Bowing Out

My job is a stressful one. I'm at the bottom of the totem pole, working for people who don't grasp how to do their jobs - much of my day is spent hunting them down and explaining to them over and over and over again that if I ask for a client's mailing address, I don't need an email address or the ad agency's address - I need the client's mailing address. Most of the people I work with are in the same boat, fed up with the unwillingness of our superiors to adapt and learn the new skills of a changing industry. This article is clearly satire (hello - The Onion!), but it rings very true to my experiences post-graduation.

Because much of my work life corollates rather closely to my personal life, my workday was punctuated this morning by a conversation with an old college friend, who is still finishing up his degree. He and I and many others struggled with the on-campus parish that was our home during our tenure there; priests, campus ministers, and pushy laypeople (primarily, as is the case with many Catholic churches, women) seemed determined to undermine the efforts of an increasingly-conservative student body to reform the lax practices and teachings of a liberal-town parish, and it has finally come to a head. Open hostility seems to be the modus operandi now, and letters are being sent to the priest (who is elderly, and affably but clearly opposed to doing anything, much less doing anything for the conservatives) and the bishop, in whom I have a lot of faith but also concern for his time and access to resources that might help resolve the matter.

It kills me that the Old Guard - those who came of age around the time of Vatican II and are steadfastly stuck in those times of misinterpretation and uncalled-for reforms - are unwilling to learn new mindsets, new skills, that would foster goodwill among all the different students that walk through the doors of that tiny parish. My superiors only make my job difficult; these "leaders" are beginning to tear down the foundations of many years of catechism and training and general social graces and tolerance. Maybe these "priestesses" should've given up SPEAKING for Lent.

Dandruff

So, no blog post from last night because yesterday started off kinda bad and just got worse and worse, until I was eating way too much chocolate and crying pity tears on my couch.

So, an old friend (who, incidentally, I fooled around with right around college graduation time but have no real sexual attraction to) mentioned on facebook that he would be in town this weekend, so I commented that we should hang out if he was free at some point. He texted me on Sunday night so I told him to come over... 2 hours later he still hadn't left Williamsburg, so I said we should try for lunch the next day. Monday: long story short, he texted me back about 45 minutes after each time I texted him trying to firm up plans, to the point where I was wandering around the East Village looking for him until he was all "actually, I'm hanging out with a friend, so..." ASSHOLE.

The day was crappy to begin with anyway, and that experience really put a fine point on what I'd been feeling in general lately - that I just don't have the time or patience for flaky people. If you're in town and you won't have time to see me, that's fine, but just tell me, don't string me along for 2 whole days. If we're really friends, though, and you don't make time for me... then we're not really friends. Life is too short. So I deleted his number from my phone, and in about a week or so I'm going to purge a lot of facebook friends (him included) whom I'm just not close with and don't care to keep in touch with.

It's funny that my two best friends in the whole world are also total flakes. God love them, but picking up their phones or making solid plans (both of which I, as a Taurus, am obsessed with) is not their strong suit. It doesn't seem to matter with my best friends, apparently... Not sure why that is, but I guess it's one of those "love conquers all" situations - I loved these girls before I realized they were flaky. But anyone else? I'm not putting up with your bullshit flakiness. I hated Head & Shoulders when I had to use it, and I'm never going back.

Teenage Dream/Teenage Nightmare

I'd like to take a moment of silence in solidarity with Kurt Hummel for the loss of his first kiss. As a fellow first-kiss-regretter, I feel ya sister. Hopefully Blaine will make up for that with you in the near future.


I really love Glee, and this week (horrendous Aretha mangling aside) was no exception. Finally we have a respectful, useful (if perhaps not entirely realistic) take on the how-to-deal-with-bullying issue that has been so overwrought and overdone lately! Bullying is obviously no joking matter and the idea that there are people out there who are so hurtful and cruel that kids are killing themselves is really despicable... but if we call the routine teasing we endured in primary and secondary school (one favorite incident I personally can recall is being offered a Snickers bar, only to discover - AFTER taking a bite - that it had been unwrapped and kicked around the floor of the bus and given to the first gullible kid that would take it) "bullying," it demeans what is happening to kids who are really being tortured.

