Rasmenia, Author at Rasmenian Detritus – Page 7 of 42

Girl Drink Drunk

September 24, 2014November 23, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

Everyone needs some kind of a refuge. A place away from home where they can go periodically to slow down, unplug and recharge their serenity levels. When I lived in Colorado, my refuge was probably the same as every other Colorado resident - some place at a higher elevation, up in the mountains, on a trail, near a lake or a river.These days, my refuge is much different. When I came to meet Olivier in France in 2005, it was my second trip to France, but was the first time I'd ever seen any of the country outside of Paris, which is the best part.I spent the first week of my trip at Olivier's apartment in Montmartre, (which a year later, would morph into our apartment) and the second week, we hit the road. We stopped in places like Blois and Dijon. We walked through castles and ate in restaurants. We stopped among the volcanic landscape of Auvergne to meet...

Stories, Meat Sacks and Pagliacci Suspenders

August 25, 2014October 5, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

“What's wrong with death sir? What are we so mortally afraid of? Why can't we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity, and decency, and God forbid, maybe even humor. Death is not the enemy gentlemen. If we're going to fight a disease, let's fight one of the most terrible diseases of all, indifference.” -Patch Adams * * *I used to have a really cool pair of suspenders. I wore them whenever I had the chance and along with my Wonder Woman Underoos, they were probably one of the most special items in my wardrobe. Maybe, if you were a kid in the late 70s, you had the same pair.If you did have a pair, or even if you didn't, you probably knew why some of those weird kids were into rocking the rainbow suspenders.Because Mork rocked the rainbow suspenders. And Mork was awesome.In 1982, the year that Mork and Mindy came to an end, my mother and...

The Trouble With Living Things

July 28, 2014July 28, 2014 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

I was never allowed to have a cat. Except for one brief moment, when I was five years old. My mother and her boyfriend rented a farm house where we did not farm anything. We had a couple of dogs. One was black lab who played with me in the snow and stole my dolls to use for chew toys. I loved the dogs, but I wanted a cat so badly. I begged until Mom finally relented and let me get a kitty.Kittens play non-stop and engage in feisty kitten activities like scratching couches, pouncing at curtains and making sneak attacks at shoe laces. My mom didn't care much for that, so with each scratch or pounce, I watched in helpless horror as she shot my kitten with a pellet gun, shooting hard plastic pellets at my pet. It didn't last long. One day, the kitten was gone. I was told it had gone to live in the barn that...

People Are Full of Shit, So Don’t Let Facebook Bring You Down

May 21, 2014November 24, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

I keep seeing these articles all over the place. You've probably seen them, too. Using various combinations of words and pictures, they all say the same thing: Facebook is making people feel sad. Depressed. Unsatisfied. Unhappy and lonely. The list of negative sentiments goes on and on.My knee-jerk reaction to the headline was, "Okay, this is just more whiny, paranoid bullshit about the evils of the internet." Then I decided to actually read the article. It doesn't matter which variation of this article you read - the gist is the same. Facebook makes people feel bad because of our absurd human tendency to measure our failure by our perception of other people's success.But here's the thing: we're comparing ourselves not only to everyone else's highlight reel, but to their bullshit, too. We're often looking at our real selves, our real lives and holding them up against personas that are not real. A social media profile might be a window into...

When it Comes to Marriage, Love Beats Tradition

April 17, 2014June 27, 2015 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

I've been getting invited to more weddings lately. About a year ago, France legalized same-sex marriage. They didn't stop there - gay and lesbian couples now have the right to adopt children, too. That's something I'm profoundly grateful for.Oh, not because I'm gay or want to adopt a child, but because I'm not an asshole.Also, because I like to see my friends happy and endowed with equal rights. I like to see human beings treated as such and to see children who need homes and love being taken in by people who want to give them those things.While I think it's naive to believe that 'All You Need is Love,' I do still like to see love win.'Traditional marriage' isn't real. It's not a thing. It's a phrase that usually represents outdated thinking and the meaning of it gets skewed in whatever way the speaker decides to twist it.Whenever someone tries to throw an argument at me about how traditional...

The Dissociative Disorder of Pen Names

February 28, 2014November 23, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

“I suggest to my students that they write under a pseudonym for a week. That allows young men to write as women, and women as men. It allows them a lot of freedom they don't have ordinarily.” ― Joyce Carol Oates“While I was writing I assumed it would be published under a pseudonym, and that liberated me: what I wrote was exactly what I wanted to read.” ―Nicholson Baker * * * Remember the internet of the 90's, when that robot dude's voice announced, "You've got mail!" each time you logged on? It was around that time that I had to choose my first email address. I wasn't sure what to use, so on a whim, I used my middle name: Rasmenia.This was a name I'd kept to myself as much as I could. Not because there's something wrong with that name, but because I fell victim to the same insecurities of childish mockery and teasing as anyone else. Every time someone...