Minor annoyances

What annoys me most: is unappropriate use of the english language, and of course grammatical errors. I do'nt mean those oopsies we all make, I mean the ones pounded into our heads in elemantery school over and over; and over. Say for instanse i tell you, I really like reading you're blog. But, although I like it so much, my blog could kick it's butt. I can let these thing slip once or twice, but after awhile, alot of them just get anoying. And come on? Theres this realy neato newfangled thing called spellcheck. Please use it.

Wanna know what else annoys me? I REALLY HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE TYPE IN ALL CAPS AS IF CHAT HAS NOT BEEN AROUND LONG ENOUGH NOW FOR PEOPLE TO KNOW THIS IS RUDE AND IDIOTIC. I really hate that.

Another thing that bugs the bejezzus our of me is the WaY KiDS aRe CaPiTaLiZiNG RaNDoM LeTTeRS NoW. EVeN THiS iS MaKiNG Me WaNT To PuT a GuN To My HeAD BeCAuSe I KeEP HaViNG To BaCKSPaCe (i KeEP FoRGeTTiNG) aND HaVe No iDea iF i aM eVeN DoiNG THiS RiGHT. iS THeRe a RiGHT WaY To Do THiS? Sheesh enough of that, anybody got a bullet? Or a bottle? just break it over my head. I got on my own nerves typing that. I swear, that took like ten minutes.

I can think of no better way to end this blog than punctuation! I mean, I'm quite sure you noticed my frequent misuse of punctuation in the first paragraph! But the specific kind of puncuation I'm talking about is exclamations! I mean an exclamation point tells the reader to say everything a certain way! And, seriously, if you say everything like this, I simply cannot be bothered reading your shit because if I were to ever meet you I'd bitch slap you upon sight! Seriously!

Me talk the English language good and you should to. I'm just sayin.

Things I want my daughters to know

What annoys me most: is unappropriate use of the english language, and of course grammatical errors. I do'nt mean those oopsies we all make, I mean the ones pounded into our heads in elemantery school over and over; and over. Say for instanse i tell you, I really like reading you're blog. But, although I like it so much, my blog could kick it's ass. I can let these thing slip once or twice, but after awhile, alot of them just get anoying. And come on? Theres this realy neato newfangled thing called spellcheck. Please use it.

Wanna know what else annoys me? I REALLY HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE TYPE IN ALL CAPS AS IF CHAT HAS NOT BEEN AROUND LONG ENOUGH NOW FOR PEOPLE TO KNOW THIS IS RUDE AND IDIOTIC. I really hate that shit.

Another thing that bugs the bejezzus our of me is the WaY KiDS aRe CaPiTaLiZiNG RaNDoM LeTTeRS NoW. SHiT eVeN THiS iS MaKiNG Me WaNT To PuT a GuN To My HeAD BeCAuSe I KeEP HaViNG To BaCKSPaCe (i KeEP FoRGeTTiNG) aND HaVe No iDea iF i aM eVeN DoiNG THiS RiGHT. iS THeRe a RiGHT WaY To Do THiS? Sheesh enough of that shit, anybody got a bullet? Or a bottle? just break it over my head. Damn I got on my own nerves typing that. I swear, that took like ten minutes.

I can think of no better way to end this blog than punctuation! I mean, I'm quite sure you noticed my frequent misuse of punctuation in the first paragraph! But the specific kind of puncuation I'm talking about is exclamations! I mean an exclamation point tells the reader to say everything a certain way! And, seriously, if you say everything like this, I simply cannot be bothered reading your shit because if I were to ever meet you I'd bitch slap you upon sight! Seriously!

Me talk the English language good and you should to. I'm just sayin.

How vain can one society?

The FDA has approved the use of a "pearly" pigment that can now be used in any medication to make it have a irradescent sheen. No, I'm not kidding.

The substance is made from minerals and can be added to any drug, though it cannot make up more than three percent of the drug's weight. Don't worry though, the substance carries "no toxic potential when ingested at levels estimated by the agency."

We don't have enough in our bodies? We need to add more minerals, more metals? Does nobody see the problem here? I mean do we really need Tylenol setting off airport metal detectors?

I just cannot help but take issue with this whole thing.

