Funny from rural teens

 Yesterday I was in a pretty rural part of the country near the Texas/Louisiana border. I was doing inventory of all the merchandise sold at the checkout lines, and the two teenagers working there as cashiers were cracking me up. (A boy and a girl). They were clearly flirting with each other, and they were arguing about who should be homecoming royalty. 

Then, a customer came in who they knew on a first name basis. This customer looked like he had done some methamphetamines in his life. He was bald and had no teeth, and just looked worn. They conversed with him quite a bit actually and obviously knew him. Then, he paid for his stuff and left. The boy cashier said jealously to the girl cashier, “I think he likes you. I think he was flirting with you.”  The girl cashier said, “ew! I don’t want that old man! He’s like 32!” 

I had not been talking to these kids at all, just eavesdropping, but I laughed out loud. 

Was that man actually 32, because the features he had from apparent past drug use made him look about 60. Or, was the number “32” just, in the girl’s mind, this extremely old age?  Of course it’s too old to be flirting with her, but the way she said “That old man is like 32” made me think that either she just thinks 32 is really old- or he really was 32 and meth really is that much of a hell of a drug. I told Kevin and he said, “Maybe he was really 39.”  I bust out laughing again. 

Another Snafu

One more thing about my writing that might garner negative attention. The main character decides on a career helping children, because she herself feels pressure not to ever have a family. This is definitely based on my own experience. With my first boyfriend Matthew, one of the areas where we felt pressured to not go through with our marriage was at church. Nowadays, churches seem to push getting married and having kids. I’m not sure if this change came about with the passage of time, or that our pastor himself was very unhappy in his own marriage and projected it onto all of us. The entire concept was not that it was wrong in and of itself to get married/have kids, but that God didn’t want what you wanted and God’s will wasn’t your will. Once I tried explaining this in therapy, years ago (not with my current therapist) and she started correcting me saying, “Actually, women are pressured TO get married and have kids.”  She literally sat there and told me my experience was wrong, because of what her own interpretation of “pressure on women” entailed. I come across this from time to time, sometimes people will say that churches pressure you TO do this, they don’t pressure you NOT to do this. BUT, “God’s will isn’t your will” can apply to literally anything. The emphasis that I want to put on the pressure we felt to go our separate ways was not the church saying that it was wrong to start a family, but that it was wrong to do what we wanted in general. It can apply to the exact opposite as well. You can want to remain single and childfree your entire life, but if God doesn’t want what you want, then that means get married and birth a basketball team. If you want to be an artist, God doesn't want that. If you want an alpaca farm, God doesn’t want that. One of my fears is that I’ll get negative reactions to the idea that a church was one of the sources from which I felt pressure to never have a family of my own. I want to make it very clear that it was a will of God thing. Here’s a copy paste from my 30K+ word document with Bible verses explaining what I mean. I thought I had more Bible verses. I know there are more that I can use, I just need to dig them up. (A hilarious side note- Grammarly was correcting and even trying to rewrite exact quotes from the Bible. Kevin said, “But I thought the Bible was perfect!”)

As far as last names for a pen name, I was remembering my first boyfriend who has now been deceased for almost 9 months. I would like to use his real last name as my pen last name in order to honor him, but it’s not a common name at all- so if anyone in his family got wind that it was me, it might be problematic. I am not claiming this to be a “memoir”, because some of my memories are shaky. It’s based on me, but it’s not me. So, since his first name was Matthew, I think a good pen last name would be Matthews. It would be the name of the character as well. In the copy paste below of the Bible verses from my main document, when I say Caleb Wills, that’s what I call him in the book (his pen name, so to speak). And for funsies, I added the AI image created of him and I with our hypothetical 7 kids we wanted. I like that pic. My commentary on the Bible verses is paraphrased. It’s not going to look like that in the book, it’s going to be worked into the actual story. 

At the same time as our engagement, the pastor of the college age ministries was preaching a sermon series on the will of God not being your will.  We in that group were all at the age where we were figuring out what to do with our lives.  We were picking majors and  working while attending college.  About half of us were paired into relationships.  One thing was for certain though, as I listened to the sermon series on the will of God- I knew that marrying Caleb and having children was “my will”.  It’s what I wanted more than anything else aside from my faith in God.  I ended my relationship with Caleb after I heard the following concepts in church:

Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way that seems right unto a man, but in the end it leads to death.”  (Marrying Caleb and having kids seemed right to me, did that mean it would lead to death?)

