First off, it seems I have to define the term "tragedy porn." I told friends of mine that I'm finally finished with it & 2 of them were confused; one actually though I'd done porn! I also had another friend who thought my husband had died instead of my sister in law. I'll have to send her a private message later since I've got a lot to tell her but first, let me define this term. I hope I gave an explanation that really did it justice for those friends but in case I didn't let's define it.
You know when there's a tragedy the media will cover it excessively? For instance, when 9/11 happened you couldn't watch anything on television b/c of all the footage of the World Trade Center towers. Not just on news channels but EVERYWHERE. They had no news to report at the time but it was happening for days & days on a loop.
After a while, people felt like enough was enough. That is how I felt about this whole recent death thing.
If you've read prior entries, you know I'm no stranger to the death of close family members. I've been to quite a few funerals & recently had to help in the planning of my father's funeral. I know a thing or two about them & what's customary vs. overkill.
I had no beef with my sister in law. She was like my father in some ways. Unfortunately, she was like him in the sense of having addictions & not being a functional human being to quite a few people. I felt bad for her family since boy do I know what it's like to live with someone who has an addictive personality & addiction problems. She also didn't want to get help for herself, resulting in my husband not being able to have a close relationship with her. Nor did she seem to want to have a close relationship with him. Maybe them being from 2 different generations also didn't help matters (10+ years age difference) though you could never have called my sister in law unhip. I'm also sure she had to be a far better mother to her kids than my mom was to me since she actually had hard times in her youth, knew all the tricks & that teenagers are going to rebel. She didn't go around trying to fight that fact or damning her kids for all eternity.
She struck me as the type of mom who could handle any problem her kids might have without being a judgmental jerkwad, resenting them for being successful or harping on some issue for the rest of their lives. I never heard her being judgmental about or toward anyone & she actually argued with her mother with positions I'd take myself.
Plus, she appreciated my fashion sense & always made me feel welcome in the family.
My most memorable story of her was when she came to see our apartment with her kids & husband. She told us that our street was where she used to go score drugs. I always saw her as a hip older sister; perhaps had I been able to have a closer relationship, she could have been the hip older sister I never had.
We had the wakes yesterday & the funeral today. Here's where it becomes tragedy porn:
1. I had to go to BOTH wakes since my ride chose to do this. One wake was bad enough; I cried some in that one. You couldn't help it since you saw her in the casket & the slide show had recognizable music (including "Angel" by Sarah MacLachlan, the song most known for being played in those mistreated animal commercials). I will also never be able to hear the song "Always" by Atlantic Starr in the same way, though I thought it was sweet for the slideshow & fitting for my sister in law. After all, she had decent taste in music. She's the one who exposed my husband to great classic rap I didn't get to listen to until much later.
At least one relative told us the music included was just too sad for things.
Also, no one I have ever heard of a funeral for had 2 wakes. You got one wake; that was it. We had one wake for my father & my mother didn't even want that. In fact, my mother in law outright said she didn't want one when she's dead since she hates the fake concern from people who never bothered reaching out or contacting the deceased when (s)he was alive. She makes a very good point.
2. At the second wake, we had to be subjected to a pastor trying to proselytize to us. One prayer is one thing; it's another to be telling people they have to put their hope in God or bad things will happen (or imply it).
Newsflash, Christians!!! Not everyone plays on the God Squad or wants to.
Why should atheists, agnostics, Pagans & others who don't follow YOUR beliefs have to feel attacked and alienated when they go to pay their respects to a loved one? Particularly a loved one who probably wouldn't have wanted these people to be subjected to a sermon. I don't recall my husband being subjected to harassment from his sister on religious matters when she felt religious at a given moment. You don't hear about atheists or agnostics trying to shove their faith down believers' throat at their loved ones' funerals or using their speakers to deliver sermons & "save souls."
3. We were all sitting in rows of chairs in there while the body was out & with the comfy seats in front for the family. My husband was in a fuzzy situation since he was the brother but my husband's parents were in the front and, of course, you had my brother in law & their kids. My husband didn't want to be in front anyway so we opted to talk to other relatives and let them know we should be getting together under more pleasant circumstances & in less formal settings.
