You Know Why!

janeann.holly@gmail.com

I posted this on FB, but I’m reposting here because IT’S IMPORTANT.

I debated all last week and even up until last night if I should post something on all this Chick-fil-A nonsense. I’ve been shocked by some of the things that I’ve read and while I know that nothing I say here will change anyone’s mind, the Jesus that I learned about as a child stood up for the oppressed minority so I don’t want him asking me one day why I decided to keep my mouth shut. Plus, I’…m not known for keeping my mouth shut. This isn’t about a chicken sandwich for me. It has nothing to do with a stupid, albeit delicious, chicken sandwich. If you want to eat at Chick-fil-A and support their business, that’s fine. I’m not going to stand on my soapbox and proclaim that I’ll never eat there again. If I have a choice, I’ll probably go somewhere else, but I’m not going to be the lone dissenter in a group of 20 people.

For me, this is about looking someone in the eye and telling them, “You don’t deserve what I have because of who you are. Because of how God made you, because you’re different from the majority, you don’t get the same rights. You’re less of a human than I am.” I’m so sick of this argument, and quite frankly, America should be sick of it too. People have been saying the same thing to certain groups ever since a drunken Columbus crashed his boat on the shore. People have always held up Bibles and quoted Scripture to defend their hatred and bigotry. And every time it has been used, EVERY TIME, history has made us ashamed. Ashamed of how we treated Native Americans, African Americans, Disabled Americans, Jews, women, etc., etc., etc.

The atrocity here is not the destruction of the precious “traditional marriage.” If you want to discuss “traditional marriage” with me then be prepared to answer questions on why there’s no outrage with the divorce rate. Why aren’t people up in arms over Kim Kardashian’s 72 day marriage? People, heterosexual people, make a mockery of marriage every day in this country and no one so much as blinks an eye. But when woman who’s been with the same woman for 30 years wants to get a marriage license, people throw fits of epic proportion. That makes absolutely no sense to me and I’m glad that it doesn’t. When something like that makes sense to me, I’ll know I need to do a lot of soul searching.

No, the real atrocity is that a man can’t list his partner as his next of kin or that he can’t ensure that same partner will receive his hard earned benefits after he’s gone. It’s the fact that two people, who genuinely love each other, just like you genuinely love your spouse, can’t celebrate that. Does their pain make your marriage stronger? Are you “more married” if they’re not? Does the fact that they cry over this make you love your wife more? Does it make your stupid chicken sandwich taste better?

No. No, it doesn’t. And maybe, just MAYBE, if people would stop focusing so much time, money and energy on restricting what others can have, and start focusing on things like poverty, children’s well-being, education and healthcare, we could actually make a better life for a lot of people.

You can comment until your fingers bleed but you’ll be wasting your time. If I lose you as a FB friend, so be it. I will continue to stand up for the side that I know history will prove to be right.

Olympic events in which I have experience and therefore can critique the competitors’ performances.

Soccer.  Um, helloooo?  Anyone remember #9?  Of course you do. 

Running.  Now that I have purchased $140 running shoes and willingly wear things made out of material designed to wick away moisture from my body, I feel that I can give constructive criticism on things like “form” and “pace”.  I also have a subscription to Runner’s World.

Swimming.  Quite frankly, I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t swim – so like all other Olympic athletes, I’ve been doing it forever.  Secondly, I timed myself a few weeks ago and I was able to tread water for a full 13 minutes (suck on that, Phelps).  Finally, last summer, I raced my sister and totally kicked her ass.  She said I cheated but she says a lot of things that aren’t true.

Basketball.  I played for an actual team for only one year but I kept my Vandy shoelaces in my high tops for like, five years.  Also, I’m an active participant in March Madness.

Archery.  I’ve read the Hunger Games (the trilogy, mind you) and seen the movie, so basically I’m an expert on all things bow and arrow.

Table Tennis.  This is ping pong, right?  Okay, well technically I haven’t played a lot of ping pong but I have played a lot of BEER pong.  And in BEER pong you use a ping pong ball, on a ping pong table, so if you apply the Law of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, they might as well go ahead and mail me the gold medal.

Badminton.  Granted, my only experience with this sport was on the days when I wasn’t either doing the Turman Shuffle or “sitting on the first four rows of the bleachers” in junior high gym class, but I feel that the thirty minutes Coach McMurtry spent with us was invaluable. 

Biking.  Come on man.  Olympians are supposed to be an elite group.  Everybody knows how to ride a bike.  I even know people who can ride a bike but have trouble chewing with their mouth closed.  I mean, I’ll “compete” if I’m invited, but I refuse to wear that stupid helmet. 

Volleyball.  I’ve seen the beach volleyball scene in Top Gun enough times to make me eligible.

