I could totally be like James Bond if my doctor would just get his sh*t together.

Those of you who have been reading my stuff for awhile now, should be totally down with my whole right arm situation. You should also be totally effed up in the head, cuz if you've been reading my blabberings since way back then, consider yourself lucky if you have even 20% of the brain cells that you had before you found me.

Just for funzies, let's try a little something real quick:

Q: Patti has a troupe of finger monkeys that perform Broadway musicals for her pleasure. Three of the finger monkeys sing lead roles. Seven of the finger monkeys are lighting technicians. Twenty-three of the finger monkeys are in the chorus. Nine of the finger monkeys play instruments. One of the finger monkeys does nothing because he is a dick. How many legs do all of Patti's finger monkeys have?

A: None. That is the only reason she could afford them. They were all on a bus to Anchorage to perform a revival of Hair! when, due to a surprise blizzard and a drunk bus driver, they went off a bridge and landed on a boat full of sharp metal that was on it's way to the Sharp Metal Recycling Plant up in Wasilla, and they were all leg-capitated. Everyone knows that legless finger monkeys are usually on clearance.

If you got the answer right, you've been here awhile. 

If you actually did the math, then you are new. Anyone who's been here awhile knows Patti don't do no maths, and also, Patti don't have no "normal" answers. 

Once you start answering things like me, you're at a maximum of 20% brain cellage. The saving grace is that it's 20% of awesome instead of 20% of nerd. 

Anyways, back to my arm.

In September of 2011 I had surgery on my right shoulder due to the fact that I had totally, somehow, effed it up and ended up with a tear in my rotator cuff. As is usually the case for me, I have no idea how it happened. One day it was fine, and my Girl Scout Fight Club and Handies for Hobos organizations were going off without a hitch. My arm was easily whooping 8-year-old girl butt, and pleasuring the train traveling homeless population, without issue. Then one day, outta nowhere, I lifted my arm and almost died from the pain. At first I thought that perhaps I was being sporked by one of my house ghosts. A few of those mofos can get a little bitchy sometimes. Probably due to being walked through all the time and from having to watch me drink beer and have sexy time and morning constitutionals and all the other awesome things that dead people can't do. It doesn't take an Einstein to figure out that all that jealousy combined with the fact that the dead love irony, could cause me to receive a ghostly sporking in my #1 favorite appendage.  

So I had the freakishly painful surgery, but my arm never did get better. The motions that were originally causing it to hurt like balls, aren't hurting so much anymore, but pretty much every other motion is. Plus, it now hurts all the way from the shoulder to the elbow when I am doing absolutely nothing but sitting around being a lazy ass. Which is a lot. Every time I go to the Doctor he's like, "Hmmm....that doesn't make any sense" and I explain that nothing in this world makes sense. I mean, look at the success of entire Kardashian family, those Honey Boo Boo people, and Anne Coulter. Look at the prevalence of Crocs, fanny packs, and Ed Hardy shirts. Not everything in this world makes sense.

So Mr. Doctor had this idea to put me under anesthesia and go all psycho crazy on my arm and yank it every which way but loose, in the hopes that it loosens up some scar tissue or frozenosity that may have possibly set in. That sounded like a terrible idea for two reasons:

1) I'm about 117% sure that he's tired of me and afraid that I will ruin his career with my blogging and will see to it that I'm "accidentally" given too much anesthesia so I never wake up.

2) He never did a post-surgical MRI or x-ray on me to be sure what the what is going on in there. For all I know his Rolex could be ticking away in my arm at this very moment. Or maybe a loose fingernail fell in there. Or perhaps a piece of his morning donut was stuck on his face and chose the perfect moment to drop into my arm hole. I'm just a tad bit hesitant to let them go all bat shit cray cray on my arm unless I have more information first.

So basically, I've done what I always do now when any of my doctors say they want to do anything anywhere near surgical to me. I ignore it and do nothing. 

But the pain is getting bad. Some days it's so bad that I forget about my carpal tunnel and my back pain or my fallopian tube and uterine pain, all of which my doctors are bitching at me to take care of. But I've been ignoring it anyways. 

Then, The Hub and I went to see the new James Bond movie. At the beginning of the movie, Bond was fighting some dude on top of a train. At one point the dude pushed him off, and the only reason Bond didn't totally fall to his death was because he hung onto the train with one arm. I told The Hub that I was now worried that if I get into a scuffle with a villain on a train, or any other scary, high, place, and my Karate Kid Crane Kicks fail me, I might get pushed off and not be able to hang on. I mean, I can barely lift that arm over my head at all, let alone hold my full body weight onto a moving train with it. And my left arm is totally useless to me. Seriously. It's useless. The other day I tried to wave at someone with my left hand and ended up hitting myself in the face. After my last shoulder surgery, when my righty was in that Robocop sling, I stabbed myself in the eye with my toothbrush while trying to brush my teeth with my left hand. Twice. In one brushing.

The only way I can even get to sleep nowadays is if I smoke a crapload of crack, or lay face down on my bed and dangle my right arm off the side. For some reason the dangling makes the pain go away. But, when I dangle it, I open myself up to the very real and not at all imaginary possibility that one of those Poltergeist bed clowns is gonna drag me under and kill me, or that a spider is gonna jump onto my fingertips and climb all the way up my arm to lay it's bazillion baby eggs in my ear or behind my eyeball. I'll probably start wearing goggles and ear muffs, and pray for the sweet sweet murderyness of the clown. 

