The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: bully

  • Actually, No.

    Here’s the thing. (Yes, there’s always a thing.) I was raised to be a good girl. My default position is to respect authority. Be cooperative. Don’t make waves. Accommodate others. And above all, always, always be polite. Well, you know what? Fuck that. All those values are great if everyone is playing by the golden…

  • Sanctuary Cities

    I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about sanctuary cities. He happens to fall on the opposite end of the political bell curve, so debates with him can be interesting. And yet we never get hostile with each other, and still manage to be respectful. Why is that such a dying…

  • Bitterness

    The other night we had a wind storm. At 3 a.m. it ripped open my screen door. Bang! This, naturally, caused my dog to go ballistic, and his hysterical tirade prevented me from going back to sleep right away. It also woke me up right in the middle of REM sleep, which caused me to…

  • Pick on Someone Your Own Size

    Of all the collateral damage caused by our Grand Poobah, I have to say I feel the most sorry for Barron Trump. If he’s not being criticized about being sleepy at 3 in the morning, he’s being called “Poor Little Rich Boy” or being accused of mental health issues. Childhood is hard enough without being…

  • Age Hath Its Privileges

    Many years ago, I was standing with my niece and nephew in their Missouri kitchen. As we talked, I got the orange juice out of the refrigerator to pour myself a glass. Just then my brother-in-law walked in and snapped, “Who left the refrigerator door open???” The tension level in that room was palpable. My…

  • Why Is This One Different?

    I have been hearing a lot of people saying that those of us who didn’t vote for Trump need to “get over it,” “quit our whining,” and “move on”. It’s not the first time my person didn’t win. I mean, I’ve lived through Reagan and both of the Bushes, after all. And I did, in…

  • Verbal Manipulation

    I was speaking to someone in a position of authority the other day, and he said, “Wouldn’t you agree that…” and then he went on to push his poorly thought out agenda for policy change. So I responded, “Actually, no, I don’t agree. And here’s why.” He wasn’t expecting that. You could see it in…

  • Bullies

    There’s nothing I hate more on this earth than a bully. And I happen to interact with one regularly. Her aggression really intimidated me at first. But over time when she realized I wasn’t going to budge about certain things, she then had to get increasingly nit-picky until now the things that she blows up…

  • “We Accept the Love We Think We Deserve”

    That is one of the main messages in the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and it really hits home for me. My whole life, I’ve had a problem with boundaries, or, actually, a lack of boundaries. In essence, I’ve allowed people to step all over me because I was obsessed with being a…