TMP75: Blame Game

Welcome to my refreshed Monday Peeve! Unburden yourself of an annoyance and you’ll feel better afterward. Or not. Complain in my comments or crab in your own post. Doesn’t have to be on a Monday. You do you.

Recently I attended a couple mindfulness talks and they reMINDed me of how much I dislike blaming people for their own misfortunes. I’m not talking about telling a criminal he deserves a penalty; what I mean is when peeps tell migraine (and other) sufferers that they can control their disease, which mostly they CANNOT. This has been one of my biggest pet peeves over the years: people announcing that if I would only do this or that, my migraines would get better. NO, THEY WON’T. I have tried all the advice and the only piece that helps is avoiding alcohol, which I learned ages ago. I’ve been suffering for 45 years, and I do not need randos giving me “helpful hints,” which I basically take as an accusation that I cause my own pain by not doing tummy breathing or whatever useless thing.

Actually, the mindful gibberish was amusing in one way because they’d constantly contradict themselves by saying we can control our physical symptoms and then declaring that it was important to “let go” and not try to control things. I do feel better when I don’t think about how I’m feeling all the time and give up trying to figure out how to possibly feel better! I’d rather get lost in a book. That’s more of a “cure” than taking a walk, which all these peeps recommend but often gives me a headache. People actually make a living jabbering about this stuff and selling doodads to go along with it. (I did not spend any money on the talks, following up with consults, or buying amulets, etc.). I do agree with them however that we CAN somewhat control our moods by not letting annoying people into our lives, such as these mindfulness gurus.

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©️2022 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

TMP74: Genre Snobs

Welcome to my refreshed Monday Peeve! Unburden yourself of an annoyance and you’ll feel better afterward. Or not. Complain in my comments or crab in your own post. Doesn’t have to be on a Monday. You do you.

I’ve mentioned this annoyance previously, but it’s never been an official peeve. I get really ticked off at peeps who feel the need to put down various genres of literature (movies too). It’s not that I’m annoyed we don’t all like the same things ~ heaven forbid! ~ but that people feel that whatever thing they like is somehow morally superior. The other week someone at a book club dismissed the entire romance genre as “trash,” and that comment gave me a negative opinion of her. It’s perfectly fine if she prefers not to read romance. I prefer not to read biographies and memoirs. Some people are uninterested in poetry. Others dislike horror. But that doesn’t make any of these genres “trash.” To me, something is trash if the writer is sloppy and/or has minimal skills and each page is littered with errors. That’s garbage writing. But to get all snobby about genres? That tells me a lot about the person making the comment and nothing at all about the genre. There are fabulous romance novels and also terrible ones, just as there are some great books in the “literary fiction” category (a favorite of snobs) and also others that are dull as dust.

As I writer and a reader, I’m just happy people are writing and reading, in any genre.

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©️2022 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

TMP73: Royal Pain

Welcome to my refreshed Monday Peeve! Unburden yourself of an annoyance and you’ll feel better afterward. Or not. Complain in my comments or crab in your own post. Doesn’t have to be on a Monday. You do you.

As you probably guessed from the title, today’s peeve has to do with the British Royal Family, but it is not a criticism of any of them ~ it’s annoyance at American media. I get that the passing of Queen Elizabeth II is a big deal, but honestly the media here does not need to make every detail front and center 24/7. She was not our Queen, after all ~ we had a little kerfuffle a while back to make sure of that. But you wouldn’t know this from the way our news media is carrying on about the whole thing, from excruciatingly boring updates regarding the coffin’s progress to jibber-jabber about what Charles III plans to do as King to who is going to take care of the Queen’s doggos now. I mean, my gawwwwwd!

Enough already. Seriously. Let’s get back to important topics, such as whatever is going on with Jennifer Aniston lately.

~*~
©️2022 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

TMP72: Closed Captions

Welcome to my refreshed Monday Peeve! Unburden yourself of an annoyance and you’ll feel better afterward. Or not. Complain in my comments or crab in your own post. Doesn’t have to be on a Monday. You do you.

We do not slack on our Monday Peeves here at Light Motifs II just because it’s a national holiday. While others relax at pools, beaches, and BBQ’s, we are here blogging away for your reading pleasure. Actually, I wrote this on Sunday… psych! And just when I was wracking my brain to come up with a peeve (besides my effing migraines, which I already posted about in gory detail), I happened to stumble across a movie on Prime I thought I’d enjoy. It’s called Flesh and Bone and stars Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, James Caan, and Gwyneth Paltrow. How could you go wrong with that cast?

Part of the problem was the closed captioning feature, which I needed to understand their thick Texas accents. CC is not only for deaf peeps ~ I keep closed captions on 24/7 in order not to miss any words, plus I don’t like to turn the volume up because migraines. This all works out great except for some movies where the captions aren’t synched with the actors’ speech. WTF? Why can’t they get this right every time? It’s so random too, some old movies, some newer. I haven’t found a pattern to the ones that are screwed up. So that’s my peeve: movies ruined at a softer volume when the closed captions are out of whack.

