Another One Bites the Dust

Shrug, whatever.

*goes back on hiatus*

defective

Eh, so I spent all night worrying for nothing. I had a convenient excuse (and a legion of friends who don't answer or return phone calls) and saw the guy who has been keeping me up at night... Not in person, but he's all I can think about.

And, damn, I forgot how much mental energy I have. Especially being unemployed, let me just spend all my time worrying about this tiny thing or that tiny thing that will turn him off forever from me. It's exhausting. People ask me all the time why I'm single (hidden meaning: what's WRONG with you, anyway??), well, this is why. I don't know how to get past this feeling, to just let go of my fear of fucking up yet another relationship.

He asked me if I was a man-eater, while we were hanging out. As far as I can recall, no one's ever called me that before. So, for the last week, I've been asking myself, am I a man-eater? Is that what's wrong with me?

I think it must be a lot more complicated than that, although I am definitely driven by novelty and I also have an extreme need for spontaneity. But a man-eater? I guess I've always thought my problem was that I felt too much, never not enough. Well, there were a couple of times when I wished I could just get over the hump and like the guy who liked me so much, you know, when you meet those nice guys but they just don't do it for you, that way?

But, is that all I am? A succubus? A parasite?

I haven't read the Vonnegut book from whence this comes, but I guess he once wrote "You are who you pretend to be. So be careful who you pretend to be".

Overthinks herself into not sleeping and writing preemptive arguments on a defunct blog

I think if we're gonna talk about flaws, my biggest flaw is probably overthinking things. Way too easy to misattribute this to that or the other thing. Also, I just think I'm so smart, if I just think about it long enough I'll be able to figure everyone out.

I played poker tonight, and did surprisingly well, considering I don't know what the hell I'm doing. There was a guy at the table who reminded me way too much of these guys I went to high school with. Ooh, I wanted to crush him like I used to crush those stupid boys in my Poli Sci class. I don't know if he got bored, got chivalrous, but at some point he refused to look at his cards and bet all his chips, saying he had to "go to a movie." I didn't win that hand, and I wouldn't have even if I hadn't folded after we each got our two (omg, I offended the shit out of the old-timers for constantly using the wrong language. I am also a really clumsy knock-as-checker, haha).

Then, I made it to the winner's table, where some other guy squashed me like a bug. Oh, well. I wish I could track down my old friend Jessica so I could bring her to poker with me.

* * *

So, I used to write somewhere else, and I usually talked about boys. Hey, what's a repressed/recovering Catholic to do, 20 years old and too shy for real friends but can still get dates? You know anyone who's too pretty for their own good? Now you do.

I loved my little corner of the internet and I would mock these guys (one lousy crappy date after another), and one of my guy friends was like, "You know, Christy, the guys you're dating probably read your blog" and I blew him off, like, no way, I take precautions, this that and the other thing.

I started blogging in 2002, when Google was a glimmer of what it is now. (btw, thanks, Google, for providing me a writing medium at blogger.com). These days, everyone is googling everyone. On some level, I've been waiting for karma to smack me in the face, 9 years later.

I haven't really written, online or anywhere else, for the past year or so. Partly, I was in a relationship that I knew no one would approve of (for some of that time anyway), partly the community was gone, partly I felt I'd grown out of it, and partly I was getting way fucking paranoid about what people were reading from the inside of my brain. I might write an entry feeling pissy or just sassier than normal and end up hurting someone's feelings 2 years later. It's a really weird experience: I have a good memory and I used to try and keep track of all my entries, but that would be ~1500 pages of writing about now. Damn, I'm like the Shakespeare of bloggers, go me. Anyway, so someone calls me up* and says "i can't believe you said this" and I'm like "I couldn't have" and they're all "um, yeah you did, here's the hyperlink".

