Things I am Not Afraid to Tell You

Last week a group of blogs led by the lovely Leslie posted the third installment of "Things I am Afraid to Tell You". I would have participated, but I think we all know that I am not afraid to tell you anything. I don't have enough common sense for that sort of thing.

My oversharing light does not have an off switch.

I do have a filter, though. It may not seem like it, but I do. I spare you some of the details for the sake of brevity, and I skip the minutia in order to keep things fresh and exciting. But when I read first Leslie's and then the rest of the women's lovely, heartfelt, honest posts last week (the links are all at the bottom of Leslie's post noted above), all I kept thinking to myself was "Hey! ME TOO! I do that TOO! That happened to ME! I always worry about that! I thought I was the only one!" and so on and so forth. I was inspired.

Instead of - FAR FROM - judging them, I felt a camaraderie. It was like one of the "Movie Stars: THEY'RE JUST LIKE US" columns you see in magazines with photos of celebrities grocery shopping in sweatpants with bedhead, or getting a parking ticket, or some other totally unglamorous thing. I read these posts, and my first thought was "Sister, you are not the only one." Followed swiftly by "Maybe I need to hold back a little on my 'open book' blogging style." It was a moment of enlightenment - not the anecdotes they shared, but the fact that they had been hesitant to share them in the first place. I had a moment of pause.

Don't worry, the ADD kicked in right about then, and I totally forgot and went right back to facebooking a photo of my bedroom piled high with laundry and a note that said "Maybe we would have more sex if we could find the bed."

And so, continuing my grand tradition of airing my laundry right on the front lawn - and in support of all of the amazing women who have a modicum of restraint unlike MYSELF and really went outside of their comfort zone to share details that they would have been more comfortable keeping private, but decided to get off their chest - I figured I'll just go right ahead and tell you some more things that you might not know (and maybe wish you didn't know) about me.

Starting with: I am naked while I write this.
Yeah. That's right. I am sitting in bed at 6am on a Sunday because I was consumed with a sudden need to overshare, and here we are. Naked. What? You aren't naked? Well, go ahead and take your pants off and get comfortable for god's sake. I'll wait.

Doesn't that feel better? You are welcome.

Let me take that a bit further: If I am home, and if I have bothered to put on anything more than a tanktop and some underwear, it's a pair of green, bleach-spattered sweatpants I bought at Walmart last fall for $5. I like their wide elastic waistband. More room for pie.

Next fun fact: I like to have yard sales, and either sell everything for a dollar, or I am loathe to part with any of my things and set impossibly high prices and then stand there looking offended when people try to haggle,as if  they are breaching yard sale protocol somehow.

Have I mentioned the piles of laundry all over my house? Because they are there, and they are glorious. As I asked last week on twitter: "Is it possible to hire someone *just* to put away my clean laundry? Is that a thing? Because it should be."

I am a terrible housekeeper. It is not because I am incapable - I used to clean houses AS A JOB. I can clean - I just choose not to. I am such an accomplished procrastinator that, if left to my own devices, things would never get clean until they were so gross my OCD kicked in and then I would be forced to I stay awake for 24 hours straight scrubbing grout with an old toothbrush and polishing my refrigerator.

(This happened yesterday, as a matter of fact. But we also have an amazing woman who comes to clean when it all just gets too overwhelming/depressing for me - and if nothing else, I clean right before she arrives so I am not totally embarrassed by the state of the house when she gets here.)

(My house is always cleaned before guests arrive. FYI. Be not afraid.)

(And the whole OCD thing pretty much assures that my level of "dirty" is probably not anyone else's level of "dirty".)

(I have to go clean the stove right now. I'll be back in a bit.)


AND WE'RE BACK. Fresh from my trip to the kitchen, I have another tidbit for you:

My husband does the dishes. We had a conversation early in our relationship about dividing household tasks. I like doing the dishes (I find the warm water very soothing, and I have to be sure my dishes are really clean before I use them because, oh, hey OCD!) and I load dishwashers like I am being judged for a Nobel Prize, so giving it up was a sacrifice on my part. (And I frequently have to unload and then reload the dishwasher more efficiently so that I can sleep at night.) I hate doing laundry and cleaning the bathroom. But I got stuck with the laundry in order to to save my delicates.

We agreed to hire a third party to handle the bathroom in an effort to keep the romance alive.

I don't do much with the outside of the place either. There is a pile of crap on the end of the porch that I have to deal with, the yard is overgrown, the garden box is shameful, and thank god it rains or nothing would ever get watered. Is that tree dead?

In other news, yesterday I spent 3 hours hitting "refresh" on facebook and tmz.