Also, there was no need whatsoever for the Gwyneth Paltrow character, Ginnie, who added unnecessary confusion. The movie was a straightforward, intense drama and romance without her. It really made no sense that Arlis (Dennis) kept running into Ginnie randomly… at first I thought she was supposed to be the love interest, but what about Meg? Finally that got sorted, only to devolve into an even more crazy pile of coincidences. Have I mentioned I hate too many coincidences in a show? I believe I have. Anyway, I have to reluctantly conclude that the delayed captioning along with the gimmicky plot twists force me to give this movie a thumbs-down. Sorry Meg. I mostly love you in everything.

As an aside, I discovered today while googling that there is a difference between subtitles and closed captioning. Subtitles simply capture the actors’ speech, which is nice for people like me who keep the TV at a lower volume; CC captures every sound, like music, birds, whatever, which is probably best for those who have serious hearing impairment. If I had the choice, I would choose subtitles, but it seems Prime has only CC available. No biggie, I don’t mind “footsteps,” “bells,” “howling ghosts,” etc. Sometimes it’s even funny, unintentionally.

Enjoy your day off during the heat wave, fellow USA worker bees.

~*~
©️2022 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

TMP71: Shuttle Muddle

Welcome to my refreshed Monday Peeve! Unburden yourself of an annoyance and you’ll feel better afterward. Or not. Complain in my comments or crab in your own post. Doesn’t have to be on a Monday. You do you.

I haven’t complained about driving-related stuff for a while, so we’re due. The other week I got spoiled by taking the free shuttle bus to the Sawdust Festival in Laguna Beach (it cost $7 to park in the shuttle lot), which was so convenient and easy-peasy. The shuttle ran every few minutes, so we could come and go as we pleased.

I assumed that a similar service would be offered in Hermosa Beach for their music festival this coming weekend. Nope. First, I’d have to drive up to the Los Angeles area in heavy Saturday afternoon traffic, and then I’d need to catch the shuttle bus a long way from the event at the beach. I’d be able to see some crafts, hear one cover band (Dog and Butterfly ~ Heart cover band), and have dinner. But if I wanted to catch the shuttle back, I’d need to leave early during the second band’s show. The second band is the highly regarded Rolling Stones tribute band called Hollywood Stones. It would be a waste to go up there and miss that show! Or I could take some germy Uber/Lyft back to the shuttle parking lot. One friend says he’d park “nearby” on the street, we could walk to his car after, and he’d drive us to the lot. Well, what’s a short walk to some might not be a short walk for me!

Here’s the reality. I’m not in the best shape, in any way, so I’m gonna be hot and tired and headachy at the end of the event, and most likely my back will be hurting a bunch too. It would be really hard for me to walk one or two miles. I have no idea how much a ride-share would cost, so doing that alone and footing the whole expense myself is not a happy prospect.

The entire parking ridiculousness has now soured me on attending the thing altogether. I think I’ll just stay home and read a book. Pffft!

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©️2022 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

TMP70: Experts Everywhere

Welcome to my refreshed Monday Peeve! Unburden yourself of an annoyance and you’ll feel better afterward. Or not. Complain in my comments or crab in your own post. Doesn’t have to be on a Monday. You do you.

Opinions are like butts ~ everybody has one. This is particularly true on social media, where one must opine on any and all topics in order to grab a crumb of attention. If there’s a new disease, suddenly everyone is a epidemiologist. The heck with scientists who have devoted their lives to studying health issues… some YouTube rando knows better. Is a celeb or politician on trial? Well, you can bet that a bunch of your social media friends have spontaneously obtained degrees in criminal law. Naturally, if there’s a political issue, it turns out that 90% of people posting on the internet all day are constitutional scholars. Wow! I had no idea.

It goes without saying that we all have medical degrees, specializing in psychiatry, which is why we have the ability to diagnose people we’ve never met with all sorts of mental health problems. He has autism, she’s a schizophrenic, that guy is bipolar, etc. And all these professionals have time to blog, Facebook, and Twitter twatter 24/7 in between seeing real patients. Amazing.

Please don’t assume I automatically believe anyone who actually is an expert in their field, but I’d certainly give more credence to the statements of people who have studied and worked in a particular discipline as opposed to internet edgelords. I still chuckle over a few former rightwing FB friends who declared that NASA scientists don’t know anything about the Earth’s climate.

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©️2022 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

TMP69: Coincidences

Welcome to my refreshed Monday Peeve! Unburden yourself of an annoyance and you’ll feel better afterward. Or not. Complain in my comments or crab in your own post. Doesn’t have to be on a Monday. You do you.

