Essa Alroc's Blog, page 3

No… We’re Not Going to Argue Anymore

I recently took down my “responses to hate mail” page. When I first started blogging, I wasn’t familiar with online politics and I thought the whole ‘responses to hate mail page’ was funny. I was so proud of my ability to hurt a person’s feelings that I felt the need to show everyone how great I was at being a bitch and how easily I could make these people who emailed me look like morons. In short, I was an arrogant asshole who thought she knew everything. And like any know-it-all, I am making this video my change of perspective announcement.

Let me explain the reason I had to to respond in the first place. I have a hair trigger temper and I’m intensely paranoid. I think a few of the readers of this very page have been victims of that. While I might not show it, I am the kind of person who can become extremely angry even over the slightest slight and hold onto that for years.

So when someone emails me, harshly criticizing my writing (often times without reading the article) I get blindly furious. I have been in my share of online fights, that extended all the way from angry emails, to digging up personal info and posting it online, to website hacking.

It’s also part of my industry. While I don’t read my reviews, I know many other writers who do, and even get into arguments with people who don’t agree with them. Lots of reviewers don’t behave any better, using their online clout to attack authors that they think have crossed the line. While I never actually got involved in any of these fights, I’ve watched them from the sidelines, eating my virtual popcorn and saying “wow, these people are all idiots. I’m so much better and more professional than them. Don’t they understand that they’re arguing in circles?”

Somehow, I thought that by only attacking people who attacked my blog, and not my books, I was being a better, more professional writer.

Then I met Russ.

Well, I’m calling him Russ to protect his privacy. We’ve known each other since I released an article called “No, You Don’t Have PTSD. You’re Just Being a Pussy.”

Russ was one of those people who did that thing that irritates me. He read the title of the page without reading the article. Then, he posted about 400 comments on my page and sent me an angry email. I did nothing to diffuse him. I did the opposite. I got angry at him. I deleted his posts, responded to his email by signing off “I hope you get cancer” and wrote an angry blog post correcting his entire hate mail message.

Russ later apologized, agreed to disagree, and then moved on…for about 3 months. Then, I said something that set off his own hair-trigger temper again. He sent another angry email. I again got furious when I read it. He flooded my page with angry comments, using a bot system in order to change his IP repeatedly so he could continue posting without going to spam.

So I found his phone number and posted it on the NSA section of Craigslist with a request for cock pics. Again our fight ended with him apologizing. We both moved on…until a few months later, when something I said angered him again.

I have been playing out this cycle for three years now, with the most recent cycle being him gaining access to my Facebook account and posting a fuckton of messages spamming products like Viagra and adult diapers. Russ has followed me for years.  I should be angry and afraid of this man. He’s threatened me repeatedly, as well as threatened my family. He’s sent me emails in  graphic detail of what he’d do to me if we ever met.

I should be afraid of him, but I’m not. I’m not because I have to admit that as fixated on me as he is, I’ve become fixated on him.

There’s something about the thrill of knowing you’re about to get into a fight. There’s something about wanting to top the person you’re arguing with and make them look stupid, that’s kind of addictive. It becomes easy to make it into the focal point of your life. It becomes easy to make it into the sole reason that you write. You get positive reinforcement for it. Whenever I argue with an idiot online, whenever I post about hate mail, my page views and likes go through the roof. People love a train wreck. They love watching it, breaking out their virtual popcorn and saying “wow, these people are idiots. I’m so much better and more professional than them.”

Because the people watching, they didn’t care about who was wrong or who was right. By the time they reached me, that was impossible to tell. Nothing was in shades of gray. My reactions to Russ’s emails turned me from being the bullied, into the bully. But in my riotous indignation, I just felt superior.

The fact is, no one cares about the argument. The only one who really cares are you and the person you’re arguing with. In the end, everyone else is in it for the enjoyment of watching a train wreck. It’s why people loved “Jersey Shore” and every other copycat show that’s been created since. It’s human nature.

The last time Russ hacked my page, I posted his name, address and social security number on Facebook. Per usual, Russ sent me another apology email. But this time, I decided I was done with this love/hate stuff. No joke, the dude has been threatening me and following me for three years. This needed to end. If he needed an argument, I was more than willing to be his Huckleberry.

So I told him I was done with his bullshit apologies and asked one question I never asked before.

“Why do you keep bothering me?” I asked, expecting some kind of explanation of how I reminded him of his absentee mother or overbearing aunt.