I mean, as if pharmaceutical companies aren't rich enough. We are giving them permission to add something absolutely not necessary and you bet your ass they will mark up prices for it. I mean, somebody has to pay for the sparklies! I don't think they are having trouble selling their products. Last time I checked we were pumping everybody full of every pill we can think of. Kids are hyper, learning deficit, depressed, and anxious and we have pills for it. Hell, we have pills for adults who are those things too. We have pills to make sex good, fix the fact that you've taken crappy care of yourself, oh yeah, and to keep your legs from tingling. Pills are used to fix everything, even things they weren't intended for. Is it really so important that they look pretty too?

I can see it now, Jane Doe, suicidal over the fact that her boyfriend cheated on her (again), dances around the room in her fuzzy pink robe with an apple martini and mascara pooled around her eyes thicker than a drag queen tearfully singing "I Feel Pretty" and popping her pretty, shiny, little pink pill. Marvelous.

I hope they super childproof this shit, my five year old loves shiny things.

Protesters are idiots

This week the capital city of Mississippi is being inendated with pro-lifers and pro-choicers both representing their sides of the debate. True to our right-winged form, most of the pro-choicers are from out of town. But my story isn't about the issue. That's really not something I want to get into. Rather I'd like to tell you a little about the protesters.

There is only one abortion clinic in Mississippi. It happens to be in downtown Jackson. I was down there yesterday. People wearing propaganda t-shirts pushing strollers with their kids in them littered the sidewalks. And apparently I had arrived as the day was winding down for them, and they were still everywhere.

Some of the pro-lifers had decided earlier that day to protest a few buildings down from the clinic in front of the new age bookstore. Because we all know the new age movement is doubling the number of abortions. And earlier in the week they had burned a copy of the Koran on the sidewalk. Whew! I am so glad because the number of Islamic people getting abortions has skyrocketed.

Oh and they also were blaming abortion on the immoral nature of the gays and lesbians. Now, I'm not sure how many people realize what any gay couple might have to go through to be parents. They might have to adopt, which in this state means either a foreign adoption or a single person adoption. A gay couple cannot adopt a child together in Mississippi. Lesbian couples have the option of artificial insemination. For those that don't know about this process, it is invasive, expensive, and not a 100 percent sure thing. The last option also belongs to lesbians, and that is obtaining donor sperm from a willing male. Now, I ask you, how likely is it that there are ANY homosexual people walking into that clinic needing abortions. Unless it is a lesbian who was raped, and in that case, you'd better move out of her way and let her in.

I cannot say how livid it makes me for people to stand against something and throw all kinds of other things in the mix. If you're against abortion, fine. If you're against religions other than your own, fine. If you're against homosexuality, fine. That is the beauty of America. We have the freedom to hold those opinions. Bigots make the world go 'round. But don't go protest abortion by taking a stand against the new age movement, other-than-Christian religions, or homosexuals. Seriously. You just look like a dumbass.

Friend Divorce

For some reason I've had a particular ex-friend on my mind all day today. Now I know saying ex-friend sound petty. Very petty. In a high school way. But the truth is that she was very special to me and I was very hurt by the way she abruptly ended our friendship. She and I used to work together. Over the months and years we came to realize we shared a lot in common. We laughed. We cried. We shared things.

I probably knew more about her than anyone in her life. I think she probably knew more about me. There was a certain level of, um, closeness I had not attained with any female friend before. Then one day it just stopped. We were chatting online as we often did after work one night and what began as a regular, friendly chat quickly got ugly. She plainly stated she did not think I was her friend. From there I was told I was a whore, acted like a whore, and was a bad influence. Her only chance for saving her marriage was friend-divorcing me. And that was that. The only friendship I've had since my early high school years that ended with such finality, not to mention name calling.

I guess she's on my mind so much b/c I spent the day close to where we worked and driving home I passed her house. There are days like today I truly miss her friendship and presence in her life. What I found out though was that her dumping me was probably a good thing. Her husband was and is abusive and he didn't like her being my friend. Well, I guess he was okay with it to a certain degree but past that he had to be involved. And neither of us were very big on him butting in. So he pretty much told her she had to move on. Oh and he also told her she was fat (she so wasn't), out of fashion (not that either and even if she was, who cares?!), and a sinner. Yeah, the church thing. She told me that night that she was going back to chuch with her husband and focusing on her family. Now I would have no problem with her picking the church life if she'd done it for any reason besides show. But she didn't. And neither did he.

