Two-fer...friday?

I'm back in the same day! Holy cow!

I came on because I wanted to talk about what's going on in the media that has me laughing my butt off, etc.

The first thing is I want to talk about my new CD that I got for Christmas and how aaawwweeeesome it is. It's the new Alicia Keys CD called "As I Am" and it is crazy awesome. I can't get over it. The intro to the CD is FIERCE. It's a classical piece and it's just the piano, then about a minute or two into it a whole rock band kicks in, so it's like a symphony but cooler. It's some well-known classical song, but that's not my field of expertise. My favorite songs on there so far are "Lies, Lies, Lies" (the first track), "No One" (numero tres), and Lessons Learned featuring John Mayer (numero... cinco? I don't remember).

Secondly, I know this has been harped on and harped on for the past like, week, but I have to weigh in as well (even though nobody's even reading this, I'm sure)... Jamie Lynn Spears is such a hooker, and everybody's kind of acting like it's perfectly normal. Maybe it's because of the fact that there's such a celebrity baby boom going on right now that the general public is used to pregnancy rumors, announcements, bump-sightings, etc. The bottom line is this: a girl being pregnant at 16 is not a good thing. It doesn't matter if she's a star, or if she's never left her hometown of Smalltown, USA. The most disturbing part of the whole situation is the fact that there are rumors circulating now that the baby isn't Casey Aldridge's, that he's being paid off to take the blame even though he and JL have allegedly been broken up for several months. Who are they saying is really the babydaddy? A Nickolodeon Executive directly responsible for JL's show. I don't think I have to point out the problem here. What I think we're seeing here is the result to an underlying problem that JL's family needs to address now in order to prevent her from becoming Britney, Jr. There has been hinting that JL dated Casey when she went through her "wild period". No doubt, there are kids out there that go through a rebellious stage. But at 16, still presumably under her mother's roof, this really shouldn't be happening. I don't think this situation is rehab-worthy, but it will progress to that in a short amount of time if they don't watch her close and guide her in making better decisions.

No more whining... Okay, maybe I lied.

Yaaaay! Christmas is overrr! I've decided. I don't hate Christmas. Actually, I *love* Christmas Eve AND Christmas Day! I just hate the month of December leading up to it.

Christmas Eve was great. I got up early, went and got breakfast, and chillaxed at the house until Jason got off of work at 12. He came over and he and my family exchanged gifts, and we just hung out aalllllll day and didn't do a dad-gum thing (with the exception of making the perfunctory Christmas stop at the liquor store) until it was time for stuff with his family that evening. We even got to take a nice long nap and would wake up in intervals to watch the Christmas claymation movie marathon on TV.

That night we met Jason's family and close friends for dinner at TGI Friday's, like we do every year. It was really nice! Afterwards we went to one of the family's houses for coffee and cordials until it was time for church. The service was beautiful! One of the associate pastors spoke, and it really rung true in my heart. It was about the meaning of the Christmas story and it was meant for people who had begun hating Christmas for various reasons. We also had communion, which was nice because I haven't taken communion in months. There was only one thing that might have been the fly in my proverbial glass of pink chardonay.

