Opinions Are Like Assholes: everyone has one but not everyone wants to see it

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 7 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:

Are you able to be close friends with people who think differently than you do? Or do you think that friends have to have similar core beliefs in order to be close?

It was submitted by: https://Bakinginatornado.com

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I feel like my answer to this might not win me any friends, but by the end it will probably become clear that I'm okay with that.

Fundamentally, I don't think I can truly answer this question without clarifying what we mean here by "think differently."

Since having chronic fatigue syndrome I experience a lot of cognitive issues. Memory loss, executive dysfunction, loss of balance, trouble speaking words even when I know what they are and trouble recalling words period, trouble thinking clearly... It's a long list. And I guess at this point my brain works differently than what is "normal." I'm not neurotypical. I have friends like me. I have friends who are neurodivergent on a developmental level. And I know people who are neurotypical. We literally think differently, and not one group of us is better or even better off. We're different. End of.

Are we talking about someone who thinks pineapple not only belongs but MUST be on pizza? Because despite how "differently" I feel about it--like someone who eats it is the wrongest kind of wrong-- I love someone who is like this albeit begrudgingly. I feel some kind of way about this blasphemy to everything that is good about pizza, but who does it hurt for him to eat it? (Obviously besides my own feelings.) Superficial opinions like this are fine. You want to put mayo on things? Knock yourself out even though I hate it with the fire of a thousand suns. Don't like the color purple? Ok. I don't get it but I can still love you. Hate The Big Lebowski? Well, I might not think much about your taste in films, but ultimately you're only hurting yourself here so what does it matter in the end? I mean, I'd like you better if you got my constant references, but we could still be close. I have core fundadamental beliefs about foods and movies and music that I think are important to who I am as a person, but if someone I love doesn't agree I silently judge but we can still be close.

I suppose though this prompt is perhaps more about politics and those kinds of core beliefs. And once we cross into that territory things are no longer simple. When we discuss politics we aren't usually talking about how we think the President should use the Federal Reserve to react to an impending recession. We aren't typically talking about states using income or sales tax to fund their budget. Admittedly even those topics can understandably get heated, but more times than not we're arguing over fundamental differences in VALUES. How I feel about socialist programs, queer rights, feminism, reproductive health, anti-imperialism, and nationalism involve respect for humans, help for humans, and basic human rights aligns with how I view the world, society, and what I see as important. These things are no longer just an opinion. They're a reflection of my morals and concern for my fellow human beings. It's not the same as saying you don't like cake which, yeah, fucking sucks but not nearly as much as it sucks to know someone thinks my trans friends shouldn't exist or have access to equal rights. How can I have people in my life that think so differently about my and my friends' and my own child's right to exist? How can I be friends with someone who thinks people like me who can't work are a drain on society? How am I supposed to respect someone who doesn't think food and water are basic and fundamental human RIGHTS????

The answer is an easy one for me. I can't.

I can't wait around for some asshole who doesn't understand that my kid's genderqueer identity doesn't mean he's mentally ill to finally get that he's a person just like anyone else. I can't spend my time arguing with them over it hoping maybe they'll come around. I can't wait for the Trump supporters that still lurk around in my life to finally see what so many others do... it's not just a "think differently" situation anymore. I have to look out for my own and my kid's safety. I was out of the closet in the 90s. I know how much is at stake. I've been threatened with violence from the moment I was out and throughout my life. I don't have room in my life for people who lack basic respect for human life unless those humans love, live, worship, and have sex the exact same way they do.

My point is that at the end of the day we don't "think differently" when it comes to politics more often than not. What we have is an absolute mismatch of values, ethics, morals, and understanding, and with that difference comes a lack of respect and unconditional love that is an absolute requirement for a close, personal relationship. Can we be friends? Maybe but probably not. Not really. But we absolutely can't be close. At best I can stand in the outfield and not wish illness or harm to come to you or yours but that's as good as it's going to get.

When it comes to having those same core values and beliefs but thinking differently about how to achieve those goals or the root causes of identifiable issues or perhaps how to make changes to or reform or deconstruct systems, there's less at stake here. When I think of someone who is "different" than me, it's not these issues that come to mind because we don't "think differently" in my eyes. We have a different approach. We aren't so fundamentally different that working together and having mutual respect is impossible. And there lies the crux of the issue--how differently we think really matters in how to approach this question and these relationships.

