Isn't Christmas Done Yet?

Hello there all you Beautiful Mother Lovers!  I hope everyone is managing to make it through these always challenging last few days of December.  Merry Christmas, to those who celebrate that, and Happy Holidays, to Everyone!  Personally, I will just be happy when January 2nd rolls around and I can put another fucking holiday season behind me.

This is not a good time of year for me.  I have tried all my life to get into the whole "Christmas Spirit" thing, but some one always has to come along to fuck it up.  Its Not even worth the effort to try anymore.  Now I just go through the prescribed paces, eliminating more and more of those each year.  I am not even wrapping the fucking gifts this year.  The kids said I don't have to, since they already know everything they are getting, since they picked it all out.  And we didn't put up the big tree, or much of any decorations this year.  I did decorate the two little trees, a three foot one for the living room and a 2 foot one here in my office, but that was the extent of it this year, and I didn't even get around to doing that until about a week and a half ago.  I did actually bake some cookies this year, but only 4 different kinds, instead of the 10 or 12 I used to make every year.

I know most people probably go through a certain amount of disillusionment with the holidays as they get older, and that is certainly a great deal of where my current bahumbuggedness is coming from, but it is more than that.  It is a lifetime of conditioning, and a decade and a half of having my life ruled over by a moron, and world full of judgmental fucking hypocrites trying to destroy everything that is good in this world all for the sake of their all-mighty fucking dollar and then wrapping it up in some vague fucking Bible verse that they cherry picked for their agenda!

So yeah, maybe I am just too old for this nonsense any more.  I know I am sick and tired of the people who created the "war on Christmas" by turning into a commercialized monstrosity with no resemblance to the "true meaning of Christmas", claiming that every one else is attacking Christmas, while they are the only ones truly defending it.  How fucking stupid do they think people are?  Oh yeah, probably about as stupid as the 34% who buy into their nonsense.  Open your fucking eyes people!  You have been played!  Your whole fucking life is based on lies and deceptions based on what you think every body else believes, its all bullshit.  Manufactured in advertising agencies around the world, and spoon fed to us from birth, every day, all fucking day long.

I better stop myself before I go running off an a whole different tangent again.  My point was, I will be glad when the holidays are over and I can get back to work on my new life.  I have a whole list of plans and ideas that I am going to share with all of you over the course of the coming new year.  2014 is going to be the start of a whole new life for Mother, with a whole slew of out of the box new projects and completely out of my comfort zone new plans.  I am working very hard on learning all these new software programs, and all of the other stuff I knew absolutely nothing about a couple of months ago, but to be honest, the most difficult part of any of it is just the idea of showing my face to the world.  Sharing my words here is one thing, and that has taken me a long time to get used to, and sharing my voice, like on the first two videos I have made, was even more terrifying.  But sharing my face?  That is going to take a strength of will I am still not really sure I possess.  That's why we are easing into the idea gradually.  

As much as I absolutely do not care what people might think of how I look, unfortunately I know there will be people out there who will find it necessary to tell me what they think anyway.  Not caring what they think does not mean their words are not hurtful.  I think the best way for me to deal with those kind of people will probably be to do my very best to publicly shame them for their cruel and superficial behavior. Its either that, or ignore them, and I don't think that would be as much fun.  I have been ignoring them for my entire life and they don't seem to stop, so I think I will try a new approach.

I am actually trying to work out a whole new approach to a lot of things.  This whole mid-life crisis thing I have been going through the past few months has gotten me thinking about who I am, and who I want to be, and how the two haven't always been necessarily compatible.  So, I am working on that too.  In all my spare time.

At any rate, be looking for some big new surprises from Mother over the coming weeks and months!  And be looking forward to actually seeing Mother some day on your computer screen (or phone, or whatever you people use to watch videos on the internet these days).  As soon as I get up the nerve to put myself out there, I can promise you all will be the first to know!  Because, no body else will care! 

In my research and explorations I have learned that the first 100 videos I produce will probably just be crap, but each one will get significantly better than the last, and some day I might even start making some good ones.  So, try not to hold me to too high a standard as we go forward, okay?  I am doing the best I can with what I have to work with, and hopefully the content quality will make up for the lack of video quality until my skills can catch up with my ambitions.  I ain't promising nothing except that I will do my best to entertain, and perhaps occasionally enlighten you, in my own unique, and perhaps slightly odd, sort of way. 

So Until Next Time, I hope you enjoy the first two of what I hope will be many more, and hopefully someday even better, videos to come ... 
                                                 

                                              
                                                   

Raising the Minimum

 Hello again Lovely Internet People!  I was reading an article the other day about the fact that if the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, and everything else, it should be close to like $21 an hour by now.  I know a lot of people seem to think that $21 an hour is a ridiculous amount  of money for a minimum wage job, but it really isn't.  At 40 hours a week it only amounts to a little over $800 a week, before taxes.  And while that is far more money than I have ever earned in a week, no one is ever going to get rich off of it.  What they could get would be a decent life and a little less stress about whether they are going to have enough money to feed their kids AND pay the bills after working their asses off all day every day!  Not to mention the huge increase in our economy that would occur as a result of the people who actually spend their money, actually having money to spend!

