Category Archives: Opinion

Ask Auntie BubboPants

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Oh hi! Who’s running late again? That would be me! I expect at some point I am going to get a letter from a non-signing chickenbutt that says “Dear ABP, I put together a biweekly news publication for a popular website. It is a lot of hard work but I do enjoy it immensely. Well, I enjoy it most of the time, I wouldn’t be writing to you if I didn’t have an issue. It seems that one of the regular contributors can’t be arsed to get her column in on time ever. Ever. Short of stringing her up and gutting her like a fish and putting her on display as a warning to all others who might consider being late with their submissions, what can i do?”
And you know what? The only advice I could give is, “String ‘er up! Gut ‘er out! Show ‘er off!”
Once again, my sincere apologies to the wonderful people behind the scenes at TWiR who do the hard work and put up with people like me!

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Dearest Auntie BubboPants,
In the last few months, I’ve finally gotten the nerve to break up with my long distance boyfriend and start seeing the boy at work that I’ve been crushing on for a long time. He’s perfect. Charming, old fashion, open and honest, passionate, has two jobs, and handsome to boot. I’ve never felt more happy or smitten in my life.
However, there’s one little thing that kind of bugs me. I don’t think he brushes his teeth. He’s got this icky grime in his mouth all the time, and it makes it gross to kiss him sometimes. Should I say something? Should I definitely NOT say something? I’ve never had to deal with this before. The last boy was very set on dental hygiene. Everything else about him is great, clean cut, well dressed. Just his teeth. What’s a girl to do?
-Nonsigning Chicken Butt
Dear NSCB,
Tell him. You have to tell him, but you have to find a way to broach the subject in a way that shows you are not being critical but concerned.
Every once in a while David gets the Mad Funkies in his breath. It’s not that he’s not brushing his teeth, he is, I see it happening. It’s that he tends to get very low grade sinus infections that he doesn’t really recognize are there. The build up of bacteria in his sinuses comes out and can give him bad breath. The first time I noticed this I fretted and fretted about how to approach it without seeming overly critical. Certainly, I didn’t want to just bust out with “blergh! what you got in there? A dead raccoon??” Luckily, I had a moment of A-HA! and I remembered that bad breath is often caused by low grade infections.
I opened with, “I’m not being critical, but I think that you might have a sinus infection.” Then I went on to explain about the bad breath, the bacteria, the bad breath again and assurances that I wasn’t being Judgey McCriticalson, I was just concerned. He went to the doctor, they found the infection and he got some nose spray. Now I have only to ask him to use his nose spray.
Now! Of course you might be dealing with a different monster here. If he’s not brushing his teeth then “sinus infection” isn’t the issue. HOWEVER, it will give you a way to bring up the topic. it’s not lying to him, per se, it’s just bringing up the issue of his mouth in a non-judgmental way. It will allow him to contemplate the issue without getting defensive or feeling shame.
Now, if the subject is brought up and he still does not start maintaining a regular oral hygiene regimen, then you will have to push again. And this time is harder because you will have to be more direct. A fully grown adult male with easy and affordable access to modern dentifrice has no excuse for not taking advantage of it. Then again, maybe he has other emotional issues, ones that run deeper than oral hygiene but express themselves of toothbrush avoidance. If this is the case then you have a decision to make. Are you willing to accept and help deal with the much larger issues at hand? You don’t have to, you aren’t obligated. It’s not unreasonable to have certain expectations in a relationship. If you decide that you’re in it for the long haul, then learn to be supportive and nudging and learn to accept the sometimes stinky foibles in exchange for the knowledge that with time and effort they can be overcome.

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Guru Auntie Pants of the Bubbo,
I would love to get your take on my wonderful situation…
I have a sixteen year old daughter that has been in a relationship with a family friend’s son for about six months. He is a good kid, although he has lost direction and needs to hop back on the train to his future. I can’t come up with any cute way to say… I am aware of what level of intimacy is involved in their relationship since I was lucky enough to walk in on them during a moment of secret late night couch activities. I have taken steps to help insure they are practicing safer activities and hopefully will not end up like I did in the teenage parent classes in high school.
During a recent conversation with my wonderful daughter, she told me that said boyfriend often talks about how things will be years from now when they are together. She thinks it is sweet and all things warm and fuzzy, but she is not sure what she sees in the future. First of all, she doesn’t want to spend her life with someone that has fallen off the future train and can’t seem to hop back on. In fact, she has recently told him she wants to see action on his part before she will spend time with him. Second of all, she says she isn’t sure she wants to spend forever with the first person in which she has been in a real relationship. She adores him and he think he is wonderful even with those perfect imperfections.
So with that background information, I will move on to my actual question… I understand what she is feeling, but I’m not sure what I should do on this one. At her age, I don’t think she needs to worry about long term future in your relationships. This is all practice for later on in life. But I also think learning about maintaining a relationship is good too. What thoughts do you have about how I can support her in this situation?
Yet another nonsigning chickenbutt
Dear YANSCH,
Learning to maintain longterm relationships is really one of the most important skills one can learn. It’s not just a single skill, but an entire skillset full of rich and diverse abilities. Learning to maintain, longterm healthy relationships comes with practice and time and maturity. Certainly, the only class offered for such a broad subject is called “Life Experience” and we’re already signed up for it.
But you know what else? You know what is more important that learning to maintain longterm relationships? Learning to take care of yourself. This is so important and yet so many people miss out on this. I don’t mean “take care of yourself” as in “eat good apples and don’t speed in the rain and wear sensible shoes” but I mean it more like, “know your limits, understand your needs, be resolute”
Too often people grow up believing that complete self sacrifice is the best way to live that it provides the highest amount of happiness to other people. How common is it for someone to enter into or stay in a relationship believing that “if they could only fix the other person” it would be perfect. How well does that turn out? How often do people stay in dead end relationships simply because they feel trapped by their choice?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge proponent of working very hard up until the last minute when you finally have to accept the relationship is gone.
Let me give you a metaphor (because I love me some metaphors!). On an airplane you are instructed to put on your oxygen mask before helping others with theirs. This is one of those things you hear and never really give much thought to, but it a very simple set of instructions that pretty much translates to all areas of life. In the event of an emergency, you might be able to help one or two people with their masks before getting to yours, but by the time you get to putting yours on you may not have the strength and wherewithal to don it properly. You might not even have a chance to. You’ve helped one or two people and lost yourself.
If you quickly and efficiently put on your mask, you then have all the time and oxygen you need to help as many people as you can reach AND you will have saved yourself.
Take care of yourself first. Be strong first so that you can share MORE strength and that strength with multiply within you instead of dividing you.
As a side note, I’d like to say a little something about the teens that have fallen off the future train. Some of us, we make it back on. It’s true. I barely made it through high school, I had to hustle through summer school in order to graduate and I graduated with a shamefully low GPA. My future train left the station without me because I was wandering around looking at other things. Standard public high school was not the place for me, but nobody really knew that at the time. My train left without me and it took a while for me to get caught up but by the time I got to my train I realized that rail transportation was not the only way to meet my future. I opted for hovercraft!
All I’m saying is that even the most irresponsible teens can grow up to do something completely unexpected and shiny with their lives.

