On Labels and Identity

With National Coming Out Day just passing, I've been thinking a lot about labels. This is probably helped by the fact that I've read quite a few blogs, status updates and what-have-you that have talked about people's experiences in regards to coming out - and the comments these revelations have inspired.

I'm bisexual. I think that I've always known this, although I didn't actually come out until I was 16. It has now been over a decade since that happened and, while the actual experience of coming out was not a good one, I am very happy to be able to feel like I don't have to hide who I am from the people who are close to me.  This is not to say that everyone I tell handles the information with maturity and respect (although I have found that the percentage of people who take the news poorly has gotten significantly less the older I get), but I no longer fear telling people and am firm in the belief that anyone who would use this as a reason to not be my friend is not a friend I would want anyway.

On Breakups and Betrayals

As any who read this blog will already know, I am very recently divorced. For all the gory details on that particular breakup, you can see this post here. This post is not about that. Well, at least not directly, anyway.

This particular post is about friendships. Throughout my life friendships have always been something that I've struggled with, both to acquire and maintain. It will probably come as quite a shock to anyone who knows me - both in real life and on the internet - that I'm actually pretty shy and get easily freaked out when I'm in a group of people I don't know.  I work to hide this by going overboard and being outgoing and social and gregarious, but it's all an act. Internally I'm usually pretty spazzed that I'm stuck in a place, talking to people I don't know anything about. This might become apparent to people at some point in the friendship, as once I begin to be comfortable with people I let down my guard and instead of being Ultra Social Butterfly Girl I revert to my more mundane personality. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, I just know that this is what happens.

Religion, Politics and Other Topics Not For Polite Company

For any who don't know (but, really, you all should at this point), I enjoy debate.  I like to talk about controversial subjects that most other people shy away from.  I have a lot of opinions on various topics and, in addition to sharing them with others, I like to hear what opinions other people have on these issues.  I think that I kind of take it for granted that 1) everyone else has an opinion on whatever I want to talk about and 2) that everyone I talk to on even a semi-regular basis has the capacity to handle any subject in a mature manner.

This is not always the case, unfortunately.  Occasionally I drastically underestimate the capacity for humans to be snarky and/or generally horrid to other humans of differing opinions.  Yet I still feel, deep down, that somehow if you just talk to each other there has to be a way to come to a place where you can both, if not agree, at least respect each other's opinions enough to not be jerks about it.

Experiments in the Kitchen - Party Food!

It all started last Wednesday at about 4 in the morning. We were standing outside the Waffle House (which is where a group of my friends and I go after dancing at a local club) and one of our friends said "We should have a coloring party tomorrow!"

Some plans for this were bandied about, people offering to bring this or that. At that time of the morning, it sounded like an awesome idea! The next afternoon, however, it was realized that the timing was just too short. Thus the party was postponed until Saturday.

One of my friends, at whose house we were having this shindig, asked me for advice on what to do about food. I helpfully offered some suggestions. I was probably a bit more helpful than was practical. She replied back "So... Chips and salsa?" I smiled and offered to whip somethings together, secretly jumping for joy at an excuse to really cut loose in the kitchen.

A Confession about Craziness

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm at least a little bit insane. I've always tried to feel okay about this by rationalizing it to myself in a multitude of ways.

• Everyone's a little bit crazy - the only people who are truly insane are the one's who say they're sane
• I tend to keep my crazy to myself and not spew it all over everyone, so I'm not impacting others and therefore my crazy is okay
• I warn other people that I'm crazy upfront, and therefore they have no right to be annoyed with me later when it turns out I wasn't lying to them about it
• I can function and therefore my crazy is okay
• My craziness is actually useful in many situations and so does it really count as crazy anymore?

In listing these things out - which is forcing me to think a lot more carefully about myself than I am typically wont to do - I realize that perhaps I might be a bit more crazy than is good for me. However, even this realization is not going to overpower my real and deep fear of being crazy and of psychologists in general enough to have me seek out someone who will give me little pills to help me "cope" so I suppose I shall just settle for writing a blog post about it instead.

Experiment in Blogging - You Can Get Paid For This?

In light of doing the product reviews here on the blog (and because I saw a site that offered this) I thought that perhaps I wouldn't mind discussing products and services. I would especially not mind it if I could get paid for reviewing said products and services. So I'm going to give it a whirl.

Every time I'm writing a sponsored entry, I'll let you know. I do not intend, in anyway, to pander to someone just because they offer me money. I will give a fair and honest review of any product or service that asks me to - even if that means that this experiment ends up failing because I'm too honest and no one wants to pay me for it.
To prove that I actually own this blog, the site which hooks up advertisers and bloggers (PayPerPost.com) has requested that I make a post with the following code phrase: A great euphonious in every box

Well, now that I have done that, let's see what advertisers out there are actually willing to have someone honestly review their product/service!

