Today, I found a link to a blog about finding fashionable, pretty clothing for the fuller-figured girl with very large breasts, and some of the things she wrote really struck a chord with me, so it's essay time.
I wear a size 20. Sometimes I'm an 18, or a 22, or a 24, depending on where I'm shopping, but for the most part, I am a size 20. However, if I follow the sizing chart at Lane Bryant (which is where I bought the only pair of jeans I have that fit), I wear a size 26. Funnily enough, it even has the measurements that would be accurate to my size listed as what a size 26 dress would be, but if I tried on a size 26, I would be swimming in it. Except for my boobs, probably.
Most dresses I've tried on have only fit at the chest, because I have to size up for my breasts. I am already not a thin woman. I struggle to find clothing that actually flatters my body and makes me feel good without being painful to wear or uncomfortable. It is incredibly frustrating to have to buy tents for my body because they do not make dresses for my shape. Large breasts aren't even close to being accomodated by the fashion industry, at least not if they are paired with proportionately large waists. I am never going to have a 30 inch waist again, especially not with my chest, which ranges from a 42G to a 36HH, depending on the cut and style of the bra, and the individual manufacturer. I am not going to be a size 10 ever again. I think I'll be lucky if I manage a size 12 or 14, which is my goal for when I eventually lose weight.
Even though I want to lose weight, I am still a size 20 right now, with very large boobs. I believe I deserve to feel pretty, I deserve to look nice when I want to look nice, and I am sick and tired to death of wearing nothing but enormous t-shirts because none of my clothes fit and I can't find anything in the womens' department that does. Pepperberry, Bravissimo's clothing line, doesn't even go up to my waist size. In fact, the largest size they carry is a full 10 inches smaller than my waist.
This is incredibly frustrating for me. I feel like I am being told that I do not deserve to look or feel beautiful because I am a larger girl. I am told this everywhere I go. The last guy I went on a date with basically told me that while I was good for a quick fuck, I was not good enough to be a girlfriend because I am too fat. I am tired of this. I am tired of being laughed at, I am tired of being used, and I am tired of my size and weight being a "problem". It is not a problem, or at least it is not my problem. My only real problem with my body is that I can't find anything to fit it and that my weight is causing me some health problems. This is the primary reason I want to lose weight. Not so I can feel beautiful again, not so I can get honked at while walking down the street, but so I can run again, so my tendons stop hurting, so the weight of my chest doesn't cut off my ability to breathe. I didn't even start having health problems related to my weight until I got larger than a size 16.
I want to be able to look in the mirror and think I am beautiful without worry about whether I am "too fat". I want people to stop telling me there's something wrong with me. I want people to stop telling me that I should get a breast reduction. I want the opportunity to learn to love my body, my whole body. I deserve that. Every woman deserves to love herself for what she is and not what everyone thinks she should be.
(Next post will have a link round up and maybe a little bit of stuff about life, since I haven't posted anything in over a week.)
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Winter Clothes, Laundry Success, and Rediscovering Music
I often completely forget about the existence of some songs. I will hear a song, love it, and then years later be reminded of it (usually because of a Wikipedia trawl), and be horrified that I don't have it on my iPod. I rediscovered Gone Till November by Wyclef Jean last night while I was reading Wikipedia articles about the previous MTV Video Music Awards shows, from back when they had a huge selection of categories and were actually about music. Anyway, Gone Till November won an award in 1998, and I remember seeing the music video on MTV, because it was right around the time I started watching MTV. (That makes me old, the fact that I can remember when MTV and VH1 had actual music videos broadcasting in the daytime.) But I loved that song, and I forgot all about it, so I am very happy to have rediscovered it. Now once I get all the music off the other computer and reorganize on this computer (J is pretty sure it's the motherboard that's gone bad, but he didn't even check to see if the power button is broken or not, so it could be that, too), I will have the ability to see what I do and don't have, and make sure I haven't already gotten it and just forgotten about it. Because that would be annoying, and I tend to do that rather often.
Anyway, I finished the laundry today. My shirt also arrived, which I'm very excited about, and it's now washed and dried and sitting in my dresser waiting for me to wear it. S and I are picking up the bras tomorrow sometime, after we go to the library to print the email confirmation to prove that I am in fact the person who bought the damn things, and then there will (hopefully) be new bras! Woo! Also, folding sheets is awful and I do not recommend it to anyone who wants to keep their sanity. But there's only one load of dirty clothing right now, and I need to wash the comforters, and that is it. Everything else is clean. I can't say put away because Girl Child won't let me put her clothes away for her and all she does is stuff them in a random part of her dresser and then wonder why nothing fits. All the rest of the clothes are put away, though, except for a few of S's because the dresser simply doesn't have the capacity for more. And the closet is so full I couldn't fit another thing in there if I was Hagrid. I'm feeling pretty good about the state of the laundry, though - it's whittled down to a point where I'll only need to do about a load a day, probably.
I actually had a disagreement with Girl Child about that. She doesn't see why I should want the laundry to be completely done. Because she doesn't care, and she doesn't think it matters. Sometimes I really just want to grab her and shake her - but I'll just fantasize about shoving a banana up her nose instead. (No worries, no crabby hormonal teenagers were harmed in the making of this blog.) Besides, the banana threat worked fairly well as a laugh-inducer earlier, even if she didn't bother doing any of the things I asked her to do until I nagged her about it. I would fall over in a dead faint if I discover tomorrow that she actually bothered to put her sheets on her bed like I told her to. I'm really frustrated with her right now, can you tell?
I spent this morning baby-sitting the Toddler because S didn't get to sleep until after 4:00 this morning and he woke up at 5:30, so at 8:00, she decided to get me up and ask me to take care of him until later. She got another three hours of sleep, which I guess is something. Unfortunately, there was so little coffee left in the house that what I ended up making was like weak tea. It was very sad. J was up until about 6:00 this evening (so almost 24 hours), so I had a little back-up when I was alone with the Toddler, and the day was generally a good one. Dealing with Girl Child was frustrating, the Toddler was both a giant butthead and really sweet, J was mostly playing on his computer and quiet, and S was S. The highlight of my day was playing Final Fantasy X. I'm finally ready to admit that I'm a little over-leveled - I killed Seymour in the battle on Gagazet so quickly that I barely got everyone in on the AP for the battle.
While I was folding the laundry this afternoon, the Toddler hung out with me. I stuck him in the crib while I was playing music and managed to get a decent amount done until he decided he wanted to go back to the living room. It was actually a pretty cool way to fold the laundry, too. I sang to him and he'd either "sing" or start to dance, and then he'd throw one of his stuffed animals at me and start screaming for no apparent reason. He's adorable.