I've never minded cutting people out of my life that treat or react to people badly. I'm not gonna be your friend if you don't tip in the u.s. either. I mean really. I don't mind cutting out people that don't make me feel good, that I groan when I see it's them commenting or texting or calling. I have one life, and I'm not giving it to people who make it shitty. The end.

                                      _______________________________________

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

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

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

A ‘lil HooHaa https://hoohaa.com/

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

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

Light Lessons

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: gut-wrenching ~ greenhouse gas emissions ~ blue zone ~ womb ~ associated ~ spirit

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

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I'm writing this journal from the womb that has become my home, a little underground bunker I worked a second job to be able to afford as soon as Donald Trump won his 4th term and nominated his sons to lead the country in case of his death and thereafter. I knew then that there was no hope left.

Probably should have realized that the first time with the mishandling of literally everything but especially the coronavirus and the looming reality of climate change. But I couldn't quite give up back then. I really thought any day people would wake up to how bad things had already gotten and would continue to get, but that time never came even as we died in astounding numbers from constant inaction and lack of adequate healthcare in various pandemics. Trump's flagrant misuse and outright theft of government funds in his later terms didn't help either.

It's gut-wrenching to think we could have stopped this. We could have put more research into the growing threat of novel viruses and super bacteria. We could have cut greenhouse gas emissions. We could have put stricter regulations on our military, our corporations, participated in the Paris agreement. We could have done anything, literally anything, but we chose profit over life, so now here we are at the end of ours. Collectively.

The end of humanity at least this go around...

Capitalism killed as so many of us said it would, and I hope if life happens again, those beings learn from our mistakes.

I live in what the United Nations named a blue zone in 2030. The various color schemes were meant to indicate how dangerous a zone would be for humans living above ground and without major protections. Red zones were coastal areas that essentially sunk into the oceans. Then orange, yellow, blue, and green.

I wouldn't even have to move to be safe in a bunker. Pro. I'd be underground the rest of my life with risky trips to get supplies or maybe healthcare if things continued on the same trajectory. Con.

I wouldn't have been able to save for a bunker AND a move so pros or cons really never mattered much. A move was never guaranteed as people emigrated en masse to those zones. Space was limited, and that came with other risks. Life underground would be my future if I chose to live long enough to see it through.

So here I am both loving and regretting being alive to experience this.

Life seems vastly more complicated in the grand scheme of things while the day to day stuff grew an inversely proportional level of simple. I grow a lot of my own food with grow lights in an off shoot of my bunker. I eat simpler, have less, and don't fight for a 9 to 5 to live paycheck to paycheck. There are no paychecks anymore. Life is fundamentally about substitence. The few people around me and I trade my cucumbers for their chicken eggs or something from my stores of booze and toys for some handmade socks. Bartering for necessities or small luxuries is an interaction I actually look forward to now instead of the existential dread I associated with a trip to the grocery store.

If it weren't for watching the world end, I think I'd be happier. That whole thing is sort of like a thorn in your foot though. Try as you might to forget it and keep moving on, it's always there to remind you with a little pain and potential infection. I'd be happier without the grief I feel for life as I knew it. It's never gone, but I still find myself smiling and at peace for more than I ever had time to do before.

So I guess what I really want to do with this journal from now until it's my time is show whoever comes next the true spirit of humanity without capitalism and money, to show that we do help one another. We do love and share and work. It doesn't have to be about winners and success because we can't win unless we all win, every last vulnerable one of us. I want to write down for all to see how we lived at the end, how we helped one another, how we grew into tighter communities and bigger families, and learned a different way of life, a better one. We're not lazy and unmotivated and greedy when there's system propping up those qualities as desirable and necessary.

Actually, I think we're the light. And I'm going to prove it.

                           ________________________


Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:




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




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




Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog




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




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




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




Climaxed https://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com




Follow Me Home https://followmehome.shellybean.com

These Days

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 6 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:

You just returned from a visit to Ireland and brought back a bit of the ol' Irish luck. What great thing has happened as a result?

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


I needed to vent. thanks for reading.

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I guess in reality no one is going to Ireland right now. No luck of the Irish is coming to call, and I just have to hope that if I get this virus I come out of it alive instead of dying alone. I'm terrified. There's no luck here. Georgia is currently on a trajectory to see infection rates greater than 70% and an astounding death rate if our governor doesn't step in, and he's made it clear he has no intention to do enough...at least until it's too late. (since i first wrote this he finally ordered a shelter in place order after most projections indicated it was too late and only for only just over a week).

