Posted on by LA · 32 Comments

Want to Play a Game?

I recently read a book, Send for Me, by Lauren Fox. This is about Jews during WWII both in Germany and America. I thought is was well written and interesting.

There was one quote early on in the book that sort of stopped my in my tracks:

Germans! Defend Yourselves! Do not buy from Jews

Lauren Fox, Send for Me

Ready for the game?

_____________! Defend yourselves! Do not buy from _____________.

I have installed a wheel here, with some other words. I’m going to spin the wheel and get some words to fill in these blanks…

clickclclclick clickclick click cl ick c l i c k c c c

First word:

Americans

Americans! defend yourselves. Do not buy from _____________

I’ll dispense the with the sound effects….

Second word:

Republicans

Americans! defend yourselves. Do not buy from Republicans

One more spin:

Americans! Defend yourselves! Do not buy from Democrats

See what a fun game!

Here are the rules if you want to play at home:

  1. You are not allowed to use the word racist, homophobe, pedophile or anything that the REASONABLE person would agree is a bad thing
  2. You are not allowed to use special interests. I understand that someone with a special interest might say it’s important, for this version of the game we will say that there are too many sides to each of these issues and is we started to go down this road, we would never buy anything from anyone- (true story- there is an indie bookstore in NYC that was in danger of closing so a cry began to save it. Then people started complaining that the owner of the bookstore owns stock in Amazon so she is apparently anti small local business, so a counter argument rang out that no one should shop at the store and it should close- seriously- this is really happening, so you understand my rule)

So….

Did you find any good words to substitute on your home wheel?

How many wins do we have if we play the substitution game?

X or O…

You start…

Posted on by LA · 78 Comments

Going Down the Rabbit Hole

My friend M routinely stalks her ex husband. They do not share children together, so really, is there any reason to wonder what he is doing now, almost 30 years past their short lived post college marriage?

I’ve been apart from me ex husband 20+ years. Never once did I look him up online….you know, until I did…

A few months ago I wrote to you about getting rid of some big, glossy coffee table art books. I explained to you that thought they should have brought me joy, yet all they brought me was sadness, anger and regret.

I was thrilled to finally rid myself of the burden of these books.

Then I decided to Google my ex.

I found out he died three years ago.

Talk about dredging up sadness, anger and regret…

It’s odd to think about the death of someone who once meant a great deal to you. At one point in my life I thought I loved this person. I thought that I could care for this person and make their problems go away. I thought that this was the person I deserved to be with because of all sorts of issues with myself.

When you think about why you did something that turned out to be very bad for you, you end up feeling a little bit bad about yourself. You ask yourself how you could have been so stupid, blind….you ask yourself how you could have been so wrong…

Anger

Sadness

Regret

This is why the internet stinks. At your fingertips, in mere seconds, you can really find out anything and make yourself feel bad…search engines are a tool and a weapon. And it has to be treated as such. The internet can and does hurt you. It hurts your friends. It hurts your family. Handled incorrectly it hurts everyone.

Am I glad that I know that he’s dead?

Am I glad that he’s dead?

I don’t know. Three months later and I’m still processing my feelings. I’m journaling and thinking and making notes. Maybe this will too become a memoir…a rite of passage…a closing out of the books. I thought that this divorce, these feelings of sadness, anger and regret were long past me. I thought I was over all of this…but I can only wonder if these feelings ever actually go away. I wonder if they are always inside of us and somehow become part of our DNA, if every decision we make comes with the disclaimer that we have once been hurt very badly and we will forever remember that as we take tiny steps forward…

Do we compartmentalize our sadness, anger and regret so that we can live and find other emotions to balance those out? Or do we always fall back on our negatives?

Do we ever really forget? Or do we just learn to move on?

Do we ever get past the emotional damage in our lives, or do we just learn to live with it, like a scar that will not go away not matter what we put on it. It might fade, but there will always be traces.

I guess we can’t erase our past.

We just have to learn from it.

Posted on by LA · 40 Comments

I ______________ That

When faced with the title sentence, which word do you normally use:

  1. Like
  2. Love
  3. Am indifferent to
  4. Hate

Seriously, think about how often you phrase something like this, how often you make a bold declarative statement, and if you use of the above words more than the others.

Are you thinking?

Let’s start with like.  I know we all “like” things.  I expect a bunch of you to “like” this post…we write so that others read our words, and get some sort of feeling about what we have written.  But I don’t mean social media likes.  I mean, how often do you utter the words “I like _________”?

I’m going to give you some examples:

I like using cloth napkins when I’m eating.  I think they cover my lap better, are softer when I wipe my mouth, and are better for the environment because I don’t throw them away.  I like cloth napkins.

Love.  How often do you use the word love in a day?  5 times?  50 times?  None?  I tell my daughter that I love her every morning when she walks out the door.  I love hot tea with milk and sugar.  Count your loves.

Am Indifferent to.  I rarely use these exact words on a daily basis, but there are things I have absolutely no opinion on.  Coke or pepsi?  Doesn’t matter.  Are there things around you that you don’t care enough about to form an opinion?

Hate.  How often do you use the word hate?  I hated that book.  I hate that movie.  I hate _______.  Seriously, how often do you use the word, or think the word every day?  How many things do you feel so strongly about that you use the word hate?

Take five minutes.  Tabulate your results.

How many times did you use each word?  Is there anything that stands out?  Have you used one word more than another?  Does anyone have Hate leading the pack?

We all hate things.  We all are allowed to hate things.  I hate anchovies- really can’t stand them. And that’s fine.  Hating something is fine.

But do you hate more than you love, like or are indifferent to?

Now, before you get crazy, I’m not advocating becoming “Susie Sunshine”, or “Polyanna”.  I’m not handing out rose colored glasses, or handing anyone a bucket of sand.  I just want you to think about what words are filling your thoughts, dreams, prayers and your time.  I want you to think about what words are making up your life.  If the majority of your words are words of hate, how do you think you are going to feel inside?

Try to have a balance of those four basic ideas as you are going about your day.  If you find yourself constantly repeating the same thought, try thinking again.  If you write a post about something that makes you mad, or that you hate, try to balance out the next post by writing about something you like.  Or, as a spin, write about how to fix the problem of the thing you hate or that makes you mad.  There are negative things in life: how do you make them into a positive.

Are we clear on this weeks homework?  First, we analyze how often we use these words.  Then we figure out how to balance our thoughts out.  I’m not aiming for positivity awards:  the goal is balance.

Whop wants to win the first “Balanced Thought Award”? (don’t get too excited- I don’t create memes…)