Quote of the Day

"You are not stupid. You are human, which is different, but often feels very similar."- Jenn

Oh, boy. Ain't that the truth.

Thoughts On Valentine's Day.

Ah. Feminism and Valentine's Day. And Brutal Women and Valentine's Day. And more random batshit from psychos who think making babies makes them people. I love how I put all of these together.

Despite articles like the above about Emma Forrest, single men are actually freaked out about Valentine's Day just as much as women (Yellow was moaning about this quite a lot during our car ride). The fact that I feel it neccessary to engage with this conversation is a testament to the commercialization of holidays, and just how great social pressures are at making normally strong, stable, happy people think that there's something wrong with them. As I've spent the last three weeks gearing up for Valentine's Day and pushing through it, I'm actually feeling fine about it.

I'm trying to think what Jenn and I did last year for Valentine's Day. Did we go out to dinner? No, I think I had a friend drive down from Wisconsin, and we went up to the top of the Tribune Tower and drank $10 martinis. That was really fun, actually.

The Valentine's before that, I bought me and my buddy Julian each a rose (he was also single at the time), and cooked myself a nice dinner, as I recall.

My most memorable Valentine's Day moment was when the guy I was dating had the local pizza joint cut up a pizza in the shape of a heart, and we sat in his car and ate pizza and talked outside the high school theater until my curfew. No jewelry. No cheesy cards. No mondo expensive dinners in places where I'd have to wear a dress. Just one of those, "Hey, we're out tonight anyway. Oh, it's this day, isn't it?"

This year, I'll be in New Jersey, and likely me, Sarah, Garret, and a bunch of the architects who are stuck out there will probably go out to dinner, get very drunk, and gossip about work - because that's what we do when we travel.

What I think about Valentine's Day is pretty cynical. I never much cared for the "holiday." It seemed like if you had to tell somebody you loved them on Valentine's Day, then you weren't doing a good enough job telling them you loved them the rest of the year. It's a great holiday for restaurants and luxery-item places to make a lot of money. It's a great day for lazy guys to plan marriage proposals. It's a great way to encourage single men to get drunk and hit on random women in bars who they otherwise wouldn't be looking for and make women who are staying at home studying for the LSATs with a good bottle of Pinot Noir wonder if, indeed, there's something wrong with them.

It's a great way to get us all to buy crap we don't need for people we may or may not care about, or people we think we should care about. And lots of couples use it as some kind of touchstone: if s/he screws up Valentine's Day, that's the end of it. S/he doesn't really care about me. Life is Over.

Valentine's Day is a lot like Christmas. If this is the make-or-break time for you and somebody you give a shit about, then you've been doing something wrong all year. And if you're not around anybody you care about during this time, then you just do the regular thing and live - you surround yourself with whoever you've got, you go out, you have a good time, you celebrate life.

But then, you should be doing that every day anyway.

Chicago Morning

Spent the morning dancing around to Greenday's "Holiday." Called into work and got in quite late, as I didn't get home last night until 10pm, so I have no guilt. Nobody's around anyway.

We had a furious last minute back-and-forth about the New York trip yesterday; "we" being me, Sarah, Yellow, CP (one of the corp folks who flew to Indy for the meeting), Mosh, and some others. There was talk that we'd start Indy work Monday morning, in which case Sarah and especially Yellow wanted me to stay in Chicago. Mosh deliberated about whether or not he really needed me in New York, and I told CP my tickets were bought and paid for, told Sarah I already had dinner plans. Insisted again in the meeting that really, I'm not doing anything in the Chicago office, and could be better utlized in New York while they set up their office there. After the Indy meeting, Yellow called Blaine and let him know no work was going to start on Indy for at least two weeks.

Yellow would still rather I'd stay in Chicago next week, but I've been pushing. "I'm not doing anything, no reason I shouldn't go help out there," and "I have plans already. Booked. Paid for."

Got into work this morning and immediately checked my company e-mail.

Nothing from the Boys. No last-minute cancellations. Sarah's booked all her New York flights as of this morning.

