Category: Megalomania

Wrecking My Happy Place

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I don’t like anyone right now. Everyone is getting on my nerves, everything is getting under my skin. It’s like having a sunburn on my patience; nothing is comfortable.

I’m sure the first thing people will think (especially if they are people in possession of a penis) is that it’s hormonal. If it is, then I’m going to become even more irritated because this has pretty much been a constant state for me for the past several months.

My first thought, knowing me as I do, is that it’s depression related. The last time I was depressed, I was pretty much in a constant state of irritability. I don’t think I’m depressed. I don’t WANT to think I’m depressed. There’s no reason for me to be depressed. If anything, I should be recovering from a depression now that things are turning around in a sense, what with the regular income and all.

However, it’d be good for me to follow the guidelines my therapist set for me all those years ago to help get me out of a funk. Just to be safe.

Back then my therapist prescribed exercise, appropriate stress release, journaling, creative endeavors, and wallowing in something I really love.

Journaling and exercise are two things I’ve never stopped doing. Writing and blogging count toward creative endeavors, though if I could find a little more time, I’d do a little art. Appropriate stress relief is something I’m always going to have to work on, but I really don’t feel like I’m that stressed. That regular income has done wonders for my stress level now that I know I don’t have to worry about my bills. Any other stress I might have is just little things, fleeting things.

Wallowing in something I really love. Camping out in my happy place. You’d think that’d be the easiest on the list.

You would think.

My happy place changes over time. I’ve gone hips deep into all kinds of things because they occupied a pleasure area of my brain and gave me warm fuzzies. M*A*S*H, General Hospital, The Monkees, wrestling, sharks, tornadoes, The Three Stooges, there’s no limit to my happy place interests. Right now my happy place is baseball.

This should shock no one following me on Twitter.

Unfortunately, my happy place really isn’t that happy. Part of enjoying my happy place comes from learning everything I can and indulging in the knowledge of what I’m currently in love with. The other part is interacting with other people feeling the love.

It’s the other people that are spoiling my good time.

They keep coming in my playground and kicking my woodchips. I want to watch the game with fans who are also interested in watching the game and having a good time. I want to discuss the game and the players and the stats while admiring good plays and groaning at bad at bats. It’s supposed to be fun. But people who have attached too much of their egos to their teams are bringing me down.

I’m used to the Cubs suck rhetoric. I’ve heard it all my life. It’s old and annoying. The material isn’t fresh and the jokes are as old as the Cubs’ last World Series win. I’m more offended by the lack of creativity than anything.

However, the Cubs suck rhetoric coming from Cubs fans is really harshing my buzz. I can understand being frustrated with your team, but the venom some of these people are spewing is really eating away at my mellow. The games aren’t enjoyable anymore because as soon as someone makes a mistake or does something they don’t think is appropriate for their salary level or gives up a run, it’s just a constant stream of hate on the Cubs hashtag on Twitter, where I do most of my interacting.

Last season the Cubs were terrible, but I enjoyed myself more. We’re only three games into the 2011 season and I’m already sick of most of the fans. They’ve just sucked the fun out of the game for me. And that aggravates me because I hate it when people piss on my barbecue, no matter what it is. My happy place has been trashed and I don’t have a new happy place to go to.

Which irritates me.

Maybe I’m not depressed after all. Maybe Hell really is other people.

Bad Words: Difficult, Frustrating

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Difficult…Frustrating…

I am a downright pain in the ass.

Between stubborness I came by honestly (my last name is synonymous with stubborn) and the odd quirks I’ve devleoped for whatever reason over the years, I can be trying to deal with. Much of my being difficult and frustrating comes from, I feel, my other bad words.

I do not have the best social skills and I’m pretty socially illiterate. I don’t read people well and I don’t interpret their words, gestures, behaviors, and actions correctly. This leads to me having knee-jerk reactions to seemingly inoccuous things, sometimes not taking jokes well because I see them as insults, which causes people to think I can dish it out but can’t take it.

