Why I Never Post

For all two of my readers, I'm going to lay it all on the line. I just don't post. Practically ever. You probably don't really care, as this blog isn't exactly the highlight of your lives, but I tend to think that if I sit down and hammer out a post on my blog someone will stumble upon it and be all like "This is the greatest blog EVAR!"

The only problem is this one, simple fact: I make writing extremely 'effing difficult. Over the years I've seen so many movies, pictures, t.v. characters etc. that showcase writers all laid back and calm, sipping hot coffee in a corner of a cafe as they type up an amazing something.

Unfortunately that's not me.

There are about a ellebenty thousand arbitrary ritualistic rules I put on myself for writing. Like, right now? I'm trying to ignore most of them. I've brushed my teeth, brushed my hair twice, and gone to the bathroom twice. Now three times (brought on because I thought of it). I go to the bathroom as a part of this weird pacing regime. When I first started writing, I was almost always completely alone in a house when I wrote. I would write a couple sentences, get up and pace back and forth through a couple of rooms with some sort of inner monologue concerning what I was writing about. It's a weird tick, I know, but it worked for me. But since then I've moved into a place with other people. I can't pace throughout the house anymore, and my ticks must be confined to my own room. I can tell you, there's not much pacing to do in one room. So I wind up with this overwhelming urge to pee every 20 minutes or so. I tried to appease my pacing oddity with just kind of standing in my room shuffling a little side to side or swaying back and forth, but doing so brought these horrible images to my mind of crazy people in mental hospitals that do that, and got freaked out that perhaps this is how it started.

The biggest 'rule' I'm ignoring is the clean and organized desk rule. My desk is currently piled with stuff, and I just can't really concentrate because for every phrase I type I stop and think "I need to put the box for my Photoshop program away. Where can I put it? I don't just want to toss it in my desk area. Maybe in my bottom drawer? No, that's where my electronics go. Maybe I should just take the disk out of the box and put it in my cd case that has all my other programs in it? AND THROW AWAY THE BOX?!?" That's just one item.

And, if it was just the problem of the desk, that wouldn't be that bad. I could technically organize my desk in a half hour or so, but I can't organize my desk, because there are a few items to be put in other places. So, I'll pick up something off my desk, go to put it in its place, only to start fumbling with everything else that's there, re-assessing why I've put it there and trying to decide if there is a better place for it.

Wow, am I on a tangent. Back to blogging. So yeah. Writing is seriously hard when you're an effing psycho. I recently purged a couple big time rules I had about my blog, namely I'm going to write about what the heck I want to write for the sake of writing. I've tried to keep a more... um... formal writing style, usually trying to be informative with some of my posts, and I've spent years desperately thinking about a theme or area of topics to stick to. But since I can't write anyway, might as well not write about everything. Another arbitrary thing I've slaved under is this horrible fear of unoriginality. I don't want to possibly write in a way that's similar to someone else. Now I'm like "Eff that. I'll write how I want, even if I want to write like someone else."

Take this post for example. I was cruising the internet a few weeks ago when I came across this blog, and was amazed by two things: This person was hilarious as all get-out, and "Holy crap, I can draw pictures for a blog?!?"

I don't know why the thought never crossed my mind before: A blog doesn't have to be a giant wall 'o' text. It doesn't have to be about something uber-important, or written in some amazing Oxford-style writing.

i coold eeven ryte lik dis if I wanted to. But I don't want to because people that write like that make me want to falcon punch babies.

But from now on I'll just write about whatever the heck I feel like writing. In anyway I feel like writing.

Last Holdout (pt. 1)

Who is the Last Holdout?

It's a dirty sentence for me to say, but I'm hurtling headlong into the ripe-old-age of 28. My age doesn't bother me. The numbers can't really compare the the rather interesting life I've lived so far. There's been quite a bit of adventure for me, considering I'm still so young.

