{"id":479,"date":"2005-08-17T07:06:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-17T12:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lawrencem94.sg-host.com\/?p=479"},"modified":"2005-08-17T07:06:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-17T12:06:00","slug":"mea-culpa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/?p=479","title":{"rendered":"Mea Culpa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was driving home from work yesterday, the Migraine Gnomes doing their darndest to fissure my brain right in two (I believe they were using a combination of ice picks and jackhammers), and I had the windows down &#038; no radio on &#8211; just the sounds of other cars &amp; the air flowing through my car. We&#8217;ve finally gotten a spate of weather that isn&#8217;t torturous, and I wanted to enjoy it.<\/p>\n<p>I was thinking, for some reason, about people to whom I owe an apology. I try not to live with loads of regret, but sometimes random memory strands break off &#038; float around in my brain. Probably released by the Migraine Gnomes. Here&#8217;s who&#8217;s on the list right now:<\/p>\n<p>1. The Wilsons in my hometown. Granted, they were strange kids in general. But all of a sudden, when they got off the schoolbus, they would stop and peer into a hole in the hill. This somehow got them dubbed &#8220;Turtles&#8221;. (I guess there was a turtle in the hole.) One night, I was dared to open the window and shout &#8220;TURTLES!&#8221; at them, and I succumbed to peer pressure, and then subsequently felt horrible. I berated the next person who did it, and the whole thing subsided a bit. But I&#8217;m sorry. I was 9? Kids are stupid. You&#8217;re not a turtle.<\/p>\n<p>2. The incredibly insecure and self-centered gay friend in St. Louis. You asked me about my weekend and then, without giving me even a chance to inhale to speak, launched into a description of yours. At the end, you looked at me, not asking about me, and I asked you, &#8220;What&#8217;s it like to live in a bubble, lined with mirrors?&#8221; You nervously laughed and ignored the insult. It was really mean of me, but I have to give myself props for such a scathing capture of the situation. In any event, I hope you&#8217;re more aware of the world around you, and I&#8217;m sorry I was so blunt. But I did drag you out of the closet. Does that balance things out?<\/p>\n<p>3. To all my dear friends that I suck so badly at staying in touch with, for indeed, I am a raccoon, distracted by shiny things off in the ditches, and I wander and lose my way. I am so blessed that you do not hold it against me, and that we allow a timeless nature to preserve our friendship. Your grace is the formaldehyde that sustains &amp; preserves the wonderful connection we have. Thank you &#038; forgive me.<\/p>\n<p>4. To the former boss who tried to fire me and never did any work (BEYOTCH!): I&#8217;m sorry that after you gave your month&#8217;s notice, that it was me who told everyone you used two people under you to do the research (using company resources) to write your grant-winning business plan, and consequently, you embarassingly were asked to leave immediately, despite having already quit. Yeah, actually? I&#8217;m not sorry about that one at all, bitch. How&#8217;s the karma bus feel when it backs up over your scrawny ass?<\/p>\n<p>OK, I&#8217;m never going to fully lose my mean streak. My upbringing fostered a fast, sharp tongue, and clever slicey observations were rewarded with adoration &amp; praise. I am my harshest critic, though, and that is my punishment. Maybe one of these days, I&#8217;ll figure out how to fully forgive myself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was driving home from work yesterday, the Migraine Gnomes doing their darndest to fissure my brain right in two (I believe they were using a combination of ice picks and jackhammers), and I had the windows down &#038; no radio on &#8211; just the sounds of other cars &amp; the air flowing through my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}