Closed for business
In some ways I never thought this day would come, but I’ve been feeling the need for a while now: I’m closing this blog. Not necessarily forever – because I don’t want to be one of those bloggers that makes some grand exit statement and flounces off, only to reappear back at the same URL a few months later – but for the near future, at least. Who knows, I might end up back here at some point, writing about any number of things. Or this might become another internet artifact.
I don’t have a grand exit statement, other than this blog has run its course and is no longer good for me. I’ve written here for over seven years, and now it’s time to pack up and start over. You might say that’s just a psychological thing, and yes, I’m sure it is; but I need the feeling of a fresh start.
I’m tired of feeling the breath on my neck from readers ready to latch onto any word and twist it based on their own bizarre motivations. I’m exhausted from trying to explain myself and anticipate attacks. The imperative to self-censor has become too great a feeling, and as much as I’ve tried to soldier on, I’ve realized I can’t, and it would be foolish to continue trying.
I’m not going to be ultra secretive about my new location, and if you try hard enough (it’s not even all that hard), you’ll be able to find it. I’m not keeping it a secret, I’m just not publicizing it. If you do find and choose to lurk in my new space, there can be no misunderstanding as to its purpose. It is mine to do with as I choose, and its use is at my sole discretion.
In its time, this blog has been good to me and led me to some really great things. With any luck, the new blog will do the same.
See y’all later.
Fragments: Fear
Last night I was thinking about the fact that fear has been a theme throughout my life. It kept me in a state of inertia during my teen years when I was still living at home; I was being harmed but trying to take any sort of action was too risky because if the outcome wasn’t perfectly in my favor then I would be in trouble; I’d be harmed further. The same thing was repeated in my marriage (though ultimately I broke the pattern, in that case; yay for personal growth!). It’s also what stopped me from ever taking the step over the line and actually going into sex work. There are other examples. Is it what stops me from calling my health issues what they are?
Tonight, on the way home from Manuel’s, I was thinking again about all the considerations about whether depression should be called a disability. (I even have a hard time calling it a mental illness – hey, I grew up in the same society as everyone else, and we’ve all internalized the stigma to an extent.) I was having the usual back and forth in my head. I wondered what other people think of people who have mental health issues and identify as disabled. I wondered what my closest friends really think about my struggle with depression and my questions about whether or not it is a disability. I wondered how much it really matters what it’s called and why I’m so preoccupied with that question lately. I wondered if Rusty feels burdened or irritated or manipulated or limited or frustrated or exasperated or thinks I blow shit out of proportion or thinks I make shit up or thinks I do things just to get attention or rolls his eyes at all my ponderings on identity. But maybe that’s just because I roll my eyes at myself, a little (or a lot) and maybe I should stop that. I wondered how much of this comes from internalizing of the societal stigmas and how much is me being a responsible person who thinks of others instead of being too self-absorbed.
I wondered what it would be like if I could wipe the slate clean and not have all that baggage and all those wonderings.
Do other people think about this stuff, in the way I do? I often think about how we can never really know if the way we experience the world is “the norm” or if it’s an exception. We can never really know what it feels like to be someone else. But because I’m fascinated with people and interactions, and because it comes perhaps too easily to me to think of how I would feel/act if I were in a certain situation that someone else is in, I always wonder.
We hear a lot of messages in the media and pop culture about being an over-medicated society; people talk about kids getting ADHD diagnoses and roll their eyes because that’s just a scapegoat, that’s not a real condition; we get angry at people who can’t pull themselves up by their bootstraps and shake things off. I admit I feel that way sometimes, when I hear about someone filing for disability, and then their disability turns out to be… PTSD. Anxiety. Depression. ADD. Etc. C’mon if I can force myself through the day certainly other people can too! Plus Americans love to focus on individualism (which, let me be clear, I do not think is a bad thing at all) – why should I subsidize someone else just because they have depression, right? Not on the tax payer’s dime, etc.; all the Libertarian/Republican talking points. And even as I push back and say, that’s spoken as someone who has never dealt with mental illness, sometimes those thoughts go through my head too.