I'm booked. Unless I get something last-minute today, I'm on.

Point for being a pushy bitch.

I love my job.

Notes of All Sorts

My dad let me know that, apparently, my hometown dentist has just confessed to killing his wife with a pair of scissors. No shit. The guy's been my dentist for over a decade. Go figure. Small towns. Happy relationships. Psychos.

More reasons why I don't date.

In other news, Yellow - of all people - suggested we stop by Borders before the meeting, and I did pick up my much-wished-for Greenday CD. It's a damn good CD. He also sought relationship advice from me about some woman he's been pining after. I told him I'm bad at relationship advice. I'm surprised to hear that he called her "a real smart girl" at least twice. I should have bet he was actually drawn to smart women. He has three or four sisters, all of them high-powered, quick cookies. One's a psychiatrist, one a lawyer or doctor or something, or maybe one a doctor and one a lawyer. They'd be cool to meet.

He admitted to being hesitant to suggest restaurant choices to take her out to, because she lives around the Loop downtown, and pretty much knows every place like the back of her hand.

"Well," I said, "Why not just owe up to it? Why not just tell her, `hey, this is something you do better than me, would you mind picking a place?"

"You mean, instead of trying to be the guy?"

"Yea... no offence or anything, Yellow, but you're kinda bad at it."

"Is it that obvious?"

I'm reminded of lunch that day, when he mulled around the foyer of the restaurant we were at, indecisive about whether or not we should wait for Sarah to finish her cigarette before we sat down, or to sit down and wait for her inside. I gave him about five minutes of mulling around, talking aloud about what would be best, before I realized he was doing what Yellow does, and I went up to the hostess and got us seated. Indecisiveness drives me nuts, at least until I know how the dynamics are gonna work. If I'm with somebody who hates making the call, I'll make the call, but I tend to default to thinking they'll make the call. Can be annoying, until you figure out the dynamics with the person you're with.

"I just don't like telling people what to do," he said.

"Yea, well."

"I mean," he said - baiting me again - "on dates I'm totally decisive. I tell her where to sit and where to stand."

"And what to wear and what to eat," I said, "and then you wonder why you don't go on more dates."

"What?"

The problem with hanging out with Yellow is that I've avoided him so much the last year that he's not used to me harrassing him, so when I do, it sort of sideswipes him.

As per the usual, he spent some time baiting me - and for once, I finally gave in and started baiting him back. Talked too much about politics. I drew way back on that one - he's moderate-to-moderate-conservative, so I had to ease off. It was fun. Enjoyable trip. Crappy, useless meeting, but fun chatting with Yellow and Sarah. I love working with these people.

Realized again, after spending time harrassing Yellow, how great people are... and how many men there are in the world just like Yellow; pushing 35, looking for wives, families, picket fences. Ready to settle. Slow down. Cozy jobs. Nice people. Funny, how it's almost like he's sort of looking for somebody to fill a role; actively seeking "a wife," someone to have kids with. Actively looking for the picket fence. I often forget he's a decade older than me because I'm not sure what, exactly, he's done with all that time. Got married and divorced, apparently. And worked a lot. Raced motorcycles. That's about it.

We had a very long trip to Indy, and during the downtime, after we dropped Sarah off and hit some crappy traffic, we got to talking about his racing, and my book writing. Apparently, there are racers who race for "contingency money" - which means that if you win a race wearing/using the products of a company like Suzuki or whatever, then that company will give you X amount of money for winning a race using their gear.

"So," Yellow said, "has anybody ever asked to be a character in your book?"

I laughed. I know Yellow. I know where this is going. "All the time. Though, not since high school."

"So, would you make me a character in your book?"

"You know, you're just the sort of person from high school who would have asked me that question."

The guy who hangs half with the stoners, half with the preppy kids, the one who finds me interesting enough to talk to, but is way too fearful to date me. Yep. Met a million like him.

I wonder what he'd think of being a "character" in my blog....

"What's the title of your book?" he said.

"Which one? I guess the latest in my series is called Over Burning Cities."

