Crutch

Ok I need to let off a little steam here.

I'm going to admit it- Yes, I have a boyfriend. But it's complicated because he's in Japan and I'm here. So we've been "dating" by talking every day for the last 4 months for about 4 hours every day. That's a lot of time.

I think he's very smart and we are very very very similar. This is becoming a problem. Because, even though I think I'm pretty mature in relationships (at least I've worked hard to be communicative and patient and loving), why is it I always end up feeling like I'm the man? Yes, there is an age difference here, he's 5 years younger than me and I normally HATE younger men. Even by a day. This one though, I though was mature enough and experienced enough in long-term relationships that he could wear the pants. And really, in the beginning, it seemed that way. I would tell him about my fears and frustrations and he could handle them brilliantly and confidently. He was a man.

Now though... for the last few weeks there has been this distinct change signified by fights. Not fights initiated by me, I know this because 90% of the time I have to think to myself, "Just apologize, smile, and try to find a better way to communicate. It's probably just cultural. I'm sure we just had a miscommunication." I'm calm. Or at least I try to be. But then it spins out of my control again and I really can't keep the peace for so many hours on end.

On Valentines day it got to be so bad with no end in sight I broke down and yelled. This is what I hate the most, I yell and he gets quiet. I don't want to have a screaming match, I just want to get my point across and have a normal conversation to help fix it. But he just listens. and listens. and then he looks like he's about to cry and apologized for being such a "bad boyfriend". I don't think he's a bad boyfriend, I just want a conversation. Was he listening or is he just sorry that he made me so mad? And Most of the time these days I don't even know where these arguments are coming from. Even before they get too heated I recognize there is an issue and I say, "I'm sorry if I communicated that wrong, all I wanted was to tell you a story I thought was funny." But suddenly he's angry and it's not until an hour later that he tells me (probably at the moment of his realization) that the reason why he's trying to correct me in how I dealt with a classmate, is because he's jealous of the classmate. How is that possible? The story was about how much I HATE that guy. That was the entire purpose!!!

But he gets into these modes where I have no idea what to do. I really think that if I'm patient and kind and loving that we can work it out and talk about it. But he says my calm tone is condescending. If it is, it's probably because I'm trying to stay calm when I'm really very upset. I just don't want my upset and misunderstandings to take over my actions. Is that horrible? I thought it was just being mature.

You know once he was angry with me because I shook my head when we were talking? He said that when I make confused faces like that it looks like I'm not listening or that I think he's stupid. What's the solution to that? I stop shaking my head? I try not to let confusion show on my face? I'm sorry but.... WTH.

So I have to explain, "No, I don't think you're stupid and I promise I am listening. I just didn't understand what you meant." But I get this anger in my stomach and it's getting worse and worse.

The thing is, I need support. This graduate school thing is really tough and I feel like I don't have the emotional energy to always be trying to think ahead and control MY FACE for example or remember to nix every conversation that I had with a guy (my TA who is engaged is included). I feel like all I do is wrong for some reason I don't understand. And I can't seem to locate the source of this masculine PMS fast enough to avoid it. Can't we just talk? I've put a lot of my hopes on this one really working out. I'm really making plans to adjust my life to this guy.

And let me tell you, living in Utah at this time of my life, I've never felt more:
OLD
SINGLE
AND ALONE
before. I mean that both physically and intellectually. I'm not a Utah-girl and there is very little here that makes me feel at home. My classmates are not supporting me intellectually as I had hoped. And even though there are plenty of Asian people on campus, they're all so young and distant it's not like I can talk to them. I really feel alone here if it wasn't for someone to talk to at nights. (Where the Hell is Jeremy? Good question. About once a month he calls me so drunk out of his mind he can't even remember what he said the day before. and I really thought we were friends.)

Due to the intense nature of my program, I've fallen significantly behind in my Japanese studies. So it's like I'm having these horrible vacillations between having to master all this super high english for communications classes, to feeling dumb as a rock in Japanese.

So I'd like to depend on this guy. I'd like to. But these days.... Look, I can't even tell him all this because if I did, I'm sure he'd be very upset and apologize over and over and then claim what a horrible person or boyfriend he is and he's so so so sorry. But there are no solutions in that, I don't need or want an apology. and I don't want to bring this up because honestly I don't know what the exact problem is. I'm just tired of being everyone else's emotional crutch.

And I have to admit... because of the feelings I outlined, I really think if this relationship doesn't work out, I may really never get married. Never.

