Liars

I was listening to the radio on my ride into work and the DJs were talking about epic lies. They rattled off a few doozies then asked the listeners to call in with lies they had told or had been told. I was blown away by the number of ladies who had guys that had tried to pull the wool over their eyes. Some of the stories made my toenails curl. The scope of the lies got me to thinking about things.

It takes a lot of energy to come up with a lie and keep it going. One lie becomes two and so on until it becomes a full time job to keep up with what has been said. Why not just tell the truth in the first place?

I was the victim of a lie and the sad part was that my gut was trying to tell me something was amiss but I chose to ignore it for a long while. As a teen I had a long term boyfriend who was a chronic cheater. I had countless heartbreaks because of that jerk, but stupidly I kept going back for more. One time, I even had a girl call me and tell me he was cheating on me and she knew that because he was asking her out! She knew he and I were dating and that's why she had the decency to let me know he had been sniffing around her door. He and I broke up once again.

The cheater boyfriend and I went our separate ways and years passed but I always wondered what became of him. I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment. You'd think that if someone treated you like dirt over and over, you'd finally get enough and wash you hands forever of them. And yet, I still wondered about  where he was and what he was doing. Fast forward about a hundred years and I happened to run into this person. I was really excited at first because I figured time and age might have straightened him out a bit. We saw each other a few times and each time I saw him my gut would start yelling at me that something was wrong. I tried asking him if there was anyone special in his life multiple times and he would always deny it. He didn't do anything outright that made me suspicious I just felt sort of funny about him.

After a month or two passed I finally started really hammering him about there being someone else. I just knew that there was a girl he was involved with. He finally admitted to being involved with someone he was totally crazy about. CRAZY about?!?!?!? What the hell? How could he be crazy about her and yet he was seeing me, too? When the cat was out of the bag, I was pissed. I mean, I was so pissed I couldn't even speak. Number one, I knew what it felt like to be the girl being cheated on. And I did NOT want to be involved in any way, shape or form of something like that. Number two, I had asked him repeatedly if there was anyone else and he denied it every time. He had many chances to come clean and he just kept lying and lying and lying.

Needless to say, I dropped his ass like a hot potato. It felt good to slam the door forever and drive away without looking back. My favorite phrase was 'suck it cheater boy'! A few months after I cut off all contact with him, I got a strange e-mail from a girl I didn't know. It turned out to be the girl he was crazy about. As it turns out her gut was speaking to her, too because she looked at his e-mails and found that my address had appeared a lot. She got curious so she contacted me. I am sure that she wanted to hate me for seeing her man but I straightened things out speedy quick. I let her know the date of the very first time I heard from him clear up to the final time he and I spoke. I told her that I accused him of having someone else and of his ardent denials. I told her about every single one of our get togethers - when, where, etc.. Now, there weren't any lurid details to tell her because I never went there with him (guess my gut was yelling louder than I realized) but I wanted her to know EVERYTHING.

The "other" woman seemed like a good person and she didn't deserve to be cheated on the way he was doing to her. I thought back to the time in high school when the brave girl called me to fill me in on that schmuck's indiscretions and I remembered how much I appreciated it. So I decided to pay it forward and let the poor woman who contacted me know what a douche bag she was dealing with. She already knew he had cheated on his wife (with her) and then she found out he was visiting with me as well.

I do not know what became of her - or him for that matter. I hope she's fine. I hope he gets what he deserves. One of these days, all of his lies will catch up with him because he's told so many, I don't see how he could possibly keep them all straight. As a funny side note, a mutual friend of Mr. Cheater and mine were talking a while back. He asked me if I had spoken to the cheater lately and I told him that I found it best to cut off all contact. I didn't tell about his cheating and lying, just that we had lost contact. His response? 'That guy is really effed up something bad."  I didn't need to say anything. It was that obvious.

The moral of the story is that if your gut tries to tell you something - LISTEN. If you think you're being lied to, you probably are. If you yourself think about telling a lie, think again. It's so much easier to tell the truth and maybe have a short time of being uncomfortable than it is to weave a web of lies that probably won't protect you anyway.

