All the Happy Changes...

Love and Money (album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Long ago and far away a blog post was written... and the writer was never heard from again.

My postings here have become undeniably sporadic (at best) and for that I do apologize (to those of you who still even read my rabble).

I've largely unplugged.

Due in part to willingly giving up my computer most days to the teenagers in the house; due in part to living a life full of people and doin's that don't involve my spending time on the computer.

I know... ME... the woman that wrote a love post to her 'puter. 

But sometimes when prayers are answered, they take you in directions you could not have predicted in your happy little scenario of what you hoped for... which is actually better.

I'm one of those people who never seems to get exactly what I had envisioned, and most times instead, I get exactly what I really needed.

I had been praying quite simply... for love and money. There it is God, do with it what you will; that's what I want, please handle it Father.

I got a man with four children at home that took me into his life. And the five of them healed me in ways and places that I had forgotten were, in shards, broken. They help me grow. I am undoubtedly a better person than I was before him... before all of them.

I got a job... with potential... who knew? God and my man knew. Because of them both, and my age and experience, I am doing well financially... for me anyway. I have a long way to go, but I finally feel strong and centered enough to run with the ball that I'm blessed to be carrying after all this time.

Between the love and the money, getting what I asked for couldn't be sweeter. I work hard, put in a lot of hours and enjoy the people in my life beyond the keyboard. I'm looking at houses for rent. I'm looking to replace my 12 yr old car because I commute now and need one with less wear. I'm looking forward to building a great life with my children front and center in it, so they can see how Mama rolls... when she hasn't let her life be run by someone other than herself.

Which is something I had done for a really long time. 

I don't know why I was so afraid to run my own life. I kept handing it over to my men... and let's face it, when it comes to picking the right guy for me, I suck at it.

Until now... but that was mostly due to my angels taking the reins out of my hands... Thank GOD! Because the man I have now doesn't even try to run it... he just helps me run it, and that makes a huge difference.

So it's Good Friday... and all my Fridays are good now... and getting better every week.

Thank you God. I love you too.

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Media Lemmings and the Demise of Veracity

Image via WikipediaSeriously?

The Today Show showed a segment about pets being kidnapped (obviously someone in the writers room deciding to scare couples who have pets instead of kids). Springer had two women wrestling in BBQ sauce over a guy (kudos to the girlfriend who jumped out, slapped the man and said that he wasn't worth it... in a much more colorful way than is portrayed here; even if she went along at first.)

So again I ask, "SERIOUSLY???"

We are such a populace of lemmings, willing to follow each other over the cliff into the death of mental reasoning.

A people willing to reiterate whatever they hear from the bought-and-paid-for media as absolute truth without doing any follow-up research on their own as to the veracity of the content. Yet, we're convinced to the point of passing along news that we have no idea about (beyond an Ann Curry report) as if the fate of the free world depends on our conviction as we reiterate what we think we know.

Let's be honest here, the integrity of the media went out the window long ago, but we have the temerity to showcase William Randolph Hearst as if his pioneering tactics in controlling the news were so insidious because he was one man.

Now it's being run by conglomerates... but the same tactics are employed. Control of the perception of the public with a slant toward consumerism.

We denounce all of the cover-ups of the past as so scandalous, but we fall for the ones being perpetrated today with no thought whatsoever.

The news makes you fear rapes, murders, and war; then conveniently shows ads for home security systems during the commercial breaks.

Duh. Wake the fuck up, People! It's pathetic.

Aren't we better than this? Or are we simply so complacent in our mental atrophy that we have nothing left to think that isn't programmed into our media-laden lives?

We just don't want to know? No, we don't. We have jobs to do, and kids to shuttle around as we let government preside over more and more of our lives because it's just easier to shout outrage at the laws they're passing than to accept responsibility for our own actions.

Seriously! (again!) Let's pass seat belt laws because someone I know chose... CHOSE... to not wear one and I miss him or her and no one else ever on the face of the earth should go through this pain so let me regulate that everyone else in the foreseeable future to keep another horror like this from happening, and let's fine anyone who doesn't tow the line to pay for my $20K a year raise from my brand new designer desk.

A potentially good idea turned to a money making enterprise because people aren't willing to take responsibility for the actions of themselves and/or deal with the actions of the others in their immediate orbit. Emotional projectile vomiting on the public with an eye on turning a profit.

Stupidity used to be the survival-of-the-fittest way to weed out the population, now we HAVE to keep EVERYONE alive!!! But the only way to do this is to lower our standards until most people are stupid and let the government, through it's media outlets, decide how best to run our lives... let's face it, more people means more money and greed rules the day, under a thin disguise of compassion.

