language.


Since I'm going on a retreat on the 6th and not coming back for a week, then taking like THREE DAYS before heading to California for a week, I'll update now.

BUHHH...

Nothing is new, really. I've been having a stressful day--like, the type of day where my eye starts twitching during a meeting because people are that terrible and aggravating. I had to use all the will in me, today, to keep myself from pulling a guy's trachea out through his anus because he kept making jokes that trivialized the situations women are actually put in on a regular basis.

So there's one more professionalism session I'll have to bring to a club that shouldn't need it. He was jokingly complaining about how we only have one guy on the board... Well, mate, you're really giving us a great reason to reduce that population even more.


I saw my ex-boyfriend, yesterday, and I think he made an attempt to smile at me. I had many things I wanted to say. Namely, "Don't try to push your horny repentance on me; I don't want to look at you, much less feel obligated to smile at you. You're not coming back into my life, not even as a three-episode guest star."

If you leave, stay gone. If I ask you to leave, stay gone. After either point, I don't want you back without a big old "I was wrong and here's how and here's what I've done to change."

Without all that, I'm just getting back into my same shitty situations, and that just isn't me, anymore. I don't know why it ever was. I guess I was afraid of what it would feel like to cut someone out.

--For the record, liberating. Liberating is how it feels.


I'm excited for the retreat I'm going on in a few days. At the meeting, I looked around, found some friends to sit with, then saw this guy I've been admiring from afar after he called out and waved to me--so, he's going, too, which is exciting, since we'll be out in cabins for a week. Kind of rustic romantic. I hope. Unless my giant gay antelope keeps making jokes about the two of us going out into the woods and making out. And then it will probably not be rustic romantic.

Weird how, at this age, you make the closest friends by threatening to kiss them BUT NOT ACTUALLY KISSING THEM because that is not friendship.

BECAUSE THAT IS NOT FRIENDSHIP, she screams at her past.

But anyway yes, here I am turning my leadership training into a romantic comedy. Watch me go.


I accidentally spoke French during my Spanish oral. Twice. She asked about changing my last name after marriage, and I gave her my usual spiel (just in Spanish)--it's weird how women fundamentally change where men don't, with marriage. I mean dude, "Mr." was originally the abbreviation for "master," and "Mrs." the abbreviation for "mistress." A LITTLE OLD FASHIONED?

I don't like my last name at all. It's traditional Irish, which typically means it sounds like something icky (like Doherty--sounds like a word you could use to describe your spit) or a bar (but really we were famously drunk long before they started naming bars after us), so I'm not exactly loving it. But I'd rather keep it than change so fundamentally. It's all about equality. I'm hoping that, if someone ever proposes to me, we're both standing and looking each other right in the eyes.

I'm not here to tell you how to do your marriage stuff. I don't care how other people do it. Some people enjoy the tradition. Some people don't have the same priorities that I do. That doesn't mean I'm wrong, and that doesn't mean they're wrong, but when people try to convince me to be less strict about my own beliefs and principles, it's half past time to fuck off. I get that a lot. "But it's just your last name." No. "What if your husband really wanted you to--" Spouse, first off, and second, I really want whoever I marry to be cool with me riding a motorcycle, but that doesn't mean it will happen AND it shouldn't be something that ruins an otherwise solid marriage. Also, maybe I want my spouse to change his/her name (I don't, but). Ever think about that? Well THINK about it. Quietly. Over there. "You might change your mind when--" Yes, obviously, thank you for your input.

I'm all good with people asking questions. "What would happen if you married someone and it was extremely important to them that you changed your last name?" for instance. Valid question, but kind of invalid, when you think about it, because I definitely don't attract that type, with my rampant feminism and aggressive activism.

I feel like, usually, when the person you're marrying is known for, oh, I don't know, immediately responding to "We all count" with "WE WILL NOT BE ERASED," and telling men to get out of her house when they try to use offensive sexist terms, you already know what you're getting into.

And it probably kind of turns you on.


Anyway, that's that. Don't marginalize minorities or be a sexist poop this week okay? Also stay away from the mindset that activists are too over-the-top, because really, friends, everyone under that top is doing jack shit for the movement and it's never an easy battle.

Oh and the person I'm admiring from afar shared some knowledge, on Facebook, this week, that I was especially happy about (in fact, one may say that I freaked out on seeing him post this), because I've studied this in-depth and it's one of my favorite psychological THINGS. So, it's connected. Enjoy:

"'Repressive desublimation' is a term German philosopher Herbert Marcuse employs to describe the process whereby people unknowingly give over their liberties to tyrants in favour of material or sensual satisfactions. At first glance, the term seems oxymoronic. Why? Because in Freudian psychology, 'sublimation' refers to the process whereby a natural human drive (eg sex) is transferred or 'sublimated' into a more socially acceptable form (eg film or music). 'Desublimation', however, posits the reverse. It�s when the subject is allowed unrestricted, direct access to their desires (eg porn, rape).

