Tag Archives: liars

language, LDS, mental health, narcissists, Twitter

Learning “50 cent words” in the strangest of places…

Here’s another one of my far too personal posts. You might want to skip it if such topics bore or upset you.

It’s a gloomy Thursday morning and I’ve got a touch of medicine head. I washed the sheets yesterday and was looking forward to a good night’s sleep. But when I laid down and tried to drift off, I started coughing again. Yesterday, I coughed enough that I lost my breakfast. I didn’t want it to happen again at bedtime, so I took some cough syrup (which I hate doing). That quieted my cough for about two or three hours.

I woke up again at 1:30 AM with another coughing fit. I got up again to deal with that spasm, then took more cough syrup, finishing off the bottle, which had only had about two doses in it. I went back to sleep again and woke up at 5:30 AM, which is about my normal wake up time. But again, more coughing and hacking, and now I have “medicine head”, which makes thinking more challenging. I thought about going back to sleep, but realized there’s a lot of writing I want to get done, even if no one reads my stuff.

So here I am… and I’m about to be petty again. Because, why not?

Ex’s “friend” on X asked this of her followers…

Last week, while we were on the road, one of Ex’s “friends” on Twitter asked everyone to describe themselves in one word, using the first letter of their names. Ex, whose first name begins with an “S”, came up with the word “sagacious”. I have to admit, that’s not a word I use very often myself, in spite of my degree in English. I was curious, though, so I asked my friends on Facebook how many of them would use that word in an average conversation, without even thinking about it.

Several people commented that they “could” use it, which is not what I asked. I mean, we can all Google the word and find out what it means, then use it in a sentence. I wanted to know who would choose to use it as a matter of course. Of the people who responded, no one could say they’d use that word on a regular basis.

Ex must have realized that most people would be looking up the word “sagacious”, as she helpfully provided a definition for everyone. See below:

Um… this really doesn’t describe her at all…

We were on the road, so I started cracking myself up thinking of more appropriate “S” words that were more accurately descriptive of Ex. I came up with a few good ones, and none had anything to do with her having “good judgment” or “wisdom”. When I look at Ex’s life, I see a long string of stormy relationships, lots of outright lies and stretching of the truth, people who have sustained damages due to her conduct, and plenty of heartbreak. She’s made a lot of terrible decisions that have harmed many good people, including her own children. But, just to keep this post from getting too dark, I’ll just point out that this is a woman who has had multiple bankruptcies, at least one foreclosure, three husbands, and five children. Her eldest child has no full siblings and has been asked to think of three different men as his “dad”. Her youngest child will likely never be able to live on his own.

But to hear her tell it, she’s the wisest, most prescient, most compassionate, and most decent person in the room. And she’s smart, too! I mean, dumb people wouldn’t use a word like “sagacious” to describe themselves, right?

The weird thing is, if I didn’t know about her, I might not realize just how completely toxic she is. On the surface, she doesn’t seem quite that extreme. She may be mildly annoying to some people, and some of her Twitter posts are a bit affected. Take, for example, this comment she left regarding the electoral college:

While I abhor the electoral college NOW, getting rid of it will not insure equal representation in the House of Representatives. White privilege is real & voter discrimination occurs against ALL people of color, poor people & legal immigrants. Educate yourself.

It’s a little “high falutin'” to be using a word like “abhor” when you could use a word that is less fancy, like “dislike” or even “hate”. And the fact that she uses the word “insure“, when she likely means “ensure“, tells me that she uses language to try to show off. Sometimes, it has quite the opposite effect.

I see her posting seemingly empathic comments and platitudes to strangers on Twitter, knowing that she has said and done some really vile and hateful things to people she actually knows. And just yesterday, she threw some shade… I’m assuming it was at my husband, Bill, although maybe she means her first husband or someone else she once dated or fucked.

I considered leaving her a scathing comment, but in the end, decided not to. She’s not going to change, and ripping her a new asshole online for libeling Bill would only provide me with a few minutes of satisfaction before she blocked me. Besides, it doesn’t matter what strangers on Twitter think, because the people who matter– most of them, anyway– already know the truth.

I’m glad she thinks her ex is a “total creeper”. He’s my “total creeper” now. 😉

Here’s some context, not that it matters to the vast majority of people. Ex was supposedly convinced that Bill had an addiction to porn. And the truth of the matter is, he did, and probably still does look at the adult version of porn on occasion, as do many millions of lonely, horny, or bored people. It’s actually not that easy to avoid it on the Internet, unless you use some kind of filter. He does not have an addiction, though, nor is he a “creeper” in the slightest sense of the word.

The reality of the situation is, when Ex (then a high school dropout with some college courses) “diagnosed” Bill with this addiction, he was working soulsucking second and third shift jobs in factories. He was a man in his 30s who had no intimacy whatsoever with his then wife. They were focused on raising three children with very little money. Their marriage was in a death spiral… and Ex also had a boyfriend, the man who is now her third husband, that she was talking to online. She would eventually move that man into the house her “creeper ex” was paying for, and fuck him in their marital bed. Then she’d marry #3 and have him replace Bill’s role as father to her then three children, in every way except financial.

She would eventually issue an ultimatum to Bill, demand that he seek “treatment” for his “addiction” from a layman bishop in the LDS church, or she’d divorce him. Keep in mind that while LDS bishops do get some training in how to deal with people and their problems, they aren’t necessarily licensed mental health professionals. And the LDS church makes a huge deal out of things having to do with anything sexual that doesn’t involve making babies. So anyone looking at legal porn, having sex for fun (especially if it’s not heterosexual sex), masturbating, or even fantasizing about something that isn’t vanilla is going to be labeled somehow and their actions will be considered “problematic”, even if whatever they’re doing is not an actual problem.

