Happy Holidays!

Happiest of holidays to all my lovely readers.  May your holiday be stress free and filled with good food, good company and all the things that make you happy.  <3

Hot

I had an interesting conversation with a good friend last night. Conversation may be overstating it really, it was just a few texts. But the gist of it was that confidence and attitude can be just as hot, if not more so, than actual physical attributes. I absolutely agree with that. I have been attracted to someone for many reasons but not only because they are physically beautiful to my eye.

I can admit that I have wanted to crawl into a hole and not come out until I was perfect physically.  But who defines perfect?  Maybe I am perfect, for me.  Well, I'm sure I'm not, but I'll be working on that in the new year.  Which is not the point.  The point is, most of the time I feel ok about how I look.  But I feel awesome about the person I am.  I've written before that it has taken me a long time to become the person I want to be.  I think that's probably true for everyone.  Whether you grow up in an alcoholic household like I did, and see how you don't want to end up.  Or you have people around you who show you how you do want to end up.  But you get to chose.  You can decide your life sucks, you've been handed a raw deal and you could live out your days a bitter asshole who thinks the world owes you a favor.  Or you can turn it around, make your life better, stand on your own and just fucking do it.  I prefer the just fucking do it way. 

My business is not as successful as I wish it were, but I'm doing my own thing and I love that.  It's fun and stressful and at the end of a hard day, I feel damn good that I did something I'm proud of. And I put my own stamp on it.

If you want to know the truth I think I'm a pretty cool chick.  I have amazing friends, strange things regularly happen to me, I surround myself with great music every day,  and no one rocks the purple hair and G cup better than I do dammit!  Love yourself and people around you will love you too  :)

14 Years Later

I wrote this back in 2000, after seeing a story on 20/20 about this boy and it broke my heart because I knew it so easily could have been me.  Today is the 14th anniversary of Brian Deneke's death and I'm sharing with you what I wrote 11 years ago.

If you watched 20/20 Downtown on Thursday night, maybe you know a bit about the story. It's a story about a young man named Brian Deneke, killed in the prime of his life for absolutely no good reason. It's a common story really. Too common. You see, Brian was a punk. He looked different, he dressed different, he listened to different music. For the life of me I will never understand why this means he should have to die.

This is the story as I know it. I'm not claiming to be an expert and am only relaying it how I heard it. In 1997, Brian and a group of his friends liked to hang out at a local IHOP and drink coffee, talk, basically hang out. The workers there were quoted as saying they were all really nice kids who never caused any trouble. A rival group of kids, jocks, tended to harass the punks (about their clothes and hair, about how none of them had cars and had to walk everywhere, how they couldn't afford new clothes, etc.). It happens all the time, it's part of being a kid. It's when it goes too far, like it did on December 12, 1997, that bad things happen. Evidently there was a lot of taunting, I'm sure by both groups of kids, when suddenly one of the jocks... Dustin Camp got into his Cadillac and ran Brian Deneke over. Brian's head and chest were crushed.

More appalling than a kid dying during a fight with a rival group is that this murderer, Dustin Camp got a slap on the wrist. He never spent a night in jail. He got probation. This son of a bitch got away with murder. Brian's death has left his family and friends shattered. Dustin gets a standing ovation at his high school graduation 2 years after the murder. Brian's friends and family put together the Brian Deneke Memorial Committee to encourage tolerance and respect for people who have different lifestyles, to support victims of crimes like this, and to educate. Dustin goes on with his life and his first year of college. 

Last night as I watched 20/20 Downtown's story about this, I just got more and more outraged. The interviewer for 20/20, Elizabeth Vargas, asked someone (I'm sorry, I can't remember who it was... I think one of the lawyers) that if the tables were turned and it was Brian Deneke who ran over Dustin Camp with his car, would Brian be in jail now. The man said YES. What an outrage!!! He went on to say something to the effect of, let's face it... appearance matters. WHAT!??? The guy didn't go to jail because he's a jock and looks, what? presentable? But being as Brian is different he would have?? This makes me utterly ill. I'm so sick and tired of kids who wear black, or listen to what someone else deems "disturbing" music being blamed for all the world's problems. Is Brian responsible for his own death because he had a mohawk haircut?? This is the year 2000. How can things like this still happen?

I guess maybe you're wondering why I find this so upsetting. I guess because I could have been Brian. I was there. No, not in Amarillo, TX on 12/12/97, but I was there at another time and place. Thirteen years ago I stopped at a McDonald's with a group of my friends. I was 21 years old and with five friends, four guys and one girl. Yes, we're punks. Two of the guys went into McDonald's to get a Coke or whatever, and came out rather quickly telling me to start my car and get the hell out of here. Well the place was swarming with high school kids but I honestly never thought a thing about it. I asked my two friends over and over what they did because before I knew what was happening, about four car loads of jocks with baseball bats were following us, waving the bats out their car windows. My friends insisted they did/said nothing. I believed them too because there were about 50 kids at this McDonald's and only six of us. 