I just heard a weird noise. It sounded like air rapidly leaking from an air mattress, and I was a bit startled, as it started very suddenly, so I began looking all around the living room for the sound, only to discover it was S, with her cheeks puffed out, blowing out air through her mouth. I told her that I was very startled by the noise and had thought it was a giant balloon or air mattress I'd somehow not noticed in the living room leaking air, which she thought was very funny. Then I said, "Oh, you're just leaking again," and she said, "Occasionally I just plug the hole with something.. You know, food, drink, cock, whatever."
Yeah, that's what it's like to live here.
Anyway, I had more stuff to write about. Oh, yes. This evening, I went through the stuff I have stored in totes downstairs (this is what my life boils down to - totes) so I could get all my winter clothes sorted out and ready for when it gets cold. Not that I really need them - if I wear a long-sleeved shirt, I only need a light sweater when it's 30 degrees outside. I barely wore my coat at all. Not that it fits anymore - my chest has gotten too big to button it, and it was the biggest size Kohl's had in that style, and was the first girly coat I've ever owned. I'm a little disappointed, but maybe I'll shrink a little once I lose some weight. Anyway, I got my small supply of winter clothes out and took the clothes that I never, ever wear downstairs to keep down there. They're all clothes that will count as work clothes if I ever manage to get a job, so they'll have to come back up once that happens, unless I have a uniform or something, but for now, they're fine downstairs. Especially since most of them barely make it over my stupid boobs right now. (Hence, new bra.)
Anyway, the hat I made last summer (I made a whole set for myself - scarf, hat, and two sets of arm warmers) finally looks good on me now that my hair has grown out - it looked really stupid last year. Which reminds me, I need to get my ass in gear on the hat I'm making for S so she can wear it with the scarf I made for her last year. Hopefully I'll be able to make Girl Child's Ravenclaw scarf soon, too - she'll like having that.
My hair is sort of long enough to braid. It's not a braid I'd ever wear out of the house, because it's all stubby and it'd fall apart in three seconds if I was moving around at all, but it's good for just sitting here.
Anyway, I'm really tired, and there isn't really a whole lot else to say.
Anyway, I finished the laundry today. My shirt also arrived, which I'm very excited about, and it's now washed and dried and sitting in my dresser waiting for me to wear it. S and I are picking up the bras tomorrow sometime, after we go to the library to print the email confirmation to prove that I am in fact the person who bought the damn things, and then there will (hopefully) be new bras! Woo! Also, folding sheets is awful and I do not recommend it to anyone who wants to keep their sanity. But there's only one load of dirty clothing right now, and I need to wash the comforters, and that is it. Everything else is clean. I can't say put away because Girl Child won't let me put her clothes away for her and all she does is stuff them in a random part of her dresser and then wonder why nothing fits. All the rest of the clothes are put away, though, except for a few of S's because the dresser simply doesn't have the capacity for more. And the closet is so full I couldn't fit another thing in there if I was Hagrid. I'm feeling pretty good about the state of the laundry, though - it's whittled down to a point where I'll only need to do about a load a day, probably.
I actually had a disagreement with Girl Child about that. She doesn't see why I should want the laundry to be completely done. Because she doesn't care, and she doesn't think it matters. Sometimes I really just want to grab her and shake her - but I'll just fantasize about shoving a banana up her nose instead. (No worries, no crabby hormonal teenagers were harmed in the making of this blog.) Besides, the banana threat worked fairly well as a laugh-inducer earlier, even if she didn't bother doing any of the things I asked her to do until I nagged her about it. I would fall over in a dead faint if I discover tomorrow that she actually bothered to put her sheets on her bed like I told her to. I'm really frustrated with her right now, can you tell?
I spent this morning baby-sitting the Toddler because S didn't get to sleep until after 4:00 this morning and he woke up at 5:30, so at 8:00, she decided to get me up and ask me to take care of him until later. She got another three hours of sleep, which I guess is something. Unfortunately, there was so little coffee left in the house that what I ended up making was like weak tea. It was very sad. J was up until about 6:00 this evening (so almost 24 hours), so I had a little back-up when I was alone with the Toddler, and the day was generally a good one. Dealing with Girl Child was frustrating, the Toddler was both a giant butthead and really sweet, J was mostly playing on his computer and quiet, and S was S. The highlight of my day was playing Final Fantasy X. I'm finally ready to admit that I'm a little over-leveled - I killed Seymour in the battle on Gagazet so quickly that I barely got everyone in on the AP for the battle.
While I was folding the laundry this afternoon, the Toddler hung out with me. I stuck him in the crib while I was playing music and managed to get a decent amount done until he decided he wanted to go back to the living room. It was actually a pretty cool way to fold the laundry, too. I sang to him and he'd either "sing" or start to dance, and then he'd throw one of his stuffed animals at me and start screaming for no apparent reason. He's adorable.
I just heard a weird noise. It sounded like air rapidly leaking from an air mattress, and I was a bit startled, as it started very suddenly, so I began looking all around the living room for the sound, only to discover it was S, with her cheeks puffed out, blowing out air through her mouth. I told her that I was very startled by the noise and had thought it was a giant balloon or air mattress I'd somehow not noticed in the living room leaking air, which she thought was very funny. Then I said, "Oh, you're just leaking again," and she said, "Occasionally I just plug the hole with something.. You know, food, drink, cock, whatever."
Yeah, that's what it's like to live here.
Anyway, I had more stuff to write about. Oh, yes. This evening, I went through the stuff I have stored in totes downstairs (this is what my life boils down to - totes) so I could get all my winter clothes sorted out and ready for when it gets cold. Not that I really need them - if I wear a long-sleeved shirt, I only need a light sweater when it's 30 degrees outside. I barely wore my coat at all. Not that it fits anymore - my chest has gotten too big to button it, and it was the biggest size Kohl's had in that style, and was the first girly coat I've ever owned. I'm a little disappointed, but maybe I'll shrink a little once I lose some weight. Anyway, I got my small supply of winter clothes out and took the clothes that I never, ever wear downstairs to keep down there. They're all clothes that will count as work clothes if I ever manage to get a job, so they'll have to come back up once that happens, unless I have a uniform or something, but for now, they're fine downstairs. Especially since most of them barely make it over my stupid boobs right now. (Hence, new bra.)
Anyway, the hat I made last summer (I made a whole set for myself - scarf, hat, and two sets of arm warmers) finally looks good on me now that my hair has grown out - it looked really stupid last year. Which reminds me, I need to get my ass in gear on the hat I'm making for S so she can wear it with the scarf I made for her last year. Hopefully I'll be able to make Girl Child's Ravenclaw scarf soon, too - she'll like having that.
My hair is sort of long enough to braid. It's not a braid I'd ever wear out of the house, because it's all stubby and it'd fall apart in three seconds if I was moving around at all, but it's good for just sitting here.
Anyway, I'm really tired, and there isn't really a whole lot else to say.