Word also tends to get around fast in the LDS church. That’s what happened in Bill’s case. Pretty soon, many people in the church were turning their backs on him without ever hearing his side of the story. I’m glad the church people showed him who they actually were, and what they really weren’t. It made it easier for him to leave their cult.

Ex issued her treatment from the bishop “edict” in my late father-in-law’s home over Easter 2000, while their children were out eating ice cream with FIL and Bill’s stepmother. The whole time this was going on, by the way, Ex was enjoying erotic fiction written by people like Anne Rice, playing Dungeons & Dragons, and losing herself in movies. Their last home together eventually went into foreclosure, which took years to live down in terms of Bill’s credit rating.

They did have financial issues, but it wasn’t because of a pornography addiction. It was because of Ex’s uncontrolled spending as she tried to look “successful” to people in the church, church tithing, her medical bills, and Bill’s reluctance to stop her from spending all of the money he’d earned. She bought things like Disney plates and depression glass, or expensive snack platters from Swiss Colony. Bill is a loving and sensitive guy, who was still very much interested in sex and having a marital relationship when they were together. She’d checked out, and was having an affair.

I’m not saying that it’s necessarily a good thing that porn was in the picture, but she makes it sound like Bill was a weak man who had single-handedly destroyed their relationship with it. That’s not at all what happened. And more importantly, as his wife for almost 21 years, I can assure Ex that this so called “addiction” she claims Bill had when they were married is not happening today. I’ve never seen any sign of Bill as a pervert or a “creeper”. To me, he’s a wonderful, caring, generous husband. I’m grateful to be with him.

There are people who do have legitimate addictions to pornography. It CAN and DOES ruin lives. But Bill doesn’t have a problem with addiction of any kind. As a matter of fact, when Bill travels, I can guarantee that I’ll hear from him in the evening. He’ll want to chat with me, even if I’d rather be watching a movie. The rest of the time he’s either at work, or physically with me. For proof of that, have a look at my travel blog. Please— it really needs some hits! 😉

Ex has told everyone in the family that Bill has this problem. Most of the observant types have realized it’s Ex’s typical made up bullshit. One person hasn’t written it off as bullshit, though. My husband’s stepmother still thinks Bill is an abusive pervert. She has even asked me about it. I told her that he’s not abusive to me, but I don’t think she believes me. Stepmother-in-law has her own issues. She doesn’t care for me, and I don’t think she cares much for Bill. She wanted access to Bill’s daughters because she wants to be a grandmother, and it’s unlikely her daughter will provide any children from her marriage. So, even though Ex is toxic to her, and she’s complained to us many times about Ex’s behavior and hurtful things she’s said, she continues to give her deference… even though the girls are now well into adulthood.

So, when I see Ex using Bill as another prop for her bullshit facade, I just kind of shake my head. I know the truth, as do all of the other people who matter. Why she feels the need to chat up strangers on social media instead of paying attention to the actual people in her life, I’ll never know. She has so many people offline who need her and would love it if she’d just be a normal person. But that’s impossible, and it will never happen. She’ll never change.

But… at least I’ve gained something from watching Ex’s shenanigans online. I honestly didn’t know the word “sagacious”. Now, I’ll never forget what it means, as I realize that Ex is a living, breathing antonym of the “S” word she uses to describe herself. I’m glad she was at least “sagacious” enough to let Bill go, so he could be with someone who loves him for exactly who he is.

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controversies, lessons learned, musings

Judging a “lemon” by its rind…

I tried to stay pretty busy yesterday, and I mostly succeeded. I got off to a somewhat late start, as I woke up after 6:00 AM, which isn’t so common for me anymore. Then I made coffee, fed and cleaned up after Noyzi, and started a load of laundry. I did a longer cycle so I could focus more on yesterday’s rambling post that wasn’t particularly tight. While I’ll admit it was a stream of consciousness type post, it did turn out interesting, at least for me. As I read it, I had all of these memories of my younger days, when it seemed like I had forever before I would be considered “older”…

I actually needed some help getting started writing yesterday. There’s a lot I could write about, but I don’t feel knowledgeable enough at this point. And it’s not really what’s on my mind, anyway… I mentioned yesterday that I went down “Memory Lane”, starting with reading old posts about our move to Wiesbaden. I’ve written about that a lot, but I don’t know if I’ve conveyed just how totally difficult that move was to make. It seems like it was just a bad landlady/tenant situation, but it was really so much more than that.

That situation with our former landlady really drove home to me how easy it is to fall into true mind fuckery when you’re dealing with an abusive person. They can make you feel like you’re worthless, as if everything is your fault… or as if you don’t deserve better. It’s hard to break out of that mindset once you enter it. It’s so hard when you trust someone and they betray you, or they turn out to be someone totally different from the person they seemed to be.

Granted, in ex landlady’s case, I did have a subtle warning. There was something about her demeanor that tipped me off at our first meeting. Under normal circumstances, I might not have been so eager to rent her house. Actually, I wasn’t that eager to move into the house, as I was to finally be settled. The summer of 2014 was a very difficult one for us… from Bill’s Army retirement, to my father’s somewhat sudden death, to the very rushed international move to Germany after we found nothing viable in Texas… We were vulnerable.

In August 2014, we still had sharp memories of September 2007, when we spent six weeks in a grubby German Gasthaus in Vaihingen, where there was visible mold on the bathroom ceiling and the place reeked of stale cigarettes. Today, I would have insisted that we move to a better hotel, but we had much less money and experience in 2007, and Bill was fresh from the war zone in Iraq (which he spent with a narcissistic boss). Besides, that particular hotel was in walking distance of where Bill was working, and it was very dog friendly. So we stayed for six weeks. It wasn’t all bad, but I certainly didn’t want to do it again.

