Monthly Archives: July 2023

Behind the Story – The Silly Side of Writing

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I’m tired of being serious about writing so today I’m going to talk about the sillier aspects of writing and share some writer-humor with you.

First, writing is not a glamourous profession. Writers write in stained-up pajamas, ripped t-shirts, and other assorted items that would defy any office dress code. Which is one of the reasons writers get into writing and also try to write from home alone as much as humanely possible.

Second, writers are major procrastinators. This is because the words don’t flow out like a perfectly-timed and well-oiled machine. They flow out more like a clogged-up spigot with water that comes out hot, then cold, then brown and dirty sometimes. Therefore we try to come up with as many ways and reasons not to write, mainly saying we can always write later… until we’re on deadline.

Third, we use Google to do 99.99% of our research, which adds to our procrastinating tendencies and repertoire. But hey, if we’re writing something and need to know something, why not just click over to Google, and get what we need? The problem with that is we don’t always get back to our writing right away. In fact, Google is probably the single biggest rabbit hole a writer can go down, and usually does at least once a day if they’re lucky.

Fourth, yes it’s true that some writers actually will start cleaning their humble abodes rather than write. The rationale for this is probably if you’re not able to write might as well do something productive. And I’ll confess, I’ve done this and then of course, an idea or a solution to the problem you were having with your writing comes and you might leave a chore half-done. The good thing about chores is that they won’t run off and leave you hanging. The bad thing about chores is unless you have house-elves, you have to do them sooner or later.

Five, social media is probably the greatest source of procrastination for writers. Some writers even resort to software to keep them from going on the internet until they’ve hit their goal for the day. Most of us writers don’t resort to software so we’re social media mavens. It’s usually a quick hit-and-run with checking to see what’s going on, making a pithy comment (as I’m fond of doing on Twitter), seeing what’s going on in the world news-wise, or having a chat with a friend halfway around the world.

Whenever I meet people who think writers are cool and slick, I try very hard not to burst out laughing. For the most part, I would say we’re total dorks and with major doofus tendencies who write because it’s either do that or go nuts. Because for a lot of writers, it’s not just the fun of playing with our imaginary friends, it’s also being able to do things that we can’t do in real-life and say things we can’t say without burning bridges we can’t afford to burn. A lot of us didn’t function well in structured environments or did so but didn’t climb the corporate ladder because we’d rather play with our imaginary friends.

So basically writing is a profession done by introverted slobs who procrastinate more than any office drone ever will, will get into a rush to finish something better than any office drone ever will, then do it all over again. And in between the procrastination and mad dash at the keyboard, we’ll also deal with massive amounts of angst.

Tis a very silly profession indeed.

Stand or Fall -Righteous Anger

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Last week, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. testified in front of Congress and spent most of the time raging and denying he’d said anti-vaccination and antisemitic racist shit because he’s a huge conspiracy theorist who has some serious right-wing backing despite claiming to be a Democrat. But the internet always has receipts for the shit he’s spouted and his family is condemning him left and right including his wife. To me, he’s a shit-stain on the Kennedy family name and especially of his late father Robert F. Kennedy not just because of his anti-vax and antisemitic shit, but that he seems really angry but unwilling to do anything about it.

Righteous anger as I call it is getting pissed off at shit that really hurts people, like racism, poverty, climate change, and war then working to do something about it, like creating public policy to make things better. For me, it’s voting for people who will actually do something and not a performative asshole like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, and every Republican in Congress right now. Because it’s not Republican legislation that’s bringing manufacturing back to this country after forty years of off-shoring, building and fixing our roads, and creating a surge in gross-domestic product that is exceeding expectations.

For over forty years, conservative Republican policy has been anger and rage in the form of their ‘culture war’ bullshit they used to sell their bullshit trickle-down economics. They weaponized and monetized anger but not in a good way. Their anger is to hide the fact that under the last Republican presidential administration and Republican-controlled congress (2016-2020) the most significant legislation passed was a trillion-dollar tax cut on the wealthiest one-percent that exploded the national deficit by twenty-five percent. There was no infrastructure bill, no bill to bring back manufacturing to this country, or anything significant from that Republican administration. Yet people buy into this angry bullshit because they don’t want to face the fact that conservative anger is all over people who aren’t rich and white who will benefit from investments in infrastructure and other things and not tax cuts.