OBTUSE MEN

I'm so frustrated by such a wasted day I can't sleep.
First I get tricked into spending a whole afternoon with Austen when I was promised we'd play Settlers, then I call back Dad who tells me I have to read 60 pages by Wednesday night which is exciting to him and not enough time for me, then ** calls right after and we talk for hours...or I do. Because I'm SOOOOOOO entertaining despite that I'm mad so I do my bad habit of running intllectual circles around him to prove to myself that it's a waste of time (I even mentioned that I was sorry for doing so because I was mad several times and he didn't even ask why), and then right after that Jeremy finally wants to talk on skype and that dude wastes my time. He won't tell me why he's sick, he won't appologize for not "being there" when I needed him, next he observes that my eyes look puffy in the latest profile photo I was proud of... (he can't say anything nice... he just has this compulsion to make sure I remember how imperfect I am) then precedes to ask me stupid questions every 20 minutes he already knows the answers to because he's too busy gaming to have a real conversation with me. To close, he then informs me that the reason the photo must be doing well is it makes my rack look huge. Which totally destroys any idea I might have had that maybe my FACE might be pretty when I've been so insecure about my acne and moles all week.

I just closed my computer without saying goodnight and tried to sleep. I'm terrified of the coming week. I feel remarkably alone, and now I can't even get the sleep I need to wake up early tomorrow so I can get my job done in time...

I know they said grad school would be isolating but I didn't expect it would be because everyone I talked to would be so oblivious.

Death Ribbon

This blog is a place to put my darkest thoughts right? When emotions run high and I just have to get it out? I'm going to write extemporaneously here and I don't have much of an idea about where it's going to go after I write down the thought that prompted it. But when I do, just nobody freak out, okay? It's just thoughts.

I was sitting feeling guilty again and wrapping this black ribbon around my fingers and I thought, "I wonder if my life will end in suicide?" In my head I pictured hanging myself with that black ribbon. Maybe an elegant replacement for a rope.

The concept of ending my life comes easily to me. The desire to be no more doesn't scare me at all. It's the actual process of going through with such a thing that keeps me alive I think. Even as a teenager I could never agree with myself about how to best go about such a thing because of how messy it would be. Sometimes when I feel intensely guilty and I curl up into a ball- even if I'm not alone, I feel depressed enough that if I had decided on a method of execution, I might go through with it. Sometimes I think that. There is probably a lot of other things involved in the process that would most likely halt me from really doing anything about it. Like thoughts of family, or hope of maybe I'm wrong to feel so bad. When I think that maybe I could be FORGIVEN however, the thought is swept aside. In that state of depression, forgiveness isn't even an option.

I know I am miles away from God right now. I have been for a while. I'm better than I was a few months ago and much better than I was when recouping from losing Kai. I'm not even getting warning signs from the Holy Ghost. So maybe He's given up on me too.

I think I'm a lost cause. But I'm still alive so... I guess I have no choice but to keep breathing in and out no matter how hypocritical or truly counterproductive it is.

I'm moving to Utah. Do you think I'll heal there? Or will my baddest instincts take advantage of the solitary life that's inseparable from being graduate student? Intellectually I feel really alone. Who can explain this to me so I can understand?  Who out there is smart enough and good enough to teach me what I'm doing wrong and how to combat this vice? It feels like no one I could talk to would understand. The only people I would tell are the people already encouraging me to keep going. It's not until they see me cry that they try to tell me everything is okay. It's not okay. It's not fine. I'm less and less of a person the more often I fail. What help could they offer? I have to shoulder my own yoke. Lord, it's getting so heavy.

I can't deal with it- I don't understand it. I'm not just a lost cause, I'm just plain lost.

I'm going to see Jeremy before I leave. I'm positive I'll fail again. I'll be base and destructive and stupid and angry. After it's over, I'll regret the time spent with him and I'll always remorse what beautiful friendship we had. The best things always turn into the largest and stankiest cow-pies. I have a good memory for things like that and I don't forgive myself easily. I'm not even sure I like myself.

So what's the use? If life is pain, why would I keep enduring life? Giving up all that's associated with my life here in LA, I've got very little right now keeping me positive. Moving and packing, I'm alone all day everyday feeling worthless and unsuccessful and the feeling is deepening. I muse how deep it will get before I see the light again. How far down do I have yet to go this week before I change my life by moving to Utah? And then, as I asked before- what will that do to me?

I feel really alone tonight. But don't worry- I don't know the first thing about suicide. I think I'll just go to bed early and hope someone notices.

On a better note, I think I'm going to need to start seeing a therapist again. Maybe a physiatrist to work with me on getting better drugs for ADD. My last doctor said there is a component in Adderall that treats depression but he thinks I may need a different kind to deal with anxiety instead. Perhaps... it's the drugs that are making me feel this way. Maybe not.

I don't think so.

The Vainglorious Role of Omnipotent Observer

So, Leonard sent me another memoir including the time we spent together. Those events feel like decades ago and frankly they make me feel sick. There are a lot reasons I could go into but probably the main one is because I didn’t handle it well.  Although time and reason have convinced me that not all the problems were a result of my immaturities, it still makes me ill to remember that catastrophe.