On the flip-side, there have some compliments I’ve received that later I think people were insulting me, but I somehow missed the sarcasm. This has led me to be suspect of any kind of compliment I receive. I may be gracious when accepting it, but in the back of my mind I’m processing it, trying to find the insult. Sometimes, I just outright ask (we’ll discuss my lack of brain-mouth filter in another post). This doesn’t usually reflect well on me either.

My emotions give me difficulties, which in turn, make me difficult. I have trouble expressing my feelings adequately. Vulcans have better luck with it than I do. I can never seem to explain myself well in the moment. It’s only hours later that I realize exactly what I meant and what I should have said and by that time, it’s too late. I’ve already made an ass of myself and that incident has been chalked up in the mind of whoever I’ve offended, never to be erased. It’s one of those classic cases of I know what I mean, but no one else does because I’m failing to communicate it properly.

I also have issues with having the wrong emotions for a particular situation. I should be mad, but I’m not. I should be relieved, but I’m not. I should be happy, but I’m not. I should be sad, but I’m not. These inappropriate reactions cause some serious frustrations with my friends. There’s a general feeling of “you’re doing it wrong” about those awkward interactions and reactions that I haven’t been able to correct.

Then there’s the lingering effects of being raised by a family that deals with every situation with humor. We make jokes about everything. Life, death, and all that goes with it. It’s how we cope. However, it’s not appropriate in every situation with every person and I have a tendency to forget that. My default reaction is to make light of whatever situation I’m in. Not everyone understands or appreciate that. Or thinks well of me for it.

And then, of course, there’s the running of the mouth. Man, do I come by that honestly. Sometimes I don’t know when it’s best for me to shut up. On one hand, it leads me to get tongue-tied and awkward, but I keep going to try to straighten out my knot. On the other hand, I have a tendency to go too far and end up blowing past the point of no return.

All of these little things combine to make me hard to handle and sometimes not worth dealing with. It’s frustrating that I don’t have the appropriate responses. It’s frustrating for my friends to have to deal with that, to put the energy into handling me. You can hear it in their voices when they say everything but what they want to say in those situations to spare my feelings.

I wish they wouldn’t. I know I’m a pain in the ass. They can just go ahead and say it. Go ahead and call me on it. I’m fine with it. If I know what I’m doing (because a lot of this stuff I really don’t realize),  maybe I can make the effort to change and therefore, stop being so difficult.

It’s not like I’m not trying now, of course. I’m just not very good at it. Typically, I realize when it’s too late so I try to remember about it for next time. But, every situation isn’t the same, so there’s a good chance I don’t catch myself in time again.

I’m not trying to excuse myself; just trying to explain it. I know understanding doesn’t make it any less annoying/offensive/frustrating, but dammit, I want some credit for trying.

Maybe these bad words don’t seem so bad. Well, just wait. The farther we go, the worse the words get. The worse the words get, the worse these words will seem in retrospect.

That’s how bad words work.

A Love Affair with the Loveable Losers

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

I can remember being about nine or ten, sitting in the living room with my mom, summer sunshine pouring through the windows, fans going to beat the heat, and my mom just ranting at the TV because the Cubs put Paul Assenmacher in to pitch.

My mother absolutely despised Paul Assenmacher. You would have thought the man once kicked her grandmother the way she spewed venom.

“Oh, great! I guess we don’t want to win today! Damn, Assenmacher!”

Obviously, this is a clean version of my mother’s ranting.

 I grew up thinking that he was a terrible pitcher, but looking back on his stats now, he really wasn’t. I have no idea why she hated him. My guess is that he blew a game and my mom marked him for life.

I preferred to watch the games on TV. Mom listened to a lot of them on the radio because in the afternoon she’d be laying out in the backyard. I once asked Mom where Harry Caray went during the middle of the game. He’d leave for a couple of innings, but always be back by the 7th to sing the stretch. Mom said he was at the bar drinking beer. It turns out that he was working the radio. I wouldn’t have figured that out if Mom hadn’t listened to the games.

