Twice in the last 24 hours, I have listened to my fellow white folks condemn the use of a racial slur by saying, “You can’t say that these days!”

These days.

Man, don’t you miss the days when you could just spit out hurtful, triggering, oppressive language without everyone getting all pissed about it?

Good God, we are stubborn, stupid, willfully ignorant people.

My partner has a bee in his bonnet. There’s a big event coming up and he usually gets upset about this or that stupid thing right before an event like this. It’s like he can’t process the nerves and excitement and funnels that energy into inflating a problem. It pisses me off.

“Epic Meal Time” on teh youtubes is best enjoyed when you are inebriated!  Just like the hosts!

*edit* Except when you realize that you’re forgetting vital parts of the video…that’s probably a bad sign.

So here a few days ago, I wrote a drunken ramble about how my heart attaches to people seemingly at random (as of yet, I’ve not found a common thread) and just hangs on in a state of Gastbyian infatuation until it up and decides to replace this person with someone else.  Part of what influenced that post is that at the time, I had a suspicion that such a switch was happening.  Having had time and soberness with which to examine myself, I think I was right.  And so here I am with a new object of inexplicable admiration, a new person that my brain has decided to imagine is at my side at all times, a person who until a short time ago was just another acquaintance in my life.  Nothing special happened to cause this change that I am aware of.  Just happened.  It’s like a psychological blankie that my mind carries around.

Driving somewhere in my car?  Imagine that person in the passenger side talking to me!

Sitting on my couch reading?  Imagine that person listening to me read aloud and laughing at the funny stuff!

Lying in bed?  Imagine spooning!

I seem to have a knack for creating wholly fictional relationships with people in my head in which I seek all my comforting/companionship needs that my partner isn’t inclined to fulfill and that I’m not comfortable asking my friends to fulfill because I don’t want to be that clingy person.  When I was too young to understand the generally accepted boundaries for interpersonal contact, I was that clingy person and in retrospect I am deeply embarrassed at my youthful inability to leave people the fuck alone.  So I guess this, in all its strangeness, is an improvement over my childhood folly.  At least with this, no one gets bothered or hurt.

I do feel guilty when I sit in church and the pastor talks about fantasizing about other people being sinful…but what am I going to do?  My partner’s plumbing is all but busted (yaaaayyy heart problems!) and I hate asking him to work on me because I know how stigmatized erectile issues are in our culture and I worry that it will act as a pricking reminder of how his once raging libido has totally crashed.  And the last time I did get the guts to ask him to work on me, he only did so for a couple of minutes and looked annoyed with the whole business.  I don’t even want to ask him to cuddle because after a few minutes he asks me to stop because he’s uncomfortable.  What else am I going to do but engage in some pretend time if it makes me feel loved?  I think God would understand where I’m coming from. 

I am between cycles of life right now, and for once I am not referring to menstruation, although that is also the case.  Over the last year, I completed a chapter with a delightful and terrifying opening, the accumulation of *experiences*, the comfort and fashionable cynicism of familiarity, and have just in the last month dealt with a standard ending and departure which is part and parcel of my career.  This period of time tends to be the doldrums of my career because many of the goals have already been reached and much of the bombast is over and what’s left is to set things back to rights and start planning for the next round.  It’s anticlimactic, because the reaching of the goals and the bombast are wonderful to me and now the workplace is a sparsely populated wasteland whose few inhabitants lethargically trudge through the motions until their shift ends, at which point they sprint out the door.  Changes occur every year at my job.  People leave and people come in.  It will always be this way.  I am sad at the prospect of the people leaving and wish they could stay because I love them, but on the other hand I am sick to fucking death of what feels like a month-long busy signal.  I’m ready for the cycle to fully end so that the next one can begin.  Where for a week or so I felt crushing sadness at the close of the last cycle, I now feel the welling-up of fresh ambition.  Time for new things and new people.  Time to set bigger goals and stretch ourselves.  Thank God for the hope of another day, the smell of coffee in the pot and the sun peeking up over the trees.

Can you tell I’ve been reading a lot of Keillor lately?

Because part of the reason I created this Tumblr was to be a clearinghouse for all my idiosyncrasies!

(Trigger Warning: Substance abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse)

I feel like a little bit of a phony writing those things, because I’m never sure whether what I endured really “counts” as compared to someone else, but I would rather be too cautious than not cautious enough.  Also, I’m not even sure this post will contain all those things because Substance Abuse!  Again, would rather be too careful than not careful enough.

