Sometimes I wonder what people think of some of the things I say. Now imagine you have no background and you stumbled upon these conversations:

Me (on the phone in the middle of a military PX): Don’t forget to bury the body

Matt: No, I am going to put it in a time loop.

(Looking over my shoulder to see a Marine in dress blues looking at me strangely)

Me: I gotta go, do something with the body, just don’t leave her there.

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Chey: My stomach has been hurting everyday at school.

Me: OK, I will make an appointment at the doctor’s for you. I’ll call tomorrow. I need to go anyway

Chey: Why?

Me: I need to go back on birth control.

Chey: Why are you having sex?

Me: I damn sure plan to.

Chey: When?

Me: As soon as I can arrange it.

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Trace: Mom, look at my thin mustache. (sticks his face near mine)

Me: Yeah, cool.

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Me: You are taking FOREVER! Hurry up.

Matt: It’s only been five minutes.

Me: *heavy sigh* Come on!

Matt: Amy, you do know that time moves differently for you than everyone else, right?

Me: BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE MOVES SO DAMN SLOW!

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Me: Get the devil to come and get me.

Matt: He’s busy, he might be around later.

Me: What the hell? Can’t we get a good Lucifer around here?

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Me on twitter:

Note to self: When writing dramatic scenes-do NOT turn on Adele. Sobbing commences over your fictional characters. And someone gets killed off.

(that actually happened, I cried for two hours)

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Me on twitter:

And of course, tweets that even vaguely mention my cleavage get retweeted instantly. I’m calling that a win for the twins

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Tonight it will be time again for Six Things. I thought I would take a moment to share some of the things that people posted last time. Hopefully, it will remind you how interesting you are to everyone else. See you at 8:00 (EST)

First, let me preface this by saying that I should not have access to twitter when I am hormonal and living on two hours sleep. It just isn’t a good idea. Here is what happened, a friend of mine tweeted about something spiritual and someone else I DIDN’T know jumped in about ‘daily spiritual’ whatever. Well, of course I figured it was one of those self-righteous mommy-bloggers I love to hate. So I tweeted something rude back to this unknown person, and I may (MAY) have dropped the f-bomb. My friend got on gcaht and this happened:

S: Did you just cuss out my mother?

(immediate panic sets in)

me: nope, deleted. F***. F***

S: lol

me: F***, F***, what the hell is WONG with me. I did not sleep last night. I A SO SO SO SO SORRY

S: hahaha it’s seriously okay, and also hilarious

me: no, no, no it is NOT okay. You know how it is I deal with so many self-righteous mommy bloggers, I thought it was another one of those. Oh man, did she see it??

S: even if she did I’ll just explain, my mom’s pretty chillax

me: yeah, sure…..oh god, I am so embarrassed, me and my mouth

S: she also hates Jesus people so.

me: oh lord, I am staying off twitter today, I think I am about to cry.

S: oh, lady

me: ALL THE EMOTIONS

S: hahaha seriously. it’s my mom. it would be like if you did it to me.

me: also, I am pretty sure I am PMSing, and this WHOLE dating thing. and oh god, I need to go back on Birth Control. AND I JUST SWORE AT YOUR MOM.

S: this might be one of the best days of my life.

me: I hate you, enjoying my misery - it is why I love you

S: it’s just so much funnier when it’s not you lol

me: ok, so true, that made me laugh

S: i started to write my mom and explain, but I think I am going to wait for her to call me and be like WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH THE TWITTERS

me:  if she hasn’t logged on yet, then she won’t see it b/c I DELETED IT #likeaboss

S: let’s just hope she’s not as iphone savvy as i am cause the damn thing just popped up on my screen lolz

me: ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I am going to be sick

S: dear, you are quite overreacting, GET IT TOGETHER

me: no more twitter for me today,ever, ever, ever, ever – wait, let me tweet that. FINE! I’m over it. Just let me know if she saw it or not

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Of course she saw it, and of course she was so cool with it. Still does not lessen my embarrassment.

A couple of weeks ago, I was approaching 21,000 tweets. What an accomplishment, right? OK, just wanted you to know.

Goodnight!

No, really, I was within 10 tweets and I thought, let’s do something fun. How about for my last six tweets up to 21,000 I tell you six things about me? It was just a fun, little thing.

Here are my six things (remember when reading a tweet stream, read bottom to top);

Tweets- Six things

I know, interesting, right? Really, no sarcasm….I think I’m interesting. I mean, think about it, if I don’t think I’m interesting….why would other people?

