Attention Seeking Facebook Life Parasites- Beware of the Drain.

Hello world.

Welcome to my head. I have to write this blog because of my distaste for a certain group of people who utilize Facebook for their own "fishing hole," metaphorically speaking.

If you know of a person on your "friends" list that does this more than 5 times per week, I advise you to keep reading this and also to delete this person from your real life as well as your virtual one. They are parasitic in nature. They drain the caffeine from your coffee first thing in the morning. They offer you a gift of guilt to swallow down for the entirety of your day. They sit at their desks or on their smart phones and they make a conscious decision to suck any and all sympathy from anyone who is bored enough to read what they have to say.

This stretches far beyond Facebook for these people. Their entire life is made up of a series of events that are normal but are translated in their brain as being victimizing. The world is dead set on destroying all they "work hard for" and everyone in their life at some point or another is "the enemy." Be very wary of doing any kind of dealing with these people. They are always on the prowl for the fresh meat of upsetting circumstances to fuel their self-righteous self-sabotage.

If you fall prey to one of these parasitic venomous monsters, you will know it after it's too late to do anything about it. You will get sucked into their life through their charismatic pitch, you will defend them against the people they endlessly complain about, and you will be wrought with the feeling that you are missing something intrinsically important to their character. After all, it can't be that bad for them right? I should note an important feature of these people...
They have no sense of humor about their "bad luck."  It's all very serious to them, and if you try and "make them feel better, " they will defend their right to complain as much as you would defend your right to breath air.

There's no winning with them. There's no reasoning with them. There's no "it's going to be okay,"  or "you have to start thinking more positively" or "the problem that I see very clearly is..."  If you try and actually help them, you have given them more fuel to continue on complaining about their life. Why you ask? Because they got attention. It doesn't matter what kind of attention because any attention will do. Negative, positive, indifferent, it's all good enough for their internal "gas tank."

Here's the bottom line... They like to suck.

They love having sucky situations because they have ONE coping mechanism which is endlessly complaining about their life. It wouldn't matter if they received a check in the mail for 50,000 bucks, they would still find some reason to hate the day God gave them. They may briefly give thanks for something, but the second there is anything that isn't according to their want/need for that day, the day itself becomes an enemy... and since the day can't fend for itself, it just exists as a day in time and space, these people have to find some sentient being to blame for their discomfort.

Another fascinating trait of these parasitic attention seeking monsters is that they never, ever, EVER see the bigger picture. They do what they deem as self-preservation at the moment and never think about the implications of such actions to the larger story of their lives. For example... they might decide that they don't want to pay their electric bill because they have made a decision that the electric company is charging too much. The electric company decides to shut off their service due to NON-payment. They feel victimized by the electric company. They post something about how evil corporate America is and how ruthless the electric company is and it's somehow Obama's fault or or or.... Some dumb sucker will see that post and say, "Look, why don't you go with Such & Such Electric company? They have deals going on right now and they won't check your previous credit. It's far cheaper too! Oh and I think they will give you one month free for signing up."
So the parasitic person will do that. They sign up. They get a month free. One month goes by and the bill is real, it's in their hands, and they think it's ridiculously expensive. Instead of realizing that it's high because they have 3 big screen TV's and they wash the same load of clothes over and over again just to avoid folding them, they will blame the friend who told them about that company in the first place.

They will literally start complaining to anyone who will listen about how this 'friend' is pretending to always be so helpful but they 'screwed me over' and got me to dump my old electric company for this new one which is just as expensive... then they might form some conspiracy theory about that friend... ex. "I bet that they are selling shares or something for that company. Nobody is that helpful. I should've known better than to trust someone being nice just for being nice. I bet they got some type of referral money for me signing up... ugh."
They will burn the bridge with their friend or family member or or or... JUST to save face and have the situation look as though it's not their fault.

That may sound insane. It is.

These people/parasites, know their own game plan before they start. They are supreme actors. They have devised how none of this "bad luck" will be their fault. It will always be someone else's fault and there will always be at least one new victim to fall into the trap of sympathizing with them.

Bottom line...
If you know of a person who loves hanging on the cross, has false optimism on public forums in the same breath as complaining about everything and everyone, then you have probably fell victim or will fall victim to their parasitic life sucking ruin.

These people will eventually go insane, broke, and have nobody with any fortitude in their lives by the time they reach old age. They are the living example of "The Boy That Cried Wolf."  One day there will be a wolf and nobody will believe that they truly need help. At this point, it's a social duty to let them fall and fall hard. It's the only way they can be held accountable for the social/financial/emotional structures they've set up to fail in clever ways.

Don't believe their inspirational posts on social media or their quirky ways of telling you they hate their life with the aftertaste of "is that a joke?" Do not trust them. Do not give them anything. Do not tell them you are proud of them for "pulling through the painful situations..." Do not think that you are of any value to their lives.

You are doing them a disservice by falling into their trap of manipulation. Remember, they only want attention in it's rawest form. They want to blame and shame everyone and everything to let themselves off the hook for failing at life.
At some point in their life, this tactic worked. They got "off the hook" for something or bailed out of a situation that would have ordinarily resulted in a much needed life lesson for them. Instead, they keep "skipping the class of accountability."  In other words, the rules are meant for other people, not them.

Why am I writing a blog about this? Well....
Mainly because I have been rolled by people like this, and I've watched a lot of people I care about a great deal get sucked through the wormhole of these attention seeking liars. I damn near lost my mind over trying to NOT fully go Hulk on someone recently who is one of these parasitic people. I had to realize that THE only way to be of service to the BIGGER picture is to realize they aren't in it. It won't matter in the end if you got a wicked word into their heads to "tell them what's what." They won't perceive it that way, they will still win the battle of being the victim.

The best course of action is to hold them accountable to what pertains to you specifically, and forget the rest. Cut these people from your daily feed or they will find a way to feed on you sooner or later. It won't matter how altruistically patient you are with them, their growth isn't about you. It's only when they cry "wolf" and nobody listens that they will evolve.

Halloween Hilarity- The Hogg, The Witch, and The Broken Toe

Halloween in 1991... The Hogg, The Witch, and The Broken Toe.


1991... What a terrible year.

I was in the 7th Grade. Halloween is my favorite holiday, always has been. I remember being really excited that a new girl enrolled in the GAWD AWFUL school I attended. She looked like Drew Barrymore, but she had an unfortunate last name... Hogg. Yep. Hogg.

The irony of this was that she wasn't fat, I was, and she liked me... so the fat kid hung around with a "hog." Get it? Luckily for me she didn't get this right away. It only took 3 weeks until she realized this irony as well as vaporizing. However, I will always believe that the catalyst for her disappearance from the school only 3 weeks after enrolling, had everything to do with what happened on Halloween in 1991.

She lived in an area of Dallas called Casa Linda. I loved this area because of it's Spanish style houses, cool shopping areas with Romanesque looking pillars and a movie theatre that held a very special place in my heart because it was the first theatre I had ever seen a movie in.

  Just like the rare West Virginia sightings of The Mothman,  I was never invited to do anything with anyone. When I was, a inter dimensional puncture in the fabric of space must've occurred in order for my peers to find me "cool" enough to hang out with.

Anyway...

This girl, as I've said, enrolled in the school I went to. For some reason, still unknown to me, she immediately liked me? She invited me to spend the night at her house on Halloween. I was pretty sure that she would figure out that her reputation as the "cool new girl" would be shattered by inviting me over to her house but little did I know at the time that it would be the events on Halloween that would forever seal my fate with The Hogg.

Halloween rolls around and she is super stoked about what we are going to do. She wouldn't tell me until we got back to her house but I quickly found out that her parents were not in on the plan. Being much like the character, "Butters" from South Park, anything that I could sniff out as being a possible "your in trouble now" situation, made me incredibly nervous. I usually would try and talk the person out of doing anything stupid but historically they would do it anyway and then blame it on me. I knew this well. In fact, it still kind of happens today. (Read my blog entitled, Narcissistic Rabbit & Friends.)

The Hogg wanted to go toilet paper houses in the neighborhood she lived in. In my neighborhood, if you did that, you'd be shot. In her neighborhood it was merely white people being mildly put out over having to get their Mexican yard man to clean up the next day. My neighborhood is probably where they contracted their Mexican day laborers. (not hating on Mexicans AT ALL... my neighborhood was hispanic and mostly black and we had a blast together being anything but rich white people with free time, believe that)

I kept saying to The Hogg, "why can't we just Trick or Treat? I mean, do we have to TP people's houses? We won't get any candy?" (said the fat kid... me)

She said the following verbatim, "(sigh) Look, if you want to be cool, you have to take some risks, duh! Trust me, it will be so much fun. You'll see. If you don't do it, I won't hang out with you anymore."  Nuff said. I'm doing it. I was so desperate for a friend at school, I figured it was worth the risk. It wasn't.