I have had what some might consider an incautious amount of wine (and friends and regular readers say, “SHOCKER!” in a deeply sarcastic tone) and it has caused me to look with more frankness and realism on my particular spectrum of emotions.  So often, I want nothing more than to be hugged.  And I think it’s because for so long, I was yelled at, or struck on the head, or punched, or heavily criticized, or ridiculed, or bullied.  My heart tends to attach to people pretty easily and this is a thing which I am in the process of trying to accept about myself.  It has been a truth as long as I can remember.  My heart just takes hold of someone and hangs on for a long time until - and this is pretty critical - it finds someone else.   At no time have I been without an object of infatuation.  And it is just now entering my brain that I may never be without this person.  This might just be a part of me forever.

And that might be ok.  It might not be a reason to hate myself.

(Trigger Warning: Discussion of Substance Abuse)

…of alcoholism.

The booze just clarifies so much for me - it makes me less afraid of myself.  I spend so much of my time guarded and strong.  Can’t really show anger.  Can’t talk about things that are rendered “taboo” by my subculture (which is a whole fuck of a lot).  But the booze just makes everything so much easier.  Obviously, the frontal lobe (where judgment happens - heyyy, one thing I remember from Bio!) is affected, because suddenly it feels less frightening to admit things like the fact that I often want to fuck people other than my partner.  Or the sheer volume of love and want I feel in general.  Which is an insurmountable, insatiable amount.

Basically, I wish to be hugged all the time.  Which a couple of glasses of Sauvignon Blanc makes obvious to me in a way that doesn’t make me ashamed.  That might not be healthy.

I have been bound and determined to make this a good day despite some things that might have made it a bad day.  I got reprimanded for a minor misstep, I lost my temper and yelled at one point, I received a minor injury that will yield a week of discomfort, and I might have upset a friend with an in-joke that everyone else thought was funny.

That last one is digging at me a little.  The problem is that this friend is (1) relentlessly, unfalteringly egotistical and (2) remarkably NOT self-aware when it comes to his capabilities.  It’s very common at his age to believe that success comes with a specific type and volume of output and so he, like everyone else his age, is trying to force himself into that cookie cutter.  His results are better than some, but worse than others.  What makes him different is that he struts around with his nose in the air, feigning aloofness when we all know deep down he is just as frightened and desperate for approval as anyone else, while his compatriots are more honest about their insecurity and more open to guidance.  I think what pricks his peers and us up in management is that he refuses to admit to this and often refuses to heed advice or, occasionally, direct instruction.  So we had something of a roast this evening in which multiple people and in-jokes were referenced and among these was one instance where he took on a project that was WAY over his head and barely squeaked by in some aspects and failed in others.  Everyone else laughed, he laughed a little because he felt like he had to.  In retrospect, I think I feel badly because I see a little of myself in him in one way.  The crushing need for affirmation and the belief that achievement is a zero-sum game are exactly like me, then as now.  I, however, dealt with it in the opposite way at his age for several reasons which I think are pretty obvious.  I publicly underestimated my capabilities, often decried my alleged deficits in skill, while secretly knowing that I was lying and waiting for people to sweep down affirmations.  Fishing, as it were.  It takes a concentrated effort these days not to do that, to remember that everyone has strengths and weaknesses and that I have unique gifts which I can offer that other people cannot, that my mistakes don’t cancel out my good qualities, that knowing that someone else is better doesn’t mean I’m not good.  I am at a difficult crossroads as a manager because on the one hand, I don’t want to discourage him.  For all his bluster and bombast, he’s a decent guy and I don’t want to cause him pain.  On the other hand, it took moments like the one I just inflicted on him for me to start the growing process that brought me to here and now - to ignite the process that will likely continue for the rest of my life.

I suppose this is something (albeit much smaller) akin to what it’s like to be a parent.  Pruning errant branches so that the plant will one day grow stronger.  Inflicting temporary pain so that lasting maturity and joy will blossom.  It’s tough.  I know in my heart that if I had foregone the joke that down the road, he’d have heard the same truth in a much harsher way from a much less sympathetic person.  But it’s damn hard to see the disappointment, to watch him vent his self-consciousness and anxiety into contention with me, because I genuinely care about him and want him to improve and to grow and to be happy.  In my sterile, managerial way, I love him.  And that’s all I can do - love him in my sterile, managerial way and hope that someday, he comes to the same realizations that I have come to when I look back on my mentors: they were looking out for me in ways I couldn’t yet see.

We had a coworker commit suicide a short time ago.  It wasn’t someone I knew very well by name…so when they released the name, I was sad, but not that intense personal sadness because I didn’t think I knew him.

Then today, I saw a picture of him and realized I did know him a little.  Again, not a close personal relationship, but I remember a few projects I worked with him on.  He was kind and positive and sweet and it’s kind of hitting me hard that he’s gone.  I know what it’s like to want to die.  I actually tried to kill myself once in the same manner he actually killed himself - someone caught me in time.

I wish so badly someone had caught him in time.