Sorry, Demi Lovato, but "classmates pick[ing] on her because she was a working actress" to the point where "she turned to home schooling"? Gosh, how sad for her. NOT BULLYING. Physical assault is bullying, and even some verbal assault is bullying, but tough cookies y'all, getting made fun of is part of growing up. I went to private school and I was teased - no one is going to be safe from it unless they are the ones doing the bullying (and then we have to start delving into the deep-seated psychological issues/trauma that is at the root of one's desire to push his/her pain onto another). We are all expected to have tough skin upon finishing school and entering the "real" world, where there isn't always a sympathetic teacher or guidance counselor to help us when we're being picked on. Sometimes our bosses are the ones picking on us. (Right now I'm being "bullied" by my exceptionally hot boss, who is insisting that the Maryland Terrapins are better than my beloved Tarheels. BULLYING, Y'ALL. IT'S REAL.)

On a more serious note - if suicide becomes the best/most rational option for someone as a result of (1)rejection by peers/superiors and (2)the inability to deal with said rejection, it's a horrible thing. People SHOULD be more sensitive and kind toward each other. The "It Gets Better" campaign is really brilliant (although, come on - Hillary and Obama did ads? The point was for GAY people to talk about THEIR experiences. Being black-post-segregation/a-female-politician-slash-raging-bitch does not qualify you to speak on the matter) and will hopefully be a force for good, but overstating a serious matter only cheapens it.

So: Kudos, Glee; thumbs down, bandwagon mass media. The end.

Something to the left of competent

Not much happened today, so you're getting a quick rant instead.

If you ask me to come over so you can teach me something, and I say, "okay, let's meet [in 5 hours]"... When I come over, 5 hours later, please be ready to teach me that thing. If you are still unsure of the process, please feel free to reschedule. I have other things I can work on, and I don't like it when I feel my time's being wasted.

Thank you for your time :)

Welcome to Hell

Well, I really can't put it off anymore... I need to blog. It's not like blogging is such a hard thing to do... but lately all I've wanted to do is watch TV/Netflix/whatever. And my guilty pleasure app on facebook just added a new feature, too, so lots of time has been wasted. To be fair (and add another excuse), my mother's visit set me back, DVR-wise, nearly a week... I didn't get to watch the Emmys until this past Friday!... so now that I'm finally on top of things (and bored SILLY at work), here you go. The juicy entry you've all (all two of you) been waiting for. It's gonna be LONG.

So, maybe I had unrealistic expectations of my mother's visit. We'd been getting along SO well on the phone since my father turned into a total dick-sucking asswipe, but our in-person visits have ALWAYS been rocky. The first mistake was probably letting her stay for 5 full nights (4.5 days, ish)... the second mistake (which gets me "Um, DUHHHH" looks every time I mention it) was letting her sleep IN MY BED WITH ME. It's not like I could've made her sleep on the couch, though - that would only make her crankier. So we dove in head-first.

The first night she was in town was fine. She got in late, around 9:00, and we grabbed a really late dinner. Which means that between the 1am bedtime, the bank account-inspired insomnia I've had lately, and the early wake-up call for the job I had Friday morning, I had very little sleep. I also woke up a few times. I am NOT used to having someone sleep in my bed with me. It's happened twice in the last 2 or 3 years. Blerg. How does one get used to that?? But I woke up, all but injected myself with caffeine, and (having written down explicit instructions on how she could go visit the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island on her own) left my mother alone for the day. Big Fat Mistake #3. About halfway through the day, I called her to make sure she had made it to the SoL/EI alright. She had been nervous. She picked up the phone and immediately I knew something was wrong. She had spent the entire day in bed, which was something that I was fairly used to after she got really depressed when I was in high school. She wouldn't tell me why over the phone, but I figured it was something about my father. So, I left work and walked home (gorgeous day, ran into THE OFFICE CRUSH (!!!!!!!) on the way there), figuring I'd listen to her cry for a little bit then get on with our evening.

