“Divorce is the coward’s way out”: My yellow-bellied bliss.

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Belle of the Library

A few weeks ago, a woman who was unaware that she was speaking to a once 23-year-old divorcée, told me that “divorce is the coward’s way out.” Fine. She was a coworker, because I am broken and no one I work with knows I’m divorced. Happy, Gail?!? Of course, this isn’t the first I’ve heard of statements such as the above. I’ve ranted about them here, here, and here. I didn’t even comment this time. Now that I think about it, though, that was an inappropriate time to burst out laughing. Once I caught my breath, I started to really consider the implications of this statement. What about leaving my marriage to a sociopath makes me a coward? Then I realized… holy shit, it did take bravery to stay with the man that long. He was terrifying and I was terrified of him. For the last year of my marriage I slept with my wallet in my pillowcase and drove around with my Gramma’s jewelry hidden in my car. I spent my few free hours, between jobs and grad school, chatting and crocheting with Gail in a Taco Mayo, because I could buy a .99 soda and get refills all night and not be home. When I did get home, I drank to take my mind off my misery and would even play the “let’s see how fast can I write this essay before the Everclear kicks in” game. Both drunk and sober, I created entire fantasy worlds where my ex-husband died (through no fault of my own) and just was not in my life. I secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) wished he’d finally give into all of those suicide threats, because then it would be over. To this day, I sleep with a revolver next to me in a gun sock, occasionally cuddling it like a stuffed animal when I have nightmares about still being married. So yeah. It took bravery to stay and perhaps, by extension, cowardice to leave. If that’s the case, though, my cowardice has reaped some fantastic rewards. In the last two years, I’ve made amazing friends, had some hilarious dates, taken several epic day trips, gussied up and gone on too many dates with me-and-only-me to count, reconnected with God, chosen a new career path, lost nearly 100 pounds, taken up a dozen hobbies (only one of which sprung from my fear of my ex-husband)… … and oh, yeah… today, I have officially earned my Master’s degree. That’s right. Despite that sociopathic son-of-a-bitch doing his damnedest to drag me down into the gutter with him, I did everything I ever said I would and am going on to live my life with a bright future. I’ll never again eat free movie theater popcorn all summer or shoplift bags of frozen chicken under the dog food, because that one hundred dollar bill went missing from my wallet. I’ll never find myself pregnant and praying for a miscarriage more than freaking Rosemary, because that baby would have a father without a soul and then weeping with shame when said request was granted. I’ll never miss another holiday just to avoid lying to my family about whether or not my husband has a job and I’ll never again wipe blood from the dog’s paws. I don’t live under constant fear of eviction, since he not only hasn’t paid the rent, but faked having a job. Because I am such a fucking coward, my life is filled with absolute yellow-bellied bliss and he doesn’t get a single minuscule piece of something for which he did not work. I’ll gladly take this over the scars of bravery any day.

Bravery

Cowardice

Real Women Have Vaginas

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Belle of the Library

… and/or two X chromosomes. I’m protecting myself from any potential off-topic transgender/had my vagina removed due to cervical cancer comments.

That’s mine. I’ll spare you the picture of my vagina. You’re welcome.

I grew up in the 90’s with a dieting mom. This means I played in more than one Weight Watchers’ daycare, took Snackwell cookies for lunch, and don’t like regular Coke as an adult, because I never had it as a kid. It’s actually pretty unfortunate to order my bacon cheeseburger and bacon cheese fries with a Diet Coke, because I’m pretty certain the server is giggling internally and thinking “You want bacon in that?”… then I feel intensely self-absorbed because no one gives a shit what I order. Despite the Jenny Craig food in the freezer and all of those trips to the natural foods store, however, I grew up a little chubby after age eight. When I broke my wrist that year, the doctor weighed me at 106 pounds and my mother (who was and still is overweight) publicly scolded me and acted mortified. Thanks mom. The broken wrist didn’t hurt enough. Also, who’s been feeding said eight-year-old?!?!? Throughout my childhood, I always thought myself fat, though at 25, I realize I wasn’t more than chubby until my senior year and college. Being the chubby girl, though, I was comforted when I saw this movie:

I don’t remember much about it, but the basic premise of this Lifetime-esque title is that, despite being ridiculed by her mother for her weight, the main character can still be and feel beautiful. It’s a great message and America Ferrera, the lead actress, has become a household name and defense for being beautiful and curvy, along with Christina Hendricks of Mad Men and Gennifer Goodwin of Once Upon a Time (though she was fuller figured in her days on Big Love). It’s wonderful that we’re accepting that a woman doesn’t have to starve herself to be beautiful. That having been said, why does this notion have to be accompanied with the phrase “real women have curves” or “zero is not a size” and pictures like this?

We’ve gone from dubbing the gorgeous Keira Knightly as the standard by which we should compare ourselves to claiming she’s not a woman, because she’s physically fit. Zero is just as much of a size as 16, because there’s nothing actually measuring 16″ either. If you want to call her a size 20, you’d better get comfy going by size 33.* In addition, we’ve become outraged that most plus-sized models are a size 10. Why is that so upsetting? I’m a size 8/10 and okay, I can’t actually wear anything in the plus-sized section, but when I buy something that does fit me, the model wearing it is probably smaller than a size 00, and they don’t sell that in my section either. It’s the same. It’s also just marketing. The designers don’t want back fat in the picture, because they know you don’t want to wear something that gives you back fat. Bitch all you want about airbrushing and using that size 10 model to advertise your size 22 blouse, but no one’s buying it if it gives the model rolls. They just aren’t.

Today, when a skinny woman turns her nose up at an overweight woman, it’s considered tasteless and superior, but society releases a movie titled Real Women Have Curves and insists that “zero is not a size” and it’s empowering? My. Stretch-marked. Ass. Defending obesity is not empowering and I’m pretty sure Marilyn Monroe would be disgusted that she’s now the spokesperson for extra mayonnaise. Christina Hendricks, Gennifer Goodwin, and America Ferrera all have one thing in common: a healthy weight, which, I might add, America Ferrera did not have in Real Women Have Curves. They’re all gorgeous and so was Marilyn Monroe, but they aren’t obese. I point this out, because more often than not, it’s unhealthy (not curvy) women making these statements. Regardless, said “curves” do not make a real woman any more than they unmake her. At size two or 26, if she has a vagina and/or two X chromosomes, then she is a real fucking woman. You don’t get to take her femininity and gender away from her because you’re insecure, whether you’re sneering at the ladies in Lane Bryant or the gals on the beach in bikinis. These are equal crimes and if you’re unhealthy on either end of the spectrum, you need to plan a fitness and diet program that works for you, rather than focusing on the weight of everyone else.

Jennifer Love Hewitt went on record to say “size two is not fat.” She’s right. It’s not. She’s also not a size two here and should own up to it instead of acting ashamed of her likely healthy size 8 figure.

Sadly, weight is only one of the ways in which we gals like to tear each other apart. There’s also our professional lives. Since women started entering the workforce in greater numbers, we’ve been debating which is the best course of action, being a working mom or a stay-at-home mom, because of course you’re throwing your life away if you choose not to have children.

Recently, I was discussing with a coworker whether or not I’d like to be a stay-at-home mom one day. The answer is no. I’ve spent seven years in school to help people in my community better their lives through self-education and I know that if I leave my technology-heavy profession for ten years to raise children, I won’t be able to go back. I also know that I don’t have the patience to stay home with children all day, and therefore wouldn’t be content. Everyone would be happier if I worked. I feel that people miss out on time with their families, because of poor prioritization more than by having a career. For example, the average American household has a television on for 6 hours and 47 minutes daily.* In short, turn off the fucking T.V. and raise your babies, whether you’ve been home all day or not and they’ll be fine. I gave my coworker a work appropriate version of that, to which she essentially responded “to each their own”… then threw in “I just didn’t want someone else raising my children” in a but that’s just me tone. She genuinely didn’t mean anything by it, so I didn’t respond, but that is the equivalent of my saying “well, I’d rather contribute to my family in addition to caring for my kids, but that’s just me.” God bless social networking, because I get to read about this ridiculous cat fight all day long, for in the Midwest most 25-year-olds have a few toddlers.

You’re both wasting an awful lot of time in an e-slap fight for two people who claim to be so busy. A woman who stays home with her children takes on the job of full time teacher, maid, cook, financial adviser, personal shopper, and psychiatrist and she does it all day long. The woman with a career performs her professional duties and then those listed above when she gets home. Neither is less of a mother or woman than the other, just as the childless woman is no less a woman. Being an adult, raising a family, having a career, and being in a marriage are all hard when you do them right, regardless of which of these life choices you make or combine. What works for one may not work for another and that is wonderful, because I don’t want to live in fucking Stepford. We need to be supporting, not shredding, each other. Women complain constantly about men keeping them from success, but you know what? We don’t need men to tear us down as long as we’re so good at it. We want to be taken seriously in the workforce and society but those of us who can’t wear that extra 20 pounds to work proudly and still love our skinny stay-at-home mom friends for their life choices, don’t deserve to be taken seriously.

