TheHideousTruth's Open Salon Blog

How Do You Let Go of Anger?

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:11:43 -0500

I have a question. How does one get over a hurt? How do you get past feelings of anger, feelings of hate, feelings of rage even? I’ve had so many shitty things happen to me in the past few years, but also much good, and for some reason my brain keeps chomping on the same bad shit day after day, hour after hour. What is wrong with me? I have so many blessings, why doesn’t my brain obsess over those all the time? I could be thinking of positive things, happy thoughts, but instead my mind travels to the dark places: the stranger who beat me up in broad daylight (she was drugged out) while 30 people watched my face get smashed to bits and did nothing; the fact that the police did nothing to help me and, rather, protected her (by doing nothing) instead; the person who totaled our car in the driveway of our building and left no note (the building manager who towed the car without telling me, to add insult to injury, so I had to PAY $600 to get my worthless car out of the lot so I could donate it); the “friend” who used some very personal information about me that I had trusted her with against me while at dinner; my friend’s husband who is a multi-millionaire by doing insider trading…. they have two $2 million homes and my husband and I are going to be 40 and cannot afford to own one home despite working our asses off and both getting fellowships to ivy league schools; people who don’t like or want children who get pregnant so easily, but my husband and I, who want and love children going through hell to start our family…. The list goes on and on.

Do you know what I mean? Injustices. Things that are not fair in life. These feelings have made me, at times, bitter. Small. Please do not comment that life is not fair – I am not stupid, I know this. But why is it, given that this is true, that some people seem to have it so easy – everything comes so easily to them. And others, like my husband and me, everything is very hard for us it seems. Do we have bad luck? Are we “attracting” negative energy? And how do I get out of my rut of focusing so much on all these slights, these injustices? Any spare time I have, my brain goes back to the wrongs, the jealousies, the insults. I know I need to get over them…. but how?

I think this question is relevant not just for me, but for many of us imperfect people. It can’t be just me who feels these things, I read people’s blogs and have gotten to know some of your stories. There is so much injustice: regular people getting screwed while corrupt people prosper; families seriously suffering from the results of George Bush’s “War on Terror”; people getting kicked out of their homes due to medical bills or other financial hardships; people who have serious diseases to struggle with every day. These things erode the spirit. They suck the life out of you. But love, gratitude and optimism do the opposite. As we get close to Thanksgiving, how can we let go of the anger and embrace gratitude? How can we, as a society, be more mindful of all the blessings we do have? And how do we get past anger and hate, and get back to love and generosity.

When Friends Demand Cash for Wedding: “No Boxed Gifts”

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:11:11 -0500

We have some friends who are getting married. In addition to deciding on a destination wedding (in Malaysia) which will take course over one entire week, they also stated on their wedding invitation “no boxed gifts.” Now I knew that they wanted cash because they had mentioned this to us over dinner (see my post on “Don’t tell me to fucking relax.” The bride to be is the woman who insulted me at dinner.), but to state it explicitly on the wedding invitation, in my mind, is beyond outrageous. First of all, anyone who will be attending will have to take two weeks off from work, fly with his/her spouse R/T to Malaysia and get accommodations and pay for food, etc. That is about $6,000. And don’t tell me it will be like a vacation because, let’s be honest, who on their vacation runs around fawning over other people and doing things they don’t enjoy with people they don’t know. I think that if someone is sweet enough to go all that way and take the time off, their presence in and of itself is the gift (a HUGE one), is it not? To assume that they would be getting anything more is incredibly rude and assuming I think. I did not get wedding gifts from many people who traveled to our wedding (in the US), and I did not care. I still sent them thank you notes for the gift of their presence. And I meant every word of it. Others who took the time to come from another state brought a token gift and I was still thrilled to receive their generous gifts and, more importantly, to share the day with them.

I am very disturbed by this trend of selfishness and sense of entitlement. This couple also invited us to a wedding shower in another state (I sent a $100 gift and never got a thank you. It was four months ago.), and a bachelor party across the country. It was Th – Sun, so my husband had to take two days off of work, and we spent over $2,000 on travel, and paying for all the drinks and events they went to. Received no thank you for that either.