“Because you keep responding.” His answer was simple. Stupidly simple. Turns out Russ is reasonably smart, but socially awkward. He felt invisible. Getting my responses kept him from feeling invisible. How I gave him attention didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if it was good or bad. He barely even read or acknowledged my responses. It was the fact that I responded at all that made him keep coming back.

I was arguing in circles, getting into a fight with a person I knew would never agree with me, because actually agreeing with me would defeat the purpose of the contact in the first place. By arguing with him, I created a connection that neither of us was willing to let go of.

I wasn’t willing to let it go because something inside of me needed to make this stranger, this person who I had never met, agree with me. Make him admit he was wrong, and I was right. Make him admit he was the bad person and I was the victim. But I certainly never behaved like a victim. There were many things I did to him that were far worse than what he did to me, simply because I’m more tech savvy. I knew I had the advantage and I used it. At the time, it made me feel strong.

But after talking to the dude, it makes me feel like the kind of asshole that would beat up a person in a wheelchair. I’m not stupid. I knew I was dealing with a person who was not at the same level of computer knowledge as me and I used it against him.

Why did I do it? Did his opinion really mean that much to me? Or was I so desperate for attention, even bad attention, that I was willing to engage in an online war that I knew would end badly?

I knew I wasn’t doing it to make peace. I knew we wouldn’t agree on anything. But there was something so enticing about the argument that I kept fighting anyway.

But through writing, through interacting with people, I’ve finally grown. I’ve realized that when you respond to a troll argument, you never win. You are never going to make these people agree with you, because they know from the second they send a message that they are never going to agree with you. This is not what they care about., They only care about the response. They only care about you emailing them to prove they are not invisible. It’s a game and they want you to play with them.

I’m not playing anymore. I don’t want the cheap publicity an online fight will bring. I’m not going to be desperate for you to agree with me. There is a very good chance that we will never agree. There is a very good chance that our opinions on everything differ even at the most basic level. This is not something I can change.

I’m not responding anymore. It’s not because I think I’m wrong, but because I need to believe that things are going to get better. I need to believe that people are interested in more than petty arguments and stupid squabbling. I need to believe I’m a little bit more than a bad car crash on the side of the road that you pull over to look at.

I can’t stop you from saying horrible things about me. I can’t control the way you react. But I can control the way I react to those reactions.

Words are words and the words you use have no power over me. Use them whenever you feel like. I have a delete button on my computer and my phone for a reason. There is nothing in the world forcing me to interact with you. Unless you physically threaten me in person, we have nothing left to talk about. We don’t agree and I can be cool with that. It’s the whole “if a tree falls in the woods”, thing.

If an asshole says something about you that you never read…did he really say it?

I’m going with no. Unless you’re actually, physically in my life, you don’t exist to me. I am not going to argue in circles. I am not going to give you the attention you seek. We can disagree and I can be cool with that.

So the responses to hate mail page is gone. The responses to anything are gone. I refuse to be the online equivalent of the Jersey Shore. I’m better than that and I’m smarter than that. I’m not a fad or a car crash. I’m just Essa and I’m cool with that.

Nothing about me needs to change. It’s only the way I’ve responded to dissenting opinions that does. Trust this; I now, and always will, think I’m right about everything. Essa on Everything remains an aristocracy, with me earning the title of “Dictator for Life.” Your comments will be approved should they pass my stringent quality control test of not pissing me off.

Email comments will go into my spam email address to be reviewed every six months or so, much like the system I already have in place for reviews…where I delete them without reading them because in  my opinion, life’s too damn short to spend it arguing over ‘the principle’.

Because my principle is this, taken from one of those 1980’s movies I love so deeply.

You want to hurt me? Go right ahead if it makes you feel any better. I’m an easy target. Yeah, you’re right, I talk too much. I also listen too much. I could be a cold-hearted cynic like you… but I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings. Well, you think what you want about me; I’m not changing. I like… I like me. My wife likes me. My customers like me. Cause I’m the real article. What you see is what you get.

That’s all there is to it people. I’m Essa and what you see is what you get. That is the very last response to hatemail I’m ever going to make and the only one that matters.

Because I like me, and I don’t give a flying flippedy fuck about your opinion on the subject.

. .

In Defense of the Drunk-and-Dial

If you’re a drinker like me chances are, every once in a while you wake up and say “what the hell did I do last night?”

For me, most of that involves sending drunken messages, i.e. the infamous drunk and dial. I might have a few too many and email someone before having a long, drawn out, occasionally blurry conversation.

