Sadly, there are too many men like Ray Rice in this world, but their wives don't even get fake, public apologies

While at Walmart today, I was hit in the hip by a shopping cart. It was partly my fault because I was on my phone texting with my brother and standing in the middle of the aisle. This lady and her husband were trying to get around me, but I didn’t see them since I was looking down at my phone. The lady must have thought that she could get around me without asking me to move, so she tried to pull the basket sideways and ended up hitting me. I looked up and started to apologize for being right in the middle of the aisle when her husband grabbed her arm and yanked her aside saying, “I don’t know what the hell you were thinking. Watch where you’re going.”

I said, “Oh no. It was my fault. I should have been paying attention.” But my words were drowned by his grumbling something, pushing her out of the way and making a spectacle of taking the basket around the other way and shouting for her to “Hurry up.” She said that she was sorry and so very embarrassed and that they would get out of my way now. I whispered, “You do need to get out of something, but it’s not my way,” and I nodded my head towards the direction her husband went. She just looked down and walked away.

The rest of my Walmart visit was marred by thoughts of this encounter. I was worried I had been out of line in telling her she needed to get out. Was it even any of my business? Was she going to get her ass beaten when she got home because I was preoccupied with my phone? Did she have anyone else telling her the same thing? I finally realized that I didn’t care if it was my business or not. It needed to be said, so I said it. Most men wouldn't beat a woman because some other person was hogging the aisle at Walmart. That man was such a jackass. I don’t think that I came anywhere near properly describing how horrible the encounter was because I’m still so angry with how he treated her – in public, no less. Not that abuse happening in private is any better, but you must know someone doesn’t give a shit about you if he doesn’t even try to hide how he treats you in front of the world. He treated her like an extension of himself in a very negative way rather than the loving, romantic way we hope to be treated by our husbands or boyfriends.

I got slapped by a boyfriend one time. One time. That’s all it took for me to get the hell out of there and never look back. Someone else showed him what happens when you hit girls – especially girls named Trevino. Let's face it, I'm a smart ass but women DO NOT EVER ask for it. If anyone ever suggests that we do, that person is an asshole. If men were allowed to hit women every time we said something that suggested we were asking for it, I would be black and blue every single day of the year. Decent people DO NOT hit.  

I don’t understand what has to go through a girl or woman’s mind to compel that person to stay in an abusive relationship past one incident of abuse. No one ever told me that boys aren’t supposed to hit girls, and no one told me not to hit boys in return – because I know of some women who think they can hit a man all they want, but he better not raise a hand towards her. No. Neither is okay. I just knew that there were certain ways people should behave and physical violence isn’t the way. Decent people know these things. I only remember once eavesdropping on a family conversation about abuse.

A female relative came over to sleep at my house when I was a kid. Being the nosy girl that I was, I overheard them talking about how her husband had hit her. She came in to sleep with me in my bed, and I was terrified that her husband might come over and kill us. When she fell asleep, I crept into the kitchen, got the biggest knife I could find, and placed it under my pillow while we slept. I use the term slept loosely as I was up most of the night standing guard and looking out the window waiting to be murdered. I didn't ever want to feel like that again. When she went back to him later the next day, I felt so disappointed in her and our relationship was never the same because I lost respect for her. Even as a girl of 10 or 11, I knew that she should not have gone back to him. How did I know what an adult didn't? It was so strange to me. 

As an adult, there were two separate instances where I had two friends who called me late at night asking that I go pick them up because their husbands had hit them. I did pick them up when they called the first time, and I made beds for them and their kids at my apartment. After their kids fell asleep, I told them that was it. I wasn’t going to keep picking them up every single time it happened if they chose to go back. I told them both that they could stay with me while they transitioned, and we could get their lives in order, but that if he hit her once then he’d keep doing it [insert various warnings here].

They both went back – one even left that same night while I was sleeping. She called her husband to pick her up, and she later told me that her husband didn’t want us to hang out together anymore. Yeah. No shit. Abusive husbands don’t want their prey to have connections to brains.