However, I'm finding myself pushing deeper into a rather imposing and increasingly desolate territory: happily single. Never married. No kids. Some look at me, tilting their heads slightly to the side, thinking "Aww... how sad, maybe someday..." I find the sentiment vaguely understandable - albeit slightly pretentious. However, the pity is unnecessary. I'm happily single. Unattached does not equal alone; childless does not equal unfulfilled.

While I am not lonely, I do find myself at times alienated to some degree. In my post-teen years, the number of my peer group being single was the majority. Yet after age twenty, the singles' scene began a rapid decrease. Although I was still gathered with many single friends and such, I witnessed several friends - close friends - marry, have children, and begin new lives. Now, we've always heard of the phrase "Begin a new life together", but we didn't realize that there was a whole second half of that sentence. The full sentence that needs to be said is "The two will begin a new life together - without you." Somehow it's never been fully explained to me that single people and married people do not really hang out together. There's some sort of threshold crossed once a couple becomes married.

As time went on, I began to see my circle of friends dwindle. We became a tight pack of close-knit friends, but one by one they would marry or perhaps move away to bigger and better places. I myself, moved, and found myself trying to scratch up a new set of single friends. Awkwardness was evident, as I would be invited to "girls nights" that wound up being nothing more than moms babysitting their own kids while watching movies, or starting to overhear more and more about marriage woes. The most awkward, naturally, is the dreaded questions or "cute" comments pointed in my direction about when I was going to ante-up to the matrimony gods and begin my procreation (anyone else get the "You're next" statement at a wedding?). Or worse - being asked if I was lesbian "because you just don't seem to be interested in dating..."

After a lot of frustration I began to learn the ultimate truth that I was a Last Holdout. What's that, you ask? A Last Holdout is a person who's managed to make it past the age group that most people get married. Simply put, it's the chronically single person in a world that believes it shan't be single. It's a very singular (no pun intended) position in society, one that holds frustrations and certain moments of alienation, yet has equally fantastic opportunities and perks that only us Last Holdouts can reach.

Could I Be a Last Holdout?

Mostly, people hit that feeling of being "the only single person left on the planet" once they reach 26. I don't know why we pair up in only about 6 years or so, but that seems to be a biological clock that just doesn't change (and why would we?). Ergo, if you're only 19 and you think you're a Holdout? You probably just didn't have many friends to begin with. There's plenty of single friends to be had. But if you can relate to the above, you're likely to be a Holdout. A few more symptoms are things such as finding that you make or have more friends outside of your age group, and of course being the only single person on the girls/guys night. I think most people are capable of diagnosing themselves.

It's a great and terrible position to be in, depending on how much you want to be married. I myself enjoy the freedoms of single life, so I'm finding new perks of being a Holdout. However, there's a lot that we all (Holdouts, young singles, and married people) need to learn to properly utilize the lofty - yet precarious - place.

The Heavy Hand of Willing Ignorance

So... I have a friend that was completely clueless about the rioting in London, because she doesn't ever see the news unless it's spoon-fed to her through friends on Facebook. I told her that she could check the headlines from her phone and it would take about 5 minutes. She responded with "I don't have time." REALLY? We have time to sit and watch full dvd's of t.v. shows and movies and time to sit out and tan, time to hang about with friends and families for hours on end, but we don't have FIVE MINUTES to find out what's going on the world? We don't have FIVE MINUTES to educate yourself and - I don't know - end our own ignorance? I wish we Americans would grow a pair and stop making excuses for our apathy and just say "I don't want to because I just don't care if it's not entertaining to me."

I've spent a lot of time pointing out who's at fault for our nation's debt crisis, foreign policy faux pas and such, but I'm beginning to see that - in it's essence - the real blame is a lot closer to home than I before thought. I can't blame the President, Congress, the House or anyone in the seats of power alone, for it's the apathetic voters of our nation that rely on everyone else to tell them what to think. It's the fact that we will gladly gain our opinions from the entertainers such as John Stewart and Saturday Night Live rather than spend some time reading up on "boring" policy reviews. We quietly muddled through history classes in high school and college, and that's all the history we possibly want to read.