Years ago, I read his perspective on what happened and it’s amazing to see all the holes and misinterpretations. It’s like that video with 3 people in red shirts and 3 people in white shirts passing a black and white ball. At the beginning of the video we’re asked to count the number of times the black ball is handed off and at the end we are asked if we saw the giant gorilla pass through the middle, beat his chest and walk off again. I’ll be honest, the first time I watched the film- I didn’t. I still can’t believe Leonard never heard me say that I wasn’t interested. In as plain English as anyone could state it and maybe the problem was it was TOO obvious. A gorilla? It’s amazing to me because his re-telling is so detailed it feels impossible to think he never heard what I was saying.

But the experience with Leonard and subsequent “dating” since then has taught me that people often only hear what they want to. I can be as blunt as a hammer and still never get my point across. I’ve also learned that once someone is in love with you, it’s almost impossible to expect that friendship is enough. I learned that shouting loving truths at a deaf person is useless and being kind is not always the best way to communicate. The reasoning escapes me but I just know it’s true. Best intentions are not enough to combat cognitive dissonance.

I still feel responsible for the disastrous way it ended but trying to go back and fix it now would be borderline self-abuse. Leonard is definitely far beyond any power I have to help and I’ll have to trust that God knows how best to succor His children. And I’ll have to ask for God’s forgiveness for what it’s worth.

Yeah, I’ve decided not to read what he sent me. Some things Leonard will never know about that time: how painful every single morning was waking up without Kai, or any of the other destructive things I was doing to cope, or how the dorkwad Jeremy appeared as the unlikely hero to confirm my phobias about men and simultaneously restore my faith in humanity, and most importantly HOW they did it.  You discover the world really is three dimensional when you actually live in it instead of acting a vainglorious role of omnipotent observer. I know because I was that way once. Detached arrogance is the bane of today’s single.

Depressing Snob

Which am I: stuck up or self-defeating? I’ve never been called stuck-up before but I don’t know anyone who would come right out and use that term since I was in Junior High. But it’s possible.

My nature is fighting me here at this job, I’d like to defend myself but really, what’s the point to do that when the accusation is based on silliness?

Here is the latest example: I set a meeting, I get an email from an attendee stating that my Boss sent out a cancelation and wanted to know if we needed to find another time for it.

It’s still on MY view of my boss’s calendar, but not hers. Considering the facts, obviously… my boss accidentally must have canceled it. I asked her, “Did you cancel this for a reason?” She has no idea what I’m talking about, denies she knew anything about it, I politely suggest that maybe it’s an Outlook glitch. “Casey,” she huffs, “we’ve got to communicate better- I can’t keep dealing with these Outlook things! UGG.” She’s blaming me as though I made this happen… I don’t say anything. Just agree, apologize, and sit down to re-send the event and cc her apologizing for the confusion.  

Personally, I’d like to put my hands on my hips and explain I only did what I was told. But past employment has taught me- nobody is paying to hear excuses.

Knowing that these kind of issues wouldn’t not be an issue to an assistant better than me is little comfort. The problem is here and now and I’m the one who gets to catch the hot potato. I’m waiting for a moment when I do something really well to drop the news that I’m going away to school and btw I’d like to keep this job until I leave. Seems unlikely. Maybe the news will make them want to ditch the idea of keeping me around as long as they can. Or Maybe it would reassure them that I’m not here for the long hall and proposing an end-date in August works out to secure my placement here. Who knows.

In the meantime, I still feel a twist in my stomach when stuff goes wrong. I keep thinking to myself something between modestly learning and feeling out of place and under-employed.

In general, life is just fine right now. It’s teetering a tad but not awful by any means. I’m just considering today- do I trust my thinking that I can do great things or am I really as bad as I feel?

Big Baby

I don’t think I’m fitted to understand the beauty of working for a hugely bloated company like Disney: I just had a mini talking-to. I sent an email to a set of assistants with a list of attendees. I had one named crossed out to show that particular assistant that her boss wasn’t needed anymore.

I got the blame for hurt feelings…

Yes, I feel very lucky…. So lucky…

Get away

I think I really need to get out of here. Out of the ward. Out of California. Away from everyone here. People who are getting married (LDS and not), and away from this mediocre existence. The Dorkwad is worst. In all ways, that friendship seems corrupted. To top that off, he can't even give me a warning about his new gf? How am I expected to deal with that bomb from out of no where? Like nothings changed? Of course it has and that's OK but... after all this time I don't deserve a headsup? A nod of civility in my direction? Talk about feeling used.

So officially as of last night, I have nothing to stay for. Even Masasto is finally leaving the country so if I was truely dumb enough to visit that disaster again I couldn't.

So I guess everyone is moving on from me. I'm going to leave his keys in the mailbox and just get out of here. My mother has always been a big fan of the restart button but I never was as far as it applied to relationships. But maybe this is how it manifests in me.

If everyone is going to move on, then I don't want to stay... I don't even care where I go, as long as it's not here.

Appathetic depression?

I’m soooo sick of life. If I wasn’t Mormon maybe I would have ended it by now. Unfortunately, being so aware, I know that life doesn’t actually end with death. So there’s no point in trying to stop it.

