I’m annoyed with Joe when I really have no right/reason to be. He got himself involved with this big project that, although he’s getting paid some pittinance for, was essentially something he volunteered for, has gone on WAY longer than he thought it would, and takes up all his time. As a result, I’ve barely seen him this past month, and will barely see him before he moves to California. I just got an email yesterday from him, cancelling our plans on Thursday.

I know that I shouldn’t be upset (or rather, I shouldn’t be upset with him. This is totally my issue), but he fully admitted he’s just finishing the project as an ego thing, and my snippy, passive aggressive side so wants to respond to that email “Great. Glad the project is more important than your friends.”

Which would be…pointless. It’s completely my marooned-in-suburbia loneliness talking. Joe has been my best friend here. We have spent a lot of time together, and until a month ago, I was talking to him almost every day. I guess this is good prep for the fact that he’s NOT going to be around, but I expected him to be around this past month, and he hasn’t been. I know I’m taking something personally that isn’t personal (i.e., my impulse is to wonder why this stupid project is more important when really, I know he doesn’t see things that way), but I’m still hurt and I need to find a way to squash it so it doesn’t explode in angry, biting comments.

So now I’m in a bad mood again, and I find myself thinking “the universe hates me.” I hate this phrase; I hate when people use it, I hate it as a facebook status, and I hate it as a blog entry, and so I hate that it even entered my head. I think I am overly concerned about being negative, because I used to be a really ridiculously negative, pessimistic person, and it was only much later that I realized how unpleasant/annoying I must have been to be around. These days, I do try very hard to see the good side of things, to be grateful for the things that are good. It’s like I feel a strong obligation to let people know that I KNOW things could be worse, and I KNOW I’m lucky, because I don’t want to have to hear that from other people.

Seriously, I think that’s what it about. Having people tell me what I already know is immensely frustrating to me. I don’t know why. I guess it’s a fear of being viewed as naive? I don’t know.  I’m immensely annoyed. Nothing else better happen today at work, because I can probably only get away with yelling at my boss once in a week.

Yet another thing that is fantastic about my old friends. Joe & I went to the diner on Saturday afternoon. First of all, it was monsoon-ing, but out of respect for my umbrella hate he did not carry an umbrella. Which is sensible, I think, considering we were just going from the car to the diner, which was maybe 50 feet. And ok, he confessed that the REAL reason he didn’t carry the umbrella is because he knew I would refuse to use it, and then he would look like the jerk, walking with the umbrella, and letting the girl get soaked.

Anyway, I confessed to him that besides the Bon Jovi kick that I have been on as of late, I cannot stop listening to my Taylor Swift CD. He of course, rolled his eyes at me, and mockingly asked “What’s your favorite song?”

“I’m not telling you!”

He thought about it for about 15 seconds, and then said “It’s ‘You Belong With Me’ isn’t it? That it so like you”

He’s almost right. Not my favorite on the CD, but there have been times when I’m singing along with it in my car and wishing I was 14 because then the song would have been oh-so-relevant to my life.

(My favorite Taylor Swift song, for the record is “Change.” Because this things will change.)

I love that he knows me well enough to state my Taylor Swift song preferences so emphatiaclly.

Now, in case that left any doubt over whether I am in fact, a “total girl” I will confess that the only thing restraining me from buying shoes (at omg, 25% off) right now is because shipping takes too long and I am into instant gratification. However, what may moderate my utter girliness is the fact that I HATE shoe shopping. HATE it. Hate that you have to find a salesperson and ask them to get your size. And so really, buying shoes online IS the most logical choice. Also I am wearing black pants, black shoes and white socks right now. That is terribly unfashionable and thus not very girly.

And now this entry comes full circle, because I’m irritated again. I don’t mind answering questions at work; I don’t even mind questions that are not my job to answer. I’m Little-Miss-Knows-Everything when it comes to operational, budget  and administrative issues here.  But I HATE when a co-workers asks for the same piece of (very simple) information over and over again. WRITE IT DOWN.

