I don't do things the way most other folks do, generally speaking, I must confess. So here's a list of some ways in which I am [cough cough] weird crazy nutso unconventional.
Keep in mind, all these are written with my tongue firmly in my cheek.Disagree, get mad at me, shout at your computer, it's all good. Debate is healthy.
Also, I may be opinionated, but I am not intolerant. Some of my best friends are pro-broccoli.
1) I found myself telling a young friend of Michael's recently that I don't allow two things in my house: Football and Broccoli.
Football is a mystery to me and the typical southerner's obsession with the sport is totally a mystery. Behemoths on steroids throwing each other on the ground and trying to break each other's bones? Really? Not my idea of entertainment.
Broccoli just grosses me out. The smell of it cooking makes me want to run in the opposite direction. I tell my kids, we eat no broccoli here. Take a vitamin instead. It's much more yummy.
2) I never wear high heels or pantyhose, even to job interviews. They were invented by the devil. In my version of Utopia, they would not even exist.
Women are brainwashed into thinking high heels are good, when in fact they are evil. I've worked too many lawsuits based on women falling and getting hurt to think otherwise. Besides, they are uncomfortable.
Why do women knowingly HURT themselves in the name of "beauty"?! Because we are brainwashed by mamas who were brainwashed by their mamas, and so on.
You never see a scene in a movie or on TV where a weary women comes home from work and kicks off her Crocs or her sneakers. Nope.
I know in my heart that one day women will wear comfortable shoes, and high heels will go the way of the corset - straight into museums.
I feel the same way about men's ties. There is no reason for them.
3) I don't care about new electronics.
USE IT UP AND WEAR IT OUT [my philosophy of life]
My car is a 1999 model and it will be driven until it dies in the driveway and I call one of those charities that picks up old cars. Then, hopefully I can switch and drive Mother's car, which is three years newer and has very few miles on it. It will be driven until death also.
I bought my current TV in 2002, and I see no reason to buy a new one. Mike asked me the other day why I don't buy a high def TV and I said "You see a lot of extra money lying around here?!"
Truth is, with my poor eyesight, I just don't see enough difference between high def and my big flat screen TV to matter. I told Mike he can save up his money and buy one, right after he buys everyone's Christmas presents.
4) When I was a kid, I liked to eat bites of raw ground beef. Never made me sick. I've never had high cholesterol or mad cow disease. Red meat isn't the evil substance the media make it out to be.
5) I think every child should learn to swim before the age of three, and should be tested on it before they can be enrolled in school. Children drown every year and there's no reason for it. I learned to swim as a baby, at the YMCA, with Mother. We didn't have much money, either. Teach your kids to swim, people. Also teach them basic water safety. Lives will be saved.
6) I eat real butter, all the time. Real butter is NOT the enemy of mankind.
I was in Publix the other day and I was trying to buy some Plugra, which is the best butter in the universe, and there was an old man standing there blocking my access, carefully picking up EVERY SINGLE FAKE BUTTER there in the store, reading the back, and puttting it back on the shelf. I am short and I have short arms. I was also taught to be polite to my elders. I must've stood there 5 minutes. Finally I said "Excuse me" and I reached my short fat arm toward the shelf. He backed off long enough for me to grab my prized Plugra and make a getaway. I wanted to grab him by the collar and hiss like Jack Nicholson "You see that FAKE CRAP butter?!? It's NOT good for you. DO NOT buy it. It's one molecule away from plastic. I don't care what the damn label says. Eat one teaspoon of real butter instead."
I couldn't though. My mama raised me right.
7) I wear ONLY black pants. Not white pants or red pants. Not dresses. Not skirts, skorts, shorts, or culottes. Black pants. All the time. I like black pants. For people with fat legs, black stretchy pants are a godsend. I have a variety of colorful tops. That's enough color for me.
8) I think we should stop making Spanish a second language in our culture. This is America. You want to live here, learn English. Maybe if we stop printing everything in Spanish [like every piece of paper Mike brings home from school] then immigrants will be encouraged to learn English. A lot of churches around here offer FREE English classes. You want to speak Spanish or French or Chinese or whatever at home, FINE. But out in public, you speak English.
When I was in Publix the other day there was a woman stocking the shelves. I asked her where feminine products were. She looked puzzled. I repeated my request softly. She got a look of sheer terror on her face and ran off. She brought back a manager who helped me find what I needed, and was rather patronizing and rude, TO ME. I wasn't rude to the Hispanic lady. The manager's tone of voice implied I was being mean to the woman. I wanted to slap that manager and say WHY did you hire someone who cannot speak English and then put her out in the store where customers were likely to ask her questions?!
If I went to Italy, or Germany, or China, or any non-English speaking country to live, I would make a HUGE effort to learn the language. I learned enough Russian so I could get around on my own without feeling helpless, and I was only there and in Kazakhstan a grand total of a few weeks. I listened to CD's in my car.
Let's go back to speaking ENGLISH here.
9) I am uncool and I don't care if my kids think I am uncool. I see parents all the time trying to be cool, trying to be their kids' FRIEND and I want to slap them and say LISTEN, Dude or Dudette, they don't need a FRIEND, they need a parent. Parenting means you make rules and you enforce them. You want to win a popularity contest with your kids, be prepared for the fallout. You want to raise nice kids, enforce rules and discipline, and teach them good manners. If you don't, the world WILL.
10) The older I get, the less I care about religious convention. I want to know about how Christianity came about, and why there are so many things in conventional Christianity that appear to me to be intolerant and unloving, precisely the opposite of what I believe Jesus was all about.
I have been reading about the gnostics and the discoveries of the gnostic gospels. If you Google the word "gnostic" you will find a lot of misinformation out there. If you want to know more from a reliable source, check out the writings of Elaine Pagels, who writes objectively about the early Christian movement. She doesn't condemn orthodoxy but she sheds a lot of light on how early Christianity was molded into the form we know today.
We should teach our children to ask questions and to explore, not tell them everything was decided a long time ago and they should simply "turn or burn."
So there it is, some of my weirdness, right here on the internet. Whether you applaud me or condemn me, this is what I truly feel: if you stop intellectually and spiritually exploring, forming opinions, and asking questions, you will become hard and unyielding, and your life will be spent categorizing everyone else as "one of us" or "one of them" - a very sad thing.
Go in peace.
