One of the co-workers that doesn’t always get along with me is leaving for a better positon somewhere. Thank God. Though it does annoy me that in Gov’t, people often fail upwards. “We can’t take your insolence and your inability to work anymore. Please leave. Here, take this *better position* to get out of here. Thanks.”

Also, Mr. Angry has officially left his place of work which he hated and complained to me about daily. It means Mr. Angry isn’t as Angry anymore; but it also means I might be moving soon, as he may not have enough to pay for the house in a few months. Well, I didn’t expect to live here forever. I do have a chance at a reduced rate house somewhere in this area (not Section 8 or anything like that, it’s work-related). I also wouldn’t mind moving closer to town.

One of my closest friends has, much to my suprise and dismay, turned into a Smug-Going-Out-With-Someone. Yes, that’s from Bridget Jones’s Diary. She has, though. I moved away from the town she lives in and went back to visit her, and I realized that she, in the course of six months dating a very nice guy I’ll call Hugh, had completely lost her mind. It made me kind of glad not to be in town all the time– from the times she and I have talked since she has dated this guy, I know I would have gone mad with her twitterpation about the guy (“Hugh is so smart and funny, and he’s so cool and has such cool friends” ) which after a few boringly maddening phone conversations of this ilk I stopped her with a “If I have to Hear One More Time How Amazing Hugh Is I Will Cease Communication” conversation. I’m never in a relationship for various reasons, and I’m just unfamilar with the gushing/wanting to gush. The few times I have even been in anything resembling a relationship with a member of the opposite sex, I’m so confused and unsure of what to do that I usually don’t talk about it at all.  Perhaps I am afraid if I gush and the relationship goes sour (which it almost always does) I’ll be left looking like an idiot. So when other people do it to me I’m usually left bored, unless I’m so far removed from it, making it entertaining (A friend of mine from way back who lives out of state, Madeleine, can twitterpate at me all day long and I’m always up for it, par exemple). In the case of the close friend, she makes me go through this a lot; and I’m there for most of it (at least try to be) but when I don’t see her for ages then when we do see each other, I get a heavy dose of Hugh as well; well, damn, girl. We’ve been close for like five years. He’s been with you for just now six months. I know you’re in OMGLUV with him, but calm down and realize that I’m not always going to be there. I’m not anymore; I’m somewhere else. Please remember that. Lol.

What is kind of frightening about this situation is that, although I love change as a value/moral/tenet of my personality; sometimes it catches me off-guard. In this situation, our friendship is about to change. A lot of people go through this situation; where one close friend gets engaged/joined/married/ etc. and the other is having to handle the situation as a singleton trying to still navigate the choppy dating waters. I’m facing down years of friends getting married (yes, I’m around that age) and having to watch them all pair off while being a singleton during all of it. Yes, I’m certain of me being a singleton through all of it. If there ever was a candidate for Cat Ladydom, it’s yours truly here. Anyway, this weekend with the close friend and the Hugh just reminded me of the mucho amount of change about to happen in my friend circle.

A bit of an update on recent life–

Reynaud, me, and a friend of his I’ll call Anton went to the local big city for a day of thrifting recently. We had hilaritimes. I much encourage thrifting. The amount of fun one can find in a thrift store is endless— the conversations you will have– such as “Why would someone even buy this let alone wear it?” “Holy Shit That’s Ugly” or “Oh, God, I want That because it’s so random!” are going to be just part of the fun involved. We also got some Indian and basically wandered around. I got stuck in transit on the way back to where I live and ended up going back into the city to hang out with them at a cool bar, then taking late-night/ early-morning transit back to where I live in a blur to get to work at 9 in the morning. That was entertaining. Strung out and exhausted, I had a terrible day at work for various. At least the thrifiting day was fun.

This last weekend, as I said, I went up to visit Reynaud and Mortalia, the friend who’s attached at the hip to Hugh; this week marked a birthday for Reynaud. Mortalia and I went cave spelunking, Old Towne visiting, random wandering and casino hopping on Saturday and Reynaud and I went transit-riding and (other) Old Towne visiting on Sunday. Monday I took the day off and saw my family, who lives near Reynaud and Mortalia (and where I used to live; makes sense now why I am friends with these two)– took my rents out for a nice lunch and caught up with the family excitment. Oh, and I brunched with grandparents on Sunday as well.

I’m looking forward to going to work without this problem co-worker and being able to get work done without being worried I’d pissed someone off. Also, being given more work to do; more chances to prove myself, etc. I’ve got a real good chance at promotion coming up here for in this agency which will be a pay and classification jump, so more chances to prove myself are good things.

Much about to happen; I can feel it. It was stagnant there for a bit but I can feel that much change is in the air. Good? I don’t know yet.

I walk everywhere. I don’t own a car, nor do I have a license. Yes, that’s right. I’m an adult in America without a license.

I get a lot of suprise and (what I think is) attitude about the fact I walk everywhere. It goes like this– the person reacts in suprise (“Wow, really?”) then asks me the (rather idiotic) question “How do you get around?” (How would you get around without a car? It’s called feet and Public Transportation.) Then they admonish me or tell me to get a car.  Usually it’s followed by some inane reason, something like “Because That’s Unsafe!” (and a car is safe?). Or about the Weather– “But you’d have to walk in the RAIN.” My response is usually “So? Rain ain’t gonna kill me.”

Once in a while I get what I consider to be an enlightened response . . . “Wow, cool. Good for you.”

I’m not suprised when I get this response, but over the years I’ve become increasingly irritated with it. Yeah, I know, I bring it upon myself. . . but come on, people. The rest of the world doesn’t live in cars; in most countries only the rich have a car, and the rest of the country hoofs it or uses public transportation. Yes, even in what is considered to be developed countries. An adult without a license is common. But we live in “Car Country”, so I’m looked upon as some kind of “weirdo”.