And no, I am not PMS-ing. I think this is a perfectly reasonable thing to be irritated about. (Insert smile-y face here)

So I’ve been on a big Bon Jovi kick lately. Not classic Bon Jovi. Post-”Crush” Bon Jovi, which is cheesy in a completely different way than his more famous ballads. I was driving around aimlessly on Sunday, and I discovered the song “One Step Closer,” which, when I’m in a good mood (as I was on Sunday) I think is apt for the way I have handled the past year. It’s a pretty little song.

I thought maybe I should apologize for over identification with the lyrics of a Bon Jovi song, but then I decided that I’m not sorry. In fact, I went through a period where I could not even listen to happy/positive music because I was so depressed that it would depress me further, simply because I couldn’t identify with the words and knew it.

Now, most people would link you to a YouTube video instead of just the lyrics. But I hate YouTube. I have no patience for it. If you send me a link to a video 99.9% of the time, I won’t click. Don’t take it personally; I also hate it when top stories on CNN et al. are VIDEOS.  I do not want to hear someone talk about the news item in question; I want to READ about it. 

I realize this is a pretty old-fashioned attitude, akin to complaining about those kids and their text messaging. Yes, I know that beyond the stupid content at YouTube, there’s probably a lot of good stuff too. I just don’t have the patience to wade ande I dont have the patience to wait for your link to load. Sorry.

In other news; I lost the “receipt” from the car I bought last year. You know, the thing you get at the dealership that breaks down the cost and the exact amount of tax. Which is a number I need for my taxes. I called the dealership already, who told me to go the bank that financed my loan. Now, I HAVE that information, but even with the breakdown of registration fee, etc, my calculations still come out wrong. Realistically, the most I’ll be off on an estimate of the tax I paid on the car is like $20, but the IRS makes me paranoid.

This is completely typical of me. I lose important pieces of paper because I have almost everything online and therefore to not save phyiscal copies of credit card/bank statements, etc. But the piece of paper, that this boy wrote me a note on in college? That I have.

Of course, even at my most rageful moments, I recognized that I had it pretty good. But bitching about your boss is practically a requirement, especially of being a young 20-something in NYC. So anyway, I definitely did more than my fair share of complaining to my co-workers, all of whom were friends and who were happy to have a drink after work and complain about their own lot at the organization.

But then in March I found out I got into UChicago, and so it didn’t (or shouldn’t have) matter(ed) as much. I would be leaving in September (Smarmy did not know this). Still, my emotional reaction was not tempered by this knowledge.

This summer, a seemingly minor, but fairly major change was implemented at work. I was really upset. A couple weeks later I started the application process for the Libertarian process, and since I was over the stomach-sickening anxiety of the first few weeks of my new responsibility (it involves phones. I hate anwering phones. I think it should be an ADA recognized condition) I was able to forget it.

Now the Libertarian Fellowship is not a possibility, and I’m stuck here, and I’m still stuck answering this phone, and I know this is really no big deal. And that’s really as much details about the situation as I should go into, because it’s stupid to blog about work.

But the emotional reaction is the same as it was to Smarmy, and this time, I don’t even have an escape.  I’m overly tired (I think) and it’s upsetting me more than it should.               

Win: Finding a power cord for my computer on line for 1/4 of the price of the official Apple Store
Fail: The fact that I manage to mutilate my power cords in the first place

Win: Getting rid of one more box of mementos/junk.
Fail: Most of it was stuff related to The Ex, stuff that I should no longer have in the first place.

Win: Michael says that if he is still in DC when (if) I move there next year, we can get an apartment together
Fail: The chances of this happening, even if we are both in the same city, are about 1 million to one.

Win: I managed to forget about work all weekend and not even check my email

Fail: I just checked my email and I have to make a travel arrangements change. I hate doing travel arrangements more than anything.

Win: I am 29 for 29 in NaBloPoMo. One more day to go
Fail: I have written nothing of substance.

Win: I managed to finish this blog entry.
Fail: It took probably 3 hours of having the window opened, and procrastinating via other things.