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Dear Auntie BubboPants,
I have recently started a relationship with a new guy who like sweaters (and looks very good in them, I might add) and who loves the things I knit!
I am not stupid, however, I am not going to knit him a sweater. I WOULD like to knit him some gloves though, and maybe some socks.
Do you believe in the sweater curse? If so, how far does the sweater curse go? Is it reserved only for sweaters? A scarf takes a lot of time, does it occasionally bring tragic ends to relationships? Can I make this awesome guy a pair of socks?!
And in your professional opinion, why is the curse real/seem real?
Sincerely,
Happily In Love
Dear HIL,
I do not believe in curses but I do believe in what Granny Weatherwax calls “headology”!
A sweater cannot break up a relationship anymore that a pine cone can conquer Lake Erie. People create relationships and people break up relationships. The sweater curse is based on very simple headology. Handknitting a sweater can take a lot of care and effort. Receiving, wearing and appreciating a sweater can take some effort but the laws of headology are pretty clear, the receiver can never match the effort of the giver. The receiver can love and appreciate the sweater to the nth degree, but the maker put in effort of a value of nth degree plus 1 (I don’t think this is mathematically correctish, I never caught up to the algebra car of my future train!).
The idea is that the receiver can get this sweater and wear it and love it, but at some point it really is just a sweater to them. Because that IS what it is, a sweater. To you, the maker, you touched every single stitch, you measured and seamed and thought and loved. It is a product of love. It represents something entirely ineffable, whereas to him it represents a wonderful but very real piece of clothing.
This discrepancy is the fulcrum on which the overloaded levers of relationship issues get bent and broken. It comes to symbolize all that one person hates about the other “He doesn’t appreciate me!!!” and “she wants me too get all nutty about a damned sweater! I told her I loved it! what more can I do?”
The curse does not exist but relationship problems do exist. What to do? Make him something only if you WANT to make something for HIM and not for some unreachable pinnacle of appreciation. Know that your effort will be greater than his ability to express appreciation, but also keep in mind that there is much he does that you probably forget to appreciate. The scales are surprisingly equal in most relationships, the people themselves just fail to notice.

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Hey Auntie BubboPants,
One of my best friends came to visit me earlier this summer and we had a really great time. At one point, she ran out of cash and didn’t have an ATM card. To solve this problem, she wrote me, at different times, two different checks for $60. I deposited them in my bank account and then withdrew cash for her. Problem solved, right?
About three weeks later, after she had gone home and I was about to leave the country, those two checks bounced. The bank took the $120 out of my bank account and charged me $20 for each bounced check. This left me out $160. I called her and talked to her about it and she said she could PayPal me the money once she got paid – but I would have left the country by then. The money didn’t come.
Later, I was home for the summer and hanging out with her, but felt like it would be awkward to press the subject as she had quit her job and was really broke. Her dad was paying her rent. She was supposed to have started a new job before I had to leave to go back to school but it fell through and I left town without having been paid back.
What do I do? Financially, I’m better off than her, but that doesn’t change the fact that I expect my friends to accept responsibility for situations like this. I’m working and saving to pay for study abroad, and to a college student $160 is a lot of money. I’m trying really hard not to feel like a greedy miser but I’m not sure how to get her to pay me back.
Awkward situation, awkward question…I need your help in this one.
Thanks.
One more nonsigning chickenbutt
Dear OMNSCB (sheesh, what is it with you people? Sign your letters! I’m not your letter signing mom!)
You are not a greedy miser. You are not a greedy miser in any way at all. Ever. In good faith you lent her some cash and in very poor form she wrote checks to you that her bank could not cash. Not only did she get cash from you in order to make her visit with you more enjoyable but she left you with bank fees and a sour taste in your mouth.
Okay so maybe she doesn’t have a lot of money, but it sounds like you’re not exactly rolling in it either. She is an adult, she is capable of getting a job, she is capable of tweaking her finances at least a little to get her to the point where she can come up with the $160 she owes you.
Cash is the sweater curse of the friendship.
Bring it up calmly and with no accusations. Explain that this $160 is important and that you need it back. You don’t have to justify why you need it back, you don’t have to feel bad because you have more money than she does. She was not in dire straits when you lent her the money, you are not charging usurious fees and she already violated your trust by writing bad checks to you. Offer a payment plan of some sort, even if it is $20 a month. As your friend she needs to know that she can go to you for help but she must also respect you. Taking money and not paying you back is a form of disrespect, causing someone else to deal with bank fees because of your irresponsible actions is a much larger disrespect.
I can’t promise you will get your money back. There is a possibility that she will continue to pay lip service to paying you back while continuing to put you off. You could take legal action, but I am not one to give advice on that, I don’t know enough about it. But my feeling is that if you took legal action you would be out more than the initial $160.
If she does not pay you back, then you are out $160 and I would advise you to cut her out of your life as it is obvious that she is used to using people and does not recognize the consequences of disrespecting those who put themselves out for her.