So, when we met former landlady, even though I had some mental misgivings about her, I took the former tenant and her husband at their word that she was “great” and my gut feelings weren’t “right”. That was a mistake.

Although it wasn’t all bad, just like our six weeks in a really crummy Gasthaus in 2007, it’s not an experience I’d ever want to recreate. Never before had we ever had such an intrusive situation with a landlord/landlady, even though I’ve seen lots of videos and written plenty of accounts of nightmare property managers, landlords, and landladies. We’ve have had other rental situations that sucked somewhat, but none as personally soul crushing as dealing with our previous landlady. What made it very different and so much worse was the former tenant.

It was one of those perfect storm situations… I’m a blogger, and I made the mistake of sharing my posts in a somewhat small community. People in the military community– I’m sorry to say– are not always the most open-minded people you’d ever meet. You’d think they would be, given how much and how often military folks move to places worldwide. I don’t mean to say that people in that community aren’t diverse, nor do I mean to say that everyone is an asshole. But there are a lot of people who have rigid mindsets about things. Someone who dares to write a blog called The Overeducated Housewife is automatically going to catch shit. 😉

I do know that some people down in the Stuttgart community got some good things from my writings. Quite a lot of people told me they tried restaurants I reviewed, or they visited places I wrote about. But there were so many who just wrote off my efforts because they didn’t like the name of the blog and lacked the desire to find out why I titled it the way I did. How dare someone refer to themselves as “overeducated”, even if they literally are for what they do every day? 😉

I don’t actually think I am “overeducated”. There is obviously a whole lot I don’t know. I also don’t believe that being “educated” is the same as being “intelligent” or “smart”. I just didn’t need to spend seven years in college to be a housewife. If I had known this was going to be my future, I wouldn’t have bothered with college or grad school… but then, I probably never would have met Bill, either. THAT is why this blog is titled as it is… and it came into existence several years before I started engaging with military folks who might be offended by it. In fact, the beginnings of my blog were very humble, as I didn’t even share my posts on Facebook. It took a long time before it evolved into anything people read on a regular basis.

Former tenant probably wouldn’t have been so involved in our situation if I hadn’t been a blogger. Our situation with ex landlady might have turned out like every other situation in which someone hands off a “lemon” to someone else.

Here’s a for instance. Back in 2003, Bill and I adopted an adorable beagle named Flea who had been abandoned in rural Virginia. Flea was a very fancy beagle. His original owner likely paid a lot for him. But, he got separated from the pack when they were hunting. When Flea was eventually found on the side of a road, he was skinny, covered in fleas and ticks, had Lyme Disease, and heartworms. The lady who rescued him got him cleaned up and offered him to a beagle rescue, as she also fostered him for them. The beagle rescue gave her money to get Flea treated for heartworms and Lyme Disease. When we met her, she’d seemed so nice and committed to Flea. But then it turned out she’d never completed his heartworm treatment. Instead, she pocketed the money for the second half of the treatment. So, when we adopted him, we were unaware that he still had heartworms.

Months later, when we discovered Flea’s heartworms weren’t all dead, we tried to contact his rescuer… who then promptly ghosted us. Flea also turned out to be quite a bit older than she’d said he was. Flea wasn’t a “lemon”, per se. He was actually a fantastic dog. But we got stuck dealing with his problems, because someone lied to us. Fortunately, the beagle rescue paid for him to be treated a second time for heartworms. However, heartworm treatment isn’t easy on dogs. I think it took a toll on his health in the long run. We had him for six years before he got prostate cancer, which eventually killed him.

Just like the situation with Flea turned out to be, I guess that former tenant felt the need to get out of her rental agreement with the ex landlady. And she was eager enough to get away from her that she wasn’t entirely truthful or forthcoming about her when we showed up looking for a place to live. We were sitting ducks… because we really needed a place to settle after a tough summer. Former tenant probably figured there was no harm in what she did… I’m sure she totally justified it. Fair enough. Maybe ex landlady really was as wonderful to her as former tenant claimed, and she really did just need to move closer to her job. There was probably even an element of truth to what she told us… but it wasn’t the *whole* truth.

I figure that if I weren’t a prolific and somewhat well-known blogger in the Stuttgart military community, former tenant would have just ghosted us, too. Ex landlady would have been “our problem”, even though the two of them were “friends”. Ex landlady probably would have complained and gossipped to her about us, but former tenant could have just laughed it off. She wouldn’t have been at all concerned about what I was thinking, saying, or writing. But because I was a somewhat well-known blogger, and she had loved Germany and was still following the community on social media, she couldn’t stop herself from following me… and she got upset that I was candid about our experiences.

Instead of realizing that I have the right to my opinions and perspectives and simply unfollowing me, former tenant felt the need to try to control me from afar. Not only did she deceive me, she also tried to silence me… and she seriously misjudged and underestimated me as a person. To her, I guess I was just a sucker who had the “audacity” to label myself “the overeducated housewife”. She probably thought I was just some silly twit– certainly not a match for her. She tried to take advantage of the fact that I’m basically a good person, using shame, obligation, fear, and guilt as a means of trying to fix the narrative. I complied with her for a time, but then wised up about what she was doing.

The irony is, if I weren’t a blogger, Bill and I probably would have been stuck paying for another lemon. Writers are recorders, so I had photos, blog posts, and bits of history that I could show proving the ex landlady’s version of events wrong. We probably would have won, anyway, but it wouldn’t have been quite so handily. Still, when all of that was going on, I felt like shit. I certainly had no desire to be on bad terms with anyone, nor did we want to sue anyone. But I’m also not about to be someone’s patsy.