I am starving and the thought of the Lean Cuisine I have stashed in the freezer makes me vaguely nauseated. So I’m eating mini-Snickers bars, even though I HATE Snickers even more than most candy (I don’t like 99% of candy) because it is the only thing left in the bowl of candy on my neighbor’s desk. Do you know what I hate? After Halloween, it is common in work places, for people to bring in their leftover candy. At the Job-That-Wasn’t, my desk was surrounded by a counter and was in a highly trafficked area. So, the candy was placed here. All day long people would stop by my desk and be like “Oh, candy! Oh, I shouldn’t take any! It’s so bad for me. But this is so tempting! How do you sit here all day with the candy here?!”

And I’d want to say “Shut the hell up, just take the candy (because they always did) and go away.” And sometimes, after continuous pestering about how I managed to avoid the temptation of the candy, I would reveal that I don’t like chocolate, and their response would be all handwringing, like ‘OMG, YOU DON’T LIKE CHOCOLATE?!?!? REALLY??????”

I am on hold with the DMV. My approximate wait time is 17 minutes.

I have given up on hearing from the Libertarian fellowship; advice is in favor of not emailing until the end of this week.

I am irritable. Truly, madly, deeply.

First, the ATM is still not working. Logic should dictate that I simply go to another ATM, but the whole “I can’t drive” thing sort of puts a damper on my freedom, even the freedom to merely search out an ATM.

Secondly, some new person in A/P is just inventing these new procedures/rules and totally screwing up my invoice processing. This should be a very, very simple task from start to finish, but there are constantly like, 87 new people involved, asking questions and making things complicated.

It’s also raining, so the bottom of my jeans are wet. And my crazy carpool lady cannot drive on Friday (after not driving yesterday) and she is going on and on about her dental issues and it’s like “Shut up lady, it’s 8:00 am, get over your teeth and drive the car.” And I could work overtime on Thursday due to a major quarterly project, but probably can’t do it because of driving situation.

There are four more weeks of this nonsense, but that’s if and only if the bureaucracy of the State of New Jersey has worked itself out correctly, and that is a big “If.”

And I have meetings I have to go to tonight and tomorrow night, and I woke up dreading the one tonight (and that’s the lesser of two evils one). I HATE, HATE, HATE the Wednesday one, to the point where walking out of there at 10:05 PM is the best part of my week because it means I don’t have to go back for another week. And since I’ve skipped the Tuesday one the past two weeks, I REALLY have to go, and it’s somehow harder to force myself to these things after an absence.

I know I say I just want to know about the phone interview one way or another (and I know all of you are entirely sick of hearing about this, but so is everyone else in my real life) but I’m going to be crushed if it’s a “no.” I’m going to be even more crushed if come Friday, I don’t hear anything because, as I mentioned yesterday, I won’t be able to stop myself from hoping about the off chance that I wound up in the wrong application pool. But seriously, if my application was so bad that I don’t even warrant a phone interview? Forget the 8% acceptance rate – I’m going to be crushed.

So when you combine this with the little irritating things, you have a Rachel who is not quite fit for human contact. And of course this is the week that I have to be a happy little worker bee at work because its quarterly report time!

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2009/10/27/tuesday-i-am-fading/feed/ 1 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2009/09/11/id-claim-indifference-but-instead-ive-got-irritation/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2009/09/11/id-claim-indifference-but-instead-ive-got-irritation/#comments Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:13:46 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=5874 I really hate 9/11.  Keith reminded me this morning to stay away from Facebook and avoid the barrage of “tributes” in people’s statuses.

I won’t go as extreme to say that unless a person lost someone close to them that I don’t get the weeping. I’m an emotional person and as a result the correctly manufactured form of mass produced rememberence CAN get to me – but that’s because the correctly manufactured form of almost anything can get me to choke up. It’s just the way I am. I cry at the movie “Armanggedon” for Christ’s sake.

Really, most of the “grieving” and “remembering” that goes on is just that – manufactured. I won’t say I don’t understand it – it feeds into the human need to feel part of something and collective mourning is a way to do that.  Most of it though, just reeks of false sincerity. David posed the rhetorical question “”Do the emotional pronouncements of a relative few make most other people nod along, so as not to seem monsters?” If I were to put “I don’t really care that it’s 9/11″ as my facebook status, I’m sure I’d be deemed insensitive.