I tried to get away from them, but they kept chasing us. I made the big mistake of going down a street that had the lanes separated by a median, which means there was only one way traffic and the jocks seized the opportunity I gave them and surrounded my car, forcing me to stop. They surrounded my car and tried to get us to come out. Being the hothead that I am, I did get out and my friend Rich (who was in the back) tried to get out but my friends who were in the front seat wouldn't let him. They didn't want anyone to get hurt, and of course no one could stop me from getting out before I did. There was shouting, then a crash. One of the jocks smashed out the back window of my car with a baseball bat with three people sitting in the back seat no less. We were very lucky that no one got hurt. After this the jocks took off and as I laid on someone's lawn sobbing hysterically, a couple of my friends went to someone's house and asked them to call the police. 

We were lucky, the police knew that the kids were troublemakers and it didn't matter that we were freaks, they believed us. They caught the kids within an hour and we identified them. The funny thing about it is that the guy with the bat was the chief of police's son for that city. He and his parents paid for all the damages to my car, but nothing else ever came of it. Like I said... we were lucky. Way luckier than Brian Deneke. 

For me and my friends (and so many others) punk is a way of life, it's not a phase. We never grew out of it. It's been close to 20 years since I found punk and I still listen to the music, as do my friends. Sure, we are all responsible adults now and don't have blue spiked hair anymore (but if you ever met me in person, you might see that I try to hold on to that part of my life!). I have lost touch with a few of them now as friends do. But here I am, I work full time, I have a house that I'm trying to fix up, I have a husband (who incidentally I met in a punk club), I have two cats, I have a website devoted to a soap opera! I'm your next door neighbor. Why is that is so scary? Differences make the world go round. We shouldn't be persecuted for them. Embrace people who are different, learn from them. This isn't just about punks vs. jocks. This is about all differences whether it's hair color or skin color, fat or skinny, poor or rich etc.

This is a part of me that I don't often share, not because I'm ashamed of it, but because people don't understand it. They think that punks worship the devil, are drug addicts and cause trouble. I've never done any of those things. I'm not saying that all punks are good law abiding citizens, because no group of people is ever all inclusive. I'm saying that just because someone looks different than you doesn't mean they are bad people. Everyone deserves a chance to live their life. Brian Deneke didn't get that chance. I guess the moral to the story is... think before you act.

I'd Like To Thank the Academy...

How exciting to receive another blog award!!!   Thank you so much to Joy Page Manual at Catharsis for The Sunshine Award!  I would have never thought that I would receive such a thing since usually the last thing people think of me is being "sunny" lol   But hopefully I have been inspiring or at the very least helpful and mildly amusing from time to time :)

Alas, the award comes with a catch.  Not a bad catch, but a catch nonetheless.

1.  Thank the person who gave you this award and write a post about it. (check)
2.  Answer the following questions below. (check)
3.  Pass the award on to 10-12 fellow bloggers, link their blog and let them know you gave them an award.   Personally I don't think I can come up with 10-12 that Joy didn't already mention so I'll just do the best I can!

And now, my Q&A...

Favorite Color:  black and purple.
Favorite Animal:  anyone who knows me know my answer to this!  Zebras
Favorite Number:  I don't really think of myself as a numbers gal, but I'll say 7
Favorite Drink:  Iced tea, iced coffee or water with lemon
Facebook or Twitter:  Facebook
Your Passion:  Music, cooking/baking, writing.  Writing about food while listening to music is the best!
Giving or Receiving Gifts:  I absolutely love to give.  I love finding something unexpected that the receiver is surprised to receive and loves.  And besides that, my 8 year old niece recently informed me that I give the coolest gifts!   So there ya go =)
Favorite Day:  Hmmm, a specific day or a day of the week?  Favorite day of the week is Friday.  Favorite all around day, Halloween.
Favorite Flowers:  Calla lilies.  So beautiful, simple and elegant.  Stunning.

And now to share the love....

Marie at Rock the Kasbah - Her posts are interesting, funny and often reference The Clash.  What's not to love?   There's also a distinct possibility that we were separated at birth.

Mary at The Adventures of Cilgin Kiz - Love this blog and her ability to laugh at herself.  Plus the photos are amazing!

Barbara at Late Bloomers - She just rocks!

Beckey at My Really Real Reality - Just an honest look at a family living and loving each other.  It's honest, sweet and funny and I expect nothing less from Beckey, someone I've known forever and a day.

Jackie and Dale at Adventures of the Hope Warriors - Jackie and Dale write and share Jackie's journey through lung cancer.  She's also one of my BFF's.