The girl that Jason wasn't allowed to date and was in love with anyway for about a year was there, causing a scene as usual. The thing was, her parents wouldn't let her date him because of their age difference (even though it was the same as ours) and because they didn't think he was "good enough" for her because he aspired to be a teacher rather than a business man. So they did the whole Hatfield-McCoy thing. Finally, almost a year later, he met me. Not only could I date him freely, but I wanted him to be whoever he wanted to be because I wanted the freedom to be whoever I was going to be. You can't put those expectations on people and expect them to let you be what you want in return. So it took about a week for him to leave her pompous, pretentious butt for me. (Seriously, it's like that Misery Business song. To prove my point, you can find the lyrics at the end of this entry.) Ever since then, she's had a hit out on me and done everything in her power to wiggle her way back in because she thinks that she can steal him back from me just as easily as I took him from her. She has instant messaged him regularly asking when he would be "through with me", when we broke up for a short period of time a few years ago she jumped in the very next day after we called it quits, she's stalked him on Facebook for well over 2 years. On Christmas Eve, she wasn't really in our faces because I was there, but she made sure to be in Jason's line of vision the WHOLE time. She would glare at him and walk back and forth in front of us as if she were on a very important mission. VERY important. Jason didn't even notice, but I couldn't help but laugh. How desperate and childish can you be? It was cute and caused serious drama when she was 18 and it was our first Christmas together, but almost 4 years into it and he hasn't even looked her way and it's just kind of desperate. I almost wonder if now it's not so much about Jason but about putting me in my place, that she was here first... Trying to show the world that Jason chose the wrong girl because she's better than me. But if that's the case, why would he have chosen a hot dog if he could have filet mignon? All I have to say about it is that the proof is in the pudding, and if I'm supposedly the "hot dog", I sure have lasted a long time... I must be one hell of a weiner.

Anyway, on to better and brighter things, Christmas Day was FABULOUS...ish. I got up with mom and sister on Christmas day and opened gifts, and spent the rest of the morning in a house with tension as thick as a knife. Mom was miserable, therefore we were ALL miserable. Her spoiled brat fiance was out of town with his kids, and he called her several times throughout the morning to complain about their bad attitudes, their good-for-nothing husbands, and his under-achieving siblings with alcohol dependencies. Of course, my larger-than-life mother with a messiah complex wanted him to come home so she could fix it (also because she was having a fit because he chose to go spend time with his children instead of staying in town for her). My sister was developing a stomach bug and missed my dad, so she spent most of the day holed up in her room watching the Project Runway marathon. My mom and I had static going between us the ENTIRE day. She did everything in her power to make me feel like crap after the initial gift swapping tradition (in retrospect I wonder... was she acting like that because I was actually enjoying my Christmas?). She sulked over lunch, was angry because I made sugar cookies, sulked because she wanted to watch the Lifetime channel and I didn't (it goes without saying that we watched the Lifetime channel. She acts like I'm the bad guy, but I don't even fight her on what she wants anymore). The only time she seemed happy and relieved was when I was heading off to Jason's for Christmas. Her behavior would make sense if I was pouting, sulking, and throwing fits (sound familiar?) but I literally just sat around with vaseline on my teeth and hot chocolate with a double shot of amaretto in my hand and internalized EVERYTHING. I can't even begin to believe how spoiled, tempermental, and childish she behaves. But analyzing her strange behavior is for another day, I just avoid her like the plague and go on with my life because I've spent the last 21 years of my life with a guilt complex because my mother has always acted like I was a horrible person and I could never figure out why (it has come down to this in my opinion: between my sister and I, I am the least like her and I don't let her manipulate me).

Jason's family Christmas was wonderful. It was all glowy and warm with my favorite people, and to me it is the epitome of what Christmas should be. Lots of people, lots of laughing, lots of food, lots of presents. I felt the love more this year than any other at their house, and I feel like I am finally a part of their family.

uuuugh.

I was talking to the ladies at the office today, and I came to realize something. I have never gone to a church and easily made friends and enjoyed my stay there. I've never had a problem at work, I'm not antisocial and I don't really have a hard time making friends, so I'm not totally sure why this is the case. But at every single church I've gone to since elementary school, I've had trouble with my peers, especially the girls.

When I was in elementary school, the problem was that my family was poor so my clothes were outdated and while they were well-maintained, they weren't pretty and delicate and trendy like the other girl's clothes. I was also really awkward and didn't take singing lessons or dance lessons like the other girls did so they didn't relate to me. As I got older and we left that church because of the damage our stay did to our whole family (it happened to my sister and my parents, too), we found a church in the town we moved to subsequently and began attending there.

