In the Name of Women

Bitch . Slut. Whore. Nag. Cunt.

These are the words carelessly aimed at a woman. Although many have disagreed with me on this point, I emphatically believe them to be gender specific.; Therefore, the obvious sign of a male-chauvinist, to say the least. I have become so used to this particular brand of abuse that I am seldom surprised or unprepared for this attack. That said the lack of response from anyone hearing it is forever appalling. Where are those men that understand a woman is to be respected? Where are their voices amongst the throng of men that know not what they do when throwing these grenades.

Let us examine the argument that these words can be directed at men as well. These are the terms that are meant to effeminate a man. It is the way to tell a man he is like a woman and less manly. Need I say more?

Everyone has a woman in their life. We are the mothers that birthed you. We are the sisters that looked up to you. We are the daughters seeking your guidance. No life is untouched by one. When this act is perpetuated…when this slang is slung, the offender disgraces every woman they know or will ever. As well, they have lowered the standards as to what is and is not acceptable. Furthering this act to go unnoticed, making everyone just a little less sensitive to this travesty.

Trust me these words sting but when these bullets come from those of another women…words fail me. I believe this ever-growing phenomenon began with the feminist movement of the 60s. I am by no means saying that that wasn’t an important step in the evolution of females. What I am saying is that too many women overcompensated and forgot what it was to be a woman in their goal to show men they could be, like them. In my humble opinion, the mistake was made that we believed the bullshit men spewed of our natures being negative: “women are weak, soft, emotional and irrational” In order to combat this we became men! They left their feminity aside in order to fight back. Now here we are today trying so hard to be equal to men, STILL, by disavowing our own gender. Besides all signs of softness lacking in themselves, the basic bond…pride of sisterhood is fading fast, if not gone.

The problem is I don’t know the solution. How can I, and those of my ilk, convince others that it is okay to be a woman. How can I assure a man that we pose no threat merely because we are different?  

Facebook Fail?

I only have _____ friends. I waited almost a whole month expecting for the Facebook Gods to smile upon me with random friends from days of yore—FAIL. I changed my status update fairly often as per the FB (aren’t I cool for knowing that acronym?) protocol with no, to very few comments—FAIL. Then it happened…the inevitable that had delayed me joining FB to begin with; my privacy was breached! The calm before the storm arrived in an email. It so innocently read, “You have been tagged”. I can’t express to you how my heart raced. I began scouring all my friends photos, hunting for this culprit. My results were more than I could bear. I found not only one person invading my protocol but two. 

My next plan of action was to completely privatize my profile. It turns out the only option is to control YOUR pictures on YOUR page, not others. Of course these “friends” received a message from me. It was very difficult to control my “DUH” response when advising them that my permission should be sought before pictures of ME were to be publicized.  I have yet to get a response from them.

Facebook opened: November 28, 2010

Facebook Closed:  December 15, 2010

PS, to throw salt on my already damaged soul, turns out you can’t actually delete FB, merely deactivate it. Evil, evil, evil incarnate…I’m just sayin’

The Recipe

Armastama- Estonian
AMOR - Spanish
AMOUR- French
LIEBE- German
LIEFDE-Dutch

Duram - Farsi

sarane ( korean )

cinta in Indonesian

Love. "Love makes the world go round" "All you need is love" "What the world needs now is love, sweet love"

These things exemplify love to some social plateau we should all aim for.  They spoon feed the stories of that elusive true love or finding “the one”.  What happens when you find that person that made your heart go pitter patter though? What then? When the music stops playing every time they enter the room, who prepares you for that reality?

It wasn’t until I was well into my twenties that I stopped believing in fairy tales.  That wasn’t the devastating part; it was when I was still chasing the rainbows that my heart hurt. I used to wait for my white knight to ride up on his stead and rescue me from a life of mere mediocrity. I looked for him everywhere too. Whenever my heart began beating out of its chest at the sight of some male looking at me just so, I thought,”Yep, he’s the one”.  If I craved a mans’ company I thought, “He is the one I am meant to spend forever with”.  You can well imagine none of those men made that journey. Inevitably, the looks he gave me began to wander to other women or become dulled by routine.  The craving was replaced by a feeling of suffocation. The shiny knight turned out to be another boy far away from knighthood, much less manhood and his stead was his mother's Buick he borrowed. PS, if you haven’t already put two and two together, these white knights were really just bad boys with smooth lines and shiny mirrors.

Now you may sense that I am bitter but it’s not quite.If you'd like to know why that isn't the case, read on. It was a shattering of childhood fantasies, sure, and that would be earth shaking had it not been replaced by something to grow on. I realized that that draw towards “those” men were my need for punishment that dwells within us all. Subconsciously, it is the level at which we think we deserve to be treated. Drama…that is what I craved to somehow make my life seem more exciting. Whether bad or worse that abuse fulfilled a need in me.

