The Confessional: Meet Judgey McJudgerson

You’ve heard that saying, “Wine is how classy people get shitfaced?”
No? Well, now you have.
And Pepperidge Farm cookies are how classy people binge their insecurities away.
(Knowing is half the battle.)

I have noticed over the past few weeks that, WHOA, I have been a Little Miss Judgey McJudgerson. I guess it’s good that I’m actually NOTICING it because I was probably doing it before but not really caring. Now I’m still doing it but at least I’m thinking to myself, “Wow, Emily, bitchy much?” It’s just… well, it hasn’t been pretty inside my head.

You may be tempted to ask, “What sort of things do you judge people about, Emily?” You may be thinking, “Oh, Emily, we are all uncharitable in our thoughts sometimes. You can’t be THAT much of a Judgey McJudgerson.” To the latter I say, “Oh yes, I can,” and to the former, I say, “Just check this out.”

• I judge people that are fat for (clearly) having no self-control or self-respect.
• I judge people that are thin (and good looking and well dressed, et cetera) for (clearly) being slaves to our society’s screwed up beauty ideals.
• I judge people that mismanage their money.
• I judge people that have lots of nice things for being materialistic buttheads.
• I judge people that eat unhealthy food or pseudo-healthy food or basically anything that’s not included on my non-diet fad du jour.
• I judge people that let their babies “cry it out.”
• I judge people that spank their kids.
• I judge people that yell at their kids.
• I judge people that are rude to their spouses/partners.
• I judge people that are mean to their pets.
• I judge people who don’t exercise.
• I judge people that watch a lot of TV.
• I judge people with messy/dirty homes.
• I judge people with poorly behaved children/pets.
• I judge people who swear a lot and mispronounce common words and make dumb spelling/grammar mistakes.
• I judge people that are selfish and full of themselves.

Pretty rotten, huh? That was probably the least charming angle of me that anyone has ever seen, including the paramedics who came to transport me to the hospital when I was (naked, on all fours, with my butt facing the bedroom door, ew) in labor with Garrett.

But all of that isn’t the worst of it. The worst part is:

• I’m fat.
• I’m terrible with money.
• I eat unhealthy food and my two-year-old lives of yogurt and goldfish crackers.
• I yell at my kid. And my dogs. And my cats.
• I’m rude to my husband.
• I don’t exercise.
• I watch a LOT of TV.
• I’m a terrible housekeeper and my home is constantly messy/dirty.
• My dogs are the most poorly-behaved animals you’ll meet outside of Animal Planet reality shows.
• I swear a lot, I can’t ever remember how to spell “handkerchief” or “vaccuum,” and I make there/their/they’re errors all the time.
• And here I am blogging about my judge-y-ness because apparently I think the internet needs more proof that I’m full of myself.

Why am I telling you this? Honestly, I’m not really sure. I think it has something to do with the fact that over the weekend, I got a few really great comments on my Quick Takes post. I don’t get a lot of traffic or comments on my blog, so when I do get a visitor (and said visitor actually hangs around long enough to say something in the combox) I’m totally stoked. For about two seconds. Then I start getting all weird and anxious, like, “OH CRAP. Someone is actually READING my blog. I have to be work extra hard to be BRILLIANT and INTERESTING and RELEVANT and NON-OFFENSIVE.” (Because that’s possible, right? Well, in my twisted head it is.)

So as I was knocking around what I might post about this week that new reader-friends might actually want to read, it occurred to me that instead of writing something that would try WAY TOO HARD to be deep and meaningful, something that would just come across as floppy and sanitized and totally self-righteous, maybe…

I should try…

Just. Being. Real.

(And scare the living daylights out of myself and alienate twenty birds with one stone. Or something like that.)

So there you have it. Today on The Confessional, Emily reveals her inner Judgey McJudgerson and a few more ugly habits-slash-personality-traits-slash-character-flaws.

Stay tuned for the next episode of The Confessional, in which Emily reveals that she ate an entire box of Pepperidge Farms fancy-schmancy cookies to quell the growing dread that took hold of her soul as soon as she hit “publish” on this (charming!) post.