It’s My Birthday and I’ll Want if I Want To

So my birthday came and went, and it was probably the shittiest one yet. I am brought again to why I don’t particularly try to celebrate the day.

Now on the whole I guess I’m luckier than most. I never had my parents outright say that I shouldn’t have been born like other people in the world. Still yet, something about being born on Pearl Harbor Day subconsciously puts it into people’s heads that I don’t deserve to have this day. Compound it with being close to Christmas, and one gets lucky to get a birthday card. Which, by the way, I didn’t get a single one this year.

Ignore the day and people get upset that you don’t want to deal with their bullshit. Try to acknowledge it, which I uncharacteristically tried to do this year, and you get the following.

  • Me, on Facebook: I would like a new dishwasher. I might just start walking up to random people on the street and say, “It’s my birthday. I want a new dishwasher.” Because I want a dishwasher.  This is my birthday wish. I am wishing for a dishwasher for my birthday.
  • Facebook: Why don’t you just go out and buy a used dishwasher?
  • Me: …yes I could try to save up the money to do that. A used dishwasher would make me happy. It doesn’t have to be new. But I want a dishwasher.

So then my birthday came and went. I didn’t get any notices on my Facebook from any of the people whose birthdays were not ignored by Yours Truly, save one. From my father, who also used that moment to explain that the doctor’s latest diagnoses was more dire than usual.  Happy Birthday, baby girl, by the way. I’m dying.

No dishwasher. Lots of heightened stress not even packaged with a bright bow, yes. But no dishwasher.

So I turned back to Facebook. I really don’t get out much.

  • Me: Okay, so I was going to ask for a new glass top for my stove (the current one is broken) for Christmas. But I’m going to ask for a dishwasher.
  • Facebook: What you SHOULD worry about is getting your stove fixed. Which, by the way, you can probably buy a used dishwasher from the Facebook market or Craigslist.
  • Me: … I need a dishwasher, see. I need help with the dishes. At least with the stove broken we can still bake and use the crockpot, but I work very hard and need help with the dishes. So dishwasher wins. I need a dishwasher.
  • Facebook: Guess you’ll be cooking a lot out of the crockpot then.
  • Me: I already do. I just need a dishwasher. (Me, thinking, why in the hell is it such a problem that I want this thing for Christmas??)

This is when the migraine hit – that thing I get once a month without fail. That thing I’ve been having to research and figure out on my own, like so many women have to do in America, because even a specialist had no clue.

  • Me, on Facebook: Well here comes the migraine. I’m going to be sick for days now. THIS is why I need a dishwasher.
  • Facebook: Sorry about the migraine… I get them too and they suck.
  • Me: Yeah. But the possible solution is $40 so I just gotta get ice and ride it out.
  • Facebook: Hey, we just remodeled our kitchen. I’ll see if I can get my parents to sell their old dishwasher to you.
  • Me: Okay, I guess that sounds reasonable. (Thinking, where am I going to get the money…??)
  • Facebook: No, really, just find a used dishwasher and buy it. They’re cheap.

At that point you finally lose your patience with the people’s pettiness, because seriously. When I stopped trying to celebrate my birthday people were upset. When I didn’t make any specific wishes or desires for birthdays past, people got offended. I make a damn wish and people are actually telling me what I should and should not want, and what my priorities should be.

  • Me, finally: Look. I nearly died in the summer THREE TIMES. Remember that? I was hospitalized and no one fucking cared? Do you know what else didn’t fucking care? The bills. The piled up, literally a foot high mountain of bills that – even though I send money when I have it – don’t care.
  • So I’m in this thing called financial ruin. We might have gotten past this if the other half hadn’t been fired from his job, but he was and the only thing he found pays dick. “Find a job and work no matter what they pay!” people say. This is because they haven’t had to be fat off of ramen noodles for the rest of their lives. They probably all were given welfare and an easier time of it, too.
  • This means I have no damn money. I only went to Starbase Indy this past year because things were paid for in advance and I was obligated. What happened there? I was pushed out of the venue I traveled all that way for and my autoharp was broken. Can I afford to fix it? No, no I can’t. Can I afford my damn medical expenses? No I can’t. And yes, fuckers, I have fucking insurance. As I was saying BEFORE Obamacare went into effect insurance doesn’t help people like me. In fact, where once upon a time I was GIVEN time to pay off things this time the bills aren’t even a year old and I’m being sued left and right.
  • So I don’t have fucking money for a fucking dishwasher, used or not.  If I *could* afford to fucking get a damn dishwasher, I’d fucking get one and then I’d ask for a fucking PONY for my birthday or some other shallow stupid thing. And all you fucks would nod your heads and approve of something so inane and worthless, but asking for an actual NEED in a way that doesn’t constitute begging on the street should be regulated by the thought police!

.. okay I might not have said all that. I might have condensed all of that into three polite sentences.

Thing is, I’m pretty sure people didn’t get the point.

