Thursday, March 20, 2025
Noetic Resonance Theory
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Vomiting
I have been vomiting a lot. Like, collectively, most of November and carrying into December. It is really exhausting, and I lost quite a bit of weight. It forced me to examine every aspect of my life {since I don't have health care}, and I saw some major issues creeping back up with anxiety, so I worked on that. And now, I have to rediagnose, since I really did correct the anxiety. I believe what I am dealing with is called bile reflux.
When I was in sixth grade, my gall bladder was taken out. The tube leading to the gall bladder itself was too small, and it was causing pretty awful stomach pains. Not queasy, but painful and doubling over. I only recently really looked into the movement of bile through the body, and realized that, because I don't have a gall bladder to store bile, my liver releases it into my small intestine, which has been recently backing up into my stomach. I figured that out because Sunday I actually inspected the vomit, and it was clearly bile. It hurt to throw up and tasted disgusting.
So, with that in mind, I ate pizza yesterday with pepperonis on it and paid the price today. I have to reconfigure my eating habits because I am so exhausted with throwing up all the time. Good news is that I did pay for health insurance for the upcoming year so at least I can see a doctor about it.
Friday, December 6, 2024
get your shit
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Manipulation All Over The Place
"You're in a bit of a tough spot. Now you're in the position where you have to earn my respect back, which is so disappointing to me because you're one of the people I'm most fond of, if I can speak freely for a moment." Bravo. I'll take your compliment with a heaping dollop of guilt, please!
I am finding myself recently in one of the most confusing stages of my life. I have been thinking a lot more deeply about my childhood, and how I let people around me control my actions with fear. How easily they could.
When I was in third grade, I was finishing up a paper that the teacher said we had to finish before we left for lunch. I was the last one in the room with my teacher, Mrs. Ramsey, when she called me up to her desk. I knew she wanted the paper, but I just had a few words left to write, so I called out, "Hang on just a second!" Her response was to storm over to me, grab me, and lift me slightly so that she could yell, "Never tell ME to hang on!" at me. I panicked and left the room to lunch, scarred for the rest of elementary school. I never wanted to be yelled at for another absent-minded colloquialism again. I zipped my mouth shut and retreated into my shyness again.
All those stupid memories I keep in my head that make me cringe just thinking about how horrified I felt, and now that I'm older, I wonder if they even noticed or cared, or if they noticed, did they take pleasure in terrifying a nine-year-old kid who already walks the playground like she lost her family in the war?
Oh! Another great memory I had almost forgotten about: when I was in elementary school, I knew already that I didn't fit in. There used to be another girl in my class with my name, but she was much more popular than me. We would be out at recess, and the kids always shouted each other's names, and I kept hearing people shout my name every day, but they were never talking to me. That was depressing. Almost as depressing as being a fourth-grader and trying to tell your parents that you were depressed, but they just laugh.Who would've guessed that this button-nosed little ham would have turned into such a hateful, unequally-yoked-with-your-son monster!
Life just gets more complicated as you go. I already see why people are so wistful about their youth. I would never want to go back, but if only to remember what it was like to not know so much about other people. I never thought people were trying to manipulate me when they did things that scared me. I just thought I was bad because I was raised to believe that any wrong move or mistake warranted being whipped. I just fucking thought I was a bad kid.
I also find myself, though, in a time of my life where I am trying to make a place for myself in a world that doesn't want me here. I feel like I'm always on defense for myself, and I think it's to my detriment. I'm finding myself on the side of the villain, I think. Some people are destined to be famous, and some people are destined to be infamous. I worry that my life will turn toward the latter, even though I know most people in the world don't know me. In fact, this is roughly the percentage of all the people in the world who know me: 0.0000071%,
The more I analyze my place in the world, the more I seem to step out of it. It is an elusive idea that bothers me. I want to always know how people feel about me, but when manipulation is all I know, I guess I know very few people.
I guess I will keep trying to push through it, but I also know people don't like you much if you don't respond to manipulation properly, so I won't be winning friends any time soon with that. I just can't win!
Anyways, I'm exhausted, and another protest is being live-streamed, so I guess I will close the night watching other people shout about their anger instead of me. :)
Monday, September 19, 2016
Emily Dickinson Wishes
I feel like I'm one of those people who thinks that everyone around them doesn't like them, and that they are just pretending, but instead of it being my imagination, it's real. I don't think the people I know like me. I am a pathetic waste of space who over thinks too much and doesn't do enough of anything.