As if that situation wasn’t bizarre enough… then I looked up former tenant last year. Curiosity killed the cat. I should have learned my lesson about not following people who show me who they are. That’s when I found out that former tenant took her own life. That makes me wonder about a whole lot of things… and it’s also left me with a burden.

All we had wanted to do was find a place to live in 2014. Now we’re left with this very strange chapter in our lives. We’ll probably always think about it and talk about it, and other people probably won’t understand. Some will even try to blame us, even though I only met former tenant in person a couple of times in 2014. Any interaction we had after we rented that house was initiated by her, after she read my blog. I doubt I had anything to do with her decision, but I don’t know. All I can think is that she had a lot of issues that led her to make a tragic choice. Her decision had ripple effects beyond her immediate family and friends that she’ll never even realize.

I never thought I’d ever be a blogger. I did like writing and likely would have loved a “real job” as a writer. But even when I was a teenager, I didn’t really let myself hope writing was how I could earn a living or make my way in the world. I used to have a lot of ideas and dreams about what my “adult life” would be. I figured I’d have a career and probably a family. As I got older, it seemed less likely that either convention was going to be in my future. I didn’t really date much, nor did I have great luck at impressing employers that would pay me a salary on which I could live comfortably.

Granted, after I finished graduate school, I might have managed to find a job to support myself properly. I didn’t really have a chance, as just after I graduated, I moved in with Bill, and six months later, married into the military lifestyle, with its constant upheavals. I was familiar with it, since my mom was an Air Force wife. But by the time I came along, my dad’s career in the Air Force was winding down. I didn’t know the realities, because my parents ran their own business for over half of my childhood.

I think marrying Bill was the right decision, and the best choice I could have made. But it definitely derailed the plans I tried to make for myself. I don’t think they were the right plans, anyway… but they were MY plans. And now I’m sitting here in Germany, writing this blog, wondering where it all went.

Yesterday’s post was a meandering stream of consciousness piece. It started in one place and ended somewhere else I hadn’t really meant it to go. Alex’s first comment to me kind of took me aback. He’d offered me consolation, which kind of distressed me. But, looking back at it today, I can see why Alex left a comment of reassurance. The end of yesterday’s post was about how I felt after reading the post that had inspired it. I was so very angry about the audacity of our ex landlady, treating us like we were the worst kind of people. It pissed me off anew, and brought up some old feelings of shame and worthlessness passed to me from someone whose opinion used to mean a lot to me.

No, I don’t mean ex landlady. I mainly did what I could to appease her, which I now realize was far too much. I mean my dad. I don’t think he hated me. I think he even loved me on one level. But he often treated me badly, and acted like he didn’t like me very much. He took out a lot of his frustrations on me, and treated me like an embarrassment. When I was a young woman, I realized that he was very often abusive to me, and that treatment shaped how I felt about myself. Some of that stuff still comes up today, as I try to stay out of trouble and hesitate to engage with people. I figure they won’t like me… and when some of them don’t, I get bitter and more reluctant to get to know people. When people treat me poorly, I remember it forever and hold it against them, even if their bad attitude doesn’t even have that much to do with me, personally.

There were a lot of times when ex landlady reminded me a lot of my dad. As a grown woman, I can now react in ways that weren’t safe when I was a child. I can speak out, for instance. So I often do. But doing that didn’t suit former tenant’s agenda, and I suspect she thought she could manipulate and control me. So she tried to do that, and I tolerated it for awhile… until I didn’t anymore, and the shit hit the fan. She took issue that I figured out what she’d done… passed off her lemon to Bill and me and expected us to see it as a favor. She wanted me to shut up and pretend I enjoyed the sourness of her lemon. Because it suited her, and her agenda. Who cared about how it affected us?! We’re just a couple of suckers and losers, right? Obviously, if ex landlady didn’t like us, it was entirely our fault, and it was our responsibility as Americans to make her like us…

What a load of shit that is. Seriously… I can’t even believe it! We’re supposed to tolerate abuse and PAY for the privilege, because former tenant is/was friends with the ex landlady, and she doesn’t want to offend her or anyone in her family? If there’s a problem, it’s not because of anyone but me… and it’s entirely my fault. Again… that’s a lot of bullshit that doesn’t even have the courtesy of smelling lemony fresh! I can’t believe we wasted a single year on that crap, let alone four!

Well… at least it’s over now. We did prevail. But, like the proverbial lemon, that situation left a sour taste in our mouths. I’m left a lot more wary than I once was. I don’t share things like I used to. I’m not eager to get to know people like I used to be. I trust people less. The memory of that ordeal leaves me a bit depressed on some level. And the fact that former tenant killed herself makes it all the worse, because now it seems like I should feel sorry for her. Or at least act like I feel sorry for her. Really, I’m just angry with her on many levels. I’m sorry she felt the need to off herself, but I also realize that I spent weeks agonizing, feeling totally traumatized and fucked up, and the truth was, I wasn’t the fucked up one at all!

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a believer in destiny… We were probably supposed to meet these people, and these experiences were probably supposed to happen. We’ll just have to learn from it, move on, and either keep our lemons to ourselves or be honest about them. Sometimes lemons are a good thing, after all. In the grand scheme of things, this particular lemon at least taught us to be wiser, and we got to see some beautiful parts of the Black Forest. So that ought to count for something, right?