Maybe you’d like to know what that thing was that I learned (besides the fact that those boys were no happily ever after). It can all be found in this one statement: Love is NOT enough! I had believed that love was this rare happening that must be first snatched up upon feeling. Guess what…FAIL. Love is not the basis of a good relationship. Yes, I said it, let me repeat, Love is not the basis of a good relationship. Love is easy. Loving someone is a happy accumulation of moments. Love is a flighty fancy that comes and goes in moods. That said, love is important of course but it is not the foundation on which you should build your home. There are several components that should be contained in that concrete base in which you build your love upon. Trust, honesty, as in self-honesty to start with, a firm sense of companionship with plenty of things in common to build upon are just a few of the necessities of a balanced relationship. There must be similar morals/values, goals and ambitions. Here comes a doozy: there needs to be a deficit that the other person exceeds at. A tug of sorts will keep the interest in the maintenance involved. Bottom line once you find all these components it still isn’t smooth sailing…its work! Plain and simple you must remind yourself every freaking day that this is the person that you wish to build your life with no matter what changes or situations occur. 

Blurp

I have a cold and I want to be babied. Yep, I know how irrational it is but nevertheless...there it is! PS, it must be a sign of how bad the cold is because I'm thinking about actually joining Facebook. Maybe I'll get better before the madness gets worse.

HELP ME

Boys & Their Toys

Anyone that knows me knows I am a hardcore PS3gamer! With that come boys. Although, women are beginning to get a foothold in the gaming industry it is still dominated by the male species. Therefore, I am forced to be around them, play with and against them and naturally, they become my friends. I have a unique situation in that, because most of them begin to see me as one of the boys and I get to see their world. Umm…it is NOT a pretty sight!

Whew…

·         the cussing

·         the fussing

·          the arguing with one another

·         The graphic jokes and comments

Trust me ladies, you may not recover from one of these sessions. However, I have an investment in it because to game is to breathe. I have quite the group too. The “leaders” and I have all known one another going on four years now. What an odd relationship we have! We all have one another’s home phone numbers and such. We know a lot about each other’s real lives as well. Yet, generally we only meet up online, on the game!

In case, I do have any lady viewers I need to mention that yes, this journey to boydome is indeed a rocky road. I still get the occasional lude remark. It has taken me quite some time to get even this status. In the beginning I am a target of boyhood fantasies: A GIRL GAMER!! Omg! Haha As if I am a rare species just discovered. At one time or another, every guy in my group has hit on me or made a real effort to find romance. I recognize it as the hollow phase that it is now, but yes, its flattering before you realize that.

Now that that story is told, let me get to the root of my blog. I play war games mostly, specifically, the fabulous-all-consuming Call of Duty series! My boys and I met up in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare back in 2007 on the brand new Playstation 3 system. Then most of us went to Call of Duty: World at War, then came Call of Duty: Modern Warfare2 and currently we are in Call of Duty: Black Ops. Through all of these games there are good points to each game and bad. The one that stands true through all of them is the cheating, mods and server issues that go on.  A game can be compromised in any of these ways and it is almost impossible to find out which and definitely impossible to solve said problem. So tell me why they gripe? Haha  Yep this whole blog was to express my frustration with WHINY boys! Hahaha

To my boys: Grow some ya’ll and stop being a girl!

THE End

Hear, See, Speak No Evil...REALLY??!!!

Let me begin by saying this blog will be a doozy. I have neglected my blogspot for a bit and have so many topics running through my head that I have decided to collaborate at least three of them here. That was my warning that you should have a cup of coffee or some form of caffeine in your hand to continue on.

I thought censorship was a thing of the past personally. However, recent events seem to say differently. Let’s begin this circus of media with the Bill O’Reilly/The View Incident. Those of you that live under a rock and didn’t hear about it, I will recap. Bill O’Reilly, radical conservative with his own talk show was a guest on The View discussing several issues heatedly. It was when he began the topic on the 9/11 memorial—MOSQUE that things became overly so. He was explaining that the mosque being built there was, “inappropriate”. He even stated statistics that 70% of all Americans do not want the mosque to be built there. Joy Behar, specifically found this fact to be exaggerated and began to become more elevated in her tone. All hell let loose when Mr. O’Reilly states, “Muslims killed us on 9/11”. He went on to say that even our President Obama would not give full reason for his support. Obama’s only comment was to the concept of “religious freedom” and how we all equally had the right to express ourselves. He specifically refused to comment on the “wisdom” of said project. I believe this was a very thorough stating of facts on Mr. O’Reilly’s part but Joy Behar and Whoopie Goldberg decided they could not tolerate Mr. O’Reilly’s right to free speech.