I wish I could be like Emily Dickinson. Although much of her life was marred by death. I just don't know how to cope with life.
A part of me wishes I had some kind of life-manipulating disease that would take a fews years off my hands. I don't want to die, but I don't know what to live for, either.
Friday, September 9, 2016
Memories and Being Normal
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| Small town Indiana |
If we all labeled ourselves (which is something I'm everyone does, but I don't know what's inside everyone else's head), I would call myself a self-commentator. That's all my life is. Me doing stuff and then thinking about the things I'm doing and wondering how they appear to others. It's great that I kind of keep a blog, so I can go back and reread the things I wrote to ponder how they might affect others who (probably don't) read it. What can ya do? I've kind of accepted it, and I try to just let it happen naturally, but not take over my life. I'm getting so much better.
My family is very happy that I've come back for a visit, but I feel bad that I'm spending most of it at Brandon's parents' house. They're probably just happy I'm here, but I know they wish I would stay with them sometimes, too. It's hard to talk about, especially because my mom tries to keep such a clean house, but I hate being in that trailer. It's a reminder of the bad shit that I went through in high school.
I felt like white trash. I lived in a room where paint just peeled right off the walls. We went from living in a three-bedroom house near town in a non-scary neighborhood to a shitty trailer with black stuff all over the bathroom and the walls that I wondered if it ever came off. I had to live in a mold-infested room in the back of my grandparents' old cottage while my parents lived in Indianapolis and looked for a place for us to live (which turned into the trailer).
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| Me in the back yard of my house |
I don't want to romanticize the house, at all. The neighbor was some crazy old couple who beat their dog, and when I would take walks around the neighborhood (at thirteen), I would get propositioned by older dudes driving by. Fucking creeps. They knew I was thirteen. I even got asked to join a gang, but it was literally just a bunch of poor white kids with squirt guns. No, thanks.
While we were living there, my mom got into a car accident on her first day of work and ended up living in her bedroom for a year, so I didn't get to see her much. My stepfather would ignore me for months for reasons like me getting a boyfriend. I was alone much of the time (except when I was with my best friend), and I spent most of it dieting and exercising. I would work out for hours and eat very little. I starved myself because I was dealing with the after-effects of being mercilessly bullied through middle school for being "disgusting."
I wasn't happy, but I was getting attention from people at school for losing weight and being prettier, so I felt like things were starting to look up. (This was through the end of eighth grade to the end of ninth grade, by the way)
But then, I found out that we were being kicked out. The land-lady needed to sell the house because she developed lung cancer and needed to get money quick. We couldn't afford to buy it, so we were tossed out. My parents broke the news to me, and I calmly nodded, said okay, and walked out. I remember shaking a little as I went to the backyard, picked up a big stick, and started bashing it against the shed and crying. I just wanted to have a normal childhood, and now, I had to pick up my life and put it into a new place. I just knew we weren't going to be able to afford anything like what we were living in then.
We had to leave the day after my birthday. It was a great birthday, too. I had so many people show up, and we danced and listened to my then-boyfriend's band play grunge rock, and we had cake and a chocolate fountain. It would have a depressing echo to my graduation party years later that brought a grand total of four people to share in the party, and the food sat untouched. After we moved out, I began a depression that led me to losing all my friends and lashing out at everyone.
I graduated with one friend, and my boyfriend hated me. I hated me. I was more alone than I ever wanted to be. But part of me noticed that people only liked me after I got skinnier. And they only liked me when I was living a normal life in a house with a fenced-in backyard and a mailbox. I wonder, though, if people just didn't like me anymore when I stopped liking myself.Maybe now that I'm older, I can figure things out. I am much happier, and I'm in such a better place, but I have so much left to figure out. I am friendless, but I've been without friends for so long that I'm more comfortable this way. It's scary to invite people into your life and allow them to see you as yourself, and not just your small-talk persona (of which I have none, so people probably don't see me in a very good light).
I want to keep getting better, but it always helps me get these things out of my head. And with that, I'm going back to being on vacation.
Friday, July 22, 2016
I Quit My Job
There is so little time to accomplish everything on my goal list, and when someone starts talking about the same tired tropes like weather or road closures, I get so uncomfortable. There are a lot of smart people who say that you should "master the art of small talk," but then, there are others, like Doug Stanhope, who say that it's much better to skip past that and get right to the good stuff. Now, it's not always possible to know how strange you can get with a stranger or an acquaintance, but so much of our lives is dominated by watered-down conversation that goes nowhere and accomplishes little, and it feels wasteful to do so.