There’s some supportive advice I can get behind.

Sources
http://www.marksandspencer.com/General-Womens-Size-Guides-Product-Information-Help/b/47647031

http://www.csun.edu/science/health/docs/tv&health.html

The trouble with soulmates…

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Belle of the Library

“I don’t believe in soulmates, and I don’t think that you and I were destined to end up together. What I do believe is that we fell in love and that we work hard for our relationship.” – Monica Gellar

When we were kids, Gail and I were stupid and idealistic. I’ll pause so you can gasp.

We used to talk about this theory we had, where there were many people on this earth that could be increasingly right for a person on a scale of one to ten. You could get along alright with a seven, better with an eight and have a lifetime of happiness with a ten. Then, there was the eleven: your perfect match, or soulmate. It was stupid and we had an excuse for believing it. We were fifteen. Plenty of adults, however, still believe that there is one perfect person for them and I’m willing to stand up and say that they are wrong.

I’m not going to lie. I enjoy the notion of a soulmate in my smut novels and even the occasional chick flick. Nothing beats a paranormal romance where everyone has a destined “mate”. How fucking nice would that be? There would be no strangers trying to drag you by your wrist to the parking lot of the cowboy bar, insisting that “it’ll only take a minute.” There would be no awkward meetings with men you met online who make jokes about how your master’s degree isn’t a real master’s degree. There would be no heart-wrenching, soul-sucking divorce. A close second to the paranormal “mate” is Instalove. Erotica and romantic suspense are known for Instalove. Hero’s been speaking to heroine for all of nine minutes and already she’s said something so astounding or given such a delightful laugh that he’s a changed man. He can’t place his finger on it, but six days later, we all know: it’s loooooooove. In reality, it’s been nine minutes, I’ve already made one inappropriate joke and it’s a good thing he’s in loss prevention and not construction, because clearly he cannot measure for shit: 5’8″ my ass. If he dares to say “I love your laugh”, I snort in disbelief and blurt “Really? Cuz no one else does.” True story.

Fairy Tale

Reality

The reason romance novelists write about “mates” and Instalove is because we women were raised by Disney and fucked over by reality. More than once I’ve expressed my desire for an arranged marriage, because my daddy sure could pick ’em better than I can. The idea of just knowing he’s the one, without the risk that he’ll take off with your Gramma’s jewelry or torture your pets… sa–woon. But that’s all it is… a big girl fairytale. Here’s why. Quick. Describe Anastasia Steele’s character without mentioning her physical appearance.

….

I couldn’t do it either when Jennifer Armintrout made the original challenge. She’s… um… a pushover? Way behind in modern technology for a girl who just graduated college? Sexually repressed? Name some of her hobbies other than British literature.

…

Drinking? Pushing her friends around? Insulting all women ever? Feeling insecure? Sure, this is a product of piss poor writing. E.L. James mentions Anastasia’s love for art in chapter one, but then on the honeymoon has her declaring that she doesn’t really know anything about art, so I’m not sure if I can or cannot include that under hobbies. My point, however, is that any character in a book or a movie is a pale comparison to an actual human being. For example, I’ll describe Gail’s character without mentioning physical appearance.

She’s tenderhearted and loyal to an obnoxious fault, sticking by people who fuck her over, yet somehow still managing to be shocked and hurt when they fuck her over again. Despite this lack of caution, she’s beyond paranoid in all other aspects of life. She’s intelligent, with a dry and dead-panned sense of humor. She would wear house shoes and sweats to a wedding without embarrassment, as long as it wouldn’t upset anyone, because her greatest fucking fear is rocking the boat. She’s irreparably damaged from the death of her infant daughter, yet this somehow has not affected her love and kindheartedness toward children. She has a deep-seated urge to mother and protect, which positively consumes her around the wrong people, resulting in exhaustion and resentment.

I’ll name some hobbies without mentioning road head.

Gail is fascinated by finance and legitimately finds Dave Ramsey attractive, because of his radio show. She listens to rap music and can sing it… poorly. She enjoys finding ways to give to charity and loves her job delivering mail… for some fucking reason. She likes crafts of all kinds, even if she’s bad at them and this girl is so into current events, I swear she masturbates to the news. She adores feminist literature almost as much as she likes arguing with me and engaging in e-slap fights about it, because it’s okay to rock the boat when people she doesn’t know are in it.

That’s a real person. No. That’s a blurry Polaroid snapshot of a real person. Real people are complex and multi-faceted individuals. All of them, including the people we’re dating. This soulmates horseshit encourages the idea of having a “type”, which is completely counterproductive to the dating process. We’re supposed to be getting to know new people and trying new things, but instead we choose one or two exceptionally narrow aspects of who we are and buy a painting to match the sofa with no regards to the love seat or the rug.

I like books, guns, pretty pink dresses, college football, fishing, shopping, and sewing. I’m the librarian who swears like a sailor… in prison. I could be with an accountant who was captain of the academic team in high school or a police officer who played football. As I’ve said before, good budgeting skills bring this girl to the yard and he’s not a real man if I’m the better shot. Limiting myself to only one or the other aspects of my personality… IS STUPID. I might find out the cop is more fiscally responsible than I am and the accountant can nail a headshot on the first try. Furthermore, those complex people? They change over time. Fifteen years, three kids, two dogs and a mortgage later, that funny sweet man you fell in love with may now be hardened and sarcastic and sometimes even cruel. He may be a drinker with unrealistic standards for you and your kids. The delightfully old-fashioned chivalry he displayed at 25 may have morphed into an expectation that you will organize the fridge just the way he likes it or there will be hell to pay. Real love takes commitment and vigilance to grow together and treat each other well. Your “soulmate” just punched you in the kidneys nine years into your marriage. Rethinking that soulmates theory, now? Or is he just not it anymore?

Yeah, I had enough of this movie in the first five minutes.

The Romance Novel vs. Reality

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Belle of the Library

As I’ve been working to finish my Master in Library and Information Studies, crying in a ball underneath my favorite chair about how “I’ll never be a librarian and I don’t want to join the military!!!!!”, I’ve been losing myself in escapist fiction. I have little attention span for television and movies, so the only way I’ve been able to pull myself from my own irrational, hyperventilating internal monologue has been with romance novels. Of course, this has just added to the mantra with “I don’t have time to date and even if I did, I wouldn’t give guys any real chance and I’m going to die alooooooone!” Nothing’s sexier than a girl sucking on an inhaler in an empty bathtub, wearing leggings and an oversized butter-stained Ice Age 3D t-shirt from her fat days, amiright?

Chicka chicka yeah…

I’ve not previously been a romance novel gal and I used to mock them mercilessly. My interest started with Nicky Charles’ Law of the Lycans series last summer (because it was free) and moved forward with J.R. Ward’s The Black Dagger Brotherhood series. I read a lot of paranormal romance, because what’s hotter than a hot naked alpha male? The answer is… a hot naked alpha male with a barbed penis. I had a brief foray into erotica, though there’s just not enough plot there for me. Lately I’ve been engrossed in romantic suspense of the hot-spec-ops-guy-saves-girl-from-Somali-pirates variety. I’m not kidding. I just finished that one yesterday. My MLIS has taught me that all literature has value, so I regret the days I mocked romantic fiction. I feel it’s increased my vocabulary significantly and it’s just fun to escape my brain, which is pretty much like having 533 windows open in a browser at all times. That being said, I have noticed some recurring themes in romance novels and they annoy the crap out of me. I’m not even talking about the traditionally ridiculous names of the male leads, but rather..

… the best friend that I hope dies screaming, while strapped down spread-eagle and disemboweled.

Too graphic? I’m gonna give a shout-out to my Gail here and state that I just have the best best friend in the whole world. She may be a little (lot) paranoid, but for the most part, she respects my life choices. She’s the voice of reason in my head and often just my conscience in general. She’s my Jiminy Fucking Cricket and I’m her Tinker Bell whispering in her ear to shoot Wendy out of the sky with her bow and arrows. We balance each other out and for the most part, we do so without any touchy feely crap. It’s awesome. Maybe that’s why I hate most of the best friend characters in romance novels. They just don’t measure up. Yeah, Gail. You ruined my fiction. Go fuck yourself.