I don't know if I have it in me right now to hope for better. Our president knew this would be bad as early as January and did nothing. We have a large group of people in charge who care more about the stock market than lives. We're living in uncertain times. Not a single one of us has any idea what the future holds beyond the fact that things will never be the same again. Never.

How do you think about the luck of the Irish in a time like this? (And to be clear I know the person who sent this prompt in had no idea how things would be or maybe hoped it would be a good escape) I'm so scared and lost and feeling hopeless about the future that it's hard to talk about any sort of hope about things turning around and impossible to pretend that this all goes away with a little luck or that any change--major or minor--gets us anywhere. Because now we know. Now we know that accommodations could be made, that the government didn't step in when it should and could, that the poorest people were told they didn't need a stimulus check at first to help keep them off the street or feed them while on the street. Now we know how quickly things can get bad, how much we depend on "unskilled labor" (i hate that phrase) to function. Now we know that we're seen more as labor sources and stock market padding than anything by the people with power. Now we know how badly we do need universal healthcare.

There is no longer a normal to get back to. And while many leftists, actual leftists, never wanted that normal in the first place, we have no idea where we're going to land to try to make positive changes for the future. And all of us, absolutely all of us, are mourning the normalcy of our day to day.

There is no EPA oversight right now. None. In an environment already overwhelmed by humans.

With cfs, my immune system is compromised is ways that even the most informed experts on the disorder don't understand. Every time I have groceries brought in, every exposure is a risk. My stepdad won't close his store because Georgia isn't closing things down right now. He's exposing my mom every single day. They're still doing family things exposing the rest of my family. I might very well lose people. I already have friends with it. I've had friends denied tests because they weren't sick enough. The real numbers are very likely much higher giving us an invisible enemy around every corner.

We were told to sacrifice our grandparents and our sick (people like me!) on the alter of the Market in the Holy Economy temple. We were told to appease the capitalism gods. To sacrifice lives to keep people rich with no inkling of understanding that these bodies are needed to keep the economy afloat...to spend money and give labor.

White supremacists are using their infected to spread to the groups they hate and tried to attack a hospital with a car bomb. A hospital full of covid patients.

Maybe most people I know live will through this. Maybe I do so my kid isn't parentless or doesn't have to live with a parent and stepparent who don't love him. Maybe we will find a vaccine before millions die and can maintain social distancing until that vaccine is a reality. Maybe the people in charge finally start taking this seriously--and not after it's too late like in Georgia whose major hospitals are already overwhelmed with the ceiling for the number of patients we can take looming larger and larger by day. But none of that will be because of luck. It will be fought for.

If we're lucky, if we really want some of that Irish luck, I hope we'll still have some fight left when all this is done.

Fight for change, for universal healthcare, for better than what we've gotten from two parties who care about money more than people. Fight for the most vunerable of us to finally see equality so they're not treated differently when they're dying alone in the hospital, so someone's triage choice doesn't exclude the trans patient solely based on bigotry. Fight for every state and every local government to have plans already in place to address pandemics so we don't have SHITASS governors thanking chik fil a and praying instead of closing fucking beaches. We have to get through this and still have fight left even while everyday we feel like we don't have any at all. And we'll need luck and wits and strength and determination and the highest roll possible on our polyhedral dice to make sure this doesn't happen like this to our kids and their kids.

_______________________________________

Baking In A Tornado https://www.bakinginatornado.com/2020/04/call-me-pistachio-secret-subject-swap.html

Spatulas on Parade https://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/2020/04/changing-that-one-sss-april-2020.html

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

A ‘lil HooHaa https://hoohaa.com/?p=14790

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2020/04/secret-subject-swap-long-day.html

The Case

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.

I've been listening to true crime podcasts so blame that haha

                   _____________________

Shannon paced in front of the whiteboard/corkboard in her home office. Her dark hair was pulled into a messy bun on top of her head and not the intentional kind. It was a mass of tousled knots that didn't even register on her radar of concerns. If pressed, she wouldnt have any idea how long it had been since she last brushed it.

But she could tell you every known detail of the last night she spent with her cousin Emily 6 years and 5 days ago.