Experiment in Blogging - Reviews and Life

So, I've decided to do two things here and I felt the need to share them.

The first is that I'm going to shake up the blog a little bit. I find that there are things that I want to blog about that have very little "experiment" to them, so I think that, while I'll still write about the cooking and crafting experiments I do (and whether or not they fail miserably) I'll also have entries about random life occurrences, or random thoughts that I have that I think are interesting and want to share.

The second thing I'm going to do - which you may have extrapolated from the title of this entry - I am going to begin doing reviews. This is not as random as it seems... well, okay, it's pretty random but I wasn't the one who started it! See, one of the metaphysical book publishers that I follow on Twitter (Weiser Books) advertised a bit ago that one of their partners was offering free items to people willing to do blog reviews of them. Naturally, the idea of free stuff in a realm that I'm obviously interested in made me says "Yes, please!" immediately.

Apparently I should have looked a bit closer into who was offering, or what was being offered. I have eagerly awaited the arrival of the items - which I assumed would be of some metaphysical nature - for a couple weeks. Then, on Saturday, I went out to check the mail and there was a package. Yay! I grabbed it, ran into my bedroom and ripped it open. Inside were books! I like books! This was a good sign. Then I started reading the titles. Apparently, the partner publishes romance books. I now have a stack of four lit-porn titles sitting on my nightstand. I started cracking up laughing.

All of the books seem to have a supernatural bent to the, so that's pretty awesome. I have read plenty of lit-porn before, so it's not like it's going to offend me (I mean, come on, I read Anita Blake and Kushiel's and was fine). It was just a bit shocking to be expecting some thing deep and metaphysical and receive... porn. I haven't started them at this point, but I likely will sometime this week. And then I'll post my review of them here!

So, that's the entirety of the changes. I figured that you (all ... *looks* 3 of you!) that follow my blog deserved to know that it's going to get shaken up a bit.

Experiment in the Kitchen - Turkey Chili / Cornbread and Gluten / Strawberry Shortcake

Back to your regularly scheduled blog (yay!). Wait... this blog isn't regular, nor scheduled... hrm. Well, anyway, to the point: back to experimenting! Yay!

As I type to you I am conducting an experiment in my kitchen. It is sizzling away on my stove. This experiment is chili! Wait, that's not the exciting part! The exciting part is that I'm taking my beloved chili recipe and allowing my boyfriend to make a modification to it. Anyone who knows me realizes this is a huge step for me. I mean, I really really don't like to give any kind of control in my life to anyone (can we say OCD much?) (also, shhhh! I'm talking about life not... oh, nevermind) so the very fact that I was willing to try his suggestion is a big step forward for me.

Well, at least a medium step forward since I'm already worried that said experiment is going to fail and the meat isn't even done browning yet. Wait, what's that? Didn't I tell you what the experiment was? Oh, I only said chili. Well then, I shall tell you! I am substituting the regular ground beef for... wait for it... ground turkey! (Queue dramatic music here) What do you mean that's not exciting? Well it is to me, so shhh!

Experiment in Blogging - Being an Adult

I've been doing a lot of thinking about being grown-up lately and what, exactly, that means. This introspection was originally sparked by this very amusing, and accurate, blog post. If you haven't read it yet, go do so, and then you can relate when I say that this woman nailed me to a freaking T. That is my cycle exactly, and the graph at the top is a testament to the level of successfulness that I experience in my daily life.
So, what does it mean to be an adult? Certainly there are upsides, like being able to eat ice cream at any point in the day just because I want a damned ice cream! Or being able to stay up until 3 o'clock in the morning - even if I know I'm going to be paying for it the next day. Being an adult also means having responsibilities that you know you can't really put off or give to someone else, like getting in the rent check on time or going to the grocery store.

Experiment in Life - Divorce and Single Parenting

Apparently it has been nearly a year since I sat down here to write. It isn't that I haven't had anything to write about, goodness knows, but more that I've been dealing with life in general to the point of not even thinking about sitting down. This means that you (whomever is reading this) get a recap blog before I even actually write about what drove me to sit here right now in the first place! Yay! Right? *listens to crickets* Well, anyway, moving on!

Let's jump right in this with the major change in my life: I am no longer married. For any reading who already know the whole story, sorry because you know I'm going to recap it all right here anyway. Just bear with me and go get a cookie or something.