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[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

But I-

There’s a great quote about allowing yourself the grace to change your mind when presented with new information. I have most likely butchered that quote or flowered it up a bit, both are my inclination. The thing is, the quote simplifies something that is nearly impossible to explain: change. 

Giant, unwavering, heavy as fuck, change. 

In late January, after President Biden was sworn into office and the travesty that was Donald Trump was relegated to the greener pastures of Florida to nurse his wounds, I stood in our dimly lit kitchen and watched my giant bear of a man have a breakdown. He is, through and through, a republican. He voted for Trump. He supported him through four years as best he could but what I didn’t fully recognize was the weight he shouldered. The snide comments everywhere. The generalizations. The assumptions. I watched him confess that he was exhausted and beaten down in a way that he neither deserved nor fully understood. Cruelty is like that though isn’t it? It’s such a simple slip of the tongue to deliver something cutting. So easy to watch something horrendous tumble out of your mouth and turn on your heel away from it, eschewing all responsibility for the fire you just set. And while you may not carry that meanness around with you, it’s target does. My husband had been carrying all of this nastiness around with him and I didn’t even realize how heavy it had become. 

The worst part? I was one of the guilty parties. In my abject hatred I had missed the effect that all of my shit-talking and ranting was having on the very person who packs my lunch in the morning and rubs my feet at night. I call him my favorite and in the same breath I attack his very core. 

Why did I think that was ok? 

This is where I blame someone else right? Social media or my feminist groups or whoever is closest would suffice but in this moment I need to take responsibility for hurting my husband. He didn’t vote for DT to ruin the world. He didn’t vote for him because he supports racism or sexism or any other isms for that matter. He saw change. He saw something different. He saw an opportunity to turn his back on career politicians that paid their way into the highest echelons, no matter how undeserving. And I get it. To an extent obviously, that abject hatred didn’t diffuse with the realization that my honey was hurting. But how I project it has changed. 

Look, I’ll never be able to run for office. I swear like its a contest with a million dollar prize. I run this mouth harder than track stars trying to qualify for the Olympics. And apologies, while a great notion, seem to get lost in my head somewhere with the other good ideas I trash in exchange for something witty and mean. I’ve been known to use the R-word. I’ve called people cunts to their face. I once punched an ex-boyfriend who made a nasty comment about my cleft lip. There is no delicate flower here, just razor wire and jabs. 

But maybe that’s the problem. 

You know how people say that negative reviews are easier to write than positive ones? I feel like that applies here. It’s easier to be mean. It’s simpler to generalize and shrug people off as uneducated or racist. (Someday we will have to talk about how lazy the use of the word “racist” has gotten.) But you know what’s hard? Talking to them. Sitting down and truly taking the time to understand where they are coming from. We live in such a world of snippets. Short little blurbs on Twitter. Misleading headlines in the news. Instagram memes with barely enough information to even explain the situation. And it’s made us lazy. It’s made us cruel. We’ve taken the opportunity to simplify intensely complicated situations and it is to our detriment as humans. 

Some of my favorite people are republicans and for every post I made calling them ignorant or stupid or whatever obligatory savagery, the truth is that I didn’t even consider them. It never even occurred to me that they might read that and take it personally. And that, at the end of the day, is unacceptable. But before you start listing off reasons why voting for DT was (insert negative adjective here) remember that we don’t get to vote for people that we support a hundred percent. We don’t have the luxury of picking pieces from the boxes we prioritize and putting together a candidate we dreamed of. We choose the turd burrito or the shit sandwich and if you think that either candidate is that much better than the other, you are seriously kidding yourself. 

Now, since this is already longer than I like these to be, I am going to wrap up with the promise of follow-up posts. What I wanted to get across is the fact that I am in the midst of some real soul-searching (don’t block me, I fully realize how annoying that term is). And maybe it’s because DT is out of office. Or maybe it’s because when the tables were turned I couldn’t stand the heat. But the most likely answer is that when you are ferocious enough to make your husband that upset, you change. You don’t point fingers. You don’t play the blame game. You make sure you are never the cause of those sagging shoulders again. No one should feel that way about someone they voted for. They are not responsible for that person’s actions nor should they be held accountable as such. 