"Over Burning Cities?" he considers this. "I'll write the name of your book on my bike, so that if I win, you'll get the promotion."

"Do I have to pay you contingency money, or just make you a character?"

"Well, it would help if I was a character in your book..."

The idea of Yellow writing the title of one of my books on his bike - for whatever hypothetical silly joking reason - is one I find strangely endearing.

And at the end of the night, when he dropped me at the train station, I realized that I'd finally let myself just enjoy hanging out with this guy. I hadn't worried too much about speaking my mind or making fun of him back, because I realized, for the first time, that I wasn't worried about him hitting on me.

Not that I'd mind him hitting on me - I just never trusted myself before to turn him down. I didn't want him to ask, I didn't want to be nice to him at all, to interact with him too much, because I was afraid that there were enough things about him that I liked that I'd try and force something to work with him, because I worried I was too picky, too cynical, that I was turning perfectly good people away.

And yea, Yellow's a good guy. He's got a passion. He's cute. He has nice shoes. He looks very good in cargo pants.

But I'm not crazy about him. He's an Alaska Boy type, meaning I have affection for him. I think he's funny. I like to harrass him. He's the sort of person you're friends with, not the sort of person you're drawn to. He doesn't light up my day. I don't feel a huge pull. What I feel is that he's the sort of guy I'd be settling for. Somebody who was almost, maybe, OK, "He's nice, but he doesn't read books. He doesn't think like I do. I don't connect with him about anything. We look out at the world and see absolutely nothing in the same light. We have way different paths we want to take with our lives."

He wants kids. A wife, a woman to fill a role. A picket fence. He's lived in Illinois his entire life. He will die here. He loves this life, this simplicity. And I respect that, and I enjoy hanging out with him. But there's no life I could build with this person.

And it's funny, because there are so many people in the world, and so many guys like Yellow, guys who are funny and nice and simple, and I've been accused of turning them away, of not seeing them, of being "too picky." And it's funny, because so far, I'm lucky: I'm 25, not 35, so not too many people are trying to force me to settle for somebody who's second, somebody I'm not wild about, somebody who's simple.

If I can find these wild, crazy, brilliant friends, I hold out hope that I can find a lover or two who's just as wild, crazy, brilliant, and inspriring. I think that when something's not right, you know it. And when it's right, you know that too.

And Yellow is fun to work with. And I won't be a bitch to him anymore, and I can say "hello" to him first now. I'm not afraid of what I'll do if he ever says, "So. Valentine's day. You're single. I'm single."

Cause I can just say, "That must have taken a truly decisive mind to figure out. Where are the structurals for site XXXX?"

And we'll move on.

As it should be.

Indy Today

Why the crossroads of America?

Because, if you know any better, you'll cross through it without stopping.

Will be quiet today as we head down for a kick-off meeting in Indy, so every time you click over and see this post, you can think of me traveling through the scenic red state of Indiana with Yellow and Sarah while Yellow sings his own rendition of, "Ice, Ice, Baby," and Kameron-baits me with questions like, "So Kameron, what do you think of that book, `What Would Jesus Eat?'" and "I really like soy milk. What do you think of soy milk, Kameron?" and "Why won't you eat this cookie? There's nothing wrong with it. These are really good. You're so complex, Kameron."

"No, Yellow, you're just very simple."

::watch Yellow's *entire face turn red*:::

Oh, yea, that was a great day.

Anyhow, that's pretty much what my day's going to amount to. It's good because we're meeting up with Pete and Bettie, who we shindigged with last summer, and who I enjoy working with very much. They're really good people.

Should be a fun project.

In Which the Protagonist Engages in the Usual Sort of Freak-Out Behavior Related to the Stupid Things She Does When She Knows Better Than to Do Them

Oh. Wow. Look at that. All of my freak-out triggers just fired. Every damn one. Why is it, again, that I don't date? Ah. Yea. Cause of that. There. This feeling.

