In which I wonder about content ownership and self expression as they pertain to the act of blogging.
One time I wrote something on my site about a friend of mine, and woke up freaked out realizing that if she read the post it might hurt her feelings. I got up and deleted the passage in the middle of the night, sick with worry that she’d already read it.
I didn’t take a job once, for several reasons but primarily because the non-compete wouldn’t have allowed me to blog about it. I was threatened with a law suit after I posted about a bad experience at a hospital. A friend once told me off for posting about the death of a mutual friend’s dog, saying it wasn’t my story to tell. An employer had me remove a post because I’d said I thought the company was broke when they laid off some staff. And just last week, a member of the Band That Never Gigs read what I had to say about a recent practice and got pissed at me.
Now with a track record like that, it must seem that I write whatever I damn well feel like. But I don’t! You have no idea how much stuff I don’t write about! (My God, I should get a gold star for reticence, for real.) The truth is that I carefully consider every single scrap of content, comparing it to a veritable array of mental indices I’ve developed to help me determine if a story is actually mine to tell or not before publishing it on the web:
- If the topic is common knowledge, I can write about it.
- If the event took place in public, it’s common knowledge.
- If I’m telling only my experience or my reaction to something, and obfuscating all identifying details, I can write about it.
- If it doesn’t endanger anyone’s feelings, livelihood, or reputation, I can write about it.
- If I’ve been given permission to write about it, I can write about it.
- If it’s totally about me, I can write about it.
I never write about secrets. I have deliberately not written – several times – about what a burden it is when someone tells me a secret, even though I could write about the burden itself without revealing any details of the secret. (If I were to write that post, it might go something like this: “I hate secrets. Right now I’m worrying over two, and I didn’t ask to hear either of them. One requires me to not offer love and help to someone who’s needing it, because I don’t officially know it’s needed. The other involves two people directly and their spouses indirectly, all of whom are my friends, and requires me watch my tongue so that I don’t reveal what I know – what I never wanted to know in the first place – accidentally in front of the wrong person. Why do people do this shit to me?!”)
Yeah, secrets suck. Moving on.
I try very hard to make sure I actually own the topics I write about, but sometimes it gets really complicated. Take the hypothetical breakup of two of my friends: let’s say the breakup is common knowledge, but what each of my friends have told me about it is, of course, private. My thoughts about and reactions to the breakup are mine, but if I can’t frame my thoughts without revealing private details I’d have to give that one a pass as far as writing about it goes. Like secrets, private pain (no matter how deeply it moves me or makes me think or gives me perspective on my own journey) is not mine to share. So I’m effectively denied writing about part of my own experience, which irks me, but eh, it’s all for the best.
When I was writing about The Ex back when we were married, I felt that my marriage was totally mine to write about. I have no secrets myself (I wrote about my panic disorder and miscarriages in great, raw detail, and I’ll tell you any embarrassing or private or shameful thing you’d ever want to know about me), so I may not be qualified to decide, but I hardly think the fact that the man wouldn’t use a laundry basket was private. Some people wondered that I’d just say whatever I wanted to on the Internet about my husband, and they thought I was effectively talking shit behind his back. My position was that I never said anything on the web I didn’t say to his face, and since it was a public forum he was welcome to read it if he wanted to.
So to recap: I will keep things off the site if they’re secret, or private, or might hurt your feelings, or because you asked me to, or because I haven’t yet said it to your face, or because you threatened to sue me, or because it’s totally illegal (like cocaine or something), but everything else is mine, damn it.
What I’m trying to say is that I really do try to be discreet as I write about what affects me, but the point is that this is my story. I use nicknames for nearly everyone and will always remove anything someone asks me to – I’m not trying to out people, I’m trying to tell my story – but sometimes my story comes from yours. And if you know me, you know that you’ll eventually end up on goblinbox.
Which brings us, finally, to yesterday’s post. I wrote about public knowledge that affected me directly – I mean, my gawd, my household was all atwitter over the fight between my roommate Truck and his boss, The Ex. It happened right in front of my face, and involved parties who talked to me about it, too, so I figured the story was both harmless and mine to tell.
Ooops.
In other words, the guy that The Ex and Truck are currently contracting for? Yeah, you guessed it, he reads this site! So it turns out I narked The Ex off to his employer, because the boys didn’t go to work on Tuesday!
It’s very, very bad blog form, I have to admit. I mean, does anyone ever want to find out their boss knows they weren’t at work due to brown bottle flu? I think not!
I probably deserve to be spanked or something – it’s a good thing we’re divorcing. Now I have to hide for a few days whenever there’s a chance The Ex is here dropping Truck off after work! LOL!
In which I’m quite recovered from my melancholy.
