Heather Christena Schmidt

I’m in the midst of a little pity party. I do this sometimes (probably a lot of times, actually) – my life leaves much to be desired at times and can be pretty humdrum. With a husband I rarely see, a continued lack of interest in anything going on around me, and feeling somewhat purposeless in the grand scheme of things, right now it is especially that way. So like all people that refuse to medicate their way through life, I’m in a bit of a slump at the present time. You faithful blog followers may have even noticed that my posts have been a little mundane as of late.

I realize, though, that it has a lot to do with the fact that I am currently mad at a few people, or possibly groups of people, for various and probably stupid reasons. If you are one of these people, I don’t actually expect you to care – in some cases because you are a part of a group that can best be described ‘narcissistic assholes;’ in the rest because my reasons are pretty stupid and bitchy.

The Catholics

I’m not really mad at the Catholics in the sense that I’m mad at all Catholics, I’m mad at the Catholics that are shoving their abortion and birth control agendas down everyone’s throats. I’m Catholic. My family is Catholic. I don’t believe in abortion as birth control. But I also don’t believe in shoving my beliefs down other people’s throats. If someone else isn’t Catholic and does believe in abortion there is absolutely no reason why I have a right to tell them what to do. I’m what they call a ‘Catholic for Choice’ – for which there are many. I also have enough of an understanding of this fucked up world to know that every circumstance is different. While I don’t believe in abortion as birth control, if I were raped by a complete stranger and wound up pregnant I would be swallowing the RU486 before the doctor could say “take this with food.”

Further, I’m tired of the Catholics shoving their bull shit agendas down everyone’s throats. If someone needs to take birth control – whether it be painful menstrual cramps, hormonal imbalances, irregular menstrual bleeding, prevention of ovarian cancer due to high family risk, or to avoid more fucking ugly and annoying babies from littering the planet with their ugliness, that is their business and their business alone.

Hello Kitty Toaster and the Whole In-law Brain Drain

That’s right, I’m mad at the in-laws. Every single one of them. They don’t care, really – in fact, they are probably just chalking this up to being another reason why I’m a big asshole they wish would get run over by a 6 ton bus. But I’m mad. My anger towards them actually started years ago when my husband and I were still dating and we moved in together. Momma Bear was unhappy about this choice and so suggested to my to-be husband that we would move in together only for him to find out that I was cheating on him. I’d have to say it all went down hill there. I usually don’t spend too much time being mad at those people, though, because they very rarely enter my thoughts. Nonetheless, I’m still mad in a general ‘I’ll probably always harbor some sort of upsettedness’-way because they do continue to affect my life in a negative way, even if it is just in the terribly narcissistic influence they have had on my husband (see opening comment on never seeing him…).

But I’m mad at Hello Kitty Toaster too because I’m resentful that her life is so perfect and mine is so … well, humdrum. My husband says this is jealousy but I maintain it is something different. There are definitely people I am jealous of – most notably my former grad school cohorts that have all now gone on to PhD programs and law school, while I went promptly to a life of cooking, cleaning, and writing things that may never be read. I’m definitely jealous of them because I want what they have. But I don’t want what Hello Kitty Toaster has, per se … I’m just angry that she isn’t aware of how difficult life can be like me. Her canned “I love life and shit rainbows and eat Hello Kitty toast every fucking day” attitude makes me want to puke my guts out, simply because it is so unrealistic and childish.

People for whom I have been supportive and have failed to return said support

I am not supportive of others just to get some sort of return. Not in the least. But when people don’t scratch my back in return time and time again, it starts to beg the question: are these people in this just for their own self-interest? Relationships of any kind – romantic, business, friendship, familial – are all dependent on a give and a take. If people just take-take-take, and never give, then there is something wrong with the picture.

What is wrong with this picture, you ask? For one, writers that I am friends with that I support by purchasing their books, talking about their writing, and sharing their work with others, flat out refusing to purchase my stupid $2.99 book on Kindle; saying publicly that they don’t buy “that kind of stuff.” What kind of stuff is that, oh pompous ones? I get that I can be a pretty rancid cup of tea to choke down at times, and I do say ‘dick’ and ‘balls’ more than any well-respected lady rocking an apron and pearls ever should, but come on. The least these people could do is say they’re going to buy my book and then just never actually buy it. Or say nothing.

