i feel like i was just physically assaulted.

i'm a temp, and i'm working at a neat little textile company in northern rhode island, doing orders and customer service. most of the people i've met are really sweet, and while i'm fairly sure none of them are gay, i don't feel weird or awkward around them. i'm not about to come out, but i don't feel like i *have* to hide it (say, the way i did when i was working at a catholic college, yanno?). so where i'm sitting is this small office with just me and one other dude (ironically the only person in the office i think could possibly be gay) and it's not at all on the way to or from anything-- we don't get a lot of visitors, we just sit and chat and make phone calls and freak out about customers all day. it's brilliant.

so yesterday while i was the only one in here, this random woman came in and just, out of nowhere, started flapping her jaw about her daughter's first communion-- like talked my ear off for fifteen minutes when i gave absolutely NO indication that i was interested (because i was really busy, also b/c i think the idea of taking your seven-year-old to a hairdresser and a nail salon for her first communion is fucking ludicrous). now, people who can't take social cues make me nervous to begin with-- i have my own brand of social anxiety, and people who won't just leave me the fuck alone when i'm sending blatant DO NOT WANT vibes kind of scare me. i was hoping that would be a one-time encounter and that perhaps by the next time i saw her i'd be able to make a convenient getaway.

today she came into the office again and started chatting about her evening-- again, *totally out of the blue* as if we were picking up a conversation that had left off five minutes ago. and in the process of today's fifteen-minute monologue, this woman managed to casually insult gay people, black people, hispanic people, single parents, jewish people and muslims without even realizing she was doing it. like, "so-and-so her husband left her for a gay guy, tchahahaha," trying to share this conspiratorial chuckle with me, not at the expense of the poor woman whose husband is *GASP* a fag now, but at the sheer lunacy of gay men in general. and "so-and-so has kids from three different guys and isn't married to any of them! *pointed look of disapproval*" it just went on. by the time she left my heart was racing and i honestly felt like i was on the point of hyperventilating if she'd stuck around any longer.

the worst part was the assumption that i shared her views. she mentioned several times about how the foster child her sister is housing at the moment isn't baptized-- "that might be okay if you're, like, jewish, but YOU KNOW, dot dot dot"-- and seemed amazed when i didn't commisserate. i'm really glad i have more self-control than i did three or four years ago; twenty-one year old emily would've stood up and said "well you're talking to an agnostic pansexual who may be white but sure as hell isn't scared of getting swine flu from hispanic people, so maybe you should rant to someone else." and then she'd have gossiped, and i probly would've lost the placement.

it's been almost an hour, and i still feel jumpy, jittery, the way i do when i don't eat for hours. i'm finding it so hard not to hate her; i know she has absolutely no fucking clue what she just did to me, and that if i tried to explain it to her she would not understand. it's really not her fault, or at least i can understand why she's ignorant. she was raised a conservative catholic in rural rhode island, and she's lived here her whole life. she doesn't know how to be anything else. it's not her fault. but god damn, i am really having a hard time not judging the society that continues to churn out these ignorant-minded people with their heels stuck so hard in cement that they don't even want to realize there's another way to think of the world, let alone actually change their own views and biases. my best friend says she wants not to have to tell people she's gay the way straight people don't have to tell others they're straight; that there shouldn't be an assumption one way or another. i couldn't agree more. i just don't know what to do with myself when confronted with stuff like this-- i guess it's a byproduct of having lived for so many years in a place where you were the odd one out if you /were/ straight.... but i don't have the skills yet to find a kind way of telling people like that that their assumptions are leading them to speak in a way that is extremely hurtful to me... and i'm not secure enough not to be afraid of being judged, even if i did have the words to say it. at least not at work, i'm not... when something besides my job hangs in the balance, i could care less. but i've already lost one job i liked because of a bigoted uber-christian supervisor, and i really don't care to have it happen again.

as a corrollary, i really wish there were a way to explain to livejournal that this, this level of shock and assault, is how gay people feel every single time one of those fucked-up anti-gay NOM ads appears on a journal they're reading. it's not happened to me yet, but just knowing it's there makes me scared. that's not okay. lj used to be my safe space; with that shit out there, it feels like less of one. (for those who might not know what i'm talking about, read here and here. even if i weren't good friends with a trans guy, this would set me frothing at the mouth.)

ok.... time to look at lolcats or something to make myself feel better again.

