Happy Holiday, You Bastard! 2017

Okay, so every year (except for some reason, not last year. I don't know what could have been going on in my life that kept me from doing it), I post a Happy Holiday, You Bastard! blog on Thanksgiving with thirty things that I'm thankful for. This year, however, I'm going to do things a little differently.

Wait...I interrupt this post to tell you that upon reading this, I now know why I didn't write my traditional holiday blog last year. Funnily enough (except it's really not funny. Fittingly? Appropriately? Makes sensingly? (Can you tell I've been drinking?)), the reason I didn't post one is the same reason I'm doing things differently: Every time I acknowledge good, in comes bad. As a result, instead of writing about things I'm thankful for, I'm going to write about thirty things that I'm opposite of thankful for.

In short, I'm going to write about thirty things that suck.

And here they are:

Things That I'm Not Thankful For, 2017

1. The relationship (or lack thereof) between my sons. Out of all the things that I'm the opposite of thankful for, this would have to be number one. Griffin and Keifer can't stand each other, and when I say that, I'm in no way talking the normal type of sibling spat. I used to fight with my sister all the time; eventually, of course, we would make up because, like, that's what siblings do. Griffin and Keifer haven't spoken in six months, and according to Keifer, they'll never speak again.

2. Calories/metabolism/all things related to gaining weight. I think it's stupid--stupid!--that, one, people can't eat whatever they want and not gain weight, and two, some people can eat whatever they want and not gain weight while some people can't. I also think it's totally not fair that if I want a piece of cake and don't eat it, I don't somehow get weight credit for not eating it. Intentions and good behavior should count for something, right?

3. My genius body. My body is so smart and so advanced that it's figured out how to beat virtually every deodorant that exists. It's not that deodorants don't work on me--that would be a different issue entirely--it's that my body is so smart, it knows how to render deodorant ineffective after a few weeks of use. Right now I have four deodorants in my room that I use on a rotating basis in an attempt to trick my body into not being savvy enough to smell, but sadly, my body cannot be tricked.

4. Beets. They're fucking disgusting. Doesn't matter how you cook 'em, or don't, they're positively nauseous. For those of you who believe in God and like to argue that God doesn't make mistakes, I present the beet as evidence that you're wrong.

5. Donald Trump, anyone who voted for Donald Trump, and anyone who voted for/continues to defend Donald Trump. The man is a piece of shit. Don't pretend he's not. (And if you're not pretending and really think that he's not, you're probably a piece of shit, too.)

6. The mistreatment of cows.

7. T-Mobile's horrific signal anywhere in a one-mile radius around my house. Forget using the Internet or streaming music, I can't even talk on the phone.

8. A specific professor I had in 1997 who I'm so the opposite of thankful for, I just wrote a ratemyprofessor (or teacher) review for her last week. She taught Edgar Allan Poe as a transcendentalist and when our test asked why he was a transcendentalist, I wrote why he was not. Not only did I fail the test along with the rest of the class, but during her lecture about everyone failing, she said something about how somebody actually wrote that Poe wasn't a transcendentalist. Well, guess what Johnnie S? I'm an English professor myself now, and Edgar Allan Poe is a dark fucking romantic, and every time I teach him, I think of you and get sick. Poe, a transcendentalist. Lady, please.

9. Waking up early. I have never been, and never will be, a morning person. Call me before ten o'clock on a weekend, and I'll hate you for life.

10. Dog fur. Between Jazzy's wiry fur floating up and settling on everything from my bed to my dresser to the furniture to the dishes and Hudson's big fluffy tumbleweeds rolling around every room, my house is a sight, and I'm sorry to say, not a good one.

11. LGE Auto Sales in Wilton Manors, FL. If I told you all the things that went wrong with Griffin's five-thousand-dollar car that he just got in May, you wouldn't believe me. That company should be fucking ashamed.

12. Rain. I've never really been one to have a problem with rain, but it's the end of November, and it still hasn't stopped pouring all the time. I mean, come the fuck on. I didn't realize I lived in the actual rain forest. However, I did realize I lived in

13. Hell, or what is commonly referred to as South Florida. November 22 and it's ninety fucking degrees. I swear to God, I hate this place and everything about it.

