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Wednesday, February 07, 2024

Vindication

I guess I did something right





 

Tuesday, February 06, 2024

Persona

 


In Alana's art therapy class, they had to color in an outline of their body. Alana's is on the right, it's called "goodbye perfectionism." She said, "I started with purple (my fav color) where my heart would be and then just worked outwards with whatever color I wanted in whatever shape happened."

Monday, February 05, 2024

Lack of awareness

 



 All the photos in this guy's profile were muscle shots like this, most of them shirtless.

It's just so perfect that after sll those bodybuilding shots, he says, "love is everything."  😕🙄😄

 

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Hinge chat

 I guess, if your only social interactions are at bars...



Midwest "nice" could not be more fake

 I have a new theory about the impact of the pervasive passive aggressive personality type that dominates the Midwest. I had a brief contentious interaction with a co-worker in the fall and found out MONTHS LATER that this person has been stewing over this ever since and has been enrolling others at work in her version of events (which have gotten juicier and juicier in the apparently multiple retellings as the months have gone by). 

I think what really bothers her about the interaction, and the subsequent conversation we had a few days later that was supposed to clear the air, is that, as she says, I don't really care. I've been thinking about that ever since I heard it last week, and I must conclude that I don't really care. I don't care about her supposed trauma and incessant drama-mongering. I don't care if she thinks I'm mean or thinks I'm insufficiently apologetic for upsetting her. Her emotions have nothing to do with me; which she makes clear over and over again in the way she presents the interaction - she needs to be upset and I gave her a (as far as I can tell) very welcome excuse to be so.

I think what really bothers her, and many of the other Midwesterners I have interacted with since I moved here, is that I am not crushed by their approbation. She wants me to wilt at her outrage. That's what's actually missing in my non-Midwesterness. It's not so much the passive aggression (which I also don't have) - it's the lack of response to other's disapproval. Because I don't care what they think of me. I really don't. I know who I am and I know what my strengths and flaws are. Their opinion of me is none of my business (a quote attributed to motivational speaker Wayne Dyer as well as others). But really. Like, not just as an assertion or an affirmation. 

I think their extreme fragility and reactivity is a result of, and a cause of, "Midwest nice" - because no one can bear to be criticized or scolded, so everyone PRETENDS to be nice, when they really aren't, and they are stabbing you in the back with intense glee at every opportunity. Not only is it a miserable way to live, but it is SUPER dysfunctional and results in nothing positive ever happening because we can't talk honestly and we can't make any progress because everyone is too busy being fake af and protecting their fragile ego all the time and throwing people under the bus. Fuck that!

Sunday, December 24, 2023

TRIGGERED

 Triggered constantly by AirBnB guest who makes me think of Larry. He has 4 kids in Colorado with his ex; as far as I can tell, he doesn't talk with them. He comes across as a complete bullshitter, I doubt even half of what he says is true. He repeatedly offers to help me with the deck, but he spends the weekend away (Sat) and sleeping (Sun), then leaves for the bar before 4 pm.

He repeatedly tells me how much money he is making ($44/hr plus time and a half for all the extra hours), including an enormous per diem ($1400 a week) - why is he staying in my tiny, cheap place?

He goes out to bars every night, several nights coming back noticably drunk, especially Sat night, meaning he drives drunk, sometimes very drunk, every night (he even mentions this the last night he stayed). He repeatedly tells me I should go out to the bars, they are fun, that he drinks for free because he makes friends with the bartenders. Each time, I say that is not my scene, that I have other things to do.

The last night, he says GF has good night life. Then, a couple minutes later, he says he only plans to stay 6 months because how long can you go to the same bars?

Everything about him bugs me: the addiction and drunk driving bothers me, the lying and bullshitting and insincerity bothers me, the clear indication that he's a shitty father bothers me, the juvenile attitude and lifestyle bothers me, his self-perception that he is charming bothers me. I basically want to punch him in the face every time he opens his mouth...

He's a good guest - quiet, unobtrusive (he's never there, doesn't use the kitchen or even the frig), he offers to strip the bed. He stayed almost 2 weeks, I think the longest guest so far, and no trouble. Free money. My only complaint is that he closes the curtain and leaves the fan running when he's not there - the open window would air out the room more effectively and cheaper. But I couldn't wait for this motherfucker to leave so I could stop feeling furious...



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Parenting has changed so much since I was young

 

This post and the comments kinda blew my mind. It was an absolute revelation that millenials and Gen Z are staying with their parents because their parents WANT them to. (My parents couldn't wait for me to leave and had no expectation that I would be back. Which is not at all the same thing as being "kicked out" - they expected me to start my independent adult life, as did I!)












