Family Visits

My father has been ill of late. I am going out to visit. Some bacterial infection that is going around.

I have to get myself together before I go, even though this is one of those weekends where I don’t want to care. I have to, because if I visit and my sister-in-law is there, and I am looking like death-warmed-over, she will conveniently feel the need for a family photo and post it on the internet. If I look like I’m wearing a bare minimum of makeup and my clothes are more put-together, even a little bit, she will conveniently NOT take a photo.

Not being able to have that sort of emotional trust in a family is hard and wears you out. But I’ve never been able to have it. Someone has always been shitty in some form or fashion. And it is one of those things that people say is supposed to just be a thing family does.

Maybe the “things family does” are why your relatives keep away from you. Maybe they had enough years ago.

The Realization

I woke up with a realization in my head. So many of my relationship and dating issues have been about money. From the start. Even if I didn’t realize that was what they were about.

Fact 1: I have always made more money than the man I was seriously dating. There were 2 exceptions. But two out of a larger number than I care to count. There were a number of those who made similar to what I made, but I worked more hours and gladly took on more overtime.

Fact 2: The two exceptions to fact 1 never ever took me seriously. I was just a souvenir, a novelty. Not a new realization. But one must take into context with Fact 1.

Fact 3: Arguments about money with men have always centered around men’s reckless spending habits. Failing to put gas in one’s car after the age of 17 because you spent your money on a gaming computer should not be tolerated. I didn’t spend my money on the things I like– jewelry, clothes, concert tickets– I spent my money on doubling my car payment so I could pay it off as well as filling up my gas tank. In taking the opposite case, the boyfriends with money (at least prior to the 2008 crash, cannot speak of their situation at present), I was responsible enough not to throw things away that had value because of minor issues such as missing a button.

Fact 4: I’ve never not paid for something. I’ve never been 7 months behind on a bill. I’ve never had a bankruptcy. I have always felt the weight of debt as a large responsibility that one must get past. I’ve never thought owing money was a cute joke.

Fact 5: I was never under the impression that my own well-being in the future was the responsibility of someone else. I always heard that social security might not exist when I retire. I took that to mean that I would have to take a job with a good retirement package (state, federal, or city job) guaranteed, even if it meant taking a few hits for it not being glamorous or being my “calling in life”. I also understood the same about insurance. This does not mean that I’m a Republican. I believe those are problems that SHOULD be solved. I just have no faith that the Republicans will ever ALLOW anyone to solve them. And I never had have any faith that they would allow these problems to be solved. Heck, my family is largely Republican and hates me for solving my own problems 98% of the time or making choices that would not lead to a life of poverty.

Fact 6: I don’t act cute-stupid about money. Women often get social approval points for acting stupid about money. I don’t do it. I don’t play the game. It makes me “unfeminine” but I just can’t care about that. I don’t act cute-stupid about doing things in the yard and around the house either. Because I don’t have the money to pay someone to do every little thing and I don’t have the social network to ask because I have done a good job of taking care of myself. Being able to take care of yourself and telling the Southern social network, in not so many words, to fuck themselves, means you have to do it yourself or pay someone to do it. I feel better when I do things for myself. And paying someone to do something rather than asking family comes as a huge relief at this point. The drama and pushy bullshit is too much. If you pay someone to do it, they have to do it your way and the right way according to various coding laws. Not someone else’s way.

I am, financially speaking, out of step. With my generation, with my parents generation, with everyone I know.

Me oh my oh

I have been watching a multi-part PBS documentary on this history of country music. Its given me pause to reflect on my own relationship with it as a whole.

Country music and I are a complicated thing.

My parents only listed to very light and very “clean” or “clean-ish” country music when I was a child. Ronnie Milsap, The Statler Brothers, and the Oak Ridge Boys were the bulk of my parent’s albums. I knew other singers through the radio and from general admiration- Charley Pride and Barbara Mandrell were okay. Waylon Jennings was generally someone that got an eye roll. My father didn’t listen to Johnny Cash because his mother never liked Johnny Cash (keep in mind, my grandmother died in 1978). We always watched “Hee Haw” and the occasional holiday special from some artist or another… but my parents were never interested in the more artsy PBS show “Austin City Limits.” I have visited Dollywood several times, but my parents have never owned a Dolly Parton album.

My parents just don’t really get into music. For them it is optional background noise. Not something you invest your soul in. They don’t listen to music in the car at all. I’ve ridden to Washington, DC and Houston, TX with no radio. None.

But country music is in the air as much as anything else when you grow up in Georgia. You don’t know how you know the words to a Merle Haggard song your parents never played. You just simply do.

I can engage with country music, but I always feel inner conflict when i do. I never feel completely at ease. Completely honest. Even though I did grow up poor in the south and I have literally done all the things.

I’m a conflicted southerner in many things. This is just yet another.

Return of the Demon

I’ve been quite quiet lately online. I have been because I’ve been battling a personal demon, paranoia.

My grandfather on my mother’s side had this as well from what I gather. And my whole life I was hoping so much to not be like him that I never wanted to admit that it could be a problem for me as well. He was a violent alcoholic that believed in faith healers and kept his family broke and feeling worthless. I realize that simply sharing a possible diagnosis doesn’t make me like him.

