Right now, I am low.
I am dark and fragile and anxious... and low.
How did this happen? I had a remarkable day going on an adventure with my dad. Something it has been far too long since I did. I came home from our motorcycle road trip excited and happy. But, somewhere around nine o'clock, it hit like I broke inside.
I burst out into tears over the silliest thing, and even why I was sobbing I was asking myself why am I doing this? How did I get to this point? Where did my happy from earlier scatter?
Then I opened my work email for the first time in a week-- I am on break, I am entitled to check out. An angry parent letter just set me off, and I haven't been able to keep it together since.
Something broke, and I don't know why or how.
This is the first time since I got my dream job that I have even felt remotely depressed. That is the ultimate happy I have ever experienced. At the moment I got my first teaching job, at a school with all the perks I could ever hope for and a class schedule that was my ideal, I was positively jubilant. Things shouldn't be like this anymore, at least not without provocation.
In the back of my head, I think I felt this building. Break was approaching and I felt the burn just like every other teacher and every student, so I know that it is not just work stress. Last week, when I said I check out, I meant that literally. I just stayed in my house and did nothing. Mostly, because I couldn't find the motivation to do much more than get up out of bed to move to the couch or to the computer. Then I had a burst mid-week and cleaned the ENTIRE house. Then, I lost all motivation, period. I have taken three days to grade one set of tests when I was knocking out assignments to be graded in pairs daily.
The urge to create struck, and I wanted to write so badly! I got two pages of writing on my novel done, and I was extremely happy with them, and then... it was gone again. Nothing was there! I don't even have writers block-- I know exactly what I want to write. I know the next thing I need to do, and where to go from there. I just can't physically accomplish the task of getting the words onto paper. It's like my imagination has been kidnapped and held for ransom.
Why did this have to happen now?
I guess, at least I still have the majority of the week to find whatever I need to fix this funk. But, I have got to get my ass in gear because I have evals on the 22nd.
Right now though, my little world feels small and bleak, and I fucking hate this shit. If achieving the paramount of my ambition is not enough to suffocate and wither the darkness, where can I possibly go from here?
Monday, October 8, 2012
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Perhaps, I'm just a cold, heartless bitch... Or, Why I won't wear pink to support the fight against Breast Cancer
I hate the color pink.
I have never especially enjoyed the color for the same reason I don't like my hair blonde. I feel like someone expected it of me, like I was told that is the way I should look as a woman. I feel like girls that buy pink things or dye their hair blond are subconsciously adhering to some expectation held for us.
Historically, pink has been the color of femininity, and thus it is regarded as a sweet, delicate, precious color. It's why we slather it over bachelorette party accessories and baby shower decorations. What frustrates me the most is when they slap pink on some ordinary every day thing just to target women consumers-- as if we would only purchase this item because they make it acceptable now that it is pink, and thus feminine. I realised the extent of the idiocy involved in this line of thinking the first time Wyatt and I considered buying a gun. I facepalmed when I saw the line of pink rifles and shotguns displayed behind the glass. What is even worse about the idea of a pink gun is that it says "Hey little lady-- hunting's a mans hobby, but since you insist on tagging along with him to go deer hunting, we'll make sure you have a special pretty gun make it acceptable for you".
Blue on a boy doesn't bother me at all. But pink on a girl makes my skin crawl. It damn near makes me angry. I mean, really, god damn, another one? We lost another one? It's 2012!
I went garage sale shopping a few weekends ago, and a overheard some kids talking. One little boy proudly held up an entire grocery bag of small toys and exclaimed to his friends "I got all these for a quarter!" The two girls in the group peered into the bag and one asked, "Didn't they have any girls toys?" Does it make me a deplorable human being if I can admit I wanted to bitch smack a seven year old? Just play with the fucking toy! I had legos, water guns, hot wheels, and a ton of other "boy toys" when I was a kid and I played with them just as much as my dolls and stuffed animals and my kitchen set. And why the fuck are all the girls toys cookware and cleaning equipment!? That's what every little girl wants! A toy vaccuum so she can learn how much house cleaning blows early.