I only recently noticed this trend when I tried to read the This Man series a couple of months ago. It was recommended to me for the alpha male bit I find so appealing in fiction-only-fiction-ever, but it was just too much for me while somehow still managing to be too little. Oh my gosh. My favorite? The part where he was a bag of dicks and then nothing happened. Ooh! Then there was that part where he more or less ass-raped her and then nothing happened. And sa-woon, the part where… holy shit I cannot actually come up with anything else to say before nothing happened because nothing happened.

Some of the review titles:
This book made me fear for an entire generation.
Just… really bad.
There is only one E.L. James. (Yeah. Thank GOD for that, but seriously, she’s saying this was worse than Fifty Shades?)

This Man may not have suited me in general, but I absolutely hated the best friend. Main Character Ava was pretty awful, but at least I could pity her as the victim of both the male lead and her bestie roommate. There was actually a scene where Best Friend Kate leaves her van parked on a busy one-way street, causing Ava to be manhandled by an angry driver. Kate takes her sweet time, then comes out and does not freaking care. What the crap?!?! Gail would never do that… well period, but she’d be especially contrite if I were harmed because of her actions. I didn’t actually finish this book, because there’s this one part, at about 60%, where nothing happens and I just couldn’t take it anymore.

After This Man, I realized that this is just a thing. Maybe Kristen Ashley just has really pushy and obnoxious friends like all of her supporting female characters. It throws me a little that she writes such unlikeable friends when I find her main characters generally pretty relatable. Maya Banks has the same problem. In Jennifer Armintrout’s analysis of Fifty Shades of Grey, she suggests that E.L. James attempts to villainize the best friend so we’ll be rooting primarily for the main character… to die in Anastasia’s case, but you get the idea. Maybe this is just a bad effort to make readers favor the lead, but it always leaves me thinking THIS IS WHY I DON’T SPEND TIME WITH VAGINAS! A GIRL ONLY NEEDS ONE! The best friend characters of romance novels are supposed to be concerned, but they often come off as disrespecting the lead by refusing to acknowledge that they are adults who’ve been making their own decisions for years. They nag them and repeatedly insist that this relationship is a bad idea, despite the lead making it clear that they’re going to see things through. When Gail dated the most terrifying postal worker ever, I expressed my concerns regarding specific stories and waited it out. She’s a big girl. She’ll decide when she’s had enough and I’ll be there when that time comes. Pissing her off and alienating her isn’t going to make any headway. Other times, the best friend characters are supposed to be supportive, but they often come off as gluttonous alcoholics encouraging their friends to cope poorly or ignore their problems. When I got divorced and drank a vat of Long Island Ice Tea, Gail slept in my car with me because I couldn’t get up the stairs, but she didn’t encourage the behavior in the future. I suppose the real problem is that these characters just aren’t Gail.

The This Man series… only instead of paint, it’s anal blood.

… the size of the men.

I am 5’5.5” tall and weigh 175 pounds. I don’t look like a supermodel or a teapot. I just look pretty average at a size 8/10. I, however, totally understand the appeal of feeling like the dainty little woman and recognize that writing big tough alpha male characters is a reflection of this common desire. It works, too… within reason. My paranormal romance phase involved a number of male characters who were described as being larger than most humans. It made sense, because they were supernatural vampiric warriors and I never gave it much thought. I started with paranormal romance, but as I moved to stories that took place in the real world, I realized that the main characters were still 6’8”. I’m into tall and have said a few times that I won’t date beneath 5’10”, but come on. 6’8” is no longer attractive, but rather something to get past. I’m not saying I wouldn’t date a guy that size, but I consider that abnormally tall. “Abnormal” is never hot, just endearing at best.

In addition to being the tallest men in the world, these guys are always freakishly built as well. In Kristen Ashley’s and Julie Ann Walker’s novels, they’re often described as not having an ounce of fat on them and are compared to professional wrestlers. How is there enough space in the room for our lead heroine when a redwood is standing next to her?!?! Honestly, I don’t really find professional wrestlers attractive. I’d give Alcide Herveux a rim job if I had the opportunity, but he’s hardly got the build of a WWE fighter. I never want to be with someone morbidly obese again, but I want someone I can cuddle. It’s tough to cuddle the Statue of David. The guards tend to chase you off.

This is my husband, Rogue.

… the way people smell.

Gail doesn’t typically read romance novels, because Dave Ramsey is never the lead, but she recently had this idea to read the most disturbing erotica we could find on Amazon and discuss. I read Comfort Food, by Kitty Thomas which was very well-written and also gave me nightmares. Then I got distracted with school and Gail was left to read Tender Mercies, which apparently involved a tailed butt-plug, all alone. Shucks. I missed out. Having read very few romance novels, though, Gail understood exactly what I was talking about when I texted her the following yesterday.

PEOPLE don’t smell like a day at the beach.

Brock always smelled like that time at the lake when I fell asleep in the sun and got lightly burned and then woke up and realized I had a handprint tan line on my chest and then the dog leapt into my lap and scratched my thighs and then I washed the blood off in the lake, so I had to ride back on a towel to protect the interior of his truck.

We’re so oddly in-sync that she immediately responded with:

Lucas always smelled like that time I went shopping for the kind of shoe strings that curl instead of tie and that guy left his dog in the car, but I didn’t call the cops because it wasn’t really all that hot outside, even though it was almost June.

When men describe how women smell, however, it’s always something tangible. For example, she smells like lavender. What 9′ body builder with a concealed carry license knows what lavender smells like?!?! I don’t even know what lavender smells like and I’m girly as fuck. If I’m with a man who can pinpoint lavender and honeydew, my 15th anniversary is gonna suck when I find him knee deep in another dude. Seriously, if he tells you you smell astoundingly like nutmeg, buy him an ascot as a parting gift.

He thinks you smell like warm cashmere.

the virgin sex that is the best sex ever.

I’m not gonna lie. The idea that men like inexperienced women is pretty encouraging since I don’t know what a penis is anymore. What bugs me about this is the propensity for women well into their twenties to be inexperienced, while the men make a huge freaking deal out of how awesome it is. She’s a virgin, not a damned unicorn princess.

princess-unicorn
Believe it or not, I write this shit and then find the pictures. Call me Google Master. Do it.

The men in romance novels are always, always, always so experienced that we don’t get a number, while the women have been with either no one or few enough people to keep count on one hand. When Heroine has just not been with a lot of people, she catches on really quickly and shows a lot of enthusiasm and the sex is awesome. That gives me hope and I consider that one reasonably realistic, because while inexperienced, I would not call myself prude. However, if Heroine shares that she’s a virgin, Hero is totally freaking psyched that no one has squeezed this peach before him… even though she’s like 25 and people only wait that long for pretty much one reason: so they can share the experience with someone who means a lot to them. For realz, that’s a bit daunting.

When Hero finally twirls his mustache and steals Heroine’s virtue, it is absolutely the most mind-blowingly not awkward sex anyone has ever had. As a general rule, sex is never awkward in these books. No woman bounces too high, causing him to pop out and bend uncomfortably when she lands. No one’s distracted from their pleasure by the weird snarl the other person just made. No one ever sneezes or does anything else not sexy with their bodies. I get that. We’re reading idealistic sex and that’s the point. I don’t need to read about how Christian Grey has trouble finishing, though that would clearly be because he’s at it for nine hours a day and somehow still maintains his fortune at age eleven, but whatevs. I’m totally comfortable with skipping all fart-in-bed scenes forever. Writing virgin sex as anything but emotionally charged and sweet, though, is just unrealistic. That shit hurts and continues to hurt for a couple of days. Anastasia isn’t waking up and hopping on pop Dr. Seuss style. You may as well write unicorn princess sex. There is not a Google image for that.

I lied.

Hunting With the Game Warden

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Belle of the Library

So, earlier this month, I was planning my budget… lolzies. I’m just joshin’ ya. I was painting my nails glitter pink! Anyhoo, it was about that time I saw the above photo on Facebook. My first thought was “Jeepers, I agree! It would suck to have a fiscally responsible man with me when I’m shopping. I much prefer to just spend willy nilly with no regards to my financial situation or that of my family! I am, after all, just a silly little woman.”

Wait. That’s a damnable lie. While I do own pink glitter nail polish, when I saw this I was filled with annoyance… but the cute, non-threatening, kittenish kind, of course, because of my VAGINA.

I get that this is just supposed to be a cutesy sign to hang in the kitchen next to the old fashioned brass novelty cake pans that I don’t have/want, but I don’t understand why someone would want to hang this anywhere. A game warden is in charge of enforcing hunting, fishing, and trapping laws, ultimately protecting the balance in the animal kingdom. Hunting with one would probably be pretty awesome, because he’d know exactly what I could and could not target so I didn’t kill something endangered or just too frickin’ adorable to die. By this comparison, shopping with aforementioned fiscally responsible husband, who knows exactly what can and cannot be spent in regards to our family’s happiness and stability… well that sounds pretty neato as well.

