First Fucking Blogiversary!

And I missed it by that much.  Yay, my blog is a year old, two days ago.

Don Adams would be proud.  Or not.  “Whatever.  Nevermind.”

Yep, it’s my blogs birthday, cut the two-day-old cake.  What am I saying?  I baked this myself, only last night…  Hmmm, how shall I decorate it?  THIS cake looks awesome.  Yeah I didn’t make a real cake because we recently had an actual birthday party with cake and the family would protest vigorously against my introducing more calories into their diets, unless of course it was chocolate and then they would cry on my frosting while devouring it.  We’re weight conscious for some reason, it’s not like we don’t have an exercise bike inside and the ability to go for a walk after school…  We just don’t make those choices, so we ride that merri-go-round, which would be great exercise if it were a real one.

Gratuitous swearing…  check!
Self deprecation…  check!
Late arrival…  check!  Because hey, it’s my fucking party!
Virtual cake… check!
Struggle to keep up… check!
Disappointment with life… check!
Humour…   um… well…

Just for clarification, today I gratuitously swore, in a celebratory way.  Like, “how fucking awesome!”

We had an episode over diet and fat and weight concerns, and I swear within a week we had another episode over someone eating someone else’s chocolate.  I fucking swear.  I ate it and I’m going to risk it:  I’m going to the store to buy chocolate and watch the rest of the family yell and cry and fuss over my having brought more fat into the house.  And, if they don’t trigger me, I’m going to smile.  Remind me to pick up earplugs though.

They’re just like me though, except for the insensitivity to my ears, which “scare[s] the living shit out of me.”

This is the most popular kind of exercise in my house:  screaming.  I mean, it gets the heart pumping, they feel the burn, and then after the episode the screamer can retreat without having to do whatever chore it was they were supposed to do.  It happens on reminding about homework too, not just chores.  The added benefit of screaming is while you scream whatever you’re screaming, you’re also running down your family.

There’s a list of exercises my family does, not limited to these:

Sometimes, I’m even in on it, but most of the time I just want to cower in a dark corner somewhere and try not to be noticed.  But that’s not healthy, is it?

I left the clean dishes in the dishwasher, so I can put those away after work because my princesses and prince are so overworked just having to go to school and keep up with social demands of being royalty.  Call me Cinder-fella.  No, on second thought, fucking DON’T.  Because my good fairy godmother got caught in a bug zapper.  And her replacement just finished her song, “bibbity, bobbity, fuck you.”

I just have to remember, “Ogres don’t live happily ever after.”  But we have our moments along the way.  I just wish I could live continuously in the moments instead of having to deal with so many obstacles.  Which makes me

which “scare[s] the living shit out of me.”

…,I’m a year’s journey into blogging. What have I learned along the way?

I bet I have a top ten list:

10. I’m a bitch, a big fat complainer, a pansy about little triggers things that go wrong in the normal course of a normal life, and my family doesn’t like it.  Which means I should stop letting things trigger me get so far under my skin and stop being a whiny little bitch.

9. My life is normal; my response to it being normal is not normal.  Normal people dust off, pick themselves up, and try again.  I surrender, say fuckitall, “the struggle is not worth shit,” and wait for the next shitwave.  Instead of taking a shot of whiskey to numb the pain, stitching myself up from all of life’s cuts and bullet holes and wanting to go out there and take on the world, I just want to be left the fuck alone.  And please leave me the bottle of whiskey because fuckitall.

8. There’s a community of us who hate life, hate people (understandable, because most are just arse holes), hate triggers, and sometimes hate each other, sometimes suffer panic attacks because of all the triggers or just because one just decided to show up on our heart’s doorstep like a jilted lover pounding to get in, sometimes feel sad for reasons no one truly understand, sometimes feel rage, sometimes do OK,  sometimes get so keyed up we can’t do anything, sometimes feel intense disappointment in ourselves or the world around or God or all of the above, and love to swear, because sometimes swearing represents the only perfect response to situations and people.  I love that swears can represent happy, friendly, sad, confused, or angry feelings, or any number of emotions, some of them all at the same time.  And I love that this community has accepted me warmly and supportively, you are the opposite of people I meet in life.

