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 |   My 2nd blog. My spot for sharing my life, music, and writing with my friends. |
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Hello, Hello. Fancy seeing you here. I'll work on making this nice and pretty later. *  I also have a poetry blog, for those who dig poetry:
AND I have a mental health group with a monthly challenge:
[Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lay my hands on Heaven and the sun and the moon and the stars While the devil wants to fuck me in the back of his car ♡ * I will never make this pretty. |
Artist: The Stone Roses Song: I Wanna Be Adored [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt(s):  What was not as good in reality as it sounded in theory? Courtesy of:
I wish I would have left you in the past where you belong, filed away neatly between the surrounding years. I didn't even realize how much guilt I was holding for allowing the general rottenness of that time frame to decay your memory in my head. I didn't realize how much I'd let the dark leak into your light like adding a drop of black paint to, well, to anything. Reviving you was like trying to breathe life into my own lungs. I know how much it would hurt to hear this, but... I debated. I thought about leaving you alone on the deathbed of my mind. You'd almost faded completely. You were this close. Seeing your name sent a shockwave through my brain. I'd gone from the general assumption that you were institutionalized somewhere, or worse, to the Creation of Adam within seconds. Having you even remotely tangible after so long felt very Pet Sematary. But I loved that in-between. Those moments when I knew you were okay, but I'd still turtle-shelled myself well enough to only feel it as a casual observer. You always said I was like a bystander in my own life. Like, I was too afraid to reach out and touch anything. I was afraid that anything I touched would break, if we're being honest here. I had stories now though. I could show you how filthy my hands had gotten in the ten years of your absence. I wanted to show you how much I'd participated in my own life, because whether I realized it then or not, there really was an overtone of competition on it all, wasn't there? The way you'd run your smooth fingers along the rough ridges I'd put in my own skin and say, "You have got to stop this." And I'd predictably say something like, "I'll stop when you stop." So you'd throw your head back and laugh, bearing your pointed eye teeth and say, "Well, never mind then, I guess." There was a lively debate going on in my head. In the end, the decision had so little to do with you, it's pitiful. Opening that door had so much to do with me desperately grasping for something positive from my youth and so little to do with creating new memories with you. As selfish as it is, the thought hadn't even crossed my mind as I tapped out that message. Not once did I think, Oh, you're back in my life now. We can pick up where we left off. I thought it was common knowledge that time acts as a catapult. I wrongly assumed that you would understand the death of something as well as I do. I thought you'd had enough loss to know. The regret was almost immediate. He always told me that I build things up in my memory. I make them seem better than they are, even though he words it better. "It's not your fault, Charlie. You just remember things poetically." What it boils down to is this: You and I existed under a perfect storm of variables. Hardwood floors and broken air conditioners. Empty rooms with open windows and the music just right. We existed because we needed to exist at the time. I needed you, just the way you needed me. And changing a single variable, it fucks up the entire equation. That's what reconnecting with you felt like. It felt like trying to solve a math problem with a typo. Like this edition of 'us' should have been recalled before ever making it to print. And, god, does that hurt. It hurts in the bits of soul I have left. It hurts in the good memories, no matter how rotten the picture frame. It feels like I've shattered the delicate balance of our past. Like I can't hold you above all the noise anymore. I can't reconstruct it now. It's like a broken mirror and even thinking about attempting to fix it leaves shards of glass in my hands. The worst part is that you've done nothing wrong. You couldn't have guessed who I'd become any more than I could've guessed who you'd become. You were so excited to talk to this person. The realization feels like getting held under water. How could either of us have known that it was I who had died. Not you, but me. I was so focused on what might have become of you after so long, I didn't even stop to think of what had become of me. I don't have to sell my soul He's already in me |
Artist: Tigers Jaw Song: Never Saw It Coming [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt(s): Tell us about something/someone that fucked you off this week. Courtesy of:
The title is basically a summary of this entire entry, so if you've read that, your job is pretty much done. But this would be my shittiest rant to date if I didn't expand a bit, so let's do that. To explain the backstory of how this entry came to be would take far too long, so we'll begin with this: YOU FEEL HOW YOU FEEL AND THAT'S OKAY. You don't have to justify your feelings. It isn't necessary to get validation or explain how those feelings came to existence. You don't have to talk about your past experiences or your perspective and how that equates to your current feelings. We don't have to time travel for me to accept that your feelings matter. If you find yourself around people who make you feel so defensive about your feelings that you have to pull out a fucking autobiography to explain yourself, you should find better people to hang around. I don't need to hear you tell me, "I'm not homophobic, and my proof is that my sister-in-law's son's ex-girlfriend's kid is gay." Like, holy fuck, what has happened to you that you think you need to pull out the only gay person you know as evidence of your open-mindedness? Honestly, I feel so bad for people currently. Everywhere I turn, there are people defending their feelings and desperately seeking validation. It's okay to feel angry at the current state of affairs. It's okay to NOT feel angry at the current state of affairs. It's okay to feel scared or nervous. It's okay to feel hopeful or content. You don't have to explain where you've been or what you've been through that has led you to your conclusion. It's ridiculous to say that because of your race/gender/sexuality/religion/etc. that you feel a certain way. It's ridiculous to say that even though you feel a certain way, you aren't racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. You are who you are and you feel how you feel. You don't have to self-identify. You don't have to preface every sentence. If you want to, if you feel like you need to, then go for it. But I hate how this has become, like, the only socially appropriate way to speak. "As a female..." "Even though I voted for Trump..." "As a gay man..." It's like, god damn, can't you just say how you feel as a human who has feelings? Because, as I said before, it's perfectly normal and rational to feel how you feel no matter how you look, where you've been, or where you're going. The flip side of this and the real tricky bitch is that every single other person around you also has the right to feel how they feel when they feel it and how they feel it. The burden then becomes whether or not you