How did I get here?

I probably have a genetic pre-disposition. But when added to the family and small-town type manipulation I experienced in my teens and 20’s, it all comes into focus.

I am used to people scrutinizing minutiae about my appearance and pointing things out just for the sake of doing so.

I am used to people setting me up with guys that I have nothing in common with because it is what they would just like to see happen.

I am used to people not giving me phone messages to make me believe a man isn’t interested in me because they simply don’t like them.

I am used to my reality being subverted just because.

I know a lot of people with psychological boundary issues. They attract one another and feed off of one another.

Lately, the feelings that I have, they have been overwhelming. I realize part of this is due to living in this area. I left social media completely a few months ago because I realized some people were still projecting untrue things on me and spreading it around locally. My cousin was telling my mommy about things I said online, tattle-tailing exactly as she did when were in middle school. It is telling that this particular cousin left facebook about a month after I did.

My feelings are based in a real place. In a real set of experiences that few people can understand or relate to.

I didn’t have any privacy whatsoever when I was young. Or even as a young adult who had to live at home due to my financial situation. My mother read all my mail. She read my trash. She read my credit card bills. I couldn’t sleep with the door closed until I was 18. There was no lock on the bathroom door I shared with my brother. I had a playhouse outside, but I got in trouble if I closed the door and window shutters.

Very few people would understand how completely invasive my family can be, and thinks they have every right to be. Very few. It is a part of my past (and present) that I constantly fight with in my mind.

MOST of the time, I’m good. Most of the time. Sometimes, if I feel I’m being looked at by the whole world, I flip out a little. I realize we are in a very pro-self and pro-selfie culture where people want and depend on image to move ahead. But I can’t be that person. I don’t want my image out there. I don’t want people to share me with the world.

I bellydanced and I wore 10 tons of makeup and glitter. I could hide behind a mask of paint and feathers and sparkle. It was great. My publicity photos were carefully selected. My image was managed. I could say “no” to any photo that I didn’t like.

In the several years I have not been dancing, I’ve been focused on many things. It began with a family drama and fued and spiraled into a lot of other things.

I put a great deal of energy into throwing myself into my job.

I’m all I’ve got. I’m single because men don’t want to have a relationship with me. They are intrigued by the idea of sleeping with me, but they don’t want to ask me out. And the ones that do want to have a relationship with me don’t have a real job and won’t get one. I’ve long ago made peace with this. Also, I am not from a family that held onto wealth for any real period of time. I didn’t come from money, I came from periods of occasional flash floods of cash followed by a lack of long-term planning.

Its up to me to build my own fortress. Plain and simple. So I do throw myself into my work. And I fear socially screwing myself in my work environment because I didn’t come from the same place many other people did. I second guess myself all the damn time. ALL. THE. DAMN. TIME. I am good at the act of confidence more so than the substance of it.

Lately, its been worse. I don’t know why. It seems to come and go in waves. Every 2-3 months I have this come up. I overthink every little thing.

I’m being honest because I’m trying to be brave. Trying to not believe that my work somehow beams into all my technology and reads everything I do. I cognitively know that isn’t the case, but the thought still creeps in. All the time.

I fear, though, with the connectivity of so much of our lives, that one day my workplace will know what color underwear I bought or whether I purchased the black socks or the brown ones. And that is a problem for me. The increased connectivity of everything scares me to death. I am a person who really, truly, and intensely needs private spaces in life to cope. It is also hard for me to see as I was an early internet user, who used online spaces at a means to escape family and small town scrutiny (as many did in the early years). I was busy exploring religions and various political thought veins, and having the kinds of conversations that would have given half the town a heart attack.

I am waiting on my food order. And I am trying to convince myself that my boss is not now somehow aware of my Chinese food preferences, or which movie I watched earlier, even though I technically know better.

Single By Choice

One of the things that I think goes unaddressed is how failing to fulfill people’s social wishes for you and who you are affects your relationships with others.

Let me enlighten you:

If your friend is avoiding your buddy that you are trying to fix them up with, it may not be because they are secretly in love with them. It may be because your buddy doesn’t have a job and was fired for stealing from his previous job.

It may be that he gets on her nerves.

It may be that he’s has money spending patterns that are not in line with her values and future goals for herself.

It may be that he doesn’t take care of himself in the least, and she isn’t interested in ‘fixing’ him if he is older than say, 25. Because its damn well past time to grow up and use deodorant.

It may be that she is focused on herself in a positive (non-narcissistic) way and she does not have time right now- she is taking classes, focusing on self-betterment, or realigning her own values.

It may be that you need to re-evaluate the friends you think she should be with.

Why are you trying to fix up a friend with accomplishments and goals with someone who has done a stretch in prison? How are you being a good friend to the accomplished person in that situation? Why are you trying to fix up someone who has their act together with someone who in on track to declare bankruptcy at 35? How are you being a friend to the person who has their act together? Do you think that having someone else is so paramount as to void common sense at all costs?

