Tag Archives: schadenfreude

SMART notso

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So, I'm taking a class about management this semester.

It was a requirement and it fills some hours, so whatever, yo.

This week has been kind of lax on assignments in my classes, so last night I got down to some of the first work in a bit. My assignment was about goals.

Specifically, I was to write about a time that I had focused on a set, specific goal and succeeded. No problem, right? No big deal.

Except it was. It is.

I didn't have an answer. Not at all. I thought and thought and came up completely at a loss. There was no time I'd worked and lost ten pounds to fit in a dress, no time I'd trained and slaved and crossed a finish line or worked by Lincolnian candlelight to finish a task. I mean, I finished high school, but seeing as how I'm not the subject of a premature-motherhood reality show, that doesn't really stand out.

I seriously felt like a one hundred and heirbferlcdnefity pound pile of marshmallow fluff.

Is everyone this inept? Is something missing inside me, some sort of drive? Is there a pill I can take that will make me focus and make me successful?

Does it always have to be like this?

 

This is why I think church kind of sucks

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This past Sunday, we the Steens decided to go on a small road trip. We needed to go to Five Guys, Target, etc.

 

So we went, after convincing my Mom to loan us her car (we take her car on trips like that because it gets good gas mileage and is always clean).

 

In my mom’s car, I found a copy of a recent bulletin from her church. While I was somewhat afraid that my blaspheming fingers might cause it to burst into flame, I looked over it. 

 

Josh noticed the blurb pictured below, and he observed that the Brittany Settle mentioned would have been in school with our friend Marty.

 

So I did some research. Because I’m a trouble stirrer.

 

In 1991, Brittany Settle was indeed given an assignment for a term paper. The teacher was clear in her terms: pick whatever you want to write about, get it approved, and then write about it.

 

So Brittany chose her topic. She chose the topic of “drama,” which I can only assume meant things like traveling troupes and Globe Theatre and the like.

 

Then, for whatever reason, she changed her mind. She decided to write about Jesus instead. I can only imagine the reasoning. Maybe she thought it would be easier, maybe she knew she had a good paper in her brain, bred from years of Bible verses and Sunday School.

 

She decided to change topics and she wrote what I’m sure was an excellent paper. 

 

However, she never got the change approved. She didn’t give her teacher any heads up at all, and so when she turned in what was supposed to be a paper about actors and dramatics and it was instead about Jesus, she failed.

 

It’s a lesson I learned in about the fifth grade – you don’t follow directions, you fail your shit.

 

The fact that the situation then escalated to court dates and appearances on church bulletins two decades later is just a little ridiculous.

 

 

 

Untitled because I can

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This week is drawing to a close and oh my GOD can you believe it’s December? That is just crazy. Really, insane.
I mean December is for Christmas and holidays and Hanukah and Kwanzaa.

Max asked me one year if we could celebrate Kwanzaa. However I wasn’t really sure what all that entailed so I told him we could have a menorah and that seemed to appease him.

I generally despise Christmas.

I love giving gifts, it’s one of my favorite things in the world. I just don’t like giving gifts on a strained budget. I want to buy everyone the iPads and iPhones and xboxes they want and I want to watch their faces light up because they got a kickass present from someone who loves them. Me.

I just can’t do that yet. Maybe one day.

Oh, and there’s some exciting happenings with school stuff, maybe I’ll be able to fill you in soon. Yeee!

I am out of sorts with the weather. I love the cooler, but it’s moving a little too quickly into bitter ass cold. And that’s not cool.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Lucy has a permanent marker.

F@&$ Fantasy Football

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Alright, I admit it. Fantasy football takes a shitload of knowledge and intuition that I just do not possess.

Initially I thought that it would be good for me. I thought hey, football will be on in this house all winter anyway, this is a great way to give me incentive to get involved. To learn. Broaden my horizons and have some healthy competition.

Yeah, no, that’s not what has happened at all.

I knew when we did our fantasy draft that I was a little out of my element. Like I said before, I picked Mark Ingram because of those MASSIVE. ARMS. The rest of my team I picked up based on names I knew and what the little Yahoo! drop box said about a player during the draft.

Which explains how I ended up with Terrell Owens, who is I think retired now, and a bunch of other players that I don’t even know enough about to know which to point out as the worst.

