In addition to following a handful of food blogs, I also follow a couple of fashion blogs for inspiration. One of these blogs specializes in fashion for petite women like myself, so I’ve actually gotten a lot of good tips regarding petite-friendly brands, how to wear certain pieces I never thought a small person could wear, etc. One of the latest posts from this blog was about purse organizers for large totes. Most large totes, if you are lucky, have the main compartment, maybe one zip compartment, and two pockets.. at most. This has always been a huge gripe of mine regarding hand bags and purses; why do they make it so difficult for you to organize all of the belongings that you need to carry with you? Why won’t they just factor these compartments into the overall design, especially given how expensive women’s purses can be?  And the bigger the bag, the more pockets and compartments you’d typically need, but no, these handbag companies do not care. They are sticking with their one-main-compartment schtick, and they don’t care what you want. Because of that, all these companies are coming out with “hand bag organizers” like this in an effort to cash in on the areas that these hand bag companies won’t help you with. Yes, I can see that these things are necessary, but my point is that it is frustrating that the handbag companies don’t take care of this on their own and require external companies to charge us even more money for dumb organizers like this.

I just started reading Elon Musk’s book, and it really pained me to learn how he was bullied through his school years. The worst incident happened when he was sitting on a stairway, and some kid who decided he didn’t like him pushed him down the stairs and smashed his face repeatedly into the ground. Elon ended up needing to be hospitalized for over a week, and in the end, he required plastic surgery to repair his nose.

It’s hard for me to understand bullying of that severity, or the type of bullying that makes children scared of going to school. I was bullied for minor things like my then tall height, my name, and of course, being terrible at kickball in elementary school, but it was never to a point where I feared for my security or my life. What is so stunning is how people like Elon move forward in their lives in spite of these setbacks and horrible life experiences with other people; it’s inspiring, but at the same time it infuriates me that this type of treatment of others is condoned and tolerated in schools around the world. And it also reminds me of how my own brother was bullied and got to a point where he just didn’t want to go to school anymore. Unfortunately, Ed wasn’t as strong or persevering as Elon.

I usually don’t tell my mom when Chris goes on work trips. The main reason for this is that she worries when she knows I am by myself in the apartment, and she gets paranoid that someone will break in and kill me. So she also tells me that when Chris takes trips that I shouldn’t go anywhere after work, that I should go straight home, double lock the door, and stay there until it’s time to go to work the next morning. Yep, that’s a fun idea.

The other reason I don’t like to tell her he goes away is that she thinks that when he’s away, it means she gets extra phone time with me. I’ve gradually cut down the phone calls from every single day (really) to about three to four times a week now in an effort to keep my sanity, but she always ends up calling in the evening when she knows he’s away, as she says that “since Chris is away, we have more time to talk.” That’s never a good thing. Why? Because what inevitably happens is that she ends up nitpicking me for some senseless thing (which likely happened months and months ago that I can barely remember even happening), and I tell her she’s being too sensitive or irrational or looking for something to get mad about, and then she yells. Then I yell, then we both yell, and it’s never a good thing.

It happened again last night. She asked me to write her a check a few weeks ago and said it could wait until late May. I asked her what the check was for. She did not appreciate the question. Apparently, questions are not allowed from me. She accused me of being reluctant to give her money when she has raised me and paid for my schooling and that I was ungrateful and “you’ve changed!” “How can you be reluctant when your own mother asks you? I do everything for you!” I never realized that asking what she’s planning to do with the money is another way of saying, “I’m reluctant and I don’t want to give you the money.” Isn’t asking why simply asking why?!

Yes, I’ve changed. I don’t take s*** from her anymore. The way I think hasn’t changed. The way I respond has.