It is I, the Grand Mattress! (And, What I REALLY meant was...)
0 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 24 February 2010 at 2/24/2010 10:45:00 am.
Well, the inevitable happened and lo and behold The Mr. and I have found ourselves on another committee!! Although this time I can live with the committee, being that there are no monthly meetings, no fund raisers, no PR events.... altogether a relatively obligation-free responsibility. While I feel honored to have been "elected" into what is apparently the bigwig position of the Hash, I'm just nervous that I will suck at it, and what were these people thinking?!?! Pete was soooooooo good as Grand Master.... he's funny, witty, can command respect, and is one of those outgoing types who makes people just WANT to do what he says. And at that hash that usually means sitting on a block of ice while you get serenaded with drinking songs due to some transgression or another that you've been found guilty of.... or hanging a big piece of rhino shit on a rope, around your neck for some other reason, etc. At any rate, here goes. I just need to learn to throw my voice because
The Mr., on the other hand, has a great job. He got elected Braumeister, and is now in charge of mixing the most horrific, nasty-tasting, nuclear-colored drinks he can dream up, for those guilty of their hash crimes. And he has to house the hash beer fridge for the duration of his tenure, and ensure that all hash beverages make it from point A to point B on time and in an icy cold manner.
Otherwise, the last couple weeks have been interesting, as it just so happened that I got in touch with more than one "long-losty" as seems to be happening more and more in the day and age of FB. Anyway, that was really great. Especially one in particular, someone who was my real BFF during one of the major parts of my most life-changing years. In the spirit of 2010, I'm not going to complain about it, but may I just say it is WORTH NOTING that I have had to have the same conversation at least 3 times during all these cyber reunions and that is: "but you SWORE that you were NEVER going to have KIDS!" Since the arrival of LJJ on the scene, I've had this conv. about a bizillion times now, and it just goes to show that what you SAY and what people HEAR can be completely confounded by the likes of one or two little words that can go either way.
Let's start with the facts:
1. I may not be a lot of things, but one thing I definitely AM, is a gal of the "never say never" mind. You tell me you'll "never" go back to smoking or that girl or that job or eating death by chocolate for breakfast, and I'll say "HEY watch it, stranger things have happened!" or "HEY never say never!" I know, because it's true!
2. I have said a lot of things in the anti-offspring department, absolutely. Yes. 100% correct. But ALWAYS in the back of my mind there was a door open somewhere, I just had to figure out down which corridor it was located. Therefore.... "never say never!"
So as I have recently found myself explaining (x 10), I would like to clear up the things that could easily have been interpreted as me saying something as CATAGORICAL and BLACK AND WHITE as "Me. Child. Never. Forever."
10 Things I probably said:
1. Kids? Not a fan. (as in.... "of other peoples!" or, "poorly behaved ones!")
2. Us? Kids? I don't see it happening any time soon (as in.... "soon could be anywhere between 2 days and 10 years")
3. Not really interested at the moment (as in, see above)
4. "Eeeewwww!!!" (as in, "eeewww! child birth!!!"... again, strictly related to child-getting methodology)
5. Not even on the radar right now (see No.s 2, 3)
6. Why don't you go and have yours first and then we'll see (as in.... I'm not in a hurry, k?)
7. My husband's & my outrageous, radical enviro-nazi, anti-populationist beliefs prevent us from breeding more humans for the earth to absorb when there's already clearly a population crisis stemming from 18 year old poverty stricken African mothers of 5 in this country to wealthy high-impact, high-CO2 footprint mormon families in Utah or Catholics in Ireland thumbing their noses at the concept of Replacement Rate, overall resulting in too many babies that already exist (as in.... I still don't believe in personally contributing to population issues).
8. Uhhhhh.... I dunno.... (as in.... "I. Don't. Know." but anything's possible!)
9. I've got dogs. Aren't my dogs GREAT???!!! (as in.... "not ready yet!!"... but still, anything's possible!!), and finally,
10. But I love The Mr. sooo much, I don't think I would want to share him with anyone else!! (absolutely, totally true! But not a categorical denial of 100% of any possibility for eternity!!)
