Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Playing Hooky.

So... the Manfriend and I had a date on Sunday night. We spent Friday night out with other people. And I am going to be out of town all next weekend.

So we made a date.

Then there were technological issues.

And I couldn't get ahold of him. Because his phone battery wasn't in properly.

And he couldn't hear me knocking on his front door. Because he was in his attic bedroom.

And the dog didn't bark. Probably because the dog knows who I am.

It was a bad night. And there was no date. But I'm still going to be out of town all weekend.

You see, despite my advancing years and supposed emotional maturity, I don't deal with disappointment well. It makes me angry. I get all tensed up, I grind my teeth, my stomach ties itself in knots and then sinks into a pit of its own making. Kind of like a black-hole in my intestinal regional.

And I usually I get all tight in the throat and there are prickles in my eyes.

I'm really a very emotional person. Really.

Disappointments, especially ones in which there is no blame to be assigned, make me unbelievably nervous. I believe in an anthropomorphized Universe, you see, a Universe that acts and thinks and feels and attempts to push me onto paths that it thinks I should travel. Disappointments with no obvious source of blame are the work of this anthropomorphized Universe.

Why does the Universe not want me to get any?

WHY DOES THE UNIVERSE HATE ME?

I have decided that the Universe was instead offering me an opportunity to do what he and I have not done in this latest round of dating: spend time together in daylight.

So tomorrow, I am going to take advantage of all of this luxurious paid personal leave I have with my grown up job with grown up benefits, and I am going to play hooky.

This is what grown ups do with their sick time, right? I mean... they don't actually save it for when they're sick? Do they?

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Intimacy.

I have discovered that, despite my long record of thinking (and claiming) the contrary, I have intimacy issues. There are things I will not discuss, not in any personal sense, not when it matters, not when it's important that they be discussed. This reticence stems from a fear of opening up. It's a fear of rejection and of judgment and of being poked and prodded in soft places that just won't stand up to long and/or intense scrutiny.

I have been able to avoid this realization for the previous 25 years of my life because I can be what others describe as a very open person. I will talk about a whole range of things that most people don't discuss in public. But I will discuss them in the most academic, intellectual, abstract terms. My "self" (such as it is) is never involved in these conversations, just my brain. This is evidenced by the very language I use, the terms, the connections, the dime-store psychology that is injected in pretty much every conversation I have that touches on matters personal. I strive to remain unemotional, objective, viewing a subject or a problem from all sides, empathizing with any point of view presented to me.

Of course, of course, this doesn't always work, but compared to the emotional tumult that constantly rages through my head, down my spinal cord, and seeps into every molecule of my being, right on down to the marrow in my bones, I'm the picture of serene calm.

(I think this might be somehow responsible for why I am such a sap, why I cry at movies with even an iota of emotional resonance, why beautiful music and lyrics make my throat tight and my eyes burn.)

In simple terms, then, my penchant for abstraction is an emotional defense mechanism.

And this is why, despite all my sharing and seeming forthrightness, I have intimacy issues.

I don't tell anyone my fantasies. I don't tell anyone my dreams. I don't tell anyone about my heartaches. I don't tell anyone about the moments in which I'm overcome with joy, either. I don't tell anyone, not even the people responsible for those joys, those heartaches; not even the people who inspire the dreams and the fantasies. I don't tell anyone about my beliefs, the things I feel in my soul when I see new leaves on trees and sunrises and all those other wonderous, every-day occurences that can't but leave one with a sense of awe at the absolute perfection and beauty and complexity that is creation.

I'll talk about sex, but only with people that I'm not having any with. I'll talk about God, but only in the abstract, only in the broadest and dryest of terms. I'll talk about love, but only with my head, never ever with my heart.

One of these days, I'll have to take the plunge, and break the hermetic seal on my emotional life. One of these days, I'll have to let someone in.

Friday, May 15, 2009

What's in a name?

So this morning at work, some chick called because she didn't understand why her debit card had been charged upwards of $60 when she only bought a bottle of water and some cookies and maybe some sushi.

Of course, this shit gets forwarded to me, so I start digging into it, and as I'm wading through receipts, trying to find the one for her transaction, I start looking at the names. Apparently, both Colin Powell and Robert Smith shopped at the Capitol Drive store on Saturday morning. Also, they were checked out by the same cashier about 15 minutes apart.

That must have been some morning.

But in addition to Mr. Powell and Mr. Smith, I came across some names that just made me giggle.


"Mohammad Dehbod." Oh yeah, that prophet had a hot body!


"Mark Music." Um, really? This guy must be in a band. A bad pop band. For eight-year-olds.


"Michelle A. Everage." This is just cruel. I hope she's actually a very exceptional human being.


"Algeria Peoples." My peeps be from Algeria, yo.


"Suzie Hammer." I don't actually know why this one makes me giggle, but it really, really does.

What's the funniest real name you've ever come across?

