Tupperware Sucks, and Other Things That Are Pissing Me Off Today

In no particular order, here they are.
-Tupperware sucks.  It truly does.  It is not 'airtight' or 'freshness protecting' or any of those other things it claims to be.  Things still go stale and get moldy in it.  Sometimes, they go bad just as quickly as if you didn't have them in Tupperware at all.  Tupperware SUUUUUUUUUUCKS!!!!!!
-Rachel Ray, I'm sorry.  Putting limes or lemons in the microwave to make them yield more juice is a lie. It just makes them hot, so you now are trying not to burn your fingers as you try to squeeze miniscule amounts of hot juice into your cold drink.  Stop trying to deceive the American Public.
-My dad and Warren are still (as is Franciso Franco) dead.  It makes no sense.  Of course it didn't help that my dad smoked like a chimney for forty years, ate two eggs and four strips of bacon or sausage every Sunday and had a massive sweet tooth, but he still shouldn't be dead.  Not many people enjoyed life as much as he did.  He was far from a perfect person, but he still was one of the best men I knew, and even though he's been gone for almost eight years I miss him horribly.  I probably always will.
 As for Warren, he shouldn't be dead either. At least, he shouldn't have died of mesothelioma.  A drug overdose, drinking himself to death, AIDS, that would have been understandable, if no less sad.  But to die from lung cancer caused by sleeping in an attic room when he was young  that had  an asbestos ceiling?  Senseless.  I would have loved to hear his commentary on some of the things that go on in music today, in politics, in just about everything.  He still gets ignored by the HOF every year, and I probably care about that more than he does.   I just wish he was still here so I could get a chance to see him, talk to him, and tell him how much his music means to me.  I don't want to wait until the next life to do it.  Hell, I may not even make it there, at the rate I'm going.
  -I have two dear friends who don't see their own worth.  It's not that I don't understand what they're saying, I just disagree with it.  I love them, and don't like to see them in pain.   I wish I could fix it, but I can't.  I just hope that my being there for them helps, even a little.
   -The people who work for the Department of Social Services must have Masters Degrees in making poor people feel like shit.  I would love to see them try to survive on what they give people to live on.  They forget that if not for people like us, they wouldn't have jobs.   I consider myself one of the lucky ones because I get a little family help.  So many of these people don't.   I can understand working at a job like this can, at times get frustrating and depressing.  I just wish the people who work there would try to understand how the people who need these services feel.
- I think it's really sad that over at some social media and writing websites, you give someone the privilege of being a moderator for a message board, and it goes right to their heads.  Yesterday, I was banned from a board I really enjoyed reading and posting on because I DARED object to the fact one of the moderators called my credibility as a writer into question.  God forbid I didn't tow the party line and accept her constructive criticism.  What's worse is that she's blocked me, so I am unable to point out both the error in her judgment, her meglomaniacal personality, and her horrendous, glaring errors in logic and spelling.
-My godmother is in a geriatric unit in Brookly, fading away from Alzheimer's disease as we wait to have her guardianship finalized.  She had a cat when she lived at home.  Right now, the super of her building is feeding the cat.   I had wanted to take the cat when I moved, and my mother had said that was a good idea. Now, suddenly, she's going to let the manager of the condo have it for their office. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.
  I wanted that cat.  As went everything else since my GM was diagnosed, what I want, feel, think, doesn't matter.
   So, you ask, has anything good happened lately?  Well, yesterday, there was this.
http://iecastellano.blogspot.com/
It is forty kinds of awesome to see my poem featured like this.  People have been telling me it's beautiful.  I don't know.  It honestly was written in an hour.   Blame my muse.   Who knows what will come of it.  Still, it's massively cool.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go stare at a blank screen and a blinking cursor and see if anyone feels like talking to me.    Thanks for reading. :)

And Now a Word (Or Two) From Alton Brown, And a Musical Interlude From My Dead Husband :P

Alton Brown ‏ @altonbrown

A man can be destroyed but not defeated. ~ Ernest Hemingway

Alton Brown ‏ @altonbrown

What he meant was that a can be destroyed but not defeated at the same time. Defeat is something you let happen to you.