By this time I was in middle school and was old enough to go into the Youth services. At first it wasn't so bad... At first it was the whole "new kid" thing where they were all attracted to the novelty of someone that's not from the area. But after the honeymoon wore off, once again I had the girl problem. I got on great with the adults because I loved learning about the scriptures and had a knack for theology, and even in middle school I had a very strong sense of right and wrong. But with the kids my age, the girls came to blatantly dislike me to the point of telling me so, and I'm still not completely sure why. I never tried to be the center of attention, I never chased boys and wouldn't have dreamed of chasing someone else's boyfriend, and I wasn't like the other goody-goody's in the youth group that tried to shove their beliefs down everyone's throat. My attitude has always been to lay under the radar. Still, I have very strong memories of the preacher's kid telling me that my dress was ugly infront of the whole youth group (which if she said that to me today, I would have told her where she could kiss off and walk away), my cousin telling me to go away forever and leave her alone infront of the whole sunday school class (again, as an adult I weigh these things much differently... But at the tender age of 14 it hurt deeply), and a girl who would later try to become my friend and then stab me in the back turn the whole youth group against me because the boy she liked was interested in me. My mom always told me it was because I was a really good girl, and once they figured out that I wouldn't try to start doing the "wrong" things, they got bored with me... And later became threatened by me, and began to feel that I looked down at them from my ivory tower because of their own guilt complexes.

But the thing was, I never really made the conscious choice to be different or be good. I think they saw it that I thought I was above boys and makeup and clothes and friends because I was so pious that no one could keep up with me. But in reality, I was incredibly scared and awkward, and my mom had built this innate fear of girls into me that if I became good friends with them, they would pervert my mind and I would end up doing drugs in a van by the river. She never really put the thought in my mind that I could make my own decisions, she just kind of gave me this feeling that I would become evil by default just by hanging out with other girls. I don't think she did it intentionally. Her control issues are a well-understood problem now, but in retrospect I didn't know that mothers shouldn't be such micromanagers. I didn't really have much of a childhood because I spent much of it having very adult opinions crammed into my head, picketing news stations and gay rallies with my mom. To her, it was a vantage point and a pride issue to have her 8 year old lobby about the benefits of a child welfare bill being passed through senate. There were no cheerleading clinics and dance classes for me, there were books and videos about the American Government and my mom's best friend whom I called "aunt" that came to my house and affected me in a very positive way- she just oozed of feminism and equal rights. I had a difficult time going from being a little girl to a teenager, so I didn't wear makeup because I wanted to hold onto my youth a little longer. We couldn't afford fashionable clothes, so I just didn't wear them. I didn't know I was supposed to care. Plus, when other girls were reading nothing but Baby Sitter's Club and American Girls, I was reading books on Lottie Moon and Anne Frank and Eleanor Roosevelt... So I had nothing in common to talk to them about.

Then I finally got fed up enough and left that church and began attending the super-mega-church down the road and made the worst decision ever. I met my first boyfriend within the first month of attending there. Not only that, but he wasn't the atypical boy the girls on this end of town approve of as boyfriend material. Super-mega-churches usually need a wealthy end of town. That's how they become super. So, naturally, the kids in the youth group there are perfect and beautiful and the girls start out being groomed as young as five years old to recieve the following things before they graduate high school:
1) A superlative in the year book atleast once, if not all four years. Preferrably a superlative that has to do with their apperance/personality. IE: Best Personality, Most Attractive Couple (see next point), Most School Spirit.
2) Exclusively date atleast one football player, preferrably the captain. If not, a member of the starting offensive line. Snag "most attractive couple" superlative atleast once, if not go for prom/homecoming/whatever king and queen. Bonus points if the relationship with said football player becomes long term.
3) A snap bid to sister's, mother's, aunt's, and grandmother's sorority at Alabama, Auburn, or Tennesee upon graduation. Bonus points: if said sorority is Phi Mu, Alpha Gamma Delta, or Zeta Tau Alpha.

