I'm a buzzkill. I know.

For a few years now, I've seen The Bloggess' Beyonce post shared across social media as the most hilarious thing ever.  Upon first read, it is pretty funny, especially the imagery of the chicken at the front door, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought she was a on a massive power trip, intentionally disrespecting her husband for blog hits.

Listen, I've had fleeting glances of fame through blogging and social media and they are addictive.  I admittedly love the attention and seek it like a high.  Everything becomes writing fodder, and you know that even the most embarrassing and awful things in your life will be hilarious to your readers and suddenly, they don't seem so bad.  We cope through writing.  See my Diva Cup series from last month and Eddie Outlaw's pad kee mow experience.  Once, I dropped an entire container of flour on the floor, and instead of being angry, I giggled because I knew my Twitter followers would find it funny.  And when I go to my mother-in-law's house?  People salivate for updates - that is THE ONLY reason I ever go to The Barbara's house anymore, for the writing fodder.

I can't blame The Bloggess for seeking the high of knowing she's greatly entertained her audience because once you realize that you can spread joy to the world through laughter, it becomes your world.  And I admit to not being a regular Bloggess reader, though she is incredibly hilarious and very talented at what she does, so I don't know what kind of relationship she has with her husband.  But this, to me, crossed a major line, and it's just not funny.

Drew hoards quite a few things.  Since he's a beer enthusiast, he collects beer bottles to use for his homebrew and collects pint glasses because breweries give them out like candy.  Occasionally I'll have to urge him to purge the beer bottles and he grumbles, but he does it.  The pint glasses have completely grown out of control and at one point last year I told him that for every new pint glass he brought home, I'd buy myself a new piece of jewelry.  He culled his collection.

If he were a famous blogger and used my insistence that he keep his hoarding under control to pull a bratty stunt to intentionally embarrass me to entertain people who don't even know him, I would be incredibly hurt.  I admit to having used him as a minor punch line, but he and I pick at each other all the time and it's part of what makes our marriage great.  But I would never intentionally disrespect him or cross a line with him.  Not a one of you, my readers, nor my readership as a whole, is worth making an ass out of my husband.  Every one of you who has read the Beyonce post and has laughed at it has laughed at her husband's expense, at his humiliation, at his frustration.  When embarrassing, unpleasant things happen to me and I choose to share them with my readers for them to laugh at my expense, that's my choice.  But to intentionally humiliate another person for your readers to laugh at - totally different animal.  It's power-hungry bullying.

She says in an update that she and her husband are still happily married, which I fully believe.  I know she (rightfully) makes money off of her blog and her book and he's willing to take a lot of bullshit to benefit from her talent.  Stand-up comedians do the same thing - use anyone and everyone in their lives for a punch line and rake in the cash.  But sometimes, it's just not funny.  The Beyonce post was such a time.

I've unfortunately seen other big bloggers go down this road of take-no-prisoners power hunger.  A personal friend of mine tweeted her distaste for something she'd read on a blog, not naming the blog's writer or linking to the blog, and it got back to Dooce, who is a friend of the blog's writer, and Dooce sent her 1.5 million Twitter followers after my friend, who has 900 followers on Twitter and had no capacity to deal with the onslaught of angry blind followers.  I completely lost it on Dooce, because at the time she was making an attempt to combat bullying, and what she was doing to my friend was at the very least hypocritical.

In fact, I'm hesitant to post this, because I'm aware of the Famous Blog Follower Effect that crashes down on smaller bloggers.  But I saw the Beyonce post shared today on my Facebook and wanted to share my feelings about it.  By all means, use yourself as entertainment fodder.  Use your family and friends as punch lines.  But don't intentionally debase another person to entertain your followers.  It's just too far.

Maybe that's why I'm not a famous blogger.  That and my reticence to format my blog to anything beyond Blogger's basic format.  I'm lazy, y'all.

The master

One of my clients is a restaurateur who owns two of the most popular restaurants in Jackson.  One of them hosted a champagne brunch last summer and I was asked to attend and live-tweet all of the courses.  I accepted, enthusiastically.  There were 6 courses, each paired with the perfect champagne chosen by a sommelier.  By the end of the fourth course, I realized I had absolutely no capacity for champagne and it all hit me at once.  I got the giggles, the burps, and the spins.  Uh oh.