I can remember one of the few times I listened to a game as a kid, I took my little portable radio to the park so I could play and listen to the game at the same time. My radio died and I ran home like my pants were on fire so I wouldn’t miss any of the game.

My favorite players growing up were Andre Dawson, Ryne Sandberg, and Shawon Dunston. When I played ball, those were the players I tried to be. I started off in the outfield and I was Andre Dawson. I was even number 8. I worked really hard to have as good of an arm as he had. When I played the left side of the infield, I was Shawon Dunston. He wore my favorite number and I did my best to do him proud.

My last year I played summer ball, I played second base. You know I was rocking like I was Ryne Sandberg. I was never number 23, but worked my butt off to play like him.

I never had a favorite pitcher despite being a pitcher, too. Maybe if I had, I would have liked it better.

My first Cubs game came in August of 1994. My aunt and uncle took me, my sister, and several of my cousins. It was a pretty big deal. It was Ryne Sandberg Day, but he wasn’t there. Shawon Dunston didn’t play either. But I did get to sit on the first baseline, right in line with Mark Grace and watch him play. Sammy Sosa before he was Sammy Sosa and Glenallen Hill were in the outfield. We lost to the Marlins 9-8. It was an exciting game, but the loss was disappointing.

People still go on about the Fish killing our dreams in 2003. I still hadn’t gotten over this upstart team beating my Cubs nine years earlier. I’m just now starting to not resent the Marlins.

Between graduating high school, Kid K, and the home run race, I’ll never forget the ’98 season.

I couldn’t watch the 2003, 2007, and 2008 playoffs too closely because it was just too stressful. My heart broke each time, but my blood pressure returning to normal sort of helped the healing.

The second game I was supposed to go to was rained out. I finally made it back last September and watched my Cubs lose to the Giants 1-0. But I got to watch the game from the famous bleachers, yell at some disrespectful children during the National Anthem, and watch batting practice. Watching the pitchers shag balls in the outfield, particularly Andrew Cashner working with the bat boy, put me in a good mood that the rain delay and loss couldn’t dampen.

I’m going to do my best to make it back to Chicago this year. I don’t want to wait another fifteen years for my next game at Wrigley.

When people ask me why I’m a Cubs fan, there’s this implication that what they really want to know is why I’d torture myself rooting for a perpetually losing team.

For me, it’s not really torture.

And I don’t think they’d get it anyway.

Kiss Me, I’m Not Irish

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’m not Irish. At least I’m pretty sure I’m not Irish.

I say this because St. Patrick’s Day is approaching and never will you meet so many people claiming Irish decent. I don’t know if it’s the green beer or the desire to be kissed, but suddenly everyone’s got a leprachaun hanging from their family tree.

So, yeah, I’m not Irish. At least I haven’t found any evidence to suggest that there’s any Irish in my family. I fully acknowledge that there are branches of my tree that haven’t been fully explored (and some that haven’t been well pruned or watered, but that’s another post for another day). Maybe I do have a few shamrocks in there. But until I see some evidence, I won’t presume anything for the sake of wearing green bowlers and Chicago dying their river a brighter shade of green.

From what I’m told by members of my family that had the tenacity to actually research branches of my family, I’m mostly Scottish and German. That’s on both sides, too. To simplify things I just say that I’m half-Scottish, half-German, though I know that there’s at least one Frenchman in there on my Dad’s side, and I’m not sure about part of my mother’s family.

My Dad’s family (those bearing the Haws name) crossed the ocean a long time ago. A long, long time ago. We’re talking the late 1600’s. As soon as Scotland heard that there was a new country open they put my family on the boat.

At least that’s one of the stories that’s told. The other popular story is that as sheep thieves, we had to leave to escape punishment (a similar story is told about why my family moved from Kentucky to Illinois: they don’t hang horse thieves in Illinois). No one really knows why my family immigrated since it happened so long ago. That story was lost to the erosion of time. 