This is not my game.

And what’s worse, instead of being driven to care and watch the games and tweak my team for any given week, I think about how much knitting I could be doing.

Pathetic much?

There should be a similar passive point based game for things like American Idol, or The Bachelor. THAT I could get behind and totally know what was up.

Is that contributing to weak women stereotypes? I hope not. That isn’t my intention.

It’s just…I don’t know. I don’t understand the rules of football well enough, much less which player threw to who and who is due to have a comeback this week as opposed to sucking it up and losing me points last week.

So I sit. Emphatically at the bottom of the league pile. Because not only do I not know what to do, I don’t really even care.

For every sprinkle I find I shall kill you

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Perhaps going off my meds next month isn’t the greatest plan.

My first day of schooling went approximately as I expected.

There was so much.
So much.

I kept telling Josh we had to be calm, scheduled, and patient. Not to try and do everything at once, and then I ate my words because I was frazzled and scattered.

I swear I’m not going to talk about school and stress and being frustrated every day until forever.

But I kind of think I’ve grown some dumb in the last ten years.

I finished, though. I did all the assignments for the subjects I’d appointed for the day. I read and I quizzed and I GREW VIRTUAL CORN WITH VIRTUAL PESTS.

….and then I curled up on the couch, hummed a haunting tune, and rocked myself into a stupor while I knit a shawl.

A shawl.

In August. In Mississippi.

I think it’s safe to say this may be a long semester.

Same as it was

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I’ve never been one to thrive on cryptic status messages and song lyrics.

Well, that’s not entirely true. There were days years ago where I posted quotes in Italian and talked in code like nobody could Google.

I was getting the weirds out, ok? We didn’t have the internets in my youths.

What I’m saying is, were I currently given to posting cryptic mystery messages and provoking curiosity, I totally could.

I could say, “You’re so wrong,” or talk about regret and holding grudges. I could passive aggress my way around every issue and I could make the point for anyone who was in the loop. I could never name names and still hit nerves.

But you know what? I did that shit in high school.

I’ve grown.

There are people I was thick as thieves with in high school who I would inconvenience myself now to avoid. People I rode backroads with and snuck wine coolers and Marlboro Lights, who have turned into Bible thumping Republican pageant moms.

So I choose to stay clear of them. I would rather sit home and make doilies than surround myself with people who pain me.

The same goes for organizations who are comprised of people who just enjoy the power they think they have.

And here’s where I get real.

I understand, folks. Maybe you don’t like my husband. Maybe you think he’s an arrogant prick. That’s ok. He’s my arrogant prick. While it’s his choice to allow people to treat him however, I don’t have to stand for it and I won’t. My children will see that I don’t approve of people who exclude others because of hearsay. Or wrongs so old no one even really remembers them.

I get that I am just one person. I’m not a big loss. But I am what I am. And it’s not okay for you to play with people I love.

So….basically all that stuff I just said about how I’m not going to be cryptic and mysterious?

Ignore that.

Followed and friended

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I like to witness the reality of others.

This isn’t a secret.

Misfortune, embarrassment, confusion.

It’s a terrible thing to admit, and I’m sure one day karma will bite me in the ass for it, but there you go.

It’s one of the reasons I like Twitter so much (you should totally Twitter, it’s amazing and wonderful. @emilysteen), because OH MY GOD, people will say anything when it’s just a sentence or two.

Facebook is pretty much the same way. I try and keep my friends kind of pruned and personal, but sometimes I just cannot resist clicking the “accept” button when I get a friend request from someone who I suspect is prone to overshare or routinely embarrass themselves.

Like the chick from high school who put up a picture from an afternoon in the pool, and while the pic (see what I did there? Pic. That’s young folk interwebs talk) was obviously supposed to be of her kid, most of the frame was taken up by her stretched-out-in-front-of-her swimsuit bare legs. The picture was awkward. To be nice.

Or the one girl who talks about every bodily function she has, and posts pictures of herself on the regular, detailing her (horribly delightful) outfit choice.

Sweet Lady Propane, the things people release into the information superhighway.

I know I should focus my attention on wholesome, helpful things.

Recipes, knitting patterns, Bible verses.

But then a friend request comes through from that one guy who used to spend every high school party in the dryer.

Accept. Follow.

Forgive me.