Tag: life

The Golden Rule

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I talked about the Golden Rule when I did a Five Minutes on it for Patreon. But since Five Minutes is no more (though $5 patrons can still listen to it if they want to), I thought I’d bring it to the blog.

I’m not talking about the Golden Rule that you’re probably thinking of- “Do unto others as you would have done to you”. It’s a perfectly fine rule and a good one to use to guide your own behavior. However, it doesn’t take into account the assholes who expect you to live by that rule while they don’t. They want you to do unto them what they won’t do unto you.

That’s why I prefer a different Golden Rule- “Don’t start no shit, won’t be no shit.”

This Golden Rule is a fabulous guide to not only your own behavior, but also the behavior of others. You see, if someone chooses to start shit, then that’s their shit and their responsibility. For example, when the Supreme Court chose to overturn Roe-vs-Wade they then found themselves being protested against at their own homes. Naturally, they cried about this to the media. But my be-robed fellows, this is what happens when you start shit. You started shit, now there is shit, enjoy your shit.

This could also apply to the people who are routinely “canceled” for saying openly bigoted and/or stupid shit on public platforms. Listen, Loudmouth Lucy and Fuck Your Feelings Fred, your mentions wouldn’t be filling up like a cistern in a shit deluge if you maybe used the backspace key instead of megaphoning your mush-brained hate to the entire interwebs. You started shit, now there is shit, enjoy your shit.

The Golden Rule is closely related to the consequences of one’s own actions. We don’t operate in a vacuum. Everything we do has consequences because everything we do affects other human beings. If you prefer not to have negative consequences, then don’t have negative actions. That’s just physics.

Is it possible to start good shit? Absolutely. This is called breaking the Golden Rule with intention. For example, making an unprompted, generalized post on Facebook about how homophobia is for squares or racism actually exists is no doubt going to start shit among the bigoted aunts and uncles who are going to take a break from posting their “America First” memes to fill their diapers in the comments of that post. It’s an expected, anticipated response to being so controversial. You started shit, now there is shit, enjoy your shit.

But that’s the thing about breaking the Golden Rule and starting shit. Many of the people who break the Golden Rule have no intention of starting shit. They’re not anticipating the shit and they certainly don’t think they deserve the shit. But they do. When you break the Golden Rule -intentionally or not- you get the shit you deserve.

I live by the Golden Rule. If someone starts shit in my general direction, then I see to it that they get the shit they deserve. And if I start shit, then I accept the shit that I receive and I deal with it accordingly.

I gotta be honest, though. The world would be a lot less shitty if we all lived by the Golden Rule.

When Your Tits Turn 21

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

This week was the 21st anniversary of my breast reduction surgery. The Frankenboobies are officially old enough to (legally) drink.

There’s a misconception around twenty-one year old boobs. They’re not as young as you think.

Stay with me here because I know you’re thinking of twenty-one year old girls and their generally young breasts, all perky and firm, and you should probably stop before you end up on some kind of list. But here’s the thing -the person might be twenty-one, but the boobs aren’t. Think about it. They weren’t born with those boobs. Those boobs didn’t even think about becoming boobs until the person was eleven or twelve or thirteen -if not earlier or later. In my case later. My boobs didn’t start boobing until I was nearly fourteen and once they started, they didn’t stop. By my own logic, by the time I went under the knife, my boobs weren’t even ten years old yet.

So, twenty-one year olds don’t have twenty-one year old tits. Thirty-something year olds (on average) have twenty-one year old tits. My own restart pushed that back into my forties.

Breasts that have been around for a couple of decades have seen some shit. I know mine have. My weight has fluctuated by a good sixty or seventy pounds since my surgery. Weight gain, weight loss, weight gain, weight loss. That takes a toll. Whatever fullness and firmness I had after my surgery has been yo-yoed into the ether. The twins got a little more flapjack going on now. They’re also not twins anymore. Not that they’d ever pass for identical, thanks to the surgery complications, but I could have called them fraternal. Not the case now. So long symmetry. After years of the weight roller coaster, Bela is now bigger than Boris, and noticeably so. This isn’t uncommon with boob havers, In fact, it’s so common that when it comes to uneven boobs, most folks find their left one to be larger (that’s the case with me and Bela here). It’s an actual thing.

