Visionary Ventures

At various times in my life I have expressed myself in/through different creative mediums. Now, it has only taken me nearly six years of being with Jamie – a professional photographer – for me to be properly bitten by the “creating visuals bug”. But, I definitely have it now. Taking photographs and doing photo manipulations to create [what I hope are truly] unique pieces of art is my [much needed] therapy at present. And, hey, I thought I’d plug my artwork here, seeing that I haven’t been blogging about anything else lately…and, I really have no words at the moment I want to share. A picture’s worth a thousand of the things anyway, apparently.

And so, here is my portfolio on Redbubble. You can browse, and purchase (hint, hint) my creations (I’ve even designed some t-shirts; my artwork is now wearable). Check it out!

 

 

Life and Times of the Sleep Deprived

"Why am I going to bed? It's my mum who is tired!"

I’ve recently been slacking in blogdom. My son refuses to let me get a decent night’s rest, and that affects everything. I’m so sleep deprived now that I am weepy; all my emotions are right on the surface and it’s easy to feel like the world is out to get me.

 

Case in point: yesterday morning, after a night of being woken up every couple of hours by my son, my daughter woke up at 6:30am and was ready to take on the day. I, of course, was not. However, I somehow made it to 11:00, got the boy to sleep, and convinced the girl to lie down for a nap, as well. I went straight to bed…and, as soon as I get my head down, what happens? Some yahoo decides it’s a good time to mow the grass right outside my front window and wakes up the little Dude. ARRRGGGHH! Tears ensued. So did a raging migraine. I honestly contemplated murdering the man mowing the lawn. The day was getting worse by the minute.

 

I did manage to turn it around by late afternoon, after my mum-in-law picked up The Snippet; I took some codeine followed by a can of Diet Coke, got The Superdude to take another nap so I could get some healing sleep. I woke up feeling better. Jamie came home from work and food shopping. Chips were eaten. CSI was watched. Gloriously rampant – and also healing – sex was had. Thus, the day ended on a high. I fell into bed happily exhausted instead of despondently so.

 

However, while I may not be blogging quite as regularly as I would like, my creativity and expression has still [somehow] been flowing. I have written a short story (very short, but something I am proud of nonetheless), I have been taking some of – what I feel are – my best self-portraits to date, and I made myself a spangly sig image for The Northlands.

 

And now, here I find myself in yet another day, after another night of being woken up…I lost count how many times, and I simply do not have it in me to blog like I wanna. I do have stuff I really want to blog about, but lack of sleep makes presenting a coherent, interesting and, most importantly, well-written post nearly impossible (and I refuse to inflict my readers – or shame myself - with badly written, typo-ridden, rambling twaddle). So, for the foreseeable future, I won’t be blogging much. At this point, allow me to celebrate the small accomplishments: getting up, getting dressed (sometimes I make it that far, I have done so today; yay me), washing the dishes, getting myself and my children fed… making it through the day, which, to me, isn’t that small of an accomplishment after all.

Escape

“I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air.”

 “A man must dream, or a man must die,

And only the blue of the sky

Is as fair as the thing that only seems

And feeds the soul of the man who dreams.”

 

I don’t know what people do who have no imagination and, therefore, have no resort to run to when reality gets all a bit too much.

 

Today the sun is shining outside my window, but its light and warmth has not been able to break through to the dark, cold place inside me. I’m fighting feelings of envy from a certain quarter, and not fighting them very well. It’s so easy for me to get down on myself and feel devalued and unimportant…and very alone. 

 

I’m not looking for sympathy here. And, I know that I am loved and appreciated (thank you, again, those of you who know who you are)…I’m not losing sight of that, really. I promised I would not. Today I am simply struggling with those demons that plague me; they are not easily banished. I long to sleep. To dream. To escape. To build castles in the air, and close myself inside one of them, pull up the drawbridge, and never emerge again.