There was a comment at the end of the article from some guy complaining that only 3% of our population actually works at a minimum wage job, so we shouldn't bother spending any time worrying about the issue.  While I find it personally reprehensible that he believes that those 3% of Americans don't deserve to be compensated fairly for their efforts, that was not the reason that I was so disturbed by his comments.  The sheer lack of common sense exhibited in his comments were what bothered me.  Here is a supposedly intelligent person that cannot understand the connection between what the minimum wage is, and what EVERYONE who is not a CEO of a major corporation makes.  Whether your salary is computed hourly, weekly, or monthly, doesn't matter, your salary is based on your value to the company, and they figure that number from the ground up.  From minimum wage up.  So if the minimum wage is $7.25, like it is now, and you are making say $21 an hour, and you probably think you are doing alright with that.  But, if the minimum wage was the $21 an hour it should be, then you should be making around $63 an hour!  Now do you understand why the minimum wage should be a big freaking deal to ALL of us?!

And as for that stupid argument that raising the minimum wage would cause massive inflation, and all the prices would sky rocket to make up for those increased wages, that's just bullshit.  I live in a state where our minimum wage is $2 an hour more than the national minimum wage, and a hamburger costs the same here as it does in the state next door where they pay the federal minimum wage.  And, if we instituted a federal MAXIMUM wage, that prevented those fucking CEO's from collected multi-million dollar, tax deductible (for the company) salaries and bonuses, that would cancel out any need for increased prices.

 I am just sick and fucking tired of people who have no clue what it is like to be dependent on a minimum wage job to feed their families telling people that they should just "get another job" or "work harder".  I have a college education, I am extremely intelligent, and I can learn pretty much any job you set before me in less two weeks (okay, maybe not brain surgery, that might take a little more than two weeks), but I have no work history to speak of, and certainly nothing that could showcase my abilities, so if I had to go find a job tomorrow at 46 years old, I would be lucky to find a full-time minimum wage job.  And it would cost me more to go to work everyday than I could possibly bring home.  After the federal government takes 50% of my pay for the student loans I still cannot afford to pay, and the normal FICA and SS deductions are removed, that leaves me making about $4 an hour.  The first of those eight hours is then spent paying for the gas to get to and from work, another hour (at least) to pay for clothes to wear at the job, and at least three hours to pay for the after school child care that I would have to arrange for my kids, oh and add in another hour to pay for their school supplies and lunches, and one more hour to pay for whatever the hell other expenses are incurred (like car  repairs, etc).  Guess what?  Now I have worked all fucking day, at a job I probably fucking hate, for people who treat me like crap, and you know what I got out of it?  Yep, $4.  That's the net result, a whole fucking $4!

I heard Rand Paul was in Detroit last week and asked a group of people that had gathered to hear him speak, if any of them worked for a poor person.  Now, as someone else quickly pointed out, Senator Paul, was elected by the citizens of the state of Kentucky, a great many of whom are poor, so technically, Senator Paul works for poor people, but he is not alone.  I have seen it written on the internet many times in recent years that poor people do not create jobs, only rich people do that.  I call BULLSHIT!  I know lots of poor people who create jobs, not just by spending their money and creating the demand for jobs, but by actually creating them!

As I explained in the previous paragraph, for me, like a lot of people, getting a typical "job" is not a financially viable option, so I have created my own business, which provided me with a job.  It doesn't pay very well, but I net a considerable amount more than the $16 a month I could make working for someone else, and I don't spend all day every day longing for the sweet release of death to free me from my misery, so there is that added bonus.  My husband, who technically probably could get a decent paying job that would net him significantly more than $16 a month (but still not enough to raise us above the poverty level), also started his own business, which not only provides him with a job, but also provides me with a second one, and in a few years when they are old enough, it will might even have grown enough to provide jobs for our children as well.  So technically, I work for a poor person.  Actually I work for two poor persons, so there.

I am really just beyond sick and tired of the people who benefit the most from the status quo, telling the rest of us that things cannot be changed because they have always been the way they are.  It seems to me that if shit is broken, we should probably fix it.  And if you cannot see how badly our system is broken, then you are probably the one in charge of breaking it and you should really just shut the fuck up now. 

Until Next Time ...  