Basically, James Bond made me realize that I need to get myself fixed up. Some people might say "What are the chances that you're gonna get in a fight on top of a train, or need to dangle yourself under an elevator while it goes to the top floor of a building so that you can kill some hit man?" and I admit that the chances are slim, you guys. I realize that. But if you ask me what are the chances that I'm gonna need a strong right arm to take care of a bunch of leg-capitated finger monkeys, or possibly beat the crap out of a few moms in the middle school carpool line, the answer to those is about 100%

And just in case you ARE new here, I came across this photo of Man Nurse Jeffery Jefferson. He was my post-shoulder-surgery home nurse. He supplied cold water through a tube to a cuff on my arm to keep the swelling down. I've missed him so. I suppose if I let Mr. Doctor try to rip off my arm while I'm in a drug-induced coma, I might get to use Man Nurse Jeffery Jefferson again. I guess that's a plus. 

My foot's a clumsy turd, and I learned how to Skype. Otherwise known as, Things I Haven't Had Time To Blog About Yet.

In my last blog post about the winners of the Holiday Hump Contest, I mentioned a few things that I promised to tell you about later. Usually when I promise to do ANYTHING later, it either happens (a) months and months later, or (b) never ever ever, but I am totally feeling like getting things done today, so here we go. You freaking lucky bastards.

Those of you who follow me on Facebook (AKA those of you who are awesome) probably already know that I hurt my foot before xmas break. And as things usually work when I totally eff something up on my body, I wasn't really doing anything at all strenuous. I mean, I've pulled my back out at least 3 times in the past from simply making my bed. And it's not like I'm gettin' Martha Stewarty all up on that thing, either. I'm not doing special military corners or bouncing quarters off the sheets or anything psycho like that. I'm just pulling the comforter up far enough so that The Cat can't get her feline germs all over my slumber zone, and suddenly BAM! I can't move. At least twice I've pulled my neck so badly that I can't turn my head for days, by simply just looking over my shoulder before backing out of a parking space. That little injury hurts like balls, so now, when I'm leaving a spot, I just hope for the best and drop the hammer.

The injury of my foot was not much different. I mean, at least this time I was actually doing something somewhat physical, seeing that I was in pilates and actually kind of working out. And I say "kind of" because the amount of working out that I'm doing in there just totally varies day to day. That particular day all I was doing was this stupid stretch called "Elephant" where I'm simply bent over stretching, then I have to lift up my toes while my feet are flat on the ground. Well, I've done this thing multiple times a week for nearly 3 years, but this time, when I lifted my toes, muthaflippinholyhellsweetbabyjeebusinapitapocket it hurt kinda bad. Even though I had lots of pain, since I was busy getting ready for The Holidays, I ignored it and went away for two weeks with it hurting like a mofo. When I got back home, I went to the foot dude and he said it looked like I had torn my plantar fascia, and that it was on the mend, so I just needed to leave it alone for another few weeks. That means no pilates. Which means no Phillip. Which means that I am not only totally out of shape right now, but Phillip is in some kind of sadness spiral. I'm pretty freaking sure. 

The other thing I mentioned in the last post, was the whole Skype situation. 

Last December a woman from a casting agency in L.A. contacted me to ask if I had ever thought about having a docu-series done about me. I wrote her back and asked her if she was talking about that Honey Boo Boo crap and if "docu-series" was just a fancy word for reality show. She said it's a kinder, gentler, less-trashy reality show situation. I guess she thought that I would be more intrigued by that, and to be honest, at the time of my initial response I was. But after pondering all of the stupidity I could get up to in a trashy reality show, my imagination was kind of excited. I WANT TO BE IN CHILD BEAUTY CONTESTS, DAMMIT! I WANT TO BE MOM-BRAIN, THE BOUNTY HUNTER! I WANT TO SPORK THE OVARIES OF A BUNCH OF STUCK-UP, SPOILED HOUSEWIVES! 

The woman told me that she would like to sort of interview me on Skype, and record it, so that it could potentially be shown to the people who decide about these things. The God's of Television, or whatever. Let me be totally and 100% honest here and tell you that I in NO WAY have ANY desire to have cameras in my home or following me to Target or pilates or to go poop or to watch me dance for The cat or anything like that. I am 100% sure that nobody would want to watch that show, with the exception of maybe some horny prison inmates when they get tv day for good behavior. But this is a super cool and flattering opportunity for anyone, and there's no way I was gonna NOT do the interview. I mean, there's always the teeny tiny chance that I could talk them into doing a show about my scheme to Occupy Johnny Depp, or perhaps one about Hunting Norman Reedus, that would be kinda like that Finding Big Foot thing, except with less sasquatches and hillbillies, and more Norman and Modelo.

So I did the interview. It was not at all nerve-wracking like I thought it would be. I guess if you don't expect anything to come of it and you don't really care either way, there's no reason to be nervous. Once I realized that, I was good to go. That said, I do have some focus issues, along with direction following issues, so I'm sure that the poor woman had a bit of a migraine by the time that it was over. And since it was my first time ever using Skype, I was a bit wackadoo. And then, of course, when it was all said and done, I was all "Damn! Why didn't I tell her about the time I got trapped in the dark behind the theater and that hobo tried to pee on my friend? And when she asked me my favorite things to do, why didn't I tell her about my boner for flea marketing, or my addiction to Girl Scout Fight Clubs?" And then I totally wanted to hop in my Time Burger and go do it all over again. DAMN! Why didn't I tell her about my Time Burger????