The demand to “Never Forget” just strikes me as silly. In the most clinical sense of the word I doubt there is anyone who was alive for the event that will forget the day. It’s the “Where Were You When You Found Out JFK Got Shot” for my generation. And how on Earth could we forget when it won’t go away? Why is dying in a terrorist attack anymore significant than the hundreds of other horrible ways to go? Why is the “heroism” of individuals doing their jobs anymore laudable than the work performed on any other day?

I’m not talking about the people who actually lost someone (although people die everyday and their loved ones move on with their lives. You have to.) But among the remaining 99.99999999999% of the population it’s like a continual contest for who can show the most emotional effects from the events without actually having experienced loss themselves.

(also, it’s always struck me as …something…that most of this collective wringing of hands and metaphorical rending of clothing takes place nowhere near NYC or DC. When I lived in Jersey City, I passed through the WTC site on most days, as do millions of commuters.)

Really, it’s been eight years. How much longer must this show go on? How much longer will this self righteous mourning continue? How many more years will the demand to prove just how dedicated we are to remembering be shoved in our faces?

I ventured out to my apartment, since I had to move boxes anyway, to find my entire block has no power. Driving back to the highway, power was out all the way down 21st Avenue (and grr, we’re the block closest to the Con Ed plant), most of the stores in the Ditmars & 31st Street vicinity are closed, and traffic is a mess by the Tribourough/GCP.

Fun stuff. So yeah, I’m officially one of those disgruntled Con Ed clients in Northwestern Queens. My roommate has been intelligently avoiding our oven of an apartment and staying with his girlfriend, who has AC, so I have no clue how long the power’s been out. I got rid of everything in the fridge and the freezer and retreated.

Now I just need a place to crash the next few days, as Con Ed is saying the problem won’t be fixed completely until the weekend. Fabulous.

I am the token libertarian member of SYRA. If my parents knew I had joined a club with Republican in the title I think they’d cry. I speak up in class and I’m not shy about expressing my opinions if you ask, but I don’t go out of my way to make it known that I’m probably one of the more conservative people on this campus. I don’t write articles for the SkidNews, that’s bashed my club every week. Even though I can write coherent articles it just seems pointless to publish something that people will dismiss because its ‘conservative.’ I don’t know.

Maybe I’m not putting enough faith in the Skidmore community, but in the past year and a half, I’ve found that the ‘collegiate liberals’ here are barely better than Hampshire. Sure they shower more often, and don’t think money is evil, since most of them have quite a lot, but they hold similar narrow-minded views that they refuse to see past. And I don’t understand. College is, ideally, supposed to challenge you, and challenge you’re perceptions of the world. Skidmore doesn’t do that. Most students enter Skidmore as relatively liberal, and take Liberal Studies which is supposed to teach you to think about things the way you never did before, but really just confirms all the comfortable ideas most people already have. It’s approach is normative and no conclusions are drawn. The class would have been controversial in my upper middle class white high school, filled with kids whose parents “Vote for Reagan” signs on their lawns had scared my hippie mother when we first moved to the area. At Skidmore, it just seems to enforce what almost everyone already believes. It doesn’t challenge any assumptions.

Again, maybe I’m just being cynical, but its been a long time since I felt this disillusioned. At Hampshire I found crazy hippies somewhere to the left of communist who spouted endless ridiculous rhetoric and discounted my view because I’m white and straight. At Skidmore I’ve found classes full of people who don’t do their reading, liberals who think the views they acquired freshman year will guide them through the rest of their lives, and a community that is rather intolerant of views that do not fit into its touchy-feely liberal scheme. You’ll certainly never find “The Closing of the American Mind” in LS1 or read a Phyllis Schafly article in Women Studies 101. If the general population doesn’t agree with it, it isn’t discussed. So many viewpoints, so many ideas are discounted, and even ignored. In high school, the focus was narrow and I was under the impression that that changed in college. I was wrong.

I’ve changed since graduating high school, I’m still dramatic, but more quiet – a product of barely uttering a word my entire tenure at Hampshire. I’m less cynical, less bitter, and less angry, because I am more content with my surroundings (sometimes) and my life. I’m not as notorious. I’m somewhat alienated from a good part of campus life, and getting here a year late didn’t help that. I’m not unhappy with that. I like “my” version of college life, even though its often atypical. I love the government department and talking to my professors and getting obsessed with my reading.

