On Being An ISFJ

If you read my previous post, you may be wondering why I’m writing about a slightly different temperament now…the reason is that I am both. I split so evenly on morals, ethics, and ideals that I am both the letter N as well as the letter S. So I’m technically an INFJ and an ISFJ.

I identify slightly more with being an INFJ, but the fundamentals of who an ISFJ is describes me so well that I cannot ignore being an ISFJ; I truly am both. And while there is only a one letter difference, it is significant. While INFJs make up not even 1% of the world’s population, ISFJs make up more than 10%! There are 5 sub-types that make up around 10%; three are categorized as Guardians and the other two are Artisans.

Of the five types, the book reads as if the three Guardian types are the top three with the two Artisan types making up the rest of the Top 5 Most Popular Personalities. This means that I am literally part of the rarest group of humans in the world while simultaneously being a part of one of the most popular groups. I am both Idealist and Guardian.

And because I identify with both types so strongly, I don’t even have the luxury of picking one over the other; I’m pretty much 50/50. (Although I would probably venture that on certain days or in certain circumstances I am one over the other, so it’s more like 49/51, but it’s not consistently in favor of one type.)

I’ve included the summary for ISFJ, but I’ve never heard of anyone else being more than one type so please, if you know someone who is or if you yourself are more than one type reach out by commenting below or sending me a message…I’m very curious to know if I’m alone with this condition. I also believe that the reason I’m two types is due to being bi-polar so I’d also like to know if others who are more than one type have a mental hormonal imbalance as well.

ISFJ >

Guardians of all types, ISFJs are willing to work long, long hours doing all the thankless jobs the other types seem content to ignore. Thoroughness and frugality are also virtues for them. When they undertake a task,  they will complete it if at all humanly possible. They also know the value of a dollar and abhor the squandering or misuse of resources.

These reserved Conservators are quite content to work alone; indeed, they may experience some discomfort when placed in positions of authority, and may try to do everything themselves rather than direct others to do their jobs. For all these reasons Protectors are frequently overworked, just as they are frequently misunderstood and undervalued. Their contributions, and also their economies, are often taken for granted, and they rarely get the gratitude they deserve.

This can cause them to harbor feelings of resentment, with their bottled up emotion gnawing inwardly, causing them much undeserved suffering. Protectors are keenly aware of status given by birth, titles, offices, and credentials. They are impressed by visiting royalty, they admire high-ranking politicians, they honor judges, the police, and the military, and they tend to be devoted and loyal to their superiors.

Not that they think of themselves as superior. On the contrary, they are humble to the core, and find the putting on of airs offensive. For the ISFJ, people should behave according to their place in the social order, and they may be annoyed by others who act above their station. They believe in the safety of a traditional social hierarchy, and do everything they can to uphold custom and convention.

The same holds true at work. Protectors are dependable and are seldom happy working in situations where established ways of doing things are not respected. To them, regulations are tried and true, and they rarely question the effectiveness of going by the book. ISFJs often seem to feel personally responsible for seeing to it that people in an institution or business abide by rules, carry out routines, and behave as they are supposed to behave.

If others, including their bosses, violate or ignore these standard operating procedures, Protectors are distressed and embarrassed, although they usually will not display these reactions. More likely, such irritation is turned inward and may be experienced as fatigue and as chronic stomach disorders. With their extraordinary sense of safety and responsibility, and with their unusual talent for executing routines, Protectors do well as curators, private secretaries, librarians, middle-management personnel, and especially as general medical practitioners.

To be sure, the hospital is a natural haven for them; it is home to the family doctor, rescuer of life and limb, and to the registered nurse, or licensed practical nurse, the true angels of mercy. The insurance industry is also congenial to these Conservators. To save, to put something aside against an unpredictable future, to prepare for emergencies are important actions to ISFJs, who as insurance agents want to see their clients in good hands, sheltered and protected.

Speculation and innovation do not intrigue Protectors, who would rather leave such risky matters to others, while remaining themselves safely anchored and down-to-earth. For their part, ISFJs value tradition, both cultural and familial. They carry with them a sense of history, a sense of continuity with past events and relationships.They seem to have an innate regard for the past, for whatever is established and deeply rooted. They are honored to care for collections of rare old things, books, paintings, china, and so on, seeing to it that they are safely shelved and regularly dusted. But  they are also the keepers of simple family old photograph albums, timeworn furniture, old tools and wedding dresses. Of all the types, ISFJs are most likely to care about tracing family trees.