 

On a happy note…la la la (B Flat, I think), I figured out how to justify text on here. YAY for the little favours.

How Strange

 

How strange it is that people see strength in me that simply is not there. I suppose I should be grateful for their imaginations, because it is these people who call themselves my friends (yes, I actually have a few, believe it or not) and [genuinely] like me. I’ve written about this before. Here. When I wrote that entry I had just found out that I was pregnant…again, and not just pregnant, but 20 weeks – half way through – pregnant. It came as a shock to my entire being and it brought my weaknesses to the forefront of my attention once again (not that they are ever far from the forefront).

 

My problem here is, I feel sad that people don’t like me for me but for strength they see in me that isn’t there. People who see me as I really am rarely like me…at least not for long, anyway. I mean, people other than my husband who has – I believe – a divine grace to love and care for me, and my family. I can be exasperating. I know this.

 

I also speak my mind…and my mind often works very contrary to the way other peoples’ minds work. And, furthermore, I believe I’m the one that is right. I admit it. Opinions aren’t humble, no matter what people say! And, some of them are right and some of them are wrong. Yep, occasionally black and white leaves no room for grey.

 

See, the above paragraph right there is going to have some people pissed off and seething. I should have prefaced it with: Beware! Stumbling Block Ahead!

 

I have had the choice not to speak my mind and, therefore, “get along”. But, well…I obviously didn’t choose to suppress myself so.

 

And… if you dislike someone who is like me (whether they are a character in a book or a real, live breathing person) don’t you of necessity, then, dislike me also?

 

How do you see strength in me that is not there, and like that strength while holding all that I really am in contempt? I just don’t understand. I am at a loss. I am trying to get it. But, I don’t.

 

I’m not trying to push anyone away, really. But, I want to be liked – or disliked, if you must – for who I am, not what you think I am but am not.

 

And, I don’t think it’s one of those cases like I wrote about here. It’s not an issue of me not seeing myself through the eyes of those who love me and, therefore, being down on myself or having low self-esteem because of my inability to see myself through other peoples’ eyes. This is a case of personality and beliefs and the stuff that makes up my very psyche: the stuff that is really me. It’s not that I’m not seeing something in me that is really there, something other people see but I don’t. I can admit that I will see physical ugliness that IS NOT THERE when I look in the mirror, when someone else will see beauty that REALLY MAY BE THERE but I am unable to see it due to insecurities. But, this is something where people are seeing something – intangible – that just is not there.

 

You can like me in spite of who I am, I suppose (and, maybe, that’s what is actually going on here). But, you cannot – or, rather, should not – like me for something I am not, something I do not possess.

 

I am not strong. I never have been. I never will be. I crumble quite easily when faced with difficulties and am very easily frustrated, easily overwhelmed. I am utterly dependent on my husband, for everything – and, I see nothing wrong with that because I do think that feminism took society too far the other way. If Jamie wasn’t a good man, if he was a bastard who treated me like shit, then this would be another issue entirely. But, the truth is, he was made for me – a gift to me, I believe, so that a weak and fragile woman could have a life, and not merely an existence. I know I am extremely blessed, and I am so grateful.

 

I know that the way that I am does not make for popularity in today’s world. It amazes me that I have any friends at all sometimes. And, for those of you who do brave knowing me and still call me friend, I am also exceedingly grateful. I just want everyone to see me as I truly am and not make stuff up to make me be “acceptable”. Love me for who I am and who I am not, or despite it, but don’t ignore it and don’t see what isn’t there.

All Things Are Possible In An Alternate Reality

Beyond The Looking Glass

I believe in other dimensions and alternate realities. I don’t understand all the science behind it, but I don’t have to; even though there is science that supports the theory, it is one of those matters of faith..I don’t question, I just believe. 

 

Jamie and I had a good weekend. It had its hiccups but, all in all, it was a real winner.

