How to Watch Where You're Going

In reality my mother and father probably tried to tell me this over and over and over and over, but nothing really teaches you this lesson like hands on experience. I've spent my whole life running into walls, glass doors, and door ways. When I say my whole life I mean it. I still have that problem. I've also done a lot of tripping while walking down the hall or especially the sidewalk. Honestly the running into door ways isn't so much about watching where I'm going, I think it's more about misjudging where my arm is relative to the door frame. Does that mean it's quite likely a depth perception problem or some other perception problem.

Here's what my parents did teach me relative to this problem I have, and that is how to laugh at myself. Otherwise as much as I do these things with witnesses around, familiar and strangers, I would one self-loathing, depressed, defunct, and likely non functional member of society. I have been known to be walking down the sidewalk, trip so far I almost fall, and burst out laughing, not knowing at all if anyone saw it or not. If no one saw it, it's possible I haven't really been known to anyone other than myself. I think learning to laugh at yourself if the more important lesson to learn than to watch where you're going. Besides I'm sure every time they told me this, it didn't even go in one ear. It just went around or over my head and kept on going because it was likely interpreted as nagging nonsense the first time so my ears often slammed shut as soon as advice or admonishment was detected.

So what good would this post be without a good story. I'll share the one that inspired me just the other day. Friday we were over at my mom and step dad's for dinner and so were the step siblings and in-law and niece as a result. So the girls decided to go to the playground down the street so that my 2 year old niece could play and get out some of her endless energy. She's like a puppy only when my dog was little she'd play for 20 minutes and crash for an hour, get up play for 20 minutes and crash for another hour.

Back to the story. So we were walking down the sidewalk chattin it up as girls do and my niece decided she wanted to hold my hand while we walked so I took her hand and was looking down at her and the sidewalk. She was talking and I was trying to interpret, when all of a sudden BAM!!!!! we came to a halt and I look up and there was a sign right there impeding my forward momentum. WHAT!!! I'm only 5'8 but you could have been 4'8 and still had to duck to miss this sign. When all of the other signs around don't require me to duck to miss. All I would normally have to watch out for is the pole. I didn't hit the pole, I hit the extra low sign. Well this was on the edge of a cul-de-sac where some people were out in their front yard. Don't know if they saw it or not, but we immediately stopped and started laughing. It didn't hurt at all but it was quite funny and quite unfortunate that no one had a camera to capture this "preventable but why would you" moment. The cutest thing was that I got an "I sorry Amboo" and a hug. So it was all worth it.

When we got back home I slammed my head into the glass door trying to see inside from the back yard. Go figure...

New lesson: Not all signs are taller than the average man, so watch out for them.

You Will Feel Compelled to Watch Lifetime Sometimes

I know I'm not the only one around that is a closet Lifetime fan. I don't even want to watch any of their shows. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I love me a bad Lifetime movie now and then. My mother didn't know about this compulsion because we didn't have cable growing up. But she did watch a soap opera or two which really isn't any better. Which is why I pass no judgement on you soap opera fans.

Why am I ashamed to admit this? If you don't know then your problem may be worse than mine. I'm ashamed because the movies are often terrible, shameful, immoral, victimize women at the hands of "evil" villainous men. As if to say all men are bad, which is a premise I vehemently oppose. But occasionally they throw in an evil woman as the villain. But usually she's doing another woman bad. These movies usually have cheesy scripts and plots, but I still watch them anyways.

You know what inspired this post? I'm watching one as I write this. It's called "Confessions of a Go-Go Girl" or something like that. You know why this stupid movie works? Because inside many of us is the fantasy of being able to be a successful go-go dancer looking all scantily clad hot while getting lots of money for it. It's a notch up from being a stripper while still making good money. Yes I have an inner go-go girl that I cage. Because I can't hardly wear a bikini in front of strangers and family let alone booty shorts and a bra. I have the modesty of me, which is why my inner go-go dancer will always be caged. Except for my husband of course.

Lifetime is successful because it's target audience has many various fantasies about their lives which they can live vicariously through a Lifetime movie. No matter how bad. Why do you think they have Lifetime Movie Network too? And Lifetime Real Women. I don't watch that one, but it obviously meets the desires of enough women to make them money.

What is wrong with me? I feel like I ought to go to a support group for Lifetime addicts. I don't watch every day because I have a job. But when I didn't, don't you know I snuck in a Lifetime movie to break up the job search because there's nothing else on except soap operas in the middle of the day. And I didn't want to get sucked into one of those since I was in a temporary situation of unemployment. But I watch it entirely too much. And I secretly like it. Even though I don't want to. I really really really don't want to. I'm so ashamed of myself. My husband makes fun of me. And rightly so. He tolerates it only because we have two TVs. What's a girl to do?

