Topic of the Day-Gossip

It’s that time again…woo hoo! Time for my interpretation of quotes, both the inconsequential and the truly deep.

The topic of the day is gossip…always MY personal favorite of all things. I have a huge yen for privacy. My business is my quite simply my business. Let me give you a little background. In the house I grew up in, privacy was a HUGE issue. You didn’t discuss family business with anyone—that meant grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, teachers, best friends…no one. What you heard in our house, even if it was about grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, teachers, or best friends, you didn’t discuss it once you stepped outside the front door. In short, you kept shit to yourself. However, I married into a very OPEN family, which has on occasion been a challenge. The only one of my children who is as militantly private as I am is Sara. There’s nothing wrong with being open and sharing and what not, it’s just not me. Therefore, when I find out that Clarke-Douglas business is being bandied about town and learning that occasionally my doings are the topic of the day, it miffs me. Now I know some of you out there are saying “Bitch, you air your dirty laundry in your blogs all the time”. BUT that’s not really dirty laundry. That’s more like a towel you used once to dry your hands laundry, not underwear worn 3 days in a row laundry. And I NEVER use names, just obscure references…it’s kind of like Law & Order, the names have been changed to protect the guilty and any similarities to persons living or dead are purely intentional. So there…

Anyway, getting back to my quotes—they’re mostly about gossip, but gossip is just the voice of violated privacy, right?

1) What you don't see with your eyes, don't witness with your mouth. ~Jewish Proverb Basically, this means if you weren’t in the room giving directions and helpful critiques of the performance, you don’t know for a fact that Dick and Jane were doing the Posturpoedic Polka, even if one of them told you they were. Like Jane would actually do Dick…please, as if!

2) What is told in the ear of a man is often heard 100 miles away. ~Chinese Proverb I don’t know about that, but I do know that it can be heard across town…or down the street…or in the neighbor’s yard

3) No one gossips about other people's secret virtues. ~Bertrand Arthur William Russell, On Education, 1926 Now, I don’t know about that…a virtue is by definition any praiseworthy quality or trait, so if you’re whispering that someone is a devoted secret drinker, or a dedicated home-wrecking whore, or even a thoroughly sincere hypocritical twat, you are indeed talking about SECRET virtues.

4) If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees. ~Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam That means when you’re screaming on the Nextel in the grocery aisle at Walmart or yelling at your man in the middle of a polite get together with friends and 400 strangers, don’t be surprised if it comes back to haunt you a skoosh.

5) When you are in trouble, people who call to sympathize are really looking for the particulars. ~Edgar Watson Howe, Country Town Sayings, 1911 How are you, Sharon? How’s your sister? Still crazy? How’s your Mom? Is her health any better? How’s Katelyn? How are the grandbabies? How are Sara and RJ? Any news about what happened? My standard answers are “fine, fine, no, fine, yep, fine, beautiful, fine, no”—my actual, yet never uttered responses are as follows “like you care, you don’t know her so its not really relevant to you is it, like you’re one to talk, call her and ask her yourself, no she treats her body like a honky tonk but she’s grown, not pregnant, gorgeous beautiful brilliant heathens who I adore to the depth of my soul, I never see them so I’m presuming they’re good, none of your God-damned business you nosy bitch”. This is of course only said in my head in answer to people who don’t know or love me and mine and could give a shit how we are. They just want to hear bad news and woe and crap. Sorry, seek that shit down the road.

6) The easiest way to keep a secret is without help. ~Author Unknown But when you have help keeping your secrets? Good Lord, save me from myself! They’ll either use those secrets to their own advantage or, well...that’s the only reason I can think of. Blackmail, personal gain, shock value or just good ol’ plain entertainment.

7) Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you. ~Spanish Proverb Gossip is like adultery…if she’ll do it with you, she’ll do it to you. It bites the ass, but there you have it. And you know what? Then that person will turn around and tell everyone how it was all you, she never intended to do that, you led her into it, it was an accident, it just happened…hmmm, yep, I’m still talking about gossip, had to check. LOL, funny, I never thought of how closely they corresponded to each other.

8) Gossip needn't be false to be evil - there's a lot of truth that shouldn't be passed around. ~Frank A. Clark Shall we begin? Or should we just take it on faith that you don’t really want to see my warts on the off chance I’ll start pointing out yours?