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Battlestar Galactica and the Idealized Gender-Bending of R&D

Most people that know me, know that I am a big nerd. Like, a really big nerd. Part of the manifestation of that nerdiness is my deep and abiding love for the SciFi network (and I will refuse to call it SyFy for the duration of my life), for science fiction in general, and for Battlestar Galactica in particular.

This show was the best show on television.

I am not kidding. Or exaggerating. At all.

One of the many, many reasons that BSG was such a stellar example of what television can be when done correctly is it presented a vision of gender relations that, while idealized in that it was better than what we've got now, was still realistic and believable. You watched it and thought that we *could* get to this point, that it was possible. You watched it and thought, "This is the way it should be, warts and all."

Because there were warts. Human nature being what it is, there will always, always be ugly spots. And Battlestar Galactica acknowledged that.


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Exhibit A: Coed Barracks.


Ah, yes. The Coed Barracks. Nothing says "gender equality" like stripping down and sleeping in a room with 20 other people, of both genders. Nothing gets you more used to the idea of the opposite sex as your equal than sharing a bathroom with them. I know. I went to a college that had nothing but coed dorms. With coed bathrooms.

When no one bats an eyelash over bodies like that, you know you're onto something. Sexual politics is the arguably the largest single obstacle to true gender equality. We are always sizing up anyone of the opposite sex that we meet; we are always thinking about them in sexual terms, and this prevents us from seeing them as human.

Also, it's pretty obvious that living with someone decreases this propensity towards viewing another as a sexual object- just think about all those failed marriages. And sexless marriages.


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Exhibit B: The Coed Boxing Match

And then there's this. Men and women, equally pummeling the shit out of each other. A girl can take her hits, and dish them out, too. And she wins as often as she loses. (Actually, in Starbuck's case, she wins way more often than she loses, but we're going with generalities here.)

When two people of the opposite gender can beat the living shit out of each other, you know gender equality has been achieved. The End.

But, on the flip side, there were examples of gender relations that the producers opted not to bend. For example, the only Cylon prisoners that endured rape as an interrogation tactic were female models.

It was also only the female characters in the show that used sexual manipulation- from Six to Ellen. None of the male characters ever did, not even Baltar, who was the ultimate manwhore of television. He was manipulated by sex, but he never used it to manipulate.

So it was ugly. But it was still better than where we're at.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

I guess this is growing up?

S0 apparently I can no longer hold my liquor.

I was never one of those tough chicks that can drink the rugby team under the table, but I had a very good sense of my limits (learned largely in one night in which gallons of rum were consumed) and I could pace myself well and in general keep up with most normal people at the bar. Or the party. Or the park. Where ever.

No longer.

Because oh-my-fucking-god was I hungover yesterday morning. Actually, I was hungover the night before whilst still drunk. I was in bed by 1:00 am, after having puked twice. Once nothing but water.

Then I got up and did Mother's Day with my mom and my dad and my daughter. Then I gave the baby to my mom and said, "You guys go to church, I won't make it through Mass." And went upstairs and puked again (coffee and cinnamon rolls are actually not the most unpleasant things to vomit, by the way) and then slept for another three hours.

Then I woke up and I was fine.

Went to MAM with my mom and the baby. We saw a lovely exhibit of portraits of teenagers. We wandered the regular collection. We chatted, we drank coffee.

Lovely afternoon.

I wonder somewhere in the back of my head if I wasn't trying to sabotage my very first mother's day. I'm still a little ambivalent about the whole "motherhood" thing, even if I do love the Snugglebug. Because I do love her. She's wonderful and amazing and the most interesting, littlest person.

But I will own that I am not sure how feel about myself as "mother." I'm not a mommy. I'm not a mama. I'm not a mother. I'm not really all that maternal. I'm too analytical for maternity.
But I still love her. And she's still amazing. So all I have to do is try really, really hard not to screw her up.

Right?

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Repudiation.

I believe words have power. That in itself is a long, long thought process.

But I believe words have power. However, for me, this power is only potent when the words are said. They have to be out there, in the world, floating in the collective unconscious. They can't just be kicking around in my head. They can't just be in my unconscious.

Words in my head aren't yet words, you see. Words in my head are only thoughts. They are only the first stirrings of an idea, an action, a plan. To be put down, said out loud or committed to text is a sort of birthing process for the idea embedded in the words. Only after birth is the thought, the emotion, the idea REAL.

So sometimes I say things I don't mean. I attempt to only put forth the words that I can stand behind, but sometimes, an idea has to be tried out, to find out if it's true or false, real or imagined, good or bad.

Because something is only real after it's said. And in my head, I can't know how wrong something is. In my head, chasing around my own brain, I can convince myself of anything. I could convince myself the sky is orange if I really wanted to, if I did it all in my head. If I never said anything out loud.

Those things that turn out to be wrong, imagined, bad- they are the things I regret saying.

And I've said a few such things.

But I can know that they're wrong. I can know that I've moved forward from them, beyond them, to a better realm where I'm a better person and things are better.

I've moved forward. I won't go back. Not that I couldn't, but that I would not. I don't want what's back there anymore; I want what's in front of me. I want to keep moving forward.