Protectors are devoted to mate and family, and are usually excellent homemakers. The ISFJ female often displays a flair for making the interior of the home attractive in a traditional manner, and often gives herself full-time to the duties of housewife. She provides attractive, nourishing meals, sees to the shopping, does the laundry, mends the clothes, and follows a daily routine for keeping the house clean and tidy, with rooms straightened up, dishes done, and beds made.

In their parenting role, these friendly and soft-spoken Protectors expect their children to conform to the rules of society, feeling a personal responsibility to see to it that these standards are not only adhered to  but honored. Such parents worry a great deal, and may try too hard to protect their children from the dirt and dangers of life. Protector mothers in particular need to learn how to encourage their children’s independence and to cut the apron strings. Occasionally an ISFJ mother may be able to find humor in the wayward son, but she still raises her daughters to respect traditions  and to do the Right Thing at the Right Time-and always for the Right Reason.

FAMOUS ISFJs ACCORDING TO GOOGLE:

Anthony Hopkins   Bruce Willis               Dr. Dre

                          

Katie Holmes   Gwyneth Paltrow    Halle Barry

                   

Mother Teresa      Rosa Parks       Kate Middleton

                    

Take the test here!

On Being An INFJ

I have taken the Kerisey temperament test around 4 times in my life. I took it the first time when I was 12, I think, much to my father’s chagrin. He thought I was much too young for it to be accurate and to be honest I didn’t pay attention enough to the results to be able to compare it with today’s results to see if he was right. (Personally, I doubt I’ve changed fundamentally from 12 to 25, so I’m sure it was more accurate than he would’ve thought.)

After that I took the test twice while I was a teenager and then once more when I was 20 or 21. Unfortunately, the topic came up with one of my friends and her fiance and I totally forgot what my resulting letters were, so I figured I’d take it for the 5th time.

Turns out that I haven’t changed; I am still an INFJ. An INFJ is an Idealist Counselor who basically wants everyone to get along and work towards the best version of themselves that they can reach. At the same time, I’m in a very rare type: barely 1% of the population and I also am a complicated and mysterious person, so it’s hard for me to know myself much less explain myself to others. Below is the explanation for INFJs straight from David Keirsey’s Please Understand Me II book.

INFJ >

Counseling is the side of mentoring that focuses on helping people to realize their human potential, and INFJs have an unusually strong desire to contribute to the welfare of others and genuinely enjoy guiding their companions toward greater personal fulfillment.

INFJs are scarce, little more than one percent of the population, which is too bad, considering their usefulness in the social order. Although these Counselors tend to be private, sensitive people, and thus are not usually visible leaders, they work intensely with those close to them, quietly exerting their influence behind the scenes with their families, friends, and colleagues.

These seclusive and friendly people are complicated themselves, and so can understand and deal with complex ethical issues and with deeply troubled individuals. As a variant of Plato’s Idealists and Aristotle’s Ethicists, the INFJs are little different from other NFs in most respects. Like all the Idealists they are abstract in communicating and cooperative in implementing goals.

They want to learn about the humanities, are preoccupied with morale, and work well with personnel. In orientation they are altruistic, credulous, mystical, situated on pathways, and with their eye on tomorrow. They base their self-image on being seen as empathetic, benevolent, and authentic. Often enthusiastic, they trust intuition, yearn for romance, seek identity, prize recognition, and aspire to the wisdom of the sage.

Intellectually, they are prone to practice diplomacy far more than strategy, logistics, and especially tactics. Further, having a scheduling nature they tend to choose the directive Mentor’s role over the probing Advocate’s informative role. And because they  are quiet and reserved they seem more comfortable acting as a private Counselor than as a classroom Teacher.

Counselors can be hard to get to know. They have an unusually rich inner life, but they are reserved and tend not to share their reactions except with those they trust. With their loved ones, certainly, they are not reluctant to express their feelings, their face lighting up with the positive emotions, but darkening like a thunderhead with the negative. Because of their strong ability to take into themselves the feelings of others, Counselors can be hurt rather easily by those around them, which, perhaps, is one reason why they tend to be private people, quietly withdrawing from human contact.

At the same time, friends who have known them for years may find sides emerging which come as a surprise. Not that Counselors are inconsistent; they value their integrity a great deal, but they have mysterious, intricately woven personalities which sometimes puzzle even them.

This type of Idealist has strong empathetic abilities and can become aware of another’s emotions or intentions-good or evil–even before that person is conscious of them. Such mind-reading can take the form of feeling the hidden distress or illnesses of others to an extent which is difficult for other types to comprehend. Even INFJs can seldom tell how they came to penetrate others’ feelings so keenly.