9) It is one of my sources of happiness never to desire a knowledge of other people's business. ~Dolley Madison I really truly don’t want to know of other peoples misfortunes or smut or mistakes. I don’t want to hear about folks having money troubles, when someone’s girlfriend switches teams, or playing wake and bake in the morning before driving to work. I really truly only want to see people in the light I want to be seen in. I like knowing about babies, or making the honor roll, or a funny story about a slip of the tongue as long as no one was horribly embarrassed to the point of social phobia. That’s what I want to hear…okay, I admit I like to hear about certain people falling and busting their asses in public, but that’s just a newsflash, not gossip. There’s a difference.

10)To find out a girl's faults, praise her to her girlfriends. ~Benjamin Franklin And believe me, no matter how tight you and your bff are, give her half a chance and she will tell your business and talk about you like you never shared a late night bull session discussing whether or not size matters and who has the better flip-flops.

11) It isn't what they say about you, it's what they whisper. ~Errol Flynn Out loud- “She’s a nice person and has such a great smile” then whispered right after “too bad she’s such a slut and the sound of her voice makes my skin want to peel off”. Alrighty then…And why do they whisper? They obviously want to share. Its easier to share with more people if you’re really loud, which is what I aspire to be. Ah, dreams.

12) There are persons who, when they cease to shock us, cease to interest us. ~F.H. Bradley, Aphorisms Bored, bored, bored…but that’s just me. Obviously, I am one fascinating human being and provide hours of quality entertainment for the micro-brained

13) Who brings a tale takes two away. ~Irish Proverb This is so true…I am always very careful when I’m listening to someone run someone else into the ground to make sure I don’t contribute to the pot of goo they are spewing. Nothing makes me more angry than to hear a perfectly innocent remark that I made like “I didn’t know he got new shoes” preceded by the dreaded words “well, Sharon said”. I say I didn’t know he got new shoes and it turns into “well, Sharon said that he didn’t tell her he was going shopping and then he came back with new shoes, which they couldn’t afford, she can’t remember the last time she got anything new, but he didn’t ask her about it and who is she that he has to answer to her and she’s really become a ball-breaking bitch and poor…what? I don’t know where they were when he told her, probably the bar, well, Sharon said he’d been hanging out without her a lot here lately, she probably thinks he’s running around, but who knows…”

14) Men have always detested women's gossip because they suspect the truth: Their measurements are being taken and compared. ~Erica Jong That’s right, men, we are comparing and contrasting and exaggerating to beat the band so it’s in your best interest to stay on our good side so that we’ll lie on the positive side, turning you into an insatiable breath-taking circus freak who brings us breakfast in bed.

15) The best way to keep one's word is not to give it. ~Napoleon I, Maxims This one is very simple, but so you know how many lives have been shoved down the craphole by the words “you can tell me, I promise I won’t tell anyone else, ever? One or 3, I’m sure.

16) The biggest liar in the world is They Say. ~Douglas Malloch I believe this person lives in Okeechobee and may be related to me. I just want to know who they are, coz I would like to have a conversation and maybe kick they ass.

17) Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. ~Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, July 1735 My favorite of all quotes because it is so true unless you have 3 or more people living in your head and then one of those crazy bitches will slip and tell the world all your crap, usually in a blackout blog that she doesn’t remember writing, or in a cozy tete-a-tete in a restaurant hallway or by the ever so casual, on-purpose slip of the tongue. I can’t take #3 anywhere, big-mouthed huzz that she is!

18) There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true. ~Winston Churchill Every person reading this has a truth dipped in lies and covered up with sparkles to keep others from knowing the total truth about something. Right now, I can think of 3 things I wouldn’t want anyone other than me to know. What about you? It’s not that they’re illegal, immoral, or just bad…doesn’t really matter. To me they’re just something I don’t want anyone to know. Maybe someone shoplifted tampons. Maybe a guy looked at another man’s ass and said “dammit, man”. Or maybe you just want to kick the blind kid in line in front of you just because he always gets to be first. Not the coolest things to admit, but they’re real and true and worse than some of the baddest lies you can tell.

I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a matter of truth; but rather by some means excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and upon proper occasions speak all the good I know of everybody. ~Benjamin Franklin

This is what I aspire to