Monthly Archives: June 2011

Jun 29 2011
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Offended

Leave My Words Alone

So, I read this whole blog about how people should no longer use the word gay to describe something odd or funny or off the mark.  Or homosexual. 

Here’s the thing about that:  People can’t just hijack a word and assign it to a group or event and then be offended because the rest of us use the word as it was meant to be used, or for that matter, in any way we choose to use it.  That’s just bullshit.  And gay. 

If somebody says, ‘I hate you because you are homosexual and ugly and have creepy blue eyes,” well, that is offensive.  I guess.  Although, it would not offend me if I were homosexual, ugly and had creepy eyes.  I wouldn’t care. 

I am tempted to do the whole disclaimer thing where I say I know and love a bunch of ‘gay’ people but really that’s not necessary.  All the gay and straight people I know and love – know I love them  whether I call something  gay or call it something else.  So I won’t bother with the disclaimer.

I refuse to allow a word to be removed from my posse of words because somebody has changed the meaning of it and decided to own it for themselves.   

Of all the things I am sick and tired of – offended people top the list.

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Jun 26 2011
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Offended

Gay?

If calling a straight person ‘gay’  is offensive  –   is calling a gay person ‘straight’  super-duper offensive??

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Jun 25 2011
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Offended

I May Be Offended

I am not easily offended. .

Whaaaaatt?

I read a lot of blogs.  Some are writers whose content and ideas I seek out to assist in my own understanding of some obscure or relevant issue.  Some are just funny.  A couple are hideous examples of what I never want to be, say or write.  And one or two are monstrosities that I read- I guess just to start an internal argument with the writer.  I rarely respond to these last few.  Sometimes I am surprised and occasionally irritated. But, I am rarely offended.

Mostly, I am amused, as I imagine the blogger writing what they consider to be edgy, intelligent and uber trendy vernacular that will spark some collective gasp in their audience who will happily exclaim, “Finally!!! Finally somebody expressed my thoughts exactly- in a way that I am just not able to – because I am just not the super-smart and intelligent genius that this writer is!!”  And I Laugh.  Usually.

Often, these bloggers will extol the importance, the necessity, the absolute mandatory rule for other bloggers (and most certainly for the morons who are not able to express those universal truths as this highly qualified writer is able) that in all blogging, social media, casual Facebook-like dialog, and all that is written and spoken in public be so absolutely grammatically  correct as to appear nearly God-like in it’s essence – that grammar, syntax and spelling rules be adhered to -or- said moron shall be banned from any further communication or possibly killed.  In lieu of the ban or killing,  the moron shall be publicly humiliated and ridiculed by this highly (self) acclaimed writer whose intelligence (and ego) knows no bounds.

Okay, this is just a pet peeve.  I have read plenty of these kinds of blogs- where the writer fancies herself to be superior both in writing skills and certainly intelligence.  Most of them find a an audience of friends and family who will happily cheer them on no matter what is written and how offensive the actual message (if there is one).

As you may have guessed, I am tinkering with the idea of actually being offended by a recent blog.  I will develop this idea and check in later.

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Jun 25 2011
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Family, fat, Word Press, Writing

Just When you Thought I’d Learned my Lesson..

This is not my eye

I’m back.  Older, fatter and yes, smarter.

Not a day has gone by that I haven’t imagined myself sitting here, as I am now, blasting the author of some ridiculous opinion, some hideously crafted article (complete with misleading headline and obviously incorrect data) or a random comment heard accidentally in a conversation of which I was not even a participant.  To be perfectly frank, sometimes it all comes down to a stupid Facebook post.   I am constantly writing a response.  In my head.

I think of writing nearly all the time.   Whether it is a response to the above mentioned events or some evolving thought of my own which, as I am driving or pushing my shopping cart or cooking a meal or otherwise trapped somewhere without a keyboard, develops and snowballs in my mind until I am nearly chewing my teeth into dust because- as I said- I am so often trapped without a keyboard.   Or, I have a keyboard but I am somehow, inexplicably, adhering to the rules of survival and actually working.  It’s an FML kind of thing.   I want to write.  All the time.

Unfortunately (depending on my perspective at any given second), I have to shop, cook, work and otherwise fulfill my obligations as a wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, friend, blah, blah, blah.. you know the deal.  You have the same deal, if you are lucky.  If you don’t have the same deal, you are either unlucky or smart (…depending on my perspective at any given second).

So, I’m back.  I have several blogs and websites.  I have not even added up my annual expense to maintain these sites.   I don’t care.  I need them.

It’s nearly midnight and because tomorrow I am booked solid with events that do not involve writing in any way, I have to go to bed.  It will take me 30 minutes to get to sleep once I get there because I will be crafting my second blog until I finally cark it for the day. 

If I stay up and write, which is what I would rather do, my other events tomorrow  will be attended with raw frustration and bitchiness.  My second goal in life is to enjoy doing things that do not involve writing or wanting to write.  It’s healthy.  I need it.  So I am going to bed.

In the words of the once revered and now scandalized ex-governor of California, I’ll be back.  I promise me.

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