Monday stuff
All day I’ve been writing an epic blog post in my head, and now that I’m sitting here at the computer screen with a bit of time on my hands, I’m having performance anxiety. :P
~*~
This morning on the way to work, Rusty and I stopped at LottaFrutta. We drive by there every morning and always say we should go, and I’ve read nothing but good things about the place, so this morning we made a point to finally go. And it was awesome!! I’ve definitely found my new favorite place in Atlanta. I’m still thinking about the fruit cup with yogurt and granola I had this morning. There just aren’t many places where you can get really good, fresh fruit quickly and for a reasonable price – and certainly not at this quality! I chatted with the owner for a minute before we left, and she said that’s exactly why she opened the place – to fulfill what she was looking for and could only get all the way out on Buford Highway.
Before we went inside, when we got out of the car and were walking down the street, it just felt like one of those perfect moments. A beautiful day and I was with Rusty and everything was great. We watched some mockingbirds scuffle over a bite of food. Sometimes I think it would be great to live in that neighborhood, but I love our house and I know I can enjoy all the different parts of Atlanta without actually having to live there. But ever since the first time I went to Cabbagetown in 2005, I’ve just had a special feeling for that part of town. Of course, being with the person I love helps as well. And I think part of it is, some moments bring back a feeling from early 2005, when I hadn’t been in Atlanta long and was discovering lots of its treasures, but had been here long enough that I’d gotten past a lot of the rough stuff from 2004. I love it when I can recapture that feeling. I want to maximize those times and that feeling.
Back to Lottafrutta – in one corner, there was an “Energy Lemon” and I had to take a picture of it. The owner caught me in the act and was giving me a funny look, and I said, “I had to take a picture of your energy lemon.” She said, “That’s okay,” and I wondered if I’d committed a cultural faux pas. Probably not, but you never know.
~*~
Saturday was our housewarming party and it was a success. My mom was up for the weekend and had a good time. I’m still thinking about the delicious deviled eggs we made, and I think I’m going to make deviled eggs out of the 6 eggs leftover from the various cooking endeavors.
We definitely want to have people over fairly often – why not take advantage of our wonderful deck, back yard, and grill? But next time, people need to not leave the back door open! I get eaten up by mosquitoes enough as it is, even with mosquito repellent on and citranella candles and torches all around – I don’t need them inside the house, too! (And I don’t even want to talk about what would happen if a cockroach were to come inside. I would FLIP THE FUCK OUT, because that shit is NOT ON.) I will say, though, that even though they blatantly ripped off the WebMD logo, this BiteMD stuff does help after the fact.
At the party, Nikki pointed out that we have two pine trees in the back yard that are perfectly spaced to accommodate a hammock. As far as I’m concerned, this is going to become a top priority.
Sara’s Coca-Cola cupcakes were amazing, and she has posted the recipe on her blog.
My mom took a bunch of pictures and I still need to get them off my camera. I’m going to finally upgrade our DSL speed sometime this week after my most recent payment goes through, so after that, it shouldn’t be such an ordeal to upload pictures to Flickr. So, I don’t yet have pictures of the party to post, but I do have a picture of me with a weed that was taller than I am:
It grew in about 6 weeks in a corner of our back yard.
~*~
The woman who did the renovation on our house (I would say “the seller,” but since we bought it in January, that seems a little dated now) came to the party, and she was telling me all about what the house looked like when she bought it (mostly because I kept prodding her with questions). I find it fascinating. I asked if she would send me “before” pictures, and she was reluctant, saying that usually when people see the before pictures, they like their house less. I find that really bizarre. If anything, I would think it would make someone like their nice renovated house more. My mom told her I was used to it because I grew up w/ parents who renovated houses, so I saw the whole process. That seemed to make her feel better about it. I need to email her a reminder. Anyway, one of the things she said was that they built out the dining room onto what used to be part of the porch. (They did a fabulous job with the floor, because you cannot tell AT ALL where the original hardwoods end and the new hardwoods begin.) That would mean the original dining area was tiny! Barely enough room to fit any kind of table, much less one that would comfortably seat four people. She also said there was a door from the kitchen into the middle bedroom (what we made our bedroom). Trying to picture everything, it seems like this was a really weird house.