Because doing so isn’t just lazy. It’s cruel. And isn’t that what we were railing against in the first place?

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

Simply beautiful. 

life cleansing tips:

- delete conversations between people you no longer talk to. its healthy to let go of the past and not letting yourself dwell on things.

- say kind things about people you like. say good things about yourself. don’t speak or think about people you don’t like.

- look in mirrors. you shouldn’t be afraid of facing yourself.

- clean sheets make clean sleep make clean minds

- allow yourself time to feel and grow. don’t be too hard on yourself for crying, you need to vent in order to move on to better times. even rainy days work towards sunny days.

- if things don’t work out, stop forcing them. there’s no reason for you to keep working and failing if there’s other places/people for you to excel and be happy.

- kiss your body, caress your body. make yourself feel loved.

- running away doesn’t always solve everything. sometimes, the reason that made you run will still be with you. focus on freeing yourself before starting anew.

- a glass of water and a good nights rest can go a long way

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

Oddly apropos. If only such a treatise existed. 

A treatise of direction, how to travell safely and profitably into forraigne countries Thomas Neale London Printed for Humphrey Robinson 1643

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

Deep Dives

When we talk about rock bottom it’s never a deep dive into it; it’s a slow trudge through fish hooks, each one catching and pulling you in another direction. There’s no giant moment of disaster, no massive explosion or injustice, just a series of small fuck-ups that eventually pull you into pieces. You may not even realize it until too much of you is gone to stitch everything back up again. And you stand there, holding the pieces in your palm and wondering how to explain all of the micro-transgressions that caused the small pile of you that you worry over now. 

It’s amazing how something can diminish you. How a place, a person, even a job, can whittle away at you until there’s hardly anything recognizable. A year later and things still pull at me like loose threads on a sweater: friendships rocked, connections severed, and faint hints of fictions sold as fact. I worry. I worry that my wholly ridiculous experience down here has sullied everything I touch. My very few friendships I made have shifted, my word seems to carry little to no weight, and I’ve lost respect...for myself. I can smell the insecurity on my skin, feel it in the air around me. It’s replaced the arrogance I used to carry, one side of the spectrum to the next I suppose, moderation has never been my strength. 

This place has never felt like my home. After the storm I did my best to help rebuild, redesign, redecorate our space into something that felt like my own but it is hardly helpful to fix a car when you’re in the middle of an ocean. People don’t seem to fully recognize the pulse of different cities, the flow of their culture and the underlying current of their people. I never could quite merge my own with this one and I constantly feel like I’m fighting waves when I try. Nothing feels natural or easy, everything is calculated and difficult to predict so I feel consistently uncomfortable and generally anxious.  

Decisions are heading this way. Big, nasty, uncomfortable decisions. I can feel them in the air, pushing harder now against my resolve to ignore them. They cannot wait for me to slowly come to any semi-conclusions. They scream for me to choose, to decide. I’m not there yet and they know it but I know they won’t wait much longer. As I drag my feet they stir up everything around me in an attempt to force my hand. 

And I just sit here and let the hooks pull at me because although the pain is unfathomable, the alternative ends so many things with no promise of starting anything at all. 

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

Warren’s History Month

I watched Elizabeth Warren suspend her presidential campaign this morning and cried in my coffee. She stood in front of her home in Massachusetts in her puffy purple Patagonia jacket and faced the music, all soft smiles and stubborn positivity. She was gracious and patient because she had to be. If she screamed about the establishment, spittle hanging from her lips and her face red with emotion, they’d crucify her. Never mind that that exact performance is the one Bernie acts out every time he speaks to a group, all arms flailing and fantastic promises that no president can deliver on. If Elizabeth had shown even a fraction of raw emotion, she’d be TOO emotional, unhinged, unsuited for the presidency.  

Ahhhh the benefits of a penis. 

But she stood unwaveringly thoughtful, unfailingly kind, and answered inane questions while her husband stood right behind her holding Bailey’s leash quietly. The same reporters that ignored Elizabeth, gave her half the credit for twice the work, and relegated her campaign to a lost cause based on her gender asked repeatedly for her endorsement of the remaining candidates. 