Anyway, other people joined in and before I knew it, it was three hours later we literally had hundreds of people sharing six things. And they loved doing it. They loved to remember what made them unique, what made them special,what they have accomplished and what they have endured. It was touching, funny, sweet and fantastic.

Here are somethings I learned about people;

I learned about anxiety disorders.

Abuse survival.

Jail stints.

Secret wishes.

Long lost loves.

First jobs.

Unique jobs.

Hates.

Likes.

Lovers.

Every single person was fascinating, and that night we joined together to reaffirm that. Now, today, I will hit 22,00 tweets and we will be doing it again. We’ll start this evening sometime, no set time (after 8, for sure) and for a couple of hours encourage people to post six things about themselves. I’ll start off to get me up to 22,000 tweets and from there get the ball rolling. Join in when we are doing it or anytime in the next couple of hours.

Think of six things. Mark the tweet with the #sixthings hashtag or link to this post…..

And remember, you’re interesting, let me pull up a chair and listen to you talk about you. It is perfectly acceptable. And wonderful.

(Thanks to MinkyMoo who became an accidental partner in this surprise endeavor. I love you, lady.)

(For the 10th anniversary of the attack on September 11, bloggers are sharing their stories of where they were that day. Here is my story.)

My mom was calling, I ignored it. I was tired. I had a baby that was 5 months old, and a 2 1/2 year old. Chances are I gotten up with one or both of them during the night, I don’t remember. The phone stopped. Then it rang again. She never did that, so I picked it up.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Are you watching the news?”

“No, I just got up. What’s going on?”

“You need to turn on the news.”

I sigh, throw my legs over the bed and get up and head out to the living room to turn on the TV. And that was how I found out that something terrible had happened.

It was all over before I even got out of bed. Living on Ft. Lewis, in my small Army-provided base house, I was three hours behind everyone else. I tried to take care of my small children while dissolving into a puddle of tears. My husband had left house at six for physical training. When he came back 7:30, he found my hysteria irritating. He dressed and went back to work. The base was closed, it would never open again the way it had been before 9/11. I spent the day with the baby on the bed with me watching the TV in my bedroom. I don’t remember what Cheyenne did all day. I must have found her something to do…and fed her, I just don’t remember.

As a military wife, I prepared myself for the change that was inevitable. And it wasn’t a couple of weeks later that my husband left to guard a Homeland Security asset.

I watched the news. Every second….I wept for women, children and men caught in the inferno…..I called my family to make sure they were OK, they called me for the same reason.

The whole base took on a feeling of nervousness…of anticipation….of ‘when will our husbands and wives be leaving to go someplace to strike back at this evil”

Today, ten years later I don’t know how to explain to my children what happened in terms they would understand. But even as I stumble through the story, I am glad that I can end the story with “And we caught the guy who did it and killed him.”

I would like to say we are a better nation since then but we’re not. I would like to say we’re a better people since then but we’re not. But we are forever changed, and for a few days in September we remember the day that brought about that change. We honor those who died and we try to make sense of the date that caused it.

(I have a couple of serious posts coming out this week, feel free to come back next week when I am my normal snarky self)

Yesterday, Trey Pennington walked to the steps of his church and shot himself. You see, Trey had a disease, and yesterday he lost the fight. He had a very common affliction: depression.

I did not know Trey, we only met in passing and talked a few times on twitter. This is not an attempt to insert myself into his family’s very real tragedy. But I cannot escape the profound affect the news had on me. Hours before he committed the act, Trey updated all his photos on Facebook, talking about how he had loving being a dad, how he had loved his wife. He used the past tense, the decision already made. He signed off twitter, thanking his online and real life friends for being there for him.

He leaves behind six beautiful children, and a community that has over 100,000 members. At first there was shock and dismay, then sadness, then the inevitable ‘why didn’t he reach out’? It is a sad paradox that in the social media community you can be surrounded by hundreds or thousands of people and feel incredibly isolated.

He was passionate in his goal as a marketer, and social media leader. May he forever be remembered as that to those of us who interacted with him in the social sphere.

But how many people knew of his struggles? So many people ask now how they could have helped him or saved him, most mourn that his life was cut too short.

But for those of us that suffer depression, for those of us that have stood on the black abyss day in and day out, we closed our eyes for a moment. And we were jealous. His fight was done, his burdens gone.

You will say it is selfish…I will tell you I do not care.

You will say he left more problems than solutions…I will tell you I do not care.

You will say ‘think of his children’ and again I will tell you I do not care.

