Opinion Are Like...

ABC WEDNESDAY...O IS FOR...Opinion!

Home for the Holidays (1995)~ "Opinions are like assholes. Everybody's got one and everyone thinks everyone else's stinks."

I am already thinking ahead about surviving the holidays.
1) Pull the curtains down.
2) Hold my emotions in.
3) And keep my mouth firmly shut.

That's my opinion. Anybody have a better idea?

Bonus "N"

New York City; Central Park (copyright Susan English 2009)

Pass the gin

ABC WEDNESDAY...M IS FOR...Mock

I haven't been doing so well in the past few days. Someone mocked me at work day before yesterday and it put me in a very undesirable place inside my head. I've decided I'm way too benevolent. I am tired of people telling me that they admire how I can let things roll off my back. I've got news...I trained myself a long time ago to never, ever let anyone know when something bothers me. I learned at a young age that when you let on to others how they can "get" you, that is what they will use on you whenever they want to hurt you. So I have trained myself to never, ever let 'em see me sweat. But it hurts. Inside I'm dying. I feel the lowest when someone mocks, imitates, and humiliates me in front of people. To have to stand there and allow someone to mimic me, just because he can, just to make me look ridiculous, sickens me.

I apologize for not being able to tell all of the details in this post. I am not hiding behind anonymity so the irony is that if I post about what happened, the person who humiliated me would win. It seems to be the story of my life. There is no justice.

Let Me Tell You A Story

ABC WEDNESDAY...L IS FOR...Lucy The Lavendar Dragon
I can think of a laundry list of words that start with "L".

Lovable, Loyal, Listener, Lovely, Lively, Likable, Loving, Learned, Liberal, Light-Hearted, Lip-Locked, Loved, Lusty, Lyrical, Lucky, Luxurious, Laughable, Lavish, Logical, Luminous, Lively,Lavender, Lacy, Little, Lotus, Life, Lock-Jaw, Laughed, Liberation

I thought it would be fun to write a story about my childhood using all of the words in the list. If you want to know how Lucy The Lavendar Dragon relates to my childhood then you'll have to read on:


Life began for her on the last day of April when there was snow on her mother's tulips. She was born flawed but lovable. Her feet were crooked, her head was misshapen, and she had red forcept marks all over her body. The hospital nurses were loyal to their oaths and rubbed their hands in a circular motion around her scalp in an attempt to reshape the head from elongated to spherical. The nurses put a bow in her hair and took the baby to her mother but the mother cried and said she was ugly. The nurses told her she was wrong and that the little girl was lovely and dressed her in a lacy lavender dress. Soon the red blotches went away and the head began to look like a normal head. The mother began to feel loving feelings for the little one for the first time since her birth.

The mother named her Susan, which means lotus, and she remains true to her name to this day. Like a lotus she continues to rise up from the muck that was her life. She had many physical obstacles to overcome including lock-jaw which made her look lip-locked and pouty all the time. Later she would have surgery to repair the anomaly but the poutiness could not be corrected surgically. It was laughable to watch her walk, because she looked like a pigeon-toed penguin. She had to wear shoes nailed to a board to bed at night to straighten them. She wore ugly saddle shoes with orthopedic insoles her entire childhood. She was lucky though because the feet straightened out after years of nonsurgical treatments and lively dance therapy.


Her parents were likable liberals and she was raised Catholic. They didn't have very much money so she didn't live in a luxurious home with lots of toys or lavish clothing. There was a strong beautiful maple tree growing in her front yard that she used to love to climb. There she would blend in with nature and listen to the lyrical sounds of the robins, sparrows, and blue jays. She had an affinity for birds from a very young age. She also loved to gaze at the luminous stars. She found out young that if she stared at the night sky for 30 minutes a new universe would open up to her.

The world was full of turmoil during her childhood. President Kennedy was shot when she was six years old. She remembers her mother crying when Martin Luther King was shot. She watched the tanks go down the streets of Detroit during the riots of 1967. The Vietnam War came to a dishonorable end while she was a lusty teenager. She buried herself in an alternate world through literature. Through it all she learned to be logical instead of idealistic. She was compassionate and a good listener and wanted to become a doctor. When she told her father she wanted to be a doctor, he laughed. That was during the time when women's liberation was just starting to catch on. Her father had to save all the money he could to send her brother to college. That was understandable. After all, he told her, "You'll just get married and have babies."

 Such was life in 1975.


Denise facilitates this meme where we all go through the alphabet from A-Z and construct a post with the designated weekly letter.

My Own Hell's Kitchen

Chef Gordon Ramsay, Hell's Kitchen the TV show

ABC WEDNESDAY...K IS FOR...KITCHEN

It might seem odd to you that I have bad "kitchen feelings." They range from batter to waffle. To me the kitchen is a volatile place full of sharp, pointed objects and microwave-operated incinerators. When I pass by I hear strange sounds that go 'crash' - 'whoosh' -'hiss' and 'boohoo'. The kitchen has never been a fun place for me since childhood. It was the place where my mom and dad staged a fight that ended with one of them throwing a toaster across the room at the other. It was the place where my ex-husband and I had a fight that ended with him wrapping a phone cord around my neck. It was the place where my sister cut her finger on a piece of glass so sharp that she required 56 stitches. I have two windows in my kitchen and they are closed up as tight as a drum. "Keep the curtains closed," mother would say, "or someone might see in."

The only good reason I can think of for entering the place in the first place is to get a nice cold beer out of the frig.