Here’s my real qualm, though. I’ve never been hunting. I own and shoot pretty pink guns, but I’m strictly an indoor girl in temperatures below 50 degrees. I’m pretty damned vocal about it, too… meaning I whine and that tends to scare off deer/boar/ducks or what have you. Freezing my ass off with red cheeks and chapped hands ain’t cute and I like to be cute. Bawling my eyes out because I shot something fluffy isn’t exactly adorable either. I am way too much of a damned girl to hunt… but I’m still aware that if I changed my mind, it would by my responsibility to find out what I could and could not kill. If I shoot a deer and it’s not deer season, I can’t just point to the game warden and claim he didn’t say differently.

What?!?! No one told me!!!!

We are women, hear us roar… until our throats get a little parched, amiright? We want to hold the same jobs as men for the same paycheck, but at the end of the day, we don’t want to own up to how we spend said paycheck? Not only that, we want to publicly broadcast our unwillingness to do so? The idea that I need some testicles following me around, telling me that I really can’t afford that $218 Fossil purse is just offensive. Personally, I’m a traditional gal. I’m happy with doing the laundry if he mows the lawn. I just don’t like the assumption that I am incapable of working such complex machinery as a lawnmower. Perhaps, one day when he’s sick, I can even fire up that beast myself and just mow the fucking lawn, because it’s not that big of a damned deal. Similarly, even if he is the one who manages the finances, it’s still my responsibility to follow the guidelines we’ve set. Regardless of whether or not the game warden has accompanied me on my hunting trip, the laws still apply. Regardless of whether or not my husband’s standing next to me, I still can’t afford that Fossil purse. If the problem is that he can’t allow me to look at and long for said purse without reminding me of my financial constraints, then fine. We have an issue of respect and his inability to show me some in public… and I definitely want that on Facebook, right y’all?

Financial irresponsibility is not a vaginal secretion. My clitoris does not take away my culpability when I break my budget. I don’t understand why “budget” is such a four-letter word today, anyway. In the words of Dave Ramsey, “a budget is when you tell your money where to go instead of wondering where it went. Stop acting like it’s anything else.” Personally, I’ll forever remember that summer I went on the Free-Movie-Theater-Popcorn-From-a-Trash-Bag diet. It was also known as the Belle-Needs-a-Hasty-Divorce diet. Yeah… strong budgeting skills continue to bring this girl to the yard.

What’s for dinner? Ooooh, nothing, my favesies.

Why did I ever go back to high school?!?! : The lamentations of a substitute teacher.

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Belle of the Library

Circa Every Day of Junior Year
I graduated high school in May of 2006 and immediately began my undergraduate degree, which I finished in May of 2010, only to immediately begin my master’s degree. I’m graduating in a couple of weeks and a PhD can suck it. For the last four years of this, I’ve been making ends meet with substitute teaching (primarily high school) and a steadier evening job, which is now at the library. The beauty of substituting is its flexibility. I’m sorry. Let me rephrase. The only beauty of substituting is its flexibility. I work when I want to work, which is pretty much all the fucking time so that I can get through the summer without taking on another job. For the most part, it doesn’t require a lot of actual teaching and is really quite dull. The kids do their work and I write this blog on my laptop. If they’re not going to do the work, that substitute who gets mistaken for a high school student is not going to be the one to change their entire outlook on education. As long as they don’t distract other students, I leave it be. Now that my substituting days are coming to a close, due to summer and having finally finished graduate school, though, I can admit to a fact that I’ve been trying to ignore: substitute teaching kind of sucks balls.

I don’t know why this showed up when I Google Imaged “sucks balls”, but it’s calmed my rage. Also… SAFE SEARCH.
I love teenagers. I really do. Everyone else has washed their hands of them, but I adore them. They’re hilarious and obsessive and so excited about life that it just catches. They’re on the cusp of their own futures and someone needs to help them make the important decisions. I want to be that person. That person, though, is not a substitute teacher, regardless of age or life experience. They don’t like their substitute teachers and they aren’t very nice to them. Therefore, I am getting completely burned out on subbing and it’s pretty damned obvious, because:
I don’t see a future in this.

I used to keep this notebook full of detailed information on each teacher for whom I subbed, for future reference. I wouldn’t only include what lunch the teacher had, but also what I thought of their classroom management skills, how rowdy individual classes were, and if the lesson plan included word searches or a real assignment that kept the kiddos occupied. It was a great resource when accepting jobs. I’m not sure when it happened, but the notes got shorter and shorter. Gradually, the full single-spaced page went to a few sentences with comments on how cold the room was, when my planning period was, and whether or not I should accept another job with this teacher. Now? When I bother to take notes:

Mrs. White – Middle school
Hell no

Mr. Smith – High school
Only if you’re going to be evicted

Ms. Smart – High school
Hell fucking no. Just get evicted.
I no longer talk to my kids like a teacher.

Four years ago, I took the utmost care to speak to my kiddos as an authority figure. Now?

I have a favorite student who hangs out with his friends in my apartment complex. He’s a good kid and regularly calls me “girl” and shows me his manicures when I get my mail and I think he’s a total dear. The following conversation took place in front of a classroom of tenth graders.
Student: “Hey girl! I might see you later tonight!”
Me: “Um… that sounds SUPER creepy without any kind of clarification, just so you know.”

I looked up to see a teenaged boy casually massaging the shoulder of the girl in front of him.
Me: “Um… that’s really odd. Could you stop?”

“Okay. Your assignment is on the board. I don’t mind if you talk quietly as long as you do the work. I don’t want to hear your music and if you guys could just not be mean and suck, that would be awesome. Teachers have feelings too, you know.”

“Alright, y’all have a great spring break. I don’t wanna see any of you on the news.”
I let shit slide.

I used to be quite strict. Now? Well, it’s not total anarchy, by any means. Just today I lost it when a student told me that making him move seats was “bullshit” and snapped “Then get out. You don’t talk to me that way and you don’t talk to people that way. Go.” However, if it doesn’t hurt or offend or distract anyone, I don’t really care.

Student: “Can we listen to music?”
Me: “As long as I can’t hear it, I don’t care.”

”I’ll be right back. Don’t set anything on fire, please.”

“You guys, stop throwing stuff. I’m not asking for a whole lot here and not throwing stuff is not that hard. See. I’m NOT THROWING STUFF right now. It’s easy.”
They were surprisingly receptive to this.

“Could you please put your pants back on? Thank you.”
He did have on basketball shorts underneath… I think.

Student: “Can I go to the vending machines?”
Me: “No. You can go the bathroom.”
Student: “But can I go to the vending machines?”
Me: “You can go to the bathroom and I won’t pay attention to whether or not you come back with chips.”
I tell teachers when they suck.

My bachelor’s degree is in education. I’ve been substituting for four years. I know what poor classroom management looks like both on paper and in actuality. When I started this gig, I’d still hoped to eventually teach, so I walked on eggshells and was careful to leave any bad notes blaming the students for their behavior, not the teachers. Now? I just don’t give a fuck. I’m not going to sub for the teachers with poor classroom management (therefore demonic students) ever again anyway. Still, subbing remains a substantial portion of my income and teachers talk, so I’m not exactly burning bridges, so much as throwing lit cigarettes onto them.

“There wasn’t an assignment to give them, so I told them to work on something from another class quietly. Most classes were terrible.”

“This was one of the most disrespectful classes I’ve had. They ignored me when I asked them to quiet down and wouldn’t quit throwing things.”
This teacher actually punished the class severely for this behavior, becauseof my bluntness. They’re a joy to sub for now.

“They were horrible. I’ve never substituted for such rowdy students or had them be so disrespectful to me. Multiple teachers had to come into the room to tell them to quiet down, along with a principal. I have never had to have a principal come into a room to get the students under control in four years.”
I went to high school with this guy. His wife made a Facebook post a couple of weeks later about stopping by his classroom to find his students playing soccer in the room and how he was the best teacher ever. No. A teacher… teaches.
Today, I covered a class with the note on the board saying “Choose a partner and…” I don’t even know what it said after that, because it doesn’t fucking matter. It’s a FRIDAY IN APRIL. The worst thing a teacher can do to a sub is tell the students ahead of time that they can work in groups if they don’t have to do so. The teacher isn’t the one who has to deal with the total fucking anarchy that is a high school class working in groups a few weeks from the end of the school year. So, when I saw this guideline, I immediately erased it. The kids worked quietly for half the hour and when one student asked what it had said, I told them that they could work in groups for the rest of the class.

Student: “So we could have been working in groups this whole time?”
Me: “No, because I decided you couldn’t.”

Student: “But she’s our teacher.”

Me: “And she’s not here right now. She’s not the one who has to deal with it and shouldn’t have put it on the board in the first place.”