I’ll post the before pictures when I get them. For now, Google Maps shows a blurry version of the house in its pre-renovation state, and the porch does indeed wrap around:
I’m glad they got rid of that big stupid shrub in front of the living room window.
~*~
Speaking of things you can see on Google Maps…
Here’s the aerial view of where my birthday photo shoot took place:
Street names are cropped out since there seems to be some sort of urban explorers’ code of ethics in that regard, although if you really want to know where it is, it’s not exactly hard to find out.
You can track the path of a utility easement for as long as there are treetops to be cut away to accommodate its presence. I followed it for probably longer than I should admit.
And one of the places I followed it to was this, in Clayton County. What the hell is this?? It looks disgusting!
I can only assume (hope?) that it’s a sewage treatment plant or some other waste water facility?
Back in Dekalb, there’s what appears to be a giant dirt lot, right beside “Lake Charlotte,” which appears not to have any water. Or maybe the dirt lot is the former lake?
Shifting gears, Google Maps also has a (blurry, not so great) pictures of an early 1960s condo building that I love, and that I fear might not be long for this world, given all the development going on in that area. Here’s Brookwood Forrest:
One of the condos is for sale – $85,000 will get you a 2/1 in a prime location. Parquet flooring has never endeared itself to me, but I could deal…
Besides, look at those original features in the bathroom!!
I’m dying to see what the kitchen and bathrooms looked like in our house prior to the renovation.
Here’s another condo building I love, this one built in 1950 according to the MLS Listing where I got the following photos. This building is on 26th St., right behind the Mellow Mushroom where we used to play trivia. Every time we would go to trivia I’d see the place and think what a cool building it is.
If I were single and buying a place by myself, these are the kinds of places I would have given serious consideration.
I used to not much care for 50s and 60s architecture, but in the past several years it has grown on me. Sure, some of it is crap; but there’s also a lot of really neat stuff. I think my resentment toward the “urban renewal” from which many buildings of that era were borne colored my perception and made me not able to appreciate the unique features in those buildings. It’s not the buildings’ fault that they replaced something older and probably very cool in its own right. And it doesn’t mean we should continue the cycle of knocking it all down and starting over every ~30 years or so.
~*~
I’m going to wrap this up and keep this post relatively upbeat. This is only a smidgen of everything that’s been typing itself out in my head all day long. I don’t have the energy right now to write a screed about why I’m annoyed with pretty much everybody in my former feminist Blogdonia haunts, not to mention the bullshit happening on Tumblr right now. And I feel like I should save my post about my constant underlying fear of Something Very Bad Happening for another day. (The truth is, I’m scared to write it at all.)
Auspicious anniversaries
Five years ago, I moved to Atlanta after an ill-fated (but ultimately good in terms of what it taught me) 7-month stint in Dallas, Texas. It was one of the best decisions I ever made!
Here I am just after arriving at my new home:
Yay. :)
Happenings
I go through phases with blogging. Sometimes I want to pour my heart and soul out, and other times I’m just not feeling it. This past week has been one of the “just not feeling it” times. The only two three posts I’ve done haven’t been remotely personal, and were mostly blockquotes. I’ve been finding myself falling back into some old patterns of not taking care of myself and not speaking my needs, and I’ve been trying to focus on how to make that stop.
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House-hunting will resume possibly next weekend.
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A while ago I had a dream that my mom was trying to force me to wear make-up. I was really distressed and started crying and saying that I didn’t want to wear make-up, but she kept insisting. This kind of happened in real life when I was a teenager, though never to such an extreme. And besides, I actually did wear make-up when I was a teenager (most of the time) – I even used glitter eyeshadow! By the time I was in college, though, I’d decided it wasn’t my thing.
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Next Thursday, I turn 29. I’m trying not to have an existential crisis about it. Not only is that cliché, but I really should save it for when I turn 30. (I already had the requisite “quarter century crisis” when I turned 25.)
I decided that for my birthday, I’m going to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time – get professional photos taken. I’m getting déjà vu writing this, but I swear it’s going to happen for real this time (but that’s another story). I’ve paid the deposit, picked out my outfits… and the shoot is set for next Sunday. We’re still working on a location but I have no doubt we’ll find something great; I just hope it’s not too cold.
