New phone, who the fuck is this?

Funny how people reappear in the most obnoxious ways

I was blessed with an overwhelm of choice this week writing this missive, my friends.

When I first started Dear Fuckers I really thought I might struggle from week to week to find something to write about. Oh, how fucking wrong I was.

The real problem is choosing which thing to expend words and energy on. This week, I’m aiming my kiss-my-ample-ass grenades at the people who only seem to ever show up when they want something.

See, many years back, I knew a guy. At the time, my stupid little blog was somehow popular and I had a sort of big-fish-small-social-media-pond thing going on. I didn’t get any fucking trophies for that, but a few people knew who I was, and occasionally they asked me for advice which I always readily gave (with the appropriate caveats that I didn’t have any idea what the fuck I was doing either, but hey).

I talked to this guy a lot. Cheered him on and shared his work and encouraged him while he too managed to make a name for himself writing. He was a smart guy with good ideas and just needed a nudge to put his brain to paper and trust the process, and when he did that…ta daaaaa. People read his stuff.

Then, something strange happened when he became Mister Popularity. He didn’t have the time of day for me anymore, even going so far as to walk right the fuck past me at a couple of industry events (the ones at which he espoused things like the power of “community”) as if he had no idea who I was. I definitely wasn’t cool enough to hang out with him anymore, it seemed.

Funny how “communities” become cliques and conclaves of boys club backslapping when you have dickheads keeping the gates. Anyway.

A few years later, the bottom fucking fell out of my life and career. My business collapsed, my grifter of a business partner left me holding the fucking bag (and the mid-five-figure debt), I lost pretty much every dime I’d ever fucking made in my life, and I was on the brink of emotional and financial disaster.

This guy? Still a fucking ghost. And while I was down? Managed to tell a few mutuals in the midst of the mess about how much of a fucking disappointment I was in the industry. (Y’all.)

Okay, fine. Write that shit off. The one thing about crisis points in your life? You really realize who your friends are, who has a shred of empathy and compassion in the midst of struggle…and who does not. So, I put him in the mental and emotional dumpster and moved the fuck on.

Last year, after many more years, he magically resurfaced once to leave a fucking mansplaining, condescending diatribe on a popular post of mine and then had the audacity to thank me for the platform upon which to leave his pomposity.

Honestly. These guys. Just fucking waiting in the wings until someone gets a bit of recognition or praise and they absolutely cannot let that stand without adding the two fucking cents of theirs that not a soul fucking asked for.

Then. This week?

Shows up in my messages to tell me that if I wanted (lucky me! hooray!), he’d be happy to be an interview subject for my book on imposter syndrome…because he’s never experienced it. That’s right, kids. Mr. Self Important has never struggled with self-doubt, always felt like he belonged at the table and in the rooms he was in, and was going to bless us with his wisdom just in case we wanted a taste of his charmed fucking life so I could explain to my readers what it’s like to be an arrogant, privileged and absolutely oblivious fuckstick.

I think I’ll pass, homefry.

Friends, beware of the people who will watch you burn—or who may happily fan the flames—and then come trudge through the fucking smoldering ash pile to find you again when you’re stronger, fiercer, and smarter because of your crucible and pretend you’ve been fucking besties all along or that you’ve simply been waiting with bated breath for them to grace you with their presence once again just in case you might be able to do them a fucking favor sometime soon.

Nope. No. No way. They didn’t fucking deserve you then, and they sure as fuck don’t deserve you now.

Don’t just burn that bridge, rage monsters. Take those last hot coals of the firebrand that made you who you are today and fucking incinerate it.

I’ll hand you the match.

Fuck Yes Friday

I did a thing this week that I’ve been putting off for about 30 years. I’m finally getting a hearing aid.

Many (most?) people don’t know I have hearing impairment because I work really really really hard to downplay it. I’m about 85% deaf in my right ear and have been since my teenage years, and for most of my life I’ve learned to compensate for that. My left ear works fine so in most circumstances I’m all good. But in crowded/noisy spaces like restaurants, in open spaces, when there’s lots of background noise…well. I struggle.

I’m tired of struggling. I’m tired of feeling left out of conversations at dinner. I’m tired of asking people to repeat themselves and missing the subtle details in the music that is such a massive part of my life. So I saw my lifetime ENT today and started the process to get a hearing aid for that ear so I can actually fucking hear properly again. That sucker might even have Bluetooth because fuck yes technology!

(Although can we toss out a collective “fuck you” to the insurance companies for calling this an ‘elective’ device so that I have to pay the several-thousand-dollar pricetag out of pocket? Good to know hearing is fucking optional.)

This FYF is about me this week because I’m really hoping that somewhere in here, it’s actually also about you.

Is there a thing you haven’t been doing because—like me—your dumb vanity has held you back? Is there something you’re not doing for yourself because you’ve spent most of your time doing for other people, whether its your kids or your spouse or your job? Have you been letting small (or big) priorities for yourself keep slipping because you don’t think you deserve it or somehow think something else is more important?

I hope you take stock this week and invest in yourself. Because if we can’t put ourselves at the top of the fucking priority list once in a while, we can’t be our fullest most fabulous fucking selves for others, either. Self care ain’t just for bubble baths and pilates classes, bitches.

Until next week, when I’ll have to sift again through the pile of rage-inducing fucktangular behavior from others in order to choose a topic for the newsletter.

Something tells me it won’t be a problem.

With love and angst,

Amber