it, doing the dishes, when I broke it.

5. I taught myself to write left-handed. I practice by writing things on my day planner with my left hand. Pretty soon, my writing will be just as legible left-handed as right-handed (in other words, not very).

6. I prefer things in three’s or multiples of three. I don’t know where or why this fascination started. I wear three rings, prefer to wear three bracelets, wear three earrings in each ear. I had three eyebrow rings at one point. I eat little things in multiples of three (example: I’ll eat nine crackers, three cookies, fifteen chips, etc.). It’s not a have-to, but it’s definitely a preference.

7. I wrote my first story at the age of six. I made it look like a book. I folded the paper in half, drew a picture on the cover, and wrote the story inside. The story didn’t get finished and the spelling wasn’t that great, though I’m pretty pleased at the number of big words I used. I still have it.

8. I gave serious consideration to being a meteorologist and a marine biologist when I was in junior high. I’m still fascinated by tornadoes and sharks (the two things I wanted to focus on in those careers). In high school, I also gave some consideration to pursuing acting.

9. I “majored” in English, sociology, and psychology the three times I went to community college.

10. I’m a natural shot. I was eleven the first time I ever shot a gun and I was scared to death. Once I realized that I hit eight out ten at seven yards, I wasn’t scared anymore. I’ve shot several different kinds of guns including an AR-15. My favorite gun to shoot is my dad’s Argentine Colt .45.

11. I fractured my ankle when I was seventeen. Despite having insurance, I refused to go to the hospital because I didn’t want to listen to my dad bitch about how much fixing it would cost. I wrapped it up and gimped around on it for the rest of the summer, including working at my cousin’s daycare.

12. I’m terrible at remembering anniversaries. Not just romantic ones (one boyfriend had to remind me of our anniversary date because I could never remember it), but all of them. When I started a job, when I quit smoking, when I joined Twitter, when I joined Livejournal, how long I’ve known someone, the date of my first Cubs game at Wrigley, none of it sticks well in my head.

13. My scream is broken. I seem to only be capable of screaming if I’m really terrified, and even then it doesn’t always work.

14. The first movie I saw in the theater was E.T. The first movie I remember seeing in the theater was Return of the Jedi.

15. I’ve been thanked in the liner notes of a CD and in the dedications of a book. I’ve also had my picture in the liner notes of a different CD.

16. I don’t like hot dogs. Despite repeated attempts to like hot dogs, they make me gag (mind out of the gutter, kids). The last time I was successfully ate a hot dog that wasn’t a corndog (for some reason, that’s the exception), I was a senior in high school and the hot dog in question had been burned over a campfire and dropped in the ashes. Not kidding.

17. The first horror movie I can remember watching was Poltergeist. I was probably about four or five at the time.

18. We didn’t get a CD player until I was in 7th or 8th grade. The first four CDs my sister and I owned were Janet Jackson, Salt n Peppa, The Cranberries, and Warrant.

19. When I was a kid I could do a pretty good impression of Ursula from The Little Mermaid, particularly while singing “Poor Unfortunate Souls”.

20. I started a correspondence course in creative writing the summer before my senior year in high school. I finished it not long after I graduated.

21. I won second place in a state in a poetry contest my sophomore year of high school. I’m still bitter that my teacher made me change one line of that poem so it would have more “devices” in it. The poem that won state and ended up winning 2nd in national? Written by the girl’s mother. I’m still a little bit bitter about that, too.

22. I drive left-handed. It just feels more comfortable to me. When I smoked, I did it left-handed as well. Smoking while driving got interesting.

23. I’ve got a scar on my right shoulder that I have no clue how I got.

24. I share a birthday with a great aunt on my dad’s side and a second cousin on my mom’s side. I also share it with Kirstie Alley, Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, Rob Zombie, Oliver Platt, and Marian Hossa. Yes, January 12th is a questionable date.

25. My high school graduation present was a 1974 American General mail Jeep. It was flat black, had sliding doors that locked open, no heat or A/C, and was right-hand drive. It cost my dad 200 bucks.

26. I’ve worn the same winter coat for over 15 years.

27. I once burned macaroni and cheese. Despite the vast improvements of my culinary skills, my sister (to whom cooking comes naturally) won’t let me forget it.

28. Kansas City, Missouri is the farthest west I’ve ever been.

29. I have a lot of trouble pronouncing some words. I can read them and can pronounce them in my head, but when I actually say them, they come out completely different and completely wrong.

30. I’m a fatalist. It’ll either kill me or it won’t and I don’t have much say in it no matter what I do.

It took a couple of hours to come up with 30 things. Thank goodness I didn’t pick 50.

Let’s Be Brave

July 23, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

“Let’s be brave” is my new motto. It’s advice I received from the most unlikely source.

A couple of weeks ago, I dreamed about Michael Nesmith of the Monkees. He appeared to me in this dream as he looked back in about 1966, with the wool hat and the denim jacket and the young face with great sideburns. And in this dream he suggested to me that we stage a 1950’s fashion show. I don’t know why he wanted to do that, but I loved the idea of it. And I told him so.

He told me that I shouldn’t love the idea, but that I should love that he was brave enough to have the idea and share the idea. Then he looked at me and smiled and said, “Let’s be brave.”

I woke up in love with that sentence. “Let’s be brave.”

