Parks and Recreation Supplemental Post: Leslie Knope

You know, I just realized I probably should have started with Leslie Knope, since she is the main character and all, but I kind of like bucking the expected, which I think Leslie would appreciate. Probably? Who knows, she's a fictional character.

Via After Ellen

New challenge coming up!

Via Meme Generator

Well, my friends, I'm gonna do something a bit different next month, kind of a "bringing in the new year" sort of deal. First, I'm doing a challenge in January (I'm placing the blame on Mel here, really, although she initially told me to do it in December which LOL), and second, instead of writing about other people's shit, I'll be focusing on my own: The Legion. I've been rewriting the series for the better part of the last six months, and it's about time I started prepping the world for its arrival.

So without further ado, here's what is comin' at yo face, starting January 1st:

Parks and Recreation Supplemental Post: Chris Traeger

Via Buzzfeed

Despite the fact that I don't really like Rob Lowe* as a person, I absolutely adore Chris Traeger and his character arc throughout the series. The writers could have just left him as this obnoxiously optimistic, health-obsessed dudebro without an ounce of self-awareness, which for a comedy probably would have worked, but Parks and Rec is not your normal comedy. It constantly challenged gender roles, and Chris is a perfect example of this.

So you wanna know what it's like to have a panic attack?

Last month, I experienced my first major panic attack in over half a year. I mean, sure, I'd had small ones in between, like when I couldn't find a place to live or when I saw my rapist on the sidewalk, both of which are completely justifiable, but because I'd had such success at handling my triggered anxiety, I complimented myself on a job well done.

Via MonsterGif

When you go from having at least one to two major panic attacks in a week to one or two minuscule (by comparison) events over a period of several months, I guess it's not inappropriate to pat yourself on the back, but in my case, it turned into complacency. I didn't see or feel the warning signs and found myself back in the clutches of my emotionally and mentally damaged psyche. 

Even in the midst of some of the most hectic moments of my recent life, I decided to do something. I grabbed a notebook and just started writing what I felt, what I thought, how I felt about what I thought, and I'm just going to type it out here, unedited*. I've also annotated in brackets for further clarification as best I could; it's kind of hard to remember exactly what was going on at the time. Just ... be prepared?

Also, panic attacks are different for everyone, and not everyone experiences - or even expresses - them like I do, so what I went through may not match how someone you know goes through. That is the fun part about the human body: every single person has a unique way of dealing with every single thing.

Alrighty, onto the panic attack ... 

Parks and Recreation Supplemental Post: Donna Meagle

Via Giphy

In Season Six's "Fluoride," April makes the observation that there is no dog in the world that could embody Donna's spirit because Donna is a cat. And you know what? It's true, and it's probably why I like her so much. I mean, don't get me wrong: I love dogs. Zola is one of the best things in my life, and in a few years, I'd even like to get another one. But cats? I love me some cats. I want all the cats. I would adopt three more if it wouldn't overwhelm my apartment and the three cats already living there.

Two

Eventually, I'll stop remembering this day as significant; it'll just be three days before my sister's birthday, the middle of the month, however many days before Thanksgiving, forty days before Christmas, a month and a half before the start of a new year. But for now? It's my anniversary.

Some good news for a change!

Via ScrubSmart

Say hello to your friendly neighborhood certified pharmacy technician! Yesterday, I finally took the exam to get certified and passed, and I swear, it was a weird feeling of "well, of course, I was going to" and also "OMG I passed?", so naturally, the boy and I went out and got cigars and the fixins for chicken salad.

I never thought it would be like this.

Because apparently November is Get All Your Shit Out There Month, here's a another post that goes a bit darker than usual. It's a bit jarring, I know, to go from happy Parks and Rec supplementals into trigger warning territory, and I promise I'm going to post some lighter material as the month progresses, but these past few months have been very Saturn-comes-back-around for me, which actually happened back in 2013, but I digress. 

Anyway, before I go dark, here's a picture of some puppies. 

Via Babble

Parks and Recreation Supplemental Post: Andy Dwyer

Via Odyssey

I don't think I've met a single person who does not like Andy Dwyer. Seriously. Go poll your friends, Leslie-style. I'll wait. Well, I won't, because I already wrote this, but this post will be here when you get back.