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Dear Auntie BubboPants,
Please excuse me first of all, because it’s late and I’m on a caffeine drive which makes me wordier than normal. I’ll try to get to the point, but there’s a lot I probably need to explain.
I have this really difficult issue, and honestly, you are the only person I could think of who would tell it like it is and be objective enough to answer me in a way that is honest.
Okay, here’s the issue.
I have 3 siblings, and the oldest of them, who is 7 years older than me, is getting married the day after Thanksgiving. This should be a really happy occasion, but here’s the deal, it’s his 4th time getting married, and there are already big warning flags that this one will go just like the last three. His bride-to-be is a recently admitted alcoholic, they have lived together for about 8 months, during which time she has “moved out” a few times, and at one point, she even destroyed the garden they had planted together. She was extremely jealous during the summer, and kept believing that he was sleeping with his ex-wife (who he was still technically married to at the time). Oh, and did I mention the kids? There are 6 children involved, 3 from his previous marriages (2 and 1-the middle wife couldn’t have kids, so they are separated by a 10 year age gap), and her three children with her ex-husband.
This isn’t the real problem, because frankly, it’s his life, and if he wants to continue to screw it up, no amount of me butting in is going to change that fact. The real problem is that I’m heartsick over this whole business, and I can’t even talk to my ever-loving mother about it. She is something of a waffler on this business, because she is the kind of person who will tell you just want you want to hear, not what you need to hear. So she tells him while he’s not with this woman that he’s better off, but when he goes back to her (as he always does), she tells him it’s all gonna be okay, and the rest of us can’t say a word against it, or she makes our lives a living hell for it.
But I just can’t bring myself to even feel an ounce of happiness for him, because the thought of him getting married yet again when it’s nearly a guarantee that he’ll be divorced again in a few years (with possibly ANOTHER child), makes me sick to my stomach. I’ve been on the verge of tears every time I think about it for the last two weeks since I found out they were getting married against ALL better judgment.
The worst part? My mom basically bullied me into making them a wedding cake! I’m making a cake for them to “celebrate” their marriage, when I don’t have any celebratory feelings about this whole messy business at all, and when what I’d rather do is shove both their faces into a cake than spend the hours of effort making one. But my mom is the queen of guilt trips and the best I can do is accept what they are about to do and go along, even though I am so against it that I can actually feel my body rebelling against me when I think about how I’m going to design the cake. It is taking every ounce of willpower I have right now not to scream out (I’ve got two little people sleeping right above me, that would be a very bad thing to do!), because I can’t stand it!
The worst part is, I can’t talk to anyone about it because all of my friends know my mom, and I don’t want to speak ill of her to them, and because I don’t want to spread family issues among too many of my friends and acquaintances, since my mom is a vip in many of those circles. (we go to the same church and she happens to work there and knows a lot of people) I love my mother, but unfortunately, she doesn’t show the same face to people outside our family as she does to those within. I know there’s dysfunction in every family, but here’s what really sucks: in spite of saying she doesn’t have any favorites: my oldest brother IS her favorite child. We’ve all known it for years, and we’ve all mostly accepted it. She will not hear a negative word against him, and even if something sounds like it might be negative, she tears the rest of us up limb from limb if she thinks her bestest child is being picked on. But he’s also the most screwed up of all of us, so I don’t really think the favoritism has worked in his ahem favor.
I guess my problem is with my mom, but on the other hand, I don’t know what to say or do about my brother and his future wife. She’s a nice woman, and she seems to care about him and like being around my family, but I can’t be happy for them. Is it okay that I’m not happy for them? I don’t really want to make waves just for the sake of making waves, but I just have no joy whatsoever when it comes to this union.
Sad Sister
Dear SS,
Do you have to be happy for them? No. No you don’t. No one is the boss of your feelings but you. You are the only person who gets to decide how you feel about something. So no, you don’t have to be happy for them.
What do you HAVE to do? The simplest answer is “nothing”. But the world is not simple and the simple answers rarely suffice.
You don’t have to be happy, you don’t have to think this is a good idea, you can think it is a bad idea if you want. BUT! the thing that you have to do is acknowledge that this is happening and no amount of disapproval on your part is going to change that. Being angry is not going to change this. Being unhappy is not going to stop the wedding. Making lists of all the ways in which this is a bad idea is not going to suddenly give him a better idea.
Only you are the boss of your feelings, only you can choose how you can react. You don’t have to approve, but he does not need your approval. You don’t have to be happy, but he does not need your happiness. You don’t even have to make the cake if you don’t want, he can order one if you flat out refuse. If he wrote to me to say that his sister was angry and did not approve of his upcoming wedding, I would tell him to find a way to sidestep the anger while still respecting you. Your anger and unhappiness in this particular situation are about as useful to you and others as banging your head into a wall. It’s big and undeniable, but the wall won’t fall down and your head can only take so much.
You don’t HAVE to be happy, nobody can make you be happy. You don’t have to approve, nobody can make you do that either. If it makes you feel any better, I’m thinking this whole wedding thing might be a bad idea too, but I’m not here to advise him. I’m here for you.
Cakes are beautiful and delicious. Almost everybody loves cake and eating cake makes people happy. You can choose to make this cake. Making this cake is something you can choose and control. Cake makes people happy, you can focus on that. Choose to focus on the aspects you can control, like delicious wedding cake, and let go of those things you cannot control, like irresponsible siblings. Make this cake and make it a symbol that says “I will do the best I can with what I have. I will let go of those things that are not mine to hold and I will share with others these things that come from me.”
You don’t have to love your new sister in law but you can feed her cake and cake is delicious.

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Dear Auntie BubboPants is a weekly advice column covering everything from love, self esteem, pants, yarn and recipes. Auntie BubboPants doesn’t really knit, she only crochets, so don’t ask her to ssk2tog for you!

Ask Auntie BubboPants

By

Hello my tender little chicken butts!
First off, thank you so much for you messages of love for Maddie and Chester. Maddie has he stitches out and is fully recovered and back to her old goofy self. The two of them are back to being good buddies and crabby siblings.
So, let us see what is on the table for this week’s column, shall we?