The Whisperer

I don't consider myself to be nosy. I'll go out of my way not to be nosy. I'm not usually an eavesdropper either but being in open areas or cubicles (like at the library), makes it hard not to hear what others around me are saying. Usually it's not very hard to tune out the voices of others, but I still hear them. Unless they start whispering. Whispering is like an auto alert to your ears to start paying very close attention.

I conducted a very serious, un-scientific study to find out if the sound of whispering causes the human ear to perk up in an attempt to hear what is being said. Specifically, if what is being said isn't meant for the person who is perking up to hear it. Do secrets make bystanders more curious? Does the nugget of information being whispered become informational gold to the unintended listener? The answer was a resounding YES. All of my research subjects admitted to straining to hear what was being said when whispering commenced. And they were referring to conversations that they were not involved in! They perked up to hear whispering in other people's conversations!  

Maybe it's the break in the cadence and tone of the conversation that gets one's attention. Maybe we're all secretly nosy. Maybe those of us who are mothers are trained to pay closer attention because we're used to listening for our children. (Facat: 9 times out of 10, when little kids get quiet it's because they're into something they shouldn't be.) But why do we tune in even as adults and even when we're not with kids who could be doing something wrong? Maybe it's some magical cave man thing all of us have in us - the fight or flight kind of thing - only this pertains to listening not fighting or flighting.

I am acquainted with a person that I shall heretofore call Sometimes Silent Sally - or SSS for short. SSS is a fairly (never hushes) talkative gal. The two minute 'break and chat' rule is totally lost on her. She'll go on and on and on for 30 minutes if you let her. And talking with her can't really be called a conversation because conversations require more than 1 person conversing and you can't get a word in edge-wise with this gal. For some reason, she feels the need to use whispers to emphasize certain sections of her monologue. They're not necessarily vital portions of the story, either. Maybe it's an unconscious effort on her part to keep the listener's attention (because she's been droning on for so long). Inevitably, I'm forced to ask her to repeat something because she's freaking whispering! Why?????

Sometimes, talking softly is mysterious and alluring but in this case? NOPE! I mean, why whisper about what kind of sandwich you're planning to order? Who gives a freaking frack? I don't! In case you think I'm being overly annoyable, let me try to demonstrate a typical conversation with SSS:

SSS: Hey girl, how's it going?

Me: great, what's up?

SSS: Well, I was just passing through the office on my way to the bathroom and I saw you sitting at your cube.

Me: Oh, yeah, well I'm here allrighty.

SSS: Well, I figured I'd go to the library after work because it's an open floorplan and I can talk out loud and whisper because you know, the librarians pull out their cat-O-9-tails on people when they try to reshelve books themselves.  And it's good fun and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah (blah until I pass out from annoyance).

You see? Randomness, I tell you!!! Meanwhile, the people that were in my un-scientific study are straining their ears to hear what the whispered phrases were. I don't want to be rude and I'm not meaning to talk badly about SSS behind her back - I'm just stating the facts. Maybe the next time someone like SSS starts whispering I should just plug my ears and state that I'm not into secrets because I can't keep my mouth shut. I wonder if that would work?

Today is another day




This is such an epic picture because I look like such a dork, I decided to use it again!

  I posted the other day about feeling down and blue and my amazing ability to hide my true feelings and sure enough, today is another day. The malaise and sadness blew the hell on outta here and I'm back to my silly, smiling self. Hooray! I kicked my funky mood's ass! I pulled a Ralph Kramden and bang, zoom, to the moon with all that bad shit, yo!

The mind is a powerful machine and I'm using all 35 brain cells to the fullest extent. Those, plus a tall glass of something with a lot of vodka. I'm going to take today and spew love, flowers, unicorns and happiness! I'm even gonna poot flowers and love!!!!

I'm gonna be freakin' SUPERWOMAN, yo!

For most of my adult life - wait, scratch that...for most of my life since I've been above the age of 21 (I'll never be a real adult), I have tried to face my fears head on. I figure the best way to get over something is to just DO IT. Then, you either get over whatever it was you were afraid of, you master something, or you end up killing yourself trying to master it. I'm still kicking so I survived some of my fears that were a little dangerous.

