Sunday, May 31, 2015

All Those Colors

So.... Here's the situation...

Last week we took a break from Sunday Confessions, and even though I had something written up, I got a bit lazy. This week, we reconvened, but... well... I had a tattoo appointment. I was gone over 12 hours yesterday (6 being tattooed) and today I just dont have the energy to write when every 5 minutes I readjust myself and say

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW

Because of those circumstances I am just going to share photos of my new tattoo. It's a Frankenstein monster and originally created by Fab Ciraolo. His work is awesome if you want to look him up. I always identified with the story particularly with the monster being a social outcast and wanting to be accepted for his differences.

"As I fixed my eyes on the child, I saw something glittering on his breast. I took it; it was a portrait of a most lovely woman. In spite of my malignity, it softened and attracted me. For a few moments I gazed with delight on her dark eyes, fringed by deep lashes, and her lovely lips; but presently my rage returned; I remembered that I was forever deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures could bestow and that she whose resemblance I contemplated would, in regarding me, have changed that air of divine benignity to one expressive of disgust and affright."

Eventually his existence changes him into something more of a true monster--the anger  and rage and need for revenge. Luckily I never ended up there, but I do relate or did when I was younger and have been drawn to the character ever since.








side by side

If you are ever in the Panama City Beach area, be sure to check out IV Horsemen Tattoo Parlor specifically Hugh Fowler who did this piece and one other one for me that I won in a contest 



http://www.ivhorsementattoo.com/

www.facebook.com/tattoosbyhugh



Be sure to check out the other confessions on the More Than Cheese and Beer blogpage!!

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Geek Parenting



“Ugh! I lost again,” the boy says and tosses the controller to the ground in frustration.

She glances up at him from her computer where she is furiously typing. She has a letter, an email, and the beginning of a blog to write before she sleeps, but it looks like she’s about to have to take a break for a little conversation.

“I can’t do it! Every single time I try, I die. Can you help me get past this part??”

“No, I cannot.”

He groans in frustration and rolls his eyes.

“If you keep up with that attitude, you can take yourself right on back to your room and go to bed. I don’t have time for this tonight.”

His eyes widen at the sternness in her voice, but he cuts the go-to-hell look that had positioned itself on his face. It was almost like flipping a switch. Attitude ON, Attitude OFF.

“Come up here and sit with me for a minute. Sounds like you need a break anyway.”

“okaaaaay….”

“Well, act like it’s torture to come up and sit with your mom for a minute why don’t ya…jeez. Now go get my waterboarding kit.”

“What’s waterboarding?”

“uh….I’ll explain it to you when you’re older. then you’ll think back about how funny your mom is. Or disturbed. Either way.”

“what?”

“Nevermind. Let’s talk about this game.”

He goes from 0 to 60 in less than a millisecond rattling off some details about whatever game he had been playing and what he was supposed to do.

“Wait a second! Breathe. have you been taking methamphetamines?”

“MO-OM! I hate that joke.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now, listen. I didn’t mean we needed to talk about what you’re doing on the game. We need to talk about you shouting at it and throwing a far-too-expensive-to-be-tossed-around controller.”

“oh.”

“yeah, oh. How many times have we talked about this already?”

He shrugs, the way children do when they know any answer they give is not going to help their case.

“More than once?”

“Yeah.”

“Then that’s once too many. So look, you know the drill. When you get pissed off, it is absolutely not okay to throw things that you will regret breaking later. That’s how people get hurt. if you don’t learn to control that temper now, then one day it could be a person you love that you hit instead of a toy. It could be someone special you throw around and break or lose instead of a controller. Do you get that?”

He nods his head, but she is unconvinced that he understands the entire lesson, so she goes on.

“Here’s the thing… life is kind of like a video game. We all have obstacles to face. We all have to complete our missions which are our lives and making the most of them. We have plenty of enemies that can kill us even if we do everything the way we think we should. We have to proceed carefully sometimes and run full blast without looking others—the trick is knowing when to do one or the other. We have to fight battles with bosses like cancer or losing our loved ones or depression. It’s very much like a video game for each and every person. The only difference is you only have once to get it right with real life, you get me? We are here but once. When we have these talks, I’m trying to make sure you do get it right and complete the mission to make the most of the shot you have. And really we have these talks so I can make sure *I* make the most of the one life I have—because helping you be the best man you can be is part of my mission. Understood?”