I know that the family first came to Virginia before moving to Kentucky and finally Illinois. Living in the south during the time of slavery might lead some to fear that there are slave owners in their past. Not my family. I don’t think we’ve ever had a pot to piss in; I doubt they ever owned enough of anything to warrent owning a slave. I’m not entirely sure my family didn’t come over as indentured servants themselves.

On the other side, my mother’s side of the family (at least her dad’s side) hasn’t been in this country that long in comparison. Somehow a man from Scotland and a woman from Germany immigrated from their respective countries, met up in Ohio, got hitched, started a family, and eventually ended up in Illinois. Five generations later, here I am. It’s kind of wild to think that I’m not that far removed from the mother countries.

I’m not sure why that side of the family came to this country either. I’m guessing it was in search of a better life. That was the trend back in those days. I’m guessing they found one, though why anyone thought Central Illinois would be a good idea, I don’t know. It must have been a more happening place back then.

Scottish and German. That’s me. It’s not as sexy as being Irish, but I’m still proud of it.

It’s also a great excuse for my questionable taste in fashion. I mean, come on. Lederhosen and kilts.

I never had a chance.

Voice of an Angel; Motives of a Big Girl

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

This past week the Chicago Cubs have been accepting applications for PA announcer. It was an open audition of sorts, as they invited fans to submit vidoes of themeselves reciting three scripts in an attempt to maybe, possibly, perhaps win a Cubs fan’s dream job.

I’m one of the many that applied.

If you’re anything like my roommate, then you’re first thought is probably, “But you already have a job!”

To you I say, you’ve got keen powers of observation. I do have a job. And I don’t see what that has to do with anything.

The reason why I’m doing this doesn’t have anything to do with getting a new job, though I wouldn’t turn it down if they offered it to me. It’s the idea behind the absolutely remote chance that I’d even make it on the finalist list, let alone get the gig, that made me do it.

Think about it.

If by some miracle of miracles I got the job, my life would be turned upside down. There’d be a mad scramble for me to quit my old job, find a place to live in Chicago, find a car that could actually make it to Chicago, move, get settled, get to know my new surroundings, and get set in my new gig. It would be crazy. It’s a big move. It’s a bold move.

It might be just be the move I need to make.

Most people do this sort of thing when they’re young, usually college. They move out and find out what it’s like to be on their own. They establish their own security and their own place in the world.

For too long I’ve relied on the security of someone else and for the past couple of years, it hasn’t been so secure. I’m long overdue to leave the nest and I know it. It worked out well enough when I was younger. I got to do things that I wouldn’t have been able to do had I had all of the typical grown-up bills to pay.

Now it’s time to take that last grown-up step. It’s a hard one considering I never wanted to grow up in the first place and paying for things like rent offends my penny-pinching sensibilities. Not to mention it’s a scarier prospect because now I’m actually old enough to know better. When you’re 18 or 20, you don’t think about failing. When you’re 30 bonus year like me, it’s called risk assessment. Failure is a real thing. At my age, you can’t go home again.

I’m using this as a tentative baby step to get used to the idea of turning my world upside down and shaking things up. This is the springboard to get me used to the idea, to make it exciting and challenging and thrilling like it should be, instead of overwhelming and scary and foreboding like I want to make it (and kind of have been making it for the past couple of years).

I’m better with change if I can ease myself into it. Now the scenario I described about getting the PA job wouldn’t be easing into it. But thinking about what I’d have to do to make that work is. It’s giving my brain the heads up. It’s telling myself that it’s time to switch gears. It’s time to get out of this complacent rut I’ve been in for far too long and start working towards something new. By the time I’m in the position financially to make that happen comfortably, I’ll be in the position mentally and emotionally to make it happen comfortably, too.

I’m all about my own comfort. That’s part of the reason why I’m still here and not…out there.

I know it makes me sound like a bit of wimp wanting to take this time to get used to the idea of doing something I should have done a long time ago, but I do believe we discussed that I’m cursed as a late bloomer. I also wasn’t exactly well prepared to make that transition to adulthood. So, yeah, I’m doing it on my own terms and at my own pace.