Depression isn’t just ‘sadness’; it is a deep undertow of mental brokenness that threatens everything you love. It steals your joy, your drive, your ability to love and to function. It is perfectly normal to for anyone who has been through it to want put all that down, to give up.

Every woman in my family has stood at that abyss. We have fought to varying degrees of success. I have self-medicated with alcohol, sex, and food. Even now that I have found a good regimen of medication, it wasn’t three months ago I was sitting in my bed and writing good-bye notes to my children in my head and thinking of a plan so they don’t have to find a body.

I go through ups and downs, we all do. So many people wonder how they could have helped Trey or anyone in the same position and I will tell you what I know.

Be a beacon to that person. Turn on your lights to show them the way safely home when the waves put them near the rocks. This does not mean to inundate them with trite phrases such as “It will get better”,”Don’t be sad”,”It’s not that bad.” It means to hold on their hand when they would cry, to shore them up if see them in distress, it means to hug them. Not the ‘how are you’ hug. It means to put your arms around them and wait. At first they will pull away, but hold on, and wait for them to really hug you back. Don’t be surprised if, when you do that, a person you have never see cry before cannot hold back tears.

And for those that fight every day, reach out. For the love of God – REACH OUT. To anyone. When you reach that place where you cannot break anymore, when the whispers of a forever peace haunt you, hold out your hand.

We won’t let you go.

(I am not allowing comments on this post, I do not want to turn a man’s tragedy into a discussion about me. Please respect my wishes.)

I know you all wish you could be as epic as me, but the truth is I don’t like to share my secrets. But today has been SO epic, such a winning day in every way, I thought to myself, I MUST share with all my wonderful readers…..

Now to have a day as great as mine you have to prepare. Here are some ways to do so;

1- Do not, under any circumstances, buy school supplies for your kids. This could be for money’s sake, time,  confusion over school – lots of reasons but don’t have a thing ready when the first day of school arrives.

2- Be as behind as possible in all aspects of your life. Let email pile up, articles go unwritten, take on too much – whatever it takes, just be REALLY behind.

3- Forget to take your meds the day before….or at least twice in a one week period. Emotions running high are a requirement.

Are we ready? Here we go…

1- Jump out of bed around 5:30. You need to get school supplies so everyone needs to be out the door by seven.

2- Rush the kids out the door without food, this will ensure maximum whiny-ness.

3- Go to Wal-Mart at seven in the morning to get school supplies. Do it while listening to two kids talk, complain, fight, and ask to leave the entire time. Be proud of yourself for keeping your cool.

4- Take the kids to Starbuck’s for breakfast, realize your oldest daughter doesn’t have lunch, get here a sandwich at Starbuck’s. Get food and coffee for all of you, have heart attack at cash register when the total is displayed.

5- Realize you don’t have any gas, glance at clock, start panicking.

6- Get gas

7- Drive your daughter to her school, along the way rear-end a truck. Once said truck is rear-ended, get out of the car with your low-cut blouse and dig up your southern accent to get out of insurance exchange. Smile at your success.

8- Drop daughter off at school, teach inventive new ways to use swear words in the Catholic school parking lot.

9- Take son all the way back to Target for the supplies you forgot to get him at Wal-Mart.

10- Drop son off at school. Sigh deeply, ignore signs that emotional tsunami is on its way.

11- Make it work, sit at desk for ten minutes before receiving call from Catholic School expressing concern about daughter’s expressed paganism/lesbianism.

12- Drive to school, prepared to stab people to fight for your daughter.

12- Be totally disarmed by princiapl’s politeness, realize they have no prejudice and are try to make sure you unique daughter fits in. This emotional roller coaster will put as close to possible to meltdown without actually getting you there.

13- Return to work to see that a (very important) online friendship has gone into meltdown. With no way to save it, feel first waves of the emotional tsunami crash on the shore.

14- Watch in frustration as your lifeline, twitter, stops working correctly….

15- End up in bathroom crying.

16- Return to desk, attempt to cover up sobbing.

17- Abandon work, putting your further behind insuring a weekend full of work. Go to pick up daughter, head home to your son.

18- Feed children a nutritious meal of McDonald’s, thereby cementing your role as mother of year.

19- Want desperately some wine and Xanax, but you are a single parent – such wallowing is NEVER allowed.

20- End up on your bed by five, sobbing, exhausted, and utterly useless.

Yes, you too can be as epic as me in these 20 easy steps! Now, go! And try to be awesome as me!