How was your day? Fine, good, okay, etc. Those are all acceptable answers. But how can you respond to someone, who, when passing by, says, "How ya doin'?" "Terrible, I stepped in a puddle of water on my way in, and I am slowly going broke due to my monthly student loans, and my soul is being crushed because I can't find a job in my field!" That might be an exaggeration, and definitely not my life, but it's just fascinating and odd to me how people can go through their day getting asked how they are doing and not ever really being able to properly answer.
Well, I'm getting off topic. I am going to the fair in a few minutes, and I've had too nice of a day to let imaginary small talk ruin it.
I quit my job as a department manager to take another position in the same company, technically a step down, into the back end operations, where I will learn "everything there is to know about the department." That was the idea when my manager noticed that I wasn't very happy in my position. He took extra care to find something that could be available to me (although I did take a pay cut) that was away from customers, and steady. Monday through Friday, 7am to 4pm. Pretty nice. I am very grateful.
So, I will have a steady sleep schedule, and I plan on losing weight and wearing nicer clothes, and really working to accomplish a lot of the things I have set aside. More on that later, though. To the fair!
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Tainted: Am I Being a Good Person?
Monday, July 18, 2016
A Very Real Explanation of My Work Life
Monday, May 16, 2016
Why I'm Not Voting For Trump
Now, I'm not saying you should vote for Trump, but I can appreciate the votes for him (or even the two Dem candidates, because every vote for one of these crazy extremes (and not for the traditional politicians we saw in Snuz and Kasich) is another vote for a mass uprising that this country so sorely needs. And yes, it is a scary thought.
America is not a perfect country. By futuristic Utopian standards, it's not even really a good country. But at its foundation, the USA is a wonderful kind of country. It can be shaped and molded in just four years to be an entirely different place. We can make decisions and as a people rise up and make something happen, though sometimes it requires more effort than people are willing to put in. Sometimes, those great paths to political change can be used by people who want to further their own interests instead of the interests of the people, but the great thing about this country is that we are allowed to say things against those people without fear of arrest (hopefully it's still like that in America, at least).
When I first saw people saying that they were voting for Trump, back in the early days of his campaign, I was like other people. Mainly, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" But a really enjoyable part of life is putting yourself in someone else's mindset and trying to genuinely understand where they are coming from. When you have no skin in the game, you find yourself trying understand both sides rather than trying to argue your own point all day.
I read something on Facebook a while back that a family member posted. She said, "I am voting for Trump!" And that was it. But I cringed away from it, wondering how someone sane could vote for the guy. He was all flash and very reality-TV-esque, and he didn't show much more substance than "build a wall." I never stopped to ask her why she was voting for him, but it would have been interesting to hear it back then when Trump's ideology wasn't as well fleshed out as it is now. Now that I see what Donald stands for, I can understand the appeal at the least.
The following snippets of Donald's beliefs are taken from OnTheIssues.org:
Make economy dynamic; bring back jobs from China & Mexico. (Oct 2015)
Get U.S. money back into U.S.: address corporate inversion. (Nov 2015)
Yes to medical marijuana; otherwise, decide state by state. (Oct 2015)
No federal government profit from student loans. (Nov 2015)
Cut Department of Education and Common Core. (Oct 2015)
We must deal with the maniac in North Korea with nukes. (Sep 2015)
Figure out who our allies are. (Feb 2016)
Restrict free trade to keep jobs in US. (Oct 2015)
China and Japan are beating us; I can beat China. (Jun 2015)
| NPR Article Source |
He understands that a lot of Midwestern Americans want jobs to come back to the US. This is very important to people, especially to those who are losing their jobs through places like Carrier, who he has continually talked about throughout the primaries.
He understands that Americans are uncomfortable with the amount of foreign support with give compared to what we receive. To many Americans, the impression is that the US is helping foreign countries over the needs of its own people.
He understands that people are unhappy with the current public education system.
Mostly, I've noticed that he seems to support what the working class American wants. He seems to build his campaign on the will of the people, and not the will of lobbyists who seek to mainly further their own interests at the expense of the citizens. This is not highly-involved politics that people are looking at. A lot of Americans do not follow politics that deeply. They want what is best for themselves and their children, and not what will make big companies more money. They don't care about Wall Street. They don't want to see America supporting countries where terrorists gobble up the leftovers after we leave.