This is not something I've ever seen in the South & only with my husband's family (those are the only funerals I've been to up here). Again, I've been to a LOT of funerals. Our wake was in a large room, no chairs except comfy ones on the side. They also had comfy seats in the hallway so you didn't have to stay in the cold viewing rooms if you didn't want to be in there anymore.
Here you had the downstairs lounge near the office or had to stand in the hallway. There was also the option of going outside (which was also available at my father's wake).
I really hate that setup. It feels like you should see a speaker or a performance. If you're not, everyone just sits in dead silence, watches the slideshow a thousand trillion times and is encouraged to just sit like we're in some church sermon. At least in an open room, conversation will happen & people won't feel awkward about engaging in it. Plus, you know to keep your stuff with you or can put it in a comfy seat where no one is likely to steal it from you.
There's only so many times you can sit and view a slideshow that way before you feel like enough is enough.
4. This morning, we had to ride in rush hour traffic from our house about an hour away to then sit ANOTHER hour watching yet another slide show in the same room with the same seating setup. I was like "This is no longer a funeral!! It's tragedy porn! I have to get out of here."
I'm not sure whose grand idea it was to tell everyone to come in at 9:30 & then not bother doing ANYTHING until more than an hour later. That person should be forced to give me a free glass of pulpy orange juice & pay our gas costs for sitting in the crap we had to sit in to travel 2 counties away.
Not to mention my stomach was growling during all this while I'd eaten breakfast before I came (no orange juice so I was also sleepy & POed from getting up at the crack of dawn, at least in The Angry Redheaded Lawyer's world). When I get paid to get up at 7 in the morning, we'll talk about the early/lateness of the hour. Until I do, I'm sleeping in & you can keep your sob stories to yourself. Oh, and as a rule entertainment people generally keep later hours than everyone else when they get to make that choice.
5. We also had to take side detours to the homes in the town where the deceased lived. One of them wasn't even a residence my husband remembered & he couldn't tell you which one was her old home. As he pointed out, what is the good in that? The people who wanted to do that could do it on their own time instead of dragging the full procession there. Who were we burying, my sister in law or JFK? I'm shocked no one tried to have the full town closed. Who doesn't think that's self-indulgent?
No funeral I have been to in history EVER did this. My father's did not include a drive by of homes where nobody knew where they were or why it was the least bit significant. We had the good sense not to drag people to bad neighborhoods to wheel his corpse all over town.
We went straight to the cemetery & that was that. The nostalgia tours (which are totally for the living, not the dead) were not inflicted on our funeral attendees. Not to mention people have lives aside from funerals on a weekday. They have jobs, rush hour traffic & plenty of other things to contend with.
6. The funeral home staff seemed determined to drag this out for as long as humanly possible. We sat in our car for what felt like eternity before the tour of homes began. It was ridiculous & showed poor planning. We sure didn't have a long ass wait when we were burying my father; we got that show on the road.
I also don't remember our driver going slowly like this one did; my father would have been pissed if that happened anyway since he (as well as the rest of my family) was known for being a lead foot & someone who complained about slow drivers. We've all got some road rage & don't deny it.
7. Finally, there were about a trillion "final goodbyes" to the deceased. We had more prayers, put our flowers on the casket and you'd think we'd be done. The word "final" didn't have the conventional meaning here.
One big thing about every other funeral I've been to: you DO NOT get to hang around & watch the cemetery staff put your loved one in the ground or the drawer. No one ever hung around for it & we felt it was done, time to move on. The dead person isn't at that cemetery; they are gone.
Not this time. My husband & the other family members go over to the drawer to watch them load the casket in. I did not. Instead I sat on benches & looked at the dates of life and death for people in this cemetery. I noticed that a lot of people with Italian last names lived for far longer than most of my relatives, leading me to think longevity is apparently good if you're an Italian living in Long Island. Saw very few plaques for people who died younger. That made me mad since my family's longevity is not even close to 80s-90s; try 60s.