I know I'm out of it not just because I flaked out on tonight's MA class and left work early with the "I have to be up at 4am and spend all day in Indy excuse" but because I stopped by Borders to pick up the new Greenday CD, brought it home, unwrapped it, put it into my computer... and thought:

"Hey, this sounds a lot like U2."

Look at CD again. Read label again. But the Greenday CD has a bomb on the cover, right?

Oh, shit.

Oh. Dear God. I bought that crappy new U2 CD instead of Greenday.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

I've created my own special kind of hell.

Writing Today

Writing today. More after class tonight, perhaps.



"You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy." -Erica Jong

"Let us not confuse stability with stagnation." -Mary Jean LeTendre

"Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real." -Iris Murdoch

"We don't see things as they are. We see them as we are." -Anais Nin

Booked & Paid For

New York, Feb 14-22nd. Well, actually, New Jersey. But I intend to spend a great deal of time on the train.

Up tomorrow morning at the ungodly hour of 4:15am so I can meet Yellow at the train station out here at 7am so that we can drive down to Indy for a project kickoff meeting.

Funny talking to him. I miss Yellow. He needs to come into the office more often. If only so I can check out his shoes.

Snow. More Snow. Bah.

Is it Friday yet?

Nice Guys

oohhhh. This is a good one.

Typhonblue has a rant up about "Nice Guys" vs. "Jerks"... (Hugo has an entirely different rant up about this article, but it triggered way different things for me).

Who would you rather date? (for those of you, fair chiklits, with an interest in dating men).

She has some interesting stuff up, and some good thoughts. But I worry when she says she's happy to have Jerk boyfriend who'll hit her back when she hits him. If you guys are smacking the crap out of each other in anger, you shouldn't be together.

But that's me. I still like to pretend that men and women can be in equal, respectful, loving relationships where they make each other better instead of dragging each other down into a pit of abject despair.

I'm old-fashioned that way.

I constantly hear Nice Guys ranting about how this woman who is just gorgeous, just like a model, is living with this good-looking, unemployed, alcoholic dickwad when she could get any man she wanted. Nice Guys never seem notice that the woman is an unemployed alcoholic dickwad.

Ohhhh boy. Yea. Ain't that the truth.

My buddy Jem: "She seems like such a nice girl. Why is she with that asshole, Kameron?"

Me: "Cause she's an asshole? Stop thinking with your dick and pretending it's your logic."

I have had a good many "nice guy" friends who I got to listen wax on about how amazing some woman was (and in high school, these were usually the "experienced" women - the ones who slept with four or five different guys every year - only, not with them), how "no one else really understands her," how "she's just so sad all the time, so confused, I could help her," how "I don't understand why she comes and talks to me and has sex with him."

Believe me, buddy: it's better for you that she's sleeping with him. They deserve each other. That woman ain't no soft cookie. She'll eat you alive. Or, hell, the one I'm thinking of would have eaten *me* alive, too.

The "all women are goddesses" lament is a problem because it creates a dichotomy. If all women are goddesses, but the goddess doesn't want you, you start to resent women, and "they" get pushed onto the flip side of that, which is "whore."

The problem with worship is what happens when you lose your faith. You tend to want to destroy everything you believed in.

And I've met "Nice Guys" who did that, too.

Nice Guys are incapable of discerning differences in the personality traits of women. Perhaps this is why Nice Guys always bemoan the model-types who date Jerks, rather then the average types who date Jerks. Since all women have the same personality – beatific, angelic, perfect – there is no way Ms. Plain Jane can compete with a beautiful woman for the attention of a Nice Guy via any positive character qualities she might posess. Beauty is the only criteria for judging women in the eyes of a Nice Guy. Thus the Nice Guy’s astounding tendency to complain about how no woman notices him, while a Nice Girl is trying to say hello.

Yep. These are the Nice Guys who'll sit over coffee with me lamenting about all of the amazing women who aren't interested in them, even though they open the door for them and everything. Often, I'll try and sneak something in like, "Maybe if you were employed and had some passion about something, she might look twice at you," but that might be stretching it a little thin with them.