Yes, he could have put it more gently. Yes, he could have specified that these are radical/extremists/zealots or the age-old terrorists. Those bandaids would not change the fact that the men responsible for 9/11, in so much that we know are indeed calling themselves Muslim. I’m sorry but he was not wrong! The only thing Bill O’Reilly did wrong was he forgot to kowtow to the bleeding heart politically correct liberals that would have us call a black pot off brown, rather than black so as to not hurt anyone or organization’s feelings.

The next incident, which was supported by Mr. O’Reilly as well, occurred when Juan Williams of NPR in an interview on television said, “When I get on a plane…and people are in Muslim garb and I think they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.” Mr. Williams was fired as a result. Susan Williams defends this action by saying Mr. William’s wrongdoing was that he, as a NPR news analyst gave his opinion and should not have. What a ludicrous statement! Anyone speaking in a public medium, discussing issues …well, it’s all about opinions. NPR doesn’t offer up mere facts, nor does any one network. We all know that NPR is the right wing, as Fox News is the radical left respectively. Those directional slants are not born of facts but rather different and individualistic perspectives, ie…opinions!

Yes, Mr. Williams could have kept this to himself. He could have dared not utter what is on (and this is my opinion ONLY) a huge percentage of Americans minds and hearts when they board planes in the exact fashion, not to mention most, if not all public avenues. I can assure you that I have a mild sense of panic and unease assault me every time I see a woman or child in a burka. It takes great restraint on my part to remember that this is a single human being, not representative, necessarily, of the radical views that my mind perceives the burka states.

If it was not already evident let me now please make it clear: The mosque should not be built on the burial grounds of so many Americans!! In this case, the actual truth of whom or who did not cause 9/11 is not as important as the fact that most of us believe a Muslim faction carried out this atrocity. The mosque being built there would then be like patting them on the back of their heads in a congratulatory manner. It is extremely insensitive to all those families left behind to endure this reminder of who is responsible for the loss of their loved ones. Yes, Mr. O’Reilly, it IS indeed inappropriate, I agree. As for President Obama’s place in this is another matter. I understand on one hand that he is playing the diplomat by stating that this is an allowance that defines American freedom. I think in a whole other manner he means this to extend a hand of friendship to the many Muslim-Americans that are increasing our population every day; It’s politics! That said, I can’t help but be disappointed that our president risks heart and compassion for his people in order to walk that fine politically correct line. If ever there was a time to sway that line it should be whilst considering anything that will affect the spot or survivors of the worst ever recorded event in the United States of American history. 

Strength

I am a woman in a man's world. Perhaps we can all claim this but my life, particularly is dominated by men. My best friend is male, and in actuality several good friends are male. I live in the gaming world which is dominated by men as well. I heard some woman just 'sigh' but let me assure you this is no easy task. Follow along with me and you will see.

For a long time I have fought the traditional side of my nature that believes in gender roles because of the perceptions that other have on that concept. When I say that a man should lead the woman, automatically it is assumed that the woman cannot lead herself. It's as if the ability to choose is somehow moot in this circumstance. Due to this misconception I overcompensated by becoming the ferocious woman of the millennium. Much like the hippies of the 60/70s, I became a woman so bent on defining myself as an individual that I lost a part of my womanhood. In fact, ,many of my male friends dubbed me a man eater/hater because I had become so obsessed with proving that I was an independent woman and needed no one, much less a man in my life. I am here to right that wrong today.

"Men are strong"."Women are soft and fragile". I've been working under this guise for some time now. We, women take on so many roles: We are the mothers that never falter; We are daughters that always love; We are friends that will be there for one another; We are wives that 'allow' our husbands to be the king of their castles; We are the caregivers in most everyones lives, but often not our own! None of these roles are invalid at all. What is the problem is that before you become the super mom, wife, daughter or friend you  must become 'you'! I was convinced to be a true woman you must make sure that you don't overshadow a man--pathetic, right? Yes, is the answer. I am stronger than that. Initially, my point was being around all these men helped convince me that I was a damsel in need of rescuing. Luckily, they also had the opposite effect... In my constant quest for equality and value in their lives I have found my inner strength. I realize that my ability to do and become anyone I desire rests in my hands, and mine alone. There is my strength! That is my power; not my ability to speak softly, be sexy or appear inept. This information is a beautiful part of my growth. It's new and for all of you that already knew this, I applaud you. 