Emily had been murdered. Another statistic of violence against women, unsolved, a cold case, another national tragedy so said the headlines that dwindled day after day with no answers until literally everyone had forgotten her. She'd even asked around the campus she disappeared from out of curiosity around the year 5 mark, and not a single person could remember who Emily was.

A nameless, faceless statistic.

Not even a body or a grave site or an urn of ashes to show for her life. She'd never been found.

Emily and Shannon had grown up together. They were roughly the same age, and thanks to Shannon's dad being out of the picture and her mom struggling with addiction, she'd spent more of her childhood years staying at her aunt's house sharing a room, the top bunk specifically, with Emily than she had with her own mom. She thought of Emily as a sister. Probably closer than most sisters since Shannon had been so grateful for the love her extended family had shown and Emily had been so understanding and patient that they'd rarely fought.

Her entire world imploded when Emily went missing. And the guilt that still pressed on her like a weight 6 years and 5 days later because she was with her that day and chose to do her own thing was an unstoppable force. She hadn't been able to let it go for a single second not even when the police let it go cold, not when the headlines stopped appearing even on yearly anniversaries, not when locals couldn't even remember who Emily was or what happened... Shannon would never--could never--let her go.

So here she was retracing everything she knew, every report from the only private investigator her family had been able to afford, and all the files she'd gotten her hands on once she got her own P.I. license at 24. She did small town bullshit cases to pay the bills and spent far too much of the rest of her time looking for Emily's killer.

She was 27 now. She hadn't ever had a real relationship. No one could handle how much time she spent on the case or the anger she felt, the shortness of her temper, and the lack of patience she had for people who didn't understand why she was so afraid of the world.

Back to the case, the facts, the pieces, the things she could focus on instead of herself.

Emily was 20 when she disappeared.

She was finishing up her sophmore year at University of Georgia in Athens.

She wasn't dating anyone. No one had any drama with her according to the many, many people interviewed.

On the night she disappeared January 20th, Shannon had gone to Athens to see Shakey Graves play. She was 21 herself and had been with Emily almost the entire day. She spent the night in Emily's dorm on the night of the 19th after getting to North Georgia from their hometown in Valdosta pretty late. It was a long drive, and Emily had stayed on the phone with her the last hour to keep her awake. The two had done some shopping earlier in the day then ate dinner at a small bbq place. No one acted weird, approached them in any way, or--as far as she could tell--followed them back to the dorm.

When Shannon left for her concert, Emily had plans with friends to go to a home basketball game. It was actually a pretty big deal because of impending March madness. This win could give the Bulldogs some kind of direct spot to the March Madness tournament.

6 years later and Shannon still didn't understand basketball well.

The point being that lots of folks were in from out of town on top of the other basketball team from Florida State and all their staff. Every single player at that game had been cleared however. Each of their whereabouts after the game and the following day were accounted for. But with so many people being in town for this game, various concerts including the one Shannon attended, and several other events, the police had given up on finding the person. The Stegeman Coliseum,where the basketball game was held, seats over 10,000 people alone.

Shannon had grown a bit cynical. She knew the police put forth some kind of effort. They checked out the team, for example. But it never made national news. Athens' economy depended on these games, the team, tourists for the music scene, and the university. Scaring people off with a dead student wasn't something the city was willing to do. They had leads. they had people they'd eliminated. But making the kind of deal out of it that was needed was never undertaken.

Back to the facts, the timeline, the logic.

The city had been inundated with outsiders for days prior and after the 20th.

When Emily hadn't shown up to the dorm that night to let Shannon in after the concert, when Shannon finally found Emily's roommate who hadn't seen her since she left for the game, and couldn't get Emily on the phone by call or text, she called Mama Leena. Emily's mom. Basically her own mom. Leena immediately hopped in her car when she couldn't get Emily either. It wasn't like her not to check in or answer a call or text even if she had been with a boy. She would have text Shannon at her concert to let her know not to wait up. She would have left her a way to get in or made arrangements for her to stay with a friend. And in all honesty even though the police never bought it, Shannon knew even then that Emily wouldn't have gone off with a guy with Shannon up there for the weekend. They never got to spend time together at that point, and any time the two of them did manage to get together, it was about quality sister time as much as possible. No one night stand would have gotten in the way of staying up late, talking, and watching shitty B horror movies as was always their tradition. And Emily hadn't really been interested in anyone. Shannon thought she might have been gay. Or asexual. But she didn't press. Emily wasn't a one night stand kind of person. She wasn't into romance or dating. She barely had crushes on celebrities. It stood out. But police see college aged girls as being a certain way, and they never accepted any other description preferring to hold on to their sexist stereotypes.

