An open message to "Christians" like my parents.

 If you support the current administration, you cannot also follow Christ.

You can call yourself a Christian all you want, but at this point in America, “Christian” bears little to no resemblance to the actual teachings of Christ.

The current powers that be are literally doing the opposite of everything Jesus taught. There is no grey area here. These people lie and cheat and steal. They believe in taking from the poor and denying care to the sick. They believe in intolerance for anyone who is considered “other.” They believe in letting women die rather than give them access to essential healthcare. And if you think any of them are actually followers of Christ, you are fucking delusional.

These people are evil. If you support them, you support evil, and you are complicit in its takeover of this country. If you think you’re a good person, news flash: you are absolutely not. You support the deaths of children by school shooters. You support violence against the LBGTQ community. You support people who say we should just murder homeless people. You support people who openly display their white supremacist tattoos. You support people who want to throw anyone not-white into torture prisons in El Salvador with zero due process.

Pull your head out of your asses. You are shit people, and if hell was real, you’ve already got a one way ticket. You can quote bible verses until you’re blue in the face, but you’re nothing more than a parrot. It means absolutely NOTHING if you are not also doing good works. 

Sorry y'all, but I really needed to get this out.

State of the Blog Address .....again

 

It's been over six months since I vanished without explanation. I'll probably do that again in the near future, but for the moment, I have returned. Idk if anyone is still out there reading at this point. It's been that kind of year. 

 

2021 got off to an interesting start. I spent a week in January confined to a psych ward following a suicide attempt, and am still under constant supervision. M has been living with me since they let me out of the Home for the Bewildered and miraculously, I have not attempted to kill him yet.  It has actually been kind of nice having someone staying with me. I'm also on all new medications and am no longer suicidal. My family is monitoring my every move, and you never knew how many good friends you have until you almost died.

Bossman's wild weekends with his various girlfriends finally landed him bedridden with Covid-19. Even if the social worker had not ordered me to ease slowly back into full time employment, I would probably be working part time because there is NOTHIIIIINNNNNGG to do at the office. 

Baby Yoda has somehow amassed nearly 500 followers on Instagram. 

Am I officially an influenzaer now?

This is still a weird time for me. It feels like it will take a long time to feel normal, like a person again. Big Sis#2 still wakes up in the middle of the night screaming because she was the one who found me in a pool of blood in my living room. That's my fault. I did that to her. I traumatized her. I will never not feel horrible about that. I will never not feel horrible about making my mothers and father cry. About giving my siblings the fright of a lifetime. 

My cats are treating me like the worthless minimum wage employee I am (as far as they're concerned) for leaving them alone with M and the combined forces of StepMom and Mum for a week. 

Until next time, when I may or may not explain how a mothertrucking CAT was basically the start and end of the above events. 

 

And then a video surfaced of a black man having police called on him by the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Karens

Three times, during my high school and college years, I had this experience: 

I was walking around town with a friend, in broad daylight, both of us chatting and laughing and clearly enjoying each other's company. And then a police car pulls up to the curb and the cop rolls his window down to ask me if I'm ok. 

Extremely confused--the first time--I was like, "......yeah?"

Not until he drove away did I fully comprehend what had just happened. 

My friend was black. 

The second time, I got mad. 

Same exact scene--me and my friend/old roommate trying to enjoy a nice day walking around Philly, cop pulls up, and asks me if I'm ok. 

I was pissed. I responded, "Am I ok? Why do you ask?" I paused for half a second to give him the impression that I expected an answer, but then answered for him, indicating my friend. "It's because he's black, right?"

The cop went immediately on the defensively offensive, muttering BS about "just doing my job" and this whole time my poor friend was getting more and more distraught until he was basically cowering behind me and begging ME to stop, to just leave it alone, he didn't want trouble with a white cop because--SHOCKING, I know--this wasn't his first such run-in with a cop. 