Granted, I should have no reason to complain. And I’m not. That’s why I’m writing this here instead of confiding in a friend. And who is to confide in anyway? No one who can understand or make it better. The whole thing is too wide and deep to explain and why would I burden a perfectly normal human being with long depressing tales that have no happy ending or solution? There is no answer but time for a majority of the things that plague me anyway. Best not to make it worse by talking about it. But I will mention one symptom that I’m not sure of the ailment. Whatever I’m sick with, I haven’t taken the sacrament in… 2 months? Minus of course this past weekend where I attended church with my parents in Utah. But even then I didn’t take it seriously at all, playing around with my siblings instead. I know it’s a bad thing. I know that, I do. I can’t figure out though if I’m doing it intentionally or not. Sometimes I’m just late, other times I’d just rather sit in the hall. Sometimes it’s guilt. Because I am guilty.

Sometimes I feel like I’m the opposite example of the Pride cycle. When things are going well I always remember to thank God and serve others as I can and work hard. But when everything falls apart I feel like I’m not worthy to claim any blessings at all causing me to withdraw from all good things.

So to find out what’s wrong with me, let’s make a list of NEW ailments that have surfaced in the last 30 days or so. Such problems as hating everyone are common when I’m depressed so I’ll skip those.

Symptoms are:

• I don’t go to church.
• Can’t see the floor of my room (Bad by even my standards)
• Dirty Laundry is now inching on 3 months
• Stopped communicating with/I’m avoiding  Jeremy, Alex, Austin, and pretty much every girl in my ward
• Tongue feels waxy and numb for the last 4 days. No exaggeration. I hope it’s not polio.
• Every word Lisa says grates on my nerves. Especially when she laughs.
• Entirely Consuming apathetic attitude except
• An Increasingly pessimistic and bitter against everyone with a job.
• A distinct disinterest in checking out cute guys. Huh.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do but whatever I’m doing will probably turn out wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Every day in this temp job, I’ll make another mistake. Whatever job I get after this, I’ll be a bad fit. And it’ll be another secretary position that’s “beneath” me while my friends continue to travel and move on in their lives. Taking the GRE I’ll be wrong most of the time. If I go to Grad school I’ll be the strangest girl there and I’ll probably be so lost that I’ll come out of it in the same helpless position I’m in now. If I move, I will pack the wrong way. If I eat, it will be the wrong foods. If I talk to my friends, I’ll only be circling the drain and bringing them with me.

I’m not happy enough to talk to Alex. Not pretty enough or smell good enough to hang out with Jeremy or any other asian friend, or make any decision that’s right. And as much as I believe God knows me and loves me, I sincerely doubt anything I could do would make a hill of beans difference as He seems pretty indifferent to the outcome of the choices I make. Speaking from experience here, I’m not really seeing a plan for me. Probably because there isn’t one. I just have to breathe in and out every day and… that’s it. I can try all I want to be something “successful” but in the end it’ll come down to waking up, eating, yes, no, yes, and back to bed again. Showering, cleaning, seeking, thinking over and over. And I should feel lucky that things are not worse. I should.

While I can’t see any future, my logical mind reminds me that this is probably another phase. As long as this has gone on, it probably won’t be forever. So I was just thinking that maybe if I didn’t say anything to ANYONE then… I dunno, I won’t lose anything?

Cause…… well, who cares anyway?

28 years Experience

Well I’ll never be a Damn RS President. I’ll never be a great scholar. I want to go home. Right now. Lisa says “Some things in life don't matter - in the long run. Does any of this really matter? No, how you react and treat people does matter”. This is just after she admits to letting the bosses here treat her like garbage. I don’t think you can have it both ways; you can’t expect yourself to be kind always and not expect the same decency from others. Besides which, this is a job. They pay you to be here. They are not your friends or your relief society sisters. What’s the harm? At some point I consider it throwing pearls before swine to demean yourself to these ego bloated corporate self-important jerks. Do you know why I’m not often star-struck (minus a handful of talented people)? Because I would rather see a person’s quality. Not their status. You know who I really get star-struck by? People with REAL talent or who are REALLY HONESTLY GOOD humans. But people like these who snap at you for saying the words “good morning” and don’t think twice about it are NOT the kind of people who need you to kiss up to them. Are they paying you so much to subject yourself to that kind of childish behavior? Even if they were, that’s no excuse to justify a person’s bad character. Lisa says that’s just life. But that’s why a job is a job.