Yeah… there’s kind of this unspoken rule that you don’t call a teacher a fucktwat to her students. Oops. Fortunately, I wasn’t her official substitute, didn’t introduce myself and just filled in for the hour, so I was able to anonymously leave the following note.

They were good, but it would be easier to handle if they didn’t already expect to work in groups. It’s a lot easier and more effective to offer that as a reward than as a punishment, particularly this close to the end of the school year. I erased it from the board and told them they could work together after deciding if they could handle it.

This was perfectly polite, but when I went back to cover for the last hour, another sub wrote that I must’ve woken up on the wrong side of the bed… because so many female teachers are so fucking catty. I was trying to let her know, nicely, that it’s difficult for a sub when she does this. I wasn’t rude, but even substitutes apparently have to fall into this Mean Girls teacher stereotype. So, thank you, anonymous substitute for giving me another reason to hate this industry. After four years of substitute teaching, I’ve completely lost faith in public education as a whole. I don’t even know if I want my own children after enough kids have called me a bitch and or announced that I need to get laid. I end most days by ranting to my Gramma or Gail about how I’m going to cut out my own uterus and set it on fire or how my tubes have just tied themselves. I had the following text conversation with my dear little sister, Bea, (who’s a senior in a neighboring town) this afternoon.

Me: You guys are all little bitches. High school students suck. Fuck off all of you.
Me: Love you. 😀

Bea: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I can’t fucking do this anymore because high school kids are mean, public education sucks, and so many teachers only teach because they never wanted to leave high school in the first place. Maybe I did wake up on the wrong side of the bed, because I work two jobs and I just finished the most stressful semester of my life. Maybe I do want to dramatically look at the sky and yell “WHY?!?!?!” every time my alarm goes off and I have to be at the high school in thirty minutes. So, just in case, I threw away the entire note, including what the other subs had to say, just to be a pain in the ass and channel my own inner fifteen-year-old. I’m not going to be the unpopular girl in this teen flick while the mean girls snicker. I had enough of that in my overalls, turtleneck, black-framed glasses, ponytail, and ribbon-laced combat boots during the first four years of high school. Why did I ever go back?!?!

That Time I Tried to Fake a Master’s Degree

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Belle of the Library

I’m going to open with a secret. I’m a little high-strung when it comes to school.

Jump back and gasp!

Growing up, my dear ol’ dad used to look at my report card and sternly say “Now, why do you have a 92 in math? You need to quit talking in class and get that up.” I was in the second grade. This resulted in two extremes. There’s my brother, Bo, who is constantly talking about the waste of time that is college, because he’s a successful electrician with no formal degree and… me.

Last summer, I had the assignment to create an online resource guide for my library over a subject of my choice. I chose sewing and hand-picked every title listed in the Wiki, including color photos matching the cover art of the specific copy housed in the library and an explanation of difficulty level. I screen capped shots of the online public access catalog, explaining how to use it and described, in detail, system requirements for a library card. This wasn’t part of the assignment. I’m just insane. All of my classmates told me they hoped I’d leave it up for their future use and how they loved the name: ”SewResourceful”. The professor commented to say she thought it was wonderful, creative, and appreciated the obvious extra effort. Then she gave me a 98.5%. A fucking 98.5%!!!! I read and reread that Wiki 15 times and added elements that went above and beyond the requirements and she gave me a 98.5%?!?!? Why doesn’t she just come over and personally shit on my computer?!?!?!

After this…

I’m going to tell you another secret. Being a little high-strung when it comes to school, occasionally makes me an exhausting friend. Gail and Jay were both recruited to talk me down from the absolutely devastating loss of that 1.5%. I couldn’t discuss it without my bottom lip trembling. I am not embellishing even a little, here. So… fast forward one semester to last fall.

If you’ll recall from A Chronicle of My First Failure Since the Driver’s Test, back in November, I “did not pass” my graduate school End of Program Assessment portfolio for the Master of Library and Information Studies program. I don’t think I’d be exaggerating to claim that it was the greatest tragedy in the history of time. Had Nostradamus foreseen this, he’d have just destroyed the earth preemptively, himself. As it was, there was a mushroom cloud over the campus, when I delivered a completely off the mark presentation. You know that scene in Legally Blonde where Elle Woods dresses as a Playboy Bunny to attend a Halloween party, only to discover that it wasn’t, in fact, a costume party? That’s pretty much exactly what happened.

Wait. This is conference room B, right?!?!

What actually happened was that I had a program advisor who was on her way out. She retired without telling her students and had never given me any clear constructive criticism on my portfolio progress, instead giving me a semesterly thumbs up. This woman was tough to pin down, particularly for a student who worked two jobs and took every class (save for one hybrid course) online, never really trying to meet up with her advisor. When I got a new advisor, I didn’t take the opportunity to make sure I understood the portfolio requirements. Dr. Black’s gentle criticisms went ignored, because I didn’t have the time to change things that weren’t important enough to strongly emphasize. The same attitude was employed when she suggested I practice my presentation beforehand. I’ve always done well in school, pretty much without trying. I thought I could wing it on the End of Program Assessment. So, it was ultimately all my fault when I showed up to the party in a corset and plush ears.

I’ve exaggerated a lot here, for the sake of hilarity, but I truly think that the presentation I delivered in November had to have been one of the worst the committee members had ever seen. I wasn’t even completely sure what I was supposed to do. I actually told my Gramma that I was sure they wouldn’t fail me, since I’d completed all of the coursework. I somehow just missed the dire importance of the entire assessment. Approximately one minute into my presentation, however, Dr. Snyder’s expression gave away that this was not at all what was expected. I didn’t have a change of clothes, though, so I had no choice but to continue with the party in my cotton bunny tailed panties. I plowed through, becoming more and more flustered and by the time I got to the Q&A portion, I was just grateful I hadn’t thrown up.

Dr. Black: “Well, what was the reason for removing the reference section?”
Me: “I don’t know.”
Dr. Black: “What is reference?”
Me: “… I don’t know.”

“Books is neat, y’all. Give me a master’s degree.” I’m embarrassed just thinking about it. As the committee deliberated and scratched their heads over how in the fuck someone made it this far without being able to define reference, I texted Gail about how my life was over. She told me she was sure it would be fine and I didn’t respond, because I was certain it was not fine. Reference, by the way, makes up the books filled with specific tidbits of information that can be difficult to find without the help of a librarian. Included in this are almanacs, dictionaries, and encyclopedias. I knew that then, but when I tried to explain it, I fumbled and used the word “obscure” instead of “specific.” Hellz yeah. Tell the reference librarians that their position is pointless, because the information they’re finding is “obscure”. Maybe just jump to “murky”, “unintelligible”, “vague”, “ambiguous”, “doubtful.” When I walked back into the conference room, the first words spoken were “We’re disappointed.” My first thought was “No shit. Can you pass me anyway?”

No. The answer was no.

I was so excited to graduate last semester, that I purchased a class ring and a t-shirt and sweatshirt that read “Alumni.” I even sent out graduation announcements. There are not a lot of things that are more embarrassing than sending out graduation announcements only to respond to the congratulations with “JK!” I think the only thing more humiliating would have been that time I married a crazy person and got divorced at 23. So, having failed my graduate portfolio, I packed away the ring and the shirts and told myself I could have them back when I deserved them. Just like when I burst into tears in the third grade over my first B on a midterm, I didn’t even need my dad to shame me. Only difference is, this time he didn’t. Regardless, I was absolutely inconsolable at dinner with Gail, but as always, emotions are icky and I coped by making exaggerative and somewhat offensive jokes.

“They kicked me out of college and made me ride the short bus home!”

“My dad’s going to hate me. I’m the slow child now.”
He, in fact, thought I was being completely unreasonable and told me he could never be disappointed in me. Today, he regularly tells me it doesn’t matter what the grade is, so long as I graduate. How fucking ironic.

I would sometimes start with a joke, only to convince myself that I was speaking the truth and end up in tears.
Me: “I’m going to have to buy World of Warcraft! I can’t afford World of Warcraft! It takes a monthly subscription and I don’t even pay for my gym membership!”
Gail: “What?”
Me: “My life in the real world is over. I’m never going to be amazing or impressive here, so I’m going to have to establish an influential presence in the virtual world. It’s either that or I have to join the military!”
Gail: “Why the military?”
Me: “Because I could be impressive and have a real career in the military, even though I can never be a librarian! I don’t want to join the military! I hate being yelled at and I’m an indoor girl!” :Legitimate tears:
Gail: “What the fuck are you even talking about?!”

To fully grasp how irrational I was being, it’s important to remember that this is a master’s degree. I have a bachelor’s degree. I could easily teach and just have no desire to do so. That’s hardly World of Warcraft status, y’all. Thank God, himself, for Gail’s patience and insight.