 

He took Friday off from work and we had our first date since our son was born last October. We went to the cinema, and it’s the first time I’ve been to the movies since I was pregnant with our daughter who is now nearly two years old. So, it’s been a while. We grabbed coffee and a bite to eat in town. We made doe eyes at each other across the table and, then, it was off to the pictures, where we had the whole theatre to ourselves! We could have been naughty, and thus we were a bit conflicted, but actually paying attention to the new Star Trek film won out in the end.

 

We both enjoyed the whole date so much that we immediately made plans to repeat it, complete with a second helping of Star Trek. We decided that, if Jamie’s mum felt like watching both the babies again, we’d go for a repeat performance on Sunday. She was, so we had a plan.

 

In between we had our ups and downs. Friday night was an up, indulging in the naughtiness that we forwent in the cinema, and giving us a perfect ending to a perfect day. Saturday was a bit of a downer…although, looking back on it now, I can’t really remember why…perhaps our Warrick-induced sleep deprivation was getting the better of both of us that day. We resolved that Sunday would be better. And so…

 

Somewhere in the Multiverse a man named Jamie and his soul mate Autumn were picked up by the man’s mother, along with their kids, and driven to the bus stop where Jamie and Autumn got out and Nan and the kids went on their way. The Alternate Jamie and the Alternate Autumn then proceeded into town and went straight to the cinema because the Alternate Jamie had checked the times before leaving their house – just to make sure – and found out that they changed the showings from Friday (even though the cinema website had said, on Friday, that all showing times were set for Friday through Thursday). And, thus, the couple made their film, which was crowded this time and, therefore, there was not even the possibility of naughtiness, but that was ok because they knew what would happen later. They enjoyed the flick a second time, catching dialog they missed previously, then they went for their coffee and nibbles, having plenty of time to catch the bus and get back to the kids by early evening.

 

Ah, great day. However, it wasn’t ours.

 

Where that Alternate Jamie checked the times, my Jamie did not (understandably convinced that the website had not lied to him on Friday…ah, we are so trusting sometimes, aren’t we?) and so, after going into town and grabbing a burger before heading to the cinema to buy tickets, we missed the first showing of the film. Jamie was pissed off with himself. We debated whether to just go home. We went to get a coffee and discuss options. I was game with whatever he wanted to do. We both realised that the important thing here was that we were getting time together, no matter what it was we were doing. At last we decided, if Jamie’s mum was willing (and, she was), we’d go ahead and chance our son going so long without me nursing him (he’s on solids now so he can go longer at a time anyway), and we’d hang around town and see the later showing of Star Trek.

 

We had lots of time to kill, and not much money. We walked around and looked in shops until I got too exhausted to stand up or walk anymore. Jamie used the points on his Waterstone’s (bookstore) card to get me a book (I chose Neil Gaiman’s Coraline), and he picked himself up a book of Sudoku puzzles and we went back to the café to sit and wait. I easily sped through three chapters of Coraline (quickly enchanted and enthralled by the tale), Jamie Sudokued; we were together, that’s all that mattered. In between lines of story, blocks of numbers, and sips of coffee, we made doe eyes at each other and touched each others’ hands.

 

When the coffee shop closed we made our way to the cinema and waited the remaining time before the movie began in the theatre itself.

 

 And, thus, we made our film, which was crowded this time and, therefore, there was not even the possibility of naughtiness, but that was ok because we knew what would happen later. We enjoyed the flick a second time, catching dialog we missed previously, and then we called Jamie’s mum to pick us up (kids in tow) because now there were no more busses running to take us back home.

 

The moral(s) of this story:

 

1.) The new Star Trek film is good. Yes, they mess with the space-time continuum (and, therefore, history), but that’s nothing new for the Star Trek Universe/Multiverse, is it? While some things are hard to be explained away, I am satisfied with the “all things are possible in an alternate reality and once you mess with time-travel” excuse. Leonard Nimoy was great, per usual. And, I liked Zachary Quinto, as well; he impressed me…and, that was going to take a lot to do, because he not only had Leonard Nimoy’s performance as Spock to live up to, he had Leonard Nimoy RIGHT THERE in comparison. He did a good job; I believed his Spock.

