This Post May Only Make Sense In My Head

So I'm a bit depressed, which always translates into me writing crap that I delete. Or staring at Twitter until I think it's a good idea to join the #WEAREYELLINGABOUTSOAP Twitter party. Yeah, Backpacking Dad, I'm looking at you.

Anyway, one advantage to staring at Twitter and Facebook instead of being productive is that I find new posts to read. Not that I don't already have approximately a million posts to read in my Google Reader. But opening my reader makes me feel guilty and who needs that when she's already depressed? Exactly. But when I see posts somewhere else, in between tweets about soap, for example, then I can read without feeling guilty about the other 999,999 posts I'm not reading.

So I read this post by Aunt Becky. And it ticked me off, because I love some Aunt Becky and I hate nasty comments. If you want to pick on other people, write your own damn blog. Also, don't hate on Aunt Becky. Angie at A Whole Lot of Nothing then wrote a brilliant post about it. So, you know, what she said. I try to be funny and/or positive when I leave comments on blogs, because to me that's the whole point of leaving a comment.

But anyway, then I read Perez Hilton. And while I do like the fact that Perez writes his bitchy comments on his own damn blog instead of just making nasty comments on other people's, you can't deny that he can be mean as hell. And sure, he's usually being mean as hell about some celebrity who has gobs of money and has chased fame in some way and is not a blogger slaving away who probably does not have gobs of money (and if s/he does, it's probably not from blogging). But.

It's the same sort of thing, isn't it? Despite all that plastic surgery and money, celebrities are actual people. And would I actually say any of the mean things I have said about various celebrities to their faces? No. *

I used to work with this amazing woman, N. She was just the kindest person you ever met. She saw the best in everyone and had love for the most challenging kids. When she died way too freaking young, the church was filled with people whose lives she had made better. And I swore to myself that I would try harder to look for the good in people, to keep her kindness going.  She would want you to know that she once told me to start with myself.

But suddenly I had a 15 month old and a newborn and an imploding school and then we moved back to NJ and all sorts of old demons came back to haunt me. So I kinda forgot. But for whatever reason, reading those posts and thinking about what it must be like to be in any way famous and reading nasty comments about yourself. . .well, I kinda remembered.

So I am going to try harder to look for the good in people. But if I can't find it** , then all bets are off.





*Except for Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman.
**See names above. And the Westboro Baptist Church.

What My Brain Is Really Like

So today I sort of wondered aimlessly around the internet.

When I wasn't reading "Choo Choo!" and "The Little Engine That Could" for what must be the 8000th time in 3 days. Hugmonkey has apparently decided to make up for 2 years of little interest in books by becoming addicted this week.  And then I was doing dishes. And laundry. And forcing Ironflower to read to me. And encouraging Lovebug to not grip his pencil like a hammer. Oh, and there was that period where I ate too many pretzel rods.

I say all that just to prove that I did not spend all day on my pretty new laptop. It just feels like it.

Anyway, I discovered this:

Life in the suburbs would be so much more fun if I had a sassy gay friend with me at the grocery store.

I was going to focus after watching every single one of those videos, I swear I was. But then I remembered that George R.R. Martin was supposed to make an announcement today about the 5th book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Dance With Dragons. (I'm not usually a big fantasy person, but this series? It's a new obsession. Like better than Lord of the Rings, more compelling than my beloved Harry Potter. Just great. Many thanks to my cousin the artist for recommending it.) But it turns out the poor guy has been hospitalized (he's better, thank goodness) so announcements have been postponed. But there was this:

You're going to at least watch the series now, aren't you?

I also discovered that you can search for houses for sale on Google maps, and you can scroll around the whole country looking at houses for sale. You know, if you missed House Hunters yesterday or something.

It all really started with looking up weather sites, because News12 New Jersey's description of "light" snow didn't match what I saw out my window. I mean, I'm sure that if News 12 Siberia described our weather today as light, its viewers would have nodded sagely. But to me, six inches of snow in that many hours is definitely in the medium category.

Note to self: See if Google Maps also shows houses for sale in Siberia. Because that would be awesome.

Then I recalled my resolution to write every day and decided that I was most in the mood to blog. Except that I didn't have a topic. So I went all social media. Instead of finding a topic, though, I became obsessed with figuring out why Backpackingdad was yelling at everyone on Twitter. And then I remembered to check up on the funny and inspiring Jennandtonica (yeah, I clicked on her because of her name at first. I was all like, 'Bitch stole my name! That I wasn't smart enough to create in the first place!' But her blogs and tweets about being a mom to triplet preemies. . .wow.) So the babies reminded me that I'm going to a baby shower for one of my dearest and most long-term friends (but not oldest, just because we're turning 40 this year does NOT mean that we're old, thanks) and that I should check on her baby registry.

The next thing I remember, Hot Guy told me that it was dinner time.

Dear Terrorists: Watch Heathers

Dear Terrorists,

I don't think about you a lot. I am fortunate in that I don't currently have any family members or close friends serving in the military or traveling in the middle east. And I am also fortunate in that I live in the United States, where the media would much rather listen to Tiger Woods' pathetic excuse for an apology than to pay attention to anything you do.

I know you see us as the big Godless bully, one that keeps getting back up again even though you landed an excellent punch and made the rest of the class hate us. In your scenario, you will kill all of the infidels and have a perfect Muslim world (never mind that you can't even agree on which kind of Muslim is perfect) where women are chattel, imams rule and no one eats hot dogs.

In my scenario, all the terrorists, rapists, pedophiles, racists, homophobes and murderers die of a mysterious illness and we live in a perfect liberal world where women are truly equal, children are ALL loved and no one eats hot dogs (see, we have something in common - give tolerance a chance!).

Here's what would really happen in both of our scenarios: A bad seed would be born and start advocating equality or redhead hate and all of the people who weren't quite as well off and who weren't quite as educated would start listening to the bad seed and we'd be right back where we started.

Did you ever see the movie Heathers? It's one of my favorites. In it,  a young couple murders the popular bullies of their school. . .only to have someone else step into the bully shoes almost immediately. Sort of like a modern day version of the Hydra.

Now in the movie and in the myth, the heroine/hero defeats the evil, resurrecting bully. Which is great, because who likes a story where nothing changes? No one.

However, these stories are also FICTION.

You are not going to defeat the bully. We're not the biggest country (though I'm sure many of our high school graduates think so). We're certainly not the smartest (just watch The Hills). We're not the kindest (just ask our veterans). But we are the most popular. Take a poll and see how many of you have watched an American movie, heard an American song, eaten an American (or an American version) food, read an American book or heard about American Idol.

Even those kids who wear black and spend all of their time making fun of us (Russia, I'm talking to you) secretly want to be us. Yes, you can make us look stupid. Yes, you can hurt us. Yes, you can make people nervous about being our best friend. But given a choice between coming to the party where they have celebrity telethons for tragedies and sex is meant to be fun and coming to the party where they ignore other people's problems and sex is shameful, which do you think people are going to pick?

Do you ever imagine what your lives would be like if your grandfathers had managed to move to the US? If your parents had opened small businesses in Detroit? If you and your sisters had 12 years of public education (which is better than you have gotten, even if it did produce Sarah Palin)? If your first crush was the Christian or Jewish kid from across the street?

Then you would have seen Heathers too. And you would have given up on this shit already.

Regards,

Jerseygirl