She kept getting lost in the memories. That was always the trouble. There wasn't one time in all of these 6 years that going through this thin stack of information didn't take her on scattered train of memories and feelings and facts all at once.

Given Emily was over 18, the police wouldn't do anything until she didn't turn up the next day. So by the time they were finally called again to come take a report, Shannon and Leena had already put together much of Emily's night.

She had definitely gone to the game. She had seats with 2 of her good girl friends at school, Alaina and Marcella. Their boyfriends attended too but met the group of girls there. All of their stories checked out. After the game they had gone out for a bite to eat, but Emily had chosen to stay behind and walk the half a mile back to her dorm so she could clean up and be ready for Shannon to get back. Even with this explanation, the police had assumed Emily had changed her mind. It was one of those big things that really held the investigation up.

The only other person these friends saw Emily talk to was a guy in a green shirt with an Irish sounding name like Seamus. None of these friends knew him from school, but they hadn't really paid much attention to the conversation. He had the seat beside her, and he had talked to her quite a bit even celebrating with her when Georgia would score so he had to at least be a home team fan. Alaina was closest and said it seemed a bit flirty on his side, and Emily seemed shy but maybe interested? Shannon has always considered this piece of information a bit biased. When any of her closer friend group spoke of her in the days after her disappearance they discussed their concern that she didn't date, that she wasn't getting out there and trying, that she was happy but they felt like she was missing something.

But that was just Emily. The idea that a young woman on her own for the first time in life, going to college, working a part time job at the library, who had a good family could be happy without dating should have been more normalized. Maybe the police would have seen the comments for what they were and not make so many suggestions about Emily running off. Fuck them.

Of course Shannon had spent most of her adult life single too. She sat at her desk and pulled at her messy hair. Her cat Simon the orange destroyer jumped in her lap purring. She joked his was the only male attention she needed, but that wasn't true. Something in her own life was missing, but no one ever seemed to understand her need to figure this out.

She didn't even know how she felt about justice anymore or the system. It had failed Emily so hard. She just wanted to know where her sister's body was. She wanted to be able to say goodbye. To bury her.

Emily had last been seen on CCTV footage in the coliseum and leaving it with this tall red headed kid. Green shirt. Maybe he had offered to walk her back to her dorm, but none of the CCTV cameras outside the dorms she would have passed before getting to her own picked her up. In a less than half a mile walk, Emily was gone. The police assumed she ran off with the boy, but that just wasn't Emily, and even when her clothes turned up a few blocks from the dorms, the police still shrugged their shoulders and said there were too many folks and that chances were slim. Shannon's heart was broken in pieces, and her family had never been the same.

No one had ever identified or tracked down this guy, but tomorrow might bring answers or at least open the door for them. Shannon got up again and packed all the pieces of Emily's disappearance. Tomorrow she was going on a little podcast that did deep dives in cold cases. Maybe someone would recognize the CCTV photos of this person or had been there that night and seen him or Emily or them together.

Every time she got her hopes up, she came away worse than ever before, but her love for Emily knew no ends. Hope would never die.

___________________________________

Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado https://www.bakinginatornado.com/2020/03/wheres-quilt-use-your-words.html

Spatulas on Parade https://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/2020/03/impish-shenanigans-uyw-march.html

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

Follow Me Home https://followmehome.shellybean.com

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/2020/03/gwens-turn.html

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2020/03/use-your-words-hard-feelings.html

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

Dinner Doggies

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 7 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.

                       _____________________

I didn't have the best childhood. It wasn't easy by any means. There were a lot of drugs, a lot of alcohol, a lot of abuse. We were fairly poor, always struggling, and I had so much anger for so long, so much resentment, that I didn't get to have a "normal" childhood. I didn't get innocence and sleepovers and the warmth of those memories. I couldn't even remember a lot of things beyond a few fuzzy and painful events I'd rather not have retained to be honest. There are entire years that seem missing.