 

With the changes in history, Spock will end up being a different person altogether and, therefore, there is plausibility to the romance angle that was portrayed in the story… although, I have to feel a bit sorry for ol’ nurse Chapel (played by the late, great Majel Barrett), for it was she who, in the original series of Star Trek, was in love with Spock and never could get him to give in to his emotions for her).

 

2.) Make sure you check/double check movie times!

 

3.) Most importantly, make the most of the dimension and time you find yourself in…because, we haven’t discovered the technology yet that will let us cross dimensions or take us back in time; we only have the one shot in the right here where we are.

 

Lean On Me

 

All things are possible…

Stumbling Blocks

I called my mother last night and related to her our troubles with getting my youngest daughter, 23 months old, to obey my husband and me. See, my daughter is clever, and quite cunning, really. She knows what she’s doing; she’s advanced for her age in learning vocabulary, speaking clearly, counting, and grasping concepts such as sharing and general logic follow through. Having done it with her and her younger brother, but not with her two older half siblings (and, therefore, observing the difference), I can say that I recommend that Mozart in the womb thing. Anywho… the girl’s smart.

 

She is also very, very stubborn.

 

In way of example, I shared with my mother a recent incident in which my precious baby-girl adamantly and continually refused to pick up the building blocks she had strewn all over the floor (the result of which was that her baby brother was no longer able to crawl anywhere without stumbling over a brightly painted piece of wood), and my frustration over how nothing I did or didn’t do, in way of discipline (taking away her other toys and privileges, like the TV, etc.), did anything to sway her to put them away again after she had finished playing with them. When I finally lost my cool and yelled at her to PICK UP HER BLOCKS!!!, she threw a tantrum and told me she wanted to go to bed. It was her naptime, so I told her that, yes, she could have a nap, but when she woke up she would have to, you know, pick up her blocks – by this time I was sounding like a broken record. I took her to bed.  I put her brother down for his nap (which he took, wonder of wonders), and I got some rare sleep myself. When she woke up, I went and got her out of her room and asked her if she remembered what she needed to do. She said, very clearly and sweetly, “pick up my blocks”. I thought maybe we had made some headway. I carried her down the stairs, set her down on the floor and waited for her to put the blocks away. While I watched her she put two of them in their bucket and then proceeded to do something else and ignore my persistent attempts at trying to get her to pick up the – now – extremely irritating objects; I couldn’t walk for stepping on one and hurting my feet, and I had no place to put her brother down for him to play; my arms were getting tired from holding him and if I put him on the sofa he rolled or crawled off, thereby hurting himself. I couldn’t pick the things up myself, out of principle; it would set a “giving in” precedent were I to do that. But, as I say, nothing I did or didn’t do, in way of punishment, had any effect on her.

 

It was, however, having an effect on me. I called Jamie crying, sobbing about what a crap mum I am, feeling useless and ineffective and inadequate as a parent. I was at a loss. He told me he would handle it when he got home, and while there was relief in that, it just reinforced my feelings of failure and my frustration at myself.

 

Jamie did come home and “dealt with it”, as best he could, which amounted to – when she still would not relent and comply with our request – a spank on the bottom and making her stay in her room, while we, of course, had to pick up the blocks.

 

We discussed the episode with Jamie’s mum, who raised five kids of her own (most of them turning out relatively okay) and who spends a lot of time with my daughter now, and she – being all grandmotherly soft on the issue of her youngest granddaughter said, “It’s just a phase. Don’t be too hard on her. She’s just a baby.” But, I had my doubts. That just sounded too easy to me.

 

I told all this to my mother, and she listened with interest. And, then she said in a cheery but matter of fact tone, “I don’t know what the answer is. You did the same thing and, as far I know, you never grew out of it.”