Why am I weird for not wanting to bring upon the world another hulking metal mass of pollution? Yeah, sure, grocery shopping is odd and can be a pain; but hell. It sure does build character. I can’t necessarily bring large purchases home, but I’m not really in need of them anyway, also, if I really need it, I’ve got a few people willing to give me a ride once in a while. Their favor which I return with other favors, thank you.

Imagine what this country would be like if we all walked. . . I walk along a busy rural highway every day. My current past time is “Almost Getting Killed”. When I first moved here I was, I admit, worried the first few weeks about walking down this busy rural highway. There’s no side to the road, just  a ditch and some wide areas leading into houses. Yeah, I walk in a sideways ditch. I was suprised, though, how quickly I picked up how to handle walking along this highway– no headphones, watch footing, keep aware. Also, I learned that the old adage “walk on the right side of the road” is a bunch of bull. . .  I walk where the footing is the safest.

Imagine if there were loads of other people using this road to walk along (there are others, but they’re weirdos like me and teenagers with no car). There would be a clear sidewalk to walk on. There would be clear signs everywhere for cars. The Highway Patrol would be watching out constantly (actually, they are, as this area is prone to idiot accidents– “But Officer, I didn’t see the eight whipping turns come on!”). People would be aware of their surroundings.

THAT. That is what annoys the hell out of me about cars. People in cars are not at all aware of their surroundings. They rush along in their padded box, only moving in and out of it in preplanned areas like Parking Lots and Driveways. They only see what’s in front of them or on side of them if they’re a passenger. In Front Of Them: Cars. On the Side Of Them: Houses and Cars. They have no clue that there’s one of the trees that they hurtle by every day has a top that reminds me of a Christmas Star, or that the stream sounds like people talking in the morning. They scrunch their faces up running in the rain through the Parking Lot to the Store, cursing the World For Being Wet, getting angry when they realize they’ve got a few drops of water on their clothing. The World is more interesting when you’re soaked through to the bone and you’ve still got two miles to go. Suddenly your discomfort isn’t as important anymore, because hell, it’s just water, and you’ll dry out in a little while.

In the morning I walk through a Redwood Forest with the mist lifting through it; the trees talk by dripping and moving. Birds are crazy loud in the morning, with their chirps and “doo bees” and long calls telling everyone they’re awake and ready for another day. Usually I suprise a few Deer along with some bold Raccoons still up; lately in my neighborhood I’ve been avoiding a skunk family. Dogs up early bark at me. Butterflies flit by. The various streams I pass by on my way to work gurgle and bubble. It’s gorgeous, beautiful, one of a kind.

If I had a car, I’d slump out of bed in the morning, take a quick shower, take a five minute drive, and be at work.  That’s it. I’d miss out on all of what I described. I’d see: House, Car, Work.  No WONDER people get so depressed during the Winter! DARK TO DARK is all they’re experiencing, constantly. I’d bet if they walked to work if they could they’d be in a better mood.

Also, imagine if we as a country encouraged living close enough to work to walk or take Public Transportation again. I bet it would encourage communities, the type of place one lives where they all know one another and work to help out others, all because they work , live, and shop close together.

Think about the benefits of Public Transportation too. Loads cheaper, in many areas the same amount of travel time, the ability to not have to worry about the road. Also, there is a real sense of community on the bus. It’s not always pretty (boy is it not) but the world isn’t anyway; if one locks themself away from the pain and problems in the world, one cannot learn how to handle them.  People, homeless drunks are people too. Sorry to be honest with you, but it’s the truth. However, I’ve learned that often those homeless drunks are kinder and more helpful than the confused and frightened commuting worker on the bus, and that most people on the bus are simply wanting to get from point A to point B with little problems, just like me; so when I’m down a few cents or needing help with my packages, they’re likely to get up and help me as they know I’ll help them. Especially on the buses that I take on a regular basis. There really is a community on a regular bus: everyone knows where everyone else is going, and most of the riders are willing to chip in and help the others, as they know they’ll get it in return. I take a bus now that’s practically a regular party in the evenings. The driver turns the lights off and people gab and listen to music. No joke.

On the local Amtrak route there’s even a club of riders who get together and drink in the evenings after work. On the train, of course. A community, see?

Imagine if more people took buses and trains. They’d be like me and consistently vote for monies to be placed towards Public Transportation. More money would flow into our bleeding Mass Transportation systems. In areas where people use Public Transportation on a regular basis, one will always find the system is fairly well set up and better run, usually due to the fact that people put their money where their mouth is, quite literally. There’s always room for corruption, but hell, I commuted into a large (over 500,000) city every day for years up until recently and their bus system was terrible mainly due to the fact that people didn’t invest time and money in the system (instead invested their time in fighting progress and whining about how the buses were bringing in the “bad elements” into their neighborhoods. Yeah, the “bad elements” in that town aren’t going anywhere, sorry; taking transportation away from people who really need it ain’t gonna do nothing, you NIMBYists.)  Now I live in a rural area with a better running bus because well, hell. How am I supposed to get down the Mountain without it? It’s a necessary part of living up here.

I ask Constant Drivers Who Live In Their Cars if they can, walk a few places once in a while. Park the car ten blocks from work and walk.  Utilize a Park and Ride and take the bus into work. Ride a bike. You’ll begin to notice things like the seasons changing. You’ll get to know your neighbors a little better. You’ll be faced with a drunk man breathing into your face and have to learn how to handle him. You might lose weight. If you’re chronically late you’ll have to learn how to slay that. You’ll feel better, look better. You’ll find that the rain falling onto the fields is beautiful in the morning sun. I could go on being sappy about this, I’ve got many reasons.

Just, well, notice your surroundings. Why are car accidents the number one killer in this country? Yes, gas might be cheap right now, but who knows if it won’t go back up. It won’t always be available as well. . .

