Frankly, My Dears, I Don't Give a Damn

I’m tempted to begin this semi-op-ed entry with “Dear Diary” - cause I fear that’s the kind of rant this is shaping up to be.

Nevertheless, here goes.

Do you find yourself checking this lil ole blog every morning, wishing and hoping and thinking and praying there might be a new post? Have you missed the bygone days of binging on the bitchiness spewed by yours truly? Do you need your daily dosage Katie Parry complaining?

Well folks, just call me T.I. (Willis) - cause I’m back…with a vengeance.

Friends and foes, lovers and haters - it has been a while. Blame it on my summering self. Or all the excellent books that have kept me so rapt. Or my quasi there-but-not lingering Lyme disease (“I’m tiiiiiiired.”) Or, as my former cubie Melissa aptly observed, my new job for “taking away my funny bone” (but giving me lots and lots and lots of other things to do in return). 


Truth be told, No Dankes’ absence was mainly due to a cataclysmic culmination of cattiness. What really got me going - or stopping, rather - was a bunch of peeps no dankesing what I was writing. Blasphemy!! - that’s my job. That’s the whole point of No Dankes!

And yet...and yet...the complaints kept on coming. In droves.

Yeah, yeah - I know. I sold my soul to the blogroll devil and forfeited all of my don’t you dare talk shit bout me rights.

Who was I to whine about what gets said de moi in cyberspace.

Why should I be allowed to care if perfect strangers be taking me down to the smackdown hotel? I did write a post and toss it out into the network universe, after all.

Alas, instead of standing up and supporting my blog like a fierce little tigress, I whimpered and cowered in a corner. I rejected No Dankes. Every time I had a great idea for a post, I dashed it from my thoughts. I didn’t want to write anything. I didn’t even want to think about writing anything. My poor little bloggie became an enemy of my mental state. I hated it for making me feel bad. I wanted nothing to do with it.

Then people started asking why the hell I hadn’t blogged in so long. Then more people, and more people - and suddenly I realized (cue angels and harps and light, lots of light) - that it doesn’t matter what other people think. No Dankes is mine, all mine, and I can do with it whatever I please. (By the way, thank you thank you for reading and for your support!! I appreciate it more than you know!)

Still though - it makes me a little mad. I’m sorry people, but really - it’s not like I said your baby was ugly (even though I probably thought it). I didn’t tell you change your outfit cause you look like a stuffed sausage in that not-very-natural casing. I don’t make fun of homeless people who smell like sewers and look like cavemen.

I have a conscience, fools.

Hey all ya’lls, have you ever heard of a little something called the 5th Amendment? I know, I know - it was a long time ago. Junior year in high school methinks. So I don’t blame you for forgetting. I’ve already forgotten what I ate for din last night.

Allow me to enlighten you (pretend you’re the Congress and I’m the press):

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

So I’m sorry - I no longer deem it necessary to (somewhat) sugarcoat and sweeten things up. I shall not cater to what yous may think and want me to say. I refuse to not write something or say something or do something just because it might piss someone off.

I’m going to be myself.

By the same token I implore you: be yourself. If you disagree, let it be known (Miss Shannon Solheim has done an excellent job of being quite contrary, bravo!)

Because here’s another little something something that doesn’t need an amendment to light upon: you’re entitled to your opinions...and so am I.

So to those of you who dislike what I write, I say (in the oh-so-wise, oh-so-wordly words of the Schopp boys): Go pack a lunch.