Now, while my first boyfriend was technically a football player, he was by all means not in the cookie cutter mold of what the other girls approved of. He wasn't very physically attractive, he was shy, not very funny, and didn't have that flirtatious knack with women of all ages (be they 5 or 95). All the way around, he wasn't exactly known for his social skills... As a matter of fact, he was better known for his lack thereof. He hated social situations, so we just didn't go to them. I ended up kind of being lumped with him in their minds because they didn't know me that well, and they had been around him enough to get an idea of how un-cookie cutter he was. By the time he and I had broken up two years later, I had a very difficult time keeping friends at the church. We broke up six months before I graduated into the college ministry, and I found that it was ten times more presumptuous and clique-ish than the youth group was. By then, people were marginalized into where they went to school, and they were all of the most prestigious schools in Birmingham. I was literally the only person in the entire room that attended the HUGE community college down the road, and that read as "poor" so nobody wanted to have anything to do with me. I came to learn that the college ministry there was all about networking, and people made friends with you depending on how prosperous they considered you to be. The girls kind of stuck together and would only accept other girls if they were equally as beautiful and empty-headed; and the guys were playing executive even though they're still in college by getting together for golfing trips and calling in favors from wealthy uncles, etc for their friends. Looking back, Super-Mega-Church reminds me of an Apple that has been eaten from the inside out by worms- on the outside it is shiny and delicious looking, but on the inside it's nothing but filth and rotting flesh.

2007 and JLH

I started this blog because I was blogging on myspace and it has become it's own social monster for teenagers and 50-somethings alike, so I just didn't feel like it was the place for me to be thinking introspectively. It almost felt like sitting in the middle of the front aisle at Walmart trying to read a book or something. So I packed up and moved over here to blogger where I've had a few blogs in the past but I had a hard time sticking with them because I felt like I had to write in them every day and it got depressing because there was never anything exciting to write about.
I guess the first thing I can do is rehash what has happened over the last 352 days.