That’s what I’ve learned. Because bending over backwards with kindness, hard labor, late nights, and endless patience for the egos of rotted bosses has only gotten me more late nights, more, abuse, less time with friends, more time being afraid for my livelihood and eventually getting let go. My friend Katherine who I worked so closely with for 2.5 years and who I trusted, who took me to the spa, and we had late night chats and hang outs and honest discussions about life- THAT woman, wouldn’t look me in the eye. THAT woman, signed my last check and would not stand up to defend me. Do you know why? Because she wasn’t my friend. She was my boss. Your boss doesn’t care how hard you work, as long as it looks like you’re busy. Your boss doesn’t care how late you stay as long as you’re there on time and don’t cost them OT.  Your boss isn’t interested in your growth or your progress or your ambitions or your dreams or even what you do when you get home. Because they’re paying you what they think you’re worth. Not a dime more – finically or emotionally. No wonder California has to nanny the treatment of employees. And it’s a good thing that society has made it very clear that bad behavior is to be expected from wealthy people and the only ones who teach eternal kindness are the Christians. As far as I’m concerned, Chriatianity is for all people. And those who don’t expect others to treat them with respect will be disrespected all their lives.  I know I have been.

So I’m not smart. And I’m not talented. But I’m not stupid and I’m not unkind. But I am SO done dealing with abuse like this. Take it from someone with a lifelong career of it. I should put that on my resume: 28 years Experience in handling emotional exploitation.

best

i need a new best friend. this one is broken.

I Love L.A. - A Video Tribute by Me

WE ARE NOT

I feel like I have to fix everything. In truth, I don't know what I could do to make the situation easier. I'm making my best attempts to invite and include you as often as possible, to make you feel welcomed and appreciated by me. I've complimented you, I invited you to meet my friends, I invite you to whatever and even on Sunday, when you couldn't be here I made an effort to visit you because your car broke down. I never reject or ignore you intentionally. You've jumped at me to suppose I'm meaning something more than I intended when I explain OVER AND OVER that I don't. If you feel as though I'm resisting you it might be because we are not in a committed relationship and I have no obligation to let you be close to me. If you felt resentment (although if so, I wouldn't think it's from anything I'd done recently) it's because you repeatedly ignore my requests for space. So then how am I stuck with tending to your emotions? I am having a very difficult time in my life and I am NOT at liberty to tell you all the reasons why. In fact, it's for your own good that you don't know. So how is it that I'm protecting you and I STILL get attacked?

Okay, I give up. I can't be both the emotional one and the smart one that guides you through the process of how to calm me down. Look, you're a lot smarter than me. You are going to have to tell me what I should do. Because I can't think of anything else.

True Management

I like Matt. He has a long perspective and isn’t the least bit worried. And he’s not faking it either. While I knew he had the capacity within him to give me the comfort I craved (I’m only SO smart and only have just SO much experience), it felt good to finally get it. And it’s just as I expected. He knows exactly what’s happening.

It started off by him telling me I’m too smart and talented to worry. And he said it sincerely, just the same way I say to people that they shouldn’t be sad or lonely when I can tell they were clearly meant to be married. I just know that in my gut for them. Just like I did with Eric Chen.

Matt explained to me the difference between the corporate mentality (where we look for the positive, and things are treated in a big-picture perspective like mood and introducing change at an appropriate pace), and what entrepreneurs do. Which is this mess. Huge changes without apology because, in Matt’s words, it’s a less sophisticated approach- they are not tuned in to the company mood. That’s why they’re always shocked when people are angry and confused by their decisions. It also explains to me why the seniors dislike it so much. Not what Jerry said about them being used to lazily feasting on a fat cow (my words, not his) but instead it’s because fear only works in short spurts and it doesn’t work in the corporate mentally. That’s why the seniors (even KJ) are very upset. Maybe this kind of bullying and pushing and negative attitude works for a start up, but these are NOT startup people.

Matt just made me smarter. And I feel better. Just a little.

Lucky.

It's 4am but I wanted to document this for posterity.

I just got home from watching LotR TT with Alex, Stephen, Jason, Mike, Jared, and David. I knew I didn't want to be tired the next day so I set to work falling asleep around the second disk. I managed to drift off but wasn't really asleep near the end. I was awake enough to notice he took his outer shirt off and draped it over me like a blanket (until someone offered a real one).


But here is how I know he loves me. I overheard Mike offer his newly purchased japanese candy to everyone. Alex said he'd take one. Mike encouraged, take more, take as many as you want, have 10! But he insisted, just one, just one, one is fine, I only want one.



 Half an hour later and we are dropping off the last person other than me at home. As soon as he is out of sight, Alex reaches into his pocket and pulls out the candy. It's the one he had asked for earlier. It's the same kind I dropped by accident earlier onto the street and had to throw away. He unwraps it and gives it to me. I was in the middle of my sentance and i stopped when I saw what it was.

Alex is a lot of good things, but I'd like to add to that list one of the most genuinely integral thoughtful men I've ever met. No exaggeration. I know it's a very small thing, but I was a twinge sad when I dropped it. I didn't say anything or even look sad, but all night he must have remembered it and made this plan for me. That small gift... was one of the best. And it's those kinds things that I really can't explain when people ask me about him. I really am lucky.

A Rat's Fart

My cousin is pissing me off.