This is the kind of dumb ass thinking they have programmed in our brains.
Now, before you even start, yes, I do traditionally "feminine" things. I wear makeup when I go out and to work and I wear the occasional dress because I love my calves, but look stumpy in shorts. I paint my nails every color of the visible spectrum-- EXCEPT PINK! Never pink.I just can't bring myself to do it.
The whole blue is for boys and pink is for girls is one of these lasts hold outs from the older generations of gender inequality. And, the fact that breast cancer was given the color pink pisses me the fuck off. As a woman, I know that breast cancer is a devastating diagnosis. Losing a breast would be unimaginable-- not because I feel that my breasts define me as a woman, but more that after carrying around these meat sacks for fifteen years it would be the equivalent of losing any other appendage. It's a part of your body, and I would be as depressed about losing a breast as I would be about a finger or an eye. Especially, when you consider the investment most women have made in buying overpriced tit slings to keep them from flopping around under your clothes.
It's just the idea that we have to associate pink with breast cancer because it primarily effects women. I mean, with that thinking, why is testicular cancer lilac, and not blue? I mean, if we have to be that fucking blatant about it, why aren't we just as stereotypical when it comes to boys?
I don't care if it makes me feel like a heartless bitch. I will not wear pink, even to support my breast cancer stricken aunt. It's just continuing the cycle of expectations held for women. I am respectful of all those afflicted or in remission, and I will keep hoping for all those women-- hoping, not praying, because what sense does it make if you believe that god has a plan for you, and every thing happens for a reason, that he would he take away the cancer he obviously gave you? That's why I don't pray. Because it makes that much sense. But, I will keep hoping... just not while wearing pink.
I have never especially enjoyed the color for the same reason I don't like my hair blonde. I feel like someone expected it of me, like I was told that is the way I should look as a woman. I feel like girls that buy pink things or dye their hair blond are subconsciously adhering to some expectation held for us.
Historically, pink has been the color of femininity, and thus it is regarded as a sweet, delicate, precious color. It's why we slather it over bachelorette party accessories and baby shower decorations. What frustrates me the most is when they slap pink on some ordinary every day thing just to target women consumers-- as if we would only purchase this item because they make it acceptable now that it is pink, and thus feminine. I realised the extent of the idiocy involved in this line of thinking the first time Wyatt and I considered buying a gun. I facepalmed when I saw the line of pink rifles and shotguns displayed behind the glass. What is even worse about the idea of a pink gun is that it says "Hey little lady-- hunting's a mans hobby, but since you insist on tagging along with him to go deer hunting, we'll make sure you have a special pretty gun make it acceptable for you".
Blue on a boy doesn't bother me at all. But pink on a girl makes my skin crawl. It damn near makes me angry. I mean, really, god damn, another one? We lost another one? It's 2012!
I went garage sale shopping a few weekends ago, and a overheard some kids talking. One little boy proudly held up an entire grocery bag of small toys and exclaimed to his friends "I got all these for a quarter!" The two girls in the group peered into the bag and one asked, "Didn't they have any girls toys?" Does it make me a deplorable human being if I can admit I wanted to bitch smack a seven year old? Just play with the fucking toy! I had legos, water guns, hot wheels, and a ton of other "boy toys" when I was a kid and I played with them just as much as my dolls and stuffed animals and my kitchen set. And why the fuck are all the girls toys cookware and cleaning equipment!? That's what every little girl wants! A toy vaccuum so she can learn how much house cleaning blows early.
This is the kind of dumb ass thinking they have programmed in our brains.
Now, before you even start, yes, I do traditionally "feminine" things. I wear makeup when I go out and to work and I wear the occasional dress because I love my calves, but look stumpy in shorts. I paint my nails every color of the visible spectrum-- EXCEPT PINK! Never pink.I just can't bring myself to do it.