Furthermore, the Counselor is most likely of all the types to demonstrate an ability to understand psychic phenomena. What is known as “ESP” may well be exceptional intuitive ability-in both its forms, projection and introjection. Such super-normal intuition is found frequently in INFJs, and can extend to people, things, and often events, taking the form of visions, episodes of foreknowledge, premonitions, auditory and visual images of things to come, as well as uncanny communications with certain individuals at a distance.

Because of their vivid imaginations Counselors are often seen as the most poetic, even mystical, of all the types. They use an unusual degree of imagery in their language, the kind of imagery found in complex and often aesthetic writing such as novels, plays, and poems.  To be sure, they often select liberal arts as a college major, and they may be attracted to creative writing as a profession.

In all their communications they are masters of the metaphor, and will naturally describe a thing in terms of something else. Their great talent for metaphorical language-both written and verbal-is usually directed toward communicating with people in a personalized way. INFJ writers comment that they write with a particular person in mind, whereas writing to a faceless audience leaves them uninspired.

In school INFJs are usually good students, high-achievers who exhibit an unostentatious creativity. They enjoy problem-solving, take their work seriously, and enjoy academic activity, but they can also exhibit qualities of perfectionism and put more into a task than perhaps is justified by the nature of the task. Counselors thrive in occupations which involve interacting with people, nurturing their personal development, especially on a one-to-one basis.

As with all NFs, teaching and the ministry hold attraction, although INFJs must develop an expressive attitude in both professions, which for them requires a great deal of energy. More suited  to them is the general practice of medicine, or therapeutic counseling. Counselors make outstanding individual therapists who have a unique ability to get in touch with their patients’ inner lives, though they are also the most vulnerable of all the types to the eruption of their own repressed thoughts and feelings.

As therapeutic counselors, INFJs may choose clinical psychology or psychiatric medicine, or may choose to teach or to write in these fields. Whatever their choice, they generally are successful in therapeutic counseling because their personal warmth, their enthusiasm, their insight, their devotion, their originality, and their interpretive skills can all be brought into play.

Although they have a capacity for working at jobs which require solitude and close attention, Counselors also do well when in contact with groups of people, providing, of course, that the personal interactions are not superficial. They are highly sensitive in their handling of others and tend to work effectively in an organizational structure. They enjoy helping people with their problems, and can understand and use human systems creatively and benevolently. They value staff harmony and want an organization to run smoothly and pleasantly, making every effort themselves to contribute to that end.

As employees or employers, INFJs are concerned with people’s feelings and are able to act as a barometer of the feelings of individuals and groups within the organization. They listen well and are adept at consulting and cooperating with others. They enjoy pleasing others and they find conflict disagreeable and destructive.

INFJs respond to praise and use approval as a means of motivating others, just as they themselves are motivated by approval. If they are subject to hostile working conditions or to constant criticism, they tend to lose confidence, become unhappy and immobilized, and can eventually become physically ill. These soft-spoken Mentors also want harmony in their homes and find interpersonal conflict, overt or covert, extremely destructive to their happiness. Their friendship circle is likely to be small, deep, and long-standing.

As mates, they are devoted to their spouses, but may not always be  open to sexual approaches. They tend to be physically affectionate, but wish to choose when-which is when they are in the mood-and such a hot and cold style may be quite confusing to their mate. Often an INFJ’s expressions of affection will be subtle, taking a romantic, even poetic turn.

Counselors are devoted parents. A female INFJ can bond with her children in a kind of mental symbiosis, sometimes so strong an identification as to be unhealthy for ‘both mother and child. More often, however, Counselors tend to be good friends with their children, exceptionally loving, while firm in discipline. They are typically concerned about the comfort, physical health, and emotional well-being of both mates and children.

FAMOUS INFJ PEOPLE ACCORDING TO GOOGLE:

Carrie Fisher               Jamie Foxx              Al Pacino

               

Plato                   Leo Tolstoy        F. Dostoevsky

                  

Adolf Hitler         Osama bin Laden

                  

On Being A Feminist

I am very proud to be a feminist and I’m not hesitant to announce it to someone. But there are a few occasions on which I’ve felt uncomfortable around other female feminists. I’m all about female empowerment, fairness/equality for all minorities, and speaking up and out about it. But I also believe all of that has a time and place, that you don’t have to be ON all the time and fight every instance that looks like a white male, or males, in general are being catered to.

One of these instances happened this week with a coworker/good friend of mine while we were on lunch. We were waiting on the corner for the light to cross the street to turn in our favor when a mom and her three children walked in front of us. They were crossing the road in the other direction, but while I simply smiled at the children as they walked by, my friend made an interesting observation.