Growing up in the 1980’s, I remember feeling a lot of anger at things like the threat of nuclear war because the bastards in the White House and the Kremlin were always talking about just blowing us all to Kingdom Come even though we didn’t want to die or live in the hell of a nuclear winter. I remember feeling anger that I was actively discouraged from learning about racism and other injustices because I was a white girl in the suburbs who didn’t need to know that awful stuff. I remember being angry as hell at anti-abortion protestors for wanting to drive women back into back-alley butchery and using violence to do that. I remember being angry at thousands of jobs being sent offshore and creating rust belts in the name of ‘greed is good’ bullshit. I remember being angry at right-wing assholes who called AIDS the ‘gay plague’ and let AIDS patients suffer and die. I also remember being so damn pissed off at right-wing assholes who would freak out over anything that was gay because it would turn kids gay. Sounds familiar, right?

But here’s the reality: right-wing assholes don’t give a shit about the real problems facing our world. They talk about going after ‘groomers’ and ‘pedophiles’ and ‘sex trafficking rings’ when the vast majority of children and teens trafficked are kids sold for drugs, migrant kids separated from their families, and the thousands of kids ‘lost’ in the foster care system and no resources to track them down. They don’t talk about the horrible social media that has radicalized mass shooters and virulent racism. And they sure as hell don’t talk about how so-called Christians don’t follow the true teachings of Jesus Christ to help those in need and not judge them in any way, shape, or form which stymies any help for our homeless brothers and sisters.

So why do people continue to swallow Fox News right-wing bullshit? Simple: because they don’t have to think or examine their feelings but just swallow the bullshit and pump their fists in anger to all the wrong things. And for those reading who are now wanting to ask me what I’m doing about my righteous anger I’ll tell you: one, I always vote and not for some lazy, good-for-nothing performative asshole-politician like those of the Republican Party and two, as a writer I use my words to try and make people think and feel and if at all possible, loosen their heads from their asses.

Righteous anger is like taking grief and pain and turning it into purpose. I write to take my grief and pain and anger and turn it into the purpose of getting people to think for themselves and choose the right side.

Breaking Radio Silence – Because You Know

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For a long time, I’ve asked myself why I still worry about what other people think about me and why I’m still afraid these ‘people’ will come after me if I step out of line in some way. I’ve asked myself why I can’t just put this shit in a box and seal it up.

My answer to those questions is simple: because I know these people are out there and have said what they have to me and other people, and that they seem to be able to box their shit up and not think about it. I have tried to box their shit up and put it away but it seeps out like toxic nuclear waste because I can’t rationalize and compartmentalize shit like that. And I don’t want to because I don’t want to spout insensitive, cruel shit then act like there was no damage done. I take full responsibility for my shit and the damage it’s done and in turn, I try to learn from it and do better.

Because you know, it’s always there. So what do you do about this?

If you’re not rationalizing shitty behavior and compartmentalizing it and you’re dealing with it leaking out, you’re okay. It means you’re human and connected to your emotions. You have to accept this shit is out there but know that you are so much stronger than you will ever realize. Most of all, you have to deal with this step by step, day by day, and for the rest of your life. This is where recovery comes into play.

Recovery is learning not to medicate against this kind of painful shit. It’s learning how not to numb yourself out in any way, or to try and be as silent and agreeable as you can be. It means taking steps forward to live your own life and strengthening yourself to focus on your own life, and to believe that if the time ever comes you can tell someone to ‘fuck off’ and not deal with their shocked Pikachu-face bullshit.

This blog post came from a post on Twitter last week from the British singer Lily Allen in response to the tabloid editor who tormented her in the British press for close to fifteen years. Ms. Allen battled substance abuse for years because of this relentless bullying and yes, there were people who asked why she couldn’t ignore it but how do you ignore paparazzi who follow you relentlessly and splash your shit across the papers. Then you have people around you who aren’t supportive and won’t stand up for you which can send you into a huge tailspin. Ms. Allen is lucky to have survived because others didn’t and now the bastard-editor is in hot water over some shit he’s done and it’s just Karma being her wonderfully-bitchy self. But the damage is done and it’s just a wound you recover from with a scar you’ll always see.

