Scapegoat

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

I don't know what sorcery you pulled, lady, but it's like you magically stole all of the potential good shit in my life.

Fucking stop it.

Relief

Lately, I often catch myself thinking about dying. Not in the sense that I have a plan/intent to do away with myself in the near future, it's more along the lines of existential contemplation. That is, would it not be the greatest relief? To no longer think, worry, or feel? After all, one cannot feel depressed if one does not even exist.

As an Atheist, the idea of death is reassuring, saddening, and alluring all at once. When I think about dying, and leaving behind the people that I love, I feel an overwhelming sadness settle in my heart. To think that I will never see them again, laugh with them, tell them how much they mean to me causes me nearly as much sadness as the idea of the pain and loss they would feel if I were to die. However, it is also reassuring to know that this sadness I feel at the idea of dying will only exist so long as I exist. Once I die, I will no longer feel sorrow, or pain, or joy, or love.

I will feel nothing.

I will be nothing.

And therein lies the allure.

The straw that broke the dating-site-camel's back

=D you're funny, or something like that, and i'm pretty wasted... mheh nah i guess i'm just really caught a flu =_='' and so i'm up on saturday-morning ... aaaand i red 'london' at first ... and later it dawnend on my face, that 'london' isn't in friggin utah XD .. erm well anyways.. i was wondering what the frigg was going on in 'lindon' i mean seriously .... 'lindon' ?! .<''' ) but yeah.. just wondering.. hahahaha 'fellatio-list' NFC !! 0.0 i was also on one, long time ago ... *sigh... those where the times.. .. and and uh... what rpg'S are you playing? ö.ö p&p or just some final fantasy kind of shit ? btw, don'T get me wrong, the fifth part is one of the most amazing rom i ever came by.. but yeah.. nowadays FF sucks the big hairy meatball <.<'' imho
well, now i wanne get back to finishing my breakfast-joint. if my grammar isn't that bad ( i honestly don'T know, since english is only my third language <.<'') i would kinda guess i would enjoy a reply.

:D so long,
norb

The fact that (according to OKCupid) I have a 90% match rating with this person is enough to make me lose whatever small amount of faith I had in the match-making qualities of said dating site.

You know the best part about vibrators? They aren't human.

Wake me up when September ends

Every September, I have the unfortunate tendency to fall into the depths of a gripping depression, the likes of which would make even Sylvia Plath proud.

This marks the third year of it’s annual appearance. The thing is, I keep forgetting about it, so it’s always preset by a week or so where I can’t figure out what the fuck is wrong with me, or why I want to sleep ALL the goddamn time.

The glass half-full: Each time this happens, I get a little more self-aware about it. I know a bit more what to expect, and how to try and prevent it from getting too out of hand. The thing about depression though, is that no matter how aware you are during the whole process, it’s still fucking sucks. Just because you know you are depressed, doesn’t necessarily mean you can consciously make it go away. It just means you know what’s happening, you know it won’t last forever, and you know you’re not going to be a very fun person for the next little while. It’s kind of like a really awful period, except without the bleeding.

Well, unless you cut yourself. Which mine characteristically have a tendency to lead to. That’s when it gets out of hand for me. Generally, it’s just once, at the lowest point of the depression, but still, definitely something I’d like to avoid this go ‘round. This takes us to the obvious downsides of having depression.

The glass half-empty: My thoughts are indescribably negative whilst in the wonderland of depression. I become so incredibly critical of myself, that when I look in the mirror I start to dry-heave.

Oh yeah, it’s fun stuff.

Since September marks the start of school, my depression doesn’t do wonders for my desire to attend classes or finish assignments. (It’s undetermined whether my depression is caused partly from the start of school. I’ve never had a September free to test it, after all.) I start to criticize my lack of dedication, of passion, of drive I once had. I tell myself I’m not fooling anyone into thinking I belong in academia, and that I’m just wasting time and money in a field I don’t stand a chance in.

The me bashing doesn’t stop there. If I’m late for a meeting, I immediately assume I’m going to be fired for being the sort of employee that can’t balance school and work adequately. If the guy I’ve been flirting with doesn’t ask me out, I assume it’s because I’m fat, and unattractive and he’s out of my league.

You get the picture.

I promise, I’m not normally like this. It’s so weird to be AWARE that I’m not normally like this, and yet, be in the throes of THIS at the same time. The only comfort I can offer those of you who interact with me is that it will pass. It always does.

That said, you may want to avoid me for the duration of the month, because I also know that it’s only going to get worse, before it gets better.

This is, arguably, the worst thing that could have possibly happened.