And whatever the weight changes didn’t do, gravity did. It does more harm than making your toast land butter side down when you drop it. The force it exerts to keep us all stuck to this planet does some really unforgiving things to the meat sacks we inhabit, and not just when they’re dropped from a great height. What perkiness was installed when these bad boys were remade is long gone. You might enjoy the effect produced by my push-up bra, but baby, it’s exactly that. Special effects. The behind-the-scenes will steal your awe and wonder.

The best part about all of this (if there can be a best part) is that there is a very good chance that nearly every titty title holder reading this post is nodding at most, if not all, of it. These are universal symptoms of a continued existence when you have fat sacks hanging from your chest. Maybe the realistic light I’m shining on older tatas isn’t entirely flattering in a world obsessed with youth and symmetry, but to obsess about the appearance of anyone’s breasts -yours, mine, and/or ours- ignores another universal truth.

No matter the size, shape, perkiness, or symmetry…they’re still fun to play with.

In a legal, consenting way, of course.

My Eyeliner Determines My Day

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

There is a wisdom that some people share about setting the tone of your day. That it’s important to create good vibes when you get up so that you can ride those vibes all the way until bedtime.

And then there are some people –like me- who judge the tone of their day by how it starts off. If you spill your coffee, slop your cereal, and/or have to change your clothes due to unfortunate circumstances, all the good vibes you can muster aren’t going to clear away all of those clouds.

For me, my eyeliner determines the kind of day I can expect.

Back in the long, long ago of my high school years and just beyond into my twenties, on the occasions I wore eyeliner, I only wore it on my lower lids. I simply could not work an eyeliner pencil on my top lids for love or money, so I never bothered with it. As my make-up look evolved, I actually stopped wearing eyeliner for the most part in my late twenties and into my thirties.

And then I decided to go as Batgirl’s mild-mannered librarian alter ego Barbara Gordon for Halloween.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the ’60s Batman show, or the ’60s in general, but the make-up look at the time involved winged eyeliner. And because I am dedicated to my Halloween costumes, I was determined to learn how to work it. Thanks to YouTube tutorials and the advancement in eyeliner technology that led to the development of liquid liner pens, I was able to nail the look.

And I just kept on wearing eyeliner.

I decided that I liked it. It was fun. And with some practice, I cut down the time it took me to apply it from ten minutes to something more reasonable. Usually less than five. I do a basic winged look, but it varies from day-to-day because despite the nearly daily practice, I’m still not exactly consistent with my skills.

This is why eyeliner has become the barometer of my life.

The difficulty I have getting my eyeliner on typically predicts the difficulty level of my day. The days in which my eyeliner goes on smooth and clean and my right eye looks similar to my left eye are certain to be easy days. They are few and far between.

Most days, I must deploy a Q-tip to clean things up. It’s usually just a matter of fixing the wings or thinning out the lid lines because they went from sleek to Goth in a couple of strokes or doing a little extra work to make sure my eyes at least sort of match. I consider this to be an average difficulty day. Things will go mostly smoothly, but I’ll have a couple of hitches in the ol’ giddyup.

And then there are the multiple-Q-Tip, Judas-Priest, I’m-calling-in-because-I-can’t-get-my-eyeliner-to-work days.

These are the days that I just automatically write off. Nothing good will come of them and if anything does, I won’t read too much into it. These are the days that I leave the house knowing I’m going to be fighting for my life my entire shift at the library. And probably on the way there and home, too. Everything is going to aggravate me and be harder than necessary.

I write off those days and hope for better eyeliner tomorrow.

I admit that there are exceptions to the rule. There are days when my eyeliner goes on perfectly and it turns out to be the only easy part of my day. Likewise, there are days in which I can’t get my eyeliner to go on right if everybody’s lives depended on it and then end up coasting until bedtime.

After all, nothing in life is absolute.

Especially eyeliner.

There Are Some Lessons I Won’t Learn

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I am one of those people that frequently gets an idea, decides to do said idea, and then completely overestimates my ability to accomplish the idea while simultaneously underestimating how difficult it will be for me to accomplish said idea.

I am an absolute menace to myself in this respect and it is a lesson that I am apparently unable to learn.

