Irony, It Does not Translate

So, in 2006 I had this idea to post something about how I believed that my mother had been a good mother and taught me to do things for myself. I was reacting to an eight year old boy who ruled his house instead of the adults in it.

Since then, I keep getting comments, almost always from "Anonymous" about how I should be grateful for what I had because their mom really was a selfish bitch or they didn't even have a mom so I should just shut the fuck up.

Except for this person:
"I took your writing for what it was. A bit sarcastic. A bit ironic. A bit humorous. A piece of your childhood and how you developed because of it."


Thank you AnonymousJuly27, for getting it. It made me smile, and also reminded me why I used to blog more, this feeling that I could write things that would connect with people.


In contrast, the next AnonymousAugust18 didn't get my point. Look at the subject and verb choices. They are feeling pain but at first distancing themselves from it.


From  "lifelong struggles [of] adult children", "they do better than anyone else out there " to the slightly more personal  "many of us have no idea what that is like" and "Denial and dishonest lacking authenticity and we are so done with that bullshit." 


It makes me wonder why so many people read what I wrote and feel the need to tell me, and the whole other three people who still read this blog, why my life didn't really suck and theirs did. My life did not suck, and I did not say in the post that it did. I have to agree with AnonymousJuly27, that it is one-upsmanship. Perhaps not consciously, because obviously these people feel real pain and maybe they're trying to work through it or let someone know how truly awful they feel about it. 


I have thought about changing the title of the post, and that then the comments about abuse and mistreatment might stop. But I realized today that I don't want to do that, and I will never consider deleting the post or changing the title of it again. "My Mother was a Selfish Bitch" made me feel better, and if it can make other people feel better by being able to comment on my life or their own lives, that's useful, regardless of my original intent for the piece.

Ladybrains, Tee Hee!

"We are no fan. . . of contemporary commercial YA; but we are not fucking dumb enough to argue that the problem is vagina."

"In the pink floral recesses of our tiny girlbrain, we seem to remember being told once that when a person makes his point using Studies, it is often helpful to use Actual Citations; otherwise he sort of sounds like he is Making Up a Lot of Shit. We would be especially interested to see the Study linking Joanne Rowling's choice of pen name to Biology. But what do we know about science! Tee hee!!!!!!"