When You Should Just Say No

You can't really rip your partner for spending $10 for chips and a soda for lunch (deathly poisons put out by Conagra Foods, don't get me started), when you can't seem to put the brakes on your spending habits. This is from a letter I sent to my fiance at work letting him know there would be a few less dollars in the bank because of my love of office supples:

How much do you love me? Okay it happened like this.First, I went to Office Depot. And everything was good. There were office supplies. I was happy. I was surveying the vast array of pens. I had gone there for a calendar. And it seemed like it was going to be a good day. I just needed a calendar. Nevermind that I forgot you said you would print me one out. I know you didn't have time to yesterday, or for the last week or whatever. Because I didn't have a calendar to remind me I had forgotten. Not casting blame. I'm just saying. So, I'm looking at the calendars and I realize that I need an addressbook soI start looking for that. And I realize how much I miss my Palm. And how much I miss my Franklin planner that I could never quite get together. And I start feeling depressed. Because I keep forgetting my appointments. And I think to myself that I'll just get a day planner, the cheap ones, but the cheap ones are like $18 and there aren't two pages a day andI can't find one that has an address book. And I'm mulling all these over and I'm talking out loud to myself and my dad is with me and I start talking about the planner I got for Jess for $15 and now it's like$30 and you still need the refill and my dad starts saying, " Just buy it," and I try to think of ways that I could reconstruct the whole thing myself for cheaper because I'm all about doing things from scratch and ghetto style, etc. and I remember the time I tried to do that and it wound up being this huge notebook that I couldn't take anywhere because it was too big and it wound up costing like $70, no REALLY, that's how much it was when I bought all the notebook size inserts I needed. So I brokedown and bought the organizer, the one you wanted me to have in the first place for $30......but next monthI'll still have to buy the pack for the whole year.

It's All In How You Say It

The other day I was in the bank and I started a conversation with my mother in a way that made everyone's head turn. What I said was, "I've learned the hard way not to place electrical devices into bodily orificies." Now I was actually talking about the fact that she had given me an electric toothbrush that kept shocking me. The statement, of course, was taken in a more perverse sense and I was asked to leave the bank.

I'll never talk about my dental hygiene in public again.

But it got me to thinking about how people percieve the things I say in general and intent. It's a little known secret that I love everybody. I find some good in virtually everyone and I love that part of them, believe in them. I respect them even when they don't respect themselves. I apparently also have a mouth like a rattlesnake. My fiance tells me that other people fear me. And I guess I see it but I'm puzzled by it too. It's true that I'm fairly unpredictable. I don't even know what I'm going to do half of the time. But ultimately, shouldn't it be about intent? I never intentionally hurt anyone. If they could only know what is in my heart, how I love other people, feel connected to them to my detriment, then maybe it'd be a different story. My fiance says that I have to stop saying everything that is on my mind. But isn't there comfort in that? Somehow? When you ask my opinion and I tell you that what you just did isn't quite working but this other thing is genius, doesn't it make you feel better to know I'll always tell you the truth?

I keep thinking that I should just keep doing what I'm doing. And I think that as I love more and more and my intentions grow purer and purer that no one will be hurt by what I say. The love itself will smooth everything. I still hold out hope that this is true.

Things I Find Myself Saying

Sometimes it's simply that I haven't had enough caffeine or that it's a full moon. Sometimes, I think it's a lack of oxygen to the brain or that the obvious isn't obvious enough. Regardless of the reason, sometimes I find myself saying the wildest things:

(First I should tell you that I have Glaucoma that is rapidly getting worse, I'm only 36)
-I don't want to take my eye drops! It burns! And besides I want a dog. When you're blind, they have to let you have a dog. I'd do anything to have a dog.

(The 9 year-old wanted me to pick up her cousins to come over but I didn't have the car that day)
-Oh yeah, we can go get them. I'll just ride my bike five miles to their house then they can each tie a string onto the back of the bike and I'll drag them all the way back.

Yes I'll be a virgin when I marry my fiance. All three of my children were concieved immaculately. Yes, it's true that we are already living together, but you don't know what we don't do in the privacy of our bedroom. You don't know me!

You don't like what I made for dinner? I can't marry you now! You have to leave! It's over. Why are you asking if my period started? I'm just not talking to you now...

Did I ever tell you that if you kiss a boy you'll get pregnant?

You know what I've noticed, Honey? Ever since you've been cooking, I've been really sick all the time. Now a suspicious person would think that perhaps you might be poisoning me. If you're trying to make sure I don't leave you this is not the way. So, I'm just gonna say right now, if you are poisoning me, just stop it. I love you very much. Just stop it.

No, I don't mind if you eat sunflower seeds on my side of the bed. I like to wake up in the middle of the night with sunflower seeds stuck to my ass.

I'm utterly convinced that many rappers could be rehabilitated into sign language interpreters.

Things You Don't Want to Hear From a Child's Mouth

From the mouth of my four year old niece: Have you considered cleaning your kitchen?

From the nine year-old: Mom, how many really big knives do we have?

From the fourteen year-old: If you think about it, if I date a guy who's six years older it won't make a difference when I'm like, thirty.

The nine year-old: Mom, the Department of Homeland Security called while you were gone.

From my three year-old nephew: Please don't sing. My ears don't like it.

From the fourteen year-old: We're getting the band back together, Ma.

From the nineteen year-old: It's normal to skip a period sometimes...right?

From the fourteen year-old: You people are SICK and PERVERTED!! Don't think I don't know why you take a shower at 1 a.m.!! And then again at 2!