All posts tagged family

What Fresh Hell is This?

Oh. Thanksgiving Week.

First of all, let me just start off by saying that I don’t need a holiday to remind me how lucky I am.  Good family, good job, my sheer brilliance and extraordinary good looks, my humility, great tolerance for the ole sauce, ya know (blah blah blah). 

I DO, however, need a federal holiday to get the day off, so I’ll take it.

As usual, though, the week before Thanksgiving, the shakes start to set in. 

Not the “yay-I-can’t-wait-to-see-my-family-eat-a-lot-of-turkey-and-have-a-great-time” shakes or the “man-i-was-out-late-last-night-and-need-a-bloody-mary” shakes, but the “Jesus-H-Christ-Thanksgiving-is-already-here-I-haven’t-had-a-chance-to-get-a-therapist-up-to-date-of-the-bag-of-crazy-my-family-is” shakes.

Aside from the Gates of Hell opening and Lucifer‘s dog snapping at my heels, another tell tale sign the holidays are approaching is the litttttttle extra touch of neurosis in the conversations I have with my dear Mother, and the littttttttttttle extra grin on my friends face’s when they ask me what I’m doing for the holiday.

Please, don’t get me wrong – I love my family.  And I love spending time with them, but there’s a limit.  There’s only so long I can smile at my extended family before it starts to crack.  In the recent years, there has been some tension between a few family members.  You’d almost think my family was Protestant the way they avoid conflict, so its simply been festering.

This year, is different though.  I’m mandated to go to Second Thanksgiving (yes, I’m being forced, against my will, to eat a second meal, and nope, we’re not Greek, just annoying), but I got the green light from Poppa Bear to behave as I see fit.  I quote:

As far as expressing ourselves and saying what we feel, I see no reason not to espouse your feelings when given the opportunity.

and

So if you feel the need to tell them, please do, whether you filter it or not is up to you.  I personally believe it would not be a bad thing to do, especially  if you feel it would “clear some things up”

And if I don’t follow this advice, he told me to:

lighten up a little – Or Not, Soak a Tampon in Vodka, Insert and Enjoy

(honest to God, this is an excerpt from an actual email my pops sent me this morning. including that last bit)

The way I’m interpreting that is “say whatever you want, you’ll put on a show for us”

Let the games begin!  Perhaps this holiday season will be fun after all.  I mean, I wasn’t planning on boozing this week, but I kind of feel like it is in order.  If anyone would like to volunteer to DD for me, so I can REALLY put it out there, HMU.

By the way, this was my response to my dad:

If the opportunity arises, you can rest assure I’ll be able to convey my feelings towards them and the situation they’ve created as coherently and intelligently as possible, and I’ll try not to use the 25 cent words so they can all follow along as best they can.

Told you I was brilliant.

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by JoJo-A-GoGo on February 18, 2020  •  Permalink
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Posted by JoJo-A-GoGo on February 18, 2020

https://joeyagogo.wordpress.com/2020/02/18/what-fresh-hell-is-this/

you can pick your nose

But you can’t pick your family!

Ain’t that the truth.

I got pretty lucky, in the family lottery though. My parents are the elite, my sister and I are close, and I’ve got some cute friggin nephews.

And I’m not just saying that because we’re blood – they’re friggin cute. I’d put pictures up but you creeps might try to steal them, then I’d have to put a boot in everyone’s a$$ – it just wouldn’t end well.

I’ve been trying to figure out a way to diplomatically write about the rift in my extended family without offending anyone or disregarding other people’s point of view, but I think that might be almost impossible. Especially because when you see things one way, it’s nearly impossible to see another person’s point of view. It makes it increasingly difficult to know what’s on someone’s mind when they ignore the proverbial “Elephant in the Room”, and doesn’t talk about their “issues”.

In a nutshell, I don’t like a member of my extended family. Rather than just leaving it alone, other members of my family pressed the issue so much the dislike turned into venom. After that, existing grievances came to light, etc, etc, etc.

In my experience, you have to love your family – but you don’t have to like them. And when you take a “Type A” personality like mine, and try to force me to do something….you’re basically shutting the valve to any reasoning.

