I'm a delicate flower

Once, someone I considered a friend told me I was too sensitive. While I didn't have a witty retort at the time, I later thought that I would much rather be over-sensitive than a raging bitch that seems to take pleasure in putting others down.

Now I'm not so sure.

It takes the tiniest thing to set me off, and it keeps getting worse as I get older. I am sensitive. Most people don't expect it because of my public persona. I'm too complex-- and not in the deep old-soul way. This isn't a "No one understands me!" post. I promise.

What set me off this evening was a seemingly tiny thing, but I considered it to be a severe blow. A former student of mine posted their political views, which do not match mine, on their instagram. It killed me. This student... While I can't fault them for having different views from me, I just felt so sorry for them. And now I can't get it out of my mind. Then I got to thinking that maybe it wasn't okay that they had different views than me. Do they not value their freedoms?! Do they not value choice or rights?! Surely, I thought, they must have been raised in a certain type of household and they never made the decision to look at other political options. I began to pity this student.

In my previous post, I stated that politics have put me in a foul mood. Now, for this tiny reason, one in the hundreds of students I have taught, I am incredibly disappointed. I would give anything--anything-- to be in better control of my emotions. I take my medicine like a good girl. The only thing it really does is make me sleepy, but at least it tends to keep the racing thoughts at bay to a certain extent. A normal person would be able to brush this off. I do feel passionately about my political views, so maybe it's not such an over-reaction. But on the other hand, I taught this student. And hundreds of others. I am just so disappointed. I can't really phrase it any other way.

I'm trying to assuage my panic over this seemingly insignificant thing with music. "Carry On" is a song I just want to curl up next to and let it serenade me to sleep.

Pushing the upsetting thoughts out of my head is so difficult. Too difficult, I sometimes think. Sometimes, it's impossible. 

I fucking hate everything.

I am so cross with everything these days. I've just realised that a lot of it seems to be coming from the politically charged atmosphere around me. I was born in 84, when Reagan was president. Since then, I've been through 4 more presidents. Maybe I'm young, but I can't remember things being this shitty.

This happened. A 16 year old girl tweeted requesting that someone assassinate the president. The person covering the story goes on to say that, understandably, the 16 year old probably doesn't understand exactly what she was saying, nor does she understand what the election is about. ‎"And if you haven’t noticed, as the election draws nearer, we are being surrounded by hate, assaulted by it from all directions – hate aimed at gays, immigrants, women, minorities, union members, teachers, and more. The mainstream media like CNN condones this hate and their failure to even respond to it when it comes from their own pundits only sanctions it as acceptable."

Both sides have seem to have adopted the "fight dirty" attitude of politics. What the fuck is wrong with these people? How can they not see that the election is about more than the colour of our president's skin or their precious guns?

I'm terrified. If Romney wins, we will be tossed back into the dark ages. Basic human rights are currently being suppressed and even more will disappear come January if he wins.

I understand, at a basic level, how people are against abortion. I respect other's choices. I'm having to explain to my freshmen students why we are seeing the image of a coat hanger pop up in ads constantly. But we need to backtrack. Without women's health facilities, which will again disappear if Romney is elected, more women will be turning to extreme measures to avoid having a child. It isn't as simple as slut-shaming or telling a woman to practice abstinence. That's a basic human right that is being threatened. Something so primal and ingrained in us as the act of having sex. "Ladies, don't have sex or else." is basically what we're being told. And doctors agree that even the most careful of birth control methods are only 99% effective.

Then there is "gay rights." What in the hell? It shouldn't even be an issue! I often find myself wondering who the first person to discover they couldn't marry the person they loved because they shared the same sort of genitals. Humans are insanely complex by nature, and to put any sort of restriction on them in the way of something as unfathomable as love(see above: sex) is insanity. Yes, there are gay people that I know and love. But guess what? There are gay people I know and despise. But it has nothing to do, in both cases, with their sexual orientation. it has to do with the fact that they are human and they may or may not have personality traits or habits that I like or dislike. I would never imagine that I could just look at someone and say that I don't like them based on something that they can't control (yeah, I said it: born this way) like who they love or the color of their skin.

