August 20, 2010
Facebook hazard #932
When someone you’ve been friends with for something close to a decade posts a status that reveals views repugnant to you.
Frankly, I’m kinda pissed. I’m not sure at whom, though. At this person, for pretending to tolerance all these years? Or at myself, for ignoring other personality characteristics that would, if acknowledged, allowed me to discern these views and fade the friendship appropriately.
Even worse, part of me suspects that I’m pissed because his views reflect poorly on me. Nobody likes to say, “Oh, yeah, he’s kind of a {misogynist, racist, homophobe, bigot, ignorant asshole who has apparently forgotten how to use the rational parts of our brains that make us human), but he’s otherwise an okay guy, so I’m totally friends with him. Well, maybe some people like to say that. I don’t.
And right now, as I’m thinking of him, I’m thinking of a whole list of things about him that annoy me and make me want to not be his friend anymore. And I wonder if this is the opening of my eyes to the way I’ve always thought about this person, and the whole friendship was a lie, or if it’s just the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Either way, back broken. Now, to unfriend, block, or hide?
August 19, 2010
It’s a good thing I can’t find my lamp.
Because sometimes, for absolutely no reason at all, even after you’ve been complimented, and you’re still sore from killer workouts, and you ate a superhealthy dinner the night before…
Sometimes, you get on the scale, and you see what, to most people (including some part of yourself that you cling to like a life preserver), are perfectly reasonable and healthy numbers. You see those numbers, and you wish you could just figure out how to go back.
So it’s a good thing you can’t find your lamp, because wishes should sometimes really not be granted.
August 13, 2010
634 blow jobs in 5 days… I’m really quite tired.
I just have to make it clear that I don’t want to hear about it anymore, I suppose.
Because the notion that I might actually care what thirtysomething versions of Regina George and Gretchen Weiners think of me is patently absurd.
But the notion that people are capable of developing an irrational hatred for you, specifically (not because you are a member of a class or group) is unsettling. And since I can’t do anything about it, I’d just as soon not know.
July 19, 2010
Zen? Zen. Zen what? Zen we take care of ourselves.
You might think that a hyperindulgent weekend would result in one feeling terrible on Monday. You might think that six women in a condo 500 feet from tax-free outlet stores and .5 miles from a cocoa-centric spa would result in excessive purchases of clothing that would refuse to button the following week.
You might be wrong.
I’d been apprehensive about the weekend – I tend to feel gargantuan around most of my female friends anyway, as I am 3.5″ taller than the next tallest (who, it might be noted, wears clothes 3 full sizes smaller than mine), and they are all athletic and gorgeous. Not to mention smart and funny. Lovely and intimidating.
Also, I’d never been to a spa before. I signed up for one of the packages, thinking that the people who put these things together probably know a thing or two about producing enjoyable spa experiences. And we’ll talk more about the “rain shower” another time. But the massage? The massage induced the most blissfully languid epiphany:
I want to take care of myself.
I’ve had this body for kind of a while now, and I’ve hated it since I was six. For a while, I hated it passively, making it sit around on couches while I fed it all manner of junk food. Then I hated it slightly more actively, engaging in mild exercise while swearing off almost all foods, save a bizarre ritualized assortment of things I consumed only when alone. Then I hated it more damagingly, partaking of “tiny little flaming sticks of death” on a regular basis. And then I hated it a litte more responsibly, working out 4-5 times a week and eating more healthfully than I ever had before (though that’s not saying much). But I’ve never not hated it.
At least, not until somewhere in the middle of that massage, when it occurred to me that I didn’t. For at least 3 minutes, I not only didn’t hate it, but I loved it, and wanted to take care of it, rather than beat it into submission.
And this morning, I slept for an extra 45 minutes and neglected to put sugar in my tea. I also cringed at a few photographs from the weekend.
Baby steps.
July 13, 2010
Those? The gloves over there? Yes, they’re off.
When I was in high school, I had an absurdly massive crush on this guy we’ll call Joe. Joe encouraged the crush, but never acted on it – impressive, since he was definitely a “bad boy” and I was ridiculously naive. Also, Joe started dating a girl whom I promptly began to hate. Haaaate. Really dislike. Solely on the basis of her relationship with him, because there wasn’t much else I could see to dislike. She was petite, with dark curly hair and big brown eyes – in a word, gorgeous. They had the same friends, the same taste in music. And all I had was a stupid crush.
One night, shortly after they’d broken up, she and I sat on my back porch and became really good friends. I was her maid of honor years later, when she married an entirely different sort of person, the sort who did NOT wind up pumping gas in size 40 coveralls. I’m lucky, because I’d said some pretty horrible things about her, when I thought I hated her. All superficial stuff, all just desperately trying to find a flaw so that I could hang onto some hope that Joe would break up with her and finally be free to see what he was missing with me.