Telling myself this week, ‘because you know’ has helped me a lot because I realize I’m not running from that shit, and I’m not medicating against it either. I am in recovery and I want to tell anyone reading this who has felt like have- hurt and trying to hide from it, that you don’t have to hide anymore. Because I feel like I’m standing there and looking at that past shit and saying, “I see you, and I know you’ll always be out there, but I’ve got a life to live and yes, it’s without you.” And like I just said a couple of paragraphs above, you don’t have to stick around and deal with someone’s shocked Pikachu-face bullshit.

As always, if you’re reading this and thinking I’m being mean, or that I’m painting a wide swath of people as assholes, I’m not. But if you’re identifying with oppressors and people who hurt and trying to rationalize and justify their shit, ask yourself why. Ask yourself why you’re not standing up to bad behavior, and why you are refusing to listen to the survivors and stand with them. If you’re feeling shame and guilt and reacting harshly to that and deflecting it to everyone else, you’re going to have to deal with the consequences of not facing your shit. Most of all, I’m not here to pull anyone’s head out of their ass and deal with their shit for them and no one else is either.

To my fellow survivors in recovery, because you know the shit will always be out there you can deal with it. Yes, it feels like oozing nuclear waste but nuclear waste eventually breaks down though it does take time. But in the meantime, while that nuclear toxicity is breaking down, you can start moving forward. I’ve been struggling with my writing for a while now but this realization ‘because you know’ has helped me break through the block that’s been coming up for a while.

When you put words onto feelings, words onto big heavy dark-ass shit, it takes the fear and breaks it down to where you can manage and deal with it. This is why words matter so much and yes, why they can do the damage they do. But words can heal and that is something I needed to learn in a new way like I am here now.

Because you know what’s out there, you can learn how to deal with it in a way that doesn’t hurt you. And most of all, you can break the silence and break down the fear with words that don’t hurt, but in time, heal.

Breaking Radio Silence – Advice

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In keeping with Sunday’s blog post, I want to add some pieces of advice I’ve gained from my ‘Breaking Radio Silence’ project – my self-help/memoire hybrid as I call it. One thing I’ve been trying to do is find a way to organize my writing of it, balancing the self-help and memoire parts of the story. One way that I seem quite drawn to is using a piece of advice as a chapter header with the story of how I came to learn that piece of advice and how I’m learning to take it.

1) You’re not doing so bad: This one came sort of came from something my late father was fond of saying and that was if you wake up on this side of the dirt you’re doing good. It means if you wake up alive and kicking you’ve got another day to work and yes, it’s a tad morbid but my version is if you’re not broke down on the side of the road in the middle of a monster heat wave or something like that, you’re doing fine. If you’re able to keep a roof over your head and pay your bills you’re doing good.

2) Everyone else is just as full of shit as I am sometimes but I’m not a bad person because of that: This one is definitely where ‘it’s okay not to be perfect’ came from because we all trip, stumble, and fall, miss a turn or an exit, or forget something. It’s not the end of the world and it doesn’t mean you’re a piece of shit even if someone tells you that right to your face. If someone acts like their shit doesn’t stink, just walk away from them.

3) Your job in life is not to pull someone’s head out of their ass for them: The previous piece of advice gave birth to this one because you can’t change how a person thinks or feels and it’s pointless to try, especially if they act like you can. People have to learn how to think for themselves and more so, learn how to regulate their emotions.

4) You do not have to spend your life trying to appease people, or act as a manager for their emotions: Appeasement doesn’t work and people can learn how to get their own shit together. If you spend all your time trying to appease people and manage their feelings, you will suppress your own thoughts and feelings so much that you will put everyone before yourself and start to lose yourself along the way.

5) You have every right to your thoughts and feelings no matter what they are, good, bad, ugly, or anything in between, and you have every right to deal with them in any way  you choose to: You don’t have to go public with your thoughts and feelings like I do but you do have the right to connect with them inside your mind and also, you have a right to express your emotions if you choose to. You have the right to express a thought or an opinion that someone might not agree with. And you don’t have to back down from that though you can walk away so you don’t get into a pointless argument with someone.

6) If someone tells you that you can’t make it on your own, tell them, “Watch me” and walk away from them: People who say this want to control you because you are making them push up against something they’re not willing to deal with. You can make it on your own if you have to.

