Open For Interpretation

What is the value of words? Sometimes it's sad to witness just how much people can get crapped on, and in the midst of their confusion and frustration lies inconsistency. Their actions never match up with their words. Their flashing smile distracts us from the dagger they're whipping into our chest. Compliments and promises are nothing...only the actions that follow them.

Words are not the only context to a person's sentence.

It's easy to fall into self-deception. When we hear something nice that inflates the ego, we want to believe it. Heck, it's gratifying to believe such things. If we think any differently, that thought process may bring about some form of pain. So we go ahead, and drink up the bullshit because of our escapist nature.

Some recent family matters have really got me thinking about words: what we can hide with a smile, how a simple roll of the eyes can influence a person's view of another, and the small deceptions inserted into harmless comments that truly prove to be one's undoing.

What slips past us everyday? How do we percieve the words we use everyday? How do those words change, or rather, falsify how we view the truth?

For example...

The people we consider our friends, are people we never see that have access to our Facebook pages.

Call of Duty, although it may appear to be a game, is actually a very intensely effective form of birth control.

Secrets are just things we tell everyone not to tell anyone.

Science Fairs have become ways for parents to show how talented they are.

Getting a manicure is just spending 30 dollars to get made fun of in a different language.

"I'll pay you back".....this one requires no explanation..how many times have all of us heard this?

Heaven is depicted as a place full of everything you get sent to Hell for.

"Oh...cool!"....99% of the times actually means "I don't care", yet even though we KNOW the person saying it to us most likely doesn't care, WE TELL OURSELVES they do! Seriously. Think about it.

Democracy is just the freedom to elect our own dictators.

Drama. When Sally likes Henry, but Henry is going out with Janet, but Janet actually likes Edward, but Edward likes Sally, so Edward asks out Sally, and Janet gets mad and breaks up with Henry so she can go out with Edward, but then Sally asks out Thomas instead, and Thomas likes Dorothy, and Dorothy likes Henry, so Dorothy asks out Henry, and Janet gets jealous so she forgets about Edward and tries to make up with Henry.

Sound ridiculous? I may be adding in some dry humor, but we do it all. the. time. We just sugar-coat everything with feelings, and since we feel a certain way, we justify our blatantly rotten behavior.

The most heinous of them all? Wedding vows.

Fifty Percent of marriages.

Pitiful.

Words. That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.

Next time you hear something...think to yourself:  is it true, or do you want it to be?

Matthew 12:36

I tell you, on the day of judgement, people will give account for every careless word they speak...

I need a Pintervention.

I suppose I should do some sort of Christmas-recap-Happy-New-Year's-reflection thing, but the truth is, I don't really feel like it. Christmas was a bit of a disappointment, as holidays usually are, and it passed as Christmas usually does. Next year on Christmas I'm going to do everything in my power to be able to tell my boss that I can't work a Holiday, which is absurd, I'm aware, but it's on my to-do list, because this year I caved. I'm a caver. New subject...

Like New Year's. Now THAT was a fun holiday, as I spent it going to bed at 9 with my cat so that I could get up for work the next morning. This is my year, folks. Or not.

In my not-so-free time I have discovered a wonderful, addicting, money-sucking, beautiful, horrendous thing: Pinterest.

For those of you that have been living under a rock, Pinterest is an online pin board consisting of things such as recipes and craft ideas. It's basically like Etsy and Pottery Barn got drunk, hooked up, made a baby, and Pinterest is their family scrapbook.

Now are you Pinterested?

Out of nowhere, I want to plan some sort of wedding that doesn't exist, I want to decorate a home I don't have, and I want to have some sort of dream craft room, complete with burlap and mason jars. But really, all I'm doing is telling myself how creative I am, while looking at other people's awesome ideas, while staring at a computer screen at work in-between clients. Essentially, I spend 90% of my time on Pinterest to escape from the drama and atrocious grammar on Facebook. The other 5% of my time I spend at Hobby Lobby, spending the money I didn't rightfully earn because I was on Pinterest all day, and the other 5% I actually spend accomplishing my responsibilities.


So, as you can see, these odds suck.

