Bashers and orators, trash talkers and smooth operators

May I have the attention of the class, please. Today's lesson: The art of speaking your mind in public.

So you are sitting in your local coffee shop unloading to your lady friend and anyone who happens to be sitting within hearing distance about what an awful, Awful!, week you've had. You're not only hating the week with a vengeance, you're loathing your life, everyone remotely connected to said miserable existence, the weather, the lucky bastard who won a gazillion euros last weekend, and how music these days is nothing but ruminated rubbish.

You find yourself one more target. Then you take it apart with more enthusiasm than finesse. I mean, they're just sitting there, practically waiting to be stomped on by you and your foul mood, and, best of all, those stupid-good-for-nothing-go-back-to-where-you-came-from-get-out-of-my-country-and-outta-my-sight foreigners don't understand a word you're saying.

Or so you think, because, let's face it, you're not thinking at all. Your frontal lobe stopped functioning some time Monday morning when the week started going sideways, and it hasn't straightened out since. Not only can they hear you, they understand you just fine. What they can't for the life of them fathom is your line of reasoning. But going from someone's appearance to a detailed account of where they are going and what they are doing with their life doesn't require reason, does it, only a foul mood and a mouth to match.

So sorry you're unhappy. Very certain I had nothing to do with it. And your mama was right. If you don't have anything nice to say, please take the drama somewhere else, we're all stocked up here at the den, m'kay? M'kay. I got my eye on you. Oh yes I do. Ears, too. Behave.

The snows of Kilimanjaro

Or what is left of them, sweetie darlings.

Unless you have a Plan B or a Planet B in stock, please don't poop in our common nest, okay? Okay. Happy Earth Day. Behave.

Thus spoke Mandela

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?

One woman's puddle...

...is another woman's pond. As my goddaughter kindly reminded me.

Need a paradigm shift? Consult a child.

April Fools'

Temperature: 0/32

Eating: not right now, no

Drinking: I'll have what you're having

Watching: two blackbirds facing off

Listening: to Michael Monroe's Sensory Overdrive

Reading: no, writing

Writing: yes, writing

Feeling: darkest hours don't always coincide with the dead of night