Lots of people have decided for me that those memories are repressed and that I need repressed memory therapy--that 80s craze that took the U.S. by storm right alongside Satanic Panic--but all that has been debunked multiple times over. The truth of the matter is that my brain was in flight or fight mode so often, things often didn't stick. When those parts of your brain are activated to help you process a situation and make quick decisions, memory suffers. Self preservation processes take precedence over making it a memory.

Unless I was actually smiling and enjoying myself away from my parents, I don't remember much, and I'm okay with that. I don't have to remember to be whole. I don't need those memories to work through my shit. I've done so without them. And--MOSTLY--gotten over the resentment.

But boy do I remember the things that got me through. Toys, a few shows, movies, games...anything that helped keep me grounded or let me soar.

One of my best escapes was books because we were in such a rural area that cable was never an option, and we only had a super small collection of movies (most that we did watch were rented). I read a book a day at least more often than not...sometimes while hiding out in my closet or outside under a tree picking ants off my socks. I read to leave home, to be free, to live a better, easier, funnier, whackier, warmer life built by someone else's words in my own imagination. Or sometimes my own words. I started writing my own stories in grade school-- ghost stories scarier than my own life obviously with some cuddly cute cats thrown in the mix. I often went for the dark side. If it was weird or scary, I wanted to read it. I started Dean Koontz (who I never much liked) and Stephen King by 6th grade. There were entire worlds of spooky shit built in my head because it gave me something to be afraid of that I had chosen. It wasn't a ranting and raving high person who was supposed to love me and take care of me making my heart race in fear; it was a make-believe monster not a real one. I had control over it. I could put the book down. I could turn the lights on or hide under the covers or fling the book across the room. I wasn't beholden to that fear the way I had to be at home. The devil you know...

None of those make for good dinner guests though. Stephen King characters? Nah. I mean, I guess some people have a Pennywise fetish since Bill Skarsgard played IT, but that ain't me. We ain't having that man over for dinner and hoping things get freaky...well. freakier.  I have my likes but uh...we're just gonna move on.

One of my favorite set of memories is playing "airplane" with my little brother. We'd drag out these cheap little sleeping bags we had into the middle of his bedroom floor, open them completely, and spread them out. We'd have "seats" set up like they were on the aisles of the plane, and and put some of our toys in to fill up the plane. Then one of us would fly and one would be on the plane ride. We'd go anywhere in the world we wanted certainly away from home and the pain we had there. And our in-flight movie would always be Scooby Doo Meets the Boo Brothers.

By no means was this particular movie relegated to just fake flights. We had it on VHS and literally wore it out. There was one scene in particular where Scooby fell out of Shaggy's jeep (it was just Shaggy, Scooby, and Scrappy in this one not the whole gang and mystery machine) into a puddle and jumps up chewing his nails and freaking out (and makes a noise very much like my Dane now makes when he gets a scare) and we'd howl in giggles until we hurt and rewind it to do it again. It was just our thing. And to be honest, it's still something I run to when I need a pick me up, when I'm really sick, or when I need to decompress. It's been a favorite for nearly all my life.

My great Dane and Scooby would eat and drool and be very much like Scooby-Dum, Scooby's cousin, and Scooby when they had a reunion--two goofballs being absolutely clumsy and full of love. And okay maybe a little bit dumb too but I do have to say great danes are really smart dogs despite how often they trip over their own feet and look like they're completely clueless. Scrappy would probably join in the fun but try to be the Boss like it always is with smaller dogs and giant ones. The new, tiny dog we have now that I wrote about last month is absolutely the Boss of this house.

But since me and Shaggy go way back, I imagine we'd get a little high (y'all know Shaggy be smoking weed), snack, and listen to some of my vinyl records while he was super awkward. I say that like I wouldn't be. I'm always super awkward.

Sounds like a perfect evening. And very possible we wouldn't even have to have a monster-free night given my company. There's always some rich guy in a Creeper mask waiting to steal a fortune right?

Oh how much that applies.

                   ______________________

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/2020/03/remember-when-secret-subject-swap.html

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

Wandering Web Designer             https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

Part-time Working Hockey Mom    https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2020/03/secret-subject-swap-ireland.html

A ‘lil HooHaa                             https://hoohaa.com/?p=14739

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

The New Addition

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 were: dog, coffee, remote, denim, cotton, and fake

they were submitted by:

https://www.southernbellecharm.com

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It's a bit serendipitous that I got these words with "dog" included. My little family has had some big changes over the past couple months involving dogs.