want to be around that person. It's completely reasonable to feel something like, Wow, I can't believe that person really feels that way. Their positive qualities don't outweigh the negativity I feel about their opposing viewpoint. It's okay to feel like you need to cut people out because their feelings are so unaligned with your own feelings that you can't possibly reconcile the friendship or relationship. This isn't a burden that only you have. Every person around you also holds this burden when dealing with you. While you have every right to feel how you feel, don't be surprised if the people around you feel like they can't deal with the way you feel. And yeah, I know I'm on a soapbox rant. I know it seems like both parties could just be like, "Hey, we disagree on these issues, but we otherwise get along, so let's just agree to disagree and move on." It would be excellent if things always worked that way, but that isn't reality. Sometimes people's feeling are so passionate and so opposing that the relationship legitimately needs to be severed because of the endless cycle of negativity created by the conflicting views. What I'm trying to boil down to here is this: It's okay to feel how you feel without validating or explaining your position 500 times in 500 different ways. The people who matter or are even remotely pliable are going to accept your feelings no matter where they're coming from and the people who you're trying to reach literally don't give a fuck how you feel or why you feel it. Stop throwing shit against the wall in the hopes that it'll stick. It simply is not going to. Don't waste energy trying to prove that your feelings are more right or more valid than another person's feelings. You're both right and you're both wrong. Congratulations.  I played with fire, I burned it all down I made more mistakes than you can count |
Artist: David Bowie Song: Heroes [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt(s): It's nearly 2017. Go ahead and rant about 2016 or what you want to see happen in the new year. Courtesy of:
What is your favorite memory of this night? Do you stay up to watch the ball drop? Get together with friends or family? Go to bed like any other night? Do you have a secret fantasy you are waiting to happen on this night?Courtesy of:
Happy New Year! Wow, 2017 already? Time just flies, man. When you're a kid and you're wishin' you were older, people are always like, "Wait until you're an 'adult' and see how fast time goes." And you're like, right, okay, bullshit artist. But, damn, they're right. One minute it's April, the next it's nearly Christmas and it's like... what the fuck happened? I swear, I was just taking finals a couple days ago and being stoked about having a few weeks off from school. Oh well. I'll be honest, I don't have any favorite memories of New Year's Eve. I can't remember most of them because this is obviously the best party night of the year with my birthday and Halloween falling second and third behind it. But, I wasn't able to do much of that this year with school in the way. What I'm saying is-- tonight is my night!  Hanging with J later and guaranteed to be regretting my life tomorrow. That is the only way to ring in a new year. It's tradition. I do remember one hilarious New Year's Eve when I was a kid because my ma got wasted and it was so funny to see her drunk. She's not a drinker, like at all, so it was super cool to see her cut loose and stuff. It was actually the Y2K New Year, so I wonder if she secretly thought the world was about to end or something and she was like, "Fuck it, I'm getting trashed!"  Pretty sure we'd all agree that 2016 was a crazy-ass year, right? I mean, let's just do a quick rundown: 1) Elected an Oompa Loompa as president. For real, I'm trying to give this dude a chance, but he has come off as even more of a whack job since getting elected. I don't think that's even debatable at this point. If Donald Trump was your co-worker he'd be "that" guy in the office. 2) Tons of celebrities died. (Including Gene Wilder, so maybe a connection between that and Oompa Loompa president). So many awesome celebrities wiped out this year. Yeah, I know it's going to start happening more and more often now that a lot of classic favorites are older, but it still sucks. Biggest letdown for me was Bowie, of course, because he's one of my all-time favorite musicians. Prince, George Michael. Blah. Just a bad year all-around for that. 3) General unrest. 2016 had no chill. There was constantly some shit going down. Whether it was a terrorist attack, shootings, riots... I actually stopped watching the news several months ago because the world's so shitty and I don't need to hear about it. I guess ignorance really is bliss. That shit aside though, I feel like every year is somewhat like this. Like, I feel like every year people are saying, "Man, fuck you, 2015. Here we go 2016. You're gonna be better!" I've heard it for several years in a row at this point. "Dude, fuck 2011. 2012 is where it's at!"  I don't know if that's just an optimism thing where people want to 'shake off' the negativity of the previous year and start anew or what. I'm assuming that's what it is. New years feel like fresh starts.In my personal life... I almost feel guilty saying this, but, it hasn't been a bad year. I mean, I've had way way way worse years. I'd have to have a horrific year for it to even register on my scale. Despite all the bad shit going on in the world, I've had a couple personal triumphs. Not really in writing, which sucks, but I've not had a terrible personal life. 1) Still have a 4.0 GPA. I just finished my second year of uni with a 4.0, which is crazy considering the level of migraines and mental health issues I've had. Last semester was the worst. I was like super close to losing my shit several times last semester. I was like, "Ah, shit, losing my mind. They're gonna lock me up somewhere." But, the important thing is, I made it through. So... yay, triumph? 2) Mostly good interpersonal relationships. This is a huge feat for me! The fact that I've not had any major life-altering dramas in my relationships this year is ridiculously awesome and makes me think I might be growing up a little bit. Being realistic though, I've had some setbacks recently. In just the last few weeks, I've fallen back into things I don't really want to be in, but I'm all about that 'new year, new you' shit right now, so I'm trying not to fret. You know, the past is never as good as it seems in memory. A lot of times, I'm so stoked to catch up with someone because the memory of them has been built up in my mind to seem better than the reality is. I always remember the good things about people I used to know and it totally distorts my perception. I catch back up and I'm like, "Ah, this is why we don't fuckin' talk any more." I so desperately want to believe that situations and people have changed, but life just doesn't work that way. Reliving the past is like falling in a wormhole. It's definitely not something I want.So, what do I want to change in 2017? I'm not a resolutions kind of person. I don't make New Year's resolutions at all. But, I do have a couple things I hope to work on in the new year. First and foremost, I want every semester to stop feeling like jumping off a ship without a raft or life jacket. I get sick of feeling like I'm drowning for 4 months at a time. The general anxiety, depression, and negativity of those times is such bullshit and I always come out clean in the end. It's like I worry myself half to death and end up with super good grades, but at what cost? Another 4 months of my life lost to panic attacks, xanax, and a total shit time. I've also been working on standing up for myself. Not just in 2017. I've actually started doing this more in 2016. I've started trying to put myself first in some situations. I've implemented a new rule in my life: If I have to take pills to talk to someone, I'm not talking to them. Basically, if someone regularly hypes my anxiety and emotional state up so much that I have to medicate myself to bring myself back down, they're outta my life. For good. I guess that's it. That's 2016 in a nutshell. 2017 will be another hard year of university (plus work), but I'm feeling generally okay at the moment, and I can't ask for anything more. I hope you're all ready to leave 2016 behind and start up with 2017. Re-energize your souls and all that good stuff. Thanks for another year of blogging (even if I've done it super infrequently).   We can be heroes, just for one day |
