There's this thing called privacy

Stolen from a friend via her website.
Tru dat.

Well.

The stuff I put on here is completely anonymous. For the most part the people that read this do not know me at all.

There are very few people from my "real" life who I even let read this stuff.

I truly write this here bloggity because it's cathartic for me. I feel better when I can get this stuff out of my cranium and onto this here screen.

I'm sitting in my living room, looking out onto my pretty back yard and deck and the Tibetan Prayer flags gently waving in the wind.

In the front yard is a blue spruce that my neighbor cut down and gave to us for Christmas. It's still decorated with cute bulbs and a garland made of oyster shells from Africa. Also has some paper ribbon of red and purple in it.

Whether or not you believe in this kind of stuff, I feel protected by the trees and the birds and the little voles and mices that are living in my yard. My Beebles also protects me. She's very alert, and, as my Mom used to say, "The world needs more Lerts!"

My parents didn't raise me in a traditional way - I mean they were pretty traditional when you get down to the WASPy roots I enjoy, but my parents were always the spectacular people in the room. The people that threw the big parties that everyone wanted to attend.

I remember having the group, "Hot Chocolate" in my house for their big Gold Record party celebration. The DJ that was my Dad's co-worker, Phil Orth, or "Orth from the North" - was the first to release their song "You Sexy Thing" so he was being celebrated along with the band.

That's not your typical childhood memory. Or at least I thought so.

Turns out that there are a lot of people with famous connections, because "celebrities" are just people. They grew up just the same as you and I did! They have families, friends, co-workers from the past and present! Just people.

So, I used to watch award shows and criticize (and also celebrate) what the pretty people were wearing. I was harsh sometimes. Now I feel bad about that. What if you went to some fancy affair and then the next day there are hundreds of sites on the internet declaring you the "Worst Dressed" in all of the land?

I'd HATE that!

Living in Alaska, I feel a bit like that. Because I'm from Massachusetts, I'm labeled as weird, liberal and naive.

???

Really, now? So, the degrees I've earned and the whole Phi Beta Kappa thing?

Oh, right. You would know about PBK because you think it's some special brand of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

Dumb sh*ts.

Honestly.

Yes. I have blonde hair. Blue eyes. Yes, I'm in good shape (thank you) again.

I lost weight. Not my brain.

So, again. I beg of you. Please stop with the bashing of men, women or whatever.

JUST BE NICE.

My Mom and Dad taught me the old maxim:

If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all.

I realize I'm a bit of a hypocrite when I say that and then call certain people dumb sh*ts. However, if you pick on me, over and over, and you continue to underestimate me, you can't expect me to just sit here and take it.

Gonna go study for the Bar.

You know, not the kind with cocktails, you dumb ****.

Yeesh.

Ciao again for now.

Dinner parties and the ocean

Detail on a recent arrangement I did for a charity event here in Anchorage.
Because I obviously have no effing brain and design stuff when I'm not learning more about Theoretical Physics.
Reverse sexism. It's a sucky thing and we ladies need to be nicer to each other.
Don't assume that because I'm a cook and have a clean, pretty house that I'm dumb.
It's asshole-ish, pretentious and stupid. And, frankly, I don't want you here if you don't respect me.

So last night, I had a couple of young friends over. They pretty much are fetuses compared to my aged person.  They are young, open, smart, interesting and interested kids - about 22 years old.

Do you remember 22?

Oy.

I was fresh out of college, world at my feet and I believed I knew just about everything a person could want to know.

HA!

I had spent the summer in Europe in between my sophomore and junior year in college. I got a scholarship to do so with a company that helped place kids like me into colleges in France for an international exchange program.

Well, I spent the summer in Caen, France up in Normandy near the English Channel (La Manche). I spent the summer speaking French to the French kids and they practiced their English on us American kiddos.

There were a wide range of kids from all over the United States that took part in this cultural/language immersion program. I loved every single minute of it. I had my very own dorm room (I didn't even have to share) and I drank fancy French Evian spring water with loads of weird minerals and it tasted bad, but I drank it anyway because hello? French. Sophisticated. Cool.

I wore the clothes that French people wore and ate the food and drank the water because I wanted SO desperately to be like those French ladies who were skinny and SO amazing and SO cool and they didn't wear makeup because they didn't care what ANYONE thought of them. Amazing. I was mesmerized by the French women.

The French men? A buncha dogs. Just like the Italian men and the Swiss and American men and all the others that were always on my ass. I was hot and young and American and because of that, they thought I was dumb.

It's a strange thing to be underestimated because of the way you look. You have to play catch-up with people.

So, just last night, this young woman who was here kinda dissed me. She's in an engineering program here in Alaska at a local University. She's struggling with some of her classes and has to take some even harder ones to graduate.