The worst sitting-over-coffee-with-a-nice-guy thing is when you're listening to him moan about how great the hot chick with Major Issues really is (cause he can just see into her soul), while all you really want to do it is leap across the table and have sex with him right there.

Being a not-hot chick with minor issues, you either fall off the Nice Guy radar, or they put you on it as "goddess," and don't treat you like a real person.

And I think that's what the author was really getting at: guys who actually act like themselves, who say, "This is me," and treat you like a real person are the sorts of people you want to hang out with.

Guys who pull on a Nice Guy hood and then bitch because they're moving all of the pieces around and not getting any "reward" for it (like, say, sex), aren't really Nice Guys at all. They just think they are.

Here's where I start to worry about her rant:

Because my Jerk boyfriend doesn’t carry my pack, I’ve gotten that much stronger and more rational about what I pack. Because he doesn’t give me his jacket, I learn to remember it so I have it even when he can’t offer his. Because he doesn’t always drop everything and tend to my emotional ills, I’ve become more independent and capable of tending to them myself. Because he hits me if I hit him, I’m reminded that I’m accountable for my actions. Because he doesn’t reward my bad behavior, he’s helped me mature and grow up.

Cause it's your boyfriend's job to play dad?

The hitting thing bugs me, but there's something to what she says, and here's where I agree: I'd rather I was treated like a human being than an angel. That doesn't mean telling me I'm a fucking loser, stupid, or hitting me. That's not treating me like a human being either.

What is does mean is that if you get me a dozen roses every week when, in fact, I actually don't like roses, you're not actually being all that nice to me (yes, I had somebody who did this). What it means is that you haven't heard a word I've said, and you're getting the roses for yourself, which is great: but don't pretend it's about me. You're living in a fantasyland about the way the dynamics of a "relationship" are supposed to work, not being yourself, and not respecting me (as a side note: it turns out he liked roses, and wouldn't have minded me getting him roses... now, that I can deal with. Shit, guy, tell me these things, OK? No, darling I don't "think it's gay." Damn. This is why communication is important).

And what I see when I look at men who try very hard to be "nice guys" and then wonder why they aren't getting dates with the sorts of women they want (and there are, indeed, some who are indeed quite happy to date women who look like real people), are guys who are trapped in "this is the way it's supposed to be" script.

As nice as that script may work for imaginary women living in fantasyland, you're going to get more affection if instead of playing by a set script, you listen to what the hell she's saying and make some alterations in your "affection" tactics. If she doesn't like flowers, find out what the hell she likes. And - and this is important - if she disrespects you, leave. Because I wouldn't expect a woman to stay with a guy who disrespected her any more than I'd expect a guy to. Cause people are people, and if we can get away with being assholes, most of us probably will. And who the hell really wants to be with somebody who doesn't respect themselves?

I'm obviously carrying around a lot of bias against guys who described themselves as "nice," because when I sit down with them, they sound a lot like martyrs. I used to describe myself as a "nice" girl. But you know, I realized being nice was, in fact, really boring. I got a few dates that way, but they weren't with people who were very interesting, and there was going to come a point where I was going to be who I was, and he would either freak out, or try and get me back to being "nice."

So I don't bitch that I'm not dating anyone because I'm "nice." In fact, I'm not dating anyone by choice - the people who've made inquiries or who I've met haven't done much for me, and I'm not yet at the point where I'm ready to actively pursue.

But I did used to bitch about being nice and unnoticed, so I know where some of these guys are coming from. I know all about what it is to try and play by the script, and not have it work, and not know why.

In my case, it was because I never got to be myself, so I never had any fun, so the guy I was with didn't have much fun (or if he did, it wasn't enough fun for me to continue).

The Nice Guy, while searching for a Goddess, eventually turns into a non-person, too, and might even become somebody he's not so sure he really wants to be.

Find out who you are first, before you go looking for a woman to fill up the void in your life.

You might realize that that was the problem all along.

Weighing in On "Why I'm a Feminist"

This is an old one, but I only recently found it. Check it out.

