Unfollowing People That Post Newborn Babies On Social Media, They're All Ugly
30-Day Writing Challenge, Day 3
Well, I’m doing it. I can’t say how well I’m doing, but I’m doing it.
A few weeks ago, I said for the upcoming month, I’d do a month-long writing challenge. The idea was/is that I’ll spend 30 minutes per day, for 30 days, writing on a writing prompt. I found a list of 30 writing prompts on the good ol’ Googler in the form of a WordPress blog graphic. Nice and easy, I saved it to my phone.
The first day of the writing challenge, I was on an Amtrak train ride that I’d book that same morning. I spent a couple of hours or so writing on the train. After being picked up from the Amtrak station downtown Houston, stopping at HEB to make sure I had something to eat in the morning, and making it to my girlfriend’s place near the Galleria, I opened up my computer around 10pm and picked up where I left off. I didn’t close my computer until 3am.
Related: These 10 Things Are Sure to Turn a Frown Upside Down (30-Day Writing Challenge, Day 1)
Oh, don’t you worry, it’s not over. I woke up on day 2 of the 30-day writing challenge and continued working on day 1’s blog post! Ugh. I must’ve got started around 11am and didn’t close my computer to go to her apartment’s gym until about 7pm. WTF?! What happened to 30 minutes per day for 30 days?! How many hours was that? Look, math has never been my strong subject, I’m not even about to exert myself trying to figure that out. All I know is that that was WAY too long to work on what was supposed to be a quickie blog post. There’s no way I’ll make it to the end of this 30-day writing challenge at that rate. No way.. not with my sanity, nor dark-circle-free eyes, that’s for sure.
After returning from a much needed 45 minutes of cardio, I washed my hair and actually got to the day 2 part of day 2 of the writing challenge. A mess, child, a mess. I set my timer, but do you think I stopped when it went off? Not a chance. At least this time I only sat in front of this computer screen from right before midnight to a little after 2am. [Lifts fingers to count] Midnight.. one.. two.. Ou! I only spent about 2.5 hours to get yesterday’s writing challenge blog post up! Aye, that’s progress.
Related: Words That Stuck With Me From My First Real Boyfriend (30-Day Writing Challenge, Day 2)
Today is day 3 and my girl that I’m staying by is about to throw some straight-back braids in my hair for me, so I’m stopping when this timer goes off, and that’s that.
Oh my heavens, it’s down to only 7 minutes left. Let me hurry and answer this writing prompt.
What Are Your Top 3 Pet Peeves?
Being raised by a grandmother with very bad nerves, I think I unfortunately inherited quite a bit of her irritability. It may be difficult for me to narrow it down to a mere top 3 pet peeves. We’re down to 5 minutes now, though, so let’s go with whatever comes to my mind first.
1.Unnecessary Lies
There’s nothing more I despise than a liar.
Does lying even count as a pet peeve? It’s a character trait that I absolutely loathe, it’s more than a pet peeve. I tend to be a rather honest person, sometimes too honest, people say, making it hard to compute in my mind why people to choose lie in certain situations.
Majority of the time, lies are unnecessary. I would go further into detail, but the timer is down below 2 minutes and I still have two more point to list. Ahh!
Hm, what else really, really vexes my nerves? I mean, I don’t like when people wear white socks with black shoes, and… [timer goes off and I press repeat] I can’t help but to stare in people’s mouth when they have plaque buildup. How do you brush your teeth? You’ve never flossed in your life? When was the last time you let a dentist in your mouth (and I don’t mean after a wild night at the bar)?
2. Pictures of newborn babies on social media
No one wants to see the little alien that came out of your vagina two seconds ago.
Why do people post pictures of newborn babies online?
They should be marked as sensitive content. It’s disturbing.
Anytime a picture of a barely fully formed human appears on one of my social media news feeds, the corners of my lips slide towards my chin revealing a slight opening in my mouth.
“Look how pretty!! That baby is gorgeous!!” LIES! We’re back to pet peeve number one. Babies fresh out of the womb all look like the extraterrestrial version of a naked mole rat.
At least give that baby a chance to develop some features, goodness. Small babies don’t even have defined facial characteristics yet. What are you saying?!
When I’m in a group message and someone sends a picture of their new baby, or I’m out somewhere and someone shows me a picture of a new baby, or the new baby is in front of me, and I feel the need to say something, I’m not telling any lies. I say, “well thank God for a healthy delivery. Amen somebody!” Or something along those lines that relates to the appreciation for the miracle of new life. I’m not going to do the polite, or politically correct thing to do, which is lie.