Then you go around telling everyone that she’s probably gay. She isn’t gay. She just is strong enough to know that your friends aren’t going anywhere. They are still waiting tables at 45 because they don’t want to have to pass a drug test. She had a real job at 21. She has been working since she was a teenager. She has 3 degrees. She watches productions of Shakespeare for fun. She isn’t some uptight character from television that can only find love by getting some man to loosen her up. No. She has plenty of fun. ON HER OWN and paid for BY HERSELF and she isn’t about the pay for HIS.

She can’t date at work because it would ruin her level of respect and how people may perceive her. The one who supposedly “slept her way to the top” or “dated her way to the top” or “married up” is always seen with a side-eye. She realizes she has to be appreciated for her work, and that her partner will be a part of how she is perceived in the work environment– he will come to parties and events and in a sometimes very very very classist world, what he does WILL matter in terms of whether she moves ahead and ends up with a decent retirement.

But you aren’t interested in that. You want her to be something you have predicted because it will make you feel good. It will give you something. Something you should be able to give to yourself instead of seeking it out of the social outcomes of a third party.

But the way people perceive you and your life choices and who you choose to be with can affect things without your knowing. I’ve heard comments and conversations about things that people do not realize affected their ability to be taken seriously in the work environment. I’ve been thinking about careers and my own retirement since I was a kid and was aware of people retiring.

I’ll be honest with you: All I have ever wanted to do is retire. I am exceptionally good at filling my own time. I was the firstborn of the youngest kid my grandparents had. I was the baby. The only kid around during my first 3 years of childhood. My mother didn’t trouble herself much with me. When my brother came along, it was a different story. She had to keep him at her side all the time because he was a boy.

As a result, I had to hang out with kids much older than myself. There are tons of photos of me hanging out with teenage cousins. I had a radio when I was very young and listened to pop music all the time. I had leftover makeup samples from Avon when I was 3. I had a sense of independence that was sometimes encouraged and sometimes loathed by my mother: I was supposed to be adult enough to do x and y but not adult enough to think for myself.

I did not relate well to children my own age when I did go to school. I read early, swam early, and just was… early. At the same time, my mother was trying to hold me back into not just childhood, but a childhood that wasn’t at all normal for the 1980’s. She wanted me to want to stay home. She wanted me to not want the cool things. My wanting things like a pair of Nikes or a Levi’s jacket was a fundamental betrayal of something, somehow.

It was hard to relate to other kids. They didn’t understand. It was very hard. And now, I find it is hard to relate to other adults. My parents were giving me dolls at 25 and I had to beg them, absolutely beg them, to stop. But I was doing adult farm work at 13. And I had makeup at 3. And I had a radio of my own by age 5.

At 16, I went on vacation with relatives who were all in their 40’s-60’s. Alone. The only teenager.

To say that I lived in a space of strange contradictions is an understatement.

Sometimes it is still hard for me around people. It is hard to relate to people who didn’t come from my unique set of 80’s era behaviors in the first place. When you add in my own unique blend of inner assessment-making tools of other people, well, it tends to hamper things.

I went on a short vacation recently. A short, cost-effective vacation.

I realized that what that kid me wanted more than anything else was her own space. Her own time. To not worry about relating to anyone. To just be.

I have my own house. I have my own pets. I can do what I see fit now. And that is enough. That, and a sense of financial stability, is all I have ever wanted.

I realize I’m disappointing people by not being the construct they have thrown on me. Whether that is reflective of the need of their friend who just needs a woman to understand his pot addiction, or reflective of their desire for me to really just secretly be in need of the right church, or reflective of their desire for me to be secretly gay. I’m sorry that none of those are true, because I know that there are people out there that would find those things emotionally fulfilling to view on a social media feed. What is the self these days, except the social media performance of the self? What was the self yesterday, except the public performance of the self?

And what do you do with someone who refuses to be a package neatly tied up in a bow by either? A person who refuses to exist in a character’s story arc, instead determining to favor life itself? The messiness and the un-story-ness of it, the reality of work and its class expectations and choosing to navigate a world that encourages so wholeheartedly for women, especially single and childless women, to make stupid decisions about career and money to participate in a character’s story arc?

I’m just living my life. Alone, and extremely grateful, to be where I am at– with no bankruptcies, and with a small, easily-paid-off house. To not have someone else killing my finances or arguing over the bullshit of life.

I don’t want to have to listen to a partner telling me how I should be handling the care of my pets. Or know that he is bitching to his friends about it.

I don’t want to have to listen to his Aunt Becky talk about my neighborhood. Fuck. That. My house will be paid off before I retire. When Aunt Becky is crying of her husband’s new affair and taking out her third mortgage.

I don’t want a man to bitch because I don’t want to blow a gazillion dollars on drinking during our vacation. Some drinks? Fine. All the drinks? NO.

I don’t want a partner’s stuck up relatives. I don’t want his jealous broke relatives. I don’t want mine. Why would I want yours?

I don’t tend to feel lonely. At least not that emotional “need to have someone around” type of lonely. If I do, all I need to do is be in a store and know that other people exist. That is enough for me. I don’t need real connection in the way that other people do. I grew up having to learn to be okay without it.

But I’m also not some broken little person needing a man to rescue my poor wounded heart either. I don’t need to be fixed.