Some try to say that the argument it not the same. GLBT issues are not racial issues. Obviously they are not, but to not draw an even comparison between the two is blind. I absolutely believe that no one has govern over their gender preference in partners as much as no one can control their race. Now, people can choose to "come out" or not. There is a group on Facebook where people leave sometimes anonymous messages asking for support and help for coming out. All too often, they say they are frightened to death over what might happen to them, and those who have come out have had the people in their lives just brush it off as a phase. I have always held that if you are old enough to know you like one gender, you are old enough to know you like another. So, telling a 14 year old that they're just confused or just crying out for attention because they state that they like the same gender is among the most terrible things you could say to a child, in my opinion.

But why the hate? I can understand the frustration coming from the side of the oppressed. But the unguarded, unfiltered amount of animosity coming from those seeking to oppress is astounding. The interest in other people's sex lives is even more so. Why isn't it okay to just be human anymore?

This brings me back to my own sneaky hate spiral. The negativity is everywhere and seeps from every crack and crevice. It's so hard to rise above it or anything life-affirming like that. Instead, I am stuck here with my opinions, stewing until I can't take it anymore. Like now. I am just so angry at it all that I can barely see straight. Popular culture has taught us that it's cool and funny to hate everything. That you should be your own island. That no one else matters-- every man for himself.

Fuck that.

Random Bad Memory: Trivial shit

So, I'm upset about something completely different, but an odd thing keeps popping into my mind... Something I've been upset about for about 10 years. It's nothing really, very trivial. But it's something that has stuck with me.

For some reason, when I was in my late teens, my fathers thought they had control over me. I can understand my step-dad's feelings-- he raised me. But at that time, I was trying to foster a relationship with my bio father.

I wonder if anyone can remember a time before cell phones. Or at least, a time before everyone had one. At any rate, when I was 17 or 18, I changed my voicemail message to one of those fake celebrity answering the phone sort of things. I remember one was by the Barenaked Ladies. Just them answering the phone and being Canadian.

Both of my dads freaked out. I got the same reaction from both of them. It was strange-- almost as if they decided together that they were going to yell at me for having a "joke" voicemail message.

Like I said, it was trivial. But both of my fathers got worked up over the tiniest things. Both claimed that I was immature for having such a voicemail greeting. That they didn't call to hear some guys talk; they called to hear my voice. I still find this hard to wrap my head around, hence why it's classified as a bad memory. It still makes me mad that they got so upset over something that was so fucking inane and trivial.

I hate that now I get upset over trivial things. I know my mother does the same thing, and that I can't just blame my parents for my problems. But, as mentioned earlier, I am terribly upset over something completely unnecessary. And I can't talk to anyone about it because I don't want to admit weakness.

I hate being me.

The Lazy Gardener

I think anyone reading this knows me well enough to know I am pretty lazy.

The truth is, my bipolar disorder has gotten completely out of control this summer. Which is weird, because I was only formally diagnosed just this summer. Here, have a cat so you don't feel bad for me:

Actually, I think we can all agree that she looks surly at best here. That's her normal face. And yes, that is my cat.

I sat down to write a blog post about my garden, but let me digress further and take you into a manic mind.

Went to the bathroom. Thought about Robbie Williams and how I need to/want to listen to one of his albums that happens to be on Spotify, because one of the songs from that album came on my Pandora oh wait why does my black cat have crazy eye boogers? God, she is talky! Dude, I JUST cleaned this toilet. I swear I only cleaned the toilet like once every 3 months at our apartments and I clean the toilets here weekly. Did they do something to my toilets to make them really dirty? Like, when they were being installed? What was that song again? There was another song that made me cry and I'm not sure how it happened. I need to write stuff down. Shit, Sam and Carry are getting married in 4 days (it took me 4 tries to get the right measure of time there)! What was I writing down? Oh yeah I write in my planner what I did each day to try and grip onto reality. I remember nothing from Sunday, so I just put a "?". Should I be posting this on the internet? All great writers were disturbed in some way-- look at Hemingway! Don't, actually- he was a drunk and I am not. I also don't have polydactic cats. But... wait. Oh shit it's already technically Tuesday! Where are my headphones?

That's just a taste. That's my brain, constantly. Even when I am in a deeply depressed state, my brain refuses to shut down. It never slows down. It never stops. So when I am flighty, most people assume it's ADD or in my extreme manic states, ADHD, but it isn't. Unless the disorders are all connected, in which case it might be. Please note how I never really finished a thought up there. I also had to try several different ways to type "Tuesday" (including "14", "morning", "furry", and "tomorrow") before I figured out what I meant to type. Again, this isn't a flibbertigibbet thing. It's my brain and its fuckery.