Green-Eyed Monster

ABC WEDNESDAY...J IS FOR...JEALOUSY

I always thought jealousy was a reaction one feels when someone else achieves something great.

There is a woman in my life who fits this definition yet she's not the object of my jealousy. If she were, my feelings would make sense to me. She's wealthy, manages a non-profit, and has a great family. (In fact, I’m happy for her especially because trickle down economics means rewards for me.)

The woman I’m jealous of lives next door to us up at our cabin. She is a hateful and miserable woman but everyone is afraid to ruffle her feathers. When I drop by to visit, sometimes she just sits at her little puzzle table, looking out the window, and she chooses either to acknowledge me or not. No one, including her husband and daughter, sees this as unusual and it is accepted. This has been going on for at least six years and continues.

Thinking turn-a-bout is fair play, I tried the same tactics. She dropped by today and I kept doing what I was doing, cleaning, and only said, “good morning.” That’s more of an acknowledgment than I often get from her. As soon as she left, Mr. P shouted at me about how all females come with drama, drama, drama and asked me why I can’t be friendly to her. Many attempts to explain my position landed on his deaf ears.

Experts say: “Tell what you envy, and you reveal a great deal about yourself.” I find it deeply distressing that I would waste so much emotion feeling this way about her. I do understand why my feelings are so distressing – it is the knowledge that my jealousy is based on pettiness and nothing of substance that I can identify.

I am jealous of an insignificant woman who somehow has created a world in which she doesn’t have to adhere to social decorum.

So what does this say about me? I don’t have a clue.

Denise facilitates this meme where we all go through the alphabet from A-Z and construct a post with the designated weekly letter.

I'M IN UR DREAMZ MAKEN U KRAYZEE

ABC WEDNESDAY...H IS FOR...HORROR

(Image credit: xolotl | Image source: fatcat @ vox.com, Tom Kiss, worth1000.com)

Geezer...As In Old

I apologize for posting late this week. Unfortunately I had a death in the family and have been busy with arrangements and out-of-town company.

ABC WEDNESDAY...G IS FOR...GEEZER


Mr. P. is retiring this month after working in government for almost 30 years. As for me, I have another 10 years to go.

He may be an old geezer but he's my old geezer and I love him and wish him a long and healthy retirement.

ABC Wednesday On Friday

Brought to you by Ozzy Osbourne's speech teacher.

"Tha bleh iz da bees fur hur ad dis tim ans hur farher drugs."

REALLY FUNNY STUFF:

Don't even ask me how someone who befuddles every word can be a filthy rich and famous singer.

How did this happen?

ABC Wednesday...F IS FOR...F*** IF I KNOW!

Fast and Fabulous

ABC WEDNESDAY...E IS FOR...EXHILARATING

Billy, Naho, and Kya; August 14, 2009; noon in Central Park NYC.

There is nothing quite like a fast and fabulous trip out east for a weekend visit. I took the red-eye on Thursday night and flew back home on Sunday on time to go to work Monday. I went to attend my son's wedding on the footbridge in Central Park in NYC on Friday, August 14, 2009. The little flower girl is my granddaughter, Kya.

I took this picture in the backseat of a 2009 snaked 605 horsepower convertible Shelby, with the top down of course, at the exact moment we reached 100 miles per hour on a freeway in Massachusetts this past Saturday. We were blasting The Fray's "Never Say Never - Don't Let Me Go" and the bass was thumping and the engine was humming.

It was an exhilarating weekend and all week people have been commenting that I look younger. Now if I could just bottle it and sell it and I'd be rich.

Denise facilitates this meme where we all go through the alphabet from A-Z and construct a post with the designated weekly letter.

ATHLETIC SUPPORTER

ABC WEDNESDAY...C IS FOR...




CARLIN CHEER!

1:20 of pure joy!

Rat Shit!!
Bat Shit!!
Dirty Old Twat!!!
69 Assholes Tied In A Knot!!!
Hooray!!
Lizard Shit!!
FUCK!!!

I love the 80's stage! It reminds me of the graphics in the old time Atari video games.

Denise facilitates this meme where we all go through the alphabet from A-Z and construct a post with the designated weekly letter.

Not-The-Loser

ABC WEDNESDAY...B IS FOR...

BLOGFELLOWS

Denise facilitates this meme where we all go through the alphabet from A-Z and construct a post with the designated weekly letter.

This past week my thoughts were interwoven with the letter "B."

My thoughts vacillated from the trivial to the deepest most intense feelings.

I went to get my hair done and thought of choosing the word "beautification."

I went to the ATM to withdraw money and thought of choosing the word "bank."

Whenever I thought about that evil maniacal dictator of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, puppet to the bedeviled Putin, I imagined a post with either the word "butcher" or "bad."

True Confession: I used to think bloggers were people with no lives, "losers," who hid behind their computers, and were afraid to live. I learned two things after realizing this was a gross error in perception.

First, I was wrong to judge that which I knew nothing about.

Second, the blogfellows I know have rich lives, and I respect both their creativity and their willingness to share and encourage each other.

ABC Wednesday

ABC WEDNESDAY...A IS FOR...

AVOCATION

I am so excited about joining the 5th round of ABC Wednesday. Denise runs it and she doesn't have lots of rules which tend to make me a lurker rather than a player. This is different! I have been waiting for the 'next round' to start so that I can go from A to Z, featuring whatever little thing my heart desires. I can do this, and I'm ready to have some fun.