Then, the next morning, I don’t remember the conversation, but I do manage to regret it. I think “damn my drinking. I would have never said something so stupid if I’d been sober.”

I have the feeling a lot. See by nature, I am non-confrontational. I tend to avoid it when I can and pretend I’m not pissed when I am. Then, half a box of wine (I’m so classy) in, suddenly, I’m having all these epiphanies. I’m thinking “why have I never said this to them before? I’ve been stewing about it for years. Might as well say it now…”

So I do. I feel great about it. Until I sober up. Then I think “what the fuck did I say? Oh shit, I bet they’re pissed. I’m just going to avoid Facebook for say the next…thirty years and things will be cool”

But I don’t actually avoid it. While I’m mostly non-confrontational, I’m also not a coward. So once I recover from my hangover, I go back in and reread the things I said.

And you know what I think as I reread those messages?

“I’m actually pretty god damn glad I said that because it needed to be said.”

Here’s the deal. I’m actually a very nice person. While I come across harsh here, this page is kind of all about rants, so of course you’re going to hear about the things that piss me off. You’re seeing one side of me.

But there’s a lot you don’t see. You don’t see the emails I exchange with countless strangers giving them tips on how to improve their website rankings and sell their books. You don’t see the large circle of friends I have and the fact that I’m generally the first person they’d call if they needed to be bailed out of jail…which as far as I’m concerned is the litmus test for being a good friend. I respond to every piece of fan mail or question I get, no matter how stupid they might be. I listen to my friends bitch endlessly about their lives and never ask a thing in return. If you’ve ever had anyone attack you in the comments of my page, you know I’m the first person to respond and come to your defense.

I can say this with 100% certainty. I am not the kind of person who asks for help. I’m the kind of person who gives it. Unfortunately, that tends to breed an environment where people think they can take my kindness for my weakness.   But for the fact that I have a hair trigger temper and a fondness for Reisling, that might be the case. But much like Popeye with his can of spinach, that glass of wine makes me suddenly strong.

So if I’m sending a pissed off message, you know what? It needed to be said and the person on the receiving end had it coming. As I pull up the drunken messages I sent after several months’ worth of benders I have to say that actually wasn’t that bad. It could have been much worse….though it likely could have been spelled better.

But I’m glad I said it.

Because when you don’t say what you need to say, your last day of your life becomes you waking up from a bender. You think “shit, what did I do? What did I say? What should I have said that I didn’t?”  By the time you think that, it’s too damn late. You can’t go back in time and fix it. You can only move on.

So occasionally I imbibe a bit too much and say more than I should have. When I’m sober, I say far less than I should. In my mind, that makes me even Stephen. More importantly, it ensures that I don’t wake up on the last day of my life and view my entire life as a bender where I regret everything I should have done….with significantly more spelling errors.

So people, if you’ve gotten a drunken email from me in the past, I’m not flowing in a downward spiral. I’m climbing my way up a story pyramid. That story pyramid might include a bit more profanity than most, but it always ensures that I am exactly where I need to be.

And where I am is on top, regretting nothing…and probably loaded.

Desperately Seeking Facebook Friends….And No, I’m Not Trying to Nail Your Husband

So I have a limited amount of Facebook friends. While my fan page does ok, my actual friend page is embarrassingly low. Most of my friends have at least upwards of 300 friends. My page has a pathetic 140 friends. While in real life, that number would be impressive, online the number is abysmally low. Like “smelly kid in class’ low.

So I did what any normal person would do. I went online and sent out at least 50 drunken Facebook friend requests to anyone who looked even vaguely familiar.  The results were mostly positive, with me reconnecting with many new (old) friends that I forgot even existed.

But it wasn’t all nice. Especially not nice was this message.

That response made me do a double-take, and then a triple take. I was shocked and offended at the same time. And it’s incredibly hard to shock or offend me. I get a lot of hate mail, after all. I actually write off the time spent responding to hate mail on my taxes, so I’m used to it. But this was so out of nowhere that it blew my friggen mind.

This person I friended was not a person I dated.  This was not anyone that I’ve had an ongoing flirtation with. This was a person that I went to school with, that I haven’t talked to in at least 15 years that I was like “hey, cool, he’s on Facebook. Maybe he wants to be friends? I shall send him a friend request.”