In early December, our senior lady Georgia, a chiweenie of unspecified age but definitely older than 15, got sick, needed emergency surgery, and never came out of anesthesia. It happened so fast. She was definitely getting older, but we honestly thought we had a few more good years. She had a lot of energy, still bossed Rost, our great dane, around, had herself a full time cat boyfriend, and was absolutely spoiled. So it was unexpected to say the least. And devastating. It didn't help that we lost another dog tragically in August to a random snake bite that I wrote about for one of our challenges last year. 2019 was not at all kind to our family, and the loss of Georgia felt like the nail in the coffin.

The cats were depressed, howling for her night after night. Rost missed her. And our holiday smiles were absolutely fake. It hurt. And it hurt badly. This was our 3rd pet loss in 3 years (my last great dane in early 2017 to old age), and we were feeling it. Anyone with pets will tell you those losses are as hard as any others--sometimes harder--and the grief involved is very real.

We weren't necessarily looking hard to find another dog. We weren't sure we ever wanted another. But I had scoped out some rescue and humane society pages missing the little tapping paws following me around the house. I had come close to going to check out a couple and even emailed for more information, but in the end, it just wasn't the right time or fit. The idea of bringing another dog in so soon was weird. Georgia's shoes could never be filled.

I did ask my mom to keep her ears open for me. She has a much bigger local network than I do. I hide out in the country and pretty much cut off 90% of people I know locally for my own sanity. But she works for the courthouse and my stepdad owns a bait and tackle/gas station/convenience store type thing (what a combo...get a sausage dog and a bag of crickets when you fill up your tank) and has for a long ass time, so they know a lot of folks. I told her we weren't in a hurry to move on, so she didn't have to go asking around, but it still wasn't even two days later that she sent me a message about a little shih tzu that had been surrendered to her vet by its owner who was too sick to take care of it anymore. Chewbacca was his name, and he certainly looked the part.

I debated on it a few days. The kid wasn't sold. A shih tzu didn't really seem like our kind of dog, but he certainly looked so differently from Georgia, and that would help ease the pain of comparisons. A couple more days passed and we found out that someone who was supposed to meet the dog didn't, so we took a chance. The possibility of him coming home with us seemed remote.

But then we met him.

He looks like a little werewolf baby. Long hair with gray, black, and white and sometimes a tinge of brown. He has a little floof of white cotton on his chest and a tail like a feather duster. We brought him home on a week long trial. The first meet with him and Rost went better than expected, but it felt so weird having him here. I wanted to cry but also hug him and never let him go. By the second day though, he acted like he's been here forever, so more or less he cbose us. Even the cats took to him pretty quickly considering he's only been here 3 weeks, and his personality keeps shining out more and more. He plays with us, with Rost. He knows his new name. He weirdly never answered to Chewbacca so we call him Fizz which is short for Fizzgig from the dark crystal. If you know the movie, you know why. Haha. He's trained, never pooped in the house and only had two pee accidents. He's good in his kennel but of course he's already sleeping in the bed all night.

I have my mid morning coffee while he dances around the kitchen grinning with his bottom teeth. He sleeps in the bathroom with the Dane while I shower, and anytime I actually get a chance to sit down, there he is begging to be held like a baby so he can sleep.

Now he just needs a ripped denim jacket that says Teen Wolf. Way better than a letterman jacket. And he'll fully look the part of the household cryptid.

He's certainly no Georgia, but that's kinda the point. There could never be a replacement, so why try? He's got a personality all his own, but one that fits in better than I ever could have imagined, and it's been so little time. I can only see it getting better.

Nothing really takes away the hurt and missing our old lady...but Fizz is certainly making those smiles and laughs genuine as hell, and for that I am so thankful.

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado https://www.bakinginatornado.com/2020/02/a-song-raven-and-shrimp-use-your-words.html

Spatulas on Parade https://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/2020/02/middle-aged-slump-feb-uyw.html
Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

Follow Me Home https://followmehome.shellybean.com

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-ransom-of-sally.html

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2020/02/use-your-words-thongs-vs-flip-flops.html

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

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

Medicated Musings https://mymedicatedmusings.blogspot.com    

First But Not the Greatest Love

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 9 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: With Feb we think about love. Who was your first love? Do you know where they are now? Are you friends?