14. Seaway canceling their headlining tour and opening for Neck Deep. They're not even coming to South Florida anymore. Thanks so much for the big fucking fuck you to your fans.

15. Kevin, or I guess maybe myself and my constantly being duped into thinking Kevin is a decent human being. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, right? Like, seriously, why am I so stupid, and what does it have to take?

16. How fast my fingernails grow.

17. An insane curl pattern that equals hair that's way straighter in the front than it is in the back.

18. Lil Peep dying. A lot of stars I've liked for a lot longer have died on me--Tom Petty, for one, John Hughes, for another. God, even fucking Joey Ramone--but none have thrown me for a loop the way that Lil Peep's dying has.

19. People who appear to be afraid to drive on the expressway but do it regardless. If you're on the highway, people, the gas pedal is your friend. Unless something is going on, there's no reason whatsoever you should be driving under 65 miles per hour; if that feels too fast to you, I disrespectfully say you need to take an alternate route.

20. Mass hysteria á la the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism and their modern counterpart, the entertainment industry (this is occurring a lot in Hollywood, yes, but pop punk, I'm really talking to you). You know, the type where one person points a finger, leading to the pointing of lots of other fingers, and a whole lot of crazy people finding things that aren't really there. To quote John Proctor in The Crucible, "Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as holy as God's fingers?"

21. Fear of change. If I'm going to talk about things I'm the opposite of thankful for, I can't not acknowledge the fear of change that's paralyzed me my entire life. If I weren't so afraid, there's just so much more I would do.

22. The condo association that runs the place where I live along with a whole lot of the people in it. I have to tell you, I hate this place. I'm surrounded by people who litter, people who let their dogs poop all over and don't clean it up, and people who are just disgusting in general. On top of that, the condo association has crazily insane rules that make me feel like I'm living in some type of communist regime. I know, you're wondering why I just don't move. See number 21, and you'll understand why I've lived here for sixteen years.

23. The custodial staff at Miramar High School. My school is fucking disgusting. There's been a spot of what I can only assume is period blood on the floor of one of the teacher bathrooms for over a month (and I'm not talking a microscopic spot that only I can see. This spot is the size of a dime or maybe even a penny). We're always out of soap, and when we do have it, we rarely have paper towels, so there's no way for us to dry our hands. I could go on and on, but just trust me when I say my school is gross. At least the upstairs part of it.

24. Social constructs.

25. Aging. I always knew I'd get older (or at least I naively figured I would. I know a lot of people don't get the chance), but I had no idea it would be this hard to accept. Every time I look in the mirror, I see an old person and don't know who she is. I used to look at old women like my Auntie Babe and Tante (both great aunts of mine) and just think that's how they looked. I never thought about the fact that they were once young with smooth, bright skin free of hyperpigmentation, big eyes, rosy cheeks, full hair, and if it fleetingly did in a way that I didn't really acknowledge, I certainly never entertained the idea that they might feel bad about having aged. From what I've learned from just about everybody my age or older that I know, though, this aging process is no fun for anyone.

26. My ex-Glenn. I know a lot of people don't have good relationships with their exes and this is kind of normal, but I feel like I'm safe in saying most people's exes are much better people than mine.

27. People who breed dogs or buy them from pet stores. The deaths and maltreatment of hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of dogs are on you.

28. Buffy the Vampire Slayer no longer being on Netflix.

29. My indecisiveness.

30. The state of my life right now. I have to say, I'm kinda sorta floundering. Griffin is gone, Keifer is never around and soon will be in school and out of the house, too. My school year is the pits. I feel like I've lost my purpose and my way, and I'm struggling to find it. I'm thinking maybe a doctorate or writing another book will make me feel better, maybe some type of volunteering, or even a second job that excites me more than the first one. Yesterday, I mentioned fostering kids to Keifer, so maybe I'll look into that. All I know is I have to do something more than I'm doing now because I hate feeling so aimless inside.

Wow, that number thirty is kind of a downer, huh?

Anyway. Despite my long list of things I'm the opposite of thankful for, Readers, I'm thankful for you (especially if you're the person who tells me to die all the time. I really find it very entertaining and wish you would stop by more), and so I bid you a Happy Thanksgiving, and as always, wish you lots of love and peace.

