Questions

I saw these on another blog and thought they were interesting.

2 moments you'd like to erase:
Taking off my top and trying to seduce a man who had no interest in me.
When I was in high school, calling the principal and pretending to be my mother. I could tell right off he didn't buy the fake accent.

4 moments you'd like to relive:
The birth of my daughter.
The moment I was the center of attention on my high school's smoking stoop.
The afternoon at the cafe with Rory.
While I was on the Bernstein program, those lunchtime clothes-shopping sprees and looking at myself in the mirror looking so fucking great. (Okay, I cheated -- I know that's more than one moment.)

2 places you wouldn't want to go/go to again:
My seventh grade homeroom.
Any sleazy motel room.

4 places you can't wait to visit/visit again:
Europe -- specifically: Paris, London, Rome, Florence, and anywhere in between.
Midland, Ontario.
Florida.
Any regular-size clothing store where I would actually be able to shop.

2 foods you can't stand:
Beets.
Kielbasa.

4 foods you love:
Chinese -- specifically: shrimp chow mein, egg rolls, mixed vegetable stir fries.
Pizza
Ice cream
Chocolate

2 current songs that make you change the station:
That fucking Blue October song. Can't stand it.
This isn't current, but the second I hear even one note of "Hotel California", it's station-changin' time.

4 songs you play over and over:
... off the top of my head:

"When the Levee Breaks", by Led Zeppelin
"Discotheque", by U2
"Weak and Powerless", by A Perfect Circle
"Love Song", by Simple Minds

2 books you've never finished, or would never read again:
"A Suitable Boy" by Vikram Seth (never finished)
"The Witching Hour" by Anne Rice (can never finish any of her books)

4 books you have read more than once, or will read again:
"Alias Grace" by Margaret Atwood
"The Robber Bride" by Margaret Atwood
"Serpentine" by Tom Thompson (Thomson?) -- non-fiction
"I Know This Much is True" by Wally Lamb

True Confessions

I spend a hell of a lot of time on the Internet. Probably way too much time. I surf when I'm bored, which is often, and nowadays it's usually at work. When I was unemployed, I spent a lot of time on the computer at home. The point is, I look at God-knows-how-many websites per day and there aren't too many that keep me coming back. There are the blogs of my regular readers, of course :-) I always pop in and see what they have been up to. And, there are a couple of others.

The one I've chosen to write about today is called Not Proud (www.notproud.com).

I have never been one for small talk. I have always felt awkward and uncomfortable with socially-acceptable behaviour like office gossiping. I'm sure you know the verbal quagmires I'm talking about. I've always been a "big" thinker, or a "deep" thinker, if you will, and the kinds of conversations I hear around me on a daily basis do not exactly facilitate discussing the kind of things I find myself thinking about. It stands to reason, then, that the kind of websites I frequent on a regular basis are not going to be stupid, silly, juvenile stuff (unless I'm REALLY bored).

Notproud.com is a place where people can go and anonymously post "confessions" about their lives. There are topics like Lust, Greed, Pride, Envy (as a matter of fact, they are the seven deadly sins) to help you sort out exactly what you want to confess. I can spend hours there. It is really captivating reading. People literally spill their guts out in this website, and I have read things that made me really stop and think about human nature.

We are all alike, and we hide so much from each other. How much of ourselves do we really show other people -- even those closest to us, like our spouses, boyfriends/girlfriends, children, parents, siblings? I think people are very much like icebergs, in the sense that 90% of them are hidden or invisible, and it is only the surface that we allow people to see. Some people might go to this website and say they are shocked, or disgusted, by what they read. But they are kidding themselves. The very same people could scroll through the confessions and see many things that apply just as well to them.

Here are a few examples so you can see what I'm talking about (I guess I should say here that the italicized material is the property of NotProud.com):

My mother's boyfriend shot and killed himself while on the phone with her. Sometimes I think about doing the same to you, except in my thoughts, I show up on your doorstep and do it right in front of you. I would never, could never do it, but for once, I'd like someone to feel as much pain as I do, and since you're the source of a good part of that pain right now, I want that someone to be you.

I've been there. Haven't you?

When I'm taking a crap in a public restroom and someone comes in, I make loud straining noises and cough and hack up phlegm and try and provoke a reaction from them. I always fuck it up because I start laughing my ass off.

And I laughed my ass off reading that. :-)

I hate my wife. She is so stupid. Why did I marry her? The baby she was carrying, who I love so much, is the reason. I wish I could just have my baby and find a new wife. I wish she would die so a better wife could be mine.

Can't you just picture this guy going home and saying, "Hi, honey. How are you?" I can.

When I eat potatos I secretly imagine that they are feet.

Hmmmm. :-)

As you can see, the material on this website ranges from the whimsical to the devastatingly painful and raw. There is anger and hostility:

All my friends know that I am a communist. But recently, I have realized that I might actually be a facist. Oh god, I can't decide. There's just a part of me that really wants to be a stormtrooper and wander around in jackboots beating people. Not good.