Things That Terrify Me That Probably Won't Happen

Hello again all you Lovely Internet People!  Mother has been hard at work creating new silly things for all of you to enjoy.  Yesterday I posted my very first video on YouTube, it was this, in case you missed it:

                                       
Yes, I know it isn't as perfect as it maybe could have been, but for a first attempt I think it is fairly decent.  Its not like I am competing for an Oscar or anything, just making silly little videos that I hope somebody might enjoy. It was a lot of fun learning all the new software programs and figuring out how to put it all together.  Its going to take some time for me to get used to the idea of talking into the microphone, and developing a personality for that, but someday I might get good at it.  Well, we can hope anyway.

It would probably help if I had a better idea of what I am trying to accomplish.  You know, if I had some kind of actual plan, or something like that.  I mean, the original idea was to make silly videos and stuff to make people laugh, but most of what I keep wanting to produce isn't all that funny.  I mean, I try to make fun of the stuff, and make it as humorous as I can, but exposing hypocrisy and shining a light on what I see as the real evils of the world, isn't really something that most people consider comedy.  And it doesn't help that I am not really all that funny anyway.  I mean, I know I am really good at getting people to laugh when they really don't want to, I do that to my friends and family all the time.  But, for some reason I can't seem to find a way to translate that humor to people who do not know me really well.  Most people take me far too seriously.  Even my wonderful husband, who has known me for 12 and a half years now, still tries to take me seriously when he, of all people, should really know better by now!

Pretty much every post I have ever written on this Blog had something in it that I thought was funny.  Even the most mundane and boring "what I did today" posts generally contain at least some silly little something that I found amusing and hoped someone else might also enjoy.  I am sure I have not been nearly as successful at that as I might like to be, but I really do try.

I have spent the last two years here at this Blog trying to develop some idea of who I am and what I want to do with the rest of my life.  It has not been an easy process.  It certainly has had its bumps along the way, but I have learned a great deal about myself that I am not sure I would have recognized had it not been for having this outlet.  Most people would not be so willing to lay open their hearts and minds to complete strangers in such a public way, but I have found it strangely liberating.  To be sure I have left out a lot of the details to protect the privacy of any one who might happen to know me in real life, but I have tried to be as open and honest as possible about myself and my life and the road I have taken to get to where I am now.

When I first started all of this I was terrified that someone would expose who I really was and what I had been through.  Here we are, two short years later, and I have not only put my own name to my work, but I am preparing to actually show my face to the world for the first time as well.  And I am still terrified.  But, then again, I do not remember a single day in my life when I was not terrified.  Life is fucking terrifying for me.  I still have to keep living, so I might as well keep doing the rest of it as well.  Right?

Its funny, every time I get a new idea for a project that I think is really awesome, it triggers a switch in my brain that immediately starts screaming DANGER! DANGER!  In order to be "successful" at becoming an "entertainer" some level of fame is required, and the last thing I have ever wanted is to be famous!  I think this is the greatest challenge to my psyche that I have ever faced. The more I think there is a posibilty that people might like something I create, the more retiscent I become about creating it.  I look at Pages on Facebook that started when I did but now have hundreds of thousands of "likers", and all I can think is "thank goodness that's not me!"  I see Page owners like Patti Ford from "Insane in The Mom Brain" talking about being interviewed on TV, and I start having panic attacks.  I don't want that kind of attention!  Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE for the whole world to read what I post, and watch my silly little videos or whatever, but I don't want them to pay attention to ME!  That shit is fucking terrifying!  The whole reason I created "Mother" was so that people could pay attention to her and leave me the hell alone!

I know that the only way that people are going to ever be able to see what I produce is if I go around telling other people about it and asking them to share it.  Unfortunately I am not equipped to do that.  Hell I can't even manage to ask all of you to share my stuff.  I am not a self-promoter.  That would mean bringing attention to myself, and I think I have established the fact that I have no interest in doing that!  So I am left spending countless hours and endless days, weeks and months, producing vast quantities of possibly entertaining materials that will never be seen by more than a couple dozen people.  Which is a couple dozen more than ever would have seen it if I hadn't spent the time to produce it, so I keep producing it anyway.  Maybe someday I will put something out there that develops a life of its own and brings my work to the attention of a wider audience, but until that happens I am learning to be content in the knowledge that every once in a while somebody stumbles across something that I created that brings them some joy or confort in a world where both seem to be in way too short of supply.  That's good enough for me.  Its not going to pay the bills, or keep a roof over my head, but then neither is anything else I would be spending my time on, so I suppose I should quit worrying about that.  Especially since the only way it could ever pay the bills would be if I became famous, quite the catch twenty-two I have gotten myself into, isn't it?  I am very good at that.

Oh well, I will just take whatever comes from this as it comes.  If some day success comes knocking on my door I will just have to deal with it, just like I have dealt with every thing else life has thrown at me.  There really isn't much sense in worrying about something that will probably never happen anyway, although I do a lot of it for some strange reason.  Part of my charm, I guess.  I am really fucking charming you know.

Until Next Time ...