So, what pisses me off?

Is it him, her over the top husband? No, that's not any of my business. Is it the fact that she dumped me flat on my butt and left my head spinning? Nah, I've had a few years to get over that. What pisses me off is women like her who let men live their lives for them. Women who hand their lives, decisions, waking and sleeping moments over to a man. This is societal, we think men should be revered all because they have an extra piece of equipment. When, in reality, we have more equipment and ours is way cooler anyway. I think the fact that our equipment is generally hidden and not so visible (i.e. Rock out with your cock out) is the reason you generally don't hear of cunt envy.

And that's what pisses me off. She handed her life to him. At least when I handed my life over to a man I was smart enough to take it back.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

So my parents still live in the same neighborhood I grew up in. It's a strange neighborhood. Half houses, half trailer park. Half uppity, half um not uppity. Growing up the street I lived on divided the neighborhood. The streets before ours were uppity, ours was fairly neutral, and the back part of the neighborhood was less than classy. This really doesn't have a lot to do with my story, other than to iterate the fact that I grew up in lower-middle class America. Woo. Hoo.

Anyway, there is a house, and by house I mean single-wide trailer, that has been next to my parent's house, and by house I mean double-wide trailer, since I was a little girl. I'm amazed this trailer still has a floor. But it does and people still live there. Over the years many people have lived there and occasionally my parents will befriend them. This happened last year. A family lived there and my parents got to know the mom. I'm not sure how many kids she had, three maybe four small children. Her son was older and engaged. He lived there as well with his fiance and her kids. He did yardwork for my mom and dad. They seemed like a nice little family; and still kept in contact with my parents after moving down the street into a double wide, cause really how long can a gajillion people live in a single wide trailer. Now this is where the story gets twisted.

A few weeks ago we noticed they had cleared out. I'm talking one weekend my kids were playing with her kids and that week they were gone. No sight of them anywhere. But all of their stuff was strewn all over the place. My mom said she moved but left all of their stuff. Then a week or so later her older son moved into that trailer with his fiance and kids. My mom asked him what happened.

Turns out his nice lady and her nice husband got caught having sex with a nice little 14-year-old mentally retarded girl. Lovely.

So, the nice husband was taken to a nice jail cell. And the nice lady was told she had 24 hours to leave the state or she would be arrested. Can anyone say WHAT THE HELL??!! They let her walk away with kids in her care. I imagine those kids having to leave all of their toys and no telling what else, crying, all because mommy and daddy are child molesters. Of course, let's not even think about the trauma of the authorities who don't care enough about them and send them off with their predator mama. I guess it's because she's a woman, a mom, surely her kids are better with her than in the system. Surely. Nevermind she was banging a little girl with her husband, a mentally retarded little girl at that.

Because we all know all predators are men. Seriously. You've got to be kidding me.

My near death experience

A few summers ago, okay like eight summers ago, me and a friend were visiting some her her friends in South Mississippi. There had been a tornado go through this city the previous week (interestingly enough this was one of the cities majorly affected by Katrina) and we were amazed by all the damage. We had gone to eat at a Mexican restaurant and were all bored, so we decided to go home and drink.

Our timing was impeccable as it looked like a storm started brewing just as we were headed back home. So, we're going down the interstate and the lightening starts. Off in the distance we see a cell tower get struck by lightening, complete with sparks flying everywhere. Amazed, we all three lean into the windshield (single cab Ford Ranger) to "whoa'' the cell tower. At that exact moment my friend's windshield is struck by lightening. Now, I'm not quite sure how to describe this but imagine a camera flash magnified about ten times and about six inches from your face. And the sound, hmmm, a few times louder than the kind of thunder than shakes things. My two friends who were sitting on the outside (I was in the middle) said they could feel the electricity course through the vehicle. Yeah I'm glad I don't have that to add to my trauma.

So, we're all temporarily blinded and screaming and apparently swerving all over the road because when we finally could see we had gone from the far left lane to almost running off the right shoulder. Great. Escape death once, shame on death. Eh, nevermind.