Perhaps if we learned how to handle it now, we’d be in a better place later?

Born blonde

I was a towhead as a child. Bright, almost white, blonde hair. My whole family with the exception of my youngest sister is blonde; I was lucky in the fact I had (still have) the blondest of all the hair. We would traipse about town, four kids and my poor mother, trying to handle all of us; undoubtedly, a woman of my mother’s age would stop and comment “What beautiful blonde children!”
For a period of time, my hair was long, as long as it is now; in class, my friends and I would get chided for playing “beauty parlor”, which would mainly consist of several girls playing with my hair. It was cut shorter when I was in the first grade; my mother and I would have epic fights in the morning as she would attack my head with a comb and I’d howl at the pain of “rats” in the long hair. After almost a year of this; my parents finally decided to cut it short (to my delight) and I excitedly got my first memorable haircut. I remember the hairdresser being aghast at having to cut “such beautiful blonde hair”. I wanted it off; it got in my way. After the haircut, I went home and cut the hair of my (also blonde) Barbie, telling my parents that I wanted her to match.
It stayed towhead for years; until puberty. My father used to joke that he could find me in the dark because of that head of almost platinum hair. Everywhere I went, women would stare. I would be in Longs Drugs and a woman would come up behind me and touch my hair. I’d have hairdressers tell me that everyone wanted my hair. Random people and family friends alike would mention the hair. During this time of my life, I was offered the opportunity to pursue a modeling contract, believe it or not . . . a neighbor of ours had a daughter who was a model, and, we’d go have dinner at their place occasionally; on several of these occasions, the daughter and mother tried to convince my parents that I could be a preteen model. This didn’t go over well with my parents; they politely declined, although I thought it sounded so exciting; to this day I occasionally wonder what I would be like if my parents had consented and I had spent my childhood and teenage life modeling.

Puberty

When I hit about eleven or twelve and the puberty bell tolled; my hair began to change color. It went from towheaded to more of a golden yellow; I began to have streaks in my hair of light blonde on the top and dark blonde on the bottom. This happens to most blondes when they are teenagers; blonde is associated with youth for a major reason, that being that it’s usually children and preteens who are blonde without help. Some women and men are fortunate to maintain the blonde without coloring; usually, this denotes a person who is very, very fair. My scalp also, due to puberty, became quite oily. It still is, unfortunately; no matter how I try to train it to be not so.
During this phase in my life, I hated my hair. It was almost always short and out of my way; I wouldn’t let it past my ears before I demanded a cut. I ceased having women stop me on the street and tell me what a wonderful head of hair I had; I began to abhor being a blonde. It, at this time period, to be honest, was dirty “dishwater” blonde anyway; it had lost its brilliance and style with the onset of puberty and I had lost interest in keeping it maintained. I was riddled with low self-esteem at this time in my life and was trying to handle my ballooning weight, resulting in wearing of giant shirts and ill-fitting pants. I spent most of my first teenage years trying to blend in; blonde hair wasn’t a help in blending in. I wanted to dye it, but it frightened me. My mother had been dying her hair for years, but she was unwilling to allow me to start at such an early age; plus, I was quite unawares of the process. Blonde hair was the last thing on my mind as I grew up, trying to fit in, trying to find my place in the world; I just wanted to survive another day without being taunted or tormented. I just wanted to be “normal” for once; for a little while.

Dyeing for a change

I dyed my hair purple when I was eighteen years old.

Well, it was supposed to be red. I had dyed my hair with one of those semi-permanent dyes that year for the first time; a Clairol Natural Instincts color that washed out in 24 shampoos. I had decided to try out a strawberry blonde; and found I could pull off red well enough. I decided after I graduated to try it again; and I chose a color with the help of my then-best friend from the L’Oreal Hydrience line; a deep burgundy; this line was also a semi-permanent line. I dyed it, and the next morning, I woke up to find that I had purple hair. Well, mostly burgundy hair, with purple streaks at the top due to the lightness of the bleached streaks I usually have at my crown. It turned out later my friend convinced me to dye it so on a lark; however, I uncharacteristically decided it was cool and went with it, waiting for the color to wash out.

Not surprisingly, I was suddenly noticed quite a bit. The good thing was that the color actually worked with my skin tone; so instead of looking like I was pale or washed out, it lent a rosy tone to my already rosy skin. People once again started to stop me in the street to tell me what a great hair color I had. Women would compliment me on being bold enough to color it as I had. I had people who knew me from high school super surprised to see boring old me with purple hair. It was entertaining to watch the reactions; mostly, it was very positive response.
However, as the color bled out, a dull pink color was left in my light hair. It was a color that did wash me out; I look at pictures of me back then and can do nothing but focus on how terrible the hair color looked. I needed to color it to remove the pinkish/blondish/dishwater mishmash that it had become.
I found a nice auburn with enough red tones to match the pink and within what I felt was a good color for my skin; and once again I succeeded. The auburn was a lovely color; however, I realized during this time, that suddenly, I missed being a blonde! I had never missed it before; I had always kind of thought it as a nuisance; the extra attention and adoration for the hair. It’s a hair color, people! I wanted to scream. However, being a brunette, I realized I missed the attention that my growing blonde hair had garnered for me. I was suddenly like every other girl . . . it was a strange feeling. What I had always wanted to be — “to be normal”, I suddenly was; however, it was not who I was. I was and am not “normal”—far from it, to be honest. I made the important realization that my blonde hair had its own place in who I am; it was where I was from; and who I was supposed to be.
Eventually, the color began to fade out; and I managed to guide it back to blonde via the strawberry blonde route. During this time period I happened to be in a considerable amount of shows; and had started to Stage Manage; I had my picture taken with my hair down, which was unusual, for a lobby display of my very first Stage Managed show. When the pictures were put up, everyone commented on my photo—that suddenly, I had “bed hair”, that my hair was “amazing”, and so on. I had let it grow out beyond where I had normally cut it because of the amount of shows I was in at the time; any girl who acts on stage knows that her hair is a commodity to the costumer (“She can have a Pompadour with curls down the back!” meaning two hours of hairdressing); and unfortunately because mine ended up as such for such a period of time, I just allowed it to grow out. People began to ask me—“Why don’t you leave it down? It’s so beautiful!”
This was a brand new thing to me. I had always known I had nice hair; but for a very long time, I had not allowed it to be so. It was a pain; it was embarrassing; it was an evil thing to banish instead of allowing it to flourish. I hadn’t thought of it as “beautiful” for years. As the blonde began to emerge again after a year of many colors, I realized that finally, I had something that was considered “beautiful.” I decided that I would do everything in my power to maintain the color and maintain the notice; that I would use my genetically rewarded gift to my advantage, not against me. During this time in my life, I also began to realize that under the greasy hair, the glasses, the ill-fitting clothes, and the glower was a naturally cute girl just aching to be put on display. I had graduated onto contacts, had been washing the hair daily for years, had learned how to fit clothes to my voluptuous frame; had gotten over the depression that had plagued me for my teenage years and learned even how to smile occasionally. I added the blonde to my canon of attractive assets and began to revel in the hair color; allowing the hair to grow out as much as I could, using products in the hair for the first time ever; figuring out what looked good and what didn’t. The compliments on my hair returned; I started to experience the stopping in the store to comment on my hair color again, the woman sitting behind me on the bus reaching out to touch it. I had finally realized some of the blonde power that I had been hiding for years.