Proverbs 19:21 “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it’s the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”  (My plan being to marry Caleb and have a family was something that God would have to prevail over?)

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding.”  (My own understanding was that I wanted to marry Caleb and have kids, was trusting the Lord the opposite of this?  As in, I couldn’t do both?)

I remember our pastor Jacob saying “Doing what makes you happy is so bad for Christians.  We aren’t called to do what makes us happy, we are called to glorify God.  

 

Slept on it 🛌

 After I wrote my blog post last night, Idecided that I really should include the story I talked about in my last post- the baby with long term disability due to shaken baby syndrome, which was done by her mother with postpartum mental health issues. The best way to tell the story is to simply tell the baby’s story, and not express any opinions of my own regarding whether or not the mother had an excuse/reason or not. The baby did have cerebral palsy, but Here is a complete run down of the basics about shaken baby syndrome, which I can incorporate more of into the story. The funny thing is, is that 25 years ago in my training, I was taught that bouncing a baby on your knee and other non abusive, benign actions can cause it. It would be interesting to look into why that recommendation changed. In the story, I may not express any of my own anger at the mother in order to prevent me looking like a big ignorant meanie, but I might tell stories of other abused children simultaneously and show the anger towards those other perpetrators (anger from others)  while this mother got sympathy (sympathy from others). Basically, I’ll just “show, not tell”. I’m on my way to Louisiana now so won’t have time to think about this anymore- I don’t have the mental energy to. My iron supplements are helping me feel more energized already, and my multivitamin contains vitamin C. 

Speaking of Writing ✍🏼

 I have still completely lost the mood for writing. One thing I’m scared of is negative opinions. You would think a book about helping children wouldn’t garner negative reactions, but some aspects of it might. For example, when I worked at the child abuse shelter, I took care of siblings whose mother tried to kill their infant sibling. It was a case of shaken baby syndrome that left the baby disabled, and it was attributed to the mother’s postpartum mental health. In cases like that, there is very little sympathy for child victims.  If I include a version of that story that would protect the true identities of these siblings, then I might be seen as someone who is uneducated about postpartum mental health. I might be seen as someone who thinks “mental illness isn’t real.” I do think it’s real, even though it’s not seen on imaging or bloodwork.  I would just have to be very careful about telling that story, because unlike other cases of child abuse, the child victim isn’t automatically considered. The mother is. Telling a story of helping children might sound like I was this heroic person who always had the answers that lined up with the popular opinions of the times, but that wasn’t reality. 

If you ever watched “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” in the 90’s, you might remember that no matter what the conflict was in the episode, the episode always ended with everyone realizing Dr. Quinn was right. That’s the kind of writing I want to avoid, because it’s not realistic. In the case of kids abused and/or killed by a mother with postpartum psychosis, more attention is given to the mom than the child victims. If you sympathize with the child victims,  you’re seen as “bad” in many ways. The emphasis is usually sympathy for the mother. Avoiding what I call “Dr. Quinn syndrome” where the main character always comes out the hero who’s right and has the popular opinion is likely to garner some negative reactions. I hope that makes sense. 

If that still doesn’t make sense, then think of Andrea Yates. When people talk about her case, do they even mention the names or the details of her children?  No- they talk about her and how the fact that she murdered her kids is because of her postpartum issues. If you say out loud that the kids were victims, or that it wasn’t ok what happened to them, you are snapped at immediately to give graces to Andrea for what she did. The children themselves are rarely real people in people’s minds. They’re game pieces in an argument to let a certain person be excused for an inexcusable action. If I tell the story of the kids I cared for, the focus will be them as victims, not any kind of excuses, reasoning, anger at, or rage towards the person who committed the abuse. 

I also was just talking to my therapist how, when people hear that I worked there, they assumed that I saw all this horrible abuse on the kids. The truth is, 95% or so of the kids that came there were not there because of abuse. (Obviously the siblings I just mentioned were the 5% that were), but they were there mostly due to homelessness, drug use, or both. If the kids were being physically or sexually abused, that was not the reason for admission the vast majority of the time. The worst thing I ever saw on the kids was that sometimes when they came in they were dirty. For the majority of them, it’s not like I “saw all this abuse”. If I read their files, it would just say homelessness, tested positive for this and that (parents) but it’s not like I had all these kids full of bruises all the time. That’s what people think. The truly horrific thing about working there was that every single member of the staff hated each other. Plus having to care for all those kids in those unstable situations with people who all hated each other. Some of the staff members tried to get even with others and involved children, and I’ll get into that another time. 

