Uncategorized – General Musings of a Gen Xer

Cutting Corners

I am a working mom. I am a working mom that sometimes cuts corners. By sometimes, I mean every day. We don’t always have healthy dinners. I don’t sew, bake, or glue things. My cute “crafts” come pre-made from Hobby Lobby, and you really can find almost anything on Amazon. There have been times whenContinue reading “Cutting Corners”

Flame Throwers

Throughout my 80s childhood, I thought a lot about what the future was going to be like. The future had so much potential; I was genuinely excited to see what was waiting around the corner. I was thinking unity, utopia, Jetsons. Now here we are. I am not sure what THIS is, but it feels like a giant cosmic joke. My southern grandmother would say, “Ya’ll need Jesus.”

More Magic Less Idiocy

I was a child with an amazing imagination. We went on adventures that were truly fantastical. In truth, we played under an abandoned truck bed shell, pretended broken glass was diamonds, and climbed a hell of a lot of trees. It was the absolute best because we believed that the world was full of hidden magic. Truth be told, I still try to hang on to that feeling.

Quit Sending Me To Hell

Neighbor-lady would wave her dirty little garden shovel over the fence and screech that she was, “going to pray because we were going to HELL!” Ten-year-old me found that HILARIOUS. I was a jerk. More importantly, I am pretty sure that woman wasn’t praying to save my soul.

You Can Only Control How You React

I stopped blogging for awhile; I simply couldn’t reconcile the everyday crazy. Literally, the only thing that I could manage to get on paper was…. BE A DECENT HUMAN. I still feel that way… but I had an epiphany yesterday.

What’s The Problem

Every single problem in the world can be boiled down into one of two things: someone wants to take something, or someone wants to control something. Listen, I am guilty. I don’t have the desire to take anything from anyone, but I’m all about the control. For example, I believe that everyone would be happier if they would simply treat everyday like a musical. You can’t be miserable when adding a little song or spontaneous dance routine into your daily interactions. Naturally, not everyone agrees with me, and trying to force random song and dance on others isn’t well met. I also strongly believe you shouldn’t act like an ass to others, but who defines what an ass is? Who draws the line on what is acceptable and what isn’t, and what do you do with the offending ass? You see? problems…

Resiliency

When I was in the 4th grade, I thought I could sing. I couldn’t. I signed up to sing an A-cappella solo in the talent show. My dad said it was a horrible idea. I ignored him. I marched myself onto the stage, stood in front of the entire school (and an extremely large number of parents), and I belted out a painfully off-key rendition of Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah. It was awful. It was excruciatingly awful. I realized somewhere around the first “doo-dah” that half of the crowd was laughing; the other half was staring at me in abject horror. Think Alfalfa, if you are old enough to understand that reference. I was sweaty, and my hands started to shake, but I stuck it out until the voice-cracking break-screeching end. For the rest of the day, I endured sad pats on the back from my teachers, and extremely exaggerated reenactments from my peers. It was one of the most humiliating moments of my life. When I told my parents that I was never going back to school, they didn’t bat an eye. I was going, and I was going to get over it. My parents had no problem letting me experience failure.

Politics and Shushers

I hate talking about politics. People lose their ever-loving minds when it comes to this topic. Here is the thing, people. We are all on the same team. So, I’m going to take it way back to the elementary playground rules we seem to have forgotten. You can’t get others to see things your way if you are going to be a big jerk about it.

What Tints Your Lenses?

I was pretty young when I realized that my way of relating to the world was a little different. I stood out, and not in a good way. Let me assure you; despite what everyone says, very few people are truly tolerant of difference. I simply didn’t understand why no one could relate to me. EVER. So, I retreated into books. Long story short, it was a librarian that gave me the epiphany I needed. Eight-year-old me handed her a note from my mom giving me permission to check out anything I wanted, not just kiddie stuff. When she asked me what I planned on looking for, I shrugged and said, “I don’t know, something to help wake up my magic, or maybe a romance?” She laughed (like I was joking) and said that she liked my world lens.

Grace, Why Has She Been Cancelled?

Humans. We are stupid. Especially humans with limited access to their prefrontal cortex. Part of the human experience is literally learning from all the dumb things we do. That is why I love Grace. When we were kids, we had a neighbor that would yell and throw dirt clods from her garden if she heard “devil music”. It was Grace that brought us down from the trampoline and taught us that it wasn’t nice to sing The Devil Went Down to Georgia over the top of the fence line. It was mean. funny to watch, entertaining to dodge projectile dirt bombs, but mean none the less. Grace always forgave us and then taught us how to be better humans. The problem is that Grace doesn’t come around much anymore, not since some jerk named Cancel moved into the neighborhood.