What I need is to retire one day. That is what I NEED.

Unpacking Beauty

I’ve been thinking a lot the past few days about beauty.

I am trying to re-examine how I got here.

My parents never told me I was pretty. Ever. That isn’t a thing that happened in my house. My mother was not raised that way. You weren’t supposed to tell children they were pretty. It might make them end up vain.

But I was given makeup at an early age. Because enforcing gender norms was also important. I took to makeup very easily. I had my mom’s lipstick samples that she didn’t like (mostly freebies from my aunt, who purveyed Avon at the time).

My mother stopped keeping my hair trimmed when I was about 5 or 6. Then she hated that my hair had split ends. She would get angry that my hair wouldn’t stay in Laura Ingalls-style braids using just water alone to style it, because she was gullible enough to believe the wig that Melissa Gilbert wore was real hair. In her mind, my hair- my perfectly nice, normal, straight hair, was not “right” because it wouldn’t stay in a braid. My hair is relatively thick in terms of quantity, but has little to no texture. If you braid it, all the shorter ends stick out all along the braid. This frustrated my mother nearly to the point of crying. I remember her on the phone discussing it as if the world had committed a crime against her. The crime that my hair wouldn’t behave like a custom tv wig because that was, in her mind, what my hair was “supposed” to do. She acted like it was a fault within me. She didn’t blame me outright, but you could see a certain fracturing start to begin. The elements of my being simply refused to behave in the way that she thought things, based on the barest of information, “should” be.

Fast forward a few years.

Boys. Beautiful, gorgeous boys. So many that I knew seemed to be quite good looking. I realize that now the person I think of as average would have been quite stunning in many other places. Perhaps it was growing up in the south- the exposure to sun and the outdoors. Of the many attractive people in my school, I was just one of a number. Something that blended in. Our homecoming queen looked like an actual, living Barbie doll and wore a long, fitted sequin dress fit for the set of Dynasty to our prom.

Pretty was easy. All the girls were pretty. No one even thought to call you pretty. Mostly, the boys told you what was someone else had that you didn’t. They commented confidentially to you which girls they thought were attractive, which girls other boys thought were attractive, and you were never on the list. You weren’t wearing the right clothes. You weren’t from a private school. It was painfully obvious these boys had been told by their parents to date “up”. Sex with someone on the same plain or beneath you was okay, but for real dating, you should date someone who was the “right” kind of person. I cannot tell you how much this social jockeying for position fucked me up, but it absolutely was an added layer of adult feudal-era drama that no one in 1992 needed. The guys my parents approved of quite frequently made it clear their only intent was to have sex with me. Anyone clued in could have seen it. I was far more aware of this than my parents were. They wondered why I didn’t go out with those boys.

My hair was sporadically taken care of. Permed a few times and forgotten about. Then let go straight and cut here and there. Sometimes good cuts, sometimes awful. The makeup I had in high school was mostly what I bought with my own money. All drugstore, all the time. A couple nail polishes that were in an Easter basket one year. The same 4 lipsticks for all of my high school years. All from Wet N’ Wild. I used powder to get the flat matte look of the time. Sometimes, I even used body powder instead of face powder. I used drug store mascara. My mother was horrified to find out that I would throw it out once a year. She kept hers for years and kept adding water. She had no idea about eye infections. It never occurred to her. Bought only the cheapest hair care products. Wondered why I didn’t have perfect tv-commercial hair. Why my hair wouldn’t hold a curl.

Then Grunge happened. For a few years. And it ran into Goth. I got away with not having the finances for the beauty industry because everyone looked kind of hip and unwashed for a while. And then everyone looked like they had slept in their makeup and I substituted baby powder for face powder when I really wanted to look super pale. At some point I bought green lipstick from a Phar-Mor drug store (Brand: Sweet Georgia Brown). And I also had been given some actual Elizabeth Arden from a well-meaning Aunt, the one who had originally given my mom Avon samples. She gave it to me as a graduation gift, based on the assumption that now that I was graduating I might be getting interested in makeup. I was NEVER NOT INTERESTED in makeup. My mother would just always get really negative about me wearing makeup to family functions. I realize now it was part of her attempts to tone me down, keep me from being seen as an adult.

I had class photos done with red Wet N Wild lipstick at one point in high school. For about a year, it was my favorite color.

Photo after photo of me, at school, with a face full of makeup. And knowing the boys around me didn’t give two shits about me if a girl representing a better social opportunity were to walk by.

Then it was college.

Living in the age of “Reality Bites” actually did bite. The sex was good. That was true. Very, very, very good. But, men in my age group simply did not compliment women. They would flirt with you. They would act all complicated at times. They would act like Troy in “Reality Bites” and tell you what was wrong with your outfit. But they would not … compliment you. Ever. But you would definitely hear everything that was wrong with you. Troy is not a bad analog for what most young men were in those days: Sexy, but shitty to a fault, and you were supposed to be appreciative to be in their orbit. And read their mind: No one would compliment you on anything about you (my hair) and then they would complain that you did something different (I cut it off and dyed it blonde, which led to gnashing of teeth). While my hair didn’t revolve around a semi-attached, on-again-off-again boyfriend with whom I had clear compatibility issues, the notion that someone would have a breakdown over hair they never seemed to give a shit about to begin with was mind-boggling.

