Happy New Year's Eve, the night for drinking alone and watching sappy movies where everyone ends up living happily ever after (because we do only explore the beginnings of relationships in most movies, not their manifestations after years of togetherness).

It must be interesting to never age. I wonder what Dick Clark sold to Satan for that?

Okay, you know what I realized today? I usually respond to Susan’s stories or rant about something on this blog. I rarely detail what’s up with me. Hmmm. Character-defining behavior? No – that’s not a question, just a comment. It is character defining. I understand that’s an Irish trait – to talk a lot, tell people little about yourself, but get them to tell you everything about themselves. I hear they even play it as a bar game. So beyond the love of potatoes and mischief, the stubbornness, and the name that tells the world “I was raised Irish Catholic, hear my guilt!”, I also represent my heritage in other ways. Hmmm.

I think my New Year’s goal will be to watch Harry and Sally with someone. I’ve never had a stereotypical beginning of the year. New Orleans, a college trip we did, was kind of like that. 6 friends head out for wacky adventures and hijinks on a road trip to New Orleans for New Year’s Eve. Add more sex and more toilet humor, and you would have a teen flick. The part where E stepped on R’s crotch would have made a good moment for the movie (accident, but funny for everyone but R). Boys. Yea, Susan and I were the only girls on that trip.

My plans for the holiday. I’m spending Christmas with G (my G, not susan’s – and they do represent the same name!) We’ll call him Gustavo (ivillage baby name finder. Weird G names.)
This is my first Christmas not being home with my family. I’ve been excited about it all year. It will be somewhat strange to be spending the day with my SO rather than my family. They don’t know, of course, that he’s spending the night with me Christmas Eve, not going home. His daughter is not in the picture, as it’s her holiday to spend with her mom.

I’m not sure how I should feel about spending the holidays with my man rather than my family. I think this is part of the growing up experience, spending your special times with the people of your choosing, rather than your obligation. Hmmm. I’d jump on Susan for asking “how I should be feeling.” There is no should or shouldn’t with feeling. It just is. What I am feeling is conflicted. It will be nice to spend the time with him. It will be weird to have Christmas without my mom. I’ve been consciously staying away from my mother’s traditions – I will not recreate the holidays I grew up with. Things have changed, and so should my traditions, to reflect that. I can do things my way, now.

I think the hardest part of maturity is the confusion.

I never said there was anything wrong with wanting a boyfriend person. I don’t think there is anything wrong with wanting a Relationship. I just don’t think that a Romantic Partner should be what is needed to fill the holes.

You say you have enough friends and buddies, but if you hang out with them, I don’t ever hear about it. If you can make time for guys you hardly know or met online, I’m sure you could find some time to hang out with platonic friends, right? There is a social aspect of humanity that we have discussed – the need to be around other people. And when you’re with a RP or potential RP, there is a different vibe than when you’re just hanging out with people. You can just hang out with RPs or potential RPs, but it isn’t the same. You know it isn’t.

Maybe the place where we are butting heads the most is in the realm of high drama. I don’t enjoy it when my life is like a roller coaster. I did that in high school, and I wasn’t happy. There are moody stages, giddy stages, dark stages, but generally, I like to transition through those and not go from one extreme to another so quickly. In the beginning of a Relationship (or potential), there are always moments of anxiety when you just decide there is no way that he could like you or wonder why you like him, or whatever. Fine and great and good, but statements, facetiously typed or not, like “I haven’t known him long enough to have done anything to piss him off”? Or whatever it was you actually said. Come on. From the guys you’ve blown off, you know it isn’t so much like that. It’s more of a lack of attraction or connection after one or two dates rather than something one of you did or didn’t do.

One of the bigger problems with a telephone relationship is that the person at the other end of the line tends to hear the worst or best of things, with nothing in between. And sometimes not even the best – just the worst. I know you thought my relationship with B was just shit. And from what you knew about it, that’s a good conclusion. But you were having shitty dates with internet weirdos and dweebs when I was having a fantastic time in the first relationship I’ve ever had that was more or less among equals. Incompatible equals, granted, but at least we were in the same circle of the Ven diagram and could talk to one another. So most of that never got across.

Maybe you have some moments of even keel. I haven’t heard them recently. They’ve all been either madly infatuated or crushed because you gave mind, heart, body, and soul to someone you don’t know and who didn’t deserve it or didn’t know what to do with all of that right off the bat. So, likely, there are things that I don’t know about, times when the seas are remotely calm and not glaringly sunny or stormy.

