Rihanna: taking Chris Brown back into her life..

I keep reading people saying things like "She deserves what she gets." and  "If he hits her again I won't feel sorry for her."

She does not deserve it, and I will feel sorry for her.

We cannot make the mistake of blaming the victim. Yes, she knows what he is capable of and yes I personally feel this is a huge mistake she is making. However, that doesn't give him a license to beat her again and we all shrug our shoulders because she should have known better. Chris Brown is still 100% responsible for his own actions.

The mind set of a person who has been abused is not like the mind set of someone who has not. Abusers get inside the mind of their victim over a long period of time. It is not so easily shaken.

As a formerly abused woman I can tell you that even 18 years after leaving him, I still hear him echoing terrible words in my head. His fists are gone from me, but the scars will always remain. After I finally got the strength to leave, he tried to reconcile many times and I always refused. I remembered how it felt to be punched in the eye, drug around the house by my hair, thrown into walls.. and how it felt to have to hide the bullets to his service revolver at night in fear that he would actually pull the trigger some night. I hate him. I love myself more than I could ever love the man who beat me. I had hoped in my heart of hearts that Rihanna would find the same strength to love herself more.

She is giving Chris Brown another chance. She seems to be wide eyed and clear about her risks. "Even if it's a mistake, it's my mistake. He doesn't have the luxury of f***ing up again," she says. "That's just not an option. I can't say that nothing else will ever go wrong. But I'm pretty solid in the knowing that he's disgusted by that. And I wouldn't have gone this far if I ever thought that was a possibility." (From this article.)

I know that reforming is a possibility. With treatment  and a true desire to change, it can be done. However, most abusers do not see where they are wrong to do what they do and therefor continue to make the same violent mistakes. Chris Brown has a very prominent history of violence. He is in the news just this week for a physical altercation with Frank Ocean. He does not see the error of his ways. He is a ticking time bomb. It is only a matter of time before he hurts her again. Possibly, even more than he did before.

When that happens, though, we can't shift the focus off him and onto her. She is making a huge mistake, yes, but that does not give him entitlement to do as he pleases with her body and her mind. She will still be a victim. He will still be an abuser.

Mom and her knees..

Mom has surgery tomorrow. It’s “routine” and nothing to stress about, but still, it’s surgery. Mom fucked up her left knee hardcore when she was 17 in a serious car wreck. They pieced her knee back together as best they could with the technology they had at that time. Well over the years stress on the “good” knee took it’s toll. She had the “bad” knee replaced last year and this year she is having the “good” (but still very bad) replaced. I am so glad. She just has been slowed down so tremendously by this. Mom is a very active lady (read: waaaay busier than me) and this has put such a damper on her. So tomorrow is the surgery. I will be out of town in Gainesville for that. Saturday she comes back to our town and into the rehab center for a few weeks. Just like last year. 

Anyhow, my schedule is gonna get wonky while this is all going on. I’ll keep you guys posted. Send any good juujuu her way for a speedy recovery on that knee. She is my 6 million dollar Mom! 

Writer problems..

Sometimes life gives you a moment straight out of a Nicholas Spark novel. I'm a writer and should know how to handle such moments with a flurry of beautiful words that will be remembered for eternity in the echoes of the soul. Instead, I sound like a beached whale with no concept of actual speech. 

Reader problems..

I waited so long for book 3 of this trilogy to come out. And it did. And I do not like it. I am on page 259 of 365 and I am so over it.

Book 1 was amazing! I told all my friends to read it. 

Book 2 was still really good. 

Book 3 is something I am forcing myself to read. The characters are stuck in a boring hell of boringness. I am more than two thirds of the way through the book and I am so tempted to just skip to the end and see how it ends because getting to the end is painful. Where is the spunk these characters had? The fight is gone. They went from I will change the world even if I lose everything and everyone because I am strong and I know the world needs me and needs change! to I'll do some paperwork and hope shit changes. I cannot go on. I don't even care about the main protag anymore. I barely care about my fav character in the book. They have declawed and defanged all the good out of these people. They are flat and their circumstances are boring. 

I don't want to put the name of the series out there because I still love book 1. And all over Twitter they still love book 3. But personally, for me, I am just.. bleh. 

I think I am going to read something else for a while and try to come back to this later. I have other books waiting for my attention and I want to give it to them. I am not shelving this forever, but for a while. 

Face to face!

I am very technology inclined. Some would say too much so. And yet, I almost never use any kind of web chatting such as Skype, Oovoo, etc. Why? Talking is one of my very favorite things ever! I should really live up to my technology addiction. 

I get both in my mailbox each month. Sometimes on the same day, sometimes a day or two apart. I love them both for different reasons.

Birchbox and I have been together almost a year and a half. Most months are really great, a few months have been lacking. Overall though I have found products I never ever would have found otherwise. Some of them I still use to this day!

Ipsy was something I got in on it month 2 of it’s launch (when it was still MyGlam) which puts us together for a solid year this month! Ipsy seems to be more makeup driven in my opinion but with the hard facts I am proven wrong. Still, I stick by my words because it definitely has more makeup than Birchbox. 

I am truly glad to see both of these in my mail each month. I used to post pics of my boxes but then sometimes I couldn’t take the time immediately and so I felt like I couldn’t dive into my boxes. I love my boxes! I want them nooooow. 

My fav thing to get in the boxes is lipstuff. I love lipstuff. I have found great eyeliners and makeup brushes too. And boy howdy do I love the mud masks and exfoliaters! 

Well, can’t wait to take advantage of this months products! I should start documenting them again. I did turn a bunch of people into Birchbox people! 

Both boxes are monthly things that arrive in your mail for the very happy price of $10 each! Birchbox comes in a hot pink box with a brown box inside. It is full of skin creams, cleansers, hair products, and sometimes mascaras, eyeliners, blush, lipstuff.. Ipsy comes in a hot pink bubble envelope that has a makeup bag inside (quality is getting better as they go. I have watched this company struggle from nothing to pretty awesome.) and it’s full of nail polish, shadows, blushes, hair products, lipstuff, etc.

I can tell you some brands that I now swear by that I learned about from either Birchbox or Ipsy. Yes to Carrots brand makeup wipes called Yes to Cumcumbers (almost daily). Eyeko Skinny liquid eyeliner (weekly use), Benefit POREfessional ( I swear by this every single freakin day!!!), my glam eyeshadow brush (daily), Buxom lipstuff, Mirenesse lip bomb, Chella eyebrow gel (daily use!), Urban Decay 24/7 glide on eye pencil…

Need I say more? Oh and let me mention that you usually get a travel size product! Sometimes it’s a one use thing, but usually it’s travel size so you can try it over and over. Honestly I would not have tried those things I mentioned if they had not been in those monthly deliveries. I mean seriously, it’s like a teeny bit of Christmas every single month!

Winter spring cleaning..

Since I have free time from school I am trying to get my house back in order. It has been far too out of hand for far too long. It took more than a weekend to get this way and will take more than a weekend to fix. But I am working on it. I like "stuff" so my house will never look like something out of a Nate Berkus design (I LOVE YOU NATE!) but even an abundance of stuff can be neatly handled. I feel better when the house looks better.

Baby Got Back

“This is the one song you can turn up and I won’t judge your penis.” is what I said in the car yesterday (to my daughter, son, and my daughter's boyfriend) as Baby Got Back came on. I really judge people who turn up the bass so loudly that it vibrates the ribs of people in other cars. I assume they have a teeny penis and need to make up for what they lack. However, Baby Got Back is the one exception to the rule. Because it should be a law that that song gets turned up every time.