Case in point...I was fearful of heights so I went parachuting. Being 10,000 feet up in the air and stepping out of a moving airplane sort of kicks fear's ass in the FACE! Power to me, people!! I'm awesome!!! That's how I roll.

About people fears: I've always used the old saying about how even the most powerful person in the world puts their pants on one leg at a time, so they are not to be feared but somewhere along the line in the last 4-5 years I've kind of started being a...wimp in this department. I don't know if going through a divorce beat me down (although, you'd think it would have made me feel stronger) or what, but I seriously slowed down facing my fears.

FOR EXAMPLES: I wrote previously about a dude (who is ridiculously hawt) who does business with my office and how I can't even speak to him because I'm afraid my huge, gaping catfish ass mouth is going to spew out something asinine and he'll think I'm a total dweeb. So instead, I gawk at him from afar and hide whenever he passes my cube because I'm afraid of having to speak to him (and I look like a total dweeb).

The grandson of the founder of the company I work for rides the elevator like all the rest of us working schlubs yet, I never greet him like I do everyone else because he's just so far up the food chain. Like, he enjoys riding the elevator in total silence while everyone cowers on the opposite side of that itty bitty box. NOT! It's silliness I tell you!!!

For 2013 I have decided to resume punching my fears right in the face and I will simply get over my wimpy, trembling, delusional self. I'm gonna be freakin' SUPERWOMAN, yo! And yes, I'm going to use the word "YO" because I've been watching back to back episodes of Breaking Bad and Jesse always uses the word "YO" and it's really rubbed off on me in a big way. He also calls everyone "bitch" but it just doesn't work so well for me when I say it. I don't care if I'm a 49 year old girl who uses a phrase that 20-somethings use. I like "YO" and I'm damn well going to use it, YO! See, I kicked the fear of using the word "yo" in the face! DAMN, I'M BAD!!! (In a good way)

So what have I done so far with my fears? Well, the dude that is so freaking hawt (that calls on our office) and I wound up on the same elevator the other day. Just the two of us. And I made myself strike up and carry on a conversation with him. I looked him right in the eye the entire time. I have no clue what we spoke about because I was too busy quaking in my boots and begging my mouth not to say something really stupid but I DID IT. And today, I wound up in the elevator (maybe the elevator is my new place to conquer my fears) with the grandson of the founder of the company I work for. I made myself look him right in the eye and greet him and make small talk while all of the other (fearful) people in the elevator cowered on the side farthest from him.

Most of my victories so far have taken place in an elevator but the year is young. Each time I conquer something I fear, I feel a little bit stronger so maybe I'll be able to face something scary - oh, let's say...outside! If I'm going to teach my kidlets to be strong, I have to be a good role model. So I better start whittling away at my long list of fears. There are plenty of fears to conquer so with each victory I will feel and act stronger. Like I said, I'm gonna be freakin' SUPERWOMAN YO!

THAT particular post is true!

Have you seen the post that pops up randomly on Facebook that says something to the effect of "Have you ever known someone with a disease/syndrome/illness that is hidden away on the inside? The person looks fine on the outside but they're silently screaming inside." Well, I'm one of those people. To everyone around me I look fine. I don't have use awkward braces, I don't look sick, I can walk upright on my own power, I'm not bald...you get my drift.  I also try very very hard to keep a positive, upbeat aura about me. I mean, complaining that I feel badly isn't going to accomplish anything! I hate complainers. They're the Debbie Downers of the world that you struggle to run away from because they're so dang miserable. You will never catch me complaining. I'll be flatlining before I admit that I feel pretty badly.

Those closest to me have to wheedle and pry to find how I'm really feeling but every once in a blue moon I am knocked down by the sheer weight of feeling poorly and I'm always surprised. I'm so used to having something hurt it doesn't phase me too much. But when everything hurts at the same time I feel like I become a 3 headed pity party monster. It's really hard to put on my happy face. I secretly want to cry and moan and writhe and lash out in anger because feeling shitty has won and my facade of cheerfulness has slipped away.