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Dear Auntie BubboPants
I’m a knitter, not a crocheter, but I’m sure crocheters have the same problem sometimes. I’m the only person in my circle of friends who knits, so when the holidays pull around, everyone expects me to knit them something amazing, and everyone bombards me with gift requests. It takes time to knit something nice, and I can’t knit 50 sweaters in 4 months (which is about how much holiday knitting time I give myself)! But everyone expects something unique from me and it’s STRESSFUL!!!! They’re wearing me out! What should I do?
non-signing chicken butt
Dear NSCB,
First things first, go here and get acquainted with the Selfish Knitters! Learning to say “no” takes time and practice and finding a group of people who understand and support you in this journey is important.
You have to learn to say “NO” and you have to learn all of the ways in which it can be said.
“No, I’m sorry, I just don’t have time for that.”
“Maybe after the holidays? You can buy the yarn, I’ll knit it up, also I like cookies and caramels”
“ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha no.”
“How about after the holidays I teach you to knit? that can be my gift to you!”
This brings me to a yearly rant…
Whatever the reasons for engaging in the exchange of gifts over the winter solstice may have been, they are now long long lost. This is only sadness to me. It’s become a social construct, a tool, a weapon, a threat, a device, a reward. No longer are gifts given freely and without reservation. On one side we have receivers who request specific items, who argue the validity of their gifts, who compare the values of each gift and rank the givers. On the other side we have the givers that punish the giftees for perceived infractions over the previous year, or who knock themselves out trying to buy the perfect gift for someone who will not appreciate it. People receive gifts that they do not want givers wrap gifts they cannot afford.
And in any given group on any forum on any website you can find gift related arguments and flame wars raging.
This has got to end. Really! This is pure insanity. It starts with you!
Gifts that are given under any duress are not gifts. Gifts that are given with expectations of valued return on investment are not gifts. Gifts given with reservation or hesitation are not gifts. Gifts are by definition not obligations.
Gifts that are opened and judged, weighed, valued or compared are not gifts deserved.
What was once a small tradition meant to bring light and celebration into the darkest part of winter, a way to share meager holdings among the community so that all might benefit has become a race to the bottom.
As the holidays approach I implore each of you, my little chicken butts, to find a way to change your thinking even a little bit on the subject. For each gift you give, make it a give that has meaning and heart behind it. For each gift you receive, be truly grateful, do not compare or judge the gift, only accept and love the gift.

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Dear Auntie BubboPants,
Goodness! I never anticipated getting into a mess like this!
You see… I met this guy. (Don’t all of the biggest problems seem to start this way??) I met him in April and hated his guts for absolutely no reason at all; he was dating my friend and was never unkind to her, or me, or anyone else. I hated him passionately and fought with him at every opportunity. He persisted in trying to be friends with me, and eventually, I accepted that yeah, he’s a pretty awesome person. He is several years younger than me, and has significantly less experience than I do, and I don’t expect perfection – I know that things are complicated when you’re young, and the future can be pretty intimidating.
Said awesome person cheated on his girlfriend/my friend with me – and I was cheating on my soon-to-be-ex-husband. This went on for a couple weeks, and finally we agreed it had to stop. We were honest with the people who needed to know the truth; his girlfriend couldn’t care less, she was just happy that we were happy. The ex blames the guy for the end of our marriage, but no one really cares what he thinks (and he’s wrong, anyhow).
Ending things didn’t last long, and the guy and I got back together. This time we were dating, and there wasn’t anyone else to get in the way of it. A month in, he broke up with me quite unexpectedly – only to come back a few days later telling me he was really sorry, he’s just scared of all these things he’s feeling, and he loves me. This has happened 3 times now, each time a month or so apart.
The last time, we didn’t get back together. However, that doesn’t mean anything has actually changed – when we can’t see each other, he texts or calls throughout the day. Most days we talk on the phone for anywhere from 4 to 7 hours. One day I had lost my phone and hadn’t talked to him for almost a full day, and when I found it, he was afraid I was avoiding him and was really upset. Neither of us is seeing other people, and honestly, Auntie, I do love him in a way I wasn’t really prepared to deal with. He says and does the “boyfriend things,” but is adamant that we just be friends. He has told me more than once he knows he’s “just going to fail at being in a relationship” and he’s so afraid of doing something that would be seen as unforgivable, that he’d lose the person he’s with.
I love him, and I accept that he’s young and complicated and life seems daunting sometimes. I’m not a patient person, but I’ve never minded waiting for him… because I know that eventually, things are going to work out. Even everyone else sees how things are with us, and that we just “fit” in a way most people don’t (and they comment on it, repeatedly, to both of us). I guess what I want to know is – how do I help him be less afraid, or how do I change what we’ve got going on so if we’re just friends, we’re acting like we’re just friends?
-Confused Chicken Butt
Dear CCB,
Writing an advice column is sort of a weird experience. You see, about 85% of the letters I get have the answer somewhere in the letter. Mostly the writer is upset or confused by something, knows what they have to do, but doesn’t understand why. These ones are sort of easy because I have the benefit of being outside the forest and can help them understand the map and get around the trees.
There’s maybe 10% supertoughies that require me to do research or find people who have better insight into a situation than I do. These ones are harder, but only because they require more effort on my part. Luckily I have friends and family with a nice, wide range of experiences and expertise and most can be bribed to help me.
Then there’s the last 5%, the thorny chickenbutts of doom! The ones who send a letter full of information, and ask a question that I cannot answer because the question is unrelated to anything I want to actually say based on the other information in the letter. These letters are a quandary for me, my job is to answer questions, but my obligation is to be open and honest and tell you when you are being a chickenbutt in a bad chickenbutt way as opposed to a good chicken butt way.
You, my dear CCB, are being a 12pound chickenbutt, right here, right now, I am obligated to say it.
The reason why this relationship is continually n the rocks is because it seems that neither of you is capable of understanding what makes a good and healthy relationship. You hated him, he persisted, you found him to be awesome, you both cheated on your respective partners.
Not awesome. Seriously, not awesome. Okay, so you say your relationship with your husband was at an end, that this was a symptom of that and not the factor. Fine. But what about your relationship with your friend? Does your friend not deserve fidelity and honesty from her friends and boyfriends? Do you look at your friend and say, “you deserve to be deceived and cheated on?”
Both of you entered into a relationship with a person who has proven to be blithely indifferent to the very social contracts that allow us to trust one another. In the end, does it matter that your friend “couldn’t care less, she was just happy that we were happy”? You didn’t believe that this would be the case before you engaged in this cheating or you both would have been honest with her before it happened. Whether or not she is as happy and accepting as you say is not for me to judge, but I will say I have my reservations about it. Sometimes when confronted with such massive betrayal from two people you trust it is easier to cut your losses and let it go. Perhaps she is happy that this happened before she got too committed to him, perhaps she is happy that two people who obviously deserve each other have found each other.
Your relationship with him is based on acts of deceit and mistrust. The way you write to me about them indicates that you feel no remorse about your actions and in my opinion this is the big neon wedge in your relationship. Does he know that you will remain committed to him? Does he know for sure that this untroubled breaking of trusts is a single aberration in the general scheme of things?
My advice to you is probably not the advice you want. It’s not advice that uses your words to give you a map to the goal you want. It is advice that uses your words to give you a map over harder terrain. Let him go. If he is as young and unformed as you say, let him go and find a new way. Do this because you have much work in front of you. Take some time away from dating and away from relationships and take some time to focus on yourself. Learn to exist as a single person. Relearn to love yourself. Then take some time to learn how to be a good friend, how to give to another person, how to not just take the things you want even if it seems you could have them freely.
You are standing at the edge of a very powerful and life changing moment, it’s a step you can take, but you have to do it alone. It is too easy for you to put your weight on others and call it good. Bear this burden yourself, learn to carry yourself. Then you can learn to lean on someone else.