If the situation simply stayed between me and the actual parties, there wouldn’t be so much of a problem. God Forbid adults act like adults – that’s just crazy talk (again, I’m not saying I’m the most mature person in the world, but sometimes enough is enough).

Instead, it has festered and gotten bigger, to a point where the only thing I can equate it to is a big, disgusting boil that grows and grows. And you touch it. You know you’re not supposed to, but you do.

One day that boil is going to blow the f-ck up. And who’s going to get covered in the vile pus when it does?

Everyone.

The thing about words is, you can’t take them back. Once I say something mean, even if I apologize – I still said it. And you’re going to remember the day I called you a mean name, or said your dog was ugly or something. Things said out of anger are said with the intention of hurting someone, even if we don’t want to admit that, and the nicest people are cruel when pushed enough.

With family, you know the insecurities that your relatives have. And you know how to hurt them. My father and I have the uncanny ability to see someone’s vulnerability shortly after meeting them, so imagine what years of research can do.

Hopefully no one says or does anything they regret, there’s nothing more tragic than not telling someone you love them, even if they’re being a d!ck, and then not having the opportunity to do so.

My mom said to me the other day that there’s no way I can judge or draw a conclusion on someone else’s relationship because I’m not in the mix (ok, she didn’t say “in the mix”, she’s a little more eloquent than that), I can just draw an opinion. And opinions are like a$$holes, right? We’ve all got one, most stink, yaddi yaddi yada.

Eff that. I’m right. Everyone else is wrong. And if they disagree, they can pound sand (I LOVE that expression. Pound sand. Hilarious)

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by JoJo-A-GoGo on February 18, 2020  •  Permalink
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Posted by JoJo-A-GoGo on February 18, 2020

https://joeyagogo.wordpress.com/2020/02/18/you-cant-pick-your-family/

Sorry Fellas

The Beefcake asked me to marry him.  And of course, I said yes.  After a romantic “are you f-cking kidding me?” and a “wait, did you ask my parents?”

He did.  And both of them said (separately) “are you sure?  She’s pretty annoying” or “You have to ask her, she hasn’t asked me for permission to do anything since she was 18” (touche).

So, from what I understand, you don’t get to skip from the engagement phase to the being married phase.  You have to plan a wedding.  And while I LOVE planning things – hell…one of my favorite things to do is make lists – it seems quite the large task.  And there are so many options.  Where do you have it?  Do you have it at home, or do you have it at another place?  Do you have a wedding party? If yes, how many people?  And what if you upset someone by not asking them to be in your wedding party?  What if you upset someone by asking them TO be in your wedding party?  How many people do you invite?  What do you wear?  What the hell are we all going to eat?

Now, a lot of people who I’ve spoken to have dropped a few pearls of wisdom:

1. Enjoy being engaged (I like that advice)

2. Elope (I kind of like that advice, takes all the guess-work out of it)

3. It goes by fast (prove it)

Aside from all that, its been so nice to hear all the kind words from my friends and family and coworkers, congratulating us and wishing us well.  Regardless of what we plan for the wedding part, I’m pretty confident it’ll turn out just as wonderful as the past two years have been, if not better.

 

Ain’t no getting rid of me now, pal.

 

 

I need to sit up straight

I need to sit up straight

 

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by JoJo-A-GoGo on October 3, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by JoJo-A-GoGo on October 3, 2014

https://joeyagogo.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/sorry-fellas/

mawwwwwwage

Recently I went to a friend’s wedding.  During the ceremony, and the reception there after, you could literally see the happiness shooting off this fella and his bride. If I had that hippy-dippy ability to read people’s aura’s, theirs would be a blazing hot pink surrounded by rainbows. It was great to see, and it made me reflect on the past few weddings I’d been to.

 

But the Background should be pink

But the Background should be pink

 

A friend of mine got married a little over a year ago.  And we had been friends for a really long time.  I’m talking, upwards of a decade.  In that situation, you really want nothing more than to be thrilled and excited your friend was getting married.  He found the person he wanted to share the rest of his life with, hooray!