And if in the process of doing things my way I happen to score a gig with the Cubs and do end up turning my life upside down a lot sooner and faster than I planned, well, that’s okay, too.

Maybe I never wanted to grow up, but I did learn how to catch what life throws at me.

Bad Words: Damaged, Weird

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Damaged…Weird…

Aren’t we all?

I think those two words are the softest of the bad words because they do apply to everybody and they’re not necessarily bad. Everyone is weird in their own way. Everyone is damaged in their own way and the damage is almost never their fault. Weird implies unique. Damaged implies a victim of circumstance.

I come by my weird honestly. I was born with it. I’ve been weird for as long as I can remember. Everyone told me I was weird. It escaped no one’s attention. But it was a harmless weird. I ate cat food. It was that kind of weird.

I’m still that kind of weird. I quit eating a cat food a long time ago, of course. I matured and so did my weird. I’ve acquired strange number fixations. Odd hobbies. Random obsessions. Bizarre superstitions. Some might regard my love of pickle wraps up there with eating cat food, but pickle wraps are a family thing, so they don’t count.

My weird is harmless and I admit that part of my weird is a kind of coping skill. It’s how I deal with life. The other part of my weird is just how I interpret life. My view is skewed and has been since the beginning. Not a bad thing, just a thing.

Of course, it’s a subjective thing. In this society, it’s ideal to be unique while being the same. Whatever weird a person possesses, it should be a socially acceptible form of weird. Then it’s a quirk. And sometimes that quirk can become a trend. And a trend can be profitted from.

But if your weird is just weird, harmless or not, expect the side-eye. Expect the comments, muttered or spoken or shouted across a crowded place. My weird has earned me my share of disdain. It’s just another way people can complain about not understanding me. It’s another way to single me out, isolate me, make me feel defective.

When I let them.

I’m comfortable with most of my weird. It’s their hang-up, not mine. Weird is one of the few bad words that I’m not rushing to change.

From weird we get a little more serious.

I’m damaged. Like I said before, we all can say that we are. I like to say that every parent ruins their children in their own way and I don’t say it just to be witty; I really do think it’s true. Parents don’t mean to mess up their kids (for the most part). But raising a human being is hard. You have to do more than just keep them alive; you’ve got to teach them the rules of life and mold them into a somewhat functioning person. It’s not easy, mistakes are made. Some temporary, some last. It’s the nature of the game and the game is a rough one.

My parents did their fair share of damage to me, but the damage that I’m thinking of when I think of damage as a bad word is the damage I’ve done to myself.

To make a long story short, I went crazy when I was 21. Nothing too serious, just some major depression. Had I been honest about how serious the depression really was, I imagine things might have gone a little differently. But since I kept that bit to myself, I got the tools to fix the depression (I’m more cognitive-behavioral than Freudian) from my therapist and called the game after three sessions. I didn’t want to sit and talk about my mother. I needed to change my routine, change my mind, and vent in a healthy way. That’s all I needed to know. I declared myself, well, not cured, but on my way.

I duct taped my sanity basically. I made some happy changes to my mind. I started journaling regularly to help keep my emotions from bottling up and strangling me. I started exercising regularly to get those endorphins flowing.  I renewed my creativity.

However, I know the damage has been done and despite my attempts not all of it has been fixed. I’ve managed to fill a few of the holes. For the most part, though, what I’ve done is just a temporary patch job and sometimes the tape comes loose. Sometimes you can see the cracks in the paint if you tilt your head in the right light. And believe me when I tell you that lots of people do.

The damage they more easily forgive, though. Once they realize it’s damage.

The damage isn’t so bad and the weird isn’t too weird.

Those two words aren’t too bad for bad words.

It all starts to go downhill from here.

Don’t Cry, I’m Fat.

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’m fat. There’s no other way to say it and I’m not really big on sugar coating things, so there you go. I’m fat.

I’ve got rolls that would make a bakery jealous. I’ve got curves in all the right places and a lot of the wrong ones. Baby’s got back and some front. My arm flab is envied by flying squirrels everywhere. I. Am. Fat.