So I told the cop to piss off in the politest way I could manage. The third time this happened, it was with that same friend. Out of respect for his feelings and his desire to not get shot for no reason other than being black while hanging out with a white woman, I tried to keep my temper in check, although I made it very clear to that cop that he ought to reconsider his profession because he clearly had some issues with people of colour. 


I have more stories similar to this than I care to remember. But here's one that still sticks out in my memory:


A few years ago, one Sunday after church, Lil Bro#2 and I took my friend's 2 daughters junk shop-hopping for the afternoon, as friend had looked very tired and had admitted to having a rough week at work. So I said we'll entertain the girls, grab them some dinner, and bring them home later so you can have the day to yourself.

(This was before the girls entered their teens, and thus still viewed me as incredibly cool and not just Old.) 

Lil Bro#2 and I first stopped at one of our favourite junk shops, and told the girls to let us know if they found anything they liked. One found a doll bed the perfect size for her American Girl Doll, the other found a 35mm camera that appeared in good condition, so we spent a grand total of $10 and both girls claimed they had an amazing time with us. 

A couple weeks later, Lil Bro#2 and I returned to that same shop. We'd been going there for the better part of a year at that point, and were pretty friendly with the two guys who owned the place, so we usually ended up chatting with them for a bit. 

That particular day, one of the owner asked me, "Where's your menagerie? That some kind of inner city outreach thing?"

His exact words. I will never ever forget them. (Did I mention my friend and her daughters are black?)

I had a moment of stunned silence. Then said something along the lines of "those are my friend's kids, they live in Warwick."

We did not return to that shop again, and a few weeks later it ended up getting sold. Now it's a combo farmer's market and junk shop I think. Good riddance.


BLACK

LIVES

MATTER

Yes, in a perfect world, all lives matter. But this is not about that. This is about a very very real problem. So as far as I'm concerned, anyone touting #allivesmatter can SHOVE IT up their ass. 

Now some more bad news:

another booooooooooook

I went home from the wedding. At least I managed to sit through the actual service. Lil Sis noticed my absence and sat with me in the bathroom until I felt I could sneak out of the building unnoticed.  Rest of the weekend was ok.

Some good news (I guess?): my YA novel is finally published. My agent quit ages ago, so I had to start the process of doing everything myself, but after getting in touch with multiple bands to get permission to use their lyrics, typesetting the whole book, and then typesetting it AGAIN because  

 also designing a cover, and then taking roughly 576753838 hours to come up with the blurb for the back of the book (which I think is rubbish, but I'd kind of given up at that point).

But anyway, This Broken Road is now available in paperback and as an e-book on Kindle. 

I may or may not update the website with links to sellers other than Amazon, but the site that hosts the Elk and Owl website (Webs.com, NEVER NEVER use them) has become my mortal enemy, so I might not bother. 

 There is also a Spotify playlist that is a sort of soundtrack for the book, with some good tunes. (If the link doesn't work, just search "This Broken Road - Angela's Playlist" in Spotify.)



 

Medicine, let us in, this remedy's not kickin' in

I am still here. Not gonna lie--things kind of suck.

The desire to flee is very strong. Pack up the cats and some belongings, get in the car, drive far far away

and never come back

I am going to complain like never before.

This will be long and boring, but here is the only place I can really vent about this.

The one potential issue that made me reluctant to accept a place on the church council has arisen.

Politics.

Over the last few months, our church has turned into the bloody War of the Roses. It's like a Game of Thrones episode without the actual violence.

Brief summary--Pastor Fusspot came to our church back in 2012. We embraced him and his family because his wife is one of those people who is so good and kind and wonderful she's like a little ray of perfect sunshine. idk how the hell he managed to get her to marry him.

I didn't notice any issues until about a year later, when I started (or at least tried to start) getting involved with the church's children's ministries. To keep this short[er], basically Pastor Fusspot is a control freak, a micromanager, a very poor speaker, and he has a problem with women.*

This eventually led to a big blow up between Pastor Fusspot and the couple who used to be in charge of the music. Luke and April left the church, taking the whole band with them.**

Then Mike the Band Leader and his wife were hired to manage the music, and they brought in their friends to make up what is now half of the band (the other half being me, Lil Bro#2, one of the drummers, two 13 year old girls doing backup vocals, and New Guy on the keyboard).