I don’t want to write more about it right now because I don’t want to jinx anything. But, if this goes well, I might do it again!
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I am very disturbed by this. I mean, what the fucking hell?
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Recently while looking for my DVD of Lost In Translation, I found the video I made after completing my senior project in high school. I interned at Flagpole for two weeks, and what I learned was that I didn’t want to be a journalist. I haven’t watched the video since the day I showed it to my class. As I mentioned previously, our VCR died, but fortunately thanks to Twitter I found out Jen has one she doesn’t want, so as soon as I get that from her I can watch the video and digitize it and put it on YouTube. I remember it being pretty good; we’ll see if I still feel that way 10 years later.
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Last night I was at Barnes and Noble and they had this stupid “Porno for Women” display:
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I saw chickens in front of an abandoned school on Huff Road:
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I need to write a full post with my thoughts on this. I love AV Flox’s blog, and if you aren’t reading it, you should be. This is the sort of writing that someone should be getting paid for! It blows me away. One pet peeve about the post in question: Emily Gould did not coin the term “overshare.” Dooce used it in a 2005 interview in Glamour magazine, and that’s just what I know of. Someone else probably used it before that.
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I’ve been having fun with my Tumblr (I think the actual correct terminology for an individual Tumblr blog is “Tumblog,” but I refuse to say that, because I think it sounds stupid). I should probably warn you that it’s not safe for work, but I hate that whole “NSFW” thing, so… consider this an ass-backwards non-warning, I guess.
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We should probably do a new episode of Mostly ITP soon. Who should we interview?
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Tonight on the phone, my grandmother said, “These stupid people who say they haven’t decided who to vote for! How can they be undecided at this late of a date? I think they’re just imbeciles.”
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Jenny: where are your dispatches from the Obama campaign??
(Long) quote of the day
From Sara:
But what bothers me even more about this whole thread is that it seems to defy the purpose of the site. Now, there’s nothing in the language of the space to suggest that it was ever meant to be free from criticism. But it’s a confessional, of sorts, the kind of place you go to admit thoughts and feelings for which you have no other outlet. That kind of catharsis is hampered if, the second you let fly those bottled emotions, you’re immediately invalidated and dismissed, and innunduated with the asinine opinions of people who think they know you, your motivations, your life based on two or three sentences you scribbled off in an effort to just get rid of them, to get them out of your system.
The more I think about it, the more I think that this is the kind of site that isn’t built for dissenting commentary. The “me too”s were a good idea – we can feel less alone by hearing that someone, somewhere, is in the same metaphorical boat. Comments were even a decent idea, to the extent that people could reach out to one another and offer advice and comfort, or maybe to even just share stories and miseries. Moms had someplace to finally be able to say “You know, infants are really boring” without having to endure chastisement and ostracization from just about everyone, to admit that they wish their husbands thanked them more often for the care work they perform – to have a forum where their complaints were actually heard and not contested.
Because sometimes we need that more than anything – not to have something fixed, or examined, but just to have it heard and understood. I know that, for me, that’s a huge part of any emotional work I do, especially regarding conflict. I can’t move on and do any kind of processing or rebuilding until I feel like I’ve been heard, until I feel like someone’s listened to what my issue is/was.
Who I Was vs. Who I Am
A few things have me thinking lately about self-perception vs. the perceptions of others. Arguably, self-perception is all that really matters – if you are happy with yourself and your life, then who cares what anyone else thinks? On the other hand, if you find yourself in a negative self-perception loop, being able to take a look through others’ eyes can be helpful in offering some perspective. -Assuming, of course, that those “others” aren’t the same j-holes who contributed to you having a negative self-image to begin with.
What in God’s holy name am I blathering about? Well, maybe it’ll work better if I speak in personal specifics instead of obtuse generalities.