Gail: “You have a semester to fix this. It’s not over. So get out your laptop and fix it.”

Advice I did not immediately take.

After Gail dropped me off at my apartment, with my promises not to harm myself, I cried myself to sleep. I hid in fiction for a couple of weeks and then I put on my big girl panties and got to work. In the MLIS program, at my University, you get two tries at the End of Program Assessment, regardless of whether you choose comps or portfolio. You just have to be enrolled in two hours to present, so I took a one-on-one course with Dr. Black… and went full-on Emily Dickinson hermit for six months. I deleted my online dating profiles, only to recreate them out of procrastination and boredom, but completely gave up any actual dating. I didn’t shoot my guns. I continued working out, because getting fat again isn’t going to make me a librarian. I worked both jobs… and I studied. I reread several textbooks, along with every assignment I ever completed. I wrote my required essays for my professor, read books on leadership, and rewrote my portfolio from the ground up. I practiced with Dr. Black twice before my actual presentation. I did not sleep for six months. That’s not true, because I’m not from Krypton, but the only way I have been able to crawl out of my own head in the last six months has been by reading for pleasure and even that was often interrupted with “homework breaks”. Sleep just allows for nightmares. I have had to talk myself down from numerous panic attacks, usually taking place sucking my thumb while fully clothed in an empty bathtub. They all went something along the lines of:

I guess I could be a mechanic. I don’t know anything about cars. I’m good with my hands, but that’s really technical. I don’t like grease or getting dirty. This is a terrible idea. I want to be a librarian!!!! I don’t want to join the Air Force!!!!!

It looked just like that.

Even Dr. Black told me I was overdoing it, when I presented her with my course by course evaluations. In these, I found the syllabus to every course in the program, copied the description and objectives, wrote a paragraph of where I was before the course, a paragraph of where I was after the course, and one to two paragraphs about what I learned from the specific assignment I chose to reference.

Dr. Black: “It’s really not necessary to do that for every course. You’re overthinking it.”

Gail: “What’d your professor say?”
Me: “She called me a rabid pit bull and told me to calm the fuck down.”

My graduation photo…

Gail was the only one who knew that I was presenting my portfolio yesterday, just in case I failed, because as Donnie Darko taught all of us Mellenials: “Every living creature on Earth dies alone.” This time, however, I delivered my final graduate portfolio and the first word I heard after the committee deliberated was “Congratulations.” Dr. Snyder told me he enjoyed attending a presentation where he actually learned something. Dr. Black teared up and hugged me. The committee member from a public library gave me her card. I called my Gramma afterward.

Me: “Guess what.”
Gramma: “What?”
Me: “I just passed my graduate portfolio presentation!”
Gramma: “Really? So that’s why you’ve been so secretive! I thought it was closer to the end of the month.”
“Secretive” to my Gramma means not talking to her three times a day, because that’s how close I am to her.
Me: “Yeah. I purposely led you to believe that, because I knew you’d stress out and then say shockingly unsupportive things to stress me out and I couldn’t deal with it.”
Gramma: “Well, you’re probably right. That was probably for the best.”

I wore her pearls to the presentation and I’ve been asking her to give them to me for graduation for months, but she’s said no every time. When I asked if she wanted them back, she just told me to keep them. See. My Gramma won’t even give me her prized pearls with any kind of ceremony, because emotions are inappropriate, y’all. That’s where I learned this shit.

This is her proud face.

Gail bought me a congratulatory dinner and a mall cookie. We both made fun of my initial presentation and the fact that I actually had a nightmare about the zombie apocalypse and failing my portfolio, only to wake up and hyperventilate over school. I did it and it was totally worth not sleeping for six months… which is awesome, because it has suddenly hit me how incredibly overwhelmed I’ve been and I am absolutely fucking exhausted from working two jobs and finishing graduate school while researching Air Force recruitment requirements. I keep reminding myself that substituting is almost over and in a month, I’ll be lounging by the pool, only working at the library in the evenings. I’m not even going to consider a PhD. I’m gonna go T. Swift on this and just say that college and I are never, ever, getting back together. This seven year adventure, complete with abusive marriage, miscarriage, divorce, Gail’s dead daughter, losing 90 pounds, dating, moving ten fucking times in four years, and accidentally creating a secret identity at work has just worn me the fuck out.

My other graduation photo. It’s all about the lighting.

Excuse me, Miss. You dropped your dirty bra on my newsfeed.

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Belle of the Library

My bachelor’s degree is in Family and Consumer Science Education (home-ec), which is a degree focusing on a wide range of things. Stereotype mostly dictates these as sewing, cooking, child development, and marriage. I once burned Easy Mac. My dog’s alive because he barks at me if he doesn’t have food and he probably didn’t actually eat that bullet that one time. I’m 25 and have been divorced for two years. You can’t learn everything from a book, y’all, amiright? I, however, can sew and bake like a badass motherfucker. So there’s my proof that some lessons stuck. Another one of those lessons was how to be really bad at marriage… not that this was necessary to learn from a textbook, because Facebook provides me with constant guidance into this venture. The following are all paraphrased Facebook statuses, mostly only straying from direct quotes because I couldn’t bring myself to include all of those spelling errors.

– “Ugh. I’m so tired of the fighting and verbal abuse. I just want a divorce.” –
You know how you get a divorce? You call a lawyer. If you truly “want a divorce”, you’re typing it into a search engine, not the Facebook status bar. You don’t want a divorce. You want to villainize your husband, so that your mutual friends will realize that you’re the wronged one in the relationship when it finally ends, and take your side. What you’re doing, however, is attacking him in public. This is the E-equivalent to taking off your high-heeled shoe and beating him with it in a Wal-Mart while screaming that he’s an abusive bastard. You don’t look verbally abused when you make this post. You look like the verbal abuser, who is making an effort to humiliate her husband to the masses. This is especially true when he makes no similar posts ever in time about your marital issues. If he’s calling you a worthless, fat, cunt, whose children are right to ignore her, it’s still not appropriate to lament about this on Facebook. It’s appropriate to call up your mom and sister to cry and tell them your marriage is a wreck. It’s appropriate to break down at a family dinner to your grandma and a room full of supportive cousins. It’s even appropriate to drink 8 LITs at a bar on Thanksgiving while blubbering incoherently about how he was supposed to make 60% of the income and not pawn your jewelry while your best friend gets the keys. All of these interactions are as perfect as can be in a disastrous situation, because they are confined to people who give a shit. That list doesn’t include your high school student council members, that girl who bullied you and was friended just so you could watch her get fat, or the third cousin who was never really open about why he went to prison.

– “I just carried in a fifty pound bag of dog food all by myself. I always wanted to be a single mom. Oh, wait…” –
This particular woman’s husband was working out of town fighting wildfires, while she was staying home cuddling the baby. Don’t get me wrong. Babies are gross and loud. I wouldn’t want to be left alone with one, either, and I can imagine this is difficult… you know, sort of like how putting out wildfires is difficult. This is such a regular social networking trend that I want to bomb the Internet. I’ll flat-out admit that I am completely and totally biased here. These women are bitching about a man who works too hard to support his family. Try sopping up the blood from your foot because the cat knocked a glass off the counter three days ago and he never cleaned it up, despite not having had a job for three fucking years. Spend four years with a man who is too lazy to bathe and then you can bitch about how your husband has a well paying job in which he’s working in extreme and dangerous climates to buy diapers for your child. These men aren’t workaholics regularly taking on 80 hours a week. They just have mutually agreed upon jobs with unpredictable and sometimes non-local hours. Said jobs are often worth it, too, because they pay well enough for these women to stay home and whine on Facebook while their husbands bust their asses. Again, it’s not that these women are bad wives for feeling lonely, frustrated, or overwhelmed. They are, however, ungrateful and unsupportive partners for posting these thoughts on a billboard read by their husbands’ friends and entire family. If my son ever married a woman who complained publicly about having to carry fifty fucking pounds, I’d be perfectly willing to call her out on the fact that this is the approximate weight of a six-year-old and there are plenty of actual single moms carrying those inside all alone with a lot less bitching, because being a single parent is a lot more difficult than carrying dog food funded by their husbands.

Key difference: she works to pay for that dog food and then carries it in alone.