Instead, many Americans want to see themselves succeed. They want to see America succeed. And unfortunately, with the current system, they don't believe they will get to see that happen. Americans just want something different. They've had their lives poked and prodded with government-influenced advertisements and sponsors and laws and regulations and they just want it all to stop! Donald Trump is America's way out of the current political nightmare we're all involved in.
Both parties seem to be on their last leg. They are struggling to understand why many Americans don't want another Democrat president making decisions that regulate their lives and involve everyone further with the government. I don't want the government to affect my daily life. I want the government to protect me from my unalienable rights, to keep me safe from foreign terrorism, and to allow me the freedom to build a great life. I don't need regulations. I don't think that the people need more regulations. I want more freedom, not more rules.
How can we elect someone who will just continue to do to us what has been done to us for many years? Why not a new kind of person? Americans are tired of politicians. And Americans think Trump is who they need. How can you deny the people what they want? When you start thinking that your general populous is too stupid to decide this for themselves, you start into dangerous territory. Let the people decide who they want.
Monday, May 9, 2016
Speech-Writer Doug Stanhope and His Book
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| Current toilet situation |
For someone like myself (a person who has listened to every podcast, follows the cast of characters on Twitter, and is friends with Chad Shank on Facebook), getting to hear all of the ins and outs and minutia of the mundane day-to-day life of Doug on the podcast is fantastic. The people on the podcasts are a warm blanket of comedy and (though they have no idea who I am) comradery, and their voices keep me company in a world where I am not exactly comfortable.
I love the podcast, and the fact that updates are not on any kind of schedule makes it feel so much less forced. It just feels like a real atmosphere with real, degenerate people who have managed to not only do something they love, but to draw in others and share it with the world on a personal level successfully.
The best part about the podcast age is that, before, we just had the comedy. We had essentially scripted shows of the best jokes that person has to offer, but without the prep and the struggle beforehand, We only really see the finished product. But with podcasts, we get to be inside Doug Stanhope's world! It's amazing how much I like him more after all the stories and insights and loves and struggles. Podcasts pull you into a place you weren't really allowed before. Fans can appreciate the unscripted chats with friends, the fan mail readings, and especially Police Beat with Chad Shank.
And finally, with this book, we are allowed to really get to know the adorably horrible kid/young adult that Doug Stanhope was. We can see the struggle that lead to these great moments. The Doug Stanhope that exists today didn't just plop out of his mother like that. He came from somewhere. So, now, we can get the whole picture. We get to read the moments that shaped his life. And that is amazing.
Anyway, I'm just really excited to finish reading it. Maybe after I finish it I'll do something important with my life. I feel like this is going to help me out of this creative dry spell. Finally.
Monday, May 2, 2016
Good Morning; Let's Fight About It
The funny thing is that the lady knows she's being loud, but that she "doesn't feel that bad." Well, oh, well! The fan is so loud that it drowns out her annoying, pain-killer drawled voice (mostly), but doesn't really affect us because it's like white noise. Annoying neighbors will never go away, but at least we can train them to be a little quieter.
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| Pic not related, but where else can I document our Nerf guns? |
I don't know what it was that sparked that hate again, but I think I was doing really well before, without it. It makes working in retail so much worse because you have to really have thick skin to work there in the first place. Yesterday, I got asked, "Do you know...well, you probably don't, as I have found that people like you don't...well, anyway, do you know if you have something to get rid of this rust on this thing here?"
To which I respond, "We have rust remover."
"Oh, nooooo, I don't want that. It's too harsh."
"Well, all things that remove rust are pretty caustic."
I really tried to help that lady, but it involved a lot more than that conversation. It just got a bit boring from there. You just get these awful rude people who refuse to accept that you might know something even when they come to you with their questions. I wonder why they even bother to ask!
Things like that bring out my hatred of people so fiercely that I have to go take a five-minute break just to collect myself enough to move on. I'm definitely not meant for retail, I think.
I'm considering moving to someplace secluded after Oregon. Maybe someplace outside of Bangor, Maine, or Mankato, Minnesota. I would like to see what it's like to be out in the country again, but without the terribly poor part. Somewhere where I can focus on my own pursuits without the constant interruptions of neighbors and the lure of close-by food and drink. I'd like to get back to being able to entertain myself through learning, not through video games and drinking. That is definitely a goal.