Rowing.  I’ll admit that this one is a stretch, but based on my life experiences I feel that I am more than qualified to be the person standing on the front of the boat yelling at coaching everyone else.

Scooby Doo, 20 years later.*

Frederick “Fred” Jones, Jr. & Daphne Blake Jones: Fred ended up at Yale law. He was the editor of the law review until he was named as the instigator in a hazing incident. Fred escaped expulsion thanks to his father’s payoff of the dean. He eventually married Daphne who had been taking classes at the local community college. They had two kids, a boy named Frederick the third and a girl named Taylor-Madison-Morgan. Fred became a successful litigator and then moved on to politics. He was the front runner Republican candidate until his fondness for wearing ladies panties was exposed. Meanwhile, Daphne had a thriving scrap-booking business but lost it all when she had to go into rehab because of her addiction to her children’s Ritalin. Daphne took Fred for everything in the divorce and he is now living in a one-bedroom apartment by the train tracks while she spends her days getting drunk off of Franzia boxed wine and sexually harassing the pool boy. Fred the third and Taylor-Madison-Morgan are in weekly therapy sessions.

Velma Dinkley: Velma went to MIT on a full scholarship where she graduated summa cum laude with a PhD in molecular biology. After many years of research, she discovered a cure for the hangover and became a millionaire. She got lasik eye surgery, a boob job and hair extensions. She came out of the closet as a heterosexual and moved to the Bahamas with her 25 year old boyfriend, Miguel. While living on the beach, she wrote her biography titled, “Jinkies! My Life As Ghost Bait.” All of the proceeds went to the ASPCA except for a portion that was used in the smear campaign against Fred Jones.

Norville “Shaggy” Rogers: Shaggy opened a medicinal weed shop, named “Zoinks”, in California. He was successful for a short period of time until he smoked up all of his product. After he was forced to shut the operation down, he and his girlfriend, Willow Branch, moved to a self sustaining farm in Portland. Last anyone heard, Shaggy had become involved in the raw food movement and Willow Branch was arrested for manufacturing bath salts in their tool shed. She was later released when it was discovered that they were, actually, bath salts. Lavender, to be exact.

Scooby Doo: Turns out Scooby was never really a dog. He was just a perverted old man in a costume…and he would’ve gotten away with it too…if it weren’t for the meddling kids.

*Seriously, does anyone else do this?…or am I the only one who thinks of this stuff while watching every episode ten thousand times?

Cult of Personality

I was diagnosed as being bipolar about five years ago and I guess I am in the clinical sense, but I know I am in other ways as well.  I have two definite, distinct personalities.  One is a very rational, logical person.  This is the side that drew me to math and engineering.  I love math because there is one answer and one answer only.  It is what it is and you can’t really argue with it.  Math is comforting to me because I always know what to expect.  It’s organized and I crave organization and routine in order to remain stable.  I really need this part of my personality.

The other side of me is very sensitive and creative.  This is the side of me that likes to post stupid pictures on Facebook and write about my feelings and events that happened in my life.  It is the side that needs to make people laugh.  It needs to cry at stuff too.  This side loves to decorate and dress up.  It scours magazines and websites for new ideas about its house.  It comes up with all kinds of things to write about and sometimes even dreams about sitting down and actually getting that book that’s inside its head on paper.

I don’t know what’s happened.  My two sides used to coexist pretty well but now I feel like my logical side has kind of taken over.  I think the daily routine of getting up and going to work has left my creative side with little time to do the things it loves to do.  My style these days is jeans and t-shirts.  It’s more practical than chic.  I’ve lived in my house for nine months and have yet to hang a picture or paint a wall.  I don’t think I’ve had my hair cut in two years.  And I haven’t really written anything of substance in a long time.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from depressed.  Actually, I’m really good right now.  I just miss that side and I really don’t know how to get it back.

Starting this Saturday I have nine days off of work.  I’m spending time with the kids and family and basically doing nothing.  Everyone keeps asking about my plans, but I’m really not in a mood to make plans.  That’s what the logical side does.  I think for those nine days I’m going to put it away and see if the other side shows back up.

Old Mexico

“Livin’ in the shadows,
Runnin’ from my fame.
Blowin’ where the wind blows,
Where no one knows my name”

When I was going through my divorce I would listen to this song over and over again.  Let’s just say that if it weren’t for my kids, I would be serving drinking margaritas under a tiki hut somewhere south of the border.

Robert Earl Keen is one of those artists who doesn’t have the greatest voice in the world but he gets away with it because not only does he seem like the type of guy who would be a blast to drink a beer with, but also his songs are like stories.  There are so many great messages in his music and I could quote them all day long but this, probably his most popular song, sums up what a great storyteller he really is.