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

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I've talked about my first real love a time or two on this blog. It's not a sore subject. The relationship ended badly and our attempt at a redo ended even worse. But overall, I don't look back in anger. Oasis taught me not to anyway.

Let me back up a moment and focus on the qualifier "real" that I used here.

I had what I called, at the time, relationships in both middle and high school, but these were extremely superficial. I mean what else can they be in middle school? I had a longer relationship in high school, and I really was infatuated with the person at the time, but I can't reflect back on it and say I was in love or loved them. It was something to do really, and I didn't even cry when it was over. I was relieved. I wasn't in the right place to meet my high school sweetheart, fall in love, and marry at 18. That wasn't who I could be nor was it who I wanted to be. I was still exploring my sexuality, still not processing having been assaulted, still with so much resentfulness over the shitty childhood I had and how fucking awful living with my father was and then my stepfather after that. It wasn't an easy time and having been assaulted at such a young age, I wasn't every going to be able to have an intense romance. My innocence was long dead along with the child I never got to be.

I was so very angry.

It was the year after I graduated that I started this first real, serious relationship with one of my good friends all throughout school who had expressed having feelings for me but at the time I hadn't been ready to date. Anyone. It wasn't personal. I just couldn't do it. It took awhile for me to get to a point where I thought I was emotionally ready for it and to recognize the feelings as genuine and not some silly crush or feeling obligated because he had those feelings. Even then I recognized we're so often taught as young women to prioritize boys' feelings and shit over our own. Realizing the genuineness of my feelings did very little at first though. It was some kind of heartache for awhile when I first figured things out. I thought I had ruined my chance by never wanting to take it further when he did.

It all worked out eventually, and we moved in together when we were just 19. I really think that was our downfall. It was too much responsibility too fast. He had been really sheltered and never had to do much for himself. We both had issues, dysfunctional families... I had unresolved trauma. I HAD to get out of my mom and stepdad's home. It was all too much too soon, but we kept at it for a year and a half. Trying to manage an apartment and college and jobs and still make time for each other and our friends really made enjoying our new found freedom pretty difficult. It didn't help that my past with other dudes and me being queer made him insecure. And it certainly didn't help that I had like zero self esteem. We were an absolute mess.

To be clear, I don't think if we had gotten together under better circumstances that we might still be together. I'm so vastly different than I once was, and he's more or less an adult version of the same guy. A few more wrinkles, a little less hair, some life lessons, and even more responsibilities now than when we failed, but essentially he's the very same person I once knew. I had to go through literal hell to address my traumas and be reborn as something mostly whole. Kintsugi for the proverbial soul isn't exactly easy. And the older I've grown the more my humor has changed, the more I've addressed my innate biases, the more I've become intersectional, a feminist, and a far leftist. I would hardly recognize the girl I was when he met me, when we were together, or even the girl he left behind. Ive fixed so many cracks, she's virtually unrecognizable.

Life happens, as they say. And I'm okay with the direction life took for me. It hasn't been easy, sure, but I'm okay. I'm at peace with WHO I've become even when life isn't easy, and I think coming from where I did that's really the best I can hope for. It's better than a lot of folks who walked a similar path.

We aren't friends. I don't think we're allowed to be because new partners get insecure about friendships with old ones. At least that's how it usually works around here. (On his end not mine. I don't go for that shit in my personal life ever.) I do miss the friendship, but if I'm really truthful I know it wouldn't be much of one even without insecure significant others. We're too different. My values and humor are too different. And I draw a hard line on people who use vulnerable populations as a punchline. I stopped even being Facebook friends with all the people we hung out with at the time especially since one of those is a trump supporter who literally grabbed me by the crotch one night WHILE we were dating and they all still make excuses for it. Go figure.

We did talk a few times over the years expressing our responsibilities in why things went bad without reminiscing, apologizing without it being awkward. I don't duck or run when I see him in public which is rare now that I'm housebound. So it wasn't awful even though it really was my biggest heartbreak to date. And it wasn't something I held onto resentment over. But it's never going to go down in history books as a great romance or in my own history as the one that got away. But I did love him, and I'm thankful for everything I learned about myself and relationships along the way.

_________________________

Here are the rest of the participants!

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

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

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

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

A 'lil HooHaa https://hoohaa.com/

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

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

Medicated Musings https://mymedicatedmusings.blogspot.com