spritechan | Entries tagged with deep thought

I first started watching Sex and the City on TBS in 2005, when I was lonely during my first year of college, living by myself and experiencing severe insomnia. The episodes were mostly in order, but because of the heavy censoring I didn't always get the full picture.

I was 17 and in a struggling relationship. I idealized Happily Ever After with The One. I hated Big - he was terrible and cold. I hated cold men. I loved Aidan and Steve. I couldn't believe Carrie would hurt Aidan so much.

Eventually I started getting the seasons on DVD (2007-2010), and a clearer picture started to emerge. Smith and Harry were added to my list of amazing men. Still hated Big. Started to see that Carrie was very problematic. By the time I saw the first movie, I could NOT forgive Carrie for what she did to Big (and I was pretty pissed at Charlotte too for stopping him from explaining). As if either of them are perfect. Obviously the whole movie plot wouldn't exist without Carrie running away, but fuck them both. I also hated how dirty they did Smith. They made him callous. The show ends with a patient Smith telling a recovering-from-chemo Samantha he loved her after flying back from the movie set. Movie Smith is wrapped up in himself and a bored and neglected Samantha leaves him.

The second movie is just stupid, other than Charlotte's parenting difficulties and part of Big's handling of Carrie telling him she kissed Aidan - the part where he says it really tore him up and really just, how he processed in a very true-to-Big way... giving her a "Reminder that I'm married" ring is wildly unlike either of them - Carrie does not want to be "owned" and Big doesn't give a fuck about proving anything.

Anyway - someone in ONTD shared this article. And it really made me reflect on the show and its impact on me.

Carrie fell under the thrall of Mr. Big, the sexy, emotionally withholding forty-three-year-old financier played by Chris Noth. From then on, pleasurable as “Sex and the City” remained, it also felt designed to push back at its audience’s wish for identification, triggering as much anxiety as relief. It switched the romantic comedy’s primal scene, from “Me, too!” to “Am I like her?” A man practically woven out of red flags, Big wasn’t there to rescue Carrie; instead, his “great love” was a slow poisoning.

After watching through several times, I don't actually think Big was made of red flags at all. As a 32-year-old, Carrie is my age when the show starts. Carrie is immature and plays a lot of games. She expects Big to intuit everything she needs and throws tantrums when he can't. When he confronts her directly, she deflects. He wasn't there to rescue Carrie, though several times he does offer to. She says he doesn't chase her, but he does - just on his own time, like everything else in his life.

[T]he conundrum Carrie faced for the entire series: true love turned her into a fake. The Season 1 neurotic Carrie didn’t stick, though. She and Big fixed things, then they broke up again, harder. He moved to Paris. She met Aidan (John Corbett), the marrying type. In Season 3, the writers upped the ante, having Carrie do something overtly anti-heroic: she cheated on a decent man with a bad one (Big, of course), now married to that “perfect little woman,” Natasha. They didn’t paper over the repercussions: Natasha’s humiliation, and the way Carrie’s betrayal hardened Aidan, even once he took her back. During six seasons, Carrie changed, as anyone might from thirty-two to thirty-eight, and not always in positive ways. She got more honest and more responsible; she became a saner girlfriend. But she also became scarred, prissier, strikingly gun-shy—and, finally, she panicked at the question of what it would mean to be an older single woman.

This summary is on-point. Though I think Carrie is fake a LOT of the time. I don't think Aidan was "good" and Big was "bad." Though I do have a lot of negative feelings about Big's coercion of Carrie in the elevator, Carrie had been avoiding Big because she knew she wanted him too. Aidan, the first go around, was presented as very pure. And that made the pain all the bigger. Although I'd like to point out, while the affair Carrie and Big have seems to stretch over quite some time (and again, feels pretty realistic in many ways), the reality is they were only messing around for about a month. Affairs are rarely that short-lived. Just saying.

The way the Aidan-Carrie-Big triangle played out the second time is honestly super-realistic in a lot of ways, in my experience. Aidan's remaining trauma and Carrie's desire to stay friends with Big hit directly home for me. I'd say most relationships are not stable or trusting enough to make it work, but it's exactly how I wanted things to play out for me. Well, plus open relationship. Carrie and Aidan should have definitely worked on the relationship in therapy instead of needling each other for however long, and Aidan obviously needed individual therapy as well to deal with his trust issues.

Her friends went through changes, too, often upon being confronted with their worst flaws—Charlotte’s superficiality, Miranda’s caustic tongue, Samantha’s refusal to be vulnerable. In a departure from nearly all earlier half-hour comedies, the writers fully embraced the richness of serial storytelling. In a movie we go from glare to kiss in two hours. “Sex and the City” was liberated from closure, turning “once upon a time” into a wry mantra, treating its characters’ struggles with a rare mixture of bluntness and compassion. It was one of the first television comedies to let its characters change in serious ways, several years before other half-hour comedies, like “The Office,” went and stole all the credit.

^^^ Definitely agree. I think the growth experienced by the characters is true to human nature and very relatable.

Most unusually, the characters themselves were symbolic... the four friends operated as near-allegorical figures, pegged to contemporary debates about women’s lives, mapped along three overlapping continuums. The first was emotional: Carrie and Charlotte were romantics; Miranda and Samantha were cynics. The second was ideological: Miranda and Carrie were second-wave feminists, who believed in egalitarianism; Charlotte and Samantha were third-wave feminists, focused on exploiting the power of femininity, from opposing angles. The third concerned sex itself. At first, Miranda and Charlotte were prudes, while Samantha and Carrie were libertines. Unsettlingly, as the show progressed, Carrie began to glide toward caution, away from freedom, out of fear.