I’ve known for awhile that The Ex has himself a new squeeze, though folks have been trying to hide it from me. (No need to, I’m glad to hear it.) I’ve put a few clues together from various things I was told at the party and things I’ve picked up since, and quite frankly I begin to suspect that The Ex wasn’t the architect of his domestic changes after all.
The bastard’s good, he really is! Gets his women to do his housework for him. But if it’s true that the woman’s the one doing the work, and I don’t know that it is, it certainly erases any ache I may have indulged in.
Last night I spoke with Gorgeous on the phone. She’s trying to convince me to come to Hawaii for a very extended visit, or to stay. She says there are people who need their houses occupied to protect belongings and discourage squatters, so rent’s no issue. She tells me about the weather, the fruit growing freely everywhere, the job market, the community, and the natural beauty. “I need my sisters here!” she exclaims. She’s also lost probably 50 pounds and probably looks like she did the last time she lived in Hawaii, which was, to coin a phrase, fucking HOT.
We also talked about break ups – she and Rockstar were together as long as The Ex and I were – specifically about how sometimes you just get into a funk and remember the benefits, willfully forgetting how much they really cost. Ah, the things we pine for… Snuggling, a warm body, someone to carry your groceries, watching movies together at home, talking at night in the dark.
I wasn’t having it, though. “Yeah, it’s normal to feel a little tender about it, but the fact is that he drove you nuts,” I said. She said, “Damn, Mush. I said I was feeling sappy.” So I told her about seeing the old farmhouse and how it felt to see nearly all traces of my living there are gone. She reminded me that there was nothing wrong with feeling all phases of the pendulum swing, from anger to longing. It’s true that there’s nothing wrong with feeling all of it… as long as we remember not to act on them without due consideration.
It was a good talk. I do love that woman. I’m interested in visiting Hawaii, of course, but I think if I were going to save up enough money to leave town for a month I’d probably rather go to the City than another small town, even if it is tropical.
The night before last, Truck and The Ex had a huge fight. AmmZon and Truck went to the bar, then came back, and then The Ex called and hilarity ensued. I’ve never in all the years I’ve known him seen Truck so pissed off! He threw his phone at the wall, paced the house furiously, cursed and kicked and carried on. He was about to walk the 13 miles to Batavia to kick The Ex’s drunken, belligerent ass. It took both AmmZon and my efforts to talk him down. It was intense. (Two red heads in a fight? We’re all lucky the world didn’t explode.)
This evening The Ex sat on our front porch and admitted that another divorce party would kill him, since he partied so hard for this one – his celebration lasted the entire weekend – that he blacked out Monday night (apparently he hadn’t eaten, and had had only liquor all day) and he honestly doesn’t even remember what he said to make Truck so mad.
I laughed and said, “You dumb cunt, you know better than that! You’ve got to eat and sleep, not just drink!” He laughed sheepishly and darted a telling glance at Truck, who was pointing and nodding his agreement. “What she said,” he said. I think The Ex actually blushed a little.
I don’t have to worry about another divorce party myself, since I really have no intention of marrying again. I’m sure I’ll shack up eventually, ’cause I’m a slut like that, but I see no reason to get all legal about it. Everything ends, it’s the nature of the world.
In other news, we’re having a big scary thunder storm! I’m off to sit on the porch and check it out.
In which I had entirely too much damned fun at the party, just like I knew I would, but oh holy FUCK my head hurts. And the word of the day is ‘bittersweet.’
I went over to Baby Girl’s yesterday afternoon intending to stay only long enough to firm up our transportation plans to the party, but as we were visiting in her living room a tree limb fell out of the tree she parks under and smashed her car. The morning’s thunderstorms had been past for a couple of hours, the sky was blue, and there was no wind, but a big damn branch decided to drop 30 feet and do at least two thousand dollars worth of damage anyway.
So I stayed to take pictures for her claim and hang out with her while she called her agent, landlord, and the police. Eventually I split for home to shower, then I went back to pick her up… and long story short, I didn’t get out to The Ex’s party until 7:30.
The party was quite well along when we arrived. Uncle L was BBQing up a storm in the bottom level of the barn, one dude was already passed out drunk in The Ex’s truck, tents were going up, and there was a pack of yellow dogs begging partygoers shamelessly for bratwurst. There was power to the barn and a boom box was playing music. The Ex waved at me, and I went to chat with him for a moment. There were friends in from out of town, and I went for a round of hugs. The yellow dogs had to say hi and put their muddy paws on me.