It’s my damn birthday. It’s fucking Christmas. What the FUCK is the problem with asking for a damn dishwasher? I should ask for a Porsche instead? Fuck that. I don’t want a Porsche. I need a dishwasher. I need my car payment caught up. In other words, it doesn’t take a platinum mine to make me happy. I just want things taken care of so I can do what I love doing without being to stressed to even sleep. Which by the way, I am right now.

Fuck you assholes. It was my damn birthday and you fuckers get ridiculous no matter which way I choose to handle my existence. It isn’t like I expected you fucks to actually show up in my front yard with cake I couldn’t eat and a dishwasher wrapped in shiny paper. The least and most polite thing you fucks can do is respect that a wish is a wish, and someone’s birthday is just that.

Fuck you.

Dogs Barking

For the record, Loki is just fine now. He lost all of his baby fat from being so sick and has turned into a lanky pup with long legs for his size. He’s not going to be a very big dog, being half terrier. But he’s certainly a lot happier dog now and has stopped begging to be in the bathtub.

Loki Feels Better


I have a statement regarding my email address and how people tend to assume things on it based on their finite beliefs and experience. I’ve been putting up with it for years and even though this has more to do with my actual job the email address is attached to this place.

I get a lot of emails from people who want me to do their covers for them, or format their books. And for some reason my current work address has never been properly attached to my work listing with Smashwords, so these people more often than not end up emailing the death@ address. And some of these people are very rude about it.

Like today for example. “After reviewing the Smashword list I liked your descriptions best.  In the future please use a different email address as I don’t allow negative things around me.”

So, they love my work. They love my professionalism. But they don’t like my email address and because my email has the word “death” in it, it must be bad and they want me to change my email address just for their convenience.

Ironically, 100% of these self-serving demands have by people who have written some spiritualist book about white-lighterhood, loving one another, world peace, women’s power, and anything else new age regarding acceptance you can think of.

My email is death@youfigureitout.com. I also have a second, personal email, which is death@figureitoutagain.com. (Ends changed to avoid spambots.) And they are both very POSITIVE things.

As many pups know, I’m “Death” because of the team of four – the Writers of the Apocalypse – that was my title.  What do you think the others were called? Think about it. War, who ended up joining the army; Conquest, who still does things with me on rare occasion, Pestilence, et al. Our titles are a pun, our work was based on comedy, and we had a lot of positive energy. And a lot of fun.

upload“Death” stands for how I picked myself up out of a workless rut and figured my own way in the world. It is a symbol of how I formed a team of creative minds, kept things going for years until I was the last woman standing, and despite the moniker “death” my work in the comics field is still alive and kicking. They are my badge: I’m a leader. I’m a fighter: I didn’t let being blackballed in the work world stop me.

The day I took up that title was the first day of a very moving chapter in my life.Things changed for the better for me. I found true love, I rediscovered myself as an author and an artist, and on some levels I have even achieved fame.

That email address is a very, very positive thing. All you have to do to see the goodness in it is to look past the letters and find the story within. In other words, you gotta stop being so damn shallow.

When I had less of a backbone, just a couple of years ago, I’d grind my teeth and explain it was my only email address and tell this story. Sometimes that worked. At least one time I got an “interesting” and then stoic silence from the individual who liked my work oh-so-much.

And when I did end up working with these people, I always regretted it. Can we say nit-picker? We are talking major nit-pickers – people who can’t decide what they like so they go to all of their friends to get twenty conflicting opinions on your hard work so they can come back to you, ask for changes, and then ask you to change things back when the opinions fluctuate. They have been people who go so far as to put a ruler on their computer monitor to measure where you’ve put the book title and demand you move things over by a fraction of a millimeter. (I exaggerate not.) So I’ve learned that “I don’t like your email address” is a red flag for “I’m not going to like anything.” Even if that next client isn’t going to be that picky when they decide they don’t like my email address, I would rather not take the chance.

These days I have two email address, but I also am tired of being judged so quickly. So my responses, like today’s, normally go along the lines of:

I’m sorry but I cannot take any more work on right now.

Mind you, I wasn’t lying today. But even if I had the time, I wouldn’t have taken that job. I am my own employer – the best part of the story behind that email address – and can pick and choose my work at my own discretion. And my own discretion says I don’t have to put up with it anymore. My own discretion says money ain’t worth it. My own discretion says that professional response was a hell of a lot less than what I really wanted to say.

The moral to this story can go to either side. If you’re a hopeful client you should stop and consider the person on the other end of that email is a real, live individual with a real life and real stories to tell. Otherwise you may just be shooting yourself in the face.

And if you’re the wouldbe business, you don’t have to put up with the crap. I’m not saying you should definitely have an email address with something spooky like “death” in the line, but if you just happen to like I do then rest assured it’s better to stand by yourself than to grovel at the undeserving.

That’s enough of a rant for one day.