Maybe it's not everyone's lane

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:

Silly string ~ diary ~ window screen ~ financial difficulties ~ kitchen knife

It was submitted by: https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

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I opened my prompt for this post seeing words that are primed for discussing the Darlie routier case. These are pretty much all elements found when going over the tragic death of her kids and her ultimate imprisonment from the silly string moment used against her in court to the cut window screen and the financial trouble the couple had experienced and problems found in her diary, and she has been long suspected of using her own kitchen knife to do the crime, but I don't think anything good comes from me discussing what I think about her guilt or innocence this publicly based on the things we know or think we know because of the true crime industry. I do have an opinion, but I'm not sure that opinion belongs in the public sphere.

I guess after that first paragraph it goes without saying that I do enjoy true crime as a genre myself. I knew as soon as I saw the prompt what these words were referencing because of the sheer vastness of the coverage of this case. It's hard to miss. As much as I enjoy the listening and reading and watching when it comes to true crime, I think we've gotten a little bit out of hand with it all. I mean Peacock gave Casey Anthony of all people a paid platform to lie some more, so we must be doing something wrong here if anyone still gives a second of a care about her opinions or excuses. Even if you removed the fact that she very likely murdered her own child, she's still a godawful human being who absolutely lives for the notoriety and attention, and we just keep giving her that.

There are elements of true crime that are beneficial. I've listened to multiple podcasts now that helped solve some cases. Kristin Smart's family finally got a conviction for her murder nearly 30 years after the fact because of a podcast. Tara Griner's case has a solution. Some men in Georgia were recently released after a podcast uncovered proof that police had manufactured evidence in the case in order to get a conviction. The Unsolved Mysteries podcast (and show) are still bringing conclusions to cases. Without the attention these podcasts have brought, I'm not sure anything would have changed. People would still be without answers. But then there's that Jeffrey Dahmer Netflix series which violated victims' families all over again and unnecessarily dramatized an already terrifyingly dramatic real life situation. I've listened to a podcast, well all of 15 minutes of it since this made me shut it off and never look back, that said Jon Benet Ramsey had a "knowing" smile. Or podcasts like Sword and Scale that repeatedly victim blame or True Crime Garage that repeatedly celebrates police brutality... The point is that it's a fine line to walk between good true crime and exploitive true crime, and the general public has yet to be as discerning as they should when it comes to what we watch or read or listen to but especially with what we think we unwaveringly know to be true.

Two different people can believe with the same degree of certainty very different truths about any given case to the point where we kind of forget very real people are involved. The perfect example of this is the Betsy and Russ Faria case and Pam from the multiple variations of The Thing About Pam that have happened on 48 hours and podcasts and 60 minutes and forensic files or whatever and despite all the evidence proving Pam killed Betsy for insurance money along with very likely her own mother for the same reason and another completely innocent and unrelated person to try to reframe Russ since the first time only took for 10 years, there are a lot of people that still think he's guilty for one. But people have gotten so caught up in the craziness of Pam that they forget Russ lost a decade of his life behind bars, that he lost his wife and never got to grieve, that he has to live forever under the weight of survivor's guilt and with the weight of prison trauma and dealing with the fact that so many people believe he's a murderer. We forget the system got it wrong... And gets it wrong way more than we should he comfortable with. We forget that Pam isn't some character in a dramedy being absolutely deranged for our entertainment. She killed real people and she got away with it for a long time.

I don't think that means every aspect of the genre is off limits by any means. But I guess letting the guy from AHS handle cases might have been a bad choice. And going around staking your reputation on just what you know from taking part in both the good and bad coverage of a case isn't maybe a great choice either. It isn't for me anyway, and so I'll just end by saying that a broken industry built off information gleaned from a broken system is ripe for bad opinions. Tread carefully.

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:



Baking In A Tornado https://www.bakinginatornado.com/

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/

The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver https://thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/blog

Climaxed https://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com
Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

Ok But I Personally Do Like Owls

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This month 4 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 “Secret Subject” is:

What is the WORST present you’ve received?

It was submitted by: https://thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/blog

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I read an article a couple months ago that has stuck with me for awhile. It was unrelated to gifts actually and instead about weird or shocking deathbed confessions. 