Of the three kids, (they couldn’t have been more than 4) two were girls and one was a boy. The two little girls were skipping alongside the red plastic wagon while the boy, who I assume was their brother, was wheeled behind the mother pulling the wagon. This observation was subconsciously seen and ignored by my brain while it stood out and blared warning signs in my friend’s.

The light for our crosswalk then turned white to allow us to cross as if it had sensed her outrage at the scene she’d just witnessed and wanted to give me a reason to get her out of there quickly. As we walked towards my car, she turned to me and said “this is what’s wrong with society.”

I looked at her, amused, and asked: “the boy in the wagon?” She responded with “yeah! Boys just get handed everything in life!” (Honestly, she said more in between “yeah!” and “boys get handed everything in life”, but I wasn’t listening.) I just smiled and shook my head in a sort of “ur silly and ridiculous and while I agree with your point, I’m not agreeing with you in this case” way and we moved onto different topics once in the car.

This brief exchange stayed with me all day and I ended up not falling asleep that night until after I’d turned the matter over in my mind. I didn’t know why I was so unsettled by the experience until I realized why I didn’t see what she saw right away: I’d assumed there was a reason he was in the wagon while the girls weren’t.

See, with the way my mind works I believe there is a reason for everything….a good reason for everything that I don’t know more about. Once I find out the real reason it may not be as good as I’d hoped or expected, but there is a reason for everything anyone does. Every time. So when I don’t know that reason, I give people the benefit of the doubt and create (good) reasons for their actions. (While this makes me sound a little like Beth in Little Women, believe me, this doesn’t happen when I’m pissed at said people-with-unknown-reasons. I can also create reasons for people’s actions that make them into brainless, selfish, assholes with no redeeming qualities.)

When I saw the mom pulling the little boy behind her while the girls skipped, my mind immediately thought that there was a reason he couldn’t skip along with his sisters. Maybe it was his turn and they’d been in it a short while ago. Maybe the mom made him walk the whole time and decided it was time to stop coddling the girls by the time we saw them.

Maybe he literally couldn’t walk. A wagon is much cooler and easier to deal with than a child’s wheelchair. Plus, he’s like 3 and I don’t trust tiny humans with contraptions that enable them to move quickly. His mother might not either. Also, it’s possible that the little girls don’t like the wagon and the boy does; they may be more active than him and less submissive in general. While the mother would like all three children to be in the wagon to make her job easier, the girls may have fought and refused and wanted to be independent, walking on their own.

There are countless scenarios that could have developed into that quick 15 second scene that we crossed paths with earlier this week, but we’ll never know. What I do know is that my mind works differently than everyone else’s, or at least my friend’s. While I am extremely aware of social injustices going on in our world and I’m just as attuned to possible future issues in the process of being made/born, I’m not as quick as other feminists, or any socially conscious person really, to jump to conclusions that reinforce unfair practices.

I still don’t think the mom let the boy ride in the wagon by himself and made the girls walk alongside due to some culturally ingrained and socially conditioned thought about the differences between her male and female children and how one gender should be treated vs. the other.

I agree males, especially light-skinned males, are more apt to receive certain allowances/privileges in any society, regardless of whether they deserve them. I do not agree that this specific view into another family’s dynamic on a quick outing is what’s wrong with our society today or that it’ll eventually lead to the son’s entitlement complex and/or the girl’s lack of self-esteem. For all I know the son will have issues and the girls will kick ass; we’ll have to wait to find out.

On Just Being Cute

I have come to acknowledge, and have been recently told as well, that I’m not necessarily hot. As in, the kind of hotness that a woman possesses that when she walks into a room all the guys and girls want to bang immediately. Or at least whistle at. And then talk about for a couple days afterwards. We’ve all seen them around, and that’s an amazing ability…very coveted.

It’s not exactly that I don’t have the body for it (I don’t, but I could if I really worked at it) or that I don’t have the face for it (again, I don’t, but if I did my makeup more often and took pictures with the right angle, it could happen) or even that I don’t act correctly for a “hot girl” (once again, I don’t because I’d rather be a tomboy than anything else)…it’s more that my composition doesn’t lead to a “hot girl” all the time. I manage to pull it off from time to time, usually unaware that I am at the time.

I do however, apparently, have the perfect looks/behavior/etc…for a being “cute” girl all the time. Especially when I’m not trying. The way I see it, it’s like when a kitten is trying to act all tough and brave, and you know the poor thing is actually attempting to be more than it is; that’s how I feel whenever someone’s like, “aw, you’re so cute!” or something like that. It’s not a bad feeling, but I’ve noticed that it’s not a pleasant one either. I feel like that needs to change.