Some Kids Are Into the Art of Poo!

This topic was inspired by a facebook status update from someone whose daughter woke her up because her younger brother had been practicing poo art on the wall. You see my mother didn't teach me this lesson because my little cousin beat her to it in my prepubescent years. I suppose that was the first exposure into the joys of parenthood that started me squarely on the path to no kids! Well at the very least, on the path to not getting knocked up until I was ready to handle such artwork from kids. That is the first moment of many moments that started my education on the fact that having kids was not something to take lightly or to rush into.

We were over at my aunt and uncle's house and they have 2 boys several years younger than me. Well one of them wanted me to come back and see his toys. For some reason we went into the other one's bedroom who was "drawing" on the wall with drab brown. All of a sudden the smell reached my nose and I realized that 3-D crayons didn't exist. I put 2 and 2 together and I don't really remember if I held it together or if I ran screaming in horror out to the living yelling "there's poo on the wall!!!" I'm going with if I did keep it together on the outside while delivering the news, I was freaking out running with my arms waving in the air and crying "oh the horror!!!THE HUMANITY!!!! The toilet exploded and shot poo out the door, took a left turn down the hall, then a right turn into his room and splatted on his wall!!!" I certainly thought that no other child had ever done this and there must be something wrong with him!! However the calm demeanor in the living room most likely followed by an explanation taught me otherwise.

All I know is that I didn't have to clean it up. Thank goodness!! But at that moment I didn't ever want to clean it up ever!! But I had no idea what was in store for me down the road. If you are interested in what followed in my poo experience, check out my previous post about exploding poo.

It may seem like poo is a common topic for me to write about, but it has caused me much trauma in my life. And my mother never ever warned me about any of them ahead of time. I supposed she decided it was good for me to learn these lessons through experience. Although I suppose I would have avoided trying and doing a lot of things had she warned me of potential disaster. And it was damn good birth control. Although it's possible my brother never dabbled in poo art, and if he did it was either before I was born or when I was much too young to even say poo. So it may not have even crossed her mind to tell me about this art form. None the less these lessons still haunt me to this day as the images were burned through my eyes into my brain and I don't think they will ever go away!

You Must Resist the Urge to be Crazy

Growing up I saw a lot of crazy women out there and I was determined not to be crazy. What I didn't know is that no matter how much I resit the urge to be crazy, I will inevitably let crazy out of the bag once in awhile. I think some of this is inherited from both sides of my family, but I think most if comes on the X chromosome. Which means guys are sometimes crazy but we are more likely on average to be twice as crazy as they are. Now this only counts for your typical average man and woman. Any outliers are anomalies and don't count for the purposes of this discussion because a men and women that are physically abusive to each other aren't normal and average and they are beyond crazy. They are complete wackadoos that shouldn't ever date or marry or be allowed to reproduce.


I know there are women out there who discussed with each other just how crazy their mothers were and how they were going to be different. And then years later they have the discussion about how they just caught themselves doing something their mother did. So does that mean their mothers weren't crazy? Or are we all just destined to become crazy as we get older? Do men know about this before they marry us? Are they crazy for marrying us?

I have long held the opinion that women use PMS as an excuse to treat their men and their family poorly, and this is unacceptable. I'm not saying we aren't allowed moments of crazy PMS or not, but it is our responsibility to recognize if we acted poorly and admit we were wrong and apologize for our psychotic, lunatic, nutjob behavior. Pride in this area will turn into your ultimate downfall. And it won't win over your family either. They will just start to resent you. Having a sense of humor about it will get you further than stubbornness and pride.

We have all had those moments where we recognized that we were crazy. When I was much younger, I was being grumpy for some reason and so my brother made the comment that I must be PMSing, followed by laughter. I just got so mad that I started crying. This was back when I was still mortified to be getting a period every month. And the thought of my brother or father knowing this was humiliating. Now I'm just annoyed by it. Anyways I got even angrier uncontrollable tears when I realized he was right. How could this be? How could I let my emotions get the best of me? I was so devastated because this was the minute I discovered I had the capacity to be a crazy nutjob. And this was horrifying on top of the humiliation of a period every month which at this point had been going on for a few years.

The older I get the more I struggle with being keeping crazy in check. It seems like no matter how hard I try to keep in, it just slips out every once in awhile against my will! It's like having the good angel on one shoulder giving you the pep talk to keep it in while the devil is on the other shoulder telling you to let it out. He just forgets to tell you how foolish letting it out makes you look. So the next time you find yourself in this scenario, kick that stupid red devil off your shoulder and listen to the angel giving you the pep talk. You'll feel empowered and a little less crazy than the last time.