Privilege Denying Dude

Ah, my sweet, sweet sons of white male privilege. (And to all the women you’ve conned into supporting you against their own interests, because they feel more powerful when they associate with men against other women.)

Now there is a meme ridiculing all the dumbass stuff you say and do! Feel free to get all butthurt, because, you know,  how dare someone make fun of a group you belong to! Why are people being so mean and not understanding YOU as an individual, and all the lovely, logical POINTS you are trying to make? Don’t they know you’re to be listened to for your wisdom, and not mocked? And also, you have feelings?! And just because lots of people in your group act that way and sometimes YOU act that way, it’s still not OK to make fun!? These jerks.

The only thing I know from looking at you is what you fucking look like.

If you think you understand things just by looking at them, you’re not only wrong, but you’re also an asshole.

One of the stupidest things you can do is assume that I share your retarded fucking worldview. That we inhabit a reality that we both perceive in the same way. That my brain thinks like yours. That my body works like yours. That I want the things you want, enjoy the things you enjoy. That you know anything, even just a tiny thing, about my experience in the world. Because very often you will be dead wrong.

We are mostly lazy, intellectual short-cut takers, I believe. It’s easy to assume and presume and guess things. It’s comforting to believe in the version of reality that most conforms to our instincts. It’s simple to believe that we can know and understand things by looking at them. That common knowledge is real knowledge. But that’s horse shit.

Here is the one thing I know: I have no idea what the world looks like or feels like to you. We inhabit neither the same brain nor the same body. And that changes everything. I would like to believe that I have some fucking humility as regards that fact. That most of my conversations with you will start out – “Have you found that…?” or “Do you think that…?” or “Have you ever…?” That I will take the time to establish a baseline for our communication, and that I will respect your differences once we’ve done that.

I would hope that I do not make very many definitive statements regarding you, and how your world works, and how your mind perceives things and the way your body functions. I hope that I ask more questions and listen to your answers.

What I am really working for, what I want for myself is to more often say “I don’t know. It’s not my body, it’s not my life,  it’s not my choice, I don’t know. Explain it to me, and help me understand.” I want to know how your world works, and I want to know how it feels, but I want you to tell me. Teach me something, show me something, let me understand. But don’t ever fucking presume you know jack shit about MY world, unless I’ve taken the time to share it with you. Because I am going to end up thinking you’re a limp-brained, bigoted, mouthy jackass and I will have the empirical evidence to back that assumption the fuck up.

Here’s What I’m Gonna Need

I have been exposed to a lot of dark things lately. It’s starting to feel like everything is dark, and everyone’s all rotten and crafty and scheming on the inside. Like no one is trustworthy. And that can’t be true. I don’t believe that can actually be true. So why does it FEEL that way? As I was pondering this, it occurred to me that the people I know who are leading quiet, honest lives don’t necessarily go around telling stories about their everyday goodness and morality. They don’t have gripping tales of the lack of awful shit they got up to at the weekend. But the other people – they do tell stories. A lot of stories. And those other stories are so loud and jarring that there doesn’t seem to be anything else going on out there.

So here’s what I am going to need from you. If any of the following statements apply to you, I am going to need you to randomly, periodically remind me that they do. Just feel free to throw these out there, so I am not perpetually lost in a sea of the other kind of thing.

Here’s what I’d like to hear, if you can claim it:

• Today, I did not cheat on my significant other
• Today, I did not help someone else cheat other their significant other, and then claim that was not my problem
• Today, I didn’t lie to someone to make my life easier
• Today, I didn’t betray someone who loves me
• Today, I didn’t betray someone and then claim to love them
• Today, I did not betray myself
• Today, I broke no one’s trust
• Today, I made it harder on myself, because I knew it would be easier on you
• Today, I didn’t fuck up anyone’s dreams
• Today, I didn’t screw over a friend who trusted me
• Today, I stopped myself doing what felt good, and did what was actually good
• Today, I didn’t have sex with someone who wasn’t free to have sex with me
• Today, I didn’t have sex with someone who was unwilling to have sex with me
• Today, I didn’t rob anyone at gunpoint
• Today, I did not rationalize my bad behavior toward someone else by claiming I could not help myself
• Today, I did not hurt anyone’s feelings on purpose
• Today, I stopped myself from saying that thing, and said the other thing
• Today, I was not needlessly cruel
• Today, I tried harder

Because honestly, my people, I love you—but you’re withering up the last little sliver of heart I have left. There are some things in this world that I would like to have faith in. And if I am going to be able to manage that, I am going to need you to do better than this.