Okay, now this is just my personal philosophy on life, which you’ve heard before, and other people’s philosophy is always meaningless until or unless it clicks with your life and your experience. But here goes anyway:

It is useless to look for a meaningful Relationship unless you are ready to have one. No one is ready to have a Relationship until she has reached a stage of comfortable self-acceptance. Protests aside, you are not happy with your life. You may like your job, but jobs are only a part of life. I don’t know what it is that you are missing; maybe you aren’t missing anything. Maybe you just don’t see what it is that you have. But a relationship with some guy isn’t going to fill the holes. My best guess would be that the lack is in friends, socially. You don’t seem to ever hang out or go out with anyone that you don’t have a romantic/sexual interest in. And no, romantic and sexual are not interchangeable, although at the beginning of those types of relationships, they more or less are the same, mixed feeling. We just never did separate the two and define them independently of one another, as Plato demands for a true debate.

You need to figure out what it is that you need to make yourself happy – something that doesn’t depend on or come from another person. You can’t control other people and what they do and don’t do.

This responds to nothing Susan posted. In haiku-esque response: good luck with new guy, kick ninja ass.
I am woman, hear me shriek, howl, rage, cry, and laugh. I am like a 10-speed bike, with many gears and many motions. I resist all efforts to pigeonhole, stereotype, simplify, or otherwise reduce my presence. I remember reading a feminist rant on eating disorders. The author compared anorexia to other “diminishing” behaviors that women have: apologizing when there is no need, conceding that other must be correct, speaking tentatively on subjects in which they are well-versed. She concluded that eating disorders were another way in which women try to shrink themselves, to be less and less important, to take up less space, literally. Interesting thought, I guess.

I don’t know exactly where all of this comes from. I read the transcript of the 9th of December Democratic candidates debate in New Hampshire, and noticed that, when she ran over her time and Ted Koppel cut her off, Carol Mosely-Braun apologized. A few times, repeatedly. NONE of the other candidates ever apologized. We are so socialized as women in being polite, that we tend to forget that we have a right to stand up for ourselves, too. Men never worry about being polite, and they have set up a system in which politeness is seen as a malleable weakness that can be exploited. I am not saying that we, as women, should be rude. I am just saying that being out there, expressing opinions, standing up for beliefs, being firm in our rights, none of these things should qualify us as “rude.” Yes, it is “unlady-like.” Fuck that. I’m no lady. I’m a woman. I do not need to affect social graces and ignorance to get me through life. And I won’t.

Robert Heinlein expressed his philosophy of social graces through the Lazarus Long character: he thought that formalities and politeness were necessary to keep the cogs of society rotating smoothly. Without meaningless exchanges such as:
“How are you?”
“Fine, thanks.”
in which little, if any, information is exchanged, we would grate on each other’s nerves. Very likely. But by schooling one gender in excessive exchanges of politeness in every situation, we have created half a population that can easily be put down without recourse. The inequality makes it unfair, as inequality is wont to do.

When are we going to stop putting ourselves and other women down? There are enough people "out there" doing it for us. No need to assist the opressors.

All credit to Tori Amos

1,000 Oceans (a thousand oceans)
these tears i've cried.
i've cried 1000 oceans
and if it seems i'm.
floating. in the darkness

well, i can't believe
that i would keep.
keep you from flying.
and i would cry 1000 more
if that's what it takes
to sail you home
sail you home.
sail you home.

Isn’t it fantastic how the holidays bring out the best in everyone?

You aren’t alone. No more so than anyone else, and I agree with Andrew that some people just hide it by immersing themselves in facades, covers for the problems that we all have. You just don’t have a scab.

Do you remember the conversation we had the other day? The one in which you pointed out that being a cold-hearted bitch is hurting me more than it hurts the people I shut out? See? There is the opposite extreme of your situation. I expect people to screw me over, to disappoint me, and to be human, more or less. Never seems human when it happens – it seems like the assholes are out to get you, but really, I think it’s just humanity. We aren’t perfect – so far from it, and we screw up and hurt each other, a lot. And to keep myself from that kind of deception and disappointment, I tend to shy away from intimacy in the emotional, true sense. Sex is one thing. I think that caring about and respecting the person you are fucking are necessary for it to be any good or worth the harassment and hassle and potential disaster. (This is not to say it isn’t a whole lot of fun, just that there are some down sides and it IS overrated.) Being open emotionally and spiritually, honest to the core about who you are, what you believe, what you have been through, and what it means to you, is something I’ve yet to manage. Yea, I do find guys. And they aren’t assholes. But eventually, you reach a cusp where the relationship must deepen – and I don’t mean falling in love, I mean sustaining the flames and sparks so that it creates something deeper and lasting – and that is the point at which I run away.

Not that we needed to shift the focus from you to me, but I was trying to share the opposite side of the equation. Opposites attract, right? That must be one of those balance things that, if we could figure it out, would make life seamlessly easy. Or so it seems. Grass is greener, etc.