I’ve complained about this before, but not on an official Monday Peeve, so it’s fair game. Writing is hard, no disagreement there, but I find it incredibly lazy when plots are continually driven by coincidences. I don’t mind a few sprinkled throughout, but when every twist and turn is due to a misplaced letter or an overheard conversation, it just gets on my nerves.

Currently, I’m watching Downton Abbey, which is a series on Prime about an aristocratic English family and their servants in the early part of the 20th century. I’m enjoying it overall and am on Season 3 out of 6, but sometimes I get annoyed with all the overheard convos and opportune glimpses. The main plot points are carried forward in this way, beginning with S1e1, and it’s too bad that the writer/s couldn’t have come up with more creative devices.

Romance novels are often the same, with our hero/heroine overhearing a snippet of chat as they wander in the gardens, then they leap to an incorrect conclusion, etc. It’s so irritating!

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©️2022 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

TMP68: Toxic Fandom

Welcome to my refreshed Monday Peeve! Unburden yourself of an annoyance and you’ll feel better afterward. Or not. Complain in my comments or crab in your own post. Doesn’t have to be on a Monday. You do you.

Where to start? This isn’t a new peeve of mine, though it’s way more annoying online because you have to work to avoid these peeps (and sometimes they’re your friends!). I’m talking about rabid fans of whatever thing (sports team, TV series, musical group, etc.) who truly put the fan in fanatic. You can’t have a normal conversation about their chosen thing because they won’t accept any critique whatsoever. If you say one word that is anything but gushing adoration, they turn the chat into a toxic mess.

Here’s an example from a while back. I love The Sopranos. Made no secret of it, ever. But sometimes I didn’t feel a show or character or storyline was up to par. OMG. How dare I express any kind of negativity toward the beloved?! I remember people “yelling” at me when I said that I didn’t like the Tony’s cousin Tony storyline. In fact, I don’t really like Steve Buscemi as an actor at all. So what? Why are people so damn invested in a thing that they care so passionately about my opinion? Shrug and move the f*ck on.

More recently, there’s Better Call Saul. As I’ve mentioned, I didn’t care for this Breaking Bad spinoff at first. But later I rewatched it since so many were raving about it, and it did improve in S2. In fact, I began to really get into it around S3 and totally loved S4 and S5. All good, right? Nope. I paid for S6, since AMC wouldn’t let Netflix show it in the US, and ugh. So far I am seriously disappointed. After last week’s awful ep, I went onto Twitter to see what peeps were saying. Everyone was gushing praise. Then I saw someone who felt as I did, and they were totally ripped apart by the rabid fandom. I backed away quietly because I certainly don’t need any Twitter drama in my life.

What the hell is wrong with people? And let’s not even get started about the crazed loons who worship Taylor Swift and/or Beyonce. Ugh!

~*~
©️2022 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

TMP67: August

Welcome to my refreshed Monday Peeve! Unburden yourself of an annoyance and you’ll feel better afterward. Or not. Complain in my comments or crab in your own post. Doesn’t have to be on a Monday. You do you.

Today is the first day of August, and the whole month is just a hot pile of peeve. The worst thing is that there are no official US holidays in August. I mean, really, what is up with that? A sticky, icky month, kids off school, most business slowed, and they can’t give us a measly 3-day weekend to hang out at the pool or beach? Geez! Well, I showed THEM (whoever THEY are) and took every Friday off this month, nyah. I don’t know if I’ll go to the pool or beach, but like whatever. I can if I wanna. And I’ll have more time to blog! More time to read my bingo genres! More time to click through all my TV channels and b!tch that I can’t find anything good to watch. Hurrah.

No, I’m not planning on working on my novel/s, short stories, long short stories, or any other thing that’s been waiting unfinished forever in my cloud of meh. August is not a time for creativity; it’s a time to feel inadequate in a swimsuit and eat too much ice cream regardless. This is what we do in August while we dream of crisp cool evenings, pumpkin spice everything, and how soon it’ll be January 1 of a brand new year and life will be different then.

Except it will be the same, or worse. Probably worse.

~*~
©️2022 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

TMP66: Fake Autocorrect

Welcome to my refreshed Monday Peeve! Unburden yourself of an annoyance and you’ll feel better afterward. Or not. Complain in my comments or crab in your own post. Doesn’t have to be on a Monday. You do you.

I know some of you don’t use other social media, so you may not know about this annoying fad that’s been going around for a while. We’ve all had funny experiences with autocorrect, but there is also the fake one, where you pretend to be autocorrected so you can make a dumb joke. The jokes aren’t that funny and I’m heartily sick of them. The worst is when they’re memed, so you aren’t even making your own damn joke. WTF?

Here’s an example. “I tried to say ‘I’m a functional adult,’ but my phone changed it to ‘fictional adult,’ and I feel that’s more accurate.” Ha ha ha meh. The problem is that most people have nothing interesting to say, yet they’re desperate for a crumb of attention and want to feel part of the hive, so they buzz by with repetitive memes.

Annoying!

~*~
©️2022 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.