This was not “hey, this is my ex-boyfriend from high school and I’m lonely divorcee who wants to flirt with this guy I haven’t seen in twenty years.”  This is not a person I would consider fuckable even after my worst possible bender…and trust this, my benders are impressive. I once sent topless photos to the dude that plays Tyrion on Game of Thrones. There is just something about Peter Dinklage that gets me going.

Great, now his wife is probably going to send me an angry Facebook message.

But it was so upsetting, I decided to address the issue here. So crazy chick who emailed me? This one’s for you.

I’ve found that most women who think everyone is trying to fuck their husbands are married to dudes that no one wants to fuck in the first place. Meanwhile, the chicks who have utterly fuckable husbands are the first ones to say “OMG, you should friend my DH. He thinks your friggen hilarious!”

Insecurity breeds bad choices. When you’re not confident, you tend to settle for whoever will have you. So the fact that you’re a “WIFE’ does not impress me. Just about any girl could be a “WIFE” if she settled for whatever came along. You’re clearly insecure, so that tells me you’re the kind of person who settles for the human equivalent of the rotten potato that is always buried under the good potatoes in the produce section.

Just to clarify, your email tells me;

You’re incredibly insecure
Your husband is very likely that rotten tuber that no one wanted anyway.

So to the lady who emailed me, thanks for being a cunt. I’m sure your husband is incredibly happy that he married a shrew that goes through his Facebook friend requests to ensure that no one attractive gets through. I’m sure you guys will be very happy together…until you wind up on an episode of divorce court.

I’ll watch that episode with glee, but I’ll never again send a friend request to your husband, though it will be hard to resist. I mean, who could resist an overweight middle aged day laborer with a drinking problem?

On the flip, if you’re a normal chick, or the husband of a secure woman who does not feel the need to send offensive messages to Facebook strangers, I welcome your friend request. Rest assured, I will make every effort to resist the urge to try to have sex with you or your significant other. You can find me here.

https://www.facebook.com/essa.alroc

Dating Advice for the Undateable

If you’re like me, then you’re probably 100% undatable. There’s lots of reasons for being undateable. You could be really ambitious, really busy, or possibly a serial killer with a penchant for killing prostitutes. It doesn’t matter. No judgement here. We all have our vices.

Anyway, it comes to mind that the undateable just don’t have a lot of advice aimed at them. Sure, there’s plenty of advice for men, or advice for women out there, advice for divorced, advice for lesbians, gays, jeez, there’s even advice for people who like to dress up as teddy bears and do it.

But there’s no dating advice for the hopelessly updatable, like me. At least there wasn’t, until now.

#1. Respond to texts.

If you’re like me, every time you get a text from someone, you groan. You’re not big into texting, maybe because you can’t spell, maybe like me you have giant clumsy sausage fingers. Whatever, you need to start responding.

Let me introduce you to your new best friend. Autofill. Those are the little words that come up above your keyboard and I now use only those words I’m given to write messages. It saves a lot of time. Sometimes it works, sometimes, you just gotta go with what it gives you.

So yeah, doesn’t always work, but I’m sure he’ll figure it out…actually, now that I think about it, that probably sounds like a euphemism for making porn.

#2. Online dating is not your friend when you’ve been drinking.

Sure, it starts off, you have a nice glow about you, and you’re charmingly sipping your wine as you flirt with handsome strangers. Then, about 3 hours in, you’ve downed a bottle, started pounding beers and you’re sweating like an angry wildebeest as you get increasingly bitter. You are now a minefield ready to explode. Sure enough, the next a-hole who sends you another message with just the word ‘hi’ is getting told off. The downward spiral of online fighting with strangers has begun.

I’m a big proponent of a company figuring out how to add breathalyzers to laptops in order to prevent the wi-fi from connecting if you’re above the legal limit. Same with phones. The person who figures that out is gonna be a fucking millionaire.

The best online advice I can give when dating is stay sober…or at the very most mildly buzzed.

#3. Learn online dating diplomacy.

In a perfect world, we would all be able to say whatever we want and have people get our jokes, but sometimes strangers aren’t like that. They’re all sensitive and shit. You have to watch your sarcasm, even if the person just gave you the perfect set up. This, for example, is wrong.

Look, I couldn’t resist a setup that good, but I do actually know the guy. It’s not like that was our first message.  So learn diplomacy with your messages and occasionally resist the urge to go with the joke. It helps alot.

I have the benefit of knowing I’m undatable, so I can tell you what to avoid. I know myself well enough to know where I screw up and those screwups also involve getting loaded and removing my verbal filter. Knowing that I’m undateble makes it easy to come up with a solution.

