Lucky Little Bisexual Me

One of my favorite blogs, Single Dad Laughing, recently inspired me to write about something I've been wanting to get out for a long time. In his awesome blog, Dan has been vocal about being bisexual and his recent post spelled out how difficult it has been for him to come to terms with reactions to his bisexuality. He focused on how frustrating it was that people expected him to "pick a side".

In my case I feel frustrated by the fact that people assume just because I'm with a man I am no longer "into women". This offends me because the love I've had for women in my past is deeply important to me. When you suggest that I've chosen men or chosen women you're implying that the past relationships I've had didn't mean anything. That, right there, is insulting.

I'm willing to bet the stigma is the same for men who are bi. If you're with a man, then everyone assumes you've given up on women. If you're with a woman, then everyone assumes you've given up on men.

As if it were that simple. I am with a man...a great man. I adore him and I can honestly say he's the first man I've been able to connect with emotionally and physically. Before him I was only able to accomplish one or the other with men. Anyway, I love being with him to the point where I'm completely satisfied...but does that mean that the women I've been with meant nothing? Hell, no.

I've loved and been loved by some wonderful men and women. Being bisexual by definition means being romantically attracted to both males and females. I'd be lying if I denied missing one sex while solely with the other. It's confusing and frustrating to be "playing for both teams". There have been many times when I thought I was done with men...and just as many time when I thought I was done with women, for that matter. In the end, though, I had to admit to myself that there are aspects of being with either gender that I love and...not so much love.

Of course, I know to some the whole concept of bisexuality isn't easy to understand. Hell, I've known since the 4th grade that I had feelings for both and it's STILL hard for ME to sort through. The people that love me don't mean to offend me. I know this.

As Dan pointed out, there are those who assume being bi means ya just haven't decided which ya wanna be with yet. Such a silly assumption. I am a 38 year old woman with 4 children. Pretty damn sure at this point in my life I can safely say I'm neither straight nor gay. It isn't a decision about which gender. It's a decision about which person. The amazing person I've chosen to be with is attentive and loving and understanding and supportive....and yes, he's a man.

The fact that I haven't written a post about proclaiming my bisexuality until now is in no way to be taken to mean that I'm ashamed of or aloof about who I am. Dan put it perfectly, I love who I am. There's such an extraordinary freedom that comes with the ability to love whomever I want. Freedom to love the person, not the gender.

Lucky little lady.

I have no idea how I got so lucky or why I get to be this way but I am SO very grateful. Grateful for this heart. Grateful for the chance to experience the depth of just how intense and beautiful love can be felt. Lucky lucky lucky.

Wanted: Coffee Slaves Able to Make Grumpy Cat Latte Art

   

When I was little I was required to bring my parents coffee in the mornings to wake them up. I didn't have to make it or anything, it was set on a timer to go off by itself. Still, I felt like a slave. Such injustice to make a child haul two cups of boiling hot coffee across the house to her lazy ass parents. That's the way I saw it. That's how I felt...then...when I was little. Now that I'm a parent I'm thinking my parents were fucking geniuses. Of course, I would never ask my children to bring me coffee to my bedside every morning. Not because it's wrong...but because I don't trust them to not fuck it up. They love to fuck up a chore on purpose so that they don't have to do it anymore. I'm not really willing to risk ending up with scalding hot coffee all over my face. "Ooops, Mom, sorry! Butterfingers!" It's a lovely dream, though. Waking up to coffee...better yet, a skinny vanilla latte being placed in my greedy, spoiled little hands. Instead I get to wake up to one child shoving a brownie in my face for me to open for him and another child pooping in my bathroom. No idea what the other two are doing. Probably drinking all my damn coffee. Good morning, motherfucking snow day three.

     Well, well. What do ya know. A motherfucking snow day. Super. At home with 4 children and what shall I do in between laundry, dishes, cooking (brilliant idea to NOT go to the store before the God Damn snow storm, by the way), and Pinteresting? I shall knit, of course:D. Beyond pleased and proud of my lazy ass for braving the cold to purchase new yarn (yes, I remembered to go to the yarn shop but not the grocery store...two degrees and a masters). Double proud of the fact that I actually made a yarn choice. I suck at making choices. Anytime I go shopping I put 50-100% of everything I've acquired in the basket back before getting to the checkout.




I suggest you do as I do and ignore
that pile of laundry in the background.