Too many times I’ve found myself holding back because I was afraid. Afraid of how I might be judged for having an idea and putting that idea out into the world. I don’t want to be seen as a failure. I don’t want to be seen as stupid. I don’t want my ideas to be judged as stupid.

This fear of being judged is keeping me from being brave. I can’t get anywhere, doing anything, be anything if I don’t make some bold moves and give my ideas the respect they deserve. First of all, no one else will respect my ideas or support them if I don’t put them out there. And if people don’t respect or support my ideas, than I’m getting the same amount of respect and support I’d be getting if I didn’t tell them at all.

The point is to be brave enough to own and accept my ideas for all the world to see.

I’ve made small steps in doing that already. I posted a novel chapter on the blog for people to read. This is something I don’t do because I don’t like anyone to see what I’m working on. I don’t like talking about it. I don’t want anyone to know.

Well, that’s silly. I’m a writer. I write. Here’s what I’m writing. Enough with this chicken shit.

Enough with the yellow-streak down my back that’s effecting more of my life that just my writing. Yellow is a terrible color on me anyway.

Let’s be brave.

Get My Good Side

July 16, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’m writing this post because I’m in the mood for a new Twitter avatar. I like to change it every couple of months. It alleviates boredom.

You would think this would be an easy task, however, I am one vain little fat girl. I want to look as pretty as I can in my pictures which isn’t always easy.

First of all, I’m limited with what DNA gave me. Filters and cropping only do so much. I’ve got what I got. And while I am fat and acknowledge that I’m fat, I do my best to make that fat look good.

Second of all, with this DNA configuration, I’m not exactly photogenic. You know those people that you can photograph while they’re wearing sweats, no make-up, haven’t brushed their hair in six days, and they’re hungover, but they still look really good? I am not one of those people. I’m also not one of those people that can’t take a good picture to save their life. You know those people. The ones that everyone says they look much better in person no matter when, how, and where the picture was taken or how much work the person put into their appearance prior to the picture being taken.

I’m somewhere in the middle. Some days I’m quite photogenic and with little effort I can take a pretty picture. Other days, it doesn’t matter how many pictures I take. From every angle, I’ve got only badness going on.

Then there’s the kind of picture I want to take. Am I in the mood for playful or serious or sexy? Do I want a solo shot, or do I want to pull a group shot from Facebook and use it? Much of the time, the picture I want to use is the picture I don’t have. Then when I try to take the picture I’d like to use, it doesn’t work out.

Sometimes I settle. Sometimes I wait until the timing is better. Sometimes I’m impatient which leads to frustration. All over a tiny little picture that most people don’t really pay attention to.

But I can justify a little bit. My Twitter is my main forum. Yes, I have a blog and a Facebook page, but Twitter is where I’m most active. I have over 700 followers now (what?). If I was going to brand myself, KikiWrites would be it. As such, the face on that profile is kind of important to me. It’s representing me. So I kind of have a right to be picky about the picture I put out there.

On the other hand, if I could let go of a little of my vanity, this would be a whole lot easier and I wouldn’t get so unnecessarily frustrated.

It’s not easy trying to be presentable.

No Good Deed

July 9, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Shortly after my parents divorced, when I was living in housing with my dad, I decided to make a cake. It was a box mix cake because baking isn’t my strength and when I was 16 cooking in general was not something I had a handle on. I thought it would be nice to surprise my dad with this cake.

So I my cake-baking on, putting the mix in a bowl and getting the eggs out of the fridge. As I’m putting the eggs back into the fridge, I drop the carton. I can’t remember exactly how it happened; I just remember that every egg in the dozen sans the two I pulled out for the cake mix broke all over the floor.

They say not to cry over spilled milk, but I tell you what, I bawled over those broken eggs.

And that incident stands out in mind as the perfect illustration of me trying to do something nice for people. I pay for it in some way. It doesn’t stop me from doing it, but I admit, the price has sometimes been high.

I realize this can come off as whiny and bitter and I admit to being a little whiny and bitter about it, but I’m also fascinated by it. “No good deed goes unpunished” isn’t just a saying for me anymore. It’s a rule to seriously consider before I do something nice for someone.

If you believe in Karma (and I kind of do), then ideally, if you do good, you get good in return. I do good and I, well, I don’t get it back. In terms of Karma, it makes me wonder what bad I’m still burning off that I can’t catch a break.

I should clarify that I don’t do good things for people with the idea of getting good things in return. First of all, it doesn’t happen. Second of all, I do good things because I think they should be done and I want to do them. It’s not an entirely altruistic feeling. Sometimes it feels like a duty or an obligation and maybe that’s where I’m screwing myself. It’s a have-to, not always a want-to. Good things don’t come from obligations. That’s why they’re obligations.

But then you have to figure that it’s because I feel like I have to do nice things for people that I keep doing nice things for people. Let’s face it. You would think that at some point I’d learn my lesson and just stop doing anything nice for anybody to avoid the cosmic retribution that comes with it. But I don’t. I keep doing nice things knowing that a kick in the groin is most likely coming. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. Sometimes not at all. Sometimes I get nothing and I’m happy with that.

Nothing beats a groin kick any day.

I guess what I’m trying to say with all of this blathering is that I like to do nice things for people even if I get some not-so-nice things in return from the universe and it just boggles my mind how literally my life takes the “no good deed” saying to heart.

It’s just one of those things.