That Halloween was one of those rare fall days that I can I remember as a kid when it was actually cold outside. Wind blowing, leaves falling, and the kind of chill that only happened when you were wearing a 100% Polyester costume from Kmart. The kind that made you sweat profusely when you were inside and then contract pneumonia when you were outside. I brought over to The Hogg's house, my stage makeup and various black clothing to ensure that I could be extra ghoul-like. She didn't want to put on any make up and said the following... verbatim... "Melodee, you are too old to be wearing costumes! We are doing what the teenagers do and that is NOT wearing a stupid costume for Halloween." Um... okay? (silent tear rolling down my face from that epic let down)

Trick or Treater's came and went and that is when The Hogg sprung into action... "come on! It's time." She handed me more toilet paper rolls than I had ever seen at any one house I'd ever been to. Toilet paper in my house was rationed out like bits of bread in the Soviet Union circa 1985.  I remember thinking/knowing they were rich just from the stockpile of toilet paper they had and how by taking hoards of it, none of it would be noticed as "missing."  I told her, "I can't carry all of this, isn't there a sack we can put it in or something?" She sighed and retrieved her dad's gym bag from the stack of expensive luggage in the storeroom. Again, it was even more of a sign to me how rich they were because I think we had one suitcase in my family and it was duct taped shut when we went on vacation.

We walk down the street, further and further away from her house. It was cold. So very cold. We roll up (no pun intended) to a house at the end of the block. It was our first target. She told me to take off my shoes so that my boots wouldn't "crunch the leaves and give us away." I argued that it was really cold and that I had a tendency to get pneumonia this time of year. She didn't care and just silently stared at me until I did what she asked. Took off my shoes and we began the toilet papering of shrubbery and various low hanging branches at this house. We succeeded in doing this undetected. I figured it was a success and we would go back to her house and watch television or something. After all, "The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown," was coming on that night so I didn't want to miss that ritual I'd grown so accustomed to doing on Halloween.

She said, "um... no? We have like 5 more houses at least?!"

I remember this moment like it was yesterday. I began sweating because of two things that make me sweat on cue.
1. Rage- usually this comes from feeling trapped in a situation I have no control over.
2. Worry- I had paralyzing fear of getting into trouble with parents, cops, or feeling like I was disrespecting someone's property.

I over-rided the rage and worry and pressed on. I put my shoes back on and continued on the quest of wrapping houses. I think we wrapped about 7 more houses before THE house that ended everything.

The Witch House.

About 6 streets over and in the thicket of tons of willow trees and large vine type plants that shrouding a structure in a veil of scary was The Witch House. This house was an old stone built house with stained glass cathedral type windows, gargoyles guarding the sides, and cats... lots of cats. Anyone who knows me knows that I've never met a cat that liked me. Ever. Cats take one solid look at me and make a judgement call to attack the soft spots. I don't trust cats, I think they are the choice pets of demons and old people who sacrifice chickens to the dark overlord.

I took one look at this house and said, "nope." "Nope. I'm not doing it. You said 5 more houses and we've done like 8 houses and now you want me to toilet paper the devil's lair?"  She told me that if I did this, we would be the only people who ever had the balls to toilet paper this house and blah blah... street cred... Okay fine.
I looked at the grass and said, "okay but seriously, can I keep my shoes on? The grass is wet and my feet are already freezing cold. Come on, please?"

DENIED. The Hogg said, "if there were any house that you don't need to be detected at, it's this one... no, shoes are comin' off!"  Fine.

I asked her what the deal was with this house and I was extremely curious as to who would live in this vortex of pain and darkness. She told me it was a witch, like a real witch who has a cult that meets there on certain times of the month and various neighborhood pets had gone missing after these cult meetings. CRAZY RICH WHITE PEOPLE ARE THE CRAZIEST. Period. Anyway... She said that you can't let this woman see you because she will put a curse on you and frankly, I already figured I had a full grip of curses on me so I didn't need another one added to the stew of bad luck I had.

We crept slowly on our tippidy tip tip toes through the ever darkening yard of terror. The grass was so cold, so wet, and I started feeling numbness in my toes. We wrapped a tiny tree and I said, "okay we did it lets go." She was insistent that we wrap the vines that grew up the side of the house by the scary ass stained glass windows.
We crept some more... tip toe, tip toe, tip toe... stop, breathe, tip toe, tip toe... drawing ever closer to the epicenter of evil. I wandered off about 10 feet to the left of The Hogg and started feeling uncomfortable with how I was just wrapping up this area closest to the scariest year-round-not-halloween statue of a devilish looking thing. About 10 of the longest minutes goes by and I really can't feel my feet now. They are cold as ice, numb, and it's beginning to concern me. I moved over to the window that had the flickering candle on the ledge and that's when a black cat jumped up and "RAWRRRRRRRRERRERERERRRRR HISSSSSS HISSSSSS!"

I screamed and then covered my mouth and within seconds I look up and see a face staring at me from the stained glass window.

SCREAM, HOLLER, SCREAM n' HOLLER....

I just dropped everything and ran. I ran harder, faster, and with more conviction than I'd ever ran before. I was almost back to the street when I heard The Hogg say, "hurry up!!!" That's when my numb foot NFL kicked a 14 pound slab of limestone and watched it flip over itself in mid-air  landing about 6 feet away and shattering.

I grabbed my shoes and we ran all the way back to The Hogg's house. The adrenaline I had was so intense that all I remember doing when we got back to the house was laughing and crying at the same time.

Just as the adrenaline wore off, we looked up and saw The Hogg's father who was scowling at us. My worst nightmare. I was "in trouble" and it wasn't even my own family that was mad... which to me was highly shameful and I thought myself better than that.
He said, "where have you guys been and Melodee, why does your foot look like that?"

Huh? OH SNAP! I looked down and my foot was the size of Shaq's. It was swollen, bloody, and the type of bruise I had was already black & maroon. It was still numb though so I said, "it doesn't hurt." Press forward about 10 minutes after it wasn't numb...."OH God, Oh God... I want to go home. Oh God. My foot hurts so bad. Oh my God. Oh God help. Heeeelllllllppppp!"

I threw the fit of the century. I told The Hogg that I wanted to go home and that I was going to scream until I got a ride back home. She woke her dad up and I got a very passive aggressive ride back home in which I was asked about 10 questions regarding our night of shame and now, agony. I told him what happened. I told him that I had kicked a rock at a full sprint with a numb foot because a Witch appeared in the window and her devil cat put a hex on me. (because to me, that's what happened)

The next day I went to the doctor. My middle toe(the important one) was broken pretty hard. I went back to school and The Hogg wasn't there. In fact, she never returned to that school. I will never know exactly what happened to her but I knew somehow it was my fault. I ratted her out pretty hard to her dad and my Pop called him up the next day after the doctor visit and gave him the verbal "1, 2, punch" and went off about how his kind was the reason a generation will grow up and be "lousy good fer nothin' spoiled assholes 'cause their daddy ain't takin' a look 'round his life to see what his priorities amount to... blah blah...."  Chewin' and chompin' this guy up like he was the cause of the world's problems when actually my Pop was just mad that he had to fork out 100 bucks at the doctor's office only to find out that I was unsupervised until midnight on Halloween.

Many years later I drove past that "witches" house. I saw an old lady watering her beautiful plants outside and she waved at me as I drove by as though I lived in the neighborhood. I got a close look at her yard and I noticed something. There was a headstone in the front of her lawn with an engraved picture of a dog on it along with a sign mid-way through her yard that said, "no trespassing, beware of cats."
This "witch" had a grave site (that I kicked and shattered) with her dog's face on it and a sense of humor about her "attack cats."  It also dawned on me that I was probably the reason for that trespassing sign being implemented in the first place.

I jotted down her address and sent her an apology card 10 years too late. I got a letter back in the mail which I was scared to open but did and it said,

"Thank you. It's nice to know that I got to be a part of your childhood memories. Don't worry about a thing dear. It's all part of growing up which I think you must be doing a fine job of."

Perspective. Get some.

Turning My Own Table- Things I love

I decided to write this because for whatever reason I'm bursting from my heart a tremendous amount of love for things today. I'll try to keep the comedy in this.

This is going to read as though a 2nd grader wrote it... Just warning you.
When I'm really happy, I'm like 7 years old... And the main point I'm making is how hard it is to only say what we love and make it funny... So this is an experiment of sorts. I'd also love to hear what you love.

I love nice large teeth. I enjoy watching people speak, love watching people smile, and when someone smiles from the heart, like truly smiles, there's NOTHING I enjoy watching more than that. Nothing. Except maybe the things that caused the smile in the first place.

I love dogs. All canines. I think dogs, all dogs, all canines from foxes, wolves, coyotes, the wild red spotted dog of Africa, scary dogs, mean dogs, stupid dogs, fat dogs.... I love them. I think they are actually on earth to save us from ourselves. l

I love it when people take the time to write me something so complimentary that I'm humbled to the point of tears. So many people who have done this random act of kindness thing, have NO idea how they've affected me and restored my faith. Thank you.

I love brisket, chicken & dumplings, sushi, the texture of a hard fried egg, beans-- all beans, I'm a lover of a bean... you can call me a beaner and I won't get offended because I love a' bean. Mexicans across the country know of my love of a bean. In fact, there's nothing I love more than a bean except one thing... Cayenne pepper. I carry it in my bag, no lie.

I love the color yellow and I love yellow even more when it's paired with turquoise or orange. Yellow makes me happy. Yellow can bring me from feeling a bit blah-blah to feeling like dancing by myself to Frank Sinatra in the living room. It has that much of a powerful effect.

I love black people. I will say it until the day I die, but black people are the reason this world has any type of value. Music would suck without black people.  There would be no music without black people. Black people understand Jesus better than anyone. Nobody would be inspired by athletes if black people didn't exist and NOTHING would be as funny if there weren't black people. I could go on but I'm the biggest fan of the passionate raw delicious energy of black people. If you are black and reading this... I love you.

I love smile lines... even my own.

