There's No Escape
Why is it even in a week when GM is not at the gallery I can't escape her? The Director just called telling me she was going to be in today and to make sure the computer is turned on. Exceeeept GM does not have me scheduled on Friday because another intern needed 100 volunteer hours this semester so she is supposed to be there on Fridays and that's what I told the Director. Except now I'm thinking this is yet another example of GM's sterling communication skills. Am now waiting for another phone call, this time from GM accusing me of not being there when she told me to (when in fact she didn't tell me). So okay, steel yourself for confrontation; she clearly said that someone else would be there on Fridays. She has me scheduled for Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday. She did not clarify the schedule this week, just said show up. It's not a big deal if they want me in today but I don't want to be bullied for her mistakes. Or hell, screw it I'm busy - let them deal it. I won't even answer the phone. Have a looooovely weekend, I'm running away.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
!
See what happens when you get busy? You forget to blog and two weeks go by. Sheesh. Ahhh, let's see. On the Thursday the parents got back I wrangled some time to visit with a friend and unabashedly shared my confusion and anger concerning GM and came to the conclusion that for some unforseen reason she just doesn't like me. Weather is nicer, things are starting to green up, it's windy, got work tomorrow and last week was spring break so the gallery was closed.
Never spent a more superbly sublimely boring week in my life; didn't do anything at all. Starting to get gentle pressure again from the parents to start the job hunt again. I really plan to start work by May, which isn't too far away but first I feel I need to stick with the gallery at the very least until the semester ends (May). Interesting family things, visiting brother in Arizona in April and there is a family reunion in September. sigh. I hate those things - I was 25 the last time we had one and I can't say much has changed except I have a degree (that ain't worth much at the moment). I remember the last time I saw my aunts; 'pretty girl like you will have no problem getting a boyfriend'. Is that a subtle hint?
Hummm, welcome to my non-changing, boring life.
See what happens when you get busy? You forget to blog and two weeks go by. Sheesh. Ahhh, let's see. On the Thursday the parents got back I wrangled some time to visit with a friend and unabashedly shared my confusion and anger concerning GM and came to the conclusion that for some unforseen reason she just doesn't like me. Weather is nicer, things are starting to green up, it's windy, got work tomorrow and last week was spring break so the gallery was closed.
Never spent a more superbly sublimely boring week in my life; didn't do anything at all. Starting to get gentle pressure again from the parents to start the job hunt again. I really plan to start work by May, which isn't too far away but first I feel I need to stick with the gallery at the very least until the semester ends (May). Interesting family things, visiting brother in Arizona in April and there is a family reunion in September. sigh. I hate those things - I was 25 the last time we had one and I can't say much has changed except I have a degree (that ain't worth much at the moment). I remember the last time I saw my aunts; 'pretty girl like you will have no problem getting a boyfriend'. Is that a subtle hint?
Hummm, welcome to my non-changing, boring life.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The Last Night
Dinner tonight is courtesy of the college and the corner gas station because I didn't feel like cooking (and my food supply is starting to run low). You can imagine my disappointment that the chinese place on campus apparently was closed (?) not open until six (?) and I had to settle for a turkey wrap and fruit salad. I was planning on buying a frozen dinner at the gas station but all they had was super nasty, greasy type foods (and it was expensive!!) so I just bought myself some more milk and went home (it was really cold, anyway). ahaha, I snagged someone's chocolate pudding from work - so that's dessert.
It wasn't that bad of a weekend. I was planning to go out and do all these things but it was cold and rainy so I just went to my club and had a great time with all the gals there. I can see why women make groups and get together every month - there is something really comforting and wonderful being with ladies of all ages and backgrounds, all intelligent and creative and supportive. I felt like 'one of the gals' and its sad but I haven't felt anything like this for years. If I can raise the money one of the ladies and I made a pact to take a printmaking class in the fall together.
The snarky, not so nice part of me also noted how nice it was to deal with women who aren't wrapped too tight and prone to biting my head off for imaginary wrongs. GM wasn't there today at the gallery and it was a sweet, sweet boring day without the screeching. Don't know about tomorrow or Thursday.