Artist: Coheed and Cambria Song: Blood Red Summer [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt:  What advice do you often hear people give that has never worked for you personally?Courtesy of:
Advice that I hate hearing people give: "Think positive!" I hate this bit of advice because, while the sentiment is nice, it has never ever worked for me before. Thinking positive isn't a viable problem-solving technique. If someone is down and out, it's safe to assume that they've at least attempted being optimistic before. It's not like telling them to think positive is going to be some huge epiphany where they're like, "Holy fuck, why didn't anyone tell me this before!?" I do get why people say it though because it's incredibly difficult to be around someone who's negative all the time. I say that from being on both the receiving and giving end of negativity. It's exhausting being negative all the time and it's exhausting being around someone who is negative all the time. It sucks away your energy. Still, I don't think telling someone to "think positive" is a good method of comfort. Other tidbits of advice that belong in this category ▼ "Just be yourself." When people say this, it makes me cringe. I mean, in some situations, I can understand why it's good to just be yourself. If you're going on a date or making friends with a new group of people, you shouldn't pretend to be someone you're not because you won't be able to maintain it forever. But, let's be real, there are very few people you should 'just be yourself' around. If I were to give this same advice, I would say: "Be some of yourself." Can you imagine being 100% you all the time? It would be totally inappropriate. Look, we all have negative character traits and the sooner you understand yours, the better. For example, I have Borderline Personality Disorder and it makes my emotions swing like a fucking pendulum. If I reacted based on who I am all the time, literally no one would ever want to be around me. Why? Because every time I perceived even a slight sense of rejection, I would completely lose my fucking mind on the other person. Luckily, if you can recognize your flaws, you can usually be like, Okay, what I'm feeling right now is completely irrational, so I need to remove myself from the situation until I get my wits back. It has taken me years and years and years to master that, and I use the term 'master' very lightly here because I still fall back into unhealthy emotional reactions somewhat frequently. But, after losing a ton of friends and people due to my paranoia and black and white thinking, I've realized that I'm the problem, and I need to adjust accordingly. Is it "just being myself"? Definitely not. But sometimes you shouldn't be you. Sometimes you should strive to be someone better than you. Other tidbits of advice that belong in this category ▼ "Don't go to bed angry." I couldn't disagree with this advice more. In every relationship ever (friends, family, significant others), going to sleep has helped both parties calm the fuck down. Sometimes you just need to sleep on things and realize that whatever you're upset about is NOT that big of a deal. It's way easier to rationally discuss something when you're not both blindly screaming at each other in a rage. I actually do the opposite of this advice and make it a rule of thumb to sleep on things before I decide whether I want to end the fight or not. Sometimes you don't need to make up right away. I think it's bad to try to just solve something and go to bed. I'd prefer to just brood over it for a while and then make a fully-informed decision. Plus, if your relationship is so in the shitter that you can't take a night to sleep things off, you've got much bigger issues. There's just so much bad relationship advice out there.Other tidbits of advice that belong in this category ▼ "It's never too late." Ya know, this is another bit of advice that sounds good, but it's very practical. Sometimes it is too late and there's nothing wrong with that. I guess my probably with advice is that it often seems so obsessive like this one. Things totally do have a time limit. There are times when it's too late to repair something or too late to do something that you wanted to do. For example, once someone is dead, it's too late to apologize or repair the relationship. Studying an hour before you take an exam is too late. Smoking for 50 years and then stopping when you get lung cancer is too late. There totally is such a thing as 'too late'. It just depends whether or not you care about those things. You have to make a conscious decision on certain things before it's too late. And not making a decision is making a decision. That's one piece of wisdom even I can agree to. Other tidbits of advice that belong in this category ▼ When the answer that you want Is in the question that you state, Come what may. |
Artist: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Song: Breakdown [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt:  We're all familiar with that classic 'Back in my day...' line. So tell us about something that you wish would go back to 'the way it used to be'.Courtesy of:
This is just gonna be a totally kickback entry. No ranting, no bullshit. This is the last prompt from the current set over at Bad Tempered Bloggers that I'm gonna do, so I'll see about getting some more prompts set up tonight. They've been up for almost three weeks because Elle and I are either the chillest bad tempered bloggers or the laziest. Not sure which. When I first saw this prompt, I thought there was no way I'd be able to respond to it. I mean, I just turned 25 a few days ago. The thought of being like, "Back in my day..." just sounds totally weird coming from me. Like, I was 14 in 2006, so how far back can I really go? But, anyway, I tried to think of a few things that have changed recently for the sake of the prompt. Technology Pretty sure this would make everyone's list, right? It's the most obvious choice, anyway. Even when I left school, cell phones were not a super popular thing. I remember a few kids having flip phones that they'd use to make calls, but obviously nothing like what we have now. I don't even use my phone as a phone 99% of the time. I can't remember the last phone call I made to someone 'just to talk'. I'd shoot them an email instead. I think it would be super hard to go to high school in a time where cell phones and social media are so popular. I caught the tail end of this because Myspace days were going on during the last couple years I was in high school. I didn't really get into it, but I do remember the "Top 8" being a huge thing. I remember trying to comfort one of my girl friends who was inconsolable because her boyfriend moved her to #2 behind his best friend. It was a confusing time for all of us.  