My boyfriend said he thought about me when we listen to Saturday Night by the Misfits. I’m like… do you want to murder me?..

The lyrics always sounded very murdery to me. I think they did an amazing job of making it sound romantic but bf read through the lyrics after that and hugged me when I got home and said he definitely didn’t want to murder me.

Edit: Ok this one is purely personal but I just got done with work and it came out on the playlist, Achilles Come Down by Gangs of Youth.

I learned this song from my daughter. I let her control the music when we’d drive to school and back but I immediately loved this song because unlike me, she has an amazing voice. This is one I only ever heard underneath her crystalline soprano while she sang along.

It was always so beautiful that I didn’t focus on the song so much as her. She made a haunting, sad song a beautiful, pleasant memory for me because now she’s had her license for a while, she’s doing her thing being an ambitious senior. I don’t get to listen to her sing anymore between my work and her school/social schedule.

I miss the days when I stayed up after a 12 hour shift to take her to school because I miss listening to her sing. I brain was fuzzy and that morning sun seared my eyeballs but I cherish every morning now because I don’t have many left. I acutally miss everything about my kids needing me now that one has been independent for quite a few years and the other two are almost independent. I’m listening right now and all I can hear is her voice.

Fuck that shit hits hard. Im going to be an empty nester soon. Fucking FUCK. Fuck does it hit hard. I should be proud. I am! Jesus am I. I don’t know how I was blessed with these people, bio and adopted, that’s how vlessed I am, but I don’t want to look the gift horse in the mouth. Fucking wow, am I proud. But really I’m sad, too.

/soliloquy

Thank you, wholeheartedly for this one.

The Mangler. It’s a B horror movie and some of the graphics, which I won’t spoil, were more than my 7 year old brain could reconcile.

I just wrote my comment on this particular issue. I had a coworker complain that I made more than them and Boss tried to shame me for it.

Weirdly though I became the manager at my next place and had no problem sitting someone down and telling them why they weren’t making as much as their counterparts and when they’d get their scheduled raise and how they could improve and possibly get a bonus raise based purely on merit.

Some people get salty, some people rise to the occasion. The ones that rise to the occasion are dedicated, they’re receptive to constructive criticism and eager to show you they want to improve. It’s just as much a breathe of fresh air for me to see them so happy that they actually got a raise and I wasn’t just blowing smoke up their asses as it was for them to actually get a raise.

After two raises to two different people I had shown my owner that his money was being put to good use because we got long standing, dedicated employees that went above and beyond. He never questioned it again after that when I proposed a raise for a coworker. Good man, and a good team.

I’ve basically made a career out of serving and bartending. I took a 5 year break to do the stay at home mom thing but my first job getting back into it loved me at first.

It was a very interesting dynamic because it was my first job outside the city I grew up in but it was like riding a bike and I picked it up and immediately impressed them on the first night I was only supposed to be training.

Problem was was that they started firing my coworkers for the most questionable reasons. Then the trophy wife owner would show up to every court hearing for unemployment with forged signatures on their “policy handbook”. A lot of underhanded tactics were used. One of my very good friends was fired on his birthday.

But everytime they’d give me a raise to placate me so I wouldn’t leave. I could write a novel about that place because that’s how my mind works but I won’t.

Long story short, I responded to a server/bartender Facebook group at one point and mentioned my hourly for serving and for bartending. A coworker happen to see my comment and must have complained. (She couldn’t have ever earned the raises I got even if I got them on merit, but she’s a squeaky wheel and sits on a stool when her patrons need their beverages refreshed and plates cleared)

Boss lady made the mistake of messaging me that “it was agreed that you would not talk about your pay” which wasn’t true. She’d whisper to me that I got another raise but never actually said not to say anything, and also- you don’t get to dictate what I speak about on my own personal Facebook account.

I removed my comment just to unruffle feathers however I saved my boss’s message and linked her the exact federal/state article that forbids her from reprimanding me.

That’s when they tried to get me for minor shit. It was absolutely transparent what they were doing but I recorded everything and kept track of dates, times, incidents, message screenshots.

I saw the writing on the wall though and there was another place that had been wanting to poach me for a good while.

I was planning on fighting them earnestly for unemployment and take a month or two off before I started with the new place but they got desperate when their daytime bartender left so I got matching wages if I put my two weeks in and started ASAP so I did.

It was an absolute blessing. That next place treated me well and I was there for about 6 years until they closed their doors for good. Still miss them. I would have missed my old bosses too, if they didn’t try to do dirty the way they did because I genuinely loved them and I wish there wasn’t that bad blood. I don’t regret anything though. They brought it on themselves being so two faced and underhanded.