And So My Schedule Shapes Up

Finally, a project kick-off that will result in actual work. I'll be in Indianapolis on Thursday, heading down with Yellow and Sarah the construction manager. Not an overnight thing, but home late. Meaning I'll have to go jogging Friday night instead of Thursday night. That's OK. I can handle that.

Heading to New Jersey on Monday morning, booking the 14th-22rd (which gives me my New York weekend ha ha - see my sneakiness), unless Mosh uncovers my sneaky New York weekend plan. But I don't think he'll mind. Me staying over a weekend *saves* them money, in the long run. heh heh

Possibly, more New York the first week of March for some training sessions. These people keep investing more and more money in me, like I have a Real Job or something.

It's going to be a busy year.

EDIT: My bosses are all insane. They can't make up their minds. First it's X, then Y, then Z. They better figure out what the hell they want me to do, travel-wise, by the time I leave today, cause you better bet I have no interest in staying here past 3pm, being bored out of my ever-loving mind, and I've got plans to make.

Another Day, Another Roundhouse, Another Bad Right Hook

Had a tough MA class last night. I was frustrated at work, and then showed up to class and wasn't performing at the energy level I really wanted to perform at, and I kept feeling like I was fucking everything up, which launched me into my self-hate talk, which wasn't made any better by the presence of all the mirrors.

Sometimes it just gets to me.

When I got home, I realized how hungry I'd been, and ate, then fell into bed at quarter to nine - realizing how tired I was, and slept right to my alarm at 5:15am.

What amazes me about taking martial arts classes is how much it's about repetition. You do the same things, the same drills, over and over and over again. Then you get corrected on what you're doing wrong. Then you do it over and over again. Then you get corrected again. Then you do it again.

The amazing part about it is that after a while, somebody tells you to do a front kick, a double jab/right cross/left hook, or jab-jab-cross-front kick-roundhouse, and you just sort of do it. You know what they're talking about, and even if the form isn't perfect, you do it.

One of the women taking a trial class last night asked me how long I'd been coming in, and I didn't realize until I said it, "Eight months," that that's really how long I've been doing this. I was frustrated, again, that I wasn't performing better during that class, knowing how long I've been doing it. She asked how I liked it, and I got to wax on about how much I love my martial arts school, how nice everyone is, how great Sifu Kat is, how it's worth every bloody penny (and it's a lot of pennies), how my confidence has improved, how it only took two weeks before I started seeing muscles, increase in strength and stamina. And as an afterthought (she wasn't thin), I added that I'd also dropped a couple of sizes.

But I realized that bit was indeed at the end of my list. Sort of an added bonus.

I've talked a lot about how frustrating my weight has been for me, especially since I'm used to crash dieting and crash binging, jumping alarmingly up and down the scale as I please. And during class, I know that one of the big motivators for my self-hate talk were those mirrors.

And I don't know when I'm going to come to grips with my body. Every time I think I've nailed it again, everytime I think, "This is the last time I'm going to bitch about myself," I'll have a low day, and my record gets stuck.

Because I know that at a size 20 or a size 12, I have the same view of myself. My body gets smaller, but retains the same shape. I will never been thin, I will never be boyish-looking. I will never dye my hair blonde. I will never get a boob job. And no matter how much I get irritated with my body, I'll never get liposuction.

I have resolved to like myself just as I am while striving to be the best person *I* can be, not the best person hair dye and scalpels can make me, because ultimately, what scalpels do is make you look like everybody else. They don't make you look like you.

I have bad moments. I get frustrated. I want to punch in the mirror and scream at it, "How can I be working so goddamn hard and still look like *this*?"

Last night, talking with the woman taking the trial class, who was not thin, who had been working her butt off in class with us and kept up pretty damn well, she mentioned she'd been working out with a personal trainer for a year.

She, like me, did not look like she'd been working her ass off for a year.

And I wondered, "How many of us are there? These incredibly strong, healthy women who eat well and exercise and are going to live until they're a hundred and twelve, who are being told there's something wrong with their bodies when in fact, there's nothing wrong with them at all? When in fact, they're some of the healthiest people you'd ever meet, and the only thing eating them up every night is worry over why it is their hips continue to carry around baby-making weight when the last thing they really want is babies?"