NLW finally got me focused on lemondrops, so she and I and a couple other women snuck into the house to make a batch. The women were asking me left and right where things were and if they could do this or that. I kept saying, “I have no idea where anything is, and I can’t answer questions of permission because I don’t live here!” It was amusing, because as four of us were making lemondrops and the other two were organizing food to take out to the barn, they all kept asking me things anyway – “Are there any serving spoons we can take outside?” “Do you know where a measuring cup is?” “Can I use this pitcher?” – and then giggling once they realized they’d done it again.
It was so strange, so foreign. That room used to be my kitchen… but now I don’t know where anything is. It looks completely different. I’ve never in my life felt so awkward, so very much like a guest. That room and I had no relationship any more, my kitchen of five years.
Aki had made a divorce cake and it was in the fridge. It was a three-tiered chocolate cake with buttercream frosting and blue piping, with Homies arranged on the very top. It was beautiful, even with the silly toys on it. Unfortunately everybody forgot about it and it was never served. (I’m hoping The Ex will bring me some next week when he comes to pick Truck up for work.)
After we’d made our pitcher of lemondrop martinis, I sent basically everyone outside on one pretense or another and took a peek through the house. My goal was to find and take my warez folder – I’m getting sick of not having my software library handy – and to pull the hard drive out of my computer.
When I walked through what had been the living room, it had very few things in it – and basically all of them mine. No couch, no TV, no rug… a practically empty room, with a table in the corner covered in dusty knickknacks.
Upstairs, I glanced into what had been, when I moved out, the master bedroom: now it’s a… living room? There’s a couch in there, the entertainment center, a propane wall heater I’m convinced had never been there before, the end tables. My office chair. Ashtrays: he smokes inside now.
I looked in to what had been my office, and… the room is now a bedroom. He’d moved all of my crap for me (and I’d had a lot of stuff in there). I was both pleased (that he’d done the work for me) and dismayed (that damn near all traces of my having lived there are now erased). I crossed the hall and opened another door: all my stuff had been consolidated and moved into one of the under-construction rooms. I went in and felt around but it was past dusk and the room has no fixtures. From what I could tell in the near-dark, things weren’t badly treated but they’re not packed, just stacked in a room that is, with its lack of drywall or insulation and occasional holes where the siding is missing, nearly open to the elements. I imagine what’s left in the old living room will end up there if The Ex’s organizational spree continues, and soon I’ll just back my jeep up to the steps and load it all out.
Without a flashlight there was no point in even trying to go through anything, it’d been moved and stacked and I didn’t know where anything was. I closed the door and, feeling somehow both lighter and heavier, went outside to join my friends – and the martinis – on the porch.
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In which it’s a holiday weekend.
I’m in a bit of a funk because I can’t get this script to work and I don’t know why. Nor could I get this plugin to work. No lifestream for me. *pout*
I took this today when I went to pick up the mail for work. Those are bachelor’s buttons, one of my favorite flowers… basically strange little thistle-looking things. I also love those tiny pansies with the eggplant petals and bright yellow throats. All my favorite flowers are small and purple.
It’s 17 minutes after five and I’m still at the office, waiting for my boss to come back and sign payroll checks…
Tomorrow is the divorce party. It’ll rain some, but there’s a barn so that’ll be all right. I’m not hugely excited about it, to tell you the truth. Standing around outside, drinking. Hoping my dog doesn’t get punctured in a fight ’cause she’s an old girl these days. Wondering how many ticks I’ll have to pick off myself…
But I think I’ll take ingredients for lemondrop martinis (if I can afford them), and some of my friends are going, and I might buck up and make a veggie chili, too. (AmmZon’s making a potato salad and a broccoli salad. She rocks.) It’ll probably end up being super fun, actually.
Oh, I have my paycheck now. Off to cash it!
In which I tell you how I’m feelin’.
Stayed up late last night. Sleepy today.
Rainy and overcast outside. Thunderbumpers, dark clouds, the works.
Tried to change the colorway here on the blog – had a really cute palette extracted from shades in the logo – but it sure turned out fugly! Sometimes I actually regret not taking art classes in college.
Band practice tonight. Better go, since I blew off Tuesday night’s practice for a birthday party.
That is all.
In which there’s trailer trash food, tequila, and chocolate cake.
Yesterday was Baby Girl’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!!!
After work I met her and her hubby at the Dead Cock. There were shots of tequila. Then more shots. There were two dudes there who were also celebrating their birthdays. Some time went by.
We went to her house and she fed me noodles – she makes this fucked-up trailer trash homemade Spaghetti-Oh’s thing out of elbow macaroni and tomato soup and it’s really fucking good and I hate her for it – and then we had some of her amazingly delicious birthday cake, a Chocolate Decadence her MIL had made for her.