Our band is fantastic. We've had visitors to our church tell us we have one of the best worship teams they've ever seen. I didn't even realize how good we are until I visited a couple other churches and saw their bands. We rock.

Pastor Fusspot and Mike the Band Leader started butting heads from the get go. Nothing major, it's just Pastor Fusspot being his micromanaging self and wanting to control every last thing that goes on in the church and Mike the Band Leader trying to get him to see reason when he's about to make a stupid decision.

Mostly they just agreed to disagree whenever an issue arose and went on peacefully co-existing.

Then Pastor Fusspot & Family went away for a couple weeks to help a family member down in Florida. In their absence, Mike the Band Leader and one of our other church leaders gave sermons for the 2 Sundays Pastor Fusspot was away.

Mike the Band Leader is an amazing speaker. Everyone loved his sermon. And word of this got back to Pastor Fusspot. (And I think many of us realized then what a poor speaker Pastor Fusspot is...)

This is when the serious head-butting between them began. It's been one thing after another--Pastor Fusspot doesn't like the songs we're playing, now we're not allowed to do anything even remotely country, no Pastor doesn't like these songs either, Pastor doesn't want Doe leading more than 2 songs per Sunday, Pastor doesn't want Mike's Wife leading any songs ever, Pastor doesn't want to get one competent person running the sound board every Sunday, etc etc etc etc.

And then two weeks ago, Pastor Fusspot tells Mike and his wife that the wife is no longer allowed to be in the band because Fusspot doesn't like her voice. She can work the sound board instead.

We need Mike's Wife. She has the best stage presence out of all of us. She's a freaking wizard when it comes to harmonizing on vocals. She's the best at directing all the backup singers. And for some reason when she and I sing together, the combo of our voices sounds like the singing of the effing angels themselves. Yes, she is the best at working the sound board, but snatching her off the worship team before training someone to really replace is just plain stupid.

Mike the band leader tried reasoning with Pastor Fusspot, but of course Fusspot would have none of it. Mike tried once again to find us a somewhat professional sound person (because we really need someone one the board who knows what they're doing) and even offered to pay the potential sound person out of his own pocket. But no matter what Mike said, Fusspot just shut it down.

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon.

I get a phone call from Pastor Fusspot that he has scheduled an emergency council meeting for 7.00 PM. He won't tell me what it's about. I told him I couldn't go because I had an appointment at the sheriffs office regarding my gun permit (and it takes MONTHS to get an appointment, I made this one back in February), so Fusspot says to call as close to 7 as I can and they'll conference me in.

I told Mike about the emergency meeting (not to blab, we just text back and forth a lot every day, mostly sending each other stupid youtube videos) and he said, "oh dear"..... and then told me he put all his thoughts of what's been happening the last few weeks into a letter and sent it to Pastor Fusspot that morning.

I called into the meeting at about 7.30. Three of us were attending via telephone, as only three of the other council members could make it to church. What followed was the most frustrating and stressful and drama-filled 90 minutes I've had this year.

Pastor Fusspot wants Mike gone. But he won't fire him because then Mike can claim unemployment benefits. So he has come up with a plan that will guarantee Mike quits. As I have noticed that Fusspot is fond of doing, he bends the truth to suit his side of things, misquotes members of the congregation to back himself up, and at one point even outright lied about someone in church telling him that Mike has been stirring "dissension" within the congregation.

One council member expressed his concern (and not for the first time) that Mike leaving the church could destroy what took us several years to build back up. Myself and one of the other council members (who is a drummer in the band) seconded this notion. One council member declined to offer a real opinion. Two of the council members--both members of our church since it started back in the 80's--lean more towards Pastor Fusspot's side out of loyalty to the church itself.

