Trickery

I started my most recent trip around the sun by losing an entire chunk of eyelashes.  I had no idea how important eyelashes were until half of mine were missing.  It’s not a good look.  Maybe now I’ll finally learn to wash my face before I go to bed.  (Probably not.)  Fun fact:  they grow back pretty quickly.  Thank you, Jesus.  A lotta stuff going on this week.  Burger King is now serving Impossible burgers.  If that doesn’t give you an idea of the health benefits in an Impossible patty, I don’t know what will.  What else?  Everyone is feeling all the feels about Andrew Luck’s 29 year old retirement from the NFL.  I feel like Jon Lovitz in A League of Their Own to the cow:  Will you shut up?!  The reactions were being broadcast FOR HOURS like he gave a middle finger to America and pledged allegiance to Russia.  Let the boy live!  You don’t know him.  If strangers care that much about what I decide to do for my health and my family I’d say a few choice words that I cannot quote at this time because my mother reads this.  Everyone needs to hush their butts cause you know who doesn’t care what you think?  Me.  And Andrew Luck.  Do you boo.  There’s apparently a measles outbreak.  I can’t.  What’s next?  The black plague?  I feel a smallpox coming on.  Never mind – it’s just an ingrown hair.  I’ve been tricked into vaccinations once already in the last year and let me tell you, that was $200+ dollars of total bullshit.  You know how many Coors Lights that would have gotten me?

I don’t know if it’s just me but sometimes life feels like a bag of tricks.  I find myself looking for cameras and signs of espionage constantly.  The way society flocks to trends like sheep, the evolution of communication (or lack thereof), the definition of intimacy, the descent of dating – sometimes I don’t know which way we’re going – backwards or forwards.  It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times.  Truly.  All anyone does anymore is talk about television and it’s like, what are we talking about all of these fake things for?  It feels contrived and crazy.  Social media has made everyone feel like experts in pretty much all the things.  Half your facts are found on a google search or wikipedia.  I am pretty sure I’m gonna try and end it with a spork after I say this, but I miss the simpler times.  I miss the quality of it all.  I miss breaking up with someone and not being reminded of it ON THIS DAY 4 years ago…Yeah, THANKS FACEBOOK.  Thanks for THAT.  Great way to start my day.  And then I go to delete the photo but then I don’t want to be trivial and then before I know what’s happening I’m travelling down memory lane of all the highs and lows of our relationship smashing popcorn in my mouth like it’s some kind of Hallmark movie.  I’m happy, I’m sad and then I’m ashamed I just wasted precious time.  It’s a whole roller coaster of sweet and sour emotion and it’s barely 9am.

I went to a museum the other day and had myself a gander at all the art they were showing and I gotta be real with you – I felt tricked.  Some of the art was…questionable.  At one point, I was so angry, I had to speed walk out of a room so I wouldn’t rip it off the wall.  And maybe I’m just mad because I didn’t think of it first, but excuse me if I didn’t know a giant stainless steel balloon animal would be worth $55 million dollars.  Where did I go wrong in life that I still think of the electric bill every time I turn on my AC?  Meanwhile, I could have been making giant balloon animals on my yacht and thrown them out to my pet whale just because I could.  Before anyone gets all batty, I would never throw trash into the ocean and I care about our environment and eff straws and all that.  Tranquilo.  Who are these art collectors and who decides the value of some of this stuff?  Is this an all in favor type of thing?  Is there a judge?  Is there an Anna Wintour of art?  I would like to speak to the manager’s manager’s manager.  Stat.  ‘Yeah, hi, I just paid money to look at garbage and I’d like a refund for my ticket and my time’.  So I’m going to make art now.  Standby.

I don’t even think people know what they’re standing for anymore.  PUN INTENDED.  Kneeling in church is reverent.  In fact, unless you have bad knees, if you’re not kneeling at certain times, it’s disrespectful.  Kneel during our national anthem, however, and half the country loses their minds because they are ‘disrespecting our country’ – the land of the free.  The same country who decided the pledge of allegiance should not be allowed in schools.  I don’t know why we get so riled up about what everyone else is doing.  If another country had people kneeling during their anthem, I wouldn’t be thinking HOW DARE THEY DISRESPECT A PIECE OF CLOTH MADE IN CHINA LIKE THAT, I would be wondering what that’s all about and what they have to say.  We kneel for proposals, we kneel to show admiration, we kneel to show submission, we kneel to be knighted, hell ALL Daenerys wanted was for Jon Snow to bend the knee.  So in conclusion, stop pretending you’re upset about the kneeling.  You’re not.  You’re mad because of WHY they’re kneeling.  At the end of the day, it’s not in the constitution.  You know what is?  Equality.  Man, I should have been a lawyer.  I am now a lawyer-artist.  Note – I do not think our flag is just a piece of cloth made in China.  I stand for the anthem because that is my choice and my right.  It it also someone else’s not to.

Although when you are an Olympian, you sign a contract agreeing not to engage in any acts of political protest.  So they know what’s coming.  They’ve made their choice.  My favorite comment is, “So why don’t you move if you hate this country so much?”  It’s like I don’t know SHARON, why don’t you leave your marriage you’ve been monopolizing our book club with the last 2 years?  We’re trying to discuss Where the Crawdad’s Sing, not all the ways Todd has let you down.  More wine, please.  My point being, you don’t say to your friends, ___insert any name here___ really made me mad today and expect everyone to yell LEAVE THEM with pitchforks.  Divorce shouldn’t be option A.  You are allowed to hate and love something at the same time.  I’m convinced that’s how most relationships work anymore.  Not everything is black and white.

But, getting back to the point, our military fights for the rights and freedoms of every single person in this country.  Including that one that says things that make your blood boil.  Including the one that stands for things you don’t support.  Including all your exes.  Including the guy who spit into your car that one day, including the woman who badmouthed you on her podcast, including the man who wasn’t taught manners growing up, including my neighbors who are a dumpster fire and out to ruin my life.  I come from a military family, I know what it’s like to have people I love fighting for the rights of idiots.  We aren’t going to agree all the time.  I don’t know where anyone got the idea that we all have to feel and think and believe all the same things.  That’s neither realistic, interesting or beautiful.  It’s a trick.  That’s not real life.  I prefer to live in color. Xx