Then we went back to the bar. There was way more tequila. There was singing and dancing and drinking! Then the birthday girl suddenly hit her wall – I think she’d had about 8 shots by then – and we all went home.
I woke up feeling much better than I should have, considering how much I drank.
In which I get all vain on y’all.
Every month I have a realization:
“OMFG! I’m FAT! This is IT, I’ve had it! I’ve absolutely GOT to do something about this! Now a little pudge is fine, of course, but I’ve passed that! I’m moving into the shit-girl-cover-that-ugly-UP! category, and that is so not acceptable!”
And then two days after The Curse ends, I’ve mysteriously and effortlessly lost five inches from my waist. And my ankles! (Okay, maybe not five inches, but it feels that way. One day I put on a snug t-shirt and gross myself out, a few days later I’ve again got the intimation of a waist.)
It’s sneaky, too, this puffing up. I don’t realize it’s happened until it’s gone away again. It seems at the time like normal flesh, but it’s not! It’s imitation flesh! It’s evil wicked temporary blubber!
The moral of the story is that bloating? SUCKS.
I remember watching commercials for Midol back in the day, and thinking it was just more of the same-ol’ typically unnecessary medication foisted off by the drug companies, but now that I’m old and my hormones are whack I realize that this bloating thing? Is totally no joke.
Water retention! For fuck’s sake, people! There’s no good reason for my ankles to disappear every 33 days, is there?
Silver lining: since I was destined to have weak female hormones, the Universe compensated by giving me a great voice, a sunny disposition, and too much fucking testosterone. Which means I will soon be a hairy-chested, male-pattern bald-headed singer whose indominatable spirit uplifts all those around her!
All three who still remain by the time I’m an ankle-less bald-headed hairy-bodied ape of a crone, that is. I’ll sing ’em commercial jingles written by Barry Manilow and snippets of operas I’ve forgotten the words to.
*cackle*
In which I cover a few days in one entry.
Well, let’s see… what have I been doing?
Thursday night I crashed at Baby Girl’s. Her hubby was out of town, so she and I and our dogs hung out and watched chick TV and ate cookies. It was fun. Next morning we got iced mochas at BK and then I went home to bathe and get ready for work.
Work was fine, nothing exciting happened. I doubt I’ll ever get full-time or a raise offered to me there. I have to admit that I love the hours – noon to five – but I can’t even afford a storage unit let alone an apartment with that kind of income. If only I liked working it would be so much easier to be aggressive about it.
Friday, AmmZon had the house pressure-washed. It looks amazing. I thought that that was something one did only before painting, but no… the back deck looks brand-new. The whole place looks lovely. I’m amazed.
Last night I was invited to go back over for another slumber party at Baby Girl’s, but I had a sleep-a-thon instead. I had a couple of drinks after work, then came home and crashed. Woke up, went to the store, came back, ate tostadas, crashed. Got up at noon today, let the dog out, ate a handful of dried cherries, crashed until five.
Went to Walmart for underwear. Bought a couple of t-shirts and a set of tiny speakers I can use with my iPod in my room, too. Got drive-thru. Came home and ate. Thinking of going back to bed. I usually sleep 12 hours a night during The Curse, but this week I didn’t and now it’s catching up to me. Have tentative plans with BG to go out tonight, but I may be sleeping.
Tonight, AmmZon is going to a friend’s wedding in Des Moines, I think. I have no idea what Truck’s doing but I imagine he’ll find some boys to hang out with while the cat’s away.
The last two books I read were brilliant. The book I’m reading now is disappointing by contrast and I can’t get into it (even though I’m more than half finished with it and it’s actually pretty good). Sometimes I wish TV worked the same way on me it appears to on others: folks look so involved when they’re sprawled out on the couch worshiping the glass teat. I can only manage to feel that way if I’m sick. Maybe I’ll have to get industrious and clean my room or the jeep or something.
In which I get called “ma’am” four times.
While driving between the post office and work, I noticed that my oil pressure gauge was going totally apeshit, bouncing all over the place. I glanced up at the cling in the corner of my windshield and realized I was a year past due for an oil change, so I drove right past work and went up to Fesler’s.
The pressure gauge is back to normal, but now it appears I need all kinds of other maintenance: belts, tranny fluid, filters, and crap like that. I guess this is what happens when one drives a ’92.
In other news, two companies will be moving in to the building I work in. Because one will require a lock to their suite, a new wall has been built… Right. Next. To. My. Desk.
There’s superfine drywall dust all over my shit today, and it’s pissing me off. The mud on my computer cables is irritating too, but on the other hand I guess it might be fun working in the same building with the Obama Iowa campaign team. Young, fresh-faced idealists who think the political system actually works could be very inspiring!
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4 random books from my Library!