Mine? Switch to weed and get addicted to Spanish Telenovelas. My current fave is La Reina del Sur. My only complaint is that they always seem to be playing Mariachi music, but that could just be my racist white person brain.

Oh yeah, being racist also makes you undateable…unless you find one of those kkk love connection websites (like ancestry.com).

If You’re Here Because of My OK Cupid Profile…

This is a public service announcement, aimed at anyone who is cyber stalking me because they met me during my misguided attempt with online dating at OK Cupid. After a few days online, I quickly decided that my time would be better spent bettering myself, so I’ve elected to use my free time to go back to school and get my MFA, rather than date. It’s a matter of cost/benefit analysis. The cost in both cases is my time, but the benefit to both differs exponentially.

With a master’s in fine arts, I get the knowledge to make myself a better writer, and connections that will help me further my career. With online dating, I get STDs and the potential to wind up as a victim (or aggressor) on “Fatal Attractions.”  For me, the analysis told me everything I needed to know, so I shut down my profile and stopped responding to messages. I figured that would be enough, but it wasn’t, as several hopeful suitors have chosen to follow me out into the world wide web.

So if you’ve arrived here because you need closure on our “relationship” the following is for you.

***

Look, I get you’re interested, but contacting me on every single social media channel is getting out of hand.

I lost interest. It happens. As we have never met in person, and never even been out on one date, general dating rules indicate I don’t owe you an explanation as to why I’m not interested. I’m just not. I’m allowed to pull the whole ‘radio silence’ thing and disappear, just as you’re entitled to send ONE message, calling me a cunt, tease, bitch-whore-cuntface or any combination thereof. I get that. It’s the rules of dating in the digital age.

What you’re not entitled to do is track me down like your long lost fiancé who got amnesia following some kind of shipwreck. We don’t know each other. We exchanged like five emails on a dating site. We did not exchange vows, promise rings, or bodily fluids.

Which makes you hunting me down on Facebook, browsing my profile on LinkedIn and direct messaging me on Twitter not flattering, but creepy in a “I want to wear you as a skin suit” kind of way.

So let me make this clear. I’m not interested. Nothing against you. I’m sure you’re a great person. I’m just not interested. Hunting me like a tiger stalking a gazelle is not going to change that. It’s just going to drive me to get two things; a restraining order and a gun.

Now back the fuck off.

***

I’m putting this up here because this didn’t just happen once. Many men have contacted me off site. Many of those men didn’t even have any contact information for me. That leads me to believe they reverse googled my images, which is creepy in and of itself. No joke guys, that is not flattering, and I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish. If your goal was to creep me out, well done. If it was to garner my interest, you have failed miserably.

I’m not trying to be a bitch, but circumstances have put me in a bitch position. Honestly, I’m not that much of a catch anyway. I’m a self-centered alcoholic loudmouth with questionable personal hygiene. Trust me boys, you dodged a bullet.

But seriously? Back the fuck off. I know we’re living in a new world, but to me, courting should never involve being cyber stalked.

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

One of my favorite books is Tortilla Flat. You may have heard of it, you may not have, but it’s mainly a story about how change isn’t always good. It’s one of my favorite books because of one particular story that has stuck with me for years.

There’s this single mom and she’s a migrant farm worker who spends her days gathering beans on a farm. The guy at the farm tells her that she can have all the beans that fall on the ground, as long as she saves the beans on the bush for paying customers.

So she uses the beans to feed her family. Everyday, breakfast, lunch and dinner, the kids have beans wrapped in a tortilla. That’s all her kids ever eat, tortillas and beans. But the thing is, they’re amazingly healthy. They’re neither under, nor overweight. They aren’t anemic or sickly. They’re happy, energetic kids.

Then, there’s a massive rain fall that ruins all the beans. On the edge of starvation, the lady turns to the main characters for help, asking if they can get her more beans.

So the guys do what they do best. They go around town, stealing as much food as they can for the family. But they think the lady deserves more than beans, so they steal milk, and fruit and white flour and give it all to the lady. They don’t give her any beans but knowing that beggars can’t be choosers, the lady takes all the food and gives it to her kids.

They don’t get healthier. Instead, the dairy gives them croup, the fruit gives them the runs and the white flower gives them stomachaches. Desperate again, the lady returns with a specific request.

All she wants is beans.

So the men steal a large sack of dried beans and give it to her. Soon after, the children return to perfect health. They all live happily ever after…at least until the main character dies in a fire.