I saw a story on this lady who has been sailing around the world for ten years, just quietly self-sustaining and experiencing things without other people getting in the way. I imagine there's a lot less traffic on the open ocean. But endless water horizon scares the shit out of me. Well, it would if I were navigating. Get disoriented once and I'm lost forever. I'm decent at fishing, but I don't know what deep-sea fishing is like, and I think I would probably die from sunburn. But ugh, it's so alluring. To get away from energy drinks and waking up early to go to a job I don't actually need to do in order to keep the world turning.
Living and working in the world of buying unnecessary shit it so disheartening sometimes. People really care about that shit! Yet, here I sit, sipping my Rockstar, waiting to go to work and imagining life on the fringe. It's a romantic interest. I've been there before. I've lived outside of this spend culture. Living in a van and not working really helps change your perspective. But you know what it also does (especially when you traveled before you started working in the real world and having expenses)? It makes you feel like you don't belong here! And this is where money is. You still need money to function. Also, it warps your sense of what the real world is going to be like!
When we stopped driving, I thought I could drift through life with a part-time job and a dream. I didn't know I would be too exhausted to think after work, at three o'clock in the afternoon when the rest of the world is still going. I didn't expect any of it.
I need to make a game plan, because this lifestyle isn't working for me. I need to be out there, experiencing things for real instead of through a computer monitor or inside a giant building where people come to me with trivial problems, like, "ohhhh, I can't seem to find the perfect Tiffany blue for my daughter's bedroom wall. My life is soooo hard right now."
Fuck you, bitch. Fuck you and your dumb paint problems. Your life isn't that hard if that's your biggest problem. Anyway, I think it's time to make that plan. Adieu!
Friday, April 29, 2016
Back to Regularly-Scheduled Programming
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Empty Tanks and Work
Go to work.
Come home from work.
Talk about things that happened at work.
Go to bed early so I can get up for work.
Go home early so I can go to bed for work.
Wake up, think about work.
Why.
I hate it. I didn't realize my whole life would one day revolve around working. I figured I would be able to get by with a part-time job so that I could focus on my passions, and even make money with them. But the more I work, and the more I move up in life, the less time I can dedicate to anything I enjoy. Not only do I not enjoy things (most things) anymore, but I don't even have time to think about them anymore. All I do is wait around to go to work.
Fucking really? That's it? That's life?
I grew up trying to find a passion. I sought out cameras, and computers, and music, and lyrics, and books and words, and nothing makes me that happy. Nothing holds my attention long enough for me to make a life out of it. I don't understand how someone can become an expert in a field. I just don't care enough.
My life is a big empty tank with a hole in the bottom. I'm always filling it temporarily with things, but eventually, it all drains out and I'm left with mornings like this one, where I know I'm a big waste of resources, and yet, I continue.
What the fuck do I do, imaginary followers?
Saturday, April 9, 2016
The Great Escape
But anyway, I'm sipping on some cheap, drip-brewed coffee out of a matte Volvo mug and trying not to think about how every second brings me closer to going to work, wondering if this is going to be my life now. Wondering if I'll ever break out of this creative dry spell I've been wallowing in for the past few years. Wondering if I like things enough anymore.
I'm not in a depressive state. At least, I don't think so. I'm just drained. I've focused every bit of energy into this job of mine, pushing myself to get promoted and challenged, and taking on extra things still doesn't help. I'm a leader in my job, but not in my own life. How pathetic, yes?
I've been out exploring more. I thought it might help. But it might've just made me more cranky about how many people there are out there, just bumping into each other, not really doing anything except for absorbing things and soaking up content.Then, it really made me think about how afraid I am of the fact that I'm just nobody special. Not destined for greatness, or capable of achieving anything I want, or able to become something more than just a happy follower. If everyone started running in one direction, would I just start running? I don't know that I would want that. Whatever's coming, I'd like to know.
Well, this is just mindless rambling, really. I've really got to figure out how to focus this energy on something besides desire to drink and watch Always Sunny and Roseanne reruns. Reruns? Really? Why do I need to spend every night doing that? Ugh.
I think I've been unintentionally doing everything people want me to, without really being conscious of what I want. I don't even know what I want anymore. I envy the biking backpackers that drift through town, and I envy the people who make lots of money on social media just by taking pictures of stuff. How do people just pick one passion and roll with that forever and ever? How do you keep the motivation to just do one thing? I obviously cannot do it.
But, like, I mean the previous statement about just doing what people want me to do. When I first started working with the company I'm at, I was a seasonal employee. Just needed a job. And then, management liked what they saw. They almost began grooming me to get promoted. When I tried to quit, they did promote me and gave me the biggest pay raise I'd ever seen. I was in my very early 20s and I was already making more than my parents. College dropout with a specialist job. Wow for me?