My latest escapade in this ridiculousness happened in regards to a work project.

Long story short, in researching a local history episode of the library’s podcast (the one on Mayor Pugh; give it a listen…he was fantastic), I came across an article listing 22 murders that had occurred in my county between 1855 and 1913. A few of them I had already covered on the podcast, but my brilliant self decided to research the other murders listed for both podcast purposes and because presenting a program talking about this bit of sordid local history would satisfy a couple of my work goals.

The research portion took months. For some of the murders listed, there wasn’t a lot of information (names, dates, etc.), which made finding them in the old papers difficult. You would think a scythe murder would be easy to find, but no.

I put together the program, made up handouts with some information for people to take with them, and scheduled it with our program coordinator, capping the event at 20 or 25 people for the sake of my anxiety, but thinking I’d only get a handful of people to actually sign up.

Yeah. So many people around here are interested in murder that I ended up doing two encore programs (I have since done another program for the local genealogical society) in addition to the original program.

It was after the second one that I decided it might be a good idea to do a video version and suggested it to my director, who readily agreed. I thought it would be no trouble to put it together.

That should have been my first warning, me thinking something wouldn’t be any trouble.

I actually wrote the script for the program video first. I had a little over an hour’s worth of material that I needed to streamline. Once that was done, I moved on to figuring out the look of my vid.

I quickly ruled out a simple video of me sitting in front of a camera and doing the program because I couldn’t think of anything more boring than to watch me talk. I thought that even when doing the programs. But I wasn’t exactly sure what I should do. I posited this question on the Twitters and a couple of friends with more experience in the video realm than I -shout out to Stan and Amanda- gave me some suggestions and guidance. I decided that it might be best to do a mix of audio slides and video intros to segments. It sounded easy enough.

There we go again with that warning word -easy.

I divided up my script between video and audio and then further divided the audio into how many slides I thought I’d need to cover each case. It took me very little time to record and edit all of the audio for the slides. Thanks years of podcasting!

Using Powerpoint, I put together the slides first. I did all of the text, found the newspaper articles I wanted to use for each case and added them to the appropriate slide, and then put the audio on all of the slides. None of it was exceptionally hard, but it was incredibly time consuming. I did 42 slides. It took nearly 10 hours. But that’s fine. It was all comp time because at the library I was training new people and any off desk time I could get went to changing out displays.

Then came time for me to shoot the video portion of the video.

I admit to putting this off because I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to pull it off, let alone that I could pull it off. First I had to figure out how I was going to record myself. I decided that the laptop webcam was good enough and proceeded from there, experimenting with angles, lighting, and audio. I thought I had it all figured out.

Once again, I overestimated my skills and underestimated my ability to fuck shit up.

Long story short, the video portion of the video did not work out. I don’t want to go into details of my fuck up because I haven’t quite finished metaphorically banging my head against the desk over my dipshittery, but the point is that I did what I always did. I got pissed. I said fuck it. I gave up. And then I decided to do the whole thing as audio slides.

It was relatively quick work to record and edit the new audio and put together 12 more slides.

Then all I needed to do was the subtitles.

You see, I could have left it up to automation, but the damn thing couldn’t make it through the first two sentences without fucking up the title of the program and my name.

So, I had to do it all by hand.

Now, the good news was that I already had the script. It was just a matter of breaking it up into logical hunks to timestamp and upload and then tweak the timestamps.

Sounds easy. And for the most part it was easy, except for the time I fucked something up (because I will always find a way to fuck something up) and had to go back and redo a chunk of slides. But again. It was time consuming. A lot of time. Like over 14 hours to get it right. And that’s not counting the 2 1/2 hours of precious off-desk time I used to do part of it.

But once that was done, the video was done. All that I had to do was proof it, fix anything I fucked up, proof it again, fix it again, proof it again, and finally call it good. Well, not good. Good enough. It’s not much to look at and may actually be even more boring than just watching me talk, but it’s done and that’s all I care about.

All told, I put something like 40 hours into a 46 minute video. Just an embarrassing about of time invested for such a lackluster result.

Yet, it is a perfect example of my talent to over/under estimate myself.