She's 22 and couldn't give a rat's fart what the people who love and care about her think. She was a troubled girl born without an iota of empathy. She pretended to be suicidal and put her family through years of agony. In the end, she wasn't a danger to herself- she's a selfish brat.

I could go on outlining a number of examples of the stupid things she's said and done. Not to mention the numerous things she's posted on facebook that make me want to slam her faux pink haired head into a concrete wall. Tonight is no exception.

Lindsey (My cuz): Organized religion is modern day brainwash.

 

Ok, already I'm ticked off. What a...

John (I'm guessing he's her paternal uncle):  Thanks for basically saying a lot if your family and loved ones are idiots

 

Casey: Since when has organized religion been modern? And really rude, shortsighted, and alienating Lindsey.

 

Aiden (Her increasingly stupid little brother): I'd say 1830 is relatively modern.

 

I take a deep breath. Don't even try to mention Christianity because it bounces off black-hole brains.

Casey: To my understanding, there has been organized religion since the first literate societies such Egyptians (3150 BC) , Mesopotamians (3100 BC) who recorded their practices... Huh. Perhaps we have different understanding of the word 'organized'. You might want to explain that to Buddhists and Taoism whose first writings were produced on bamboo in the 3rd century... Pretty sure the Qur'an is dated back to 650AD... Oh, and Sumerians from 2900 BC.... Although I'm sure they're a little long gone to hear you. So hey, Facebook is probably the safest place to say it!

 

Aiden: Well, Lindsey is probably showing that it's goofy we still follow those religions seeing as how people believed in dragons and witches back then. 

 

Good grief, if you're going to insult humanity's faith. then at least know what they believed in. 

 

John: Organized religion has been around a long time. Regardless, and back to Aiden's comment, sure, people should question it, think about it and test it. I'm all about free speech and expressing yourself, but the broad generalization here may rub some people that love and care about you the wrong way. Just sayin...

 

I had faith in you John for a moment. But you backed off like a wuss. You must be unfamiliar with her antics and think this is just the fluke of a young person instead of a fully developed snot. Trust me, I'm far beyond the slap on the wrist technique. If she's willing to swing the door open for abuse, then I'm not going to let such a distasteful comment exist unchallenged. 

 

Casey: You're so right Aiden! It's just amazing how Lindsey in her 20 some odd years on Earth has unveiled the ridiculous hoax that has plagued billions of people since it's beginning some 500,000 years ago. Silly me.

 

An hour goes by and no one has said anything. Not even a like to my comments which is sad. But Damage done. I started to write this thinking it was over, but little brainless doesn't know when to quit. 

 

Aiden: In summation, nobody knows anything for sure, so we shouldn't make generalizations. Let's all just be nice! (<- agnostic="" my="" span="" view.="">

 

....Okay, I feel like I'm being trolled by stupidity. But I know from experience it's real. All too real... I prepare one last comment...

 

Casey: Personally, there are certainly things I know for sure and I can comfortably respect well-thought out opinions, studies, and personal experiences that differ from my own. But being willing to stand up for those things, I can't abide by lame blanket assertions that insult swaths of humanity living and dead. It's not just about being nice, it's about giving the smallest amount of respect for another human being and their core fundamental belief.

 

If you can believe it, I 'niced' that up by not using phrases like "give a rat's fart".  Ah, another reply comes in... 

 

Diane: I suppose it depends on your definition of brainwash...?

 

...I don't even.......

 

Service For Goodness Sake

Not that many people are, but I’m not a good person. I can go weeks without seeing any of my friends and be pretty content. I’m a poor weather friend so when someone is in need, I’m right there. A few weeks ago I saw Alli in the Valley. It was really random to run into each other half way across town. But as we caught up I could tell she was close to tears because of her recent break up. I promised I would take her out the dinner the following week. I told her joke to make her smile and I hugged her tightly before she left to let her know that she was special to me. And she is. But I can’t get myself to call her up casually to chat or join anyone at Café 50’s after FHE.

Velwyn has been living in Europe for the past few months. I still stalk her instagram and comment on her new business profile to give it a boost. But I didn’t feel comfortable when she was here to go out for tea alone just for kicks. I did offer to let her stay on my couch however for an interview she’s got next week. She’s the kind of wonderful girl who has friends everywhere but goes through life not thinking about it too much. I wish I was so brave.

But I’m not. I’ll do what service I can do but when it comes down to it- I can’t be myself. Except for Hawaii 2 years ago, I don’t think I’ve ever taken a vacation. Even during summer breaks any time there was anyone else in the room, there wasn’t a moment where I didn’t feel like I shouldn’t be doing something.

You know, when we were kids our mom came home once from shopping and started to yell at us because all the time she had been gone we didn’t think to do the dishes for her. From that point on, every time she left the house my brothers and I would clean it. I mean, clean it the best a 15, 11, and 9 year old knew how. The first time we tried to make it a surprise. The second time, we casually mentioned it to her. I remember thinking she looked a little uncomfortable with how dedicated we had become. The many times after that, we didn’t say anything at all and she didn’t either. We just did it. When she was in the house it was a little like the CEO had come for a visit and we always needed to look like we were busy. She got disappointed once when we went to the library and I picked “Murder, She Wrote” because it was too easy.