Bountifully Blonde

Still blonde, I spend a pretty penny in upkeep. I’ve kept it long and it remains beautiful; I’m rather vain now about what I used to hate. I use it now as a sign; letting it down when I am out for a night of fun is a signal that reads: I am ready for your attention. Take notice of me; notice my beautiful blonde hair; notice my assets, notice me. When I am attracted to a man, if he is around me long enough, eventually the hair will tumble down; it is maintained to act as a beacon.
And a beacon it does remain. Every man who has ever admitted attraction to me has listed the hair as one of the reasons why. I get stared at openly by men and women alike. I receive what I like to call the “Blonde Envy” stare: it’s usually a woman with either dyed blonde hair or brunette just on the edge of blonde; the sour look on their faces saying to me, “How lucky you are.” If I was not aware of the power of being blonde was before, I am certainly so now. So much is attached to our idea of blondes— quite a bit of it rooted in genetics, as men genetically are attracted to fair haired women as it is a sign of youth and fertility; and quite a bit of it societal . . . we’ve had a fascination of blondes for thousands of years—the Greeks reveled in the blonde, for example. Being blonde isn’t always great, though—the “Dumb Blonde” stereotype is a particularly maddening aspect of being blonde. I have spent years trying to prove to people that just because I have blonde hair does not mean I am dumb! A million dumb blonde jokes are told to me by persons thinking I’m tolerant as I am NOT dumb; I hated them as a teenager, grew tolerant of them in my early adult years and now have begun to dread them, as, well, I’m not dumb, as I said before, and not all blondes are that type. I guess, however, as far as stereotypes go, “dumb blonde” isn’t the worst one out there. And maybe I do actually have more fun?
I wear my hair not only as it is who I was born as, but also as it befits me well; I’m as cynical and rude as one can be, however, I’m also aware that I’ve got what could be considered a “bright” personality. The hair, to me, is something that signifies that I AM different, no matter how much trouble being so brings to me, even if a million women try to copy my hair color and there is a thousand other “blondes” out there in the world (Honestly, I have a tough time calling women who dye their hair blonde “blonde” . . . they didn’t go through years of blondness to be able to handle that term, thank you. Putting a wool sweater on does not make you a sheep.) It is a part of my persona, it is a designee to those around me that there is something distinctive about me, it is a major part, to me, of what I find attractive about myself. Living with this color makes me feel better about myself; it makes me feel beautiful, even, at times. I have no plans to change it in any drastic way other than a nice trim here and there; regardless of every hairdresser who gets their hands on the hair and declares what they could do with such a “beautiful head of hair.” I have chosen to live with the handle “blonde” in my description, it is a part of me just as are my eyes, or my nose, or my leg, and so on. I’ve decided to maintain it until I begin to gray . . . and have decided to allow myself to go completely gray; because, after all, those who are blonde end up with gorgeous gray hair, and to be honest, I’m looking forward to it.

Blonde is a hair color, a description, a personal decision and a lifestyle.
I feel like I can handle all of the above. I’ve only spent my entire life learning that.

The White Tiger: a Novel by Aravind Adgia

Will be reading next: tie between Ivanhoe and The Once and Future King (undecided)

Finished reading: Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro Recommended Read

The other day, I was at Kmart, buying random various after being paid. I went up to the register with my items, all not necessarily needed and mostly frivolous; the type of purchases one does when they’re flush with a little money. The person ahead of me in the line was having problems with purchasing what he wanted to buy– I couldn’t see what it was. He was a young man, probably around my age; somewhat unkempt, the type of unkempt that comes from a. either living on the street/edge and b. struggling with a drug problem of some sort– the sort that is common in the area I live. I made a guess of what he was buying from the type of person he was– some kind of snack food? Beer? It was stereotypical, I know; but I can’t change what I was thinking.  The cashier told him his card had been declined. “Aw, man,” He responds, “That’s a gift card. There’s supposed to be like thirty dollars left on that card, you sure? Run it again.” The cashier, a boy who couldn’t have been graduated from high school yet, runs the card through again and again tells the man that the card is declined. The man, embarrassed, is responding the way we all do when this happens to us “What? I mean, there’s supposed to be money in there. Man, I swore there was thirty dollars in there,” and so forth. Eventually the man tells the guy he’s going to go call for the balance on the card, and proceeds to start to leave. The cashier asks him what to do with the stuff he is buying– put it aside? Put it away? The man dismisses it, telling the cashier “he’ll get it some other time” and proceeds to leave the store, head down and shaking in disbelief.

