A Girl Walks into a Bar - And, Damn, It Hurt

Today's A to Z Swear Challenge word is only marginally a swear, but it's a very cool word nonetheless, and since hardly anyone knows what it means, you can use it any way you wish and who will know the difference? The word is...opisthosomal.

Way fun to say, too.
 

Opisthosomal means of or pertaining to the ass-end of something. And that is such a perfect segue into today's post. I'm feeling pretty opisthosomal today myself.

Would you like to hear about it?

Of course you would.

Because for all that I love to write about religion and politics and candy bars, I know that the posts my Drunkards really enjoy are the ones about me falling on my opisthosoma.

Segue achieved.

You people love to read about me getting kicked out of my own child's birthday party, or being drunk and lost in the woods, or ripping my pants open because of my industrial-strength thighs. And clearly I have a talent for doing these things. We are a match made in dysfunctional Heaven. I love you all.

OK, so last night I went out. Which was pretty awesome. I went to see a local band at a little neighborhood bar across town.  I was wearing a cute outfit and a new pair of shoes that are so adorable that - literally - strangers were approaching me to compliment them. I was among friends. I had vodka. I got to hear some incredibly talented musicians play, and I got to hug them. Win.

And then I had a meltdown.

Because...sure, why not?

It's OK, honey. It's what everyone was expecting.

I mean, I just lost my shit. Quietly, I'll say that. I didn't make a scene. I'm good at crying silently, from years of practice. Still, it ended up cutting the evening short, and I believe it monumentally exasperated the friend I was with. I mean, like I-super-need-to-make-amends-but-I'm-not-sure-that's-possible-at-this-point exasperated.

It's a cumulative thing.

But that's my problem. And I'm going to take the Scarlett O'Hara approach to solving it.

Back to the meltdown.

Here's the thing. I am not a social butterfly. Socializing is hard for me. Really, really hard. I'm very shy, and I have this deep-seated self-loathing thing going on that creates a massive force-field of inferiority when I have to interact with people and convince them I'm OK to talk to. It's freaking exhausting. I can just barely manage it in a familiar setting with people I know well. Put in me a noisy, crowded place surrounded by mostly strangers, and I start to...well, we'll just say I start to freak out a little.

But that's not what brought on the meltdown.

Here's another thing. When I'm drinking and I'm doing something freaking exhausting, I get - anyone? anyone? - that's right, I get drunk and tired. And then I get cranky. I'm not a good person when I'm drunk, tired, and cranky. The scientific explanation is that the containment field around my insecurities breaks down, releasing toxic waves of sulking and bitterness. Also, the filters that help me keep my many neuroses to myself go on the fritz.



I work something like this.



But that's not what caused the meltdown, either. This is a terribly petty thing to admit, but I was really bummed out by a fantastic piece of news I got earlier in the day. My buddy Jen over at Jeneral Insanity (which you should totally read because she's awesome) posted on her Facebook page that the Bloggess had just become a follower of her blog.

And while I'm really, truly happy that Jen got that recognition from maybe the best-known chick blogger on the planet - and I completely understand how stoked anyone would feel to know Jenny Lawson had read and enjoyed her writing - it made me nearly sick with jealousy. Because I'm a petty, selfish, insecure person, and it made me feel as if my nerdiest friend had gotten an invitation to hang out with the cool kids and left me in the dust.

I'm not supposed to feel that way. I know that every blogger is talented and dedicated, and that we're all a stroke of luck away from becoming Internet-famous. And we all need to support and promote each other, because that's what artists do. I mean, Stephen Stills must have felt like shit when he failed his audition for the Monkees and then recommended his buddy Peter Tork try out, too, and then Peter aced it and became a huge star. It didn't mean Stephen Stills wasn't talented - last I heard, he ended up with an OK career in his own right. But that's why you stand with your friends and celebrate with them when the breaks go the right way and commiserate when they don't.

Some people just wear the shirt better.

But that deal bothered me more than I wanted to admit. And it didn't help that whenever I watch a band play, I feel a twinge of that same jealousy - because besides a writer, the only thing I ever really wanted to was be was a singer. I love music, but deep inside me is a tiny little bitch who constantly reminds me that the real reason I listen to music is because I can't make it myself.

But even that didn't bring on the meltdown.

What brought on the meltdown - aided and abetted by the perfect storm of all of the aforementioned psychic quirks, of course - was Those Girls.