Now though, it's a totally different game. Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, etc... I feel like you'd never get a break from the people you went to school with because they'd constantly be like, posting pictures of themselves drinking Mt. Dew or some shit. Not to mention the extreme amounts of cyberbullying that are just naturally going to go along with the territory. It's scary shit, to be sure. So, yeah, that has definitely change since my high school days. In fact, I remember being a kid in the late 90s/early 2000s when most people didn't have cell phones at all. The best part of that was being able to run around doing whatever you want without having a parent in constant contact with you. "Where you at? You need to come home now." Riiight. I'll be home when I'm home because you have no way of telling me to come home. That was nice. But, at the same time, kids today have everything at their fingertips. The amount of knowledge is endless. Don't know the answer to something? Google it. We know everything about everything within 30 seconds. Travel Safety/General Security When I was a kid, my parents would travel a lot, both for work and for fun. My grandparents would typically watch me and my brothers while they were away. Before 9/11, you used to be able to go all the way through the airport right up to the terminal even if you weren't flying. When you were seeing family off on their travels, you could wait with them to board and then give them a hug or whatever and watch their plane take off from the windows. In 2016? Not even fucking close. That shit changed, like, immediately after 9/11. I flew across the country in June of 2001 and it was a breeze. I flew again in 2003 and, holy fuck. The difference is palpable. I think it has just gotten worse since then. Now when I fly, I feel like a criminal even if I'm not doing anything wrong. I feel like you get treated so poorly when you're traveling by plane now. It has honestly just become a huge hassle. I mean, I get the tightened security, but it's for real like they're trying to corral rabid dogs. It's not just airports either though. It's everywhere. Shootings in movie theaters, nightclubs, schools, concert venues? Nothing feels safe in 2016. Everyone's paranoid. Every time I'm in a confined space with hundreds of people, it's in the back of my head, like, damn... hope nothing happens. Non-Celebrity Celebrity Obsessions Someone's gonna have to correct my ignorant ass if I'm wrong here, but I feel like this "famous for being famous" thing is somewhat recent. Like, obsessing over the lives of people who are just famous for literally no reason. I think it started with people like Paris Hilton, who is just famous for coming from a wealthy family. Now you have people like the Kardashians and everyone's just watching to see what color they dye their hair next. Is that recent, like, within the last 15 years. Or am I totally off-base here? Going Green and Organic I think even in the last 10 years, there has been a major push to conserve natural resources and find alternative, environmentally-friendly ways of doing just about everything. This isn't even a bad thing, but it's definitely something more recent. I think as we get more evidence of climate change, people are more likely to make efforts like this. Also, health food stores, yoga, organic, non-GMO, et cetera. The list could go on forever. Music, Music, Music I can't possibly leave without talking about this, and yeah, it goes along with technology so we'll call this wrapping back to the beginning. But seriously, the amount of music now... the accessibility. It's just insane. Back in '04/'05, I was still using a portable CD player on the bus to and from school. I had a huge CD binder and a million half-dead batteries at the bottom of my book bag. I spent hours making the perfect mix CDs. Five years later, I had an iPod that could easily hold a couple thousand songs at once and stayed charged through several days of listening. Now, I have Spotify, which just totally amplified shit. I listen to so much music, it's absurd. It's so easy to discover new music. You don't have to risk buying a shit CD. You can just go on Spotify and find related artists endlessly. Spotify was a huge game-changer for me, kind of like how YouTube was/is for a lot of people. I can listen to pretty much anything, anywhere, any time I want. For FIVE dollars a month. It's just downright gluttonous at this point. My fellow musicheads know what I'm talking about. I remember spending $20 bucks on ONE fucking record. Like, 11 songs by the same artist. Now, my attention span lasts like 3-4 minutes and I hardly ever listen to the same artist more than once in a row. My playlists are off the fucking chain, dude. It's sick. *music*  For real, that's one of the best parts of technology for me, personally. It's all about being connected and listening to music 24/7.  It's alright if you love me It's alright if you don't I'm not afraid of you runnin' away honey I get the feeling you won't |
Artist: Taking Back Sunday Song: This Photograph Is Proof [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt:  Tell us about someone who takes you for granted.Courtesy of:
I know, I know, blogging on your birthday is probably weird. My plans got canceled because of weather issues. Perks of having your birthday in the middle of December, eh? I thought I'd blog anyway because it feels semi-productive and Cinn  and I are still having a slow time of writing anything else at the moment. I can always blog though, so I'll try out this prompt...Oh, and also, No one reads blogs on Saturdays! Logic Vs. Emotion The entire concept of 'taken for granted' is a bit strange to me because it's incredibly subjective. I think it's hard to see things from other people's perspective, so what someone else sees as being taken for granted, I could totally see the opposite. Neither one of us is really 'right' per se, because I can't tell someone else how they feel and they can't tell me how I feel. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not sure I understand what "taken for granted" means because I think it would vary so much person to person. Maybe someone else can weigh in on what they think of when they hear "taken for granted" and it might give me a little bit of a compass. To me, when I think of someone being taken for granted, I think of someone who gives a lot of things while expecting nothing in return. And then, ya know, never getting anything in return. Like, for example, my school was doing this toy drive thing where you could drop off new toys into these bins and then they would donate them to shelters for kids who were homeless during the holidays. But then they found out that some of the students were stealing from the bins and selling the toys online. I thought that was kinda fucked up and taking for granted the charitable nature of the school and the donators.Do I have the idea of "taken for granted" totally wrong?  