I have amazing genetics. Despite the fact that some of them treat themselves like shit (no exercise/crap diet/alcoholic), we live for an amazingly long time. Going by genetics alone, unless I get cancer or get hit by a bus, I'll live at least into my nineties, and probably pretty far into that. And I'll do it with these goddamn hips.

And maybe that's the worst part of the self-hate talk, those self-hate moments, because that night, pulling on me sweat pants and tank top for bed, I looked in the mirror and realized that I, personally, really did actually like myself. That I didn't mind the flair of the hips, or the fact that I could stand to lose 25lbs. I didn't mind being curvy and solid.

The reason I was so stressed out in class was because I was with a bunch of other people who we're thinner and/or stronger than I was. I was with a group of people who could possibly be judging me, and for anybody who's ever identified as a fat girl, you know how worried you can get when exercising en mass. Thinking, "I'm too fat to perform well," meant me not performing as well, meant me tripping up, meant me falling into the hate-talk spiral.

This morning I rolled out of bed, well-rested, with a pleasant ache from class, and got dressed in new shirt, my brown jacket, my favorite jeans. Put on that French perfume, got my hair right - and startled myself when I looked in the mirror.

Because I like the way I look. No, I'm not perfect. And no, I don't look like everyone else. Yes, yes, I told myself as I looked, I can stand to lose 25lbs, and I'm doing that this year, slowly, like a reasonable person, because that's my set weight, and that's where my body's headed. But right now, that person staring back at me, that body, is really OK. Seriously. Really. You look like yourself. And that's not mean or bad or ugly or evil. It's just you. You look like you. And you're not a bad person.

Stop. With. The. Self. Hate. Talk.

Dammit. Just... stop.

Why do you constantly care about what other people think? Why do you constantly break yourself down before they get a chance to?

One of the survival tactics I developed in the 6th grade, when I experienced the worst of grade-school harrassment, was to find out all of my faults and think up the worst insults they could result in *before* my tormentors did so. It made me very good at finding all of the things "wrong" with me.

Later, as I got older and started pining after impossible guys who weren't interested in me, I'd try and figure out what about me I was supposed to change in order to be loved, in order to be liked.

What I realized later was that the moment I liked myself, the moment I stopped caring about what everyone else thought, the more I stood up for myself and said, "Yep. Here. This is who I am, and I like being this way," the more people were drawn to me, the more people wanted to hang out with me.

Self-confidence is a powerful thing, and I know that I had one good friend bitch at me because of that confidence when I was first discovering it as a high school freshman.

He insisted I was becoming arrogant, I was becoming "a bitch..." What I later learned was that this "friend" of mine was upset that I wasn't spending as much time with him, that my newfound confidence meant I could expand my social circle and not rely on his "counsel."

Add that to the fact that I spent some time being "trained" and then spent down time in a household full of self-hate talk, and what you end up with is a woman staring into the mirror who's constantly at war with herself.

One day, I remember I really like the way I look, and fuck all you fuckers, the next day I get pissed off because I'm not "thin enough," which in the US is now equated with being "good enough." Not just in an attractive sense, but in a literal moral sense. Being overweight is being seen as a sign of moral decay. You're lazy, decadent, give in too much to your desires.

And I think of that woman in my MA class who was seeing a personal trainer, I think of myself, who's not only running twice a week and going to three MA classes a week and working with free weights every morning, watching what I eat, but I'd been doing those free weights and light cardio for six months *before* I started the classes, and before that, even though I was eating crappy and taking crappy care of myself, I was still doing light exercise regularly. And *before that* - except for a couple crappy six month periods - I spent two years in Alaska and a year before Alaska actually being somewhat active and paying attention to what I ate.

And I think: I'm going to outlive everyone. I'm going to be a size 14 and outlive everybody, and I'm going to be able to kick their asses, and unless I stand up for myself, and stop fucking hating myself, I'm the only person who's going to know that.

