Nothing Personal; Just Letting Go

October 21st, 2009

We’re continuing to take things to Goodwill and consignment stores. There’s something very addictive and cathartic to letting go of all this stuff. I don’t miss anything.

Well… I did have a brief pang about my comic collection a couple days ago, but 2 months after the fact is a little late to recover them. Wasn’t like I was actually reading them.

It’s all just stuff and unnecessary. Besides, it’ll make the move far easier.

Also trying to work myself into a state when I stop taking things personally. It’s a waste of emotion to take anything personally. Frankly, very little of this has anything to do with Mom, Jass, or me. In some cases, the person dishing out the crap wants us to take it personally. It’s a reflection — or maybe a kind of misdirection — of themselves.

For example: I think Poppa finally realizes we’re serious. He won’t actually speak to Jass or me, but he keeps suddenly locating job hints after a year of “sucks to be you” attitude. Again, this has nothing to do with us. I still plan to leave and engage in that nice long vacation from our family. I just think he’s finally realizing he’s about to lose.

I can’t say it’s easy. It’s SO hard. Last 25 man raid in WoW, I wanted to take a snotty comment personally. Cue deep breaths, roll my eyes, and make the omnipresent cat on my desk squeal her indignation as I flip her onto her back to blow raspberries on a furry tummy.

I can’t take it personally anymore; I’m all out of Sunshine, binkies, and Scratching-Post Sisal. Thus, I refuse to accept: “Thank you for the gift, but I think you have more use of it than I do.”

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Single; Not Available

October 6th, 2009

Five days ago, I posted a private entry of the same name on my Livejournal so now I think its time to post this publicly and put this to rest.

I am a single woman; that does not mean I am available.

No, I am not available to be your Fuck Stop.

No, I am not available for your Mid-life Crisis.

No, this is not a challenge for you to get with me.

No, this is not a challenge for you to set me up.

No, I am not playing hard to get.

No, I am not some angry bitch queen.

No, I do not need to be “fixed” or “repaired.”

No, my vagina does not have an “open for business” sign on it.

I shouldn’t have to explain that I’m quite content being single and why I have never married. I was complete the day I was born, I don’t need a penis between my legs to be complete. I will not be measured by the male I am able to attract. I am more than my sex.

So stop. Just stop.

This is a lifestyle choice. My choice. I would rather be happy and single than with a man and miserable.

I really don’t have the right personality for being someone’s little wife. I am so much more fulfilled by the friends I make than any man I have ever been with.

Guys get their little Male-PMS thing going and all I want is to thrash them with a rolled up newspaper. I won’t stay quiet and let them take it out on me. I’m more likely to pelt them with eggs than walk on egg-shells. I’m more likely to walk out and let him stew in an empty house for the night. I’m more likely to divorce him and be done with it.

I’ve heard that verbal and emotional abuse after marriage is so common that some marriage counselors are telling their patients its normal. That is utter bull. But yet… I have heard woman after woman tell me that she got so she could tell by the way her husband drove, walked, or whatever coming up the street to their home what kind of an evening they were going to have. He seethes with an inexplicable and generic rage. And since he’d get his ass kicked if he did it in public… he’s about to take it out on his family. And she’s having to run interference to protect the kids from the wrath of his man-tantrum.

It’s a sad and darkly funny commentary in a way. We women will share stories and information regarding our families and our own health… right now to the color, volume, and consistency of the bodily fluids involved. But do we compare notes and kick his ass like he really needs? No. Most women stay quiet, try to ignore it, and hope it gets better. All the while feeling torn. They love him deeply but resent – just as deeply – the way they are being treated. Only when they feel like they’re going to explode do they come to a close friend to let it out. But should he be confronted he either minimizes it or acts remorseful just long enough…

I’m choosing to say no. I don’t want to deal with it. My heart and my ears are still open to my friends. But I’m not interested in bringing it into my own life.

Whew. Now that I have that off my chest. It’s not easy convincing people of my choice either.

I’ve had people come right out and demand to know if I’m a lesbian because somehow I’m nearly 30 and not married and haven’t squeezed out a few kids. I guess there’s some unwritten rule that women should get married, have 2.5 kids, and perform wifely duties or else there’s something wrong with them. I’ve literally had people damn near spittle-shrieking over my decision.

It’s crazy, but so many people find it inconceivable that I could think this way.

So, here comes the endless parade of people trying to set me up.

Here’s the wolves sniffing my crotch and howling at my door. It gets so old so fast when somehow me being nice, friendly, and approachable equates to “ZOMG HAVE SEX WITH ME!”

It’s like “Me Male, you Female! We’re compatible!” They put far more effort into learning about who is servicing their car than the cunny they’re looking to plunder.

No one has actually ever come out and asked what I want.