Parks and Recreation Supplemental Post: Ron Swanson

Via Gifrific

In Ben's post, I mentioned toxic masculinity because of course I did, and now I get to go into it a little bit deeper because it's Ron Fucking Swanson Day. It's quite appropriate that a certain excerpt from a Men's Health interview kept popping up on my Facebook feed, too, because it's so perfectly Nick Offerman but also a great opener to what I love about Ron Swanson:

I went to theatre school. I took two semesters of ballet. I'm the 'sissy' in my family. I cry with pretty great regularity. It's not entirely accurate to equate me with manliness. I stand for my principals and I work hard and I have good manners, but machismo is a double-sided coin. A lot of people think it requires behavior that can quickly veer into misogyny and things I consider indecent. We've been sold this weird John Wayne mentality that fistfights and violence are vital to being a man. I'd rather hug than punch. Crying at something that moves you to joy or sadness is just as 'manly' as chopping down a tree or punching out a bad guy ... If you live your life openly with your emotions, that's a more manly stance than burying them.

I highly recommend reading the entire interview, as it has classic Offerman wit and charm, but this quote in particular is so fucking important.

Parks and Recreation Supplemental Post: Ben Wyatt

Via Parks and Recreation Tumblr

I kind of want to go back and redo my Favorite Ben Moment now and change it to when he went back to Partridge, MN, and got kidney stones, but thems the breaks, I guess.

Anyway, magic happened when Adam Scott's Ben Wyatt and Rob Lowe's Chris Traeger came onto Parks and Rec. The rest of season two was such an amazing departure from the bubble-headed, kind of dull show that it was during its first season, starting with the gay penguin wedding, but those last two episodes - "The Master Plan" and "Freddy Spaghetti" - were the two strongest of the season, mainly due to the interplay between the actors. Leslie's steamroller personality was no match for Ben's no-nonsense approach to budgeting, and even though I knew* that Ben would eventually become her love interest, I couldn't wait to see why they got together.

Parks and Recreation Supplemental Post: April Ludgate

I know, I know, these are taking longer to complete than I thought, but at least I am doing them. My life is crazy right now, and it's not even November yet. Did you know that working two jobs, trying to find a full-time one, looking for a roommate, prepping to write 50,000 words in 30 days, keeping up (somewhat) with a blog, sleeping, having a sort-of social life, eating, exercising, etc. is really hard to do*?

Anyway, today is April's Day!

Via Hollywood.com

I honestly think that people want to be the April of their friend/work groups because she's so distinctively different from the rest of the cast: she's morbid, zany, antisocial, random, and secure in who she is as a person, which is not necessarily common in younger people. I know when I was her age at the beginning of the series, I was figuring out who I was and what I wanted out of life. While she may not have known the latter part, she was confident in her personality from the get-go, and that's definitely something that people would be drawn to.

Parks and Recreation Supplemental Post: Tom Haverford

Via Uproxx

Like I said back on Day 29 of my Parks and Rec challenge, I was incredibly annoyed by Tom at first. It was mainly the first season, though, which I think can be somewhat excused because the writers were just figuring out who Tom was, and as the character was fleshed out from merely a bored government employee who thought he was the next Jay-Z or whatever into a motivated (albeit usually outside of work) and creative entrepreneur, it became so much easier to root for him. He wasn't perfect, obviously; his attempts to attract a woman* were cringeworthy, he is obsessed with Having Things, and he was ruthlessly cruel to Garry, all of which are huge issues for me. He also has this incessant need to perform for others and to receive praise for it (I mean, who doesn't need a pat on the back once in a while, but I'd much rather see appreciation in the form of more cash per hour), but I guess that's why he's perfectly suited for (spoiler alert) a future career as a self-help guru.

Parks and Recreation Supplemental Post: Ann Perkins

Via Gifrific

I'm going to start with Ann Perkins here because, well ... in my life and circle of friends, I am Ann. At first, I resented this because I'm not really the straight man kind of character that Ms. Perkins is - seriously, just ask my friends - but as I reexamined the character, I had that mindblowing realization that a big part of the reason I initially had issues with her was because I identified strongly with her series arc.

In which I decide to overload myself ...