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Thursday, October 19, 2023

Will "The Circle" be unbroken?

Because I was going to see the author at an event in Fargo, I just read the 2013 novel, The Circle, by Dave Eggers, and watched the movie on Netflix (though the ending was completely changed and the movie kinda sucked, wasting a terrific cast).

It has been bouncing around in my head ever since, as the author no doubt intended.

In the novel (but not the movie), the Google/Facebook-ish tech company devises a 3 point plan of attack on human autonomy:

Sharing is Caring

Secrets are Lies 

Privacy is Theft

The first one is, of course, not especially controversial, though, in the book, this means recording your every thought and experience on social media, which is not only unhealthy but utterly pointless.

The third one is, of course, absurd, and, I think, the main point of the story is how dangerous this attitude is.

It's that middle one that I can't get past. 

In the very short time since I finished the novel, I have observed several things that reinforce this.

The first is in the book itself: Mae unknowlingly ingests a medical recording device that collects her vital signs and logs them so that her health can be constantly monitored. As a friend of mine observed,  IRL, health insurance companies would immediately use this information to deny coverage. That may be true now (though not when we finally get universal healthcare); however, it is also true what the doctor in the book asserts: that people would be healthier if their health indicators were monitored and care provided early and consistently.

Another impactful input came from, almost immediately after finishing the book, watching a 2017 mini-series about the gay rights movement called When We Rise, based on the Cleve Jones memoir by the same name, wherein one character notes to another that Harvey Milk believed everyone should come out and then life would be better for everyone. The damage of the closet is compellingly demonstrated throughout the series.

The most recent insight was listening to author Andrea Wang at the ND Library Association annual conference, speaking about the kids' book she wrote about her family, including the roadside scavaging her parents did when she was growing up. She literally cried while telling the story of the book. And, while she was terrified to be so vulnerable, she got incredible feedback on the book, won awards for it, and clearly found the whole experience therapeutic.

I repeatedly see and feel the truth of the observation that secrecy is equivilent to a lie, and frequently witness how secrecy (and lies) are hurtful, painful, and destructive. I also so often see how revealing the truth is almost inevitably cathartic and, basically, a huge relief.

However, of course, the point of the book is that sacrificing privacy leads to a dystopian nightmare. And, of course, I think privacy is valuable. And I know revealing ourselves should always be a choice, made by each individual when they are ready.

But, all that being said, I still believe that secrecy, and lies, are virtually always harmful, and that sunshine is indeed the best disinfectant.

Friday, October 13, 2023

passive aggressive bullshit

I don't have time to enumerate it all. But this is truly bizarre. I was on the planning committee for the annual library conference. As with all my committee experiences, there were a couple of people who really steamrolled everything and took over the conversations. But there was one thing I dug my heels on: there were a couple of loud voices for eliminating several regular activities, claiming the conference had too much to do. One of the things they wanted to get rid of was the after-dinner activities the first night of the conference. I pushed and pushed and pushed to keep it, incurring the irritation of two people in particular. Eventually (at a subsequent meeting), another person joined my side of the fight and we agreed to do all the work, so the other folks stopped insisting we eliminate it. 

Fast forward to the conference. 

After MUCH discussion, there had been arrangements made for some snacks to be available during the after-dinner activities. When we got back to the conference site, the snacks had been set up in the exhibit area rather than the ballroom, where the activities were taking place. I heard one of the main conference organizers comment on this as we walked by. But she did nothing about this. If it was me, I would have asked the hotel to move the food, or just taken a person or two with me and moved it myself. But I know I am perceived as pushy and abrasive, etc, etc, and I didn't have anything to do with the food, and I didn't want to take charge of something that wasn't mine. But she left the food there, and she never even told the people in the ballroom that the food was there, so they could go get it if they wanted it. What the actual fuck? My very ungenerous interpretation is that she didn't want these activities to happen and now she has the chance to make them a tiny bit less enjoyable. 

I don't know how to navigate this type of situation. My instinct was to grab the food, but I didn't want to give her and others like her a reason/excuse to fuss at me. Additional note: this same person interrupted my activity (a book discussion) by walking up and starting a loud side conversation with one of the participants, so I waited while they finished talking. Again, my very ungenerous interpretation is that she was trying to disrupt me, but maybe she is an oblivious rude asshole, as opposed to a passive aggressive rude asshole. Hard to know.