I moved forward in line as the cashier is putting the items the man almost bought away, and am suddenly caught off guard by what he’s putting away– the man was buying onesies for what was clearly a baby girl. . . I immediately felt bad for thinking what I had thought and not offering to cover the cost of it. I could have done so, an act of kindness, and it did cross my mind; but I hesitated. This poor young man was trying to buy clothing for what was probably his baby daughter and he couldn’t. . . god, I felt– feel– so, so bad. Here I am buying candy and makeup and this dude can’t even afford clothing for his child. I have a solid job and I get paid a considerable amount for what I do; and here is this person who is probably working some menial position and barely making it; having to support a family he’s probably not living with anymore, struggling, relying on gift cards from relatives to buy what he needs. I could be romanticizing it, making it seem worse; however, I know from my experiences, that this description is probably very close to real life. I see this type of person on public transportation– anyone who takes public transportation on a regular basis knows to whom I am referring– a hard scrabble person coming from a rough and tumble life, trying to pull themselves out of their hole that they may or may not have dug themselves, depending on their situation. I have a clear memory of heading home on the long journey after a college class, having had a bad day because of: whatever boy I was crushing on had ignored me, I’d done not as well as I wanted to on a test, I’d been cast as ensemble again in a show that I had really wanted a role in, and I had been yelled at by some idiots in a car; and sitting in the bus, lost in my dissapointment, I began listening to the man behind me tell his friend about how he was trying to convince himself that he’d given up the (crack) pipe for good, that he needed to be clean, that he missed being able to see his daughter, that if he stayed clean the courts would allow him to see her again. . . and I thought, wow, suddenly my day didn’t seem so bad. Or the time I listened to this guy and his cracked out girlfriend talk on and on about how he’d been clean since he was out of lockup for ten whole days of H(eroin) and that he was going to make it, then the guy waiting until after his girlfriend had  gotten off the bus to tell his buddy who was traveling with them about how he “had to go see this guy, for no reason, for a little while” over and over again . . . it was clear by the way he started to shake that he meant a dealer/supplier. My pain is relative compared to a person like this; after all, I’m clean; no criminal record, I’ve got a job, a life, family who cares about me and friends who may live far away from me but at least are there for me, I hope. Life’s been up and down, but that’s all relative, as I said.

What I am really trying to say is that I’ve receieved word that I will be getting a pay cut due to the economy and recession; and everyone around me is asking me if I’m okay, if I’m going to be okay; all my relatives have called my parents to see if I still have a job; everyone around me is telling me that they’re sorry that I’m receiving a cut. . . though I’d prefer the cut to a loss of position, thank you. What I am saying is that yeah, it sucks that I’ve lost money not due to my own fault; but I can take it, can suck it up for the people around me, and hell, at least I’m not battling the crack pipe or getting embarrassed at a Kmart because I have no money to buy clothing for my baby daughter. I’m doing fine and will be doing fine. The recession will be over some day and everything will get back to normal, and I’ll move up in positions, get a degree, and be on with my life. It will all get better.

It’s been a little more than seven months since I made the biggest decision of my life.

I changed everything because I needed a change, oh, so badly did I need a change. Things had stagnated and I had lost sight of who I was and what I wanted.

This gave me the opportunity to restart somewhere else, somewhere new; to create for my own a little corner of the world to call MINE.

I’ve spent the last seven months adjusting. I’m adjusted now. However, I’ve hit an uneasy calm; life has become routine again. However, the routine is: go to work. Go Home. Do Laundry. Go To Store. Go Home. Walk. Walk some more. Library. Home. Downtown. Home. DVD at Home. Home Home Home.

I wanted solid; that’s what I got. I also wanted to make new friends; however, that didn’t happen. I thought, well, hell; there’s got to be someone at my new job I can get along with, make friends with, right?

Wrong. I became, within a six month period, the office Jonathon Livingston Seagull; ostracized because I chose not to take sides. No one really talks to me anymore; except my Supervisor and a woman I’ll call Rose. The rest of the (eight person, all women) staff either keep to them or pointedly ignore me for wrongs they believe I brought upon them. Or because I’m competition for all the young men who happen to work in conjunction with us in the company I work for. Or because they’re a bitch. Whatever it is, it was a tough six months.

I miss my friends, my actual friends. I’ve gone over my text limit every month that I have been here because I’ve been busy texting my friends and my sister all the damn day long because if I don’t, I’ll go insane. I know I made this decision myself, but I never expected to have the problems that I did moving down here. I thought I would sail through the first six months with flying colors. I’m a sociable person; generally nice and easy to get along with; but somehow that was thwarted and I failed at getting to know people. I don’t even know what happened.

At work, I work. I work a lot. But I’m bored. It’s not so much the work that bores me, although it can be boring; it’s that I don’t have much stimulation beyond working. I’m intelligent and have a big mind full of thoughts constantly running through it; and if I don’t have some sort of stimulation I start to shut off. I’m shutting off who I am to save myself the pain that I experienced when I first started having problems at work. I’m still here, still the same person; I just have nowhere to put the rest of my large personality while I am at work. But I can’t shut it off, no matter how hard I’ve stuffed it down. It creates problems, it makes me resent. I resent having to deal with certain co-workers; I can’t stomach the resent either, because I am RIGHTTHERE to the co-workers and have to work with them somewhat; because if I make any moves outside of being this façade with no emotions, they prey upon it and use it against me. After the third or fourth time my personality was thrown against me, I realized; I can’t have it anymore. I have to just be a zombie worker; working quietly and calmly, pretending to be blasé on the outside. They can’t be allowed to use myself against me again, that’s for damn sure.