You know exactly who I'm talking about. They're always in bars and clubs and at concerts and sporting events and other social venues. They're pretty, and they're dressed in their best look-at-me clothes, and they have a few drinks and laugh and flirt and start dancing. And you wonder what they do in their daily nine-to-five lives, because surely they can't have some boring office job all week and then show up here looking just this side of slutty and acting as if the world is their party. Can they?

And they stand where everyone can see them, and laugh too loudly and drink too much and move around like cats in heat. And everybody watches them, and all the guys smile indulgently if they say or do something foolish, because acting like a fool is OK when you're one of Those Girls.

If you're not one of them, you know that you can't get away with acting like that. Those Girls are cute and irresistible, no matter what they do. But if you're not one of Those Girls, you're invisible. And if you're not one of Those Girls and have the temerity to adopt their ways, you're laughable.

I could never get away with this, is what I'm saying.

I am neither outgoing enough nor attractive enough to be one of Those Girls. Which ordinarily doesn't bother me one bit.

But last night I was drunk and tired and feeling insecure and jealous and shy, and Those Girls - who they were and who I knew I wasn't - pushed me over the brink. I ended up in tears. And I ruined a perfectly lovely evening out for completely irrational reasons.

Which is what a meltdown is, after all.

Spock understands.

 So yeah.

Other than that, I had a great time.

I believe Mrs. Lincoln said the same thing once.

The World Is Full of Nuts and Peters

I'm a little tired of just posting my daily A to Z Swearing Challenge word. I admit it's been a good way to ease back into blogging since my marriage evaporated and sucked up my writing mojo with it. But now I want more. MORE, I tell you.

So here's today's swear with some topical commentary.

N is for NUMBNUTS.

And by numbnuts I specifically refer to Mr. Peter Ahern of Princeton, Texas, who has written an astoundingly numbnuttish Letter to the Editor of my local deadwood paper. Here's the link, and here's what Peter Ahole wrote. Pardon me; Ahern.

We have ongoing scandals involving Benghazi, the IRS, Kermit Gosnell and the Department of Justice improperly monitoring The Associated Press.

So when I opened my paper yesterday morning, what story was at the center top of page 1A? Angelina Jolie’s decision to have an elective surgery, that’s what.

While I’m sure adolescent males of all ages throughout the free world are now hopelessly traumatized by that news, there really are more important things that demand the attention of responsible citizens.

Really.

INDEED?

Thank you for your input, Mr. Ahole. Thank you for pulling out your deadened genitalia and waving them for all to see.

Numbnuts.

Full disclosure: I admit to having mixed emotions about Angelina's preventive double mastectomy. I admire the courage it took to undergo major surgery. I empathize with her desire to increase the odds that she will see her children and her children's children grow up. And I certainly appreciate not wanting to live in fear of suffering the ravages of breast cancer, especially knowing her risk level was much higher than normal

Still, I feel some misgivings about Ms. Jolie's being held up as an inspiration and a role model. Simply put, the vast majority of women in this country lack the resources to even be tested for the genetic mutation that may put them at risk for developing breast and ovarian cancer, let alone to go ahead with the very time-consuming and costly procedures she had done. As much as I marvel over the medical advances that enabled Angelina to proactively have her breasts removed, I fail to see how this demonstrates to most women that they have "options." A double mastectomy and breast reconstruction just isn't an option for women who don't have deep pockets, plenty of unencumbered time, and an extensive support system. If you're a woman without health insurance, Angelina Jolie may as well have had her brain removed and placed in a jar for safekeeping, for all the opportunity you're likely to have to follow in her footsteps.

That said, what Angelina Jolie has done - not simply undergoing the procedure but publicly chronicling it - is significant. It's important in that it's generating discussion that may lead to greater availability of such treatment to poor and middle-class women in the future. It's certainly newsworthy.

It is NOT, Mr. Penis Ahole - excuse me, Peter Ahern - simply an item about the latest celebrity surgery. And to reduce Angelina's story to such a tasteless and tone-deaf sound bite as "teenage boys must be sad because a chick cut off her boobies" is not only grossly insensitive but completely ignorant.

I suspect you come by your knowledge of adolescent male thought patterns honestly, Mr. Ahole. And I cannot imagine to whom you are referring in your letter as "responsible citizens."

You are not a responsible citizen. You are a numbnuts.

I sincerely hope you are aware that men can get cancer down there, and die of it. And I can promise you that, should that fate befall you, I will neither trivialize nor mock your plight.

Not even if "important" things are happening in the world that day.