Through some magic, all of my tweets from that day were absolutely perfect.  Spelling, grammar, beautifully composed pictures, everything.  I brought a notepad with me so I could write down every course in shorthand so I could tweet them correctly, and I managed to maintain professionalism.  Drew picked me up afterward, I burped so loud that the windshield cracked, and I took my shoes and bra off right there in the car.  That afternoon's nap was nice.

Another client is a truly brilliant chef for a local restaurant/my favorite bar.  In January, he and several other local chefs were honored to host a dinner benefiting a foundation that gives scholarships to aspiring chefs around the country.  They chose an amazing menu that was a spinoff of Southern comfort food.  I helped plan and promote the dinner, but unfortunately had bronchitis and wasn't able to go.

Last month, that foundation invited him and the other chefs to New York City this summer to present the same menu at the foundation's restaurant.  My chef decided to host a dinner last night to raise funds for all the chefs' travel expenses, serving hors d'oeuvre portions of their foundation dinner menu.  He invited me but I declined because tickets were $50 a head and I'm planning a trip to Phoenix soon.  He said he'd put me on the list for two tickets.  I love my clients.

I wasn't there for work, I thought, so I had *cough* drinks.  My chef walked up to me after my *cough*th drink, handed me his phone, and asked me to tweet all of the dishes.  Double, triple uh oh.  But, since live-tweeting is one of my favorite things EVER and tequila tells me I can do anything and I love my chef, I said "of course!"  I wobbled to every table, took a picture, asked the chefs to slowly describe their meals to me, and sent out some tweets.  I knew they weren't my best work but given that high-end chefs like to make their meals really freaking complicated with a lot of words, I only had a very small amount of wiggle room.

I fell asleep in the car on the way home.  Woke up this morning, washed off last night's makeup, had a big glass of cold water, and MEGA-CRINGED when the fog lifted and I remembered last night's tweets.  Wincing, I opened my chef's Twitter.  PERFECTION.  I used words like "oxtail mignonette" and "port reduction ganache" and "casarecce" and "spaetzle."  No misspellings, good pictures, and for each chef that was on Twitter, I included their usernames for proper cross-promotion.  (And yes, the food was goooooooooooooood.)

This is why I'm the master of social media, people.  Even when I'm barely fit to walk, I can shoot out perfect tweets for my clients.  My own Twitter?  Not so much.  But I shine for my clients.

That should be my company motto.  "The drunker I get, the better I make you look."

Nostalgia and dating tips.

I dated one man seriously before I started dating Drew.  His name is Tony and he lives in a suburb of Philadelphia.  We met in a chat room (no, seriously) and within about 2 weeks fell madly in love via the Internet like people who are 18 and 19 do.  This was long before cheap/free long distance, so we wrote to each other probably twice a week.  I visited him on my Spring Break and it was awesome - he took me everywhere, bought me awesome food, showed me the most beautiful buildings and engaged in much PDA.  It was 100% infatuated puppy love.

Shortly after I went back no New Orleans it started to go downhill.  It was not the fault of either of us.  He was and is devoutly Catholic and I had no plans to be and it began to become clear that that discrepancy was eventually going to end us.  Mostly with regards to family planning - we did NOT share the same philosophies on that big sticking point of the Catholic faith and how to raise our kids, so we ended mostly amicably in March of 1999.

We stayed in touch but kept our distance for about a year.  He was probably the 5th person I called after Drew proposed to me.  In the early 2000s when texting became a thing our communication started to pick up.  He called me within 20 minutes of proposing to his now wife.  When pregnancies came along, we called each other within the first 24 hours of finding out.  And in 2007, he, his wife, and their 15 month old joined the three of us for Thanksgiving dinner and a trip to NOLA.  While he and I stayed up until the middle of the night almost every night just talking like old friends do, the trip was not without its blatant reminders that I DEFINITELY married the right guy.  We even said to each other as we were saying our goodbyes at the airport, "we married the right people."  "Yep."

I'd say I love him like a brother, but we've kinda made out, so that's weird.  I'll just say he's one of my oldest and dearest friends.  At this point, our bi-weekly texts to each other are 60% sports, 35% Sifl and Olly quotes, and 5% other stuff.

Got a letter about a fundraising event at his oldest child's school addressed to us in his handwriting and it just took me back to the winter of 98-99, getting his letters and pictures every week, and being in love for the first time.  It's like when Uptown Girl comes on the radio, it brings me back to dancing and giggling with my mom in the car when we'd listen to that tape.  Or when Lynyrd Skynyrd's Simple Man comes on the radio, it brings me back to singing it to Ace to make him go to sleep.