He nods his head and gives her a hug. “I like it when you talk video games, Mom.”

She hugs him back, full of love for the geek she is raising. “I know.”




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Sunday Confessions! The prompt was lost which, of course, made the gamer in me think of lost lives and this conversation with the kid. Hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading. And be sure to check out the other submissions on More Than Cheese and Beer

Friday, May 15, 2015

Transformation



Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are: margarita, ceiling fan, flogging, stilettos, bungee cord and were submitted by www.themomisodes.com

*also I feel like this post needs a trigger warning.
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She lays in her bed, sheets haphazardly tossed across her legs. She’s not really awake yet but somewhere in that between-state that comes with a hangover, head full of cotton, achy, unable to pull out of dreamland completely. The remnants of an unfinished margarita from the night before sours in the heat of the room while she watches the slow swirl of the dust-covered ceiling fan above her. Flogging Molly’s Salty Dog plays lightly, as lightly as a band like that can anyway, from the iphone dock on the nightstand making her wonder just what the hell is the deal...this isn't something she would ever play. 

She groans at the thought of having to move to change the fucking station, but this just really isn’t helping things at the moment. Her music tastes, whatever she listened to at the moment, were totally dependent on her mood, and she was in no kind of mood for fast-paced Celtic rock songs about pirates or whatever the hell this was. Attempting to roll over forces a wave of nausea to take her for a ride threatening to send her running for the bathroom, but it passes. She pushes on for the phone but immediately cries out from a stabbing pain in her side. She looks down and notices one of her neon yellow stilettos still in the bed with her, poking her roughly in the ribs and tosses it down angrily causing another blanket of sickness to whirl around in her head.

Grunting with effort she reaches for her phone to change this shitfest of a song when she notices the huge bruise on her arm just below her elbow. What the fuck happened she thinks rolling back onto the bed, the song currently forgotten. She examines it closely seeing the distinct outline of fingers which only confuses her more. She doesn’t have a clue what could have happened.

She lays there, staring at it, trying to make the fuzziness of the night before dissipate. The pieces don’t seem to want to fall into place, though, and she finds herself tracing the lines of the bruise with her other hand, getting lost in the mottled blues and purples. Whatever happened, the person must have had a big hand. The bruise wraps around her entire arm and extends halfway down her forearm.

A tune by Creedence comes on the phone snapping her out of her near-trance. Bad Moon Rising. She wonders if maybe there is something in her messages that might lead her to piecing back the night before. Rolling over and stretching for the phone is a chore even without the stiletto stabbing into her ribs, but she finally reaches far enough to push her fingers into it knocking it from the speaker stand into her reach.

She enters in the passcode to unlock the phone and sees she has 17 text messages and nearly as many voicemails. She starts with the text messages first. 15 of them are from her best friend, Lacey, who was out with her last night, so she checks those first.

where r u

did u leave w that guy

Come on Julie pick up the phone

Im worried

Did u make it home

Call me pls

Julie don’t make me worry

The messages from Lacey were all the same, in a nutshell. Concern, worry, fear, begging…totally out of Lacey’s character. What fucking guy, she thinks? I don’t remember any guy.

Then she sees a text from an unknown number.

Had fun wit u lst nite ;) Hope I wasnt 2ruff. Gimme a call when we can do it again lol

What the hell happened?

The room is still spinning when she sits up in bed, but she pushes past it, determined. She needs to know what happened. With the sheets thrown off her and her mind a little more focused, she sees the bruises covering her legs and the absence of any clothing. She isn’t the kind of girl who sleeps in the nude. Everything is wrong. Why cant I remember? A sense of desperation to pull back the fog and figure out her night starts to rise in her throat burning like indigestion and pushing her forward.

Once out of the bed, she finds her clothes spread around the room on the floor. The panties she had on last night are ripped in half and several of the buttons on her favorite corset blouse are popped off. She grabs a tshirt and pajama pants to throw on then heads to the kitchen for something to drink, ice water. She needs coffee, hydration, and hangover food stat so she can get this sorted.