I’m also competing for attention from the outside world with a few other staff members. There’s one; I’ll call her CU . . . she is close to my age (I’m the youngest in the office) and she has what seems like a bright personality. She’s been in the office longer than I have, so everyone more or less knows her. She has the habit of getting up and down all the time and butting her way into other conversations; she’s also trolling for cock. She’s called CU because she’s got a nice, big Crying Uterus; i.e. she wants marriage and baby NOW. I see her with men she’s open about wanting, and she’s obvious; she might as well spread her legs and say “GIVE ME BABY!” the way she acts sometimes. I’ve accidentally come in between her and a prospect (of which she has many) a few times, and felt the wrath of being in the way. She is the type of woman, I told Reynaud, who would clothesline another woman to be in the eyesight of a man. The problem is, she’s close to the Mafia Boss of the office, and to a woman who I get along with, who I will call Patience; and both of them tend to root for her headlocking a man into submission, making it hard for me to talk about how perhaps, maybe, there is a few of “her” men who might want to get to know me as well. I’ve had her straight up interrupt a conversation with one of “her” men just to interject her little statement or “cut through” when she could easily go another way. I’m not allowed to talk to them, apparently.
The thing is, I have such little interaction with anyone beyond my Supervisor, who I will refer to as Supe I, and the Mafia Boss, who happens to be the lead in my office that what does it matter to her if I get up and fall into conversation with someone else than my phone? My position calls for no interaction, whereas hers is all about interaction; she works in HR. So what if she lives in a rural area? So do I. So what if she has only a few friends? So do I. It’s really frustrating.

I miss being able to flirt; to interact without boundaries, to be able to stomach hate for another person.

I’m lonely. I’m desperately lonely. I’ve had a tough time getting to know people; mainly because it’s not easy for me to get around; also because really, I’ve always been in incredibly social situations, and for the first time, I’m in a situation of little interaction. I don’t frankly know where to start. Reynaud suggested craigslist strictly platonic, but, I’m leery of craigslist. I am unskilled in the art of making friends; I always have been. It’s been more of a chance thing for a while here.

I made a brave and bold decision, to restart anew. But more than once I have sat up in the middle of the night, wondering; did I make the right choice?

In my office there are three posters on the wall. The type of poster one remembers from the mid 1990’s classroom, the ones with a black background, a bland picture and a word below it that’s spelled out in large letters with a dot in between the letters. The ones that are now made fun of through the thousands of memes running through the nets.

Ours in our office say: SUCCESS. RISK. ATTITUDE. It’s so very junior high. I mean, I already deal with a bully and a “cool crowd” who TOTALLY ignore me and who’ve literally pulled pranks to “haze” me, I might as well be learning Transition to High School Math and breaking out in pimples, eating by the fire pole with my few friends; sending notes to each other and going to hang out at the public library after school (I was a total nerd).

I want to tear down those stupid inspirational posters and throw them out the window; creating a wonderful shower of glass and ripped paper on gravel. What success? Turning a project into Headquarters on time? What risk? Risking the strange unmarked plastic bags in the fridge, trying to figure out what’s whose and whether or not it needs to be thrown out? What attitude? The “she’s different, so let’s gang up on her until she breaks down and gives in?” attitude?

I have a saying that is taped to my rolling drawer set. « Rappelez-vous, acune personne est sur. » It’s probably a bad translation, but what it should translate into is “Remember, no one is safe.” This little mantra has gotten me through some tough times.

Work hasn’t been so easy these six months.

At home, I live with a roommate I’ll call Mr. Angry. He’s middle aged, single, lives with his two cats, and lives for cars, driving, a car he built himself that he never drives but races; and hates his job. That, I will say, is about it to him. He’s out of my way most of the time, but he’s always home. His computer room is above my room; and he’s a programmer, so he spends all his time on the computer. His computer chair makes noise. . . the first night I slept here, I was beside myself trying to figure out what the noise was. I still occasionally get irritated with it. I have no real beef with him, other than the occasional problem (such as he never PUTS MY CHECK IN ON TIME as he is also the landlord) but otherwise, it’s an okay setting. Everyone wonders why I live in the middle of nowhere with a man almost twice my age, but he hasn’t done anything for me to be afraid of him, and, it’s been a pretty quiet setting since I came here.

My house is like a tomb, though; I’m encased in it most of the time, other than when I’m being a zombie at work. I am hindered by a principle and lack of transportation, so, I often stay home. Also, the weekends, I tend to recover from the annoying week, so home is often it. I watch a lot of DVDs, a lot of TV I’ve downloaded/ on the internet, I im a lot; I fuck around on the internet. I have watched enough Family Guy in these past six months that I quote it in my sleep; this isn’t necessarily a problem, however, I can’t go have a beer with the Griffins, now can I? I’ve replaced companionship with music and a novel; my god, have I read a lot in these past six months! This also isn’t a problem, per se; however, it’s not quite the same as a real person, a novel.

It’s like what the dad used to say in Calvin and Hobbes when Calvin was forced to do something he didn’t want to: “It gives you character.” Well, if that’s true, I must have a hell of a lot of character by now. I’ve matured at a strong rate since making the decision, and have fully grasped adulthood, it’s true. I’ve been able to tentatively keep my individuality (and boy am I individual) against a tide of persons telling me to shove it down into a tiny corner of my psyche; I’m receiving a solid paycheck in times of uncertainty. I’m living in a truly beautiful area. I’m getting a crash course in What Not to Do In Future Positions; I’ve made plans to go back to school. I have the ability to create, I am in decent health, I’ve lost weight since moving here; I’m gaining valuable experience. I have at least a room to call my own; I’ve become closer to friends, even though I’m farther away, than I expected; I haven’t lost the allies in my family; I’m going to make it, I know.