***

Dear Auntie BubboPants,
I hope you can help me, I seem to have developed a severe case of not being able to knit without major froggable errors found in projects rounding the bend to being finished. It may be due to overconfidence, but now I’m afraid to touch my lace shawl for fear I’ll wreck it too.
I know some of the solutions, like use more lifelines and stitch markers even on the simplest projects. I just hate ripping back all those stitches especially when it’s happening on every project I touch these days.
How can things be so wrong when I knit along thinking they are all okey dokey until I take a close look and then….AAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!! The top of the cookie socks do not match the bottom, one side of the shawl is shorter than the other by 30 stitches. It’s a nightmare. Have I ever really finished anything, or is it just an illusion?
For now I’ve taken up reading books, watching movies and I may even get back to my quilting. What do I do when my fingers itch to knit? Is there such a thing as depressed hands? Or is my mind loosing track all together?
What to do? Oh, What to do?
shiningwaters
Dear Shiningwaters,
oh dear, I know, I’ve been there. We all make mistakes. There is a mistake in every single thing I make. It’s not there intentionally, but if I find an error small enough to not affect the entire piece then I leave it there. I like them, those tiny human errors that keep us from getting too excited about ourselves, those little missed stitches that keep us humble (admittedly, however, it’s way way less messy to miss a stitch in crochet than to drop a stitch in knitting).
But this isn’t what you’re dealing with, is it? You’re working and discovering that you missed something little with big big consequences. It’s frustrating as all hell and sort of demoralizing. I’ve been there! I took a break.
I just went through a funk where it did not matter what I crocheted, it just turned out wrong. None of my calculations were right, none of my estimates were close, none of the yarns chosen were working out.
I did the thing that people throughout history do when they are vexed to the very limits, I took a break. I did other things. I taught myself to make jam and I learned how to can things. I studied up on subjects of interest. I watched more movies, read more books, colored with crayons. My hands itched to hold the hook again, but I ignored them. I distracted them with rolling out pasta dough and coloring in pictures of spongebob and writing stories about snails. Then the urge to crochet subsided and I continued to focus on other things, felting, embroidery, computer games. And I waited patiently. When the urge came back I sat down and tried again and whatever had plagued the connection between my mind and my hands had cleared and I could crochet again.
Rarely do we heed the opportunities to learn new hobbies or new ways of interacting with the senses. This is a chance you should not let pass you by. Grab it and learn something new!

***

Dear Auntie BubboPants,
I have a question for you and hopefully it won’t be hard to answer.
I’ve been with the same guy for about 4 years. I’m 23 and he’s 24 and we are going to graduate from college in December. We get along so well and I can tell him anything, but I’m at this point where I feel like I could end it without being too hurt. I don’t really have a reason, i just don’t have that urge to stay with him, other than the knowledge that i might not find anyone i can get along with as well.
Here is my thing. We are at the point in our relationship (4 years) where many relationships/marriages end. I’m thinking maybe it has to do with oxytocin not being released as much, or some other hormonal thing. I don’t want to end it just because I’m not irresistibly drawn to him, but I don’t want to stay if it isn’t meant to be and there is someone who is perfect out there. I don’t know that there is, but if so they can’t be much better than my guy.
So if you have any information or wisdom you can give me on the doldrums of relationships I’d love it. I’ve looked stuff up, but I never find exactly what I’m looking for.
Thanks,
Young and Restless
Dear YaR (YARRRRR MATEYS!)
The relationship doldrums! They happen, they are not uncommon, they can be survived…if you both ant to survive them.
Okay, so, if you read my column you know my theory about the selfishness that is the beginning of a relationship. Yes? When we start dating someone we do it for selfish reasons, “he makes me feel happy, he makes me feel good!” This is true and it is not a bad thing, it’s just a thing. The difference between dating someone and really falling in love with them is when that shift happens and we look more towards what we can do for the other person and less at what the other person does for us.
The doldrums usually happen sometime after that shift. We become complacent in the balanced ‘give’ and ‘take’ in the relationship and we stop thinking about it. and he stops thinking about it too. and you both stop thinking about it. and suddenly neither of you is really making the effort to make the other person happy, are you? If you were you wouldn’t be writing about the doldrums, you’d be writing about all the effort you put in that is not reciprocated.
But the doldrums (and the attendant lack of reaction hormones like adrenaline and oxytocin) can be fixed. It’s actually sort of easy. You start by going back to that time when you were actively making an effort to make him happy. You don’t have to greet him at the door wrapped in Saran Wrap! But a surprise note in his lunch can mean so much, or a card in the mail just to say you love him. Take an interest in HIM again, remind him why he fell in love with you in the first place. You’ll spark him up and he’ll start taking an interest in YOU!
Relationships are like the careers of the soul. Just like with any career you don’t just get hired and then glide on through to retirement. You work all the time. You focus and exert effort and you have triumphs and you have bad days and the rewards can be great. You don’t just find the perfect match and suddenly you’ve reached your goal! No way, finding the “perfect match” is really just the trailhead to a path that you will follow for your lifetime. The journey is the goal.
Go make a card for him and mail it off. Doesn’t matter if you live together! I just got something in the mail from David, something goofy funny that now hangs on the fridge and makes us laugh.