The whole blue is for boys and pink is for girls is one of these lasts hold outs from the older generations of gender inequality. And, the fact that breast cancer was given the color pink pisses me the fuck off. As a woman, I know that breast cancer is a devastating diagnosis. Losing a breast would be unimaginable-- not because I feel that my breasts define me as a woman, but more that after carrying around these meat sacks for fifteen years it would be the equivalent of losing any other appendage. It's a part of your body, and I would be as depressed about losing a breast as I would be about a finger or an eye. Especially, when you consider the investment most women have made in buying overpriced tit slings to keep them from flopping around under your clothes.
It's just the idea that we have to associate pink with breast cancer because it primarily effects women. I mean, with that thinking, why is testicular cancer lilac, and not blue? I mean, if we have to be that fucking blatant about it, why aren't we just as stereotypical when it comes to boys?
I don't care if it makes me feel like a heartless bitch. I will not wear pink, even to support my breast cancer stricken aunt. It's just continuing the cycle of expectations held for women. I am respectful of all those afflicted or in remission, and I will keep hoping for all those women-- hoping, not praying, because what sense does it make if you believe that god has a plan for you, and every thing happens for a reason, that he would he take away the cancer he obviously gave you? That's why I don't pray. Because it makes that much sense. But, I will keep hoping... just not while wearing pink.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Signs You're at a Small Town Bar
Recently, I made the twenty five minute trek home to Dawson to spend time with my family in what has now apparently become the only way we can socialize-- drinking at one of the many taverns in the tri-village area. Every time I do this I ask my self how I once again ended up in this situation... and yet, I return time and time again for the sake of the happiness of my clinically depressed grandmother who I love more than life itself, and cannot bare to disappoint.
I digress...
In no particular order--
Sign #1-- Suddenly without realizing it happened, it's like a high school reunion where the only people invited are of all the kids that you avoided in high school.
There are two types of people who go to the small town bar:
1) People who for the grace of some benevolent force in the universe escaped, and have returned merely for the entertainment.
2) The entertainment, or better known as "the regulars"
I went to college for many reasons. One reason was so I did not have to live in Dawson. So, when I return home, and we go out, and suddenly I am inundated by a flood of rejects who during my high school experience were drug dealers, homophobes, rednecks, illiterates, alcoholics, baby-daddies, baby-mommas, drop outs, criminals, and/or any combination there of or unmentioned, I am astonished that these people attempt to converse with me. Once I show up, in comes the parade of derelict people whose lives suck so much that the ONLY thing they have to look forward too is getting shitfaced on Bud Light bucket specials or Crown and Cokes.
AND THEY INSIST ON TALKING TO ME!
I have a college education. You have a certification in cosmetology from CACC.
I am married and have a job. You have a baby daddy and a drug addiction.
I went to Europe to witness the ruins of the ancients, and it changed my life. You went to the river bottoms to get drunk on a raft for your bachelorette party.
WHAT THE FUCK DO WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT!? We didn't talk in high school when I was ignorant and uneducated about the world. What makes you think we could possible have a conversation now?
Now, I'm not insinuating I am better than these people....
I am flat out telling you incontestable facts that prove I am better than these people.
Sign #2-- Any of the following dress code violations:
A memorial T-shirt that reads "Loved but not forgotten", with the picture of the deceased loved one holding any type of dead animal, that has been haphazardly sheared of its sleeves with a pocket knife. Because this is how uncle J.R. wanted to be immortalized by his remaining family...
A forty year old woman wearing a Harley-Davidson shirt that is at least one size too small, worn so tightly it gives her a muffin top over the low-rider, bedazzled jeans she wears to look like a teenager, AND to complete the look, is tucked in to further emphasize the beer gut she is trying to grow to hide her c-section scar under the flap.
A camouflage hat with a fake fishing hook on the brim... because when I think fashion icons to be emulated, I think Larry the Cable Guy.