I'm a sore loser that way. Sometimes, when someone asks me how I'm doing, I wish I had the nerve to tell them that I feel totally shitty and to cry openly. I read in Cosmopolitan or Vogue or some other girly magazine, that it's good for a person to wallow in their own personal pity once in a while. Clear out the bad vibe toxins and all that crap. All I know is as soon as I start wallowing, I bitch slap myself and tell myself to snap out of it. There are people out there who are far worse off than I am. I'm on the right side of the dirt, yo! Then, I slowly mop up the snot and tears and uncurl myself from the fetal position and find something that makes me smile and makes me grateful to be as well off as I am. But dang it - right now all I want to do is wallow and cry. And that's not acceptable. Someone bitch slap me! I need it today.



Lucille takes a trip...

My lovin' pup, Lucille is such a sweet thing. She's full of energy and runs like the wind. When she's not with us in the woods, she's at our city casa and her yard isn't overly large. Not large enough to run full out if she wants to. And she loooooooves to run wide open. So when we take her to the woods one of the first things she does is head for the pond (which is usually empty) and makes about 5 laps around the bank as fast as she can. She's practically a blur!

It's hilarious to watch, and she looks like she's having so much fun. The joy on her face makes me happy. The weather here in Texas has been sort of crazy. It's been cold then warm then cold again, and we've had some fairly big rainstorms. When you have a house in the woods where you have to travel down a dirt road to get to it, rains can put a hold on your travel plans. If a 4 wheel drive vehicle isn't available, you either have to walk in or wait until the road dries up. Long story short, Lucille hasn't been able to run and play in the woods much lately.

I've felt kind of sorry for the pup since she's been cooped up in a small-ish yard in the city so I decided to take her to a local dog park to let her work off a little energy. I had never been to a dog park and I know Lucille hasn't so we both approached it with some trepidation. Simply getting from the parking lot to the play area took a while. There were thousands - millions of strange dog pee and poop residues for her to smell. Her nose was in scent overload! I noticed that she had her tail tucked under her so far, it was rubbing her tummy. I never thought about her being nervous but was she ever! I almost had to drag her inside the enclosure.

Once inside, I removed her leash and I assumed that she'd just take off and start playing but that wasn't the case at all. She cowered and hid behind me and generally tried her level best to make herself invisible.

The poor girl looked miserable. Between being assaulted with more scents than her nose could handle, being in a totally unfamiliar place and being around 50 dogs she didn't know, she was just lost. I decided to play it cool and simply follow her around to see what she would do and for a good 45 minutes all she did was sniff around. I got tired of standing so I found a park bench and sat down which seemed to please her. She could hide behind the bench and take everything in on her own time frame.

Eventually, Lucille came out of hiding and ventured into the middle of the field but it was funny - whenever another dog would run up to her and try to play she made a beeline for me. She picked out a dog to make friends with which just happened to be a GREAT DANE. She had to pick the biggest freakin' dog in the whole dog park! As the Dane looked down upon Lucille, she decided to raise a paw and put it on my pooch which almost flattened her. I bet that Great Dane weighed 100 pounds easily and Lucille weighs about 45 so there was quite a difference. The two dogs played briefly but I was concerned about Lucy getting pounded by the bigger dog, even if they were playing.

Our trip to the dog park lasted almost 2 hours and I have to admit that I can't wait to go again. I think Lucille will be more comfortable and I know that seeing all those dogs running, playing, barking and acting goofy will just make my heart sing. There is absolutely no way you can be in a funk when you go to a dog park. The pups are so joyous it radiates off of them. And you get to meet lots of nice people, too. It's perfect because everyone is happy. What a novel thought! Happy dogs, happy people, nice park...it's wonderful. Even if you don't have a dog of your own, borrow one or go to the dog park just because you can. I promise that you'll walk away feeling peaceful and happy.

The voices in my head are loud today



(Image found via Google on carolinamuscle.hubpages.com)


Today is Valentines day. I'm supposed to be filled with lovey dovey thoughts but instead, my brain is shouting out obscenities at everyone in close proximity. I had the unfortunate "pleasure"  of being invited to a 2 hour meeting. By invited, I mean I had to attend. The first 30 minutes of the meeting held my attention but then my ADD/ADHD/OCD/COD/MAD/PCP tendencies kicked in and things happening around me started to tick me off.