January- I turned 21, got Bogart for my birthday from Jason. It was the first time Jason and I had ever directly opposed anything my mother tried to tell us to do. We're still alive, the dog survived, and a hell of a lot happier and better connected with Jason's parents because of it.
February- Jason got his new job. It didn't happen to me directly, but it did directly affect us because it was his first real job and he was able to save up money for our next big landmark...
April- Jason proposed! He proposed on his family's really good friends (almost like his aunt and uncle)'s 25th wedding anniversary and my aunt's birthday, so we were able to go announce it to both of our extended families and it turned into a day of celebrations. I also quit Janie & Jack, where I had been working for like a year. Seemingly not a big deal, but I was really good friends with the store's general manager and she had become an alcoholic/popper and started a lot of fights and was talking behind my back. I didn't see how toxic as a friend she was at the time and asked her to be a bridesmaid. But once I left, I saw how much I had changed and worked on chiseling away those bad habits. She fought a heeelllll of a lot with her husband and I didn't realize it, but even her habits with her husband had began rubbing of on me and that had affected mine and Jason's relationship as well. I got a job at a local bakery that only lasted 2 weeks, and left without a backup plan.
June- It took me this long, but I finally got my job that I have now and it has completely changed my life. Before I came to work at the church and I was working at Janie & Jack, I had become extremely jaded by Christians and church in general, even though I am one myself. I was attending a local mega-church and was completely lost in the crowd, while at the church I grew up in that is in my hometown people had begun circulating gossip about me thanks to my sister and her big-mouthed bitch friend Jennifer. It had already begun to a certain extent the year before simply because to them I had fallen off the face of the earth and started doing things closer to the city. Even though I was active in my new church, they just assumed I wasn't in church at all and ran me out of Leeds with their new, young sociopath youth minister who was but an intern when I was coming through the youth program. Well even though Jason and I were engaged, never went out, never did anything, and spent all our time sitting in front of the tv and playing video games, they had decided I was living a life of promiscuity. Granted, I did stay with Jason for a little while over the summer because of problems with my mom, but that was none of their business and they didn't care to check on me and make sure I'm okay... They just spent a lot of time and energy discussing it behind my back. But anyway, when I got my job at the church it seemed to right a lot of the wrongs in my heart and helped me recover from the hurt. I'm still extremely angry and sort of bitter towards the hometown crowd, but I know it's not Christians in general but that group of people that look at me that way. I also learned a lot about God's forgiveness and loving me for who I am.
August-We finally set our wedding date: July, 12 2008. We changed our date about 4 times! Jason and I also started volunteering with the youth program at our home church. It did a lot of good for our relationship and ourselves and our relationship really changed for the positive. I began having a really hard time this month missing my dad. We also started struggling with Jason's family over wedding plans and what Jason and I plan to do once we're married. The money issue, along with the family struggles and missing my dad eventually lead to a huge depression on and off that lasted through the rest of the fall. It also resulted in a bit of a riff between me and Jason's mother because he had to stand up to her about her issues with micromanaging our wedding. Jason and I started having big problems getting along over familial issues and my mom had began starting fights between us by putting evil little thoughts in my head and in her way manipulated me into running to her for comfort when she was pitting me against my fiance. I don't think she was doing it intentionally, but that she was miserable in her relationship with her fiance and would rather not see Jason and me happy.
September- Jason's rent expired and I had to move home. It was a horrible, awful experience. Fortunately, there was a bit of a honeymoon period when I moved home that my mom and sister were sort of glad to see me. I sunk into a full-fledged depression. Wedding plans halted for a while and people figured out that they needed to leave me alone. I had to cut back on where I had over-committed over the past few months and really focus on myself.
October- We got our engagement photos taken. Jason and I finally got into the groove of our new-old surroundings and developed a routine. The change in scenery really helped our relationship in some ways, but put a strain on it in others. Mom and her fiance broke up, and she became a nice, pleasant human being again after over a year of bitchy tirades and temper tantrums. It's amazing how relationships can alter your very being. Of course she still acted like a 3 year old most of the time because that's her nature, but it took the edge off.
November- Things lightened up for a while between Jason and I, and between me and Jason and his parents. My mom offered to pay for the wedding, which took the strain off of everybody. This was our first Thanksgiving where we were officially expected to be at family gatherings together, which was more of a strain than a joy. The day of was a disaster because the only thing we could think to do to make everyone happy was to be at ALL of the Thanksgiving dinners. Of course, to the people who we were already sacrificing our whole day off catering to, we were obviously catering to the other family more and being selfish, and how DARE we not be at dinner at 2:00 instead of 2:30 for the Turkey carving?! My mom was pissed because in order for us to be able to be there we had to break bread at 11:30 (we normally eat at 12 on t-day) and her new male friend (who wouldn't even make it to Christmas) wouldn't be able to eat with us. Boo hoo. Then Jason gets a call from HIS mother on his way to my house, where she throws a fit about the whole aforementioned 2:00-2:30 thing. Now, let me add here that my mom had NEVER hosted Thanksgiving before and Jason's family has eaten dinner around 2 since Jason was a kid. So, Jason's mom was a little righteous in her anger, and my mom was having another one of her temper tantrums. But, we were trying to appease everyone. Lesson learned: never gonna happen.
December- December has been weird. Horrible, awful, wonderful. December itself has felt like a year. Around the first week of December I really began to ache for my dad. I rediscovered my love for the arts and with that fresh raw feeling that comes from it only feeling half-full because the person you used to enjoy it with isn't there anymore. This is a feeling Jason is having a hard time interpreting from me, because he wants to fill that void. The problem is that I aquired my sense of wonder from the world and all things artistic and created and organic from my dad, and it was something we shared and excelled in. Jason is fascinated by some things and would like to be artistic, but with my dad and I it just flowed. I think we'll eventually be able to share it together, but I'm just now learning how to enjoy it without my dad around to bounce my thoughts off of and stuff. Of course, don't let this fool you. I spent most of my time wishing I could bounce my thoughts off my dad and sharing it with him, but he was so swallowed up in depression and had sort of turned to the sauce to take the edge off that in his last years he really just wasn't there. Mom reneged on her offer for the money. Not officially, but she dangled the dollar signs in front of my nose in the middle of an arguement just like she's done with me living with her and anything else she's ever had to do involving paying for something for me. So I called Jason crying my eyeballs out and we told her not to worry about it and we'll take care of it ourselves. This situation is to be continued. Wow, it feels really good to look back over the last 12 months and see how far I've come. It's really interesting, because you see patterns in your life that you wouldn't notice otherwise. I didn't realize until now that I've spent the last six months in and out of depression (inadvertently also struggling with my weight because I'm a comfort eater), arguing with my family, arguing with Jason's family, arguing with Jason. The thing I've also noticed is that I've been sort of provoked, that despite all of the conflict I really didn't have much to do with it, which sucks. Maybe in 2008 I won't be the target of everyone's anger. I don't know why I look like such a good target for people's frustrations, but it always happens. Maybe it's because I'm such a safe person? I'm even-keeled, I love unconditionally, I'm fiercely loyal. I'm not trying to brag, but I guess that's why people think they can unleash their rage on me and think a quick "sorry, dude" later will fix it... They think that when the dust settles that I'll still be standing there with my arms open. Whatev.