If you do not want to live in a world populated by lying, selfish jerks, try not being a lying, selfish jerk. You might like how it feels.

Friday Five – Who Don’t You Want to Deal With?

Like all registered introverted misanthropes, I have a certain amount of dread and natural dislike for dealing with various types of people. Many times, the way I dread dealing with them impacts what actions I am willing to force myself to take in the world. For instance, my dread at the thought of dealing with repair people means that I have a bucket to catch the water that leaks in from my roof, instead of a roof that does not leak. My dread of having to deal with doctors means that I have to be pretty close to dying before I will go to one, etc. I was wondering what types/groups of people other people don’t want to deal with. I opened it up to “types of people” because I figure not everyone’s like me, and many people might not have a dread of dealing with professionals who are offering them services. Anyway, results below:

Time for #fridayfive! What five groups of people (or professions) do you most dislike dealing with? In order, most dislike to less dislike.

superbadgirl – Doctors, the overtly religious, law enforcement, advertising sales reps, repair persons. #fridayfive

cbellers – @superbadgirl Salespeople, religious people, political wingnuts (both sides) too-fucking-hip people, lawyers. #fridayfive

cbellers – @superbadgirl and by too-fucking-hip I mean the assholes who are actively cooler than you, not the kids with horrible sunglasses, dumb hats.

ieincognito – @superbadgirl The willfully ignorant, the overly bubbly, the duplicitous, the incompetent, those with disingenuous affectations #fridayfive

cvbarnhart – @superbadgirl Aggressive Interrupters, Mushmouths, The Self-Important, The Faithful, Anti-Intellectuals. #fridayfive

El_Dickman – @superbadgirl Fundies (any of them), customer support, “global resources” (outsourced personnel), piss-poor drivers, spare changers

billstreeter – @superbadgirl sales reps, bureaucrats, religious nuts, Libertarians (could be lumped in with religious nuts), idiots of any sort

superbadgirl – For everyone inquiring, yes, @p_tea can be his own category for today’s #fridayfive

p_tea – @superbadgirl Close-minded people of all persuations x5 #Fridayfive

_bunny_ – @superbadgirl My family, lawyers (ptew!), police, teenagers, Libertarians. #fridayfive

Joule – @superbadgirl Aggressively judgmental “authoritarians”, bureaucrats, plastic people, collection agents, the sensory offensive #fridayfive

ieincognito – @superbadgirl Can’t believe I forgot folks with a misplaced sense of entitlement. I may be amending all day to limit to #fridayfive

CDCyr – @superbadgirl Swingers who cant keep their swinging to themselves, partisans, believers, racists, panhandlers #fridayfive

jamesblackwood – @superbadgirl My doctor, Todd my goiter, my thyroid, members of my endocrine system, Curly Sue.

jamietoonart – @superbadgirl Political know-it-alls, Corporate customer “service”, self rightous carnivores, Price shoppers/cheapskates (at work), drivers.

cassiland – mean people, corrections officers, my employers, people that dislike kids/dogs, people with unbending convictions @superbadgirl #fridayfive

thatcesareguy – @superbadgirl interupters, self-dubbed experts, the overly political, open-mouth chewers, people who speak in meme #fridayfive

VforVero @superbadgirl racists, close minded people, self centered people, bad drivers & girls named Magan #fridayfive

ZSB3 – @superbadgirl Salespeople, the student DJ’s on 89.1FM, Tom Shane, racists, over-zealous religious people.

