Do not tell me NOT to tell you when we don’t have what you’re looking for. THATS CALLED LYING. And it helps neither of us.
If I look busy but you need something DON’T JUST STARE AT ME IN SILENCE. It’s creepy.
You didn’t just buy it here. We don’t carry it we never have. I THINK I WOULD KNOW.
If that’s your indoor voice I probably need you to use your outdoor voice to understand what you need. SPEAK UP.
I apologize for not being able to understand your heavy foreign accent. I can barely understand some locals. CALM DOWN.
Your small children and babies can talk. It’s not a library. Just don’t expect me to babysit. And for bob’s sake DON’T LET THEM REPAINT THE STORE WITH GREEN NAIL POLISH. (But if you ignore your free range child and they get lost I will offer my assistance).
Yes. I will shout “bless you” from two isles over if I hear you sneeze. But I am hoping you covered your mouth and didn’t sneeze all over the merchandise.
Just because it’s on my work cart doesn’t mean it’s on a sale of some sort. DON’T PAW THROUGH MY STUFF. I have it how I like it.
Nope. You can’t have 25% off that. I told you it was damaged and you agreed to buy it anyway. STOP ASKING.
Yes. That $7 item is locked up. People steal. EVERYTHING.
When I was 15 years old, I took a tiny bit of positive feedback about my mediocre poetry writing capabilities and RAN WITH IT.
I entered a poem “This Is Me” into a poetry contest on Poetry.com. I did not win. Nor did I even make top 100. But I did get my poem published in their annual compilation.
Which you had to buy.
My Poem
My poem. Had to find the book to remember which one. This is also a screen shot of a scan done in my notes app on my iPhone. Thought it was an interesting “fun fact”.
The Book
The poetry compilation book. Published by the International Library of Poetry. More on that later.
When I received my copy (which is kinda crusty and dirty. Sue me) of the book, I quickly found my submission way back on page 58. Twenty-two-ish years later I had to look in the index. And I had to remind myself that my last name was different then too 🤦♀️.
Anyway, I don’t remember if I legitimately read through each individual poem or if I happened to stumble upon the subject of this post. But here it is:
Also a screenshot of a scan from my notes app on my iPhone.
Now, I read the poem, thinking, “wow. That’s a lovely poem.” But then it sounded familiar.
Why was it familiar?
One of my most prized and oldest possessions is a book given to me by my grandmother.
“One Thousand Beautiful Things” also a compilation of poems and other works. This book was made pre-copyright dates. Googling from years ago told me it was from 1947. Making it now 74 years old. My copy is legit falling apart.
That’s my grandmother’s handwriting. I’m having too much fun with this new video editor. Here’s a screen shot of the original from the internet if you cannot read it in the video.
Now, fifteen year old me thought I’d stumbled on to some kind of conspiracy. This dude entered a VERY OLD poem by a fairly well known author into a poetry contest where there was a MONETARY PRIZE.
Thirty-seven year old me (who may or may not have attempted to Google this guy) now thinks it is a mildly hilarious bit of plagiarism. Oh and for good measure here is the dude’s about me from the back of the book.
A MINISTER who went to four years of BIBLE college submitted a poem by someone else as his own.
Now, according to research I’ve done as of late has led me to the conclusion that it means absolutely hogwash.
Hogwash you say?
Hogwash, I do indeed say. The company that owned Poetry.com—“International Library of Poetry” basically went bankrupt and shut down in 2009 (my poem was submitted and book was printed in 1999). The website Poetry.com was then sold to Lulu.com, a self-publishing site (ironically one I’ve used before). After that it was sold and resold a few times (I guess).
Another issue is that most of the anthologies by companies like the International Library of Poetry are not formally accepted, approved, or published by the Library of Congress. So these books are not found or stored by the library. The legit one not thr failed business one.
Also, and I promise I’m almost done, the International Library of Poetry (or ILP) had numerous complaints even back in 1999 with the BBB of Maryland, and that they qualified them as a “vanity publisher” with absolutely no rules or consideration for submissions.
Long Story Long
Even if this guy’s poem had been more than just a semi-finalist (there were thousands, they said I was) and had made it further, it didn’t matter because honestly did anyone ever read them?
The thing that reminded me of all this, after 20-something years? Mary Shelly’s birthday. You know? The author of Frankenstein? She was married the Percy Bysshe Shelley. But THAT’S a wild story for another time.
Because for such a very very long time Black people were so poorly treated, treated like property, like lower life forms, like they were dirty or less than white people, and people still believe they are less than, not equal.
Because despite the times changing, black people are still being treated poorly in this country. Because of the color of their skin.
All lives DO matter. But when not all lives are treated equally, then more attention needs to be paid to those unequal to the rest.
“Hot Take?“
The title of this post is “Hot Take?” “Black Lives Matter is a “hot take” to some. “All Lives Matter” is as well. But the question mark means I am (or was once) confused. Honestly I’m still a little confused sometimes, but that is 100% just my faulty brain pan.