Truth be told, I am not much of an in-front-of-the-camera kinda person. I know that from all the crazy photos I post, you probably don't believe me at all. Basically, I'm ok in front of a camera if I am doing something totally and completely ridiculous, but if it's something where I am supposed to be "normal", I'm just not that into it. I get all weird and awkward and uncomfortable, and not in a good way.

A few years ago, as some of you already know (and others have recently emailed me asking about...so here ya go), I won a contest on Ellen to go to The Primetime Emmy's when she hosted, and then to her show the next day. I never even enter to win anything ever since the time in Kindergarten when I was sure I was gonna win an amazingly fancy cake in a cake walk, and the stupid girl in my class that copied all of my rad drawings, ended up winning. But for some reason I stopped in my tracks to enter this. I was literally on my way out the door to go pick up The Boy after school, when I heard the announcement on tv about the contest. You were to email the show and tell them why you should get to go to The Emmy's. I had never entered anything like this before, but for some reason I sat down and wrote a quick (5 minutes) poem to her, then ran my late ass out the door. By the time I got home with The Boy, I had a call from one of the producers.  

What happens after something like that, is that they call you 10 times a day for a few days, and interview you a bit every time. They are trying to get to know you and get a good sense of your personality and see if you are someone they want to have on their show. I am not at all uncomfortable with that. It's one-on-one and it's easy for me. I take pride in my ability to charm the balls off of anyone. Producer Andy and I had a super fun time in those conversations. He was my long-distance, much younger, not-really-boyfriend, boyfriend. He was lots of fun.

When it got time to go to L.A. I was asked if I would be willing to be interviewed on the show if they had any free space. I said "No thank you." I was then asked if I would be willing to dance with Ellen at the beginning of the show if they decided that would work. Again, I said "No thank you."

Now, I know that probably ALL of you are saying to yourselves, What the holy WHAT? That attention whore declined to get interviewed by Ellen? She didn't want to dance with Ellen? I know it's hard to believe. Even I have a hard time believing it NOW. But this was before I had a blog, and I didn't really see what I could possibly say that would interest ANYONE watching me on tv. I honestly still don't, which is part of the reason I have a habit of turning things like this down. Combine that with the fact that I am not big on cameras, and you get my big fat "pass." While this was definitely the most excitingly unexpected thing that had ever happened to me before, I had absolutely no delusions that it was my moment to shine, or that I would somehow become famous from it. Good lord, that is the last thing I would even want, or think that I deserved.

The day of The Emmy's, the limo came to the hotel to get us, and there was a camera crew who wanted to ask each of us some questions about what we were looking forward to, and which stars we hoped to see. When it was my turn, I uncomfortably answered their questions, then waited for the camera to turn off and for them to go talk to someone else. But it just sat there in my face with that red light on and I felt like Cindy Brady when she was doing that television quiz show. I was all zoned out and spazzy and WTF and awkward, and the moment I realized it, I started rolling my eyes and did a weird little dance, and the camera man was like "What the hell was THAT?" and I was all "I DON'T FREAKING KNOW!" 

And suffice it to say, that segment did not air on the show that Monday morning. Thank balls.

Note to self: Next time you get to sit on stage in a tv host's chair, make sure that the doink who's taking your photo knows how to use a camera, or this will be the best of all 3 photos that he takes, and you will want to hunt him down and spork him in the underballs.

Thankfully, now that I'm older and (GASP!) wiser, I'm a bit more comfortable in my pasty skin. I have accepted and grown into my personality and my whole I don't give a f*ck-edness. And although only a year or so ago, I woulda turned that Skype interview down, and even last year I turned a few other things like this down, I am now finally getting comfortable enough to do these things, and I'm kinda just a teensy bit proud of myself. I'm sure if I actually SAW the recording of the Skype thing, I'd totally change my mind and climb back in my little hidey hole, but as long as I don't have to see it I can convince myself that I done good. If you tell yourself something enough, then it's the truth, right?  And if I had actually given in and done anything like this last year, I wouldn't have told everyone about it because I would be a bit embarrassed if I failed and nothing came out of it. But now I realize that I should be kinda proud at even getting this chance, even though most likely nothing will come out of it. I honestly don't expect anything, nor do I even really care.  And if you don't really care, and you're ok with the fact that people will either like you and what you have to say, or they won't, and you have absolutely zero ambitions to become famous or be on tv or whatever, then it doesn't really even matter, right? I GET that now. I guess this is 40, you guys. (Ok, so I'm actually 41, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it.)

P.S. My friend Stephanie made an unexpected appearance in my Skype thing. Here is the status that I posted about it on Facebook:

So today I had a Skype interview/meeting/audition with someone from a casting agency in Los Angeles. I know, right? It's been in the works for awhile now. For some reason they are maybe interested in the idea of having me be in a show. A show that people would watch. Or not watch. Probably the latter. I have never Skyped until today, so that was a bit odd. I think I came off semi-normal. The Cat tried to get in on the action cuz she is an attention whore. Then my friend Stephanie thought to herself, "Self, wouldn't it be funny if I drove over to Patti's house and peeked in the window to her office while she was doing her interview, and made a funny face?" So she did. And I guess she kinda forgot that I am somewhat fearful of some lady putting on a diaper and driving here to take my skin. So here I am, talking to the woman on Skype, trying to be attentive and make some semblance of sense, when I look up and see a woman in my bushes. So I freak out and yell, then I'm all "Oh, it's Stephanie! My friend is in my bush!" Then I'm all "That sounded really dirty! Wrong kinda bush." Then, since I had spoken to her previously about how much fun my friend Stephanie and I have together, I was all "I did not plan this! I swear!" And she told me to let Stephanie in and have her say "Hello", so I did. Even though she gave me a heart attack and made me yell about her being all up in my bush. And BTW it was recorded by her so all the people who spot talent can watch it. I'm sure they won't be horrified or confused at all. I totally bet I get a call very soon. (<<<

The Holiday season is over. So pack up your tacky decor, so it can hide in the cardboard box of shame, in the attic of what the heck did I do last night.

