Tag complaining

I Have Earned the Right To Complain

Heather Christena Schmidt 1 Comment

I always hear older people – like older, older; not me older, which I am clearly becoming – say that they have earned the right to complain. “I pay my taxes, I worked a full career, I served in the United States Army…I have earned a right to complain” is something my father – who lives with us – says regularly.

Like daily.

Maybe it’s just him rubbing off on me, but I’ve caught myself saying a similar elderly person’s rant more and more as of late.

For example…

We live in a condominium owned by my husband’s family – purchased for him and his brother when they were single, and rented out only until this past June when we moved in.

We take care of the upkeep of the place – as in, we do and pay for routine maintenance and upkeep. There were a lot of things not tended to in the years it was being rented out, some even my husband’s fault from when he was living here before we met. We have taken care of all of them. All of them.

We pay the mortgage and HOA fees, every month.

We live according to the rules of the home owner’s association, we help organize a crime and safety group in the community, we contribute positively to the community however we can.

I have earned the right to complain.

Another example:

My husband works in film. He’s in editing for a television and video marketing firm, and he works at night and for a company that has no qualms with employees essentially living there. I see my husband for maybe two hours a day, if I’m lucky.

I can’t get him to remember to take his keys out of the front door when he gets home.

I can’t get him to remember to take out the trash when he gets up in the morning.

I have adjusted my own schedule every day to make sure to make him dinner at around 1 o’clock in the afternoon, before he leaves for work. One day I made soup and bread and he actually had the balls to ask if I should make sandwiches to go along with it.

We are unable to make plans with anyone, ever, unless it’s on a Sunday – the only day he is truly “off,” and even then it can’t be too early because he’s used to staying up late and sleeping away the morning.

Over and over and over and over, and over and over and over, again I have had to explain to little broken hearts why dad is not home for X sport, Y event, and Z family time.

Last weekend, my husband got back from work exactly 15 minutes before our 11 year old’s tennis tournament began. He had been up all night, and therefore fell asleep in the middle of the tournament – at one point falling over almost completely into the bushes next to his chair.

Right now I have been sitting by the front door, waiting since roughly 2:30 in the morning for him to get home so that we can leave for another weekend tournament. It is now 6:00, and there is absolutely no sign of him.

Enough anecdotal evidence? Sadly, I could go on for several blogs-worth…

I have earned the right to complain.

I have more:

I gave up my entire career and education to become a stay at home mom. That doesn’t go without the occasional feelings of remorse for all that work I did in grad school for nothing.

My life is often reduced to Disney channel and conversations with the only daily non-child interaction I have: the dog.

Then I have to hear people say that it must be nice to live my life and be a lazy housewife. A lazy housewife who cooks and cleans for at least 8 hours a day, acts as personal assistant, washer woman, and – by the way – also homeschools the other hours until I drag myself to bed lest I suffer death by exhaustion.

The grass is always greener, or so they say… But on a particularly bad day, when I haven’t had any other adult interaction in as long as I can remember, and I finally get some by going to Costco only to find food in my hair…

I have earned the right to complain.

Shall I continue?

Two months ago I got a cut and color at a new salon (well, new for me).

It was the worst cut and color I have ever gotten.

She didn’t actually really color my hair – you could still see my blonde roots coming through. To this day I still can’t figure out what process she did on my hair, maybe toned it? I’m not sure, but it certainly wasn’t coloring.

The hair cut was terrible too. It’s grown out in just two months, and looks something like a large rat’s nest sitting a top my head.

When I vented about it on social media, I was given shit for venting. I paid $165 for this “cut and color.”

I have earned the right to complain.

Here’s my point:

8f43e47f31b4c70ffedc43516f7e4edad6095b22b1f39a432b2ebe68e6e7f79bI don’t like being the person that everyone thinks is a complainer. Every single time the complainer opens his or her mouth, an assault of whining and bitching and griping and complaining comes out.  If you ever talk to me at a party, or watch my feeds on social media, you know that’s not the case. Complaints account for maybe 10% of what comes out of my mouth and my tippy-typing fingers.

But I also feel as though when people complain, however little they do, that there is now some need for the world to retaliate not with compassion, but rather with a social backlash. And that’s all people focus on: 90% of what I talk about or post online is positive, funny or informative; and yet somehow the 10% or less (complaining) is what they all focus on. I see it happening to others, as well.

People post e-cards about how the Internet isn’t for complaining, and you hear people talking at parties about how life is something to be always-positive and ever-grateful for. And they shame people that speak candidly about shitty situations with pithy statements like “just remember that other people have it worse off than you.”

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When did life become something we always, 100% of the time, have to be super positive about? Why can’t we all complain once in a while? I mean, crappy situations won’t get better if people don’t talk about it – right? If there is a problem in your community, you should complain about it. If you have a bad salon experience, you should share your gripe. Then, follow up those complaints, and do something about it.