I thought it would be no trouble to put together a video version of my program even though my experience in video making outside of doing uninspired Instagram stories is non-existent. I didn’t think it would necessarily be easy or not be any work or not take time. I just didn’t think it would be any trouble. Because I (mistakenly, as usual) thought that I’d figure everything out pretty quickly, get the hang of it no sweat, and be borderline good at it with no hang ups or issues or setbacks.

Because I am a fool.

Because I refuse to learn that I am not naturally adept at everything I want to do. Because I refuse to incorporate the lesson that things I’m doing for the first time are naturally going to takes longer and require more mistakes and baby steps and sometimes outright disasters. Because I refuse to grasp the concept that I need to expect new ventures to take three or four times longer than I think they will and not come out nearly as good as I think they should because these sorts of things take time, practice, and repetition to get there.

You would think as a writer I would know this, but I can assure you. I’ve learned nothing.

This is my version of Sisyphus.

I will continue to push this boulder up the hill and be the main source of my own frustration until the end of time.

What I Mean When I Say I’m Not Pretty

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I know that there are many who would not find me saying I’m not pretty to be a controversial statement. They will be more than happy to tell me that not only am I not pretty, but I’m also unattractive, ugly, and downright disgusting. And to them I say…takes one to know one.

However, this is a controversial statement for some folks, typically those who know me, like me, love me, are in some way fond of me, or have some kind of fetish.

I posted this picture of me on Instagram in honor of the 25th anniversary of me graduating high school. It’s the only diploma I have and we’re all going to be happy with that. Also this is one of my favorite pictures of myself ever because I believe it truly captures my essence. The caption I posted with the photo said, “I’ve never been pretty, but I’ve always been vaguely annoyed.” This of course caused people to reassure me that I was and am, in fact, pretty.

Except I’m really not and never really have been.

Yes, I know that I’ve written about a couple of moments in my life when I was actually pretty and the unlikely event was caught on camera. But overall, in general, I’ve never been pretty.

Pretty means something else to me.

Pretty is something sweet and delicate. I’ve occasionally been sweet, but I’ve never been delicate. There is nothing delicate about me. Since I’ve been able to grow, I’ve been growing into a person who was not built to be picked up and thrown into a pool. I don’t just mean fat. Even if I never gained all of the rolls and cottage cheese, I’d still be too big to be delicate. My shoulders and hips are too broad for that.

And my facial features aren’t delicate, either. They aren’t cute. There’s nothing soft and sweet about them. They’re sharp. I’ve got a pointy witch nose and cheekbones (one blessing) and an interesting chin going on. Also the freckles I’ve got on my nose and cheeks are too plentiful and insistent to be called cute. Overall, it’s not a pretty facial configuration happening.

Pretty is also something that’s more inline with societal standards. To be pretty means that you meet those standards -at least in part- and I’ve never come close to hitting those marks for a sustainable period of time. Brief moments, sure. A significant stretch? Nope. Maybe my commitment issues also pertain to my looks.

That’s not to say that’s I’m not attractive. I don’t consider myself ugly (pipe down, peanut gallery). I think I’m quite fetching in the right light and at the right angles. Beauty is subjective no matter how much society wants to dictate the requirements. And while I never call myself beautiful (and there are people who’d trip over themselves to make sure I didn’t), I do possess (like most people) a certain kind of beauty.

But pretty? No. Pretty is for someone else who is not me.

And that’s not a bad thing.

Objects in the Selfie Are Fatter Than They Appear

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’m sure that I’ve written about this before in various forms, but it’s always worth repeating. Like the meme that I repost on Instagram periodically. It’s always good to remind folks about my reality because it’s not adequately reflected in my selfies.

There’s a reason for that and it extends somewhat beyond just trying to present my best self, though I am absolutely trying to do that with the angles and the lighting.

So, in case you’re new or you need to be reminded, I’m fat. Not low self-esteem fat, not Hollywood fat, actually fat. Midwestern fat. I ballpark my weight at about 250. 100%, Grade A Fat.

However, I don’t carry weight in my face. Even at my heaviest (which was nearly 270), my face looked a little rounder than usual, but that was it. My face has never reflected how heavy the rest of me is. I do not have a fat face. I’m also gifted with some nice shoulders and a relatively slender neck.

And what parts of me are showing when I’m taking selfies? That’s right. Pretty much the cleavage up.