We live in a society who's people pride themselves on side-stepping difficulties, and when we cannot ignore difficulties completely, we tend to throw important things a Proverbial Bone, providing as little of our attention as possible in effort to move on to more pleasurable opportunities. We love jovial television and hate heavy reading; we spend days following an inflammatory comment list on a political blog and refuse to look up public documents explaining how our government works; we exclaim brazen headlines in bold print and sign our names onto contracts without bothering to read the fine print.

I used to think that my generation didn't want to read up on political viewpoints simply because we were disillusioned by the elitist attitude of Washington. Now I see how the elitist attitude grew in Washington out of the people's disinterest. If someone ran for office by explaining policy plans and economic forecasts, he or she is widely ignored - but if someone can run with a fun catch-phrase and can turn a joke or two, and especially if an appearance can be made on late-night t.v. he or she wins by a landslide. The masses want their drug of non-thinking, and we want it now.

So we are now beginning to get what we wanted - a government that will do all the thinking for us. It will take as much money from us as it feels is necessary to hand out to the masses, to provide for people that don't work. And then those that are taking our money will flash a smile and make jokes, and give the American people a pat on the head for being such a "good" American people for giving hand-outs to people that abuse the system to their every advantage, all the while the economy sputters and dies. But we wanted this, right? We don't have to check the news, we don't need to know what's going on. There's a re-run of Glee on right now.

If we aren't going to change our actions, let's at least change our words. We need to stop saying "I don't have time," and say what we're really meaning: "I just don't care because it's not fun." That way when we're straining under the heavy hand of the people that run our country, we'll stop blaming them and realize it's our own lack participation, our own laziness and apathy, our own willing ignorance that put the heavy hand of totalitarian-styled leadership over us.

The Suck Zone

Have you ever tried to stuff a boiled egg into a bottle? I'm sure most people have better things to do. But if you did, you'd realize it is a pretty futile effort. Because of the bottle neck, you can't really force the egg into the reservoir. So, you can sit the egg on the neck of the bottle and your egg would be safe.

In life, we often find ways to "sit on the neck" of sin. Perhaps it's watching things we shouldn't be watching, or going out partying in places that we really shouldn't be. We aren't sinning, and not really doing anything harmful, so it's not a problem.

However, if you were to take a piece of paper, light it on fire and drop it into the decanter and then place the egg in the neck of the decanter, something crazy happens. As the fire consumes the oxygen in the decanter a vacuum is created and the soft egg will get sucked into it!

King David of the Bible experienced this very thing. 2 Samuel 11:1 describes that during the time, the kings were supposed to go off to war. However King David stayed behind and hung out at home. Strictly speaking, there is no law to say that there was anything wrong with David staying home. However, it was the time of the year in which kings needed to be at the battle front. How often are we slowly drawn into sin, simply by keeping away from the battle front? How often do we decide to forgo the sharpening of our spirits (i.e. Bible study and one-on-One time), only later to find that we have become spiritually weak? How many times do we waggle away from engaging in the world and addressing it's need of the Savior? There are battles forged each and every day, and our place is on the very frontlines - not staying behind on rooftops of the palaces of our lives.

As we sit in the neck of sin, something can catch our eye. Perhaps the shows we watch make a certain sins appear more enticing and less consequential. Perhaps we could "handle" the party/club scene until we meet someone we want to "spend more time with." These things are like a little fire in the bottle, they burn out the oxygen, and then the draw of that little fire will suck us in. And let me tell you, once that egg is in the decanter, you usually have to break it into pieces to get it out.

Even the most mature Christian can sometimes struggle with the line between perfectly allowable and "The Suck Zone," so here are tips to keep from getting suckered:

1. Know your limits.
Any addiction clinic will tell you that dry and sober are different things. Dry means you aren't using the thing you're addicted to, but you're still in the life. You're still partying with the same people, going to the same places - and that's bad, because it's too close to the edge for you. Sober means you are beginning a new life. New friends, new places - all steering clear from your addictive properties. If you have struggles with something and you know it, avoid it completely! That means stay away from the places that focus on it, stay away from the t.v. shows and magazines that glorify it. Is watching a movie wrong? Not really, but if you know it can trigger you to go farther than you want, just stay away.