     Mind you, I haven't knitted in quite some time so I was anxious to turn out the knitting bag to see what I could find. An interesting array of yarn remnants from projects of old. Brought back a lot of memories of a time when I didn't shake like a fucking leaf. I've never been particularly good at knitting (even worse at crocheting) but I enjoy the repetition. Clears my head immediately. Anyway, aside from the bits of yarn, I found a whopping ONE set of knitting needles and ONE crochet needle. I used to have at least 6 different sizes of each. Where they go????? Give ya a hint- lightsabers:/

     Luckily the one and only set of knitting needles I have are the exact size I need for my new beautiful, wool, multicolor yarn:). As usual (because I am too chicken shit to try the hard stuff) I have decided to go with a scarf...or maybe an eternity scarf. This time, however, I am going to try alternating the knitting stitch with the purl stitch. Of course, when I went to cast on SURPRISE...no recollection of how to cast on. Hello, youtube. I have a collection of youtube videos for just this kind of memory emergency because this isn't the first time this has happened. I forget shit all the time. If I didn't shower and brush my teeth every single day I would probably have to refer to a youtube video for that, as well. Poor stupid me.

     I am quite fond of these Howcast videos with the lovely lady in green. Huge crush on her. Ordinarily I don't go for the skinny ones but her expressions kill me. Super cute. For your viewing pleasure here are the videos for making a slip knot, casting on, and knitting stitch...

Slip Knot

Casting On

How to Knit the Knit Stitch



     Dang it, she's so adorable! She makes it look as easy as it is...and trust me, it's easy. If I can do it, anyone can. I am a huge fan of learning how to do shit from youtube videos. Can't follow written directions to save my life but give me a video that I can pause after each step and I can learn to do just about anything...especially with Little Miss Green Dress' guidance;)

Modest beginning. I should have cast on less stitches to begin with but I have
difficulty thinking small. Note the yarn predator lurking in the beyond. I did offer
the cat children a ball of yarn but they prefer the yarn that is off limits.
Little shitheads.

    

A highly intelligent lady once confided in me how she was able to pull herself out of a major life overhaul that lead her to be flat ass broke and in dire straits. She said the single most crucial move she made was to simply make a list. Her list consisted of very basic necessities...job, house, security. Today that lady has everything she could want or need. I took her advice, made myself a list consisting of one thing- "get a job", and low and behold I got myself a job. Now I need to think outside the job. I need to expand the list. Not because I want more shit, mind you. Accumulating stuff makes my skin crawl. I wouldn't go so far as to say I have claustrophobia. Being in small or cramped spaces doesn't freak me out...unless the items in the space keep moving around. My boys make sure every item in every space of every room never...stays...put. That's one of their purposes in life- to make sure that I am always putting things back where they go. The more stuff we acquire, the more I have to put back. So, when I say I want to add to the list...I ain't talking about more crap to fill my house. You could argue that there is one item on my list that comes close to being a want but trust me, it is definitely a need...and OK kind of a want. So, I suppose this is my New Year's Resolution type list...only I don't expect to attain all of these goals within this year.

1. Knit More- This year I got a whopping one teacher present that wasn't candy and it was a good one! Gift certificate to a yarn shop. My tremor makes it impossible to knit but the repetition calms me. I need more shit that calms me. Knitting it is.

2. Learn Math- pretty vague and all encompassing....that's because I need to be better in all areas of Math. No one wants a Math teacher that's a big fucking dumb dumb.

3. Blog- Notice I didn't write "Blog More". That's because I don't blog at all these days. I've written a ton of entries that I haven't published. For some reason I've always felt like I had to polish every entry before I publish it. I'm not writing a fucking novel nor do I have any sponsors so who the fuck cares? Typing is so much easier for me (again, because of the tremor) and it's important for me to reflect on whatever. So, I need to write more. Not writing that's poetic and shit. Just writing. Just to get it out of my head. Incomplete sentences and all;)

4. Buy and USE a God Damn Planner- I have four children. It it ridiculous that I do not utilize a freaking planner to keep all our shit straight. I have a bit of a disorganization issue, I'll admit. That extends to my scheduling abilities. Many a missed appointments. I rock the dry erase wall calendar. Fill that baby up with appointments and play dates and performances and birthdays...then I never look at it once...or the 5 year old erases the entire thing (true story...he was beaming with such pride I couldn't be mad at him).

5. Save for a House- When I got divorced I dreamed big pretty daydreams about how awesome it was going to be to not own a house anymore. No responsibilities. No headaches. If shit breaks, ya just call the landlord. Well, real life didn't turn out to be quite that pretty of a picture. It's actually rather humiliating to have your landlord walk through, what you believed to be, your house as if you're a trespassing slob. We need to not feel that way in our home. No one needs to feel that way...ever. All I want is a simple little house. Nothing fancy...something small, comfy, no granite shit, no stainless steel...just enough room for me and the boys to be happy. Saving money will prove to be tricky since we spend every last dime of my salary every month. Some months we are in the hole. It's possible I will need to get a weekend job. If that's what needs to happen, then that's what I will do. I thought getting a job would be impossible. It wasn't. I thought being financially independent would be impossible. It isn't. I need a house. I want a home. Not gonna happen in one year but I WILL begin saving now, one way or another.

