Author Archives: Hayley Rose

by | February 15, 2012 · 4:56 pm

We Are All (Fat) Kids at Heart

Well maybe not you but I know that I am. Show me a skinny woman and I will show you someone who desperately wants a donut. Yes, a donut.

I never liked donuts and aside from the Dunkin Donut’s Munchkins they had at  elementary school functions, I barely ate one until I was in my late teens and even then I didn’t like them. Enter Krispy Kreme.

My now ex-boyfriend and I were on the road somewhere in the midwest when we started to run into them. The gleaming case of donuts was the edible equivalent of the display of a jewelry store. With so many delicious -looking varieties, it was difficult to decide which ones to get so we did what any sane person would do in that situation- we got over a dozen then ate most of them that morning. We were camping and didn’t have a huge budget, so we did the same thing for the next few mornings until I finally said, “I think we should probably stop eating donuts. We might get fat or something.”

“Or something?”

“Ya. Diabetes.”

“Oh.”

 

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by | · 12:57 am

Chris Brown: Acting like Chris Brown, Again

In recent news, Chris Brown was caught acting like Chris Brown, again, and I’m not surprised.

As you know I rarely say anything bad about anybody, minus Chris Brown, my uncle, and that horrible ex-boyfriend I bring up every once in a while. I don’t really hold grudges against people either…well okay, there are a few, and one of them happens to be Chris Brown. Though I do not know him or Rihanna personally, I cannot stand him for what he did to her. I never saw a black eye that bad in my life, the fact that it was on the face of a petite girl only amplifies its intensity. Though it’s not my place to judge, after his appearance at the Grammy’s this week, I find myself wondering if someone like him deserves forgiveness or should be doomed to a life of social purgatory.

A friend once told me a story about a time that they were waiting for their flight in an airport terminal. Airport terminals aren’t loud but they can be fairly noisy. As he was waiting for the plane to board, the room suddenly became completely silent: you could hear the cliched pin drop. Why did everyone stop talking? He wondered, and then he got his answer when he saw OJ Simpson walk by.

There is no doubt in my mind that this is the way OJ was greeted every time he went out in public- until he was incarcerated, again. Does Chris Brown deserve this kind of treatment? Again, it’s not for me to say, but I know if I came face to face with him, I certainly wouldn’t give him the time of day. I think the only way to judge a situation like his is to think about his character and if it has improved since he got caught beating Rihanna. I say got caught because it is pretty hard to believe, with the severity of her injuries, that this was the first time in his life that he slipped and lost control of his fists.

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by | February 14, 2012 · 4:02 pm

Don’t Get Even, Get Shoes

A while back I mentioned an article I was writing about online dating. I referred to it as “online dating turned unintentional social experiment.”  I haven’t posted it yet but I will. For now, I have decided I am done with online dating. I deleted my account after getting one too many pictures of body parts I never wanted to see let alone asked for pictures of. Online dating was more like channel surfing than anything. It got to the point where I ignored 99.99% of the guys that messaged me, even the really cute ones, because I knew they were wrong for me, so why waste their time (and mine). I had been a few weeks without it -before I reopened my account this last time. Those few weeks were boring yet productive. Now what would I do with the time in between doing the other things that I usually do? I still didn’t have a boyfriend so naturally my mind gravitated to the next best thing: shoes.

Shoes that might be worth paying over $400 for...