♥
emily

motherfuckers, i had the weirdest stupidest shittiest dreams last night, not even scary ones just TIRING ones, and woke up feeling like i hadn't slept.

AND I HAD BEEN SO TIRED I WENT TO SLEEP W/O WATCHING BSG. STILL.

tonight i better sleep fucking awesomely with no dreams, cus i swear, my subconscious is gonna get a fucking beatdown otherwise.

also woke up to like 298729384 texts from my ex about why i hadn't read/replied to the email she sent me on saturday. spent first two hours of morning @ work trying to construct careful, kindly worded reply to the effect of 'please stop being a possessive freak kthx'... then remembered she doesn't have any of my stuff anymore, and therefore there is no need to beat around the bush, so just scrapped it and basically wrote her ten lines that was like 'you're being crazy, fucking lay off me, you nutter'. was really liberating.
eta : 7pm and she just called me. for serious, what the fuck is this? what part of "broken up" do you not get? UGH.

going after work to get the sequel to 'lies of locke lamora'. fucking insane how much i loved that book-- and technosage reminding me how awesome locke and/or jean would be on tr didn't help. :E :E :E *noms her face*

kay... 20 min til end of day. i can do this. -.-

listening to clips of protesters at the prop 8 hearings on npr this morning brought me to tears. it's just so hard... the prospect that this is what could set a precedent for the entire country, instead of MA's example being replicated.... and even worse, hearing a woman talk about how she was standing and protesting on the spot where she and her wife were married last year, and how their marriage could be overturned/invalidated if this is upheld.... also, i kind of hope someone kills kenneth starr in his sleep. way to sound like the hugest most pompous uppity conservative cunt in the world. he sounded like he was doing a shitty cool hand luke impression, for chrissakes. "what we have heaaah... is a failyaah... to unnerstand that homos.. don't.. desuuurve equal rights.." alskdfjkdj. DIAF.

on the other hand, the dude screaming out "YOU CAN'T IGNORE A RIGHTEOUS QUEEN" at the conservative protesters made me laugh my ass off. :}

mkay.... back to work.

so i've been reading stephen king, and after hearts in atlantis i kind of understood why linaeloisetook is so nuts about the 60s. i guess i never really got it before, or haven't thought about it since the last time i watched 'forrest gump', but it really just smacks you in the face, that book. what the hell are we doing with ourselves? in a time when we have just as much of a chance to change things as kids our age did in the 60s, why are we just sitting back and watching MTV?

and it all boils down to john fucking mayer. stupid little cunty whiny man-- that first hit off his new album has pissed me off for a while, every time i hear it i think 'wtf does that mean, waiting on the world to change? why fucking wait, why not go out and change it your goddamn self?' it's all 'one day our generation is gonna rule the population' yeah and what, create more self-absorbed drug-addicted fat lazy consumer whores? greeeeeeeeeeat. and then today i heard a new mayer track which was, if possible, even worse! 'we're never gonna win the world / we're never gonna stop the war / we're never gonna beat this / if belief is what we're fighting for' -- and yeah, okay, i realize that in a sense he's saying the same thing as the pascal quote on my profile -- men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction -- but at the same time it's like what do we have left? the ratio of people who are smart enough and idealistic enough to want to change the world, to the number of people who are actually willing to get outside their comfort zone and act on those ideas... it's appallingly small.