I was also done by that point. A person can't be around death & all that tragedy all the time, non-stop for days on end like that. You say your goodbyes & get the show on the road. Dragging it out like this was just picking at scabs & giving the wound no chance of healing.
I put my flower down on the casket, I went through before the first wake to say goodbyes, the end of the second wake & before we left for the procession. I did all my goodbye saying at the start; I didn't need multiple times for that. Sister in law also isn't a high rank on all this in my book. I wasn't even acknowledged in the obituary or to half the people who paid their respects.
At what point did this become tragedy porn for me? The second wake long before the pastor arrived & sitting around over an hour this morning like we were in church to watch the second slideshow.
So if you're planning a funeral, a few things to consider:
1. Respect for others. The world doesn't revolve around YOU. Think about what the deceased would have wanted. Would (s)he want the people who came to mourn him/her feel unwelcome at the service? Would the deceased want you wheeling his/her corpse all over town? Would the deceased want you to drag out the entire process & dwell on things, Catholic guilt or not? Most of us aren't self-centered, self-indulgent jerks who think everyone else should hang around the rest of the decade & watch the same tributes ad nauseam. How about some appreciation & respect for people who are taking time off their jobs, not watching their kids, getting up at the crack of dawn, braving rush hour, whatever to show up?
2. Demand your funeral staff to be efficient. We could have been told to show up an hour later & I could have gotten more sleep. Perhaps we'd have also avoided the traffic we hit to get there. Make sure they have their shit together & organize things beforehand so they're not running around for things or encouraging people who took time away from work & their own lives to attend.
3. If you must have a wake, don't do that seating thing unless you're bringing in a stand-up comic or others are going to get up & speak about the deceased most of the time. Don't force people to sit there for 30 minutes+ on end with the tribute on loop & zero access to food (since NY law supposedly forbids anyone bringing food or drink to a funeral home; what if they're toting a young child, I wonder?) or loud conversation with others. You could also be forgiven if you're bringing in a dancer, preferably burlesque. The people with kids should also appreciate this since however much we hate that mess, they have to hate it more since that's just cruel.
Imagine my autistic nephew having to do that; he'd lose his shit very quickly. In fact, his screaming would be a welcome relief from the somber, depressing atmosphere. Watching these younger kids interact made me feel a little better at the cemetery. Life affirming stuff, maybe? I don't know.
Younger children at funerals just make it feel better to me since they're not bound by the rules of decorum adults are & generally get to be their rambunctious, crazy selves without too many adults getting pissy about it. As long as they're not being bratty like pulling people's hair or knocking flowers down, they should be around to bring levity to the proceedings if the family refuses to have a celebration of life & insists on imposing the law of tragedy porn.
My husband had the nerve to tell me earlier I didn't know what it was like to have someone die & have unfinished business with them. I had to remind him he was wrong. I hope he'll take the advice he gave me before.
Also, I know I'm not a goth or like Harold of Harold & Maude. Maybe going to a funeral is okay if you don't know the person but if you do? It just sucks & it's worse when it gets into tragedy porn territory. I already told my husband I'm not going to any more wakes or funerals unless it's for immediate family or a very close friend (as in, someone I've bared my soul to who didn't run for the hills when I did). I can't do The Death Channel; some people seem to want to live in it but I can't. I like to live in today & have no regrets about doing a modeling gig on Saturday. I don't want to feel like my career & plans are being halted and derailed because of all this shit. I already felt like I lost the month of June with my family stuff; I don't want to lose this month or next as well.
If you're wondering if this changes my general feelings on family, it doesn't. I never signed up for sainthood & would never tell you I'm perfect. I also think it's extremely hypocritical to say "Family is who is there for you & what you create, not blood" while telling someone they shouldn't disown their parents b/c "They're your PARENTS!!!" When you feel about a family member the way Thelma Harper felt about her mother, I think it's time to move on (Mama's Family reference; she felt her mother was a critical shrew who never had a kind word for her & disparaged everything about her, her husband and her family--you also saw this play out in flashbacks). I can't wait to get the full show in October & probably relate to parts of it way too much. Mama's Family is not far off from Southern families I've seen (though it takes place in the Midwest, not the South), especially if the family isn't rich.