The moral of the story? “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

WordPress, you could probably take a lesson from Tortilla Flat.

You all might have noticed my page has changed. That was not through any desire of mine. I liked the old format. While some people said it might look a little ‘sex dungeon’, I always thought I was a sex dungeon kind of girl, so it worked.

Then, I installed a long overdue update to my WordPress software and it all went to hell. Suddenly, I didn’t know where anything was anymore. I couldn’t access the coding and change simple things like font color, because the blank template I used in the past was no longer supported.

Here’s the thing. I like a black background with white font. Why? Because it’s better for my reader’s eyes. Contrary to popular belief, staring at a white background with black font on a website is not like looking at a piece of paper. It’s like staring at a 100 watt lightbulb.

So I’m trying to work around this mess, because WordPress changed something that wasn’t broke. Much like the lady in the story, I was perfectly happy with the status quo. Much like the kids in the story, fighting with this new uncodeable theme is giving me the runs.

So I’m going to try out some new themes, at least until I find something that doesn’t give me the runs when I’m trying to recode it.

But Jesus, I do miss my old blank ‘beans and tortillas’ theme.

It just goes to show you, even in technology, sometimes what worked in the past works better now. Simplicity is key and above all…if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Or You Could Try Not Being a Dick

Check out the below eye roll inducing video.

For those who don’t want to watch, some Texas idiot decided based on his extensive legal expertise of…well, not being a lawyer, that’s for damn sure, he was going to a disobey a lawful order and got his window smashed in for the trouble. It amazes me how many people I see trying to get out of a speeding ticket or other minor charge by offering some kind of ‘loophole’ legal argument. Here are some of the most idiotic ones I’ve heard.

If I ask an undercover cop if he’s a cop, he has to say yes
I’m never required to give ID
I don’t have to talk to the cops at all, because of the 5th amendment
If they don’t read you your Miranda Rights at the time of the arrest, it’s a get out of jail free card

I don’t know how these fallacies get spread. Maybe it’s movies, maybe it’s the magic of the internet, but in reality, if there is a loophole to be found in your case, don’t play street side lawyer. Let your real lawyer handle it.

Otherwise, like the above guy, you’re probably going to fuck it up royally.

You really want to walk away from a potential arrest, here’s an idea and you won’t have to pull legal research on off of some shitty internet forum.

Try not being a dick. That’s it. Just not being a complete dick works about 99% of the time. Let me give you an example.

Officer: So the reason I pulled you over is because you were going 95 in a 60 while snorting coke off an underage hooker’s ass, and also, a bunch of AK-47s fell out of your trunk. May I have your license and registration?

Wrong Response

I don’t have to say anything or give you anything, because of the 5th amendment and this isn’t Nazi Germany, and you’re worse than Hitler. I saw on Law & Order that before you pulled me over you were required identify yourself as a police officer, and you were waiting on the side of the road and that’s entrapment and… is that a Taser? Wait! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZTT…AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Right Response

Here you go (smart person hands cop their identifying credentials and then SHUTS THE FUCK UP. Cop returns with paperwork and decides to let driver off with a warning)

Hey, I’m in Florida. If everyone in this state who drives around with illegal firearms, with underage hookers, while high on drugs was arrested, there’d be no room in the prisons.

Not being a dick is an arrest defense that has worked time and time again. It works whether you’re a man or a woman, whether you’re black or white. It works because it keeps a bad situation from escalating.

Sure, you might still get arrested, or a ticket, but if you pull the “I’m a street side lawyer and I’m going to be a condescending dick” routine, you’ve just given the cop more reason to want to see you in prison. However, not being a dick gives you the possibility of getting let off with a warning.

The time to use loopholes is not at the time of your arrest. It’s when your case goes to court. Lawyers are experts at loopholes because they get their info from places other than the internet and crime shows. Help them help you by not being a dick.

Presenting National Day Drunk Day!!!

So today is “National Donut Day.” I’ve been hearing about it all day, watching Dunking Donuts and Starbucks use it as a marketing scheme, and I have to admit, I’m annoyed. I’m annoyed because while overeaters get the opportunity to embrace their vices, alcoholic recreational drug users like myself don’t.

What about the rest of us? Where is our opportunity to embrace our vices, not just acceptably, but in an avenue of encouragement?

Until today, we were underserved. We were ignored because we didn’t have an acceptable vice that corporations that could make money from.