Via Popkey

Well, I cannot stay not busy to save my life, apparently. Last month, I did another challenge - and I, if I do say so myself, was very pleased with the results and even finished on time! - at the same time I was working 50 - 60 hours at two jobs, and this month is going to be spent prepping for what is coming next month: NaNoWriMo, or for you laypeople, National Novel Writing Month. Well, that and doing supplemental character posts for my Parks and Rec challenge (which, shit, I really need to start doing those), moving into a new apartment (omg finally*), working, setting up and attending meetings for a paper my friend and I will be starting next year, collecting pieces for my Halloween costume**, getting CPR, ACE Fitness, and pharmacy technician certified, painting a new watercolor/mixed media series, and reworking my pilot script, so yeah, it's going to be a little crazy.

I am a huge animal lover, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has read any of my Life with Pets* one-act plays. I mean, come on, at one point, I lived with nine cats and a dog, so if I didn't love them, that would have been the most miserable time in my life. Instead, it was awesome. I had six kittens running for me when I got home from work, a bouncing bulldog, and three adult cats who had various levels of excitement at my presence. There was also a flea-ridden, smelly pit bull that would frequently escape her chains and come visit me because I'd give her the affection she sorely missed. Before that, I kind of adopted a sweet ginger cat that hung around my rented house, and before that, I saved an abused kitten from a guy who never really wanted a cat, anyway. My parents raised me around dogs, and I took riding lessons and fell in love with a horse who was too big for my small frame. I couldn't imagine my life without them.

To See the Future, You Have to Deal with the Past That Scares You

Planet Earth is slowing down
Overseas, underground
Wherever you look around
Lord, take me by the hand
Lead me through these desert sands
To the shores of a promised land

Well, it is now officially 2017. I am truly looking forward to the next 365 days, even if - as I said on Facebook - I know there's a lot of fear going around due to the new presidency, among other things. There is very little that I can do for the world as a whole, but as The The says, "If you can't change the world, change yourself."

Three actually introduced me to that song, so hearing it now brings a lot of bittersweet emotions to the surface, but for me, that's what makes it so important. I can't listen to it without remembering where I've gone since I first heard it. We had been married for a few months at that point, and things were still in that honeymoon phase; it was inspirational then because it meant so much to him, because he said it represented how he viewed the world. But now, I've taken it and made it my own mantra. Well, my main one is still, "Do what you're here to do and don't be an asshole," but it's my second mantra.

You make me start
When you look into my heart
And see me for who I really am

As I said in my last post, we are getting divorced this year. That is putting a lot of the past six years into perspective. The de-evolution of my personality, my goals, my loves, is coming into sharp focus, and I realize how far I've deviated from what I'm here to do. I have a much clearer view on who and what I am: I'm a writer, an artist, an optimist, a pacifist, a pansexual, a free spirit. But I am also damaged. I used to think it was irreparable, but as time has passed, I've realized that, while my scars will never go away, they'll just be reminders. I may still doubt myself and others, but I won't let them discourage me.

I didn't care if the sun didn't shine
And the rain didn't fall from the sky
I just cared about myself
From this world to the next
And from the next back to this
By our actions, we are bound
We're running out of love
Running out of hate
Running out of space
For the human race
Planet Earth is slowing down

Part of living with a narcissist is that you become kind of narcissistic yourself, especially when you are separated from others. My experience was coupled with verbal and emotional abuse, so the narcissism is a form of protection. I would say and do things that would keep myself free from being yelled at or accused of nefarious deeds like having emotions or opinions or desires that make the other person feel bad. I spent a lot of time questioning my motives for nearly every aspect of wanting to be alive, which is a very weird place to be. It wasn't until Three had his mental breakdown in October 2015 that I finally started to realize things.

It took a while. It's like having blinders taken off; you know they're gone, but you've spent so much time with them on that it's difficult having that expanded vision. So I didn't get the idea to leave the situation until several months later in February 2016. I remembered it was a Thursday, and Three and I had just had a major explosive fight. We're talking him slamming the front door hard and storming down the road with no destination and me sobbing, curled up in a ball on the floor. When he came back, he apologized, like he always did, and we began to actually talk. However, his defenses came up again, and he uttered the words that, to this day, still ring in my ears: "Every time we've ever taken your lead, you've ruined my life."

My first reaction was to begin crying and defend myself. He began yelling again, and suddenly, something snapped. No. We had never taken my lead throughout my entire marriage. He had made decisions, and I had just followed him, like a dutiful wife. The last move we'd just made - from Louisville, where I'd begun to build a life, to Columbia, where I knew no one and had no job prospects - was one that I'd had no part in choosing. He came home from work one day and said, "Hey, we're moving to South Carolina."