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Am I Too Poor or Just Too Cheap & Higher Purposes
Seriously, I'm not sure whether we're too poor or just too cheap to do things many people do. We went to a New Year's Eve Eve party last night for an event held by one of my friends & whose entertainment is top notch. My husband adamantly insisted we go to this even based on his good time at the event they had on the 4th of July.
We get to the event and go into the top floor room. It was very nice: wasn't too crowded, you could hear the band as well as your conversation if you went to the sitting area and you got a nice view of the NYC skyline and the street below.
We, and it seems others, were led to believe that both rooms were accessible all night. We saw some great burlesque performers & heard good music. The emcee said there would be more there but after we get downstairs to see another performance and my husband needs someplace to sit without being commanded to spend money or sitting in a stranger's lap. Not to mention I don't like to be standing around in the middle of a crowd & blocking people from walking around (since I hate that being done to me, especially in the tourist areas).
As we try to go back upstairs, we're told the upstairs is closed. Apparently the venue decided to do this to the party. Downstairs, meanwhile, is super packed. My husband saw a lot of disgruntled people and I heard some complaints myself. Some even ignored the coat check since we saw people leave their coats & bags in the outside hallway, where we stayed and talked while figuring out whether to stay or go. As I try to let my husband make these choices since he's got medical issues with his legs and standing on his feet (he, unlike some people, doesn't like making a big fuss & doesn't exhort people to feel sorry for him or give him special treatment because of it), he says it's up to me. Since I don't like seeing him miserable, what choice do you think I make?
We end up leaving but hang out in this lounge near the coat check section in order to decide where we're going for dinner since we haven't eaten and we're not about to spend a million dollars at the club's restaurant. After some wandering about, the night was saved when we happened upon this Mexican restaurant away from tourist row.
Here's my basic stance on going someplace & if my husband will go with me:
1. The event MUST be a price I/we consider reasonable. Clubs not having a special event had better not be over $5 per person (and I really hate paying to go in the first place as I was the recipient of many free ladies nights back in my college days in the early 00s--I was even told by a guy I knew from karaoke that w/my looks I should NEVER have to pay cover anywhere & I'm inclined to agree; I look EXACTLY the same as I did then, by the way). Unless it's a special event or one of my friends is involved, chances are I will not go if it costs money.
If it's a special event, don't even talk to me about it unless your tickets are about $25 a person or less. You're also more likely to entice me to go if you're friends with me, I've heard great things about your talent or my friends are going. $80, $50 per person?!?!?! Not happening & most likely wouldn't even if I had the $ for it. I should be seeing full nudity or getting my house cleaned for that kind of money.
2. If you want me to dress up, it has to be someplace where everyone else is dressed in a similar way. Since my husband HATES dressing up & most dress up events violate #1, I rarely get to do it unless I want to go to a club alone through a promoter's list. I also consider the weather outside & how my feet are going to feel in shoes when I'm having to walk around my neighborhood & trek on the subway to get to an event (the ones I go to are typically in Manhattan). I also HATE having to lug comfortable shoes around so my feet aren't blisters before I get someplace so I'm wondering how those travel shoe things are working for folks; I'm considering getting some for this very reason.
3. If there's a long line, fuck you!!! My husband has ZERO patience for long lines that never move. I also have limited patience with long lines. Status & exclusivity? Screw that!! Nothing is worth my waiting in line for hours (even free Chick-Fil-A for a year). We have a similar attitude on restaurants. If it's a long wait & you don't take reservations, we'll go elsewhere.
I found this article quite accurate to how we sum it up. Plus, my cooking is much better & I can make my food the way I want it, not how the restaurant thinks I want it. If we did a reservation & we're still waiting for a table 30 minutes later?? You can also go fuck yourself & have guaranteed some negative Yelp reviews against you.
4. My husband is extremely picky about music. If he hates the music, he will leave. I'm less picky about that but if you started blasting country music, I'd be out of there myself.