Before you say, Oh my God, what a sicko, be honest with yourself ... haven't there been times in your life when you wanted to pound and stomp and beat someone into oblivion? Or bludgeon or stab them to death? We all have.

This next one was so painfully lonely and sad I wanted to cry:

For many years I drank and took drugs. Friday will be 13 years clean and sober. I want to drink myself to death. Nobody cares about me nor am I loved. Never have been held and told that I'm important to anyone. My mom tells me she does, after I tried to kill myself once. After I got out of the hospital. I told her she never told me. So now she does out of fear I may do something again. I've never wanted to be rich or famous. Just accepted and loved. I see girls holding and kissing their bf. No girl ever did that to me. It hurts when I see them doing that. Everyone always talks about how angry I am. I'm not angry at them. I'm angry at life for giving me a ugly face and teeth. I posted an ad on yahoo personals 4 months ago. No replys. I emailed girls and was turned down. I am a grown man. 47. Looks like I will go through life alone. Nobody wants a piece of ugly shit like me. I'm gonna blow my fucking brains out some time this year. I'm setting a date. I think even god has just about washed his hands with me. Maybe the bugs will come see me when I'm buried. I want to put a stop to the pain. I'm crying as I type this. I'm so lonely. I'm not a sissy or gay. Just sad and I wish I had the balls to do it tonight. All womon look for is money and good looks. Never whats in a mans heart.

This whole post made me squirm, but the "bugs" line really got to me. There are people who go through life every day having thoughts like these and never being able to talk to anyone about it because no one cares. I hope this man found the strength to go on.

I saved the saddest one for last:

I yell a lot at my dad and say "I hate you!" but I don't really mean it. I kissed a stranger and when he put tongue in I didn't stop him until a few seconds had passed. I wish it never happened. I stole a hairclip a few years ago and wanted to return it but I lost it and won't be going back to the place. Do I still have a chance of going to heaven? I need to because my mom is there.

Can't you just see this girl standing by the side of the road with her thumb out, and then later on standing on a street corner hooking to support her crack habit? I sure can.

This is the real humanity that surrounds us every day. Not the starched, primped, perfectly coiffed people we see on so-called "reality t.v." and in magazines.

NotProud is not taking any new confessions. When you have some time, go and check it out. I'm sure you'll recognize yourself in the words of other people.

Audience Participation Required

Hi there! Sorry it's been so long since my last post. It's not that I haven't had much to say -- more like, I've been too lazy and apathetic to say it. However, I'm feeling that writing/blogging urge grab hold of me again, and voila! Today's post.

I would much appreciate your feedback on the following. I have felt somewhat slighted recently by some minor incidents, and would like to know if you feel they are worthy of my consternation. They're amusing, anyway.

Incident #1:
This occurred at work. I had gotten my hair cut and highlighted the weekend before. The highlights turned out quite blonde ... normally I like them golden-blonde, as they blend more nicely with my natural colour, which is a light brown. But this hairdresser kept me under the dryer for what felt like six hours, so they turned out more whitish blonde. Anyway, I was sitting at my desk at work and my boss came in to talk to me about something. She saw me and stopped and stared, and said in a flat voice, "Oh. THAT's a change." I knew she was referring to my hair and I felt a little self-conscious about the bright blonde myself, so I said, "Yeah, I got it cut and highlighted on the weekend." She just kept staring at me, not smiling, and then says, "Do you like it?" That comment alone told me SHE obviously didn't, and I just said, "Well, it turned out a lot blonder than I thought, but after a week or two it should tone down." "Oh yeah, for sure," she says, "that always happens with mine." Then she leaves after handing me some task or other.

I felt this was rather rude and offensive. I mean, even if I don't like what somebody's done with their hair, if I've already acknowledged the fact that I noticed they did SOMETHING to it, don't you think it's polite to lie and say you think it's nice? She couldn't have been more obvious about her opinion if she had shouted it in my face.

Plus, get this: the very next week, she made an appointment to get her hair done. :-)

Incident #2:
Another work incident. The Welsh guy I work with and I trade movie trivia all the time, and I happened to mention this film I thought he would love, called Maborosi. It's a Japanese film and one of the most exquisite movies I have ever seen in my life. I recommend it to all of you. Anyway, I have the dvd, and I offered to bring it in for him. He said, thanks, I'd love that, and the very next morning, I brought it in and he was all excited, going, I can't wait to see this. He said he was going to watch it on the weekend. One week goes by. I ask him if he's watched it. He says, no, I didn't get around to it. Do you mind if I keep it for another week? I said no problem, feeling annoyed, knowing he probably wasn't going to watch it. Another week goes by. And another. I ask him again if he's watched it. "Something always keeps coming up," he says, smiling. I go, yeah, sure, whatever, thinking: Fucken asshole. Another few days go by and he tells me he's watched HALF of it. Wow, that's progress, I'm thinking. Then the other day I come in and the dvd is sitting on my chair with a post-it on it saying THANK YOU. He comes in to chat with me and my colleague and I asked him what he thought of it. He just smiled and said, "It was beautiful." I said, "What did you think of the scene where ..." and I went into great detail describing this very beautifully-filmed montage, the very heart of the film. He's giving me this blank stare as I'm talking and I stopped and said, "You're looking at me like you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, do you?" And he and my colleague laugh and he goes, "No." I said, "Did you watch it?" And he's like, "MOST of it." Uh huh. I doubt this guy watched the second half or even at all.