More thoughts

By

This is something I wrote in an older Auntie BubboPants column that I don’t think I ended up posting here. It’s just a portion of the column, but I think it’s relevant:
On the subject of depression and the reasons one might or might not have for experiencing it:
As a society we often mistake the emotion ‘sadness’ with the mental state ‘depressed’, we even use them interchangeably. Sadness is an emotion, it is a reaction to stimulus. Sadness can be a symptom of depression, but it does not have to be. Depression is a state of mental being, it is more physical than emotional but it often expresses itself emotionally. To be more precise, the outward expressions of depression tend to be more emotional than physical. This makes it far too easy to equate depression with emotions and forget the very real physical changes that lie behind the situation.
It’s easy to look at a person who lost something dear to them and say “it makes sense that they are sad”. It’s much harder to look at a person, see the wild vagaries of hormonal imbalances hidden away inside and say, “it makes sense that you are depressed”. Instead we see the outward manifestation of emotions, sadness, hopelessness, anger, and we say “this makes no sense! you have no reason to be sad! or hopeless! or angry! Go put your pants on and get outside! Suck it up, chica!”
We are visual creatures, we need to see things in order to understand them, but more importantly, we are experiential creatures. We learn by experience and then we create rich and varied databases of information and understanding based on our experiences. We also have amazingly advanced frontal lobes on our brains that allow us to simulate situations based on input AND our experience related databases. What the hell does that mean? It means that we can look at someone who is sad and pull in all the data about their situation and then pull in data from similar experiences we have had and run simulations to better understand what’s going on.
Claire is sad. I will look at Claire and talk to her and determine that she is sad, her boyfriend did not like the pie she made! I will pull that data in and then I will add my own experiences: I have also made things people did not like. I have also been sad. I have direct connections in my own experiences between being sad and people not liking things that I have offered.
Result: Claire’s sadness makes sense to me. I can relate.
or
Jim is hopeless. Jim just got a new car and has a nice butt. I have felt hopeless. I have also gotten a new car, but I’ve never really had a nice butt. I have never felt hopeless after getting a new car. If I run a simulation of me having a nice butt I cannot come to the conclusion that I would feel hopeless.
Result: Jim’s hopelessness does not make sense to me. I cannot relate.
The flaw in the simulation is that we do not take into account the relevant factors. We’re feeding the wrong data into the brain simulators and therefore the results can only be incomplete at best.
History and literature and anecdotes are FILLED with stories of those people struck hard by fate who just ‘kept going’ despite it all. Bad parents, industrial accidents, malevolent societies, none of that could bring the hero down. On the other hand, there are an equal number of historical and literary figures that seemed to “have it all” and yet still could not find comfort or happiness.
To make matters worse, many societies see this sort of disparity as a form of moral failure. If you have been ‘blessed’ with such favor and still you are sad it can only mean you do not fully appreciate it and are ungrateful.
Clinical depression is one of those things that even the experts don’t have a firm grasp on. It’s slippery and confusing and amazingly inconsistent from person to person. It can stem from experiences or childhood traumas or not. Some people are helped by talk therapy, others by SSRIs, and some people struggle for years and never find solace.
I write all this because it is an issue that cuts close to the bone with me. I have an amazingly excellent life. I have a boyfriend that loves me and is patient and kind to me. I have a wonderful, loving and supportive family. I have two great dogs, one of which contributes to this very column. I am blessed with wonderful friends, people say I am smart and funny and I like to think that is true. On the other hand, the biological family I grew up in until I was an early teen was terrifying and unbearable. I carry the scars both physically and emotionally from that. I have struggled my entire life with depression, at times it has been crippling. Some people have said, “well, it makes sense that you would be depressed considering your childhood” and other have said, “but that’s over and done. You need to focus on the now and stop wallowing”
The answer is somewhere between those two statements and it exists independent of them as well.

September Mislaid

By

Halfway through October I come to you to talk of September. September. I almost lost September.
It started in June. The signs should have been obvious, but they passed me by. There was my birthday and I refused all attempts at a party. I love a good party. I loved a good party. In June I would have none of it. Whatever tenuous grip I had on normalcy was lost in June and I spent the summer spiraling deeper and deeper.
I was drowning and I could feel it and my few attempts to kick up to the surface were feeble distractions at best. Then came September. The spiraling stopped, I settled onto the bottom and I found comfort there.
I could feel it, that growing complacency, that urge to let go the final lungful of air. But I am lucky, very lucky. That part of my brain that never fucking shuts up, that part of my brain that will not let me rest, the part of my brain that eats at me would not stop screaming. It woke me up, reminded me that this was wrong. That I have an obligation to those around me.
So, one afternoon, alone in my bedroom, I composed the email. I had been sending out occasional updates to friends and family, a way to let them know that my lack of communication came from a real issue, but hey, everything was going to be okay. Right? This was not that email. I chose a tighter circle of recipients and I wrote. It was the hardest thing I had done in a very long time. This was the nakedly honest email, this was me revealing my shame. This was not the “Hi, I have problems, let me tell you a joke and don’t worry, I will be okay” this was the far more humiliating, “hi, i have problems and there is no joke to be had and I am not going to be okay.”
I struggled and fought in that email, I could not find the words. My words are me, they are the tiny building blocks with which I build the representations of all that I am. For the past year the words were not correct. I was failing myself with unintentional misdirection. I found it was almost impossible for me to craft sentences or paragraphs that built a picture that asked for help. Over and over the words that came out expressed the state I was in but hurriedly also created a framework of comfort for the reader. “Do not worry” it was like I could not control my fingers and it was all I could type.
It took amazing effort but I managed to send out the truest email I could. Help me. My ship is sinking. I am not okay. Worry about me.
I hate being helpless. I am the one that helps. It is my job. I help. It is my soul and my function and my core. How can I ask for help? Do I even deserve to burden those around me with such requests? It’s one thing to be overwhelmingly depressed but it is quite another to hit that stage of acceptance.
Acceptance. No more depression, no more sadness, no more overwhelming struggles. You hit the stage of acceptance and you’re done. Your life is laid out before you, all things are clear and you accept them, you say thank you, and you check out. I knew how close I was to acceptance and I knew that once I fell into it, it would be a matter of days before I parked my car at the end of the Ford Bridge and said “Thank you” for the time I was allotted.
I could not let that happen. I wanted to, oh believe me, I did want to, but that part of my brain that never lets me rest, oh she did scream at me. I could not rest until I asked for help.
The response was overwhelming and now I am able to write this. The honesty is scary, but the reality was scarier.
I am not “better”, not by a long shot. I do not feel “better”. Everyday I struggle because every single day I know that “Acceptance” is still just around the corner.
I have a therapist now, someone who understands me better than the last one did. It gives me hope, it sheds some light in the tunnel so I can find my way forward. I have the support of my friends and family, each one contributing valuable pieces to the puzzle. I have David, my immensely patient David. He should have run long ago, but there he is. He loves me.
I write this not for sympathy or to be all “emo”. I write this to put an honest face on something so stigmatized. I write this so that you might see that even those that seem “okay” can struggle and fall. I didn’t have to write this. It would have been as easy to write something from Chester or share a recipe or rant on about politics. Those are comfortable masks for me. Those words come fast and cheap for me. These words that I wrote are true work.
I am not better, I am still broken. I do not want to give the impression that with a few giant steps the world will become an easier place. Life is not a sitcom, so easily wrapped up after a wacky struggle. I am honest about this because I know there are so many others out there, stigmatized and struck silent by this insidious disease and I do not want to lead them astray. More importantly, I do not want them to see a miracle where there is none. There will be no false portrayal of a cure, no sharing of an easy fix that does not exist. There is nothing easy about swimming your way back to the surface, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try.