“Doesn’t he look just like his dad already?!” No, hoe! He looks like puddy, please go away.
I’m with my sis, Tay, on this one, who has never shared pictures of the three kids she birthed before their first birthday, at the earliest. And even then, she still doesn’t go wild turning her public profiles into shrines of her children. Ugh, that’s another whole pet peeve right there. No offense, but a lot of y’all new mothers are annoying aye eff.
Whew, 5 minutes left on the timer after having restarted it, giving myself another 30, and this time, I’m stopping when that time goes off for real. I’ll only come back to add images, hyperlinks, SEO, and all that jazz.
Let’s see. What should be the final item on this list of 3 of my many pet peeves?
Dang, I had to press repeat on my 30-minute timer again, and that was after pausing it to brainstorm for a good 30 minutes. … Got diggity dawg, I still can’t remember what I was about to say. What in the world is wrong with my brain? Do I need Ritalin, or whatever it is they give all these kids these days that are slapped with the diagnosis of ADHD? Back in my day (talking as if I’m not only in my twenties), medical professionals were passing out diagnoses of ADHD; parents were passing out a** whippings! Maybe that’s my problem, my brain cells were beat out of me.
3. Half-a** listeners
People that overly and quickly agree with everything both make me raise an eyebrow.
For one, I’m wondering if you have a mind of your own. Then, I’m wondering if you’re actively listening to what I’m saying, or if you’re simply hearing me and responding (without processing what I’m saying from my perspective).
Say like my grandmother, “you’re half a** listening.”
I’m going to use my sis, Tay, as an example here as well because a very trivial example of this happened the other day. My every day bag is a Goyard Saint Louis. Her every day bag is a Louis Vuitton Neverfull. They’re both spacious top-handle totes by long-standing French luxury design houses. They are even right around the same price point. They’re similar, but not the same. Some kind of way, we were in her Cadillac and the topic of bags must’ve come up, and I don’t think she had hers on her at the moment. I said, “what I like about your Louis is how structured it is; that type of bag goes well with my conservative style of dress, as opposed to my very malleable Goyard that’s more flowy, Free People vibes.” This got darn girl go’on say, “oh yeah, girl, I know exactly what you mean, my Louis collapses just like that” as she looked over at my bag in my lap. I said, “no, it doesn’t.” She responded, “yes, it does,” and this went on for some minutes.
A couple days later, we were somewhere and our bags happened to be next to one another. “Now Taylor.. tell me your bag is just as unstructured as mine…” I said as I gave her a look as to say, “come on, na, b****.” [inserts side-eye emoji] She started laughing as she realized what I was saying with my original comment, “ohhhhh, no. Yeah, they are different. Dang.”
Now, as I said, this is extremely trivial. Neither one of us care at all about the amount of difference or similarity between our every day tote bags; that’s not something that matters. This is only an example to show that when a person is solely listening to respond (not to understand), or too quickly assimilates, information is missed. Communication is lost. You’re not really listening, because if you were actively listening in the first place, you would’ve understood.
When confiding in someone about a personal matter, or sharing a tough experience, is where half-a** listening really grinds my freaking gears!! Imagine talking to someone about your grandfather dying and that person responds, “yes, I know, that’s exactly how it was when my grandfather died back in 2004. Mm hm, yeah girl.” WHAT?! You aren’t even actively listening to ME; you’re in your head about you. Half-a** listening is dismissive, and I’ll never talk to you about an emotional or serious topic again.
Online or offline, if you have a habit of doing any one of these top three pet peeves, baby, you gotta go.
And right now, I gotta go. I think I’ve pressed restart on my timer another 2 or 3 times. This was only supposed to be a quick 30-minute writing session on my 30-day writing challenge prompt, and how many hours has it been? My Lord, I hope swiftness finds me, because as much as I enjoy the finished product, mama can’t sit in front of this computer screen all day, every day. I have to continue to go live life in order to continue to write about life.
If you’re a fellow blogger or writer, feel free to drop me some writing tips in the comment section below. I want to come out of this 30-day writing challenge a better writer and I’m not too good for guidance.
Do any of these pet peeves work your nerves as well?
Drop a hint to that one annoying friend by sharing this blog post as a status on Facebook, or a tweet on Twitter. Or, if you’re like me, send them the link directly in a text message.
Thank you for being here, my Riders ♥