And yes, there's probably a wealth of others - I'm sure I'll be reminded of 4,000 of them after writing this, but still.... I know in my own BRAIN that I never believed it would be smart to say "uh-uh, NEVER!", because hey, it was always a possibility. Hell, I'm the one who never wanted to put my old copy of "Goodnight Moon" in our family's numerous garage sales because I always wanted to hand it down! But ultimately The Mr. & I both just had to get to a point where we could figure out how and when we could both live with doing it. Sure I'm probably writing all this now because my BUDDIES out there try to make me feel guilty for alluding to one thing and doing another, especially b/c LJJ is such a cutie pants and they get a kick out of saying "now see, aren't you glad you CHANGED YOUR MIND??" but I still firmly believe it comes down to splitting hairs semantically. Because I know what was, and wasn't, actually on my/our life-and-family-planning agenda, regardless of what other people want to hear when I utter the nonsense that comes out of my mouth!!
Anyhoo, if nothing else the lesson learned from all this, here, is still that I stand by my conviction that it's silly to make black and white statements that use the word "never" in them, and I still maintain that I try not to do it! (see how I said that without using the words "I never do it"??) And! even when you are creative with your sematics (like I try to be!) to avoid making gross generalizations or statements of concrete... be careful because people still read into the words you say and will ride your ass about what they heard, for years to come! And in the Spirit of 2010 it's just unhealthy to use qualifiers in the negative anyway, so there!
In other Year of Positivity news, I'm hitting this whole "relationship building" with the parents thing head-on. I resolved to say at least 10 supportive and positive things about the Ma & Pa last night at the hash, to everyone who will be meeting them next week, in preparation for not falling into that whole "uhhhhnnnnn, my parents are coming.... uhhhnnnnnn.... they're gonna drive me nuts & they're so annnoooyyyying" trap that I have been really bad at propogating over the last, what, 16 years of my life??? So now, everyone at the hash is looking forward to meeting them and has given me all sorts of positive vibes about how we are going to have such a nice time, and how special it will be for them to meet their first grand-offspring, etc etc etc and I really believe that it is genuinely helping get me in the right head space for their impending arrival. The power of this whole verbalizing-the-right-things-and-they-will-come-true is truly impressive! I heartily recommend it!
The Mr., on the other hand, has a great job. He got elected Braumeister, and is now in charge of mixing the most horrific, nasty-tasting, nuclear-colored drinks he can dream up, for those guilty of their hash crimes. And he has to house the hash beer fridge for the duration of his tenure, and ensure that all hash beverages make it from point A to point B on time and in an icy cold manner.
Otherwise, the last couple weeks have been interesting, as it just so happened that I got in touch with more than one "long-losty" as seems to be happening more and more in the day and age of FB. Anyway, that was really great. Especially one in particular, someone who was my real BFF during one of the major parts of my most life-changing years. In the spirit of 2010, I'm not going to complain about it, but may I just say it is WORTH NOTING that I have had to have the same conversation at least 3 times during all these cyber reunions and that is: "but you SWORE that you were NEVER going to have KIDS!" Since the arrival of LJJ on the scene, I've had this conv. about a bizillion times now, and it just goes to show that what you SAY and what people HEAR can be completely confounded by the likes of one or two little words that can go either way.
Let's start with the facts:
1. I may not be a lot of things, but one thing I definitely AM, is a gal of the "never say never" mind. You tell me you'll "never" go back to smoking or that girl or that job or eating death by chocolate for breakfast, and I'll say "HEY watch it, stranger things have happened!" or "HEY never say never!" I know, because it's true!
2. I have said a lot of things in the anti-offspring department, absolutely. Yes. 100% correct. But ALWAYS in the back of my mind there was a door open somewhere, I just had to figure out down which corridor it was located. Therefore.... "never say never!"
