carvedangel.net

i’m having a hard time shaking this depression. talking to t-sensei made me feel a bit better yesterday. it’s nice hearing good things about yourself, of course. (i forgot to mention it in the prior post, but he also said i had a really strong/forceful personality, and i have to let that come through. which was literally laughable to me, but it’s fun getting compliments you’ve never had before.)

still, i can’t get rid of it. i know, rationally, that it’s chemicals doing this. i know i can’t just stop it through sheer force of will. i just hate how irrational i get. when i’m depressed, everyone hates me. i can’t do anything right. i have no redeeming qualities, and am unlovable in every way. but it’s not just about me. i read things and see things on the news, and i’m certain that existence here is some kind of punishment. a kid with a broken back getting tased 19 times, people getting blown up all over the world, and then the aspca commercial with the one-eyed dogs and caged kittens… how can you look at the world around you and not believe you’re in some kind of hell? what kind of place is this, that there’s so much suffering? and when i’m more rational, i’m sad about it, but it just is. we’re not in hell, but an imperfect world.

i’m really looking forward to going back to the lake house next week. it’s the most perfect place anywhere. it’s just the four of us, and we’re comfortable together, and even when we argue, we genuinely love/like each other. you can say anything, and tiffs are dismissed as the minor things they are, and are forgotten in a few minutes. discussions are occasionally intellectually stimulating and at other times ridiculous, but the participants are always sharp, and the dry and sometimes biting wit isn’t lost on anyone. there’s nothing but delicious food to eat and good (and intoxicating) things to drink, and there’s more than you could ever consume. low music plays in almost every room. all of the furniture is comfortable, even the patio and pool stuff. the bed is nice to flop down on after a busy day of doing nothing, and there’s no shortage of pillows. and the huge white couch facing the glass doors and, beyond, the lake, is as close to heaven as anything. there’s cable and internet access, but they’re seldom used. the outside world has no place there. and i’m counting the days until i can go back. (and it’ll be even better this time, because we’re celebrating sohei’s and my birthdays…)

i’m feeling kind of lonely again. it’s been alright for a while, and i don’t think about it very much anymore. but my birthday’s coming up, and i started thinking about inviting over a couple of people to hang out or something. then i remembered last year and decided against it. i’m not putting myself through that again. i’m glad being alone isn’t so painful anymore. some days, like today, it really hurts, though. i don’t even know why i’m blogging about this. i’ll be over it in a day or two. i guess it’s just weird being around all these people everyday who are friendly, but who aren’t friends. people who will make small talk with me but wouldn’t go out for a drink with me or play video games at my house. it’s like when you’ve been studying anatomy too long and when people smile at you, the fact that their teeth are bone suddenly registers, and it’s like you can see their skulls behind their features. (that’s a weird example. i don’t think many people know what that’s like. and it’s not like i say these things aloud, if that’s what you’re thinking.)

i’m going to get back to work. it’ll take my mind off things, maybe.

i finally got my t-shirt in the mail yesterday, and am wearing it today. out of all the clothes i own, i think it’s the one that pretty much sums me up the best: geeky, political, pacifistic, and because i bought the babydoll style in black (of course), small and goth (not emo! goths did black first!). i’ll post a pic of me wearing it, eventually. (i keep saying that, don’t i? i still have a bunch of pics from the trip i haven’t uploaded yet.)

this article really took me back. as a short, pale, geeky redhead who dreamed of a career in pathology, i loved scully too.

arg! the dye i bought may need a separate developer! when i get home, i’ll check the box. that’s so irritating, if that’s the case. then it’s no cheaper than the stuff you get at the grocery store. also, the lady at the counter was trying to sell me nail files and oil treatments and a membership, and she never once tried to sell me the one thing i needed. now i’m going to have to go back and i don’t even know which developer i need. and i sure don’t trust the morons there to tell me. man, that pisses me off.

random stuff:

i finally changed my igoogle theme from the cute little fox (”tea house“) for the one with the little tiger. it is so cute. i never thought i’d replace the fox theme, but that tiger is cho kawaii.

a guy got arrested in front of the circ desk this morning for trespassing. i imagined what it would be like to be arrested in a library at 7:14 in the morning, and decided it would suck mightily. i’m very lucky.

this other guy was sleeping on the bench across from the elevators, and it freaked me out because it looked like he wasn’t breathing. so i got as close as i felt comfortable doing, and when i was satisfied he wasn’t dead, i moved on. it would have been a funnier story if he woke up while i was staring at him, but he didn’t. people sleep in here all the time. i’m glad they feel comfortable enough to do that. but maybe they wouldn’t be if they knew weird girls were hovering over them to see if they were dead.