I might be breaking a lot of illusions for many people but most importantly myself because I realize that I can be whoever I want to, out loud, no matter if you agree or not.  I hope you are all prepared but if not...let this beautiful poem from the incredible Maya Angelou explain and resestablish the message I wish to share with you:

Still I Rise You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops. Weakened by my soulful cries. Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own back yard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise. Slavery comes in many forms, including the chains that are  self-inflicted--Catherine Ellen Ballinger

Time, lines and the drum

There is some quote about time marching on, whether we like it or not. This is a fact we all must face eventually. Then again, if you pay attention you will hear those drums throughout your life.

My eighteen year-old son told me that he feels bored with this life…thud! My grandparent’s health is deteriorating fast …thud! I looked in the mirror this morning and saw my first wrinkle beginning..thud! thud! Each time that sound is heard our hearts skip a beat. It’s a change in our awareness of life and it leaves its mark. When these moments happen I suppose you have two choices on how to deal. One, you allow that fear to stay in your life…you slow down, stop taking chances and give in to the inevitabilities as you see them now. The other choice is to embrace this as a milestone. It is a marker that we have come so far in life. It is the sign that you have these choices: to move forward in this adventure or find your comfort zone and stay there for the rest of your life. Let me be clear that either one is acceptable…this is YOUR life!

No one is immune to these drums; they merely thud at different intervals for different people. Some of us die a little when we hit the big 3 0, while others are happy to have arrived.  One of the most famous markers is that “mid-life” crisis we hear so much about from men. It generally happens around 50 and can severely cripple a life. Sometimes men begin seeking younger women or sports cars to stop the drums. Women begin questioning their looks and start talking about having “work” done on it to deny the process.

Yes, I feel these fears. I even can confess to allowing it to halt my growth a time or two but in the end I endure, we will endure. Those lines on my face are the stories of my life, each one documents a time in my line. The big 4 0 will be coming soon and I am sure to feel proud that I made it this far. Things will begin to sag, lines will spread and parts of my life will slow down. I strive and will continue to embrace this journey. After all, the end is really just the beginning. 

Words like sticks and stones

This is Karen Alloy. She has been running a Vlog  for many years now that I follow. This is the first time I felt it very important to share one. Her vlog is about suicides due to bullying, and cyber bullying. Due to my recent bout with a stalker I watch this video with a deeper level of understanding. Please understand that the sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me is no longer true. In this day and age, we have reputations and social status that dictates our lives. It can be manipulated to do harm or good. Be responsible when you read, comment or leave messages for someone next time you are online. 

Reason #101 I will NOT goto Facebook!

Love's Ghosts

I have loved and been loved. However, ask that of certain individuals and they will disagree. There is an argument about love, at least amongst my circle of friends. This alternative view states that if the "loved" one is no longer in your life then it must have not been love. Let me be perfectly clear and repeat, I have heard the opinion expressed by more than one person that if your romantic partner is no longer that then love never existed. I cannot give any further explanation of this opinion because I find it to be a ludicrous idea. I'm surprised I got this far into my blog before making my opposition more evident. Before I begin my rant, let me issue this disclaimer genuinely: Every one is allowed their own opinion. When I labeled that opinion as ludicrous and as I go on to expel upon how avidly I disagree, that is not attack on any person, but the concept of the idea.

I have loved and been loved! Each individual that has come into my life, in a romantic way, have a piece of my heart that never dies. Even my ex-husband, whom I have no love for, had a place there. At one point he knew my love and loved me. That does not disappear because we ended our life together. Love is hardly this solitary event, rather it is cumulative moments. Even in a successful marriage of length, they will tell you there are times when the love has ebbed and when it resurges once more; that might even be the secret to understanding marriage. I can assure you that those moments when the love is less, does not mean it is gone. Love is not always meant to last forever, in fact, that is more of a rarity than the rule.

There is one piece of supporting evidence to this wayward thought that I might concede with but even that has a place in my argument. The idea that if it is truly unconditional love, the optimal kind, then it will never disappear. First of all, that is almost an inhuman thing to ask. It takes a person of great discipline, understanding...I would go so far as to say training to achieve this feat. Unconditional love, were it ever present, states that no matter the other person's behavior or acts a love will abide. However, even in this it does not state that a life together will be feasible. Using this definition and example of love, I believe the fact that you are not together can still mean the love is untainted.

Furthermore, when there is a loss...a breakup, separation or divorce the mourning process that proceeds is tantamount to proof of love. The fact that this person still lives but not with or near your life is an awesome emotion that can surely not be diminished because of its past tense status. As my friend stated to me just now, "That person isn't dead but the entity you were together is. You must mourn something that is actually not gone". I really couldn't have said it better. Out of sight, does not equal out of heart!