Why you should absolutely never watch Lost with me

I wrote earlier that Gideon asked to watch Lost with me and I let him. I did not write about the results. Currently, we're on season six and have this conversation every episode:

Me: Hey, pay attention! Get off your phone! Something important happened!
Gideon: I can pay attention to two things at once.
Me: This is Lost though!

(Gideon likes to browse various media while watching TV or listening to music, which is almost always cool with me except for when we're watching the best television show of all time.)

Last night, the conversation took a turn. Browsing his mobile device, Gideon seemed to be paying little attention to the show. We were watching a scene where one of Widmore's obnoxious workers (not the one who looks like Tina Fey) was talking about science experiments, which rabbits were used for. At the end of the scene, the man looked at the rabbit and said, "You're next, buddy."

Me: Oh? You're paying attention? Then who is that guy talking to?
Gideon: A person.
Me: NO IT WAS A RABBIT.

I believe he's regretting his decision to watch this now.

Cohabitation probs: the not-so-great awakening

I've primarily used "cohabitation probs" to talk about how Gideon and I occasionally clash, like the time I farted so loud in my sleep he dropped his phone and jumped in fear. But I haven't really talked about the problems we have with the kid, or BJ the Cat. 

BJ is wonderful. He's cute and furry and he always wants hugs. He's really the perfect feline companion; if I lived alone, I'd probably dress him up in fancy suits and take him out to dinner with me. (In other news, it will forever be a mystery why I'm not single.) 

Of course, he does have his problems. He can be annoying in many ways, but since you all get such a kick out of me talking about farts, I'll share something that happened to me last night.

See, BJ sleeps on my pillow next to my face. (And you can already see where this is heading.) Usually I curl up to him and he puts his paws around my neck and we snore in unison. While I mentioned before that I sometimes blame farts on him, I didn't say that he does fart occasionally. And when I say "fart," I mean that he blows the roof off of our apartment. It's terrible. It's like living with a skunk one day out of the month.

He has never interrupted my slumber by flatulating on my face though. That is, until last night. 

Last night, I woke up at 3 a.m. thinking someone had tossed a stink bomb through our window. Quickly realizing the smell was coming from my cat, I shoved him off delicately enough to avoid waking Gideon. I should note that BJ was not sleeping and stared at me as if to say, "What you gon' do bout it?"

He was not fazed after I pushed him off the bed. He even came back five minutes later and tried to sleep next to me, thinking I'd let him back in my good graces after waking up due to his flatulence. He acted like, because he is so cute and cuddly, I'd just forget that he had expelled gas directly into my left nostril less than 10 minutes earlier.

And of course he was right. He's too cute to reject.

I am going to be such a pushover when I have children.

A note on domestic abuse

Full disclosure: What I am about to write in this post scares me so much I just got sick to my stomach thinking about it. But I know it's important and I know I need to talk about it now. So here goes.

On this blog, I've mentioned in passing that I was in an abusive relationship when I was in college. Except I didn't use the words "abusive relationship," because some part of me is still terrified of my ex-boyfriend. And, no, not because he hit me. He didn't hit me actually, if I'm being honest. He pushed me down. He tackled me. Once, he shoved me into an empty bath tub. 

He didn't hit me, though. 

I've blocked him from all social media but I have no way to block him from seeing my blog. I mean, I could reset the privacy settings on here and cut out most of my readership. But then I'd be letting him control me and my freedom of expression, and I promised myself last year that I'd never let him have control over my life ever again. I meant it. 

When I was with him, I was an emotional wreck. He told all my friends I was crazy and then told me they said I was crazy. He defended his actions every time he'd call me a bitch or stupid or a piece of shit. He accused me of constantly tearing him down. He said I controlled him. 

I let him do that. I let him do all those things, but I will not let him control me anymore. 

My name is Samantha Jones, and I'm a survivor of domestic abuse. I'm posting this because I need to share my story. I need other survivors - or those still in abusive situations - to know that there's a light at the end of that tunnel, however cliche that sounds. Which brings me to an announcement.

After talking to a few other survivors, I've thought about writing a book on the topic. I want to show that it doesn't matter if you had a loving mother and father, a single mom or no parents at all. I want to show that you are just as predisposed for an abusive relationship if you had 100 sexual partners or just one. 

I want you to know that, if you made one or two different choices, you could have ended up in an abusive relationship, too. If you're reading this and you've got a story to tell, please email me at samoa108@gmail.com. I want to hear your story, even if you aren't ready to share it with the world yet. 