I’ll be hopefully attending classes again here soon; I’m going to be really trying to get out more; I must budget better; I need to focus on losing weight more; I have goals, plans, ideas, futures, dreams.

Did I make the right choice? Honestly, right now, I don’t know.

Pilgrims in their own Land: 500 Years of Religion in America
Martin E Marty

Will move next to:

The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro

Update 1.23.2009 : Remains of the Day was not available at the Library, so am now reading Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro

Finished:
Under the Banner of Heaven
Jon Krakauer Recommended Must-Read

Written inspired about one of my coworkers (If you work in bureaucracy, you probably have co-workers like this):

She is the kind of person who stares blankly at the TV screen with their mouth slightly open; who reacts to the TV show that they are watching as if they are continually being slightly hit in the face. People like her have long had their mind shut off as if the world is a TV screen; watching blankly and occasionally reacting in a blind, dull way. They find easy, reasonable positions where they aren’t required to do a whole lot of thinking “out of the box” and spend their lives in middle management boring their inferiors and being enough of a decent worker to satisfy their superiors. They may or may not be married, often not; they’ve given their lives over to comfort and predictability and a marriage isn’t either one of those, usually. If they are married they are the sort that lives with their spouse as like a roommate; with the occasional conversation about work or about the weather or something else as equally uncomplicated to discuss. Even sex, if they still engage in it, is simple, fast, conventional. If they have interests outside of work they’re conventional as well: biking, going to the movies, being active in their place of worship; something that asks for cooperation and participation and fulfills their social meter but doesn’t ask for anything beyond the pale. They are the quiet kid who sat in the middle of the classroom who never failed to do their homework; who would only raise their hand in class to perhaps clarify when the homework was due and otherwise would stay silent; the one everyone wanted to make fun of for being so boring but never did because they didn’t know what else to say about them.

It is Huxley’s dream of the comfortable Beta life of bureaucratic utopia: designed not to think, to speak beyond their means, to never make any waves; this person is the realization of response to years of social conditioning and business pressures, perfectly developed to perform the mundane.

I wonder if deep down they’re seething pits of passion; of feeling and of pain. Are they forcing the emotion to stay within and never come out or do they even feel? Have they figured out how to shut off the receptors or is it that they never developed the receptors in the first places? Are they the superior for being able to do this—or is it really better to feel, to hurt deeply, to love whole, to be blissful? Perhaps this is the answer to deal with this world of ours: shut it off.

This is a blog I had posted back in 07 on Myspace, before I removed my account, and happen to like it:

Again; we are amidst the pink and red heart/diamond drenched commercialization of Valentine’s Day, which normally makes me incredibly cynical, even more than my natural cynicism. It really is very irritating, the hearts, the Kay and Zales Jewelers commercials; the pink aisles in Long’s and Rite Aid. I understand the whole celebrate love issue; but why only ONE day and why with pink and red?
I also don’t understand the whole Man-MUST-give-Woman-Valentine’s-Day-Swag-of-Some-Sorts deal. I watched this frightening commercial for the Vermont Bear Company where a man can get an oh so CUTE Teddy Bear sent to his S.O. that are decorated along the lines of “I’m a LUV BANDIT and I’m here to Steal Your Heart!” And the women in the commercial, of course, all incredibly good looking, stood there cooing over the really not very fancy bear that cost ninety dollars to send. I was nonplussed.
I understand, though, that it’s important to give gifts and a V-Day gift is meant as a gesture of affection. I’d likely with some future boyfriend not require a gift; though if he got me some fluffy bear I’d be rude not to accept it, knowing he meant in good terms. Then again, if it was something garish or inappropriate, such as a huge balloon tier or a diamond necklace after two months of sort-of-dating; I’d have to have a discussion with the guy.
I do think, also, that Valentine’s Day is kind of unfair to those single; widows and widowers; those recently divorced. Instead of celebrating just the romantic relationship, I’d like to see more along the lines of celebrating love in general; and I don’t think it should be one day with flowers and candy, I think it should be all the time, sans chintzy gifts. Love after all is an amazing something: chemical, feeling, emotion, selling point. I know those intelligent enough see past the V-Day craze, just the same as they see past the Christmas ClusterFuck to see that, religious celebration aside, the non religious modern holiday is meant as a celebration of family of all kinds and, well, hell, just actually surviving through another tough year without getting killed.
I’ve been thinking over love, over what it means to me, over what I see around me as such. To be honest, I have a great group of responsible romantic relationships around me to ponder, friends and family both. There are people who work hard on their relationships; who have all gone through some seriously tough times together; and whom many have managed to find someone else to share an honest, responsible, true relationship with. It’s harder than it looks to even find that someone, and to see so many friends find that and be more or less happy with their situation is honestly a wonderful thing to see.
Though now looking at their situation and mine, in the looming shadow of V-Day, for once, I am not as cynical as I may seem. I made this huge realization this past summer about dating and relationships when someone brought up with me the fact that I spent more time thinking and worrying about my job then I thought about men and the pursuit of such. I realized that, yes, I care more about what I do and jumping through the ranks in the job than a relationship at this moment in time. Now, I’m not working at the moment, but this feeling is still there; that I have tons of time to find a someone else, that I don’t have to just find some guy off of Craigslist and date him to feel like I exist; that what I really want at the moment is not so much a relationship as the ability to learn freely, to travel, to find jobs in other cities, to explore as much as I can. Sure, I may have a Yahoo Personals ad; I don’t respond though, unless I really find the guy interesting, which has yet to be true. Don’t get me started on Craigslist postings. I’ll just say; they exist as a way to make me laugh like mad and shudder at the same time. Sigh.
Anyway, more often than not I am finger pointed at for being picky, which I find kind of odd; why not be picky? I have certain standards, and why can’t I find a guy that fits at least a few of them? I don’t mind being single, honestly. If, perhaps, I’m single into my old age, well hell, maybe that’s the way it is supposed to be? I have no way of gauging this, of course. But if it does happen, I’ll at least have enough time on my hands to accomplish a lot, perhaps get a few degrees, become a well-known poet, who knows? The point is, I’d rather be single than date someone who does not at least have some sense of manners and decorum. Oh, and he can’t be a chauvinistic douchebag crossed with a cowardly asshat. That too. Which is sadly becoming a trend among young men, or is it me?
Truthfully, I see honest, reasonable men around me all the time, some I’ve personally wanted to date, some I’m very happy to see find a girl that is a great fit for them, some that are in relationships with awesome women. Mannerly, respectable, evolved men. There are plenty of them out there and I know I’ll find one when I’m damn ready for it, which I’m sure will be soon enough. But right now, I’m cool.
I’ll admit I’d like a date or two once in a while, which I am working on (see previous Yahoo Personals Ad reveal). But, this past year, I realized that I had been fine with my singledom for quite some time; for if I hadn’t been, I would have been looking harder and dating more. I had, partially, been jealous of relationships around me, pushed to feeling guilty by media and society for being single, and well, trying to force myself into a position that may not necessarily be for me at this moment. I made a decision to throw these feelings out the window a few months back, and it’s been relatively quiet since, which is all fine with me.