I just capitalized and uncapitalized "GOD" three times.  True story. Every time I use the word god (God?) (gawd?) I get into a huge argument with myself about this.

EVERY GODDAMNED TIME.

(Caps lock solves the problem nicely!)

My dog lives outside. Okay, listen. IT'S HAWAII OUT THERE. But I still feel really guilty that he is not allowed to come in the house. Not guilty enough to let him inside where I am sure he will immediately sit on my sofa. But guilty nonetheless.

I eat junk food when the kids aren't looking. When they go to bed, out come the chips and candy. I used to smoke in the evenings, so I have somehow convinced myself that eating this crap is okay because Hey! At least I'm not smoking! AMIRIGHT?!

Speaking of which, I hear the kids stirring and there is a bag of candy on my nightstand that I have to stash toot suite.

Oh please, like you haven't done the same damn thing.

Bully

As a child, I was never particularly successful socially. I was loud, intense, and too smart for my own damn good. I was awkward, and while my behavior was simply a desperate attempt to fit in and be liked, a lot of the time, it totally backfired.

As I got older, I got more awkward, and the kids just got.....meaner.

Which made me more awkward.

Which made me more of a target.

This was a cycle. This may also explain why I was smoking by the age of 12.

These days there is a lot of talk about bullying, and a lot of Zero Tolerance policies, and a lot of ways that kids can be horrible to each other away from the supervision of grownups. Even if the adults know that something is going on, a bully is going to bully.

It can be hard to tell whether the line has been crossed from teasing to bullying. There are checklists, and message boards, and all manner of experts who would be happy to break it down for you - but when you are in the thick of it, it is very hard to decide: how far is too far?

This morning I was informed that my son came up with the term "Donkeyhole" and felt that it was an acceptable - nay, hilarious - turn of phrase.

Clever little monkey, isn't he.

Donkeyhole. This is definitely a highlight of my parenting career.

Is it bullying to call someone a Donkeyhole? I can't say for sure. Maybe I am too close to the situation to make a call on that. I want to believe that when my son called someone a Donkeyhole, it was not meant to be mean, probably more to entertain and get a laugh. I can't imagine that it could even be said with a straight face. But I suppose anything is possible.

What about calling someone a loser? Can that be said in jest? I'm sure it can. But if my son called someone a loser, he would be spending a very long time in his room thinking about all of the privledges he had just lost for using that word. WHO'S THE LOSER NOW, DONKEYHOLE?

I heard about this Donkeyhole business during a meeting - a meeting during which I had to keep a straight face and pretend to be the grownup in this situation because OH THAT'S RIGHT I AM THE GROWNUP. We had this meeting because last week, which began with the infamous Teabagging of 2012, ended with my son being called "gay" a "loser" and told that he "sucked" a number of times.

I am having trouble finding the humor in that.

Do you remember 5th grade? Unfortunately, I do. And the next year - I didn't believe it was possible, but it was: middle school just got worse. In fact, I was absolutely miserable until I got to high school. And I have no intention of watching history repeat itself.

So what does it say about me as a parent, when my child came home day after day with these stories, and I was supporting him by asking things like "What did you say or do to make them act like this?"

How is it that I immediately assumed that my child had somehow egged them on, or brought it upon himself? And then one day, he came home completely defeated. "We were singing, and this kid said I tried to kiss him, and then his friend said to me 'Stop touching your dick.' AND I WASN'T Mom, I swear I wasn't doing that. I was singing."

My jaw dropped open. I realized at that moment, when my son felt he needed to defend himself to me, his own mother, that something was terribly wrong. Something had shifted - the balance of power, the tone of the conversation, the personal - sexual - nature of the teasing.

Is that the line? Could someone please show me the line so that I know when to get all batshit mama bear crazy? And when to just give my kid a hug and go out for ice cream?

It's not like the adults haven't been addressing this issue all week long. Letters of apology were written and received, tears were shed, rules were clarified. And still it continued - and escalated. And my boy defending himself by calling the other guy a Donkeyhole.

Because my son, for all his many human weaknesses, truly doesn't have the ability to be cruel. Obnoxious, yes. Absolutely. Bossy? Yep. Emotional? That's putting it mildly. But he's not mean. Donkeyhole was his way of fighting back. A real tough guy.

I'm surprised I didn't find him tied to the flagpole.

So what, exactly, is the solution? If the kid tells a teacher what is going on, he's tattling. If kids are just joking and one of them over-reacts or feels picked on or gets his feelings hurt, was he bullied? I called a little girl a bitch once on the playground. I was six. And just for the record, she was a total bitch. Was I a bully?

Maybe I should have called her a donkeyhole instead.