A white kid wearing a flat billed hat, sagging jeans, pristine white tennis shoes, and a wife beater accompanying his underage girlfriend, who's is herself wearing a dress that would make a hooker exclaim "Damn girl!", with a pair of cowboy boots to "dress it down", or perhaps even to "class it up" in their fucked up world view.
Any man wearing over-alls.
Sign #3-- A single toilet bathroom with a broken lock.
Who decides to build a bar with single toilet bathrooms? I do not enjoy playing the game where I have to attempt to twist the handle ever so gently as not to actually open the door, because the music is so fucking loud you couldn't possibly hear a knock from inside. Either one of two things will happen: there is no one inside and you'll stand outside like a damn idiot waiting because you could not get the handle to turn, and assume it must be locked, or you'll barge in on the bitchiest woman in the bar.
Last but not least...
Sign #4-- A karaoke night that some white trash girl thinks is the birth of her country music career.
Have I been known to drunkenly sing country music on karaoke night in Dawson... unforunately, yes.
Have I ever advertised this event as the fucking social event of the season this side of Uncle J.R.'s memorial poker run? Fuck no.
And, furthermore, as a moment of side-bitching, why is it that every girl who sings country songs during karaoke suddenly develops a Tennessee accent? Look chick, I know that Dawson and the surrounding area has a certain level of redneck drawl, but unless you make moonshine in the hills because the black lung took yo' daddy, you should not sound like a Appalachian.
Then again, I'm not sure which is more tragic-- the barely drinking age legal bimbo, or the twice divorced if at all married mother of three who may or may not still have a drug habit who uses karaoke to fill the void in her life that was created as a result of a landslide of bad decisions. While it may not be possible to answer this question of who is more tragic, I know one thing about each of these women-- they both think they are the next Carrie Underwood.
I digress...
In no particular order--
Sign #1-- Suddenly without realizing it happened, it's like a high school reunion where the only people invited are of all the kids that you avoided in high school.
There are two types of people who go to the small town bar:
1) People who for the grace of some benevolent force in the universe escaped, and have returned merely for the entertainment.
2) The entertainment, or better known as "the regulars"
I went to college for many reasons. One reason was so I did not have to live in Dawson. So, when I return home, and we go out, and suddenly I am inundated by a flood of rejects who during my high school experience were drug dealers, homophobes, rednecks, illiterates, alcoholics, baby-daddies, baby-mommas, drop outs, criminals, and/or any combination there of or unmentioned, I am astonished that these people attempt to converse with me. Once I show up, in comes the parade of derelict people whose lives suck so much that the ONLY thing they have to look forward too is getting shitfaced on Bud Light bucket specials or Crown and Cokes.
AND THEY INSIST ON TALKING TO ME!
I have a college education. You have a certification in cosmetology from CACC.
I am married and have a job. You have a baby daddy and a drug addiction.
I went to Europe to witness the ruins of the ancients, and it changed my life. You went to the river bottoms to get drunk on a raft for your bachelorette party.
WHAT THE FUCK DO WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT!? We didn't talk in high school when I was ignorant and uneducated about the world. What makes you think we could possible have a conversation now?
Now, I'm not insinuating I am better than these people....
I am flat out telling you incontestable facts that prove I am better than these people.
Sign #2-- Any of the following dress code violations:
A memorial T-shirt that reads "Loved but not forgotten", with the picture of the deceased loved one holding any type of dead animal, that has been haphazardly sheared of its sleeves with a pocket knife. Because this is how uncle J.R. wanted to be immortalized by his remaining family...
A forty year old woman wearing a Harley-Davidson shirt that is at least one size too small, worn so tightly it gives her a muffin top over the low-rider, bedazzled jeans she wears to look like a teenager, AND to complete the look, is tucked in to further emphasize the beer gut she is trying to grow to hide her c-section scar under the flap.