After downing a 20 oz bottle of water in almost one gulp, she grabs some cherry Pop-Tarts from the cabinet and sets her Keurig up for a 10 oz cup of pumpkin pie flavored coffee. Maybe it’s a weird combination, but she’s okay with weird. The coffee steams and drips in a slow stream into her favorite mug—a blue asymmetrical cylinder with a malformed handle that she made in a high school art class. The process hypnotizes her in a way, her mind a blank.

The too-loud ringtone of her phone pulls her back to the real world with its repetitive snippet from her favorite cartoon. “Eat my shorts! Ay Caramba! Ow! Quit it.” She sees Lacey’s photo pop onto the screen and figures she may as well answer it. Maybe she will find out more about what happened that way…

“Hello?”

“Wherethefuckhaveyoubeen!!??!? I have been worried sick, Julie. What the fuck?!”

“I just woke up.”

“I thought that guy you were talking to had left you for dead, for fuck’s sake!”

“No, Im still here. But…well… what guy?”

“What do you mean ‘what guy?’”

“I don’t remember any guy.”

“You don’t remember the guy you were flirting with half the night? The one that offered to take you home when you started feeling bad? The cute one with the undercut and the beard? That guy?”

“Uh….no. No, I don’t remember much of anything after getting to the show. I do have a text from some dude who says that he hopes he wasn’t too rough on me. And Im covered in bruises and freaking out right about now, so don’t get all accusatory. Just tell me who the hell he was. And what do you mean I started feeling bad?”

Lacey explains it all. The hole in the wall bar having shitty acoustics. The local band with the cute bearded guys that sounded like dying cats having one last half-assed attempt at sex. The sparse audience. Luke warm beer. All in all the night was turning out to be a complete shitfest. Lacey’s words. But then these two guys walked up and offered to buy them yet another luke warm beer. Lacey had passed on the drink, but Julie obliged. The guys, Mason and Pete, were flirty and gorgeous so the two girls had to run to the bathroom, the awful smelling, piss covered bathroom, to gush about them. All of this was coming back to Julie piece by piece. She remembers the guy now, Pete, touching her arm, laughing at her jokes… The two of them going to the bathroom then coming back out. She remembers talking about cartoons with the guy and drinking her beer then nothing. There’s nothing but blankness after that. Lacey says that’s when things got weird. Julie had started feeling like hell, lightheaded, sleepy, and off. Lacey started to get up and take her home, but the guy, Pete, had offered. Lacey hadn’t felt right about it, but Julie (and Mason) had insisted that Lacey stay and have a good time. Lacey had agreed but had tried calling and texting Julie the rest of the night to no avail and had even come by the apartment knocking on the door but didn’t get an answer.

“So I started feeling bad after the beer he bought me? Did we leave it with them while we went to the bathroom?”

“yeah. We did. Like idiots.”

“Ugh. Do you think I was drugged?!!? I cant remember shit, Lacey.”

“Seems that way. Do you want me to come get you to take you to the hospital? Maybe they can check. I think it stays in your system for a few hours at least afterwards. Maybe a couple days. “

“I don’t know, man. I… what do you think will happen? What if Im overreacting, Lace?”

“Is anything else weird? What about your room? Your clothes? What do the bruises look like?”

She feels tears swelling in her eyes, her voice wavering with emotion when she finally says, “my clothes are torn… I wasn’t wearing anything when I woke up and you know I don’t like sleeping naked…” She sighs, tears spilling down her cheeks, “And there are bruises on my arm shaped like a hand, more on my legs. I haven’t checked all over yet though. Can you just come over so we can figure out what to do next?”

“Jules, you need to get to the hospital now. I’m coming to pick you up so get ready.”

“We’ll talk about it when you get here. I don’t… I don’t want to go through what Amber did when that dick she works with tied her up with bungee cord and well…you know. Everyone knows what he did. There were pictures for fuck’s sake and nothing had happened to him.” I can’t do it, she thinks. Amber was put through hell answering questions about who she had slept with and if she provoked the dude and why she didn’t fight back…it was over and over and over with the questions and accusations until she couldn’t take it anymore and had killed herself. Jumped out of her apartment window.

“I’m on my way, but I’m not letting this go. You HAVE to do something or he’s going to do this sick shit to other girls, Jules.”

She couldn’t deal with this conversation. Not right now. She ends the call knowing Lacey will be pissed but needing to get away from her regardless. She cant even remember what happened. How is she supposed to be a savior for allllll these other women? Apparently none of them thought enough to report him and save her the trouble!