Lately I’ve been hanging with a new group of people and one of them has slowly been rubbing off on me. He’s been teaching me (unconsciously, of course) that I should be more accepting of my lot in life and who/what I am. And I’ve noticed some things I’d like to change. One of them is the way I feel about myself. Mostly physically, but somewhat mentally and emotionally too.

So while a part of me wishes I was one of those hot girls that could stop a man in his tracks, taken or not, or that turns girls on with one glance, I’m learning to be satisfied with just being cute. Because here’s the secret I’ve learned about it: it lasts longer and is usually more genuine. Hot girls fade and are–generally–bitches. Or crazy. Or broken. Or all of the above. Cute girls, on the other hand, while usually passed over on the first, second, or third attempt–generally–find good partners. Because of that whole ‘passed over beforehand’ issue.

Or they end up with assholes who cheat on them time and time again because they’re not hot…cute girls are also usually nicer than their hotter counterparts. But not always, which sucks because being cute, while better than plain, coupled with being a bitch just means that they’ll get passed over more often. Unless they find someone who likes it…then all bets are off.

And yes, I realize I’m speaking in generalizations and I personally know some hot chicks who are nice (but also broken AND crazy), but I like my odds better as a “cute girl” than a “hot chick”. And that’s the whole point I’m learning from this new friend: to accept my odds and use them to be more comfortable with myself and life in general rather than constantly beat myself up for something that I’ll probably never be.

Yahoo Comments Trial 1

There’s no realistic reason to read Yahoo! News. Yahoo! News is at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to news sites, and its writers (all offense intended) suck at not only WRITING–which is kinda’ important if you’re only going to come across through a written article–but also reporting which, um, hate to break it to them, IS THEIR JOB. And I’m purposely overgeneralizing because I haven’t seen one writer who was actually worth reading. I mean, honestly people; do your job like it’s supposed to be done. I’d rather read a random North Korean news article on something that’s happening in the US than Yahoo! News.

I came across an article a day or two ago about a new type of doll called Lammily whose creator has big dreams of supplanting Barbie as a household doll. Capitalizing on the body-positive movement of 2014-15, Nickolay Lamm has put out a girl’s toy doll that imitates the average American girl. It even has the stick-on options of stretch marks, birth marks, etc…and she is a fair representation of what an actual teenager/early 20s woman looks like in America. It’s an awesome thought and product, and I really do hope it becomes popular.

But that’s still not the point of this post. If you go to the article and scroll all the way down you’ll see the comments. Most of them are (women) bashing on the idea of this doll and the fact that we’re even going through a body-identity crisis, which I find as hilarious and stupid as people believing that global warming isn’t a threat and the Holocaust didn’t happen. There is a ton of bullying that’s been happening for decades and fat-shaming is one of them.

Now, let me just say that there IS a limit between healthy chubby and unhealthy fat. I’m speaking about unfair bullying/shaming for the first one. If you’re overweight and it’s unhealthy, freaking do something about it. You don’t deserve to be part of the body-positive movement. For example, me. I’m 5’6 and 200 lbs…for a 23 year old female, that’s technically “obese”. HOWEVER, I don’t have any health issues because of it and I actually don’t really “look fat”. I just might have to run the mile in ten minutes instead of four and buy size 14 instead of 10. And each doctor’s visit I make confirms my good health.

I am all about loving your body IF YOU’RE TAKING CARE OF IT. If it’s starting to shudder and stall and your blood pressure is too high or your heart is strained, then you need to stop “loving yourself the way you are” and lose some freaking weight before you die young. All of this is besides the point too. I’m just trying to show you, dear reader, where I’m coming from when I tell you what happened in the Yahoo! comments the other day.

It takes a lot to get me fired up enough to waste my precious time voicing my opinion on the Internet, even on this blog, which is why I don’t post often. People I don’t care about at all are going to voice their opinions right back at me and they’ll probably try to start a fight which I don’t have time for. No one is going to change social views via the comments section so why bothering arguing your point there?

So I’m just scrolling through the comments, ignoring Yahoo!’s article as usual, and I start to get fired up for some reason. To this day, I still don’t understand why I was affected enough to take the time to write the below comment. It’s still on there; my username is LoRen.

“Every woman on here who is bashing Lammily needs to stop. I LOVED my Barbies when I was a little girl and I actually got upset when my mother’s husband didn’t let my half-sister play with Bratz or Barbies when she got to the appropriate age, but now that I’m in my early twenties and I’m having to deal with my own body issues, I realized that if I had had Lammily to play with instead of Barbie, I wouldn’t have as bad of a problem with my body NOW. It’s true that as little girls we really don’t care, but when you get older and that ideal body has been ingrained in your mind for the last 10 years, it’s hard to suddenly love your ‘not-Barbie’ body.”