When I Die, Bury Me Without the Lights On

Life is such a weird thing. I think about that all the time in connection to bathrooms and cars. When I'm driving, I think about how most people never think about it, but in every single car, a separate story sits. To us, our own world is all that exists, but the woman in The Volkswagen Beetle in front of us, the family in the Ford Focus two lanes to the right, and the old man in the Cadillac (do Cadillacs have model names?) leaving an unnecessary and maddening 27 feet between his car and the car in front of his don't even know our world exists. Buffy in the Beetle is near tears because her boyfriend beat her up last night, and she wants to leave him, but she has nowhere else to go; Dudley, Dominique, Darla, Dudley Junior, and little Dwayne in the Ford Focus are fighting because Dudley, having just gotten fired, is stressed and yelling at everyone in sight; and Eustace in the Cadillac that might not have a model name can't think about anything but his recently deceased wife. Meanwhile, we got into a fight with one of our coworkers and tripped when we were rushing up the stairs to get away from him, breaking the bonding on our front tooth, and are on a mad dash to get to the dentist before five because it's Friday and we don't want to spend the weekend looking like we hang out on wooden porches drinking moonshine all night long. This, like the fact that people sit in public bathrooms mere feet away from each other touching their genitals--men at urinals without even a barrier! With their penises literally in their hands!--is something I think about all the time, and although the bathroom example might not seem similar to the car one, it's really the same thing. In both cases, despite being so close to one another, we are the only thing that exists.

I thought of this same concept today in terms of death. At just about 6:22 this morning, I got horrifically devastating, tragic news: Lil Peep was dead.

Wait. Let's do this again.

At about 6:22 this morning, I got horrifically devastating, tragic news to me: Lil Peep was dead.

It was tragic news to me--tragic enough that I had to turn my music off and ask my son for a hug and sit on my bed and cry and spend all day in a slump scrolling through Twitter as I searched Lil Peep while feeling sick inside--and tragic to my younger son--tragic enough that I either saw or heard him sobbing from roughly 6:25 when he began brushing his teeth until 7:03 when I dropped him off down the street from school and that he text me at 8:45 telling me he couldn't stop crying and later told me he sat in class crying right up until lunch--and tragic to my older son--tragic enough that he told me he'd like to get a switchblade tattoo for Lil Peep--and tragic to Lil Peep's family, friends, and fans--tragic enough for them to cry, feel sick, tweet, and post tributes to him--but it wasn't tragic news to the millions of people who'd either never heard of him or had heard of him and just didn't give a fuck that he was dead.

And this is where things feel weird.

If at some point in the last year Griffin didn't read an article about how Lil Peep was the future of emo and tell Keifer about him and Keifer didn't become completely obsessed with and in love with him and if I were a mom like most moms, well, there would be so many alternatives to the way things are: I would have no idea who Lil Peep even was; if I did know who he was, I wouldn't listen to him; I wouldn't know all about his background and his life; he wouldn't be a daily topic of conversation; he wouldn't have become part of the culture of our house. If any of the ifs, when Lil Peep died, I would either not know about it, not think twice about it other than in the context of, Wow, it's so sad when someone dies so young, or like a great deal of the world, pretty much just not care.

But the ifs
and so
the reality

My reality and thus, someone whose death could mean so little to me means so much.

Other people have their own realities.

Buffy in the Beetle is going to get a call that her mom has cancer tomorrow; Dudley, Dominique, Darla, and little Dwayne in the Ford Focus are going to have to bury Dudley Junior when he gets hit by a drunk driver the day after he turns nineteen; and we already know Eustice just recently lost his wife.

Buffy hurts. Dudley hurts. DominiqueDarlaDwayneEusticeJaredKurtSaraElsieJoeyRickDanTomKimToriSamJanDeanKrisAliGinaJenniferTraceyPaulJohnGeorgeRingoPickANameAnyNameAnyNameWillDo

All the names hurt.

All the names lose someone every single day.

And none of us know, but even if we somehow do--

...