I walk in and she doesn't want to talk about whatever's going on, and she's ordering me around and telling me about the plans that she made and that we are going to enjoy. This is still fairly typical, so I move around a bit and start getting ready, until she starts picking fights. This is less typical. I swallow it for a bit and then finally, after the 3rd time she's thrown a fit, I tell her to cancel the goddamn reservations because she was going to tell me what the hell was the matter. Turns out... SHE FOUND MY DIARY. You know, the diary that I keep because there are certain things that I will not blog about? You know, like sex? So my mom found my sex diary, and read the first page, and concluded that I was a giant whore and had slept with 12-20 guys (which was the range she gave me). Seriously? There were two names on that first page, neither of which I had slept with at the time that said first page was written. But that was enough to send her into a tailspin, moaning about how she didn't want to live anymore (!!) because her husband left her and her son is a screwup and her daughter ISN'T A VIRGIN OMG. So we had to have the sex talk, AGAIN, and she finally seemed to calm down enough, so we got a late dinner and moved on with our lives.

The NEXT day (Saturday) was somewhat uneventful. We ran around doing stuff, typical touristy stuff, bickering as usual. Once again we had a big ol' fight right before the dinner reservations (you know, the ones that we transferred from the night before) so I just sent her by herself while I stayed at home and watched TV. I hate jazz anyway, I don't know why she thought a jazz show would be a good idea. She got back craving cheesecake, so we found this awesome place nearby... BUT when she was looking at the menu and asking me what I was going to eat, I said that I wasn't super hungry and had already had dessert, and was looking for something small. She then went down the list and suggested that I order everything on the menu that SHE wanted (she knows I hate tiramisu)... so I said "Mom, if you want something other than cheesecake too, then just order two desserts!" But she kept hissing/harping, so I got more specific: "Seriously! Why do I have to order everything that YOU want???" Then she screams at me, "BECAUSE I'M PAYING FOR IT!!!!!" in the middle of a full-to-capacity restaurant. Classy bitch, she is. A (cute! gay?) guy came up to us a few minutes later and tried to tell her that she was being a grade-A bitch, while I panicked and flailed trying to get him to go away before he made things worse. I'm sure I looked like a classic domestic-abuse victim.

SUNDAY was even worse, starting out. We went to church just fine, but then, on the HALF-MILE WALK to the brunch place, she started whining and griping about how faaaaar awaaaaaay it was and how I had been walking waaaay toooooo faaaaaast aaaaaalllllll weekennnnnnnnd. So finally, after she "asked" me to slow down, I got a little passive-aggressive and started walking grandma-shuffle-slow. She blew a gasket and started screaming at me (in the middle of the sidewalk. where people were eating their brunches al fresco.) about how I had "THE DEVIL IN [ME]!!!!!" etc etc, ad nauseam. We storm off in separate directions, and a couple hours (and a phonecall/vent session to my brother) later we call each other on the phone (she upstairs in my room, I downstairs on the front stoop) and manage to talk it out to where we can make the rest of her visit a little bit easier. I.E., she'll tell me when she's getting tired or frustrated instead of bottling it all up and exploding.

The rest of the weekend is actually pretty non-descript. We saw Next To Normal on Broadway, which was AMAZING, and did more sight-seeing on Monday, and I took her to the train station on Tuesday morning.

But seriously! What the hell? Welcome to life with my mother.

So now I'm picking up the pieces and trying to get my life back on track to make some money. I've come to the conclusion that as soon as my next day of not-working comes up (I'm still temping at an office, and I've got some creative ways to maybe extend it) I will be getting a waitressing job. I really, really wanted to avoid getting a second job until I had a stable first job, but I can't afford to do that anymore. So here we go.

Throwback to the Holy Cookie days

*snerk*  If comic-readers can figure it out, so can "Joe and Mary Catholic." USCCB assholes.

LonelyGirl15

My recent bout of mood swings is really starting to freak me out. I've been a pretty stable person, emotionally, for a long time; only major events could trigger a fit of depression, and even then I bounced back relatively quickly. But ever since moving here, I'm more prone to this depression and loneliness that I have never felt before. In such a big, crowded city, I feel totally alone sometimes - and that's because I am alone. The friends I so adored and was adored by have all been left behind, and I am stuck at this office for just 4 more days with no view of the outside world, just waiting for my time to tick to a close here.

Our generation was raised to believe that all hard work and good behaviour is rewarded, that if we make good grades and work a series of menial part-time jobs, we will graduate and be handed a job that will eventually give rise to a series of promotions and then give rise to a career where we are happy and fulfilled. We were taught that if we were friendly and good people, we would find someone in college to fall in love with and get married to and have 2.7 children and a dog and and live happily ever after.