I offered to tutor her for free. But she politely declined by saying "Well, these are really advanced classes. I don't think you could help!"

Imagine that shit?

Here I am, more than twice her age. A published scientific author with 30+ years of advanced experience in biology and propagation and conservation work and this twit thinks I can't help her with a f*cking Physics 101 course.

Riiiiiiggght.

"Ohhh, let me bow down to you, you 22 year old dufus! You definitely know WAAAY more than I do. "

"Please do tell me about this difficult thing you are doing called Calculus."

( I had to take 2 years of advanced Calculus to get my degree. Magna Cum Laude. Phi Beta Kappa. Shut your face.)

So I gave her my recent copy of a text by Michio Kaku. Only one of the world's most leading authorities on advanced Theoretical Physics.

You wanna dis me? Let me school you, sweetheart.

For F*CK's sake. Give me a break. As IF?

So, reverse sexism is alive and well and living here, in Anchorage, AK.

Shit.

Overreaching labels are for those who are ignorant

Exactly.
This was shared with me by my excellent friend Lisa who manages a great Chiropractic office in Salem.

I am tired of this new thing we all seem to be doing, which is the constant need to label someone as all one thing.

It's ridiculous and exhausting.

I've recently been told I'm "manic" and then told I was "depressed" and then accused of being on drugs or an alcoholic because I was out on a Friday night with my husband and I DARED to have TWO gin and tonics.

For Pete's sake.

Who the F*ck are YOU to know what I am or am not?

If you have spent an hour with me or even three months with me, how do you dare to know what or who the f*ck I am at all the other times you are NOT with me. Like when I'm sleeping or when I'm here by myself or when you're at work all day and then see me for a few hours at the end of the day? Or especially when you live on the other side of the continent?

My dogs and my husband are truly the only beings that get to judge how I am or am not. I have a few close friends who are in the "know" about me and with whom I can be completely and utterly my self, but otherwise?

The rest of you can just suck it.

My therapist, my Mom, my Dad, Karen, Penny, Liz, Nina and Kristen and a few other select friends and relatives of mine are the extent of the humans licensed to judge me.

I'm not manic. I'm happy. There's a difference.

I ceased being depressed (not clinical, just situational, but still bad enough to be semi-suicidal for a while), which means, YES - I AM different now.

I'm not f*cking depressed and stop telling me I'm manic because I AM NOT.

Ask my therapist. She's the one who is certified and schooled in these matters.

Bipolar and manic are not just words, kids. 

They are clinical, prolonged chemical imbalances in the brain.

Frankly, you embarrass yourself and diminish people with diagnosed mental illnesses when you toss around words like "manic" or "bipolar" or when you say you're "depressed" because you aren't feeling particularly happy for a few f*cking minutes.

It's not nice and you need to get a job and learn a bit about the science of hormones and their effects on the human brain.

Don't say someone is schizophrenic or has some other illness unless you know it to be the truth because THEY TOLD YOU themselves. It's shitty and it's ignorant and it is not a thing that is to be bandied about lightly.

I was MISdiagnosed when I was 40 years old. A horrible quack doctor diagnosed me as bipolar within 10 seconds of entering his office. I'm not even kidding. He was terrible and SUPER condescending to me and my husband. He put me on 3 different kinds of powerful psychoactive drugs. Seroquel, buspar, effexor.

Guess what? I am NOT bipolar and he basically just gave me a crap ton of pharmaceuticals after he "knew" me for all of 30 minutes. 30 minutes and he basically was making me into a walking zombie person.

So, I found myself a good therapist and she IMMEDIATELY took me off those terrible pills. I couldn't even think straight.

I say this to you, over there, Label-Person:

Maybe YOU should stop using drugs and drinking all day and being a general idiot 

with your "SIM" games and watching cooking shows all day and then thinking you get to sit in judgement of someone who has thousands more hours of schooling and therapy under her belt.

I ran an accredited non-profit whale research center for 20 years, educated tens of thousands of people about conservation and cetology. And I worked in the marketing/public affairs department at two world-class museums, one of which was recently named a Historic Landmark District. And then I had my own, successful gardening business in MA for 10 years before I landed into a big, fat depression after I was married to a man who treated me like crap for years.

 I went to therapy for a year, stopped drinking altogether, stopped all manner of pills, 

dropped 25 pounds and got myself healthy for the first time in a LOOOOONG time.

This does NOT mean I'm manic or bipolar, for f*ck's sake. 

On the contrary, it means I've got my SHIT together finally!

Ask my husband. Ask my good friends. Ask the people who actually f*cking know.

 ASK ME, for God's Sake!!

So, there, Judgy Judgerton, take a peek in the mirror for five minutes. Put down the pills, put down the booze and ask yourself "How YOU doin'?"

Because I bet you might not like what the answer is or the person staring back at you.