I used to have a blogging friend who would periodically delete all his entries, for the same reason (i think just general paranoia, he mostly talked about music which doesn't usually hurt people's feelings). For a while, he'd just start over, but I think he's given it up altogether by now. Thinking about what I've written over the years, I should probably delete a bunch of entries. But I don't, partly to remind myself how far I've come, or hope I've come, anyway -- fuck, and because I think it's just more honest. When they tell you "honesty is the best policy" they are usually lying. Still, I try to be honest, and look for other honest people to build our honest little utopia where everyone's feelings are hurt all the time.

I've always been really shy, even though I was a lot more friendly (i was appointed unofficial cheerleader/welcoming committee of my homeroom) in high school. There was this day in 7th grade when I was sitting, waiting for class to start. I pulled out a piece of gum, which I always liked to fold onto my tongue in thirds like they did in the commercials, and this other girl turns to me and says, "Why are you so perfect?" in this really accusing way. You know, and I'm sitting there, like, "what? all I'm doing is sitting here, chewing gum." I don't think I even said that; I probably just stared at her. I just never really got what the big deal was.

So, yeah, my archive is there as evidence that I'm not perfect. I'm not some golden messiah figure. See, you were expecting a goddess and instead you got a human being. Bummers. I'm nasty, moody, I judge people all the time, I'm a slob, but all I can do is all anyone can do... Keep on trying to do better, be true to myself and kind to other people.

* * *

Damn, my insomnia has me still awake when my neighbor is getting ready for work. I need a job.

* * *

I had this joke with some coworkers (actually, that one started with my older brother) where an object with excessive quality X would be mocked: "Needs more X!" (can you tell I love math?) Haha, for example, cigarette package: "needs more surgeon general's warnings!"

I just realised in the past week or so that these sarcastic statements make for perfect Facebook newsposts. Hold on one second while I trademark "Needs more X" before anyone else can get it!!!!!!!!!

*Note: This never actually happened, see title and first paragraph of this entry for more information. Also, people just stop talking to you if that happens.

latest doomsday scenario: bankrupted by our own idiocy

There's this guy that I like, and I feel like he's judging me too harshly, but all I can seem to think of to say is, "You don't know me! You don't know what I've been through!" Like, wtf, am I living my life like I'm on Jerry Springer, or what?

I've decided that the "cool" game is super lame, and I look for genuine people, and I try to be as genuine as possible. I'm not into playing games. I don't like lying, I don't like being lied to, and if I can't trust a guy, I'm wasting my time talking to him in the first place.

* * *

OK, so there are some companies who are totally jumping on that "we're in a recession and I need to save all my money" zeitgeist in the US, all, "hey, you can save money by buying our product!"

I'm really curious to find out if the "save money by buying our product" will manage to replace the "buy everything! who cares if you don't have money, use your credit card!" zeitgeist, or if we are truly in a modal change. I wonder if people realise what this will mean for our country. When people are stingy in a macro sense, it means that everyone on the other side will have to work that much harder to make ends meet. Are we clever/productive/adaptable enough, as a nation, to accommodate that?

I sure hope so.

Inquire within

I have always been a big fan of people who will call me on my bullshit. I'm not sure how much pseudo-psychology literature you waste *your* time reading, but we humans have this thing in our brains that keeps us from recognizing when we're full of shit.

It's called an *ego*.

Some people have larger egos, some smaller. Mine is rather large, and intimidates the weak-of-heart. Sorry about that. The other problem with trying to call someone on their bullshit is that sometimes you inadvertently engage the ego itself. Fighting anyone's ego, including your own, is a futile exercise: egos don't play fair.

* * *

There's just something so tragic about how people sometimes reject help when they finally receive it, just because they had to wait too long. Here's hoping you're better at taking hold of the outstretched hand than I.

livin' in a voyeur's paradise

So, the bad news is, the bamboo slats my landlady bought to replace my venetian blinds are totally see-through.

The good weird... news is, I just noticed the people across the street have the exact same see-through slats.