Apparently, we have been lied to. Or at least I have. 2+ years after graduating, I am still temping and single. My best friend just graduated and is so in love and has a fantastic job with room for advancement in her dream career. What the fuck happened to me? What did I do? Dear world: I am ready for my life to BEGIN ALREADY! What's taking you so long??

Blerg. Ignore me, people. Yesterday was a good day. Today is not a good day. I think the answer here is that this company wasn't a good fit for me after all, and it really is a good thing that I'm leaving on Friday.

Late-night food for thought

From this terribly interesting article:

Despite how easy it is to be labeled a slut, it's possible, one could imagine, if you try really hard, to avoid being tarred with the slut brush. If you dress properly and never drink too much and don't flirt and don't have sex and never think a sexual thought ever, you could probably escape the shame-fest, right? Wrong! Because, as Therese has discovered as she's traveled around the country talking to people about virginity, the same culture that scorns women for being sexual also scorns them for not being sexual! Just as you can be slut-shamed, you can be prude-shamed or virgin-shamed! Shame for everyone!

Hole In My Heart

Losing my dad to the cliche "Another Woman" really infuriates me. On the other hand, one tiny little corner of my heart just wants him back, wants him to come back to me and re-open the chain of communication. When he told me he was with this new woman, I felt exactly the way I felt when I found out that The Ex was sleeping with some new girl less than two weeks after our 3.5-year, we-were-each-other's-first-everything relationship ended. It completely destroyed me, and I was SO angry. I never thought I'd have to experience those emotions again, much less from my own father, who I have always adored. He wasn't just cheating on his wife.

When I went home to comfort my mom after the news broke, my dad walked into the foyer as I was holding our dog and made some cute remark about the dog. I completely ignored him - I had no desire to speak to him. He had bombed my heart, basically, and I was still in pieces. I made no eye contact the entire time, I didn't speak one word to him... I mean, I was furious and heartbroken.

Now, when I was dating The Ex and we would have our fights, he had to learn to come after me even after I stormed off. Women WANT to be followed in that scenario. For all his faults, The Ex DID learn THAT. But when we broke up, he didn't seem to care that I wasn't speaking to him. I had stormed off, and for the first time he didn't follow me. But upon reflection, I'll give him a very small, partial pass - we weren't together anymore. A good FRIEND would/should have followed, so he lost my friendship, but I get it.

It's been over 3 weeks since we all found out about my father's new girlfriend/wife/whatever. He hasn't ONCE tried to contact me. He's not following me after I stormed off. I've lost my father.

I'm writing this while on hold with maintenance...

So, I was watching this TEDTalk about social networks, and something he said really resonated with me. Happy people tend to "cluster" with other happy people and sad with sad, and so on. While this is no big revelation, it (and the entire talk in general, really) made me realize that I take my role in my circles of friends very seriously. I've felt for many years now that it is my duty in life to brighten the lives of my friends and the people around me - ever since a good friend from high school remarked during a visit home from college that "life is so much more BORING here without you!" I naturally try to be the life of the party anyway, but sometimes that presents very peculiarly, especially when I am NOT happy at all.

(I'm going to be candid here. Watch out.)

The last couple of weeks have been impossibly hard for me. Between the process of moving, which has been very psychologically difficult for me, and the fact that my parents are indeed splitting up, and worse, that my father, who used to be one of my best friends, is now openly cheating on my mother with some whore of a woman he met overseas where he works. And wants to marry her CONCURRENTLY with my mother, despite the fact that NOWHERE in the Bible does it say - although he'll argue this - that men are now allowed to have more than one wife at a time... I've been under a lot of stress. Particularly with this news about my family, as my mom called me last Saturday (a week before Moving Day) sobbing and told me I needed to come home, upon which I called my father to ask him what he had done and he dropped the Girlfriend Bombshell on me.

Needless to say, this upset me. I haven't cried this hard since I found out that The Ex had spent exactly TWO weeks alone after our breakup and then started sleeping with someone else, and that he had lied to me about it. My dad KNEW about that trauma, and still made the decisions he made. It was similar enough to The Ex's betrayal that I just couldn't take it. So my father and I are not speaking for the first time EVER, I have de-friended/de-family'ed him on facebook, I just moved 500 miles away from everyone I'm close to, and I still have no job. Needless to say, putting on a happy face WOULD be difficult for anyone.