Grave_Danger – @superbadgirl Religious hypocrites, doctors office receptionists, liars, apathetic complainers, the terminally negative

trmink – @superbadgirl alumni association, auto dealers, tech support, “patriots”, librarians, local news team

On Why I Wouldn’t Make a Successful Junkie, Or Maybe Then Again I Would

The nice part about narcotics is that they make you not care about stuff. I like to not care about stuff. Not caring about stuff is highly underrated.  I am constantly caring about things that don’t need to be cared about. This takes the edge off that. But then it also takes the edge off of remembering what day it is, or what time of day, and if you’ve eaten breakfast or lunch, or which nap this is. It takes the edge off of a few too many things, maybe. So thumbs up for not caring, thumbs down for forgetting you’re supposed to care. I tried to cut down on the pain meds today, and guess what? I have legitimate pain. I forgot about that. That pain gets stabby without these narcotics. That’s no fun. Maybe what I really need is to be very wealthy and have a steady stream of narcotics and a minder. Someone to remind me what day it is, and where to sign for more meds. But then again that seems like it’s going to end in my laying in pile of my own waste while my minder does coke off a hooker’s ass in front of my kick-ass entertainment system. I doubt I’d have a conscientious minder. I don’t think conscientious people go into the minding business.

All I know is that I haven’t been going out there, and it’s nice to forget there’s a there that I have to eventually go back out to. There’s no “what’s going on fun out there” since I am not going out there, no matter what fun is to be had. That’s a big relief, actually. I am not missing anything, because I am missing everything. And that’s fine with me. Go away, world, I find you to be unnecessary. I am pretty sure you will still be around when this wears off.

The People Conundrum

I am continuing to struggle with dealing with people – groups of people and individuals. I have leveled out on my disgust with all the concepts that I see, at least for this week, but the people are still kind of making me nuts. Not that it’s their fault, or mine, I think it’s just the way in which I think about them—I make it harder on myself than it might have to be if I was a stupider or more thoughtless person.

Over and over I learn that my moral and logic centers are considerably out of plumb with those of the people I know. Even the people I really like. Learning to accept people in a holistic way and appreciate their place in my life while disagreeing with their beliefs and sometimes their actions is just fucking hard, and doesn’t promise to get easier with practice. It’s the constant reanalysis that wears on me. It looks like this:

OK, you’re doing this –> I like you –> you doing/thinking this must be OK… wait, it’s actually not OK. Do I still like you? –> Yes. OK then how can I incorporate this action into my view of you, and the world? How can I separate who you are to me from what you are doing?

-or-

You’re doing this –> I like you –> This is not OK –> This action/belief system is so morally unacceptable to me that I no longer can accept you as part of my world. –> Now you need to go away (Sometimes with a footnote of –> Oh wait, you’re still here? –> Everyone else thinks your actions are acceptable? –> Reevaluate –> No, you still suck. –> Grudging tolerance.)

And you know what? That’s fucking hard, and that’s fucking tiresome, and I am sick of it. But it’s constant, whenever you’re in relationship with people and you don’t wish to be consumed or subjugated by their belief systems and completely lose who you are. I would prefer that people be good and be simple, and do good, simple things that are easy to live with and understand and not bring up all these sticky problems for me to analyze. But that’s not the way of it. People I like do bad things*. To themselves, to each other, to me. They do them on purpose to be hurtful, or they do them on purpose because they do not believe them to be wrong, or they do them accidentally because they don’t understand what they’re doing and what the consequences might be. And each of those things requires some level of thought for me, some reshuffling of the facts in my mind file for them.

And I feel as if I am the only person in the universe who thinks about people in this way, or has these particular ethical quandaries. I do not see others struggling to understand people quite this hard. Maybe because the concept of being in relationship with people – any people, at all – is one that is negotiable for me. Maybe other people don’t think this way because the idea of not doing people is one they can’t conceive of, so it’s pointless to ponder whether they can do these particular people, or those particular people. There are going to be some people, and people are bound to be all variable and hard to understand, so what’s the point in thinking about it? I get that. Or maybe they don’t think about it, or care about it – maybe the social neediness of primates just overcomes all and they shut down critical analysis. I don’t know. I mean – people ARE compelling. Being in a group IS enjoyable, otherwise no one would do it. Social feedback is satisfying, and people are whimsical, charming, entertaining creatures. I adore many of them, and find them very necessary to my happiness. I just also happen to find them challenging, draining and baffling too.