The show’s basic value system aligns with Carrie: romantic, second-wave, libertine. But “Sex and the City” ’s real strength was its willingness not to stack the deck: it let every side make a case, so that complexity carried the day. When Carrie and Aidan break up, they are both right. When Miranda and Carrie argue about her move to Paris, they are both right. The show’s style could be brittle, but its substance was flexible, in a way that made the series feel peculiarly broad-ranging, covering so much ground, so fleetly, that it became easy to take it for granted.

These last two paragraphs, I think, perfectly capture why I keep coming back to the show. Relationships are complex, and the characters are not always right. They make stupid decisions and have bad opinions. They are judgmental, naive a-holes. There is so much gray. The assumed tropes of high school sweethearts that live happily ever after and never fuck up and never hurt each other are not *real* like this show was. Multiple people can be right in any given situation, and yet everyone can still get hurt.

And then, in the final round, “Sex and the City” pulled its punches, and let Big rescue Carrie. It honored the wishes of its heroine, and at least half of the audience, and it gave us a very memorable dress, too. But it also showed a failure of nerve, an inability of the writers to imagine, or to trust themselves to portray, any other kind of ending—happy or not. And I can’t help but wonder: What would the show look like without that finale? What if it were the story of a woman who lost herself in her thirties, who was changed by a poisonous, powerful love affair, and who emerged, finally, surrounded by her friends? Who would Carrie be then?

The first time I watched the series, I was so mad that she ended up with Big. After several watch-throughs, I came around. Again, I don't think Big was poisonous. He always loved Carrie, but he was a white man used to being in power/getting his way/being selfish and she intimidated and confused him with her own brand of self-importance. He came around - he experienced a lot of growth in the show as well. Carrie going to Paris was a dumbass idea. She'd already seen that Aleksandr put work first - why was she surprised? I think Big chasing after Carrie to the end fit exactly with his M.O. And I loved how the other characters played out too - Charlotte and Harry and new baby (flying in the face of her ex husband's POS mother's opinions on adoption), Smith softening up Samantha's refusal to be vulnerable, Miranda finally acknowledging the importance of family to her.

I dunno, there's so much about the show that aged super poorly (or was just poorly done to begin with), but the overarching story and themes still sit deep with me :)

Oh no, I’ve been falling behind! This is legit like old habits - I cycle from posting every day to posting a couple times a month. I promise I’m going to write those entries about Ben and Sean’s and Bethany’s wedding!

I’ve been really busy with preparing for work and the Florida trip. I’m in the airport right now waiting to board. We got an email notification that MSP airport is experiencing longer than normal wait times so we were encouraged to get to the airport super early, which we did. The line was long but not too long and we got lucky because they were training a bunch of new people, thus holding up the line, so a woman opened up a secret check for us to go through and we didn’t have to deal with the practice searches of the new staff. Score!

Monday was the benefits training and initial overview for ISD 622. it was a super long day but also really necessary. I’ve never been at a benefits meeting where people asked so many questions about the different insurance plans before, and have had the person try really hard to answer the questione. Some people seemed like they were getting annoyed, but then would be like “wait what??” at some of the answers. What it really boils down to is, unless you are doing the high deductible, there are two competing plans and it all depends on your organization and willingness to risk not having enough money if something big were to happen. Personally I prefer to have the comfort of paying only $23 per paycheck and $25 copay no matter what (the insurance here is good, as promised). I am really looking forward to star looking for a therapist, and there doesn’t seem to be specific restrictions on it, so I’m gonna double check with member services and get right on that. The dental and vision are good too - dental is completely free and you can get your teeth cleaned 4 times a year if you want, lol. I have annoying eyes with vastly different prescriptions so good vision insurance definitely helps. For my last pair of glasses I paid over $500.

Yesterday was a short training at Maplewood Middle, and as usual I was totally into it and excited, but Molly, my EBD counterpart, had a lot of concerns and questions (classic me, assuming everything will work out and thinks of nothing), especially regarding the people in our group completely new to teaching. A lot of her concerns I had thought will be answered next week during all-staff training. We’ll see!

Admin of course projected a super positive image of the school and talked about how most of the staff have been there more than 5 years and made me really excited and looking forward to it (and I’m still high on the fact that I have my own classroom. Guys it’s a BIG DEAL). Afterward I asked Taylor, the autism teacher, about it. She was subbing all over the place in the school starting in the winter (she was in the peace corps and got kicked out because she started dating her neighbor and got pregnant. They gave her like 3 days notice... awk) and she said it’s the same as every other school - that gen ed is a shitshow but that SpEd is really strong. Goooood. It makes me nervous about co-teaching but at worst I’ll be annoyed for awhile that I’m a glorified para and eventually I’ll take advantage of the extra time to work on paperwork and stuff.

It looks like I have a small advisory class that will be combined with someone else’s, who just happens to be a gym teacher I worked with when I was a para in the district. Cool!

My pull-out math is 7th and 8th grade only, which is good and bad. I’m glad I don’t have all 3 grades because it becomes impossible to manage all of the standards and kids get disserviced, but again my experience with algebra is zero.

My classroom is looking really good, just a few things to finish taking care of next week!