Think I'm talking crazy? How long have movie stars and the rich and famous 'sold' various fashions? How far fetched is it to think that the brainiacs of this country, under the multi-trillion-dollar financed company, called the federal government, tapped into this mass-mind-control method and decided to sell their ideas to the public this way?

Step one: Reduce the IQ of the population by feeding it nothing but mental junk-food; Springer has been on the air for 20 years... Survivor, American Idol... nothing thought provoking. Nothing topical. No Meat and Potatoes for the brain.

Step two: Drive the country into the ground like ya stole it cause you did George W. Bush by inflating emotional response and inciting war with your co-conspirators, because emotional responses reduce critical thinking. Fill our heads with keywords like 'terror' to put us in that fearful mindset year after year until we beg our leaders to do something to 'protect us' because we're so scared we can't think straight.

Step three: Sling shit and sell, sell, sell until we have a completely complacent society that we control with our earning potential through what we tell the media to portray. More people means more money and more money means that I can afford to survive when Earth reaches it's carrying capacity and people start dying off in droves because I'm rich through the aforementioned tactics and I've got the means to afford the Gucci insurance.

*frustrated eyeroll*

I guess what I'm trying to say is, "Quit Buying In". Stop the apathy and think beyond what is said on facebook or the 5 o'clock news.

I won't say any more because I don't want to be targeted by whatever government agency it is that assassinates those who think freely and try to pass along some iota of common sense. CIA? FBI? NSA?... Nah, I'd probably be gunned down by the FCC.

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Breathe

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeWell, I've gone back over to an old site that pays (very little) for writing online articles to order.

It's just as mind numbing as I remember. For one thing, the article topics never seem to be of interest to me, even when they're in fields in which I have knowledge or interest. I guess that's what they're paying us poorly for... to illicit interest in topics that sound as thrilling as watching paint dry in a room with no lights.

However, where I have had some good fortune lately as far as my writing goes, is in my long threatened book. That is going more brilliantly than it ever has. Buuuut, not exactly lucrative as of yet.

So I have to breathe. Like Faith sings, "...just breathe"

It's both harder and easier to breathe these days. Easier because things are going quite well in almost every area of my life; except financially. Which makes things harder on my man, and by proxy (and conscience) on me.

He doesn't complain. He doesn't make me feel bad about it. Which is incredible per my past experiences, but it does make it very difficult for me to not bring in money. He deserves better, namely help with some zeros after it.

Earning has never been my strong suit. Never.

Budgeting with what is available, that is my strong suit. But it's a bit brassy to tell someone who is earning the money how to spend the money better when you aren't earning any yourself. No matter how good the advice is, it is counter intuitive to accept it. I operate best on OPM, mainly because OP have more M than I could ever hope to have. Knowing this, as sure as I'm breathing, makes it difficult for someone with my money hang-ups to speak up.

And writing isn't even paying my bills, much less contributing to his.

So I'm going to have to juggle more than I have in a very long time: a good relationship, a full time job (one of those elusive buggers has to come through eventually!), his kids, my kids, and serious writing time and effort in order to fulfill my destiny.

When God loads your plate, He loads it full. Now I just hope He also gave me enough mental, emotional, and manual dexterity to not lose my balance and dump everything on the carpet as I'm walking through.

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Hormones Rear Their Ugly Head... Again

Image via Wikipedia

I don't know about you, but my hormones are making me crazy.

Yes, some of it is age, but most of it is that wretched bitch, Florence...and yet again, I do not mean Italy, and some of it is situational.

Hormones plus bad past life experiences plus current issues can raise hell even in the best of relationships; one of which I currently happen to be in. Even so, what my hormones are telling me I am hearing is not what is being said, and I am in the process of imploding.

One would think that seeing the implosion as it is happening would mean that I should be able to stop it cold and get back on track. It should mean that.

However... what it does mean is that I speak and act and project my issues... unabridged... and that can get ugly. Fears and insecurities seeping out for anyone wise enough and with enough give-a-damn to recognize them wrapped in their armor of bitchiness. Those that are not or do not, find themselves run through with my rapier. While those that are or do get the nicks and cuts all the same.

My sharp tongue doth cut a swath! (sorry, I'm reading Girl With A Pear Earring by Tracy Chevalier... It's returned my thoughts to my thrice ingrained Shakespearian training)

Seriously though, my mother has told me for years that my mouth was going to get me into trouble. I'm a verbal mess. Which is probably why I prefer to write... I can edit myself.