The one thing I know is this—the only way I can function successfully without going insane is to let my core beliefs be what they are, and not change them based on the beliefs of the people I am around, even if I care deeply for them. Everyone I know may think that something is fine, and if I don’t think it’s fine, that’s my right. It’s my right to feel it, it’s my right to express that I feel it, it’s my right to live my life in the way that I believe to be correct. And it’s my right to eject people from my personal world when the incompatibilities are too great. When trying to stretch my brain far enough to make their actions somehow acceptable is too painful or disturbing for me.

And in the end it’s not for anyone else to understand, or appreciate or approve. It’s only for me to live inside. And that seems so simple, doesn’t it? You can’t please everyone, so just please yourself? There’s even a song. But social pressure is a powerful thing, no matter how grounded you try to remain.

So the question is exactly the same tiresome, unanswerable one it’s been for years. How can I be with you and not lose myself?

Stay tuned – one of these days I may figure it out.

*Yes, I do realize that I am most probably doing bad things to other people without knowing it. I realize people don’t necessarily approve of  my value system and life choices, or my opinions. But they can get their own fucking blog and bitch about it there.

The Possible Return of Meaning

I’ve been going through a weird phase with music for the last few months. None of it has meant anything, I haven’t been able to relate to it. For someone like me, that’s excessively strange. Normally I am finding meaning in every song lyric, relating it all to my life, relating it all to my experience. And for the last few months I’ve been wearing out the skip button on my iPod, not feeling anything about anything I heard. And I think it’s been a symptom of a larger disconnect in my life, a sort of emotional time-out from everything. There’s been so much going on, so many things to process, that I don’t think I’ve let myself feel most of it, just because there’s not enough computational power in my emotionally stunted introvert’s brain. Sometimes I can either do or feel – and I’ve been doing a lot of doing.

I’ve almost been afraid to be alone, to sit down and think, to stop doing and digest for a minute. I don’t think I wanted to know what I’d discover. But my brain – despite copious amounts of denial and overprocessing and rationalizing and frenetic activity and drinking and running around and never shutting up and refusing to be alone and refusing to stop stimulating it – seems to be finally sorting things out without my help. And as I reach some sort of understanding, things are starting to mean things again. Music is speaking to me again. Emotions are slipping through again. And that is painful and shitty and sucktastic, and it’s also pretty fabulous.

There’s a line in a Laura Veirs song called “Cast a Hook in Me” (see – I told you I relate all my own experiences to music)

And at night a fractured star fell
And pierced right through the thick of me
I cried out in pain and joy, yes
I’m not dead, not numb, not withering

and I love it because yeah, sometimes pain is all you feel, but the pain means you can at least feel something. And if you can feel something, sometimes you’re going to feel joy. Sometimes you’re going to feel contentment and happiness. Maybe not right now – but eventually it’s got to be joy’s time to come around.

At times I wish that it wasn’t so hard for me to deal with everything. That it didn’t take me so long, and it wasn’t so painful and confusing while I do it. But then I think that I am feeling it harder than most people, that I take more away, that I learn more and then I use it to understand the world better and understand myself better. I wouldn’t trade any of my experiences because I do learn so much, and I don’t want to give up anything I’ve ever learned. Not really. And no, my way of being is far from perfect, but it’s far from the worst I’ve seen either. So anyway, here’s to the possible return of meaning in my life, let’s see if it sticks around.

The Choices We Make

OK so here’s a story about how the choices we make affect us in unexpected ways.

Tuesday night I made a decision to be social way past my bedtime. I also chose to drink almost an entire bottle of wine.

I chose to protest the end of social activities with “Oh, it doesn’t matter, I don’t have to get to bed early.”