I’m super motivated to get the “go to the gym [yoga] 12 times per month for a discount” because I’ll still get 12 times in even with this 5-day vacation and going to Ben and Sean’s once this month. It’ll be super doable if I go to Brandi’s classes twice a week and a random one whenever. I went to yoga in Stephanie’s class yesterday. It’s been awhile since I’ve gone to one of her classes and I really enjoyed it. We were working on loosening the hamstrings and doing splits practice. It was awesome. She also always does a guided meditation at the end of class, and today she had us focus on the feelings we feel when we think about “our heart’s desire”. I was overwhelmed with the big full happy emotions of being grateful for my life and having Steve there and being Ben and Sean’s moai* and just being so happy with my profession and plans for the future... maybe my eyes started leaking some. But even then I was grateful for the fact that I can feel emotions so intensely now, because it signals to me that I’m keeping my walls down and being open, when I spent so long closed and hard.

After yoga, I went home and said hi to Steve and Nick and Scott. Well, I’d already kind of said hi to Scott earlier when he showed up unannounced and I was in the bathroom and didn’t know he was in the living room, which looks down the hallway to our bathroom and bedroom, and I walked out pantless because I needed to put on yoga bottoms. I was so surprised to see him standing there that i just autistically said “HI SCOTT SORRY DIDNT KNOW YOU WERE THERE” and was annoyed at how embarrassed I was because like, it’s just my ass lol. I think it was the being caught off guard. AND I was indignant that Steve didn’t like text me or knock on the door because he knew I was getting ready and Scott was seriously lucky I didn’t walk out fully naked???

Soon after I got home I mustered up the energy to okay ITG, since it will be the last time to practice for Cupcake for the next five days! After warming up and adjusting to my newly loosened hamstrings, I had a pretty good day. Kept my heart rate up and played through a ton of the songs. Ultimately I played nonstop for an hour and a half, which is usually when my shoulders start to hurt really bad and my legs get tiredness. I had a lot of fun and got a couple new scores.

( Pics for posterity )

I still haven’t been able to pass any of the 12s and I’m nervous about my ability in tournament. I’m just hoping that everyone gets nervous and chokes, lol. At the very least I just don’t want to look like a fool who is out of her league.

Okay, gonna board soon!

Wait, it’s already halfway through the week?? That’s both exciting and terrifying. We only have one more real week left of school and I have so much to do, including a lot of things that require me to test students - not just paperwork typing. I’m definitely fucked again this year with regards to filing... getting access to our special ed files is so much hassle and I hate it! I was also quite terrible with progress reports, though I believe I’m not the only one by far so phew. It just means I’ll have a long Monday the 11th getting everything finished. Lucky for me though, since I only have 6th graders I don’t need to freak out as much as other years, since none of my kids’ files are getting sent along to high schools. That was my big issue in previous years, especially my first one (where I had 10 8th graders omg).

My day was spent feverishly trying to test and get emails sent out, and by the end of the day I had a pretty bad headache, so I came home to a waiting Steve and tried to nap away my headache in the dark. The nap was unsuccessful because I realized I wasn’t tired, just low energy and kind of emotional. Eventually I sat back up and did some scrolling until Steve was kind enough to heat us up some dinner, more potato soup. Yummm. When he was gone I started thinking about how grateful I am that Steve has stuck with me, and how strong he is, and how much I love our life and how much I appreciate him. I mean I think that stuff all the time, but seeing Pat and Aimee for some reason really launched my head into a tailspin about how even though it was just 3 months ago, that all that feels like a completely different life, and I feel so divorced from that behavior, and a life without Steve is such a sad, empty, pathetic version of a life that is so pale and colorless. He makes my life so full of happiness and love, and I don’t want a life where he’s not in it. So all of that has been swirling in my head and he brought me down heated up soup and bread and I just started crying. He asked me what was going on and I tried to tell him, I hope I did an okay job. It’s hard to articulate all of my feelings on the matter and they just get so intense that apparently what I do now is cry. Lol.

After I calmed down and we talked about it, we ate our soup and enjoyed Kripp playing some Hearthstone, exactly what I want to be doing with my life, and precisely who I want to be spending that time with. Soon after, Nick came over. We chatted for awhile about this and that, and then put on The Office while Nick continued Uncharted and I got scolded for continuing to scroll and not knit, which was so valid. I really would rather be knitting, I think it’s just that I love the iPad so much, it’s hard to transition away. I knit a good chunk more rows on my LYS shawl. I’m about 1 and a half repeats from doing my first color change. The Hedgehog fibers yarn is GORGEOUS and soft and I love working with it. I continue to encourage everyone to take up knitting, it is such a fine hobby AND YOU GET TO USE WHAT YOU MAKE (or gift it, whichever). Like you make an actual textile and it is amazing, and super impressive to non-knitters. To be fair, a lot of it IS impressive. But still. ;)

YarnHarlot posted an entry recently where she was able to take horrible, cheap dishcloth yarn and weave two very nice scarves out of it, and it has made me even MORE excited to learn weaving with Sean next weekend at Sow’s Ear. Another fantastic use of yarn, can’t wait.

Noah and I texted a bit about our food consumption and MyFitnessPal. Noah is realizing that MFP underestimates calories and overestimates exercise. I explained that with my Apple Watch , my scores get wonky as the watch actually tracks my true activity, which can lower (or raise) my total amount of food to consume for the day. It’s kinda cool but also kinda confusing. I’m just aiming for a specific range at this point until I get a better grasp of my activity levels. But Noah sent me a super cute text that ended with, “thanks for excitedly doing this with me, it’s keeping me motivated to become a thinner dood.” Awwww. It was so sweet, but more starkly put into perspective how he lives in the middle of nowhere with only white racists and teenagers as company, and I want to be a good friend! And you KNOW how much I love a good motivational health regimen. What better way than with friends who need support?!