As a kid our alley in back was where all the neighborhood kids played. We all decided it was race time. Most of us were on bikes but I happened to have my roller blades on.

Important detail is that there was a pretty steep slope from one end of the alley to the bottom before it leveled out halfway down. Of course we start at the top, everyone’s getting speed and I’m focused so I don’t get the wobbles. I’m actually ahead and it’s me a Jorge going neck and neck until I hit a rock at the bottom.

I tucked and rolled (apparently about 5 times) before I land on my back and slide for another 15 feet.

Maybe it was bad enough for the ER but in that day and with my family we treated it at home if it wasn’t a broken bone or head wound. So I laid belly down on the couch while my Pops picked gravel out of my back and blotted me with peroxide and anticeptic. Overall it wasn’t as bad as some of my brothers’ accidents but it looked pretty gnarly.

I could have won dammit

I call my mom Ma, too. My kids call me Ma or Mama. It’s funny but we took in some stray cat brothers in one day and kept them. A couple months later I heard Maaa-aaaa Maaaama! But the kids were at school… The kittens had learned they could get my attention immediately by mimicking my kids and that first couple times I couldn’t tell the difference. To this day their meow sounds like 'maaaa"

Firstly I’m very sorry for your loss. I cannot imagine what that must feel like. I hope you don’t take this the wrong way because I doubt you’re as ‘gross’ as you think you are. (We’re our own worst enemies) But, what if you are gross? Why does it only matter to you that you think others would think so and not the other way around, as well?

Why not just embrace it for a bit and maybe encounter someone who adores your gross? What one person finds gross, another will love.

You have options.

A) You can seek out people to meet and date while thinking you’re gross and I can almost guarantee you your self esteem would be more of a turn off than anything that you may personally think is a turn off. Low confidence is a huge factor in attraction.

B) You can seek out people to meet and date while thinking you’re gross and you attract someone who preys on your low self esteem. They will encourage you to improve and the change will only be their image of improvement. It won’t be you. It won’t be authentic improvement. You’ll further lose yourself. Your validation and self worth will be wrapped up in a cycle of emotional abuse that will take just as long to recover from as your past loss did.

C) You can force yourself to embrace the idea that you’re gross anyway so why not find someone that is ok with that. Sort of a ‘come as you are’ mentality. Why change just so you can attract someone who’ll finally love what you pretend to be? Instead, rock up anywhere and just BAM, “Deal with it &$&-$&#&#'s. I’m here, love it or hate it”

Honestly, Hun. It’s just so unrealistic to think there aren’t going to be people out there that will not vibe with you no matter what you do. You could be a 10/10 celeb with all the money and there will always be someone out there that can criticize something about you. The beauty of the human condition is that we’re all so different yet we’re still all quite similar in that we all want to be accepted. It’s daunting but also exhilarating to accept that you will not please everyone, you will not be loved by everyone. You will not be everyone’s special snowflake. You are your own worst enemy if you think that’s ever possible.

D) You can go on a journey of self improvement. Why do you think you’re gross? Work small improvements into your routine that you, personally want to improve on. Tiny manageable habits at first, for example, getting a decent haircut and asking the stylist for a simple ways to maintain it and style it.

Setting a timer for 20 minutes and straightening up your living space. Every other day or three at first. Stop when the timer goes off if it burns you out or keep going if you’ve gotten in a groove. 20 minutes isn’t long so it’s not as daunting as planning a whole deep clean day that could overwhelm you. You can still get more than you expect accomplished it 20 minutes. Then over time you can increase that to 20 minutes every day or an hour every other day or so. Adjust it to your own personal ‘timer’.

However you go about that is up to you, the limitations of resources available to you and your own expectations of yourself. Those were only off the top of my head examples but I hope you understand what I’m trying to say.

Take time to identify that “why”. Why do you think you’re gross? What are the most simple baby steps you can take to improve them? Start small and work up from there when you meet your own expectations.

I will always tell you to go with © and (D) and blend to find your own happiness whether it’s with someone else or just yourself. C is a more realistic mentality to have in a world that forces unrealistic expectations on you. D will reinforce that mentality in the way that’s best and more realistic for you. Work to become the person you want to be and then shrug off your detractors and allow the rest of the world and anyone who likes you to meet you half way. When you find yourself attractive, when you are content even while you acknowledge your imperfections, you will attract people that want to be with who you are not what they want you to be.