As a consequence, I was as worthless as a dessicated sponge mop all day on Wednesday. Worthless at work, brain fog, no higher cognitive powers at all. So I chose to come home and take a nap.  But I had also chosen to turn off my air conditioner, so I was hot and sweaty and tossing and turning and my nap was unfulfilling. I was still tired. So I chose to go out and get some chai and do some writing at the nice, cool Gelateria, because I had to get something done for The Grand Conspiracy today. That went well. But still I was sleepy. Then I came home and took a shower. When I got out of the shower I faced the prospect of dealing with my hair (+/- six hundred hours of hard labor) shaving my legs and then liberally applying lotion all over. I chose to skip the lotion, because it would save me five minutes and I just wanted to go fall in bed, dammit.

That meant this morning my legs were dry and itchy. So I chose to scratch them. And I scratched them so hard I chipped a nail. And now I have to go to a work luncheon with a chipped nail, like a total trashy hobag. So this is what I get for trying to be social. Do you see?

Another Weekend Come and Gone

That one was faster than average, I think due to spending most of Saturday in a drugged-out haze, in search of some form of sleep. Prescription meds can be a good way to find some rest, but a good way to lose some serious time too.

In other news, I am no better at relating to other people than I ever was, and tend to spend most of my time befuddled, running into walls and banging my head against them. I must really like that. People confound me. But I have it on good authority that I am dealing with some really confounding people, so it’s not entirely my own fault.

Dinner at the Stables on Saturday, for which I was barely conscious, but the food that I came home with tasted good the next day, so I suppose that was a success. Big Ass Indie Craft show was visited, but is mostly a big blurry cloud of felt and string and buttons—aside from the utter FAIL of parallel parking I tried to accomplish in front of the place. Was it my imagination, or was there a cop standing there? I think I ran over a curb too. Let’s see, after that I had another nap, some going out, an extremely ill-advised adult beverage, threw a minor fit, was consoled and then came home and went to bed, all piqued-out. I no longer remember what my issue was, but I was angry about it, dammit, and I was not going to take it anymore. So there.

Sunday was blissful, chilled-out normalcy, yummy brunch, yummy Mexican for dinner and the worst movie I’ve ever seen. And now it’s Monday again, and I resolve firmly to do much better next weekend.

Really.

Not that that sort of vow has helped me out any in the last eight months, but maybe this weekend?

Maybe?

Can we be absent anymore?

Once more Cary Tennis’s advice resonates with me. Not only because this guy is a whiny dipshit (I am hoping he’s young, and hasn’t figured this stuff out yet because he’s young, and not because he’s always going to be this whiny of a bitch.) who violated his wife’s privacy, but because Cary takes such a mundane event and strip mines it for the one true thing it really addresses: the fact that it’s almost impossible to be gone in this world. And while I like that my people cannot often be gone from me, I do sometimes wish to be gone from them. So it’s a conundrum.

My wife doesn’t miss me! | Salon Life

…the very definitions of presence and absence have changed; absence has become contingent; presence has become inescapable. No matter where we are, our virtual selves remain under surveillance.

Until recently, one could actually achieve absence. One could go somewhere and be gone. The traveler would send postcards. The postcards would have pictures of beaches or statues. They would be eagerly awaited and gratefully received. Absence was simple. It was an absolute condition, soon relieved by presence. Presence was also an absolute condition.

No more.

Now absence and presence are contingent and variable, matters of degree and form. A person may cease responding to e-mail and achieve a sort of absence although he or she remains in place. Or a person may go to India and yet be as present as always.

A version of us is always present. We are over-connected. We spy on each other from afar.

The quality of our absence is thus degraded. Absenceness is a precious resource we are fast running out of. Soon there will be nothing but presence. We will wish we could go away but will not be able to. The pain of constant presence will be too much for some to bear; it will be a torture like that of sleep deprivation. There will be a rash of virtual suicides, in which people disconnect themselves and appear to be dead. We will have virtual funerals for them. This will all come in time.

via My wife doesn’t miss me! | Salon Life.

Just Wondering

Why it seems there’s such a strong correlation in my world between the feelings of  “Oh, I really like you!” and “Oh, I would really like to punch you in mouth!”