Friday, August 5, 2011
To Be Loved By a Dog
Okay. I read Marley and Me two years ago. I actually own a copy of the book, but I don't know if I'm getting it back, because my ex-fiance never sent me my stuff. Anyway. I cried and cried and cried and cried when I read the book. Even if you haven't read it, if you know it's about a dog's life, you know how it's going to end. I knew how it was going to end and it was still devastating. (Also, other than a few Bill Bryson books I really like, Marley and Me is really the only non-fiction I've read in the last few years.) Anyway, I watched the movie tonight, finally. We've had it sitting there for almost a year, and I never had the chance to watch it, but finally decided it would be a good idea tonight while I was folding laundry.
That would be a big fat NO. That was a horrible idea. I didn't stop crying from the second vet visit on; I even cuddled up on the floor with Shadow and Sunshine and cried on them after the movie ended. (I'm the only person who is home and awake.) My eyes are swollen and scratchy and I have a headache. I don't know what I'm going to do when it's time for these guys, if I'm this upset over a dog I've never met.
I wish I could put into words the kind of love I feel for dogs - any dog, really, but especially Shadow and Sunshine. By all intents and purposes, they're mine, too, and I .. I don't love them like I'd love a child, or a friend, or how I love J and S and M and Girl Child and the Toddler. It's a completely different kind of love, and you know they think the sun shines out of everyone's butt (except maybe the Toddler's because he steps on them so much) in this house. They love you when you've had a bad day, when you've gained weight, when you're mad at them for chewing up your favorite flip flops (Sunshine has eaten something like three pairs of my flip flops) - they don't care, they will love you anyway. They don't care if you don't have any money or can't fold a fitted sheet to save your life or if you can only cook one thing, because you're you and they love you.
That's a kind of magic, in a way, to experience that kind of love. I'm so glad to have loved a dog, to be given the very special opportunity that so many take for granted to be loved by a dog.
Now that I'm crying again, I think I'll go hug the furry people some more.
That would be a big fat NO. That was a horrible idea. I didn't stop crying from the second vet visit on; I even cuddled up on the floor with Shadow and Sunshine and cried on them after the movie ended. (I'm the only person who is home and awake.) My eyes are swollen and scratchy and I have a headache. I don't know what I'm going to do when it's time for these guys, if I'm this upset over a dog I've never met.
I wish I could put into words the kind of love I feel for dogs - any dog, really, but especially Shadow and Sunshine. By all intents and purposes, they're mine, too, and I .. I don't love them like I'd love a child, or a friend, or how I love J and S and M and Girl Child and the Toddler. It's a completely different kind of love, and you know they think the sun shines out of everyone's butt (except maybe the Toddler's because he steps on them so much) in this house. They love you when you've had a bad day, when you've gained weight, when you're mad at them for chewing up your favorite flip flops (Sunshine has eaten something like three pairs of my flip flops) - they don't care, they will love you anyway. They don't care if you don't have any money or can't fold a fitted sheet to save your life or if you can only cook one thing, because you're you and they love you.
That's a kind of magic, in a way, to experience that kind of love. I'm so glad to have loved a dog, to be given the very special opportunity that so many take for granted to be loved by a dog.
Now that I'm crying again, I think I'll go hug the furry people some more.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Personal Choices, Indoctrination, and Sex Education: A Rant
Okay, it's soapbox time.
In my last post, I mentioned that I had partially written an essay about my experience with sex education in school. Today, I was spurred to write another essay about militant veganism, which caused me to decide to finish writing (read that as completely rewrite) the first essay. And now, here they are, in all their ranty, bitchy glory:
It's Not Your Business: A Rant
I don't tolerate people who are militant about their beliefs very well. I don't care if you don't want to eat meat, or honey, or eggs, that's your business. It's when you get in my business, like in the case of this submission on Passive-Aggressive Notes, that I have a problem with your beliefs/lifestyle.
This is why, if I ever change living situations from my current one, I will ensure that the eating habits of the potential roommate are similar enough to mine to not cause conflict (as well as having similar lifestyles), or I will make it very clear that it is not their business what I eat, nor should it be my business what they eat, just as it is not anyone's business how our lifestyles are conducted, so long as the activities of the people living in the dwelling do not affect the ability of the people they share living space with to conduct their life in a normal way. I don't give a shit what you put into your body. If you are not family or someone whose well-being I am responsible for, it is your business what you choose to put into your body, or on your body, or what you buy from the store. I do not care. That also means that you should not care, and if you have a problem with what I'm eating, you damn well better keep it to yourself.
In a roommate situation, the dwelling's common areas are, in fact, common. This means that the living room, dining room, bathroom (if there is only one), and kitchen are for use of everyone living in the dwelling. If this means that you divide the cupboards up equally so as to keep everything separate and only use your own food, then that is what you do, and you do not bitch about your roommate's dietary habits consisting entirely of Mountain Dew, Cheez-Whiz, and Twinkies. Why? Because it's not your business! It's not your body, they are not your responsibility, and it is not your job to care. Same goes for someone who has a philosophical objection to eating or using animal-based products. If you don't want to eat meat because you have a problem with it, that's fine, but don't expect me to quit eating it because it upsets you. That's going too far. I am not that politically correct, and I do not expect anyone else to be that accomodating, either. I won't stop you from eating tofu or crickets or anything else I find repulsive, so long as you don't expect me to eat it or expect me to change my eating habits for you.
Basically, everyone leave everyone else the hell alone unless what they are doing is actually causing you a problem (like having a loud party all night when you need to get up at the crack of dawn for work). It's not your business.
And now, an even longer one about how I was woefully uneducated about my own body.
How Being Indoctrinated Nearly Fucked Up My Life
I learned everything that I know about sex and my body from the internet.
This means that the education system failed me. I didn't know I had a vagina until a few weeks before I got my first period. I wasn't sure why I was having periods in the first place, and certainly didn't connect it to fertility or babies. They were just kind of there, part of the landscape.
My sexual education in school mostly consisted of a short video talking about the body parts, which I didn't remember anything about, and how bad STDs are and how you should never have sex outside of marriage. (We never learned anything specific about the various kinds of STD, just that they were bad. In fact, my knowledge of them is still woefully incomplete.) That's what I was taught every year in school from 4th grade through 9th grade, with varying degrees of explanation, and never learned anything that would actually be useful to me in the real world. Then there was the pro-life seminar.
This was a seminar that happened when I was in the 6th grade at the Catholic school I attended. There was a special speaker to talk to the whole 6th grade (all of about 50 kids), a video, and promotional materials, which included bumper stickers and lapel pins with itty bitty baby feet on them.
This seminar provided me with no knowledge of what abortion was, just that it was wrong and the best thing in the world was to be pro-life. I had no basis for understanding it, didn't know it was a medical procedure, or any of the many, many reasons why a woman might choose to have one done. I was told I was supposed to be pro-life because that's what God wanted, and they needed people to spread the message, and of course children are the best means to spread something like that, since they are easy to indoctrinate.
