Sometimes I Even Surprise Myself

People have some strong opinions about me. It's been going on my entire life. I wouldn't say that I aim for people to either love me or hate me, but I will admit that I loathe indifference. Perhaps that's why so few people fall in that middle ground where I'm concerned.

There have been people online who have chosen to voice their opinions about me very loudly. Quite a few have dedicated posts in their own blogs to just exactly what their views on me are. The part that is frustrating to me is that they are basing much of these opinions on their perception. And it's a perception of my online persona, gathered through reading a handful of my entries.

Most of the time I try to handle things personally and quietly. I e-mail these people and attempt to humanize myself in the hopes that they might understand that I'm not as bad as they believe me to be. Sometimes I just post bulletins so that I can feed into that opinion. Depends on the mood I'm in.

There was one time when what was said actually got under my skin. Not so much for what it said because I didn't really read the entire post. It was just a comment that was captioned under a picture that was lifted from my picture profile. The one where I am wearing my Antithesis of Barbie t-shirt and you can glimpse Midget sitting on my foot and looking upward into the camera lens. She's always attached to me in some way. I didn't realize that she was in the shot until I'd uploaded the pic from my camera. Then I just thought it was cute.

The person who chose to use this picture made a comment on my ability as a mother, pointing out Midget in the shot. In my mind, you can criticize what I do and who you think I am, but there is an unspoken rule of not speaking of my family.

So I retaliated by posting a response to the blog in question. My readers flooded to my defense. Much was said by both sides. Lines were drawn, parties were switched. I was also able to successfully campaign to get his blog pulled from Myspazz for using the picture with my daughter.

Thing is... I decided to continue contacting the guy. There was a point I was trying to make in getting the post pulled and I wanted him to understand that it wasn't for ego's sake. I e-mailed him about a week after this occurred and we began to correspond with one another on a semi-regular basis.

Todd (Raven) is not a bad guy. He was writing something that had its purpose and design. I can respect what he was trying to accomplish with the piece, even if I disagree with how it was pulled off.

While I understand that the world loves to thrive on drama and tension, I myself am not really a fan of it. I love debate but I'm not into fighting for the sake of fighting. (Well, aside from UFC. But those guys get paid for it!) I don't believe in hating people even though I might hold a grudge. I suppose I'm just a great big mess of confusion.

So Todd and I talked about a way to express that while things are comfortable when they are safe and predictable, hatred for the sake of hatred should not be one of those things that we are comfortable with. It might be fun to play off an animosity between us, but we also understand that there is far more beauty behind being honest.

The honest thing here is that I may play the bitch and at times I might even BE the bitch, but at the end of the day I'm also not the bitch. You might not be able to set your watch to everything I do, but that should be a good thing.

As a gesture of friendship and goodwill, I did something that I normally would never do unless I was feeling particularly emo. (Click here for some examples)

That's right. I willingly engaged in writing poetry. The chick who mocks those who are Myspazz poets.

What we came up with was constructed over several e-mails, a back and forth or duet of sorts. There is a fantasy element to it (we are not "in love" or dating or anything else. It just happened to be the direction that the piece flew in) but also genuine sentiment.

I hope that this poem can serve a lesson for everyone. I personally am dedicating 2007 to trying harder to seeing the opposite side of things and reacting with better grace than I have in the past.

And now, for your consideration... (Todd's posts are in bold/italic)