The second friend went back the next day, and it wasn’t until she went missing a few weeks later that I found her and her daughter living in the Women’s Shelter in Corpus and took them home with me again. I knew that living in the shelter for a week meant that she was serious about not going back to him. She eventually got her life back in order until the next guy she met knocked her up twice and pulled her back into another cycle of abuse –although she claims that abusive words are not the same thing. I tried to be there for her, but there is only so much stupidity one can put up with before having to walk away. I had to walk away from her and the toxicity she brought into my life. Four children from three different men later, I hear that she is finally settled with a decent guy. She sent me a friend request here on Facebook, but I refused it since she is sharing an account with supposed decent guy she only dating. The destructive, co-dependent patterns I remember from the past nudged me again. I just can’t.

Even if they can’t walk away after the first time of abuse for whatever reason, it’s unsettling to know that so many will endure this type of behavior for a lifetime. I remember getting all riled up in Criminal Law about Battered Women’s Syndrome and making Dean Huffman laugh. When we talked later in his office, he said he’d never seen someone’s face get so red so fast. I said, “Then I guess you’ve never hit a woman in the face. Good job.” He just laughed again saying that he loved how quick I was on my feet when I actually cared about a topic. I asked him if that was a jab at my not always answering his in-class questions as swiftly as he'd like, and he laughed some more. We eventually agreed that the topic as a whole really wasn’t a laughing matter. 

You Could Say This Is an Independent Rant about Television...and Feelings

While chatting on the phone with a friend – and fellow television enthusiast– I made a very bold statement when he asked if I had watched Orange is the New Black.

“No. I don’t plan to watch it. I’m rather over television at the moment,” I said. 
“WHOA! What?” was his startled reply.
I added, “Well, new television. Except for Undateable. That show is pretty entertaining.”

He was shocked because my friends know how much of a TV junkie I am. There were times while I was busy with grad school and teaching when I would wake up at 5 a.m. just to catch up on all my shows. I do have limits. I don’t allow television to run my life. Okay, let me backtrack for a minute. Somewhere around 2000, my friend Melissa set me up on blind date with some guy in the Navy who was friends with her husband. Upon meeting him at Applebees, I was immediately unimpressed. As my date with guy whose name wasn't important enough for me to recall went on, I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t set Sex and the City to record – yes, on a VCR. For some reason, we were on a Sunday night date – which only works to make the date even more annoying. Long story short, I ditched him to go home and watch Sex and the City. The show proved to be more interesting than he probably ever would have been. 

Let’s come back to present day. I hadn’t realized I had made the decision to drastically cut back on television until I actually said it aloud. The conversation with my friend evolved into a pursuit to understand what I was thinking. For him, it was a curiosity because I’ve always defended my TV junkie habit and touted my well-rounded mind. But for me, it was a tedious quest because I have more important things to do. Nevertheless, it ended up being a fairly short journey. I think I knew what it was all along. And I was able to pinpoint the shift in my feelings to the end of May – the almost end of Mad Men forever. 

As my mind silently traced my feelings back to Mad Men, I proceeded to say the second thing that would baffle him during that conversation, “I think it’s Mad Men ending. When the season finale aired weeks ago, I felt sad because I knew we only had a handful of episodes left when it comes back. It’s like ending things with someone you love or really like. When it ends and brings you pain, you want to close yourself off from ever feeling that kind of loss again, so you stop putting yourself into those types of situations. You live more cautiously. I guess I don’t want to like another show right now because they all have to end sometime. All I know, for now, is that I’m done.”

I should have known better than to use that analogy with this particular friend. He’s never been in love. Relationships crumble all around him very often, and he rarely bats an eye. He also doesn’t particularly care for Mad Men because he thinks it’s too slow and doesn’t care for “period” tv. He is one of those people who pisses on things that are too popular IF he didn’t discover it from the start. Mad Men wins awards and your show doesn’t? BFD. That happens all the time. Quit raining on my Sunday nights with your unsolicited opinion. Live and let live. Shows come and go. Some actors and shows are exceptional and they sweep all the award shows for a while. I don’t recall people asking other hit shows to put the genie back in the bottle. Awards are bullshit anyway. Yes, Kelsey Grammer won numerous times for his role as Dr. Frasier Crane, but he wasn’t any worse of an actor during the years he didn’t win. To me, he was always incredible - even during those years that his hair was atrocious. Like Mad Men, Frasier is a thinking-person’s show. (I almost just said “thinking-MAN"). That being said, I never had to defend Frasier as I have defended Man Men to some people.