Moving on to other news... JLH. Yes, I mean Jennifer Love Hewitt.
This Jennifer Love Hewitt (duh):

Okay, I happen to think she is GOREGOUS. I think she is freakin beautiful, and I've never met her but her beauty seems to come from a terribly sweet and tender spirit. Her smile makes her glow and to me she is the closest thing to perfect a girl can be... Which is probably a hard thing to do if you're in the Hollywood industry. There are pics out circulating around the tabloid mills that show her as being "fat" and every fashion/hollywood/celebrity gossip blog have jumped on it and completely torn her to shreds. They call her fat, ugly, unattractive. TMZ cracked on her butt (no pun intended) and the presence of cellulite... The saddest part of this story is that she was in Hawaii with her new fiance, celebrating their engagement. I know you've seen the pictures, so I don't have to show you again. But I think she looks pretty! She doesn't look all hollywood-skeletal, but she's definately not fat. Plus, she has a great flat tummy! No six pack, but more than I can say and I don't consider myself fat! I think she's beautiful. Yes, there is some cellulitage, but who doesn't have that and has atleast 5% bodyfat. Puhlease. I think she's goregous and fabulous and I don't think she needs to lose weight. That's not the issue. If she wants to get back on hollywood (and TMZ's) good graces, she needs to hire herself a stylist and start dressing to accentuate her figure. Bandeau tops are not attractive on anyone over a size-B cup, and boy shorts much better for girls with a little more junk in the trunk. I don't think this would even be an issue if she was supporting her breasts better and all around dressing to flaunt her assets.

As for the people who have been attacking her left and right, especially the bitches at TMZ: they must either be size 20w women who have nothing better to do than to sit there and whine over all of the skinny bitches in hollywood and are miserable in their own personal lives, or homosexual guys who love nothing more than to sit around and pick apart every woman who ever graced the planet - because if they could get away with all of the fabulous clothes, shoes, and makeup available they would SO do it better. I'm not hating on ANYONE, I don't have a problem with homosexuality, and I'm not picking on big girls. I'm just saying it like it is... People tend to gossip and pick on other people when they either a) look down on them from their ivory tower, or b) are so miserable in their own lives they need to screw up everyone else's.

Leave that poor baby alone and jump back on the Britney bandwagon, for crying out loud!