sai king says that the 60s were special because it was the first time in history that a group of young people had the tools and the conviction to change the world and they actually took it and made it happen. he says we have the same opportunities now that they did then-- moreso, even, because there are more of us now-- but we choose not to act. i refuse to accept that-- i REFUSE to subscribe to the john mayer mentality that sits back and says sure, once the world changes i'll start caring again. 'we just feel like we don't have the means to rise above and beat it'?? are you fucking kidding me??? you have the means-- we all have the means. and john fucking mayer above so many of us because he has 29384792387 hojillion dollars that he could donate to a hundred different nonprofits or organizations or politicians to actually help stop this sooner rather than on 01/21/09. if it's so fucking 'hard to beat the system when you're standing at a distance' then fucking STOP STANDING AT A DISTANCE AND GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS DIRTY. he said on npr a few months ago 'demanding somebody do anything in this day and age is not going to fly - kids don't even like being talked to like kids anymore, you know. just give me the option and i'll think about it.' it makes me so angry i could spit. like, why don't people GET that if we all stopped having that 'it's not a fair fight so why bother' attitude we could actually DO something about it? it makes me want to spit. or light something on fire.

and really, i'm not saying i'm a paradigm of anti-war protest. i bitch about bush and haven't done anything to 'damn the man' as it were other than donate to EMILY's list and make sure i stay living in the most liberal state in the goddamn country. but i'm realizing i can't live with myself if i don't do something else-- i'm not sure what it will be yet but you can bet i'll be looking out for it.

and one last thing-- if john mayer thinks he can compete with stuff like this or this......... he's not only lazy, he's fucking delusional. the man wrote 'your body is a wonderland' for fuck's sakes... let's get a little realism here..........

okay. are there really so few decent people left in the world? i cannot believe the insanity of the bullshit that just keeps piling itself onto my life.

so lindsay's roommate is this guy in his mid-30s who, we've come to discover, has about the maturity level of a 15 year old. he's defensive and petulant and every time there's an issue about the apartment (ie: when he was using the dining room as a second bedroom and half the room was covered in his laundry) he takes everything personally and is generally a whiny, wanky baby about it.

when we got home from t-day on sunday night his cat, who has heretofore treated us with disdain and the occasional hiss, was postal and attacked both of us, completely unprovoked. when linds talked to him about it later on when he got home, he reacted with his usual defensive bullshit, refused point-blank to keep the cat locked up while he was out of the apt (because as soon as he got in the cat started acting totally normal, of course) and linds was just like okay, look, this isn't working, i can't deal with this level of insanity every time there's an issue about the apartment, i think maybe you should move out. cus he's not on the lease, this was basically just like a mutual favor they were doing each other, whatever. she tells him she'll give him a month to move out, he sort of sullenly assents, whatever.

then yesterday he calls her landlord and tells him i'm living there illegally. the landlord calls lindsay and tells her that both the guy and i have to be out by sunday or he'll have to evict her.

so, come sunday, i'm homeless, thanks to this whacked-out childish motherfucker. now, the landlord nicely offered to let me apply to be lindsay's roommate legitimately, which is cool b/c no place else is likely to give me a lease, and this way i'll have landlord history and stuff, but in the interim i can't be living there. also, i don't really know if i want to sign a lease to permanently live with someone i've been dating for 2 months. i mean, it's not like the relationship is ending anytime soon, but still. we both very much want to live alone, we just can't afford it. if i don't move in, i'm homeless and she has to break her lease cus she can't afford the place on her own.

what the fuck. i fucking hate this.

at least today's my day off. i plan to spend it in hedonistic bliss. and if that fucker or his cat come anywhere near me, i'm going to set them both on fire.

that is all.

( mini-rant about cursingCollapse )



tired. so. fucking. tired.

even when i try to go to bed early, it just bleedin' doesn't happen. so afraid i'm going to fall asleep on the bus again, or worse, when i go upstairs to change my clothes i'm going to sit on my bed and conk out like i did yesterday. please god, let me not be getting sick.......

also. lj needs to come up with a feature whereby you can register that you own certain journals and therefore can post as them without logging out and in. ie: i am killerbeautiful but i also own sinistrata and pronged and aig_neidr, and would REALLY DAMN APPRECIATE being able to update them without the annoying login/logout business.


now, having ranted this, i'm sure someone's going to pop up and say 'but emily, you stupid girl, that DOES exist and it was right under your nose the whole time!' but hey, that's what rants are for, to get better informed.