It reminds me of another wedding we went to several years ago. In another state. We paid for our flights and hotel for four nights. We got stuck somehow with the bar tab the night of the rehearsal dinner (we were not in the wedding but my friend, who was the groom, was sweet enough to invite us to the dinner). And I spent $300 on the wedding gift. It cost us about $2,500 in all. Guess what? No thank you. I do not understand this. As soon as I got back from my honeymoon, I wrote hundreds of thank yous – to every single person who came and/or gave anything (including gifts like helping with favors) and/or who helped us is some way shape or form - from the $15 salad servers to the $300 coffee maker.

I am severely conflicted about this wedding. The groom was not with this girl when we got married and the only thing he sent us was a check for $100, about six months after we got married. We have discussed this and we give these poor people about five years. They are both so selfish, and there is no way a marriage can work with two selfish people, let alone one. I am asking anyone who reads this to tell me what you think I should do. Should I send them another gift (and know that it will go unappreciated and unacknowledged), or should I not, and get the same result. If I should give a gift, should I give them cash as they have demanded, or should I give them something from one of her four registries? And how much should I spend? HELP!

PS- Please note that we are not going to the wedding because of my medical issues, and my doctor won't allow it. Also, this guy is a business colleague of my husband's, and we both like him. The girl is another matter. See my other post, as I mentioned, to see the details of how she informed everyone at our dinner table that SHE, unlike ME, is fertile. Please give me real opinions, not jokes. I am seriously seeking your help on this one. I feel very annoyed but I would like some objective people to tell me what they think.

Hasan, Death Penalty & Racism

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:11:06 -0500

Hasan, Death Penalty & Racism: Why Death Penalty Should be Laid to Rest

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was formally charged Thursday with 13 counts of premeditated murder for his rampage at Fort Hood which killed 13 people and wounded 43. The horrendous act that took place at Fort Hood is a national tragedy and the devastation on the families involved can hardly be comprehended. Anyone who puts herself in the position of the spouse or parent or sibling of a murdered person can understand the desire for revenge. My emotions tell me that, if he is found guilty, putting Hasan to death is a good thing. It is just. It is a legitimate thing for our society to do. But graduate study in public policy at Harvard tells me something different.

My classes at Harvard taught me that the death penalty is not a good policy because it offers no exclusive benefit to society which other forms of punishment cannot, while it violates the individual and democratic right to life, which should be protected over the potential social values that the death penalty offers. For example, while the death penalty may serve the public value of deterrence, lifetime imprisonment also serves this social value, and lifetime imprisonment does not violate an individual right by ending a human life.

The social value of cost-effectiveness might be argued for; however, the argument that the death penalty is less expensive than lifetime imprisonment is highly questionable, and certainly not the strongest argument for whether it is a good policy.

Perhaps the strongest argument that the death penalty serves an important value for society would be its retributive quality, or, the “Principle of Desert”. However, in order for the policy to fulfill this social value and not violate the weightier individual and democratic right not to be killed by your government when you are innocent of any wrong doing, the policy would need to ensure that only the guilty were put to death, and that equal treatment/application of the punishment was ensured. It is a fact that the death penalty is consistently unequally administered to minorities in our society. Due to the racism and prejudice that exist in our society, our criminal justice system disproportionately finds minorities guilty of serious crimes, and also disproportionately administers harsh sentences such as the death penalty on minorities. According to the Staff Report by the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights Committee on the Judiciary One Hundred Third Congress, Second Session, March 1994: “Racial minorities are being prosecuted under federal death penalty law far beyond their proportion in the general population or the population of criminal offenders. Analysis of prosecutions under the federal death penalty provisions of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 reveals that 89% of the defendants selected for capital prosecution have been either African-American or Mexican-American. Moreover, the number of prosecutions under this Act has been increasing over the past two years with no decline in the racial disparities. All ten of the recently approved federal capital prosecutions have been against black defendants. This pattern of inequality adds to the mounting evidence that race continues to play an unacceptable part in the application of capital punishment in America today. It confirms Justice Blackmun's recent conclusion that ‘the death penalty experiment has failed’." The death penalty policy, therefore, does not respect the fundamental individual right to equal protection under the law from being killed by the government. Since the criteria of equal treatment/application cannot be ensured in our system, this policy cannot be purported to fulfill important social values without violating even weightier individual, social, and democratic values of right to life and not being wrongly killed by the government.