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| Unrelated picture |
And then, the upper-most manager I worked with entered me into a unique management-training opportunity, where I trained to learn how to manage people and keep books and stuff like that. Wow, again? People see things in me! I'm doing so well. So I thought about management. I thought about more money. I thought about how great it would be to get out of my sales position, since I hate sales. So I started applying for positions and forcing myself to do interviews over and over, even though people kept telling me that I couldn't be in management since I had no experience.
I subjected myself to that until I got the job. And now I have the job. I have more responsibility. I'm making it work. I hate retail, and I hate people, but somehow, I'm making it work. And my upper-most manager of the new place I work has come to me now, giving me a very similar speech about moving up. And I recoil at the thought of taking on more responsibility. But I don't recoil at a salary position. I don't recoil at the fact that the company will help pay for moving expenses if you take a position in a new state.
Money really does talk. But here's my dilemma. Do I continue to move up in this retail big box company, or do I dial it back and focus on my own interests? How long do I have before I won't be able to disentangle myself from this work thing? When do I say, enough is enough, or do I keep letting money rule my life? I need money. I really do. To live comfortably, I definitely need money.
But how much do I need?
I just want to run away from all the responsibilities and have a fun, well-traveled, artsy life. SOS
Saturday, March 12, 2016
The Incomplete Something
What a life.
I moved out here 2400 miles away to start something really awesome. I was so damn excited to move and get a new start, and here I am, doing the exact things I've been doing for the past three years. Maybe my whole life has been a waste of time. Creatively speaking, I've never finished anything.
I start a new project, get excited, tell people, and then I slack off and end up so ashamed that I haven't been working on something that I abandon it completely and push it away in some dark corner so I don't have to face facts that I really haven't created anything.
Things have to change. Starting now. I'm not letting this laziness and lack of ideas and terrible willpower defeat me. I am going to do something with my life. But what?
Monday, March 7, 2016
Tell the Neighbors I'm Coming For Them
Eugene, Oregon, is a really weird place. Filled with whiny yuppies and people who apparently don't understand that cars can kill them, Eugene is an art haven and hippie hell. There are a million things to do all over the city all the time, but most of them are vegetarian Hare Krishna chant meetings or Save the Earth-style conventions about how tiny houses are much more sustainable and everything you do as a homeowner is wrong. Don't mistake, I like this place! But hippies aren't my favorite people. Surprise!
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| It's gorgeous here! |
Side note: one of the neighbors thinks it's great to open up the windows and play a xylophone that is right next to the window. It's not cute. It's annoying. Especially if you don't play a fucking melody, like every musical experience you have is a coke-fueled cacophony in some ongoing art project where you purposely annoy the neighbors and then get indignant when we ask you to close the window.
This cat is the only neighbor I like so far (well, his owner is all right, too). The cat comes over and hangs out with us sometimes, although he prefers ignoring us while he sits in a box or a plastic bag, or whatever we have on our kitchen floor.
When I was growing up, I thought you were supposed to get to know your neighbors. I thought you were supposed to exchange housewarming gifts and ask each other to watch your pets or water your houseplants, but I don't think that's the case anymore. At least, not where I've lived for the most part. Maybe it's because I'm antisocial. Maybe everyone is. I don't know. But can you tell them to be a little quieter, for me?
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Umm, Umm, Feminism
So, yes, hi, my name is Alexis. I'm a girl who works in contractor sales in a big-box store. I have been playing guitar for eight years now. I enjoy cooking, organizing, and the very occasional scrap-booking stint. I drink beer. I wear exclusively Victoria's Secret underwear. I enjoy playing Minecraft (like a lot). I like puppies and kitties and don't hesitate to pet them. I really enjoy stand-up comedy. And I'm a feminist.
Now, here's where I feel I have to justify to you people. I shouldn't have to, but if I'm going to write this, I'm going to hash this shit out fully so I don't need to come back to it next August.
To me, feminism isn't a cult. It isn't a group of women who use rape culture to instill fear into women and to shame men into simply agreeing to ease the tension. Feminism may have brought out that kind of thinking for some women (okay, a lot of women), but inherently, feminism is a movement brought about by oppression. It isn't the women or the men who support the idea. As Christianity is inherently about the salvation of the people through the death of some dude named Jesus, feminism is "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men."