A camouflage hat with a fake fishing hook on the brim... because when I think fashion icons to be emulated, I think Larry the Cable Guy.
A white kid wearing a flat billed hat, sagging jeans, pristine white tennis shoes, and a wife beater accompanying his underage girlfriend, who's is herself wearing a dress that would make a hooker exclaim "Damn girl!", with a pair of cowboy boots to "dress it down", or perhaps even to "class it up" in their fucked up world view.
Any man wearing over-alls.
Sign #3-- A single toilet bathroom with a broken lock.
Who decides to build a bar with single toilet bathrooms? I do not enjoy playing the game where I have to attempt to twist the handle ever so gently as not to actually open the door, because the music is so fucking loud you couldn't possibly hear a knock from inside. Either one of two things will happen: there is no one inside and you'll stand outside like a damn idiot waiting because you could not get the handle to turn, and assume it must be locked, or you'll barge in on the bitchiest woman in the bar.
Last but not least...
Sign #4-- A karaoke night that some white trash girl thinks is the birth of her country music career.
Have I been known to drunkenly sing country music on karaoke night in Dawson... unforunately, yes.
Have I ever advertised this event as the fucking social event of the season this side of Uncle J.R.'s memorial poker run? Fuck no.
And, furthermore, as a moment of side-bitching, why is it that every girl who sings country songs during karaoke suddenly develops a Tennessee accent? Look chick, I know that Dawson and the surrounding area has a certain level of redneck drawl, but unless you make moonshine in the hills because the black lung took yo' daddy, you should not sound like a Appalachian.
Then again, I'm not sure which is more tragic-- the barely drinking age legal bimbo, or the twice divorced if at all married mother of three who may or may not still have a drug habit who uses karaoke to fill the void in her life that was created as a result of a landslide of bad decisions. While it may not be possible to answer this question of who is more tragic, I know one thing about each of these women-- they both think they are the next Carrie Underwood.
One million other things I could be doing...
...But fuck it-- I'm going to blog. I'm not going to prep. I am not going to grade anymore papers. I am just going to do a personal, completely necessary thing right now... write, be sarcastic, blog.
I need to do this. I have to find some semblance of creative normalcy. Here I am, fully jobbed and living my teaching dream. Which, any of you who have known me for longer than a minute know this was incredible, nearly impossible achievement. But, all I can focus on is the fact that this job is eating my life because stupid ass me wants to do it right, and it may be all for nothing if my job gets cut... which is pretty likely since America experiencing a high speed come apart, the likes of which have not seen since my wedding when it rained on my outdoor reception.
For months I have been observing things and thinking in my head, "This would make a great entry". But then I get home and think I have to put other things first. Well, my break is coming up and I don't care how much I have to do right now. I'm never going to get it done if I don't take a rest and refocus, because my brain will protest in some melodramatic... way like a aneurism or a seizure or randomly forgetting how to speak English or an inability visually process color.
So, this is me, entering randomn wisdom in my irrational and absolutely peculiar observational way.
Read, and enjoy while it lasts.
I need to do this. I have to find some semblance of creative normalcy. Here I am, fully jobbed and living my teaching dream. Which, any of you who have known me for longer than a minute know this was incredible, nearly impossible achievement. But, all I can focus on is the fact that this job is eating my life because stupid ass me wants to do it right, and it may be all for nothing if my job gets cut... which is pretty likely since America experiencing a high speed come apart, the likes of which have not seen since my wedding when it rained on my outdoor reception.
For months I have been observing things and thinking in my head, "This would make a great entry". But then I get home and think I have to put other things first. Well, my break is coming up and I don't care how much I have to do right now. I'm never going to get it done if I don't take a rest and refocus, because my brain will protest in some melodramatic... way like a aneurism or a seizure or randomly forgetting how to speak English or an inability visually process color.
So, this is me, entering randomn wisdom in my irrational and absolutely peculiar observational way.
Read, and enjoy while it lasts.
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