So I laid it out for him: I had given him a blank slate when he revealed to me that he had been lying to me about everything for five years, and he was required to give me the same. I had made mistakes in our marriage, and I was done apologizing for them time and time again, only to have them thrown back in my face months, even years, later. I was also done paying for the way his previous partners had treated him; I wasn't Julie or Elizabeth, or even his father, so he needed to stop treating me like I was. He agreed that I did deserve at least that much, and I thought that we were on the right path.

The next day, however, he came home from work, a look on his face that made me wonder if he'd been thinking and wanted to yell at me more. I was prepared for another verbal fisticuffs, only I wasn't afraid any longer. But instead, I saw tears in his eyes, and he told me he couldn't give me the slate I needed. It wasn't that he didn't want to; it's just that his brain was wired so he wouldn't be able to, that the past would always be at the front of his memory. I told him then that I was leaving, and the next day at work, I called my district manager and asked for a transfer to Louisville.

I'm in love with the planet that I'm standing on
I can't stop
I can't stop thinking of
All the people I've ever loved
All the people I have lost
All the people I'll never know
All the feeling I've never shown

My DM let me know the following week that the transfer was in the works, and by the end of March, it was approved. Three spent a lot of his time alone, occasionally throwing shade my way, and honestly, we were looking at it as a trial separation. Divorce wasn't even my vocabulary at the time, although the truth is, I knew we were headed in that direction. Hindsight really is 20/20. I bought a car - Athena, the 2012 Chevy Cruze - and packed it full of whatever I could carry on April 27th. My friends came down with me a few months later to pick up more, and that was the last time I saw Three in person. For months, I missed him, cried myself to sleep, and didn't allow myself to accurately look at our relationship, even if all I could remember was the bad.

Eventually, I knew I wanted a divorce*, which sent me into meltdown mode, but I didn't want to look inside. It was too frightening, painful. You can only blame someone else for so long.

The world's too big
And life's too short
To be alone
To be alone

I started dating again once I'd decided that it was over. It was way too soon, and honestly, I wish I hadn't. There wasn't any way that I was ready. I had so much baggage and so many phobias and too little understanding of where they came from that all that could really come of it was hurt. But I hated being alone. I craved someone who understood me and what I went through, someone that would let me cry on their shoulder and tell me I was still worthy of love.

Ultimately, this is what led me to therapy. It's a long story, one that I may or may not tell here**, but suffice to say, I sabotaged a fledgling relationship because I felt like he was behaving like Three. He wasn't - not really - but my brain wasn't listening to anything other than former patterns. And if that doesn't sound like something you read above, you're not paying attention. I hurt my friend badly because I couldn't leave the past behind; I was making him pay for the way Three had treated me.

I texted my friend that I didn't want to be alive any longer. I called my sister and mother, bawling uncontrollably, looking for some type of solace from the deep pain that was living in my veins, and the next day, I called the suicide hotline while I was at work. I even considered checking myself into some mental hospital. Despite me living in a town where I had a great group of friends, I felt completely alone like I did when Three suffered his mental break. Maybe it's because it was my actions that had caused my own fall? Or maybe because I realized how far I'd let Three's manipulation go? Maybe I felt like I wasn't worthy of the love I sought? I still can't really explain it.

My mother drove up from Nashville to stay with me for a few days, for which I am eternally grateful, and I started to feel emotions other than total despair again. I actually laughed a few times, especially when Mom purposefully pissed me off so I'd show some emotion. My sister and friends checked on me daily, and I realized that, despite what my mind was telling me, I was cherished.

That is what started my healing process.

If you can't change the world, change yourself.
If you can't change the world, change yourself. 

I started therapy shortly afterward, and I cannot express how much that has helped. Just having someone to talk to is such an amazing thing, but when it comes in a package that doesn't judge you and doesn't let you be too hard on yourself? It's perfect. I still have a very long way to go before I'm well, and like I said above, there are scars that aren't going to fade. I've accepted that to some degree, but that just means I have more to work on. And that's a very exciting prospect.

And if you can't change yourself, change your world.

Lyrics to "Lonely Planet" by The The

* I am still very upset about what caused me to come to this conclusion, and that will definitely be the subject of a future post.
** This is probably going to be a storyline for my web series. What? Writing is how I process things.