When thinking and behaving like that hits a whole generation, confounded with the other factors in my life, it is simply not surprising that I find myself where I am. That I skidded into my 30’s with sexual self-esteem but not self esteem in other key areas. That I sit here at 43, struggling to identify what was, in fact, social gaslighting by insecure women older than myself and boys who had no idea from the common vernacular that they were supposed to put effort forth in a dating situation, and that these same boys sought high-minded and philosophical reasons to keep doing nothing. And every time you felt confident, happy and were supposedly in a committed relationship, something would get trotted out to smack you back into the zone of feeling unsure of yourself. Get dressed up and hear, “Hmm. Not bad.” and a shrug. Or sit there, enjoying your favorite tv show and hear… “you have a gray hair….” One of them told me once that I sometimes talk to myself. And accused me of thinking I was attracting men when really these (theoretical) men were just looking at me because I looked like a crazy person.

It is hard for me not to pick myself apart and wallow in imperfections. I was taught to do it from the beginning. I wasn’t called pretty, I was told I “looked nice”. It was always a function of the dress, not the girl in the dress. I battle with myself over letting my more obtuse sense of “fuck off” confidence or my beat-down and limited version of myself rule the day. My brain speaks in double-speak, over examining my face, my hair. Getting angry if I can’t magically make it all happen with minimal effort. Expecting genetics to give me all the breaks, and being upset and feeling cheated when it doesn’t work that way. Feeling embarrassed that my face, skin, hair has failed on this day or that. And then feeling angry that I feel that way.

I write this as a person who is conventionally attractive. But the harsh truth is, I look at these photos of this pretty girl in high school… this girl in the 90’s era maxi dress and the big white smile. This photo wears my features and has my eyes. And still, in those photos, I see the tension. In the eyes.

In a sea of pretty, no one gave a shit unless you had something extra to offer: the right parents, the right last name, the right clothes, tickets to Lalapalooza…

Review Culture

When I was a kid, we would get in the car and go. On road trips and vacations, We would stop wherever we stopped for food, and we would just do whatever we saw that struck our fancy. We didn’t rely on reviews. We didn’t rely on advice. We didn’t care about the number of stars for our hotel. We didn’t care if someone else didn’t like something, as long as we did. As long as it was good enough. It didn’t have to be perfect. We didn’t dissect our meal experiences. Many of the meals we ate bumbling through South Georgia to Florida and up through the mountains were at the kind of sketchy, run-down barbecue joints and fish shacks that wouldn’t register an ounce of glitter, much less a star. In fact, one of my most memorable moments on vacation was when we went to Washington, DC and we were between two different attractions. Instead of fighting to move the car and find another parking space again, my parents decided to eat a hot dog from a street vendor. It was a cool story to tell our friends back home about– standing on a busy street in DC having a hot dog for lunch.

We wouldn’t have had those experiences if we read reviews and relied on other people’s experiences to determine what our experiences would be.

I eat at uncool places all the time. Sometimes, I make a point of it.

In the end, does it really matter that much, as long as you get fed?

I started noticing something about 7-8 years ago. I had a friend at the time who would not go anywhere without reading Yelp reviews first. She wouldn’t let our friend group just go and eat at some random restaurant just because it was there and we were there. No…. no… she had to review restaurants beforehand and determine which ones were acceptable.

I find that kind of need for external guidance really annoying. I can assess restaurants, choose one on my own, and just.. you know… eat there. I don’t need the guiding hand of the internet reviewers to help me out.

What would you do if you were in the middle of nowhere and the only restaurant to eat at had a negative review? What if you ate there and it turned out to be outstanding? What if that negative person just was a crappy person? Reviews don’t consider the variation in human perception of an experience.

Consider this: There are people in my life who I never take advice from. In fact, I tend to endeavor to do the opposite. What if similar people are out there writing reviews? How would you know the difference?

The amount of paid reviews on the internet for goods and services that have come to light in the past couple of years is no surprise to me. It was bound to happen. From the beginning, I gave a lot of side-eye to my yelp-loving-enough-to-have-its-babies friend, because I thought it was kind of stupid to believe random people on the internet. Especially since we live in an age where damn near everything isn’t good enough unless it is a fully perfect experience all the time.

Why do people care so much about other people’s reviews? Is it about living through the permission of someone else to enjoy an experience?

When I went on my trip last year, someone wanted to tell me the places I “have” to go in Chicago. My thought was “I don’t have to go anywhere.” I have been on oddball vacations where I did nothing that was part of the usual script, but it didn’t remove the fact that I had a vacation in that town or state. Why do I need to check of your particular list to validate the worth of my trip?

The things you like– the restaurants, the hotels, the clothes, the decor– do not have to be filtered through what other people like in order to be valid for you.

To be perfectly honest, I have written only a few online reviews for things. I posted a review for a pair of boots sold by a major department store chain, and I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 and explained why. The remark got removed for violating something. I didn’t say anything truly negative. I commented on the fit of the boot. That was all.

