Day 99: “Get over it.”

Chris Brown’s music is undeniably catchy and easy to dance to, but he lost me as a fan in 2009 when the story of him viciously beating up his then-girlfriend, Rihanna, surfaced.  His actions that night and his behaviour following the incident have left him forever blacklisted in my mind, and I will never buy any music with his name attached to it.  Some of his insane fans have taken it upon themselves to rip apart anyone who speaks ill of Chris, and he himself has had several childish tantrums whenever the issue is brought up, but the main message they all seem to be chanting is, “Get over it.”

No.  I can not and will not.

My mom worked as a crisis counsellor at a women’s shelter for a lot of my childhood, and while Stephanie and I were never directly exposed to those women (or even saw their faces) when we visited her, the reality of the situation dug into my heart.  When you first walk in, there is a play area for kids.  Kids who have watched their mother get beaten right in front of them, and for the really unlucky ones, there are dolls to show the counsellor where they themselves were abused.  There is no music playing, and you must speak quietly so as to respect the private counselling sessions.  Even when nobody’s there for help at the time, the mood in that building is never a happy one.  The counsellors often have to go to court to offer emotional support for the abused as they testify or request restraining orders.  Sometimes these women have nowhere to go and have to rely on an emergency shelter just so they can make it through another night without being hospitalized.  On a really bad day, the police have to be called because the abuser has found the location of the shelter.

Every day, women and men are being physically and emotionally battered by spouses who claim to love them.  Bones are broken, self esteem is shattered, trust is thrown out, and pain is administered in every form.  Fear is a daily reality.

But we should just “get over it.”

There is absolutely no justifiable reason for laying your hands on your partner.  Gender makes no difference, violence is violence.  To tell people to get over it is to tell every victim in the world that they mean nothing, that nobody cares if they live or die.  Sure, this highly publicized incident between Chris and Rihanna happened back in 2009, but if the victim in this story was the person you love most in the world, I hardly think you’d be telling them to get over it.

So, delusional Chris Brown fans, I will not just let it go.  I will not get over it, and I will not support an abusive, tantrum-throwing man-child.  You don’t need to have grown up in an abusive home to know the permanent effects it can have, and the last thing any survivors need is me telling them they are worthless by chanting Chris Brown’s name at a concert.

Day 98: Ohhh Snap

I am still flustered.  15 years is way too much of a gap for me, but I really think this guy could be a great friend.  Agh, what do I do…?

Day 97: Concentration

I have the worst attention span when it comes to packing.  Tasks that should take minutes often get stretched out to hours, and that’s if they get done at all that day.  I didn’t end up getting those 5 boxes filled before leaving…I got two filled and a third large tupperware bin on the go before youtube sucked me in to all the Hunger Games trailers.

I’ve read the first two books and now I’m obsessed.  I even have dreams about the Hunger Games themselves (Madonna and Neve Campbell were my allies in the last one, and between you and me, Madonna was utterly useless.  Neve was helpful, though).  I can’t wait for the movie to come out, this is the first time I’ll have actually read the books before the movies get made.

I found my old bib while packing today, and after discovering that I can still wear it I lost at least 20 minutes of productivity.

Day 96: Comfort Zone

Today I noticed that I have an odd pattern when it comes to my weight, and I’m not sure what to make of it.

I have an average build (5’7, 135ish pounds), and part of my body’s norm is to have a protective layer of fat around my tummy (can I get an amen, sistahs?).  When I gain weight I feel pooey until I get back down to whatever that base layer of fat is, which seems usual.  But, since I’ve been doing yoga and pilates and using the infrared sauna regularly, I’ve noticed that some of that usual fat is disappearing and I’m getting slimmer than my norm.  Most people would rejoice at this, and while I’m celebrating on the outside, I’m finding that my subconscious keeps sabotaging me until I temporarily gain that layer of safety around my belly again.  An extra cookie here, a bag of chips there, just little tweaks that give me that little tummy pooch again.

It only really hit me today when I got home from class cause I reached into my pocket and noticed that my hip bone was more pronounced than before.  My first thought was to eat a cookie, and then my second thought was, “…cause I’m not used to being skinny.”  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been mistaken for a pumpkin.  I’ve just also never been the type of girl to have a naturally flat stomach or 0% body fat, my body doesn’t operate that way. So I’m curious now as to why I secretly prefer to have the extra 5 pounds even though my outside brain longs for size 6 jeans.