5. Don't hassle me to buy something the second I walk in the room if I'm present for an event!!! I hate that & it's a surefire way to get me to walk out. There's being a polite server & then there's being an ass. We've walked out when the person was being an ass (if the response to "We're looking" is the server hanging around and hovering over you while you look at the menu when you came to go to karaoke, the server is being an ass).
6. Have some seating that doesn't require a person to buy alcohol to use it. Some people DO have health conditions and would rather not announce them to the world. Plus, if there's no space you don't want to be blocking people from walking like you were a tourist standing in the middle of a NYC sidewalk.
So I'm not sure if it's that I'm too cheap or too poor to do things. I can't really afford to go to the theater or Broadway shows but even if I could, there is very little my husband would go to see. With things I go to in Manhattan usually turning out to stink for one or more of these reasons, I wondered last night about what we can possibly do for events to get out of the house.
We did decide we did not want to live in the suburbs. We're huge on not becoming that married couple that never goes anywhere or does anything; we saw that enough with our own parents. Plus, we don't have kids tying us down.
It seems my next step will be looking at things in Brooklyn or Queens. That means some additions to the requirements:
1. It must be accessible by public transit. We're not going to wait 2 hours for a bus to get someplace. If we wanted that, we could just live in the suburbs without a car and go to the local mall.
2. It must be in a safe neighborhood. This is just basic common sense.
I hardly think any of this is unreasonable considering we've managed to find things to go to and have fun at without this kind of bullshit. We'd just like to expand it some to things we both can do & so we have things to point to when people we know visit, especially folk who live in the suburbs. I don't like encouraging suburbanites by letting them sit in my home & not going to NYC when we're so close to it.
Plus, I like to make sure people are having fun without feeling like they have to make a million dollars a year in order to do so.
As we were discussing and thinking about things yesterday, I had a realization with respect to my business & all. I swore that I was not going to be a poor grown up. It occurred to me that as long as I'm in this current career limbo, I'm simply in a state of transition. It's not like "Your status is set in stone & this is where you will be for the rest of your life." Careers do have limits on income & you know that you're not going to advance anywhere after a while. You're just where you are & that's it. I realized that having a transition period means there's some hope I won't die in the same place I'm at already. Bear in mind, though that I'm not the the type to let life happen to me. Psycho Boy was & it wasn't a pretty picture; you see a lot of resignation with people who let life happen to them instead of making things happen that improve their own lives.
Later on, I read this article posted by a Twitter friend that popped up on my feed & it occurred to me that once again, I have a greater purpose to consider than just my own bullshit. It's not just me or my company (which totally defies this study in the leadership make-up & how we are treated); it's being an example. It's proving that it can be done & you aren't living in some caste system where the situation you're at now is the one you'll die in.
There's plenty of sexism in the legal field as well. I read an article recently that I think a different Twitter follower posted that said private law firms practice sexism against women but also engage in heavy lip service to the contrary. Just one more reason I'm not likely to be working in one.
After reading, it occurs to me that maybe it doesn't matter if I make any money from doing this or not, at least with respect to the issue of if I accomplished anything in life. If there's anything I like doing, it's giving someone else ammo in the fight against their own detractors. It never really occurs to me so much that I'm abnormal or doing something different/unusual. I only see it as pursuing what I wanted to do.
Consider that my mother was the one in charge when I was growing up; she HAD to be considering my father was too busy losing jobs & generally being an alcoholic. This is far beyond the dumb father stereotype you see in mainstream media; you're talking about someone who couldn't even hold down a job & lost a driver's license. Someone who's not fitting society's definition of functional.
On that note, I sure hope the answer to female empowerment & gender equality in these fields isn't living in a household where the mother has to be in charge because the father's too messed up for it.
We get to the event and go into the top floor room. It was very nice: wasn't too crowded, you could hear the band as well as your conversation if you went to the sitting area and you got a nice view of the NYC skyline and the street below.
We, and it seems others, were led to believe that both rooms were accessible all night. We saw some great burlesque performers & heard good music. The emcee said there would be more there but after we get downstairs to see another performance and my husband needs someplace to sit without being commanded to spend money or sitting in a stranger's lap. Not to mention I don't like to be standing around in the middle of a crowd & blocking people from walking around (since I hate that being done to me, especially in the tourist areas).