But I don’t like being attacked in the paper in a baseless article. I don’t like being in class and having everyone in the room gang up on me, and rudely tell me I’m wrong without even letting me finish my sentence. I don’t expect people to agree with me, in fact, I’m perfectly willing to engage anyone who disagrees with me. I’m not afraid to defend what I believe. I am, however, insulted by the fact that liberals here are so threatened by conservative views that they have to result to anti-SYRA propaganda. I find it appauling that if I try to express myself before Senate I’m accused of breaking the honor code because my opinion is apparently aligned with ‘not upholding the integrity of Skidmore College.’ I find it depressing when people raise completely irrational ideas in class that have no basis in reality and are applauded for their compassionate liberal thinking. And sometimes, I’m lonely, because all I want to do is have a beer and argue about books and politics and ideas, and that’s when I really miss my o-town friends.

Skidmore is not what I expected it to be. I knew it was liberal (and that fits with a lot of my views, actually). I knew it was a mix of hippies and rich kids. I didn’t know they’d lie to me like this. I was promised a challenge and what I’ve gotten is a place where I can whip out a 10 page paper 2 days before and get an A, when Ms Roeser would have just shook her head and used the “STOP” stamp. I’m not unhappy here. College, overall, has just not been what I’ve expected. I’ve created my own form of the college experience, and I’m fine with that, most of the time. It just makes me cynical sometimes. I am, after all, “the cynical one” of the LTTC.

I want beer and good conversation and I want college liberals to stop being so afraid of the views that they try to so hard to counter.
But I’ll take 2 out of 3 (but don’t be sad cause 2 out of 3 ain’t bad)

The Whiny Martyr Liberals are still whining about the injustice of it all…these people, of course, have no idea what real injustice is.

Not like I do, I’m as white and privledged as the rest of them, but at least I don’t cry when someone makes me sign a paper saying I won’t break the law.

Yes. A do over.

1) The Greens are changing their name to something equivalent to “Students for Everything that is Good and Fluffy Bunnies” Actually they’re changing their name to “Students for Peace and Justice” (or something) which makes sense because:
a) the only thing they did last year was protest the war
b) The actual Green Party is technically supposed to be a single interest party, the environment. And we already have an environment club.

2) Instead of having debates between SYRA and the Greens (the fluffy bunny club) we have to have roundtables, because debates are too scary and offensive. Plus if the table we use is actually round, then its nice, and equivalent, and non-offensive.

3) There is a new a cappella group forming for all the people who didn’t make the real a cappella groups. If you are a male, you have the chance to try out for two groups. If you are female there are THREE groups, and one of them isn’t very good in the first place. If you don’t make it into any of those groups, there is a reason. Plus, the posters for the group are all like “Feeling Rejected, etc etc.” Well, they are not just feeling rejected they WERE rejected. For a reason.

4) There is a radio show for the discussion of political issues. It is called “The Liberal Democratic Cause”

5) The Greens are whining about the town of Saratoga Springs taking away “our” voting booth. Never mind the fact that there are not voting booths in hospitals, nursing homes, etc. Apparently, voting is not that important to them, or to anyone on Skidmore campus who is “convinced” to vote here because they can’t go downtown to do so. Because to get downtown they’d either have to a) drive, and we know the greens think cars are evil or something. b) walk, and that’s hard, because the greens like to go barefoot (including this girl in my feminist political thought class who puts her bare, dirty feet on the table right next to me)

6) Our new motto for admissions material is “Creative Thought Matters” ie, everyone is a unique and beautiful snowflake, and with the amount of money we paid some PR people, this new slogan cost tens of thousands of dollars a word.

7) LS curriculum has been changed, in part, because people weren’t doing well enough, because they apparently can’t write simple 5 page papers

8. We’re cutting men’s hockey, which will cause freshman and sophomore guys to transfer out, and giving money to girls sports, even though we are already in Title 9 Compliance. And the money is going to the volleyball team (we have a volleyball team?????) and increasing Yoga classes.