I started this blog post with the intent to talk about my garden and turning it into a metaphor for my life.

I didn't think my garden through. Also, my (it has taken me 2 minutes to remember the right word) greenhouse was (another 30 seconds) sabotaged by the weather. The little greenhouse got knocked over and my seed pods were scattered and I didn't know what was what until well after they germinated. I have a WHOLE LOT of tomatoes. I canned a gallon of tomato sauce today, and that's probably not even half of my haul for the year. My corn was decimated by bugs and woodland critters. I don't even want to talk about the broccoli. I have a tiny zucchini that came from out of nowhere. My watermelon vines are kind of taking over. My poor sunflowers are downcast and sad, even though I know that means I will soon be getting tasty seeds from them. And yes, I planted the right kind.

At any rate, everything it all pell-mell, mish-mash. And to the outsider, it might seem like I am lazy as hell. The garden is overrun with weeds. I have a reason for this: Andy and I completely arbitrarily chose a spot last year to start our first garden, which happened to be in the side of the yard. You know, where the lawn goes. So... the lawn really never died. I see other people's neatly organised and weed-free gardens and am very jealous. There is one on the way to Christiansburg that is just gorgeous. I keep telling Andy I'm going to stop at their house and ask for their secrets.

The thing is, I see a slow-motion train wreck and get overwhelmed. I put more money into this year's garden than will eventually offset the money for that food. I know there was a better way to phrase that last sentence but it got away from me. Again, a slow-motion train wreck that I just give up on.

I don't water it when I need to. I obviously didn't think it through or bother weeding it. If something grows that is vaguely edible, I immediately destroy it. I hate fresh tomatoes, so I seed and puree them for sauce. I grate the HUGE zucchini for bread. The carrots all went in one night. Into my body that is. I got grossed out by the lettuce-- I kept thinking I was eating slugs even though I cleaned each and every leaf thoroughly. I got four ears of corn. That I actually ate as-is, with a little bit of butter. 

In short, the garden got out of control. It's supposed to be relaxing! It's supposed to be something that keeps me busy during the summer since no one will hire me! If a problem arises, I need to be right on top of it. I can fix anything in my garden, dammit! I fixed the blight of blossom end rot! 

Alas, no. I look forward to my garden all year. Then I plant it and I am just so so so so excited to see it growing and thinking about all the things I will do with my food... and it all goes horribly wrong.

ABRUPT CHANGE

...but I feel like that's how it is with school. I look forward to it when I am off for more than a week. Even on Thanksgiving break, by Wednesday, I am ready to send out a mass email asking my students if they need help with anything. At some point in the semester, however, things go downhill. Someone has managed to slide something past me, and then all of the sudden, every student wants their pound of flesh from me. Every semester, I tell myself it'll be different. 

This semester will be different.

They aren't going to call my by my first name. They will be responsible for their own awareness of their grades by being required to print off a grade rundown every Friday, and turning it into me. I'm going to try and have a podcast or something-- at the very least, have comprehensive notes for every lecture. I've been doing this for going on 4 years. Not much has changed over that time. Other than experience.

So, tl;dr: my garden is a lot like my job. I look forward to it immensely over the year, but when it finally comes around, it ends up imploding around me and I hope that there is something salvageable from the experience.

Bad memories: It goes to 11

Sometimes I just can't help but dwell on the bad stuff. Andy will be upset, but he should know better than to try and censor me (not that he has). I just need to write.

Some years ago, Andy and I  were dating. His "BFF" was a girl named Jessica, a girl about whom I had heard from Andy every sickening detail in the months before we started seeing each other. He claimed to be over her, but even after we were established as a couple, he would try to ditch me to hang out with her, because ridiculously uncomfortable when Jessica and I would talk, and on the one and only Valentine's day we dated, he even tried to get away with going and hanging out with her. Maybe I am petty, and I know I am doing no one any favours by holding this shit in my mind, but I can't not. He was, without a doubt, the worst boyfriend I had ever had. He went along with everything she said: he started drinking because she is a drunk; he started listening to Iron Maiden because she thought they were awesome; he wrote songs about her and recorded them; he goofed around and joked with and cherished her in a way that he never did for me in the early months, and I somehow managed to earn the name "Succubus." He claims not to remember any of this, of course. But that's Andy. He edits the sad parts.