I read *entirely* too much Sweet Valley High at that age. Which, I’ll explicitly state for emphasis, was FIFTEEN. Not mid-thirties. And I certainly never pretended to friendship where none existed.
I know I shouldn’t stoop. I really shouldn’t. But now that I’ve taken the gloves off, I’ll have to bend over to put them down at some point – I do hate just throwing things on the floor.
June 10, 2010
Repost
98%
I don’t believe in soulmates, at least not in the way that many people seem to. I think that for every person on this planet, there is more than one person to live with, happily, long-term. I think that it’s also true that for every person on this planet, most people could not fill that position. So we’ve got more than one, but a heck of a lot less than every member of the opposite (in my case) gender.
I think this makes it harder. For those who do believe in the notion of a soulmate, they’re disappointed when they realize that nobody fits 100% from the beginning, that you are going to have to do a fair amount work no matter what. Maybe they cling to the notion that someone will be 100%, and they’ll spend too much time focusing on what’s wrong, instead of what’s right. And that’s no fun for anyone.
For those who have the other view, that one looks for someone who’s close enough to 100% to make the work worthwhile, and mostly fun, someone who’s worth risking an “all-in” bet, the danger lies in the other direction – not settling, exactly, but in taking too much of a risk – in thinking that the person will become more of what he or she wants, or that they’ll want what the other doesn’t have, less. The awareness that it’s not going to be perfect can have the unfortunate effect of lowering expectations a little too far.
If anything, the latter has probably been my biggest problem. I’ve been in a couple of serious, long-term relationships where we were both convinced that the little differences wouldn’t really matter so much. I’ve been the one wanting to try just a little harder, for just a little longer, to meet halfway, and I’ve been the one smacked in the face with the realization that I can’t spend the rest of my life with someone who will always want me to be a little bit different – and the one who had to convey that realization to someone I still cared about very much.
The great thing about the 98%, whether it works in the long run or not, is that it helps you learn more about yourself and what you really want, than anything else can – putting you both in a much better place to get that much closer to 100 next time.
June 3, 2010
Regarding Henry
Am rapidly approaching the point at which I say, “when.”
Because seriouslyjebuseffingcriminyjehosephat.
Excuse me while I go lose my shit.
May 17, 2010
Keep Out
It’s already terrible, awful, no-good and very bad. And I can’t get into it, but I can assure you that no physical harm has occurred, and that big-picture things are mostly okay.
But it’s already terrible, awful, no-good and very bad. Not even the memory of miniature mufalettas can counter the stress-induced knot that’s taken up residence somewhere in my abdomen, so I leave you with the following, which made me smile this weekend:
“Harry: You take someone to the airport, it’s clearly the beginning of a relationship. That’s why I have never taken someone to the airport at the beginning of a relationship.
Sally: Why?
Harry: Because eventually things move on and you don’t take someone to the airport, and I never wanted anyone to say to me, how come you never take me to the airport anymore?
Sally: It’s amazing. You look like a normal person, but actually you are the angel of death.”
May 12, 2010
I don’t… get it.
And I am lucky as all hell, that I don’t get it. S.E. and I have had our differences, to be sure, and she’s hurt me more deeply than pretty much anyone else could, but she’s also loved me more fiercely. And I her.
So when I hear about other sibling relationships, I’m always somewhat confounded by those that aren’t particularly close, especially those where genuine animosity is present. It just doesn’t compute, on some visceral level.
How do you get to a point where you automatically assume the worst about someone who played with you as a child?
Okay – I mean, intellectually, I understand how some siblings really make any kind of amicable relationship possible. When interning for a J&DR court judge, I attended a divorce proceeding in circuit court wherein the soon-to-be-ex-husband was involved, amorously, with his soon-to-be-ex-sister-in-law. So, yes. I understand it, where something truly heinous has been said or done.
But the stupid, penny-ante sibling rivalry crap? How does THAT happen?
I don’t understand how you let that get to you enough to where you get annoyed every time you think about your sibling. I don’t get how little nitpicky remarks that get made every time you see each other don’t become something you barely hear, something to ignore so that you can peaceably and genuinely enjoy family time.
Is this simply a situation where each sibling is really pissed off that they weren’t an only child? And even if it is, don’t you think that they could just treat each other like co-workers they don’t really like, or something, and be blandly civil when required, rather than sniping constantly?
May 4, 2010
Friction
I just don’t understand why, when people who have been part of the same group of friends for a long time start choosing different ways of life, there has to enter an element of criticism.
How is it possible for people to not understand that one size does not fit all?
Of course, I am not innocent, either. Because I cannot help but feel sorry for people who are so close-minded that they cannot bring themselves to accept alternative paths to happiness. When, in fact, they might be happier being close-minded, than they would be if they let themselves think about other choices, and thus, they are in fact doing what is best for them. So.
I guess I should work on that.
Seeking John Galt 