I’m not just fat in body; I’m fat in personality, too.

What I mean by that is even if I lost enough weight for society to deem me worthy (and that’s really never going to happen since I have these things called hips and shoulders and damned if BMI doesn’t account for that sort of thing), I would still have a big personality. I take up space. Give me room and get out of my way. Sometimes I think I need a bigger body just to contain this personality. Try to cram all of this into a skinny girl and it’s either going to overflow or bloat the body.

But back to being fat.

There’s some negative assumptions about my fat self that I’d like to correct. First of all, I don’t eat all the time. In fact, I actually have some troubles eating. Friends tease me about the fact that I can’t eat a lot at one time. One of my buddies pointed out once that his ten year old nephew ate more than I did. And it’s true. It’s like the ultimate joke on the fat girl: I’m fat, but can’t eat a lot. Go figure.

I don’t just eat junk. To be honest, lunches are probably the place that I slack the most on healthy eating, but dinner is a different story. I cook my own meals. I try to make them as fresh as possible. I look for ways to incorporate fruits and vegetables into my meals. I make that effort. I don’t eat a lot of fast food. Being broke helps, but even now that I have money, I’m still treating it as an occasional treat and not a go to staple. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth (I go through phases) and I don’t keep much in the way of salty snacks in my house because that’s the sort of thing I’m prone to binge on. I try to keep up the quality of the food I eat.

I don’t sit around all the time. I exercise. I try for five days a week, at least twenty mintues a day. My routine is currently in the process of being adjusted as I get used to working full time again. So far I’m just doing yoga and pilates, but I plan to work my previous workouts back into the mix: cardio kickboxing, belly dance, Latin dance, Brazillian dance, hip hop, and sculpting. Yeah, I like to dance and kick ass. Nothing wrong with that.

I’m not a slob. I may be fat, but I like the way I look for the most part. I like to dress this body that I have right now. I’ve been broke for too long and haven’t had the opportunity to invest in some new clothes, but believe me, that’s on my current to do list. I like to look good. I have style and I like to express it. It’s a struggle to find good looking clothes for my size because people are under this mistaken impression that fat people need to wear muumuus and while I’m not putting down muumuus, they’re just not for me.

Also, I’m bathe on a regular basis. Maybe I get a little sweatier during my workouts or maybe during hot days, but I can assure you, I don’t smell. I use this stuff called deodorant. Skinny people don’t have a corner on that market.

I know it offends a lot of people, but I’m okay being fat. They think that by saying that I’m giving up or choosing to be unhealthy. I’m not. I’m always looking to improve my health and if I do have a problem, my weight is probably going to be low on the cause list. Not getting regular check-ups, putting off going to the doctor, smoking for 16 years, they’ll be more likely to cause me problems than my weight.

And giving up? Please. I’m not giving up anything. Not my food and not my looks. Just because I don’t fit the norm and nobody’s going to be rushing to put me on the cover of a magazine doesn’t mean I’ve given up. It means I’m rocking what I’ve got and doing it a little harder than you’re comfortable with, that’s all.

I don’t know what I weigh right now. The scale is broken (that joke just writes itself, really). I know at one point I lost forty pounds and I can say with some certainty that due to a variety of setbacks that I gained most, if not all of it back. And I think that maybe lately, I’ve lost a little of it. I’m not sure. I’ll know for sure when my pants start fitting better. That’s how I gauge my weight. How my clothes fit.

Of course, when my clothes start fitting a little big my first thought is always that they’re stretching out, not that I’m getting smaller.

I guess that’s because my body might shrink, but my personality still fills out my britches.

I’m a Guy Magnet* *Conditions May Apply

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’m single and have been for years. I’ve never been married. I’ve really only had a couple of relationships that could have been considered serious. But it’s not for lack of attraction.

I attract men. All women are capable of such a thing. It’s just the type of men that I attract that causes me trouble.

Pardon my bluntness, but I’m a fat girl. Maybe not big enough to qualify for Richard Simmons to show up to my house, but I’m still fat. As I like to say, I’ve got curves in all the right places and several of the wrong ones, too.