My friend didn’t come right out and say it, but I could tell that he thought I was being utterly ridiculous. Silence speaks volumes. He just let me talk and talk, and I knew he was silently judging me. I think he gave a non-committal “I guess” once and allowed me to continue to rant before he used a diversional tactic and got me talking about Christina Hendrick’s boobs. Like my friend, I’m sure people will read this and roll their eyes because television is nothing like things you feel with the heart. How can it be? What a stupid blog. 

If I didn’t have tons of other things in my life, I might be embarrassed to share these very real feelings and ideas…and maybe not. I don’t think analogizing love and Mad Men - or anything you have given years of your life to - is uncommon. Perhaps it takes a certain kind of person to understand how the feelings can tie together. This love affair with television shows and their characters doesn’t end with that genre. The same happens with books and the characters in them – even moreso because it takes real effort to commit to reading a book and getting to know your characters. Perhaps the complex journey that comes with stories in books is why so many people opt out of ever reading at all.

If you have ever binge-watched something on Netflix for days and days with minimal breaks, perhaps you can understand what I’m saying here. Now imagine you didn't binge but devoted YEARS of your life to watching something. If you’ve ever decided to start and finish a newly released and highly popular book before having any contact with the outside world because you fear spoilers, then you also know what I’m saying here. I did that very thing with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and felt empty when it was over. I wasn’t empty because the story was unsatisfying. I was empty because I had given so many years of my life to the story and its characters. Although I only slightly liked Breaking Bad after I binge-watched it, damn it, I missed Jesse Pinkman when it was over. Why? Because he reminded me of a normal kid who might have been my student. Someone who was lost and seeking guidance. Someone who was crapped on by adults and by the world. If you have any imagination at all, you start to identify with characters. If you are a heartless robot, you will roll your eyes at me right now – maybe for the fourth or fifth time.

Why am I wasting time making silly comparisions about television and loves lost, and why do I have to WRITE about it? I like to write. Writing frees me from the torture that is my mind. It doesn’t even have to be good, polished writing - as this clearly isn’t either and won’t be once I hit submit. We all need a little word vomit sometimes. Just get that shit out on the page and free yourself from all the thoughts, insecurities, explosions and whatever else lurks in the shadows of the mind. Writing is everything because it lets you see into someone's thoughts at your own pace and is exciting with every new sentence. You can revisit writing any time you want. Some things you read will capture your attention and other things will be forgotten once the last letter passes your eye-line. 

Like writing, television is subjective. And, more than anything else, good television is about the writing. Since Mad Men premiered in 2007, I have maintained that it is one of the smartest written dramas I have ever seen. I get that everyone has a preference and opinion. This is mine. I wish I had gobs of time to devote to dissecting all the ways in which Mad Men can be merged with theory. I would be all over that if I had a desire to publish for academia. I don’t have that desire. I don’t seek approval from any ivory tower. I simply want to empty my mind. Stream of consciousness has always worked for me.

Tonight, Californication ended. Mad Men and Californication are on my top five favorite current shows…not so current anymore, I suppose. Maybe these parts of my entertainment make me realize some things about my actual life. I’m in such a different place than I was when these shows began. And as your world changes around you, so does your world view and your interpretation of things. Are my circumstances any better? Are they worse? Have they not changed one iota? I guess it depends on who you ask. Nevertheless, the passage of time is front, center, and in my face. And though some consider me to be one of the heartless robots I describe above, when I lose something that I like, I feel it in spades. Here is my therapy.