I wrote here about finding some old pictures of myself and realizing that I was a lot better looking back then than I gave myself credit for. That remark might come off as flippant at best, self-gratifying at worst. But for me it was a real revelation. You see, I had been pegged – I was The Ugly Girl. It started in 7th grade and followed me into high school. It started to subside slightly in 10th grade – but not enough to make my typical days any less difficult.* It probably would have followed me all the way to senior year if I hadn’t transferred to Augusta Prep. (Those pictures were taken during junior year, by which time my self-image had improved significantly – but the scars from a few years prior were still fresh. [Pardon the agonizingly stereotypical metaphor - it's late and I couldn't think of anything better.])
Seriously, though – some pretty whack shit went down during middle school and the first two years of high school. Trying to pretend it didn’t affect me deeply would be an outright lie. Transferring to Augusta Prep was like a breath of fresh air – these people didn’t know me, and thus didn’t know that I was The Ugly Girl. I could start fresh. Leaving Georgia altogether to attend NYU was another huge step. Now I was free of the possibility of running into people from my past while out and about. I’m glad I decided to transfer to UGA during my sophomore year – but those 3 semesters at NYU were hugely important on a personal level. I think things would have been very different if I had gone directly to UGA as a freshman from Augusta.
I like to think I’m mostly over all that shit now, at 25. But there are still times when the deeply ingrained self-doubt and fear creep up on me unexpectedly. It’s usually at particularly vulnerable moments (not surprisingly). And when that happens, I have to do my best to push it away and not let myself slip into the old familiar pattern of believing it. It also sometimes manifests itself at seemingly banal moments; for example, if I am given a compliment based on outward appearance – it could be something as simple as “You look nice today” – my knee-jerk internal reaction might be (and I know it’s going to sound like I’m fishing for a compliment here, but that’s NOT THE CASE, so don’t start with that), “Wow, really? They really think I’m attractive? Shock! Disbelief!”
Anyway. So that’s some shit I’ve been thinking about and dealing with. At times I tend to get caught up with this stuff, and I just go in circles thinking about it on an annoying, philosophical level. But it’s important not to let the past just sit around and fester.
* Ed. Note: Becoming closer friends with Jenny and Niki in 10th grade also helped immensely. Credit where credit’s due – I love you ladies. :)
Self-Affirmation, Dammit
You know, I give myself a lot of crap. And unnecessarily so. Recently, I was reading some of my old blog entries from ~2 years ago – they are fraught with second-guessing and self-doubt (the bane of my existence). But I realized something, reading them from this perspective/distance/what-have-you. I didn’t give myself nearly enough credit. All the shit I was going through then… Jesus H., I did a damn good job of handling it, and I was am a really strong person. There have been several points in my life where I’ve had this revelation after the fact. I’ve certainly gotten a lot better about trusting myself and not letting other people’s noise drown out what my intuition is telling me. But it’s something I still struggle with at times.
Anyway… why did I feel like I needed to “rush” the process I was going through, back then? (And I recognize that I am still dealing with and coming out of everything that’s happened.) I just felt so much pressure from all sides. But you know, realistically… finding out that your husband wants to become a woman is a big damn deal, and I should be able to take my sweet time in “getting over” it. And looking back, I can hardly believe the grace with which I handled everything (though of course it didn’t feel like it at the time).
So, in summation: I rock, dammit. And I should be able to say that without feeling that little pang of, “Shut up you selfish bitch!” inside.
Before I go to bed, I would like to know…
…why am I living in Bizarro World?
I don’t have to prove anything to anybody, or impress anybody, or live up to some nebulous outside standard. A lot of people pay a lot of lip service to the idea of self-fulfillment and finding happiness within oneself, but they don’t actually put it into practice. Probably because it’s not as easy as it sounds. There’s always pressure and negative energy coming from other places. Yet, I am determined to continue with this as my mantra.
Basically the reason why I’m rambling like this is because somebody made a comment at work this morning that implied that writing HTML is “beneath” a “real developer,” which also implied that we here in Web Services (or perhaps just me) are not “real” developers. Hmph. As if a person is totally defined by what they do in the office between the hours of 9 to 5. Perhaps I’m too sensitive, but the comment hurt my feelings. -And if I am in fact too sensitive, then again, that’s part of who I am and anyone who doesn’t like it can kiss my ass! :-P