– “I’m so glad my husband decided that my telling him he could have one or two beers with the guys meant he could get plastered and leave me to take care of three boys alone.” –
No.Your husband does not need your permission to have a beer with his buddies, just as you do not need his permission to buy that new Coach purse. You are both adults and should be making any and all decisions with regards as to what is best for your family and whether or not this splurge is possible without hurting the overall unit. If he dropped the ball doing that, fine. People make mistakes. Telling your friends, family, high school acquaintances, and his friends, family, and work buddies when you fucking tag him in this status, however, does not undo the damage, and hurts the family unit far more than his original crime, by involving other people. I have never seen a man post a status update of “I’m so glad my wife decided that getting her nails done was more important than buying new tires for the car” or “I’m so glad that my wife got so drunk last night that she threw up in the entryway, passed out and pissed herself.” It’s not that these women don’t make mistakes or go too far, just that their husbands aren’t choosing to share it with the world. – “I am so tired of hearing my husband tell me that the money I make doesn’t mean anything. From now on, I’m just going to take my money and spend it on whatever I want then, if it’s so unimportant.” –
Why in the hell would you even want to post this on a social networking site? No one sounds good in this statement. You have an unhappy marriage and you’re officially choosing to no longer contribute to it financially? Maybe next you’ll post about you got drunk, threw up in the entryway, passed out and pissed yourself. Sure, your husband comes off as a jerk here, but you look like a child throwing a keyboard tantrum. Perhaps, instead of bashing him on Facebook, you could take some of that paycheck and put it towards the marriage counseling that the world now knows you need. None of the feelings that inspire these posts are particularly bad. You’re losing faith in your marriage. Fuck, I feel ya there. Run, run, run, and don’t ask me for marital advice, because that is always the answer. You feel mistreated. You’re lonely and overwhelmed. You’re upset about the fact that your husband made a bad decision and it’s affecting you. You’re feeling under appreciated. I getcha. I felt all of those things all of the time in my marriage. You have my sympathy… or you would if I fucking knew you outside of Google Chrome. I don’t, though. I know that when we were kids, you liked Batman, you have a golden retriever, your baby isn’t that cute, you like to take pictures of your overpriced manicures, you’ve put on a few pounds, you’ve decided to call yourself a “photographer”… but I haven’t seen you in person since high school. I should not know your marital issues at all, unless you’ve personally sought me out for comfort. When I got divorced, I had multiple family members ask at Christmas how over it was, because they hadn’t heard anything about it. I’d filed the paper work before I told any of them. That’s because, with the majority of them, we weren’t that close and they only kept up with me through Facebook, where I never complained about my marriage to Voldemort himself. What ever happened to the old adage about not airing your dirty laundry in public and why do so many women in my generation not understand it or realize the value of keeping private issues private? This is social networking, not your private blog. Everyone you know can read this. Yes, indeed, it is specifically a female problem. I have never seen a man make any of these personal posts about their relationships (though I’m sure it’s happened and is just rare) and it’s ridiculous that women think it’s okay if they do. Equality doesn’t mean we get our turn to humiliate. If a man posted on Facebook “I can’t believe she just spent $200 on the UGGliest boots when she needs new tires” or “I love that I’ve been stepping over bottles of nail polish in the living room for two days”, I would be mortified and expect him to immediately take it down and apologize. Why don’t we owe men that respect? Furthermore, why don’t we owe our relationships that respect? I get a say on this trend, because ultimately, when you air that dirty laundry for all to see, you invite those people to comment on your shitty laundering skills.

S#^t I Can’t Do (Part 1): Share Important News Like a Normal F&@#&*% Person

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Belle of the Library

I would throw myself under a train if this man took a vow of celibacy.

Over Lent, Father shared a series of homilies focusing on the Seven Deadly Sins. Each week, he focused on a different one. This is the same… exactly the same.

Shit I can’t do:

Date Without Being a Jackass
Time Management
Cook on the Stove
Express Sympathy Appropriately
Manage Heartbreak Without Humor
Drive… At All
Share Important News Like a Normal Fucking Person

At the moment, I’m caught up on that last one. I’ll cover the others at some point, if I don’t get distracted and decide there’s other shit I want to discuss, because that’s how blogs work.

If I could watch any man clean a gun naked…

Where was I?

When I was five-years-old, my Gramma had this warm, sweet, cuddly little kitten named Calamity.

Hahaha. I’m just lying. It was really an under grown chupacabra and it ate souls. Regardless of the hellfire coursing through Calamity’s veins, though, my Gramma liked this stray enough to claim it as her own… sort of… it’s difficult to cage that sort of creature in anything but a circle of salt. My dad, however, has always been one of those redneck men who thinks it’s funny to tell stories of cats dying. Yeah… that’s a thing, here in the Midwest.

At the time, my brother was just like any eight-year-old boy, hero worshipping his dad while running around barefoot on an acreage, shooting things with a blow dart gun, after having handcuffed his little sister in a field. So when my dad jokingly (says he) told Bo to shoot Calamity with a blow dart… he did… and she crawled away to die. Yes, someone please tell this story at my next wedding.

So a few days after the demise of Calamity, my Gramma wondered where she’d gone. She asked my parents and my brother and they swore they didn’t know. It really was a shame that she’d run off. Then she asked me.

Me: “Dad told Bo to shoot him with a blow dart, so he did.”

A few years later, a neighbor’s un-collared and often unfed dog kept killing our chickens. One day, I came home from school, all alone at eight-years-old, because that’s totally safe, and found my rabbits inside-out all over the back lawn. You can spread pet rabbit pretty thin, y’all. I called my mother in hysterics and then just a week or so later, the neighbor’s dog met with my daddy’s gun and he buried him the back field… because my father is Jed Clampett.

A week or so later, one of the neighbor kids asked if we’d seen his dog.

Bo: “No.”
Me: “Yeah, my dad shot him and buried him in our field.”
Bo: “Shut-up, Belle!” :silence: “She’s kidding.”

My dad was within his full legal rights to kill this dog that was trespassing on his land, so despite the threats, there were no consequences… for everyone except me. Yes, that’s right. I got yelled at when my eight-year-old brother went full-on Dexter on my Gramma’s cat. I got yelled at when my dad tried to start his own Hatfield-McCoy feud.

As I got older, though, I naturally developed the ability to empathize with people appropriately and recognize the importance of breaking significant news in a personal and serious manner. For example, at 18-years-old, I needed to get on birth control and wasn’t sure how to go about doing so with my insurance. So, one afternoon, I sat my mother down and had a serious heart-to-heart, explaining that I had made the adult decision to protect myself.

Bazinga.

No, no. I was really helping her clean up dog poop in the backyard and blurted “I’m having sex now and I need to get on birth control.” Roseanne handled that topic better than yours truly.

As the Hometown minister warned during our high school sex-ed class – I shit you fucking not – sex led to pregnancy… three years later. My ex-husband wasn’t working… still. I was just shy of my bachelor’s degree and working at the movie theater, living off financial aid and prayer (which is not so tasty). This was not good news. How to tell my dad? I KNOW! I’ll go to lunch with him and tell him then.

Dad: “So what do you want to eat?”
Me: “I’m pregnant.”

So that’s out of the way. Now how to tell everyone else…

Facebook Status:
Belle is… seven weeks pregnant today.

Then, as I’ve mentioned previously, I lost the baby. It was heartbreaking, physically painful with no medication at the end of my first/start of my second trimester, messier than those Lifetime movies ever said, and absolutely terrifying since I was all alone. So I called my Gramma and my dad. I told my mother when she showed up unannounced. I texted my brother, since we weren’t very close. It wasn’t perfect, but it was personal… enough.

So that’s out of the way. Now how to tell everyone else…

Facebook Status:
I lost the baby. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want your apologies or to hear your awful miscarriage stories. Just leave me alone.

It was between that and…

A little over a year later, I’d had enough of the stealing, the lying, the pet abuse and murder, the make-believe jobs… you know, marriage.

Wait. Shut the front door! That’s not how marriage works?!?! Wha…?!?!

So, I told my ex-husband he needed to leave… and he said no.

Wait… that’s not how divorce works either…

Over the course of the next few months, I continued to tell him to leave, often loudly, occasionally with projectiles.

Ex-husband: “We never have any fucking food!”
Me: “Then maybe you should GET OUT.”

Oh, just suck my big fat furry dick, Disney.

At this point, I probably should’ve reached out to someone, told my family what was up, let my daddy bury the bastard in the back field… but nah. I suffered in silence. Finally, I threatened to call the police, on Jay’s advice, and my ex-husband left. He kept sneaking in and taking things, but I didn’t have the emotional capacity to deal with that, so I still called it a win. Then I filed the paper work two weeks later.

Chad: “You seriously need to tell your family.”
Me: “I will… eventually.”

It was two weeks before Christmas, when I finally got up the nerve to tell my Gramma. I lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling, while she watched the news. Neither of us had been talking.

Me: “Gramma?”
Gramma: “Yeah?”
Me: “I’m getting a divorce.”
Gramma: in an almost bored tone “Are you really?”
Me: “Yeah… like I filed the paper work already.”
Gramma: “Huh.”