Advertensia: Chiquita Pero Picosa

I'm not the type of person to cry "sexual harassment" when it happens. I'm a pretty easy-going woman. I've really only felt genuinely harassed by one person at one point in my entire life. Sadly, it happened in the recent past. Nothing makes you lose respect for someone like hearing unsolicited, unwelcomed, disgusting, and pathetic things come out of his mouth - or seeing them appear on your screen via email or Facebook message even after you have made it clear that it is all unwelcomed. As an aside, I am not in any way saying that men can't be on the receiving end of harassment. I am simply talking about my experience.

Sometimes, I've actually questioned my own openness as advocating the type of relationship that allows being a target for such occurrences. Then I realized that was a stupid worry to have. That's similar to saying that a woman who dresses provocatively deserves to be raped. Being comfortable in my own skin and confident in my sexuality doesn't mean someone can try to exploit those facts. Try me once. If I shoot you down, back the hell away from me FOREVER. Perhaps my not reporting this man is also allowing a hostile environment to continue to fester in certain environments. Regardless, I've tried to handle things on my own and not involve the powers that be. I've weighed the options of potentially destroying someone's career versus simply chewing his ass out over the matter myself. Pushers get pushed, right?

That being said, I did have to tell a few people about this particular harasser for various reasons. And that is what this blog is about today. I've moved on from this person and his pathetic attempts at ... shit, I don't even know what he was attempting to accomplish.  So it baffles me when I keep hearing that certain individuals I confided in over a year ago about this problem have chosen to air my story at their leisure. Why the hell is anyone else still talking about this? My guess is that they don't have anything in their lives worth talking about, so they continue to fixate on me. I have to say that the way certain individuals handled - and are apparently still handling - this private matter disgusts me. 

It pisses me off that I have to write this at all. I don't need help from one man to solve a problem with another one, but it's disgusting when the glue that holds this boy's club together is filth. That's my beef. It's very clear that here, se tapan con la misma cobija.

I hope with all my heart that certain individuals never get to supervise women who might need their discretion and assistance.  I hope that none of these women have to deal with someone in a position of power either harassing them or brushing off their reports of harassment as "overreactions" or "misunderstandings." I hope these women don't have other men saying, "That's just his personality. Don't be so sensitive." 

Most of all, I hope that these women have harassers who were dumb enough to do the harassing in email messages that can be used as evidence later, if necessary. Some men think so highly of themselves and their positions that they don't bat a lash when putting potentially incriminating things in writing without knowing if they can trust the person on the receiving end of the message. 

But back to all the gossip, just because someone doesn't show you all the proof there is, doesn't mean that the proof doesn't exist. It just means that it's none of your fucking business - so stop blabbing about it every chance you get. 

In Transition: Stream of Consciousness Ahead

My life remains in a horrible limbo. I can't seem to pass the Texas Bar Exam because I keep messing up the multiple choice, and I am stuck studying for it all over again. When this happened, I was at a impasse with my feelings about my old Facebook account. I had just had a major blow-up with some law school people over some stupid shit a professor said, and I started to realize that I was "friends" with way more assholes than I really wanted in my life.

Before law school, Facebook had always been a place for me to word vomit without regard for who was reading. At some point, I caved and began accepting friend requests from law school people. Eventually, I started caring who was reading because who I am on Facebook isn't really all of who I am in real life. Yet, people started acting like they really knew me - when they only knew and will only ever know a fraction of the real me. Regardless of my seeming openness on social networking, I still choose what I will allow others to know about me. It's rare that anyone gets to see the most vulnerable parts of me...still, it happens when I give zero fucks. (Which, to completely contradict what I just said, is most of the time.)

I left law school with the knowledge that most of the relationships I formed there were good for networking purposes and little else. There are only a handful of law school peers I would choose to be friends with "in real life." I'm not saying that they are all jerks - that's not true at all. We are just at different places in our lives. As life experiences go, I went into law school way ahead of most. I chose to keep them at a distance while I was there, so I don't see why that should change now.

All that being said, I have transferred the Facebook "notes" from my original Facebook account to this blog because I don't want to lose them should I choose to abandon that old account. My new Facebook page is all set up with Candy Crush, Spotify, my new Twitter account, and those individuals I consider my closest friends. The new account is likely to prevail.