And, as always, know that brighter days always lie ahead. Know that there are people who still care. Know that, even if we have never talked or I am a stranger to you, I am one of those people. 

Let's talk about anxiety!

Let's get this out of the way: anxiety sucks. It's terrible. It's like that friend you don't really like who can't get the hint and keeps coming around even though you use antagonistic body language when you see him or her and constantly repeat, "Get away from me. Leave now. Stop talking to me." 

I've struggled with anxiety for as long as I can remember. When I was a child, I often couldn't sleep because of it. I would sit in bed thinking about school and my family and my place in the world and what would happen to me after I die and what would happen if I died right then and there in bed. No one would find me until morning, I thought, so I'd have plenty of time to figure out where to go from there.

When I got older, my mom habitually asked me why I was so tired. "You're too young to be this tired," she'd say. I didn't know how to respond, but I knew it had to have something to do with little sleep. It's not like I was staying up all night playing video games; I was wide awake in bed thinking about the future and uncertainty, and when I was asleep I would wake up every two hours just in case I needed to think some more.

At the time, I didn't realize that was why I was so tired. I didn't understand the concept of anxiety and probably would have vehemently declared there was nothing wrong with me even if I did. When I got to college, I truly began to understand how awful anxiety is. 

As I've said before, college wasn't great for me. If I were Elvis, college would definitely be my fat and drunk later years. I'm really lucky it didn't climax with me dying on the toilet.

Gideon and I talked about anxiety during college this weekend, and he told me that he felt a looming sense of dread because the deadlines were far enough away that he didn't have to start working immediately but close enough to keep him up at night. Of course, I had anxiety during college because I lacked a social circle and I was in an unhealthy relationship. I also had several jobs, worked for the school paper and had a full-time course load.

I stopped feeling so much anxiety when I started taking anxiety medication; my doctor prescribed it as "take as you need" and I certainly did need. To this day, when I feel really stressed out I'll take an anxiety pill at night so I can sleep without thinking too much. I never knew what it meant to have a clear head until I took this medication. 

If you're suffering from anxiety and feel like you can handle it on your own, please stop being so dumb about it. Medication exists for a reason. Therapy exists for a reason. I spent years denying there was anything wrong with me, so I spent years operating on four hours of sleep per night. I'm really proud of myself for letting go of that pride and admitting that there was something wrong with me.

After all, it doesn't make you stupid to admit that you have problems. It makes you stupid to pretend you don't. 

(I feel the need to note that my anxiety is far from gone. I woke up this morning feeling like an elephant was sitting on my chest. But the important thing is to get up and keep going and to take care of yourself at the end of the day. And you can bet your rump that I'm going to take an anxiety pill and go to sleep before 9 p.m. tonight.)

A Holocaust survivor called me fat

I was 14 at the time and traveling through Europe with a group of kids my age. I had body issues then, just as I've always had body issues, but tried to hide that by cracking jokes about how I accidentally knocked multiple vases off the same table because of my large caboose.

"Those vases didn't even see it coming!" I'd joke, feeling slightly less fat with every laugh I got.

We went to hear a Holocaust survivor speak and were not told ahead of time there would be audience participation. Had I known, I would've worn my sparkly tube top. While discussing the intake procedure at the concentration camps, the survivor asked that I stand on stage. He then asked the same of a boy my age who was much scrawnier and shorter than I was.

"If these two came into the camp, he would be shot immediately because he is so tiny," the man said. "But this girl..."

He paused, and I realized that this was definitely not going to go my way.

"This girl is...well-built. They would keep her to do all the physical labor."

Not knowing how to respond to being called fat in front of 250 people, I raised my arm to my chest and soundlessly said, "Yes!" As we were walking off stage, I nudged the boy I had been standing next to and whispered, "Did you hear that? If this were the Holocaust, you'd be so dead right now."

While I didn't think the man was going pull a coin from behind my ear when I went on stage, I certainly didn't expect to step into the magic show of hell. But somehow, I wasn't that upset about it. There was something tragically comical in being called fat by a Holocaust survivor. (I should note that I don't find the Holocaust funny at all. It's the situation - being called on stage during a Holocaust survivor's speech and told that the Nazis would spare me initially because I eat too much pizza - that is so mind-boggling it becomes really funny.)

What's more, I got to have really exciting conversations in my high school history class during our Holocaust section because of this interaction.

The teacher asked all the kids in the class to raise their hands and then had every other kid put his or her hand down. I had my hand up at the end of this. She said the kids with their hands up would be killed immediately upon entering a concentration camp, so I set her straight.