You see! That is why emotion freaks me out. She wasn’t mad. She fully believed me. She was glad I was leaving. She just understands that feelings are for the inside.

There’s a girl who knows how it’s done!

Voicemail: “Hey, Bo. It’s Belle. I just called to tell you I’m getting a divorce. He wouldn’t work. I couldn’t do it anymore. I don’t want you to be disappointed in me. Love you.”

text conversation with my mother
Me: “I filed for divorce.”
Mother: “Do you need anything?”
Me: “I’d really like that Fossil purse for Christmas.”

Then the most epic of all. I pulled up to my dad’s house, knocked on his door.
Dad: “Hey kiddo. What’s goin’ on?”
Me: “I’mgettingadivorce. I’msorryIruinedChristmas.”
Dad: “Do what?”
Me: “I’m getting a divorce. I’m sorry I ruined Christmas.”

Since then, there have been numerous breaking news faux pas.

Me: “Do you like memoirs?”
Gail: “Yeah, sometimes.”
Me: “I do. I really like biographies too. I did shots with Chad and let him feel me up last night. I just really like to read another person’s story, ya know?”
Gail: silence… “Yeah. I’d love to hear another person’s story, too.”

Text message
Me: “I just woke up on my grandma’s patio after passing out from the heat.”
Gail: “WTF? Seriously?”

This particular incident was accompanied by an “I need a ride to the E.R.” text message to my step-mother a couple of days later, when I couldn’t stop vomiting from the concussion.

Over the years, I’ve just accepted it. I am never going to be able to tell anyone anything important in a grown-up manner. There will one day exist the “Honey, I’m pregnant” text message. It’s actually become a running joke.

conversation with my female cousin Mick, the baby of the family
Me: “Well, if you ever do decide to join the Air Force to be a pilot, just remember, the best way to break serious news is via Facebook. ‘Mick… just joined the Air Force. Love y’all.'”
Mick: sitting next to her mother “Yeah… I think that one might get me into a lot of trouble.”
Me: “Well, yeah. That’s why you ‘lose your phone’ that day.”

When Gail was raped and couldn’t figure out how to tell her boyfriend a couple of weeks later (he’d been out of town), I suggested a cake with the words “Your girlfriend was raped” on it. The guy’s had enough bad news. Why not give him a cake, too? Do you have no compassion at all?!?

I also suggested a barber shop quartet… and wrote the lyrics, which did make Gail laugh and that was the whole point. Duh. She’d just been raped, yo.

“Your one and only girlfriend was ra-a-aped.”

I give the best fucking advice.

Sidenote: This incident will also be covered in the topics “Express Sympathy Appropriately” and “Manage Heartbreak Without Humor.”

The fact of the matter is, of the Shit I Can’t Do, several share one foundational issue. Emotion is horribly uncomforatble and should be hidden like the last fucking horcrux.

Right there. That is where your feelings go.

“Why did you marry that?!?! I mean… um…”

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Belle of the Library

In hindsight, I often feel a great deal of sympathy for those who love me and had to watch me marry my ex-husband, regardless. Of course sometimes that sympathy is replaced with resentment in the form of: how could you let me do something so fucking stupid when I was just a child?!?!?

My wedding day portrait.

Sidenote: Googling “child bride” will totally put your bitching into perspective.

Most of the time, however, I feel terrible that my dad had to watch for four years while I struggled to keep my head above water as my ex-husband abused me. He couldn’t say anything, because I wouldn’t have listened. It would have driven a wedge between us and we were already struggling with our relationship. Similarly, pretty much every other person in my life felt the same way. As much as they may have wanted to sit me down and say “Listen. This guy doesn’t work. He lies. He’s stealing from you… a lot. Also, that fire was super suspicious” they couldn’t. I’d have turned away and clung to him out of loyalty, because that’s what marriage is.

Sadly, I got a taste of how they felt when Gail was married to Shane. One afternoon, Gail called to tell me that she was bringing by my copy of the movie Elf, which I didn’t recall lending her. I legitimately thought that this was a cover to get out of the house without Shane forbidding her to hang out with me and was shocked when I opened the door and saw her holding Elf on DVD. It turned out that she’d just borrowed the movie a couple of years earlier and never returned it, because she’s a cotton-headed ninny muggins who hates me and wants me to die. The fact that this was my assumption, though… well, it explains why I once told her that the movie The Waitress perfectly depicted her relationship (and mine, though I ingored that part).

Ugh. How did we not notice we married the same fucking man?

This, however, was the only time I gave Gail any truly negative opinion of her marriage… because she immediately shut down and told me that she needed to stop telling me things, since I was getting the wrong idea. It didn’t happen, of course. Gail and I can’t not tell each other everything. But I didn’t insult Shane again… until he shook her baby. Then it was a free for all.

Luckily, Gail finally met a nice guy I don’t secretly hate… or openly hate ::cough:: musician ::cough:: after a series of asshats. Terry is good to her, works, pays his own way… and he doesn’t get pissed when I make inappropriate jokes about Gail cheating on him, which translates into him not being threatened by me like all the men before him.

You see, the horse is Gail’s vagina.

Me: “So Terry, how do you feel about cheating?”
Terry: “Um… what?”
Me: “Well, since we were kids, I’ve always said that if my husband cheats on me and wants to fix our marriage, then he needs to keep his pants on and his mouth shut. I don’t want to know, just so he can ease his conscience. What’s your opinion?”
Terry: “Um…”
Me: “C’mon. Should Gail tell you her secret or not?”

I wasn’t actually telling the guy that his girlfriend was cheating on him over dessert in a Chili’s while Gail sat beside him grinng… fucking obviously. Kudos to Terry, though, because he just laughed, whereas every other guy she’s dated has been oddly sensitive about that kind of joke. Her ex-boyfriend, Cam, whom I actually liked (despite the fact that he was 12 years old forever), even got defensive about the way I teased her, though he did the same thing. Look, dude, she’s been my Gail for ten fucking years. This is what we do and it goes both ways. Just because you’ve been fucking her for six months, does not give you the right to an opinion on the way we interact. It’s not like that even makes you special. You’re not exactly goin’ where no man’s gone before’s, all I’m sayin’.

Terry, though, just laughs and occasionally throws in his own joke, which works in his favor, because Gail likes to fancy herself the sweet one anyway. Even if he doesn’t get our humor, he gets that he doesn’t have to get it. Despite my affection for the man, I did make it clear that said approval was conditional.

Me: “If you hurt her, I’ll cut off your ears… and no one wants to fuck a man with no ears.

The man wasn’t exactly rollin’ in the pussy.

I am nothing if not eloquent.

Gail is the person I’m closest to, along with my Gramma, so I’m elated that she’s over her all-the-douche-bags-in-the-city phase. However, there are still multiple people in my life who have married into the ninth circle of Hell and I’m not allowed to fix whatever the fuck is wrong with them. I can’t even talk to these people without a running log of questions I’m not supposed to ask flitting through my head. Do you have any idea how much effort it takes for a person like me to filter this shit?!?!

Doesn’t it bother you that she spends all of your money?
“How’s the new house?”

How can you stand the way your children are being treated?
“How are the kids?”

What the hell is wrong with you that you would let someone treat your family like that?
“We miss you. You don’t come around enough.”

Do you think your parents might hate him for a reason?
“Are he and your mom getting along better?”

Statistically speaking, you are going to get a divorce. What are your waiting for, exactly?
“You’ve been married for how long, now?”

If he’s not there for you over this little stuff, do you really think he’s going to give a shit when you get cancer one day?
“That must be hard, living so far apart.”

He’s cheating on you. There is no way he is not cheating on you.
“Does he work out of town a lot?”

You know that the divorce is only going to be harder on the kids when they’re going through puberty, right? You’re holding out for nothing.
“The kids have really grown.”

You should be logging the abuse by date and incident, because you will need to use this in court one day.
“How’s (spouse) doing?”

Have you considered a secret savings account in someone else’s name?
“How’s work?”

But no… the Shane situation taught me an important lesson. You’re never allowed to ask “Why did you marry that?” as long as they’re still married… and it fucking sucks. I don’t care how your spouse is, because I’m tired of watching them treat you and your loved ones like a means to an end. I hope yours is the next divorce I hear about, because the heartbreak of that will be much shorter lived than being mistreated, disrespected, and taken advantage of for another ten years. Now that I’m out of my abusive relationship, the only thing comparable to the pure terror I feel after a nightmare where I’m still married is watching someone I love go through their own unique torture. This isn’t going to get better and you need to plan a fucking exit strategy, because everyone you love misses who you were before the light left your eyes and your children will never know that person. Wake. The. Fuck. Up.

“So you guys just celebrated another anniversary, right? That’s exciting.”

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