I forgot to mention yesterday that Steve and I went to Stephanie’s Yoga Flow class for anniversary and that was super good and fun. She moved a bit too fast for my liking, and she was as dopey as ever. I prefer classes with slightly less poses in favor of holding to get a deeper stretch. If you’ve ever tried to hold a pose for even 45 seconds, you know that *less* poses does NOT equal *easier* poses. Moving too fast just means that you can’t settle in, make sure you’re doing the pose correctly, with all its micro adjustments and muscle fatigue. But it was good to go for anniversary, and I really want to find a class that works for Steve. Maybe I’ll take him to hot yoga, since that’s the same poses every time and they are slow and drawn out. But still the opposite of easy.

Now I’m about to head to bed. Nick is still here but I think he def needs to head home relatively soon because he has to work, and Steve will probably stay up playing Owl Boy on the Switch, which we just got in the mail yesterday. Looks good so far!

For the last month or more, the only thing I've wanted to do in my free time is knit. I finished my first experimental pair of socks on the way back from Madison. When Steve and I were at Distant Worlds at the Chicago Symphony Center, I was the crazy lady with the yarn. When we were walking to our seats, I was knitting on my socks, and when we sat down I realized I wouldn't be able to work the decreases in the dark, and that meant I needed to start Sean's scarf.

The problem with the yarn for Sean's scarf is that it is not wound into balls yet. This meant that I would need to wind it myself, which often has disastrous results. I did not want to have an inner meltdown due to tangled yarn during my fun concert. So I tried to elect Steve's help:

The look of exasperation on his face as he struggled to get the yarn around his big feet, coupled with the fact that we were in the front row of these balcony seats and people were DEFINITELY staring, had me in uncontrollable giggles. Unfortunately, this method did not work as the yarn refused to pull or rotate the way I wanted. Steve got his repreive from being used as furniture, but he DID have to sit next to me with the yarn hanging around my neck and me rotating it around and around while I wound it into a ball. This unconventional method worked far better than I think it should have, and before long I had a cute little ball of this soft gorgeous yarn.

A simple pattern, yes. I loved the sample wrap at the yarn shop, but can't tell if I hate the plain garter with yarnover decorations...

A woman at my yarn shop talked about how she ALWAYS winds her yarn by hand, so she can get the "feel" of it. That without winding using your hands, you can't get to know the yarn - you can't develop an understanding of its tension, its personality, if it's splitty or smooth, if it's uneven, or if it's content. After winding my own ball without major issues (a first - normally I'm too busy detangling to notice anything but how difficult it's being), I totally understand the desire to experience the yarn in that way... But I still prefer the convenience of a machine winder.

As for the socks, I returned to them the following day after lunch.

In classic Leah fashion, my body is built all wonky, including my calves and feet. I have huge calves, regular human-sized ankles, and smallish feet (I wear a US 6.5 usually). Because of this, when knitting top-down, I have to cast on an abnormally high number of stitches for your average woman, decrease around the ankle so it's not baggy, and decrease even more for my feet themselves so there's not extra material on the bottom of the foot.

I knit the two socks very differently, as I learned things from the first sock and applied them to the second sock. I didn't account for the fact that with less stitches and more stretch, I would need to make the foot longer, technically speaking, on the second sock than the first. Unfortunately, I learned this AFTER I bound off and sewed in all the ends. I was shocked to discover I was a full inch and a quarter short when I tried to slip the sock on my foot.

Also in classic Leah fashion, I had a moment of panic where I thought,
"OH WELL! Guess I'm just NOT having two socks. They're my first pair anyway, who cares?! I don't need to wear them! WHATEVER!!!"

And then in defiance I worked some on Sean's scarf with the beautiful handpainted Mountain Colors Twizzlefoot yarn, a mix of wools, silk and a bit of nylon, which calmed me down enough to realize I was being overdramatic, and even though my toe decreases and end-weaving were perfection, it wouldn't take too long to undo, add rows, and redo again.

In the last leg of the four-hour drive back from Madison I sucked it up and returned to the sock, carefully finding my woven-in yarn, making one gentle cut, and I undid the toe. I inserted my three needles to the row before the decreases, and then I frogged out all the yarn until that point. It was as painless as I knew it would be, and my finishing toe ended just as well as the first. I was able to weave in all the ends and have two functional, finished woolly socks for the first time in my knitting career. Yes, it is long overdue.

You can see the difference between the two socks - the left far looser than the right due to the number of stitches. I decreased much more gently on that sock, whereas on the second sock I decreased aggressively, but not soon enough. I might actually have made the ribbing too loose! I also recently saw patterns where you change needles for the foot, using one size smaller instead of decreasing as much as I did. I'll have to keep trying.

I already can't imagine NOT making millions of socks. My next pair of will be knit toe-up, as increasing seems to be more logical in this type of situation. So will begin my NEW learning and experimentation with socks in the reverse.

A friend on another blog posed the question in my subject line. She described her heart in the way I would think many in the world do: transparent with cracks. She described her love interest as opaque, like polished obsidian. I think my heart is like a ball of yarn. It's made of fibers woven together, criss-crossed experiences and memories folded and wrapped and twisted, with bits that are thicker, bits that are thinner, with frays here and there from getting caught on the various things that may pull it out of place. It's beautiful, and dense, and malleable. It's tough, but has a lot of give.