Don't get too excited, people. This isn't a post post. It's just an "I am way late posting the winner of the xmas decoration molestation contest due to the fact that I've been busy being lazy, healing my damn foot (more on that later), trying to focus on book writin', having Skype interviews with casting agency people (later), tracking down creepy internet copy cats (yes, "s"), stuffing my face with food that's way too totally and ridiculously fattening for someone who isn't allowed to work out until her foot heals, and just plain old being awesome, post. In other words, you are all pretty much getting cheated with this blog. It's time you will never get back. Now, the winners, on the other hand, they aren't getting cheated. They are getting to be a WINNERS!

Let me preface this whole winner announcement by saying a little something about American Idol. Now you're probably asking yourself, Self?  WTF does Patti's announcement of the #1 Holiday Decoration Humper possibly have to do with American Idol? Well, I'm about to tell you, so calm the frick down! Holy balls, people! Impatient much? 

Sometimes I watch American Idol. Most of the time I don't. But when I do, I watch it on DVR so that I can skip through all the crappy commercials, the narcissistic coaching segments, and most of all, the sad back stories. I want to see the singing and not be at all influenced by the story of the person with the noise coming out of their pie hole. I want to judge them strictly on their pie hole sounds alone. 

Okayyyyy.... so what the heck does this possibly have to do with the molesting of holiday decor?

Dudes...keep your pants on. I'm about to tell you. Sheesh.

I got approximately 30 entries for this contest. I don't think that I am exaggerating at all when I tell you that approximately 8 million of them let the yard decor buttsecks THEM! Now, if being a submissive in the world of the pretend buttsecking of goofy inanimate objects is your thing, that's fine. But my thing giving it to them good. But still, those photos were pretty darn funny. And then there were the approximate 70 gajillion people that sent me photos of them doing things that were, well, HILARIOUS, yet perhaps just a teensy bit too pornographic for me to post on this blog. AWESOME, yet not particularly appropriate. So basically, to sum it all up, I was left with about 5 photos that I was deciding between. And after I went through those 5, I had 2 favorite ones. That is where American Idol comes in.

My favorite one, and my #1 pick is this one:

This is Jeremy Gonzalez. Jeremy is surprise buttsecksing The Grinch, while he is deep in the tree. Yes, he's giving it to him deep while he's in deep. (I'm sorry. I couldn't help it.)

The reason that this photo made me so darn happy is because not only is Jeremy participating in my favorite pastime, but he's doing it in the hospital where he is being treated for Osteosarcoma, which is a rare bone cancer. Some people in his situation would be feeling sorry for themselves, or be depressed, and that's ok, that's their right and it's totally understandable. But seeing Jeremy be all smiley and running around the hospital buttsecksing things made ME smile. So yeah, I know his backstory. And yeah, it influenced me just a tiny bit. But come on. This kid rocks pretty freaking hard. Okay? In my book, he is the very defintion of the word WINNER!!!!

And although I didn't plan on it, I also have a runner up. I chose this girl cuz she is one of the very few people who actually did their buttsecksing in a public place, where people are milling about. I mean, it WAS Wal-Mart, which means that nobody would have batted an eye, but that's neither here nor there. Public is public.

This is Miranda Christmas. Yes. Miranda CHRISTMAS. How perfect is THAT? Happy Winner #2 Miranda! And don't be sad about being #2. You know how much I love a good numero dos. 

So there ya have it. Jeremy and Miranda get some fantastically dorky t-shirts from my store, custom made for them. That's sooooo much better than cash! Ok. Maybe it's not anywhere near as awesome as cash. But it's still awesome. Ok. Maybe it's not awesome, but it's free. Ok? So stop your bitching.

***Winners, please contact me ASAP at insaneinthemombrain@gmail.com***

An open letter to the person who is stealing my words

And to everyone who has "borrowed" from me in the past, or plans to in the future.

A blog is like a diary that is written for anyone to see. Many bloggers (parent bloggers, especially) blog as a release of sorts. A way to share what they're going through and find other people who are going through the same things. We write because we love to write, and because people connect to it. Oftentimes, the people who read my blog tell me that I say the things that they have thought, but didn't have the balls to say. Or they tell me that my brain works like theirs, and they just don't know how to put it into words like I do. My writing in my blog and on my Facebook page, are little tidbits from my daily life, and odd little thoughts that go through my head. I share them because I enjoy it, and so do the people who read it.

What I write on this page, and my Facebook page, are mine. I have never used content someone else has written. I have never made up stories for entertainment value. I have never invented people or situations that don't exist. I am straight up telling you MY story. In MY words. In MY own way. The fact that these stories are on the internet, and not in a book or a magazine, does not mean that they are free to take. 

Sometimes another Facebook fan page will steal one of my statuses and claim it as their own. Sometimes another blogger will lift things from my blog and publish it as their own. I find both of these things strange, especially the stolen statuses, because they are long and ranty and so uniquely "me" that I often wonder how they expect it to blend it with their own, usual content. People who have these pages and do that kind of thing are obviously people who want attention and have nothing worthwhile to offer up in exchange for that attention, so they use someone else's words. It sucks to have that happen, but unfortunately, you get used to it.