Let’s unpack that. Elizabeth Warren was resigning from her historic campaign and all the media wanted to talk about was the men still in it. 

The irony is lost on no one able to string a coherent sentence together. Just this morning I had the pleasure {sarcasm} of receiving a few mansplaining comments on a post where I indicated that the sexist system failed her, but the odds that that same bro will see the irony in his behavior is slim to none. It doesn’t matter. She’s a girl. She tried and it was cute but on to the men. 

People are going to tell me that I am being ridiculous. So angry. Angry feminist. Don’t you post anything positive? Cheer up. Smile. It doesn’t matter. Who cares? Why get so upset over politics? Feel the Bern. Biden is the clear choice. Stop acting like rich white men are a bad thing. 

But they are a bad thing. Since the beginning of time they’ve been the bullies. The system that they created is inherently biased towards anyone but members of the good old boys club. Women have had to claw our rights from them, fight them for recognition, sue them for fairness, and we still have yet to reach an equal playing field. They still win even when they hardly deserve it. They still show up even when they aren’t qualified. There’s no shame, no accountability, just a massive amount of hubris. Trump bullied his way into the White House then bullied his way into the only republican candidate for 2020. He pretty much bullies his way around the world, a giant orange blob of entitlement and toxic masculinity and yet he still has supporters spanning the globe. And the others? Bloomberg tried to buy his way in and Biden has done the same, just more absent-mindedly. And Bernie? He’s shouted his way in, shoving past more moderate, realistic options based on his bank account. Don’t tell me these rich white men aren’t bad. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten Biden’s involvement in trashing Anita Hill and revoking her right to be heard and believed. Don’t tell me you forgot that Bernie said that a woman could never beat Trump. Don’t tell me you can’t recall all of the times that Trump has made disparaging remarks to and about women.

If our leaders don’t even respect us, how can we expect them to protect us and pass legislation that is fair and beneficial to us all?  

The thing is, this country has a sexism problem. It’s how the word “feminist” got a negative connotation. How “like a girl” became a dig. How “girlie” and “sissy” and “effeminate” all became synonymous with “less than.” Don’t tell me we are equal when people still use us as examples of subhumans. Don’t tell me not to be angry when screaming, wailing sexual predators are put on the Supreme Court and others are elected to the presidency. 

Elizabeth Warren had plans. She figured things out. She prepared twice as hard because she knew the onus would be on her to produce. Even though she was highly qualified, well-spoken, and fantastically suited for it, she knew that this country would come for her. Or worse, that they would simply ignore her. She wiped the floor with the white-haired penis brigade at debates. Called out their sexism. Drew attention to the very little preparation they had put in. She knew that they would show up because they felt entitled to the position. She showed up because she knew she could make an actual difference. 

I don’t want to vote for men who don’t care about women. I don’t want to vote for yet another human who has no fucking clue what we go through, how hard we fight, and how much we shoulder. I don’t want to support billionaires pushing 80 with god-complexes. I want a woman. I want someone who understands us and will support us and wants to make the world a more equitable place for everyone. 

I wanted Elizabeth. And before her I wanted Kamala. And before her I wanted Hillary. 

I will always vote for women because the history of men speaks for itself. And is still speaking to us. Every time someone says “a woman can’t win” just strengthens my resolve. Every time someone tells me a female is a “bad candidate” and then votes for Trump in the same breath, I grow more empowered. These flames don’t get smaller as you throw gasoline at us. They get bigger and stronger.  

Thank you so much Elizabeth Warren, for your resolve. Thank you for your passion and your grit and your humor. Thank you for singlehandedly murdering Bloomberg in a public forum. Thank you for making little girls pinkie swear to run for office someday. Thank you for being gracious and thoughtful and insanely smart. But most importantly, thank you for paving the road just a little further for the next woman. Because she is most assuredly coming. If we have learned anything from our history, it is that we have to violently fight for the things we deserve. And we will. Someday we will elect our first female president and everything you have done will be a part of her story. 

You’ll forever be a part of mine. 

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

For your reading enjoyment. Is there anything better than BA? I doubt it. 