When I started 7th grade, I was attending public school for the first time, and became friends with a few girls whose primary goal was to lose their virginity as quickly as possible. I only had the vaguest concept of what virginity meant, or what a virgin was, even though I was brought up Catholic and obviously we talked about the Virgin Mary on a regular basis, but a virgin was never explained to me as a concept. I just assumed it was her title or something, like Queen Elizabeth, and didn't pay it any attention. Of course, being susceptible to peer pressure and the opinions of people I wanted to like me, I wanted to lose mine as quickly as possible, too, even though I didn't understand what it meant.
I lost my virginity in 2001, two weeks before I turned 14. Yes, it was my decision, and I was the one who instigated it, but I definitely was not ready to be having sex. I didn't know how to have sex, I didn't understand sex, and I didn't even enjoy it. I wasn't even sure how everything was supposed to fit together, either, and didn't really connect it with getting pregnant in more than an abstract sense. I was also under the delusion that getting pregnant was a good idea, so I wanted to have a baby as soon as possible so I'd have someone to love me, which is one of the most fucked-up reasons to have a child ever, and I am so glad that I didn't become a mother when I was a teenager.
Here's another aspect of my complete lack of knowledge: I had no idea how to take care of my parts. I didn't know how to keep them clean, or make sure to avoid things like yeast infections or other problems. I didn't understand condoms, either. I am incredibly lucky that I did not catch a disease or get pregnant.
When I was about 15, I joined LiveJournal, and with it came the various communities that were once vastly popular on the website. (This was before Facebook and before people widely used Google, or at least before I knew how to use Google.) One of these communities was Vagina Pagina, which taught me everything that I was not taught in school - useful information like what the hell a labia actually was, and that you do not pee out of your vagina, as I had assumed as a small child. I was lucky, too, because this was the best community I could have gone to to learn all of the things I didn't know about my own body. There were no myths. There were explanations for why things work the way they do, recommendations on how to keep track of and predict a period, and pretty much everything else my mother or my school should have taught me before that point in my life. I learned about abortions and why they are important, and used this information to form my own opinions on the subject, as I did with many other subjects covered by this community. (In recent years, I've done independent research, now that I have Google powers, on things like home birth, midwifery, breastfeeding, and gay rights and have formed my own opinions and convictions on those subjects as well, but Vagina Pagina really opened the door for me becoming who I am today.)
I am a product of abstinence-only sexual education. It's not doing anyone any good, and I'm one of the lucky ones who didn't manage to fuck up my life in some way because of it, and I managed to properly educate myself independently.
This doesn't even cover the incredible amount of indoctrination I received with regard to religion and DARE, but I will bitch heartily about that at another time.
In my last post, I mentioned that I had partially written an essay about my experience with sex education in school. Today, I was spurred to write another essay about militant veganism, which caused me to decide to finish writing (read that as completely rewrite) the first essay. And now, here they are, in all their ranty, bitchy glory:
It's Not Your Business: A Rant
I don't tolerate people who are militant about their beliefs very well. I don't care if you don't want to eat meat, or honey, or eggs, that's your business. It's when you get in my business, like in the case of this submission on Passive-Aggressive Notes, that I have a problem with your beliefs/lifestyle.
This is why, if I ever change living situations from my current one, I will ensure that the eating habits of the potential roommate are similar enough to mine to not cause conflict (as well as having similar lifestyles), or I will make it very clear that it is not their business what I eat, nor should it be my business what they eat, just as it is not anyone's business how our lifestyles are conducted, so long as the activities of the people living in the dwelling do not affect the ability of the people they share living space with to conduct their life in a normal way. I don't give a shit what you put into your body. If you are not family or someone whose well-being I am responsible for, it is your business what you choose to put into your body, or on your body, or what you buy from the store. I do not care. That also means that you should not care, and if you have a problem with what I'm eating, you damn well better keep it to yourself.
In a roommate situation, the dwelling's common areas are, in fact, common. This means that the living room, dining room, bathroom (if there is only one), and kitchen are for use of everyone living in the dwelling. If this means that you divide the cupboards up equally so as to keep everything separate and only use your own food, then that is what you do, and you do not bitch about your roommate's dietary habits consisting entirely of Mountain Dew, Cheez-Whiz, and Twinkies. Why? Because it's not your business! It's not your body, they are not your responsibility, and it is not your job to care. Same goes for someone who has a philosophical objection to eating or using animal-based products. If you don't want to eat meat because you have a problem with it, that's fine, but don't expect me to quit eating it because it upsets you. That's going too far. I am not that politically correct, and I do not expect anyone else to be that accomodating, either. I won't stop you from eating tofu or crickets or anything else I find repulsive, so long as you don't expect me to eat it or expect me to change my eating habits for you.
Basically, everyone leave everyone else the hell alone unless what they are doing is actually causing you a problem (like having a loud party all night when you need to get up at the crack of dawn for work). It's not your business.
And now, an even longer one about how I was woefully uneducated about my own body.
How Being Indoctrinated Nearly Fucked Up My Life
I learned everything that I know about sex and my body from the internet.
This means that the education system failed me. I didn't know I had a vagina until a few weeks before I got my first period. I wasn't sure why I was having periods in the first place, and certainly didn't connect it to fertility or babies. They were just kind of there, part of the landscape.
My sexual education in school mostly consisted of a short video talking about the body parts, which I didn't remember anything about, and how bad STDs are and how you should never have sex outside of marriage. (We never learned anything specific about the various kinds of STD, just that they were bad. In fact, my knowledge of them is still woefully incomplete.) That's what I was taught every year in school from 4th grade through 9th grade, with varying degrees of explanation, and never learned anything that would actually be useful to me in the real world. Then there was the pro-life seminar.
This was a seminar that happened when I was in the 6th grade at the Catholic school I attended. There was a special speaker to talk to the whole 6th grade (all of about 50 kids), a video, and promotional materials, which included bumper stickers and lapel pins with itty bitty baby feet on them.
This seminar provided me with no knowledge of what abortion was, just that it was wrong and the best thing in the world was to be pro-life. I had no basis for understanding it, didn't know it was a medical procedure, or any of the many, many reasons why a woman might choose to have one done. I was told I was supposed to be pro-life because that's what God wanted, and they needed people to spread the message, and of course children are the best means to spread something like that, since they are easy to indoctrinate.
When I started 7th grade, I was attending public school for the first time, and became friends with a few girls whose primary goal was to lose their virginity as quickly as possible. I only had the vaguest concept of what virginity meant, or what a virgin was, even though I was brought up Catholic and obviously we talked about the Virgin Mary on a regular basis, but a virgin was never explained to me as a concept. I just assumed it was her title or something, like Queen Elizabeth, and didn't pay it any attention. Of course, being susceptible to peer pressure and the opinions of people I wanted to like me, I wanted to lose mine as quickly as possible, too, even though I didn't understand what it meant.
