I had a rather ‘mean girls’ type of experience recently with another woman trying to say that she had all kinds of ‘dirt’ on me. It was all made up, and basically drama for the sake of drama. I found it to be a bit of a flashback to high school when girls gather in cliques and play these games of spreading nasty gossip about other girls that aren’t in the clique to make themselves feel better or to eliminate the competition. It seems that as we ‘girls’ age, this kind of behavior continues, but in different ways. I wish that we could all just grow up, but whether it’s having strangers say something nasty to a woman who has decided to stop dyeing her hair, the trolls on various social media sites attacking women for their life choices (being married or not; having children, or not; how they raise / feed / manage their children, or not; being fat, skinny, tall, or short; being in male dominated fields; yadda, yadda), women who are different than others being targeted for verbal or physical assaults, or online news reporting about women in general, it seems that ‘mean girls’ don’t grow up, they just change their tactics. The problem with all of this is that we often get pulled into defense mode, and forget that a false narrative is just that – if someone says something about you that isn’t true, you don’t have to accept it, defend against it or enable the behavior – rather, you can say, ‘I reject your narrative about me – that’s not who I am, and I’m not going to let you say that about me.’ Sometimes it’s easier said than done, especially when you’re blindsided, but I’ve decided that I’m going to try hard to remember this new mantra, ‘I reject your narrative about me.’ (Or if you’re feeling cocky, you could always go with the title of my favorite Ben Folds & Regina Spektor duet, ‘You Don’t Know Me at All’ Or, for the Gen X crowd, ‘Take a Flying F— at a rolling donut’).
However, if you can’t beat them, you can have a little bit of fun with whole idea of someone drumming up dirt on you. Therefore, in the spirit of full disclosure, here’s the actual dirt on me. . . I didn’t make this up, trust me . . .
- I cheated on the lady who does my waxing (no, I won’t say what I’m getting waxed) – she was going on vacation, and needed to do my wax 3 weeks before I left on a birthday get-away weekend. That was too soon from the last time I had it done and I didn’t want to be 3 weeks along in regrowth anyway, so I rescheduled the appointment to 8 weeks later and went to a different salon.
- Sometimes, I go to Jewel for groceries, and sometimes (gasp!) I go to Whole Foods. Likewise, I’ve gone to both CVS and Walgreen’s for pharmacy type stuff. I’m not a loyal store shopper, though I am a brand shopper (I don’t tend to buy generic, unless it’s proven prescription pharmaceuticals, otherwise, I’m loyal to Quaker Oats, Jolly Green Giant, Kellogg’s, Pillsbury etc.). That said, I do tend towards Target, being a Minnesotan and all, I do have my loyalties to companies from my home state.
- If I don’t feel like walking, sometimes, I get an Uber from my apartment to the train station (about a mile away).
- Lately, I’ve been really lazy and am doing my runs indoors, even when the weather isn’t horrible outside (I hope to rectify this in the spring, but for now, any excuse and I’m down the hall in the apartment gym on the elliptical or treadmill).
- When I go out, even if Ava, my BMW i3 PHEV (plug-in, hybrid electric vehicle) doesn’t really need a charge, I sometimes park at charge stations just to be closer to the entrance (or if the parking lot is nearly full, so that I can get a space up-front, and don’t have to park a long way away). Oh, and sometimes parking garages don’t charge if you’re in an EV and are using the charge points – so I get free parking, even though she doesn’t really need to be charged.
- When I order drinks at Starbucks, I still use my daughter’s name as my name, instead of using my real name. The baristas struggle with her name as it is, my name sends them over the edge. Sometimes, if the barista totally messes the name up, I will text my daughter and tell her what her new name is for the day. She finds this wildly funny (not! Eye-roll on behalf of my daughter who wishes her mom would just grow up).
- Even though the parking garage at the apartment has a sign posted that says you should wait for the door to fully shut and re-open between cars, sometimes, I gun-it and piggy-back on another car that’s entering (or exiting).
- I attend ‘Alabama Watch’ parties even though I’m no longer connected to the University, since my daughter graduated over 5 years ago. I just like the other parents and alums that go to these things, and watching the Tide roll over the opposition is fun.
- I still laugh in church whenever I end up at a Rite 1 church (aka old fashioned service) and they say the ‘dustbuster prayer’ (‘we are unworthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table. . .’). I also laugh during the hymn where we sing about bringing ‘peculiar’ honors to our king, and ‘Let all mortal flesh keep silent’ (a favorite communion hymn of the organist in New Hampshire who hated the fact that the noisy children filled the church during communion. She was trying mightily to remind them that they were supposed to be QUIET!). There are others, and I’m sure people thing I’m kooky because I laugh during what would normally be considered a solemn time.
- After my first ‘meet up’ on Chicago’s North Shore, a creepy guy from the event messaged me through the MeetUp App asking if I wanted to do lunch. I pretended not to see his message, and never responded.
- When I’m knitting, my iWatch thinks that I’m actually moving and will record both calories and ‘standing’ hours that aren’t real. So, I can close my Activity circles when I’m sitting still for an hour or two and just knitting. I’m nearly certain that knitting doesn’t burn any calories, and I’m definitely not standing.
- I took down my relationship status on Facebook, and left my status empty.
- I try to fill my weekends with things to do, because I hate just sitting home and doing nothing. In other words, I am easily bored. In fact, my diary is basically full until July just now, and is slowly getting filled up after that. Most of the things that I do, I do alone because I’ve just moved to the area and am still making friends. With that said, I don’t actually mind doing things alone – you never have to worry about someone not liking the activity, complaining about the restaurant you chose or whining about the location.
- I don’t actually own a TV, and I haven’t watched any of the latest television programs that everyone talks about. Sometimes I read about them online so that I can talk credibly about them at work (kind of like professional sports results – I check the scores, so I can bemoan the fact the Vikings or Bears lost again). I do watch old movies from time to time on DVD, and I enjoy going out to the movie theater, but TV drives me batty. If there’s something on that I’d like to see (for example the Wicked special that came out around Halloween last October and the Super Bowl ads), I’ll go to the resident’s lounge at the apartment and watch it there. Otherwise, I just go on YouTube to see the bits I missed and might want to see so that I can give the appearance of being ‘up’ on TV related stuff.
- When I’m working from home on Friday’s, I’m rarely actually doing any work.
And, there you have it. Now, everyone can just move on and focus their attention on things that are truly important, like international relations, freedom of the press, women’s rights, access to healthcare for all, climate change and the like.