 

Yep. That’s why I had had those niggling doubts in regard to the nice “just a phase” theory.

 

I laughed, both amused and chagrined, and replied, “I have yet to pick up my blocks.” It was a statement – a certainty – not a question, but my mother responded, “Yes, exactly.”

 

So, I still don’t know what to do about getting my toddler to do as she’s told…but, I think we all know, that isn’t really the point of this little narrative, is it?

 

 “I shall not be, I shall not be moved”. That’s time-tested obstinacy, that is. I have to conclude that anyone who would set his or her will against mine has to be a bit of a glutton for punishment. Because, after 34 years, I doubt I’m going to start putting away all my bright, hard, colourful…blocks. No, I’m going to leave them right where they are for you to stumble over.

 

If You Can’t Stand The Heat You Shouldn’t Be Food

Illusion

 

A beautifully prepared meal comes to your candlelit table. The first of your senses, sight, is engaged and you delight at an aesthetic presentation. Then, as you dive in to the culinary work of art, and lift your fork to your watering mouth, all your other senses follow suit rapidly and simultaneously. You feast on the beautiful flavour and gorgeous aroma and sumptuous texture. And, then… you stand up, applaud, and praise the food for being so good, beautiful, so well prepared, so very tasty.

 

You do what? Of course you don’t. You praise the chef that created the meal, that talented and skilful person who took the raw material and made a masterpiece from it. Sure, the quality of the raw material had to be good in the first place, but even there the food itself can take no credit; the condition of the ingredients was down to the farmers who cared for it and nature itself that created it.

 

I am going somewhere with this. Bear with me please, please, please – I implore you to consider what I’m saying before you dismiss it as the ramblings of a mad woman.

 

The above analogy is to relate my view on expert photography, photographers and their subjects (human models in particular).

 

I have recently been taking some self-portraits. I am proud of these images, not because I am in them, but because I am the one who took them. I have learned enough about photography to know that if any of these images look good it is not because I appear in them, it’s due to the skill it required to take them correctly and finish them in Photoshop. The model can take no credit.

 

You may think, when you meet me in person, that I am attractive. You may not, of course, but this is for the sake of argument. You may think I am attractive, but I will tell you truly, when it comes down to a two-dimensional image representing my visage, if I look good in it, it is completely and utterly down to the artist (whether myself or any other photographer) who creates it.

 

Until I learned the correct way to take a picture, almost every picture I took of myself looked ordinary at best and absolutely hideous at worst. Oh, there was the odd lucky shot (everyone gets lucky sometimes), few and far between, when I could produce something that didn’t make me look like crap, but, for the most part, they were all rubbish. In the pictures (I’m not arguing about outside the photo, living and breathing flesh), I looked considerably less than beautiful…then, I began to learn the tricks to making a decent (and sometimes more than decent) photograph.

 

I have argued with people for many years when I would get complimented on MY looks in a portrait taken by my photographer husband. I tell them that it is Jamie that makes me look good in the photos he takes of me. I would feel…dishonest if I took credit for the beautiful image where no credit (on my part) is due. When I began to take pictures of myself, before I knew what I was doing, and then after I did know what I was doing with a camera and Photoshop filters, I was even more certain of this. If you have never seen me in person, you cannot say whether I am truly beautiful or not. You don’t know, do you? You can’t know. You have no idea the magic it takes to make me look good in a photo, and you have no clue how much of it is an illusion. Could my visual appeal be a skillfully created false impression I want you to believe?