I would also like to note that in such cases as the death penalty, elected officials should exercise their discretion to protect the minority from a bad, illegitimate majority policy. Elected officials who support the death penalty are abdicating their responsibility to exercise dissent from popular opinion in a case that particularly warrants informed decision because of its complexity, severity, and irreversibility. Furthermore, and very importantly, the death penalty is a decision that directly encumbers a small proportion of the population with an onerous weight. The majority of constituents, in this case, will never personally be involved with the ramifications of the death penalty, while a minority of constituents – those on death row and their families - will bear the cost of that decision.

While I feel so much for the families of the murder victims, I do not think that the death penalty is a sound policy. Flawed as they are, our legal and justice systems are among the best in the world. I believe we can continue to evolve and hold ourselves to a higher standard. If we want to uphold our aspirations to be a civil society, capable of moral justice, I think we owe it to ourselves to ask whether the death penalty is an outdated form of criminal justice. It was not that long ago that public be-headings and hangings were considered entertainment for the masses. Are we so different today?

* This is a revised post.

My Cats Sponge off Me and I’m Not Going to Take it Anymore!

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:11:47 -0500

My cats take advantage of me and I am mad as hell about it. They sponge off me and disrespect me like there’s no tomorrow: they eat me out of house and home but have the audacity to zone out whenever I’m talking to them. God forbid if I actually ask them to do something like help with taking out the trash or bringing in the groceries. They are often sullen and moody. They look at me funny and sometimes even hiss at me. One, I am convinced, tries to trip me as I walk, and the other has a dirty bum that she refuses to clean so I have to do it. I am like a servant in my own home. In addition, they have cultivated and discerning palettes, and expensive taste. Yesterday, for example, I had the nerve to give them water from the tap. God forbid! They left it sitting all day. I got back at night and the entire bowl was full. I filled it with the spring water from the cooler, and they were then able to quench their thirsts. Sometimes I even feel like the vet is in cahoots with them. One time the vet lectured me about combing them more often (four times a week is not enough apparently), exercising them better, and brushing their teeth. Too bad I can't get paid for taking care of these people, for it is certainly a full-time job, capable of taking over my entire existence.

And I take it, I take it, I take it. Why? Because they are so frigging cute. Does this make sense? Or is it the mark of a masochist? If I died, would these fuzzballs not feast on my decaying remains, first lunching on my eyeballs, then nibbling on my nose, and eventually consuming my entire face? Would they feel sorry for doing so or would they simply rationalize it as a way of staving off starvation before they were found and adopted by some other, poor unknowing bastard.

Thus, I have decided to let these beasts sing for their suppers. I have perused the Want Ads and have found several potential jobs for them:

1) Exterminator. They are not terribly nimble but they are hungry. And they prefer to bed fed thrice times daily. Could make for some mean micing.

2) Actor. They have huge egos, think they’re better than everyone else, and refuse to listen to directions - doesn’t that make them perfectly suited for Hollywood?

3) Model. See #2 except end it in “…suited for NYC?”

4) Hearing Ear Cat (Can be written off on taxes for those of you who want one. Yes, I do read all the fine print in those IRS publications, and Hearing Ear Cats are right next to Seeing Eye Dogs in the deductions publication.)

Now I must run. The beasts must be satiated and, well, you know…

Why I changed my profile photo

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:11:45 -0500

I have noticed that there are an awful lot of eyes out there. In OS profile photos, that is. And mouths in a close following. Why no noses? Why no ears? Why no hands? They have personality, too, don't they? In my desire to try to be unique, I have switched my photo from my eye to my ear. Let us see how long this lasts. I know, I know. You are thinking. About your own photo. Well, please don't copy me! If you, too, desire a unique facial feature, then try the nose. I would have used mine but I was beat up by some anonymous drugged-out bitch in the spring and my nose has never been the same. So I offer it up to you. Not my nose. But the concept.