Well, I survived the week. Now I have to make plans for the spring.
Dinner tonight is courtesy of the college and the corner gas station because I didn't feel like cooking (and my food supply is starting to run low). You can imagine my disappointment that the chinese place on campus apparently was closed (?) not open until six (?) and I had to settle for a turkey wrap and fruit salad. I was planning on buying a frozen dinner at the gas station but all they had was super nasty, greasy type foods (and it was expensive!!) so I just bought myself some more milk and went home (it was really cold, anyway). ahaha, I snagged someone's chocolate pudding from work - so that's dessert.
It wasn't that bad of a weekend. I was planning to go out and do all these things but it was cold and rainy so I just went to my club and had a great time with all the gals there. I can see why women make groups and get together every month - there is something really comforting and wonderful being with ladies of all ages and backgrounds, all intelligent and creative and supportive. I felt like 'one of the gals' and its sad but I haven't felt anything like this for years. If I can raise the money one of the ladies and I made a pact to take a printmaking class in the fall together.
The snarky, not so nice part of me also noted how nice it was to deal with women who aren't wrapped too tight and prone to biting my head off for imaginary wrongs. GM wasn't there today at the gallery and it was a sweet, sweet boring day without the screeching. Don't know about tomorrow or Thursday.
Well, I survived the week. Now I have to make plans for the spring.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Day Two
I discovered a new flavor at Starbucks that I don't know if I will try again. I tried the Green Tea Latte and while it wasn't bad it had a distinct bitter aftertaste (it wasn't too strong but...) and for some reason (maybe it's just me) a taste of fish? I loved that fact it was grass green (it was pretty to look at) but I don't know if I will be trying it again. I wonder what I should try next? Maybe I should go look at their menu online. I spent a very interesting morning at the fossil and mineral museum sketching ammonites. They have a fantastic collection and the geology department was giving away free rocks! weee! Nothing exciting happened after that. I got some more things picked up and put away in the basement, listened to my father tell me what a fabulous time everyone is having (without me) and made dinner. It's not even seven o' clock, what to do, what to do.
I discovered a new flavor at Starbucks that I don't know if I will try again. I tried the Green Tea Latte and while it wasn't bad it had a distinct bitter aftertaste (it wasn't too strong but...) and for some reason (maybe it's just me) a taste of fish? I loved that fact it was grass green (it was pretty to look at) but I don't know if I will be trying it again. I wonder what I should try next? Maybe I should go look at their menu online. I spent a very interesting morning at the fossil and mineral museum sketching ammonites. They have a fantastic collection and the geology department was giving away free rocks! weee! Nothing exciting happened after that. I got some more things picked up and put away in the basement, listened to my father tell me what a fabulous time everyone is having (without me) and made dinner. It's not even seven o' clock, what to do, what to do.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Day One
Actually isn't too bad so far. Parents left at seven in the morning (dropping off the car for me to use, heh heh). Still in flight, I think. They will probably be getting to where they are going around six this evening. Actually went to volunteering today and am aggravated but smug. Why would that be? I spoke up for myself today. Man, that chick has a memory like a sieve - I tell her something specific like 'I will come in on Thursday at 2:00pm' and when I show up she backpeddles and says you didn't say you were coming in, I didn't hear you say you were coming in, I didn't know you were coming in today. I feel like writing it on her hand or something- 'will be here 3/4/10 at 2:00pm'
so that threw her for a loop, that I actually showed up without calling her and after repeating 'I didn't know you were coming' for the fourth time I actually said to her face 'I said I would be here'. Oh man, did I get a look.
So she dithers and can't make up her mind whether she wants me to help put out food for the reception tonight so I sit for an hour and wait for her to come back to tell me 'ok, go ahead and help put out food'.
A step forward in being assertive even if it's a small step. (I've never seen anyone obsess over tiny details like this before. who CARES if I did or did not say I was coming, I'm here give me something to do or send me home.
