Curmudgeon

Facebook and other social networking sites get me down more often than they lift me up. Still though, I log onto Facebook 5-7x a day. The screen refreshes and suddenly updated "news" is in my feed. I'd say that 80% of the time, the "news" is related to "good news"-- pictures of family vacations, postings about job promotions and other celebratory events, positive comments about one's outlook on life... The other percentage of the time, the newsfeed contains complaints and generally negative utterances. Someone the other day posted about needed $100 battery for her car, blah, blah, blah.

Reading other people's complaints is annoying and I feel like hurling a virtual "Go fuck yourself" across the Internet. Reading people's self-promotion posts is also annoying, as it makes me feel like a lazy fuck who achieves nothing.

I tend to post observational comments. I never self-promote and I try not to complain.

Deep down though, I am certainly a curmudgeon.

I am going to use this post to rant and complain---to hurl that negativity out into the world.

1. I'm not impressed that you got your Master's at NYU or that you went to Oxford; your family is rich and accessible income can make many people's "dreams come true."

2. We used to be friends, but now you are too much of a hipster and I am too fat and the fact that our friendship has ended infinitely sucks.

3. I don't care about your new Subzero fridge or your clean shed; your husband is gigantic and I often wonder how you two had sex long enough for you to get pregnant.

4. Your grammar is so horrible and no one comments on it because of politeness, but you're a fucking idiot....but you probably make more money than me anyway.

5. I don't care that your child makes adorable comments at the dinner table.

6. Kudos on doing your extreme exercise regimen for 3 days, posting about it constantly, and then completely quitting.

Sometimes I think of the following quotation when I am poking around on Facebook:
"The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reel." - Steve Furtick

I feel like a loser because I don't consider myself to have the "highlight reel" that others have...but I guess that's my problem and I have to try to sort it out.

Making them fit

The human memory is fascinating. Years will pass and you might not think of a specific moment. Then, out of nowhere, that memory comes back into existence. 

At the library today a patron took out a chick lit novel. The book cover featured a woman lying on a bed and trying to make her jeans budge over her upper thighs. I suppose it was meant to be an image that us "average" women could relate to, however the woman on the cover was fairly thin. I wondered why she would have to struggle to make her pants slide over her upper thighs; her upper thighs were not that fleshy anyway. 

Instantly, I flashbacked to an image from my childhood. A spring green and bright yellow floral comforter covers a bed. The headboard and base of the bed is white wicker. Above the headboard hang two wicker beach-themed pieces. A wedding photo of my mother and father is on the side wall, as is a marriage certificate. The room is always cold and smells like mothballs. 

It is my mother's master bedroom. After my dad passed away, my mother refused to sleep in the bed. For years, she slept on the couch in the living room. The master bedroom was reserved for "getting ready" for work and for doing the "pants maneuver." 

The pants maneuver occurred whenever my mother had a pair of jeans which no longer fit. She would lie flat on the bed, jeans at her ankles, squirming and squirming in order to get the pants over her stomach. When she grew desperate, she would take the waistband of the jeans and make a vertical cut on the right and left sides, thus giving herself more "space" to get into. 

I watched her to do this pants maneuver countless times in life. At one point, she just gave up and began wearing complete elastic-waisted pants. 

I've never done the pants maneuver myself, despite having jeans for which I have grown too big. Those jeans still remain in my dresser: the size 8 Limited jeans that I have not worn since college, the intentionally-tight-as-anything stretch jeans that my sister gave me, the size 13 juniors' denim shorts that I promised I would "lose weight for" and not have to wear again (now they don't fit), and others. 

My mother's pants maneuver had an effect on me: when jeans don't fit, I face reality and buy a new pair with a higher size. Many more women could use a dose of reality.