I lost my virginity in 2001, two weeks before I turned 14. Yes, it was my decision, and I was the one who instigated it, but I definitely was not ready to be having sex. I didn't know how to have sex, I didn't understand sex, and I didn't even enjoy it. I wasn't even sure how everything was supposed to fit together, either, and didn't really connect it with getting pregnant in more than an abstract sense. I was also under the delusion that getting pregnant was a good idea, so I wanted to have a baby as soon as possible so I'd have someone to love me, which is one of the most fucked-up reasons to have a child ever, and I am so glad that I didn't become a mother when I was a teenager.
Here's another aspect of my complete lack of knowledge: I had no idea how to take care of my parts. I didn't know how to keep them clean, or make sure to avoid things like yeast infections or other problems. I didn't understand condoms, either. I am incredibly lucky that I did not catch a disease or get pregnant.
When I was about 15, I joined LiveJournal, and with it came the various communities that were once vastly popular on the website. (This was before Facebook and before people widely used Google, or at least before I knew how to use Google.) One of these communities was Vagina Pagina, which taught me everything that I was not taught in school - useful information like what the hell a labia actually was, and that you do not pee out of your vagina, as I had assumed as a small child. I was lucky, too, because this was the best community I could have gone to to learn all of the things I didn't know about my own body. There were no myths. There were explanations for why things work the way they do, recommendations on how to keep track of and predict a period, and pretty much everything else my mother or my school should have taught me before that point in my life. I learned about abortions and why they are important, and used this information to form my own opinions on the subject, as I did with many other subjects covered by this community. (In recent years, I've done independent research, now that I have Google powers, on things like home birth, midwifery, breastfeeding, and gay rights and have formed my own opinions and convictions on those subjects as well, but Vagina Pagina really opened the door for me becoming who I am today.)
I am a product of abstinence-only sexual education. It's not doing anyone any good, and I'm one of the lucky ones who didn't manage to fuck up my life in some way because of it, and I managed to properly educate myself independently.
This doesn't even cover the incredible amount of indoctrination I received with regard to religion and DARE, but I will bitch heartily about that at another time.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
The Rambliest Post Ever
So I haven’t bothered writing a post at all this week. This week has kind of sucked. I’ve been completely sleep-deprived for the last two or three days, and we’re out of cigarettes (and I’m not sure if we’re getting more or if only J is going to be smoking from now on), so I’m a real treat to be around right now.
I’ve almost completely finished all the laundry that was taken downstairs, though, so as long as I maintain it a little better, we won’t end up with a laundry mountain taking over the hallway again.
I spent three days working on a new Sharpie art piece - I don't have a photo of the completed version (and I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with the completed version), but I do have a photo of it as it was right before I finished it off.
I've also got photos of the crazy line drawing and the slightly schizophrenic-looking one that I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned previously. I'm going to put those in the photo gallery instead, though, I think. The crazy picture up above I'm thinking about uploading to DeviantArt as a work in progress photo since it's been months since I added anything to my profile.
Anyway, Thursday and yesterday were particularly bad in this incredibly fun week. Girl Child had a friend over for a sleepover, which wasn't a problem, she's actually been working on cleaning her room, so S said she could have her over. The problem came when Girl Child basically seems to have decided that since her friend is over, she can treat me any way she wants, regardless of the fact that I am an adult and she is not. So the last two days have been nothing but us sniping at each other because I've finally cracked. She completely overreacts to everything I say and do, even when I'm being perfectly lovely to her, so I'm done trying to be nice, at least until she adjusts her damn attitude and starts showing me some respect, because I'm sick of her crap.
Today, S and the Toddler are going out to meet up with a friend of S's, AC, for a little while, since it's been awhile since they've seen each other. He's almost doubled in size (or at least it seems that way to me) since AC last saw him in October.
Sunshine is slowly starting to get back to normal, so maybe she won't need to be put down after all. She's sort of started wagging her tail again, and wagging her butt sometimes, too. Unfortunately, she's also started being food aggressive toward Shadow again, even when he's nowhere near the food. And for fuck's sake, we don't starve her! There is always food available. Dumbass dog.
My hair is about as long as it was in March of 2010, so I'm a little over a year behind where I would have been if I hadn't ever cut it, so at least there's that. In about another year, it'll be waist-length, so in about two years, it'll be about to where I want it. It's starting to look thicker, so maybe this not-dyeing thing is working out for me.
I don't particularly have anything of substance I want to write about. I'm feeling particularly anti-social today.
I'm hoping to soon be able to get my learner's permit so I can start to get the hang of driving again - I discussed it with S a week or so ago and mentioned that if I got it in July, I could try for my license in October - I'm hoping to have my license before next spring, because S is planning on having a medical procedure done that would render her unable to drive for over a month, and the entire household would disintegrate if she didn't have a substitute driver. Seriously, no bills would get taken care of, we would starve and die, J would never again get a prescription filled, and the car would eventually run out of gas or something. Of course, we'd have starved and died by then, but still. So it would probably be preferential for me to have a license so I can help in that way - plus, that would enable me to have a bit more independence - I could also get a job further away once I find a job nearby that I can use to get enough money to buy a car.
I was so angry at the couch the other night that I coated it in tape so it would stop falling on me. I hate sleeping on it, we were supposed to get a new couch four months ago, but shit kept happening and we never were able to get one. So I took a roll of packing tape that I had downstairs from a move and taped the cushion fabric to the top of the couch frame. I think, since S and the Toddler are out of the house, I may remove the tape and nail it up there for a more permanent solution, at least until we get a new couch. We're basically going to have to completely take this couch apart when we get rid of it to find all the crap we've lost inside of it.
This week has been crap. The only reason I sound so damn cheerful half the time is because that's just how I sound these days - I don't think there's a power in the 'verse could stop me being cheerful for long. This is what happens when you decide that you are going to be happy no matter what. Eventually you stop trying to seem happy and just are happy. And funnily enough, after writing all this down, I'm a lot less cranky and angry than I was when I started, so maybe that's another little nugget of wisdom I've learned: don't bottle everything up, find an outlet.
The weather here is awful, I wish it was winter again. All my clothes that look good on me are too warm for me to wear unless it's 20 degrees outside. It's currently over 90, and even with the air conditioning on, I feel like I'm melting. I'm wearing my oldest, rattiest pajama pants and an ancient t-shirt, so I should be fine, but my stupid body is convinced that it's actually on fire. (I've had these pajama pants since 8th grade, actually - I got the set specifically for pajama day at Sumner, and the only reason I can still wear them is because the elastic is basically exploded.)
I love the music that M makes - this particular song simultaneously makes me feel like my heart is swelling and makes me think of Jurassic Park. What a combination.
I'm experimenting with not messing with my fingernails at all unless they get a snag, and am working on breaking myself of the only relic of biting my nails - sucking on them. They're still very thin and bendy, and I hope they eventually get hard if I stop putting them in my mouth and idly playing with them, but right now they're like kitten claws - flexible and sharp.