Hand-made a pizza for lunch so I'm not hungry. Thinking about how to fill the evening - maybe I'll start on the basement. Don't have to come back to the gallery until Tuesday. (Thank God, I think I filled my dealing-with-crap quota for the day)
Tomorrow I want to make some sketches at the musuem and buy myself a Starbucks (its like a twice-a-year treat thing seeing how overpriced it is)
keep busy, keep busy, keep busy.
Actually isn't too bad so far. Parents left at seven in the morning (dropping off the car for me to use, heh heh). Still in flight, I think. They will probably be getting to where they are going around six this evening. Actually went to volunteering today and am aggravated but smug. Why would that be? I spoke up for myself today. Man, that chick has a memory like a sieve - I tell her something specific like 'I will come in on Thursday at 2:00pm' and when I show up she backpeddles and says you didn't say you were coming in, I didn't hear you say you were coming in, I didn't know you were coming in today. I feel like writing it on her hand or something- 'will be here 3/4/10 at 2:00pm'
so that threw her for a loop, that I actually showed up without calling her and after repeating 'I didn't know you were coming' for the fourth time I actually said to her face 'I said I would be here'. Oh man, did I get a look.
So she dithers and can't make up her mind whether she wants me to help put out food for the reception tonight so I sit for an hour and wait for her to come back to tell me 'ok, go ahead and help put out food'.
A step forward in being assertive even if it's a small step. (I've never seen anyone obsess over tiny details like this before. who CARES if I did or did not say I was coming, I'm here give me something to do or send me home.
Hand-made a pizza for lunch so I'm not hungry. Thinking about how to fill the evening - maybe I'll start on the basement. Don't have to come back to the gallery until Tuesday. (Thank God, I think I filled my dealing-with-crap quota for the day)
Tomorrow I want to make some sketches at the musuem and buy myself a Starbucks (its like a twice-a-year treat thing seeing how overpriced it is)
keep busy, keep busy, keep busy.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Week Ahead
Wherein the author will attempt to describe the pathos of agoraphobia. When you're a little nutty, like me, it means abrupt changes can throw you for a loop. Take the next week; my parents are leaving the state to visit my brother across the country for six days. No big deal, what's the problem, suck it up - right? Wrong. To someone who is agoraphobic it's a nightmare. When you get all crazy-sauced like me you form unusually strong attachments to people who are 'safe'. Meaning, you only feel comfortable when they are in reach and when they leave you alone - how can I describe it?- it's like your boat loses it's tether and you are drifting away in a terrifying storm where at any moment you can sink and drown.
It is, admittedly, not as bad as it once was. You get to a certain point and you say 'I can't live like this' and it's hard on the people you have attached yourself too as well (it isn't fair to them either which is one of the reasons I realized how badly I needed therapy). My counselor once told me one of her clients was so bad off he couldn't even go to the bathroom without his spouse standing next to him.
This isn't a fun disease.
My parents are my anchor. When they leave for extended periods it is difficult for me. I will, as always, follow the wise advice I learned the hard way from my counselor. The first is to stay busy - write a list of things to be done, places to go, things to do. So this next week the basement will be organized, I will be volunteering some more of my time at the school and I will be making field trips to the Fossil and Mineral museum on campus to make some sketches AND visit the Historic Museum up the road to look at photographs from this city one hundred years ago. I will take a book to Starbucks and sip lattes and read. I will buy mandarins and mushrooms at the nearby grocery store. I won't think about how many hours there are left until they return, I won't sit in the house all day thinking how it wouldn't be like this if I had more friends or a boyfriend. I will go and live my life. and it took me four years of therapy to figure that out.
Wherein the author will attempt to describe the pathos of agoraphobia. When you're a little nutty, like me, it means abrupt changes can throw you for a loop. Take the next week; my parents are leaving the state to visit my brother across the country for six days. No big deal, what's the problem, suck it up - right? Wrong. To someone who is agoraphobic it's a nightmare. When you get all crazy-sauced like me you form unusually strong attachments to people who are 'safe'. Meaning, you only feel comfortable when they are in reach and when they leave you alone - how can I describe it?- it's like your boat loses it's tether and you are drifting away in a terrifying storm where at any moment you can sink and drown.