hi HI hhihihihiii!

By

Hi hi hi HI HI HI hihihihi!!! HI!! Oh my GOD HI!!!!
Hi!
My name is Chester and I am The dog that is the dog that is the lady’s dog! But also the lady has a dog that is Maddie! This is true. But I am not Maddie! NO! Maddie is a doofus and I am handsome, and that makes me Chester!
You can tell that I am Chester because I am so handsome and Maddie is standing there like a doofus hippohead
IMG_4682.JPG
Okay! SO! Something very very sad happened! This is true. Sad! My name is Chester and I am a good boy. This is true! But something happened this week that was not a thing that a good boy should do and I got very sad and scared. Maddie and me and the lady were playing “Captain RoundyButt’s good time Harfuffle Festival” on Monday and the lady did the thing that was knock me down and that is not sad because sometimes the games we play are of knocking down. But when she knocked me down I said a thing that was “grubble grubble” and Maddie got very upset because she does not like when the lady gets grubbled at. But then I got scared! I had scarednesses because when I was a very little I lived with dogs that were very big and mean to me and my brother Archie (who now lives with other people who do not do meannesses to him like the lady and the man do not do meannesses to me!). But I had so many scarednesses that I did snapteeth at Maddie and she get more upset because she knows you cannot do snapteeth by the lady and she tried to make me stop! and I got more scarednesses and she got more upsets.
and I bit her and I bit the lady!! I had to hide under the bed because I was so sad and scared and upset. and the lady kept doing the thing that was tell me to come out and get a treat but I did not do the thing that was believe her because I knew the thing that was that she was going to put me in the garbage can!
There were so many upsets and Maddie had to go away for a whole day and when she came back she had strings on her face and she was tired and sad and the lady had 14 worries and the man was very quiet. But the thing that is true is that I did not get put in the garbage can! The lady did not have any madnesses at me at all! She hugged me and told me I was still her little MonkeyMan and 12munts-chickenpunts.
But then…she gave me a bath.
And today she said the thing that was I’d better start doing the thing that was working off the thing that was called a vet bill! I have too many scarednesses of the vacuum and I am too short to reach the thing that is the sink and I don’t have thumbs so I can’t do a thing that is broom the floor! So I have to do this thing that is answer the questions again!

***

Hi Chester,
My name is Koa and I’m a 1 year old Yellow Labrador Retreiver. I love my person very much but feel a little sad when she knits too much. Some days she gets home from work and I’m SOOOO excited to be with her. She takes me for a bit of a walk -glorious, then sits on the couch (Where I’m NOT allowed) with her hands busy knitting. Can you believe it?! I can’t even make eye contact with her, she pushes me away when I nudge her elbow and lick her hands. She won’t let me help her by holding the ball of wool in my mouth. Finally I sigh dramatically and lie down on her legs. She thinks she can make it up to me by rubbing my tummy with her feet. Yeah right! That’s just not good enough! What do you do when this happens Chester?
Sincerely,
GIVE ME MORE!
HI HI HI hi hiHIHIhi!
Oh my god! you are not allowed on the couch?? That is 12 terrible sadnesses! this is a thing that I know because I am allowed on the couch (except the lady calls it a sofa because she is a doofus)! Are you allowed on the thing that is the bed? I am allowed on the bed and I would have so many sadnesses if I could not go on the bed!
The lady does the thing that is crochet which I think is like the thing that is knitting except is the thing the lady does.
But you are 1 years old! that is a thing that is still a little! You are a little! Littles have importances that are play times. I am 3 years old and not a little but still I have importances that are play times! I have to go to the place that is the Dog Park and I have to do RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN!!!! and CHASE CHASE and sometimes I have to do ROLL ROLL ROLL on things that have gooooood smells! This is true!
You need this too. Do you want to know the thing that is the thing that I do? I do the thing that is be crazytimes! I grubblerun around the house, I jump on the lady, I BARK BARK BARK!!! and finally the lady says the thing that is “that’s it, I’m taking you to the place that is the dog park and running you to the thing that is exhausted!” and I get to go to the dog park! and you should too!.

***

dear chester,
how did you get to be so smart? i know you are smart cause you know stuffs and you are chester. did you eat the smart pills from taipei bunny’s cage? how do get to be as smart as you?
not as smart as chester
HIHI HIhihiHIH HIHIIhIHIH
Smartnesses! I have the things that are smartnesses! I remember taipei bunny! and the smartnesses! But I don’t know about where the smartnesses cam from! The lady says it is because I am Rat Terrier and that I like to do the thing that is solve problems, but also the lady says the Beagle of me tempers the smartnesses. But she also says the thing that smartnesses are the thing that is creepy! But I don’t know about that because I am only Chester!