"By attaching the seemingly contradictory modifier of 'repressive', Marcuse thus challenges common sense to come to terms with the potentially repressive effects of desublimation. In other words, when the gratification of immediate material and sensual needs becomes the prevailing concern of men, then the ideals of freedom and democracy have no chance."

Weird source, but explains correctly.

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I think we all kind of understand the tendency of cats to lock onto and spend the whole night rubbing on that one person in the room who has a deathly feline dandruff allergy. That's what cats do. They find the person who doesn't want anything to do with them, and they express their love only for that person.

Children are my cats.

Disclaimer: I love children. I think they are wonderful. But, I have no urge to have children, personally, AND being around them makes me kind of nervous, for some reason.

They realize this and run, full speed, towards my unwanting arms.

Yesterday, there was a local fireworks show in my hometown, and I was up there for the weekend, anyway, because SURPRISE I'm turning 21 on Tuesday. So, I decided to go with my friend Meagan and her family (I asked my mum to come, but she didn't want to)--and Meagan has two younger sisters, but the older of the two has met me, and the younger I assumed, correctly, would be shy.

The problem was the friend. Meagan's sister was sitting in her lap, so her sister's friend comes waddling over, assesses the situation, and then decides to plop down into my lap like it's casual freaking Friday, and I freeze and look at Meagan with an expression that roughly read, "WHAT. HOW. WHY. WHAT."

So I'm about to be like, Yoooo where is your mommy and daddy, when the punk turns around and goes, "You're pretty."


Fast forward fifteen minutes, I'm explaining why the moon matters to us to a complacent little girl in my lap. I'm trying to keep it simple. "You know at the ocean, how the tide goes in and out?"

"Yeah."

"The moon makes it do that."

"Oh. That firework was really close to the moon. I hope it doesn't blow it up."

"The moon's pretty tough, I think it will be okay."

BUT IN THE MEANTIME CAN YOU NOT?

The parents came and found her, after enjoying the fireworks show--they didn't care. I didn't really think it was that bizarre, either, but that's mostly because of the constant stream of babysitting job offers I get from total strangers. I'm not kidding about the cat thing.

Something about me and kids, man. They know.


So that's your fun fact for the 21st of April.

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Any given person would define my town as a city. We have an awesome downtown area, a great nightlife, and the traffic to match--not to mention the squished-in population and huge hoards of tourists. I guess, at first, people kind of take that to heart: A lot of our new students' parents get worried about their kids living in a "city environment," not only because of the crime (which we do have), but because of how overwhelming they think it might become.

This whole city knows damn near everyone. If you're out there for more than a couple days, you'll have a network bigger than what you'll know to do with. We have movie nights in the giant local park with all our favorite vendors (and yes, the whole city loves very specific vendors), and we have amazing restaurants with photos up of all their favorite guests--and some of these places give their frequent customers free drinks, pasta, and whatever else they feel like. We sit down and talk to our guests, at the bed and breakfasts. We hear stories about depression, and marriage, and childbirth, and a billion other things that you wouldn't expect to hear from strangers. You can run into anyone you know, in the shopping district--even people you didn't know were visiting. Even when you're also just visiting. And city people walking around the busy streets always remember to smile when they make eye contact with a passerby, because that's just us.

That's the south.

I used to think that my life was meant to be spent in New York City, or San Francisco, or somewhere...you know. Big. Busy.

There's just something to being able to sit out on the piazza in a big rocker, a glass of sweet (and I mean sweet) tea to the side, katydids whirring all around, and watch the sun go down. It's slower, here. People smile and make conversation and get involved with strangers' lives and conversations. We are what we drink--extra sweet.

And I don't think I appreciate it enough, sometimes.

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I want to hang out. Go to a park, sit there, swing, lay in the grass, eat a picnic. Go out to eat and not worry about him paying, for the love of all that is scientific! I just want something that doesn't put pressure on either of us. Enough with the gender roles, enough with the games, enough with the way society does it. I hate dating. I want to spend time with someone without feeling like he's slowly purchasing my affections. Just...buy me things because you like me so much that you want to. Not because it's expected.

I'm so sick of dates. I feel like there's something greater than an ambient candle between me and my dates.

And enough with the bullshit about a woman of "quality" being expensive on a date (and worth it).

THAT SOUNDS LIKE SHE IS A PROSTITUTE DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT WE AREN'T GOODS TO BE PURCHASED. DATES ARE NOT A SERVICE.

-.-

All the older ladies in my life pressure me to go on "real" dates and let the guy pay, because I guess that's what defines my femininity and worth, but screw it. I just want to meet at the beach and splash around while I'm getting to know someone.

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