Yesterday, S and I were introduced to a new way to play the Bad Translate game by my friend CN. There's an online tool that does the translation transitions for you, so 10 translations, 20, 30, 40, 50, or 56 - and there are often hilarious results. S and I spent most of yesterday playing with it, writing stream of consciousness passages, nonsensical sentences, and weird phrases to see what we would get. For example, if you input, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," and tell it to translate that sentence 50 times, it comes back with, "Fox Brown cloth." I don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean, but it's pretty funny.
I require more coffee and I am interested to see if we have any canned pumpkin in the house at all, because I'm interested in completely winging a pumpkin cake. Since I'm awesome like that. I just wish I wasn't so tired. I hope today doesn't suck as much as yesterday did.
I’ve almost completely finished all the laundry that was taken downstairs, though, so as long as I maintain it a little better, we won’t end up with a laundry mountain taking over the hallway again.
I spent three days working on a new Sharpie art piece - I don't have a photo of the completed version (and I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with the completed version), but I do have a photo of it as it was right before I finished it off.
 |
| I haven't decided if I want to call this anything or not. It now has a few more ribbons of yellow and some more stars and a black background. |
I've also got photos of the crazy line drawing and the slightly schizophrenic-looking one that I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned previously. I'm going to put those in the photo gallery instead, though, I think. The crazy picture up above I'm thinking about uploading to DeviantArt as a work in progress photo since it's been months since I added anything to my profile.
Anyway, Thursday and yesterday were particularly bad in this incredibly fun week. Girl Child had a friend over for a sleepover, which wasn't a problem, she's actually been working on cleaning her room, so S said she could have her over. The problem came when Girl Child basically seems to have decided that since her friend is over, she can treat me any way she wants, regardless of the fact that I am an adult and she is not. So the last two days have been nothing but us sniping at each other because I've finally cracked. She completely overreacts to everything I say and do, even when I'm being perfectly lovely to her, so I'm done trying to be nice, at least until she adjusts her damn attitude and starts showing me some respect, because I'm sick of her crap.
Today, S and the Toddler are going out to meet up with a friend of S's, AC, for a little while, since it's been awhile since they've seen each other. He's almost doubled in size (or at least it seems that way to me) since AC last saw him in October.
Sunshine is slowly starting to get back to normal, so maybe she won't need to be put down after all. She's sort of started wagging her tail again, and wagging her butt sometimes, too. Unfortunately, she's also started being food aggressive toward Shadow again, even when he's nowhere near the food. And for fuck's sake, we don't starve her! There is always food available. Dumbass dog.
My hair is about as long as it was in March of 2010, so I'm a little over a year behind where I would have been if I hadn't ever cut it, so at least there's that. In about another year, it'll be waist-length, so in about two years, it'll be about to where I want it. It's starting to look thicker, so maybe this not-dyeing thing is working out for me.
I don't particularly have anything of substance I want to write about. I'm feeling particularly anti-social today.
I'm hoping to soon be able to get my learner's permit so I can start to get the hang of driving again - I discussed it with S a week or so ago and mentioned that if I got it in July, I could try for my license in October - I'm hoping to have my license before next spring, because S is planning on having a medical procedure done that would render her unable to drive for over a month, and the entire household would disintegrate if she didn't have a substitute driver. Seriously, no bills would get taken care of, we would starve and die, J would never again get a prescription filled, and the car would eventually run out of gas or something. Of course, we'd have starved and died by then, but still. So it would probably be preferential for me to have a license so I can help in that way - plus, that would enable me to have a bit more independence - I could also get a job further away once I find a job nearby that I can use to get enough money to buy a car.
I was so angry at the couch the other night that I coated it in tape so it would stop falling on me. I hate sleeping on it, we were supposed to get a new couch four months ago, but shit kept happening and we never were able to get one. So I took a roll of packing tape that I had downstairs from a move and taped the cushion fabric to the top of the couch frame. I think, since S and the Toddler are out of the house, I may remove the tape and nail it up there for a more permanent solution, at least until we get a new couch. We're basically going to have to completely take this couch apart when we get rid of it to find all the crap we've lost inside of it.
This week has been crap. The only reason I sound so damn cheerful half the time is because that's just how I sound these days - I don't think there's a power in the 'verse could stop me being cheerful for long. This is what happens when you decide that you are going to be happy no matter what. Eventually you stop trying to seem happy and just are happy. And funnily enough, after writing all this down, I'm a lot less cranky and angry than I was when I started, so maybe that's another little nugget of wisdom I've learned: don't bottle everything up, find an outlet.
The weather here is awful, I wish it was winter again. All my clothes that look good on me are too warm for me to wear unless it's 20 degrees outside. It's currently over 90, and even with the air conditioning on, I feel like I'm melting. I'm wearing my oldest, rattiest pajama pants and an ancient t-shirt, so I should be fine, but my stupid body is convinced that it's actually on fire. (I've had these pajama pants since 8th grade, actually - I got the set specifically for pajama day at Sumner, and the only reason I can still wear them is because the elastic is basically exploded.)
I love the music that M makes - this particular song simultaneously makes me feel like my heart is swelling and makes me think of Jurassic Park. What a combination.
I'm experimenting with not messing with my fingernails at all unless they get a snag, and am working on breaking myself of the only relic of biting my nails - sucking on them. They're still very thin and bendy, and I hope they eventually get hard if I stop putting them in my mouth and idly playing with them, but right now they're like kitten claws - flexible and sharp.
Yesterday, S and I were introduced to a new way to play the Bad Translate game by my friend CN. There's an online tool that does the translation transitions for you, so 10 translations, 20, 30, 40, 50, or 56 - and there are often hilarious results. S and I spent most of yesterday playing with it, writing stream of consciousness passages, nonsensical sentences, and weird phrases to see what we would get. For example, if you input, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," and tell it to translate that sentence 50 times, it comes back with, "Fox Brown cloth." I don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean, but it's pretty funny.
I require more coffee and I am interested to see if we have any canned pumpkin in the house at all, because I'm interested in completely winging a pumpkin cake. Since I'm awesome like that. I just wish I wasn't so tired. I hope today doesn't suck as much as yesterday did.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Negativity
I try to be the best person I can be. I do my best to respect boundaries, be tactful, kind, and helpful to those I live with. I try to avoid accidental rudeness to people I don't know well and to people in public. I do my best not to talk so much, because I know I'm a talker, and I can be really, really annoying. I try to be the best friend possible, and avoid stepping on toes if I know there are places I can end up doing so.
I really want to make that clear. I try to respect the privacy of my friends (which is why, despite what I say about the personal lives of those I live with and am close to, there are no names mentioned, and I'm rather vague about certain subjects), I try to make sure everyone around me is comfortable.
