Toxic People and Black Eyed Peas

I have just had lunch with some people whom K and I had decided we didn't want to waste any more of our life with. Ok back up a little, why was I having lunch with people I didn't want to spend time with? Because one of them is the neice of my MIL (K's cousin in other words) and her partner. My MIL is staying with us at the moment and wanted to see her neice, fair enough (I am a fairy, my name is Nuff, Fairy Nuff!) and K was working today so couldn't do lunch, therefore I drove MIL to the lunch and joined them. So there I was, sitting there with two people I would prefer not to spend time with because they are toxic. Why are they toxic? Because they are judgemental, critical, elitist, snobs. Everything that they do is the best, everything they have is the best, everyone they know is someone important. Every time we tell them what we are doing they look down their noses and put us down, or the activity we are doing, the items we are buying, or whatever. Invariably after interacting with this couple, even if only over the phone, or by chance whilst out walking the dog, we end up analysing the event, sometimes for 4 or 5 hours afterwards! We realised we were just spending too much time and energy justifying our existence related to their set of rules. The final straw was two weekends ago at Pride. We had invited them along, because we had thought that they might want to go and celebrate with the rest of the community in the Peg. But oooh noooo, they had to combine the outing with seeing the Bears on Broadway. Ok what is wrong with that? Nothing, nothing at all. Except they were using the bears as a cover for being in town, on Broadway, that afternoon. We finally managed to drag them into the Pride fair, which was only small, two tents worth of crafts people and information booths. Well by the time we had finished going around one tent, not only were they finished, but they had found somewhere to sit down and were just finishing off some hot dogs. Clearly they hadn't even stopped to look at any of the stuff. Well ok, whatever. But then it became clear that they didn't want people to know that they were there for Pride! They seemed to be embarassed to be there, almost afraid to be seen there! Well fair enough, I remember what it was like the first time I went to Pride. You do feel a little conspicuous, as if everyone is looking at you. By the time you leave though you realise that the people there have better things to think about than who you are and why you are there! So we walked along Broadway to look at the bears. Ok I should add here that one of them, let's call her Heph (short for Hephalump) is now walking with a stick, because she has bad knees (probably because she weighs 350 pounds), but not only does she not need the stick (she demonstrated her lack of need for it by running across the grass to snag a seat after we had got fries), but she seems to use it to garner attention. Broadway is quite long, and we walked from one end to the other. By the time we got back to the car she, Heph, was clearly in a real snit. The other one, let's call her MG (short for Misery Guts) doesn't seem to even be taking any notice of her own life let alone anyone elses, and so missed this mood change completely. But I realised that Heph was in a total snit, which probably wan't helped by K telling her (not in so many words) that she had no idea about art. Ok, we spent a total of 3 hours in their company that day. We then spent about 8 hours (yes EIGHT hours) talking about them, what a bitch Heph is, and how stupid MG is! We finally realised that this happened everytime we spent time with them, and that they were indeed toxic people. So we made a decision to cut them out of our lives. We will not ignore them when/if we see them, but we will not deliberately include them in our lives.

So what does that have to do with having lunch with them today? Well the mere fact that they were talking about how they had the need to get toxic people out of their lives! I thought it rather ironic based on the toxicity of their friendship, that they would have this need! So as we are driving away from the restuarant, MIL and I begin to discuss the lunch and realise that neither of us enjoyed the interaction, that MG was just as negative and depressing as ever, and Heph was just as snobbish and elitist as ever. I started the day on a high note, I went to a Toastmasters Meeting and really enjoyed myself, and then in the short space of 1 hour they destroyed all that and left me with a feeling of negativity and blackness! I will have to treat myself to some chocolate to overcome the feeling.

Where do the black eyed peas fit in? Well yesterday I was in the mall and walked into the CD store. Sometimes I just have to buy new music, I can't help it, it is a compulsion that I can't always resist. A track was playing that totally captivated me. The last time that happened it was Lisa Stansfield singing "They can't take that away from me" from the Larry Adler's CD Glory of Gershwin. I bought that album and love it totally. So I asked one of the assistants who was playing, it sounded like a cross between Sting and the KLF. Turned out to be the Black Eyed Peas! I have never conciously heard any of their music, so after listening to a little more of the song and really enjoying it, I went to ask another assistant about the BEP. She said they were sort of folk reggae, well I like that kind of music. Ok yes I like most kinds of music. So I bought the album, Monkey Business. It is their latest. I also bought an earlier CD of theirs, and a 9-inch Nails CD for K. But I have only listened to Monkey Business so far. It is incredibly, amazingly brilliant! I love it when I discover a new group that I didn't know of before. So I am sitting here listening to a fabulous CD, calming down after my toxic luncheon, getting ready to take MIL back home tonight so that K and I have some time alone together.

At times like this I realise that there is no better place than where I am right now.