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

The Things We Do

It’s Women’s History Month and I am spending the day thinking about women. Well...what I’m actually doing is watching Salt Fat Acid Heat on Netflix with Samin Nosrat and wondering about the choices we make versus the ones we allow ourselves to be pushed into. Why our passions don’t always fuel us, why we turn away from them. How do we get to places we never really wanted to be?

I think the easy answer is fear. We worry that our loves won’t make us money, won’t make us successful (whatever that means), that it’s somehow not acceptable on some level. We turn away from things that truly make our souls sing to comply with industry standards...be a part of something we aren’t even sure we belong to. It’s a strange mentality really, everyone trying desperately to play a game when they aren’t even sure what the prize is for winning. Or if they even want it. The cost however is astronomical, sometimes charging us our entire being, something bright and beautiful that we cover with layer upon layer of things other people want “for us.” Drowning that sparkling thing with dark sheets that render us unrecognizable from everyone else’s pile of dreams covered in conformity. It’s convoluted and messy and contrary to our nature, so why do we do it?  

Samin is mixing pesto with a mortar and pestle and it’s quite possibly one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen and I’m wondering why we make things so complicated. 

What is most striking and endearing about Samin is that she doesn’t fit any traditional boxes. Her heritage, her look, her voice....all things the modern day television star isn’t supposed to be. She chuckles heartily, immersed completely in whatever or whoever is in front of her, cameras be damned. She’s authentic and darling and licking pork fat off her fingers with the same enthusiasm that I have when my coffeemaker starts spitting out espresso in the morning. She’s your best friend, your wine date, your own personal foodie but in an approachable, endearing way. She is absolutely stoked in her situation, filled with screen-traveling elation that you can practically smell. 

I think we do ourselves a disservice when we eschew the things we truly love to do the things we think we “have to.” If you don’t follow your bliss, what are you doing? 

Now she’s crying over Parmesan cheese. I love her. 

I was a physics major when I began my university experience. I was good at it, a weird niche that I excelled at and that seemed to bring me all sorts of attention from my classmates. I tutored and consoled and did my best to explain how I figured out our homework so quickly but in reality, my brain was just wired properly for it. Sometimes I couldn’t even explain how I figured things out, I just knew. But I hated it. It wasn’t fun or exciting, I just liked being the best at something. As I moved through the years at my university, the classes became smaller and the competition stiffened. Suddenly my little parlor trick was a threat to those around me vying for academic roles and scholarships they considered me to be hoarding. And I was usually the only woman. And not in a fun Big Bang Theory kind of way, but in a semi-sexist hateful way. Chosen last for group projects, ignored in class, and left out of study groups, I started to realize that this talent I had was making me both wildly unhappy and unpopular. Not that it had ever been particularly giggle-inducing, but the whole fiasco was coming to a head. 

One afternoon, sitting outside the art building and waiting for my elective Art History class to begin, I found myself searching for famous works of art around the world. I had started a list of things I wanted to see and where they were in the world, a sort of impressionistic bucket list that required me to leave Texas, an idea that appealed to me greatly. Suddenly I paused. I was gripping my coffee cup so tightly and grinning so hard that a girl walking by had smiled ever-so-slightly at me, tipping her head to the side and probably wondering what on earth had me so worked up. I was....elated. In that moment, I was so excited about something that I couldn’t contain it and it was the first time it had happened in so long that I was somewhat floored by the feeling. If I hadn’t noticed her noticing me, the moment might have passed me by altogether. 

I changed majors immediately. 

Well, I say immediately but at a giant state school infatuated with red tape and protocol, it took me a few weeks. But I did it. My studies became something new, something I loved. I wasn’t the most knowledgable in my new field, but I was definitely passionate. I looked forward to choosing my schedule and I began volunteering at the local history center and ultimately became a docent at the museum on campus. That museum quickly became my happy place. But somewhere in between graduating and applying for my first big girl job, I got caught up in things and ended up in an administrative position for a department on campus.  A great job with great people doing great things, something I felt fulfilled by in a way. But ever since I took that turn, I’ve lost something. I can’t quite put my finger on it, it’s not visible or noticeable, just not quite right. 