If I get pissed off at what I see in the mirror, they'll see it and get pissed off, too. If I can't even treat myself with some kind of respect, I can't expect anyone else to do so.

I need less bad days. I need less self-hate talk. I need to alter my default.

It's one day at a time. It's never over. Some days are just better than others.

And you deal with that. And you get up, and you go again.

Conversations With My Roommate

As I don’t actually do anything here all day, and Jenn is a procrastinator, we often send e-mail back and forth to bide our time.

Yesterday, she sent me this clip of “a man saving a gazelle.” I was unimpressed, and did not respond.

Several hours later, this conversation ensued:

Jenn: Do you not love the man saving the gazelle? Is he not excellent?

Me: You realize that though the gazelle was saved, the Cheetah now goes hungry.

Jenn: Screw the cheetahs and their oppressive regime! Do they value freedom? Do their people have liberty? Do they know SCIENCE? We should invade their country and overthrow their evil dictator, then give gazelles the vote!

All we have to do is send a small unit of our troops in to rescue the gazelles, just as that lone citizen did - this will spark a revolution that spread like wildfire! Soon you will see a coalition of the willing charging in to save the gazelles - our soldiers will be sprinting alongside wildebeests, elephants, caffeinated sloths, and the occasional arctic moose!

Me: Oh, Jenn.

Jenn: I am offended by your patronizing tone, my roommate. The men and women of this country could do worse than getting out there every once in a while to rescue the odd gazelle.

Me: I just don't think I have anything to say to that. I mean, really. You know, cheetahs have spots. Like giraffes.

Jenn: I'm sure that lily-livered Brendan is a cheetah sympathizer, then. We'll have to keep an eye on him.

Moral of the story: watch out for the cheetah sympathizers.

I have the Best. Friends. Ever.

Hopping into Bed With Somebody of the Same Sex Means You're Bad With Money

Oh, boy. Wow. I love professors.

I'm not even going to tell you how much better pretty much everybody I know is with money, compared to me: but let me tell you, who they go to bed with every night (or every year, or on a good weekend) has nothing to do with how well they spend their money or how much they put into savings. Like, at all.

I want to see this guy's scientific studies. I want your raw data, your control group, dickwad.

I could make up some "generalities" about dumb-ass, old white male professors, and how great they are at sticking their feet in their mouths and playing holier-than-thou, but I'm not going to to do it, because though it may be "generally" true, what kind of half-assed "studies" or "theories" do I have to go on?

Why, none. So I won't walk into a classroom and tell them you're an asshole cause you were born white, male, and mostly straight.

via Positive Liberty, who talks more about it.

Do Women With Fake Breasts Live Longer?

What a fucktard.

Who the fuck elected this guy? Who cast their vote for him? I really, really want to meet these people. I imagine that they are utterly fascinating individuals.

Someone Else's Thoughts on Attraction & Desire

Nice post by ActivistGradGirl about desire and attraction, which I may have linked to before, but which I've recently re-read, and still like very much.

I love examining desire and attraction, because not only are they deeply personal respones, but they're also unique to each person. It's one of the reasons I've always hated sexuality labels, and the ways in which we're allowed to talk about sex. There's a dialogue we aren't really allowed to have, when we try to pretend that desire and attraction are exactly the same across the board.

Most Excellent

You Are the Very Gay Peppermint Patty!

Softball is the huge tipoff here... As well as a "best friend" who loves to call her "sir"

What Gay Childhood Icon Are You?

What I'm Doing Today at the Wacky Office

Using Streets & Trips to map out where our NJ office is in relation to Manhatten. Waiting around for Blaine to let me know if they'll need me to go to a meeting in Indianapolis at the end of this week. Waiting on making my plane ticket reservations for New York until Mosh decides if he wants me there for one week or three (I'll settle at a week and a half - three's too much).

Rereading e-mails and blogs. Staring at book 2. Thinking I really should finish that painter story.

Wondering how it is I get paid for this.

I'm going to go play Antz.

I'm Thinking I Need Another Job.. Again

This is just ridiculous.