When the meeting was headed to its end and Pastor Fusspot demanded we each weigh in on his plan, I expressed a desire to be left out of that vote. I was honest--I said I think I'm too close to this situation to be objective about it, especially since Mike and his wife are two of my closest friends. The drummer agreed with me. But Pastor Fusspot wouldn't have it. In the end, me and the drummer were basically forced into an "ok fine do it" and the meeting was adjourned.

I did not tell Mike details of what happened in the meeting, but I told him enough so that he was forewarned. But then this morning I was like f**k it.

I'm done. I am done with Pastor Fusspot's constant stream of bullsh*t, I am done with his awful sermons. I am done with his total lack of respect for women. I am done with him treating everyone who has been trying to help him like they do not matter. He does have a few good qualities, but at this point it is apparent that he will never compromise enough for those qualities to do any good in the church.

I feel horrible about this. If Mike leaves the church, the band goes with him. The two teenage girls on backing vocals will remain because of their parents. The drummer/other council member could go either way, but I can see him following us out the door. New Guy on the keyboard might stay behind, but based on the fact that he and his wife have become good friends with Mike and his wife, I doubt it.

On top of that, our families will leave with us. Pastor Fusspot has to know this. No one can be that stupid.

So in one ill-advised action, Pastor Fusspot has lost his church their worship team, two of the only people in the congregation who know how to work the sound board, the person in charge of coffee and snacks in the cafe who also organizes almost all of our big events, several of the people who volunteer at all out our outreach events, two council members, two Church Board members..... basically if the church was a chair, he just cut off three of its legs.

I'm starting to have heart palpitations, so I think I'll stop now. If you've made it this far, I give you a virtual hug. Because I think I need a hug.

*Once upon a time I tried getting involved with leading Youth Group. I just wanted maybe one weekend a month, to get the kids doing arts and music and whatnot. My request was not even denied by Pastor Fusspot, it was ignored. And then a month later Pastor Fusspot hands total control of Youth Group to Lil Bro#2 for the entire summer, and Lil Bro#2 didn't even ask for it.

**April told me afterwards when we met for a few beers one evening that she had tried to set up a sort of sub group of Youth Group to get the kids involved with music. This was also ignored.

Yeah, that’s right! You better run! She’s our friend and she’s crazy!

As much as I adore my new apartment, there is still one drawback to living in an apartment building (aside from no dishwasher and not washing machine).

Neighbours.

For the most part, I've lucked out with the neighbours here. (Remember the neighbours we had in Philly?) The lady next door is very pleasant, though I've only seen her twice since moving in. I have yet to see her son, or the other person who moved in a couple weeks ago (I'm assuming either her daughter or her son's girlfriend...).

The landlord's daughter and her boyfriend live in the apartment below mine. I've run into her maybe two or three times. She is also very nice.

Next to her, there is a family of migrant farmers (parents and two kids). I see them the most, and they're probably the friendliest out of everyone. My only issue with them is that every once in a while, the family across the street comes over so all the kids can play together, and for some reason they feel like it's a good idea to have all the kids play in the driveway. A driveway in which six cars are frequently coming and going.

Then there's the people in the basement.

I hate people. I hate small talk. I hate being forced to interact with people on a small-talk level, but I'll do it when the situation calls for it.

For example, if you happen to pass your neighbours in the shared driveway, it's not a lot to ask to give them a pleasant "good morning" or least a "hi."

Because the basement-dwellers allow me to use their rubbish bins free of charge (otherwise I'd have had to pay $20/month for my own), I thought they must be relatively nice people. I offered to split the $20/month, but they said no. That's very nice of them.

But every time I pass one of them and try for the friendly "good morning" or "hi" or what have you, I get Side-Eye-Chloeied.

x

If Mr. Basement-Dweller is out on his own, I might get a grunt or a muttered "hi" back. If it's both Mr. and Mrs. Basement-Dweller, I get Side-Eye-Chloeied all the way to the front door.