Anyway, we hadn't realized when the lightening struck that it actually didn't hit the windshield, but her driver's side wiper blade, completely eliminating it from existance. Now, this is not good since we are on a major interstate and rain is now coming down in sheets. So we're all trying to navigate, scared shitless, to the nearest exit. We make it off the interstate and to a gas station. We run, literally screaming, through the rain as if acid is falling from the sky to melt our skin. Once inside the gas station/truck stop, we just all kind of have nervous breakdowns. I'd left my cigarettes in the truck but wasn't about to go back out and get them, so I bought a new pack and a lighter. (I'd left my ID out in the truck and was only barely 18 but I looked about 15. The guy asked me if I had my ID and had just witnessed my breakdown. So I start crying again going, "Are you KIDDING me?!" "Um, yeah", he says. "I was - Don't worry about the ID." LMAO)

So the friend we were visiting called her parents to tell them what happened and asked them to come get us. Know what they did?! They LAUGHED at us. I am not kidding. They thought we were making it up. Thank the goddess there was a truck driver sitting close by to us who heard us rehashing the experience over and over like the traumatized teenage girls we were and offered to look at my friend's truck. He checked the electrical and switched the passenger wiper blade to the driver's side so she could see to drive. And we made it home safe.

Now, the following week when my friend reported the incident to her insurance company, the agent wouldn't believe her about what happened. He had to come see it himself, as he had just never heard such a story. Never mind the wiper shrapnel embedded in her hood.

It's been eight years and there still isn't a thunderstorm that I don't think about that night. Wonder if there's a word for phobia of lightening?

Hi, my name is Candice, and I'm a bigot

Recovering that is.

See I've grown up in the South. Never been very far out of it actually. My entire family stems from here. What I am going to share with you is only to give some insight...oh hell, I guess into how twisted life can be down here.

Children come into this world pure. They have no prejudices, no baggage. They are like white t-shirts for us to put our paint covered hand prints all over. Scary thing when you get right down to it.

So, it was when I was still one of these cute little Hanes' V-necks waiting for my first handprints, that my ideas of sociably acceptable race relations began to be formed. I was sitting around with my mom and dad (I was an only child) watching Star Search. The act going on stage was a couple performing a dance routine. The girl was a young petite blonde and her dance partner was a strapping young stallion - a black stallion. Now, I wasn't worried at all about their difference in race, only watching their routine of song and dance in amazement and envy. My parents however, saw this as an opportunity to explain to me why people of different races should not date. I was confused, since dating relationships didn't seem any different than friendships in my six-year-old mind. And I was very good friends with a girl at school who was black.

So I ask:

Me ~ What about Tina? Can I be friends with Jane?
Role Models ~ Of course honey, you can be friends with anyone you choose.
Me ~ Really? Can Jane spend the night?
Role Models ~ Um, no. And don't use her hairbrush. (I'm not kidding.)
Me ~ Why? That doesn't make sense.
Role Models ~ Because we said so now watch the TV.

My grandfather, although I've always adored him, is the true patriarch in my family. I can remember as a kid hanging on every word he said. One day he swore to me he could show me the passage in the bible that stated white people were to be revered above other races. No. I. Am. Not. Kidding. I guess gramps doesn't know Jesus wasn't white.

I've wondered how I'd achieve setting my little v-necks on a different path. I didn't want them ever having to question whether I was teaching them something that made sense or not. Most importantly I don't want them to have to undo anything I teach them. I want to raise them to see all people as equal. When my daughter began to ask me about race I decided to teach her that people are like colors in a crayon box. All colors, all shades. She asked me then what color we are. I told her peach. But she got that confused and for about three years called us 'cheap' instead of peach. Damn that was funny too.

Racial slurs were common place growing up in my family, sadly they still fly at times. That's how it is here. Of course, in these politically correct times racial slurs are less common in the general public. But, I'd be ashamed to tell you how often people will say something sideways to me about other races. I heard just yesterday from a complete stranger in a fast food resturant that the manager probably wouldn't do anything about an employee's attitude problem because there were "the same kind" meaning of the same race. I felt physically sick at her comment, so much so I could only walk away.

I'm proud to say I no longer look at people and notice their race. I do not introduce people as my 'black friend' any more than my 'gay friend', my 'baptist friend', my 'psychic friend', my 'fetish friend', etcetera, etcetera. I am a recovered bigot, which I'm fairly sure isn't like a recovering alcoholic. You know, once an alcoholic always an alcoholic. I don't see myself falling off the bandwagon and leading a rally. But I own my past because it is part of who I am and reminds me of who I never want to become.