I've Been Around the World a Million Times, and All You Men Are __________

When I say this is funny, what I really mean is that it's not funny at all; it is, however, coincidental. Two days ago, a blog was brewing in my head. Prompted both by a maddeningly ridiculous Twitter thread on which tons of women answered a tweet asking what they would do if men had a 9:00 curfew and the vast majority of responses said things like go outside, not be afraid, walk on the beach, sleep with my windows open, wear what I want, not carry my keys or pepper spray in my hands, and go for a jog and by a student of mine who insists sexism towards men doesn't exist and repeatedly responded eloquently with I don't understand every time I or someone else made a point to the contrary, I planned to write about the trendy vilification of men and the notion women have that they can't do anything, ever, without fear of being assaulted by them. I planned to write about the sheer idiocy of that claim, to tell you that I'm someone who was molested at nine and again at twelve and raped at thirteen, and yet other than the time that I was raped (read: in immediate danger) and one other time when things got kind of sketchy when I was alone with a certain male friend (read: in actual impending danger), I've never been afraid of anything simply because men exist. I both run and walk outside alone all the time, sometimes as late as one in the morning; I hang out with guys alone; I go to coffeehouses by myself (gasp! I'm alone at one right now. And it’s nighttime!); I drive hundreds of miles with no one else in the car. I do all these things and lots more that I won't go on and on about because I think you get the idea, and other than the one time with my shady friend, I have never felt threatened or in fear. This is what I intended to write about because it's absolutely true, and the assertion that all men are to be feared is simply ridiculous and insulting not only to men but also the mothers of men or boys who will be men one day. 

That, however, is not where this post is going to go. 

Make no mistake: I'm still not afraid of men. I didn't get assaulted on my way to sushi Saturday night nor was I attacked on the treadmill yesterday at the gym. It just so happens, though, that between Friday night and yesterday morning, I realized that men do hurt women, only the damage is much more subtle than that which women accuse them of. Men, in my opinion, don't go around physically hurting women left and right as is the idea du jour; what men are guilty of doing, however, is behaving as if we're theirs. 

You remember, I'm sure, my sort of recent post Party in My Pants and You're Not Invited, in which I told you about the friend who accused me of not being a nice person because I don't want to have sex with him but have sex with other guys as if I owed it to him to hop into his bed (or in my case, the back seat of my car) just because he thought I should. I don't think I ever mentioned this, but about a month after my legal divorce, my ex-Glenn began texting a guy who he didn't want me to see, reminding him he wasn't allowed to talk to me and harassing him to the point that he had to go to the police. This, by the way, was when my ex-Glenn was not only divorced from me but living with another woman. Living with another woman! Living with another woman, I repeat, yet controlling who I could and could not see. Prompting this post, two nights ago I had plans to hang out with a friend but didn't hear from him until yesterday morning when he sent me a text telling me that he "read the room" and could tell someone would make comments if I showed up, so he decided I "didn't need that stress." 

Did you get that? He decided I didn't need that stress. 

He. Fucking. Decided.

Am I the only person who sees a problem with this? 

I mean, I shouldn’t even ask because I know I'm not. When I told a girl, her exact response was, Who is [name withheld in an attempt to avoid drama] to decide what you need and what you don't need? 

And in total reinforcement of my point, when I told a guy, his response? I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it.

Because to the guy, like it would be to the majority of guys as demonstrated by their behavior, this action was perfectly fine. Men seem to think that we're incapable of making our own decisions and unable to take care of ourselves. When I write this, I think not just of myself and the three situations I just wrote about but also the guy I know who plans on beating up a certain guy because he thinks he cheated on a girl that he cares about, like it's his job to protect her and the other guy who found out something bad happened to a girl he used to date and secretly went into her social media accounts to find the guy who did it and avenge the wrong. Maybe the sentiment is nice--maybe--but it comes from a totally misguided idea about what is/what is not someone's right. I'm also thinking of the guy who had sex with his ex-girlfriend for months and when she refused to leave her boyfriend, contacted him on Snapchat to let him know what was going on because she shouldn't be allowed to behave that way. I’m even thinking of the good-natured husband who right this second told his wife she can’t have another beer because even though he means well and is a really good guy, it’s not his decision to make.

It’s not his decision to make 

because

we are not playthings 

we are not possessions 

we are not mindless 

we are not kids

Women do not need saving

but 

if ever we do, we can save ourselves.