Samin just dove into a salt-sprinkled ice cream cone in Japan with the enthusiasm of a child on a sweltering summer day next to the ice cream truck. She’s standing in a beautiful little store surrounded by barrels of salt, some strong and fine, others mild and coarse, all topped with delicate wooden scoops. Her curls are shiny and tucked behind her ear carefully, no curls allowed to ruin her ice cream moment. 

I think we place too much weight on the word “happy.” I don’t think it’s something you can actively strive for as all the self-help books shout at us. I think it’s more simple than that. I think it’s actually stopping to recognize a special moment, an item that makes you smile without you really even knowing it. Mindfulness maybe? 

The point is, ever since I turned from the things that made me the most happy: museums and art and writing and creativity, I’ve noticed a struggle that I couldn’t quite identify. I felt this immense pressure to do something “smart”, take a job that “makes sense”, and I don’t think either of those things were actually true. What makes the most sense and seems the most intelligent is for me to do what makes me content, what makes my heart flutter and race. 

They say that if you do what you love you’ll never work a day in your life. Then why do we constantly allow ourselves to be bullied into jobs we don’t want or careers that don’t feed off our passion? Do we actually value those things or are we just saying one thing and doing another?

As I watch Samin at 40 years of age navigate the culinary world without shedding a scrap of herself, I am realizing that I simply listened to the wrong person. There are plenty of people in the world doing what they love and encouraging us to do the same, we just missed it. The beautiful thing that I’ve learned from this whole thing is that it’s never too late. The idea that we are locked into anything is utter nonsense. I know that at the age of 36 the whole world is still out there for me to explore, it’s not suddenly revoked once you hit your 20s. That realization makes me both incredibly hopeful and fantastically excited. It’s not over y’all, it’s only just beginning. 

So here’s to Samin, to her passion, to her knowledge, to her influence. To encouraging me to turn away from that which doesn’t make me truly elated. I think we should all agree that if something doesn’t make you “Samin-with-pork-fat” happy, get rid of it. 

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

0/10  Do not Recommend

I can't recommend Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi as a place of work. Source of higher education? Sure. But employer? No. And not because there aren't wonderful people there actively trying to make a difference or change the world, but because the administration does not value nor protect its staff. 

I've been in the midst of a 3 month process with the university following threats of termination for filing complaints for verbal abuse by one of my supervisors. The history of such is well-documented and experienced by many of my coworkers although how many actually admitted to such during the investigation seems to be contested. Either everyone kept mum or their voices were ignored, both indicative of a hostile work environment. The man threatening to fire whistleblowers is an associate dean and apparently beyond reproach, something that universities in this day and age should know better than to encourage but this one has not. Usually this sort of lesson manifests itself in an ugly media battle far past the point of return with the university scrambling to excuse a series of inexcusable behaviors. 

The irony of a place of education failing to learn from other's mistakes should be lost on no one. 

I want this to be more informative than anything else but I also want people to understand the importance of speaking up. The idea that "someone else will do something" or that being patient will result in something changing is both highly delusional and an excuse to avoid making any actual move against people actively trying to hurt you. It is our responsibility as humans to stand up for not only ourselves, but others as well. 

I left my job in July under extreme duress and have spent some time enjoying myself and dealing with this ridiculous process. It's been both a giant relief and endlessly frustrating. I knew large institutions would circle their wagons to protect their own but I don't think I actually expected them to protect someone guilty of something so blatantly illegal. People like him hardly strike once and now emboldened by the ease with which he escaped any repercussions, I am sure he will act out again, and when he does I am happy to come forth and tell my story as support to the person who will have to experience his disdain for people who stand up for themselves.  

So, the morale of the story is to always speak up. You may not win and things may not change on the surface, but they will eventually. Keeping quiet propagates a culture of silence that allows horrible people in power to flourish and the people beneath them to suffer. 

Please, SPEAK UP. 

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

Carrie is never not a mood. 

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

Later, Nerds

I am unemployed. 

And I have been for three weeks. 

In a fit of frustration and self-preservation, I put my notice in a week after my 75-year-old boss laughed at me in a meeting when I asked her to treat me like a professional. Her response was, “who the hell do you think you are?” 