2. Keep yourself accountable.
"I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends" What a good way to look at it. An accountability partner is, by far, one of the best resources God can give us. Someone that will step beyond our personal lines of comfort and politeness, someone that will accept and use your permission (and you need to give him/her that permission) to dig a little deeper if they suspect you are faking out your "Oh, I'm fine!" smile. If you don't have an accountability partner, get one. Not just about your biggest hang-ups, but in everything. Sometimes we just need to chat about daily struggles to realize our long-term battles, or discover our personal game plans.

3. If you find yourself going there, just walk away.
Go cold turkey while you still can. I don't know how often I'll see a message from a friend saying "Hey, I'm going to fast from [movies/t.v./internet/anything-else-you-can-think-of] for the next [enter period of time]." Or have a friend decide to break off friendships with people that are dragging them down a dark path. I do my best to encourage them and pray for them. They're taking a break from the neck of the bottle. Like I said, these things aren't wrong, but they aren't drawing us directly toward God either, and being there can give us a good view of some rather enticing sins. So if you start to feel that draw, contact your accountability partner and walk away.

I wish we would learn this truth and perfectly imply it in our lives quickly and immediately. However we don't. But remember, if you find yourself sliding into sin... if you feel the heat of the flame and the vacuum of sin... or even if you're already trapped inside that bottle, there is a way out. I mentioned that there's rarely ever the chance of the egg getting out unbroken. King David was crushed when he met the face of his sin. However, we serve a God that heals the broken. So if you're there, don't lose hope. God can pull you back through and set you straight.

Dear Mr. President: A Plea for Nuclear Disarmarment

Dear Mr. President,

I would like to make an approach to the important issue of nuclear disarmament. Not long ago, I watched an old B Monster Movie titled “Gamera the Invincible”. It’s pretty similar to the Japanese film “Godzilla” - although with a giant turtle trying to eat Tokyo rather than a lizard. Have you had the pleasure of seeing this film, Mr. President? I must say, it’s a great movie to watch, but when the Godzilla-like sequence becomes a real experience, it becomes somewhat less pleasant.

Long before I discovered this gem of the classic monster movie era, I was a carefree seventh grader heading to my first classes of the year. Mr. President, I was ready to take on the word. I gleefully strolled the hallways, excited for the hope filled future that awaited me. How was I supposed to know the horrors that really awaited me, Mr. President? How was I supposed to know?!?

Erupting from the tranquil existence of summer vacation came my home economics teacher. I’ll just call her “Mrs. H”. Let me tell you, Mr. President, Gamera has nothing on her – nothing. Gamera eats fire? Mrs. H ate fifty minutes of every school day (not including homework, Mr. President). Gamera was the enemy of Japan? Mrs. H was the enemy of the Human Spirit!

I must say, I can support Gamera on some fronts. You see, Mr. President, Gamera was awakened, he didn’t know his purpose. Yes, at first he chose to destroy Japan, but in the sequels he came to the aid of the country. It was even said that he loved children. Mrs. H’s class also had no intelligible purpose. She had us making Play-Doh and was dressing the boys in Salmon colored shirts. Salmon, Mr. President. I hear that she’s eaten children in her sequels.

At least “Gamera the Invincible” had a good moral to take from it. The movie taught us to be kind to our planet. Mrs. H’s Home Economics class? Mr. President, it was in that class that I lost my religion and determined to destroy the entire universe. Did I wait for her “sequels” like I have for the installments of Gamera? No, Mr. President, I prayed for disease to save me from her classes. And I tried to fight her, Mr. President, really I did. But, our complaints simply bounced off her indestructible scales of tenure and shattered hopelessly on the battlefield of our counselor’s office.