  Mr. Brown tweeted these two things over the weekend, and it got me thinking.  What is the difference between feeling destroyed and being defeated, and more importantly, how do you avoid "letting defeat happen to you."   It's something that's been on my mind frequently during the last six months, which explains why I've been absent from the blogosphere.

  Long story short, my depression has gotten much worse, despite many attempts by my wonderful treatment team to alleviate the problem, I've suffered long bouts of writer's block, and my family has pretty much disowned me.   That's the bad news.   'Is there good news?"  you ask?  Well, in a way, sort of.

A few days ago, one of my dearest friends asked me "What do you do when you feel so awful you think there's no hope, no future, nothing?"

I'm still not sure where the answer came from, but this is what I said.  "You go on.  You go on because you have to.  If you don't feel like doing anything at all, well then, don't, but don't let that go past two days to a week at most.   You can't quit.  Eventually, you'll find something that makes you want to go on, to want to try."

And, as it so happens, they did find something, not that I doubted they would.   She's a wonderful woman, who's spirit, faith and perseverance put me to shame.  I am blessed and grateful to have her as a sister.

  So, I suppose my point is, nothing is necessarily over, even though you may feel it is.  Here are some things that help me to find hope in those dark times.

  My faith-It has nothing to do with my being a Cradle Catholic, because believe me I've done more than enough exploration of other religions and philosophies.  It works for me in a way sometimes nothing else will.  It gives me peace and solace, in these very uncertain times.

  My friends, and, over the past two years, I've lost a lot of them.  I know why for some, not so much for others.  I feel some of it has to do with finding my own voice and not being afraid to speak up for myself instead of retreating, keeping quiet and tacitly agreeing.   Leaving an abusive relationship helped with that.   One thing I know is that the friends I've managed to keep are priceless to me.  I would do anything for them, and they me.  I love them all more than the Purple Prada bag I will one day purchase for myself, and you'd best believe I will. :)

   My writing-  I've been writing since I was seven years old.  It is my salvation, and my vocation, and while it is, at times, the bane of my existence, I have no idea it's the reason I'm on the planet.   I may not ever write the Great American Novel, or even a NYT Best Seller, but I will be published one day.

I can't believe I've been given the gift some people tell me I have if I'm not supposed to use it.

  My deep, abiding, inexplicable love and respect for Alton Walter Crawford Brown.  Despite the way he sometimes presents himself on Twitter, and some of the people he supports, I have personal experience of the man, and will always say that every time I've seen and spoken with him, he's been nothing but genuine, warm and gracious to me.   There's just something about him, I suppose.  I believe we all encounter one or two people who have an impact on our lives as he's had on mine.  Last year, after spending far more time talking with me than he should have, he actually turned back to me to answer a question.  I asked, "I know you say you know where you're going after you die, but what do you do when you're feeling badly about yourself and have a hard time believing that?"  

  He paused for a moment, then said, "Well, that's when you need to believe it the most."  I've thought about that often over the past six months, and he's right.   God loves us even when, (and I feel sometimes, especially) when we don't see the God things about ourselves.   If and when I see AB again, I will thank him for that, and for everything.  I hope he will understand how he's helped me.

  Finally, my deep, constant and just mystifying love for Warren William Zevon.   Listen to that song kids.  Seven/four time, bitches I like to say, and that's just a sampling of the talent that man had.  He was brilliant, and tortured in life, but at his core, he was a good man.  I don't think anyone who's read his bio can think differently.

He always wanted to be a Catholic, and I like to think he is one now.  His words and music have inspired me greatly, and just yesterday, I got the news that a poem I wrote, that was inspired by him, will be featured on an author's blog tomorrow.   Here's the link, and the shameless plug.

http://iecastellano.blogspot.com/ 

I feel drawn to Warren in a strange way. I'm not sure what it means, but I do love him as much as if he were alive.   Yeah, it's nuts, but I don't care.

  So, that's about all of what I do to keep mind and soul together when things get bad.  If you've read this far, don't be shy about telling me what works for you.

 Now, if you'll excuse me, empty pages are calling, and well, I've gotta go on.   Watch this space. :)