I don’t mean to tell that story to draw sympathy or excuse myself from being a self-serving person. Being afraid is really no excuse at all for selfishness- in fact it almost makes it worse. Then any kindness I do give can be interpreted as a desire to feel like I’m being a good person instead of really wanting to buoy the other person up (ironically, another characteristic of my mother). The fact that I am selfish in a different way than other people doesn’t change the fact at all.

Taking this too far, one could say that appearing happy too is then a façade instead of a harmless social obligation.

I might have taken a double dose of my medication today but I don’t remember. I feel my head warbling on my neck like all the fat from my body got stored in my skull and the top heavy crowding is keep blood from flowing to the cells that tell me I’m not a monster in a girl’s body.

Trash

You know what I am?
A weird girl.
too skinny
messy
unkempt
lazy
poor speller
failed entrepreneur
failed friend
failed financially
slow reader
with a job that works me too many hours
not in the position I want to be in
for very little money
on medication
too emotional even for an RP game
in love with a country I can't reach
on a losing political party
bad cook
weak dancer
poor dresser
afraid of people
incapable of getting into a healthy relationship
chatty introvert
dramatic
stupid
crazy.
I don't even like the Beatles.

So go ahead and get married. Have your career and your skills and great talents. Get paid ridiculous amounts of money for little to no work. Take trips and go on a cruise. Send me a hello from Oregon and Virginia and England and Hawaii and New York. Enjoy your craft. Go find better players that don't cry. I hope you're comfortable with someone else to take care of you and your needs and your home. Let your parents take care of your rent while you just go to school in fashion. Is Hawaii just TOO warm? Is your new ipad a little TOO easy to use? Just fire me or set me on fire I don't care. This life was an accident and it's just been thrashed so badly all I can see anymore is trash.

GIS v.s. Asia

*warning- this get's pretty long...*

I shouldn’t complain. But my job is frustrating me. Not that I blame any one particular person and maybe I’m just getting rubbed the wrong way by working for ‘the man’.

They’ve asked me to take on more responsibility for the digital side of the company which I would gladly do and I’ve been preparing to do, but I can’t with all these stupid assignments being thrown on top of the pile.

Yesterday, by noon my legs were killing me because I had to get up from my desk so many times to help people with their computer issues. I had to run to the back server room and crouch under desks and fiddling with boxes and wiring. I hate hardware.

You know, I don’t really feel like typing all this out even. This kind of problem is so much easier to express via voice. I feel like I have to outline all the problems in a list in order to justify my frustration and that would take so long. And I’m not really in the mood to come up with an elegant reader’s digest version. So I’m just going to pretend that everyone works with me already and knows what I’m talking about.

Last night around 5:30 Bill called to ask me to re-run an MMA report for the DMA but include more Index numbers based on nursing homes and all the zips in each NTA. Not really a big deal. But in order to help him along, I also sent him a copy of the Zip Dwelling  Report which breaks down each NTA into zipcodes and tells you the total number and the % of the entire mailed area. You’d think that was going above and beyond. Apparently not.

Katherine asked me to submit a request to GIS to give them not only that information for 4 ADDITIONAL areas but also recreate LA because that Zip dwelling report was generated by a different research company and she wants all 5 areas to MATCH when we show it to the client. So now I’ve got to submit this ridiculously overblown request to GIS and here’s the rub- I don’t actually hear about this report after I submit the request. I’m just doing the stupid donkey-ass labor to get it in. Why am I doing this? This really shouldn’t be my job when THEY are the ones who want it and they have all the same abilities I do to complete it! It would take them less time and it’s their project! But they don’t want to do the leg work. It’s hard to ‘rise to [my] potential’ with stupid backhanded requests like this.

I have ONE assignment to do yesterday and all I could manage was bouncing up and down fixing this and that. Anthony was dumb enough, he *saw* me running around like a crazy person and decided that was the moment to throw on another complaint. His phone wasn’t ringing. This wasn’t a new problem, it had been happening since he got the phone, he just thought RIGHT NOW would be the perfect time to complain about it. So I GET UP from my desk AGAIN so I can’t finish this one little project I’ve had on my desk since that morning. Guess what? It took me 3 seconds to figure out the volume on his ringer was down. It’s not even a complicated process, there’s a freakn’ BUTTON of the FRONT of the phone where if you push it one way or another, the volume goes up and down. I told him I was going to strangle him with his own Ethernet cord.