I love watching assembly line machines, gears in clocks, any metal machinery. I could watch metal being bent or molded all damn day. I really could. I love the sound of a drill when it screws in the hardware in the most perfect way. It makes my mouth water to watch a machine work in a perfect way. I would be happy as a tinkerer in a garage for the rest of my life.... but nobody would let me just do that.

I love airplanes. I love to fly. I love the sound of a plane breaking the sound barrier. I love the idea that I can be in another part of the planet in hours. Planes are magic.

I love Israel. It's the most beautifully complicated place on earth with the most unique people on earth. The way you feel sitting at a table overlooking the sea and talking with Israelis is like no other feeling in the world. It's the most important little strip of land in the world and there's a reason why it's the promised land.

I love New York, Memphis, Chicago and Baltimore.

I love Texas. I love being a Texan. I love the vast beautiful openness and diversity of my home state. I love how each area of Texas is like its own country. I love the good, bad, great and ugly of it. I love how there are animals here that can kill you and ones that can inspire songs, poems, and art. I love the shape of Texas. I love that it contains everything from the desert to the lush swamps of east Texas.

I love the idea of UFO's, Bigfoot, and every crypto animal that has been seen by people across the world. It makes me feel excited to think that we don't have everything figured out. It gives me a sense of great possibility to think that there are things out there that could change our whole perspective of how vast and mysterious creation truly is.  It makes God bigger.

I love well made clothes.

I love risk takers. I love people who against all public scrutiny decide to take a stand either for a cause or for themselves and do something unconventional for the greater good, personal discovery, or out of passion that comes from the gut feeling, "this feels right." Even if I don't agree with all of them, it gives me hope for mankind when someone swims the other direction against the current.

I love the sound of a hearty belly laugh from a baby. Who doesn't?

I love Jack Hanna. I think he's from the light. I love his enthusiasm for animals, I love the stupid names he comes up with for his rescued turtle or cheetah, and I love how truly elated he gets when he's talking about animals. I love his deep southern accent and his dumb face. I love him.

I love W.C. Fields. I find nobody who has ever lived on planet earth funnier than W.C. Fields. Nobody. If you haven't watched any of his stuff.... do yourself a big favor and watch the following, "The Golf Specialist," "The Dentist," for starters... then follow the breadcrumb trail of hilarity. I consumed W.C. Fields short films when I was a kid almost daily. I wore out a VHS cassette by watching it too much. It never gets old to me.

I love words. If you've ever been around a real wordsmith person, there is nothing more impressive than someone who knows how to put words together in a perfect way to describe an abstract idea. I have always envied and admired people with a veracious vocabulary. I try but it isn't my superpower... yet. I'm working on it.

I love grapeseed oil for moisturizing. If you haven't tried it, you should. You will feel like Cleopatra after you slather yourself in it post-shower. It's luxurious.

I love angels. I think angels (the good ones) are probably the most bad ass thing in the universe. I love the idea that there are watchers of this planet who on God's command can intervene and change the outcome of any situation. To me, there would be no better job in the universe than this. I love the descriptions of them and being a power nerd of Marvel comics, I feel like in an epic battle of The Avengers, it would be the raddest movie ever if Stan Lee tagged in the archangels alongside Thor n' the gang. I would get too excited and have a heart attack in the movie theatre over that shit.

I love that prayer or quantum entanglement actually has been proven scientifically to work. That lets me know that our "made in His image" thing is even more true than we know. "All thoughts are creative matter." -Einstein. So we create by thought, just like God does? Fantastic.

I love painting. I need to do more of it.

I love mythology of any kind from anywhere around the world. I love putting the puzzle together and realizing that we all have the same mythology throughout time but the character's names are changed depending on the culture. Mankind has these ancient superhero stories of failure, triumph, and divine guidance, bad decisions, and repentance and it connects us to our ancestors and makes me realize that we are still waiting for that one situation that will change everything in our lives forever. I love that.

I could go on and on and on.... but I'd love to hear some of your loves.
I figure with all my negative funny rants I post, I should balance out the acid a bit by releasing some flip side fuzzy stuff every once in a while. I hope you will feel free to allow yourselves to express what you love no matter how insignificant you think it might be to those around you... express it! It will infuse you with energy today.

Raisin' Pussies at the Pussy Farm- My rant on the anti-bullying campaigns.

In the present day we have thousands of anti-bulling campaigns in schools, media, government run organizations, privately funded youth programs, etc...

I'm here to splash some self-righteous waters and say for the record that the United States always screws up a good idea by making it the BEST idea. We compete within the bundle of "good ideas" to bring "awareness to the best plan of Good Idea," and then saturate, steep, and eventually submerge everyone (against their will) into our good idea pious hot tub.

I'm going on the record right now with one other thing...
I hate a bully as much as the next fat kid, but I also know they serve a purpose. I know this first hand. I believe that we've begun to confuse the term 'bully' with other descriptions that would be better in certain cases... Ex. ignorant, plebian, misguided, uninformed, or BAD PARENTING LAB RAT.

We didn't achieve great things, inventions, ideas, songs, poems, films, stand-up comedians, civil rights leaders, heros, comic book heros, mythology,  by patting everyone on the back and saying, "everything you are is just great and I support you, yay! Go you! Yay! Oh you feel bad about your decision to wear a ninja turtle costume to school and you're 14? Who said something mean to you about that? Why, I just can't believe it! You are a perfect individual and any decision you make is just your individuality coming out and I support that."

Sometimes your kid needs to have their ass kicked verbally because they suck.

If we were animals (and I'm not saying we aren't) we would be eaten by the pack, thrown from a cliff, or left to starve in the wilderness if we made a stupid ass decision to not do the things we need to do for the greater good.

Funny Example Below:
"Mr.  Grizzle Bear, did you realize your smallest cub is standing in the middle of the human's vacation cabin taking a dump? NO, I didn't know where he was! Well, he's an individual and I know it's a bear's job to learn how to hunt for food and prepare for the winter months, but if he feels like pooping in the human den, then who am I to stop him? I'm merely his beary father. What? They shot my bear cub? Well I'm going to form a non-profit organization that will allow more bear cubs to shit in human houses! That's final! Bears should be allowed to be not bears."

I'm beating a dead horse. I realize that. I don't care. Repetition is the mother of skill.

I've heard so many stupid self-attention seeking people on talk shows or in every day soundbites of real life say, "we just pulled my child out of school because he/she was a victim of bullying."

Oh... great message MOM..."when shit gets rough, you can just not face it and quit and momma will scoop your precious ass up and deliver you from your peril."

 "That's great parenting," said the sarcastic blogger.

Let's give our kids zero ability to cope with the harsh reality that IS mankind and form deep grooves in their neurological pathways that end in fit throwing and safety nets given by others.

THAT will be how the world ends right there. We get enough of these weak skinned pussy kids and you won't have a military, you won't have anything new and exciting created(because that involves risk taking and someone saying 'no' a few times before your idea gets flushed out and worthy enough for an audience), and when any crisis happens there will be an entire generation of people with their binky blankets and layers of unhealthy narcissism thus preventing them from seeing how any of it is their fault.

I was bullied. HARD. HARRRRRRD. I needed to be. I sang bullshit songs on the playground in musical theatre fashion, "why won't someone play with me?" And tattled on kids to the teacher who "wouldn't play with me." I made up stories about how Puff the Magic Dragon lived in my attic because I thought it was a sure fire way to get a friend to come over... the only kid who took the bait was a kid covered in dandruff who rocked back and forth 24/7 and wore the thickest glasses in. the. world. I ate poptarts out of nervousness with ice cream crammed in the center. Shit like that.

 Of course, there's a level of 'bullying' that isn't to be tolerated and that would be the 'bullying' from adults toward kids....which is abuse, not bullying.

 If your peers are pushing you around, making your life a living hell, telling you things about yourself that you didn't know, snickering at you, spreading rumors, then either they are all products of terribly abusive or unavailable parents, mentally sick... or they have a point and you need to keep it real with yourself or keep it real with them by giving it right back to 'em.

Either way, there's a common denominator to all of it which is how you react.

I'd like to thank Brandon Dixon, Luke Herald, Courtney Clembara, Tonya Hudson, Adria Wiggington, Mrs. Holliman(3rd grade bitch teacher),  all of the staff at Dallas CHRISTIAN School (with the exception of my band director), Ashley Jarvis, all cheerleaders at DC, Mark Latham, another Mark (I can't remember his last name but he was terrible), several girls at church, scary ass gansta' girls my freshman year in public high school, Kyle Thompson who lived down the street, mean ass goth bitches at Garland High, Dashing Debs drill team senior officers, Director of Dashing Debs  Mrs. Holliman Mark 2 (hope having those kids really mellowed you out because you were a miserable bag of estrogen and vampire teeth)....
I'm leaving a lot of people out.... OH, CYNTHIA BLAKE(who was crippled but not crippled enough, because she blamed me for her bad decisions to drink and have wild parties underage, to her mother- who then decided that I was the antichrist to "force a cripple to drink and party"... bear in mind, I didn't even drink nor was I wild...oh and I was blamed for stealing a bunch of shit from the mall and had to go to kid jail...she was crippled so obviously it wasn't her fault that HER bag was full of merchandise from Dillards.)

My list of adult 'bullies' in my adulthood is far longer and they would get off on me mentioning their names so... no.

Anyway... I was terribly made fun of for being fat, lispy, slow, gullible , and a bit dumb.

