The View from the Cheap Seats

I struggled with what to write about for letter H in the Blogging A to Z challenge, but I finally settled on honesty.

It is common to hear, “Honesty is the best policy.” But I contend that it is not. Too often, honesty is used to hurt people, and the person being honest likes to use that honesty as a shield for being hurtful. There’s a line in Taylor Swift’s song “All too Well” where she says, “You call me up again just to break me like a promise/So casually cruel in the name of being honest.” That’s how honesty is often used — casually cruel in the name of being honest. I see it when I indulge in my guilty pleasure of watching “Say Yes to the Dress”. Brides bring friends and family with them and their companions are brutally and cruelly honest, to the point of making attacks on character and appearance all because of the bride’s choice of wedding dress.

As a teacher, students will often ask me questions that would never elicit an honest answer from me. Once a student asked me to read a story she had written. When she asked me if I liked it, did I answer honestly? Nope. I didn’t like the story. It was boring. But I found a way to answer her by saying I liked the way she developed her main character and I pointed out passages she wrote well.

My husband and I made a promise to each other many years ago that if we ever cheated on each other, we would never tell the other person. That kind of honesty doesn’t help a marriage — it hurts it. A confession like that only alleviates the guilty conscience of the cheater while destroying the other person. What purpose does honesty serve when all it results in is destruction?

I believe people need to be selective in their honesty. Your audience, the occasions, and the purpose all play a role in determining what you should say and how you should say it. Sometimes a partial truth or a flat-out lie will spare those around you as well as yourself unnecessary heartache.

Blogging A to Z challenge letter for the day is G, which brings me to Guns n’ Roses, my very favorite band. From the first time I heard them, I was captivated by the edge in their music, Slash’s easy too-cool-for-you vibe, and Axl’s sexy sway.

I never got the chance to see them perform live, although I tried. I was supposed to see them in Alpine Valley in 1991 but never made it. It’s a very long story where the people who were with me look bad and I look bad, too. When the night ends with a drunk girl (not me) puking on a cop and tickets issued all around, it’s not pretty. Thanks to my stupidity and the the police in Hebron, Illinois, I never got the opportunity to see my favorite band live.

Me dressed as Axl Rose at a halloween party.

Some people find their music offensive for its language, content, and misogyny. I won’t deny that their music contains plenty of foul language, offensive content, and some misogyny. But I’ve always been pretty liberal minded about music and focused on that as opposed to the social acceptance of the music at the time, because that can be fickle.

Probably my favorite song by Guns’ n Roses is “November Rain“. I love the fact that it is based on a short story and it tells that story but I can’t figure it out completely. I love music that hints at a story but leaves it up to me to figure out what is going on.

Another one of my favorites is “Patience“. This is likely because it was the only song by G n’ R that my husband could tolerate while we were dating/engaged. I won’t deny that the lyrics also spoke to our relationship at the time, so the song has some history.

I also really love “Think About You“. It’s got a slick, sexy vibe to it. The song just makes me smile and feel good on the inside 😉

I also won’t deny that I really like the song “Better” which many will likely consider a sacrilege by G n’ R purists since it came off of Chinese Democracy. But I can’t help myself — the riff in that tune and the words just get me every time I hear it.

My friend Chris and I dressed as Axl and Slash at a halloween party. We took 2nd place in the costume contest.

Not to mention that Axl is just too damn sexy.

After posting my Blogging A to Z challenge post for the letter E, there were tongue-in-cheek comments about what the F word post should be. And it turns out that it’s not a joke because my F word post is indeed about the F word. So if you find the F bomb offensive, you’re best off not reading any further.

This post is actually a guest post from the friend who actually suggested it first. Laura tells a great story about the first time she let the F word fly in front of her mother and how she struggled to make sense of why it was a bad word. Her story really struck me in two ways: first, it made me think about the first time my own daughter let the F bomb fly — she was maybe 3 or 4 years old. She was mad at me and said, “You’re fuckin’, Mommy.” My mother-of-the-year response was, “I’m fuckin’? You can’t even use the fucking word the right way.” But the thing (the other thing) that strikes me is that word — why is it bad? What makes a word good or bad? I guess I can wrap my brain around why a word that is used as a racial or ethnic slur would be bad — its intent it is to hurt and degrade. But why are swear words bad? I readily admit the F word is a pretty big part of my vocabulary — for better or worse. That’s why my daughter said it at such an early age. But rather than continue to ponder the origin of evil, I present to you my friend Laura’s guest post about the F word. Fuck yeah!

“As a child, I repeated things my mother said. Unfortunately for her, what she said one day was worked into song form, which I sung for my family after supper, to the horror of everyone:

Fuck it! Fuck it! Fuck it in a Bucket! Fuck it on a Truck! Fuck it, Yeah, just Fuck it!

Mercifully, I don’t recall a dance to accompany it.

I remember a completely shocked, white-faced audience. I remember saying, What…? About a millisecond before my mom snatched me up.