Selfish Connotations I think I'm having so much trouble with this prompt because the idea of feeling taken for granted feels like it has a negative connotation with it. Like, I don't think I've ever been like, Oh, that person is TOTALLY taking me for granted considering how awesome I am. You know what I mean? It almost feels like saying that you deserve to be treated better than you are, and I just don't believe in that. Even when my life is feeling a bit topsy-turvy, I would never think that I deserve to be treated better than I am. You get treated how you allow yourself to be treated. If you're like me and you have a hell of a time telling people no, you can't really get pissed when they don't telepathically pick up that you want them to behave differently. It reminds me of that Pierre Corneille quote: "He who allows himself to be insulted deserves to be so; and insolence, if unpunished, increases." So... Who takes me for granted? Back to the prompt... good question. I can't think of anyone who treats me differently than I would in their mindset. Did you see the way I pivoted around that? What I mean is, I don't agree with the way that every person I know treats me. I think some people are super shitty. But that being said, in their shoes, I wouldn't treat myself any differently than they do. Why? Well, first of all, because I'm not going to do anything about it. If someone's being a dick, worst case scenario, I'm going to pretend they don't exist. Oh god, the horror! Best case scenario, I'm going to bite my tongue and accept their behavior. So, really, there's no motivation to treat me any different or any better. And in that sense, or maybe because of that, I don't think that anyone takes me for granted. I don't think anyone owes anyone anything. It's all the same in the end. I really want Cinn to write on this prompt too, just because I'm curious on her perspective. I think that we tend to reach the same conclusion in the end. It's just that the route taken is different. I mean, really, I see there being only two options with this. Either you cut the person out or you don't. I know there are more things you could do, but I don't really know how well they'd work. Maybe Elle - on hiatus or Fivesixer  or someone else can comment on that.Basically, I think that someone who regularly takes people for granted isn't going to actually care if you confront them about it. I mean, the only way it might change their behavior is if they didn't realize you felt that way and it was just a big misunderstanding, which just takes us back to the first point of this entry. Other than that, does someone with a personality type that is cool with taking people for granted really care if you're like, "Hey, don't."? I'd think that they'd just get defensive and say they weren't doing anything wrong. In which case, you'd be back to the two options of either accepting it or cutting them out. Maybe I'm overcomplicating it, or undercomplicating it. Damn, I really butchered this prompt. Sorry about that. You see, it's never bad enough to just leave or give up, but, it's never good enough to feel right. |
Artist: Blind Melon Song: All That I Need [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt: What irritates you the most about this time of year? Have you ever felt pressured into giving a particular gift or participating in a particular activity? Tell us how that made you feel.Courtesy of:
Well, I'm in a blogging mood and I can't break the momentum now. Plus, Elle - on hiatus knows how to hit all the right spots with her prompts and I'm super ready to take these ones on. I figured I'd combine them because they're related, or I can make them related, anyway.So, the holidays, yeah. Going to preface this by reminding my non-American friends that in the States we have Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November every year, and then obviously Christmas on the 25th of December, so the "holidays" sort of encompass both of those holidays in my mind. They're only a few weeks apart and all that. Let's see how we can break this down... Kindred Scrooges I know I'm not the only one that hates the holidays. I can't be. I hate even talking about the holidays because if I'm like, "Man, I hate holidays" everyone is like, "Whoaaaa. Bah humbug, you fucking Scrooge!" The thing is, holidays get really, really tough when you're missing people. Trying to have traditions and then having someone just up and die during the year? Yeah, that makes the holidays suck dick. You can just feel their absence all around you during the holiday season. You show up for family events and you're waiting for them to walk around the corner. It's just this constant reminder of, Oh, hey, you're never going to see that person again. Like, ever. Soooo, yeah... Merry Christmas!  It's tough stuff, no two ways about it. And I know there are a lot of you who know exactly what I'm talking about. A lot of you probably handle it better than me too, because my emotional IQ is like nil, but you at least get the sentiment of what I'm saying. Hopefully.Holiday Retail Work Hands up if you've been personally victimized by working retail during the holidays.  Seriously, wtffff? Working retail during the holidays is as close to slave labor as I ever wanna get. You have extended hours, so you're working like 12 or 13 hours a day, and on top of that, people are PISSED. Like, they're super fucked off (see, got the phrase in there ) that they even have to be out in the crowds spending money and shit.Everything is such a rush during the holiday season and people show up on Christmas Eve scratching their neck like, "Yo, ya'll got any more of them iPhones?" When they find out that you're sold out of every major electronic that is popular that year, they just lose their shit. I had so many people tell me I'd ruined their Christmas or their family's Christmas because we were out of iPods one year. "What am I going to tell my kids!?" Well, you can start by telling them that Mommy is a procrastinator and doesn't care about them enough to shop more than 12 hours in advance of Christmas day. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Christmas Cheer Man, in my experience, there is nothing phonier than holiday cheer. People are all like, "Yeah, I totally give a fuck about you because Christmas!" And then two days later, they're all, "Christmas is over, douchenozzle! GTFO!" It's like people have to try SO hard just to treat each other with a tiny amount of respect. It's so rare that people need to fucking name it. Like, no, you should just act like that all the time. Don't be nice to people because it's Christmas week. Be nice to people because it's the right thing to do. All the time. It's not okay that you hate your life and take it out on other people 50 out of 52 weeks in a year. Gifts, Gifts, Gifts I've been put into a special predicament this year where my family is straight up demanding that I take part in a gift exchange. Well, mostly, my ma is demanding that I exchange gifts with everyone else. See, I don't normally do the gift giving thing. I just... don't. Everyone in my family makes more money than I do. They can buy themselves something if they want something. In return, I beg people every fucking year to not buy me anything. I've gone as far as telling my family that I'm going to throw the shit that they buy me in a dumpster on the way home. It doesn't work. And every year, I end up with all this shit I don't need or want. Like, just literal junk. Fucking, weird-ass trinkets like you'd find at an antique store or something. Or I'll get gift cards to a place I've never been and will never go to. For example, I have gift cards to restaurants dating back like 4 years. I don't understand why adults need to exchange gifts. It completely boggles my mind, especially if someone's straight up like, "Dude, I don't wanna fucking do this." Back to the point, it has been demanded that I buy everyone gifts this year. "Just around 25 dollars per person or something." So, in