I became slightly less confused when I watched a video in my Facebook Watch feed. It was a tiktok duet(still generally annoyed by tiktok but I’m old so). Basically one person was explaining BLM and another person was watching/reacting (why tho). The video explained that Black Lives Matter because of the way they have been persecuted, mistreated, and judged. White people (that’s me!) do not, have not, and will not face the same injustices they have.
I wish I could find the video but alas… nope.
Listen this was months ago and we are relying on my poorly functioning old lady brain here. But my eyes were opened slightly wider to the idea of BLM.
When BLM became a thing, my first thought was, “Well, yeah. But doesn’t everyone?” Because I was raised to believe that we are all equal, despite our differences, so we’re all important.
Vidja
When your neighbors house is burning down you’re not gonna stop the fire department and tell them to spray your house with water too, just because another house is on fire.
BUT if a forest fire (California I’m worried for you) is threatening the entire block, the fire department is gonna try and keep it at bay to save everyone’s homes and lives.
Right now, the fire is burning a group of people. A fire of hate. That fire isn’t burning anyone else the way it’s been burning these people for many years. (Again, California. She’s crispy.)
They matter, they are important. They are human too and they do not deserve burn. (Neither does California).
In Conclusion (finally).
I promiseIwon’t talk about California anymore.
All Lives Matter. But when the climate of a nation is volatile to a specific group of lives, for whatever reason, then attention needs to be paid to those lives.
A Final Note
I know I have friends and family who aren’t going to appreciate this particular post. Not that most of them read my blog. I know how the majority of my family feel about this topic and many others (hence “hot take”).
My oldest brother once told me he likes talking politics and such with me because I’m smart. He said I’m smart because I went to college. That’s… A complicated assumption.
I also think he likes it because I will argue with him. Because I hate politics. He knows this, obviously.
But I’m not here to please anyone, I barely know how to make me happy. I’m here to share with others what I know, how I feel, and what I believe. If we agree, neat-o. If we don’t, well. You do you, friend. I’m not here to hate either.
Like my momma always said, hate is a strong word. You should only use it when you mean it.
*I sometimes get tongue-tied when I say LGBTQ and I’m confused as to what letters I need to add and the Alphabet Mafia thing is fun.
As always. Thanks for Reading. Also, polite and friendly discussion accepted and welcomed below. I moderate my comments, they’re rare but I do, and hate will be swiftly deleted. By swiftly I mean probably in the morning it’s passed my bedtime.
Over the years I’ve made a point to be as vague as possible about where I work. There is absolutely no reason for anyone who might read my blog to know where I work. I haven’t lied about it being retail, in fact I have a category titled “Retailiations”. But I refuse to openly and outright name my employer. I say a lot of stuff—though it’s never intentionally bashing (I don’t think). But I’m trying to keep certain aspects of my life as private as possible. This post is in fact concerning my day job, and I want to state first and foremost that I harbor no (at least not a lot of) resentment or anger toward any one individual or entity involving my job or workplace. Most of my issues start with me. And of those there aremany.
I’ve had a rough few days (weeks, months) at work. From changes in people, to changes in policy, to plain old changes in my established and efficient routine.
When I left my previous position, which I was only in because the one right before it was DELETED, I made a point to try to adjust and make it my own safe space. This was in January. I’ve been in this position for almost ten months. And it seems like there have been changes and adjustments to make in it constantly.
But just when I’d gotten into a routine that suited me and became efficient for me, curve balls were suddenly being thrown one right after another.
Of those curveballs is the addition of an extra process added to my routine. Now, in the creation of that extra process I was told I would have complete autonomy. I took that to mean that I would have control over how this new “process” would be handled. How it was set up or staged, how it was organized.
I wanted to clarify for myself what this meant.
I was also told that any additional tasks to the process would be basically set aside for me to work through and control.
I took the time, huge amounts of time, organizing (which is hilarious if you’ve seen my house) this new space for my process, in a way that made it easier for myself, or the individual who covered it on my days off, to complete the precesses.
What I did not take into account was that was a lie. Whether it was an intentional lie, or not (I’m going to optimistically go with not) I do not know. Also unaccounted for is the fact that more than just one party would be involved. And everyone has their own ideas with how things should be done. This doesn’t just refer to my job but all things.
What no one else took into account or had to or knew about was that I am HEAVY and FRAGILE (shout out to a person who might never read my blogs but would know it if she saw it, I hope). Honestly the “Heavy” part has nothing to do with this story except that I hate stairs. But that’s another post.
The key here is Fragile. Mentally. Emotionally. I need to work on that, we have discussed this. A lot. When stress comes to shove I break down. Usually with anger. Silent and fuming anger. Sometimes I aggressively tap my handheld on my forehead and only a day later remember why it’s slightly tender. I have issues, ok. We know this.
