Scream

On June 25th, Michael Jackson died and I was immediately sad for his children. No matter what you thought of him, right or wrong, he had three children and they obviously love him. What I didn't realize is that one of his songs would so very suddenly speak to me.

The next day, on June 26th, my HOA had a special meeting to remove the Vice President from his position. I was able to get a lot of anger and frustration off my chest. I was able to tell him that I can no longer comfortably work with him after being threatened by him with a lawsuit, and after watching him threaten other members of the Board and Association, I had had it. But, of course, the motion didn't pass. He's still VP, because the other two members voted against the motion and dissented.

I was never a huge Michael Jackson fan. I enjoyed his pre-Thriller stuff, but I was definitely a Janet Jackson girl. Her music is what got me through many late-night college study sessions. And when Michael and Janet collaborated on his 1995 song Scream I knew I finally had a modern Michael Jackson song I could enjoy.

Michael Jackson's death has brought back so many of those old songs to the forefront of my memory and after 14 years, I reacquainted myself with Scream. And, my word, has it spoken to me as of late. I just finished another HOA meeting where I realized that Jeff doesn't get it, never will, and will always be a jerk to whom I have to stand up to for another seven months. He makes me want to scream until I'm blue of face and hoarse of voice. I have never truly hated people. I either love/like you or I don't care. But him? I hate. With a passion.

I know when Michael wrote Scream, it was because he was angry with the constant media attention he was receiving (good and bad) and he was angry that the world was full of negativity and unhappiness. But for me? Right now? This song is about people who don't have backbones, who refuse to stand up for themselves and others, it's about a system that supports said people when no one will confront them, it's about people who are mean and rude to others because they've never been taught otherwise and who continue to treat others as less than human just because they can.

Tired of injustice / Tired of the schemes / Kinda disgusted / So what does this mean? / Kicking me down (and I) / I got to get up / As jacked as it sounds / The whole system sucks (dammit)

Peek in the shadow / Come into the light / You tell me I'm wrong / Then you better prove you're right / You're sellin' out souls but / I care about mine / I've got to get stronger / And I won't give up the fight

Stop pressurin' me / Just stop pressurin' me / Stop fuckin' with me / Make me wanna scream

The Meanest Things I've Ever Done

I'm a pessimist. Nine times out of ten, when given a compliment, I'll downplay said compliment with a negative because I don't know how to take anything nice said to me. It's difficult to say "Thank you" and leave it at that. That having been said, I don't like to "toot my own horn" and knowing that, the title of this post isn't "The Nicest Things I've Ever Done." Yeah, I've done nice things for people, but I've also been mean and, a couple of times, rather evil. So, think of this as the blogger confessional. I'm here to share my "sins" with you. Because, let's face it, it's more fun to sin that to be good! :-)

This is Teri's favorite story. My mom had this crack-whore (literally, she was a drug addict who prostituted herself) living across the street from her in West Virginia. This lovely woman was also afflicted with cancer and AIDS. Nice. Anyhoo, she made life hell for Mom and her two, really nice and sweet 80-year-old neighbors. One Christmas, while loading up the car to leave, Crack-Whore is coming down the street with her Doberman and I hear her say, while staring down my mom, "Sick her!" I lost it. We ended up having a Jerry Springer-type yelling match in the middle of the street and I ended it with the words, "And, you have cancer and I HOPE YOU DIE!" And, you guessed it, 16 months later, the cancer took her. I know her lifestyle killed her and not my curse, but the nice, goody-two-shoes part of me can't help but feel bad. Of course, the devilish side of me is quite proud of myself!

This one is pretty mild. I was president of my sorority in college, it was the last day of school (time to load up the car with all of my crap and head 500 miles home), and I find out that my rush chairman never returned three GIANT tanks of helium to a rental company in Gainesville, Georgia. So, there I am, trying to arrange a male-truck owning-fellow collegian to take these tanks back to the rental company (because my parents' Dodge Shadow was bursting to full), and in the meantime, I leave my chairman the nastiest, full of foul language, phone message I can muster. Not proud of that, but I did get my point across.

My first real job out of college included a manager that did not like me. We were like oil and water and, in my opinion, she was a horrible manager and rather mean to me. So, after I left that job, I sent her a Management for Dummies book for Christmas, anonymously of course (I'm such a pussy). Oh, and? She's a close friend of my in-laws and it was my in-laws' company. Yeah, probably a bad decision.

And, the top prize for "Meanest Thing I've Ever Done" is the following. A former friend divorced his wife for cheating on him and re-married one month later, to someone he hardly knew. In the meantime, we found out some less-than-desirable things about him and the mean and untrue things he had said about us. He and the new wife were keeping their marriage a secret from her family so that his in-laws would pay for their grand church wedding nine months later and for their week-long Caribbean honeymoon. So, to get back at him for being such an ass to us, I got a copy of their original Tennessee marriage certificate and sent it to her family the day after their big church wedding. Yeah, they were kicked out of her family's house upon return from the honeymoon. Classic. Quite proud of that one.

So, what are the meanest things you've ever done, dear readers? Let me know!