Money cannot buy love but it can buy shoes! And I found a really great place for people on a sort of shoe budget- a shoe of the month club ran by Kimora Lee Simons. Each month you get a new pair of shoes or boots. Each month a fee of $39.95 is charged to you credit card. This price is what I would consider mid-grade. I am not someone who buys Christian Louboutins or Jimmy Choos. Even if I could light hundred dollar bills on fire without flinching, the idea of spending $400+ on a pair of shoes is kind of ridiculous…well…unless they were really, really cute shoes. Then it’s a different story. I sometimes bought shoes from Macy’s and Jessica Simpson- those were in the $100 prices range give or take $30. That was until I discovered the shoe section at my local Target and they have very nice shoes in the $30 price range. Continue reading →

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by | · 5:35 am

Rescue Animal of the Week

Milo- one of the new kitties

Last night when I was volunteering at the animal shelter, I heard some very sad stories about how we acquired two lovely new cats. I will not tell you the story, it is heartbreaking. Just know that they are happy, healthy and safe now. People can be really terrible when it comes to animals. Just hearing about those cats and other stories reminded me of why I started The Veggie Stand in the first place…though it is closed until further notice, I felt the need to perpetuate the awareness of adopting and rescuing animals.

So now that The Veggie Stand has officially moved back to Hayley’s Comments, in honor of this merger, I would like to continue a weekly column from The Veggie Stand called “Rescue Animal of the Week.” Each week we will feature a different rescue animal- if you’d like to see your pet or a friend’s as the next Rescue Animal of the Week on Hayley’s Comments, please provide the following information by emailing it to me at HRH@HayleysComments.com

A picture of your pet

Your pet’s name

Your name, city and state

Where did your pet come from?

How did you come to adopt/ rescue your animal?

And anything else you would like us to include about your animal.

Check out past Rescue Animals of the Week here

I hope to hear from you and your pet soon!

Don’t forget to subscribe or to Like Hayley’s Comments on Facebook!

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by | February 13, 2012 · 10:32 pm

Didn’t Whitney Houston Have It All?

A quick note about Whitney Houston

So many people look at Whitney Houston and other rich and famous celebrities like Lindsay Lohan with disdain. How could someone so beautiful and talented throw it all away? They wonder. They are so ungrateful, they say. It is easy to jump on this hate filled bandwagon, as gossip and trashing the lives of those more rich and famous than ourselves seems to be part of the American culture, but step away and look at the big picture. Did Whitney Houston really have it all? Beauty? yes. Talent? Yes. Money? Yes. Health? No.

These women, like many other people in and out of the spotlight are suffering from a debilitating mental illness called addiction. Addiction can rob you of your life for years and still not kill you. People like Lindsay Lohan and Whitney Houston haven’t been themselves for decade(s). From the outside, the fix looks obvious, but from the inside, every waking moment and even the most simple of tasks is like hard labor. For them, what you and I would call life is thought of as the time spent in between getting a fix.

While the unaddicted are whole (think 100%), the addicted are working with a deficit, a void they will spend years trying to fill with all the wrong things and people. People blame Bobby Brown for introducing Whitney into a world of drugs. This isn’t entirely accurate. He may have introduced her to drugs, but the void was already there before he came around. He didn’t make her susceptible, she already was. She was too weak to say no to a drama filled relationship with him in favor of looking out for her own best interest and too weak to say no to drugs as well. But why? Quite simply, it all comes down to self-esteem. Around the time Bobby Brown came into her life, she was already a pretty big deal. Everyone thought the world of her and maybe she didn’t believe it. Maybe she was too humble to accept this adoration, maybe there was a little voice inside of her screaming that she wasn’t perfect like everyone thought she was, and maybe just maybe she decided she needed to prove it. Doing so would certainly take some of the pressure off.  So even without him it is likely that she would’ve found her way to this type of lifestyle eventually.

It is an unfortunate story with a tragic ending but even astronomical scientists have observed that it is often the biggest and brightest of stars that burn out the fastest.