Mrs. Basement-Dweller seems to have a particular hatred for me. At first I thought I was just paranoid, but I've seen her chatting all friendly-like with Mrs. Migrant Farmer and the people across the street while their kids play together, and chatting with the dude across the street who handles most of the maintenance in our building, so she obviously doesn't hate everyone. I've tried really hard to be nice to her, but I feel like every time I do something like compliment her bumper stickers (because in fairness, she has some hilarious bumper stickers), she just gives me dirtier looks than she did before.

But enough about that.

Let's talk about her f**king minivan.

As per everyone's lease, each apartment gets one of the five parking spaces (5 apartments = 5 parking spaces). It's a b*tch backing out of my parking space if Mr. Basement-Dweller's car is in the driveway parked next to mine, but it can be done with a 5-point turn. The reason being that the stupid unnecessary handrails leading down to the basement apartment stick out into the driveway in the most awkward spot ever, and you have to do a 5+ point turn avoid hitting them and knocking them over (Mr. Basement-Dweller and I have both destroyed the railings, more than once).

Everyone else who lives in the building but doesn't get a parking space parks on the street right outside the building. There are only like 20 people living in the whole village, so it's not exactly hard to find a space right outside our building. All the other tenants manage it without a problem.

Except for Mrs. Basement-Dweller.

More often than not, she parks in the driveway.

Here's how the driveway is set up:

And here's where Mrs. Basement-Dweller parks her minivan.

If she pulls right up to the garage, I might be able to get out if I make a 30-point turn. Usually when I am attempting this, Mr. and Mrs. Basement-Dweller stare at me from right outside their front door, giving me dirty glares.

The other day, I tried and failed to get out of my parking space, so I rolled my window down and asked very politely, "could' y'all please move the van?"

Mrs. Basement-Dweller's response was a very audible "UUGGHHH", and then she stabbed her cigarette out rather violently into their overflowing ashtray, went inside, and slammed the door behind her.

Mr. Basement-Dweller stood there for a protracted moment, obviously under the assumption that Mrs. Basement-Dweller had gone in to get her keys so she could move the van. When she did not return after some time, he stuck his head inside and said something to her, and then he went and got the keys and moved the van.

And I was like ummmmmmm ok do y'all want me to take out your railings again? Should I arrange to have my car lifted out of the driveway with a crane?? COULD ONE OF YOU MAYBE PARK IN THE FECKING STREET LIKE EVERYONE ELSE?

 Lil Bro#2's explanation: "Obviously it's because she's an old witch who wants to steal your youth and beauty from you. Watch out. Don't drink any mysterious liquids that show up on your doorstep."

Sounds legit.

Have a good weekend y'all!

I'm Going to Complain Now, Episode 77

 A couple people have inquired as to my well-being, so I figured I’d check in…

No news, I’m afraid. We went camping again last weekend. It kind of sucked, as it was 1,000 degrees out and then we got hit with a monster thunderstorm the second night. At least this time we were all in the camper.

It’s still 1,000 degrees. Praise the Lord, the summer is nearly over. I need to move somewhere with a nicer climate. Every day the weather is disgusting and hot, I check in on the weather in my dream location.

or 7 degrees C

It seems they are finally coming out of their three months without sunsets.

I’m counting the days until both Lil Bros come home at the end of August (even though Lil Bro#1 is only home for 2 weeks before leaving for grad school in Georgia >:O )

We plan on finally recording some songs together. Last weekend, Lil Bro#1 opined that “We could probably do some Tool songs, a couple of them don’t sound that hard,” to which Lil Bro#2 replied, “Astrophysics doesn’t seem all that hard, we could totally build our own quadjumper no problem.”**

We'll probably be covering a couple murder ballads, only tweaking the lyrics so the woman is telling the tale of killing her unfaithful husband. Because I am sick and tired of all these murder ballads about dudes killing their unfaithful wives.

You know what really tees me the eff off? The fact that I have to do this whenever someone is covering for me at the office:

It never ceases to blow my mind just how many people are

sooooooo

feckinnnggggggg

STUPID.