So, because I’m the kind of person who likes to embrace all personal choices (and get drunk before noon) I’m announcing the first National Day Drunk Day, which will occur on June 20, 2015.

Look, everyone else gets a holiday. Political people, nostalgic people, fat people, athletic people, religious people…but what about we people who enjoy abusing mind altering substances?

That’s what National Day Drunk Day is for. On June 20, 2015, feel free to get as drunk as you want while you do whatever you want. Drunk and dial that ex. Sleep with someone ugly. Send a long, offensive email to your father, filled with profanities, complaining about how little he does for you…Father’s day is the next day, after all.

Above all, know this. For 24 hours, nothing you do counts. It’s like Vegas, only what happens on National Day Drunk Day, stays on National Day Drunk Day.

Whether you’re a happy drunk, an angry drunk, or a slutty drunk, all are welcome (especially slutty drunks). It’s about time that we all had a holiday that we’re intentionally supposed to not remember.

This isn’t New Year’s, where you pretend that the new year is your reason for getting drunk. This isn’t Christmas, where you pretend loneliness or dealing with annoying family relations is your excuse for getting drunk. It’s National Day Drunk Day and you don’t need an excuse. It’s not just accepted, but expected, that you be full on raging day drunk before noon.

So spread the message and let’s make this happen. The hashtag is #daydrunk and the time is June 20. I hope to see you all there.

TLC, Like It Or Not, You Had A Responsibility

There’s a well-known phenomenon out there. It’s called “social proof.” It’s been used in psychology, marketing, and as a defense in criminal trials.

Simply stated, it means that people tend to assume that the people around them are more knowledgeable than they are. These people need not have any credibility at all. They can be complete failures at life, but because they speak in an authoritative tone, in a public arena, others will assume they are subject matter experts.

Let me tell you a first-hand story about social proof and how it works.

Awhile back, I was at a party with a guy who clearly had a drinking problem. Well before the party, he’d gotten into a drunken fight with his girlfriend, stole her car, plowed it into an underpass and then spent the next two days holed up in a bar.

It was practically the real life story that inspired the Bartender song.

Anyone would reconsider their drinking after that. Any normal person would look at an incident like that and say “hey, you know what? It’s time to cut out the drinking. It’s clearly ruining my life.”

For a while, this guy (we’ll call him Steve) did. Then, one night, we all went to a housewarming party at my friend Carlie’s house. Steve wasn’t drinking. Then, Carlie got involved.

“Why aren’t you drinking, Steve?”

Steve sheepishly looked down. “I stopped. Turns out, I’m a complete asshole when I’m drinking.”

“Come on!” Carlie did not like to drink alone. “You’ll be fine. Just have one.”

Steve might have said no, but social proof took over. “Ok. I guess one wouldn’t hurt.”

Four hours later, as I was trying to peel a half-naked, sobbing Steve off of me, it occurred to me that Carlie was hardly an expert. She wasn’t a rehab counselor or doctor. She wasn’t a social worker and she sure as shit wasn’t a psychic, otherwise she would have predicted Steve’s impending alcohol poisoning…and the fact that he would need a new pair of pants.

She had no authority whatsoever to tell Steve drinking ‘just one’ would be fine. We both simply fell for social proof. For some reason, when Carlie said “it’s ok” I assumed it would be and so did Steve.

She was wrong.

I bring this up because of the Duggar scandal. For anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock, Josh Duggar is one of those weird, uber religious people from 19 Kids and Counting and it was recently revealed that Josh had molested several young girls as a teenager.

Look, I’m not going to jump on the bandwagon and call Josh a pedophile. I don’t know what happened and the court records don’t to exist to prove it. He could have been a teenager who made a mistake. He could be a sexual predator. The world may never know.

What I know is this. Josh has been held up as an authority, especially an authority on the well-being of children. He chose to put himself in that position, knowing that in the past, he had not acted in the best interest of children. He chose to hide his past, with a simple ‘god forgave me and I got counseling’ without making impressionable viewers aware that he might not be as squeaky clean as he previously indicated. He might not be an authority on his chosen platform.

For me, that’s where the problems come in. Even smart people get sucked in by social proof. If you’re in a public position, making statements to the masses, people are going to believe you.

They’re going to use your mistakes as an excuse to justify their own.

I’m glad 19 Kids and Counting got cancelled. Not just because I hate the way they treat women like breed stock and instill mass panic about homosexuality. No, I’m glad they got cancelled because of social proof.