Tony at MSTony64 - Tony takes us through his journey with MS with a lot of heart!

Judy at The Underwear Chronicles - She doesn't post nearly enough (*hint*) but when she does it's always interesting and fun.  <3 Judy.

Cooking for Assholes - Yep, you heard me.  Great food blog full of recipes, interesting stories and a fair share of verbal abuse.  Love it!

I think I will end it there.  I know it's only 8, but I would just be repeating more of the ones that Joy already named if I continue.  So enjoy these picks and thanks once again to Joy!

Lasting Love

I've been pondering a lot lately, the idea of lasting, even everlasting, love.  I always thought that once you loved someone, truly and wholly, that love never fades.  So I wonder, if you felt love for someone and then you don't, does that mean you never truly loved them in the first place?

I can easily, with no doubts in my mind or heart, say that I love the two friends I've reconnected with this year.  I have always loved them, and will always love them.  When you are apart for so many years, but never stop thinking of that person, and then you are back again in each others lives and you have the same feelings you did, yes, that is a true and lasting love.  And it warms the cockles.  I feel happy when I think of them (and others too, but right now I'm focused on this reconnection phenomenon).  I'm not talking about romantic love although I'm not sure there should be different distinctions when you talk about love.

But right now I am finding that I do not feel love for someone I thought I did.  Does it mean there never was love?  Or it was mistaken for something else?   Or is there only so much lies, deception and betrayal someone can take before they lose that love.  I thought it was true.  I thought it was whole.  I felt a connection that I couldn't really explain.  It seemed so fated for us to meet and become friends.  It seemed so right, even though everyone I knew told me it was so very wrong.  The warnings I received from so many people feel on deaf ears because I knew in my heart that we were meant to be friends, friends for life.  I ignored smaller deceptions because in the big scheme of things they didn't seem important.  But when the big pain hit, it changed things.  Things would never be the same.  Some pains are just too deep.  And while I have received an apology, twice, it doesn't change the fact that it happened and that it didn't have to happen.  It was avoidable.

I have forgiven. I have to.  I can't hold on to that type of anger. But I can't forget how it felt to have my heart ripped out of my chest.  Maybe the pain is still too fresh and that will fade too.  I've said before that I have no regrets, and I don't.  I like to think I meant something, even though it's over now.  I have to believe something positive came out of it for both of us.  But it doesn't answer the question... does love last forever?  And if it does, where is the love I once felt now?

Finding the Thanks

Thanksgiving would probably be more of a favorite holiday if I didn't spend it with the in laws every year.  Generally speaking, I really don't enjoy my time around them.  And fine, I admit to some level of food snobbery.  Growing up in an Italian household everything was homemade every day, but especially on holidays.  Loaves of bread were made specifically to be dried out and made into stuffing.  Pounds and pounds of potatoes were peeled to make mashed potatoes.  Gravy was made from the juices left behind after the turkey was done roasting and from the giblets inside.  Alas, this is not so at the in laws.

It's not really true that there is no mental anguish at the in laws, but I still think it's funny.

The stuffing is Pepperidge Farm.   The mashed potatoes are frozen.  The green bean casserole is that bland horror made with can after can of Cream of Crap soup.  The salad is a horrible mixture of iceberg lettuce, cherry tomatoes, copious amounts of raw onion and bottled Italian dressing which mother in law adds extra salt to (and every year several in attendance go on and on about how the salad is the best part of this meal.  Really?  I don't get it myself).  The gravy is a pasty gloppy, lumpy mess of I don't even know what.  Even the pies are frozen.  I can say the turkey is real and the sweet potatoes are actually roasted and don't have marshmallows on them.  Thank goodness.

Yes, I did say I'm a bit of a food snob but for goodness sakes it's a holiday!  Peel a fucking potato!  Fine you don't have to make your own bread for the stuffing but can you at least buy bread and season it yourself?   And the gravy!  I don't even know what it's made from.   I do know it's very light colored, very thick and very lumpy.  Last year I came into the kitchen just as the turkey was being taken out of the oven.  It was upside down (breast side down) and no one even realized it.  Mother in law was concerned about the doneness because the little thermometer thingy didn't pop out and the bird just looked weird.  I said, "that's because it's upside down" and they all looked at me like I had sprouted turkey feathers.  Mother in law and sister in law look at it and then back at  me and said, "how did you know that?  We stared and stared at it and couldn't figure out why it looked so strange, you see it for a few seconds and you knew?"  I wanted to say, "because I have a brain and eyes?"  But I just said, "the legs are pointed in the wrong direction" or something like that.  They shrugged and went back to work.  It was then that I witnessed maybe the most heinous food crime I have ever seen.  Father in law came and took the bird out of the pan and then mother in law proceeded to dump, yes dump, all the delicious turkey juices in the pan down the drain!  I seriously and quite audibly, gasped.  And again they all looked at me like I suddenly had a big red turkey waddle under my neck and put my hand over my mouth and walked out of the kitchen in horror.

