This is not anything new to me. I have been fighting this mouth-brain battle for all of my life, probably since the moment I first spoke. I am painfully honest. When people do not respond in kind, I run the gamut from mildly annoyed to wildly, explosively enraged. Best of all, I can vacillate between these two extremes in a millisecond because I am that good at being me.
More times that I can count people have told me that they either like me or hate me for the same reason: "I always know where I stand with you."
Well, DUH. Wouldn't we ALL like the truth and to know where we stand with each other? Wouldn't that be ... I don't know ... um ... CIVILIZED.
The flip side of my smart mouth means that not only will I tell you the truth about pretty much anything, I'll also tell you where the dog died. Like the time I got called out by the principal for telling the truth about an upcoming poor policy while sitting in a packed faculty meeting with a guest speaker who was lying through his bleached overbite. For stating the obvious, I was branded as "ornery." Or, how about that tale I related the other day on the blog when I kept telling my boss at the fabric store that there was a coup coming. She told me to stop causing trouble ... until she was fired and needed MY help.I'll be honest. I hear this a lot: "Hey, Heliand -- Go fuck yourself."
Luckily, I have been teamed up with a few people at my school who are less jaded than the average voter. They are not so easily snowed and tend to err on the side of honesty being perhaps not the best policy, but at least the most tolerable policy. We call each other names like Bitch and Cunt and Tatas. We call other people names, sometimes to their faces, like Bozehole and Pecker and Shithead.
I do so love this team of people around me, both my assigned team and my extended acquaintance team, because we don't pull any punches with each other. We might tell each other to go screw while sipping English Breakfast or Green Pomegranate herbal tea and munching on mint Milano cookies. See? Civilized.
Today one of my esteemed colleagues brings me a new tea mug all bundled up in box, and I am overjoyed to open it. This mug speaks the truth, but, unfortunately, it is a truth that I can show just to my colleagues but cannot leave on my desk. After all, sometimes the truth hurts, but it's always the truth. The only way this mug's sentiments will burn my ego is if I accidentally spill its contents into my lap or if my students happen to see it and tell on me. Other than that, I love this mug and its honesty.
Bless the bitch who bought it for me; I owe you one.