Once this new bar nightmare is over, I will make a final decision about my Facebook accounts and merge or purge.

Excuse me while I return to another hour of bar review and then take a nice, long walk.

Please select the best possible answer from the choices provided.

About two months ago, I started reading "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn. I had just finished her other novel “Sharp Objects,” and I was reluctant to read the same author back to back because I usually begin to find myself annoyed with the predictability of the writing style.  I was also reluctant to begin reading this second novel because I wasn’t all that impressed with the execution of the first. Nevertheless, I had already purchased both kindle copies, so I decided to ignore the little voice inside my head telling me to proceed with caution and just cannonball it.  As it turns out, I never got far enough into the book to notice the repetitiveness of the writing or to find out how she executed her “A-ha!” moment in the end. Why? Multiple choice. 

In an effort to introduce the reader to a female character, this writer decided to embed multiple choice questions throughout the first few chapters. Oh, I get it. Amy uses multiple choice to decide her future. That’s how we got to where the characters are today. Brilliant! No. Thank you for playing. I’m going to need to tap out now.  I decided that it wasn’t cute and was a waste of my time.  I closed that kindle book, went to Wikipedia to see how it ended, rolled my eyes at what I saw, and didn’t think of it again until today.

I woke up this morning cursing the day that multiple choice questions ever dared burden this earth. How is it that a few wrong bubbles on a multiple choice scantron have held my life hostage for long? I’ve always sucked at multiple choice.  Do I expect that to be any different this next time?  Blah. Blah. Insert various other whining cliches here.

When my pity party was over and I finally crawled out of bed, I realized that Gillian Flynn wasn’t so ridiculous after all. Life is a series of multiple choice questions.

What do I want to eat for breakfast today?
A. Oatmeal
B. Eggs
C. Bacon
D. Protein shake
E. A, B, and C but not D

(Psst...the answer is always C.)

How annoying was that to read? Okay, so Gillian Flynn only had the concept right. We do make decisions by weighing them against other available options. If we didn’t have more than one option, it would just be THE WAY. 

All we can do is go through life trying to pick the best possible answer from a bunch of potentially right ones. We also have to hope that we don’t select too many of the slightly less right answers along the way and waste more time with all of life’s roadblocks. 

3 a.m. knows all my secrets

No joy...no purpose in the breath

Hardened steel
Awaits the final blow

Maintenance allows the touch

Motivation replaced with indifference
Love evolves to guilt and loyalty

Welcoming death
Abandoning breath

And falling.

The Sometimes Necessary 'Evils' of Planned Parenthood, Migraines, and Living Without Regard for Criticism

I learned about Planned Parenthood during my first semester of undergrad. Sometime during the first week of school, my roommate and I ran into a girl from my hometown who worked for Planned Parenthood. I can't remember what her name was. I knew her because she went to high school with my uncle, and I went to high school with her brother. She immediately recognized me and called us over to where she was distributing condoms. She talked to us for a while about how we were adjusting to college life and then began stressing the importance of sexual health and safety. She told me to open my backpack and began putting handfuls of condoms into the pack. She also gave us a lot of literature about safe sex and safety on campus to avoid rape, date rape, etc. Her liberal distribution of condoms went on for the remainder of the year. She could always be counted on to have bags of "goodies" for me and stressed her availability to talk about anything I might need to discuss. Our dorm room became the "Planned Parenthood" of Bishop Hall, and girls knew they could come grab condoms out of our bowl if they thought they needed one that night. As a joke, we bought a fishbowl and kept the multi-colored condoms front and center just like Planned Parenthood does - or did in the 90s.

At a time when most girls were mainly concerned with not getting pregnant, I was made aware of a greater threat - the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases. I cannot recall getting a safe sex discussion in high school or by my mother. What I do remember is being told to not have sex. Period. My mom, my priest, and the bible school instructors stressed abstinence and nothing else.