Christianity has a bad reputation. Because of some of the particularly loud voices of ignorant folks and the teachings muddled by time and creative story-telling, the message has been skewed. I'm not a Christian by any means, but that doesn't mean I think that Christianity shouldn't exist and that people out there don't need it to get on with their day-to-day lives. To me, an ideology is not about me. It's not about the people, but the message it carries, and the way people treat that message says a lot about the character of a person.
When you see a message like that of feminism's fundamental idea, where the whole idea is that women have, in the past and present, been treated as lesser than that of their male counterparts, and you immediately turn to a woman who believes in the idea, and you say, "I don't need that, and nobody else does either. That is a stupid idea," you are grabbing that idea out of the hands of people who need it, and saying to them, "No. You don't need feminism because I don't need it. You are not as important as me. Also, feminism shouldn't even exist in Western society because it's worse somewhere else, and anyone that has it better than someone else should just be grateful they aren't like those who are worse off."
So, say a child grew up with his parents in a a two-bedroom house in a very poor neighborhood in the city that they rent from the father's boss. The child shares a bedroom with his older sister and sometimes, his mother sleeps with them in their bed. The father is a serious drug addict and alcoholic, and he often gets wasted and beats the child's mother in a fit of rage. He works as a painter and constantly brings home junk from the work-sites that he deems valuable, and leaves it piled to the ceiling in what used to be the dining room. The child has two family dogs, both of whom live in fear of a master that beats them irregularly.
When his parents fight, his sister takes him outside and keeps him busy until things quiet down. Now, his sister is only six, and he is only four, so they don't have any control over the situation. The boy might not even remember any of this. But he is alive, and the school they go to gives them two full meals a day, which is a lot more than they get at home.
This child grows up, not remembering anything that happens to him, filled with hate and rage that he can't understand. He threatens his mother and punches holes in the walls.
But, wait. This child doesn't work in a sweat shop. He isn't part of a child army. So he should be grateful he had two awful parents that, at the end of the day, didn't really care about his well-being enough to figure out a solution to the fights or the poverty. He shouldn't complain, because he had a roof over his head and a warm bed to sleep in, and wet when he slept because of the things he witnessed when he was awake.
Doesn't it make sense that more than one thing can be wrong? Just because one situation is worse than another doesn't make it any less relevant. Do we not want to improve in all aspects of our lives? Or should I just accept my fate as a woman who is spoken to as if I were an object? Am I just supposed to lay there and take it, just because someone else has it worse? No. We can fight for something better.
You can be a feminist and not be someone who cries rape when someone hands her a menu at a cafe. You can be a Christian and not be someone who crucifies a person who heals someone's wounds in a way deemed miraculous. You can be someone who believes in something, and not believe everything that someone else believes who takes claim to a cause.
Feminism is not leveling the playing field between men and women.
Feminism is not crying rape to every side-glance at a baseball game.
Feminism is not making all men take responsibility for all the bad things done to all women in the past.
Feminism is making sure that men and women are both considered as humans.
Feminism is letting women know that they can do what they want and feel okay with it.
Feminism is giving everyone equal ground. It;s giving everyone the same pile of dirt to stand on, and giving everyone the same rules for being allowed to stand on that pile of dirt and say their piece. Now, feminism gives you the right to say something. It doesn't make you right. You make you right. Feminism allows you the ability to say what you want to say and what you want to do. It's up to you to make your voice right.
Feminism doesn't make you right. It just allows you to say so.
And that's all.
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Jerbs and Jorbs
Now, I might be okay with being in retail if I had any desire for attention from the opposite sex. Every day, you get some dude (multiple times every day) who thinks his penis is going to be the answer to all your problems. "Hey, sexy, cheer up!" "Smile, you look cuter that way!" "What's wrong, darling? I'm here now."
I'm not saying that it's the lady's fault for doing what I'm about to discuss, so before you get your pissy feminist panties in a bunch, just hear me out.
What happens when dudes hit on you while you're working? You laugh. You let out a nervous giggle and that smile gives that guy validation. Now he thinks you liked it. Even if you were only laughing because you didn't know what else to do, because you are literally trapped at that register and he isn't being violent, and you are afraid to ask him to stop for fear that he will become angry.When someone says, "Hey, sexy," he is breaking the unspoken professional atmosphere of the workplace because he doesn't think he needs to be professional with you. That is something that, if you do not want it, you should feel comfortable in saying, "Sir, I would really appreciate it if you didn't call me sexy." And he will get mad. I've been there, and I have made that guy angry. I also made his more polite friend embarrassed, and he gave me an apology on his friend's behalf for his behavior after I asked him not to call me 'sexy.'