As soon as the thoughts float to the surface, she feels guilt like a heavy weight pulling her down to the floor. She slides down the cabinets, hugs her legs to her chest, and wails.

She takes her phone in hand again and dials.

“Mom? Mom, I need you. No, Im not okay. I think I’ve been…Mom, just come get me please. Lacey is coming to take me to the hospital and I want you there.”

She ends the call already a completely different woman than she was when she set foot in that bar the night before.

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Here are the links to the other participants! Read through and enjoy!

http://www.BakingInATornado.com Baking In A Tornado

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/ Spatulas on Parade

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://themomisodes.com The Momisodes

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/ Stacy Sews and Schools

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/ Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://eileensperpetuallybusy.blogspot.com Eileen’s Perpetually Busy

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com Battered Hope

http://www.southernbellecharm.com Southern Belle Charm

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com Someone Else’s Genius

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com Climaxed

http://singlemumplusone.blogspot.com Searching for Sanity

http://www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com Evil Joy Speaks

http://gndisney.wordpress.com Disneyland in Kentucky

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Contractual Rendezvous



She looks at him then, her face a twist of need, horror, and regret partially hidden behind a curtain of long platinum blonde hair. Her mascara has smudged leaving dark raccoon circles below her gray-green eyes. Her lipstick had rubbed off long ago leaving a rim of liner only giving her face a trashed, clownish, drug-binge sort of look that was far from reality.

She sits back with her legs tucked under her on the jacket he had thrown haphazardly on the ground earlier. The moonlight is at her back shrouding her face in a cloak of shadows, and she lets out a long, loud sigh of contentment.

“Things just got complicated, Finch.”

He sits up straighter fussing with his clothes in the process, his hair rumpled. He smiles at her—mostly a smirk—and tucks the pale curtain of hair behind her ear. “I suppose they did, Jana. I suppose they did.” He pauses looking at her with a little gleam in his eyes. “I cant say I regret it though.”

“You don’t have to regret it to know that we can’t keep doing this.”

“Why can’t we?”

“Eventually, Im pretty sure we’d get caught.”

“Says who?”

“Says…I don’t know, science? Math? Statistically speaking, Im pretty sure we’d get caught and then we’re royally screwed. No pun intended.”

“You cant live a life based on fear and maybes.”

“But I cant live a life running from the truth either. On running from anything. And isn’t that what we’d be doing as long as we keep this up?” She fidgets, biting her bottom lip nervously and cracking her knuckles.

“Could be,“ he half says, half sighs. His face shows none of the concern that hers does, but she has a feeling that’s about to change.

She scoots into him letting their legs touch one another as she sits by his side stretching out, the two of them leaned against the same tree. He takes her hand in his, his thumb caressing her in light circles while they sit in silence starring up at the stars. Metaphorical butterflies dance and flutter sending radiating tingles throughout her entire body from center to fingertips, from her toes to the top of her head. She wants him, this, them, the whole shebang even if she realizes that she’s dangling from a cliff with the entire situation poised above her, a shadowy cloaked figure with red eyes, threatening to pry her fingers loose one by one to fall to her death.

She was supposed to kill him. He doesn’t know that though. Not yet.

“Finch?”

“yeah?”

“I have something I have to tell you… It’s not pretty.”

“Jana, I don’t care if you used to be a man.” He grins at her devilishly which only makes the butterflies swirl harder and faster.

She slaps him playfully on the arm, but she can’t avoid this conversation with defensive jokes or wrestling around that leads to more sex, so she straightens up with full intent on spilling the truth. Her eyes meet his wiping the smile away when he sees she’s serious, biting her lip again with tears in her eyes. The words ball in her throat forming a lump that won’t budge. Her heart is pounding, sweat forms on her upper lip, and she can tell by the sudden heat that her skin has darkened to a deep shade of red.

He moves away a little and takes both her hands in his. “Whatever it is, I’m here. We’ll get through this. Just tell me.”

“I…we weren’t supposed to have sex out here tonight.”

“Well, you work for my wife, so that is pretty much a given, Jana.”

“She hired me to kill you.” She blurts it out before she has a chance to rethink it, to change her mind or chicken out.

He drops her hands like they burned him, his face contorting into something unrecognizable, his mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air because the words won’t come for him. He moves away fast, jumping up, and taking a few steps backwards towards his car. “Jana…what. the. literal. fuck. Are you fucking with me?”