It is, admittedly, not as bad as it once was. You get to a certain point and you say 'I can't live like this' and it's hard on the people you have attached yourself too as well (it isn't fair to them either which is one of the reasons I realized how badly I needed therapy). My counselor once told me one of her clients was so bad off he couldn't even go to the bathroom without his spouse standing next to him.
This isn't a fun disease.
My parents are my anchor. When they leave for extended periods it is difficult for me. I will, as always, follow the wise advice I learned the hard way from my counselor. The first is to stay busy - write a list of things to be done, places to go, things to do. So this next week the basement will be organized, I will be volunteering some more of my time at the school and I will be making field trips to the Fossil and Mineral museum on campus to make some sketches AND visit the Historic Museum up the road to look at photographs from this city one hundred years ago. I will take a book to Starbucks and sip lattes and read. I will buy mandarins and mushrooms at the nearby grocery store. I won't think about how many hours there are left until they return, I won't sit in the house all day thinking how it wouldn't be like this if I had more friends or a boyfriend. I will go and live my life. and it took me four years of therapy to figure that out.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Treasure Hunting
It was nice to get away for the weekend, not that a lot really happens. I go into Old Lady mode and drink lots of tea and read books and go to flea markets so I can add to the already horrendous amount of crap that I already own. Expecting to go into the gallery today around two o' clock and have some new tactics for GM; we'll see how that goes. I suppose for this entry I can bring up the notion of 'appropriate' social behavior which has , in fact, done more harm to my life than brought me any improvement. There are plenty of books about gender role and behavior starting from birth. Does it sound right that you would give your boy child a pink blanket and doll? Or encourage your daughter to be a police officer? I don't think I'll go off into a major rant; this is old news and has been thorougly hashed by smarter people than me but I'd like to contribute a bit.
I can thank God and all the heavens that my parents don't fit the norm and never called me 'princess' and bought me minature kitchen sets and self-wetting dolls (horrifying brainwashing technique for children) thereby giving me delusions that I must be a caretaker and remain a sort of stationary pretty doll to be led through life by my big, strong competant male counterpart (I've yet to meet a man who can match me).
I can say that I've somehow been brainwashed into believing I must be 'nice'.
In fact, that's one memory I have during my formative years; posessing violent emotion even as a child I was given to screaming and throwing fits in anger. I actually remember feeling so much anger and frustration that the only way of expressing it was to throw myself to the floor and proceed to have a hissy fit (I think I was four years old, one of my earliest memories). Now eventually I learned self-control but I also remember that whenever I showed strong emotion, especially anger, my father would say the only way I could get what I wanted was to be sweet and nice.
and years of television, movies and God knows what other influence (and don't give me that movies/tv doesn't influence you bullshit because it does; humans imitate what they see whether or not it's realistic)
I came into being a young adult with some pretty off-kilter ideas. I had let my ex-boyfriend molest me because he was my boyfriend and I believed I had to do whatever he wanted in order to please him because pleasing your man is your number one priority. even if it hurts.
I came to believe that if I didn't get married by the time I was 25 and start a family then I was a failure and it's something I'm still struggling with today. That I can be over 25 without a boyfriend or children and still be worth something.
and the worse struggle I am dealing with now is a lifetime of brainwashing telling me I Must Be Nice.
I've seen what happens when you're Nice. When you try to please everyone. Never is there a more destruction thought pattern than putting everybody else before you. There was once a time when it was important to be nice and respectful and do your best to please other people but that's a long gone era. Nice gets you eaten alive. Nice makes you a doormat; makes you weak and when you are weak in this society you attract the sharks.