So as I have recently found myself explaining (x 10), I would like to clear up the things that could easily have been interpreted as me saying something as CATAGORICAL and BLACK AND WHITE as "Me. Child. Never. Forever."
10 Things I probably said:
1. Kids? Not a fan. (as in.... "of other peoples!" or, "poorly behaved ones!")
2. Us? Kids? I don't see it happening any time soon (as in.... "soon could be anywhere between 2 days and 10 years")
3. Not really interested at the moment (as in, see above)
4. "Eeeewwww!!!" (as in, "eeewww! child birth!!!"... again, strictly related to child-getting methodology)
5. Not even on the radar right now (see No.s 2, 3)
6. Why don't you go and have yours first and then we'll see (as in.... I'm not in a hurry, k?)
7. My husband's & my outrageous, radical enviro-nazi, anti-populationist beliefs prevent us from breeding more humans for the earth to absorb when there's already clearly a population crisis stemming from 18 year old poverty stricken African mothers of 5 in this country to wealthy high-impact, high-CO2 footprint mormon families in Utah or Catholics in Ireland thumbing their noses at the concept of Replacement Rate, overall resulting in too many babies that already exist (as in.... I still don't believe in personally contributing to population issues).
8. Uhhhhh.... I dunno.... (as in.... "I. Don't. Know." but anything's possible!)
9. I've got dogs. Aren't my dogs GREAT???!!! (as in.... "not ready yet!!"... but still, anything's possible!!), and finally,
10. But I love The Mr. sooo much, I don't think I would want to share him with anyone else!! (absolutely, totally true! But not a categorical denial of 100% of any possibility for eternity!!)
And yes, there's probably a wealth of others - I'm sure I'll be reminded of 4,000 of them after writing this, but still.... I know in my own BRAIN that I never believed it would be smart to say "uh-uh, NEVER!", because hey, it was always a possibility. Hell, I'm the one who never wanted to put my old copy of "Goodnight Moon" in our family's numerous garage sales because I always wanted to hand it down! But ultimately The Mr. & I both just had to get to a point where we could figure out how and when we could both live with doing it. Sure I'm probably writing all this now because my BUDDIES out there try to make me feel guilty for alluding to one thing and doing another, especially b/c LJJ is such a cutie pants and they get a kick out of saying "now see, aren't you glad you CHANGED YOUR MIND??" but I still firmly believe it comes down to splitting hairs semantically. Because I know what was, and wasn't, actually on my/our life-and-family-planning agenda, regardless of what other people want to hear when I utter the nonsense that comes out of my mouth!!
Anyhoo, if nothing else the lesson learned from all this, here, is still that I stand by my conviction that it's silly to make black and white statements that use the word "never" in them, and I still maintain that I try not to do it! (see how I said that without using the words "I never do it"??) And! even when you are creative with your sematics (like I try to be!) to avoid making gross generalizations or statements of concrete... be careful because people still read into the words you say and will ride your ass about what they heard, for years to come! And in the Spirit of 2010 it's just unhealthy to use qualifiers in the negative anyway, so there!
In other Year of Positivity news, I'm hitting this whole "relationship building" with the parents thing head-on. I resolved to say at least 10 supportive and positive things about the Ma & Pa last night at the hash, to everyone who will be meeting them next week, in preparation for not falling into that whole "uhhhhnnnnn, my parents are coming.... uhhhnnnnnn.... they're gonna drive me nuts & they're so annnoooyyyying" trap that I have been really bad at propogating over the last, what, 16 years of my life??? So now, everyone at the hash is looking forward to meeting them and has given me all sorts of positive vibes about how we are going to have such a nice time, and how special it will be for them to meet their first grand-offspring, etc etc etc and I really believe that it is genuinely helping get me in the right head space for their impending arrival. The power of this whole verbalizing-the-right-things-and-they-will-come-true is truly impressive! I heartily recommend it!
Labels: HHH, The Kid Files, The spirit of 2010
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