Abstinence wasn't going to fly with me, so this interaction with Planned Parenthood was more than welcomed. For me, PP was a place I could go for anonymous birth control and HIV testing. Even though I always used condoms, PP taught me the importance of getting tested for HIV anyway. They always pushed the importance of a complete sexual health awareness. Not once was I approached with the subject of abortion by the employees, so perhaps I was naive to not associate Planned Parenthood with abortion. For me, Planned Parenthood was freedom. I was able to embrace my sexual freedom without having to involve parents or their health insurance.

I really don't remember when I learned that the words Planned Parenthood had negative connotations. For some, Planned Parenthood is synonymous with abortion - with killing babies. In grad school, I did a research project highlighting the services of Planned Parenthood that didn't include abortion. I wasn't advocating abortion or making excuses for the procedure. I simply stated the statistics and moved forward with the rest of the information. I've never been the kind of person to tell others how they should live their lives. I understand that regardless of the actual percentage of abortions that are performed, even one is too many for some groups. Planned Parenthood will always be a 100% enemy for those people.

Nevertheless, I continued with my research project and stressed how this organization made itself an advocate for sexual health in high schools all around Corpus Christi. The introduction to my paper included my own experiences with the organization as a teen and again when the Director allowed me to visit high schools with her and partake in the presentations with the students while I worked on my research project.

As someone who was never told that there were options beyond abstinence, I'm glad that students are able to have this information available to them without having to seek it on their own - because let's face it, most kids will talk to each other before they seek a professional's advice. Remembering all the ridiculous urban legends I was confronted with in high school, I'm glad I had that Planned Parenthood connection in college and was able to find a place to discuss sexual health openly and at my convenience.

Why am I suddenly talking about Planned Parenthood today? After years of having insurance and not needing free or cheap healthcare, I found myself without a prescription for birth control and unable to get an appointment with a doctor that accepted a la carte payment for services. For the last few weeks, I've been calling local doctors trying to get an appointment to obtain birth control. I was either turned away because they weren't accepting new patients, urged to sign up for Obamacare so I could then "afford" their services, or I was told that I'd have to pay an additional cost for a "routine procedure" to make sure I was fit for birth control. It didn't matter that I've been on birth control for over a decade. These doctors wanted to get money from someone who seemed to have limited options. Maybe I was calling the wrong places or asking the wrong questions. I don't know why so many were unwilling to cooperate. With two weeks remaining on my current prescription, I became desperate and finally remembered Planned Parenthood.

This morning, for the first time since undergrad, I walked into Planned Parenthood as a patient. The receptionist welcomed me and quickly explained the charge for getting a prescription without insurance coverage or an examination. She didn't try to persuade me to sign up for Obamacare or insist that I get a battery of tests I don't need and can't afford right now. They were swamped today so couldn't take me until tomorrow, but I now have peace of mind that I will get what I need without extensive and unnecessary exams at a low cost.

Why the urgency and desperation?

The absence of birth control in a pill form doesn't mean there's a greater chance I might get pregnant. For me, the absence of that pill means that I'll suffer more migraines in a month. I've been suffering from excruciating migraines since I was a kid. Most times, I just dealt with the pain because I always thought they were really bad headaches that Advil might help remedy. It never did so I slept - sometimes for days. I missed school or fell asleep at school because the pain was so bad, and my mom forced me to go anyway. People don't stay home for headaches, she would say. Sometime in my early 20s, I learned about migraines and began experimenting with migraine treatment. My gynecologist recommended I start taking birth control to help with the menstrual migraines, and it turned out that the pills helped me all month long. Now I'm dependent on them, and I'm okay with that dependency. Once you've felt the horribleness that is a TRUE migraine, you cling to any relief that is available. Birth control helps me obtain the relief necessary to live day to day without feeling like someone is stabbing my head with an icepick. If I have to get that relief through an organization that others picket and hate, so be it. My main concern today is Me.

This interaction with Planned Parenthood is just another reason I'm thankful that, in a world full of skepticism and darkness, I'm still able to see the good in most things.

Today, I need that good to make myself whole.

Originally posted on Facebook on March 25, 2014 at 11:25am