i had a nice afternoon yesterday. i got my library book, two kinds of red hair dye (for the price of one if it had been the grocery store), siopao (meat-filled dumplings/buns), gyoza (potsticker dumplings), flower’s kiss candy, and “men’s pocky.” (they were out of chocolate yan yan. ) also, i got my hair cut and bought lots of good stuff at the store. i’m so dyeing my hair tonight…

yay: had a really good meeting with electronic resources gal, who is very nice. feeling cautiously optimistic about possibility of acing interview, if i actually get said interview.

boo: there is a huge thunderstorm coming this way, and i’m leaving soon and will probably have to drive in it.

wow, do i feel like crap lately. i am so freaking tired all the time. i’m hooked on coke (the soda) now, too, and i don’t even like it that much. but if i don’t have caffeine, i can’t do anything. i’ve been trying to stop drinking soda this week, and i’m clearly an addict. it’s so bad for you, though, that i’m going to have to make a better effort.

i’m supposed to be meeting with the lady in charge of electronic resources soon, so i can learn how to select and license digital materials. so i can at least pretend i can do that when asked about it in the interview. that hasn’t been offered to me yet. i would be more nervous about not getting an interview if t-sensei hadn’t said that they probably wouldn’t even do anything about it until august. he says that’s how academic libraries are. even if it turns out to be for nothing this time, it’s good to learn this stuff. also, i am running into some trouble with this building of dynamic, database-backed websites thing. reading about it is all well and good, but i need to see some practical application. i’ll have to bother our web guy again, clearly. (everyone who works here is really sweet, though, so it’s okay.) or maybe i should try to do some of it since i have a host and control panel with all kinds of nifty apps. hum.

you know what’s great about working in the subbasement? (i mean, what else is great about it?) you can belch and sing and scratch and dance and laugh your head off at stuff like sadly, no! and no one will be the wiser. except when t-sensei occasionally visits and catches me at singing or something. at least he hasn’t caught me scratching my underarm or anything yet.

ugh, in spite of the coke, i’m falling asleep sitting up. what the hell?

to the person who found my blog with the query: “do fat women have sex?” i can give you an answer to that question. yes. yes we do.

what can i say? providing information is my life.

i’m back from my trip, and it was awesome. it’s about the best vacation i ever had. to sum up: idyllic. i’ll write more about it later. i’m still basking in the glow of three days of drinking, eating too much, and doing nothing. at. all.

i sure am getting a lot of spam these days… also, i can’t seem to buckle down and get to work. at all. anymore. ever. sigh. t-sensei is going to kill me when we get back from our respective vacations. i’ve never made him mad (that i know of) and i’m kind of afraid he might actually be mad that our project isn’t done. after i stop wasting time on here, i’m going to get to work, because if he gets mad, i’ll be upset. also, if he’s mean to me, it’ll just make my morale awful and the next year will be hell for everyone. (everyone.) i don’t think he’ll be mean or angry, but i don’t want to test it.

i’m going home tomorrow. i wish it were for good, but it’s not. we’re going to the lake house in odessa. (to me, home = anywhere in the tampa bay area or thereabouts.) we’ll be there only a couple days, but it’s better than nothing. i’m not sure whether i ever said much about the lake house. anyway, chris’ grandparents built it, and it was in the family a long time. then, for reasons i’m unaware of, they sold it after the grandparents died. except i think everyone’s sad it got sold. i know my father in law (i’m just going to start calling him genma) wants it back. he practically lives there now. his girlfriend owns it, because her dead husband was the one who bought it from our family to begin with. and if they got married, it would be ours again. except that the guy’s insane adopted son owns half or something, and when she dies, he gets the house. we’ve been talking about killing him, but i bet he kills himself before genma’s girlfriend dies.

a side story:

sohei and i used to go back to his house after school and do the kinds of things unattended teenagers do after school. (he lived next door to the lake house, so insane adopted kid was their neighbor.) we were right in the middle of doing that thing left alone teenagers do, and the insane kid came over and started banging on the bedroom window. which, thankfully, had a curtain over it. he was hollering and sohei jumped up, pulled his pants on, and yanked the curtain aside. “what?” insane kid said he wanted to play with the dog, and sohei said he didn’t give a shit what he did, but to stay away from the goddamn window. we finished what we were doing, made some hot pockets, and sat down to watch afternoon talk shows, while the little lunatic ran around the yard shouting. good times.

