I'm kind of cranky this week. And to prove it, I present you ten things that are on my damn nerves this week (some big, some trivial... I'm balanced that way!):
1. The thing that is bugging me the worst right now is America's glib treatment of mental illness in general. If someone has one little mood fluctuation, people make offhand and ignorant remarks about them being "bipolar." Britney Spears has become a pariah; she is obviously suffering, possibly (I daresay probably) in a depression at the very least, yet all we want is to talk about how "crazy" she is. This story has me all sorts of mad. First, why was this woman, clearly crying out for help (and quite articulately, at that), left alone in a holding cell? If police had been following departmental procedure, she would still be alive today. And second, why aren't more people talking about it, questioning it?
2. Celadon Trucking, who apparently don't realize that common sense marketing strategy would have led them in a different direction. Celadon is GREEN, you numbnuts!
3. The media's treatment of Al Gore, from cherry-picking quotes until they barely resemble the original (he did NOT say he INVENTED the Internet, jackasses) and dissecting everything from his sighing habits to his clothing during the Presidential campaign, now acting like he's always been their darling. No hard feelings, right, Al?
4. Stupid drivers. This will show up on every single pet peeve list of mine until the day I surrender my license because I'm too old or blind to safely operate a vehicle.
5. Hypocrisy. "God's Warrior" Marguerite Perrin from Trading Spouses renounced her family's final $50,000 in 2005, saying (okay, screeching) it was "tainted" and "dark-sided." When she found out that $20,000 had been earmarked for her gastric bypass surgery, though, she reconsidered and took the money. She even went back on Trading Spouses for a second torturous episode. She also said she didn't want money or fame, she just wanted Her God and Her Family. But somehow, she's found a way to capitalize on America's impression of her with a comedy music CD and interviews on numerous TV shows.
6. Drizzly days. Theoretically, rainy days should be like free showers for your car, in my opinion. Drizzly days make dirty roads into muddy roads, and your car always ends up dirtier than it was before the rain. Not cool.
7. Dumbasses who insist on pronouncing the number one hundred as “a hunnerd” or, even better, “a hunnert.” I have heard at least two different radio advertisements this week in which the spokesman slaughtered this. WTF?
8. Childhood Bipolar Disorder. No one should have to live with this disease, and no one should have to live with a child who has this disease. It is devastating, frustrating, confusing, time consuming, and it absolutely eclipses every other person, problem, and plan inside a family.
9. Doggy agression. Our oldest dog, Poogan, is beautiful. But if she were human, she would be the old bitchy aunt that no one wants to visit because all the kids are afraid of her. And she’s got so many neuroses and fears. She's afraid of a whole host of household items & actions: vacuum cleaner, ceiling fans, broom & mop, vacuum cleaner, shadows, candles, shiny reflections, vacuum cleaner, the doorbell, strangers... the list goes on forever... did I mention we've had to replace 5 vacuum cleaner hoses from where she bites holes in them? In her old age, she's also starting to growl and snap at any other living thing that crosses her path, barking shrilly at anything that startles or upsets her. Gah, it gets old.
10. Dropped signals. Whether it's my cell phone or my wireless internet connection, my electronics have been dropping me like a baby giraffe lately.
See? I told you I was cranky!
Sunday Scribblings--The Unspoken Competition
There exists in today's culture a competition so fierce, with competitors so driven, and so exclusive, in which men cannot even hope to participate and women have been accused of cheating for the title. It's a competition which is never advertised, and no one is to ever call it such. Its ostensible purpose is to help each other, to offer a sense of camaraderie and fellowship. Don't be fooled. It's a competition. It's the Childbirthing Championships.
When I got pregnant at seventeen, I didn't tell anyone for five months. Part of it might have been trying to avoid women of all walks of life telling me I was going to hell and that I should give that baby to a family who could raise it right, but most of it was self-preservation. I had seen women all but eat each other for the title of Most Death-Defying Delivery, and when they spy a pregnant belly, they seem drawn to it by some unnamed force, to tell their horrific, harrowing tales of painful parturition. The longer I could avoid that the better. Invariably, though, they found me. Each woman of Prima Gravida status or higher had a story to tell me, but not to scare me or to outdo some other woman of equally noble character; no, they were there to help me, to let me know what to expect.
I'm calling Bullshit. I'm now a member of the Multi Gravida Club, and I now have a story to tell, too. I KNOW that it's all about the competition. And everyone has a different strategy. Who went the longest without an epidural? (For the record, the epidural is my friend.) Who labored longer at home before going to the hospital? Who drove themselves to the hospital? Who was in such pain they passed in & out of consciousness, having Frida Kahlo art-inspired visions? Who endured pain and panic and delivered their baby at home on a holy rug with no pain relief but a midwife's comforting whispers?
I'll own up. I'm in. My story is easily as worthy of Childbirth Champion status as someone else's. My childbirth story. Let me tell you it.*
*I'll tell you later. Just know that it involves 38 hours of action, adventure, suspense, pain, blood, and gore. I'm in it to win it, peeps.
Posted on December 09, 2007 at 05:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)
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