A certain contigent of men see my rolls and interpret my weight as a sign of desperation. They think I’ll settle for anyone, put up with anything for a little attention and the privilege of saying that I have a man. These are the men that usually have no jobs and more often than not, no teeth either. I don’t know if the two actually go together, but in my experience they have. They hit on me like I should be grateful that a man is paying any mind to me.

These men are quickly shut down and sent grumbling. I actually had one guy offer to take me to McDonald’s for our “date” and then get indignant because I shot him down.

Sorry. I’m worth more than Mickey D’s.

I also have this odd ability to attract older, married men. I don’t know what it is about me that catches their eyes, but it’s a little creepy and I’m not at all in that market.

Then there’s the “only single girl in the room” situation. Maybe some guys don’t mind that I’ve got enough rolls to qualify for a bakery. Maybe they think that I do have a pretty face. Maybe they like my sense of humor and my brains. But, they only have anything to do with me when I’m the only single girl in the room. The minute another girl comes in, someone thinner or prettier or more socially acceptable, someone the guys won’t give him too much shit for kissing, the sweet nothings they whispered in my ear are just that…nothing.

It’s quite possible that these two types of men have conditioned me to not pay any attention to men flirting with me. I’m not very good at reading people. I can’t tell when a guy is hitting on me.

That’s not entirely true. I can’t tell when a potentionally good guy is hitting on me.

It’s enough to drive my friends mad. The good guys are more subtle, I suppose, which is why I have a hard time seeing it. But my friends can see it clearly and it kills them that I don’t. Not only do I not see it, but if my friends are kind enough to point it out to me, I deny it. These aren’t the ususal guys and usual situations. They can’t possibly be hitting on me.

And sometimes the good guys aren’t so subtle. I once had a guy that I had a mad crush on point blank ask me to make out with him. I didn’t because I thought he was joking. I thought it was because I was the only girl in the room. This same guy also picked me over a prettier girl to dance with outside of a restaurant. He looked at me and told me he was going to dance with me outside and he did and I totally missed that he might have actually meant something by that. We did dance outside. It was sweet and I was awkward and it was the closest I ever got to anything with him.

I still kick myself in the ass over missing out on that opportunity. I had my chance and I missed it because I was so deep in denial, so conditioned to think that there was no way a good guy would bother with me. He wasn’t perfect, but he could have been perfect for me. I’ll never know for sure now.

To put this into a common fishing metaphor, I can reel them in even if the bait I’ve got on the hook isn’t the best and not what most fish are looking for. I can still snag a few. Unfortunately, I’m a catch and release girl. I’m not convinced that any of them are keepers and I end up thinking about the ones that got away, the ones I let go.

Someone should have taught me to be a better fisherman.

Personal Beliefs

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

It’s possible that I take the “personal” part of personal beliefs a little too seriously. As in they’re my beliefs and they’re none of your business.

Seriously. This blog post isn’t about what I believe but why I keep my beliefs to myself.

I was raised by two atheists. Please note that sentence. I was raised BY two atheists; I wasn’t raised TO BE atheist. I was raised to believe whatever I wanted to believe.

As a kid, I decided to explore the possibility of God and religion. Over the years I went to a few different churches. It might be hard to believe, but at one point I was a very good Bible quizzer. I can still quote bits of Luke.

My parents were cool with it. They never told me I couldn’t go to church, never told me I was wrong, never told me I was stupid. They respected my choice and let me find my own way. They never once pushed their beliefs on me.

My parents set a pretty good example for me in that respect. The word “God” wasn’t an assault on what they believed; it was just another word. They didn’t care that it was in the Pledge of Allegiance or written on money. It had nothing to do with what they believed at the time and as far as they were concerned, in those contexts, it wasn’t infringing on their beliefs and trying to make them change their mind.

It was quite liberating to be brought up in a household like that. I was never made to feel threatened or forced to get defensive about what I believed and I learned to return in kind.

I also learned to keep it to myself.