I didn't understand things the way other kids did and I also didn't understand social rules or as I call them, "chick clicks."  I was made fun of so badly that going to school became my personal war of learning how to not be affected by it. My parent's didn't believe me when I would tell them what was going on and they had it set in their heads that sending me to a private school was the best possible thing for me. It was the worst thing because I was surrounded by kids that were from families with money and power and I managed to get into that school through the "outreach" program that accepted certain not-rich kids into the program at a discounted rate. I was dumb and fat though. For real.

However....
It wasn't any one of the "things wrong with me" that got me bullied.

It was the subconscious stench of being prey that allowed them to prey upon me. I was dealing with a lot of traumatic stuff in my home life and that just carried itself in my pores around other kids.  For whatever reason, and I'm sure it's a real real deep reason, I was chosen in this life to overcome a lot. I know one day it will really make a whole heapin' bucket of sense to me and sometimes it makes perfect sense to me without knowing the end game.  What I do know is that had I not been persecuted by the list of people above, I would not have done one of the following things....

*Rescued my grandmother from her car that she drove off a steep embankment. 
-Earlier that day I was picked on pretty hard by Brandon Dixon who had called me Shamu during my VIP Day presentation. I was so angry and full of rage that I mustered up superhuman strength to pull my grandmother from a car sitting at a 45 degree angle while she was unconscious. So thank you Brandon Dixon.

*Learned about nutrition and became quite the guru of health by the age of 16. 
(of course I also took it way too far and basically had an OCD thing with body image and food until I was 27 but still... I knew about every facet of how to stay in shape and eat enough calories, what to eat etc... )

*My entire career in entertainment and my bigger dreams that none of you even know about...yet.  
      -Thank you everyone on that list up there. I'm so glad I was surrounded by naysayers. It was exactly what I needed to fight against so that I never settled for the ordinary things that I know all of you(on the list) settled for. So thanks.

*My core spiritual beliefs. 


*My endless thirst for knowledge about everything in the universe. 
           -If you get called stupid enough, you'll learn some shit. Just sayin'.

*My sense of adventure, risk taking, and relentless pursuit of happiness. 
-If I had not been so repulsed by how my special bullies turned out, I wouldn't have made it my mission to never be like them. That may sound vague but trust me, it's not. I doubt half of them ever met anyone outside of who they went to school with since kindergarten and I've done some research... most of them got married to each other, had kids, and still live in the same zip code. (nothing wrong with that) The hilarious part is that they all look about 50 pounds overweight, miserable, and most have jobs working for that school in some capacity. How sad. They love it there. That's hilarious.

*Most importantly, the strongest belief I have is the belief in myself, which only solidifies my belief in Divine guidance. 


The bullying campaigns or "my kid or I am bullied" victim boat, is another 'boy that cried wolf' situation. You know who was bullied for real recently? That asian couple with their baby that was harassed by a stupid mouth-breathing Cro-Magnon motorcycle gang to the point of being physically dragged out of their mini-van and beaten half to death. THAT is a bully. Or in that case, a full grip of 'em.

The kid that told your kid he looked retarded in "The Flash" cosplay unitard he wore to school when he's 243 pounds and in the 8th grade rockin' some spandex n' "staying in character," is RIGHT in his pursuit to check your kid.  Your kid does look like a finger paints with his feet. Sorry, but he does. Or at least it gives the impression he does when you let him wear THAT SHIT TO SCHOOL!
"But my son likes to do that...." said Mom.

Yeah, well, he sucks and you suck harder.

By the way...Mom, you just got your kid labeled forever by allowing him to be a f*ckin' schmuck and wear that shit around other 8th graders.  Years from now there will be some group of 30 year olds that are hangin' out sayin, "You remember _______ ? Remember when he wore that spandex shit to school...? Oh yeah, he DID have a mask on that's right... Wasn't he from like England or something? Oh that's right, he was "in character. I think his mom took him out of school 'cause of us...(laugh laugh laugh) He never had a chance with a mom like that. " 

(Then uproarious laughter ensues and a google search begins trying to find your fat, miserable, overly terrified-by-life "Mommy supports me" 30 year old son who is still dressing up in outfits in the basement playing Warcraft instead of going to MIT... Because he actually could've changed the world if you had allowed him to get his ass kicked like one time....)

I'm just sayin'.... not everyone is a victim of a real bully.

If someone disagrees with you, they aren't bullying you. 

A bully is someone who threatens you with words or with physical aggression based on their decision to just not like you no matter what and are determined to make you suffer for being alive. Oh and they fall hard when they fall. This is your hero's journey to either overcome, or to level the playing field by being really extraordinary in life.

There are real anti-bullying campaigns that I think are worth talking about, but that's not as much fun, and the best anti-bullying campaign is the one you don't have posters and ribbons for.

However, if you are on board with the global laming bandwagon, you wouldn't be reading this anyway. You'd be in your panic room eating couscous and worrying about Monsanto's effect on your neighborhood Whole Food Market's corn selections, while encouraging your 7 year old "to do whatever makes him/her happy," giving them options (that they have no right to have),  and offering up a plate of   responsibility to "choose for themselves" when they are incapable of reaching the kitchen cabinets.

You're the gatekeeper. You are the one who has choices of whether or not to cover your kid in pillows and hand sanitizer or to let them learn lessons in the way humans have for thousands of years.

If they can reach the kitchen cabinets, (like the top shelf) then it's time to ween them off of your nourishing fear infused breast milk because it's your fault when society falls. Your fault. Not terrorists, not Monsanto, not hormones in the beef, not cancer, the government, God, Allah, Buddha, the economy or The Affordable Health Care Act, or prescription drug companies...

 Nope, it's your fault for raising pussies at the pussy farm.

 I understand wanting to "support your kid no matter what" thing...
However, if they are getting beat up for being losers who like to wear costumes to school at 15 years old, then instead of taking them out of the school of hard knocks, why not let them study how to sew or to do set design or to intern with a theatre wardrobe department over a summer or or or....
That way there's an outlet for their brand of weird that is legitimate and will help them to channel that "individuality" in an appropriate way.

 If your little girl is ballooning out to epic proportions because you "support her desire to eat whenever/whatever she wants to," and give her endless "options" then you have only yourself to blame when her peers start calling her Jabba.

How is an entire generation going to find out what they are made of if adults are preventing them from experiencing any obstacles?
Obstacles that don't affect adults in the same way. Obstacles that are there for a reason. Your support of them should be to  support their tenacity, to teach them how to understand why "that kid is mean," and to show them how many world-changing people started off life by dealing with "that mean kid."

Last thing...

All I'm saying is that when a giant catastrophic event happens, we are going to need earmuffs to drown out the ubiquitous cries of a generation of invertebrates if this coddling doesn't stop.

So...
I hear they got some good deals down at the Walmart on earmuffs these days.
Grab ye a pair and head for high ground folks...

There's a storm a' pussies headed this way and they are wearing spandex.

Scary But True- My Life Growing Up with Paranormal Experiences, Part One

It is said that the night of my birth, my birthmother encountered a full-on angel about three times en route to the hospital when her car kept breaking down. She will have to tell y'all the story of that because it's way better coming from her. (I was given up for adoption and so the story was told to me fairly recently via meeting my biological mother. )

I guess that's how I came into the world, and she was quoted as saying, "You were the only child I had that had an angel present at your birth. I guess God knew you needed one." 

Nothing more true has ever been said regarding my life. 

I feel like the time is ripe for me to open up about the paranormal things that happened to me growing up. They still happen, but not in the way I'm about to launch into. I'll try to make this story somewhat hilarious so that it doesn't leave a weird aftertaste.  

I have memories that are crystal clear dating back to before I knew how to walk or speak. I've read about this in various bullshit new agey self-help books. They explain this as being, "you had awareness because of being an advanced spirit." Whatever. 

Here's how I explain it... I had awareness because if I hadn't had awareness, I would've either died, or grown up being 100% off the rails crazy. I guess the jury is still out on the second part of that...or at the very least I am routinely questioned by "normal" people as to my motives for not being "normal." 

When I was adopted, I remember my first nightmare being so terrible that to this very day I can remember it like it was a scene from a movie. That nightmare involved me getting my head chopped off.  Other nightmares soon followed that one which involved red eyed demonic looking animals that were always trying to get to me through windows, etc...  Soon enough, those nightmares became a reality. 

The first non-sleeping paranormal experience I had was when I was sitting on the floor in the living room playing. I heard my name being called with a voice that was female and very softly it would say, "Melodeeeee, Mellllodee... Melodeee," with different inflections that would trail off into a whisper. I would ignore this until it became so annoying that I would audibly say, "WHAT?" Then it would stop. This continued for about an hour, on and off, rinse & repeat. I kept ignoring it until I noticed that the carpet I was sitting on began to transform into maggots which were squirming all over the place. I stood up and couldn't breathe and looked up at the ceiling to "regather" my reality and that's when I saw rain coming from the ceiling. 

Here's the thing... I didn't have a good imagination as a kid. I didn't like movies, or playing pretend, or anything like that. I liked REAL things. As I've found out with years of therapy, (ha ha) this is a very common trait among orphans and robots. Okay not robots... 

This first experience that I just detailed out above, was the beginning of years of torment. I'll go ahead and say that the worst part of going through years of paranormal shit is NOBODY believes you. My family especially aren't keen on believing anything that isn't pleasant to digest. They also have an aversion to anything extraordinary and they happened to adopt a kid(me) that was anything but ordinary. 