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narcissists, Twitter

The old American double standard: say one thing, but do something different…

Today’s travel blog has some exciting news within it. Last night, I finally booked our long awaited visit to Yerevan, Armenia. I’m pretty psyched about it, although I expect there will be some sadness, too. Yerevan has changed a lot since I lived there in the 90s. Some of the changes are legitimately good ones, but some aren’t so much. But some familiar things can never change, and I do still have all my memories– good and bad. I look forward to making new memories soon.

Today’s main blog post is about hypocrisy and double standards… you know, that old “say one thing, do something different” attitude some people have. My old hero, George Carlin, did a brilliant routine about it.

The old American double standard…

You might have noticed the featured photo today. It’s a screenshot of a post I found on X… thanks to Ex. Ex is the queen of double standards and hypocrisy. But she is not the originator of that post about Joel Osteen, the folksy televangelist whose Lakewood Church bought the former Compaq Center in Houston, Texas and made it into a giant “sanctuary” of sorts that seats over 16,000 souls. I haven’t watched Joel Osteen’s show recently, as I don’t live in the United States and never watch network television. I’m sure Joel broadcasts in Germany, but I don’t go looking for his program here.

But I do remember seeing Osteen’s show ten years ago or so, when I was still in my homeland. Osteen was at the top of his game then, giving Christian-ish motivational speeches every Sunday in his distinctive Texas drawl, advising people to find a good “Bible based” church. It was hard to miss his broadcasts on Sunday mornings, as they aired “religiously” (heh heh heh), seemingly on more than one channel.

I never paid a lot of attention to Mr. Osteen, but for awhile, it seemed like he was everywhere. He had books out, and they were best sellers. He lived in a huge mansion with his wife, Victoria, a woman that some might describe as a “trophy wife”. I won’t do that myself, as I don’t know the nature of their relationship, and I don’t believe that just because a woman is beautiful, that means she’s necessarily a “trophy wife”. Victoria Osteen is a very pretty woman. She reminds me of Brooke Shields. But that doesn’t necessarily make her a trophy wife.

On the other hand, I do remember the headlines about Victoria Osteen’s alleged behavior on a 2005 flight to Vail, Colorado. Osteen was apparently upset about a stain on the first class seat she was supposed to occupy. It was definitely NOT Christlike conduct, if the stories about it are in any way true. And while 2005 was a long time ago, that incident happened during the Osteens’ rise to fame. In the end, the flight attendant who sued Victoria Osteen lost her case. I suspect that there might have been some embellishment on the part of the flight attendant, although the altercation over the stain did happen and no one disputed it.

The Osteens are human, and I guess I can understand why Joel Osteen might feel compelled to block someone on X. Is it something Jesus would do? Maybe not. Joel Osteen is just a man who preaches, though. He’s not akin to Jesus Christ. Christ wouldn’t live in a house like this one. He’d use the money for the house to feed, educate, and house people. But people still listen to Joel Osteen and his wife, and a lot of them are happy to donate to the power couple. One woman on X wrote this:

My aunt is one of his most devoted cultists- I mean, uh, congregation. She makes awful money (3rd grade teacher, poor rural school) but like clockwork a good 1/2 – 2/3 of it sails into his pocket yearly. Definitely done her a world of good – she’s living in a studio now!

I’m sure Joel Osteen would say that is God’s will… for that woman to live in a studio, instead of in a humongous mansion. Osteen says it’s “God’s will” for people to live in prosperity instead of poverty. But it doesn’t sound like this woman has been rewarded for her generosity. What should she do to get on God’s good side, so she can live like Joel does? Will it take a miracle?

Then I noticed Ex’s response, which really made me puzzle. She wrote this:

That is so very sad.

Indeed it is. I felt the same way when I found out how much money Bill sent to Ex for years… and how much money she spent on stupid, worthless crap when they were married, completely exploiting a good man and sucking him dry. Some of the worst crap she spent money on was the LDS religion… which demanded thousands of dollars in tithing that did nothing but make them poorer and entrench Bill’s daughters in a cult. Granted, I was later grateful to the LDS church for giving younger daughter an escape. But I still think it does a lot of damage to people who don’t fit the mold. There’s a lot of evidence to support that opinion, too. All you need to do right now is to read up on Ruby Franke.

In any case, for all of Bill’s efforts, Ex alienated his daughters from him and abused him on all levels. She told vicious lies about him, and about me, and harassed his younger daughter for reconnecting with her REAL father (who is NOT her third husband). But there she is, all solemn and sad for a woman who tweets about how her aunt has been taken in by a manipulative religious “leader”. Hell, at least Osteen says and writes things that make people feel positive. Ex doesn’t even do that. She constantly criticizes the people who are closest to her, even as she claims to love them.

She’s not wrong to comment that it’s sad, though. It is always sad when people are taken in by snake oil salesmen, and they are everywhere, unfortunately. She communicates things that sound good, but the reality is, she doesn’t practice what she preaches. She has more heart for celebrities than her own family. See what she has to say about her favorite actor, who went on vacation and had his location leaked to the press…

I am glad you posted this, but we really should take it a step further. Sam’s life is utterly on display, privacy lost, but worse, he is CONSTANTLY objectified. He is apparently a stellar human being, but, objectification sullies accomplishments. He deserves more respect.

Wow… really? How many times have I seen Ex tweeting celebrities asking for money or connections? I have the proof in the form of screenshots. And my husband has literal scars that show the level of “respect” Ex had for him… /sarcasm.

I know it’s pointless to write about this stuff… but I really can only shake my head when I see Ex acting like a hypocrite. She says and writes things that sound good, but the reality is, she’s just another snake oil salesperson… and another hypocrite. And, to quote her, all I can say is…

That is so very sad.