7) You are likeable, and most of all, worthy of love: If anyone ever tells you no one likes you, or that no one will ever love for who you are, tell that motherfucker to go to Hell and walk away. That is a line that should NEVER be crossed and words like that should never be spoken. Every single person on this planet is worthy of being liked and loved for who they are. No one needs to bend or break themselves to be worthy of someone’s pity and hate, both of which are not about love in any way, shape, or form.

8) You’re not broken despite the pain and hurt you’ve lived through: No human being is broken just because they’ve been through hard and difficult times. If they have survived all that and still have compassion and empathy for other people, and if they live their lives with good conscience and kindness towards others then they’re not broken and incapable of healing.

9) Healing is possible: When I started this project, the idea of ‘healing’ was millions of light-years away from me. Back then, I would have told you healing was not my goal because I didn’t believe it was possible for me. Yet the most important lesson I’ve learned with this project is that healing is possible. It’s hard as hell at times, and the wounds will always be there to see and the scar tissue will thin out from time to time. But time heals wounds because you learn how to deal with the scar tissue thinning out from time to time.

10) You are where you need to be, and you are exactly who you are supposed to be: As my late father used to tell me, you are so much stronger than you will ever know. You will face difficult times and you’ll do the best you can with what you have to work with. And yes, good times don’t last forever but neither do bad times. And life is both good and bad and not a consequence of one or the other (which is where I would disagree with my father on this one though I think he’d understand).

It’s Okay Not to Be Perfect

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It’s okay not to be perfect is something I tell myself a lot, though not as often as I should, especially when I’m in what I call an ‘anxiety loop’ (that’s when my brain just loops continuously on certain thoughts and ‘what if’ scenarios). These ‘anxiety loops’ as I call them are caused by old thought patterns being activated, hormones, and thoughts like this one:

No matter how well I write something, say something, or do something, someone out there is not going to like it. And that ‘someone’, whoever the hell they are, will come at me and try to break me and silence me.

I have been working on dealing with this particular thought because I have always felt like I backed down from ‘someone’ like that when I shouldn’t have. Being treated like shit and hated for not doing anything wrong is a big wound with scar tissue that thins out a little too frequently. But here are a few things I’ve learned in how to deal with that kind of stupid ‘damn if you, damn if you don’t’ bullshit that drives too many people to try and be perfect all the time when that’s not possible:

1) No one is perfect, even if they say are or go after anyone who doesn’t measure up to their impossible standards. And people like this have their heads jammed up their asses so far they think the shit they’re swallowing is normal and in turn they project that onto everyone else. Instead, they need to shut up and work on their own shit and accept people as they are, mistakes and all.

 2) Your job in life is not to pull someone’s head out of their ass for them. You can’t change the way someone thinks and feel, only they can. You can decide how you deal with them up to walking away from them.

3) If someone tells you if you don’t shut up and do what they tell you to do that people will not like you or you will end up all alone, just walk away. That is NOT worth any discussion over at all. You are not unlovable or unlikeable simply for being yourself if you’re not doing anything wrong.

Most people in this world are good people. They’re kind, generous, supportive, encouraging, and they’ll help you up if you get knocked on your ass. The people who are mean, cruel, insensitive, and unkind are a vocal minority and you can call them out on their shit then walk away from them if you can. As my late father used to say, “Most people are good people. Don’t let the few assholes in this world ruin things for you.”

Why do people feel a need to be perfect? A lot of conventional thought is that it’s a form of people-pleasing, that if you just go along with things and don’t rock the boat everything will be okay. But that’s nothing but appeasement because the people you’re trying to not piss off are never going to be satisfied with you and how you live your life. They’ve taken their own insecurities and unaddressed-bullshit and turned them inside-out-mean as my late father would say. Most of all, appeasement doesn’t work simply because no one is perfect every second of every day of their lives.

But what if you make a mistake? If your mistake was not intentional or meant to cause harm in any way, shape, or form, then all you have to do is take responsibility for it, repair the damage as much as possible, then learn from it. If ‘someone’ (whoever the fuck that is) doesn’t like that, then just keep going along in your life because sooner or later, you might get the opportunity to prove them wrong. If that doesn’t work, then a simple ‘fuck off’ will more than suffice.