Assholes.

Bloggers

I’m not mad at all bloggers, I’m mad at these bloggers that are destroying the Internet with their pornography and mundane bullshit. I don’t mean mundane like my mundane, I mean mundane like posting another goddamned recipe for chipotle mayonnaise. These asshats that post picture blogs of their latest adventure in making fucking macaroni and cheese with a hint of some obscure spice to make it sound “original.” I’m talking about bloggers that give us a rundown of their stupid ass day that involved nothing of interest beyond “I went to work.”

I’m also talking about bloggers that steal each others’ ideas. I know what you are thinking – are there any original ideas anymore? No. No there are not. That said, if I post a blog about people I am currently mad at, it is going to do nothing but piss me off if I see that you ‘liked’ my blog post and then promptly posted the same goddamn fucking post with your own set of people like five minutes later. I’m not talking about similar posts here that happen to go up coincidentally at the same general time frame. I’m talking straight out intellectual property theft. You know what else is going to make me mad? The fact that your stupid fucking blog – which will no doubt be written with much less decorum and proper syntax as mine – will be the one that goes viral. It will be the one that gets Freshly Pressed and all sorts of fanfare; that will get you a fucking book contract whilst I continue to stew in my being mad at the world, writing shit my writers group calls ‘cute.’

My Writers Group

That is actually all writers groups, actually. Quite a few months ago, I took a seminar about getting published (which hasn’t done me one bit of good, I might add) and the leader of the seminar warned emphatically against waisting time in writers groups. I should have listened to that bitch. Boy was she right.

One writers group I am in is run by the flyest lady over 40 I have ever met. No jokes, she is awesome. But the rest of the people are sort of annoying. One laughs at me constantly and makes jokes out of critiquing me; calls me ‘cute.’ One owes me money for setting up her website. One has never actually written comments of critique on my work.

Writers either love you or hate you. They love you if your work genuinely blows. They hate you if your work is genuinely good. Hemingway, Sartre, Steinbeck, Faulkner, and Fitz all said this in different words. Any writer that cannot admit to this is probably one of those asshats that refused to buy my book publicly, or shows up at people’s Oscar Parties to shovel all their food and use a private party as a book promotion event.

All those jerk faces that claim social networking is profitable

It isn’t. I have spent so much time trying to market myself on the Internet. They said “make a Facebook ‘like’ page,” so I did. They said “make a Twitter page and Tweet,” so I did. They said to do Tumblr and blog 3 – 5 times a week, so I joined the masses and did. But for all the time it has taken, it hasn’t profited to such a degree that it made it worth while. And now it’s moving to new venues – Google+, LinkedIN, and this stupid new shit Pinterest. Everyone is migrating over to Pinterest, it seems, and I’m sitting here wondering how this is any different than every other two-bit, cheap shit social network out there. What I really think the problem is with all these sites and why it is not as profitable as the experts claim is that there are just too many people out there trying to do the same, exact thing.

But on the note of social networks and Pinterest, what is the deal with this? Pinterest is the fastest growing website ever in the history of the entire Internet. People don’t seem to get how huge that is, especially for a website that is basically the same thing as 2 or 3 hundred other websites already in existence. All I see on it are women posting outfits they like and fatty recipes that look good but sound horrible. And now Facebook posts are all about Pinterest – here is the project I did because of my Pinterest inspiration; look at the meal I made because of Pinterest! If one more person says “I am Pinterest obsessed” I think I’m going to cancel my Internet altogether and go hide in a cave with nothing but nuts, berries, my books, and a flashlight.

Okay, so maybe I’m just mad at everyone. Maybe I’m just being my usual misanthropic self. Maybe (definitely) I have P.M.S. Or could I be on to something? Is this world full of assholes – with the few good ones trying desperately to wade through the mire and not get slogged down by all the opportunistic bull shit? Really, I think I’m just being my usual self – a bitch against the world.