So what I'm saying is, don't ask me for dating tips.  I had a few meaningless flings, one long-distance relationship with a great guy that ended very well, then I was married at 20 to a man I was already living with after 2 months of "dating."  I have been on very few "dates," and they were all flops.  The best you're going to get from me is "take a shot of whiskey before the date," because whiskey solves everything.  Other than that, I really have nothing for you.  Good luck!

Baby's first police report

You know how sometimes, in a high-stress situation, you don't feel what you're supposed to feel until after you're supposed to feel it?  That happened to me today.

If you haven't seen my Twitter/Facebook lately, I'm volunteering as an escort at Mississippi's only abortion clinic.  One day, I'll tell y'all about my evolution from being against abortion even in the case of rape to being an abortion clinic escort.  But that'll be a long blog.  Actually, I'm pretty sure a Clarion-Ledger reporter is typing it up as we speak so maybe it'll be a short blog.

The protesters are... whatever.  I'll get there in the morning and there will be 20 of them singing loudly, but within half an hour, they'll have dwindled down to 3 very quiet people and a guy with a microphone and a speaker.  He was arrested yesterday for violating the noise ordinance (can't use amplified sound without a permit) and trespassing (he kept blocking the driveway).  They call out to the patients, offering help, prayer, begging them not to "kill" their "baby."  They're all very nice to me and I'm nice in return.  I PROMISE.  I don't engage them in debate because I know it's absolutely pointless, although they all try to engage me if I don't have my earbuds in.

Got the first truly crazy protester today though.  He showed up at about 9:30 and immediately started yelling at the top of his lungs about how we're all going to Hell.  I turned my earbuds WAY up and played Words With Friends on my phone, so I didn't hear much of what he said until he got 2 feet from my face and yelled "How do you feel about burning in Hell!  You're a murderer!  You protect murderers so you are a murderer!"  I got a little nervous then, but the security guard was standing 5 feet away so I didn't look up.  He went on for about a minute, so I turned my camera on and pointed it in his face.  He backed up.

Epic beard man!

Another escort came up to me and started talking then so I turned my music off and turned to talk to her.  She looked behind me and got a big smile on her face so I turned to look and Crazy Pants was pointing his phone at us.  He yelled "TELL THE CAMERA YOUR NAME AND WHERE YOU LIVE!  I'M GOING TO POST IT ON YOUTUBE SO EVERYONE KNOWS WHO PROTECTS THE MURDERERS!"  We escorts are not a serious people (unless we're actually doing our jobs) so they just started hamming for the camera.  A few of them said their names.  I just stood there and laughed.  I was standing a little back from the fence and saw a patient come out of the clinic so I stayed right where I was, instead of going to her and diverting Crazy Pants' attention off of us and onto her.  

Unfortunately, he spotted her as she was getting into her car and pointed the camera at her.  I was pissed.  There was no way he was going to take a video of one of our patients and put it on YouTube.  So I put my hand in front of his camera.  He started yelling "GET YOUR HAND OUT OF MY FACE" and I said "stop filming the patient and I'll move my hand."  

He kept yelling and I started to panic and was doing my best to keep my body between him and the car and keep my hand in front of his camera.  I stepped onto the sidewalk and he yelled "CALL THE POLICE, THEY CAN'T BE OUT HERE."  (Which is stupid.  It's a public sidewalk.)  The patient pulled out into the street so I kept blocking until he stopped moving and started yelling again.  "GET OUT OF MY WAY RIGHT NOW.  GET YOUR HAND OUT OF MY FACE.  GET OUT OF MY WAY OR I'LL PUSH YOU."  

Mmmhm.

I didn't even think that I might be in danger.  I was just mad.  The patient drove off, he put his camera down, and I went back to my post, turned my music back on, and posted on Twitter about it and asked if I could call the cops yet.  One of my followers replied "yes, that's assault."  But by the time I had processed what had just happened, Crazy Pants left.  THEN I thought to myself that I might have actually been in real danger because this man was clearly off his rocker and very, very angry.  I mean, look at his face.

A couple of hours later, the precinct commander for the Jackson PD showed up because the neighbors had called in another noise complaint.  He walked over to the lead escort to talk to her and when I nosed my way into the conversation she was talking about Crazy Pants and I said "he threatened to push me."  The commander said "you can file charges, that's considered simple assault by creating fear."  

OKAY!