Now I do have fat arms. We’re talking bat wings for days and nights. But with the right twist and the right angle, you don’t really notice the arms. Especially if there’s cleavage in play and the stretchmarks/scars are hidden. Then you don’t even notice my face.

Likewise, when I’ve been taking pictures of my tights and/or fishnets, I do so with my legs propped up on my dresser. I do this because it’s a better lighting angle and you get a better view of my tights and/or fishnets. However, in doing this, it makes my legs look thinner than they actually are. It’s just the result of gravity pulling on my leg fat in a pleasing way rather than yanking on the bulk the way it does when I’m standing, or my thighs just squishing out to the county lines when I sit down.

It’s not a deliberate trick to make myself look thinner. It’s a consequence of the deliberate choice I make of how I show off my tights/fishnets.

What I need is a full-length mirror (and a place to put said mirror). Then I could show off all of my cute tights and fishnets and outfits and my fat as well. Because I don’t like the feeling I sometimes get that I’m hiding how fat I really am. No one has ever said anything to insinuate that I was trying to work any deception, but when I get comments (especially from het dudes) about how good I look, I feel like they’re not taking into account that -as I’ve repeatedly stated and sometimes provided photographic evidence of- there’s a whole lot more of me to look at that isn’t in the picture they’re looking at. See how many compliments they give me when the can see the totality of me.

And I’m not saying that I wouldn’t present my fat in its best light and angles. Of course I would. I’m vain.

But then I’d at least be able to show not tell when reminding folks I’m fat.

Women Are People, Too

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

There is something fascinating about people who have an issue with inclusive language.

Their main argument is that inclusive language -phrases like “humans with a uterus” or “folks who menstruate” or “pregnant people”- erases women. These reproductive ideals have historically been linked with the concept of cis women and therefore that makes them somehow exclusive to them. To include non-binary and trans folks into that conversation somehow excludes women despite women also being people, folks, and humans.

Like I said, fascinating.

It’s fascinating because the fixation on a woman’s reproductive organs and the reduction of a woman’s entire identity to this biological function puts women into their own special category, exalted and oppressed and in dire need of protection, apparently. According to these people, only women can have a uterus; only women menstruate; only women give birth. Are there cis women who don’t have a uterus, menstruate, or give birth? Yes, but the insinuation is that they are somehow less of a woman because of that. The gatekeeping is intense and it’s damaging to those cis women these people purport to protect.

Why do you think Blanche Deveraux on The Golden Girls had a crisis over going through menopause and even said that she was less of a woman because she could no longer bear children? Why do you think women who struggle with infertility feel like failures? Because of the perpetuation of these bullshit requirements that insist that the only real women are biologically capable of bearing children. The underlying message, of course, is that a woman’s most important role -dare I say sole purpose- is to produce and raise the next generation and if you can’t do that (or don’t want to do that), then you’re failing as a woman.

I think, though, the real trouble these people have with inclusive language isn’t just that it includes non-cis women into this formerly cis-women-only conversation, it’s that it refers to all of them as people.

When the inclusive-language haters talk about people, they’re talking about men. Men are people. Women are not people. Women are women. Trans folks are not people. They’re trans. Non-binary folk are not people. They’re non-binary. Men are people. The rest are categories. And when these categories start using inclusive language like “folks who menstruate” or “humans who have a uterus” or “pregnant people”, it doesn’t just include anyone these things apply to, but it also excludes men. Men are people, but they are not these people. And that bothers some humans to such an extent that they feel the need to police language and defend the use of the word “woman” as they believe it’s going extinct.

But the truly fascinating thing is that the word “woman” isn’t going extinct. In fact, it’s growing in popularity and gaining meaning.

Probably because women are people, too.

I Must Art!

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I don’t now about your library, but the library that I work at has some really nifty programs, some of which are arts and/or crafts. We also have Grab and Go Kits, which are usually craft projects. As someone who has creative urges, these things appeal to me greatly. As such, I’ve been doing a lot more arts and crafts since I started working at the library.