Tuesday I experienced something new. I came across a Facebook fan page that was made up almost entirely of MY content. It included Facebook statuses that I had written, as well as paragraphs taken from this blog. Months and months of my words. Seeing an entire page made up of content taken from me, as well as some taken from other bloggers that I personally know, was upsetting. I was fired up and ready to kick some ass. Then something else happened.

A reader of mine alerted me that she had found the personal Facebook profile of the woman who was behind this page, and told me that I should have a look at it. What I found on that page changed my anger into something closer to fear. It's one thing when someone hiding behind a fan page is pretending to be someone they're not. That happens every day. But when someone is doing the same thing on their personal profile, that is NOT normal, and it's disturbing as hell.

This woman's page was like any of our personal pages; It had her photos, her friends, her family members. But the similarities to anything normal stopped there. Much like her fan page, nearly every single post on her personal page was mine. My statuses as well as portions of my blogs, all written down verbatim. The only difference being when she needed to change a name or a location to one that would fit her reality. She was telling her friends and family about dreams that were MINE. She was telling them about something that had happened to ME at the grocery store. She was telling them about something that MY child had said. She was telling them some phone conversation that I had. She was telling them all of these things and inserting her own names in place of mine.

Friends and family members were commenting about how funny and creative she was. You should write a book! You are so entertaining! She would thank them and say things like that's just how my brain works. 

The thing is, it's not. It's not how your brain works. It's how MY brain works. I have no freaking clue how YOUR brain works.

The feelings that I have about this are confusing, even to me. 

On one hand I think, wow, you must be a sad individual without any sort of life, or anything worthwhile to say, who craves attention and has a strong need to be loved and admired. When I think of it like that, I feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for a person who doesn't have enough confidence to think that anyone would like them for being themselves, and feels this so deeply that you must pretend to be someone else.

On the other hand, I think this is bullshit. Scary, disturbing, messed up, psychopathic, insane, bullshit. I'm talking "It's puts the lotion on it's skin", Single White Female, The Talented Mr. Ripley level insanity. This hand is overpowering the other, more empathetic, hand.

Just because I share parts of my life on the internet, that in no way means that my life is up for grabs. This is MY life. These are MY thoughts and words. These are stories about ME, MY husband, and MY child. To take these things and claim them as your own, to the readers of a Facebook fan page that you don't actually know, is dishonest and manipulative. But to essentially take my life and claim it as your own to the people who know you, and, I assume, love and care about you? That is a whole other level. You are lying to everyone around you. They have no idea that they are being tricked into believing that you are someone you're not. Have you taken even one moment to think about how they would feel if they knew what you were doing? If they knew that everything out of your mouth was a lie? And not only a lie, but someone else's truth that you decided to "borrow"? Do you ever think about how upset, confused, and hurt they might be? Do you care?

On the flip side of that, do you think about how upset, confused, and frightened that I am? I have absolutely zero idea what is going on in your head, but I'm guessing that since you aren't considering the feelings of your own friends and family, you aren't even close to considering my feelings or those of my family. What do you think that it feels like to find out that someone is basically pretending to be you? Not in name. Not in the way you look. But to BE you. To take your thoughts and stories, and the cute things that your child says, and to claim them as their own? This is like trying to steal someone's entire daily life life. This is not okay.

I don't know what your reasons are for doing this, and I doubt I ever will, but you need to stop. You need to stop for yourself. You need to stop for your friends and family. And you need to stop for me. If you have nothing to say on the internet, then get off of the internet. Any praise or admiration you get from people in exchange for writing words that are not your own, is meaningless. They aren't praising you. They are praising who they think you are. They are praising a lie. It's immoral, it's pathetic, it's manipulative, and it's scary as hell.

As a blogger I put myself out there. I put my family out there. I tell stories for people to enjoy. But I have a limit. I have a line that I don't cross. There are stories I don't tell. And just because I write things for you to read, doesn't mean that I don't deserve that limit and that line. I deserve some privacy and respect just like any other person does. My life is still mine. You can't steal from it. You can't pretend to be me. You can't try to become me. Every word you read in every single blog, or column, or Facebook status, is someone else's words. These words are not yours to take.

Things like this make me worry about my safety and the safety of my family. The person who did this may just be an insecure person who wants to be liked. But she may also be a person who wants to wear my skin. There's no way of knowing. And that's what's scary. 

Years ago, when I started my blog, I never thought that so many people would read it. I never thought ahead and imagined that it might go way beyond my family and my friends. I didn't think about the fact that telling little stories about my life might make me a target for plagiarism, or mean that I was going to have to deal with unstable people. I didn't predict that I would someday be visiting the FBI with a file of threatening emails. Or that someone would essentially try to take on my identity. But just because I LOVE to write and to connect with people, doesn't mean that my life is up for grabs. I am me. You are not. You have no right to pretend to be me. You need to come clean to the people who love you. You need to seek professional help. You need to learn to be comfortable in your own skin, because you can't have mine.

I'm patiently waiting for Michelle Obama to contact me so I can be in charge of America's Bully Wars. My phone has a dial tone and my email is working, so I really can't figure out what's taking her so long.

Hello class! Mom-Brain here. Everyone get settled, put away your back packs, make sure your pencils are sharpened, get out your notebooks, shut your traps, keep your dirty hands to yourselves, turn off your phones, and pay attention. Today we are going to talk about bullies.