I AM 100% THAT BITCH is what I should have said but in all honesty I was floored by her response and I think I mostly gaped at her while my mind went a thousand miles a minute, reenacting the RHONJ scene with the table flipping. She rambled on in her frazzled and unapologetically crazy way and my mind reeled. What the fuck am I doing? And why? I literally couldn’t come up with any valid answers, everything was an excuse and everything felt like cowardice. I was choosing to stay for reasons that I knew were bad. I could smell them all over me, making me jump at my own shadow and doubt my self-worth. I had allowed the negativity of that job to smother me and it was time to step out of it.  

A week later I put in my notice.  

And I couldn’t be happier. 

She never said another word to me. After sticking through a Title IX investigation, countless complaints, and a towering stack of bullshit that you only see illustrated in Shel Silverstein books, I had finally hit my limit and expecting an apology or even an acknowledgement of her bad behavior was as delusional as expecting answers from this Epstein saga. 

So I left. I strolled on out without another job, only a semblance of a plan, and the confidence that my decision was going to save my sanity. And I was right. Three weeks into my freedom and I feel like a completely different person. 

It’s amazing what happens when you leave an abusive relationship and can breathe again. It’s wonderful when the dark cloud moves and you realize there was sunshine there all along. 

And yeah, the sunshine has always been there. ‘Cause it was me the whole time.  

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]

A letter to my 12-year-old self

Oh baby girl, 

I know you are angry. I know you can’t even explain why or how or who with. You’ve spent the day outside standing next to the tree in the yard with Rosie and still you look ready to set the world on fire. Mama and daddy have no idea what to do with you and it’s not your fault. Say it with me my love, IT IS NOT MY FAULT. 

Very soon you’re going to have to go away to a new place so everyone can heal. It’s going to be awful and you’re going to try to do something very scary to us, but don’t worry honey, you won’t succeed. You’re going to wake up in the hospital and be more disappointed than anyone should be who has survived something. That’s ok too. As it turns out, this is going to be a pivotal moment for us. Our houseparents are going to have to watch you more closely, which means you are going to have to get to know them better. And you do. And you love them and they love you. This encourages you to work harder in therapy, be kinder to yourself, and make amends with your real family. You won’t have to be gone long, just promise me you’ll work hard and be kind to Dr. Frazier. He’s going to save our little family. 

Something that people may tell you (I’m not sure if they do or not, we are a terrible listener) is that this age is supposed to be hard. And it is, that’s not a lie to make you feel better. But for us, this age is especially hard and you have to remember to be kind to us. We are doing the best we can. And your brothers don’t hate you, they are dying for you to come home and play with them. I know you think they’ll never love you again because you’re so broken but oh how they do. And they will forever. Someday you’ll be sitting in a room with them all grown up and want to cry in relief that you didn’t fuck it all up.  

The home where you are is a weird place but I want you to be mindful of the girls around you. You, my love, have to remember that the cruelty they have endured and the lives they are living are not the same as you. Be kind to them. This is the age of unabashed shittiness but resist the urge to be mean. Their parents are not coming back to get them. Their therapists aren’t sure if they’ll ever heal properly. They deserve love, not spite.

Now for mama. You and her have gone rounds for too long. You can’t even explain why you fight with her and to be honest, you’ll never be able to. Even as I sit here writing you I don’t understand why we fought the way we did. Years later our therapist is going to tell us that we have a form of PTSD from all of the surgeries we’ve had from such a young age and that our frustration was funneled to our mama as the only person we thought we could torture who would still love us. She is tired and she wants things to be better, she didn’t leave you here to make things easier or to make the family happier. She is not abandoning you and neither is daddy. They’re going to come see you as often as they are allowed and this time is going to pass very quickly, although it may not seem like it now. 

This is the first of three very difficult times in our life. I don’t want to scare you by telling you this, but you are going to go through worse, and come out just fine. As it turns out, we are not just smart and stubborn, but also clever and resilient. This all begins to take shape about now so don’t be scared, this is going to have the happiest of endings. I still can’t believe that we get exactly what we wanted after doing exactly what we feared the most.  

Hug daddy for me, will you?

Love, Me  

[mybunnyliesovertheocean]