IT IS LIKE 40 DEGREES IN MY OFFICE KTHX WHY DID I LEAVE MY SWEATER AT MOUNT HOLYOKE.

some of that honesty that's been going around. this is unnerving, but i want to do it, just be patient with me. i'm only human, and usually a pretty scared one at that.

also, if i didn't mention you, it doesn't mean i hate you. the people i speak to here are people that i either have something to say to that i've been afraid to say, or people who i'm afraid may feel neglected because i don't always pay attention. if you want me to say something to you, request! XD i like giving out good feelings, especially when i'm in a good mood.

( my policy of truth...Collapse )

wow, i'm impressed, i got through that without feeling like there was anything i'd have to take out and put under a wussy anonymous heading. i guess i really don't have that many bones to pick with people, though, i mean i'm not angry with anyone so nothing i said above was vicious or anything like that. but it was good for the soul - also to go thru my flist and go "oh, yeah, i haven't commented to her in about 92835 years." >_> hopefully i'll be a little more dedicated about commenting from now on.

::sighs:: time for dinner and the rest of my movie. in and out to ninesickles, and i'll leave AIM on as well. ping me if you want to talk, about anything i said here or anything else.

hope mom brings home something good from the market.... god i'm such a homebody these days...

dude from I.T. came in about an hour ago, turned on the computer, heard the european police siren noise and made the kind of face most people make when they see roadkill that obviously used to be someone's pet. he looked at me like i'd run over little fluffy on purpose, and said "i'll be right back" in a very cold tone. he disappeared and five minutes later came back with a tool belt on and a very determined face. he dove under my desk and fiddled; i heard screws being taken out, things being snapped into or out of place, a lot of banging and a bit of cursing. ten minutes later he emerged, still looking v. put out, and restarted the computer with no problem. he left and didn't tell me what went wrong or why. [wanker] i just wanted to follow after him and be like "HELLO, I DID NOT DO THIS, IT STARTED IT FOR NO REASON, PLZ TO BE STOPPING THE HATE." graaagh.



can i also say how much i fucking hate having to go to work when you are sick. what. the. fuck. i said this to someone yesterday, that there should be a such thing as calling in sick to life- where you can just make people forget you exist so you aren't missed and you can just stay in bed and fucking sleep all day.

coffee or drinks or dinner or something with lying_solo and peglegmeggs after work today. word. as long as i stop feeling like all food is going to make me sick, i'll be great. seriously though, as much as a 2.5 day work week sucks for the paycheck, if it was really only tuesday right now i would honestly consider killing myself.

i'm going to buy a corset tomorrow. maybe even today. XD i'm on this kick right now where i enjoy being dressed up, and i want a corset real bad after seeing what cineophilia's did to her figure- even if nobody sees it, i like the feeling of wearing it, and i like knowing i look better in my clothes. i tried one on two days ago and jesus, i had a WAIST. it was incredible. the question now is just, do i get the sheer black with little pastel applique flowers, or the black satin with the white ribbon laces? >___>

i just have to say this because i'm amused by it- at 8 am i drew the two of swords. 11:30 i drew the four of swords. it is, therefore, a sword day, but unfortunately not a red day, and the sun is nowhere in sight. ::still wants to be theoden king:: maybe someday i'll get bored and actually write bernard hill that letter i planned all those months ago. :D


darkasphodel and i are discussing bad movies. 'house of the dead' was first on my list, lol to those unfortunates that watched it with me... what else do you guys think? worst movie ever, let's hear it. i'm sure there are depths i can't even imagine it's possble to sink to.......

Attn: Sen. Miller (R) Indiana,

REMOVE HEAD FROM SPHINCTER, THEN GOVERN.


"We did want to address the issue of whether or not the law should allow single people to be parents. Studies have shown that a child raised by both parents - a mother and a father - do better..."

and once you've digested THAT gem......

When asked specifically if she believes marriage should be a requirement for motherhood, and if that is part of the bill's intention, Sen. Miller responded, "Yes. Yes, I do."


hm.

Xref this entry re: laws in america. thanks.

[[the article in question is here.]]

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