 

Sure, as in the case of the lovely and tasty meal, the raw material must be decent to begin with, but a bad chef can make it taste gross while a good chef can make it taste good despite the food’s initial condition – so too, with models. Good bone structure, a well-proportioned figure and nice skin help, but the model can’t take credit for those things; those features are all down to good genes, and they come, ultimately, from God (or nature and natural selection, or whatever you believe about where we come from and how we are created). And, I have also seen (and tasted) meals made out of mediocre ingredients and, when put together by a master chef, made into something incredibly scrumptious, like you never could have imagined when you first saw the original, raw state of the very average food stuffs. Just so with a human subject in front of a camera…well, I don’t think I need to press the point. If you saw me in person, I think you would get it immediately. There is, indeed, much to be said for presentation.

 

I am average (in looks, anyway); nothing stunning or special…but I sure get told I am those very things by people who have never seen me in person but have seen either the professionally taken photographs I have had taken or my self-portraits since learning how to take a decent image.

 

So, you tell me. Who should get the praise for the aesthetic visual (good picture and representation of someone and their “attractiveness”)? The subject or the artist? I know what I believe, what I know.

 

I’m not going to thank my food for being tasty.

My Shoes

I have lately been irked by what appeared to me (in my exhaustion-haze and sleep deprived mind) to be an endless bombardment of everyone but me getting in shape, while I am in a shambles. I’ve been properly vexed, going from slightly annoyed to increasingly irate, over a steady stream of Facebook status messages and forum posts announcing all the working out and shaping up going on around me. And, yes, I know, it’s unfair, petty and childish to get angry with these people for simply having more self-discipline and being more motivated than I. That is silly. But…

 

I had an epiphany this morning. Yay for epiphanies; they’re grrrrreat! I realised that all of these people, without exception, are either quite a bit younger than I am (with or without kids), OR (younger or older) they don’t have/have never had children, and I would bet money all of them are getting considerably more sleep than I am. Suddenly I didn’t feel so bad.

 

I have exercised religiously and fanatically before. I can, when well rested and healthy enough, give quite a few exercise-freaks a run for their money. So, I’d been raking myself over the coals wondering WHY I couldn’t make myself get up and force myself to do it like I always had been able to in the past. Well…what I realised is, the operative phrase there is “well rested and healthy enough” and, right now, that is not my status: I have a baby waking me up at least every hour at night, and sleep deprivation is taking a toll on my already less-than-stellar health.

 

So, here I had been beating myself up over letting myself go (feeling just wretched about it), and thinking I was making excuses for it. I had these numbers of people shoving it in my face daily (not on purpose, mind you; they weren’t doing it deliberately just to bother me – I understand that – but that was the effect nonetheless), and I wasn’t taking into consideration their very real advantages over me. Thus, I think I (seriously) need to give myself a break.

 

I also know that I am really not alone, it only seemed to me in my perceived, self-inflicted persecuted state that it was EVERYONE else. When I posted the status: “Autumn Dawn Leader thinks everyone is getting fit while she is letting herself go and falling apart”, I had friends (plural – so, there’s a group of us, thank you very much!) come out of the woodwork to tell me, “Autumn, you’re not alone; I’m jiggly too”.  I could feel the solidarity and support just reinforcing my epiphany in the moment that I read those messages.

 

So, I say to all of you young, relatively healthy, getting enough sleep and having plenty of uninterrupted time types who are admirably working out daily and – I (wrongly) assumed – putting me and my fellow jigglers to shame, Walk a mile in my shoes and you won’t be able to jog to the gym and workout for three hours (or even 5 bloody minutes) or whatever else it is you do in order to torture yourself into your skinny jeans.

 

For that matter… what shoes?  Who has time for shoes? You’d be barefoot – you wouldn’t have the energy to tie the laces, let alone do anything else!

Nothing Personal ;)

After yesterday’s bout of self-doubt, I considered to returning to this blog with attempts to post…I don’t know exactly what (because I really couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t personal and important to me). But, I couldn’t figure out how to avoid from sharing myself in my writing; I’m always going to be present in it. Isn’t part of the fun of having a blog like this so it can be used as a platform for sharing one’s passions and viewpoints? So, that left me with the option of, as I pondered in the last post, simply walking away from blogging all together.