She stands then adjusting the hem of the knee-length black dress she’s wearing before crossing her arms over her chest in a defensive gesture almost hugging herself. “I wish I was, but Im not. Im not a congressional aid. I didn’t go to Stanford . I didn’t graduate summa cum laude. In fact, I never went to college at all. I went into the army for a while then went AWOL and found work as a mercernary and contract killer because Im good at what I do. I’ve done a lot of jobs for the government which is how your wife got my name.”

“Are you… now? Still? Why are you telling me this?” He’s visibly shaking, eyes white with fear but a look of utter disbelief is still plastered across his face.

“No. Not now. Never. I mean, I can’t. None of this was supposed to happen, Finch. She told me to get close to you…said you like to screw around, she knows it, and she knows it is going to tank her political career if you keep it up and get caught. You already have the tabloids sniffing around every few months. She wants you out of the picture. She said…well…she thought that your death would be good publicity, that it would garner a lot of public sympathy and support. It was supposed to look like a random mugging or carjacking. Something tragic.”

“Jesus Christ…I never thought...how could she just get rid of me that easy, that coldly? We have kids together!” He stands there nearly expressionless searching her face looking for some hint that this was all some elaborate lie or scheme but finding nothing to reassure him.

“She loves her career more than anything else in the world. She made that very clear, Finch. I don’t know what else to say.”

He hides behind his hands for a moment then rubs his face before staring up at the moon. His body is incredibly tense. Even in the shadows she can see the way his outline is hardened. Over the past few weeks, she had gotten used to seeing a softer posture, not hunched necessarily but relaxed, chilled. There’s no sign of that man tonight.

“Why not now?”

“what?”

“Oh come off it. You know what the fuck I mean, Jana. You said you can’t now. Can’t…can’t kill me. Why not if that’s your job?”

“I like you, Finch. It was never supposed to get this far. I have never crossed this line before in my entire career. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”

They stand there, motionless, gauging one another. All she wants is to go to him, pull him close, reassure him, but for him, everything about her is a lie. She knows it, and she knows after this she will probably never see him again. This isn’t some fairy tale where the two of them can run off together and live happily ever after having sex 5 nights a week, cooking dinner together, and raising babies.

“Let’s go somewhere and talk some more, Jana. I’m tired. Hot. I need a shower and some time to sit and think. “

She nods and follows him to his Lexus. The two of them climb in the car, but he sits, hands on the steering wheel lost in thought.

“Finch?”

The sound of her voice seems to bring him out of his daze. He reaches under the seat then bringing out a pistol that he points at her. “Sorry, Jana. Get out.”

She stutters as he waves the gun wildly in her direction but does as she asks.

Once the two of them are out of the vehicle again, he closes the distance between them, chambers a round. “Looks like I’m going to have to have a long, painful talk with my wife.”

Jana hits the ground before she even realizes what’s happened. The moon looks awfully peaceful tonight she thinks just before she closes her eyes.



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Sunday Confessions day today! The prompt was complicated, and I'd have to say that Jana and Finch's situation was way more complicated than I hope my life ever gets. Hope you enjoy it. Thanks for reading and be sure to check out the other confessions with More Than Cheese and Beer 

Friday, May 8, 2015

The Gift of Time


It's Secret Subject Swap Day! This week, 16 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My Subject is: Mother's Day, what is the BEST present you ever received as a mom OR gave to your mom.

It was submitted by: http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/

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I don’t think Ive ever discussed it here on my blog, but on a Myers-Brigg inventory, I am an INFJ (introverted, intuitive, feeling, judging type). In a nutshell, it means that I crave authenticity and deep connections. I am passionate about issues that interest me and get deeply involved in those issues. As a parent, I foster independence in my child. In friendships, I want soul mates. And, in relationships I want actions not words. No matter how complicated my inner world is, I appreciate a simple life. I tend to put a fair amount of stock into the MBTI given that I am a counseling major, but it really does encapsulate the basic foundation of my personality even down to the weaknesses.

It’s that foundation—the need for authentic connections and the simplicity—that really means it isn’t necessarily the gift itself but the thought behind it that matters when someone gives me something. Given that I’m not a traditional kind of person, which I really don’t think has anything to do with my personality type, I don’t necessarily care about getting gifts on Mother’s Day. I mean, don’t get me wrong—I will totally accept one. ha. But, it isn’t a necessity.