I remember being very "in tune" with spirituality early on. I had questions, lots of them. I knew that the world I lived in wasn't completely what it seemed to be. I was incredibly loving to everything and everyone. Very open. I say all of that to say this... Several mystics, priests, shamans, or any spiritual practitioner will tell you that evil lies in wait for the opportunity to corrupt someone pure of heart. 

Not too long after the crazy ass maggot/rain name calling shit, I had my friend Michelle Merriman over to my house. Michelle and I performed together all the time and she was a part of my life from the beginning. She was one of those feisty hyperactive kids that always had a plan for what we were going to do that day for fun. She kind of wore me out to be honest. So... her mother came in and was talking to my mom about when she should come back to get Michelle, etc... Michelle within seconds of arriving at my house, immediately wanted to play hide and seek. I agreed to this with some trepidation, but figured I could use the "fun time" and felt like I needed to at least TRY to be a kid once in a while. Michelle said, "Okay, so you count and I'm going to hide first." I agreed to this plan and began the counting. "Ready or not here I come." I went to the places I rationalized were perfect hiding areas and she wasn't there. I kept looking, looking, looking, looking.... Finally! I see a reddish light coming from the crack of the door of my closet. I was thinking I'd be super sneaky and just fling open the door and say, "gotcha!"  When I flung open the door, it wasn't Michelle that I "got." It was a 7ft tall shadowy being cloaked in darkness with glowing red eyes. I remember just looking at it. Not screaming, just looking at it with paralyzing fear. That's when it started this very purposeful scary slow smile at me. It's teeth were spindles with sharp points, jagged staggery teeth. It was laughing at me. I had one thought after I saw that... "It's here for me."  I don't know why I thought that but I knew that 'it' had a mission and that mission had something to do with destroying me. 

I slammed the door, ran as fast and as hard as I could toward my mom. "Mom, listen to me, Michelle can't stay here. She can't. She's gotta go home. Trust me. She has to go home. It's not safe here. There's this thing, it's like the devil, it's here and it wants me, and Michelle has to go home or it's going to do something really bad to her to try and get to me. " 
My mom looked at me like I was insane of course, but Michelle was standing right behind me and she started crying because she thought I didn't want to be friends with her and that is why I was trying to get her to go home. (first onset of chick type behaviors that I have grown to loathe in most women to this day) 

My mom was very upset at me because Michelle's mother had just left so...

I didn't care. I knew I was right and that I had made the right decision.

Jump to- Nightfall.

The realization that I had to go back into my room to sleep was too much to bear. It made me angry that I was having to deal with shit like that. I knew it was my battle and that nobody in my house would ever believe me so I had to take this on myself. I just remember being mad that I had to take on anything, you know?

Bear in mind I was probably around 5 or 6 years old at this time.  I prepared myself mentally for the war of bedtime and went into the room. I opened the closet up, nothing was in there, and I felt like maybe I had just imagined all of it.
Nope.
Around 2-3am that night, I woke up from one of my many reoccurring nightmares of spinning downward through a vortex. After awakening from this dream I saw the glow of the red light coming from under the closet door again. I decided to ignore it and just go back to sleep by praying to God. I started to feel hot breath on my face. The same feeling you would get if your dog was just staring at you as you slept, but only if your dog was like a chupacabra or some shit like that. My eyes were closed and I did not want to open them. I kept praying. The breath became more intense and I started feeling the bed sink. I knew it was pressing the bed down. I held firm in my decision to not open my eyes and to keep praying. The intensity seemed to ramp up about 50% more until I broke from the pressure of this thing trying to get my attention and yelled, "GET OUT OF HERE!"
 It grinned at me again but this time it was inches from my face. I remember it looking up and then it disappeared instantly as though something spooked it. What could have spooked it? My only answer to that is that it had to have been something protecting me from the lighter side of the train tracks. I didn't see an angel, but there was some reason why this thing buggered off just as it was gaining momentum.

This type of experience with this terrible "thing" happened regularly for years and years. It followed me to my grandparents house, school, everywhere. I even felt it at church a few times in the back annex areas where the recreational activities took place.
It wasn't too long into this regular occurrence that I started to break down physically. I had weird things happening to me all the time. I vomited regularly, had fevers that would reach 103 F at times, and I would get pneumonia as often as people get the common cold. I spent a great deal of time at the doctor and everyone would scratch their heads as to why my immune system was so weak. There was also the bizarre mood swings of everyone in my house. My dad became violent, abusive and downright scary. His face would change and he looked like an animal grinding its teeth at its prey. After he would have these bouts of terrible rage, he would cry for hours. I would comfort him as he said, "I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry, I love you."  I knew he loved me but I knew that he had problems that were way above my "pay grade."

 Various pets would disappear or be killed in tragic ways, etc... At the time, none of this was connected to me. My health seemed to be an anomaly that we kind of all assumed was from being a kid in entertainment that was pushed too hard to be perfect. The pets...well, we lived in the country so it could've been anything from coyotes to the black jaguars that had been spotted in that area. My dad's rage... that could have been his time in the military or the stress of dealing with my mom who spent his money as fast as he made it...

Now, after many years of research, I know that most of the turmoil was caused by something nobody saw but me. It was meant to destroy me by any means necessary. "It" was going to use any and everything around me to wear me down so that I wouldn't fight it.
Luckily, I wasn't that smart in some ways so I would continuously try, try, try something until I mastered it or figured it out. I had obsessive qualities that I wouldn't wish on anyone. However, that bullheaded determination is why I'm able to blog about this 30 years later with a clean bill of health and a fairly good head on my shoulders. I was objective about everything as a kid and through most of my adult life. I guess I still am in a lot of ways, objective,  but objectivity was/is the reason why the fear, pain, and dysfunction didn't consume me.

In the next blog, Part Two, I will continue the story of how specific this "thing" was in trying to lure me into a false sense of security.  I will also say this for the record... I am writing this down because I know that it's a subject that people do not want to believe is real. I understand that entirely. However, it is real and maybe my story will bring a new perspective to what we classify as "paranormal."

Here's a hint... This story, my story,  has a happy ending.

....expect Part Two very soon...

A Tale of The Witch of Methy Mountain

Once upon a time in the Land of Gar, 

There lived a self-proclaimed princess and her hand maiden offspring who happened to be a mute when it was convenient for her to be silent when faced with dire responsibility of defending the kingdom. 

Verily, that is not the point of the story... 

The princess wasn't a beautiful fair princess at all. In fact, she had no discernible features from the dark elves or warlocks who lived in the surrounding trailer parks. 

Yet, somehow through the power of snake magic, she managed to adopt one of the angelic beings from the higher realm of Di Enay, (sound it out for maximum funny)and spend her life in comfort, never lifting a finger to toil among the serfs. 

However, this tale takes place in present day.... 

The princess transformed into her true form, a Witch. She no longer had the snake magic that brought her riches and glory nor could she retain the admiration of other angelic beings from the higher realms of Di Enay. She found a new type of magic from the troglodytes encamped in the surrounding bogs by Methy Mountain. 

Methy Mountain was a forbidden place to the angelic beings from the higher realms of Di Enay. They knew that this potion would be poison and would manifest revolting and ghastly shapeshifting properties thus transforming them into a skeletal dark fanged bog monster. The princess however, decided it was a worthwhile quest to undergo, because she always got what she wanted,  and she summoned her veracious appetite for snake magic and hoodwinked the king into giving her his bank account information, retirement funds, his children's inheritance, and obviously his better judgment. 

A ruffian appeared, as they always do, at the gate of Methy Mountain. She had no trepidation in following him to the summit. After all, she was wearing her snake magic vestments and knew in her snaky heart that no harm would come to her for the king is but a simple farmer from Germania, and lo', thinks like a simple farmer from Germania.  The king said, "There is but no such a thing as the Methy Mountain you speak of! The princess is but a princess, as she has told me time and time again through countless trials and tribulations I have undertook for some reason I have yet to know what the cause is, that she would never be among the troglodytes of Methy Mountain! Hark!(I don't know, it's funny)" 

You see, the angelic being of the higher realm of Di Enay (that the princess and king adopted) tried to warn the kingdom of the princess' quest and had prophesied of this very thing happening. She had also spoken ill of the princess' intentions and of her snake magic for YEARS.  Yet not a soul in the kingdom ever took heed to the warnings of such farcical whims of a being they revered as being an outsider and worse, a story teller. 

Word had spread throughout the kingdom of the possible trade route of the princess to Methy Mountain. The Land of Gar Henchmen had captured the princess several times and, as it always is in the kingdom, the king gave them his gold and the angelic adopted being's gold as a way to retrieve the princess. You may be asking or not asking, "Yes, all is good my witty story-teller, but where o' where is the hand maiden daughter of the king and princess? Does she not have stake in the well being of her captor, I mean, her princess, I mean, her MOM?" And Lo' there was also an adopted son, but he is entirely irrelevant because he doesn't have a soul most of the time. 

As story tellers often do, I will tell you only the parts of this story that have significance and the hand maiden does not have any.

 You see, long long ago there was a pact made between the king, princess, and the hand maiden, that would allow the hand maiden to be free from all scrutiny or responsibility within the kingdom walls...much like the princess/witch. 

 All responsibility would invariably fall on the adopted angelic being of the higher realm of Di Enay. 

The henchmen of Gar warned the king that his princess was "cruisin' for a bruisin'," but the king made no apparent changes to the regime.  Instead he proclaimed that the stolen goods and gold from the kingdom must be the work of mysterious thieves of nightfall, and lo', installed 12 torches of light surrounding the castle as well as new locks and fucking trap cameras from the Army Navy store. 