Without being expressly told, I learned that personal beliefs were just that. Personal. They’re mine, all mine. No one can give them to me, no one can take them away, and I can’t force them on anyone else. I have to admit that due to my years of spiritual exploration my beliefs are pretty customized. It wouldn’t be easy to preach my gospel.

And I wouldn’t want to. Oh, I will discuss it when asked about it provided that I feel the conversation is safe for expression. When I talk about my beliefs, it’s not an invitation for conversion. I’m not trying to convert you, don’t bother trying to convert me. Don’t worry about saving my soul or convincing me with science. I’m good where I’m at, thanks, and I wouldn’t be so disrespectful to you.

It really boggles me when people express their personal beliefs like they are the statement of utter right. What ego must go into that. What disrespect for anyone who doesn’t think the same. What blindness to think that your beliefs won’t be criticized when you put them on display like that.

There’s another thing. It’s hard to insult me about what I believe when you don’t know what I believe. Oh, I’ve had my feathers ruffled before by people saying things, but the insults weren’t direct because there was no way the offending person could know any differently. I could have, of course, pointed it out, but there’s no satisfaction in the correction when the person just says, “Oh, I wasn’t talking about YOU”.

Instead, I comfort myself in the thought that the person running their mouth is really telling more about themselves than the group they’re insulting. And, yes, I’ve been equally offended by Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, and everyone else.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m human. I think some things that some people believe are absolutely ridiculous and can’t even begin to understand it. But I try to keep as much of that to myself as I can. If I don’t like people offending me, then I need to work hard to be the bigger person and not offend them. It’s hard and I fail, but I keep trying.

Why?

It’s one of my personal beliefs.

And, yeah, for the most part, I keep it to myself.

Bad Words

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

Difficult. Paranoid. Frustrating. Spiteful. Ugly. Malicious. Weird. Frightening. Damaged. Aggressive. Hypocritical. Tactless. Uncaring. Insensitive. Selfish. Unaware. Unthinking. Judgmental. Defensive. Unsypmpathetic. Poisonous.

Bad words. That’s what those are. And all of them have been said to me. Not in anger. Not by enemies. They’ve been said with great sincerity by friends and family and co-workers to me.

And every single one is true.

Everybody has their bad words whether they want to admit it or not. I admit mine. It’s not out of pride; it’s out of honesty. I know I’m all of those things. They’re not pleasant things. They’re things that I struggle with and things that I’m working on, things that I’m trying to change.

I admit to my bad words. I’ll be the first to say that they’re true. I can tell you how and why. I can explain them.

And I’d like to explain them. Not excuse them, but explain them. I don’t like excuses. Excuses refuse to take any blame. Explanations are just explanations; blame isn’t part of that game. It is what it is.

I don’t want to explain my bad words to somehow rationalize them or make them acceptible. They’re not. I want to explain them because to explain the absolute worst bits of myself is to tell the ultimate truth. And that’s what this blog is about, right? The original intent of it? To tell the truth.

My friends and family and co-workers, the very people who said those bad words, will somehow still manage to say that I’m a good person. Which is kind of boggling when you look at the list of bad words. It makes me wonder. Do I have more good words than bad words? Or is the quality of my good words better than my bad?

It’s curious. I imagine people would say the quality and quantity of my good words are greater than my bad words, but that’s a natural reaction if you like someone. You want to see all of their good bits. You emphasize them. Partly because you want to think that you associate with good people, but also because you want the people you care about to be the best they can be. You might know about their bad words, might even speak them, but in the end, you minimize them.

I don’t want to minimize my words. I don’t want to magnify them, either. I want to look at them honestly and explain them honestly.

It’s pretty heavy stuff and I don’t want to bring down the tone of the blog. I have trouble keeping a straight face for very long and unfortunately, there’s just too many bad words to give sufficient covereage to them in one post. So for the next several months (seven if I counted my groups right), just once a month, I’m going to talk about and explain my bad words. You’re going to see just what kind of monster I really am.

Welcome to my dark side.