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A few days ago, I realized that social media is starting to give me social anxiety. For one, I share a lot of articles  – like a lot – on social media. But that’s what I do to get more traction on my blog, and anyway they are damn good articles and people should be reading and getting educated about the world a little more. Then I saw a nasty post from a family member (who shall remain nameless) about how people who post a lot of things like news and world affairs on Facebook have no lives. Now I know that’s bullshit, but it still made me self conscious about sharing things the following day.

When I started reflecting on the realization that I was doing that – inhibiting myself for the sake of not having to hear shit from others – I realized how little I share about my own life anymore, as a result of this social media anxiety. I don’t complain online anymore, and I don’t complain in person anymore either. Family functions are a “hi, how are you? Me I’m good, same old same old” and the conversation is over. I want to complain about my bad hair cut and the drug problems in my neighborhood and the refugee crisis in Europe and the war on women in our country, but I stop short for fear that people will highlight that no one wants to hear a complainer.

Moreover, I want to hear other people’s complaints. I want to be there for others, and vent along with them about all the injustices everywhere between my local frozen yogurt stand and the world at large. I always thought that the point of having relationships – friendships, family relationships, romantic relationships – was to be there for each other, even when it’s over a complaint session about everything shitty going on. Sometimes, people need to share happy life events together; sometimes people need a shoulder to cry – or complain – on.

It feels as though no one is allowed to do that in this world of post-modern positivity. Everyone must be happy all the time. If you have something go wrong, no matter how big or how little it is, keep that shit to yourself – no one wants to hear it.

What a terrible world we live in, where that is the status quo.

On the contrary: I pay the bills. I live the life. I have to deal with the consequences of everything around me. I truly feel that I have earned the right to complain. Everyone has.

 

 

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Summer Is Basically the Worst Right Now

Heather Christena Schmidt 2 Comments

 

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IT IS SO FUCKING MISERABLE OUTSIDE.

Ok…to be fair, it really isn’t entirely miserable. I mean, it’s not like in the south where it’s 100 degrees and humid. It’s not the Midwest either, and it’s certainly not equator-weather.

Nonetheless, it’s hot out; hot for coastal California. And it’s humid; and basically no one has air conditioning but the five square miles around us (I think because we live in the equivalent of Hell in terms of heat for this area). So I’m not going many places, except this weekend our air conditioning broke. Now I have nowhere to go, on account of ostracizing myself from society to a) stay in my nice, air conditioned house; and, b) out of a general disdain for other people. Last night it was 97 degrees in my house at 11 o’clock at night because the air conditioning guys were running the heat to fix the air (I just don’t understand) and I was just sitting there, dying in a puddle of melted skin.

Which leads me to the first reason I hate summer: it may as well be called boob sweat season. Can’t go anywhere without busting a major boob sweat.

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There’s pretty much twenty kids milling around outside my front door on a daily basis now, too. Which should be OK – seeing as I’m a mom and all – but I don’t typically enjoy the company of other people’s children (especially when those kids are disrespectful creeps); and to top it all off, most of them don’t seem to understand the daytime concept of “some of us actually have lives that need to go on without your loud and incessant chatter outside our front doors.”

When do these kids go back to school again?

The third thing hacking me off about the summer season right now is watermelon.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I love me my watermelon. In fact, I have a really strange obsession with buying those personal mini watermelons EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I go grocery shopping (so we’re talking several personal mini watermelons purchased per week…all year long).

But…my love of watermelon is mine. Not everyone else’s. I don’t like seeing all the articles about what people can do with watermelon showing up on my Facebook newsfeed. Similarly, I wish I could hit ‘dislike’ on all of people’s Instagram posts about their tequila watermelon or how they came up with the novel idea to stick their watermelon on popsicle sticks.

Novel idea my ass. I’ve been sticking my personal mini watermelons dipped in tequila on popsicle sticks since before you people even knew what a personal mini watermelon was. And to top that off, I don’t really dip it in tequila – that was a joke for emphasis – because WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO WATERMELON?! When summer is over, you’ll all go back to your complete disregard for what may very well be the greatest fruit on the planet, and I will still be obsessively purchasing my personal minis several times per week.

Which makes you all posers. Summertime watermelon posers, making this summer basically the worst right now.

Corn on the cob is another one.

I love corn on the cob. Who doesn’t? No really… is there anyone that doesn’t at least moderately enjoy the summer vegetable?

All year long I wait, patiently. Patiently for the day that corn will be on sale again, and – more importantly – when we will start getting this delicious bi-color corn in our weekly CSA box.

Except when we get it, there’s like one. Or two. Have these people not gotten how many meals I serve every day? The bi-color corn is so goddamned good that we all fight over it, and when there’s only one in the week’s box I feel as though I have to ration out bites.