As we try to go back upstairs, we're told the upstairs is closed. Apparently the venue decided to do this to the party. Downstairs, meanwhile, is super packed. My husband saw a lot of disgruntled people and I heard some complaints myself. Some even ignored the coat check since we saw people leave their coats & bags in the outside hallway, where we stayed and talked while figuring out whether to stay or go. As I try to let my husband make these choices since he's got medical issues with his legs and standing on his feet (he, unlike some people, doesn't like making a big fuss & doesn't exhort people to feel sorry for him or give him special treatment because of it), he says it's up to me. Since I don't like seeing him miserable, what choice do you think I make?
We end up leaving but hang out in this lounge near the coat check section in order to decide where we're going for dinner since we haven't eaten and we're not about to spend a million dollars at the club's restaurant. After some wandering about, the night was saved when we happened upon this Mexican restaurant away from tourist row.
Here's my basic stance on going someplace & if my husband will go with me:
1. The event MUST be a price I/we consider reasonable. Clubs not having a special event had better not be over $5 per person (and I really hate paying to go in the first place as I was the recipient of many free ladies nights back in my college days in the early 00s--I was even told by a guy I knew from karaoke that w/my looks I should NEVER have to pay cover anywhere & I'm inclined to agree; I look EXACTLY the same as I did then, by the way). Unless it's a special event or one of my friends is involved, chances are I will not go if it costs money.
If it's a special event, don't even talk to me about it unless your tickets are about $25 a person or less. You're also more likely to entice me to go if you're friends with me, I've heard great things about your talent or my friends are going. $80, $50 per person?!?!?! Not happening & most likely wouldn't even if I had the $ for it. I should be seeing full nudity or getting my house cleaned for that kind of money.
2. If you want me to dress up, it has to be someplace where everyone else is dressed in a similar way. Since my husband HATES dressing up & most dress up events violate #1, I rarely get to do it unless I want to go to a club alone through a promoter's list. I also consider the weather outside & how my feet are going to feel in shoes when I'm having to walk around my neighborhood & trek on the subway to get to an event (the ones I go to are typically in Manhattan). I also HATE having to lug comfortable shoes around so my feet aren't blisters before I get someplace so I'm wondering how those travel shoe things are working for folks; I'm considering getting some for this very reason.
3. If there's a long line, fuck you!!! My husband has ZERO patience for long lines that never move. I also have limited patience with long lines. Status & exclusivity? Screw that!! Nothing is worth my waiting in line for hours (even free Chick-Fil-A for a year). We have a similar attitude on restaurants. If it's a long wait & you don't take reservations, we'll go elsewhere.
I found this article quite accurate to how we sum it up. Plus, my cooking is much better & I can make my food the way I want it, not how the restaurant thinks I want it. If we did a reservation & we're still waiting for a table 30 minutes later?? You can also go fuck yourself & have guaranteed some negative Yelp reviews against you.
4. My husband is extremely picky about music. If he hates the music, he will leave. I'm less picky about that but if you started blasting country music, I'd be out of there myself.
5. Don't hassle me to buy something the second I walk in the room if I'm present for an event!!! I hate that & it's a surefire way to get me to walk out. There's being a polite server & then there's being an ass. We've walked out when the person was being an ass (if the response to "We're looking" is the server hanging around and hovering over you while you look at the menu when you came to go to karaoke, the server is being an ass).
6. Have some seating that doesn't require a person to buy alcohol to use it. Some people DO have health conditions and would rather not announce them to the world. Plus, if there's no space you don't want to be blocking people from walking like you were a tourist standing in the middle of a NYC sidewalk.
So I'm not sure if it's that I'm too cheap or too poor to do things. I can't really afford to go to the theater or Broadway shows but even if I could, there is very little my husband would go to see. With things I go to in Manhattan usually turning out to stink for one or more of these reasons, I wondered last night about what we can possibly do for events to get out of the house.