I’m certain few would argue the destruction caused by these two almost unstoppable forces, and recant of their release. And how were they released, Mr. President? Nuclear bombs. Yes, Gamera was awakened from a nuclear test bomb, and Mrs. H awakened from the baby-boom after Hiroshima, but all the destruction can be ultimately traced to the same source. Look at the facts, Mr. President. I’m certain you’ll agree that Nuclear disarmament is the only way to assure such horrific creations like Gamera and Mrs. H will never be unleashed on mankind again.

Sincerely,

Callista Rowlett

Little Miss Watermelon: a Tale of Failure and Glory

Three crowns. That was it. Only three would be going home from the “Little Miss Watermelon Pageant” happy that night, and I obviously would not be among them. After all, these little girls were thin and pretty. And me? Well, after two months of eating a cup of vegetable soup three times a day, my ‘baby fat’ still stuck out on my five-year-old belly, protruding from just above the intense ruffling of my Little Rosie skirt.

The dirt had been scraped from under my nails and a coat of soft pink applied on top. My hair changed from its usual style of gnarled and tangled to brushed, curled, teased and positioned into an elegant, coiled coif. I stood motionless for Mother as she slathered on more makeup. Makeup was a horrendous experience, given her severe nervous issues. I stood in place, my eyes perfectly stationary, as the middle aged woman slowly extended a mascara wand directly at my eyeball with a very shaky hand, while at the same time repeatedly exclaiming, “Stay still!”

Finally, I was deemed perfect, and Mother allowed me to turn around and steal a glimpse at the competition. There must have been fifty girls in that little room, and that didn’t include all the mothers that teetered over them with various combs and sprays in fevered attempts to keep their young daughters’ hair in gloriously large shapes. Five-year-old queens waited, outwardly impervious to the relentless, sticky heat of a particularly unforgiving August afternoon. The mothers constantly dabbed paper napkins to the faces of the kids while cursing the pageant directors for not providing decent enough accommodations to keep the makeup from melting off the children’s faces. Cries would randomly erupt from corners of the room – immediately followed by the parent’s frustrated responses: “Stop crying right now – you’ll make your eyeliner run! No! You can’t go out and play; you’re staying here and doing this!”

As I stood there in a dress that cost my family more than our food for a month, I couldn’t help but realize just how hopeless my situation was. Most of these girls had trainers, coordinators, years of experience, and a long lineage of pageantry. What did I offer the judges? Baby Fat. Oh, and a clumsy gate that refused to be trained by the endless hours of practicing “The Walk” and “The Turn” that had eaten my summer whole.

The toddler division finally ended and we were called from purgatory. Paper slices of watermelon bearing our number adorned our lavish gowns. The signs reminded me of those that numbered the cattle I had seen at a bovine auction. An uptight woman with a clip board lined us up at the stage entrance and, one by one, we stepped into the spotlight to display ourselves for the inspection of the judges. I grew excited and anxious as the sounds of the crowd wafted towards me. I frantically practiced my steps in my head: Walk to the microphone and give the introduction, walk to the first ‘X’ marked on the floor and turn around slowly. Then move center stage, turn again, and make my way off stage. Only thirty seconds - and the judges had to adore me within that time. I took a deep breath. I could see the stage. The voice of the announcer echoed in my ears. Then came the whisper from Clip Board Woman that I had been waiting for: “It’s your turn… go.”

I stepped out and moved to the microphone. “Hi,” I said with my southern speech drawing out magnanimously, “My name is Callista Rowlett. I’m 5 years old and I live in Cave City…” In that moment, I noticed something. The crowd. The crowd wasn’t even looking. The people were talking and chatting. These were the parents, aunts, uncles and friends of other girls, and none of them held interest in another faceless girl slowly turning on X’s. My gaze drifted from the crowd, to the scrupulous judges’ bench, and to the announcer. Perhaps the soup turning in my stomach soured my disposition, but I realized that these people had standards I could never meet and, in that moment, I realized that I no longer cared to meet them. But that crowd was not going to ignore me.