Note, that when I ask someone not to call me a derogative name, I am not immediately upset with the person. Now, if they act like I am a bitch after I politely ask them to stop, I get angry. I have a right, just the same as anyone else, to expect a certain level of professionalism at my job. My rule of thumb goes like this: if you wouldn't say it to a male salesman (cashier, manager, whomever), don't say it to a female. I am not less of a person, and I will not tolerate being treated like a subhuman.
Being a woman anywhere near a cash register is dangerous territory. Even if you have never operated a register before, you are automatically a cashier to people. I am a twenty-something year old lady, and that is the traditional cashier person. So I get it, I guess. I get paid to design decks and order products that other folks in the store do not know how to get access to, but when I am near a register, people slap their shit down on that counter with such self-loving smug smiles that I want to run away and never work again. But I try to help out when I can, so I run register occasionally.
But when I am taking my vest off, and I am not even at the register with the gun in my hand, and the light isn't even on, you shouldn't just assume I'm going to throw my vest back on and serve you. Especially if I am not a cashier. I am not a "little asshole" for not catering to you, Mr. Man, when I am not even a cashier, and I am trying to go home after receiving an especially frustrating barrage of sexual comments all day long. I'm tired of people, and I am not going to serve you, sir. Just get in the cashier's line and go home, please. Do us all a favor.
I can't go a day without someone trying to hit on me when I am running register. I just don't get that when I am not behind the counter. People treat me differently when I am on the sales floor. I want respect, and if that means asking you to stop calling me baby or sexy, then I will continue to make people angry, I suppose. I am the bitch for wanting the same treatment that men get.
I guess I have to be the bitch if things are ever going to change.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Failure McFailsalot (and It Works)
Even now that I've got a normal-dude nine-to-five job (still in retail god damn it), and I don't even work the fucking weekends, I'm still blowing all my opportunities to success. I don't have any motivation and I am lame and lazy and whatever. But hey, here I am writing a blog post, trying to busy myself while my beer defrosts.
So, I didn't actually have a purpose when I started writing this, but when I looked through my pointless photo library (mostly screenshots of scary creepy stuff that has no context), I saw Mr. Doctor Don over here with his wacky bullshit and marketing scams and pyramid schemes and I knew I had my man.
Mister Doctor Don is the man behind the annoying woman on your Facebook or at your place of employment who constantly pimps out her "side business" and asks you if you've got any problem areas you'd like to address. *Wink wink nudge nudge* *Honey we all see those love handles in those Abercrombies* *Your arms swing like elephant ears when you scan my chocolate bar*
If you haven't heard of the It Works product line, aren't you lucky? I think I'm up to three ladies on Facebook alone that sell this glorified plastic wrap. Every day they try to sell me and their friends products. Free product advertising, and people all over the place doing Mister Doctor Don's work. All he has to do is come to the occasional meeting. "Yep, those are charts! Keep selling! God loves ya!"
The It Works system is basically this: put this wrap on your body, wait, and take it off. Get immediate results (usually. And if you don't, you're doing it wrong), but you have to keep doing it to keep the results. It, from what I can understand, not being in the industry and all, basically sucks out water weight. Your bloat is usually something that can go down on its own if you didn't eat like a piece of garbage, but you're lazy and miracle products are just so easy.
So you've got like three more friends that joined the cult since I started writing this post three days ago because I can't concentrate enough to write something in a day. They post the same thing every day. "I love my job!" In hash tags, of course. They love their jobs because they haven't had a job outside of running a fucking cash register and being told when they're allowed to pee.
It seems that Mister Doctor Don has found a wonderfully stupid grift in the system and he's exploiting the hell out of it. And that's fine. Stupid people are the easiest kind of people to get money from. Take note: they're not making Hardee's (Carl's Jr, you liberal west coast fucks) commercials for Mister Lab Coat. Tits and ass and big, wet burgers are not necessarily the appeal to NASA. But bum-fuck rednecks polishing their guns at their kitchen table with the TV turned on are going to look up when they hear a sex-fueled guitar riff in the middle of their NCIS. "Hey, Sharon! Let's get some Hardee's!"If you were offended by this article please send me a comment and start it out with "Listen here, bitch. It Works is TOTALLY not a pyramid scheme." You got people above you making money when you sell something? You make money when someone below you sells something? Pyramid scheme.