You don’t know if what you are reading is real with any review, anywhere. Reviews are the modern hall of mirrors- distorted, cheaply framed, stretched and lumpy all at once, and far too many of them. Star ratings for hotels are all but pointless.

Look deep and ask yourself: how much of this experience is the experience, and how much of it is my determination to enjoy my experience? What is the absolute worst thing that can happen if you don’t enjoy a restaurant (barring actual safety issues)? You have a story about a restaurant you don’t want to go to again. That’s all. Something to laugh at later that evening.

You may be missing out on something great, something real. You never know.

The Beauty of Stasis

My life is in a holding pattern. A good holding pattern.

I keep doing things one thing at a time, one day at a time– a foreign concept for me. I tend to go all in at once, planning to the ninth degree and then going all in on something nonstop. Forcing myself to live more slowly has been very beneficial. I don’t experience ups and downs as hard has I have been, and I don’t feel overwhelmed and crash into depression because I feel something is too much, either. I make a point to each day tackle something: The lawn, the laundry, the weed eater, the floors, dusting….

Part of the trick is not to be too involved in the internet or tv shows. I still watch TV, but only things light enough to walk away from. I dropped social media, which cut into a lot of my day- I hated logging on, and yet felt compelled to do so. I think I’m a lot better off without it. It felt like a part-time job that I was doing for free. It was always summoning up these toxic feelings and general disappointment in the people I know because of their political views.

I cook myself a decent dinner every other day or so, and generally make enough for two nights. This is better for me than pressuring myself to “meal plan” on weekends. I generally buy enough of the kind of quick, easy food that creating a decent meal isn’t too time consuming. It also allows me to be spontaneous and creative.

After some large closet clean-outs a few months ago, and getting real with myself on the practicality of some items, I am down to a useable selection of clothes that I genuinely like and can see myself wearing a long time. Because of this, I don’t feel like I don’t have anything to wear, or pressure to replace crappy clothes.

I am trying to really lean into trusting my gut more. It doesn’t often steer me in the wrong direction. Sometimes, yes, it does… but how often are you making decisions that you can’t back out of at some point? It doesn’t happen often for the average person.

Right now, I am okay with my life being what it is. I don’t feel the pressure to fix things in my life like I have over the past few years.

I’m in a state of balance. Getting to bed before 1 a.m. and getting up on time.

It’s a strange place for me.

The Unsexiness of Money Saving

I grew up around a lot of boys and men who liked women who came from wealthy backgrounds.  Public school boys were coached to go after private school girls, for the most part.  The boys always dated up, as much as possible.

Now many of them are on wife 2 or 3 and some married the very girls they turned their noses up toward when we were in school together.  It’s an interesting outcome.

I’ve always been amazed at the financial expectations our society has of women. To be initially attractive, you have to spend money like a damn idiot and have a lot of stuff and services.  Then you get browbeaten later on for 1- not taking care of yourself or 2- spending too much money on taking care of yourself or 3- (and most common) both things, simultaneously.

Guys- Trust me– if we could grow lingerie trees in the backyard, and designer bag trees in order to keep your interest with no actual investment, we would.

I, for one… am more of a saver than a spender. It is the outcome of my childhood. It probably isn’t sexy when a man finds out that I use DIY laundry detergent from an online recipe.  It probably isn’t sexy when they find out that I bought every appliance I have purchased from the “scratch and dent” area of the store.  And that I rejoiced when I was accidentally given free delivery for no reason once.    And that my washing machine was bought used.  Or that I don’t use name brand dish detergent.  Or that I eat PB & J nearly every day for lunch (I assembly line 4 sandwiches on Sunday night and stash them in the fridge to make it easy for myself).

I am simply thinking of different goals.

It probably throws off the sexy.

I was thinking of going to Florida for vacation this year, but have recently revised my plan and may go to Myrtle Beach instead.  Found a better deal. I dig Florida, but I have to keep the bigger goals of my life in mind.

I found an even cheaper deal in Tennessee, which I also enjoy, but that may be the plan for the year after.  I feel the sea and sand calling my name.

People in my own age group either 1- don’t travel ever because they don’t have the money or 2- look down on me for not having been to London or Paris yet.  The set I tend to run into is more into London than Paris.

Are you kidding?  for the years of 1996-2004 I didn’t even go on a vacation that didn’t involve couch surfing somewhere with friends in the state of Georgia.  From 2006-2012, every vacation was a “working vacation” because I was also dancing and furthering my hobby/side career.  Then I didn’t do anything except day trips for a while.  A few years ago I went to one weekend in Charleston.  Just overnight. Just a day away.  $35 motel room at the Radisson in the “industrial” area of town, and the next morning I drove in and did a few small attractions before driving home.

This past year, I went to Chicago.  I didn’t pay for the plane fare.  I tacked a vacation on to a work trip. I bought a multi-day train pass and didn’t use any taxis. The biggest expenses on my end were food – which I kept rather small by buying a box of granola bars to do for breakfast and hitting sandwich shops mostly for lunch and dinner- and fees to get into attractions. I visited a couple of museums and some parks and a funhouse at Navy Pier.  Mostly I enjoyed the sights and walked around.