7. I’ve learned there are people who are pretending and people who are real.  The people I know here are real and genuine because it’s a safe place to be real with each other, unlike the world.  In the real world I’m supposed to pretend everything is fine, but here, since my wife and family don’t read it (if you ever read any responses to anyone claiming to be my family they’re probably lying).  Unless it’s a blogger and I’ve virtually officially adopted you because I love you but I can’t marry you, that’s about as close a family I’ve felt.   I only pretend to be real in the real world, but given the choice I’d rather keep on being real in the virtual world because the real world frequently sucks dirt.

6. I’ve learned my struggles and my moods are not as unusual as I once thought, and I thank you all for teaching me that.

5.  I’ve learned I have a deep well of compassion for real people, I had underestimated it because in general, honestly, I hate almost everyone in real life.  But you…  I’d love to win the lottery and give each of you a visit, a hug, a naughty wink, and enough cash to fix the biggest annoyance in your life.  Or help you relocate away from it.  Or just bring you a bottle of your favorite poison, bake you a nice hot loaf of bread, wash your dishes and clean your houses for you, because that’s therapeutic to me.  And then share the bottle and the bread because I think you are the kind of person I want to hang out with.  The fakers can fuck off.

4.  I’ve learned that I may be lonely but I’m not alone because of all of you, especially people who comment and joke around with me.  And I hope that realization is reciprocated.  Thank you for caring about me, in spite of me.

3.  I’ve learned you can either forgive me for occasionally being what you might think is “religious,” or at least have the grace not to express your criticism too harshly.  Thank you.  Or maybe, my brand of reality as I express my doubt-challenged faith is real enough you’re just letting me vent and if so, thank you for your patient endurance.  If you’re still checking the “undecided voter” box, please don’t take my faith in God as an insult if you disagree, just as a very open invitation to think about it.  The Jesus I love and frequently disappoint and sometimes feel disappointed with because of the way my prayers are either answered or ignored, is bigger than the small-minded “Christ followers” who insult you and demean you and hate you for being you, and I am sorry in the name of Jesus to anyone who has been offered hatred in His name, because He’s not like that. Sometimes I am, but He’s not.  There are preferences I have in my life that make other people’s preferences in life make me cringe, like for instance having the roll of toilet paper on the roll backward or not putting a new one on at all, not emptying the trash cans, or the clean dishes out of the dishwasher, or not doing your homework or studying for your exams because you’re on your electronics, or eye rolling or screaming your fucking head off at me for random reasons, things outside of my control, or specific perceived slights, or not mopping the floor when you spill something sticky on it and then bitching until I mop it for you…oh, wait.  That’s my family.  Shit.  The ones that really make me cringe are the people who prefer hate over love, who prefer to be hypocritical, blind and deaf, while claiming to follow Jesus with eyes and ears wide open, the ones who claim to be better than you or me and here’s why, and the trolls who exist to trigger you and me and make us feel more misery than anyone deserves.  I think if you’ve read what I’ve written or commented, you realize I’m not really “religious,” I’m just trying hard to do and say things authentically and express my beliefs as I understand the Text and real life.  One thing you can count on is, I’m not your average Christ follower.  Nor am I a smarmy, slick-as-grease friendly neighborhood used-car-salesman kind of preacher.  I’m not your Crystal Cathedral pie in the sky everything is fine so you should just be happy preacher, or the smug, self righteous preacher who tells you how bad you are and how you ought to step up before you can associate with me, or the success is yours for the taking kind of preacher.  I’m not any kind of preacher.  But if I sound like your preacher, please tell me where he or she preaches because I want to listen to them, those would be fucking awesome podcasts.

2.  In spite of my impending hurricane of doom and gloom, whose sandblasting winds I already feel at the outer edges of my soul, I find myself looking forward to beginning a second year of blogging.  I hope I’m as supportive of, and encouraging to you all as you have been to me.

1.  I said it in my profile, “…there are lots of really fucking good [blogs] out there,” as a statement of faith that people probably write better than me. and it’s true, I know there are even more awesome bloggers and blogs out there and I feel like I’m only scratching the surface. “….Oh, and if you like something I say, leave a love note to tell me what I did good and why it resonated with your soul. And know that before you loved me, I love you back.”  The best part of the blogging learning process has been that I’ve found you, and you are completely awesome.  I love to read your blogs, see your photos, read your poetry, cry with you, laugh with you, celebrate with you, and pray for you.