In the end, it boils down to me making a lifestyle choice. This is my official announcement that I have made it.

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Resume Writing and Business Metaphysical

September 9th, 2009

Trying to rewrite my resume again, this time to send to employers in the Northern Virginia, DC, and Maryland areas. The fact is, an entry level resume isn’t that exciting.

It’s not so much an issue of confidence. I have complete faith I could do the jobs I’m applying for; but, it’s convincing a total stranger of that. Yes, they might have to train me… but I’ve had the honor of pleasantly surprising every employer I’ve worked for at the speed I can learn and apply the skills they give me. It’s also convincing them that while I’m not local yet, I want to move to their area.

So, off to the internet I go. Some of the stuff regarding job searching is amazingly… metaphysical sounding. Almost like religious writings. If they were using other language, they might sound exactly like some of the new age metaphysical stuff. Or maybe crazy cult writing. Just without the heavy incense. And suits instead of strange robes. Some of this stuff you probably need a degree program just to learn how to translate and apply it.

I’m kind of jealous of anyone who went to a college and got realistic resume and job search help. After my classes with Baker, I’m still stumped on how to write effective resumes and cover letters. Not understanding how to write an objective / summary, I completely omitted one. Nothing I write is considered “strong” despite straight A’s in my traditional writing classes. It’s obviously a different language, totally different syntax… despite looking like English.

Posted to as many career and lifestyle forums as I could, asking for advice on how to sell myself to out-of-state employers. I’m trying things first with just my e-mail and portfolio address. If that doesn’t work, I’ll see about a virtual PO box and a virtual phone number from Vonage.

And if all else fails: screw it. I’ll just take the leap of faith and hope I land on something soft.

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Leaving: The Right Choice

August 18th, 2009

I’m making the right decision regarding leaving and ceasing contact with my family.

Today was the day mom had to appear in court to fight our eviction from this trailer park. While I know the panic attacks are associated with that time of the month, I’m in a slight panic. Trying to find jobs, housing, and all other things remotely is scary. We could make a day trips to our previous long distance moves to arrange things, here it has to be done entirely remotely.

Since I’m having so many panic attacks, I asked mom if I could remain at home. I’m not good to anyone if I’m completely panicking over every little thing. I don’t trust myself out in public when I’m like this. (Yes, I know it only enforces the behavior. *sigh*)

So anyway, Poppa calls to ask if mom is ready to be picked up to go to court. He’s completely dismayed when I answer the phone. I do live here, I do kinda of have the right to answer the phone in my own house. I make a remark that “mom is out shredding a few papers” and he’s aghast… outside? Sure, the paper shredder is kept out in a far out remote location and it takes us 7 hours of trekking through deep snow — uphill — in the middle of searing hot sun to shred our credit card offers.

Not long after they leave, I look at the time. The court summons say 1:30pm and it’s 1:30pm and they left only 2 minutes ago. >_< So I pick up the phone and dial his cell phone number. Holy attitude, holy hostility. In face of that kind of gruffness (for a sec I think I may have dialed one of our other friends), I stammer a “Poppa?” Yep, right number. I stammer meekly again pointing out the time and asking if this means we’re in trouble. Attitude. An angry “maybe yes, maybe no.” I sigh, “Sorry for bothering you, won’t happen again” and hang up.

This man, my grandfather — Poppa, used to be my hero. A safe place to fall. He was in the military and into drug enforcement, very scary work and I admired him for it. I told him he was my hero and role model. He was someone I could call if I was scared and needed some reassuring. I’d like to know what happened to him. While I was packing a found a picture of him holding me when I was a baby, us both taking a nap.

At some point, he began to hate me. I can’t identify when or what happened to cause this, but it’s grown until I get hostility when I attempt to contact him. Even without my monthly hormonal-caused panic attacks, just knowing he’ll be dropping by the house causes me to panic. Part of me wants to blame Caroline — my step grandmother; some of the behavior started after he married her almost 15 years ago.

It came to a head when I went away to college and Mom — and later Jasson — followed me north. No matter how it was justified as “he’s just passing a kidney stone” — what was the statistical chance he was passing one each and every time he’s spoken with me for 10 years or so?

I wish there was a way to communicate with them and find out what the exact problem is. But, it’s time for that long vacation away from them. Maybe permanently.

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Obama Health Care Reform: I want details!

August 17th, 2009

I have to give President Obama credit, he’s gotten everyone talking about the state of American health care. And that’s a good thing. Our health care system is very broken and it does need a lot of work.

However, I’m one of the many Americans who have doubts about the President’s plan. It all sounds way too much like a disingenuous line we might hear from a campaign, rather than a plan. It all sounds very romantic and pretty, but with precious few details about how the plan is going to be implemented. Basically, the super-privileged making policy for the rest of us and not considering the real world. Before I can ever think to consider this… I’d need some questions answered. Truthfully.

