The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I bet ya the first thing you thought of when you saw this blog title was the theme music to the movie? Wshooy-wshooy hooooo ...  whaaa, whaaa, whaaa. Good luck getting that one out of your head! I mean how bad ass is Clint Eastwood? I remember watching this movie as a kid. Being deer in headlights, head cocked, snow-show sound in the backgroung, confused as all hell, trying to figure out why they called it a Spagheti Western when not one damn scene had anything to do with pasta! My father, who schooled me in all the great classics of westerns including but not limited to: True Grit SIDENOTE: The original was wayy better. Just sayin', Rio Bravo, A Mule for Sister Sara, and of course Animal House. Oh, wait, that's not a western, Damn it!, Oh? Ha! McLintock! That's one, There, redeemed myself! Anyway, he explained it had nothing to do with fine Italian cusine rather they filmed them in Italy. Um, ok? Regardless of confusing a poor child, Clint Eastwood is still a bad ass, and that movie still kicks ass! And so does the song.

Being a widow I have had my share of the good, the bad, and the *gasp!* ugly. Good people, bad people and ugly people. I often ponder, why in the hell are there bad and ugly people in this world? Why the fuck do we need them? And why doesn't the good out way the bad? I mean doesn't good always win?

After months of soul searching, I had an apostrophe ... lightning struck my brain ... and yea, it hurt. The reason why we have bad is to recognize good; ugly to recognize beauty. My second question is why I have to be right in the middle of it? I mean every day I have to deal with someone's pissy attitude, douch-baggy actions, or (my favorite) dirty looks. Its like really people, are we 4? Many times I think - or mumble quietly to my self, but not quietly enough that people in close proximity can't hear what I'm saying, "who pissed in your Cheeri-o's this morning". Usually I get a laugh, a "right?", or a dirty look when the person I said it about hears me. Will that make them have a better day? No, its just funny. And here is my rant on dirty looks: I'm honored you think so highly of me to stare at me, cuz, yea, I know I'm hot, and thank you for recognizing that fact, oh and WTF is wrong with your face? Its all wrinkly, squinty eyed & shit. Maybe you should get that checked out.

So how does one be the good ... and not the bad or the ugly?  Kill them with kindness. Nothing pisses off an angry person more then when your niceness becomes exponenitally greater as their pissiness increases. SIDENOTE: I think Graph Jam has a graph about that. Its real pretty, a line graph, created by someone who probably had solitire taken of their work PC, and playing around in Excel is their only happy time now. Umm, yea, guilty. I work mostly in bar graphs & pie charts. Hey, its good practice for when I can actually use it in a professional environment. Yay, G33KS! 

So what if there are certain people who really chap your ass and you'd rather drive nails up your nose then waste an ounce of niceness on them? You know the ones you have to see everyday, or run into all the time, or you cringe when you have to communicate with them (since face-to-fate is their only open line of communication now because you have blocked them from your phone, on facebook, twiter, and set up automatic replies to their emails with some random, smart-assy comments about being on Mars, or deep in negotiations with NASA over having mastered teleportation. I usually set up a filter to go right to spam (thank you gmail, for not allowing your users to block people. FB & twitter let me do it ... get with the times!) Well, I didn't have the answer so I asked the all knowing oracle ... Facebook! I have great peeps who give awesome advice. Some of the comments I received are blow it off, you rock, don't allow lower energies to invade the positive energy you have worked so hard to attain, be the better person, pretend it doesn't bother you, don't lower your standards. What great advice. Maybe I should follow it. I know! I know! I will rock by blowing it off using all my positive energy to not let it bother me while maintaining my high standards because I am the better person ... yea, didn't help ... I still want to smack the living shit out of them! Maybe I can recruit Clint Eastwood to get the bad and the ugly out my good??????

Yea, I didn't think so. Gotta do this one on your own, Nikki. *sigh* I have some more work to do.

Disclaimer: There may be gramer/spelling/things that don't make sense in this post ... Its late and I'm tired. Deal with it. :)

Madame (social) Butterfly

Ok, to my culturally savvy readers: I realize Madame Butterfly is about a Japanese geisha, contractually married as part of a living arrangement - i.e. she came with the house - to an American military man who didn't really have feelings for her (but yet he managed to get her knocked up? Opportunity much? Pfft!), only to leave her for his "military obligation", yet she had such feelings for him she was willing and able to give up her identity, everything about herself and her life she had ever known just to live in his world, and here the damn fool shows up one day, out of the blue, years later, with an American wife, so she committed seppuku à la hara-kiri as she would rather die with honor then live in shame. Wow! Kinda ... sounds... familiar ... hummm. But, in my defense: 1.) I am not Japanese, 2.) I'm not a geisha, 3.) I have no plans of giving up who I am to impress any man and live in his world, 4.) I have no plans of getting either contractually married for living arrangement reasons or knocked up, and 5.) hara-kiri? OUCH!!! So, my blog title is merely a play on words used for emphasis purposes only. With that said, who wants to take me to got see this opera? Its playing next month! ... On Valentine's Day ... what a romantic Valentine's Day present ...