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Police, Texas, true crime, YouTube

I just heard about Texas baby stealer, Taylor Parker…

One of the nice things about living in Europe is that I tend to be divorced from some of the more sordid and horrifying crimes that happen in the United States. But then I go and watch YouTube videos, and since I am a true crime buff who tends to be interested in deviant people, I sometimes stumble across videos about truly sickening cases of depravity. Because I’m in a bit of a mood today, I think I’ll write a little bit about Texas killer Taylor Parker, who is currently sitting on death row.

Now… I’m sure Parker’s case was big news in the States. I missed it entirely when it was hot news. But I was randomly watching videos the other day when one popped up that I hadn’t expected to see. It was titled “Killer Realizes She’s Been Caught After Cutting Baby Out of Victim’s Stomach”. Right off the bat I cringed a bit, not just because this is just an incredibly sad and grisly crime, but also because people don’t carry pregnancies in their stomachs. Stomachs are for digesting food. They’re full of enzymes and acids, which would digest a developing fetus.

Babies don’t belong in stomachs… I would expect someone with a fetus developing in a stomach to show up at a hospital.

I think EWU Bodycam, the uploader of the video I watched, means that the baby was cut from the victim’s womb, or more precisely, the victim’s uterus. But in fairness to the uploader, the police officer who interviewed Taylor Parker also referred to the womb as the “stomach”. Maybe he did it to be on Parker’s intelligence level, but I suspect that he’s not that well versed on anatomy. He’s pretty good at getting guilty people to confess, though. I know this may seem like a petty thing to comment on, but I tend to be kind of a stickler about word choice.

Anyway… the story goes that Parker had befriended 21 year old Reagan Simmons-Hancock of New Boston, Texas, who was, in October 2020, about 34 weeks pregnant and already the mother of a three year old child. Parker had taken engagement and wedding photos of Reagan Simmons-Hancock and her husband, and that might have been the pretense that allowed for her to visit the young woman on the day of the murder. The three year old was present on the day of the murder and was left alone with her mother after Parker committed her crimes.

Parker, who was 27 years old at the time of the crime, already had two children before she got a hysterectomy. She decided to fake a pregnancy, and went as far as producing false ultrasounds and having a gender reveal party. It was reported that before she attacked Simmons-Hancock, Parker researched how to convincingly fake a pregnancy. She also watched a video on an examination of a pre-term infant delivered at 35 weeks gestation.

After she viciously attacked Simmons-Hancock, Parker took off from the crime scene and was soon stopped by a Texas State Trooper in DeKalb, Texas because she was speeding. The police officer, noticing Parker’s bloody condition, asked her what happened. Parker claimed that she’d given birth on the side of the road and was heading to a hospital because the baby girl wasn’t breathing. Parker and the baby were then taken by ambulance to McCurtain Memorial Hospital in Idabel, Oklahoma, where the staff was immediately suspicious.

Parker refused to be examined by doctors, who were concerned that she might be hemorrhaging. She also didn’t have any Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), a hormone that all pregnant women have until about six weeks after giving birth. Taylor Parker had also stuffed Reagan’s placenta into her pants in a bungled attempt to try to convince staff that she was the one who had given birth… Honestly, WTF? She must have been out of her mind if she really thought that would convince experienced medical professionals.

Sadly, the baby died at the hospital. Even sadder is that Parker apparently thought she could get away with her crime. She had blood all over her hands and clothes, but it was very obvious to medical staff that she hadn’t given birth. And there she was at a hospital, thinking she would be able to refuse a thorough medical examination by the staff without arousing suspicion. Parker was later arrested when her victim’s body was discovered.

I read that Parker had faked the pregnancy to keep her boyfriend interested. In the video I watched about this case, there’s a picture of Taylor Parker all made up, seemingly pregnant, with a serene look on her face and her boyfriend’s arms around her stomach. I don’t have any experience with pregnancy myself, but it seems like it would be hard to create a very realistic looking womb that people could touch and not be suspicious. Moreover, I wonder about the people in her life, some of whom must have been around when she had a hysterectomy. I wonder why none of them called her out for her duplicity.

In 2022, Taylor Parker was tried in Texas for the capital murder of Reagan Simmons-Hancock. She was also tried for the non capital murder of the baby, whom Simmons-Hancock had named Braxlynn Sage. Not surprisingly, she was sentenced to death. While I am generally no fan of the death penalty and would vote against it myself, I am not surprised that Parker was sentenced to death. This was an incredibly gruesome crime. I can’t even fathom the deep levels of desperation and depravity that led Taylor Parker to do this to another human being. Hearing about this case made me feel absolutely heartbroken for the victims and the family left behind.

Is Taylor Parker a sociopath? I don’t know. Her crime is almost indescribably horrific, and it’s hard to explain why someone would show such callous disregard for another human. I think I would have to know a lot more about this case before I could conclude that Taylor Parker is a sociopath. Based on her hospital video, I would definitely conclude that she has some pretty severe mental illness and delusional thinking going on.

I did find the video of the cop’s interview with Taylor interesting, as he appeared to be someone who was very good at putting people at ease. He was rather gentle in his approach to Parker and he maintained an impressive poker face, as he confronted her about what had really happened. I heard him tell her it didn’t mean she was a terrible person, as he expressed empathy to her. Of course, that may have all been an act. It probably was, as being very aggressive and honest with his feelings about the crime would just make Taylor clam up. When you are about to be arrested for capital murder, you may be looking for a friendly face. The detective who interviewed Taylor gave her what she sought and gently cajoled her into giving up some of the truth of what she did.