It was still, to me, very expensive.  I am not regretting going, not by any stretch of the imagination.  But this year, and maybe next year, I will need to stay closer to home to feel like I’m meeting my goals.  Travel requires a lot of money.

And I can’t help but think about things I’m going to have to do.  Replace the car eventually.  Replace the roof on the house.  Replace the shed out back. If I don’t save now, where will I be when these expenses come up?

Again, It all makes me a very unsexy woman.  Not being able to drop it all and run off into the night.

In addition to my ongoing notions of saving, this year I’m doing a “shop only once” goal for myself with groceries. I shop only on alternate weeks – payday.   If I run out of something, no extra trips.   Make do or eat something else.  It requires a lot of commitment considering I am in a town built around shopping as a hobby.   But at the same time, I feel the stress also leaving me of having to drive here and there.   I also shop at 3 different grocery stores that are within a mile of one another.  One is a Walmart, where I go for cat food and litter, as well as discount bakery goods- they mark them down and put them in the back if they overbake.  The others are Aldi and Lidl, which I hit for most everything else.

I use my reclaimed weekend time to meal prep.  I make it easy for myself- things that are quick and fix easily.  I’m not in charge of a gourmet restaurant.  I just need to eat. I don’t have to eat the best of everything every day.   I just have to have satisfying food.  No one is going to shoot me for using instant potatoes.   That guy doesn’t exist (although, the way some people act about having the best, most perfect food these days… you might think he does.) I make enough for at least a few days.

Food is the second hobby in my town.  And the ratio of restaurants to people is amazing.  And quite a few of the restaurants are quite good, not very expensive.  And, to add to that, the area is a melting pot.  You name the food, I’ll tell you where to eat it. Which makes it tempting to just go out and get food.  That has been a hard one for me.  It is easy to load up on delicious Chinese and Mexican from my favorite few places and call it a day.  But… I have to stay committed to the goal.

My other goal is to only buy clothes that won’t go out of style soon, and that will last.  I tend to do this by going to online thrift stores and searching exclusively for brands that I think will be durable, and look for items that won’t go out of style.  Like a v neck sweater in a basic color that will be cozy but also can layer with another shirt if it gets super cold.   And I also hit stores that are less popular at the moment- Sears and JCPenney- to visit their clearance racks welllllll after the end of the season.  Some people are satisfied at 50% off.  I like a good solid 75%.  This past October, I went to JCPenney and loaded up on short sleeve casual shirts for $3 and $4- mostly for regular wear, but some which may be okay for work as well.

Some people shop the day after Christmas, I wait until… now.  Several weeks into January to shop for next year’s “easy” gifts– things like marked down candles.  I’ll group them with other odds and ends that I’ll collect and make it a Christmas gift for someone next year.  Stuff like this is a good “sister in law” type gift. Or a work gift-exchange gift.  I also have no compulsions at all about regifting. I keep a notebook so I don’t gift the wrong thing to the wrong person next year.   You can give a gift you got from your sister in law to someone at work, for example, if it is generic enough.

Right now, I have enough generic gifts to last through about 3-5 holiday seasons, because I hit a bunch of places last year.   Last year was pretty golden in that regard.  I was really thrilled.

I also know when the major drugstore chains in my area clearance their shampoos, lotions, and soaps that they won’t carry anymore. I hit that up too.  Usually yearly.  But I have enough to last about 2 years at this point.  So next time around, I might not jump into that.  I’ll have to assess later.

I have a budget app.

I don’t have cable.  I watch Netflix and hook my laptop up to my tv.

My car is a 2003.  And gets good gas mileage. Since I don’t have enough yard space to change the oil myself without attracting male attention (20 men telling me I’m doing it ‘wrong’) I do get the oil changed, but I use a pep boys coupon every time and I have a loyalty card.

I don’t go into something other than clothing with preconceptions of color preference.  For instance, I use a wheeled bag for hauling snacks in and out of work for certain meetings.  I bought it on Amazon.  The color I initially looked at was $40.00.  But, when I clicked on the red one, it happened to be $20.00.  So, I got the red one.  Amazon does this a lot.  A seller will have one pattern or color that is less expensive.  Click around until you find it.  Sometimes this happens in the real world as well.  It pays to not be too picky.  There is a place and time when the right color makes or breaks something, but most of the time, it is pretty irrelevant.

Every 2-3 years, I shop for car insurance.

I review my employer’s insurance offerings every year for the best bang for my buck.  I’m relatively healthy, but as we all know, that can change.  We all know someone in their 30’s or 40’s who suddenly had cancer, or some other issue befell them… so I make a point to keep good health insurance.  This year, my hunt for a better deal saved me 20 bucks per month.

I don’t mind arguing with a company for a better deal.

I recently did that with my internet company.  The price went up. I called.  I asked for a better deal.  I was given one.  But then I asked if he could go any lower than that, and was given an even better deal.

I reuse what I can when I can. I can’t always.  My town has a buff recycling program, so I do recycle what I can’t reuse around the house if it is an accepted item.

All of these things make me unsexy.  And yet, I don’t care.  Financial security and the confidence I get from feeling at ease in my own universe is, to me, HELLA SEXY.