We did decide we did not want to live in the suburbs. We're huge on not becoming that married couple that never goes anywhere or does anything; we saw that enough with our own parents. Plus, we don't have kids tying us down.
It seems my next step will be looking at things in Brooklyn or Queens. That means some additions to the requirements:
1. It must be accessible by public transit. We're not going to wait 2 hours for a bus to get someplace. If we wanted that, we could just live in the suburbs without a car and go to the local mall.
2. It must be in a safe neighborhood. This is just basic common sense.
I hardly think any of this is unreasonable considering we've managed to find things to go to and have fun at without this kind of bullshit. We'd just like to expand it some to things we both can do & so we have things to point to when people we know visit, especially folk who live in the suburbs. I don't like encouraging suburbanites by letting them sit in my home & not going to NYC when we're so close to it.
Plus, I like to make sure people are having fun without feeling like they have to make a million dollars a year in order to do so.
As we were discussing and thinking about things yesterday, I had a realization with respect to my business & all. I swore that I was not going to be a poor grown up. It occurred to me that as long as I'm in this current career limbo, I'm simply in a state of transition. It's not like "Your status is set in stone & this is where you will be for the rest of your life." Careers do have limits on income & you know that you're not going to advance anywhere after a while. You're just where you are & that's it. I realized that having a transition period means there's some hope I won't die in the same place I'm at already. Bear in mind, though that I'm not the the type to let life happen to me. Psycho Boy was & it wasn't a pretty picture; you see a lot of resignation with people who let life happen to them instead of making things happen that improve their own lives.
Later on, I read this article posted by a Twitter friend that popped up on my feed & it occurred to me that once again, I have a greater purpose to consider than just my own bullshit. It's not just me or my company (which totally defies this study in the leadership make-up & how we are treated); it's being an example. It's proving that it can be done & you aren't living in some caste system where the situation you're at now is the one you'll die in.
There's plenty of sexism in the legal field as well. I read an article recently that I think a different Twitter follower posted that said private law firms practice sexism against women but also engage in heavy lip service to the contrary. Just one more reason I'm not likely to be working in one.
After reading, it occurs to me that maybe it doesn't matter if I make any money from doing this or not, at least with respect to the issue of if I accomplished anything in life. If there's anything I like doing, it's giving someone else ammo in the fight against their own detractors. It never really occurs to me so much that I'm abnormal or doing something different/unusual. I only see it as pursuing what I wanted to do.
Consider that my mother was the one in charge when I was growing up; she HAD to be considering my father was too busy losing jobs & generally being an alcoholic. This is far beyond the dumb father stereotype you see in mainstream media; you're talking about someone who couldn't even hold down a job & lost a driver's license. Someone who's not fitting society's definition of functional.
On that note, I sure hope the answer to female empowerment & gender equality in these fields isn't living in a household where the mother has to be in charge because the father's too messed up for it.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
More Basic Problems I Have w/"Typical Relationships"
Another insipid article I saw online that I'm sure someone is using as "the gospel."
For #1, I think music can be an issue if you violently hate a genre that your SO likes. For instance, I can't STAND country music. There's no way would I have married my husband if he was a fan of Garth Brooks or big on that genre. I'd have told him to move to the South since there's probably far more country music fans there. Not to mention I'm so unlike the Southern stereotypes, it's criminal to call ME a Southerner.
#2: I dated this guy in college who has forever been known as Psycho Boy. At that time, I was heading to my 2nd year of college; he had dropped out of high school. My own mother predicted that relationship wouldn't last b/c of the education divide. Plenty of other things ended it but looking back, I think the education level does make a difference if you want a long term future.
I've also had countless people say I use "big words" when I'm just speaking as I normally do. I don't go around trying to make people feel stupid (unless someone is being an ass to me). I don't think you have to prescribe to someone else's views but if you don't even know WHO I'm talking about, I think you're going to have serious problems. Not to mention income differences that can result.
#3: I have to disagree if you're noticing a pattern. One friend who does something stupid or annoying is one thing; a pack is a different story. My sister distanced herself from certain friends who were not very great parents and had different priorities from her--truth is your friends' behavior can easily rub off on you.
