Losing my grip
I am very very quickly losing my grip on the very little sanity I have left. Quite a number of my friends have taken to constantly asking me if I’m ok.* The thing is, I’m not ok. Am I meant to be? But breaking down over and over again is not going to help me get better. It’s not going to help me get through every day and it’s also just not going to happen. So I wish these people would stop. Honestly, this happens to me everytime something shit in my life happens and I’m seriously going to lose my shit.
I am managing to get through every day mostly fine, too. Occasionally I have a slight breakdown that indicates there’s more crap beneath the surface than I’m letting myself feel, but that’s something I will deal with in time. There are moments when my friends need me for something and I can’t be there for them right now. It happened when my aunt died and I was trying to sort through my shit and friends needed support and I couldn’t provide it. And I can’t provide it now either. I can’t do anything but concentrate on getting through every single day in the best possible way.
So, some helpful tips for all my readers (just to make sure there’s actually a point to this post). If something bad happens to one of your friends, don’t ask them how they’re doing or if they’re ok. Just be there for them. The best support I’ve had so far is being able to sit on my friend’s lounge and just talk about nothing. She let me cry without saying anything, she fed me chocolate, she talked about whatever topic I wanted to talk about. It was everything I needed at that moment and she’s awesome. Be that friend. And check in with them. Another friend of mine that knows whats going on hasn’t spoken to me in over a week. I’m sure she’s busy and whatever, but I’ve always dropped everything to be there for her, so this hurts. I’m going to make much less of an effort next time she needs help. Last tip, if something goes wrong in your life whilst your friend is dealing with their own shit? Find another friend. No joke, dumping on a friend who’s already dealing with crap is not going to help you. And it’s not going to help them.
And to all my supportive friends, I love you all to death. I will be ok one day, just let it happen.
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*I’m getting really really sick of having to add these, but this is not something that relates to anyone who has access to this blog (that I know of. If I don’t know you’re reading this, it’s your own damn fault if you’re upset by this shit.)
Name Changing
This is a hot topic amongst feminists, and usually causes problems. The opposing ideas on whether you should ‘take’ your husband’s name upon marriage are often personal to commenters and therefore more likely to cause arguments. Feminists who have changed their name feel vilified by opposition to the idea.
I, personally, will not change my name. Whilst there is certainly no love lost between my father and I, my last name has been mine for almost 22 years and it will remain mine for as long as I have a say in it. However, there would be problems for me if I did change my name down the path as I hope to get into the field of academia, and need as many things as possible published. It helps if all articles are published in the same name.
But none of this discussion is new, and none of it will be resolved any time soon. Post patriarchy it may not even matter what you do with your name, but in the patriarchy no choice is free of oppression. Bring on the revolution and we’ll discuss this at much greater length. Or it will resolve itself naturally. Who knows?
Beyond all this, a persistent thought has been nagging at me for a few weeks now. My sister and I are currently quite close to each other. We haven’t always been, and at other times we’ve actually been closer. However, she took her husband’s name upon marriage. We no longer share names and it sometimes feels to me like there’s a new distance there because of that. I don’t have the same issues with friends because I never did share last names with them. I feel a massive disconnect when I realise we’re no longer recognisable as connected through our names. I know it seems like a trivial thing, but it’s how I feel. We look very similar to each other, so the connection is obvious when seeing us, but not just through names.
And now she shares a name with a whole other family. We have not only lost the connection between us, she’s gained it with other people.
It’s fairly trivial really, especially when compared to more pressing feminist issues, but it’s something that’s been on my mind recently
UPDATE:
I took this post down a few months ago to edit it, and forgot. Since I posted it originally, the discussion has actually come up with my sister. She was defending the choice to take a man’s name upon marriage (I wasn’t saying anything – I won’t have this argument with her) and mentioned a feminist friend of hers who did this. Apparently the friend faced a lot of crap off HER friends for doing this and my sister’s response was ‘They just don’t get it, even if you’re a feminist you still want the same name as your kids’. I’m thinking it’s not necessarily the friends who don’t get it after that comment…
Musical Post the Second
You and me, we have an opportunity
And we could make it something really cool
But you, you think I’m not that kind of girl
I’m here to tell you baby, I know how to rock your world
Blast from the past. This song was playing when I was buying dinner, and these words struck me. Remind me to tell you the funny side one day.
Anyone else remember Madison Avenue? They kind of rocked.
Holiday Photos
This post is inspired by roughseasinthemed. Her posts always make me jealous, but now I have some gorgeous photos of mine to make other people jealous. These are from Sweden, but if wanted I can add the Germany/Rome photos later. Below the fold, image heavy (obviously)
Nova
ETA: I just hit bingo with my six. It’s only 11am. I hate this station.
Wow. I swear to a deity I don’t even believe in, if I have to listen to this radio station every fucking day for much longer I will explode. The woman next to me at work has her radio on this station. They play the same six songs over and over again all day. And they’re crap songs. Seriously.
Don’t click the link at the bottom of the page. Trust me. But I heard that song FOUR times today. FOUR TIMES. I hate it so much. I end up with so much hostility and anger everytime it comes on the radio. Seriously, do not click it.
Here’s the list of most songs they play on repeat all fucking day. If you’re game, try looking them up on youtube. And if you think they’re not annoying, look six of them up at random (must include the one at the bottom of the post!) and just play those six all day. ALL DAY. EVERY FUCKING DAY.