I was SO tempted to call all those bashers “insecure blonde morons who need to feel better about their own body so they immediately gang-rape anyone who dares to imply that maybe there are girls who are confident enough to stand up and demand a real doll.” But anyone who’s insecure, blonde, or an actual moron would be insulted, so I refrained. Plus, I didn’t want to sink to their level.

But back to my comment. Of course, Barbies can’t be blamed for everything and I’m not trying to do that. But I’d say around 20% of my issues came from them, and it would’ve been nice to have Lammily around as well as Barbies. The rest of my problems come from my own self, the media, and growing up around skinny girls all my life until I hit like, 20 or something. It also didn’t help that my mom had me on diets since I was nine.

Anyways, I was waiting for trolls to pop up and sure enough, they did. A user name “ladylove” decided to question my intelligence as well as my parent’s capability to raise children:

“funny, I had a barbie, and when I grew up, I knew Barbie was just a doll, and nothing, absolutely nothing else

I still have that doll, my parents were not rich, and I grew up knowing what it meant for them to buy it for me. that is what gives a person a good body image, not playing with a perfect doll, but having parents that did their best for you, and you growing up to appreciate it.

I have a great self esteem, and am proud of all I have accomplished.

the doll is not the problem, its people telling young girls what they should look like. ads, TV programs, magazines. and a whole lot of other things.”

She did get one thing right with blaming the media, but I can’t ignore the fact that she blamed my issues for basically being ignorant about how the world (and dolls) work and being part of a rich family. I have three issues with her post:

1. Barbies weren’t expensive; I remember one of mine being $10. You could also get a knock-off Barbie at the 99 Cent store, so if your parents had to work to buy one for you, the only reason I can think of is that they were trying to purchase a limited time or collection type Barbie. I’m glad you appreciate all that effort on your family’s part, but mine was on the lower-end of middle-class and had one income… pretty sure my body issues didn’t come from being rich. Literally has nothing do with the topic of body love.
2. She’s assuming that I’m not intelligent enough to separate my identity from the doll. I also understand that it was simply a toy that provided innocent enjoyment and prepared my young mind for social interactions as well as nurturing others via pretend scenarios. But when you’re prepped for life with pretend humans that all look the same, it’s a bit of a shock to find out you look nothing like them. And neither does the majority of the world, yet the few that do are held higher in value than those who don’t. While you had pretended everyone was equal, life was just, and individual worth was based off of valid merits, you grew up to find out physical features and painted paper play the largest roles in humanity.
3. It’s extremely hard to take anyone seriously when they don’t use proper grammar or spelling or punctuation. If you’re going to take time out of my day to comment on, and contradict, my personal opinion on a topic make sure you at least take the time to reread what you’ve written and confirm it makes sense, both logically and grammatically. Neither of which hers does. And that annoys me more than her opinion does; way too distracted picking apart her comment to pay attention to what she’s actually saying.

So after that delightful little comment, this user name “Valentino” decided to follow ladylove’s comment up with a one-two punch to both my self-control and lack of motivation.

“Body issues girl just hit the gym and don’t eat the donuts is not that hard Jesus people are becoming so weak.”

Apparently mentioning God’s son gives your statement credit, I was unaware of this…I would also like to point out that I work out three times a week AND hate donuts, so thank you Valentino for your (un)inspiring suggestion, but that’s not the problem. I also don’t believe that “hitting the gym” will magically solve body issues. Plenty of skinny young people are anorexic because they think they’re still too fat despite their bones poking through their taunt skin. 80% of a body issue is mental.

Basically my point is this: Lammily needs to get popular and stop getting bashed on because it’ll be healthy for non-skinny little girls, like me as a child. Did I absolutely love my Barbies and get obsessed with them and not give them up until I was 19? Yes. Did I learn to exercise my imagination and become an awesome fiction writer because of playing with them? Yes. I just wish they had been bigger. I learned from an early age that Barbie’s pretty things weren’t able to be worn by a thick woman like me because of my hips and thighs.

While I’m working on changing my attitude and trying to fall in love with my coke-bottle shape I wish I didn’t have to work so hard for it. Overcoming nurturing with nature’s gift is difficult, to say the least.

On Attempting To Be Ambidextrous

Besides the obvious fact that the word itself is ridiculous sounding, the Latin roots are also slightly absurd. (The information below is more or less correct; I’m not an Etymologist. By all means, feel free to correct the facts in the comments, but you’ve been warned.)

