Thursday, June 23, 2016

Doctor's Orders

I had a followup chit chat with the doc this morning after a couple months away from her office. This past month, especially, has been filled with things that have convinced me the Universe does not want me on a diet. Some of these things have included:


*Requesting low carb options at a required work event and being told since I'm "not diabetic" they weren't "required to accommodate" me. They accommodated me by including yogurt (full sugar) and fruit along side the five varieties of pastries. I accommodated myself (after some bit of sweating) by taking the elevator to an on-site eatery and purchasing some scrambled eggs with a side of hard boiled eggs.

EGGS FOR DAYS

 *Having my luggage hoisted gingerly off the x-ray belt at the airport and my unmentionables tossed about because the gelatin powder and bullion cubes I packed as backup protein sources tested hot as explosives. Only initially, apparently. The swabby thing was okay. But the first test showed it as "green powder which is obviously explosives." Fortunately I quickly forgot about this ordeal when I settled into my seat next to Mr. Verizon himself.
*Repeatedly listening to my children say, "Ewwww, mom that tuna is soooooo disgusting. Do not get anywhere near me with it." 


Things like this kick my anxiety into overdrive and I'm left thinking, "why am I even doing this?" I also can't just pound a jug of wine to wash away my jitters since liquor makes my blood sugar spike.

But let's back up. Because the food thing? The food thing I can talk about. I will talk about the food thing with anyone who wants to ask. Why? Because I spent most of my life obviously in the dark about food. Well, not just about food, but about how every body is different in how it handles food. And mine, genetically, is screwed. So if you and I were to have a convo about this? I would tell you that what I eat may not be what is best for you, and that anybody who tries to tell you OR SELL YOU otherwise is a fucking liarface and you should run right the hell away.

But this past month a couple other things happened that I didn't so much talk about. Other people have. A LOT. And I have been reading. And watching. And listening. And crying. And thinking. But writing about it? What is there left to say that hasn't been said?

So today:

Brock "Rapey Pants" Turner and The Pulse Nightclub shooter who doesn't deserve a name.

When Turner's sad excuse for a sentence came down I wasn't one bit surprised. At all. We The People put so much stock in our athletes that we are completely willing to turn a blind eye to their deplorable shenanigans, especially when they're perpetrated by rich white kids.

We know this. We have lived this. I hope when Turner is released that he is immediately hit by a train.

I accepted a ride home from a youth dance in a group where we ended up at a local park. It was cold and I wanted to stay in the car. My friend and one guy got out and were talking near some playground equipment. The athlete unbuckled his seatbelt and slid over to me.

"So are we gonna do this or what?"

This fuck.

This fuck had never given me the time of day. This fuck had only ever gone out of his way to make me slightly miserable in the six-ish years we'd been students together. I laughed at the notion. He didn't take kindly to my rejection.

"You might as well, because I'm gonna tell everyone we did it anyway."
 This asshole is still walking around this town like he's some kind of gift to this planet. Did he get in my pants? NO. I spilled out my car door and told the other two yahoos that I needed to go.

Was he the only one to pull this shit? NO. It would happen time and again, they'd isolate me from the herd and turn on me. Football player. Baseball player. Football player.

The reason this got to me was I had written a piece about the baseball player not too long before this Turner garbage came out. He wasn't just ANY baseball player. He was the Coach's kid.

THE Coach.

The big one.

And you know? That kid has a criminal history bigger than the day is long. And at every goddamn twist and turn his daddy showed up to vouch for him. Gave him a job on the coaching staff. Made a deal with the prosecution. Etcetera. And you know what you'll find when you go out and search the newspaper archives for him?

SPORTS ARTICLES.


His brother? Also a giant steaming pile of shit. You know what happened when the newspaper said so? The family sued the newspaper.

Because they were tarnishing his image. Nevermind the fact that he got out of his car at a stoplight and STABBED SOMEONE.

NO.

So anyhoo. I ended up with this chump as a five-minute long boyfriend a million years ago because his friend was dating my friend. And long story short, he and the team (yes, THAT team) had a party that I never should have been at where he used his 90 pound difference to wrestle me into submission in a surprisingly hoarder-like office where I put my foot through a typewriter before escaping his liquor-weed clutches with a bleeding foot and some bruising on my torso and asked my friends if we could leave NOW.

This story does have a silver lining, and a point.

That dynasty is done. There's a new coach in town. And his wife? His wife was FirstKid's teacher this year. His wife has been both boys' advanced reading and math teacher for 4 years. And she has two small boys. And she is absolutely invested in raising our boys to be respectful. Of themselves, of other boys, of girls. Of leaving the competitive testosterone on the field. Of not rewarding aggressive behavior.

Of not accepting BOYS WILL BE BOYS.

As a mom of boys, I LOVE HER FOR THAT.

I love when ANY mom holds their kids accountable. But ESPECIALLY boy moms, and ESPECIALLY the ones who are filling in my shoes for dayshift Monday through Friday for nine month stints.