When it comes to the Grab and Go Kits, those are usually one and done. I did my fall scene in a jar, my winter votive, my calming heart that you were supposed to embroider something sweet on, but I stitched FU, and I was good. I didn’t feel compelled to buy more supplies and make more of those things (though I do have enough leftover material to make another calming heart, so that’s probably going to happen eventually). However, there were two programs that captured my artistic heart.

Back in the summer of 2021, our wonderful program director Marie held a tiny art show. She created Grab and Go Kits with three colors of acrylic paint and either a 3×3 inch canvas or a package of model clay. Inside the kits were forms for people who wanted to participate in the art show to fill out and return with their art, which was put on display for a month in the old display case that used to house the creepy doll collection that had thankfully been retired not long before.

Since staff was allowed to participate, I was all in.

How could I resist making tiny, terrible art? I love making terrible art. I’ve been using water color pencils for a few years. Acrylic on canvas sounded like fun. I made my tiny, terrible beach scene and loved doing it. All of the art that patrons and staff did was pretty cool, but it wasn’t putting my art on display that gave me the rush. It was that act of arting that I loved. The creation process.

I ended up buying more tiny canvases and some new acrylics. The results were gifted to people for Grinchmas.

And then I bought more canvases. And some more new paints. And I have made more tiny, terrible art.

Recently, my coworker Rachel held a program about pressed flower art. I had to work, but Marie covered the desk for me and my partner in library crimes Trisha so we could attend the program long enough to learn how to make the pressed flower art and collect the supplies so we could do it at home.

I took my cuttings, rolled out my clay, pressed my flowers, painted it all once it dried, and then did some macrame hangers for it. I gifted the results to a friend.

And then ordered more clay. My latest batch of flower art is sitting on the floor of my room waiting to be painted and will ideally be done by the time you read this.

That’s the real trick of all of this. Because I love doing all these things so much, I’m more motivated to find time to do them. As much as I love to do creative things, I’m the kind of person that will put them off, telling myself I don’t have time because I should be doing all of these other things, and now it’s too late. You know. Being responsible. It’s a total drag.

Tiny, terrible art and pressed flower art have challenged that mindset. Why can’t I paint a cherry blossom tree on a Sunday night while watching a movie? Good news! I can!

This is has been a marvelous life change. I don’t have to save my arting for when I have time. I can totally do some macrame or paint some clay on a Wednesday night after work. I am allowed to take that time to indulge my creative urges.

Which is good.

Because sometimes I must art!

I Am Poorly Put Together

~ Kiki Writes ~ 5 Comments

My DNA assembled like a Voltron bought off Wish and it’s the cause of so many of my problems*.

First of all, I’m too short. Yes, I realize that at 5’5″ I’m the average height for a woman, but I feel like a lot of my problems could be solved if I were taller, say 5’8″ or 5’9″. Maybe even 5’10”. The point is that if you stretched me out some, I’d be in a lot better shape. Just being taller would go a long way to solve some issues. Like needing to climb on the counter to get stuff on the top of the cabinets because I’m just a little too short.

My hands and my feet are too small and everything else is too big. I’ve somehow created the illusion that my fingers are longer than they are, probably because they’re more on the slender side and I paint my nails, but trust me. My hands are too small. My ability to play the guitar is severely hindered. My handfuls of anything are miniscule. Small hands on the ends of chunky arms with voluminous bat wings is just not a good look.

Speaking of, the arms are a bit too short, which adds to the chunkiness. Longer arms would give more space for that fat. Oh, and you want to be able to reach something with your teeny grubby chubbies? Tough luck lady. Better get to climbing with your too-short legs ’cause you got alligator arms. My belly dance moves always look less graceful without the long arms and adult-sized hands. I’m like a flailing toddler over here.

I am violently pear-shaped. Big hips, big ass, big thighs…and then small feet. I come to a point. I look like a waffle cone with a fat belly (2 scoops!), manageable breasticles (thanks to reduction surgery), and broad shoulders stacked on top, all of that a little mashed because I’m short-waisted. You want jeans that fit? Good luck. You want to be able to wear certain shirts without Hulking out of them? Keep dreaming.

When I was getting my physical therapy assessment done to prepare for my patellar tendonitis treatment, the guy doing the assessment said to his student, “You see how she’s got wide hips like that? How her legs come down like that? Yeah, that’ll cause knee problems.” So, what you’re telling me is that my body actually assembled itself to cause itself pain. Given my brain’s reluctance to make happy chemicals, I suppose that tracks. I still don’t appreciate it, though.