The first version of the word was ‘Ambidexter’ in Late Latin where Ambi=on both sides (okay, that makes sense) & Dexter=right-handed (some choose to translate it ‘favorable’, but regardless, this is just being handist to lefties)…basically it meant ‘right-handed on both sides. I’m sensing a feminist-like movement sprung up in defense of indirectly calling left-handed people “lesser-than” because Ambidexter was changed to mean a lawyer who took bribes from both sides and in the 17th century the English (as they so often do) added -ous to the end to liven things up a bit. Thereby inventing ‘Ambidextrous’.

Now that we’ve gotten that history lesson out of the way, the REAL reason for this post is my attempt to strengthen my left hand. Everyone in my family is right-handed except for my great-grandfather on my mother’s side and my brother, who apparently picked up that recessive gene from him. Last year I got kinda’ obsessed with Lumosity, one of the best brain-training sites out there that I’ve experienced first hand. As it was helping me with my memory, I started seeing hints that advised the learner to switch hands when they got good in one particular area. (Many games require the use of a mouse.)

When I tried it out with my left hand, I sucked. Not because I couldn’t reason out the answer quick enough, or memorize how many numbers were on the screen, but because my hand wasn’t coordinated enough/fast enough. It was quite frustrating, and I quickly switched back. (I couldn’t stand losing all those points; I’m very competitive.) But that tiny experience was enough to make me realize that I didn’t like not being able to use my left hand. I mean, I’ve always felt an imbalance between the appendages, and that night I actually felt it. Something had to be done.

So began my journey. I’ve now been using my mouse with my left hand for 3 months, and the improvement has been tremendous. I’m agile and quick enough to do tasks at work without slowing down my productivity level now, as long as detail work isn’t involved. I.e. pushing tiny buttons…

I’m also able to unconsciously grab things with my left hand that I’d normally carry with my dominant one. Next, I want to work on writing with my left hand. One of my friends started using her left hand when she was a teen, and now she writes beautiful script with both hands, although it’s still obvious which hand is dominant. As I continue my random handed journey, I still have to accept the fact that my 10 year old sister will always have better handwriting then I do as a wannabe leftie.

Here’s a random link about being ambidextrous. I’m not sure if I believe all those ‘facts’, but they were fun to read and procrastinate with 😀

On Mandatory Sign-Ups

DISCLAIMER: If you work for, are affiliated with, or remotely like the below websites…I feel sorry for you and we can’t be friends. Also, you need to fix the issue!

We all have pet peeves, certain things that exist in this world that truly do not belong, acts that are so heinous that we cringe to think of them happening to our nemesis. Like people talking to you while you’re reading, girls wearing UGGs in the summer, the fast food line taking longer than 5 minutes to get through, and people suddenly coming to a stand still in the middle of a busy and crowded sidewalk. (It’s called walk & talk, buddy.)

But we also have that one, or even possibly those two, biggest peeves that we just CANNOT. STAND. I’m going to talk about mine today. (One of them anyway; I have 3 that, when done, I resort to violence.) Today’s rant is about websites that won’t let you view their page(s) without signing up for a newsletter or as a member; usually both. What the crap man?!

I came to your site for a reason, probably got redirected to it from another site, and all I want to do is peruse your site selections, whether it’s a store site or picture-sharing site, etc…I didn’t come here to become a member or sign up for your useless email ads, otherwise I wouldn’t be ranting about this issue. It’s fine if you subtly offer it to me on the bottom of my screen, or as a cute lil pop up. I might not even mind a huge square being thrown in my face as long as there is a exit button. And make the location of it clear please.

I don’t want to spend 30 seconds searching the box for the ‘close X’ or worse, spend 30 seconds and realize THERE ISN’T ONE. You’ve just wasted my time and not only lost out on a potential customer/user, but you’ve also inspired this rant-post and I’ve now called you out as a SUCKY website. I wouldn’t allow a boyfriend to demand something of me, so why do you expect me to bend to the will of a website when there are 5,000 more like you? The logic of this plan eludes me.

Case in point: Pintrest. Seriously? I can’t view ANYTHING without signing up and making an account and agreeing to random emails suggesting things I’m probably never gonna’ look at? I cannot tell you how many times a really cool site or idea or picture on the Web has redirected me to Pintrest and I have to give up on something THAT GENUINELY INTERESTS ME because I don’t have an account with Pintrest. All I wanted to know was what something looked like, or how to do a specific project, and you just Totally. Ruined. It.

Anyone else have this problematic pet peeve when web surfing? I’ve listed a couple more sites below that I’ve been redirected to that won’t allow you to view anything, or a very limited amount of items/pictures, unless you create an account/enter an email/become a member. Honestly, all they’re doing is forcing me to sign up and then immediately deactivate my account and remove my address from their mailing list, thereby rendering their master plan completely useless and TIRING…not to mention, I’m lazy, even in my web-surfing-procrastination so I’m really not gonna’ go through all that for ONE product. I’ll let it go and move on. Bye Felicia!