What did I tell my kids, personally? That they HAVE to respect people's personal space, and that they should never ever ever give anyone a surprise kiss, even if they think they want it. Will we have to talk more in the future? Yes. Especially with Clayton, who seems to have no less than two girls flitting around him at one time.

Now: GURNS-N-STURFF.

I cannot fathom the depths of despair felt by the family and friends of those victims of the Pulse shooting. I cannot fathom the depths of despair felt by the family and friends of those victims of the shooting before that one. And before that one. And before that one.

We have GOT to do something different.

Before you stomp off in a huff because Second Amendment and everything, let me say that yes, I know there's a difference between the ones that go BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT and the ones that go PEW-PEW-PEW-PEW-PEW-PEW-PEW and no I'm not interested in prying anything out of your cold dead hands.

But some of you need to calm the fuck down a little. Seriously.

Like, I think that just MAYBE it's OK for adults to MAYBE have a talk about the fact that MAYBE not everyone needs to emerge from a vagina with a firearm. My perspective comes from more than half a lifetime of exposure to (directly, personally, and peripherally) domestic violence situations and having knowledge of some just literally bat shit crazy individuals that, no matter the BRRRRTness or PEW PEW-osity of a weapon, they need to have access to neither.

Come back with me to a stalking trial where one of my questionable romantic decisions was accused of being a general asshole to me over an extended period of time after we both had moved on. I say "moved on" because we both were remarried, but obviously one of us was more "moved on" than the other. The activities were clearly criminal in nature or the court wouldn't have been involved.

At day of sentencing, I had to give a victim's impact statement. Aside from actual testimony, this is one of the most nerve wracking, painful things I have ever done. And I have pushed three live humans out my cooter. I talked about the things he had threatened, the fact that he bragged about knowing nine ways to kill someone with his bare hands, that he was a trained marksman, an avid hunter, he told me there were spots in the woods where nobody would find my body, and that he had rifles and a night vision scope.

There was only one use for that. Sneaking up on your prey under cover of darkness.

I asked the judge if it would be him - or someone else - who would explain to my children what had happened to me if he didn't impose SOME kind of punishment and I ended up dead. He was the type of offender that kept escalating his behavior until an external force stopped him.

My ex's response - by this time he was representing himself because both of the attorneys he'd had during the course of proceedings had quit, presumably because they knew he was guilty as hell - was that he expected the court to expunge his record AND just drop the charges. You know why?

Because: SECOND FUCKING AMENDMENT.

He was concerned that this conviction - which, by the way, we were already past that step, because, as you remember, here we were at SENTENCING...would prohibit his GOD GIVEN RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS.

This fucker.

So when the judge got done peeling his eyes from the back of his skull, he clarified for the counsel-less loser who initially tried to not recognize said judge's authority because of the FRINGE on the FLAG in the courtroom (it's only for boats on the ocean blue, yo), that A) in order to have your record expunged, you actually have to SERVE your sentence, and B) the crime for which he was convicted was a misdemeanor so he needed to calm the fuck down with his Constitutional nonsense.

His influences? A dude who did federal prison time (after this) who is super good chums with Bo Gritz and thinks Randy Weaver got a shit deal. A dude who repeatedly invited me to his "impenetrable bunker" that was safe from "Government Invasion" because they were coming any day now to "round us up and put us in that concentration camp they built in central Washington - go look, there's concertina wire". And since I hate camping and also because he gave me the fucking willies, I never went. Then they let him out of prison and mysteriously his mortal enemy's business just burned the hell down. Weird.

So when people start getting all sorts of defensive about their guns right off the bat and aren't willing to acknowledge that "yeah, there's some nitwits that I don't think should have access" then I immediately lump you in the same category with the paranoid peeps who like to hang out in underground concrete bunkers and dodge their taxes by writing shit like "BLOW ME, IRS: YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME, AMERICA CAN'T EVEN OWN LAND OUTSIDE DC!" on the signature line of their 1040's.

What I think is that you're afraid. You're afraid that maybe you've said some shit you shouldn't have said. Maybe on the internet about how Obummer should be kilt. Or how Michelle looks like a monkey. And you're afraid that your comments are going to get YOU put on that list that will restrict your purchase power. And that freaks you out. Maybe you need to take a step back at how you're acting, then. Because all that shit that went down with the stalking and the "Government Invasion" that didn't happen? That was under the Bush Administration.

And that brings us to my appointment today, where my doctor ordered that the Universe knock off all this nonsense. And tonight is date night, where I will stick to my diet and where hubs is taking me to the place where we very last crossed paths with my psycho ex.

Fingers crossed that he has other plans.

1 comment:

  1. Best post I have read in years. Agree with pretty much everything you wrote. I will never understand how the institutional abuse that goes on in sports teams in the US quite obviously continues (as reported in "shocked" tones by breathless media every few years). Don't even get me started about guns...

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