#4: Nope, this is a major problem. My own parents are living proof w/my father spending money on the debit card, not writing down what he spent & then my mother getting an unpleasant surprise when some bill needs to be paid. It made me refuse to share a checking account w/anyone. Now I may have trust issues here, but I would never share finances 50-50 w/a spendthrift. My own father stole money from me as a child & my own parents borrowed money from me as a kid since I actually saved my allowance. I'm still pissed about that.
#5: Never, in a million years, would I dare tell my husband how to dress OR pick out clothes for him. I wouldn't have done that to ANY man. Why???
Because it's rude & tacky. I can dress myself but I'm not a professional stylist so what entitles me to do it? Plus, girlfriend/wife DOES NOT = Mommy. Not my job to dress a grown up or make a man over. If you like someone, you accept that person for who they are NOT what you can make them.
It's the same thing as trying to make an alcoholic sober or fix a drug addict. You CAN'T do it. If the person wants to be a certain way, either deal with it or get out. If a man had ever done that to me, I'd be furious. People aren't Barbie and Ken dolls.
Needless to say, my husband would never be described as or say he's "whipped." I don't want to be anyone's warden; if I make someone that miserable, there's no point to dealing with me. A friend of mine told me a few days ago he wanted to find a woman like me; it's sad that more women haven't gotten a clue on some of this stuff. I'm sure they'd have happier relationships & be better people.
So the take home lesson here is: accept someone for who they are, warts & all or don't waste your time.
For #1, I think music can be an issue if you violently hate a genre that your SO likes. For instance, I can't STAND country music. There's no way would I have married my husband if he was a fan of Garth Brooks or big on that genre. I'd have told him to move to the South since there's probably far more country music fans there. Not to mention I'm so unlike the Southern stereotypes, it's criminal to call ME a Southerner.
#2: I dated this guy in college who has forever been known as Psycho Boy. At that time, I was heading to my 2nd year of college; he had dropped out of high school. My own mother predicted that relationship wouldn't last b/c of the education divide. Plenty of other things ended it but looking back, I think the education level does make a difference if you want a long term future.
I've also had countless people say I use "big words" when I'm just speaking as I normally do. I don't go around trying to make people feel stupid (unless someone is being an ass to me). I don't think you have to prescribe to someone else's views but if you don't even know WHO I'm talking about, I think you're going to have serious problems. Not to mention income differences that can result.
#3: I have to disagree if you're noticing a pattern. One friend who does something stupid or annoying is one thing; a pack is a different story. My sister distanced herself from certain friends who were not very great parents and had different priorities from her--truth is your friends' behavior can easily rub off on you.
#4: Nope, this is a major problem. My own parents are living proof w/my father spending money on the debit card, not writing down what he spent & then my mother getting an unpleasant surprise when some bill needs to be paid. It made me refuse to share a checking account w/anyone. Now I may have trust issues here, but I would never share finances 50-50 w/a spendthrift. My own father stole money from me as a child & my own parents borrowed money from me as a kid since I actually saved my allowance. I'm still pissed about that.
#5: Never, in a million years, would I dare tell my husband how to dress OR pick out clothes for him. I wouldn't have done that to ANY man. Why???
Because it's rude & tacky. I can dress myself but I'm not a professional stylist so what entitles me to do it? Plus, girlfriend/wife DOES NOT = Mommy. Not my job to dress a grown up or make a man over. If you like someone, you accept that person for who they are NOT what you can make them.
It's the same thing as trying to make an alcoholic sober or fix a drug addict. You CAN'T do it. If the person wants to be a certain way, either deal with it or get out. If a man had ever done that to me, I'd be furious. People aren't Barbie and Ken dolls.
Needless to say, my husband would never be described as or say he's "whipped." I don't want to be anyone's warden; if I make someone that miserable, there's no point to dealing with me. A friend of mine told me a few days ago he wanted to find a woman like me; it's sad that more women haven't gotten a clue on some of this stuff. I'm sure they'd have happier relationships & be better people.
So the take home lesson here is: accept someone for who they are, warts & all or don't waste your time.
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