"Actually, a Holocaust survivor told me that I'd be kept to do all the heavy labor because I'm so fat," I said. No one knew how to respond, so one of my classmates chimed in that I'd likely be killed at some point because, you know, concentration camp.

There's no real point to this story. I wish I could weave in a theme of body acceptance or something like that, but really it's just a fun anecdote I haven't shared publicly yet. Besides, I'm pretty comfortable with my body now. Comfortable enough, it appears, to tell everyone about the time a Holocaust survivor called me fat.

Why I love my job, part one

Work consumes me.

I've said before that I don't like talking about my job on social media - including this blog - because I love it and don't want to get fired for saying something stupid. But I think I have a fairly good grasp of what I should and shouldn't say, so I'm going to try to waive that rule a little. I'm realizing more and more every day that my work is a major part of my life and to exclude it from this blog would be a huge disservice to everyone who reads it.

So, for those of you who are too lazy to read the "about me" column on this page, I'm a reporter with a newspaper in Northwest Arkansas. I graduated from college last May and didn't think I'd find someone to pay me to write. Some of that was because I am perpetually self-deprecating but it was mostly due to my struggle with finding employment in the months after graduation. 

I heard about the job - and was practically hired on the spot - because of my college mentor. He taught journalism classes at my college and later worked as my boss at the school's public relations office. I struggled with a lot of personal issues in college and struggled even more trying to hide them, which caused many of my friends and professors to lose trust in me. 

My mentor never did. He gave me a second chance when he saw me flailing, and I will forever be grateful to him for that. Anyway, he must have told my boss something impressive because I was hired less than 10 minutes after I stepped in the newspaper office and started planning a move from Fayetteville to Eureka Springs. The whole process shocked me; on the car ride to Eureka, I rehearsed my pitch in my head until I wasn't sure what job I was even applying for. 

Driving home from the interview, I felt overcome with peace. I knew I had found my calling, as terribly cliche as that sounds. Being a journalist is great because you get to tell stories. I believe everyone has a story to tell and I feel so, so honored that I get to represent so many different perspectives through my writing. I make people feel important. That's the true point of journalism, I think, despite what Nancy Grace would say.

I actually know very little of her political leanings save for the fact that she scares me.

I knew I had this passion for journalism when I started working, but I didn't realize at the time how much the job would change me. Since I was a kid, I've been kind of reactionary despite claiming that I'm moderate in every sense of the word. I really had a mindset that what I believed was true and I didn't waver from that. I was spoiled by my family and often felt entitled to things I didn't earn or deserve, which really made me pleasant to be around.

The first article I wrote was a feature obituary about a young kindergarten teacher who passed away unexpectedly. Suddenly, I felt incredibly grateful to be alive. I started working on some feature articles about local charitable organizations, including Loaves & Fishes Food Bank and Carroll County Circle of Life. The former helps low-income families with groceries, with the latter teaching teen mothers how to nurture and provide for their children. 

When I interviewed the woman in charge of Loaves & Fishes' Backpack Project - a project that provides backpacks of food for kids who qualify for subsidized breakfasts and lunches at public schools - she told me that some children go entire weekends without eating a full meal. I realized that I never, ever wanted for food. In fact, I have a slew of body issues and have sometimes stopped eating for days to lose weight.

I really thought I had it bad being overweight and feeling unattractive, but that's just not true. How could I have been so selfish to think my body issues were the worst thing in the world when I have a pantry full of food and there are families out there who have to live on less than minimum wage? While my problems are very real, I know now how lucky I am to have those problems.

This job is changing me. It's making me think of other perspectives - truly doing this and not just saying I am - before I make up my mind about something. 

And for that, I might be the luckiest person in the world. 

Cohabitation Probs: Bodily Dysfunctions

Though I started the segment "Cohabitation Probs" last year, I've had very little to write about. Gideon and I usually get along really well. We're both clean and we both tolerate each other's pop culture interests. The only wedge between us is the cat when we're trying to cuddle and he forces himself in the middle for maximum attention. 

But this morning, Gideon told me something so heinous that I realized why so many people find it difficult to live together. Last night, he said, I fell asleep with the cat on my chest while watching a movie. He was scrolling through Reddit on his phone when it happened.

I farted. Loud. So loud, in fact, that BJ woke up and ran away in terror. Gideon said the fart caused him to drop his phone in fear and elicited whimpering noises from sleeping-me. He laughed when he told me this and continued to laugh when I told him I was blogging about it.