When I was a kid I never really got bullied much. There are only 3 instances that I can remember. Two culminated in fist fights that were actually started by me, just to put a stop to the endless hallway threats of a fist fight. Nothing shuts a bully up when they're yapping on and on about how much they wanna punch you in the face faster than you just hitting them in the face already. The third one was diffused by me distracting the bully with a made up story about someone talking bad about her. Someone that didn't even exist. Causing her to spend weeks actually obsessing over beating up a figment of my creative imagination. It was one of my finest moments, really. Oh sure, I've had many people over the years who didn't like me for one reason or another, but if they decided to pick on me I could usually win them over with humor or distract their tiny little minds with something else that pissed them off more, like I did by inventing that invisible person.

Even though I didn't have many run-ins with bullies, I was nothing if not prepared for the possibility. I did, after all, have a total asshole of a girl neighbor that was bully-ish in a Mean Girls kinda way, as girls often are, and I had seen enough movies like Karate Kid, The Outsiders, and various others, to know the basic outline of a bullying type situation. To mentally prepare myself for the possibility of a physical fight, I often practiced my mad mad street fighting skillz. Skillz that I'm sure were about infinity times more bad ass in my imagination and in the reflection in the full length mirror on my closet door, than they ever would have been in any real life battle of brawn. But more than the physical part, I practiced the mental aspect of a possible asshole showdown. Even as a dumb-ass pre-teen I could usually see through a person and the show-offy BS they were up to, and figure out at least a little part of the why, and realize that I really had very little to do with why they wanted to beat me up. I understood that if it wasn't gonna be me, it was gonna be someone else. That's why my imaginary distraction technique worked so well. All a bully needs is a victim. If it's not you, it's gonna be someone else. A bully has to have someone to hate, and it might as well be someone who doesn't actually exist.

Now that I'm a grown up (quit laughing), I don't often have to deal with that anymore. Sure, a few years ago, some woman in my neighborhood got all pissy with me after her son was bullying my son and I tried to talk to her about it. She totally flipped out and tried to kick me out of the Bunco group that we were both in. She actually told me, and I quote, "I started this group, and I don't want you in it anymore, so here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna send out an email to the group and tell them you have to quit for personal reasons." To which I replied something along the lines of "Girl, what are you smoking? Have you MET me? I'm not doing that! And by the way, thank you for answering the burning question as to how your kid became such a bully." After making a few calls about getting me out, she ended up quitting herself, and being, in her words, "The bigger person." Which is always what someone calls themselves when they aren't even in the same zip code as the bigger person. 

Other than that situation, I haven't really had to deal with it. Thank you baby Jeebus. I mean, I am 41-years-old, and if I was dealing with that shit every day I might as well regress back to petting my Shaun Cassidy posters, writing love mail to Ricky Schroder, wearing Wonder Woman training bras with matching unders, and practicing the art of the french kiss on the side of my hand. 

On Facebook there are trolls galore. But compared to lots of other pages, mine really doesn't get very much. If I DO get them they are not normally what I would call "bullies," but more like people posting something rude or mean to see if you will bite. Trolls aren't usually trying to strong-arm you into anything, or intimidate you, like a bully would. They are just playing a game of "let's see if I can get this person all worked up." I wrote a blog about that a few months ago, and have since then learned to ignore it better, which in all actuality, is the best weapon you can use against them. All day, errday. Having a blog also means that a few people are going to email me with a diatribe about how they don't like what I write and why. Thankfully it's only happened to me a few times. And honestly, the people who do it are usually well-spoken and somewhat kind about it (if that makes sense), and I just write back and say "I'm sorry you feel that way," and move on with my day. I personally don't consider that trolling or bullying. It's just someone with a misguided view of how much their opinion might mean to me. That's just a personality trait. It's also just one person's opinion. We all have opinions. It's just that most of us would feel really a-holey sharing them like that. Thank balls.

The reason I got on the bully soapbox here isn't due to anything that happened to me. It's all because of Phillip. Yes, my sweet, lovely, and actually hella muscular and large Pilates God, Phillip. While I WANT to go all momma bear psycho in depth about the situation, I will refrain for Phillip's sake. Even though his bullying situation took place waaaaayyyyyy back in school when he claims (although I have yet to see proof) to have looked like a weaker, nerdier version of Urkle, he still doesn't want to give me and my big mouth and go big or go home attitude, the full scoop about it. What I do know is that it was pretty much the usual situation, where some big, giant dude picks on someone who is completely the opposite. Yes. Bullies are pussies like that. And I do know that this childhood bully is now an actor and was just in a blockbuster movie. And I do know his name. And I googled the crap outta him and it's totally KILLING every cell in my body to not email him and demand an apology and a suggestion that perhaps he use his little spotlight to do some sort of anti-bully campaign. Which I would for freezies make some posters for. And write speeches for. And promote the hell out of. And forgive him for being an asshole, for. Maybe. But alas, my Phillip wouldn't want me to do that.

I suggested to Phillip that we get a Bully Crime Fighting Team together and tour the US putting bullies in their place, because sometimes what a big time bully needs is to get their own ass kicked. I thought that while we were at it, we could totally perform some anti-bully musical numbers so that I could get my groove thang shaken. Phillip claims to dance like Michael Jackson, and I KNOW beyond the shadow of a doubt that I sing just like Beyonce, so I think that we would totally be wasting our talents if we only kicked bully asses and didn't perform a musical number about the kicking of the bully asses for the people who were so happily watching the kicking of the bully asses. And as Phillip should know, I'm totally always right about everything.