Perhaps I just have a tendency to like really, really aggravating people.

Or maybe I am mentally 5 years old.

Or both.

Holy fuck, I hate parties.

Went to a party last night, which reminded me most painfully how I hate fucking parties. A bunch of uncontrolled drunken shirtless strangers, shooting fireworks out of their mouths and cavorting homo-erotically around a stripper pole… excuse me for not seeing the fun there. It probably didn’t help that I only knew about 10% of the people there, less and less as the night went on. And then I am in the corner having a political discussion with a stranger at 4 a.m. and thinking it’s the first interesting conversation I’ve had in the last hour. Everyone else is just rubbing up against each other sweatily and talking about how drunk they are and what a great party it is, and I do not get it at all. I suppose I should have just gone home – but since I have such an strange way of perceiving social events I am never sure if I should force myself to do these horrible-seeming things or not. Most things seem horrible and strange and upsetting to me at first, and then sometimes they get better. In retrospect, this particular thing was never going to become superbadgirl-friendly, and I should have cut my losses and run at 1:30 or 2:00 when most of the people I knew left. But I stuck it out, and learned a lesson.

In other news, I think I am going to have a party for my birthday. Surely I can’t hate a party at my own house, where I control the guest list, like I hate other parties – can I? Stay tuned.

She did not wear lemon

Lemon drops:

# 1/2 shot Absolut® Citron vodka

# 1/2 shot sweet and sour mix

They make me feel pretty happy, and it’s possible that they help me act pretty badly. They also make me a bit wobbly on my feet, apparently, but no tumbles were taken. Anyway, despite temporarily lifting the ban on shots at the bar (it all had to do with a bet with Jessica on the name of that Lord of the Dance guy, which I totally knew but she didn’t believe me and then we bought each other shots so we each had two, so I guess no one won. Or we both did?) last night wasn’t an epic fail. I felt it when I totally started to go around the bend, and switched to water.

And I am finally coming to accept that I should and do and will make my own choices, independent of the opinions of those around me, as I am a grown woman. And I may be hurting myself, and I may be making wrong choices, but at least they’re based on how I honestly feel and what I honestly want, rather than an amalgamated, group-think decision on how I should live my life. I just have to stop talking to people about my shit and asking their opinions, because their opinions confuse me, and I am going to do what I damn well please anyway.

Why is so much of being an adult isolating yourself in these ways? I wish I was the kind of person who could be open and sharing and trusting and tell people things and hear their thoughts in response and then take those in and in a reasoned manner assess them and use them to help me form my own opinion.

Instead I am a sorry, confused, distracted kind of person, who takes in the opinions of others, gives them all equal weight with my own, throws them in the Cuisinart that is my mental process, and then gets a hot mess of disordered irrationality out the other end. It’s no wonder I so often find the things that I am forcing myself to do are in direct conflict with how I feel and what I want. And that’s my own fault too I guess.

Anyway, fuckit, I guess that’s what alcohol is for. Letting us give ourselves permission to do what we want, giving us something to blame after when it doesn’t work out.

And oh lord, how this is not going to work out.

Feel Bad, Inc.

My people are crazy. I know this, and in many ways I actually prefer it. The problem is that when you live full-time in crazytown, it’s way too easy to forget that’s where you stay. Your world gets all inverted, and crazy seems normal, and super-crazy only seems mildly odd. You start to question your own way of being, in relation to the madness, and then you feel badly about yourself because all of your sense-making and logic gleans no positive response in crazytown.

A friend of mine mentioned that she was frustrated this weekend, because no one she was talking to seemed to be making any sense. And I reminded her that our friends are usually pretty drunk and half of them are also high whenever we speak to them. And we’re usually drinking too. It’s not like we’re at a meeting of the rational-thought society, exactly. And that’s without even taking the crazy into account. And the crazy is in full fucking effect. We’ve got your anti-social, your socially awkward, your bi-polar, your raging alcoholics, your compulsive liars, your irritating braggarts, your garden-variety misfit/loners, your megalomaniacs, your mixed-message giving fuckwits, and a whole other assortment of emotionally stunted nutbags.