So, it’s complicated. The last thing I want if I do include the story of the siblings and shaken baby syndrome is some smart ass saying, “Educate yourself!” About XYZ mental health issue. If the book is published, I may get thousands of hate letters like that. I would just need to keep it about them and their care, keep it super minimal about their mom, and of course change names and identifying details. 

Also the postpartum/shaken baby thing is just one example. If I express any anger at the woman who did this to that baby, then that will not be popular at all. 

That’s a reason why I want a pen name.  I used to want Simi for a pen name, but I’m over the name Simi. I don’t like it anymore. When I started working for this inventory company in 2023 and developed a crush on Kevin, I put his last name with Simi, not realizing that I would eventually marry him and it would be my real last name. So that’s out. 

I really like the name Dassy. It’s short for Hadassah. Yes, I got it from Miriam on TikTok!  Miriam is an Orthodox Jew and mother of five who educates on TikTok about Judaism. Hadassah is her second youngest child, and they call her Dassy. Dassy also resembles Danny, which I like. Hadassah was the original name of Queen Esther in the Bible, before she became Queen Esther. Would my character be Jewish?  I don’t know. I mean for all intents and purposes, she’d be Greek like me, but the main character’s culture wouldn’t play a part in the story at all. Plus, my main character is a Christian who starts out fundie and goes through a Pentecostal phase before having a crisis of faith. I myself do have a drop of Jewish blood, but since it comes from my father’s side, it doesn’t count. (According to them anyway). 

Hadassah also means Myrtle tree. It’s symbolic of peace and joy and prosperity. That again gives the “heroic”, “everything goes smoothly”, “everything I battle is in agreement with societal norms” thing I want to avoid. So therefore, I also like the name Amalia or Amalyah which means work of God. And there are a lot of Greek women named Amalia or Amalyah. 

As far as last names, I have none at all. 

If you care to, tell me which you like better: Dassy or Amalyah. And perhaps suggest a last name. I do not want to use my real name at all. 

No more writing ✍🏼 🚫

 Sadness persists. I don’t think I’m going to be able to write the book I want to write. The book would have been based on my experiences working with kids. It would have told a story, raised awareness, and made people laugh simultaneously. I think the book was my ultimate life calling. Nonetheless, I’m still going to try and bring my laptop with me to Louisiana, since I get more writing inspiration in motel rooms. 

We go to Louisiana and the Beaumont, TX area every three months for inventory. The workdays are very long, but at least the motel rooms have bath tubs and the stores we do carry epsom salts. Kevin and I joked that we’re going to go out after work to a Cajun club and dance like this. Those two really got it, don’t they?  I don’t think Kevin can dance at all, but I could probably do some of that with some practice. 

They called me again regarding my appointment on 10/2, which was now three damn weeks ago. They told me I have iron deficient anemia and to take OTC supplements. So I got them yesterday and took one last night, am about to take one once we leave for work. I’m hoping these make me feel not so drained. 

My mother attempted to apologize and sent me a picture of the three granddaughters of one of her good friends. The oldest of the three girls is 19 and was just recently declared cancer free.  Then my mom started criticizing the girl’s appearance. As soon as she did, I said I gotta go. Dammit. You’d think by the time you get to be 80, you’d learn to be a better person than to make fun of a teenager who has been battling cancer for two years. If I said anything, she would have called me a goody two shoes or something. 

Here’s some more Cajun dancing to get me in the mood for Louisiana. I actually think that guy in that video is cute. 

Sinking

 Image by “Lock Ness” on Deviant Art. 

I feel like I’m sinking. Completely falling off the bandwagon of writing 30 minutes a day was a setback. Then finding out the nurse at my old job was murdered along with her husband almost did me in. The sleep paralysis the following night was jarring. I am highly suspicious of my coworkers at that old place- I remember a lot of them hated her. In fact they mostly all hated each other. My anonymous tip hasn’t been looked at. I have a weird username and password full of letters, numbers and characters that I can use to check. But nothing will be done. If nothing is done about my tip by tomorrow, I may blog the details on Wednesday. 