I read more of the details of this case, which indicated just how completely savage and barbaric Parker’s crime was. It makes me feel terrible for the victims… which includes Reagan’s family, friends, and loved ones. I don’t blame people for thinking she deserves the death penalty. Personally, I just oppose it in most cases, although I know a lot of people disagree with me and may either want to confront me on this, or try to change my mind. There was a time when I was in favor of capital punishment, but for many reasons that I’ve already written about in other posts, I’m just not anymore.

I just think that while it’s understandable that many people think some really horrible crimes are worthy of the death penalty, it should be reserved for the rare situations in which a person has killed many people and will certainly kill again. I think it should be for public safety as whole– meaning the condemned person is a danger to everyone. I’m not sure Taylor Parker fits that description. She’s not like– say– Timothy McVeigh, Ted Bundy, or John Allen Muhammad (the Beltway Sniper). But, of course, I think Taylor Parker should stay locked up for the rest of her life.

And… while the cop interview was very interesting to watch (aside from his mistaking the womb for a stomach), I am kind of sorry I stumbled across the above video. It’s just such a tragic story on so many levels. So many young lives ended and/or ruined.

Anyway… that about does it for today’s post. Bill is coming home tonight. I look forward to seeing him.

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karma, lessons learned, musings, narcissists

When “obsessed fans” are also obsessed with their own privacy…

Wednesday has arrived, and my nose has finally stopped acting like a faucet. So far– knock on wood– the skin under my nose isn’t completely destroyed. I’m a bit congested and tired. I slept for most of the afternoon yesterday, and then through the night, with one potty break. I ordered some tissues and ointment from Amazon, even though I live within walking distance of both a pharmacy and a grocery store. I threw in some mini Reese’s Cups to boost my morale, although maybe I should shop for a new Apple Watch. 😉

I am experienced enough with life to know that I should hold off on being too optimistic. Maybe this will turn out to be a brief cold, though. I hope it will. The weather is positively glorious in Germany this time of year. Very soon, it will turn to shit for months on end. I would like to enjoy the last days of summer 2023.

Last night, just to pass the time, I went Googling and soon ended up on LinkedIn. I haven’t used LinkedIn in years, and actually thought I’d deleted my account. But no, I do still exist on that site, albeit with a very naked profile using my maiden name. I went on the site because I was curious about someone I met only once in person, but who, along with his late wife, has had a profound effect on me since we moved to Germany. I don’t think I’ve ever written about him, mainly because I only met him the one time. I wasn’t all that impressed by him on that day in late August 2014. He’s former tenant’s husband, a guy who gave Bill a fake name and basically lied to our faces about how “wonderful” the landlords were.

I found him on LinkedIn last night, and for the first time since 2014, saw his face in a photo. He’s leaving the Army and looking for work. I would imagine retiring is now a necessity, given that he has a couple of kids to raise on his own. The specialized work he did required a lot of dangerous, classified travel to exotic lands. I took a look at his profile and passed it on to Bill, who basically deciphered it for me. Some of the words he was using were code for certain activities in the military… things that civilians wouldn’t necessarily understand at first glance, but Army folks know very well.

I didn’t spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, in spite of my curiosity. Seeing that guy’s profile just made me feel icky. I do wonder, though… I think it’s only natural.

Ever since I found out that former tenant died by her own hand last year, I’ve been left with all kinds of questions. I’m sure a lot of people might think that’s weird, or I’m just being nosy. I guess that’s a fair enough assessment. On the other hand, since she left me with this weird legacy, I figured I’m owed a little wonder. Thanks to her, I went through some pretty significant psychological trauma. Yet, I barely knew her. She knew– or thought she knew— a lot more about me than I did about her.

The only reason I even know about former tenant’s death, or have any questions about her whatsoever, is because for the four years we lived in our ex landlady’s house, she was monitoring my blogs. She had led me to believe she liked my travel blog, but she’d also found her way to my main blog, and she regularly took issue on the rare occasions that I wrote anything about ex landlady or the absolute psychological shitshow our time in that house eventually became. Former tenant would leave me blog comments, then delete them. Later, she unabashedly wrote that ex landlady’s daughter was also reading my blogs, as she chastised me for my content. In her last missive to me, she insinuated that I was “unhinged”. And yet, here I am still among the living, with no young children mourning my absence in their lives.

She shamed me over some fiction I’d written, but not yet had the chance to develop. She thought I was going to “trash” the family… who, frankly, totally would have deserved it. But, for the record, that wasn’t my plan at all. It was a fiction piece— yes, based on people I know, but most of the people who read this blog don’t even know me online, let alone off. And the story itself was a complete and obvious fabrication. Aside from that, she presumed I was writing about the ex landlady’s daughter; a woman I have never met in person, and whose first name I never even knew, until former tenant mentioned it in her final message. Ex landlady had never deigned to introduce me to her daughters. I guess she didn’t want me influencing them. 😉

Just because I’ve written snarky stories in the past, that doesn’t mean I ALWAYS write snarky stories. Moreover, the piece I’d started writing was barely developed. There was no outline to the story. It was maybe a page or two, with no significant plot development. I didn’t even know what the plot was, myself. It also never entered my mind that my actions in late 2018– in my new home– were of any concern whatsoever to a woman I had met one or two times in 2014. If I wasn’t “unhinged” at that point, I sure started to feel that way in February 2019, when it felt like I still had a “bug” in my home.

All the while, former tenant would stress how important her “privacy” was. She used different names for every comment, most of which she later deleted. She apparently assumed a lot about me, and what kind of person I am, simply by reading and judging my blog entries. I think she also wildly underestimated my intelligence, as it soon became obvious.