  1. How exactly is this going to be paid for? This isn’t going to be cheap. How exactly do you plan to cover all these people while still paying health care providers?
  2. Who decides who gets what? I’ve heard in several interviews statements like “[we] will have to buck up” and that we won’t be able to get tests and other procedures “a la carte.” But what about people like me who require specialized tests as a standard practice for the treatment of our medical condition? Every 120 days I have to undergo an HbA1c test to verify how well I’m controlling my blood glucose levels. Under the new health care reform, will I be able to get this? Should my mother have a heart attack am I going to be on the phone trying to convince some ill-informed bureaucrat that women can and do have heart attacks? Or is it going to be decided by my doctor?
  3. Require Health Care: Way to drive up costs more? Most of the states that require auto insurance enjoy some of the highest costs associated with it. Is the same going to happen once it’s required by law? Is having to pay for health care going to break working families? Unless we could get it for low cost, we’d be sunk having to pay yet another bill that we couldn’t get out of.
  4. Five Hour Waits! Art thou on the way? Suppose this plan passes… am I someday going to have to wait 5 hours if I’m forced to go to the Emergency room? Wait 6 months to 2 years to get a cancer screening? These are all realities in some countries with government-run health care.

I have to admit, I like the idea of coverage for everyone. I’ve been in the situation where I make too much for Medicaid, but too little to be able to afford health care. Right now, due to the economic conditions in Michigan, the Medicaid program only serves children and the disabled. Under the plan, we could probably get something. So I do appreciate the value. We aren’t looking for a handout. We’re not sitting around eating bon-bons and watching soap operas all day, wanting the state to support us. We’re looking for a chance.

However, until the disingenuous rhetoric dies down and we get some real details, I wouldn’t ever support this.

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Why the Internet broke?

August 6th, 2009

For some reason nothing on the internet likes me today. Facebook says there’s a problem in the AJAX that controls the notes, my blog says Akismet Antispam is being blocked by a firewall. Another site is slow to load and another doesn’t seem to exist right now. (Of course I’m connected to the internet!)

Trying to clean up an RSS feed parser I wrote; right now it’s nowhere near as clean as it should be. I didn’t think of it as a portfolio project when I made it until Jeremy pointed that out. Tempted to trash it and just make my second attempt cleaner from the start. Right now it gets the job done, but doesn’t look pretty.

Packing and downsizing is still going nicely. The shed is completely done, the house getting there. Still working on jobs and housing, but those will come in time. :-)

I had a breakthrough when it comes to my mom, which is allowing us to get rid of some super bulky things. We ended up being the designated family storage place at some point, which means we had things given to us that the family didn’t want anymore but couldn’t part with. Growing up, we had huge piles of junk in our basement. All things actually belonging to our family. At one point, we were even storing a boat. We managed to get rid of most of it over the years, but there’s still some things.

One of the big things are 1000 – 2000 photo slides. I remember being just utterly dismayed when the first load came in and utterly furious when the second load arrived. In addition to the slides, there’s the screen, projector, lightbox, lights, and more. While I totally understand the importance of all those family photos… holy crap, that’s a lot of junk. Trying to figure out a compromise, I discovered this little gem. And mom happily agreed to part with all the slide equipment so long as we got her the converter someday.

She also has an old microfiche reader and a collection of the actual microfiche. Some of the collection was old genealogy books, which I was able to find and download from Google books. Missing just one book, but I think once we’re more financially secure I’ll start watching eBay and Amazon for it. The rest of the records can all be found on Ancestry.com, which made for one happy lady. (And ecstatic daughter when I saw everything going into the “get rid of” pile!)

So anyway, we have another car- or truck-load of stuff to go to the consignment shop and we’re getting rid of more junk. Letting go has never felt so good.

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EverQuest Stuff

July 13th, 2009

Been going through more things that belonged to me during that stage in my life I played EverQuest. Some items just shock me: I really had that? I really thought this was cool? I used to listen to trance and all my kinetic sculptures would be going… wow, are those things noisy. No wonder mom has trouble hearing. ^_~ I really did think it was cool.

Discovering lots of things I should have given up years ago when my tastes changed. Like a huge, heavy box of… blurry photos? A few rolls I kept for some reason when my light meter broke and I didn’t realize it. So, off to the trash with those. I discover the negatives to photos I sold to our High School Sports Office, way back in maybe my Junior year. Photos from my Kite flying days that just has a faint line of pink to suggest a kite might be there.