Then we went to my mom’s house on Saturday. I took a bath, because my place with Kevin has only a shower stall. While in the bath, I could hear my mom and Kevin whispering. Later on, as we were leaving, I called out to my mom, “See you later!” And I know by talking about this openly on here, I open myself up to critical comments, but as I’ve said before, this is my space. My mother isn’t deaf, hearing impaired, or hard of hearing. But over the past 40+ years, she has selectively not heard or pretended to not hear whenever I say something that makes me sound polite. “Hello”, “Bye”, “Thank you” or “you’re welcome.”  She’ll pretend to not hear me say it in order to proceed to humiliate me in front of the person I’m saying it to. Even if the person insists to my mom, “Yes, Danielle said thank you!”  She still does it. So when I called out “See you later!” To my mom, she instantly screeched, “Ok fine, DON’T SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR MOTHER!”  My husband was right there. He told me later that he heard me say it. 

He also said that when I was in the tub, my mother was asking him if he was sick of me yet and ready to put me out on the street. He said he reassured her that he isn’t “sick of me” and that he loves me etc. He said that at that point, she started saying that I often “make it up in my head” that she tells me to be prepared if he leaves me.  So basically, she tried to gaslight me to my husband behind my back, but was unsuccessful, because in the breath immediately preceding the gaslighting, she was saying the exact thing she was claiming to never say. 

She did that with me before.  If she claims to “never say” something, and then say it, I’ll call her out, but it doesn’t work, because then she’ll just say, “I’m such a bad mother!” 

All women tell all women to be prepared if their husbands leave them. It’s obsessive. No one has to worry about me.  My husband isn’t leaving me. If he does, I have an entire baggie of back up plans.  If he dies, I’m POD on his accounts. The grief will suck, but you know what? No one ever told me to have a back up plan in case my college degree didn’t work out, but I figured it out anyway. 

Please no comments telling me “just don’t worry what she says”. For a lot of us, our moms are our first bullies. You wouldn’t tell a woman with an abusive male partner to “just not care what he says.”  The end. 

Speaking of my baggie of back up plans, I’m so sick of my job. It’s eating at me for some reason and I don’t know. I like doing inventory. I like it so much, that one of the psychiatrists I tried to get gabapentin out of a few months ago said “You LIKE doing inventory?  Maybe you do have autism.”  But I never got an official autism diagnosis. Just that. If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad is the song I try to sing to myself if I get really bored or frustrated at work. Yes how bad can it be?  I worked at a shelter for abused kids with extreme tension among all staff members, had to take care of 18 kids at a time with all these motherfuckers who hated each other, and then (I suspect) someone murdered the nurse. Why would counting crap be so bad? 

 We have our own cardboard tags with our company name that say “audited” that we put on sections when we do them. The store we did today is one we do monthly. It has a big wine rack surrounded by 24 packs of bottled water and 12 packs of soda. I always do it, and I always deck the hell out of it with those tags. It doesn’t matter if something is tagged- or at other stores we put sticky notes on the sections and initial them when done (I’ve brought a sharpie for my initials) my coworker will yell-ask if I did the section. 

We do have one young lady who helps us put maybe once or twice a week because she has another job. I told her, “You see that wine rack with the water and soda 12 packs?  You see how I decked it all out with tags?  I guarantee I’m still going to get asked if I did it.” 

She laughed, but lo and behold, a couple hours later, “DID SOMEONE GET THIS WINE OVER HERE?” 

Me and the very part time girl just looked at each other and said nothing. I refused to answer. Then, “oh yeah there are tags.”  

I came home and literally fell asleep instantly. I slept two hours. I’m exhausted and burned out. My hand, wrist and thumb are all in total pain. They were doing better until today, I did something to throw out my thumb joint. I am hurting like hell. I have a wrist brace, but it’s stretched out after only a few days of use. I may need to go to cvs and get a size smaller. I’m just so miserable I want to sleep for hours and hours and wake up feeling inspired again. 

Homemade laundry detergent

 

20 years ago, the popular way to make homemade laundry detergent was just grated Zote soap, Borax, and washing soda. 

This one is different. All of the ingredients cost about $30 the first time I made it several months ago. We were getting low but not really anywhere near “out” so I thought I’d buy the ingredients again. This time, they were a little cheaper and totaled $26. They are:

One tub of oxy 

1 and a half bars of Zote soap grated. Kevin helped with this since I had some hand pain, and he laughed at himself the whole time. 

One box of borax

One box of washing soda

One four pound box of baking soda 

One tub of scent boosters 

The oxy comes with a scoop. Use this scoop to scoop the detergent. Only use 1/3-1/2 of the scoop depending on how soiled everything is. The lady online said this lasts her a year and she has five kids. She doubles it though.