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?
31 December 2003
24 December 2003
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 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.
22 December 2003
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.
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.
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.
19 December 2003
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.
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.