^^^^^^THAT'S what I'm talking about, you guys. THAT is how you start a campaign. THAT is how you spread the word that if you act like a wank, you are goin' down. Then we will perform a musical number about how you just went down. And I REALLY beyond REALLY want to send this to The Bully Who Shall Be Nameless and ask for an apology for my Chocolate Thunder. But I won't. And I won't try to make Phillip let me do it either. Cuz that would be ME being a bully, and then I'd have to help him kick MY ass and perform a musical number about my own ass kicking. I like to do lots of non-sensical things, you guys, but that one would take the cake.

P.S. Here is the first photo we took. I was going for a Karate Kid/Chuck Norris situation. It didn't really work out how I pictured it in my head. Usually things don't.

P.P.S. Phillip does not do Facebook OR read my blog. So it's always a surprise to him when people tell him about whatever the heck I have written about him. Or photos I have shown of him. Poor, sweet, Phillip. 

All I ever needed to know I learned from Blogging and Facebook (AKA How not to be an asshole)

I don't make New Years Resolutions. Ever. All a new year means to me is that I just survived 2 weeks of having my family all up in my grill, and that it's time to buy another calendar. Yes, I still buy real, live, old timey, paper calendars. When it come to using the electronic versions, I am kinda like the Clint Eastwood character in every movie from the past 5 years. I don't understand them, they make me grumpy, I call them bad names, they don't work right, I don't trust them, and if they get on my lawn I will threaten to beat them up.

That last part didn't really make much sense, but I think you get my point.

We all know that 99.9% of the people that make these resolutions never follow through with them. I am no different. I am the 99.9% and that knowledge keeps me from wasting my time and going around bragging to everyone about all the amazing things I'm gonna do every year, that never actually come to fruition. I'm not even gonna promise myself that I am gonna accomplish a shower on any particular day, let alone quit eating sugar, run a marathon, or build my own space ship out of tin cans, an old fridge, and lawn mower motors or something. I know this about myself and I am totally okay with it.

I think that the only people who do well with resolutions are competitive people. And me? I'm not really a competitive person. Ask The Hub. That man refuses to play a board game with me and my family members due to the fact that if you land on Park Place and I own it and you have fallen on rough times, I won't make you pay. And if I had to mortgage my railroad, you can bet your sweet ass that my mom or my sister will loan me money so that I can get it back, with a little extra left over for cushion. And if you win the game I'll be all "You did a really great job and should totally be proud!" which does nothing if not annoy the crap out of a competitive person.

The only reason I have ever been competitive in my life is if I hate your guts. But I'm 41 years old now, and at this point in my life there isn't really anyone whose guts I hate. Don't get me wrong, there are people that I don't like. There are people that I don't like a lot. But not many. And even if I don't like someone a lot, I try my best not to waste any extra energy hating them. I just try to pretend they don't exist. When I was a kid I was different. I hated a neighbor girl, and I was competitive as all get out. That girl was an unholy, a-holey, terror, whose bitchy attitude culminated in the Pac Man-athon of 1982 in which I showed her who the Atari Queen of the neighborhood REALLY was. And in high school I went to extraordinary, calculatingly genius lengths to get back at a few people who had done me wrong. But nowadays I'm more of a "Good luck getting through life being such an a-hole" kinda person who can walk away from almost anything, knowing that karma will take care of things and it's not my place to interfere. Most of the time I can even find a positive lesson to take from it, too.

I sound really grown up right now don't I? I think I do. Don't be frightened. It's probably just a phase.

Since I know that me and resolutions don't mix, instead of making all these promises to myself about what I'm going to accomplish this year, I've decided to focus on what I learned last year that might come in handy in the year ahead. Yes. It's positivity time, people. Deal with it.

So last year I learned that I don't wanna be an asshole.

Let me elaborate.

When I first starting Facebooking, I was a little more sassy with a bigger dash of smart-assey. ANd not always in the tongue-in-cheek, silly way that I am now.  I wrote more rants. I complained more. I thought that being more bitchy was funny. And maybe it was for awhile. I didn't really know where I belonged in the great wide world of the interwebs. I was all alone writing my little blog for about 2 years before I found Facebook, and I really had no idea how to translate what I did on my blog to the whole Facebook situation. I felt like the new kid at school. I didn't know any other bloggers before then, and for the first time ever I was "meeting" other people who had blogs and pages. It's easy to get sucked in to a false sense of community in that kind of situation. You want to be liked and to fit in. You trust people. You think they are your friends. You want to be a part of it. It turns out to be a lot like high school, except it's much easier to misjudge people when they can hide behind a computer and an internet persona. There are people who plot against each other, get jealous, and act like total jackwagons. People lie. People pretend to be people they aren't. People try to manipulate you. People use you to benefit their own blogs or pages. People get angry if you don't "share" their page or promote them or whatever. Some people think that because they have X amount of "fans" they are famous. It's easy to get a bit wrapped up in the whole world of Facebook Fame and forget one tiny thing: It doesn't matter. Just because people "like" what you post on Facebook doesn't mean ANYTHING in your real life. It's great to have people like a photo or some meme you shared that 1,000 other people have shared too, but that really has nothing at all to do with you. Anyone can share a meme. Anyone can get likes for regurgitating something a thousand other people have already posted. So holy ballsack, people. It's ridiculous for anyone to let it all go to their head and think they are special and amazing.