Someone once told me that I reminded them of Sherry.  Since she “had a reputation as a girl who’d been around”, I kind of took it as an insult.  But after listening to this song about a billion times, I figured out that Sherry’s reputation was probably just that, a reputation that didn’t mean shit.  I decided that I liked the fact that I was being compared to a girl who ended up surviving tough breaks and finally found her way into a Mercedes.

End of the Innocence

I think we have a major problem in this country regarding children.  In my opinion, I think we are allowing our kids to grow up too soon.  Specifically girls.  I was blessed with being a late bloomer.  I freely admit that I was still playing with my Barbies at 12 years old and I didn’t get my period until I was 15.  At the time, I thought that was horrible.  I was so behind every other girl my age.  I wasn’t as mature mentally or physically.  I felt like I was “missing out” on something.  It wasn’t until I became an adult that I realized what a benefit being behind really was.

I wasn’t, however, sheltered.  Because of my mother, I knew all about sex and the proper terms for my body parts.  I wasn’t ashamed to talk about it with my parents.  But my mom and dad were also smart enough to let me be a kid as long as I wanted to.  They didn’t allow me to watch soap operas or “R” rated movies.  I didn’t wear two piece bathing suits or heavy make-up.  They encouraged me to read and told me I could be anything I wanted to be, even if it was a 12 year old girl who wanted to sleep with her stuffed animals and play with dolls for a little longer.

As the mother of two little girls I am trying my damndest to keep them kids as long as I can.  Not for selfish reasons.  Not because I’m afraid of them growing up.  It’s just because once you lose that innocence, it’s gone forever.  You don’t appreciate it until you’re an adult.  You don’t realize how wonderful and freeing that purity is until you don’t have it anymore.  I believe it’s my job as a parent to make sure my children have that as long as possible.  So they don’t watch anything but the Disney channel and go to bed before 9 o’clock.  They will not wear bikinis and make-up.  They will know where babies come from and the proper terms for their body parts but they will also sleep with stuffed animals as long as they want to.  I will keep encouraging them to read, tell them all about my job and how women can do wonderful things that have nothing to do with their bodies or their looks.  They will be allowed to be immature and silly well into their teenage years because I firmly believe that BEING A KID AS LONG AS YOU CAN IS KEY TO BECOMING A HAPPY ADULT.

I repeat many things to my kids because I believe repetition is one of the best ways they learn.  One of the things I say over and over again is, “Your only job as a kid is to go to school and have fun.  That’s it.”  And I feel very fortunate that their father and I are able to provide that kind of life for them in the hopes that maybe, they’ll be able to hang on to some of that innocence forever.

I’m your density. I mean, your destiny.

*I wrote this sometime last year and then forgot about it.  It’s still very relevant.

M always says that things happen for a reason.  Some of her arguments include ….”if we hadn’t done that a month ago, you wouldn’t have been able to do this, which would have put you here rather than there and if you add it all up and divide by six it works out perfectly…see?!”  Okay, yeah….she’s much smarter than that and uses a lot more more logic but I still don’t buy it.  Maybe it’s the scientist in me.  I know why people want to believe this is how the world works.  It provides comfort when bad things are happening.  It’s like a survival technique.  In order persevere through hard times; one has to have faith that there is a greater purpose to them – viewing it as some kind of obstacle course that you have to complete in order to get to the finish line.  If this is the case, then I am pretty pissed at life.  If this is the case then why did it seem like my “obstacle course” was designed for a Navy Seal?

My belief is that shit just happens to people.  It’s a role of the dice…you play the hand you’re dealt…[insert other gambling metaphor here].  I took the cards that the dealer gave to me, cussed a little, cried a lot (or vice versa) and made my own reason.  In my case it turned out to be neither destiny nor fate but a lesson that I needed to learn.  So what have the last five years of my life taught me?  It’s taught me to never try to be someone I’m not.  To never pretend that I’m getting what I need out of life or to let people assume that I’m happy because I’m afraid of hurting someone’s feelings.  To never try and keep up a façade of what I think others want my life to be.  Because if you live this kind of lie, if you spend your days trying to convince yourself and the people around you that you’re happy being a suburban housewife married to a man who is just as secretly miserable as you are, then you will end up staying six long days on a 4th floor eating chocolate pudding and drawing pictures in group therapy.

These days, I have no secrets about who I am and the stuff I’m made of.  I have no secrets about my past and what I expect my future to be.  If I meet someone who doesn’t like my “stuff”, my past and my future, then that has to be okay with me.  The lesson I learned helps me to remember that if I don’t let that go, I will never be at peace.   So for me, being myself means being at peace.  And I think that’s what we are all searching for - no matter how we believe the world gets us there.