One woman, near death, was surrounded by family who took the time, finally, to ask her what was the deal with owls. She had a house full of owls. Little figures and wall hangings and bigger sculptures and salt shakers and pillows... She had literally hundreds. Her answer? She didn't really like owls all that much to be honest. She'd bought one thing with an owl on it one time at a secondhand shop because she found it cute and every time she got a gift thereafter, it was an owl. For decades of her life she was surrounded by things she didn't really like all that much because she wanted the people who gave them to her to not feel bad, so she kept it to herself and displayed them over and over and over for all of her adult life. Finally on her dying breath she was free to tell the truth. She wasn't going to be there to face the hurt and bewilderment they'd feel for having not ever really bothered to get to know what she was actually into... The problem is sort of two fold here because maybe it would have been better to tell people the truth but I think the way we socialize women to be grateful for every speck of love they can grab onto, maybe she gets more of a pass than people who could have asked her at any time what she might like for a present. She was grateful for any gift. And I can understand that sentiment. We've also been taught to be grateful to be thought of at all.

I thought about writing a gothic horror about a woman being buried alive under her Nightmare Before Christmas knick knacks. I thought about writing about the few really bad gifts I've gotten like a ring from an ex as an apology for being a piece of shit, a last ditch effort at saving a relationship that he couldn't have saved without finally growing up some. Or the time my stepmom grabbed a $5 set of plastic earrings for kindergartners and gave it to me from my dad for Christmas when I was 16, for example. But I wanted to say it plainly instead of a metaphor in a story or talking about one gift because the problem is bigger than that. I see it all the time. We see one thing about a person and make it their whole personality instead of getting to know the real them. People are complex. I mean yes I do enjoy watching the Nightmare Before Christmas because Henry Selick is a fucking genius, an artist, absolutely crushingly underrated, but I also like everything else he's done. I like movies that aren't about animated skeletons or Halloween as shocking as it may be. I have a couple of very simple elephant tattoos BUT I ALSO LIKE OTHER ANIMALS which 3 cabinets of trinkets later would also shock some folks. I used to be able to have alcohol occasionally but really haven't been able to since getting sick with chronic fatigue syndrome. I've been sick for going on 7 years now and people still tag me in wine memes. I've openly talked about not being able to drink and not just once or twice...

The thing of it all... it IS nice to be thought of in any capacity but it also really fucking sucks to realize no one bothered to think of the real me only some version that they've created in their own minds so far from who I really am that it couldn't pass for my evil twin from the mirror realm. It's not like I hide what I like or who I am. A million times a month I probably share something I'd love to get myself if I had the extra money. I talk about things that are important to me. I live as authentically online as I do around people I see everyday. My family has easy access when they want to know what I'm into. It's all there online like some weird vision board for most to see. I'll answer anytime someone asks actually. Sit with me longer than 5 minutes and I will inevitably say something incredibly gay. It's all hanging out. 

I recently stopped writing a person I'd spent 4 years trying to help. Yes, a person in prison. I helped him work through some deeply wrong ideas he held about women including a specific ex girlfriend and his own mother. I got them to connect with one another about those thoughts he had and work through them together. I got him to appreciate fiction for the first time in his life. He even wrote a story! Just for fun. I had a visible impact on his life because I listened when he told me things and listened in between and we really did the work to pick it all apart. We aren't writing because he overstepped some serious boundaries but leading up to that point he sent me some things for Christmas last year that gave me a bit of a head scratch. A lot of guys at his prison crochet and sell what they make to other guys to send to family, friends, and girlfriends or whoever and he sent me an Olaf from frozen and a minion. I haven't even seen frozen. Ever. Not once. Never mentioned either movie. And like i have said a million times already yes it's nice to be thought of but it wasn't like he chose these things because he knew I'd like them. He just sent them to say he sent something and it showed all that time we'd been friends and through all the hard conversations we had and the work we did, he hadn't ever really got to know me. It wasn't really a surprise when my boundaries were violated. The version of me living in his head would fall head over heels because of a Disney plush, right? Obviously. And so then she'd totally be receptive to advances she'd spent years clearly spelling out she wouldn't cross. Great plan, right? Only I'm not that person, and the rejection made him angry, so now he's out a friend as well.

The point I want to make is to tell people. Tell them who you are loudly and lovingly. Tell them you don't want another owl. It's fine. No one should die surrounded by hundreds of trinkets they never loved that took endless amounts of work to keep clean. But more importantly, ask what the people you love are into, listen to them. Find out about the things they love no matter how silly you find it. No matter how at odds it is with the version of them you already created. Life is too short to do anything else.

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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:



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

The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver https://thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/blog

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/