Kane and I had a thing about butterflies. Flutter-bys we called them. If I was zoning out, which I did quite often, still do akshully ... he'd say, "you chasing butterflies, babies?" and when I snapped out of my daze with a confused look and a questioning 'huh', he'd kiss me on the forehead, pat me on the head, and say, "nod and smile, babies, nod and smile".

When someone would go down at the track, or if one of our friends told a story about crashing, our first words were always 'chasing butterflies, eh?'  In which their response would be a shameful 'yea'. In fact, butterflies meant so much to me that after I got my first tattoo, I thought about getting a butterfly to accompany it. Course, I could never find a picture I liked of a blue butterfly cuz you know, how hard is that people!?!?! and hell-ta-tha-no! I'm not going to go through all that pain, almost pass out and/or hurf, for a permanent something on my body that's not perfect. Humm, note to self, find someone who is an amazing artist to draw one up for me. SIDENOTE: Tattoo etiquette #1: NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! go into an ink shop without a picture, or a fucking good idea of what you want. They will think you are a dumbass and will talk shit behind your back. Oh, and stay away from the flash. Picking flash is an instant, top 5 spot in the you-are-a-moron category. Think about it, unless you can fluently read Japanese, you'll never know what that Kanji really means ... sure, it may look pretty, but do you really want to sport "Fucknut", "Stupid", or "I like cock" on your forearm/back/boob/tramp stamp for the rest of your life? Yea, I didn't think so.

Right after Kane died I was sitting outside one morning. Trying to escape the world with a cuppa and a smoke. It didn't work so well as I was bawling my eyes out, hyperventilating due to the gut wrenching sobs coming from an area so deep inside my body I had no idea it existed. I'm sure my neighbors thought I was a nut job. So I'm sitting there, and I hear this fluttering by my ear then a flash of golds, oranges, and yellows. Now, I have no idea how this beautiful, Monarch butterfly 1.) did mach 4 past my head, 2.) hovered in the same place for more then a second, and 3.) was surviving in the hotter-than-hell June day - but I don't question things anymore, I have faith - only to land on one of my Snap Dragons and watch me as I composed myself to stare at him in awe. He sat there for a good 2 minutes, just looking at me. I knew instantly it was Kane. He was sending me flutter-bys from the great beyond, to comfort me, to let me know he's with me, and to bring me even a little bit of hope and peace that, baby, you're going to be just fine.

Enter the last month. I can count on one hand the number of times I was actually home more then just to sleep, shower, or feed the dog. For Christmas I spent the most awesomest time with my most amazing aunt and uncle in Idaho. It was so pretty there! The snow on the ground, the single digit temps, and of course spending time with my loved ones. Hot tubbing every morning, coffee with Irish cream - you know, the alcohol kind?, nutty irishmen starting at 5 pm till whenever, and amazing noms courtesy of my fantastic cook of an uncle. And let's not forget about my wowing the boys. It blew them away, I was more then they'd seen. Oh, and that cute farm boy who was trying so desperately to think of something to say so we could keep talking during our 1.5 hour plane ride? You would see him open his mouth to say something but the words escaped him and he'd put his head down in utter defeat. A few minutes later he would try again, this time spurting something silly out just to get a response from me. He was adorable!

I had dear, dear friends come into town the first of the month. I hadn't seen them in 6 years! Shame, I know! But they live on the east coast! And I seriously have no business back there, I belong on the west coast thankyouverymuch! Well, maybe a visit or two. I can do that! :) We picked up like we had just seen each other the other day. Of course, Kane was a big part of our conversations, and we shared such good stories. One that hit home was a story of when we were first dating. We rode over to our friend's shop probably to bullshit, or get some random part for the motorcycle, or something like that. I got off the bike, and immediately excused myself to the bathroom due to my bladder of a 2-year-old. While I was away, Kane apparently told our friend, "she's the one". When I heard that story I had happy tears in my eyes, and my first thought? That son of a bitch knew 8 months before we got engaged that I was "the one"! Not that we had a long engagement, only a few months, and we were married exactly one year to the day that we started dating so I'm not complaining. I just wish he would have filled me in on this a little sooner.

While I was hangin' with my out-of-town friends, I ran into another friend I hadn't seen in years. See, once the motorcycle club dissipated, we lost touch with a lot of people. Cuz, you know, life happens. In true "good friend" fashion, we picked up right where we left off. He mentioned he started dancing. Orly? I say. What kind? Swing dancing he said. No SHIT? I have always wanted to do that! Well, come out with me next Monday. Hell-ta-the-ya! So, I've been swing dancing. Friday, I actually had a guy approach me and ask me if I wanted to dance! That's a first! Then we went dancing at this super cool rock-a-billy bar. I learned how to two step, and met some fabulous people. Good times!

And may I just say that, as I live up to my social flutter-by, err, butterfly mystique, I am having the best time! I can't remember when I have been this happy! Happiness truly does come from within. No one can make you happy, you have to make yourself happy first. I know, I know, mom was once again right! Hey, at least I'm admitting it and I was eventually able to put it into practice.

Oh, and I'm still trying to find someone to take me to go see Madama Butterfly that's playing here next month... any takers? ... Anyone? ... Anyone? <crickets chirp>