No really. One week I actually suggested we each take approximately three bites of the one cob. Just pass that shit on around the table until we’ve all had our fair share.

I almost just wish I had never heard of bi-color corn, or that corn weren’t a big summer thing either.

Where are we at now? Four reasons summer is just the worst?

The fifth is my inability to tan. Not that I want skin cancer or anything, but it seems as though everyone around me is suddenly golden and tan – which I equate with having a relaxing lifestyle that could afford the time to lie around and garner such a thing.

And then there’s me – good ol’ whitey. My skin is so pale and white, people’s eyes hurt with they look at me with the sun reflecting off my glow-y, pasty skin.

Not my hair, though. My hair lightens. And my dark hair dye that I use religiously to cover my annoying-non-Californian-Californian-blonde fades pretty much the minute I walk out of the hair salon, leaving me looking terrible. Just. Terrible. Glow in the dark white skin, matched with faded-nappy-looking-hair and sweat pretty much everywhere. Crabby from all the kids hanging around my neighborhood…bitching at people to shut up already about their watermelon. H-angry because I didn’t get a full cob of my week’s rationing of bi-color corn on the cob.

In a nut shell, I hate summer. It is my least favorite of the four seasons, for these and many other reasons. Like the price of sunscreen – which should be given out for free, not charged at $15 a bottle that barely covers my white and pasty ass.

Or the fact that California is on burn alert FLAMING RED 24 hours a day. We are all literally one asshole flicking his cigarette butt in the wrong direction-away from burning completely and utterly to the ground.

I could go on.

Summer is basically the worst right now. Well, really always for me but it’s really getting to me now that we’re in the innards of the season.

I know you all will probably disagree, as you eat your tequila watermelons on a stick and bask in the glow of your perfectly tanned appendages. In the meantime, I’ll be counting down the minutes until fall.

 

Just When I Thought My 30s Could Not Get Any More Annoying, New Years Eve 2013 Rolled On In

Heather Christena Schmidt 3 Comments

1098401_184942645012006_2101961229_nHappy fucking New Years. Seriously. I hope you have a really nice fucking 2014. Eat a dick.

That was directed at my 30-something friends, 30-something bloggy people, and 30-something colleagues in this illustrious career of a pajama jeans-wearing, ass-wiping Stay At Home Mom. The rest of you can skip the dick eating. Unless of course that’s your thing (GROSS).

It was only recently that I became physically able to say that I am 31. I mean like a couple of weeks ago, and even then it was ugly because I couldn’t remember if I was 31 or 32. Pretty fucking hideous state of affairs, huh?

I’m already back to saying I’m 28.

As I see it, I’m a fucking war hero. I survived that phase when everyone was getting engaged and/or married. I mean every damn weekend someone was posting photos on Facebook of their engagement rings (ain’t nobody doin’ that no more). Engagement pics were up next, and then of course the wedding planning status updates and social media meltdowns leading up to the big event.

I didn’t get invited to many of the weddings, though to be fair I didn’t invite many to mine. The ones I did – where I actually attended – were equal parts intolerable and lessons in banality.

And the drum of growing up marched on with its beat. I held my head high as my husband and I have slowly, but surely, become two of the few people we know that does not own their own home. I smiled as suddenly everyone was becoming those people that go on cruises for every, single, fucking vacation they take.

Currently, I am navigating my way carefully through the early divorces, and the baby-belly pics. I’ve learned to “hide all” from friends that share their nude popped-belly-button photos. I’ve managed to avoid conversations about breastfeeding while out for dinner and drinks. Everyone does it, why the shit do we have to talk about it? That’s what Le Leche support groups are for, not fucking girl’s night at the local Applebees.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m definitely excited for all of the people I know that are going through these awesome stages of life. And for the parts that I am partaking, I am happy for myself too. This is what it means to be in our 30s – all these great things (new jobs, new lives, new families, new experiences) and more.

But do we have to fucking remind ourselves of this every step of the way? That we have moved on beyond those treasured years of our 20s, when we didn’t always need caffeine to get going in the morning? When we could go out and have a few drinks and dance without having to call the goddamned babysitter to see if anyone puked? Can’t we just allow ourselves to stay nestled in the security of feeling like we will be young forever, rather than reminding ourselves constantly that time has not paused, and will not ever stand still?

I hope you all can sense at this point that my 30s felt up until this point that they could not get any more annoying. I truly thought they wouldn’t. Then New Years Eve 2013 rolled on in and it got even fucking worse.