Perfection, or constantly striving for it, will not keep shit from happening to you, nor will it keep every single asshole in this world off your ass. So yes, it’s okay not to be perfect. You do the best you can with what you have to work with, and sometimes, as my late father would say, you’re given a bucket of shit to carry around even though the stench is horrible.

Be kind to yourself. Again from my late father (yes, he really did spout advice like some people breathe), he used to say never get into a one-legged ass-kicking contest with yourself because you’ll always win. He also used to say it was pointless to beat the crap out of a drunk or an idiot because five minutes after you got through with them, they wouldn’t remember why beat them up to begin with.

And if you want to respond to me, even if it’s to tell me I’m completely and totally full of shit, please do so. I’m not being a sarcastic bitch when I say that. Leave a comment, send me an email, DM me, write me a letter. But I will say this: I will choose how to respond because no one gets to dictate how I respond to anyone or anything. Hopefully it’ll be a smile and a thank you, or a shrug and a ‘whatever’, or if worst comes to worst, a genuine ‘fuck you’.

It’s okay not to be perfect. Trust me, people can handle being disappointed and you can live your life in all your imperfect, generous, warm-hearted glory.

Stand or Fall – My Table

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Image by Paweł Ludziński from Pixabay

Last week, the United States Supreme Court dropped decisions that are enormous turds that will take years to clean up. One awful decision in particular basically legalized discrimination in which a website designer wanted to be able to not have to design websites for gay people (click here to read). Yes, this was a hypothetical case and previously dismissed by lower courts but somehow was railroaded all the way to the Supreme Court where six conservative justices basically said businesses can now hang signs on their windows saying they won’t serve gay people. Kind of makes me think we’ll be bringing back signs like these:

I’m sure some people are thinking it would just be easier to have everyone live in their own little worlds and never have to interact with people who are different from them. But we don’t live in a world where that is possible unless you lock yourself away and deny yourself any movement outside your own little enclave. Most people don’t want to do that and don’t feel the need to hate or discriminate against someone simply because they’re different from them. Yet those that want to divide and conquer will never give up on their goal of domination simply because they have embraced an ideology of hate that brings them wealth and power over others. Yes, it all boils down to a sick desire for greed and power.

So, what do we do about this raging hatred? Most of that raging hatred is just from a very loud minority so the mostly-silent majority needs to find a way to speak up against it. I believe one way is to bring people from all walks of life to one table to sit and listen to each other without interruption, to give everyone at the table equal time and attention to one another.


Years ago, I read an article about a young man who had been raised as a hardcore racist. His father coined the term, ‘white nationalism’ to try and re-brand neo-Nazi racism to a broader audience. But despite being raised with this horrible ideology he was curious about the world outside of the hate-filled enclave he was being raised in. He decided to go to college at a small liberal-arts school where he met students from all different races and religions. He became friends with an Orthodox Jewish student who would invite him and others over for Friday Sabbath dinner. But when the other students found out who this young man was and what he’d been raised with, they stopped coming to the dinner. But the Orthodox Jewish man who was hosting these dinners refused to deny his friend a place at his table because as he said, “He’s my friend, and he’s done me no harm.” This friendship between an Orthodox Jew and a young man raised on hate grew and eventually others returned to the table. The young man raised on hate has fully renounced what he was raised on and has offered a tremendous insight into that world. This is an article and interview with this young man I highly encourage you to read, click here.

When I read this story I had one question: what if this young man had been completely rejected from that table? What if he had been completely rejected by all his new friends and been shunned and banished? Would he have gone back to his hateful family and willingly embraced their beliefs and continued that family legacy? I think the possibly existed and I’m forever grateful to the young Orthodox Jewish man for not rejecting his friend and reminding us if someone is not causing harm but is a seeker of knowledge and listening to others then we should welcome them to our tables.

In my life from as far back as I can remember, I heard assholes tell me and other people not to have people different from us come sit at our tables in friendship. I had assholes tell me if I opened my table to people different from my lily-white ass that I was trying to be something that I wasn’t, or that I would be turning gay, or some kind of bullshit like that. I won’t tell someone else what to do at their table, but in turn I won’t let anyone dictate to me who I can welcome to my table.

But I will give warning here: if you come to my table and spout lies and hatred, I will call you out on it. I will say this to you: ask yourself why you think and feel the way you do and keep asking until you find all the answers you can, but I will warn you that you might not like the answers you find, and sooner or later you will have to deal with them. And in turn if you ask me why I think and feel the way I do, be prepared for an hour-long sermon with multiple citations and references.