I just don't know if that makes me a shadow. Does that mean that I am not a person? I spend so much time worrying about how everyone else is feeling, that I don't often make sure that I am actually happy, too. Most of the time I am. I am happy here. I am happy being part of this weird patchwork family. I just wish I had the balls to be a bitch when I feel like it. I wish I had the balls to tell people what I really think sometimes. This is not to say that I am not honest. I almost never lie. I hate lying, and I hate being lied to, and I think it's wrong to do so, but. But. I lie about my feelings sometimes. I pretend that I am okay when I am most assuredly not okay. I don't tell people when I am angry with them, because I don't want to hurt their feelings or be pushed out of their lives. I don't know how to communicate properly. I can't bring myself to sometimes. I'm full of this fear that I'll end up homeless and alone if I speak up when I am angry, and so I let it go, and I pretend I am fine, and then eventually I forget about it and I am fine.
This is probably not healthy, all this self-sacrificing. It is probably healthy to be a little selfish.
But I don't want to be selfish. I'm terrified that I am far more selfish than I think I am. And I just can't stand the thought that I could be, that I could be taking things away from someone around me that needs it more. I don't like being given things, or eating what I like, or any of it, because whatever it is could be used for someone who needs it more, deserves it more.
I'm not sure where I'm trying to go with this. M just brought me a smoothie from Panera, and I feel both guilty and delighted as I'm drinking it.
I feel like I'm the most horrible person in the world, because I want things, because I might need things. Because sometimes I want some attention, or maybe I want more attention than I'm actually entitled to have.
I'm just feeling a little negative tonight.
I really want to make that clear. I try to respect the privacy of my friends (which is why, despite what I say about the personal lives of those I live with and am close to, there are no names mentioned, and I'm rather vague about certain subjects), I try to make sure everyone around me is comfortable.
I just don't know if that makes me a shadow. Does that mean that I am not a person? I spend so much time worrying about how everyone else is feeling, that I don't often make sure that I am actually happy, too. Most of the time I am. I am happy here. I am happy being part of this weird patchwork family. I just wish I had the balls to be a bitch when I feel like it. I wish I had the balls to tell people what I really think sometimes. This is not to say that I am not honest. I almost never lie. I hate lying, and I hate being lied to, and I think it's wrong to do so, but. But. I lie about my feelings sometimes. I pretend that I am okay when I am most assuredly not okay. I don't tell people when I am angry with them, because I don't want to hurt their feelings or be pushed out of their lives. I don't know how to communicate properly. I can't bring myself to sometimes. I'm full of this fear that I'll end up homeless and alone if I speak up when I am angry, and so I let it go, and I pretend I am fine, and then eventually I forget about it and I am fine.
This is probably not healthy, all this self-sacrificing. It is probably healthy to be a little selfish.
But I don't want to be selfish. I'm terrified that I am far more selfish than I think I am. And I just can't stand the thought that I could be, that I could be taking things away from someone around me that needs it more. I don't like being given things, or eating what I like, or any of it, because whatever it is could be used for someone who needs it more, deserves it more.
I'm not sure where I'm trying to go with this. M just brought me a smoothie from Panera, and I feel both guilty and delighted as I'm drinking it.
I feel like I'm the most horrible person in the world, because I want things, because I might need things. Because sometimes I want some attention, or maybe I want more attention than I'm actually entitled to have.
I'm just feeling a little negative tonight.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Daily Drivel and Advice
I ended up writing nothing over the last weekend, mostly because I was so irritated with Blogger for deleting the page I had to re-create (the link is just below the title), and also because I’ve been exhausted beyond belief.
I got up at 6:00 after going to sleep around 4:00 on Saturday to help get everything ready to go for the road trip S and J were taking to pick up the riding lawn mower JGM gave them. I had the house to myself for the whole day, so I ended up going back to sleep around 8:00 and slept until nearly 3:00, so I got nearly enough sleep. I ended up cleaning the whole living room and taking a ton of laundry downstairs in anticipation of D&D, so we’d have room to play and S could stop dying on her crutches.
W and A came over with LW around 10:00, about the same time that J and S and the children returned, but by this point, it was far too late for game, so we hung out and chatted. I made cornbread around midnight because it sounded wonderful. They were here until LW fell asleep on A around 1:00, and then we all hung around the living room doing our own thing until very late. Saturday was basically a very boring day full of nothing much.
Yesterday was also a nothing-much routine kind of day. I don’t actually remember a lot about it because of how tired I’ve been. The only thing that we really did was stop by the library to print some stuff because our printer at home is broken, and then not a whole lot happened. I’ve been particularly irritable the last few days, not sure why, but I’d really like to keep that under control, since no one in this house has really done anything to deserve me being cranky and snarky toward them.
Today was exhausting because I didn’t get nearly enough sleep. I fell asleep on S last night while she was showing me stuff in Minecraft, and then when I had to wake up so she could go to bed, I was unable to get back to sleep for almost an hour, then J scared me awake when he came home, and the dogs barked at M when he got home a couple of hours later, which also woke me up, and then the Toddler woke up before 7:00, and from that point onward, his mission for the day seemed to be to destroy the living room and grab stuff that doesn’t belong to him. Like S’s incense. I tried to take a nap earlier, but it takes me awhile to fall asleep, and between that and the guitar and the screaming, I managed about 10 minutes, especially since the Toddler decided to pound on the bedroom door and yell at me. Wah, wah, poor me.
I had a stroke of brilliance earlier in regard to J’s work food - chili and cornbread! I made a big batch of cornbread and we bought some canned chili at the grocery store, and he’s set! Yay!
I have no plans in particular for tonight, I’m going to go to sleep early and hopefully get enough sleep so I can have some energy tomorrow (the coffee just doesn’t give me the energy I need anymore, I totally need an espresso maker), and I’m going to try to get some stuff done. Like making a dent in the laundry, because S, the Toddler, and I are all completely out of clothes. I’m currently wearing a retired pair of polyester dress pants, and it’s just too warm for that crap. They don’t breathe. I’m dying.
I talked to C for a bit today. I’m worried about him, he’s in a similar situation to E, and I hate seeing good people be miserable for no good reason.
Speaking of E, I also spent a good long time talking to her today as well. I really feel bad for her, she seems to be stuck between trying to please everyone and wanting to be happy, and she can only have one in this situation. I hope she and her husband sit down soon and have a discussion, a real discussion, about the things they want out of life, and hopefully he’ll come to the same conclusion that she did, that they need to get a divorce. She’s just so palpably miserable. I try to sympathize with her as best I can, even though I’m on the complete opposite end of her viewpoint toward children. I just don’t think she deserves to be punished because she doesn’t want them. Not everyone was made to be a parent, and she’s one of those people. As wonderful as she is, she would be an awful parent. She likes things to be too clean to be a happy, effective parent. I don’t know why her husband doesn’t see that, doesn’t see her. I don’t think he even wants to see her, just the image of what he wants her to be, and I think that’s why he gets so angry when she just isn’t what he expects. He doesn’t love her for her, and that’s not fair to her.