The princess had a new title given to her by the low dwelling troglodytes living inside Methy Mountain. She would be their leader now and would be deemed The Witch of Methy Mountain. Her new title and a new sense of purpose enabled her to regain her snake magic ten fold. She returned to the kingdom with the potion from the mountain as well as the physical burden of partaking in the smoking of that poison.. I mean...potion, meth.... Whatever.  

She began to shapeshift like the wizards of dark elvish magic. She became like the undead that dwell in the Primordial Pond of Bad Di Enay. The undead, which have gray fangs, skeletal protrusions and holes the size of quarters in their brain which make them speak in riddles and chew on the inside of their mouths, making their dwellings out of knick-knacks and piles of trash. The king noticed the words of the princess being more confusing and mercurial than normal,  but assumed that it was menopause and nothing more. After all, the Henchmen of Gar had released the princess so she obviously wasn't in possession of stolen goods or the bountiful illegal harvest of the Methy Mountain anymore. (ugh) 

The Witch of Methy Mountain knew that the adopted angelic being of the higher realm of Di Enay must know of her secret trade routes to collect the illegal harvest of the troglodytes because she would routinely proclaim to the kingdom of her knowledge of this. This was not without consequence for the adopted angelic being who's various finery and expensive things would be hidden from her site and then returned 2 weeks later damaged or wouldn't be the same item at all. The adopted angelic being doesn't want to live in the kingdom, but half of the kingdom is hers so she represses a great deal of inner torment and evil tyrannical warrior tendencies in hopes that one day the Witch and the handmaiden will be overthrown... or just the witch, that's it really... just the witch needs to fuckin' GO. 

The Witch of Methy Mountain has a birthday today. "Yippy"... said no one.

 What does one get a Witch of Methy Mountain? Perhaps a cake? No, no, verily I say the Witch does not eat anymore and the cake will spoil due to being hidden for weeks thus ensuring that nobody in the kingdom will get a piece until it creates the poison of the bowels. A card perhaps? Ha! You fools. Everyone knows the Witch of Methy Mountain no longer reads sentiments from the  kingdom! Tis but a fool who would think she would give heed to such an emotional outpouring of support. 

Ah, there is one thing that the Witch of the Meth could receive... 

Jail time. 

The best gift of all. For the Witch of Methy Mountain would be held accountable for her wrongdoing, thievery, and snake magic for ONCE IN HER LIFE. Her hand maiden would cry and cry but she too needs a hard kick to the ass. The king would be free to rule the kingdom by retiring and going on fishing expeditions. 

What about the angelic adopted being from the higher realm of Di Enay? 

She would strip naked and dance the dance of her people in the streets of Gar,

 and would rummage through the stockpiles of hoarded boxes to find anything belonging to her, and would burn the rest in a ceremonial fire to the God of Justice. Why even the Henchmen of Gar would allow this gloating!  

Yet, sadly, this is just a tale. Nothing more, nothing less than a tale. It seems the moral of this story is that telling the tale, being able to tell a tale, or having the sense of humor it takes to understand the players of the tale, is its own kingdom full of riches that cannot be stolen or smoked. 

*Note to God- Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to see throughout my life how drugs have ruined people I love, and how you have given me the gift of being scared shitless of losing my teeth as well as growing up seeing paranormal entities waft through my room, which has prevented me from experimenting with drugs out of total raw fear of the darkside and toothloss. So thank you for that. I would also like to mention that I do not want to get my mom, I mean the Witch of Methy Mountain, a birthday gift because she has all of my gifts(and some of my friend's gifts) in a pawn shop somewhere.... so that being said, I hope I get extra angel points for going and getting her a gift today... yes, yes, and a card. I would like to ask one more thing... If you could heal up that part of her brain that hides in the bathroom for hours, that would be super coo' because I haven't showered in a week. Thanks. Loveyoumeanit. Tell Jesus and the Arch Angels I said whats up and I'd really like it if they would just hang out with me once in a while. OH I almost forgot... tell Milkdud(my dog I lost this last year) that I give her permission to haunt me if she has the time but to not appear when I'm in the shower, which I never can get into anyway so that shouldn't be an issue, but still... it's a deep fear of shower ghosts, so any other time would be great for that haunting.. just not while I'm in the shower. Ever. Which again,  shouldn't be hard because I'm never in that ho... cause I can't be in there... cause there's a methhead with weird paranoia that hides in there. 

God, please fix this... and by "this" I mean everything. Oh and if you can't fix everything all at once... the second thing I really need you to fix or explain or something is the hoarding of perishable food items under her bed. I need that explained to me or solved because I... I just do. 

"I pitty da' fool who mess wit Drug." 

-Mr. T

Experience Hoarding- The real funny truth and nothin' but.

Experience Hoarders

Disclaimer: I curse in this blog a whole lot. If you are offended by that, please understand that my outlet is in my writing and I don't expect this to be printed out for anyone under 16 years old as quality reading material. 

What in the hell does that mean exactly? Well, I'm here to tell you what my new term is, and how it's defined.. as well as...What it means in your life, and how you can avoid being a douche.


The other day(actually like 2 months ago) I was at this party with several people that I haven't seen in years. I've "seen" them, as in I've looked at their posts on a 2x4 screen... but I haven't SEEN them in a 3-D environment sharing the same atmospheric elements.

 I was super stoked to go to this shindig and catch up with everyone, tell stories, have what the old humans call, "a conversation." However, about 4.5 minutes into this gorilla sized let down, I looked around the room and e'rrrbody was on 'dey phones. ERRRRRBODY. They were tagging pictures, posting updates, taking photos of their fucking overpriced bullshit liqueur and as I was sitting there sharing the same air with these fucks, I started getting "notifications."

"_________ is hangin' at ________ with peeps from ol' school days! Having the most AMAZING time, jealous world?" 

"_________ is at the dopest bar in Dallas kickin' it old school with some bad ass AMAZING biaatches! Wooooot! OMG I love this place! Take a looksy at my drinksy, stay classy San Diego! :) " 

(and now my personal favorite)

"ROFL, Melodee Lenz is like the FUNNIEST person in THA WORRRRRLD. It's so amazing to be here with all my super insane friends. lol." 
(this one was tagged with a photo of me looking lonely and staring distantly into the darker part of the bar)

Let me say something... I hadn't told any funny stories at that point when the notifications started streaming to my iPhone. I wasn't "on" yet because to be "on" one must gain some momentum within the perimeters of an ACTUAL CONVERSATIONAL DIALOGUE.

I had to relieve myself in the restroom and regain the personal strength I lost when I started receiving these notifications of how awesome this party was- because I feared ( like you do) that I had eagle-eyed the wrong party and possibly could be (as I've historically always feared about myself) crazy.

Like they say... if you question whether or not you're crazy, you most likely aren't crazy.  "They" say a lot of dumb shit though so....

The night went on and there were some conversations peppered into the duration of time between 7pm and 2am, but for the most part it was pretty fuckin' lame.

Jump to NEXT DAY...
I wake up with a barrel full of notifications regarding comments and "likes" and one fingered approvals of my fucking "amazing" night out. That my dear sir is quite queer because I don't remember it as such? How fuckin' daft of me! How could I not recall such an explosive night of "amazing" shit? "AMAZING" drinks, "AMAZING food," "AMAZING bartenders named Raj," an "AMAZING vibe here..."

Fuck you, it's not amazing, stop fucking saying everything is amazing, don't you remember the story about the boy that cried fuckin' WOLF you assholes? Yeah, when a fuckin' unknown metallic hover craft comes in through the Einstein Rosen bridge fuckin' wormhole and lands in the middle of the field during the Superbowl half-time show crushing Paul McCartney's piano from the EMF waves...what fuckin' word are you gonna say then bitch? Oh what? What? You can't say AMAZING because you fuckin' used up all your amazing punch card slots! ... and that was THE wolf.

I digress.

This whole thing got me ta' thinkin'.

I started playing a little game I call, "what really happened last night?" This definitely got me out of the house more because to play this game you have to actually GO to the places you are invited to. I started going to various get-togethers, birthday parties, cook outs, events, etc... I would take notes in my head about the 'said' event and then I'd compare my notes to the shit that would surface on Twitter or Facebook the next day. They NEVER match up. I began reading the "feed" on these sites and came to the conclusion that most people now are hoarders. Experience hoarders.

They hoard their experiences by storing them in their phones. These experiences became so cluttered that they are now spilling out of the phone and into your phone. If this were actual physical objects we're talking about here- the entire US would be buried in blurry edged washed-out 1975 filter photos and 10 second film reels and the muffled sounds of "hilarious" custom ringtones or notification bells... the occasional hand that shoots out from the rubble to take a "selfy," etc...

This term "Experience Hoarder" popped into my head after watching a live performance  and having ridiculously great seats, and seeing everyone else around me-Also with great seats- watching this show through the 2x4 screen of their iPhones. They aren't IN the experience, they are hoarding it for their status update and they will never watch it again but will recall it as "amazing."

Now it's time to call myself out and take the plank out of my own eye...

I was syncing my iPhone about 2 months ago and it was taking FOREVER. I got this shitty pop-up Apple "your computer doesn't hold all this shit Melodee" window. I was so angry at my devices... "work damn you, do what I say, I'm the boss of you Come the fuck ON! What do you mean there's no space for my collection of self-important shit?"

 There wasn't.