However, I have so trained myself to smile for the cameras, as it were, that very few people noticed that anything was wrong. I refuse to believe that 98% of my friends are that obtuse, so it must be that I'm a really good actress (JOB OPPORTUNITY!). However, now I'm left wondering if this is instinctual/genetic/whatever, or if this is just a defense mechanism or personality disorder or something. Don't get me wrong, I love being the life of the party, and I am naturally a cheerful optimist, but this level of masking is starting to concern me... I know I can be open with my closest friends, and I am, but I'm horribly insecure about the amount of openness - if I complain TOO much or seek TOO much sympathy, will they stop wanting to be around me? [Liz, I know you're reading this, and I know that you wouldn't, but the insecurity is still there. Your love means a lot to me, though :) ]



SIDE NOTE: I was on hold for 13 minutes. Finally got a maintenance request in. Yay!

Fluidity

So, here's something that's been pissing me off lately. And maybe it's a bit Old Meme, but with Johnny Weir and all the ridiculousness that's been going on with the homophobic commentators, I would just like to vent. I do need to preface this by saying that (1) I usually hate people that go into internet-rages on behalf of a community they are not a part of; (2) I deal with a lot of conflicted emotions concerning sexuality because what I personally believe often directly contradicts what my religion teaches. But here we go.

Who on earth thinks they can pigeonhole someone just because they identify as part of the LGBT community?? Between Johnny (<3) and Adam Lambert's kerfluffle with Out Magazine a couple months ago, there's this idea that all gay men (et al) need to fall into some sort of predefined set of categories - bear, flamboyant, twink, gold star, etc. - or they are not really gay. I haven't been as present on the blogs this past week as I usually am, so I don't know if there's been any backlash yet because Adam and Ke$ha (still pains me to type her name, even though I love her music) made out last week. I assume there will be, because clearly if you self-identify as gay but you somehow get drunk and kiss a girl OMG THEN U MUST NOT REALY BE GHEY!!!!1!!

Sexuality is so fluid to begin with, and while I can't ever see myself pulling a Lohan and falling in love with a woman (any more than I "fall in love" with the amazing women who are my best friends), I can openly admit that I find some women very attractive. I am only about 68% joking when I say I would "go gay for" Natalie Portman. But who are we to put labels on people? To discuss Lohan further, I must admit that I was a staunch skeptic of her relationship with Samantha Ronson, until it lasted as long as it did and ended the way it did and is still playing out, to a certain extent. I believe she was as surprised as anyone else when she fell for a woman, but clearly it was meaningful and true in the same way that it is meaningful and true when Lambert started talking about his "crush" on Ke$ha. (Lambert has been quoted in the past as saying "A crush is a very nonthreatening thing.")

I'm so over homophobia. My mother likes to ask me if one of my closest friends (who is gay) was sexually abused as a child, because that's why children "grow up to be gay." I want to punch her in the face (IRONY!!) every time she brings up homosexuality, because she just WON'T understand. I'm pretty sure she's still living in the days of the, like, DSM-2, where it was considered a mental defect and abnormality. Sorry lady, the DSM-5 is almost upon us (May 2013!). Get with the times.

To discuss Weir further: Sure, he's flamboyant and effeminate and silly and probably-gay. However, this insistence of the media to (1) out him when he has clearly said that it's no one's business, or (2) question his actual gender identity, or (3) criticize him because he won't out himself, is infuriating for those of us who love him BECAUSE he won't out himself simply because everyone wants him to.

I am the last person who should be talking about a need to get away from labels. I need for things to be in a neat little box, and it's frustrating for me when BioDad won't outright tell me what his religion is or what he believes. However, my GBF doesn't need to tell me whether he's a top or a bottom just because I'm nosy and want to know, and it is certainly not my place to ask. The American public has a right to make assumptions based on what they've seen. If they're right, they're right; if they're wrong, then everyone on the inside gets a good chuckle. But why thrust it into the spotlight and make everyone uncomfortable and expose our national homophobia? Now we all look like a bunch of ignorant bigots.