So, there. Not a lengthy unattainable set of goals, really. I accomplished one thing from the list simply by writing this entry. Fuckin' A. Happy New Year.

So, I get home from work yesterday to this email from Pinterest:

"Hi Holly,

 We recently removed one of your pins because it goes against our policies. The pin was from your board "curves, vintage and modern" and it originally came from http://d3oeu2l8qd7s1b.cloudfront.net/286939-1038966-7.jpg. Could you please remove any other pins like this from your account? We don’t allow things that are inappropriate for the general public, like sexually explicit pins, anywhere on Pinterest. We do allow works of art and educational pins, like you might see in a museum or classroom. Could you please delete any other pins that go against our policies?

Thanks for your help,
 Ben & The Pinterest Team"

Yeah.....This is the "sexually explicit" pin they removed:

Dear Team Ben (and person who obviously reported this pin),

1. This IS art.
2. I think it's safe to say this is something I WOULD see in a museum.
3. The female form in and of itself is not inappropriate. It is beautiful and elegant.
4. 99% of what I have on Pinterest boards are repinned directly from Pinterest so no, I will not take anything down. You don't like it? You take it down.
5. Thank you and fuck off. 


Sincerely,
Team Alice


Well, I know I feel better:)

I can't resist pictures of children expressing extreme joy. These three are my favorites. When I'm being stupid and down I look at these and all is better.

Dogs scare the hell out of me but she looks so tickled!

I'm choosing to believe this is a joy moment and not a terrified and scarred for life moment. 

The roller skates and those knees!

In other words, I think too much.

There's this lovely thing called the mean girl syndrome....or I guess you could call it an effect or an illness or a phenomenon. Whatever you call it it seems to repeat generation to generation. It's very interesting to me. I say "interesting" because I've fallen prey to the "mean girls" all throughout my life and although my first reaction is to curl up into the fetal position and cry until my head bursts, the very next inclination I have is one of pity and wonder. Being a magnet for evil doesn't mean I have to let it beat me down. So, why not turn it around and approach it from a scientist's perspective? As a truly great teacher at my school says to his students "Don't get furious, get curious". I love that.

No need to go into what happened and who said what. That part is my burden. Running over and over every situation in my mind to try and determine the root of why someone doesn't particularly care for me to the point of exhaustion is one of my many super powers. Sounds torturous but after days of doing this somehow I eventually find peace and move on. Flooding;)

What it all boils down to..."determining the root of why". Why are these women the way they are? Why is it so important to tear someone down in order to feel awesome about themselves? There are so many different ways to go about feeling awesome without hurting another human being. Also, why are these people so many times characterized as being "leaders"? "Well, she's bossy now but I believe when she's an adult she will be a leader!!!" OK. How about telling that "bossy" girlchild that being a good leader.....fuck, being a good person doesn't involved manipulation? How about explaining to that future leader the concept of integrity and humility and empathy? Or we can simplify it if that's too difficult. How about laying out for them what's right and what's wrong? I'd venture to guess that these adult mean girls didn't have that someone in their lives to spell out any of those concepts and that's where my pity comes in.

A dear friend's daughter recently participated in something called an Instagram Beauty Contest, completely inadvertently, of course. It seemed harmless enough to her. You post pictures of your friends and people vote for the ones that are the prettiest. Each time they vote someone gets eliminated. The person left standing is considered the prettiest. She's way too young to understand the ramifications of this crazy ass game and honestly if I hadn't seen a news report the night before I never would have thought anything of it. It isn't like they were outright calling girls ugly.....but the implication was certainly there. So, being the awesome Momma that she is, my friend explained to her daughter how this game was wrong. On her own volition, her daughter immediately took down the contest.

I think that intervention....that clarification of what's right and what's wrong.....wasn't provided for the adult mean girls in my situation. In fact, calling them "mean girls" isn't right. They aren't mean. They're incomplete. Maybe they weren't taught to be curious enough....to find out why people are different from them.....to celebrate differences and instead of highlighting people's weaknesses, celebrate their strengths. Embrace what each person can bring to the table....don't chip away at what's broken. If you can't get past the broken parts, then for god's sake help them repair what's broken. That's what I would want. That's what I DO want. You see a part of me you don't like.....a part you consider unrefined and broken??? By all means, give me some help to try and build that part up. If it's going to make me a better person....a better Momma...a better teacher...I want what you have to offer.

Seek to think deeper. The curiouser you are, the more easily attainable empathy becomes.