{censored}

A long time ago, in a random place that had nothing to do with bloggers, blogging, or indeed any form of writing whatsoever, someone asked me if I censored myself on this blog.

“Oh, @^*&@ no!” I replied.

But this was, of course, a bald-faced lie. I mean, just look at the ‘@’, people.

Oh yeah. I censor.

I write a lot more than I post. Most of the time, it ends up in Blog Purgatory because I don’t finish it – Life happens, and time passes, and I can’t remember where I thought I was going with this odd rambling thing about…hmm. Well. I assume it was about something.

But other times, it never gets read by anyone else because it’s angry-writing. Unkind rants about my fellow creatures, blistering critiques of the latest political nonsense, a dissection of the lunacy from the latest pamphlet left on my door by well-intentioned $DEITY-worshippers who feel that I would be an awesome fit to the congregation because who doesn’t think celery IS god? Huh? HUH? AM I RIGHT?!?!

Other times, I’m just whining about something…and then I look at what I’ve written and I think, YA KNOW…some well-intentioned soul is going to ask you if you’ve ever tried {something that comes up in the first five Google pages when you search on the condition}.

And then I’m going to write one of those angry things that I never post. “Thank goodness you’re here, Captain Obvious! You’ve saved the village!!”

The neat thing about writing, though, is that unlike a word that has been spoken where there were ears to hear it, I have the ability to review what I’m about to say in writing and go, “Sigh…I don’t really mean that, not at all…” {delete-delete-delete}

…and thus it is that sometimes, there are seemingly weeks between posts around here…

…which, of course, leads me to feel as though I am cheating somehow.

In real life, I frequently don’t use @^*&@ when I mean to say…well…that other word. Which I don’t put on my blog, because every-so-not-very-often, The Lady My Mother reads it. And being as she is pure as the driven snow, she would surely swoon if she saw the word rhymes-with-spit on here.

Because Lords Knows she herself has never used such a word, yea verily, never once.

Ahem.

Aaaaanyway…in real life, I frequently use words I shouldn’t. I can be snarky and sarcastic, too. I sometimes hear myself say something and think, Um…dude? That was a little…over the top, doancha think?!

I mean, I’m not particularly confrontational; I try to stop myself when I’m about to go off on some wild-eyed rant and run it through the “is it helpful, is it kind, is it true” filter before I fire all cannons.

But every so often, one will let loose; I’ll say something hurtful, or even hateful…or thoughtlessly cruel…and only after the words have left my mouth and settled into the ears of others does my brain-mouth processing kick in and go, “Oh, um? Actually? That last one was not helpful, or kind, or even true…yeah, let’s not say that…oh…too late, huh?…uhhhhh…sorry, my bad…”

In real life…I have bad days. Ugly, shamefully self-absorbed, mean-spirited, angry, tired, limping days. And on those days…I basically say, “I don’t wanna talk about it!”

It’s like the difference between what I really want, and something that just catches my fancy at the moment.

If you go window shopping with me, man, my eye is caught by everything. I’m like a crow – if it’s sparkly, I’ve got my face pressed up against the window and I’m going, “oooooOOOOOOO! Lookit! Lookit the Thing!! It haz apps!!!!”

But what I really want is that glorious freedom…the ability to choose whether I will or won’t “have” to get up tomorrow at Wicked O’Clock to resume the madness in exchange for a paycheck; I want it more than all the apps there are, or ever will be.

What I really want is for the world to have more love, laughter and light in it. I want people to find their own Happy – and I want other people to just enjoy that they are happy, instead of trying to force them to be happy in a different way.

Because there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ when it comes to what is a happy life. What makes me happy isn’t necessarily what makes you happy; what I can do easily isn’t necessarily easy for others, and what others find easy frequently makes me go, “@^*&@, girl, how do you do that?!?!”

I want to enjoy my time among them.

Not be pissy, tired, angry, desperate for soli-frickin-tude, snarky, short-tempered and otherwise you kids get offa mah lawn!!!!

So in the same way that I’ll stare longingly at the tablets and app-store offerings, the fancy dresses I know I’ll never wear (but secretly wish I was the kind of woman who would), the services I’d appreciate and conveniences that would give me more time to enjoy the apps in the first place…and then stick with getting only what I actually need…

…I’ll write something angry, or bitter, or mean…and walk away from it…and stick with what I really want life to be made of: the things that are funny, and/or kind, and/or helpful.

And try to make the words I speak do the same.

And thus shall I fake it until I make it what I want it to be.

Hallelujah, amen.