I’ve been rereading Stranger in a Strange Land for about the 100th time. The water rituals, sharing water to grok one another and grow closer, seem pertinent. It isn’t about finding one person with whom all things are possible. That person doesn’t exist. It seems to be about ferreting out the small group of people who compliment you where and who you are at the moment and drawing on their strengths to grow and understand life as it is. Heinlein may have been a misogynist, but I think that is more a product of his time than it is of his true philosophies.

First things first, the internet is FUCKING WONDERFUL. I finished my Christmas/holiday shopping while listening to Grey Eye Glances and Jim Croce in my blue and green hippopotamus slippers. Woo-hoo! And I definitely found stuff that doesn't exist in the limited world of Bismarck shopping. It was kind of interesting to sit on each person's personality and likes and decide what I wanted to get each of them for the holidays, and then search for it. I do wish the computer wasn't so slow, though. That would have made things easier. I have three more gifts to buy, two birthday and one Christmas, but I'm waiting for my mother to ask my brother what CD or DVD he wants, since that's what I always get him. I found cool shit online. I love the WWW!

I get your point about Taoism, flowing with the path, and letting things be. There's no point in fighting: Resistance is Futile. It's true. I just think that people acting like assholes isn't right. Accepting people as they are is one thing, accepting shitty treatment, intended or not, isn't right. But then we have to fight against the societally-ingrained woman thing, which is to insist that we're okay and we can deal with it. True. We can. But we shouldn't have to. We all have to learn to speak up for ourselves and what is right. And to ask for what we need. No one can read our minds -- we have to ask for the things we need in life, and we should expect to get them. We deserve to be treated well and fairly, and we deserve to enjoy life. So that's my brief two cents on the issues at hand.

Okay, I'm having an amazingly weird week. I am at that pathetic stage of my current relationship where I know he wants me, but I keep thinking that maybe he doesn't actually like me. You know, where you get annoyed at yourself for your regular quirks, and decide that you are totally unlovable and worthless? Okay, maybe that's just me. But I will be spending very little time with the current s.o. for the next few weeks. We're both otherwise occupied, and his daughter is spending the holidays with his ex-wife, so I do want to leave them enough time to spend together. ARGH.

I had the weirdest day yesterday. Back a few months after I started at my current job, beginning of spring or so, there was a guy at work who hit on me. Hit on me sounds so much like "I was at a bar, and..." but really he expressed interest. I find him a very interesting person, but not in that way. There are certain people (remember balin?) that I tend to hit it off with: I can talk to them and have great conversations, but while my loins remain as cool as they do when getting the oil in my car changed, they get all hot and bothered. Talking to someone does not imply that she is interested in you. Regardless, I told him as much, and he persisted with the slightly over-the-line compliments, and things cooled off for a while. So yesterday, and for the past week or so, I've been chatting with him again. It's been good -- we can still talk. I like that, and he knows I'm seeing someone, so I don't get why it should be a problem, but I still feel a little guilty. And then I talk to the current s.o., and things are good, but there's something that just doesn't come across the phone 90% of the time. It's like the Mighty Blue Kings or 7 Ft. Politic, two bands that are AWESOME live, in person, and on stage, but really just okay on CD. People are like that, too. After a while, you learn to have a phone relationship with someone, but it takes a while. I think it's frankly weird to see someone you have had mainly a phone relationship with. It just feels different. But the conversation was okay, just not FANTASTIC, which is what I want. And then I talked for a long time to the ex. Just like friends -- what's going on in your life? Hey, remember that time when we did this thing involving buildings? Yeah, I used what I learned there the other day at work. My history with him if very involved in our work together, and what we both currently do -- me at a job that I love, him at one he almost hates. Very weird.

I am glad to hear that your medical problems aren't serious enough to show up on the gooey stick test, but I do understand the "mysterious ailment" syndrome. For many years, I would periodically get weird sicknesses. I've suffered several months of morning sickness at two times in my life -- both several years before I became sexually active! And basically was asked repeatedly if I could be pregnant. And other mysterious things, not as bad as the fatigue and nausea you've described, but what good are doctors if they can't fix you? Maybe the problem is in expecting to be fixed? I don't know, to be honest, but it sucks.

Wasn’t there an epiphany a few weeks back (maybe a month or so) when you realized:
a) Jason wasn’t a friend whom you fucked – he was a fucker
b) you don’t treat friends that way, whether you fuck them or not
c) you don’t get off on getting fucked, which implies a lack of emotional connection, so it wasn’t worth it
and
d) why waste your time on a fucker?

Just wondering. Life is always 2 steps forward, 4 steps back. But the blog recorded part of that ephiphany, so I would suggest, as an historian, that you read the history you are doomed to repeat. As we discussed, I cannot imagine looking up into the face of someone who is inside of you and seeing nothing. I don’t think I could do that. It doesn’t need to be love or lifetime committment, but caring and respect are kind of a necessity.