I swear, every encounter with these people shortens my lifespan a little bit. Like the people who can’t figure out how to sign their names on the line above their name, where the sticker says “sign here.”

That’s why we go through a lot of these stickers:

One time, I had to make an MS Paint picture of this lady's legal documents, with color-coded circles and arrows just to explain to her how to sign her name on the signature line, and get her signature notarized.

And I sh*t you not guys

SHE SIGNED THE MS PAINT PICTURES AND DIDN'T GET ANYTHING NOTARIZED.

This woman is the principal of a school. Like she is left in charge of running an entire school and she can’t even figure out how to sign her name on a signature line.

 Ugh.

**There will be no forthcoming Tool covers, because Lil Bro#2 only has one pair of arms for drumming, and I would need at least 1 extra bass player to mimic Tool’s sound because no one plays the bass like that.

Monday Mishmash of Drama and Mommy Issues.

Not much of a fun mishmash this Monday, I'm afraid. Too many angry and upset and depressed feels.

I had an amazing weekend. Drummerboy and I went for nice long walks both Saturday and Sunday. We had dinner Saturday night and went to see some live music. Later Sunday afternoon, we watched one of my all time favourite movies (Stardust).

When I left Dad's to drive down to see a friend for her birthday so me and M. could take her to dinner, I was in such a happy place I was singing opera in the car.

And then my f***ing mother ruined it.

Since I usually return to hell Bergen County in the late afternoon, I texted Mumsy to let her know I would be home later than usual, because we were taking Mel out to dinner for her birthday. The following bullshit ensued:

After she accused me of lying, I got too flustered to type, so I pulled over and called her. I was also too flustered to even form coherent sentences. I tried to explain that I was really confused as to why she needed me to call and tell her I was coming home a little later than usual, which is when she denied ever receiving the text message informing her of same. 

Then she started yelling and said I'm taking advantage of her, she will not be watching my cats on the weekend anymore, and then she hung up on me, leaving me kind of stunned for a few moments before I started crying hysterically.

I know I'm asking a lot for her to feed my cats on the weekends (I think? I personally don't think opening a couple tins of cat food twice a day is a lot, but okay....).

I also ask her EVERY SINGLE FRIDAY if she is absolutely sure she doesn't mind feeding my cats for the weekend, and thank her profusely for looking after them, and try to insist that she tell me if there is ever a weekend she doesn't feel like doing it.

If she refuses to take care of Harley and Ivy, I can't spend the weekends at dad's. Dad is allergic to cats, so I can't bring them (plus I think it would stress the kitties out a lot more if they're being carted from one house to another twice a week).

This means I can't play in the band at church anymore, which is one of the only two things currently keeping me from shooting myself in the f**king face. (The other thing being Drummerboy, who also lives up there and who I'd have to see much less if I can't stay overnight at dad's Friday to Sunday.)

So poor Mel and M. had to deal with me being a soggy weepy mess in the middle of the restaurant when we were supposed to be celebrating Mel's birthday.

I need to get out of my mother's house. Like now. This leaves me with one option as far as finding an apartment I can afford, and finding one fast.

Newburgh. 

Newburgh, NY, the Murder Capital of New York State.

I'm going to see a few apartments this coming weekend. Hopefully I won't get shot.

I'm Going to Complain Now, Episode 65

I'm sure this may come as a shock, but I'm going to complain now. 

I guess this is sort of a continuation of that post I did about my weird pet peeves.

Know what I really really hate, like more than anything else that involves driving?

Supermarket parking lots.

People misbehaving in the grocery store is bad enough, but I think all of mankind's worst attributes come out in the grocery store parking lot.

1. People taking up three parking spaces because they're too lazy to back up and straighten themselves out.

2. People leaving shopping carts in the middle of parking spaces instead of taking the extra 20 seconds to bring it back to the shopping cart return thingy.

3. People letting their shopping carts run away and crash into other people's cars.

4. People not stopping and looking before flooring it out of their parking spaces.

5. Other people getting pissed off and honking their horns when you're very slowly and carefully backing out of your space because there are cars beside you and you have not yet acquired the ability to see through solid objects.