So there you have it, folks. My advice? Never think you've achieved domestic bliss. Because the moment you do, your body will betray you in ways you never imagined. 

(On a side note, before Gideon and I started dating and continued to claim we were just friends, I was sleeping at his place when I farted so loud it woke me up. Terrified he'd heard it, I started fake snoring really loudly to convince everyone in a 100 mile radius that I was asleep and, in turn, not responsible for my bodily functions.) 

Travel and stuff

Gideon and I have booked a hotel for our first weekend away as a couple. Of course, it's not our first time to travel together. 

We saw the Old 97's in Dallas two New Year's Eves ago, but that didn't happen on a weekend and we weren't officially dating so it definitely doesn't count. And last New Year's Eve, we were in Gulf Shores, Ala. with his family, but we weren't actively planning that trip so it doesn't count either. Anyway, we're going to Hot Springs.

I can't remember when I first started traveling to Hot Springs, though I must have been pretty young. My mother has always been fond of the town, so she took me there for mini-vacations quite often. We went there on my 21st birthday and ate at this amazing place called Fusion where I had a delicious steak and too much wine and spent the walk back to the hotel hoping I could hide my drunkenness from my mother until I passed out in bed. 

She totally knew, but it's the thought that counts. 

This trip would be special because it's the first time Gideon and I have traveled as a couple, but we scheduled it from April 24 to 26 to compound as much emotion as possible into two days. April 26, you see, is the day we met in 2010. It'll be our five-year friend-iversary, with us having dated roughly a year and a half of that time. I've convinced him that we have to go to Fusion, though I could not use the steak as means of coercion due to some disability he calls vegetarianism. 

Instead, I showed him photos of the baked brie appetizer. That seemed to do the trick. 

When we first started looking into local places to visit, I searched "fun things to do in Arkansas" on Google. And every single response was some attraction in Eureka Springs, where we live. One of the recommended accommodations was the Treehouse Resort, a group of treehouse suites literally two minutes down the road from our apartment.

I have always wanted to stay at that resort and, at exactly $0, the travel costs would be slightly lower than that of the trip we've planned. But I want to go on a mini-vacation and not a walk. And yes, I am aware of the irony of us escaping the tourist town we live in to feel like tourists somewhere else.

I'm going to end this post here. I've been trying to write it for far too long and maybe it's the snow we're supposed to get tonight and maybe it's the exhaustion from sharing half the bed with Gideon so the cat can have the other half, but I am not very good at writing today. 

Unimportant news that totally doesn't require a congratulations (she says sheepishly)

I received an email last week informing me that I have been given a local scholarship to a three-day writing workshop this coming weekend. The workshop will focus on memoirs and, hopefully, allow me to develop some of the ideas I have for the book I've been writing in my head for about 13 years.

I first conceived an idea for the book when I was 10. Deciding that my family is crazy enough to entertain the masses, I wanted to write lots of short essays about family dysfunction. I didn't really grasp the concept at the time and considered "dysfunction" to be a retelling of my mother's hair and how it has never truly left the 80's. (That's not to say that isn't a super fun story to tell.)

It was really more of a humorous book at the time. When my grandfather died when I was 12, I thought I'd throw in some serious content for good measure. If I could make readers laugh and cry, I reasoned, I'd pretty much win every Nobel Prize for the rest of time. I started to write a few essays but abandoned them as I am wont to do.

During high school, I thought I should write something more angsty to appease the same readers who enjoy TLC reality shows and trashy tabloids. Unfortunately, I was a late bloomer in every way and had little to no juicy experiences to write about until college.

I've discussed college before, but for the sake of further damaging my psyche, I'll rehash here. College was terrible. I spent three years with awful friends and an awful boyfriend, and I honestly thought I deserved every bit of it.

Fortunately, I'm at a great place in my life now. So great, in fact, that I can appreciate college for giving me material. At the writing workshop this weekend, I hope to hone in on my college experience. This, I think, will be really important for however this book turns out.

As it is now, I see the book being a collection of humorous essays. That doesn't mean I won't cover serious material, but I think I can elevate it even more by bringing a comedic touch to it. I don't want people to read my account of domestic abuse or suicide or body issues with a heavy heart. I want readers to finish the book feeling hopeful; I experienced some pretty bad shit, but I'm happy and healthy now.

Life gets better if you can wade through all its murkiness. That's what I want to write about, and that's what I hope this workshop will help me articulate better.