The officer who came to take my statement was very nice.  He was waiting for the radio to quiet down so he could call in and get a case number for me, and he kept looking back and forth between my driver's license and his phone.  A minute later, he said "oh, you're flipflops."  Uh oh.  If you don't follow me on Twitter, I'm a touch... out there... so I was a little concerned that my credibility had gone out the window.  He laughed about it and said that his wife follows me.

He said that if I can find out Crazy Pants' identity or if he comes back, I can call the police immediately and he'll be arrested.  Then I'll have to go to the police department and file an affidavit and we'll have to go to court!  I've never been to court!  He'll either spend some time in jail or pay a fine.  He won't learn a THING from it and he'll be lauded as a martyr among his people, but at the very least, he'll be inconvenienced for a couple of days.  

So that's been my most exciting day at the clinic so far.  I wouldn't be there if I weren't willing to take a punch to the face, so this didn't shake me much.  It is an overwhelmingly rewarding volunteer position and I look forward to it every day.  Crazy people and all.

LOL

LOL

No, seriously, LOL, y'all are not gonna believe what I just found.

I don't sleep late, like, ever.  And I'm not the kind of person who can lay in bed for hours after I wake up, I immediately get up and make coffee and eat a banana.  This morning I woke up at 5:30 and forced myself to stay in bed until 6:30 because it's Saturday, dammit.  Usually on Saturdays, I drink my coffee, fall down some kind of Internet rabbithole, and laze around all day.

This morning, I fell down a rabbithole that led me to the discovery of "demisexuals."  Demisexuals are self-defined as people who do not form a sexual attraction until they have formed an emotional connection with somebody.  They don't get crushes, they don't fantasize about people, etc.

Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  Please do not think I'm mocking that, uh, orientation, although I am certainly not like that.  I can think of several friends who are probably this way; they just didn't know there was a label for it.  But in an attempt to force themselves under the LGBTQ umbrella, they have othered themselves as different.  Because life just isn't special unless you feel you're oppressed in some way.

What is making me LOL is finding their "coming out" stories.  These people actually sit their parents down in a we-need-to-talk way and tell their parents that they don't have sex until they're emotionally involved with another person.  I've read several of their "coming out" stories and they are KILLING ME.  They actually TEAR UP when they're coming out to their parents and friends, and I haven't found one yet in which their parents/friends react negatively in any way.

I can imagine Ace sitting me and Drew down one day.

"Mom, Dad, I need to talk to you."
"Okay, buddy, what's up?"
"Well, um, I, uh, I'm afraid to tell you."
"Tell us anything, son, we'll love you no matter what."
"Well, it's just that, um, I can't have sex unless I'm emotionally attracted to somebody."
"..."
"Why aren't you saying anything?"
"Is that really all you needed to talk to us about?"
"Yes."
"Well... okay.  I, uh... are you emotionally attracted to somebody right now?  Do you want to bring him/her over for supper?  Do you need condoms?"
"No, I just wanted to tell you that I'm a demisexual."
"A demis... okay.  I'm gonna do the dishes now.  Unless you also needed to tell me you don't do drugs."

SMH.  I'm gonna go watch Mad Men.

Last one, I SWEAR. ...until next month.

One more post about the Diva Cup, as required by The Cult.  Listen, men, I don't know why you insist on reading my blog then freaking out.  I WARNED EVERY ONE OF YOU.

So, 3 blog posts ago, I made everyone swear off Diva Cups forever.  2 blog posts ago, I MAY have convinced 5 of you to try one, making my net Cult worth around -340, according to my blog stats.

To honor The Cult, I will officially endorse using a cup, although I would suggest the Instead Softcup for newbies.  I think that has less of a learning curve than the Diva Cup does.  I'm still having issues with getting it to pop open once it's all the way inserted, so I'm still having leaks and still using one pad per day, although I could get away with a pantiliner.  My pantiliners are on the TOP shelf of the cabinet behind my toilet, you see, and getting them down would just be too much work.  I joined The Cult to enhance my life of leisure, not hamper it.

I think I'll be a bad Cult member in terms of my recruiting.  I think everyone knows by now that I use one, so if they ask me for my opinion, I'll give it to them, but I'm not going to actively recruit.  I will extend a hand of help to new Cult members who ask for help, but I won't be like this freak I had to block on Twitter:

I TOLD you it was a Cult.  (Editor's note: you're only allowed to follow me on Twitter if you are 100% okay with R-rated language and subject matter.  My filter for my online presence goes like Facebook > blog > iMessaging Quentin Tarantino > Twitter.)