Stray Italian Greyhound, GTFO.

The Easy Way Out

Sometimes, in my most pessimistic of moods, I think about taking the easy way out.

It's exhausting, you see, to constantly feel like you're in an uphill battle against the world in an attempt to beat the odds, and find what we hope to be happiness at the end of the tunnel. So, although I'm not proud of it, when I'm feeling more weary and beaten down than normal, I'll imagine what it would be like to take the path of least resistance.

I imagine attending church with one of my many LDS friends, claiming to have had a change of heart and mind regarding religion. I start regularly showing at one of the many local singles wards in the Provo area, and I find a perfectly nice, respectable, desperately lonely return missionary who proposes to me after barely 2 months of dating.

I would stop working full time, (perhaps completely, since this is a fantasy) and convince him that I should focus on getting my degree before we think about starting a family. He indulges me, although it is an unspoken expectation that I won't use the degree for a career, since my life will revolve solely around my eternal family as soon as we first conceive.

What he doesn't know, however, is that as soon as I have my degree in hand, and a scholarship to my out-of-state graduate school of choice, I divorce him faster than you can say, "as long as you both shall live."

That is my easy way out. Would it be morally reprehensible and so abhorrent that I couldn't stand to look at myself? Probably.

Would I finally have a college degree? You bet your ass I would.

In the end, I know I would never actually do this. Some days, though....

Some days I am more capable than others.

He said/She said.

I have a love/hate relationship with communication.

It is fascinating, exhausting, frustrating, and extremely important to me.

I took a class on the psychology of interpersonal relationships. I learned a great deal about the different methods of communication people employ, which, don't get me wrong, is incredibly enlightening in and of itself. However, I wish more time had been spent discussing compromise; how two people of varying communication styles can interact in a clear and (hopefully) non-stressful manner. I mean, really. How am I supposed to confront someone who doesn't like confrontation?

*via text message* "I have decided not to wait until you get home to tell you that you're a dick."

"..... So, yeah. You're a dick."

How it sounds to me: "I want to talk about this in person, but I also refuse to keep my anger to myself until the next time I see you, since I feel as though I am justified in my hurt. I feel better knowing that I'm not hiding my frustration, and I would much prefer to be aggressive-aggressive, before I am unintentionally passive-aggressive."

How it sounds to him: "I am going to be an outright bitch and insult your character because of something you have already apologized for."

The problems continue, however, since the communication styles differ in terms of resolution as well. It's not enough that an emotional language barrier caused the situation in the first place, it must also try to prevent an expedient and mutually satisfactory conclusion. I immediately want to discuss it so that I don't carry my anger around with me. He wants to ignore it until he feels calmer and more capable of dealing with the situation. Either way, one of us is going to have to sacrifice more than the other.

It bothers me that there isn't an easy solution to this. It bothers me that although I technically "got what I wanted" by talking about it tonight, he is still upset by the events of the evening. It bothers me that after talking about it, and after apologies are made on both sides, I can honestly say, "I'm alright now" but all he can say is, "I will be alright."

I mean, for Christ's sake, we put a man on the moon; you'd think we'd have this interpersonal relations shit down to more of a science.

Pieces

This random, uncontrollable crying at work business has got to stop.

Fat Girl Limbo: Inspired by the movie Beerfest

*I wrote this and posted it on a dating site I happen to belong to called, OKCupid. Someday I'll talk more in detail about that whole decision process. That day is not today, but in the meantime....

On St. Patrick’s Day, I watched the film Beerfest for the first time. I have to say it was entertainingly apropos to say the least. Although I had about 5 beers in me by the time the movie started, I find that even drunk I can’t stop my brain from analyzing whatever sort of information I happen to be feeding it. In this case, there was a particular scene that piqued my psychoanalytical interest. For those of you who haven’t seen it, I’ll try not to give much away (although, if I just say, “beer, tits, and fake Germans” that pretty much gives the whole movie away). Mo’Nique played a side character in this film, and during a scene in which one of the main characters is completely sodding drunk, she ends up having sex with him. The joke of the scene is that because he is so drunk, his perception of her appears to be dramatically altered. Instead of seeing the actual Mo’Nique, through his vision we see a slender, exotic looking woman with an obviously (literally) doctored body and gorgeous facial features.

Now, Mo’Nique is, by no stretch of the imagination, considered the type one would generally want to see in a swimsuit competition. However, despite her robust figure, she is a very lovely woman. Yes, yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that, but I think it can be agreed upon across the board that she is not difficult to look at. In fact, one might go so far as to say that the only thing preventing her from being considered outright beautiful is her weight.