Oh no! You can’t ever say that, Laura!

But you said Fuck it today and it rhymes with truck it and bucket and lots of stuff…

It doesn’t matter, it’s a bad word! I shouldn’t have said it.

I looked at my one year younger brother, like, Do you believe this shit? Who was chewing on his sleeve in nervousness and despair at my situation. There goes my song! I remember yelling. Then I just remember my siblings running from the room in fear and later, eating a popsicle and wondering, What the Fuck was that all about? Did I mishear my own mother, who’s every utterance I hung on? What was wrong with my song, was my pentameter off? Did someone else write a Fuck it in a Bucket song first, and was I plagiarizing? What in the Wide World of Sports was going on?

My sister’s counsel: You said a swear word! You said the worst one!

Me: So?

Sis: You can get spanked for that!

Me: I didn’t get spanked.

Sis: But you could! It’s the worst one!

Me (perched analytically in the head of my 5 year old self): But I didn’t. Why is it a bad word? How does a word get to be a bad word? How can words be bad? I said it, Nothing happened. (If there’s no consequence, is it still bad? Are there things in this world that are bad just on account of?)

Sis: it just is! It’s the worst one!

While I was trying to digest how my mom did anything bad, because she was a sweet, singing, pie baking chestnut haired angel who I adored unconditionally, and while I tried to decipher the idea of a ‘bad word,’ my sister kept breaking into my day dreaming with her insidious nagging. (It’s the worst one!) Do things have worth outside of their purposes? (Spankings!) If so, how is that worth assigned? (You’re in trouble!) Am I to deduce that worth is inherited? That things have a worth outside of my idea of value? If that’s true, things are only important in relevance… (Wait til Dad finds out!) Maybe a word exists merely to be bad, but if that’s true, how are we all assigning the same value at once? (You said a Bad Word!) Where does a bad word come from? (Mom’s mad at you!)

Finally, I couldn’t take another dire warning, all because I wrote a KickAss song, and I started to cry. I said, I’m telling Mom on you! And then I ran outside to play, thinking, Oh well, Fuck it. She’s always a Cassandra anyways.” — Laura Pogliano

Day 4 of the Blogging A to Z challenge takes me to letter D, and I have chosen to honor Dave Barry. If you don’t know who he is, I’ll briefly enlighten you. I stumbled upon Dave Barry years ago by accident — I don’t remember if it was my dad or me who found him and then shared his writing with the other, but it doesn’t really matter. Dave Barry is a humor columnist, and I love him because he is funny and because he helped me form a unique bond with my dad, who also loves Dave Barry. My favorite memories include my father and I taking turns reading his Sunday column out loud to each other, laughing so hard we had to stop to breathe. His writing is clever, snarky, sarcastic, and offbeat. He writes with a very distinct voice. And, of course, there is my favorite line to read in any Dave Barry column — “I am not making this up.”

If you like to laugh, I recommend Dave Barry. Learn more about Dave Barry here, and read one of his representative columns here — it has all the things I mentioned above — including “I am not making this up.”

Today’s letter is B for the Blogging A to Z challenge, so I’m going to write about my favorite “B” (and also my favorite “R”) in the worlds — my daughter Becky. By the way, before she was born, I insisted she would never be called Becky — she would always be called Rebekah. You can see how far I got with that. So I’m going to share some of my favorite stories and Beck-isms today!

• Becky started sleeping through the night when she was only 6 weeks old.
  

  Becky with Jim at his college graduation. She was only a couple weeks old.

• She loved to have me push her on the swing in our backyard and she would say, “Sing Hontan to me.” She loved the song “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas (or Hontan, as Becky said) and she wanted me to sing it every time she was in her swing.
• She also relentlessly asked for “Little Bunny Foo Foo” when she was little, too.
• She once found a caterpillar in the yard and proceeded to make friends with it. She pulled it around in her wagon and talked to it. She put it on a swing and pushed the swing. Then she said, “Swing with me!” And promptly sat down on it on the swing.
  

  My favorite picture of Jim and Becky.

• My mother had the privilege of seeing Becky’s prized collection of ladybugs — a jewelry box filled with dead ladybugs. Still don’t know if they were dead or alive when they were collected.
• She would stand at the top of the stairs and call down, “Mom, I’m not doing anything up here!” Which would prompt an immediate investigation.
• She would also stand with her hands behind her back and inform me, “Mom, I don’t have anything behind my back.” Which would also prompt an quick investigation.
  

  She was so darn cute!

• Elbow = Ebbow
• Thumb = Bum
• Remote = Marote
• Tweezers = Tweezlers
• Versing, as in, “Hey Dad, who are the Blackhawks versing tonight?”
  

  Becky does NOT like honey. Because Tiggers do not like honey. Makes sense.

High school graduation with her kitty Shasta.

My daughter has grown into quite a beautiful young woman — beautiful on the inside and the outside. Despite her upbringing. How lucky am I?