Hence the trouble with GM. Sensing blood in the water she attacks and stupid Nice me doesn't always defend. Any other person would have told her to shut the hell up, back the fuck off and let me do my job without you screaming in my ear. Probably ending the problem but possibly damaging the relationship with the gallery. Stupid Nice me is trying to negotiate an understanding between the two of us that doesn't lead to her into having a screaming hissy.
Or at least last long enough until May so I have a reference for job hunting telling prospective employers that I Am Great, hire me.
So intelligent women have to find a strange balance between bitch and Nice. To stop being nice but keep your compassion, to tell people who deserve it to go die in a fire but retain some semblance of humanity as well. Assertiveness is my biggest problem because all my life I've been told I'm Nice, to be Nice, to always be Nice to other people. and just like when I had to relearn math I have to relearn my behavior because Nice doesn't cut it.
It was nice to get away for the weekend, not that a lot really happens. I go into Old Lady mode and drink lots of tea and read books and go to flea markets so I can add to the already horrendous amount of crap that I already own. Expecting to go into the gallery today around two o' clock and have some new tactics for GM; we'll see how that goes. I suppose for this entry I can bring up the notion of 'appropriate' social behavior which has , in fact, done more harm to my life than brought me any improvement. There are plenty of books about gender role and behavior starting from birth. Does it sound right that you would give your boy child a pink blanket and doll? Or encourage your daughter to be a police officer? I don't think I'll go off into a major rant; this is old news and has been thorougly hashed by smarter people than me but I'd like to contribute a bit.
I can thank God and all the heavens that my parents don't fit the norm and never called me 'princess' and bought me minature kitchen sets and self-wetting dolls (horrifying brainwashing technique for children) thereby giving me delusions that I must be a caretaker and remain a sort of stationary pretty doll to be led through life by my big, strong competant male counterpart (I've yet to meet a man who can match me).
I can say that I've somehow been brainwashed into believing I must be 'nice'.
In fact, that's one memory I have during my formative years; posessing violent emotion even as a child I was given to screaming and throwing fits in anger. I actually remember feeling so much anger and frustration that the only way of expressing it was to throw myself to the floor and proceed to have a hissy fit (I think I was four years old, one of my earliest memories). Now eventually I learned self-control but I also remember that whenever I showed strong emotion, especially anger, my father would say the only way I could get what I wanted was to be sweet and nice.
and years of television, movies and God knows what other influence (and don't give me that movies/tv doesn't influence you bullshit because it does; humans imitate what they see whether or not it's realistic)
I came into being a young adult with some pretty off-kilter ideas. I had let my ex-boyfriend molest me because he was my boyfriend and I believed I had to do whatever he wanted in order to please him because pleasing your man is your number one priority. even if it hurts.
I came to believe that if I didn't get married by the time I was 25 and start a family then I was a failure and it's something I'm still struggling with today. That I can be over 25 without a boyfriend or children and still be worth something.
and the worse struggle I am dealing with now is a lifetime of brainwashing telling me I Must Be Nice.
I've seen what happens when you're Nice. When you try to please everyone. Never is there a more destruction thought pattern than putting everybody else before you. There was once a time when it was important to be nice and respectful and do your best to please other people but that's a long gone era. Nice gets you eaten alive. Nice makes you a doormat; makes you weak and when you are weak in this society you attract the sharks.
Hence the trouble with GM. Sensing blood in the water she attacks and stupid Nice me doesn't always defend. Any other person would have told her to shut the hell up, back the fuck off and let me do my job without you screaming in my ear. Probably ending the problem but possibly damaging the relationship with the gallery. Stupid Nice me is trying to negotiate an understanding between the two of us that doesn't lead to her into having a screaming hissy.
Or at least last long enough until May so I have a reference for job hunting telling prospective employers that I Am Great, hire me.
So intelligent women have to find a strange balance between bitch and Nice. To stop being nice but keep your compassion, to tell people who deserve it to go die in a fire but retain some semblance of humanity as well. Assertiveness is my biggest problem because all my life I've been told I'm Nice, to be Nice, to always be Nice to other people. and just like when I had to relearn math I have to relearn my behavior because Nice doesn't cut it.
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