What's your heart made of?

I’m trying not to freak out about next week. I am working on two commissions for scarves, trying to get them done by Christmas, but I really don’t think I’m going to make it… one for sure will be done, and that one is a higher priority because the first commission said the scarf is not REQUIRED by Christmas, but it would be nice. When I talked with Becca about my hours when I was hired, I was very clear in that I didn’t want more than 10-15 hours, no matter what. I was assured that it would NOT be an issue because there were so many people hired. Next week I am scheduled for 26 hours. Including a day I specifically said that I couldn’t attend because I have my super important program meeting for school that day. Ugh. Steve reminded me that it’s just my crappy part-time retail job that I don’t care about, but it’s still pretty stressful. I have this uncontrollable sense of guilt for any remote feeling of letting people down or putting them in a bind. Heh.

So on top of 60 working hours next week I also have another tattoo appointment, which Laura has graciously decided will be a free session (mostly because I’ve been paying $250 per session and providing a generous $50 tip for her each go – tattoo artists often get shit to zero in tips), my program meeting, AND a regular face-to-face session for school. Oh, and my urology appointment that will probably mean I am late to BBW that day. DEEP BREATHS.

I’m a bit sad because working means that I am missing Christmas dinner with Steve’s sweet grandpa on Tuesday, going up north to visit Steve’s family (most notably his sister and her kids) on the weekend, and possibly some of my own family’s Christmas on the 24th. But! I will at least get SOME family time that day (I feel like it’s unlikely that I will be working that full day but I could be wrong), and most important of all, I get Christmas Day with Steve. It will be amazing. I bought him so many great gifts this year!

Things on the relationship front have been pretty good. I’ve been working on not being as aloof (with 50/50 success tbh), and Steve and I had an opportunity to discuss what we simply call my Autism – because that’s really a fair diagnosis – when he was having a bad day and I was trying to comfort him. He got a phone call from his dad in the middle of it and THAT was when I learned he was going up north the weekend of the 21st/22nd, unbeknownst to me until that moment. During our conversation he pointed out that I completely shut down when I am processing surprise information. In light of that revelation I actually burst out laughing. See, when I was with Dan all we ever did was explode. I feel like I am a talker, an arguer, a let’s-work-this-out-don’t-you-dare-walk-away-er. When Steve made me realize that apparently in reaction to being a yeller, I have actually moved to the other side of the spectrum. As a person who feels incredibly self-aware (and really, just aware of everything in general) it is rare that I don’t know something about myself. I thanked Steve for helping me realize that, and now that I know this information, I can work on it. I still tried my best to explain how me processing information is extremely rigid and I don’t know HOW to be there for him when I am struggling with a change (a CLASSIC part of my Autism), which was his primary concern. He was upset that I was being selfish and stopped trying to make HIM feel better because I decided my problem was more important/urgent. We discussed that because Steve gets mopey less often, I have less practice in working through things that send me into Reaction Mode. Dan was a pouter, a moper, a crier… all for attention. He wanted me to coddle him, to hold him, to remind him over and over again that I cared about him. It got to a point that I was so annoyed with him any time he behaved like that, I would start screaming at him, telling him to suck it up. I have dragged him down stairs, I have left him sobbing in hallways… I didn’t have it in me to take care of him that way. I am not a touchy-feely person, and comforting someone when they believe I have hurt them in some way, when they are behaving so dramatically, and ON PURPOSE, is too hard for me. Dan would admit that he would act in those ways so that he could provoke a certain reaction or a certain phrase for me. He said he relished my efforts to make him feel better so he would draw out the attention as long as he could. Which in turn would absolutely infuriate me. Tangent aside, I still struggle with the fear that Steve will begin behaving the same way because he craves attention from me. I realize that while it speaks to how people will do anything for attention. But I am also aware that this type of pattern shows that I don’t provide enough attention, enough affection. Which isn’t good. I need to fix that.

ETA: I just received another payment for a scarf, this time without the buyer discussing it with me. hope she doesn't want the scarf before Christmas because... no.

Current Mood: frustrated

I spend a lot of time on the internet reading blogs about how to be a better person. Or being on school websites on how to be a more "educated" person. Or on tumblr about how to be a funnier person. But mostly I read about other people's lives and compare them to my own and try to figure out what I can learn about myself in order to be a happier, more fulfilled person.

Because to be quite honest, I experience anhedonia more than I think I should. I haven't yet figured out if it's just my brain being bored/not stimulated enough, or if it's because I haven't found what makes me *truly* happy.

I often find myself discussing with people who revere the things I've done in my life (things like becoming a CNA and taking care of old people, working with children with autism, working in group homes, working with the mentally ill on a deep level) and feeling silly. Silly because they think I am a "special kind of person" and all the amazing differences I have made in people's lives. When I left MHR, I struggled with massive guilt because I had clients frantically calling me to make sure they got to tell me how much they enjoyed having me as a case manager and what I meant to them.

This does not help my guilt because when I am working with people, I genuinely feel that while I am *good* at it, I am pretty much phoning it in. Maybe I AM a special kind of person. The horrible kind where you look like you genuinely care, and do in fact on a deep level, but because of the stress and constant letdowns you force yourself to close off these feelings for further examination and experience at a different time when it is not immediately affecting you. The kind of person who actually feels impatient after working with a certain type of people for awhile because you already have been through this a thousand times. And yet somehow my indifference goes unnoticed and apparently is received as heartfelt concern.