Curiosity goes hand in hand with empathy and compassion because it’s a way of opening a person’s mind and heart to the world around them, and to the people around them, especially those that are different from them. There is nothing wrong in learning about different people, culture, beliefs, history, or a way of life despite what any right-wing bigot will tell you. Those right-wing bigots will tell you to isolate yourself to benefit them and keep you under their control when in reality, those motherfuckers don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves. It’s why they can hurt other people, especially the most vulnerable because they have no conscience, empathy, or compassion.

As the character of Ted Lasso said so well, “Be curious, not judgmental.”

Sunday Inspiration – Embrace Happiness

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This term, ‘embrace happiness’, popped into my head a couple of days ago and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. At first, I thought I needed to give bigger hugs to myself to be happy but now I’m thinking a series of smaller hugs will work better for me.

It’s difficult for me to write about happiness and I know that may sound really strange but happiness isn’t cut-and-dried for me. It’s not something I can sum up in a single catch-phrase or make a meme and go on about my business. Feeling happiness is difficult because it’s like your chest is loosening up and your body isn’t tense. So who wouldn’t want to feel that way? I know we can’t feel that way all the time but how often do we deny ourselves any real freedom of joy?

The answers to my questions are long and complex so I’ll do a high-level summary here instead. And yes, it does start in childhood but this is not about ‘blaming’ my parents for my problems. Because as I’ve said before: we were NOT having conversations back then like we are now.

This means back then people didn’t talk about feelings or how to deal with them like we do now. People knew they were messed up and in an almost-subconscious way they were trying to break the generational cycles they were raised and do better, but there were  lot of times it was swing-and-a-miss.

My late mother was raised in an extremely-conservative environment by my grandmother who embraced extreme Catholic conservativism in order to cope with being married to my grandfather who was a raging alcoholic because of untreated post-traumatic stress disorder due to his service in World War II. So on one hand my mom has a parent who micromanages everything she can to where my mother feels like she can’t have an original thought in her head at all because that’ll piss off both her parents who fight for control instead of talking things out like they should have in the first place.

Then there’s my late father with untreated bi-polar depression, meaning he can’t regulate his emotions that well. When he’s manic, he’s awesome- inspiring, supportive, and he can make you feel like anything is possible. But when he comes down, he crashes and burns and at best he’s over-protective of me and at his worst, he lashes out in rage then crashes into huge clouds of depression.

So as a child, I learned how to manage both of them. I learned from my mother not to be too outgoing in order not to attract negative attention though that is a lost cause due to me being born fat, clumsy, and ugly. And I turn into a people-pleaser in order to not be the target of my dad’s raging depression. But then something worse than this happens: my twenties.

In my twenties, I take on a lot of responsibility but I’m also an adult who wants to live her life. But no one else wants my responsibilities, which I’m totally alright with but at the same time, I feel like if I try to have some life of my own, I’m doing something horribly wrong. The people-pleasing leads people to think I’m at their beck-and-call twenty-four-seven and the over-protectiveness of my father has people thinking I can’t do normal things like go out and have a good time. My parents want me to be happy and think that if I just go about my business I’ll be okay. But in their good intentions, they made me think I didn’t have the right to stand up for myself, or the ability to do so in the first place.

Then in my thirties, I construct a façade of a responsible adult but I’m still afraid of stepping out of that carefully-controlled world and dealing with people’s shit. And that’s because of the people-pleasing and over-protectiveness I’m still tangled up in. But in my forties, this façade crumbles and I’ve been picking up the pieces ever since. Now as I stare down my next decade I’ve learned a few things:

One, I do have the right to be happy, to pursue my life and goals, and to fall on my ass and pick myself up like I always have.

Two, I’m more than willing to have conversations with people but at the same time, I’m not going to take shit for things I don’t have to take shit for. As I said to someone in my vehicle yesterday, “I’m not perfect, just experienced.”

But the main thing I’ve learned in thinking about happiness and feeling it is it’s not the grand symphony that I think too many of us chase. It’s more like a string quartet playing a sonata. It’s small moments that add up to bigger and better things.

A big hug is great, but a smaller hug will do just fine.