other words, "Just like $325 worth of gifts, or something." I still haven't even decided what I'm going to do with the whole situation. I have a couple options. I can either buy the gifts with money I don't have or I can boycott Christmas altogether and stay home. Option 2 is sounding delicious. Fucking family, man. Which brings me to my final point... But, Family!!!! Yeah, yeah, I know. It's good to spend time with family and Christmas cheer and food and blah blah blah. I get it. I totally do. But, not everyone has the same family life. If, for example, your family demands that you spend a ridiculous amount of money on gifts, it kind of takes away from the whole 'spend time with family' aspect of the holidays, don't you think? And this is my biggest problem with Christmas. It has become so intertwined with consumerism that the two can't be split at this point. Christmas = gifts. Christmas doesn't = family time or making memories. Christmas definitely doesn't = Religion. Not at this point. When you think of Christmas, do you think of Jesus' birthday? Come on, don't lie. If you're in a family that celebrates the time together and doesn't pressure itself into buying gifts and being super stressed out around this time of year, count your lucky stars. I can totally understand digging the holidays if there wasn't this huge stress factor. Like, I'm on school break, man, let me take that fucking break! Bah Humbug. Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm done.  All that I need is the air that I breathe And all that I need are things I don't need And all that really matters is what matters to me |
Artist: Nine Inch Nails Song: Ringfinger [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt: Tell us about someone who doesn't respect boundaries.Courtesy of:
I haven't written anything in over a month, so writing is going to be extremely cathartic right now. I don't even care what ends up coming out. I just need to write... This prompt couldn't come at a better time, even though Bad-Tempered Bloggers is down until Elle - on hiatus renews her membership at the end of the month. She has assured us everything is okay with that, so I'm just taking prompts from the last group email. The past few months have been pretty rough. I've been hanging on to the edge of places I never wanted to go and I've been grinding my teeth and dealing with it because it seems like a lot of people have been having a rough time and it's not my place to talk about my issues when someone else is having worse problems. But this? This is my place. And I'm going to talk about me. And I'm going to talk about the importance of respecting people's boundaries. The Basics Remember when you were a kid and you had to learn that lesson about leaving people alone when they didn't want to play with you? You'd be playing with another kid and all of a sudden they'd get crabby because they were tired or hungry or whatever. But you'd keep trying to play with them because you wanted to play and you didn't understand the concept of boundaries? Over the past several months, I've noticed that this isn't something that everyone grows out of. This isn't a concept that every person learns through rejection and discipline. In fact, ignoring the entire issue of boundaries is something that a lot of people choose to do intentionally. Why? Because it's beneficial to their bottomline. If I want you to do something and I have Choice A of pushing you into doing it for me or Choice B of not getting what I want... Which is better for me? When Survival Skills Become Weaknesses You see, because I have this thing where I tend to morph into what people want me to be. It's a survival skill that has saved my ass plenty of times. The problem is, when you spend all your time acting like whoever the person you're with at the time wants you to be, you lose who you really are. You lose your sense of self and the things that make you 'you'. So much so that when you aren't being told who to be- you aren't anyone. Put me in alone in a room and you can catch me staring at the wall for hours because it's the only thing left to mimic. While this is a skill that has its benefits, it also makes you a target. Who doesn't want to be around someone who validates them at every step? Who doesn't want to be in an echo chamber where everything they say and everything they do is tops? Where nothing is challenged? And that's all good and well until... I want out. I've dance around these three words so carefully. Why? Because they scare people. "I want out" doesn't sound good, so you always have to follow it up with something else. You can't just say three-word phrases like this and let them hang out in the room with someone else. Even if you have to lie, you have to follow it up with something. "I want out... of school." Or, "I want out... of this job." Really though, I just want fucking out. I want out of everything. Because I can't begin to explain what it's like to wake up with as much anxiety as I do every day. I can't explain what it's like to anticipate everyone's step and try to stay ahead of it. Or how difficult it is to bite your tongue when you just want to scream and stomp your feet like a child. I can't explain the weight it is to swallow your pride every day and allow people to perpetually overstep your boundaries. Or how tiring it is to have people just fucking raking in on you. "So just tell them to stop!" This is the crux of everything, isn't it? The thing is, words don't come so easily for everyone. Especially words like 'no'. It's hard to have confidence in who you are when you don't have any sense of who you are. It becomes far too easy to let things slide, to make excuses for people. Even when you do reach your boiling point, they find it so easy to talk you down because you are who they want you to be. When they want you to accept things as they are, they make you into a person who accepts things the way they are. They make it feel strange and wrong when you want out. They make you feel guilty for turning your back, even when you aren't. It all goes back to the basics. When you learned that people have boundaries, and even when they can't express those boundaries, you learned how to read them. You learned how to see them throw themselves on the floor and start kicking their legs. You learned that you had hit a boundary and you learned to leave that person alone, to let it go, even though you it's not what you wanted. You became observant at some point, and then along the way people lose their sense of respect for what they are observing. They lose their want to accept other people's boundaries. They see their bottomline and want it more. What am I saying? I guess what I'm trying to say is that you should go back to the basics. Learn when you are hitting someone's boundary and find it in your heart to stop pushing their limits. Even if you want to. Even if it will make you feel better to get what you want. Swallow your needs sometimes and recognize other people's. It's not that I want anything from anyone. It's actually the opposite. All I want is someone to reach my boundaries and stop there. Without thinking of their bottomline. Without putting more weight into what they want to get out of me. I want them to simply see a boundary and respect it for what it is. So, if you run into a situation where you want something from someone and they're making no effort to do it. They're not giving you any inclination that they want to do it. They're not taking steps toward reaching your bottomline. Try to recognize that you might be hitting a boundary. People aren't that complicated. If they want to do things, you won't have to put a gun to their head to make them do it. You won't have to needle them until you get your way. You won't have to manipulate the situation to make them feel bad. You won't have to make them cave. It will simply happen because everyone involved wants it to happen. Learn the importance of respecting someone's borders because you never know where someone is coming from or where you are pushing them to. If I was twice the man I could be I'd still be half of what you need |