***

Dear Chester,
I am a cat named Giacomo (after Giacomo Casanova) and I am the prettiest cat in the world. I live in an apartment with my cat friend Winky and a lady. I have a small problem. When I was little, I used to like to hump things, but before I went to live with the lady, they took me to the vet and “fixed me”. Then I stopped wanting to hump things.
Well, my friend Winky still likes to hump things! Including me! But I know he has been “fixed” too, because I sniffed his butt, and it smells fixed. I am the boss kitty, and I don’t like being humped all of the time! It is simply undignified. When the lady is home, sometimes she makes him stop..but the lady isn’t home all of the time. How do I make Winky stop humping me?
Giacomo.
HI HI HIHIHI hihihiHIHIhihi!
HA HA HA CATS ARE THE THING THAT IS FUNNY!
Humpcats are SO FUNNY!!! Hahahaha!! Oh my god! I should tell the dogs at the place that is the dog park about humpcats! I bet they would think it was funnier than my other jokes! Like my joke about how the man picks UP my poop. OH MY GOD the dogs laugh so much when I say that one.
HUMPCATS!!
HA HA HA HA!!!!
Sometimes I like to do the thing that is hump maddie even though the vet did the thing that was make me fixed but I know that Maddie is the thing that is the boss of the pets (and the lady is the boss of us) but I like to do humps on Maddie and Maddie does the thing that is knock me down. and we play a game and run and she does the thing that is knock me down.
You should knock down the Winky!
HUMPCATS!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!

***


Dear Chester
My name is Beans, and my sister (Buster) and I are Fox Terriers. Our favourite pass-time is chasing things. Last weekend a very small kitten (maybe 8 human weeks old?) was tottering along our fence and invaded (fell into) our yard. My sister and I immediately gave chance, and my human screamed a lot and called for her husband.
Much chasing ensued, and eventually I pinned down the kitten. Turns out they are very sharp and I couldn’t really get very close to it before my human snatched away the kitty, and her husband snatched away me. Buster was still yapping and running around their feet.
The kitten was scared (for some reason) and tried to get away from my human by biting her very hard on the finger and on her arm (as I said – turns out they are very sharp). My human got to the fence and put the kitty over, despite suffering lots of bites.
Buster and I continued to run around madly yapping in the yard (while my human sat gibbering in a bleeding mess) until we got locked in the house. It was an exciting event and my human has some nice bruises and had to get some shots from the human vet.
Since then Buster and I have been doing lots of kitty border patrols shifts along the fence line and making sure we do extra barks just in case the kitty is thinking about coming back for round two.
But here’s the problem – even though I would normally bark madly at anything from a bird to an imaginary bird, my human jumps and panics every time I bark because she thinks the kitten is back.
Should I bark less until my human has healed both mentally and physically (they are pretty good bruises and scratch marks)? Or is keeping the border safe from kitten invasions more important?
Sending you lots of woofs and licks,
Beans
HIHIHhihihIHIHI
Hi Beans!
Oh my god! The scarednesses! I know about the scarednesses! The scarednesses are a thing that are funny but not funny like poop jokes but funny like weird. I used to have scarednesses when I was a little because of biggers that were mean to me. But now there are no biggers that are mean to me, only nice, but still I have scarednesses sometimes. Is a thing that happens. The lady says the thing that is the brain does the things that are associations of things from times of scarednesses so that when they happen again the brain can tell the body to run away from the thing making the scary! this is a thing she says that makes it okay to survive. But she said that sometimes the brain does the job too good.
You did the thing that was BARKBARKBARK at the little and that is the thing that you do. and the lady did the thing that was rescue the little because it is the thing she does. and the little did the thing that was be afraid and do the defendings because that is what littles do! and now the ladys brain did the thing that says “if the dog does the thing that is BARKBARKBARK then a little will do painfuls on me and I will bleed and be sad!”
You should not do the thing that is BARKBARKBARK so much! HA HA HA!! I say this!! HA HA HA!! but the lady tells me not to bark so much but every day the MAILMAN!! OH MY GOD!!! THE MAILMAN!!! the mailman HE COMES TO MY HOUSE!!! and I hat ethe mailman SO MUCH!!!!! and I do not just do the thing that is barking at him but I am the YELLING I HATE YOU MAILMAN I HATE YOU SO MUCH!!!!
STUPID MAILMAN!

***

Hey Chester,
Do you like to play games? Does your lady play games with you? My bestest game is fetch. My mister finds a hair doody that my sister leaves laying all around and flips it in the air, or across the room, or anywhere, sometimes even under the cold food box thingy. it is hard to dig it out from there. Then I, smart cat that I am, fetch it! it is lots of fun.I bring it back to the mister and drop it so he can flip it again and again and again. I never get tired. What kinds of games do you play with your lady?
Skitz
PS My lady loves to read about Chester.
HIBIHHIHIhihiHIHI
HI
I love to play games!! The lady likes to play a game called Captain RoundyButt where she tries to do the thing that is pinch my butt! But the thing that is the game is that she does the thing that is go SO SLOW to the place that is my RoundyButt that I am made CRAZY!! and I am so crazy that I fall down and roll on my back and go HOWFHOWFHOWF and still she goes SO SLOW to my RoundyButt and I can’t STAND IT and I jump up and run around and around and then I come back BUT THEN!!! SHe goes SO SLOW at my butt!!! and I fall down again!!!
We also play the game of JUMPRUN!! Where the lady stands very still and she does the thing that is ignore me for a long time and then I do the thing that is believe she does not pay any attentions but then she JUMPS and YELLS and I am the thing that is SO SURPRISED that I run is a GIANT CIRCLE but my butt runs faster that my body and gets under me!
Also the lady does a thing where she puts a treat somewhere and I have to find it and get it. this is a game with many hardnesses to it because sometimes it is not easy to know the way to get the treat and sometimes I will try one way to get the treat but it won’t work and I have to do a thing that is try a different way! The lady says this is a good kind of game for me because it does the exercisements of my brains. She says I have many brains and I get the thing that is all looped up if I don’t do brain things.
Maddie doesn’t do brain things for games. The lady says that Maddie has other jobs in her brain. Maddie is a doofus! The only thing in her brains are the things that are “Keep the lady safe” and “Is the lady safe?” and sometimes “harfuffle!”

***

Okay! Goodbye is the thing now! Because I am Chester and I have some tirednesses. The lady says this is enough of the workings for me today but tomorrow I will have to do the workings that are wash her car!!