I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them.

Hey, welcome to my Livejournal.

My journal is friends only for my safety. The unlocked posts are not representative of what actually happens in my LJ. However, as of June 25th, 2006, all essays will be public posts.

I swear, rant, change my mind, and gloat on a regular basis.

Please note that I sometimes post possibly triggering things, and my policy on cutting them is that I don't, unless someone asks me to. So if you see something that you find triggering, please tell me, and I'll certainly cut it as soon as I am able.

If you would still like to be my friend, please comment.

I am a very sweaty human. I work out and suddenly, my body decides to eject all moisture via my pores. It is sort of disgusting.

As proof, when I came home from tennis tonight, everything I was wearing, with the exception of my sneakers, were soaked. With sweat. It was nasty. Granted, I biked to tennis and then played several sets in the sun before biking back. But I remain sweaty human being. An active, sweaty, human being.

I have never ever gained that lovely mythical equilibrium touted by deodorant companies, where you are just dewy when you exercise, not drenched in sweat. It generally looks something like this:



I look nothing like that. I look more like this:



When did I learn that it wasn't ok to sweat when exercising? That my body's natural reaction to me being hot is something to be ashamed of. Why do I see so many women in my local gym not exerting themselves to the point of sweating? And those of us who do, it's almost like a secret club. We nod at each other, as if to say, "You're a sweaty human, I'm a sweaty human. We are here to sweat via exercise."

Granted, some of us are more dewy humans. But honestly, why is this a hang up for me? I am human, I like being active which causes perspiration. Why do I feel ashamed of it?

It's one of those ways that you're told you must be a girl or girl like in society. Can't be too active so you sweat a lot but you can't not be active, so you have to find this happy middle ground where you still hate your body for holding you back, but you can't just let go because then the patriarchy will kick you back into line via your female friends, your co-workers, media, and expectations.

So, to that I say, I was active today. I played my best tennis game yet, I biked, I walked, I drank lots of water, and my body is happy and sweaty, and the fact that I sweat through my sports bra and my t-shirt is a goddamn trophy saying I exerted myself and did a good job. That's all that matters, isn't it?

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Since I work at a Religious University, I am mandated as part of my contract to participate in certain religious ceremonies that directly relate to the university's activities. This weekend we had Baccalaureate prior to graduation. The sermon text was 1st Corinthians 13, which used to be a personal favorite. Now, the sermon actually had very little to with the passage, which is a pet peeve of mine, but that's neither here nor there and gave me time to think, which was nice.

For those of you who are not so religiously inclined, 1st Corinthians 13 is known as the love chapter. It presents and idealized view of love that is focused on service to others. It is commonly read at weddings because hey, it's the love chapter. As a young'un, I tried to live up to that ideal.

I've been really religious, not so religious and now I'm more of a strong agnostic than anything else, which has sort of happened over the past 6 months to year or so. A lot of the mental wrangling I've been doing recently has been encountering religion from the outside, which I'd never really done before, and questioning it. For instance,the idea that humanity is fatally flawed, which is actually a kinda horrible way to look at the world, because it assumes without intervention (divine, preferably), people are awful and will be horrible as a default. And I know I fall into that mental trap a lot. That's where 1st Corinthians 13 comes into play.

Basically, living up to that specific ideal is impossible and trying can make you unhappy because you spend so much time caring for others that you don't bother with yourself and then you spend your time sacrificing for others and not getting anything in return besides the assumption that you just do that and have no needs besides doing things for others out of love or a need to feel that you are being loving. Not to mention, after a bit, you start to believe that's the way you should be.

I think that I took things so literally that the only thing I wanted from relationships was to give, not any of the take and was attempting to be totally selfless. Thus the wonderful doormat impression that I do. It's part of the reason I'm very cautious of friends now, in that I don't know how to make friends very well without that doormat attitude and I assume the worst of people. Obviously this isn't the case for everyone, but I took shit kinda literally and that much literalism isn't good for the mind.

Tl;Dr: I used to believe, but now I don't really. I didn't question and now I do. I'm trying not to be a doormat anymore.

I don't like remembering that I was happy once, a long time ago. Happiness never lasts, and when it goes, it just reminds you how miserable you are now. It's like this stupid shining bubble of hope. I wish I didn't remember being happy. I wish I'd never been happy since it's so far away now and won't come again. It's not something I can learn, and therefore, I don't deserve it and it will never stay.