First off, there was the girl who thinks the entire population of the world is alive to serve her. She asked me to do something for her (for the one hundred millionth time) and I promptly developed severe hearing loss. Yep, I looked at her and completely ignored her request. Then, there was the dude behind me who breathed through his mouth instead of his nose for the entire two hours! Nostrils are on the face for a REASON!!! Use them, dude! But no, I got to listen to him breathe like a Neanderthal, practically down the back of my neck. He also texted the entire time so I got to listen to a constant stream of tippy tapping. Another person had bad breath that wafted through the room.

People, do you know how many things can bother you when you're stuck in a room of 60 people for two hours? Lots! I was a ticket stamped, daylong rider on the crazy train, yo! I won't tell you all of the things that caused horribly curse inducing thoughts to rampage my brain during the meeting (fuzzy power point images, uneven window treatments, a flickering fluorescent light bulb, uncomfortable chairs) because the list would be too long. Suffice it to say that as soon as the meeting broke, I was out of my chair and hauling ass to the elevators to get away. By the way...I had to ride the elevator down with the mouth breather. Greeeaaaaaattttttttt.

It's kind of scary because I've been having a running dialogue in my head of all the stuff I want to say to people that have annoyed me. And let me tell ya, it's noisy in there! I don't have any reason to be so annoyed. My Manchild presented me with a beautiful bunch of roses and a sweet, mushy card. Beautiful flowers are on display all around the office and the scent is wonderful. Everyone looks very festive wearing red. The sun is shining and it's a beautiful day. I simply have hate words towards people that annoy me overriding my pleasant thoughts. I'm sure it will pass but I wish to hell it would hurry up and move on outta here. It could if that asshole in front of me, yakking on their cell phone who has NO consideration for others around them would pull their head out of their ass and move out of the way!

We don't have little wimpy camp fires!

We don't have little camp fires at the little house in the woods. We have BIG camp fires! The bigger the better. We have the kind of fires that leave the fire pit smoldering the next day. I've provided a picture of the kindling we use to get things started so you can get a feel of how we like to do things.

Look at that pretty kindling. Can you imagine how beautiful the fire will be?



Look at that bad boy burn. All it took was one of my handy dandy fire starters and things were roaring in no time. By the way...if you like having fires I have a GREAT little thing I make that's free and super easy to do. Simply take an empty egg carton, save your dryer lint and stuff it into the egg cups fairly densely, melt all of your old candles and drizzle the wax over the lint until it's fairly soaked through and through, and voila! Cut up the little egg cups and and you'll have 12 great fire bombs to use the next time you want a roaring fire in no time at all. I used 2 fire bombs to get this bad boy burning.

Once the initial sticks were going, we put about 8 logs on it and had a fire that burned for about 12 hours. And I'm not talking about some namby pamby fire either. No, I like the flames big and bold and that's how it was.

I love the cabin in the woods because I can have a fire whenever I want to and I have all the wood I'll ever need. Heck, all I have to do is drive the 4 wheeler down the road and load up as much stuff as I can lift. It's great. It's fire nirvana. It's fun. Because my name is Elizabeth and I'm a firebug.

I think that my beloved sweet Lucille pup has picked up a bad habit from Manchild and I. Yep, she is becoming a cigarette dependent dog. Don't let that sweet face fool you. I know, she's looking at us like "What? What could I possibly do wrong?" But as many of you know only too well, dogs do naughty things then look at you with their big, innocent puppy eyes and melt your heart and remove any traces of anger you might have.

 

It all started a while back when Manchild and I were putzing around the little cabin in the woods and when it came time for a ciggy break, they were nowhere to be found. We looked high and low then noticed that Lucille was sprawled out in the front yard, very intently inspecting something. When we went to see what she had found, we found a mangled pack of cigarettes. Yup, our hound and developed a taste for tobacco.

Thankfully, Lucille had not managed to find a lighter and fire up but she did manage to open the package in her own special way. Maybe she was helping us quit our bad habit by poking holes in all of our smokes. I mean, we know we need to stop - it's just really hard to do. How thoughtful of her. But I need to impress upon her the importance of not adopting our bad habit. Dogs smoking just doesn't look cool and it's not healthy.