In that regard the greatest gift I’ve ever gotten is being able to spend time with The Boy.

Awww. Sounds wretchedly cheesy doesn’t it?

It’s the truth, though.

I’m divorced and have been since 2008. That means I have to give the kiddo up generally every other weekend though we don’t really have a stable, set schedule. So, Mother’s Day doesn’t always happen on my weekends. We manage to work it out, though, and rearrange things if it happens that I won’t have him on MD or his father won’t have him on FD. Things are easy (perhaps because I overlook a lot of bullshit for the sake of ensuring the two of them have a good relationship not strained by tension), and I appreciate that. Mother’s Day is just one of those things that people do, it seems. They rush to buy gifts, give them, and get back to their own interests and lives, so right now all I want is to enjoy the little moments I have with my boy before he’s the one rushing around himself. For me, the greatest gift is that extra time and the extra appreciation. Evan never complains about weekends being changed around. In fact, that’s the way it has worked out this year, and he’s actually pretty ecstatic to be here for his mom. On Sunday, we’ll hang out more than usual. He’ll probably hold my hand when we watch a movie and make sure that he gives me less attitude when I ask him to help me clean up. He might even volunteer to help out without me even having to ask him (Whoa!). We’ll probably watch something old school that I loved when I was a kid so I can share my nostalgia with him and be enthralled with his excitement over something that brought me joy (or be crushed when he hates it like when I showed him The Labyrinth. I almost disowned him). Popcorn, sarcasm, MST3K style jokes no matter what we watch, dinner at my mom’s (for which I am making lemon sour cream cheesecake)… 

What gift could top that anyway?




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Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

http://www.BakingInATornado.com Baking In A Tornado

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com Spatulas on Parade

http://dinoheromommy.com/ Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://themomisodes.com The Momisodes

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/ Stacy Sews and Schools

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/ Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://gndisney.wordpress.com Disneyland in Kentucky

http://www.southernbellecharm.com Southern Belle Charm

http://thelieberfamily.com The Lieber Family

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com Someone Else’s Genius

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com Battered Hope

http://www.smalltalkmama.com Small Talk Mama

http://singlemumplusone.blogspot.com Searching for Sanity


Sunday, May 3, 2015

Duck, Duck, No Geese



I was born and raised in an extremely rural area of Southwest Georgia. It wasn’t easy being what I am compared to what passes for typical around here. My first cardinal sin was my complete indifference to football (which has, in all honesty, turned into loathing as Ive grown and found out how sexist the NFL is). This was followed by my lack of religion (football comes before Jesus in the South. Surprisingly) and compounded by the heavy metal I loved and the way I didn’t act like a fragile damsel in need of rescuing by a strong, brutish man driving a raised 4 x 4, gas guzzling truck. In fact, instead of wilting in the presence of masculinity, I threatened to kick a few ignorant, bigoted asses in my high school days when the natives made unwarranted jokes about friends of mine.

It’s no surprise that I wanted out of here as soon as possible. I dreamed of it. Planned it. Yearned for the day when I could see those plans come to fruition. I would run so fast the day I graduated high school the streets would burn in my wake.

It didn’t happen that way though.

I spent a lot of my time blaming my problems on where I was instead of realizing a lot of it had to do with who I was. I figured that out slowly and surely along the way, and eventually decided this was home. I can’t leave the Spanish Moss covered Live Oaks, the long summers perfect for drying laundry on a clothesline, my two acres of rural paradise…

The girl who mismatched Marilyn Manson shirts and thrift store polyester pants is perfectly content with her knees in the dirt growing vegetables in her garden or mowing the grass with a whiskey sour in one hand and a dog in her lap. If you were to tell my 16 year old self that she would find peace and, in all honesty, complete and utter joy in being followed around her yard in Climax, Georgia by a 4 pack of Indian Runner ducks, she’d tell you to go fuck yourself. But, that’s the way it is.

So, with the prompt “duck” I couldn’t resist showing off my feathered babies, weird as they may be. And hold the glazed duck dinner jokes. I could never eat a part of my family.










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Be sure to check out the other contributions for today's Sunday Confessions on More Than Cheese and Beer