So I find myself feeling incredibly precariously positioned even though I'm in less danger of messing up than I think I am; if I get off my ass and do what needs to be done without the snarky comments. My past is just rising up to meet my circumstances and slap me around a little.

Ah, the vast landscape that is the battlefield of my particular mind. Its a battlefield we all face though, in our own way. But the committee in my mind has grown wise... and sneaky. Instead of shouting at me until I was nothing more than a vessel, bursting forth with exact phasiology from inside my head; now it whispers gently, almost imperceptably... but with greater manipulation.

So I am left to tame the shrew as it were, and not behave as one.

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Generosity of Spirit Movement

I used to post LMFAO Fridays because let's face it, I had an aecerbic wit.

That particular brand of wit only comes out once in a while now... just not feeling all that aecerbic.

I'm too happy for aecerbic. Which is a little bad for writing comedy, because there's no tension, except for the conditioned drama inside my own mind...and even that has become infrequent and easily quieted. Life's good. Makes writing snarky comments hard. So instead, I'm changing to a new program.

Kudos Fridays are more along the line of my current thinking... a Generosity of Spirit Movement if you will.

Inspired by a picture I found on facebook this morning. Thank you to the 'PUNK' in the picture for your showing of joy and consideration for another human being; may we all be as generous during our respective days.

Taken from  Kristine Grandt but only because it was reposted by one of my facebook friends, and of course I then turned around and reposted it as well...

Psst... let's all pass this one around and start a Generosity of Spirit Movement! Isn't it all about being the change you want to see in the world?

Took me 40 years to get that one concept.

What you put out there (to the Universe) comes back to you. And I for one could stand a world full of people that are generous of spirit. Seems we (as a whole of humanity) have forgotten to treat other people as... People.

We've forgotten the Golden Rule (refresher!): Do unto others as you would have done to you.

And it shows.

Everywhere.

In the cart-blocking lady at the grocery store who couldn't give a hoot that she's taking up the entire lane, but expects you to go around her... let me break that down:  EXPECTS... you... to go around her... so that she should not be bothered having to show the slightest bit of consideration for other... human beings... while she makes her selections.

When did RUDE become the American standard INSIDE AMERICA?

Apparently, obviously, this is how we got the world reputation of 'Rude American'.

Like it or not, that's our proper title internationally.

I'm sick of it being indicative of any trip out of the walls of my own home... Thank God it's not the way I live...anymore. I sure spent my fair share of years in hostile environments that I called home.

I've found a new way. Kindness, generosity, thoughfulness, and consideration for others. And it comes back to you. So put out there what you want back. If you're tired of your situation, change your attitude and things WILL improve... and let me say to the microwave, video-game, instant download generations... It takes more than one act, or one day, or one week... If you truly want it to change, INVEST- in your future surroundings... by being generous of spirit everytime you are able for the rest of your days.

I promise; smiling from the inside out is so worth it.

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Sometimes You Get What You Asked For

I feel this urge to write... feels like forever since I was able to get onto my own computer. Well, that's kids for you... which is a good thing.

I...I...I...(gosh I sound selfish!)...I...I...I... (oh thank God! some me time! Oh shit, what do I do with me time anyway?) who am I kidding... I'm going to wind up doing for me by doing for others around me. It makes life a whole hell of a lot more pleasant. Like belting out Fall Into Me by Sugarland full throat with no one home...

WHOA! Buh-sted! Of course I was singing it for my man...who was at work, but came in to me 'killing cats'... I HAD THE HEADPHONES ON!!! Talk about mortification! I asked for it *hugeburgandyblush!!!*

And when I say that I asked for it, I mean that even before I hit preschool I used to sing to Sesame Street cast members in my living room... I've been asking for someone to sneak up on me and catch me singing forever...most notably when I was belting it out alone...to someone in particular...who would, of course think I sounded phenomenal...but I was killing cats

Which isn't exactly the way it turned out... but I got what I asked for. Sometimes it turns out better than I expected, and considering... eh, I'll take it. He wasn't mean about it (and I've had that before!), he didn't interrupt me (I've had that before)... He let me belt it out in full and then made his presence known and in no uncertain terms let me know it was bad, but gently. I can live with that.

Oh well, Baby! It sucked rocks, but I meant every word.

Blessings, and may your long ago wishes be granted; even if it makes you uncomfortable.

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Oh What A Beautiful Moooooorning...

I feel like...Gordon MacRae...

"Oh what a beautiful moooooorning! Oh what a beautiful day...."