I strutted to the X and twirled on the heels of my pearled leather shoes twice, ending with my arms stretched out and open wide. Then, I frolicked to center stage and Hammer-Danced. My curls jangled about my head, the hovering skirt bounced like the Golden Gate during an earthquake, and the lace lining of my socks ruffled with every jolting, awkward, glorious move. Half the crowd was silenced while the rest laughed. Two of the judges’ mouths hung open. I winked and waved enthusiastically. I leapt and spun around completely before backing toward my stage exit, holding my stage time by blowing kisses to a wave of laughter and applause until my mother’s arm appeared from behind a curtain and yanked me off stage like a shepherd’s hook. Mother was less than enthusiastic.

We left for home while three girls stood on stage with glittering crowns on their heads. I didn’t care. The pretty girls could have the crowns. The pretty girls could have the judges, the announcer, Clip Board Woman and the little watermelon slices that numbered us like cows at an auction. Heck, the pretty girls could have my mother, for all I cared that evening. But the crowd? The crowd was mine.

I went home and had some chocolate cake. It was mine, too.

Lightbulb: A Thought on Kids and Communication

Currently Listening: "Breakfast at Tiffany's" by: Deep Blue Something

So... I've been hanging out with my brother and his family for a few weeks. He has two kids: one of each. The daughter is 11 and the son is... 8? Yeah, 8. I think.

Anyway, I'm not a 'kid' person. It's easy for me to say that I simply don't like kids, but in all reality, I just don't do well with them - children are rather an intimidating set. So are old people, but I digress.

So I'm doing the whole live-in Aunt thing and one exclamation that has been popping in my head on a daily basis is "Man, this kid talks just to hear his own head rattle!" I'm serious. It's not these kids in particular - I think the majority of kids' mouths run from the moment their eyes pop open to the point they finally pass out at night. Heck, I think a lot of kids talk to themselves - which I find slightly disturbing. Never mind the fact that I actually host an inner-monologue in my own head. The difference is that it's an inner monologue.

During part of my inner-monologue this evening, I somehow stumbled upon the idea of communication. What's so great about the 10 dollar words we learn to use with time? Well, I love words. I love reading. I do it just because I like doing it. Heck, I sometimes read crap about stuff I don't care about because it's well written. I've spent time reading a dictionary. And yes, I like learning about word origins and such. I just love words. The reason why I love expanding my personal vocabulary is because it allows me more precise expression.

If someone asks me why I'm frowning I can say "I'm sad." Which is fully true, but leaves quite a wide array of options of what's truly going on, because sadness can be the stencil of loneliness, regret, homesickness, or any near limitless number of possibilities. If I cannot pinpoint the emotional element to a short phrase, I'll expound upon it by an often much longer soliloquy that will usually host the happenings of my circumstance, how I feel.. and even how I feel about how I feel (heh, can you follow that last part?).

Children are most often just as we adults - only their vocabulary is less developed. In turn, they must talk a lot more to "get the point across" when it comes to their thoughts, feelings and experiences.

Another thing is the simple fact that, children are in a quickening state of awareness and understanding. I can be sitting directly next to my 8-year-old nephew, watching the exact same show, and he'll point out very obvious things that are occurring. It's been driving me silently insane, because I just couldn't understand why the kid felt he had to explain to me the same details I just watched! I just thought he wanted to talk... that he just wouldn't shut up. I'm glad now that I've held my tongue. Especially at his age, my nephew is learning how to pick up on facial and vocal expressions and make connections between actions, circumstances, and human reactions - which is going to be possibly the most important social skill he will ever learn.

My goal in the future is that, rather than stare ahead blankly and wonder "why is he/she still talking?", I'll listen slightly more intently to their longer explanations of shorter expressions, and then parrot what they said with words they can better use to express themselves concisely. Hopefully, this will assist in the ripening of their vocabulary.

Not that children should be denied the very important input of when to shut up - yet I'm sure that little virtue is one I can be certain will be well established with time by someone other than their aunt. In other words: gratefully, it isn't my place.