Regardless of what culture you belong to, no one is completely blind to body size. In many tribal communities, being overweight was/is considered a representation of your wealth and status, and is actually a trait that is thought of as very attractive. In many more modern cultures, including our own, being overweight tends to have the exact opposite effect. Although these two viewpoints are extremely diverse, they are two sides of the same coin. Both perspectives on weight and its attractive qualities have to do with the long term biological goal of offspring, and furthering our genetic lines. If weight gain is seen as a representation of wealth, it becomes an attractive quality in a mate because that means they have the ability to provide a stable environment for offspring. In first world countries, if a person is overweight/obese, it inspires the thought that they do not take care of their own health, or possess less than desirable genetic traits that are expressed in their body size. (On a side note, it could also be argued that since unhealthy food tends to be the fastest, easiest, and cheapest in our society, being overweight can be symbolic of your financial status as well. There is a reason that the lower-middle class is demographically the most obese.)

So tonight, with my brain still contemplating the comedic, but culturally interesting scene, I decided to do a bit of research on good ol’ OKCupid. I searched “BBW” (an acronym for ‘big beautiful woman’, which I believe had its conception in pornography), curious to see what kind of profiles utilized this phrase. Many women came up as options, all of them large, and all of them using the phrase quite openly. The favorite sentence seemed to be, “I’m a BBW, and I’m proud of it!” Men appeared in the search listings as well, but they had a sort of binary diversity to them regarding their utilization of the term. Either they loved it, explicitly saying that they preferred a woman such as this, or they warned away anyone who fell into the category completely.

Now it cannot be argued that, although we have a few good options, the body descriptors for this dating site are ambiguous at best. This is all due to semantics, and it is proven by the fact that many of the women who identified themselves as BBW’s, also described themselves as ‘curvy’, the same body descriptor I used on my own profile. It has never been more clear to me that despite living in a culture that puts a high value on labels, our linguistic system occasionally sucks ass.

With all due self-confidence, I can still say with certainty that my body is far from perfect, and while I definitely don’t feel justified in describing myself as a BBW, I cannot describe myself as fit or skinny. This is what it means to be in Fat Girl Limbo; small enough that you can still fit in mall clothes, but large enough that you share dating site body descriptors with BBW’s. Perhaps worst of all, is that it could be argued that regardless of which direction we Limbo girls go, someone is lowering their standards for us. It is either, “I prefer large women, but I suppose you’ll do,” or, “I prefer slender women, but I suppose you’ll do.” With this sort of (hopefully unspoken) flattery, it is little wonder that so many women find comfort in cheesecake, or seek validation by sticking a toothbrush down their throat.

“Abandon hope all ye who enter here” indeed.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something dead.

If I ever end up getting married, I want to have a zombie wedding. Not in the sense that the couple dress up as zombies, but in the post-apocalyptic setting, 'the zombie outbreak has happened, but we're having this wedding regardless' sort of sense. The wedding itself would be rather traditional, except the bridesmaids may be holding semi-automatics rather than bouquets. It's fun to think about, but if it ever comes to fruition I'll have to plan it rather carefully, since I feel that when one is mixing weddings and weaponry there is a fine line between bad-ass and white trash.

Belated Thoughts on V-Day

Somewhat surprisingly, I do not hate Valentine's Day. It's certainly never been my favorite holiday, but I don't recall it ever causing me extensive amounts of emotional grief.

What I remember, are high school dances of the girls' preference variety. Butterflies in my stomach while I worked up the courage to ask the target of my affections.

I remember guilt, a year later, when that target and I were officially dating, and I didn't want to spend February 14th with my boyfriend.

I remember uneventful, casual days. Where this holiday passed by and I hardly noticed but for the extra amounts of the color red, down select aisles at the grocery store.

I remember a dark club, where patrons spent a cliche holiday dressed as cliche vampires. I remember dancing in platform heels, a vinyl corset. Feeling sexy and silly all at once.

I remember an after party, full of people whom I had never met. I remember drinking shitty beers and making shittier decisions. I remember being the most desired woman in the room.

I remember feeling powerful. I remember feeling scared.

I remember a taunt that pushed me over the edge.

I remember falling.

I remember an uncomfortable car in the dead of winter. I remember not taking it seriously. Just a casual, fun encounter, that didn't actually turn out to be all that much fun.

I remember having no idea or expectation of ever seeing you again, much less that you would end up changing my life.

Those memories are 2 years old now, and although I can say with certainty that I am a different, hopefully stronger person now, there is still an ache that doesn't always feel like it's 2 years old.

Some days are better than others. Apparently Valentine's week is not included in that category.