Don't you think that if someone goes to the trouble to bring in one of their own dvds to loan you to watch, you should watch it? Especially if you have expressed great interest in watching it? I kept wondering how I was going to get it back from him, because it was obvious he was in no hurry to make use of it. I felt like such an idiot when I was describing that scene and he was looking at me like, What the fuck is she going on about? I was really looking forward to discussing it with him, it would have been a great conversation piece we could have shared. Dammit all.

Incident #3
This was a husband-induced slight, in my eyes the most minor of the three, but still enough of a slight to merit mention here. He was talking in the car with my daughter one day, saying, "Wait till you come over tomorrow. You'll get a real surprise." I was like, what? She asked him if he'd painted her room because he was planning to do that. No, he says. It turns out he repainted OUR bedroom. I was like, huh? Apparently he's painted it a shade of blue. I looked at him and said, "Don't you think you should have consulted me before you painted it?" After all, I'm going to be in that bedroom too. It would have been nice to be in on the colour, especially since my husband and I don't exactly have the same decorating taste. "Yeah, I guess," he said sheepishly. But ... what??????? Why didn't he? That shade of blue was too hypnotic, or captivating, or what?

So, there you have three incidents in which I have recently felt slighted. Please tell me, kind readers, if you would: Which do you think is the worst of the three, why, and what would you have done or said?

Thank you for your input. :-)

The Grass Isn't Always Greener

In my case, it's actually been more like a big brown patch of dog-piss delight. And believe me, that is no exaggeration.

My husband and I have been to see a counsellor a few times. To my surprise, it has been somewhat helpful. Whereas before, I always went halfheartedly, this time I went with an open mind, and an actual willingness to get something positive out of it.

Altogether, me and my husband have been separated for a little over 10 months. It has been an amazingly difficult, frustrating, educational experience. When I left -- don't ask me why -- I thought it would be easy. Maybe it was all those fucking self-help books that warp my bookshelves and weigh them down with platitudes like, "If there's a will, there's a way", and "If you can dream it, be it." I have nothing against positive thinking. As a matter of fact, I believe that positive thinking is essential for a happy life. However, there is a big difference between positive thinking and delusion. I think I deluded myself in a lot of ways when I left. I thought I would not have that much trouble meeting someone else -- I'm talking just meeting someone else, never mind having a relationship! Even meeting someone seemed impossible to me. Everyone I connected with was either a total loser or just ... trifling. Perhaps if I stuck it out another five years, out of the law of averages I would finally connect with someone who I believe is "meant for me". But you know what? I'm not willing to take that risk anymore.

My husband told me from the beginning he didn't want me to leave. He told me he loved me. He told me that even though I had hurt him beyond his ability to explain it, he still wanted to be married to me. This, in spite of the fact that he found out I was cheating. This, in spite of the fact we spent half our time screaming at each other either in person or over the phone. The coup de grace came one night after work, after I told him I wanted a divorce, and had stopped by the house to try and temporarily settle a couple of things. Despite the fact we had spent about half an hour screaming at each other on the phone that afternoon, when I walked in I could tell he was just glad to see me, and when I sat down on the couch, I saw a copy of the Holy Bible on the coffee table. I realized then that this man had reached the end of his tether, and I realized I had too. Leaving, I thought, would give me a new lease on life. I would finally be happy after I got a few glitches out of the way. What a crock.

The counsellor we went to see ended up making me realize a lot of things, one of which is that I have blamed my husband for a lot of things that are not his fault at all. I realized this once I lived on my own, but I tried to keep that realization at bay as long as I could. When an unpleasant reality begins to sink in, you tend to try and crawl away from it as much as you can. Well, I can't crawl anymore.

I realize now that I have been blessed to have a husband who has never gone away, no matter how much I tried to push him away. I have decided that instead of whining and moaning about the differences between us, and expecting him to compensate for every single one of them while not compensating for my own faults, I am going to be grateful. This guy has never gone away. He has never told me I'm too fat. He has never told me I'm not young enough or hot enough for him. As a matter of fact, he has told me time and again how much he loves me and how much I turn him on.

Yours truly has woken up from her deep slumber. The hard realities of life have been this Sleeping Beauty's princely kiss.

LIFE IS NOT PERFECT. IT NEVER WILL BE.

Time to start recognizing this, and making up for lost time, instead of chasing some futile fairy tale.