Everyone else blocked her too, though, because when I tried to direct people to her timeline (which was  all "CAN I HELP YOU WITH YOUR CUP DUMP NEVER GOING BACK DUMP FLOW MEASUREMENT DUMP DUMP CULLLLTTT") I found this:

Okay, queasy people (MEN).  This is the end for you.  I told you last time to stop reading and some of you kept right on reading and cussed me out and blamed me for appetite failures.  I'm telling you, don't go ahead this time.  I'm only writing the next part because a few people identified with the *shuddergag* part, and I'm going to talk about the *shuddergag* again.  

It is veeerrrrryyyy nice not having to wipe away *shuddergag*.  I have alternating months of heaviness - one month will be "YAY WOMANHOOD" and the next month will be "am I dying?"  It's like one of my ovaries is releasing extra-special eggs that my uterus is angrily letting go.  Although I haven't been measuring my "flow" during my "dumps" (I'm not even looking, FREAK), my cramps have let me know that this is an angry month.  So in addition to the pleasantness of not feeling the *shuddergag* leave my body and wanting to run screaming to the shower to get it off me, it's very nice not having to wipe several times because it just all comes out in the cup.  To be fair, I imagine that's also a benefit of using tampons, but I have never used tampons during an entire period because I hate them and don't really know what it's like.  

It's gotten very easy for me to get in and out, and I don't think the time spent getting it out, rinsing it, and putting it back in is any longer than taking a pad off, unwrapping a new one, putting it on, and throwing the old one away, although I don't have to empty the cup as often as I change a pad.  I'll keep trying to get it right so I don't have leaks, and if the Diva Cup doesn't quite work again for me next month, I'll try the Instead Softcups.  So for cycle 1 in The Cult, I am a pleased member.

Insecurity

Drew just left to go on an overnight camping trip.  It's a homebrewer's retreat, so everyone is bringing high gravity beer and will be super drunk tonight.  I checked the guest list since it's a public event on Facebook and there will be quite a few beautiful, single women there.

So I took to Twitter:

"My husband just left to go on an overnight camping trip where everyone will be very drunk tonight.  If he cheats on me, she better be hot."

"Who am I kidding, every girl in that group is hot.  I'm screwed."

"#alimony"

"Told husband to take our leftover condoms from before I got my tubes tied for when he cheats on me tonight.  'I'll pick some up at Kroger.'"

"He can have the house and the kid.  I just want my car and my coffee cup."

"@(group member Craig) when @(Drew) cheats on me tonight, can you at least make sure it's with someone hotter than me?  Setting the bar pretty low."

"I am, of course, 0% serious.  I am the world's least insecure spouse.  It's built in to my overinflated ego."

That last tweet is true, except for the overinflated ego part.  I'm insecure about a whoooooole lot of things.  My body, my intelligence, my talents, my friends, my mothering abilities.  I'm NOT fishing for compliments so do not go there.  But I have never, not once, been insecure in my marriage.

It's not because I know he loves me or respects our marriage or any of the other intangible things that bind him to me.  It's not because Drew is the most intelligent and frugal man I know and cheating on me wouldn't go so well financially for him if I chose to leave him.  It's not because I know Drew doesn't make ANY decision until after occasionally painfully long consideration.  I've watched enough Grey's Anatomy to know things can happen in the heat of the moment where all sense of fidelity and thought go out the window.  ESPECIALLY when you're drunk.

It's because I know I absolutely cannot do anything about it.  If Drew wants to cheat on me tonight, he's going to cheat on me tonight.  I could have stopped him from going.  I could have gone with him but I do not "camp."  I could blow up his phone all night.  I could text all the other people I know who are going to be there and tell them to watch him for me (I texted Craig and told him I was kidding).  But I won't.  I won't give it another thought except to joke about it on Twitter.

I cannot control him, nor do I want to.  What a tiring existence that would be.  Watching and questioning his every move.  Who is he texting?  Who's calling him?  Did he hug my friend a second too long?  Is he tweeting at a woman?  What does this Facebook message mean?  (I don't read his Twitter timelinezzzsoftwaregunsbeerzzzzz, nor do I know his Facebook password, although I'm sure I could guess it if he died or something.)  If I did all that, and he wanted to cheat on me, he'd still cheat on me.

I guess that means I trust him, but it's more having been raised in AA with the Serenity Prayer.  Accept the things I cannot change.  I cannot change or control my husband's actions.  I just have to trust him.

(Also, I'm NOT insecure about how great I am in bed.  So there's that.)