But this goes back to what I said earlier about being too short. If you stretched me out a bit, my hips wouldn’t be so wide and I wouldn’t have knee problems. Science.

Also, the thing with the small feet is that while I can wear boys’ shoes and that’s pretty great when you’re in the market for some Power Ranger velcros, these tiny dancers don’t fit this big frame. Even without the excess weight, I’ve got broad shoulders and big hips. I need bigger boats for all this freight. It’s like moving a refrigerator on roller skates. Funny, but not necessarily functional.

It’s frustrating to be so poorly drawn, looking like a lot of bad ideas somebody scotch-taped together. The fashion doesn’t wear as well. The odds and ends, what’s left in the bin approach to assembly has caused some unfortunate wear and tear. Damn shame about the warranty. And to be completely shallow, it’s not that aesthetically pleasing.

Is 43 too late for a growth spurt? Asking for my two-scoop waffle cone shaped friend.

*Petty ass complaints about mostly insignificant things with the exception of the petellar tendonitis because I’m tired of my knees hurting and I’d like to be able to squat down again, thank you.

That Family Work Ethic

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

There are certain traits associated with the paternal side of my DNA. Stubborn. Funny. Resourceful. Fond of the drink. Great dancers.

Unbeatable work ethic.

It’s that work ethic that is legend. We don’t call in. We show up every day we’re scheduled, we do our job (and sometimes other people’s jobs), we do them well, and you can always count on us. While that is admirable to an extent, it has gotten me into trouble on occasion and caused an internal conflict I’ve only recently come to resolve.

I have my family’s work ethic. I show up every day I’m scheduled. In the past, I’ve gone to work sick and hurt. My record of not calling lasted for years and was only recently broken because my upper back went out. I couldn’t even stand up and there was no way I could put on a bra, but I was still looking for a way to go to work.

You would think that this sort of work ethic would make working forty hours a week no problem.

And yet!

I’ve worked full-time in multiple jobs and somehow in my younger years it was easier to bear. I guess because I was still riding high on the idea that it was what I was supposed to do. Make a living until I could find something better. And then make a living doing that. The goal, of course, was to be a responsible adult.

Which turns out to be something I’m not interested in.

I was unemployed when I began my third go-round at community college. I ended up going back to Walmart for the third time about a year later, but this time, I chose to work only part-time because of school. It was the first time I’d worked part-time since I was in high school and it turned out that I really liked it. I liked that I only worked four days a week and that I had fewer responsibilities than the full-timers. For the first time since I started working above the table, I wasn’t striving to get a promotion or be in charge or take on more responsibility. I went to work, did my job, and went home. And when I predictably dropped out of community college again, I kept my part-time schedule, this time because I had decided to get serious about my writing career and wanted that time to write.

The job I had after I got blackballed from Walmart was last full-time job I’ve had and I hated it. I hated the job and I hated being there 40 hours a week. I didn’t last a year.

At one point I held three part-time gigs at once and somehow I like it better than working 40 hours a week at one gig.

I’ve had the part-time library gig for over three years now. It’s hard to reconcile my famous family work ethic with my unwillingness to work full-time. Yes, I’m still serious about my writing career and have branched out to podcasting, and yes, I bust my ass at my library gig, showing up every day and putting in the effort, but my “real” job is still considered less real because it’s only part-time.

Can I still say I have my family’s work ethic?

Well, yeah. Because I realized that my work ethic happens to take after my Great-Uncle Junior’s.

Uncle Junior, like his brothers, was a working fool when he worked. He busted his ass when he worked. It’s just that he felt he should only work as much as he had to. “They can’t eat ya” is a family motto where bills are concerned and so long as his were paid, he was good. Sure, he lived in a bus by the river at one time, but that was because he wanted to, not necessarily because he had to.

As it turns out, I’m the same way. I only want to work as much as I have to and I have shaped my life to allow for that. Yeah, it’s not ideal and there are ways in which I’m hoping to improve it. I consider it my version of living in a bus down by the river. But until I can only work as much as I have to by writing alone, this is how I’m rolling.

Family work ethic intact.