I don’t understand the attitude to the people who are childfree. They are still people, and they still deserve respect, and they deserve to do with their lives what they want, even if that doesn’t happen to include children. E doesn’t deserve to be treated like a brood mare because her mother-in-law wants grandchildren, or because her husband doesn’t care about her wishes. I have several friends, not just E, who are childfree, and I try to be as supportive as I can, even though I don’t get why E and H hate babies. Well, I guess I can see why they hate babies, but I see so much good and fun with babies that I can overlook all the gross stuff and the screaming and the sleep deprivation. I guess that’s the difference between wanting to have children and not wanting to have children, and I will never pressure either E or H or any of my friends who don’t want children to have them. It’s their decision to make, and I’ll still be just as supportive if they decide in 10 years that they would like to have children, though I have my doubts that either of them will.
I’ve been kind of an advice dispenser today. Every so often, I just come out with all of this wisdom, and it always seems to be just the right thing to say. It’s really weird. I’m really stupid when it comes to managing my own life, but I can find the correct solution for the problems in my friends’ lives, and give them justifying reasons for why they deserve to be happy. I just wish I could take my own advice sometimes. (JHB used to call me his source of wisdom because of this weird quirk of mine.)
Anyway, today hasn’t been terribly exciting by any stretch of the imagination. The Girl Child has slipped back into being sullen and surly, and has gone back to being insulting toward me at random intervals, S and I have been hanging out most of the day, and I’ve finally gotten my first wind and have started doing some of the laundry. M and J are both at work, and the Toddler is in bed for the night. Just another day at the crazy house. Ha. S is currently making lava waterfalls in Minecraft.
I really have nothing more to say.
I got up at 6:00 after going to sleep around 4:00 on Saturday to help get everything ready to go for the road trip S and J were taking to pick up the riding lawn mower JGM gave them. I had the house to myself for the whole day, so I ended up going back to sleep around 8:00 and slept until nearly 3:00, so I got nearly enough sleep. I ended up cleaning the whole living room and taking a ton of laundry downstairs in anticipation of D&D, so we’d have room to play and S could stop dying on her crutches.
W and A came over with LW around 10:00, about the same time that J and S and the children returned, but by this point, it was far too late for game, so we hung out and chatted. I made cornbread around midnight because it sounded wonderful. They were here until LW fell asleep on A around 1:00, and then we all hung around the living room doing our own thing until very late. Saturday was basically a very boring day full of nothing much.
Yesterday was also a nothing-much routine kind of day. I don’t actually remember a lot about it because of how tired I’ve been. The only thing that we really did was stop by the library to print some stuff because our printer at home is broken, and then not a whole lot happened. I’ve been particularly irritable the last few days, not sure why, but I’d really like to keep that under control, since no one in this house has really done anything to deserve me being cranky and snarky toward them.
Today was exhausting because I didn’t get nearly enough sleep. I fell asleep on S last night while she was showing me stuff in Minecraft, and then when I had to wake up so she could go to bed, I was unable to get back to sleep for almost an hour, then J scared me awake when he came home, and the dogs barked at M when he got home a couple of hours later, which also woke me up, and then the Toddler woke up before 7:00, and from that point onward, his mission for the day seemed to be to destroy the living room and grab stuff that doesn’t belong to him. Like S’s incense. I tried to take a nap earlier, but it takes me awhile to fall asleep, and between that and the guitar and the screaming, I managed about 10 minutes, especially since the Toddler decided to pound on the bedroom door and yell at me. Wah, wah, poor me.
I had a stroke of brilliance earlier in regard to J’s work food - chili and cornbread! I made a big batch of cornbread and we bought some canned chili at the grocery store, and he’s set! Yay!
I have no plans in particular for tonight, I’m going to go to sleep early and hopefully get enough sleep so I can have some energy tomorrow (the coffee just doesn’t give me the energy I need anymore, I totally need an espresso maker), and I’m going to try to get some stuff done. Like making a dent in the laundry, because S, the Toddler, and I are all completely out of clothes. I’m currently wearing a retired pair of polyester dress pants, and it’s just too warm for that crap. They don’t breathe. I’m dying.
I talked to C for a bit today. I’m worried about him, he’s in a similar situation to E, and I hate seeing good people be miserable for no good reason.
Speaking of E, I also spent a good long time talking to her today as well. I really feel bad for her, she seems to be stuck between trying to please everyone and wanting to be happy, and she can only have one in this situation. I hope she and her husband sit down soon and have a discussion, a real discussion, about the things they want out of life, and hopefully he’ll come to the same conclusion that she did, that they need to get a divorce. She’s just so palpably miserable. I try to sympathize with her as best I can, even though I’m on the complete opposite end of her viewpoint toward children. I just don’t think she deserves to be punished because she doesn’t want them. Not everyone was made to be a parent, and she’s one of those people. As wonderful as she is, she would be an awful parent. She likes things to be too clean to be a happy, effective parent. I don’t know why her husband doesn’t see that, doesn’t see her. I don’t think he even wants to see her, just the image of what he wants her to be, and I think that’s why he gets so angry when she just isn’t what he expects. He doesn’t love her for her, and that’s not fair to her.
I don’t understand the attitude to the people who are childfree. They are still people, and they still deserve respect, and they deserve to do with their lives what they want, even if that doesn’t happen to include children. E doesn’t deserve to be treated like a brood mare because her mother-in-law wants grandchildren, or because her husband doesn’t care about her wishes. I have several friends, not just E, who are childfree, and I try to be as supportive as I can, even though I don’t get why E and H hate babies. Well, I guess I can see why they hate babies, but I see so much good and fun with babies that I can overlook all the gross stuff and the screaming and the sleep deprivation. I guess that’s the difference between wanting to have children and not wanting to have children, and I will never pressure either E or H or any of my friends who don’t want children to have them. It’s their decision to make, and I’ll still be just as supportive if they decide in 10 years that they would like to have children, though I have my doubts that either of them will.
I’ve been kind of an advice dispenser today. Every so often, I just come out with all of this wisdom, and it always seems to be just the right thing to say. It’s really weird. I’m really stupid when it comes to managing my own life, but I can find the correct solution for the problems in my friends’ lives, and give them justifying reasons for why they deserve to be happy. I just wish I could take my own advice sometimes. (JHB used to call me his source of wisdom because of this weird quirk of mine.)
Anyway, today hasn’t been terribly exciting by any stretch of the imagination. The Girl Child has slipped back into being sullen and surly, and has gone back to being insulting toward me at random intervals, S and I have been hanging out most of the day, and I’ve finally gotten my first wind and have started doing some of the laundry. M and J are both at work, and the Toddler is in bed for the night. Just another day at the crazy house. Ha. S is currently making lava waterfalls in Minecraft.
I really have nothing more to say.
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