* * *

I wanna know who's getting polled on this stimulus issue. POLL ME! I just watched Representative Mitch McConnell (what, I know their names, I'm supposed to remember which state? He's the Minority leader) hem and haw about the "marketplace of ideas" that is, if they aren't buying, President Obama will keep lowering the price. "We could spend half that and get a really decent stimulus package."

They're just being petulant jerks. What they do not realise is that every day, we lose more jobs. Every day, this recession gets a little harder to get out of. Because that's what every layoff means. People warn that Japan has thrown stimulus after stimulus at its citizens and they're still in a recession. Japan WAITED.

There's a stimulus window. If we wait too long, it will be too late.

I admit it

I have a serious thing for Salt n Pepa, and I still defend my love for them even though I've graduated from most of the other music that I listened to at the time. Considering what SnP were, they started dialogue and provided an uplifting pro-women message in a mess of generic pop rap songs about gettin' it on.

Although I usually mock the hell out of any reality tv series, I was excited when I found out about SnP doing one. Although I never really thought about it, they sort of disappeared after their second album, and I wondered all of a sudden what happened to them.

I've only seen a couple of episodes because the new ones appear to be on Friday night
and I am WAY too cool for that biz, and the reruns are on Saturday afternoons when I'm usually either cleaning or working out or developing yet another hare-brained scheme to save the world.

But I watched an episode a few weeks ago that I wanted to talk about, especially given the way I believe/hope that conversations have changed as a result of the Democratic Party offering up two minority candidates for the highest office in the US.

Salt and Pepa agree to march for Jena 6 (linky linky linky), and Salt (who recovered from bulimia by finding Jesus and has since gotten married and started a family) brought her 8-year-old son along on the march. Somewhere along the way, he asked what a noose was, and Salt said, "Well, white people used to hang black people from them." I was horrified, and at the same time, I realised just how "white" I am: I have the luxury of feeling horrified. Learning what a noose was, learning how a white man can be provoked into using it on me, this was not something my parents ever needed to educate me about. But not so long ago, that was true for black people in our country, and we do ourselves a tremendous disservice to pretend that those days are gone and we've achieved equality. In a way, it denies the same humanity to which we claim everyone has a similar right.

I deeply resent those who suggest that based on my status as a woman, I am obligated to support Hillary Rodham Clinton. I live in a mostly post-feminist world: my mom was a raging feminist in the 70s (as much as a bashful Norwegian musician would be) and she raised me to have faith in my own talents and abilities, however others might judge me for my talents and abilities (sometimes, i think my attempts at licentiousness are way too subtle). I have an engineering degree and for the most part I've been immune to the discrimination horror stories that I heard from other women in similar industries. All the same, I've long maintained an attitude of pity towards those who would judge me for my gender, because I believe myself to be quite qualified as an engineer. That sense of pity doesn't stop me from pouncing on anti-woman ideas and emasculating the man in the same way he fears women will (sometimes I think the typical white man sees minorities or women as a pest or a threat, I want to tell them we're more afraid of them than they are of us, but instead I play into that reason for fear. it's homeopathic). I see it as my obligation to support women who are fighting gender roles in their choice of careers (I have a friend who wants to be a superhero comic book artist, which is a profession which may even have a worse male-to-female ratio than engineering), but there's more to the office of president than just defying gender roles.

In the world of spin that is politics, it is difficult to see who is ever telling the truth. But all my instincts tell me that she is at best, so battered from the Republican smear machine that she has lost her soul, and at worst, a fucking opportunist. Either way, I don't think she is fit for the highest office in our nation, and I don't give a flying fuck whether we share plumbing.

I know we have a problem with gender in this country (stay tuned for an entry about that) but electing a woman into office isn't going to "make the skies open" for women across the country. Anyone who believes that is as delusional as those who think if we elect Obama the country will suddenly right itself and we will use renewable energy and our economy will quickly rebound into another boom and racism will cease to exist, or those who think that if we elect McCain our disastrously managed wars will magically right themselves. There is not a single problem in this world that can be solved without the efforts of many.