I can tell people how to save money on just about everything.  I do try to drop tips now and then, but people tend to roll their eyes at me.   But I don’t care.  My goals matter more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Tyranny of Personality and Class Indicators

When you are looking for a job, everyone scours your online profiles (even if they don’t tell you) to determine if you are a good “fit”.

Even before that, colleges look at your hobbies to determine if you are a good “fit”.

If you have hobbies and experience that make it clear you belong to a certain class (girls’ rugby, lacrosse, unpaid internships)… you are in.  You are of at least the upper middle class.  What is your permanent address?  The upper middles and above know what the right addresses are in your town at least, and if they have been mobile at all, or have relatives and contacts, they know the right addresses in every town. Most certainly, every big city.

In the interview, do you fall into line?  Do you have the right opinions… not necessarily of God and Country but are you a foodie?  Do you have the money to be a foodie?  Have you been to the right restaurants and also hold them in high esteem?  Do you wear the right things?

I read an article not long ago of a female hiring manager who said “wear a suit. PLEASE do not make a suit out of two items that simply happen to match.”  This presupposes that you already have the funds to buy a suit instead of reviving what you already own and that you have the funds to make sure both items fit correctly– if you have ever purchased women’s clothing, you know this is unlikely.  You would have to have it altered.  Or perhaps even tailored for you.  Would you be able to do that, having grown up in a trailer in the sticks and having fought your way into a scholarship?  Would you even know to do that, if you hadn’t read the article?  How many really great employees is this woman ignoring?

What school did you go to, if you are from here?  Was it on the proper side of town?  If you are in the majority religion, do you go to the right house of worship?

I don’t live in the right neighborhood in my area.

I don’t know the right people and I don’t go to the right restaurants.

My relatives have big tattoos and shabby sneakers and ten- dollar haircuts.

I have a 30 dollar haircut and color my own strands to stave off the few gray bits.  I can’t afford any other option.

I’m exhausted.

Because the behavior and mannerisms must be kept up even if it isn’t who you are.  If you are less than, you need to get comfortable with being the Butler.  Your manners should be EVEN BETTER than theirs.  You must be ever patient and forbearing. Slipping up may mean you don’t get that next promotion.  If you were to ever be considered for such, since you are a member of the servant class.

And you may not get a raise, or much of one, anyway.

But you might get nominated for an award.  You won’t get it though.  Because you aren’t buddies enough with the people who do cast the final deciding vote.  But the lady over there with the outfits from department stores only who lives in the right neighborhood and who doesn’t really need to work?  She’ll get it. She’ll get the award.  Either her or one of the myriad of women who have a husband with the right kind of job.  The right kind of job depends on where you live.

If you actually need your job, you don’t give off the right vibe.

If you ask about a salary increase, you are showing you are not the right kind of person and will never get moved up.  You have to have enough money to not really care about the money in order to get more money.

You don’t have to sp

end money to make money.  You have to have already had it in the first place and not need it.

I don’t fit in.

Perfection is breaking me. Little by little, every day.

Our personalities and class are what get us into things. Opportunities.  Possibilities.

Minor social abrasiveness to anyone ever is magnified.  I knew a lady who was a temporary supervisor for a while.  Even though she had the skill set, she wasn’t gushingly polite enough to ever get the permanent job.

You can’t just be polite.  You have to be endlessly so, regardless of circumstance.

You have to pretend that the oversight is your fault and not call out the important person you are on the phone with who has you on speaker with another important person.

You have to be more than gracious to those who clearly feel they are above you, like an old-fashioned butler. “Yes sir.” “of course, you are right sir.”

There are lines you will never cross. One of those may be your salary reaching a certain point.  Ever. The second your salary approaches amount x, the department will determine not to give raises that year.  Or only give them to individuals in an office that already makes more than you do.  Or you will get moved or laid off. Your salary will then start over. Until it gets close to amount x again.  But it will forever be in the mathematic condition of approaching that figure instead of reaching it.

Maybe you should seek out a promotion.  Maybe you shouldn’t.  Maybe if you do, you will be never promoted because they were determining when the time was right to hand you a promotion.  Other people can seek a promotion, but when you do it, it comes off as unseemly for reasons you will never be told about or given.  Or, because other people are dependent upon you in your current position and they aren’t served by you moving up.

Sure. you can leave.  But it turns out, every employer in your area pays exactly the same for the jobs you are qualified for.  If they even have a job that you can do.  Or they pay less for the same work.

Hell, the job titles above mine pay less than the job I have now. Or the same.  What would be the benefit?

At the end of the day, I’m exhausted with working at a desk and feigning this ongoing like of people I don’t like  I’m tired of performing.  I’m tired of the act of it. I want to eat messy food at low-class restaurants.  I want cheap wine and to sit at home and speak like the low-class locals.

I am a low-class local.  I”m from the dirt.   Sometimes words and pronunciations betray me.  Sometimes grammar slips out in moments of frustration and anger.  I’m not a charming southerner.  I’m a different sort of local.  A product of my time and place in ways I can’t always appreciate as being “different.”

But I never fit in there, either.  Too much reading.  Too many facts.

I wonder if anyone ever really fits in anywhere, or if it’s just a bullshit concept in the first place?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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