(This sort of ties into my previous post, about my inability to sugarcoat things, and if I should even say anything…the quandry…blah blah blah )

A while before my friend walked down the aisle, I met his then-girlfriend-soon-to-be-fiancee.  I didn’t know her very well, but she seemed very sweet…funny, entertaining, in love – and she seemed to take good care of my friend – which is awesome.  We hung out a few times after that, and I truly enjoyed her company.

I clearly remember where everything changed.

::cue ominous music::

One evening, we gathered as a group to one of my favorite local restaurants that was doing this great event called a “Beer and Bourbon” night, where they close down the restaurant, create a special 5 course meal paired with craft beers and Bourbons.  Its so awesome.  So, SO awesome.  We were all having fun, hanging out, and my friend’s girlfriend peers over her beer and goes “JoJo.  I broke him”.  Confused, and assuming there’s a joke somewhere, I got “Well how come?  I didn’t know he was broken!”

“he’s going to marry me!”

::confusion is starting to settle in::

“…okay…that’s great!”

My friend now interjects, and tells me this little story about how his girlfriend updated her Facebook status to “engaged”, spinning a little web of deceit.  He only found out after some of his friends started to text and congratulate him, looking to portray this is a funny joke.  A gag.  Now, I am not the girl who thinks its cool to drag your man down the aisle.  It is not a good look.  Not for me, not for you – not for anyone (and I can pull off orange taffeta).  I truly believe if you are going to marry someone, they have to want to marry you.  Enough to ask.  Of their own volition.  And if they don’t, or you have to trick them into it…you’re simply setting yourself up for failure.

As the evening goes on, she continues to tell me how there is a time frame in when they will be engaged, and then married, and then have children.  If the time frame gets delayed, she has a plan to move it along…by “forgetting” to take her birth control pills.

Hard Stop Number Two.

Yeah, that’s me.  Speechless.

At the end of the day, the only thing you can do is tell your friend the truth.  Which I did.  Afterwards, I continued to hear some horrible things she was doing, and saying about people I care a lot about – people I had been friends with for a very, very long time.  I could clearly see the kind of person she was underneath the exterior she was using to blind my friend.  He couldn’t – and it put a strain on our friendship.  It got to a point where he said to me (after one particularly ridiculous incident at their wedding – mind you, I’m trying to keep this story as vague as possible.  My friends know who I’m talking about, and so will he, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings with all the repulsive details about this woman) that he didn’t think I treated his wife with the respect she deserved.

I disagree, I think I treated her with more respect than she deserved.  If it were my choice, I would never have associated with her again, after I read a text she sent to a mutual friend saying she wanted to punch my friend out – for reasons that are so insignificant and immature – or told me she wanted to trap my friend into marriage by getting knocked up.  And we haven’t spoken, really, since his wedding – which makes me a little sad.

And this, friends, is one of the casualties of not being able to censor what you think of people.

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by JoJo-A-GoGo on June 26, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by JoJo-A-GoGo on June 26, 2014

https://joeyagogo.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/mawwwwwwage/

Ain’t No Sugar Coats Here

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me for my opinion.  She prefaced it with “I am asking you this because I know you are going to tell me the truth, even if I don’t want to hear it”.  And she’s right.  While I never set out to hurt anyone’s feelings (friends and family), I’m not the girl you turn to if you want someone to “yes” you, or agree with you.

We all have those friends, or those people in our lives – and we need them.  Sometimes I just need someone to say “yes, Jo, eat that entire pint of Ben and Jerrys Nutella Core Ice Cream.  You had a salad for lunch and walked the dog today so it totally burned off those calories” not “eesh…thats like 1700 calories, you know its bikini season, right?”.  But when we come down to the important things – career, advice, family, financial, marriage – if you’re doing something stupid and you don’t want to hear it, just don’t involve me in your plans.  I’ll even listen to you after it blows up, and try to help you…I’ll never say “I told you so” but deep down inside I’m thinking “I wish you just listened to me in the first place”.