Artist: Wolf Alice Song: Lisbon [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt: Rant. Get it out of your system. via:
I half want to write this and half don't, so I guess I'll "get it out of my system" and then decide if I want to actually post it or not. I'm not super political in my blog; it's not my style. But given the recent election and everyone's response to it, I thought I might lay some things out. I've been in college this whole election cycle in one of the largest cities in the U.S., so I've been completely saturated with politics. At uni yesterday, I heard so many people saying the exact same thing: "How did this happen? How did Trump win?" I'll admit, I had that same visceral reaction Tuesday night. When I saw things going in Trump's direction, I was still in denial that he would actually win. Future Mrs. B  IMed me worried about the direction it was going and I told her, "Nah, it'll still be okay. Don't worry about it." That was incredibly naïve of me. It wasn't until I could clearly see that there was no mathematical path for Trump to lose that I was like, "Shit... What is happening?"I've spent the last couple days reflecting, feeling fairly baffled. I've talked to a lot of people and read a lot of other people's writing, and I finally feel like I have some clarity on what happened during this election and why it went in the direction it did. So, with that overinflated introduction, let's start this... "How did this happen?!" "Trump supporters are uneducated white men!" This was a huge mistake made by the media, the Clinton campaign, and Clinton supporters. Dismissing all Trump voters as uneducated white dudes was not a good course of action. For one thing, it isn't true, as has become abundantly clear at this point, but it was also phrased in such a way that really put people off. It was framed like: "Who the fuck would vote for Donald Trump? Only fucking dumbass, uneducated, racist, sexist white dudes would vote for Trump." If you're on the fence about a decision, are you going to go with the group who are stereotyping you based on your race and gender? You might after careful consideration, but your initial response is probably going to be, "What the fuck? I didn't even do anything." This leads into my next point... The Underdog Effect I haven't been able to turn on the news in the last year without hearing the media talking about something stupid/crazy/ill-advised that Trump said. Clinton played her campaign by being as quiet as possible and attempting to give Trump enough rope to hang himself. It didn't work. When you have a media that is clearly stacked against one person and a campaign that touts around celebrity star power  , it becomes super easy for people to start thinking that there is an underdog. And people will always fight for the underdog. Yeah, it's cool that you can get the current president, First Lady, musicians, actors, and various other cool people to stump for you, but it doesn't detract from a shitty candidate. Clinton had super PACs out the ass and all the star power in the world. It didn't help. Point three incoming...That time the DNC shot itself in the face. The democratic party also had a completely fan-based grassroots movement in Bernie Sanders. People were excited to donate, rally for, and support Sanders. He connected extremely well with young people, progressives, and minorities. Being in college, I didn't know a single person who wasn't for Bernie Sanders in the primaries. When it came out that the DNC had rigged the primaries against Sanders, it pissed people off- like, a lot. How can you possibly get the same level of energy when you're forced to vote for a candidate that stole the primaries from your top choice? If Clinton had legitimately won the democratic primaries, democrats would not have been so terribly reluctant to rally behind her. People are sick and tired of dynasty families. Clinton was one of the worst choices for the party. Hopefully the DNC learned a lesson on that one, but I doubt it. "But Donald Trump is a bully!" Absolutely! Donald Trump has said extremely offensive things about almost every group of people that isn't like him. He has directly bullied people via social networking, at his rallies, and even during the presidential debates. We don't need to go into details about all the offensive shit Donald Trump has said, instead we can just read this list  if we need a refresher.That being said, I think I've seen a ton of bullying from the left too. It has actually made me really sad to see people stoop to the level of Donald Trump and some of his supporters, 'some' being the operative word there. I don't condone bullying at all. I don't care where it's coming from or who it's directed toward. I just don't like it. So when I see people saying, "Fuck every idiot who voted for Trump! Anyone who voted for him is a fucking disgusting racist who deserves to bite a bullet. I hope he gets assassinated."That is also bullying. Just because your side is doing it doesn't mean that it's okay. I've been super disappointed in the bullying from my own side during this election. First it was, "If you vote for Trump, you're a fucking uneducated moron." Saying that people should be killed for having a different opinion than you isn't just bullying, it's the opposite of democracy. I understand the emotional response and why it's there, but I would never condone it-- because I don't condone bullying. Numbers are facts, even when they hurt. I've heard so much about Trump supporters and how they brought the election home for him, but in reality, it was the lack of turnout from the democratic side that resulted in Trump becoming the president elect. People were NOT motivated to vote for Hillary Clinton. They just weren't. Look at these numbers: Voter turnout in 2008, 2012, and 2016.  The republican voter turnout has been extremely consistent in the last three elections. Clinton got 10 MILLION less votes than Obama did in 2008. It wasn't the "stupid-ass white dudes" who fucked us. It was us who fucked us."But Clinton won the popular vote!" Yes, this is unfortunately another situation like Gore/Bush in 2000. Clinton won the popular vote by a small margin. We have an electoral college system that needs to be changed and has needed to be changed for a long time. This goes both ways though. If Trump had won the popular vote and lost the electoral college vote, we would still accept Clinton as president, would we not? Does it suck? Yes. Is it how are current system is? Yes. Should it be changed? In my opinion, yes. This is our current system though, hopefully efforts will be made to change that now that this has happened twice so close together. "I'm ashamed to be American." It makes me so sad to hear people say this. You shouldn't be ashamed of your country. The majority of our country did not vote for Donald Trump. Does it suck that a huge percentage did? Yes. But whether you like it or not, a large percentage of that percentage did not vote for Trump because they like racism, sexism, and bigotry. They voted