 I had actually crashed my hard drive's motivation with the amount of self-deemed important shit. It didn't fit.

That's when you have to evaluate the following:
1. What is actually on my phone?
2. What is that photo/video even mean?
3. When did any of that happen?
4. Why was I there?
5. Is it important enough to keep?

By the time you get to #5 on that list the very nucleus of that internal correspondence with yourself starts to fight back like a primitive pagan forest demon in a cleansing ceremony. "BLAHHHHH, GRRR, FUCK YOU IT'S IMPORTANT, YOU FUCKIN' I WILL FUCKIN' RAPE YOU AND I DESERVE TO BE INSIDE THINGS, I AM THAT ONE TIME WHEN YOU WENT TO THAT ONE PLACE.. DON'T YOU REMEMBER YOU FUCKING AMOEBA, YOU FUCKING SINGLE CELLED BITCH, I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE ADMONISHED AND REVERED AND I WILL GRRRRR STAY IN YOUR DEVICES GRRRRR."

Remember that time I was wondering about whether or not I was crazy? (hi hat drum riff) Lil' joke recall there folks.

I had a choice. I could either buy another computer to store my forest demon on, or, I could delete some shit. Some of you might be saying out loud, "well, why doesn't she just get one of those external USB drives to store the forest demon on?" Because I did that, A LOT, and I have three of them full to the brim with my self-important shit and 2 out of the three are busted and will cost more than my car's blue book value to get fixed. AND AND AND... the one I GOT fixed was stolen out of my car on the very night I got it back.  So that's why. Got it? Good. Moving along...

This philosophical sage that lives in part of my head began to really analyze the societal implications to our culture by hoarding experiences. Here's why it's a perfect word to describe what we are doing as a society...

Hoarders start off by liking something. They start liking.
Here's an example-
You know those nice ass brown paper bags with the handles on them? It begins by thinking, "I find these nice ass bags useful and I'd like to make sure I always have this useful tool in my life." There might have been one or two times when the bag's handle broke while they were taking their lunch into work. They get angry because the nice ass free bag let them down. Then they think, "I'll have to always make sure I use TWO of them just in case." Someone else gives them one of those REALLY nice ass reusable bags one day and says, "Hey Scottie, looky here! Here's a better version of what you have! You want one? I have several." Scottie agrees and then thinks, "I find these bad ass reusable bags pretty useful! I still like my old brown paper bags with the handle on them though? Well, I guess you can't have enough bags in your life because you'll always need to put your shit into something, right?" 
Before you know it, they have acquired a monumental amount of bullshit just because they had the bags to put it in. It all becomes "useful" and then it avalanches into the dirty swamp of the forest demon who tells them that it's all real real real important...And that's when then the City of Dallas comes and kicks you, your suffocated dog, and your wife with stage 5 smokers lung and an empty O2 tank, out of the house, deeming the house "hazardous," and NOW all you want is like one or eight of those paper bags out of there.  Maybe like five of them...

Let's replace "bags" with "devices"  and "house" with "social networking site" in the story above and you'll get my point... the dog is still your dog and your lungy wife with no oxygen is still exactly that... in that story I mean.

Saying all of that, I MUST say this...
I'm not one of those people who say, "I just wish all this internet stuff would just go away. I just hate all of it. I just really do. I just think I will keep my 1999 flip phone because it's a phone and if you won't talk to me on the phone then we aren't friends and I'm old and I'm fucking old and I want things to never change and that's why I never had any balls to get out of my bad marriage or quit the job that makes me have reoccurring nightmares about dying in a swivel chair...No, no sir. I want to stay the fucking same. I like same. I hate change. I believe in America and support the troops and if you can't just call me instead of texting me then I just don't have to have friends I guess... I'm fucking old fashioned I guess, call me old fuckin' fashioned, that's me, I guess I'm just ROOTED IN THE SOIL OF MEDIOCRACY."  Yes you are.

So I'm not that, that's my point.

I think there's a real happy middle ground between old dehydrated dreams- afraid of change- whiny- bitchy- negative- technologically on-purpose retarded person Compared To... hipster with scoliosis from looking down all the time "uploading amazing experiences" asshole... there's a fuckin' middle. I'm that middle. I will be the Middle's Mascot. Put me in a fuckin' oreo costume with an arrow pointing to the icing part, saying "Melodee is this part, the middle."

The question is- Is social media a good thing?
Here's the deal... Yes. Yes it is. I know the bad shit is what everyone is building their case study out of, but let me give you an example of how it's good...

In the Kenya mall attacks recently, the ONLY reason anyone lived in that ordeal was because of texting and tweeting. The phone people who called up 911 and had to  TALK to someone, were capped in the fuckin' head. Not a ninja move if you're HIDING from masked gunmen with automatic baller ass guns and an agenda to murder the capitalistic pigs who shop in malls. (their words, not mine) I heard an interview with the head of the Red Cross in that area and he said that there would've been no way they would've been prepared for that level of emergency response deployment if TWITTER feed had not been streaming in from within the kill zone. It was as he said, "the most efficient means of communication at that time."

Another example I'll give is of a global value.... Fifteen years ago people thought of anyone outside of the US and UK as being like fuckin' neanderthals with no culture beatin' on cave walls and cookin' up chicken feet. The kind of power that the world of social networking is creating, has/is uniting the world in more ways than it could possibly divide us. Nobody would be shocked, even in rural parts of West Virginia(dig), to see someone "dressed diffrnt" or "havin' opinions about gays and Jews," or whatever else...  We have a new problem we've created which is "cyber bullying" but that's just hilarious to me because I remember "sticks and stones....."

Here's the whole tired truth of where we are, in my stupid ass opinion, as a society present day...

Historically speaking, any great invention that changes the way in which we conduct daily life has always been met with 2 types of reactions. The first group being an outpouring of energy and excitement which only adds to the advancement of 'said' invention. The second group being the fear of invention overtaking what is established in society as being "good enough".

The  first group get's a bit overzealous in the beginning of that invention and changes the usage and function of it with lightning speed thus propelling the invention and daily life into such rapid social transitioning that it gives the appearance, in that whirlwind of momentum, as being the very undoing of culture as we know it. Tower of Babel type thinking.  And lo, I do love a great conspiracy theory or doomsday prediction, but fuckin' FACEBOOK and TWITTER aren't ever going to be bad ass enough to make God himself destroy it with a thunderous roar of angelic warriors charging toward the..... It's fuckin' Facebook, I mean come on.

Look at the invention of radio. Families were rushing out to buy radios and gathering around them instead of the dinner table and listening to stories being acted out and songs being performed and comedians doing their 5 minutes, etc...  There was a backlash of social/religious/political leaders saying that radio was "replacing family time at the dinner table and corrupting moral values," and "women were going to stop cooking and the family unit was going to turn into a new babylon of sin and mayhem."

  WE WOULDN'T HAVE WON THE WAR WITHOUT RADIO. Radio was THE thing that united people. It created movements by being a platform of which information could be shared en masse.  This tool, "the radio" could be used to gather up civilians to help with the war effort ...or it could be used to brainwash an entire nation into thinking Hitler had some good ideas. And there's that dark side again damn it.

Humans create. We create new things to make the old things work better. Humans become fascinated with their creations and exploit them. They eventually reel it in to a rational and practical application of that invention and then everyone will think that invention is perfectly acceptable... and that is exactly when some new smart game-changer will try to make it better....

Rinse and repeat until the end of time.

Enjoy life... even your fake one on Facebook. Please be aware though that it is fake. It's fake. You ARE NOT having that much fun and you are making other people depressed because they envy your life and if they only knew that nobody actually gave three shits that you were there, they'd probably not stay at home and eat an entire 23 gallon trough of pizza rolls... which is contributing to obesity in this country and making my grocery store shopping difficult because of so many fucking fat people in electric carts blocking out the aisle and talking about how fucking tired they are... STOP EATING!  But seriously... keep it kind of real once in a while.  Trust me, it feels great. You might even be called a 'cyber bully,' but if someone calls you that, you can prove that you are in fact a REAL bully by getting their address and kicking their ass.

Enjoy invention, even the ones you don't fully understand yet...Like that As Seen on TV pillow thing with the lights in it...how do you even sleep with that on? See there... I don't understand the luminescent pillow but I also know that it exists and respect that some people may want a rave blasting in their face all night long. You know?

But don't forget that humanity was involved in the creation of all of this shit.
So wake up, look around, make eye contact with the people you are tweeting about, and stop hoarding the experience. It can't be an experience if you aren't actually experiencing it.

If you start having out-of-the-phone experiences, you won't have to hoard it.
Your brain will hoard it for you and the playback gets better with time.

The Best and Worst Things My Grandma Taught Me... this one is a goody.

My Grandmother, Ida Willie Belle, was born in 11/11/1911. She grew up pulling cotton with her 9 other siblings in far west Texas. She went by the nickname Tiny and she was the rowdiest of all her siblings... and the smallest.
She used to tell me that she would routinely pass out for no good reason, but "figur'd it wuz cuz uh that time when I hit my head real hard walkin' a barrel."
To date, she's the best guitarist I've ever heard. She died over 10  years ago on Elvis Presley's birthday(January 8th)...which I'm sure she planned on because Elvis was kind of a big deal in my house growing up.

In fact, I really believed he was a relative until I was old enough to figure out that my family were just kind of nutty about the man and recalled his death as "the most gaht dam saddest day ever."