My contributions to the dinner are cornbread and broccoli rice casserole.  The casserole in the past, before I knew any better, had been made with cream of crap soup and other atrocities like Cheez Whiz, but I redid the recipe so that it uses actual mushrooms, Bechamel sauce and real cheddar cheese.  It's about a zillion times better.  So generally speaking I eat turkey, cranberry sauce (which surprisingly, mother in law actually makes), my dishes, and sweet potatoes.  Everything else stays off my plate, which basically means I don't over eat on Thanksgiving, so I guess I am thankful for that.

Nice segue... being thankful.  Yes, it's true even with all my bitching and complaining about a dinner I'm not really fond of, I am thankful that I get to be in a place where I can have a dinner.   I'm thankful for my family even though at times I want to smack them upside the head.   I am thankful for my friends, old and new.  I am thankful that I know love.   I am thankful for my kitties.   I am thankful for the music that fills my life every day.  I am thankful for you.

How Did We Get Here?

I've come to the end of my several weeks of angst.  This particular several weeks of angst, I should clarify.  I'm sure I'll have more in the future.   But this particular dilemma, trauma, whatever you want to call it, is now over.  It's hard to look at the time I spent on someone as a waste.  I do not think of it as a waste.  I think that people come into our lives at certain times to fill a need, or you fill a need for them.  And I think we absolutely did that for each other.  I'm not sure I can say the friendship is over, because I'm not sure it ever will be completely over.  But I do see it with much more clarity now, meaning I have accepted that I'll never really know what happened and have decided to move the fuck on.

I've been reflecting on a lot of things lately, writing in my Bite Me book.  What can I say, I get introspective from time to time (to time).  What I have been thinking about is how certain people come into your life and how others come back into your life after long periods of absence.  My pain filled tirades of late have given way to something completely different and unexpected.  A few days ago, I felt the closure I needed from that situation, the most closure I'll get anyway and I am as over it as I will ever be.  And that same night the man and I went out with R, an old beau of mine, to see an old friend of ours band.  And as that night went on, I realized I was out with two guys I have known over 25 years, watching another friend I've known even longer.  And it put so much in perspective.

At one point, R said to me, "isn't it cool that all these years later we can still hang out together?"  And the answer is, it's amazing.  R and I have been in touch, here and there for about 10 years or so, but before that we hadn't been in touch for over 10 years.  And now it's quite possible that we will remain in touch again.  We had a great time and are looking forward to hanging out some more.  It was the first time we have gone out together in probably about 23 or so years.  We did run into each other about 9 months ago but it wasn't a planned get together.  This was planned and it was nice, fun, oh fuck who am I kidding... it totally fucking rocked!

I got to wondering what brings people back into your life after a long absence?  And I think the answer is that everyone is looking for something familiar.  R and I did not have a falling out at all, we just drifted.  It happens.  And so introspection begets introspection and wonder begets wonder.  When I reconnected with TM, who incidentally is the friend who's band we went to see.  TM and I talked about everything and how much we had thought about each other or told others stories about things we had done together.  So I knew that TM had been thinking about me over the years the way I had been thinking about him.  With R, who knows.  I'm not sure it matters, but I'll guess yes, he has thought of me over the years.  Fondly I might add.  If not, why even bother starting a friendship again?  I have certainly thought about him, and have written about him here several times.  He is someone I have always cared about.  Not taking away anything from the friends I have made since then, the friends you make when you are at the pinnacle of your life are always the best ones aren't they?  What I mean is, in those formative years, the people who are around you at those times are the ones you tend to gravitate back to.  Because they are familiar.  Because they were with you when.  Because they know you inside and out and they get it, they get who you are.  Because you know, without a shred of doubt they care about you and always will.  It's like what Richard Dreyfuss as adult Gordie said in the movie Stand by Me... "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?"  For me, I've never had any friends like the ones I had when I was in my early 20's.

I have some amazing friends in my life now.  Of course I do, L, and L, and R, and A, and my PBAU peeps and the gardeners and my SLUTS (don't ask).  And I love them, they've been there for me when I needed them and I hope I have done the same in return.   And now, even if another 20 years goes by and I never speak to R, TM, or M I know without any uncertainty that I matter to them.  I know it about others too. And knowing that means everything.  And now I have it, for all eternity in print.  And when I feel like I am unworthy of someone, or have a situation like what happened recently happen again (which I hope it never does!), I can come here and see how much I really do have and how blessed I am.