It was from the movie Oklahoma, and my father used to sing it in the car when we'd drive somewhere. He also used to sing Zippidy Do Dah, but I knew that was from Song of the South because I loved that story about br'er rabbit tricking mean ole br'er fox and br'er bear.

Guess I always loved the underdog that became the top dog stories; or maybe I just enjoyed being in on the joke. Maybe life is finally letting me in on the jokes...a little.

Because it is a beautiful morning, Mr. MacRae... Despite all kinds of life circumstances that should probably have me on my knees, I'm standing tall and smiling from the inside out.

I'm happy. Truly, deeply, light-filled happy; and I can tell you, that hasn't happened in so long I didn't remember what it really was like. Oh, I've had glimpses of it over the last several years, but achieving it for any length of time just didn't happen. Until recently.

Being surrounded by Divine connections will do that to a person, regardless of what the world throws at 'em.

Did you ever find yourself in a conversation and all of a sudden snap-to, realizing that a question had been asked of you, and answered by you totally absent of your conscious thought?

I haven't had that happen very often, but it did four months ago. A regular customer at the store whom I had had slightly more than the standard-customer-banter with came in and asked me out. He asked me if I had a boyfriend and I answered him, "No." before it even registered.

Those were my angels. Making sure I didn't miss my blessing.

I'm a romantic, so I'll spare you the hearts and flowers and just put it like this: I've met many people who have made me want to be a better person; he helps me be one simply by being himself.

Everything he saw as a personal detriment in himself, is something I see as wonderful about him (or at the very least, doesn't bother me in the slightest). He feels the same about me. He fits... in all the ways I asked for, even when I had no idea what getting them would look like in real life. It's mind blowing in the best sense.

But Wait!!! There's More!!!

I know I posted last year about my unlikely friendship with Mrs. Tex-ex. Well my girl came through with such a major blessing and total friendship that we have literally become bff's, in the high school equivalent of grown-up friendship... up to, and including sleep-overs and help moving when I lost my apartment a few weeks ago. A long lost soul-sister that heals me as I heal her over morning coffee and cigarettes after Jas goes to school.

Sometimes it's by marathon texting sessions when the weight of the world seems too much; too inwardly, intimately, brutal to trust anyone else with the details of the vicious inner workings of our brains as they shred us to pieces. We share them without fear of condemnation; exorcising the darkness by examining it with the light produced when the two of us get together.

If I ever finish a book, one of the dedications will be to Tex-ex thanking him for having the good sense to throw me out and marry his wife. It was the best thing that could have happened to all of us.

Want the kicker? My boyfriend, Tex-ex, Mrs. Tex-ex and I are all on great terms. Like hanging out and having dinner and the kids all playing in the yard kind of great terms.

Is this a great life or what?!?

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Wow I Missed You... OK, Not Really, But It Sounds Better Than Life Happens

You mofos ain't gonna belieeeeve this shiiiit!

Yes, yes, I know... I haven't been here since August of last year.

Shame on me for leaving you hanging with no follow up to my then current upheaval. It's alright, I got what I deserved karmically for doing so... more upheaval!

I could serve you legitimate excuses the computer died again, I had to give up my internet access for financial reasons, I lost my apartment for the same reasons months later, but I won't. Life threw me some curve balls and I honestly didn't feel like chronicling them. Some were incredibly disheartening, others just lessons that I had to learn again.

So, did I learn my lesson?

Ummm... kinda...

Survey says: New Direction!

I'm not working... and here I go actually throwing myself into my writing for the first time in years. Doing the "I swear I'm serious about my writing!" thing...even if it sounds like a bullshit cop-out since I haven't worked in three months and haven't written anything of real consequence in longer than that.

Yeah. Well... fuck it, and here we go with the nitrous button broken off; which is just kind of how it always seems to work out for me. So... new...old... whatever. It's the current gameplan. *shrugs*

Like the inspiring tree of life, I embrace my twisty limbs and grow off into something a little different...even though I'm still a tree... or an Aria... same difference.

One day I'll look like Alan Greenspan (we share a birthday...just not the same financial acumen) in that picture up there... Like he's telling a rapt crowd, "HOLY SHIT! I FUCKED UP, but I survived, in fact I learned how to LIVE and look at all of you listening to me like I know something now! HA!"

So the journey begins yet again, and this time I'm writing it ALL down.

Because honestly, if I don't, no one will believe what is going on and years from now when they do my biopic it will be considered a work of fiction and then I'll be accused of plagiarism and be fined instead of paid. See the problem?

So get ready... Unabridged insanity is about to follow... or in my case: that with which the Universe has blessed me even if it sounds mental and totally made up .

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