This same dude in the same day also said his excel was acting up because when he closed the window, the box that asked him if he wanted to save didn’t pop up…. So he was losing all his work. Yes, you read that correctly, he didn’t know how to FILE > SAVE. All his life on every program he has been CLOSING the program and depending on the ‘do you want to save this’ option before closing. I wanted to kill him. I hate hardware problems and I’m a bad person because I don’t like stupid questions where if the questioner had put in the SMALLEST amount of effort, could have figured it out for themselves. I feel like a baby sitter and I’m not even babysitting kids I like. At the same time, when big huge hardware problems and I can’t solve them I feel helpless and lost and everyone needs me to know everything and fix it ALL RIGHT NOW.  It’s so much pressure for something I don’t even like doing. I really don’t think this was in my job description.

But what am I supposed to be doing with my life instead. That itch to go overseas is getting unbearable. All my friends seem to travel there and back with such ease it’s almost painful to watch. My penpal from China came to see me a few weeks ago and it was so nice. He brought me gifts and trinkets and told me all about transportation and the people. He said if I ever visited him he’d take great care of me and made sure I ate the best foods.

Dave’s (you remember, that lawyer I was bonkers about last summer who told me I wasn’t international enough to date him?) mother is visiting him here in the states. And Teida’s mother (Northern China) is coming next month and I want to meet her so badly just to see her and see what she brought with her culturally and physically. Eric Chen and his bride just got back from traveling Taiwan with the parent’s in law and took the most beautiful pictures. Even Hua was over there for a while. But I’ve been swimming in my Japanese lessons. In the car I listen to ‘drive time Japanese’ and I just learned to count to 100. I had a dream last night that someone told me how old they were and I translated it right away. When I get home I gobble the rosetta stone Japanese lessons.  Last night I spent 4 hours researching the course work and study abroad options for BYU MBA. I don’t really want an MBA… I mean, I do- and I’d love to take the classes and go back to a study schedule and steep myself back into the field I love so well, meet with like minds and work with bright youth and feel like I’m going somewhere again.

But I wonder if this craving will dissipate if I could just _go_. If I could just get over it and see it, get it out of my system and then I can settle down. Maybe my yellow fever would die down and I could find peace with myself that if I never worked in marketing again and I never had a set of beautiful dark-haired baby boys that I wouldn’t feel like I had failed. But I’m restless in this job. People say, “Just go!” but I can’t. It’s so expensive and I’d need some kind of guide or help or at least a translator to help me get around. I could go alone technically but it would be a lot more expensive and dangerous. And how will I ever save the money to do it anyway? I want at least ONE of these ventures I’m working on to come through and show success but all that seems far away.

Even if I were to start a master’s program, it wouldn’t be until Fall 2014. 2 years away until I gave away another 2 years of my life. I wouldn’t get to see that beautiful place until Jan 2015. By then, I hope my Japanese is shabby enough to use it but feel completely embarrassed about it.

It’s so far away from submitting this request to GIS.

The Downside to Logic is you Lose.

I've figured out why women are so unreasonable when they fight. Because if they use their brains like I do and wait for an argument that I'm actually right about to fight, I always lose. Not because I'm wrong. But because the other person is never wrong. Tim for example is never wrong. Hua is never wrong. I'd lick the floor of a New York public restroom before I ever expected any concede from either of those two. Better to be a stupid hormonal girl and just pick random fights that have no reasoning or thought to them at all. That way I'll actually win once in a while.

"You hit me and it hurt!"
"Then you should learn to duck better!"

...Wth.


Dear boys,

I hate you right now. Stay away from me or I'll treat you like a pez dispenser.

Casey.

The Way You Make Me Feel

So yes, I went on another date tonight. Someone I met very briefly at AX this summer who got my facebook address. We've never corresponded since but randomly this week he asked if I was free for dinner. So I said Yes. It's not that hard to get dates when you actually say yes. What most girls complain about isn't not getting asked out, it's not getting asked out by guys they LIKE. Which is dumb if you think about it. You want to be single and date a lot of guys you like but not establish any relationship with them? Wouldn't that just say bad things about you?

Anyway, not the point. What I think I learned tonight may seem obvious to others but it just occurred to me. This guy is CLEARLY not the one for me. He's a current goth club hopper, former cross dresser, with long tattoos and most of his facebook photos are of him with heavy white makeup screaming into a microphone. I'm not saying any of that is bad at all but why the heck would he get all flustered and twitter-pated about ME for goodness sake? Mormon white straight-laced girl with a style that came right out of the 1930s and 40s. I'm not wild or brave or anything like that. I don't or clubbing or get wicked drunk or curse. I don't even like the taste of fish. So why does he imagine this would work?

I don't have the details of the theory down but I think people don't fall in love with all the check lists of what would make a good relationship. Instead, guys like girls who are encouraging and sweet: Someone you feel comfortable with who brings out the best in him.

I'll never be a surfer girl or a raver or a super sports fan. In the end, some of those lifestyle choices make a difference in a successful long term relationship. But when people decide to put their heart into someone, it's much much much less based upon what you think you look like or what you do as it is the way you treat people. The way you make people feel.