This new process, this new step that was added into my day, was already taking an extra 1-2 hours to complete. That’s not including the aftermath, we’ll call it cleanup. But because I’d organized it to be easier, it became quicker each time.
But then enter the third party. The third party began to do not what they were asked to do but extra. That was frustrating. They began adding their “cleanup” to my organized files (this is becoming increasingly more difficult to not use work terms lol). Now, one or two or ten items? Okay I can reorganize. But I’d be reorganizing my files each day. Reorganizing for efficiency. So that’s extra time added on.
I mentioned this to upper management, that the third party was told to set aside this additional work for me to preprocess, but they were not. All I was told was to let them know if it got messy.
Well sir, of course it’s not going to get messy because my OCD isn’t going to leave it alone long enough to let it. I reorganize it. Every. Single. Morning. Because I don’t work two days out of the week, and someone who is not me is supposed to do this when I’m not there.
Well, I went in to work with high hopes only to find my files full if new work to process. Unorganized and out of order. Literally ignoring signs I has personally made. There was also a literal tote of extra work. Ironically this is what they were supposed to be doing all along but they just couldn’t finished shoving stuff in the files so it was left.
And then more was added but a completely different party later that day!
You try so hard.
So now all my time is spent on this. Seven and a half hours of work time. So I’m legitimately not getting anything else done.
Take that back some of my morning routine gets done. But literally nothing else. If someone gives me another additional task, I will not be able to complete it. There is no more time in my days now. Perhaps when less work comes into the facility, it’ll even back out. But with the holidays quickly approaching (retail likes to advance them by two months) I’m afraid it’ll just get worse.
Anyway this post grew three sizes this day and I had no intention of that.
My point is, I’m off. Four. Days. I’m trying not to think about work. I’m trying not to specifically think about how much I’m going to have to deal with when I go back to work (Tuesday’s are THE WORST).
But I’m going to try so very hard to stay calm. Not freak out. Not use my handheld to hammer imaginary nails into my forehead. It is what it is, amirite? And what can you do? Nada.
Just so I can remind myself I have stuff I should be doing
1. “Silent Secret” (research)
Dropping “the”. Cover created using Canva (not sponsored, but you can holla at me, Canva! *wink*)
Plot: A young woman goes missing just before her high school graduation. Presumed dead, she is honored at her graduation by family and friends. Twenty* years later, after her friends and classmates go their separate ways, they receive postcards in the mail from their hometown, Black Pines. “Have you forgotten about Haley?” One young woman, the missing girl’s childhood friend, returns home to seek answers. (Something like that)
Silent Secret started as a “random generator” story. The premise was to use random generators for as many aspects of the story as possible. The title, characters, and at least some extent of the plot was created by generators. They mostly came from links available on the Seventh Sanctum website.
I’ve written a little on this story, but I want to do some research before anything solid. Eventually it’ll be available by the chapter, on a monthly basis, as premium content!
At some point it’ll be self published as well.
2. “Sisters Make the Best Accomplices” (development?)
Cover made with Canva (*wink*)
Plot: (so far) Two sisters, with very different personalities, who honestly don’t get along super well (sounds like a generic sister story) get into complicated shenanigans. They have to learn to accept their differences and work together to get out of the mess they’ve gotten themselves in.
Honestly got the idea from a random Facebook image someone shared. I think I woke up thinking about it. Had some downtime at work and wrote an opening scene. If I can get the time to work on it, it’s gonna be a good one!
Don’t tell my sister, it’s gonna be dedicated to her.
Eventually I’ll self-publish this one as well.
3. Facebook Poll Story.
Guess how I created this? Yup. Canva.
Premise: On my Facebook page I post each “chapter” of a story. The next chapter’s content is determined via poll posted on the Crash Landing Site group. ALWAYS check the page first, for the chapter. Then vote in the poll. Haven’t figured out yet how to post the chapter and poll as one post.
I haven’t revealed the general plot or theme, yet. I want to watch and see where the readers take the story! So far we’re one chapter in so check it out! This one is Facebook exclusive!
I’m also going to be giving three self-published copies of the finished story to the three people who participate the most in the polls.
4. “I’m Crafty, and You Can Too!” (Delayed)
I PAID FOR A SUBSCRIPTION FOR THIS ONE CANVA. I LOVE IT.
The weird sounding title was on purpose, FYI.
My goal was to make tutorial/informational videos on my YouTube for people who want to learn more about various crafts! I so often get people who tell me “I wish I were crafty.” I wanted to show them how!
I’ve gotta get my crap together and get going with this. I’d love to do it but honestly I’m afraid of being in front of a camera! That and the debilitating fear of rejection. 🤦♀️
Anyway, I’m sure there’s a million other things I want to be working in. Like my nephew’s letter keychain and sticker. Sorry my dude. I’ll get ya eventually.
Thanks for reading!
-c
Be sure to follow for updates! I try to post something about something at least once a week!
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