RETARDED WEBSITES THAT YOU SHOULD NEVER GIVE INTO: 

Pintrest 

Domino — depending on your browser, you might actually be able to exit out of the window and then search it again and be able to see the site without signing up…

LoopNet

Tumblr — I hate this blockage more than Pintrest…

And I’m sure there are more that I haven’t personally experienced, so feel free to give them a ‘shoutout’ in the comments below…

P.S. This is different from sites that allow you to view everything (usually shopping sites) and then require you to create an account before saving anything or proceeding to checkout…although those suck too.

P.P.S. I eventually broke down and created a Pintrest account only because I’m planning on opening up an Etsy shop in the coming months. (I’ll link the store to this post when it’s online :D)

On Saying No

I am very proud of myself. On Wednesday night, I said no to my roommate’s mother (who also lives with us). She asked me to buy her a small bottle of wine, and I shook my head ‘no’ and said “sorry” in that tone of voice that means “this-is-kind-of-ironic-this-saying-sorry-because-I’m-really-not”. I’m proud of this fact for two reasons:

1) I said NO

and

2) I refused to be an enabler again.

For the first 18 years of my life, unknowingly or not, I was an accomplice to my father’s drinking habit. He was, is, an alcoholic, and I prided myself on finding as many empty wine bottles as I could around the house, and putting them (gently) into the recycle bin on the side of our house. I made a game out of it. And I knew, obviously, that there was something shameful about the empty glass bottles because I made sure to carefully place them into the bin so that they wouldn’t clank when I knew our neighbors were home. I was 15.

I have so many issues with alcohol and those that abuse it, and when my older roommate asked me to grab her a small bottle at the store because I was going out, I put my foot down. For once in my life. I canNOT be a part of something that is so screwed up. Her daughter hurts and gets mad every time she drinks too much. (The drinking roommate is 50 and 110 lbs…a margarita will impair her.) I feel like I’m in a warzone and don’t want to get caught, either by the drinker and how she behaves (she’s an emotional drunk, so she’ll wail, like, LITERALLY, wailing, and whine, and complain, and get mad that things aren’t going her way), or by my friend, her daughter, because she’ll come to me to escape and I feel sorry for her, but I can’t help her.

I refused to enable that to happen on Wednesday night, so I said no. And I’m proud of it. The second reason (and most important of the two) I’m patting myself on the back is for the fact that I. Said. No. I didn’t bend to someone else’s wishes because I knew it’d be easier and less uncomfortable doing what they wanted. There was an  awkward silence afterward, and I kinda just waved bye and left, but I stuck up for myself! I decided in my mind that I didn’t want to do something and I DIDN’T.

No one died, no one got hurt, no one screamed or burst into flames. The world continued turning, and I was left to fight off an residual guilt that lingered inside of me over denying someone’s request. I was raised to be a people pleaser, so when I choose to not do something for someone…that goes against everything inside of me, my very being. But I’ve had to come to realize that saying yes to every request isn’t healthy, for me or for the other person sometimes. Like the other night.

If You Were Paid $1,000,000…

…would you spend a year on a deserted island with your archenemy?

Answer: No

Reason: I’d kill ’em. Plain and simple. Or I’d kill myself. Either way, getting paid a million bucks wouldn’t balance out the act of murder. And if I survived a year alone with my archenemy, I’d have to go to so many therapists, I’d spend it all on recovery. It would be a disaster and a half, and I’d rather not deal with it at all and stay poor.

What do you think?

(Pretty sure this is my shortest post ever!)

‘On’ Poems

On Things I’d Like To Forget:              Tanka Poem

Knuckles pressed against

Some memories don’t fade over time…

eyes heavy with memories.

Flashbacks playing; stop!

Emotions swirling nightly,

reminding me of warmth past.

 

---

 

On Things I’m Reliving:         Kyirelle Poem                                                                            

Your hands through my hair

My neck tilted, bare

Now, I muffle cries

Fists to soggy eyes.

 

Hands circle my waist

Lip to lip, to taste

Before broken ties,

Fists to soggy eyes.

 

My hands, holding yours

Looking to explore

Going over whys

Fists to soggy eyes.

 

Hands cupping my cheek

Tell elsewhere to seek

All that much more wise

Fists to soggy eyes.

 

 

(I’ve been beset by flashbacks lately, and the best way to move past them is to write poems describing them and the emotions I get from them, I’ve found.)