Sometimes you have to throw a little poop!

When your little you are told that, "If you have nothing nice to say about someone, then don't say anything at all." Well, adults are dumb for telling you to hold it in. I am a firm believer that if you say what is on your mind then the planets and stars align and everything is how it should be.  I was given the same "wise" advice when I was younger, but I didn't listen. I didn't listen because I didn't want my silence to be a confirmation that I liked someone or what they were doing. I would rather say the unflattering thing to the person and get it over with. I may not be good at small talk, but I can tell you how you are acting like a fool in a heartbeat.  Why do we try to pretend that everyone has something nice to say about a particular person or situation? Do we really want to live in a world where everyone smiles in your face, all the time they want to take your place? Yes, I did just use the line from the song, "Backstabbers."  People are so worried about hurt people's feelings that they in turn deny themselves the benefit of telling the truth.  If I don't like you or a particular situation I am not going to be quiet about it. You will know. Now, I am fully medicated, so my approach to telling someone they are a douche bag is less offensive. I only use one curse word as opposed to about twenty along with telling you that you are in fact a douche bag.  I think of life like a zoo, or better yet the monkey cages at the zoo.  People are walking around you pointing and trying to figure out what you are going to do next. You just want to keep doing you and sit in the hammock and eat a banana, but they keep banging on the glass yelling at you to do something. Well, here is what you have to when people are yelling and telling you what they think you should do- THROW A LITTLE POOP! Throw a little poop at the window and the little bastards hit the ground running.

Be kind.

Not Paying Rent

Today I turned down a job, a job that would have paid me well and I would have more than likely found joy in the challenge. A job that would need to me to start in two weeks and also require me to be away from my husband on a weekly basis. I started to think at first well this is great, I got a job offer-my resume speaks for itself. That is a good thing. When I called to ask about the start date and realized that the person I was talking to couldn't answer my questions, I felt irritated. I then decided after talking to the two people that set me on the path of righteousness, I turned down the job. It's not a matter that I couldn't do it, its a matter of my health and the undue stress I would be putting myself through to be a warm body in the classroom for two months.  The money was tempting, very tempting, in fact it was the first thing I told people about, but then the moment of clarity hit me. Am I that person that wants a job because of the pay, or I am still the person that wants to make a difference in the lives of the students that are in my class?  After thinking about this and then talking about it some more, this is what I get from my mother, "Anything in your mind that isn't paying rent, kick it out and put it to the curb." In other words, the money would be great, but the stress and unhealthy environment I would be in aren't worth it. So, I turned down a job today. There will be other offers, but for right now, if the thought in my head "isn't paying rent," it doesn't get to stick around.

One of those days

The number of things that I don't want to do today are numerous...
1. don't want to get out of my pj's
2. don't want to get out of bed
3. don't want to take phone calls from people that don't announce who they are before they start asking questions that take more of my brain capacity, since they just woke me up.
4. don't really want to drive in the snow and cold and sit in class for four hours and learn about statistics
5. don't want to be bothered with people today.

But you know what I have to do all of these things today, and I am going to do it with a smile, because it confuses people. They don't know what to do when you just smile at them. It freaks them out. I am going to drive to class with Christmas music blaring mainly because there is snow on the ground, I will learn statistics even though I avoided it all through college, and I will then drive home tomorrow morning and curl up in bed and drink tea and binge watch SVU and Rosanne.  That will be my reward for doing the things on my list today that I really don't want to do, but know its best if I do.

Have a great day. Be kind.

Curly

I have had super curly hair all my life. It wasn't till I was much older that I was able to appreciate it. I remember hating my hair and my mom for giving me this kind of hair. (because it was her fault I got the curls, right?)  Anyhoo, I wanted my hair to be straight like all the other girls I went to school with. I hated being teased because my hair was different. Here is the thing, as a bi-racial child, I was neither white enough because of my hair and never black enough because of my skin tone.  This is the Catch-22 of being mixed.I detested it when my mom would try to get me to wear my hair down. I would rather pull it back and braid it. This took place all through high school. It wasn't till my freshman year of college I embraced the curls. I first cut my hair short and then slowly started to transform into the curl loving woman I am today. I cut it short because I didn't want to spend forever doing it in the morning. (I am like my mother in that aspect, I would rather have short hair and take five minutes to get ready.)  I have cut my hair several times since then, just to spice things up. I love my curls now. It is a way for me to stand out without saying a word. I can walk into a room and the curls do the talking. That of course is a conversation starter for many people, because they can't figure out how a light skinned, blue eyed girl ended up with black curly ringlets.  Then of course, for some reason, white people always want to touch it. HELLO!! I don't ask to touch your hair, so please don't ask to touch mine. Trust me it feels like hair.  Its not just about the hair, its about accepting who I am as a bi-racial woman. I have accepted that my hair is only a starting point to this acceptance. I then started to love my full lips, curvy hips, broad shoulders, and the little bit of junk in my truck my momma gave me. Getting older those curves have been accentuated a little more and the hair has grown a little longer, but I still am a work in progress when it comes to loving all that is me. I am a curly haired, blue eyed, light skinned girls with full lips...if you want that is the black in me, but I say that is the strong heritage that I get from my lovely great grandmother, grandmother and my mother. I have never seen pictures of my great grandmother, but my mother told me she was lighter than me and had straight grey hair. She says I resemble her to some degree, and that makes me love me even more after hearing that. Even though I never met her, I feel her strength in me through the blood my grandmother gave my mother and the blood my mother gave to me. I am a curly headed lady and I will not be tamed!

Be kind today.