How many pedophiles are out there right now, using Josh Duggar’s excuses as their own? How many feel, maybe not justified, but ok with what they’ve done because someone in a position of authority did it too? How many will feel ok about it, because if a massive corporate enterprise can know something like this, and still get behind someone who perpetrated it, it must be ok? It must be normal.

It’s where social proof becomes incredibly dangerous.

TLC should have known about this and they should have done something about it well before it became public knowledge. It was incredibly irresponsible to give any family with a skeleton in their past like this a platform on national television.

Even if you’re peddling reality trash (and you know you are, TLC) you have a responsibility to the people that watch your shows. And no, not all of them are idiots. You don’t have to be an idiot to be taken in by social proof.

I’m a smart girl, but that night with Steve, even I somehow attributed authority to Carlie that she hadn’t earned. For some reason, because she said it would be ok, I believed her. I justified my decision to be ok with Steve drinking because of her telling me it would be ok.

Carlie was on some kind of strange pedestal that I created for her. Without realizing it, when we allow people to become reality television stars, we put them on a pedestal too. The Jersey Shore people made it ok to be drunk all the time. The Bachelor made it ok to date 20 chicks at once. Honey BooBoo and Duck Dynasty made it ok to be redneck idiots.

And now 19 Kids and Counting makes it ok to fondle underage girls…as long as you claim Jesus forgives you. Well done, TLC.

I don’t expect my reality stars to be above reproach, but I do expect my TV channels to be responsible. I’m trusting you. I’m expecting you to be better than me because I think you’re in a position of authority. If other people trust you, I should trust you too. You’re on a pedestal.

And when you fall off that pedestal, it’s not how the landing affects you that matters. It’s how many dominoes are going down with you along the way.

The Mystery Bruise

I have a bruise on my ass. It’s not a little one. It’s one of those scary “Tupac black” bruises that leaves pasty white people like me wondering if we have leukemia. It’s large and black, and in the shape of Texas.

I have no idea where it came from. Did I mess with Texas? I’ve heard that you just ‘don’t mess with Texas.’ I’d never do that.

…it’s not nice to pick on retards.

(Sorry Alejandro, I just couldn’t let that joke go unsaid. If it makes you feel any better, you’re the least Texan Texan I know.)

Anywho, this mystery has been bothering me all day. Here’s the thing. I’m a bit flakier in real life than I come off online. Like flaky in the “I nearly put wart remover in my eye because I thought it was eye drops” kind of way. Like flaky in the “I found my cell phone in the freezer this morning” kind of way.

So I am no stranger to mystery bruises. I get them all the time. The minor ones I just brush off as general clumsiness, but the major ones always leave me wondering.

Because the major ones always have a story.

The worst one I can remember happened several years ago. It was the day after Saint Patrick’s Day when I woke up with a pain in my foot. It wasn’t a little pain. It was a broiling, bleeding, blistered “holy shit do I have foot cancer?” pain.

And I had no idea how it happened.  Try as I might, my drunken, hazy memory would not release the story of this horrible injury. So I simply assumed that it was far too traumatic to remember. Then, I made up my own story.

A bus filled with puppies and orphans was careening towards a cliff. I was the only one around and the only one who could save the day. With only courage and determination as my fortitude I ran towards that damned bus. Using my MacGyver-like skills, I quickly created a system of pullies and ropes (that just happened to be laying around) and lassoed the bus, keeping all of the puppies and orphans from plummeting to their certain deaths.

While this was happening, the rope caught on my foot and I got rope burn.

Satisfied with my story, I went on about my day. I had to wear flip flops, but at least all those puppies and orphans were safe.

Then my friend Mike called.

“How’s your foot?”

I gave a long suffering sigh, having fully convinced myself of my foot martyr status. “It’s ok. I’m just glad no one was hurt.”

“Why would anyone get hurt? I still can’t believe you did that.”

My illusions were about to be destroyed. “What did I do?”

“You said you were so drunk you couldn’t feel your legs. Then, you bet me $5 that I could put my cigarette out on your foot without you screaming.”

“Why the fuck would you agree to that?” I was outraged.

“That’s exactly what you screamed at me when I did it!”

Illusions destroyed, my serious injury that I got while being a selfless angel became a simple drunken bet that I’d lost. I lose a lot of drunken bets.

I imagine my last words will be “Hold my beer. I bet I can do this.”

So I’m not sure I really want to know where this bruise came from. In fact, I know I don’t, because I already know how I got it.

See, there was this busload of puppies and orphans, careening towards a cliff….