See, if I had been better at chemistry and math in high school I could have become a psychiatrist and figured this out in a jiffy.  As it stands, my guess is that I had too much fun making faces out my tummy rolls as a child to ever truly say goodbye to them.

Day 95: Parenting Fail

On behalf of every customer service employee ever, I invite all parents to either train their children or leave them at home.  There is nothing more irritating to me than an ill-trained kid.  I say trained because there’s a difference between being raised well and being taught common public courtesies.

For instance, if you’re going to bring your child to a sauna store, do not leave him unattended.  An eight year old boy left alone with what he sees as an expensive rocketship is a disaster waiting to happen.  Let him know beforehand that if he chooses to take off his shoes, run like a crazy person and skid along the laminate flooring, remove his socks so he can wipe his feet up and down the glass doors of the saunas, and then press his mouth against the glass to make faces, he will be eaten in his sleep by rabid ants.

I am incapable of hiding my emotions, so when I saw the little urchin’s feet slowly sliding down the glass I know my face betrayed me.  The parents caught my expression and turned to see what I was glaring at, and thankfully the dad removed him from the sauna.  I just…wow.  My sister and I obviously weren’t perfect, but we did have a basic grasp of what might not be a good idea.  Our parents never had to beat us to get us trained for public outings, we just got the idea after one too many hissed warnings in our ears.

Again, there is a difference between being raised well and being trained well.  Being raised well means you make healthy life decisions, being trained well means you don’t put your mouth on a glass window and blow raspberries.  I have a ton of patience with kids cause they’re supposed to be silly and make messes, but there definitely comes a time when you have to look at the parents and wonder, “Bro, what the hell.”

Day 94: Girls Night

Lisa and I had a much needed girly date tonight and it was fun to hang out with her again. Our lives have been so hectic lately that we haven’t had a chance to get together for a couple months, so it was nice to reconnect

Now if only my ears would stop ringing so I could fall asleep…

Day 93: Safety First

Today was another cluster of oopsicles.

Things started out okay.  I was getting everything set up for the day and I began writing an e-mail to our shipper when OH NO BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH.  It had the usual apocalyptic messages about my computer’s impending doom, and then before I could do anything it shut itself down and restarted.  Okay, I thought to myself, this kind of thing just happens sometimes.  Then it rebooted and all hell broke loose.  A security window popped up and the gist of the message was,

“Look, we need to talk.  I’ve been holding a billion viruses behind your back and I just can’t hide them anymore.  So…here you go.  Mazel tov.”

I didn’t want to be held responsible for any accidental computer implosions, so I called Boss 1 and 2 over for help.  Boss 2 couldn’t figure out what to do, so we left Boss 1 with it for about an hour.  He clicked some things, wiped some things, and whispered some things, and then everything was okay.

Then, Bosses 1 and 2 went back in to the warehouse to continue painting and varnishing their projects (a sauna and a rebuilt car).  Boss 2 kept coming and going throughout the day, but Boss 1 stayed in there basically the whole 8 hours.  I foolishly assumed they were wearing their masks so as to not inhale all the fumes, and I only realized my error at 5pm when Boss 1 emerged from the warehouse with both hands full of cedar planks.

“I..did not think I was going to be in there that long.  I just thought I’d be painting for a few minutes!”

“Boss 1, you can’t do ANYTHING for just a few minutes.  You don’t even know how to take a shortcut! If your wife asked you to make dinner, you’d go out to kill and harvest the damn chicken.”

“Hehehe…yeah.”

He explained that he was feeling fine until all of a sudden when he realized he was seeing triple, so I scolded him for not wearing the mask that he had right beside him on the workbench.  I then asked about the cedar planks, to which he giggled and said he wasn’t sure.

Look, Boss 1 does not giggle.  Even during his more tender moments, he is still professional and efficient.  So him turning into such a goof troop definitely threw me for a loop.  Then I realized that it took 8 hours of pain fumes for my boss to act like I do on an average day and it made me smile.