I don't deserve happiness, and never did and I wish the memories would just go away.


(Um, this is what goes on in my head when I go kinda crazy. 1-31-2010)

I just did a tiny little Flist clean. If you were removed accidentally, please tell me. I was only trying to remove deleted journals, not used ones.

The stairs look like they've been there forever,
cracked and gray stone winding through the trees
that have sprouted in the large rock.
I feel that I have disturbed something in the shade,
That my scraped knees and ill fitting shorts do not belong
and will never belong in the shadows of rocks and trees
With the whispers of the river and the lake
Softly telling me that this quiet beauty
Is for those I cannot see.

I've sort of had these ideas rolling about for a few days. Mainly, our standards of beauty are screwed up beyond belief. We continually criticize ourselves(See Heidi Montag, who recently got 10 surgeries at once to look nothing like herself) and the culture encourages it (see Christina Hendricks' recent press coverage). We are sold things that solve problems we didn't even think we had.

Therefore, I would like to declare a moratorium on saying bad things about yourself.

Please tell me in the comments, what you like best, in detail, about your physical appearance. You can pick more than one if you can't decide.

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One of the reasons I adore what I do is the way that history is right there. The proof of what was said and done is on paper in front of you, and no matter how many years have passed, by reading and touching documents are a way to connect to others that you have nothing in common with, who you know nothing about, except that the information they knew was transferred to paper.

Needless to say, not everyone's information is that interesting. I really don't need to know about the issues with a military base, specifically ones that relate to plumbing. I don't really care that much and when you're reading pages of budgets, it isn't really information that really strikes you.

But sometimes, you read stories of such impact that it changes the way that you perceive the power of documentation.

Today, I worked on a file that contained first hand accounts from survivors of the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. First hand accounts of people who had lost family and friends, and watched them be gunned down in front of them. It's horrific, and sad, and horrible. When the accounts were written, many of the survivors were in their 70s or 80s. These were some of their last accounts of what happened there.

Documents tell stories. Some of them are just more obvious than others. The issue of plumbing at a Military base has a story behind it. Documents breath life into history and point to other stories that are waiting to be told.

Sometimes I forget that.

~~

I haven't even made it to reading the testimony in front of the sub-committee on Indian Affairs yet, so tomorrow could be a tad gory.

I am hardly an expert, so this is going to be an extremely odd post.

Like so many things, it's been sort of drilled into my head that it was something I could not do, because it just "wasn't [me]." For instance, dancing seemed like something "bad girls" did. It involved moving one's body in odd ways, and titillating an audience. Or it was art, like ballet. And since I was fairly certain I couldn't do ballet, dancing was out of the question. This was not helped by me actually having all the grace of a baby giraffe with 4 left feet (I broke my toe tripping over nothing. Tell me that doesn't take some massive stores of awkwardness right there).

To be honest, I never liked dancing in high school or junior high, when most kids get on their dancing shoes. My arms and legs never seemed to want to go where they were supposed to (i.e. not hitting some other poor kid), and not to mention, body issues made me not really want to call attention to myself. I didn't learn to like dancing until I actually went to a club with some friends when I lived in England. And it was fun. The music was loud, I had had a drink, and I got down, awkwardly, with my bad self. But I haven't danced much since, besides doing silly dances in my kitchen (I am a master at silly kitchen dances).

Which brings us to this week. As some of you may know, I recently got a bellydance DVD. After it arrived, it took me about 20 minutes to decide if I really wanted to try it. I am slowly working my way through bits of the DVD, and got to learn how to do undulations today. Needless to say, I didn't tell my parents, because omfg they would lose their shit. And on Wednesday, I went to my first dance class.

Class was fun, but apparently, I am not believable when I say I've never really danced before. As in, apparently I can pass for someone who has had dance classes. I mean, I'm taking the compliment with a hefty grain of salt, because, HA, I'm not that good after two weeks of DVD practice.

But on the other hand, if the instructor wasn't being overly flattering, then there's another thing that I was told I could not pick up with a bit of effort, that apparently I can do and pick up with a bit of effort.

So, neener, parental units. I can totally dance and apparently have always have been able to.