At any rate, he binged out on buying things that Jessica thought was cool, including "This is Spinal Tap." Trying to be an interested party and trying to break into his little world, to be close to him god forbid, I asked him if I couldn't watch it with him some time.

"You wouldn't get it," was the response.

He didn't want to share with me. I didn't push the issue, but ever since then, I have been annoyed while thinking about it. I was, to Jessica (his ultimate puppet master) weak, boring, and worst of all, controlling. I listened to Modest Mouse, Weezer, and Jimmy Eat World, and bands beneath Jessica's liking, bands that Andy himself introduced me to: Motion City Soundtrack, Death Cab for Cutie, early My Chemical Romance.

Let's digress for a moment. When I was 13 or so, I wanted nothing more than the full box set of Monkee memorabilia and Monty Python videos. A late-night infomercial revealed that I could get the latter of the two for only $20 or some shit. When I asked my mother for the Monty Python set, much to my surprise, she said yes. Unfortunately, I never saw the commercial again so never received the gift. Since then, I confess I have started to grimace whenever I hear someone shout "I FART IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION," mostly because it's just so... cliche. We get it. You've seen "The Holy Grail" so often you can recite it in your sleep. So can about 3/4 of the rest of the English-speaking population. It's like hearing a song too often and ending up feeling guilty that you once held it in high regard.

But I was raised on Monty Python and dry humour like that (aside: wtf is wet humour?). Absolutely Fabulous was one of my mother's favourite shows. Her Anglophilia knows no bounds. BBC was always on at my Nanny's (my mom's mom) house when we came to visit. If anyone in their early 20s would "get" Spinal Tap, it would have been me.

So I have this knee-jerk reaction whenever someone says "It goes to 11" one too many times or giggles at the sight or mention of stonehenge. I was never let in on the joke. I only know it from the sparse details I've seen in other movies, on random websites, and from hardcore fans of the movie. I still haven't seen it. I once told Andy how annoyed I was with him about this, and he tried to sit me down to watch it. I refused. It was too little too late.

So, yeah, carrying it around with me? Probably a bad idea. But I can't help it.

It hurts.

I probably won't tell Facebook about this post.

I've been having conflicting thoughts for the past day or so. Before then, this summer has been... boring. I can't say terrible, because it hasn't been. At worst, it's been discouraging. But I can't handle any of it.

Allow another digression: When my students ask me how my winter break was, or hell, even my weeklong Thanksgiving or Spring break, I reply, "Long." Too long. I get bored. I could be cleaning the house, writing a novel, weeding my garden, painting my nails, making food and freezing it for future meals... Anything, really. I hate vacations though. I just sit and wait for something to happen. I'm a very frustrating person to vacation with, I can imagine.

But in the summer, I have 3 and a half months with which I can do any of the above things and more. Instead, I have holed myself up in my room (I haven't slept upstairs in a while, but that's another very boring story, and nothing to be concerned about) and read Harry Potter twice, the Shades of Grey trilogy once, knit, crocheted, and cried a whole lot. It's almost a nightly thing.

At first, it was because no one would hire me. All the local places would tell me: "you're over-qualified." How in the fuck am I too qualified to need money?! I get that someone with a Masters degree that teaches at the university will probably leave the job at the end of the summer and then they would have to spend money to train someone new.

Then it was because of another job that I interviewed for that someone else got. It was devastating.

I cry constantly. I feel like the world would be better off without me. If it weren't for my mother and father, I'd probably have ended it a long time ago. consider me a coward, but being trapped in my own body is hell. Being trapped in my own mind is even worse than that. I stay up almost all night and then sleep all day. The night it the worst. All of the negative thoughts I have about myself come creeping in while I'm alone and take over.

Then, just the other day, a dear friend birthed a stillborn baby.

I wasn't there, I haven't seen her, and I've never even been pregnant or anything like that. But the pain of it sits with me and makes me feel like a selfish brat. Who the hell am I, sitting here, doing nothing and wishing for death, while my friend is in unimaginable pain? I hurt so bad for her. I have cried more for that child than I have in a very long time.