I haven't done laundry in 12 days, but if you need a rosemary mint sugar scrub, I'm your girl.

That's it. I'm head over tea kettle on this one.

I need a Pintervention.

A divine Pintervention.

This is a cry for help.

I would even dare to go as far as considering myself a Pinster. A pinning gangster.

It's a treacherous neighborhood, and I'm the Mafioso.

You're as great as you are, unless you arent.

Competitions and Comparisons.

My father brought up to me today that he would like to compete with me in the annual Thanksgiving-morning 5k out at the lake. He's been training for months and wants to prove to me (and by me, I mean himself) that he can still beat me.

I think I'll pretend to sprain my ankle a mile in. Partly because I don't think my getaway sticks can run more than a mile, and my dad's sure as shit can't, and that way, we're all winners.

Or something like that.

Why do parents do that? ..Compare.

It's quite unhealthy to compare your children to siblings, cousins, neighbors, friends, or scarily precocious child actors. For example, "Congratulations at coming in second in high jump on your class Field Day! Did you know that Anna Paquin just won an Oscar for her role in The Piano and she's your age?"

This does nothing to help my, eh-hem, your child's personal growth. Rather than stirring up a competitive spirit, it will likely make them anxious, and later, resentful that you didn't appreciate them for who they were, and much later, morbidly pleased when the formerly precocious child star turns into a drug-addled failure. This has not yet happened, and probably will never happen, to Anna Paquin, as her career seems to be going quite well. Not that I care.

You know how you could always tell that your parent was comparing you to your much more successful cousin Kenneth? No? Just me? Okay. Well, Kenneth is captain of the soccer team, played first cello in the orchestra, served as president of the student council, and got into Princeton as an early-decision admission. While, I on the other hand, was cut from JV soccer my senior year, and referred to the school orchestra as "dorkestra", which although funny and true, did not help my resume.

Maybe you had those parents that took it a little overboard, drawing up elaborate charts directly comparing your life to the "Kenneth" in your family tree. And perhaps you experienced that awkward moment when you stumbled upon them and they hastily explained how the charts were part of something top secret, and to keep it remaining top secret, you must never speak of it to a soul again! (Sorry, I'm getting dramatic and imaginitive) Fortunately, being not very precocious, you were satisfied with this answer. Had you been Kenneth or Anna Paquin, they'd have a little more explaining to do.

Now look at you! You're out of college, and a nice, normal, well-adjusted person. Unlike Kenneth, who is now addicted to porn and his old-school Sega gaming system. I bet your charts didn't see that coming!

As parents now see their children in their mid-twenties as adults, instead of dropping the comparisons all together, they switch from comparing their child from Kenneth, to comparing them with themselves. This is where suggested annual Thanksgiving-day 5k's make birth, and it is a vicious cycle.

For one, it proves nothing. In 90 percent of the sports a parent tries to engage in with a child in their mid-twenties, and they are God knows how old (but surely really old)....they will lose. Not even by a little, outright crushed. Remember when you were a small child and you picked on an even smaller child by placing your palm on their head and telling them to try to hit you and they would swing with all their might and never touch you and they'd be all like "Gee whiz, what's the big idea?" It's like that.

If you consider chess or backgammon to a sport, these would fall into the 10 percent that a parent may, and is socially allowed to, excel in.

Just never resort to an even more insidious comparison. Namely, your weight. When someone who is much older says "I'm the same weight that I was in high school", there is no one that is impressed by this or happy for them. In fact, this is one of the most annoying sentences ever uttered, along with "You look tired" or, "You remind me of a late-career Beverly D'Angelo".However, the proper response to latter two remarks is "What the f*** is that supposed to mean?...the proper response to the weight comment is "Shut the f*** up".

The kinds of people that make remarks about how tired you seem or how much you look like Beverly D'Angelo, although an asshole, holds all the power. Because subconsciously, you now feel bad about yourself. However, when someone states that they are the same weight that they were in high school, that person is merely an anorexic beggart and a pathological liar. They have nothing to gain by uttering such an insipid phrase. What did you say!? You're not the same weight you were in high school!? Oh, fatty.