Ugh, I'm being hard on myself. But that's really how I feel like I get. I get to a point where I start convincing myself that I don't care and everything about the people I work with annoys the shit out of me.

Relevant because I've been seriously looking into Special Ed. licensure programs (I need to amend to state that I can't actually get a Master's in anything Teaching without a license, and if I get a Special Ed license it will, in effect, make me eligible for any future teaching degrees and legally able to teach in the U.S.) and even completed a FAFSA. I think if I choose this program I will go to Bethel as it seems to fit these needs the best.

But.

I am deeply unsure if I should have a career working with people because it's what I'm good at vs something that I don't get burned out on after 6 months. I am very concerned and stressed about this issue. Why must everything burn me out? Is it something I'M doing, or the work, or what? Hau~ -_-

I am definitely discussing this on the walk tonight with Steve.

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( In other news, Steve and I have created some goals )

Current Mood: frustrated

It's times like these that I'm frustrated about the availability of my friends, or anyone I value, to talk to. I need to vent and get advice and just process through all this.

Suzi is in Thailand for another forever having all the fun, Bre is probably working (I'll try her in the afternoon), Jenna's probably sleeping until the late afternoon and then busy doing errands and crap, I can't talk to my family or people like Pat... And poor Steve has had to bear too much of my stress and inner turmoil, And he's far too busy at work.

Sidenote, my car has this super annoying habit of blowing cold air if you idle for more than 3 minutes. I HATE that. And yet whenever I leave it to warm up for 15 minutes, it's fine.

Okay, here's what I DO know:

Whatever I do, I will be making FAR less than I do now
I'll be saving a crap ton in gas
I am making the right decision at least in leaving my job as a case manager

What I don't know, then, is what is the right thing to do next. Let's pretend that all of Steve's paychecks for the month cover the bills. If I make $600 per paycheck, we should be okay, right? I mean, that's enough to cover expenses like gas and food and a little entertainment. It's still $800 or so less per month than I was making, but we don't have to spoil ourselves all the time.

The thing I am curious about is whether it is better to take a para job (if I'm offered the one I interviewed at today I will make $13.35/hour, which is what I made when I was a para a couple years ago) that has many holidays and okay benefits, but since I would be starting late I'd have no immediate income in the summer and would therefore need a summer job or something, and is only about 32 hours per week. Or, assuming I get offered the position at Heartbreaker - I don't know what they pay, but she said I would make "substantially more" than $10/hour, is guaranteed 40 hours a week, but doesn't give many holidays or weekends and only some positions offer benefits. The retail job probably has more opportunity to move up.

They both sound fine, and I still don't know if money would ever actually be an issue so long as Steve stays in his salary range for awhile. Hmm.

Bottom line is... I don't know what I want. I want someone to be able to tell me what I should do and I want to want that. Unfortunately, it's not that simple.

Whatever I do, I will be making FAR less than I do now
I'll be saving a crap ton in gas
I am making the right decision at least in leaving my job as a case manager

Current Mood: exhausted

Quite possibly the best movie of all time.

No no, seriously.

It was made SO. WELL. I was completely dead after watching it. My heart was its punching bag, its love slave, its biggest fan. I didn't even like the series that much, and 1.11 was pretty good, but OMG 2.22 was nearly perfect. SO CLOSE TO PERFECT. My brain is so full and overflowing and I just wanted to cry and cry and cry.

I honestly think it goes in my top 5 movies, maybe even top 3. It's THAT good.

Holy crap.

Current Mood: exhausted

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: Earl Grey

A. People who have been tagged must write the answers on their blog and replace any question they dislike with a new, original question.

B. Tag people. Don't refuse to do that. Don't tag who tagged you.

silver_tiamat,

sambanova,

namidanotsuki ... You guys are really all I'm friends with on LJ! >_<

1. How many clowns would it take to freak you out? Or, what does freak you out?
I'm not afraid of clowns, but I don't *like* them. They ARE weird. What freaks me out is velociraptors, courtesy of Jurassic Park. THERE IS NO WAY TO BEAT THEM. They will always be more clever and have more friends than me, so I would lose to them every time and get my flesh torn off.

2. What is your favorite card game?
...Tetra Master from FFIX? Anyone? I played that game soooo much! I was actually disappointed that my competitors didn't have the variety of cards I wanted. Otherwise I like Progressive Rummy, and Uno. And Apples to Apples if that counts.

3. Are the undies you're wearing right now age appropriate?
Yes? Aren't they always? Cutesy bikinis. They got peace signs.

4. What's the last new thing you watched?
I watched the anime School Days. It starts out super cute, and pretty graphics, and then just spirals out of control. It's only 12 episodes. All of my friends watched it before me and told me how sad I was going to be, but... I wasn't. Barely at all. I was far more angry/annoyed/shocked/confused than sad. The main character is a douchebag and reaps what he sowed. I woulda punched him in the face so hard if I was in that universe! I wanted to watch it since everyone else has seen it, and because it sounded a lot like Higurashi or Clannad. I enjoyed it, and the icon I'm using for this entry is a screencap I took from an episode, but I wouldn't want to watch it again, probably ever.

5. You have to be somewhere on the fourth floor of a building. Do you take the lift/elevator?
Only if I'm unsure where the stairs are, or if I'm with someone who chooses the elevator. Walking is always acceptable!