My Grandmother was not your typical old lady. She drove a mint condition 1967 cherry red Pontiac Firebird with a vintage decal that said, "Cherry Bomb." She would regularly do what she said was "blowin' the soot out'th'firebird." Which meant: She would drive this bad ass car about 90+ mph until she heard it "whistle." Then she'd say she had "blown the soot out." Now, at 35 years old, I know that was total bullsh*t.
On a few occasions, I would go on these "soot blowing procedures" and I found it to be absolutely terrifying and thrilling all wrapped up into one loud "AHHHHHH," fist clinching, body pressing to the back of the black leather seat with one-eye open, experience.

As a kid, she convinced me that this had to be done and so I would naturally believe I was "helping" by assisting her in listening for the "whistling" sound at MACH 5.

Another fascinating skill that my my grandmother demonstrated regularly was the "docterin' of animals." She had various vermin she'd take in to "doctor up" so that they'd be alright, etc... At one point I can remember her having 3 snapping turtles in the bathtub that she was administering some type of skin care to. They had names.

There was Haus, Raus, and Big Joe. She found these turtles somewhere on one of her "soot blowing" excursions and figured "they got be somethin' wrong with 'em cause a snappin' turtle ain't gonna be out in the middle of no street like 'at." She was right, but... it's a snapping turtle... no THREE snapping turtles. THREE.

I remember her puttin' Camphophenique and Iodine on their "bad places," (areas with disease) and I heard her yelp really loud and say, "Welp, o' Haus got me in the meat of my fanger, right 'cher, look. at. that. Woooooo, My word that hurts."

This snapping turtle bit a chunk out of her finger that should've required an Emergency Response Team, but instead, she threaded a needle and gave herself some stitches while talking to that turtle like this..."Naw Haus, now why'd you go n' bite on me like that when I's just tryin' to make you better. I guess you feelin' better naw ain't cha'."

She got these turtles up to par and released them back into the wild in a few weeks... long enough for her to find more things half dead to drag into the "operating room."

She had a cat named Foo. (it's already funny) Foo wasn't a flippin' cat though. Foo was part bobcat and was mean as hell. My grandma had "rescued" Foo from a trap out by our scary ass cabin in the woods- where we would go fishing in the cooler months of the year.

Foo lived in the house when it wanted to, and the rest of the time it lived in dark places with shadow demons.  Well, Foo got hold of my cousin's goldfish and bit a hole through it. My grandmother didn't give up the quest of "doctorin'" so she put her usual concoction of Camphor and Iodine and "dobbed in on the bad place."

She stuck a tiny part of an aloe vera plant inside the hole of the goldfish. The hole, by the way, was right in the middle of the fish. After about 4 days, the she cleaned the hole out again and that fish lived 5 more years. You could see right through it. No really, you could actually see through the fish! Foo was given a nasty talkin' to and was told "that fish ain't fer you Foo."  Foo killed a lot of things that couldn't be fixed though.

There are at least 13 other animal stories off the top of my head I could write out in this blog but I'll save those for later. Rest assured though, there were a lot of animals that got the "doctorin'." The most bizarre thing about all of these animals is that they would live a ridiculously long amount of time. WAY past the legal limit of most pets. Some of them were still alive by the time she died but they all passed on within days of her death. I think they all made a pact with Foo's shadow demon friends or something to go back to the netherworld... or as I call it- the crawl space under the house.

The story that defines the title of this blog is this one and the last story in this blog.. they are connected though. So bear with me and stay entertained. There's a great ending, promise...


My grandma would always tell me the bible verse about being kind to those less fortunate because "they could be angels among ya' unawares." I took a lot of things she said way too far. I was that kid that believed that every grown up was 100% right all the time, and I was 100% wrong for having a "gut feeling" about something.

Terrible really, but I was kind of stupid. Or still am... jury is still out on that.

I really believed her when she told me about the angel thing...

I was desperate to meet an angel and I was sort of obsessed with the thought that I might be able to meet one if I was super nice to the bums and wine-os at the Stop n' Go down the street. In retrospect, I think I actually believed that if some bum asked me for money, and I gave it to him,(but it was really an angel in disguise) that some type of confetti from heaven would fall down and a voice over (Bob Barker style) would say, "Congratulations Melodee! You passed the test! This isn't a drug addict loser with crabs, this is ARCH ANGEL MICHAEL!!!!"

Then I would imagine Michael the Archangel saying, "hey kid, sorry bout that, here's your 5 bucks back(I was generous) and all of us angels are super stoked about you, and so... we were wondering if you'd like to meet the whole team?!"  Sort of like a backstage pass to meet the ultimate superheros only way more kick ass.

So I explained to my grandma how I'd just given 5 bucks to some homeless guy when I went to buy her bread and milk and that it "wasn't an angel," because he took my money and obviously "angels don't need your bread and milk money do they Granny?" She would kind of walk away and get real quiet before she'd come back and say, "I'm going to blow the soot out of the Firebird."

She never told me anything different to do with the next round of bread and milk money, but she would say, "that man at the Stop n' Go ain't that angel your a' lookin' for. He ain't Meldee, he just a good fer nothin' drunkard and don't be talkin' to him no more, he ain't got a lick uh'sense left."

 So... Okay, cool... not that guy. Got it. Got it?

To this very day, her voice haunts me when I see homeless people/bums/wine-os anywhere in Dallas who ask me for money.

 I think "well, the second I don't give some of my change, it will probably be that angel or something..."  The other day however, I was thinking that and started laughing to myself as I thought, "Mel, if it was an angel, do you really still think he's going to say he is one?"
 (Angel says: Congrats I'm an angel, gotcha! Wow, you really fell for the ol' bum on the side of the I-35 & Medical District Drive trick? I'm an angel and you're an idiot for rolling down your window and giving me my booze money you dope!)

Then it hit me! Not the angel, but the thought hit me...

"I really have been expecting this for 30+ years?"  This got me thinking about all the other things I learned from Ida Willie Belle and somehow survived...  the list was 7 pages long.

Don't get me wrong, she had great advice most of the time. However, the advice she gave would be deemed nowadays as being terribly misguided and moderately dangerous to the average person.

However, saying that I'll say this....
I've never been afraid of anything. I'm not afraid to be in a "bad part of town," or to talk to people who don't look like me, or to help someone or an animal that looks distraught, sick, in trouble, etc... Maybe I'm still stupid, but I think there's some valuable sauce in that pot of advice she fed me.

Here's how I know that's true...
This story is the best one I've got in my bag.

My grandma had an open door policy. Neighborhood kids and everyone in the free world could come over at any time and open the fridge and eat anything in it. Little did I know as a kid that she was feeding all of us on a combined monthly income from my Grandfather and her's social security checks which totaled about 1000 bucks a month. My Grandfather was a veteran in WW2 and worked his whole life as an electrician for Phillips 66 and this is what they had to "retire on."  However, none of us kids knew anything about that. They never behaved like they were put out, or tired of helping people, or irritated by raising other people's kids. Every single day was a party.  Her relaxation came from rescuing animals, playing guitar in the living room, and "blowing the soot out" of that Pontiac Firebird. We couldn't afford to go to the beach one summer and she bought a 50 lbs. bag of navy beans and poured them on the floor so we could play as though it were sand... it was fantastic. Better than the beach in fact! (my Grandfather played the part of the Salt Water Crocodile that hunted us if we got too buried in the "sand." So much squealing and laughing... so much)  Anyway...

Here is THE story...
One day a man came into the house with the intent to rob us. (my grandfather wasn't there at the time for the record, and this story would've had a much different outcome if he had've been there)

He had a mask on, had a gun, and busted through the door saying, "Get down bitch, where is your purse, where's your F**KING purse bitch."

My grandmother literally didn't flinch.

She looked at him in the eyes and she said, "You outta be ashamed of yourself talkin' to a woman that way. Now listen here. I ain't gonna be talked to that way in my house. I'm gonna give you all I got but you gotta sit down here and eat breakfast with me first."

This man's face was white as a ghost. He trembled and said, "are you crazy or somethin,  I ain't gonna sit down here while you call the cops on me, shit, shit, hell no..."

She replied with, "I ain't gonna call the cops on you young man. I am just askin' you kindly if you will sit down and eat breakfast with me. You interrupted my breakfast and I'm just hungry is'all and I want to talk with you."

I was listening in on the conversation from the hallway by the kitchen and what I heard was nothing short of a miracle. My grandmother disarmed this man with words and truthful ones. She told him that he doesn't have to take the road he's on and that she would give him all her money, but if he decides to take another road, a better road, later on... "to kindly pay me back when you get set straight."

They finished breakfast, she handed him all the cash she had in her wallet, wrote him a check for 200 bucks, and told him she'd "talk to an angel or two" on his behalf.

Little did I know, until her death, that this man kept up with her and wrote her letters and sent her pictures of his life, loves, and now a family, etc... He walked up to me at her funeral and said, "You will probably remember me in a not so good way,  but I was the man who robbed your grandmother when you were just a little girl. She's been a great friend since that day and just so you know, I paid her back with interest."

 He continued to tell me that she was the reason, the ONLY reason he changed his life around. He was honest about how it wasn't overnight either. It took several years of trial and error and trouble before he got off drugs and began a new life... He did tell me though, that when he would ask her in his darker days and moments of guilt and shame as to why she was being kind to him or cared at all, she said, "sometimes you entertain angels unaware."

Good night Ida Willie Belle and I hope they let you blow the soot out up there... oh and don't pose as a bum on I-35 either because I'm not rolling down my window anymore.