1501770_10151848041001395_1761194694_nI logged onto Facebook at some point today and what did my newsfeed unveil to me but post after MOTHERBITCHING POST about staying at home in pajamas. “I wonder if I’ll be able to stay awake to midnight!” was perhaps the most commonly said phrase by people I know in their 30s. Suddenly people that were posting shit-faced photographs of themselves in the bathtub on New Years Eve just a couple of years ago are wearing their goddamned matching flannel pajama sets and playing Scrabble in bed. SCRABBLE IN BED.

Now sure, I stayed home this year too. Quite frankly, it’s the best thing to do on the most dangerous night of the year. Also, I’m tired and fucking lazy, and while we did have plans to go to a family party we ended up staying home instead and just hanging out. Truth be told, I cleaned until about 45 minutes ago. But was I yucking it up left and right about how old I’ve become? “OMG we have become soooooo old we will have to sleep a week to make up for staying up past midnight!!!” How I have passed on through this right of passage that apparently says that to prove you’ve become some old piece of shit you have to suddenly tuck yourself in before 6 pm on a night you used to let last until 6 the following morning?

Ugh. Seriously. Eat a dick people.

I get it. We’re all getting older. We’re getting more tired. We have more responsibilities, like kids and shit. We are done with the nonsense and the games, and drinking and partying all night just isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. We’ve been around the block a couple of times.

But looming over all of this is an image of my future: a future New Years Eve that all this pajama-comfy-night-wonder-if-I’ll-make-it-to-midnight-Facebook-bullshit says is speeding towards me at an unprecedented rate. That image is of me as an old woman. An old woman sitting in my easy chair, hair in curlers. My New Years Eve will be spent not partying but watching the Perry Mason NYE marathon. I’ll sit there while my dog licks toe jam off my feet, eating frosting directly out of the can until I fall asleep around 9:45 only to drool all over myself until one of my seventeen cats wakes me up to go to bed. I get that this is what’s probably next. Who knows when it will strike, but if only my 30s could just slow the fuck down with all this getting-old bullshit and let me just enjoy my warm, naive ignorance for a little while longer.

Happy New Years. May 2014 be as full of denial as I clearly hope it will be.

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Do You Ever Ask Yourself, “Is This Worth It?” I Do.

Heather Christena Schmidt 16 Comments

I do all the time. In fact, I’m asking myself that right now, over a number of different things. Sadly, the answer to myself is typically “no.” Actually, it’s usually a lot more assertive than that. It’s more like a “fuck this” with doors slamming and things being thrown (well, at least in my mind).

This morning as I was scrubbing the floor, I asked myself “is this worth it?” I mean, normally I use my Swiffer, but it doesn’t always do the job. But then why isn’t it? While I was scrubbing angrily, I found stuff on the floor that should not have been there since I just cleaned and mopped yesterday. Like Rice Krispies and spilled juice. How the fuck did Rice Krispies and juice get spilled when this motherfucking floor was just cleaned less than 12 hours ago? I thought to myself as my scrubbing got angrier and angrier. I just cleaned yesterday! What is the point of getting down on my hands and knees and scrubbing like CinderHeather, only for it to be dirtied up twenty minutes later when people that are clearly blind and incapable of cleaning up after themselves come through the room for another snack or something to drink?

This afternoon I got my car washed. It was so dirty; dirtier than your mom back on that trip to Cancun in the 60s. Nasty. There was milk spilled in the backseat. There were toys fucking everywhere. I had a week’s worth of mail sitting in the front seat and a package of toilet paper I forgot to bring in the apartment in the trunk. Outside the car looked more brown than blue, and part of my Bulls bumper sticker was covered in mud. When it was done and we got in the car, it was like a dream. I actually pinched myself, it was that nice. Then we got home and a bird shit on it and the kid spilled her apple juice from lunch all over the floor in the back. Is this worth it? Well it seems not, now that it needs to be cleaned all over again.

Just before writing this blog I was wrapping Christmas presents. You faithful blog followers know I handle Christmas shopping and wrapping in September every year, then laugh heartily at everyone else scrambling like chickens with their heads cut off all the way to December 26th. But as I was wrapping in the bedroom, where the air conditioning had not yet hit; sweating like a pig and making everything look beautiful and perfect and elaborate, I thought to myself “Is this worth it?” No one ever stops to admire my wrapping job. No one ever appreciates how nice it looks. They all just open the shit, throw it to the side and say “what’s next?” When I remembered this, I moved to wrapping in bags with extra paper. No one can complain about there being no fun with the messiness of the paper if there is tons of tissue paper to throw around, right?

So you see I ask myself this many times through the course of a day. As I’m writing this post, and I have an 11 pound turkey in the oven, I’m wondering if the elaborate meal I’m preparing will be worth it too. My husband will eat three-quarters of it and everything else will be shoveled down like feeding time at the barnyard. I’m almost tempted to say “screw it” and just serve Taco Bell.

People I Am Currently Mad At

Heather Christena Schmidt 27 Comments

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.