6. How do you feel about your reflection?
Not so good. Especially when Steve said, "You have more of a double-chin when you're over 130, but it's not a *bad* thing!" XD He said it genuinely and I wasn't mad at him, but I hate when the things I think about myself are true. Haaaate myself right now. I was getting really excited about the weather so I could go running/walking or something, and then it freezing rained/sleeted tonight and we're back to shitty, slushy, icy bullshit.

7. What are you thinking about right now?
Steve, and what I want to be doing at work tonight. And how I just spilled tea on my shirt because I can never aim the mug at my mouth properly.

8. Write the first word that comes to mind.
Word.

9. Dog person or cat person?
Cats fa sho! They're the best.

10. If you came across $2,000 (or other currency) would you keep it or turn it in?
Depends where I found it. If I found it in a random parking lot, I wouldn't know where to turn it in. Especially at places like that, they usually get to keep it if no one claims it. Even if I turned it into the cops, is the person really going to go looking for it there? And wtf, is it CASH? Who loses $2000 in cash? But yeah, if it was a high amount, I'd put a claim on it and turn it into the police station I suppose.

11. What was the last thing that you bought?
Groceries!

12. If you could afford to go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Japan!

13. Where do you see yourself in five years?
Hopefully moving to the west, like Oregon :D Otherwise, maybe getting with-child (or adopting), being successful at my career, owning a house.

14. Last book you've read?
"Skinny Chicks Don't Eat Salads" by Christine Avanti. Otherwise I read Strawberry Panic manga (it just ENDS. Like, they didn't get funding to finish the series or something. It was not cool)

15. What are you doing this weekend?
Possibly going rollerblading at the Metrodome with some family, and going out to dinner to celebrate my new job. Otherwise, I think we're just packing and relaxing.

16. What do you do to cheer yourself up after a bad day?
I sleep, or vent, or cuddle. Usually all of them. Especially if Steve has to work, I love laying in bed with the cats as my company. I pet Grim and bury my face in his fur and breathe his lovely kitty smell. I'll usually have a random show I love in the background. If it's summer, I might lay outside listening to music or go for a walk. I also like going to the bookstore and picking out a new book, whether it's manga, fiction, or whatever I'm passionate about at the time (currently it's cooking and nutrition!). Or buying a game.

17. How are you?
I'm getting better! I had a breakdown a couple days ago - not a big one, but one where I just had too much built up and I leaked for awhile and talked it out with Steve and resolved to get out of my depression spiral. I even didn't take a 3-hour nap yesterday! It's a feat when you think about how I've been living for the past month. I'm super dissatisfied with my body, though, and it's affecting me a lot. I might be making excuses but I currently truly believe that once I can get OUTSIDE (in NOT 30-degree or lower weather - I need it to be warm), that I will be able to lose weight again.

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: Earl Grey

silver_tiamat,

sambanova,

Nutrition people should look into the movie Fat Head. It's instant on Netflix. It's a response to Super Size Me, but it's mostly political, about how we got so attached to grains and processed foods and are avoiding things good for us, like protein and fat. The man who made the docu is obnoxious but his points are quite interesting.

It also supports what

namidanotsuki touched on in discussion with me when discussing issues of health and weight. And Drs. Eades were in the film :) I am definitely going to look into it.

If you do watch it, let me know what you think.

Current Mood: nervous
Current Location: Work
Current Music: Oolong

Steve had to work at 7pm yesterday, so he and I ended up falling asleep at 10am. I got up at 3pm and planned on herbing in WoW for awhile, but Nate happened to be online and we ended up talking until Steve got up for work at 6pm. I laid down again at 7pm. I was so cold that I slept in an oversized hoodie, the comforter, and a double-thick fleece blanket. I woke up several times in the fetal position, with my two adorable fatties taking up the other half of the couch. I luff them so!

They are being ridiculous about their food right now. Mostly Grim, but Nero a bit, too. I've decided to buy soft food almost exclusively for them, so that I ensure they are getting proper water intake on top of their drinking water. Nero greedily chows down most of the time, but Grim usually turns his nose up at it and cries. Because of this, I also set out a small bowl of the dry stuff, which he will take a few bites of and then decide he doesn't want that, either. If it's not the kitty treats, then what is it?! I haven't given him any treats since he went all crazy that one day. Since he worries me to death I'm terrified that he's not eating, and that that is indicative that something is wrong with him D: I'm so panicky all the time about him!

On another note, my new technique of getting his pill full of my own spit before administering it is working like a charm. The last few times I've given him his pill (save once where he kept going "Pleh" and spitting it out, which was actually quite funny) I've only had to put it in the back of his mouth and he swallows like a champ! I guess it helps that he's never actually fought me on it - he lets me squish him to the ground and put my knees on either side of him so he can't back away, and he doesn't bite or scratch or run. He's so great!

I applied to one job last Friday, and I got an email for an interview THIS Friday. The title would be (Targeted) Case Manager. So! I'm really excited because she got back to me so fast, but I'm also terrified and apprehensive because while I AM qualified, I tend to assume that with the job market as it is, I'm up against at least equally qualified people. On the one hand, it'd be A LOT more responsibility. That's both exciting, scary, and new. On the other hand, my company tends not look favorably upon case managers. In fact, all of my practitioner colleagues actually appear to have contempt for case managers, and think they're often incompetent. I asked my boss Rebekah about it (oh my GAWD I just love her I wish she'd be back from maternity leave NOW but I don't think she's even had her baby yet but I'd marry her so fast), and she said that case managers often just have a very large, stressful caseload of about 50-60 clients, so it's sometimes hard for them to keep up with everything. She also said case managers are usually utilized for the "bad stuff" such as relapse, and don't get to see the growth that clients experience on the flip side, at places like here.