6. People on foot darting out from behind parked cars without looking, and then giving you dirty looks when you have to slam on your brakes to avoid hitting them.

7. Seagulls. The ocean is very far away. Where did you come from? Why are you here? And why do you all hate me?

There are certain supermarkets I at which I will not shop because I really hate their parking lots. Unlike most Americans, I will not circle the parking lot searching for the space closest to the door, and I will not stalk people who look like they are about to leave so that I can park closer to the door.

I park as far away from other cars and people as possible.

So that was my lunch break. Now on to more things that I hate:

People who never shut up.

You might be a really nice person. You might be an awesome person to hang out with.

However

If you're the sort of person who cannot handle silence and/or has no inner monologue and so must speak every single thought in your head out loud, we can't be friends. I'm sorry, that's just the way it has to be.

In an unfortunate twist of fate (or perhaps God just trying to see how far he can push my patience and anger management) there are two people in my life who just cannot shut up, and they are people from whom I cannot escape: Bosslady, and my mother.

There have been times where I thought there was someone else in the house, or someone else in the office because Bosslady and Mumsy were talking as though having a conversation with another person. I know it's not their fault; it's just their personalities. But the longer they keep talking, the more annoyed I get. The result of this is that when I reach my breaking point, I sound mad without meaning to when I talk to them, which leads to confusion (and in the case of Mumsy, fights for no reason). And then I feel bad afterwards.

I don't know which of the two of them is worse. Mumsy tends to fly off the handle even when I don't think I sound pissed off, and then she throws a tantrum.

Bosslady, on top of never shutting up, has that particular Yankee accent where almost every sentence she speaks sounds like a question, and a lot of the time she has a very condescending tone that I don't think is intentional. And both of them tend to repeat themselves over and over and over and over and over and over to a ridiculous degree, and that's another thing that annoys me.

It took me years to figure out why I spend so much time feeling really angry for no apparent reason. Praise the Lord for Zoloft.

How are all y'all doing?

Like the clouds of death that follow me into the Forest of Doom… And hide in the wardrobe of darkness!

Lil Sis has had me edit her papers since she started middle school. Now, in her third year of college, she still sends me her papers, usually with a "make me sound like an adult" request.

I don't mind doing this, I really don't. What I DO mind is Lil Sis's continuous disregard of my advice for making her future papers sound better.

....I admit that I occasionally get impatient and lose my temper.

 

I should have been an English teacher. 

More than anything else, Lil Sis continues to ignore my teachings regarding the passive voice.

Passive aggression is obnoxious. It can be just as obnoxious in grammar. I have tried explaining this to Lil Sis over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, but she pretends she doesn't understand what I try to teach her.

In high school, we had this English teacher we all despised because of her Passive Voice Policy. Basically, if you used more than 8 "to be" verbs* on a page, she wouldn't even grade your paper--she would hand it back with big red letters across the top saying REJECTED, and you would have to rewrite the whole thing if you wanted a passing grade. By the end of the year, we all wanted her dead.

This is the single greatest piece of writing instruction I have ever received.

We need to use "to be" verbs sometimes, but overuse of the passive voice negatively impacts the overall quality of one's writing. In my first edit of all my fiction projects, I go through the whole thing and try to replace any "to be" verbs I find with the active voice. I don't bother doing that here because I'm lazy.

Lil Bro#1 graduates from college this weekend. He goes to Houghton University, which is literally in the middle of freaking nowhere. The only places to stay nearby are tiny little inns or B&B's with only 6 rooms each. So we're staying at a campsite. 

When Dad informed me that he planned to squeeze 10 of us into one of these, I went out and purchased a tent. It's super fun, you just throw it on the ground and it pops up fully assembled.

*am, is, are, was, were, be, become, etc. So instead of saying "I was drinking the entire bottle of whiskey," you could say, "I drank the entire bottle of whiskey."