When former tenant was still living, I didn’t stalk her online. I didn’t so much as look her or her husband up on Google. I tried to be respectful of her privacy, even as she clearly had contempt for mine. I tolerated her complaints and even edited for her at least once or twice. Meanwhile, she must have been assuming I am a complete lunatic. I wouldn’t mind that so much if she’d kept it to just thinking I was crazy. Lots of people who don’t actually know me have thought that about me, over the years. But she was, apparently, sharing her thoughts about me with the landlady, and then later boldly admitting it to me, as she shamed me for having the nerve to be pissed. Somehow, this was all supposed to be my fault.

It all came to a head in February 2019, when I read that final private message from former tenant about how cruel and hurtful I was to her “friends”, and demanding to know what they had done to deserve such “mean” treatment from me. The reality is, they were the ones who were cruel to me. All I ever really wanted was to be left alone. You don’t have to like me, or even respect how I live my life. Just leave me alone. Otherwise, yes… I may be inspired to write about you in an ambiguous way. The difference is, you don’t have to read what I write. It’s a conscious choice– one that is usually brought about by being a nosy busybody with a complete lack of respect for boundaries.

Folks… the reality is, I didn’t actually write that much about ex landlady. I vented a couple of times toward the end of our tenancy, mainly because she was driving me crazy. She kept accusing me of doing things I didn’t do, yelling at me in my own home, and treating me like a five year old. She’d complain about ridiculous things, like a clump of dog hair in a doorway, declaring it “filth”. She’d show up unannounced when I wasn’t prepared to receive her, then look at me with disdain when I wasn’t dressed properly. She was extremely rude to Bill, and when we moved out, she tried to rip off our deposit as she declared us the worst tenants she’d ever had. She refused to negotiate over anything, and then threatened us when we had a lawyer write to her, reminding her of German law. She also falsely accused us of theft. And all of this was happening as we were losing our beloved Zane, one of the beagles who kept me sane when I lived in that house.

Meanwhile, former tenant got a pass, because they were “friends”, even though I know very well that at least some of the stuff ex landlady was complaining about were things that happened when she and her husband lived in the house. Fortunately, I DID have those blogs, which served as a record of events, since ex landlady never did a proper check in or check out between us. I also had photos and a few comments from former tenant that helped us prove our case when we later successfully sued ex landlady. So, we were vindicated in the end, although it still left me fuming at the violation and the gall they all had. It could have so easily gone the other way, with us stuck with the bill for upgrading ex landlady’s rental house and looking guilty.

Bill and I have had a few less than stellar renting experiences, but we have NEVER been treated with the level of disrespect and unfairness as we were when we left our last house. And never before did I have someone affiliated with a landlord or landlady monitoring and reporting on my blogs. Especially not someone who simultaneously demanded privacy for herself.

I’m pretty sure former tenant had people in her family monitoring my blogs, too. I could tell by hits I was getting from certain parts of the country, which stopped when the case was settled. I imagine she told her family and friends that I was some sort of mad blogger, trying to ruin people’s lives. That’s not true at all. I just enjoy writing, and I write about things that affect me. It’s sort of my vocation. She made me out to be some kind of crazy person, when all we were doing is asserting our rights to be treated fairly under German law. I’m sure to those people, Bill and I are just crooks who ripped off a kindly elderly couple in Germany. I guess it doesn’t really matter, since I’ll probably never meet those people, anyway. It still smarts a bit, though… because former tenant accused ME of spreading lies, when the opposite was true.

I tried really hard to block former tenant from my mind, but it was hard. The lawsuit took about 18 months to settle, mainly due to COVID. By then, it was around August 2021, months after we reached an agreement– our lawyer had to send former landlady another letter demanding payment, because after she agreed to settle, she never bothered to pay. Hopefully, the lawyer charged her for that letter, too. Former landlady finally sent the money to the lawyer, who then forwarded it to us. Pure contempt, straight to the end!

Once all that awful stuff was finally over, I tried to put it behind me, even though it was pretty infuriating and left me feeling violated on many levels. For three years, I had former tenant blocked on Facebook, and never so much as did an online search of her name. But then in late May last year, Bill told me something that made me curious. Since former tenant had worked for the same company Bill did, he noticed when she was no longer on the roster of employees. He also didn’t see her working for the government.

I decided to search her name on Google, just to see where she was. That’s when I found several detailed obituaries for her in at least two states, as well as a couple of memorial services on YouTube. She’d committed suicide several months earlier. So much for her privacy. She left behind her husband and two sons, as well as a host of family and friends who obviously loved and missed her, and grieved her decision to end her own life.

Here I am, years later, still ruminating on this. I think it’s because it’s September, and that was the month we moved into that house. I remember thinking from the get go that we may be in for a difficult time, but I was so glad to be back in Germany and settled somewhere. The summer of 2014 had been absolutely terrible for us. So I was just glad to be in a home, even if the former landlady had seemed obsessed with monitoring us and was very untrusting. Never did I ever conceive of being in the situation we found ourselves in a few years later.

As a person who likes to read and write stories, maybe some people can understand why this situation is still in my head. It reminds me of a Lifetime movie. All we wanted was a place to live. We ended up with a situation that I could probably turn into a made for TV movie screenplay, if I was so inclined… and maybe if it was the 90s, and people still watched such things on TV.

Sigh… well, at least it’s Wednesday, which means it’s a light chore day. Maybe I’ll find another diversion. I started reading a new book, which promises to be interesting and fun to review. And there’s always trashy TV. That might cause me less trouble than writing blog posts. 😉

Anyway… as my literature loving husband, Bill, likes to say, “Murder will out…” Or, maybe in this case, “Self-murder will out.”

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