for Trump because they are Republican and he was their only option, just like Clinton was our only option. I know a ton of people who voted for Clinton who can't stand her. I have no reason to think that the other side of the aisle wasn't the exact same way. They didn't want Clinton to be president. WE didn't want Clinton to be president either (by and large). We were given two shitty candidates and people said, "Welp, I'm republican/democrat, and even though I don't agree with X, I'm voting for the leader of my party." Are there diehard supporters on both sides? Yes. Are there are a ton of people in between who hated both options? Yes. "I'm scared/nervous." This is what the right side needs to understand. From a lot of people's perspective, we had a guy running on a platform of racist/sexist comments and he is our president elect now. People are scared that this means our entire country is racist and sexist. This isn't a fact, but it's a fear, and I understand that fear. Everyone should understand that fear. Conclusion: Even though a lot of us were completely shocked by the results of this election, if you actually look at the numbers, the candidates, and the approach used by the DNC... it really isn't that surprising. Clinton still won the popular vote, but the democratic voter turnout was down by nearly 14 percent. That is why Trump won this election. Not because stupid fucking moronic, uneducated white men fucked you over with their bigotry, but because the democratic candidate did not motivate democrats to vote for her. Now more than ever, people need to attempt to have some level of understanding, even in the face of something that feels incomprehensible. Be angry, sure, but be angry at the right people. Be angry at the system that rigged the primaries against a candidate that had people so energized. Be angry at the system that allows politics to be bought by dynasty families. People don't get out of bed for that, unfortunately. And most of all, stop bullying each other. I feel like I woke up in some bizarro world where it's okay to call people names and harass them just because they have a different opinion than you. Shaming, dismissing, and generalizing entire groups of people doesn't bring them to your side. Most of all... fucking vote! If you hate Trump but didn't vote against him, I don't even have words for you. You can't be pissed. You didn't even attempt to do your part. If those 10 million people who had voted for Obama had also voted for Clinton, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. I'm definitely interested in seeing how the next four years play out. I think we should all strap in for a long ride. But most importantly, I'm looking forward to seeing friends and families come back together after this extremely divisive election season. I think we're going to need that. You're gonna look at me twice, it's eventual. |
Artist: Porno for Pyros Song: Pets [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt: What question do you hate being asked? via:
I can't wait to rant about this because I really need a rant today. I'll do this in nice list form so you can save it for later and make sure you never ask people these annoying questions. Because you TOTALLY care, yes?1. Why are you so shy/quiet?Here's a hint: If you want to get someone to open up to you, don't point out that they aren't doing it. I can't even count how many times people have asked me if I'm shy because I'm not talking to them. When I was younger, people would ask me why I was being quiet in a social setting and the line of questioning was usually, "Why are you being so quiet? Are you shy??" For years, I would try to be polite in that situation because I thought it was the right thing to do. Once I got a little bit older, I changed my mind. If you're polite in a situation where someone is being obnoxious like that, you're condoning their stupidity. They're just going to keep harassing quiet people forever. So at some point, I took a new approach. Now this conversation goes like this: Them: Why are you being so quiet? Me: Because I have nothing to say. Them: Are you shy? Me: No, I just don't feel like talking to you. This kills the conversation.  2. Why aren't you eating? Why don't you eat meat?Because it's my fucking body and I can decide what goes into it and what doesn't? I dated a German girl for a while when I was a teenager and her mother was the worst. She was always trying to shove sausage of some sort or another down my throat and it was annoying af. 3. Now that you're married, when are you going to have a baby?Not everyone needs to have kids. I know it's this shocking thing when a married couple doesn't want kids, but hey, here we are! I can't even imagine bringing a child into my lifestyle. That would probably be the most irresponsible thing I could ever do. And yet, family and friends are still constantly badgering us about it. "I want more grandkids!" Pssh, you didn't even want me. Now you want grandkids? Okay, then. Oh, and when we were dating, the annoying question was: "When are you guys going to get married?" When we got engaged, I was like, sweet, I don't have to deal with that shit anymore. Yeah, it's worse now. 4. Holy shit, are you left-handed!? Yeah, and so is 10 percent of the population. It's really not that weird. To me, this is like when you're wearing a work uniform at a store and someone says, "Do you work here?" Nah, I'm just wearing the company's uniform because fuck you. Every time someone sees me writing left-handed and asks if I'm left-handed, I just want to be like, "No, I'm just writing with my left hand so you'll ask me if I write with my left hand." 5. Didn't that hurt?I get this question a lot having tattoos and piercings. I never know how to answer it either. I'm just like, yes, no? I don't know. What is pain again? 6. Ew, you're a math major? Well then, what's 4,345,632 multiplied by 612,298?First of all, you don't need to comment on my major starting with the word 'ew.' I'm never like, "You're studying underwater basket weaving? Ewww, that's disgusting." Second, math majors use calculators. I know, it's shocking and incomprehensible. And then when I can't answer their huge number arithmetic off the top of my head within four seconds, they're like, "You must not be very good at it..."  Gee, thanks.We'll make great pets! |
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I'm still so confused. How did they get to senior-level finance with so little know-how. I don't get it. 
People definitely tend to jump straight to the worst conclusion when any problem arises, which is why you so frequently hear, "My computer is broken!" when there's really a simple fix. 
Just why. It's so gross. We need to get you some personal finance help! This is only tangentially related and not a statement on you, but one of the nonprofits I work with consists of me making budget plans for people who were recently homeless and have just gotten back on their feet. A lot of the people I work with have only been at their job for less than a month or been in an apartment for a week or two. My role is to gather all of their financial information and then consult with them on their bills, disposable income, purchases, and stuff like that. It's shocking to see the financial decisions people make after just being homeless. I'm like, dude, you were just homeless 2 weeks ago. 
I have seen so much of the disasters it has caused with some people. I have in the past been unconsciously roped into financial situations that were most unpleasant and having to make sensible plans to unravel them.