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by | February 12, 2012 · 9:07 pm

American Kitsch

Just one of the Paul Bunyon and Babe the Blue Ox I sawon this trip, Northern California

Connecticut has been determined to be the state with the highest percentage of Italian people. Although I live in the best area in the country for Italian food, I don’t go to any of those independently owned Italian restaurants. Being raised by my half Italian mother was enough to make me capable in the kitchen. I don’t like to brag… lol…but most will agree my sauce is better than any they’ve ever tasted, so why would I bother to go to a Italian restaurant? For years, I scoffed at the idea of going to one when I can just make my own food. Indian food is another story, I cannot make Indian food to save my life! It was rare that I ever went to an Italian restaurant until one day when they locally built an Olive Garden. Continue reading →

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by | February 10, 2012 · 2:40 pm

The Love of My Life Has Renal Failure

It has been a very stressful last several months for me. Care taking for others has been taking its toll on me and now I get some very sad news.

When I was a child I had a stuffed animal. I held onto it so much that eventually, it began to fall apart. There was only so much my grandmother could do to patch it back together. There was many a leg-transplant and arm transplant. And the patches she made couldn’t sustain the continuous amount of holes that kept cropping up. One day I retired it, I was too old and it was also too old. It was a sad day nonetheless.

My old pal Sandy- or what now can only be described as a rag doll

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by | February 2, 2012 · 11:14 pm

Tulips

I spoke to my grandmother today. She said some friends from her choir visited and brought her tulips, white, yellow, and red. Later in the conversation, when I tried to tell her she has to stay there -in the nursing home, she wasn’t happy, “It’s like an institution,” she exclaimed. Oddly, the tulips and her comment about it being an institution reminded me of the Sylvia Plath poem “Tulips.” The poem was written by Plath after being institutionalized. She famously suffered from depression and mental illness until she inevitably took her own life. Her poetry is so powerful that I can feel her emotion through reading her words. I can see her melancholy. It does not surprise me that she took her own life, some melancholy feels inescapable as hers must’ve.

When people call people who commit suicide weak, it offends me. People who’ve committed suicide were not weak, they just are not strong enough. Many of us have gone through some of the same things that push others over the edge and cause them to take their own lives.

Tulips
by Sylvia Plath

The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons.

They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.
The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,
They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,
Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,
So it is impossible to tell how many there are.

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by | January 31, 2012 · 8:17 am

The Love Lives of Friends

 

Friends-tv-show-2

I have a variety of friends. Friends from different countries. Friends with different values. Friends from many cultures. They are all very unique, but what is even more unique is their love lives. One of my friends is polyamorous- have you ever heard of this? I didn’t until she told me about it. Polyamory is the practice of keeping several lovers at once; having several intimate relationships going on at the same time, and being completely honest about it to everyone involved. I could never do this. I don’t like to share…my men. I also wouldn’t really have an interest in sleeping with several people at once. It’s just not my thing.

Another friend of mine recently suggested I get a few “fuck buddies.” This made me wonder if he ever listens to anything I say or reads any of my blogs. I have had enough meaningless relationships to last a few lifetimes, I’m not about to begin participation in meaningless sex as well. He is cool with this idea and has several “fuck buddies” himself. A lot of guys and girls would probably appreciate this type of no strings attached arrangement, I am however, looking for someone who feels quite the opposite.

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by | January 30, 2012 · 6:58 am

Abusive Relationships: Break the Cycle, No More Second Chances

When I decided after my last terribly abusive relationship that I was done being abused by men, I figured making the change from dating abusive men to dating normal ones would be as easy as flicking off a light switch. My life, until that point had been so dramatic that I decided to chronicle the journey in my book, I Know Why They Call a Shell a Shell: Tales of Love Lost at Sea. I’d planned on writing about my unbelievable relationship past and then write a very happily-ever-after ending based on what I foresaw to be my sunnier dating future. Par usual, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Though I made a conscious decision to no longer involve myself in unhealthy relationships, the rest of me still had to catch up with that thought. There really is a common personality trait in people who end up in abusive situations. A lot of these victims and future victims of abusive relationships have low self-esteem, but other personality traits can lead to this situation. Being vulnerable, too trusting, or not assertive enough can entrap you in a variety of unhealthy situations not limited to romantic, (also friendships and work-related scenarios).

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