And I am not complaining about this shit, because it usually doesn’t get boring. We’ve got the artists, the muscians, the people who throw the good parties, the people who act out in ways that boggle the imagination. We’ve got the storytellers, the attention-seekers, the sexually promiscuous adventurers. We’ve got the people who do the things I want to talk about the next day.

We don’t  have the stay-at-home moms who sit on facebook at 10 p.m. talking about how they’re going to bed after they’re done baking tomorrow’s casserole and wiping their drippy progeny’s noses. We don’t have guys who spend all weekend rearranging their toolsheds and rating their top five breakfast cereals. And honestly, that is usually the way I prefer it.

But then again, there’s a point where I am standing in the street at 2 a.m. next to a trash can, and the very last of my friends has abandoned me to the clutches of a fucking weird-ass known psycho stalker who is trying to chat me up while wearing a helmet for no reason I can ascertain, and I realize that I may need to orient my life somewhat differently. That, you know, perhaps this isn’t exactly the result that I was looking for from my evening. That my people are crazy and entertaining, but they can also be unreliable. That there’s got to be some balance between keeping ourselves entertained, and this helmet-wearing freak-a-tron who is now somehow purring, right out loud. That a life with some reliability and some constancy might not be all bad.

And there’s also the realization that throwing your own small supply of sanity into the crazytown well, and wrangling with the same issues and nonsense for months on end without getting anywhere, that’s a recipe for feeling bad. I do love an unwinnable war, and to tackle some giant projects, but I tend to lose sight of the basic underpinnings of our social circle. We’re all fucking nuts. We’re in our late 30s and early 40s and we’re all apparently totally incapable of maintaining successful adult relationships. We don’t know how to act with ourselves and with each other. Somehow 2+2=magenta cornflakes in our world.  And it’s addictive, and it’s exciting, and it’s something to play with and look at and talk about and it exhilarates me, but it exhausts me even more. It leaves me feeling empty and broken and disoriented. It makes me question myself, when I am not quite sure that’s whose way of being I should be questioning. It is not making me happy.

I just need a break. I need a time-out. I need to not be in this same place. I think that the all-access pass into my world is about to expire for some motherfuckers, and I think that’s a good thing. I am just too tired.

Life. It’s such a fucking bunch of histrionic bullshit and seems to require way more navigational skills than I have acquired in my journey thus far.

Now, where’s my helmet?

I think I am in love with the Target lady

So there’s this cashier lady at the Target store I frequent. At first I would groan to myself when I realized I was in her lane, but lately I’ve found myself seeking her out. You see, when you’re in her line this woman is aggressively, angrily happy at you. Happy right up in your face.

“Angel how you doing today sweetie? Don’t you look beautiful? How is your day going?”

…from the moment she sees you it’s a constant patter of positive affirmation. But it’s not kindly, it’s challenging. It’s like she’s daring you to resent her being nice.

“Precious angel, do you want this toilet paper in a bag, or do you want to carry it like this, sweetie?”

I mean, that’s the kind of thing that normally would drive me insane. But after seeing that she does it to everyone, it’s pretty fascinating to observe. And who doesn’t want to be told they’re a gorgeous precious angel sweetie, at least once a week or so? Nobody, that’s who.

The thing is, she must get negative feedback or mostly ignored, because my bright and cheerful response yesterday let her reveal a little more of her secret resentment against the world. She asked me how I was doing, and I told her I was doing really well. She told me I was looking beautiful and I thanked her. I asked her how she was doing, and she said “I am having a blessed day, sweetie! I always say, don’t let anyone steal your happy! Don’t let anyone bring you down!” I looked around, but didn’t see anyone attempting to bring her down in any way. Maybe they had been in there earlier, I don’t know.

Anyway, I don’t care if the Target lady wants to call me a beautiful angel. In fact, I will actively seek some of that shit out. It’s not quite at the level of my next long-term project of keeping a friend in my handbag to hug me whenever I need it, but it will do.