Blogging and Facebooking can become an addiction. I had times where I would sit around with my nose in my computer or my iPhone, with such a hard-on for getting virtual attention, that I would forget what was going on around me. I had real life people around me who wanted to spend time with me but I was sucked into some BS internet world. That was me being an asshole. I've learned that my life as an internet goofball, while fun and entertaining, doesn't define me. If everyone unliked my page tomorrow, it would have absolutely zero effect on who I am as a person. Likewise, if a million people were to suddenly like me overnight, it would in no way change who I am inside. I'd be exactly the same person that I am now. Either way, the people who know me and who love me for real, would still be there if I had no page or blog. Those are the people who deserve my attention. In the very beginning of Facebookarama, I may have briefly lost sight of that. I have it back now, and it won't happen again.

Although I've met plenty of internet "friends" who turned out to be assholes, I've also met some who have turned out to be real life friends that I can trust and who I hope to know for a long time. You just have to learn to choose wisely and weed out the wankers. It can totally be done. You just have to be careful.

I have found that lots of the people I have gotten to know, and trust, and admire, are often people who also have blogs. I started as a blogger who got a Facebook page because a reader set it up for me and said "Here...now you have to write on it." I like to write little stories about my life, and luckily I discovered that I can also do that on Facebook. I like to think of my page as an opportunity to write mini-blogs. Or long-ass statuses. However you wanna look at it. But either way I am a storyteller, and my stories are about my real life stuff. Do I tell everything? No. I tell the funny stuff, because that's the stuff I choose to focus on and that's the tone of my page and blog. Does it mean that every day of my life is amazing? No way. But that's not what I choose to write about on a day to day basis, and it's not what I choose to share with thousands of people. But the pages that I love are the ones who tell the funny and the sad, and tell it well. Those are the ones that inspire me and have become my friends and are the ones that I trust. Pages like I Want a Dumpster Baby, The Klonopin Chronicles, Slice of Humble, It's Cool to be OCD, The Crumb Diaries, among others, as well as a few that are newer to me, like Mary Tyler Mom. These are the people that I find to be inspiring and truthful and doing it all for the right reasons. Not for money or internet fame. They write because they have to write. It's just who they are. People reading it and enjoying it is just icing on the cake. Because of them I've learned that finding "real" people in Facebooklandia is possible, and I like to think that I've also learned how to be a better person because of finding good people.

I sort of had an epiphany last year when I realized that the ridiculousness of what I do actually mattered to some people. I started getting more and more email from readers who were going through some really bad times. Job loss, illness, and the deaths of spouses, parents, and children. These people told me their stories and said that I made them laugh in the midst of whatever horrors they were going through. One woman thanked me for making her mother laugh while she was dying in hospice, and giving her the memory of her mom's laughter instead of her pain. Another woman told me that her young daughter had cancer, and they enjoyed reading my stories during hospital stays. She wrote me again yesterday and let me know that her daughter had passed away. Although I don't know these people in real life, I cried for them. Like, snot all over my shirt kinda cried. It humbles me to realize that my stupid little stories about The Cat and walking around Target with underwear stuck to my back -stories of absolutely no depth or purpose- can affect people deeply. Here I was, writing all this nonsense, only to find out that I was somehow a part of someone's last moments with their mother. Or part of a few final giggles with their daughter. This realization has not only changed the way that I think about everything that I do, but it's also literally changed me as a person. It's made me thankful that I am lucky enough to have not only my health, but my family's as well. It's made me hug a little tighter and kiss a little longer. I don't care how many people like my page or read my blogs. I would take the 2 stories I just shared with you over a million more readers, or any amount of money or fame, all day, every day.

Last year I started a Zazzle store to sell Mom-Brain stuff. People had been asking me to do this for awhile, but I didn't want to because it made me feel like an asshole. I didn't want to slap my name on something and ask people to give me money for it. Not that there's anything wrong with other people doing that, there's just something inside of me that could not do it. I didn't want to feel like I was making money off of the people who are kind enough to read what I write. So what I decided to do was to start a store and give the money to charity. I choose a different one each month, and when people buy my stuff, that's where the money goes. It's not an avalanche of cash or anything, but it's a decent amount, and it makes me feel okay with asking people to buy things if it's for a good cause. I also think it helps people feel good about themselves to know that they helped someone too. My hope is that in addition to raising a little bit of money and awareness for these causes, I can inspire people like so many have inspired me.

Hearing stories like the two I told above, and promoting charities, helps me feel like I have a purpose for what I do. I have more readers than I could have ever imagined, so why not use that exposure to do something good. It's not about me. It's about what positive things can I do to deserve having the attention of so many people. That's what I needed to justify taking time out of my real life to do what I was doing. A purpose. I have no desire to make money for myself, or become famous, or pump up my ego. There were points last year when I was disgusted with the whole catty and often mean-spirited Facebook thing, and even thought about shutting my page down. It's the amazing bloggers who inspire me, and the people who write to me and comment on my posts, and the discovery that I can do what I do and help people while doing it, that have kept me around, and even inspired me to attempt to write a book. It's discovering that telling my silly stories can bring positivity to someone else's life, or change the entire course of their day. It definitely goes both ways. Finding out that I made a stranger laugh can make my whole week better. I have realized that there are some really amazing people out there that I would like to know, and who feel like they already know me. People who let me into their lives every day, by taking the time to read about mine.

Each of you, whether it was good or bad, have taught me something in the last year. You are all, in your own ways, keeping me from becoming an asshole. And for that, I thank you. Even the assholes.

xoxo
Patti