Then I discover all my old things from when I was a Guide on the Quellious server in EverQuest. That brings back some memories. I trained apprentices towards the end of my 5 year run as a Guide and processed their reports to submit. Wow, there’s my old Dragon Tour I used to take brand new guides on. My vague directions through the Dragon Necropolis as only a Guide or GM could go. Wow, I miss that run. Once I told one of the major raiding guilds on the server “Off the record, you guys are nuts!” *grin* I still have notes detailing some of the times I was asked to help them with wipe recovery when the server crashed. Guess I wanted details for my guide report for those days.

Lists of my fellow guides, then the guide liason and the GMs I worked with. Wow, memories.

Good people… I miss them all.

Below that, the EverQuest games. I have the original box to the orginal game, then Kunark, Velious, Luclin, Planes of Power, and onward. There’s enough cloth maps to make a quilt and a tiny toy sword that I somehow remember being a model of the one you got from Guk.

The games don’t take up that much room, but I’m still not sure what to do with them. I won’t ever play again, can’t really sell them, but man… these are the first things I’ve run into that make me truly hesitate.

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White Furniture? Really?

July 11th, 2009

Since the sofa won’t be coming with us, I’ve been spending a little time exploring the online showrooms for Ikea and other discount (and non-discount) furniture shops. Probably won’t be able to act on it anytime soon, but its a nice distraction. (I’m convinced you need just a hint of schizophrenia to survive long term layoffs and unemployment. A dash of denial helps too. You should try it.)

Either way, a girl can dream. So I select “Living Room” and “Sofas.” Page after page after endless page of…. White upholstery?? Are they serious? Or is this a covert and elaborate economic stimulus package to fix our economy via cleaning services?

Behold! The brave Maasi hunter enters the fluffy, white savanna of the living room. He spies his prey, the vile kitty cat who mauled his G.I Joe not a day before. Slowly he approaches. Within range, he springs over the arm of the sofa. His shoes leave black scuffs of great justice and a flurry of shed fur as the villain flees. His sippy cup falls, scattering drops of grape juice like rich, purple blood upon the pristine whiteness.

And lo! The great domestic goddess solves it all with a call to Stanley Steamer, the carpet cleaners! Yet another push towards economic recovery! Yippie! Praise be the soldiers of economic recovery!

Okay, someone level with me. The person(s) who came up with this trend are those strange, ultra clean people… aren’t they?

You know, the ones who don’t have pets, kids, or deal with the occasional chucklenut who couldn’t hold a glass if his life depended on it. They obviously never have to sleep or take a nap on the couch either. Probably never had to deal with a leaky diaper either… be it adult or infant.

To be fair, they had a few options for most of the sofas: Granny Floral, cream, beige, and ecru. A few offered bizarre, eye-searing plaids and baby-vomit pastels (think the early 90s) just for giggles.

Thanks for the laugh, designers! I really needed that. But can you show me the real upholstery now?

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The Dilemma of Nontraditional Students

June 4th, 2009

Since Dallas and Richmond still seem to be about equal, I spent most of the day investigating Richmond, VA colleges. I want to finish my computer science degree someday, so planning the move to include going back makes a certain amount of sense.

The dilemma comes in when you’re a non-traditional student looking to join a college or university. Most higher education institutions are planned with the 18 – 21 demographic in mind. Transfer guidelines are strict and continuing or adult educational programs are, well, skimpy at best.

I can send you my ACT/SAT scores; but, I hope you don’t mind 11 year old scores.

I wish I had had the foresight back in college the first time to pursue computer science. However, at 18 I wanted nothing more than for my estranged family members to love me, acknowledge me, look at me without negatively comparing me to another cousin who made it into Harvard or some other prestigious school. So I chose something based on what I thought would make them happy with me. And naturally, I failed. I had the chance to switch majors to computer science, but I my heart wasn’t in it anymore.

Now, at almost 30… I’m in a bit of dilemma. I called and discussed admissions with a few colleges and found myself pointed towards their adult educational programs and their transfer student information.

A letter of recommendation from a former professor, seriously? What are the odds they remember me after this long?

Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of the personal enrichment programs. I plan on pushing mom to take a few, just to keep her mind active since dementia runs in the family. (Though I don’t think she’s in too much danger watching her tear through the Hellfire Peninsula in WoW.) But they’re not what I want. I don’t want to be limited to paralegal, nursing, or a small handful of degrees. But apparently, at 30, I to prove I’m a serious student even more than I did at 18.

Which blows.

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Meme: What chair do you game from?

May 28th, 2009

(Tagged from: 7th Cavalry Guild Forums)

computer_chair

My ancient, battered, but oh-so-comfortable computer chair. The cats used to scratch the arms when they were kittens, so the arms have huge holes in the upholstery. I threw a scrap of polar fleece over the right arm. Someday I’ll replace it.

Tag: Anyone who feels like participating. ;)

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