Last night, I watched a majority of the first season of Upstairs Downstairs– the well known British TV series from the mid 70′s about a turn-of-the-century what would be mid to upper class family with a series of servants in Post Victorian/Edwardian London. Good series; I know a lot of people agree with me on that. As I was watching the season, I got to thinking once again about Victorian values, morals and style of life and comparing it to modern day. To think of what I would have been like during the turn-of-the-century. . . being a female with a largely middle class background, I would likely be married and have children by now, and if I had survived childbirth, I’d be sitting in some house telling maids what to do and the nurse to take care of the children. It wouldn’t be that I didn’t have a job to do like I do now; rather, I’d be running a household and trying to maintain sanity following all these arcane rules about when to say what at whose party— there is an episode where the 17 year old daughter of the family is running through instructions on how to act at a ball. She’s ticking off this load of socially accepted gestures and words to say; and it’s just frightening to imagine having to remember all these little idiosyncratic rules about how to say hi and how to smile and all of that.  However, in these winner takes all modern times, we do have certain social rules that we still follow and remember without thinking about them. We are able to entirely bend them, though; especially in the States; in Victorian Britain it wasn’t so much that it wasn’t allowed, its that it simply did not happen. Everyone generally followed the roles that were laid out for them by their peers and their relatives. In the series, there is an episode where the young son of the house has a moment with the underparlour maid; in it, he talks about how he is expected to lie about, attend parties, wait for a suitable wife, occasionally go take care of a family matter, etc. He’s not expected to work, necessarily; already finished school; but still has this rigid social expectation of the son of a prominent man to be at every party, escort many suitable women to various social events, etc. etc. It sounds like its great– he has little to worry about, little to care about, and can basically, compared to his sister and his mother, do whatever he wants. But does he like it? I’m sure that there are a lot of men who were fine with this life; but even with his maleness and his ability to pretty much do whatever he can do within his social limits, he still does not get much room to roam. What if he falls in love with a poorer woman? What if he wants to be a writer? What if he wants to run to the silver mines in Nevada? What if he’s gay? All entirely against the social norms and must be pushed under the table– of course, the table with skirt covered legs.
What I find interesting in this time of suppression and repression is that all of that suppressed and repressed was still there, was still happening, was still entirely part of society; whether it be openly displayed by lower classes or secretly performed by the upper classes, one could not get rid of the fact that people do terribly disgusting things or seemingly immoral acts. All that is much more out in the open existed. There are a lot of people in our society today who will sit there and say that back in the “good old days, no one was immoral and had sex with men” or “there just wasn’t any premarital sex back then,”  and of course, the answer is, of fucking course, there was. All of that has existed since well, the dawn of human kind; and it’s not going to go away any time soon. I’m intrigued, though, by the notion that if a society ignores it, it will go away. Or if a society places blaspheme on it, it will stop. Let me just say if the Victorians were not able to make it go away, well, try as hard as you can, American society, and have fun while doing so!
Look at our society now– a mash of various past ideals and images, rolled up into a dough of information and technology; all “traditions” created in the last fifty years of so– well, in the States, that is.  We can get away with a lot (a LOT) more in common society than we would have ever been allowed to at the turn of the century; we are told we can do whatever we want, right? We can do anything. But, we can’t. We still have societal norms. I’m 25; and starting a year or two ago I had people start asking me when they’re meeting me if I was married/had children. At first, I thought they were insane, thinking “Honestly? Married?” But you know, as I do, that it’s quite the social norm for young women at my age to be heading into marriage and children already. Because I am not so, I do get a certain amount of flak for that– because well, isn’t it time for me to be badgering a man into marriage? I dread when I am single at thirty and the amount of straight up discrimination I will be facing by that point.  Isn’t that the point of all this flak, though, to make me feel bad enough about being “outside the social norm” to want to conform? And look at men at my age– yes, they’re still allowed a whole lot more freedom (usually) but they’ve got this whole “Guyland” societal pressure to conform to (women are objects, emotions are gay, and you’d better like sports or you’re a fag) that I know, can be tough and confusing to handle. I know I get disgusted with how women are “supposed” to be, i.e. love pink, want a huge wedding day, read crappy women’s magazines, be a clothes horse, et al. So what I guess I am trying to say is that though I am fascinated and intrigued by Victorian values, morals, and norms; I would never want to actually conform to those ridiculous ideals. Also, that however much society has changed and allowed for more freedom, that there will always be rules to follow, no matter how outrageous they are, and if one is out of the “norm” one will continue to be viewed as being strange, odd, eccentric, etc. No matter how far we have come, maybe we haven’t come that far at all. . .