I’m not unreasonable.  I know that people don’t always follow logic.  I know that you are buying a new car for $60,000 and a $500 a month car payment that eats gas and costs an arm and a leg in insurance because you really, really want it…even though you’re on a tuna fish and ramen noodle budget…I just cannot physically tell you its a good idea.  My tongue will literally turn around, crawl down my throat and choke me before I tell you its okay to wear creamsicle taffeta overlay on a corset to work.

Not OK

Not OK

 

This can become a problem, though.  One that’s been detrimental to my friendships and relationships.  It has been, on more than one occasion.  Enough of a problem that I’ve considered biting my tongue sometimes and just not saying what I felt.

Considered…but won’t.  If I become that girl who censors herself because she might be afraid her friends won’t see it for what it is – straight concern for the people I love – then my friends won’t be able to put their faith in what I’m saying to them, all the time, is honest.

I still won’t break your horns for eating ice cream though.  IF you bring me a spoon and share.

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by JoJo-A-GoGo on June 26, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by JoJo-A-GoGo on June 26, 2014

https://joeyagogo.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/aint-no-sugar-coats-here/

The Golden Rule…

…my parents brought me up on that, and it’s relatively easy.  “do unto others, as they do unto you”

The reason I thought of this was because my ole land lord, y’all remember her, right? Well, she called me earlier today telling me that her home owners insurance wasn’t going to cover the issue with my neighbor, dog and myself.  She retained a lawyer for 5000 dollars, and was hoping I would split the fee with her. Apparently, if I split a lawyer, we will definitely win.  And the fee is reimbursed.

While I’m all for splitting payments I’m pretttttttty sure she is, what I like to call “full of sh-t”.

I don’t recall getting any instruction of pending lawsuits against me. And I’m not exactly a ghost, my name and number aren’t private, neither is my address. Or the rest of my family, we all share a last name, and there’s probably about 78 thousand of us floating around Gotham.

Methinks she’s upset she’s getting sued, and she wants me to chip in by trying to make me believe I am getting sued as well.

Advice: no one will put a judgment against you without you knowing. They’ll find you. Don’t do anything until they do.

She was clearly banking on the fact that even though I have a giant ego, and I’m a narcissist oddly enough, I occasionally have a soft heart, but I’m not going to let some old broad try and scam me!

The situation got grossly out of hand when she started acting like a child and egging the neighbors car, house, property. And her threats to kill him and his dog, I’m sure didn’t help.

In any event, it’s not my problem until it’s actually my problem. And I’m not giving that crazy broad any more money, she was a horrible landlord who cut abundant corners in the upkeep of her house, our apartment (and herself).

Karma can be quite a bitch, I’m so curious how her situation will turn out, and his.

I kinda want to go on Judge Judy though. If THAT is going to happen I am on board, I’d be a goddamn super star on that show.

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by JoJo-A-GoGo on January 21, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by JoJo-A-GoGo on January 21, 2012

https://joeyagogo.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/the-golden-rule/

Hello world!

As per WordPress, I’m supposed to delete the original text on this blog post and write my own.

But what if I have nothing to write about?  Or talk about?  Yea Right!

Here’s what you need to know about me:

  • I love my friends and my family and my dog and a handful of people I work with.  I suppose they aren’t really “People I Work With” then, since I consider them friends, but I don’t always call them all the time, so they’re not really friends? What category is that?  I digress.
  • I get bored very easily and have now decided to become an internet phenom (this is where you come in)
  • I do a lot of stupid sh-t, maybe you’ll find it funny.  If anything, I’m going to need to document the shenanigans in case I don’t actually become someone who has a biography written about them.

I guess that’s it.  Oh!  I love feedback.  Even the bad stuff.  I might not agree with it, but I’ll read it.  And then laugh at you.  Maybe.

 

**DISCLAIMER: ALL NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED.   YOU MAY THINK YOU KNOW WHO I’M TALKING ABOUT – ASK THEM.  I’M ALL ABOUT ALIASES**

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by JoJo-A-GoGo on October 20, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by JoJo-A-GoGo on October 20, 2011

https://joeyagogo.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/hello-world/