For example, a client's case manager is threatening to put him back in the hospital because it got back to her that he used drugs (I believe it was weed, and he's a recovering meth and heroin addict), because he talked about it in the Dual Diagnosis group our chemical dependency counselor hosts. My company stresses harm reduction - for example, using weed in place of meth is bad, but it's a reduction in the harm to his body, see? He hasn't used meth or heroin in MONTHS. PROGRESS. BABY STEPS PEOPLE. The case manager doesn't see that he's doing quite well otherwise, and thinks he's just always messing up. If I become a case manager I hope to help try to change that, or at least be good at what I do. It's still in mental health, yes, and it would likely be working with people FROM MY COMPANY, but I think it would be GREAT experience, and would allow me an easier time if I wanted to go to grad school in the future (as most nontraditional Master's programs around here have classes in the evenings, which I cannot attend with my current schedule). The scariest thing would then be trying to coordinate schedules with Steve. I don't know what the hours are for this position, but I would naturally assume "day" or "first shift" hours.

I was thinking about how sometimes one must dumb down their resumes to get a job, and I realized that I really don't know how to do that, what with being trained to overly talk myself up in them. My mom had to do that in order to get the job she's had for the past few years, because she had to go from being an office manager (her company was absorbed by Allianz, a very large company) to an office assistant. Granted, she's the executive assistant now, but that's neither here nor there. I know that dumbing down has to do with salary requirement fears, and that makes total sense, because right now, especially with all the bills I'm fronting for Grim, I won't take less than equal what I make now, which isn't even that much in comparison to jobs in other fields. Hell, Pat works as technical support, completely entry level, and he currently makes $6000/year more than I do! That ass! He totally texted me today saying, "Is it as much as I make??? Cause I like looking down on you and I don't want that to change". I woulda punched him if it were in person. XD

( I painted my nails such a lovely color! )

P.S. I've changed my "Music" to "Sippin'", where I will be listing my drink at the moment, since I am far more often drinking something than listening to something!

Current Mood: nervous
Current Location: Work
Current Music: Oolong

Current Mood: injustice is lame

The level of disgust that I feel towards people who cover up sexual abuse crimes is almost immeasurable.

The Catholic church has been hiding their abuse of children for centuries, and this started because the people of the church wanted to ensure that property of men went to the church when they died, not families? The requirement of celibacy came about very early on in the church, because the church wasn't satisfied with the married bishops, etc. passing their land on to their sons. Nothing in the Bible says anything about being celibate as a member of the church, and the apostles had families. So what the fuck, Catholicism?

Many men who become a part of the church start at a very early age, like 14 years old. When they make these decisions to join the church, it's like they're halting their psychosexual development. They're fed all these rules about controlling themselves, when really they're just BEGGING for these... kids, really... to become pedophiles. They're not taught how to understand their bodies and the urges they feel, and they are discouraged from exploring these feelings. All of us know how pleasurable sexual feelings are since we're free to express them. But what about a 20-year-old (or what-have-you) priest who never learned to understand and channel his feelings? He works with children. He feels affectionate towards these children. He feels connected to these children. In effect, he's nearly at the same stage of psychosexual development they are at. Children are trusting, and naive. What better subjects to explore your sexual curiosity with without feeling like you're really breaking the rules?

Let's not forget that it's safe to assume that a large number of these men were ALSO abused as children, and are simply perpetuating what they learned as children themselves. Did it feel wrong, or bad, or uncomfortable when it happened to them? Certainly. Did they learn those behaviors from their abusers? Almost definitely. They first are against the actions, but then learn to accept them. Learn to squash their feelings and accept the fear and pain. It's just a part of life, and surely their priest, their vessel of Jesus, wouldn't do something to them that wasn't okay! And yet... they know it's not something they should be telling people. Because deep down it really hurts. It's scary. It's involving parts of their body that they were taught were private.

I firmly believe that if the Catholic church allowed their priests to have families, that this would happen a lot less. There would still be abusers within the church, but I think the number would be far fewer. Because these men would have been given the chance to grow into their sexuality and express it in a healthy way. Personally I think celibacy itself is appalling, but that's likely here nor there.

I don't think that pedophiles are inherently monsters. I think that they learned a specific way to behave, and found an outlet for their sexuality. I think that that outlet is viewed by the Catholic church as no worse than being sexual with an adult. It's just another form of "sex," in a world where "sex" is forbidden, and is probably considered lesser because they're children, and also because children are less likely to tell. I think that these priests are stuck in the wrong stage of psychosexual development, and they need help in order to correct that. By ignoring claims of abuse (and even pleas for help from the pedophile priests), the church is only exacerbating the problem, and preventing these men from getting the help they desperately need.

I wish that we could live in a world where a priest could confess his feelings (hopefully it would only be urges, but likely it would be reported abuse) to his leader, and the leader could arrange for counseling, for therapy, to help them work through it. I really think that, especially at the beginning, these men could be helped in controlling those urges. Attraction towards children is likely never to go away, but at least they could understand why they CANNOT do that, and WHY it's so horrifically wrong for them to hurt children, and that what happened to them as kids (likely) is no less wrong. That THEY are victims too. I also wish that the Catholic church would realize how negative the requirement for celibacy really is, and repeal that. The cycle of pain and suffering just has to end, and it has to start somewhere. It has to start with the church facing their mistakes and taking steps to amend for what has been broken.

Just.. UNNNGHFHGHFH