anyway, i bet he’s on all kinds of drugs and stuff, and he lives in arizona or something, and it’s kind of inevitable. (i mean, it is for everyone, but you know.) so we’re going to the lake house. and i like genma’s girlfriend for a rich lady, and i think she likes me, too. even if she doesn’t, she’s better at acting like she does than my actual stepmother. i like my stepmum except for the religious wingnuttery. but she doesn’t much care for me. i’ve only met her once, though, so whatevs. my (maybe someday) stepmum in law is totally different. after what happened with my stepmum, i was kind of wary. especially since genma spoils me way more than my own dad, and i wasn’t sure it would be that great for all my desserts and stuff to go to someone else. (he doesn’t spoil sohei, so he’s no competition anyway.) but she likes eating as much as i do, so we still go out to eat a lot (and drink a lot of booze), and drive around in the convertible having adventures. genma said she’s a conservative, but she doesn’t act like it. and she was very nice about my ditching them when she brought out her husband’s gun to show them. she said it scared her, too, which is why she wanted to give it to genma. also, she has a tote bag that says, “well-behaved women never made history.” and she got me my favorite sunscreen without even asking me which kind i like when i got sunburned in the car. so i like her. for a rich lady.

i can’t wait til tomorrow night… this trip is going to be awesome. i don’t think we’ll have internet, but this house is neat, so i’ll try to take some pics to share when i get home.

i’m in a piss-poor mood today, and wordpress refusing to load isn’t helping…

anyway, you know that job i mentioned applying for? after spending way too much time on my resume and stuff this weekend, i went to florida library jobs this morning to find that the position is no longer being advertised.

then i made the mistake of reading a long comment thread somewhere about the idea of privilege, which always sets me right the fuck off. if you fall into a group that is privileged (white, male, etc.) just accept that you’re going to be excluded from things sometimes and people aren’t always going to love you. in this case, it was a skinny girl complaining that her fat friends wanted to go to the beach without her, and her bff was being rude about it. look, i know most women in our society have body issues. but if you weigh almost half what i do, chances are, you’re not being told on a daily basis that you’re unacceptable. at least not with regards to your weight. if your friends feel they need that safe space for a day but invite you everywhere else, i’m sorry, but get over it. maybe your bff was rude to you because you invited yourself and put her in an awkward situation when she had to explain why you couldn’t go.

i’ve noticed that the fat acceptance movement always somehow morphs into “body acceptance.” while i appreciate that to some extent, is there nowhere a group of fat people can talk about their suffering without some normal breaking in to whine about her perceived body issues? yeah, most women will be picked on at some point in their lives about their size, but it’s usually the commentary of some lone weirdo. (also, people think it’s about the worst insult they can sling, so some will call you fat whether you are or not, just to hurt your feelings.) i have been fat for most of my life, with a few years of blissful “normalcy.” actually, i was still overweight, but it was more acceptable somehow. anyway, i know the difference. at 150, people found me attractive. (70 pounds later, no one even gives me a second look anymore.) i had a boyfriend at any given time between 12 (when i lost my “baby fat”) and 15 (when i met sohei). despite my having a boyfriend, plenty of guys made it clear they found me attractive. until my weight started creeping back up. it’s not just about finding a boyfriend. people treat you differently. before i was “obese” people were a lot nicer to me. just friendlier in general. and when you’re fat, people also seem to think you’re stupid. and gross.

so, yeah, if you’re “fat” like i was at 18, you have no idea what it’s like to really be fat. just like it’s hard for me to really fathom what life is like for someone who weighs 400 pounds. to them, i’m privileged. and i accept that. so when you’re going on about how fat you are and how disgusting you look when you weigh less than i have since i was 8 years old, don’t get upset when i tell you to fuck off. (especially if it’s the millionth time i’ve asked you to shut up about it.) when there was a discussion on racism on daily kos a while back, i pointed out that it hurt to be discriminated against. but i understood why black people might not want me to go to certain events with them or take part in certain discussions. because i can actually look past myself and my own feelings and see that there’s a valid reason i’m being left out. i’m also privileged because i’m bi but married. so i can pass as straight. i appreciate that, because i ended up with a man, i have it better in this society than gay folks do.

so, to people who can’t seem to grasp the idea of privilege, here’s some advice: get the fuck over yourselves and try to understand why you don’t belong in some people’s “safe place.” the world does not revolve around you and your feelings. people not as privileged as yourselves have enough to deal with, without having to assuage your hurt over imagined body issues or racial identity crises.