 

Then, the comments started rolling in, and I was encouraged to continue this “ego trip” – here, here, here and here. I laughed at the suggestion of being narcissistic here – if only I could love the person in the mirror! Do I feel that what I have to say is important? Well, yeah. Just like everyone else who has one of these blogs. In that respect, I am no different. And, I have just as much a right to present my perspectives – and to provoke consideration and discussion of those views and their truth – as anyone else out there sharing (or “preaching”) a message. Everyone has a voice; some of us are just louder than others.

 

I have been a professional vocalist for 30 years (I started performing at the age of 4). In order to get on a stage in front of hundreds or thousands of people, one has to have a bit of vanity and belief in themselves and their talent – or, at the very least (but the most important of all in my eyes) – the desire to share their gift in order to touch other people with it. It’s all about the giving of one’s self. And, there’s an attitude that goes along with it – an attitude that transcends and supersedes any stage fright.  If you don’t have the ‘tude, you never take the stage; you remain silent and undiscovered…and ineffective. I think that’s sad. I know far too many people with a gift who will never share it because they don’t believe in their gift enough to overcome the fear, and, thereby, it goes to waste.

 

All this to say…

 

I choose to give what I can of myself. It’s there for anyone who wants to consume it and be benefited by it, or motivated by it, or inspired by it, or – even – enraged by it (I’d prefer you to glean something positive and be blessed, but take what you will; at least that’s something). I do not want to sit by and go to waste, so to speak. When I decided to start blogging again I said much the same thing, how I wanted to give the world a taste of Autumn, and for me to not to do so would be, effectually, to let myself rot. And, well, I know that I am an acquired taste and, as I have the right to “put myself out here” for consumption, everyone else has the right to consume or not. You can turn the radio up or off. Fortunately, we both have a choice.

 

And, yeah, I know I mix metaphors – adds to the flavour, hehe.

 

And, while I’m sharing…

• The Dream by Autumn Dawn Leader

More Autumn Dawn Leader music on iLike

Naked

Am I too open?

Why do I choose to be naked before everyone’s eyes? Why do I share so much, and is it a bit too much information?

I tend to say the things that other people would never dare.

I know part of it, like the stuff about sex, is because I’m proud and I want to boast and I want other men to be jealous of my husband, and I want other women (the neglectful types who use excuses to avoid sex with their husbands, and the manipulative types who use sex as a weapon) to be exposed…and shamed (this is something I feel very strongly about). But, that brings up the point…why do I care what anyone else thinks? Why can’t I just keep it to myself, my own nice little secret, and enjoy my life privately? Why must I share TMI??? And, why oh why can’t I just leave others alone to live their lives in peace? I mean, you don’t really need me attacking you (even if I am right), do you? Why should I care what you do anyway? It’s your life. I really don’t have to let your choices bother me. And, the only time I have to deal with you stupid and manipulative women types is when your husbands come to me begging me to screw ‘em… oh, sorry – TMI, again, dammit! I can learn to better avoid those neglected and abused husbands, and it would probably help in that regard if I didn’t share so much about my “sexual superiority”, thereby attracting these men to me in the first place! Hey, man. I feel for ya. Really. And, I wish I could make your wife shape up and fly right, but I can’t, and I can’t – I won’t – be your substitute either!! !”£$^%&*

Wow. I had no intention of writing that; it just kind of…came out. Is it that I can’t help myself? What’s wrong with me? A lot, apparently. But, honestly, that felt really good to get THAT out. See, I’ve had too many experiences with the above scenario.

Anywho…back to our regularly scheduled blog, already in progress…

Do I want to make people uncomfortable? Sometimes. Yeah. I’ll admit it. I do. I want to provoke. But, hell… I’m very tired. I think I might just give it up (however, this might also simply be severe sleep deprivation talking now)…because, really, who the f*** cares, and who really, really wants to know? Really?