There's not much I can do about my depression. I've tried lots, and I'm just at a loss and very jaded. I know I am allowed to feel terrible just as much as anyone else. But my friend is out there, hurting worse than anyone ever should. I am selfish.

We'd all float on I guess

When I am forced to do things like taking care of my house or even myself, my mind tends to wander to the furthest reaches of my brain and imagine odd and sometimes wonderful things. This week,  I imagined a world without G-d.

Yeah, yeah. Far from an original thought in the grand scheme of things, but I've never considered myself an atheist. I do have faith or as Kevin Smith might say, an idea. An idea that something (non terrestrial being, nonhuman, alien, otherworldly entity, whatever) out there made the universe. But I think that being is tired and frankly done. At least with this world.

I argued with a friend years ago that the idea of a savior was ludicrous and downright selfish. That all of the bad things you do don't just go away because someone laid their life on the line and then transcended to where their creator resides to watch all the little people scurrying about. I just can't make myself believe it, and I've tried. Hard.

Religion is an anchor to which many cling (sorry for the mixed metaphor) for many reasons. Marx (Karl, not Richard or the brothers) said that "religion is the opiate of the masses." I think. At any rate, communistic though it may be, religion is comfort, it is safety, it is a tether.

 

(I shouldn't have to caption these)

But, as we've seen, particularly during this election season, it's also very, very dangerous. I hope I can look back on this in 20 years and giggle, reminding myself of those ridiculously self-righteous individuals that thought that oppressing the rights of others would get them the presidency of America. 

I had another conversation earlier with BBC Tosha about rights and such:

No, no, no. I wasn't raised religious, but my sister is the biggest bible thumper there is and she feels it is her duty to make sure that anyone wrong knows that they are wrong. Not in an overbearing way, but her opinion is rarely kept to herself and it's always because she thinks she is doing what's right.  [Name redacted] is a dick. I'm sure he is a nice dude on the surface, but underneath, he is (pardon the hyperbole) dangerous. Constituents like him are what keep the right wing bullshittery in America going: he is calm and cool and everything on all issues because they are so thoroughly ingrained in him. He cannot be wrong, and there is no other way. He is like the opposite of us but the same in the way that we know we are right. The only key difference in the belief structure is that we know we are right because we know we are a part of the issue we are trying to protect: women and the entire human race, not to mention the LGBT community. He is a part of the Christian pro life community. That might be admirable to ensure that life on earth continues to grow and thrive but it has been proven time and again that oppression of others is NOT the way to rule the people. 

Let me get back to the point. Religion serves a purpose, and I get that. Sometimes I even take part in those beliefs, ideas, and rituals. For instance, I always leave a glass of something (usually water) out for Elijah and Miriam during Passover. I've only done one Seder and it was... disastrous. But it makes me feel happy to keep these little (and big) traditions going.

However, science serves an even greater purpose. If I were to completely bear (bare?) my soul, I would state that deep down, I think G-d gave us science to keep us busy, to help us make sense of the things around us, and to appreciate what was given to us. But I don't think that all the time; only sometimes.

If I were to ask a deeply religioius person to imagine a world without religion or a god of any sort, most would tell me that such thoughts were blasphemous or that it was impossible. The odd duck might entertain the thought and tell me that the world would be a worse place for it. 

Ask me what a world would be without gravity. We'd all float away. Probably. We reasonably understand the tenants of gravity. 

What of science? What if science didn't exist? There, I can see the world from a deeply religious person's perspective. Science is everything. It is proven. We (again, within reason) understand things by means of science. There cannot be life without science. If you cannot imagine a world without God, I understand. I cannot imagine a world without science.

I'd like to say, though, that I have an advantage. I have science in front of my constantly. What has G-d given us? Possibly life and peace and blah blah blah... But you have to wait a lifetime to potentially meet your deity. I can see and hols science in my hands every day. You say you feel and see G-d everywhere? That's fine. I still hold that it's science.

That atheist isn't bombing your hospital birthing suite, not blocking your right to proper healthcare, not banning your right to have free thoughts or ideas. That atheist is quietly shaking his or her head and moving on with their daily routine.

I don't intend to change anyone's religion here. I simply intend to share my thoughts. that's why I have a blog.