My random 5 (plus the one at the bottom) would be ‘you found me’ by the fray (a song I used to love mind you), My Delirium by LadyHawke, Halo by Beyonce (although sometimes they try to change to a different one of her songs, but THEY ALL SOUND THE SAME), any of the fallout boy songs, and the Britney Spears song. Go listen to that list on repeat. Then try to collect money off people all day.
ARGH! I’m seriously losing it.
Personal anecdote with a feminist discussion point
When I was a little girl, I got almost straight A’s. I was quite the little achiever at school, with little to no effort (luckily because I wasn’t interested in applying myself). My brother was lucky to get C’s, and when he got anything higher than that, he received praise and congratulations and rewards. I got shit all for my great grades, so I started doing my own thing and trying to get attention in other ways. I remember once in high school, my mum spent all afternoon hounding my brother about whether he’d skipped school that day and he kept saying he hadn’t (he truly hadn’t). Meanwhile, I sat in the background saying “I skipped school today. I went to x place. I hung out with (friend)’. I was telling the truth, but my mum just laughed it off and went back to my brother. So I became this loud, talkative, attention seeker you’ve all come to read regularly.
Anyway, the relevance of all this is a thought I had today. Sometimes when unexpected people do small women/feminist friendly things, I give them cookies. Sometimes when people do big things, I don’t give them any cookies at all. And it got me thinking, what should we be giving cookies for? The depression and weight of being a female in a patriarchy is often so heavy upon my shoulders that I want to applaud anyone for doing anything remotely subversive. Other times I wonder if we’re ever going to get anywhere with faint hearted bullshit. Why should we meekly accept the crumbs they toss out (they’re not throwing them our way, they’re throwing them out, trust me.)?? Why should we content ourselves with this shit when we should be pushing for bigger and better? At what point do we stand up and say, no, near enough is NOT good enough.
If you believe it, it was a Beyonce song that made me think of this. Her ‘put a ring on it’ or whatever the hell it’s called. The verses are halfway to being blamey, and then she says ‘if you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it’. Argh. And she’s so p approved. But she’s a woman, making a successful career. With some halfway blamey lyrics. So, cookies or not? Do we decide that, this is it. No more cookies for half arsed shit. Either treat us like human beings or fuck off. Or do we keep rewarding the little things in the hopes that they grow to bigger things? And so that the ones doing the little things are encouraged to continue?
Smh roundup
Today I noticed that the number of articles waiting to be mercilessly blogged in my favourites has increased to the point where it would be time consuming to do separate posts. So, today is the first ever whyimbitter smh roundup. Hopefully there’ll be more, but I may just give up on the paper before we get to any more editions. Also, just a warning, this post is heavier on the swear words than normal. I’m not in a good mood and reading all these articles at once is making it worse.
Goals
About a week ago I had this great idea to write a post on my aims and goals for the rest of the year – A sort of delayed New Years Resolution, but more focused on achievements and less on weight, smoking etc etc. Due to life getting in the way of my blogging time I never did get around to writing it and now the whole thought of such a post depresses me.
When I look at my life and realise how little I’ve achieved and how little I have to show for my 21 (22 next week!) years, I despair. I had such grand plans for myself when I was younger and I feel like I’m just never going to get anywhere or achieve anything.
I’m well aware that most of this is depression stemming from the situation I’m in*, but a lot of it has been brewing for awhile. Everytime I see another high school on facebook write something about graduating, I’m reminded of the fact that I still haven’t graduated. I sometimes feel like I’m never going to graduate.
I’ve had four jobs in the last three years. It feels like I’m always the new girl trying to find her feet, not quite knowing the right answers, and always having to prove myself. I’m also constantly worried about managing to stay around in a job long enough to not have a dodgy resume. Which means this job needs to last for at least two years. And I’m not 100% happy in my job and definitely miss my last job a lot more than is healthy.
So, this was going to be an inspiring post about what my goals are, the direction I want to head in, and how I plan to get there. I can’t plan all that out anymore, I just don’t have the energy or inspiration.
Of course I do still have goals etc. I’m just not up to posting them right now.
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*I’m not even sure what to call him anymore. Nigel feels inappropriate, and he’s not an ex-nigel and I can’t call him ‘M’ so I’m pretty much out of pseudonyms for him. So there you go.
Arguing
I am a person who likes debate. I always have and I hope I always will because I strive on it. In my life I’ve only ever met one other person who could argue for as long as me without giving up or taking it personally*. Although, lately I’ve stopped doing it as often or as passionately as I used to. Maybe it’s part of having a job where I can effectively debate people all day.**
And when I see arse tiaras arguing about things they know nothing about, especially but not limited to feminism, and using the same damn arguments that I’ve read too many times before (that didn’t make any damn sense the first time around) I just don’t care enough to argue the point. I don’t care what they think, I don’t care how wrong they are and it’s not going to be my problem to wake them up gently. If they refuse to see me like a human being, I will not waste my freaking time seeing them as one.
Memo to office workers
This is for the attention of both men and women who work in offices.
Your midriff is not, under any circumstances, considered professional attire. Put it away. I do not want to see it whilst I am working.
If you work in a casual office, fine go for your life; let it all hang out. In one with a professional dress code and high expectations and standards, put it away.
Seriously. It’s just not cool.
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