Cramming the first draft of a paper, trolling for citations, a brief interlude in Pittsburghia with friends from the old days. We listen to Creedence and the Stones just like old times, watch hockey, laugh, drink, play broomball Clerks-style on the balcony between two houses, walk up to the overlook at Mount Washington to gaze over the glittering metropolis nestled among rivers and hills. This little tradition has lasted eight years now and what I love about this little crew of people is their openness to others, the conversations had, and the way that we keep cycling back into each others' lives every few years.
I'm thankful that others have driven and that I can sleep in the car, lulled by the sound of 90's tuneage, waking up the next morning in need of caffeine, still feeling somnambulant and warm.
And then it's back to the daily grind after the lack of sleep, as we debate kinder gentler machine gun hands in class and I say too much incoherently, but I just can't agree with seeing the world through the binary of men and women, and it means nothing to me. Was I ever idealistic about people in large groups? Even in my days of starry eyes I don't think I ever was.
And the last hour is brutal, piles of things beyond my control and pay grade and ability because I can't be magical and compliant all the time, and I find myself getting angry, feeling resentful being constantly patronized, trying to hold in the angry salt eyes until I can be out of this building because I'm tired, praying for grace to keep calm and put things in perspective, trying to be thankful for what I've got yet resentful for feeling used, though that's the way of life for the peonage. I guess we're human resources and that's what we're there for. It's the ennui of perky holidays and innate nature sneaking up, just two more days til painting and sleeping in and just being away.
So I haven't really been following this anti-bullying bill business in part because I think such bills are ridiculous. Kids, being kids, are generally mean and ruthless, especially to anyone who sticks out for any reason, and usually the Powers That Be either ignore this kind of thing ("You need to toughen up, kid") or turn it into this self-righteous moral crusade to show that they care about the children.
But I didn't know there was an attempt to add a religious exemption in there too. I get that it's kind of been co-opted as a "gay issue," which I find kind of irksome because this is a human issue and a common decency issue. One of my friends is a social worker at one of the local psych units and told me that "if I was thirteen, and I got picked on in school and then I came home and saw that someone had made a Facebook group making fun of me and all my friends joined and were writing all sorts of bad stuff about me, I'd want to kill myself too."
It's terrible that GLBT kids get picked on, yet they're not the only ones, it's hard to be a minority of any kind in a hostile environment, be it due to religion or language or skin color (or differing tone within that skin color) or just looking different. No amount of legislation is going to change that despite any presumed best intentions. I would hope that teachers and powers that be would have the sense to not enable and encourage (because that does happen so often) but it's hard for me to be so optimistic having dealt with my own share of awful teen years.
But what the hell, people? Especially you religious folk out there who like to talk about how you're persecuted. So it's ok to beat up the gay kid because you've got some "deeply held belief" that their personal choices are wrong? There's a lot of people who have a deeply held belief that you're crazy, does that make it ok to give you a hard time? And what about this whole loving your neighbor business? Jesus said a lot more about loving people even if they treat you like crap or are different than you than anything resembling the implications of what's being advocated. What's in the water up there? Even the most fundie of the people I've met in my short time on earth might have some strange ways of looking at the world, but usually don't tend to advocate being nasty to other kids (usually they just don't put their kids in public school to shelter them from that BIG BAD SECULAR HUMANIST WORLD but that's a whole other story).
The fact that there's debate on who's a protected class and who isn't smacks of handicapping for the Suffering Olympics and really makes me even more cynical about the dumbassery of our elected officials and the education system. And regardless of what your personal beliefs or family structure is, you really should be raising your kids to not be mean to other kids, not that it'll always stop them, but it really does start at home, not thinking your kid is so damn special and right all the time, and being a good example, and not encouraging them to be hateful.
And it seems like grandstanding on all sides, and I wonder what all these people were like when they were teens. Were they the bullies, or the bullies' minions (those who stand by or chime in out of some combination of power and fear of being the next victim), or the kids who just kind of drifted through, or the kids that got picked on and now that they have power, dammit, they're going to use it to get back at the ones lower on the pecking order or the ones above them or maybe there's an idealistic "well maybe if I do this it won't happen to someone else."
But we're a nation of bullies in a world of bullies, overcompensating for the glaring flaws by mocking the flaws of others and doing the geopolitical equivalent of beating them up after school or sending our minions to do it next. It happened in New York the past couple days, and it's been happening in our country since Columbus and all over the world when one group doesn't like another and decides to beat them up and take away what they have, be it dignity or stuff or both. Is that ever going to change? I wish it would, but nothing indicates that it will.
Because some have nothing better to do with their time than micromanage in true Kafka meets Office Space form, amazing how condescension screams through the detachment of electronic communication, amazing that people care that much about stupid things, though perhaps in their world, things, especially monetary, generally mean more than people. Human resources are just that, something to be exploited to maximum potential until they're used up.
Well, he hands you a nickel,
He hands you a dime,
He asks you with a grin
If you're havin' a good time,
Then he fines you every time you slam the door.
And it's not that I'm unhappy, as things are overall good and even better than they were, but it's hard for me to suffer fools gladly especially those who make triple what I do who tell me that I'm so lucky and so wonderful until I'm not and then even the smallest misstep that no one will notice becomes the end of the world. I'll be working Maggie's Farm for a long time it seems under one person or another.
Well, I try my best
To be just like I am,
But everybody wants you
To be just like them.
They sing while you slave and I just get bored.
I'd rather not be on the radar at all, the subject of no conversation, the recipient of no insincere accolades or unfounded criticism, and on my end, I'm flexible and work hard and do my best not to be passive-aggressive. I'll blame this absurdity on the Vodka Zeppelin floating around the skies of Our Fair City.
I don't mean to be so angry, but I'm already walking on eggshells and I'm clumsy. I pray to God that I don't become bitter, and seek solace in the beauty of wind and water, in the meantime thankful for glasses that hide the tears that are welling up because I'm tired and all this does is remind me of the other slights and condescension. I've been a legal adult for ten years now. I pay taxes and hold down a job just like you do. It'd be nice to be treated like one for a change.
It's the world of our elders, we just live in it and try to get by. I try to keep my nose clean and not get embroiled in the politics of those with small minds and bitterness for reasons unknown.
I don't bother trying to kowtow, I don't want to play games of politics and power. If I wanted it that badly, I'd be in the corporate world getting paid more than I make now, and I don't want to speak ill of those I do like or have no opinion on and try harder to not to the same for those I don't care for as much.
I say too many stupid things as it is, and the discipline of negotiating words and utilizing as much taciturnity as possible instead of taking the easy way out and talking trash. I am trying to be better than this.
I cannot help that I don't buy into these systems, I can't help that I'm alive while everyone else is too busy jostling each other and faking their faces, because I love beauty and God and people and the smile is mostly true and the laughter genuine.
If I spent all my time trying to please people I'd go crazy because I'm either too negative or too happy or too Madonna/whore or whatever, everyone wants you to be something else, assumes one thing or another. I can be more circumspect maybe, but I won't change who I am, if past life is any indication, couldn't if I tried.
I try to live out this whole quiet life, try to live out what I believe and it's hard as anything to treat others the way one wants to be treated when they don't do that, to love enemies, to pray for those who make your life frustrating. Trusting in something that still seems so abstract is hard for me, my faith existing and yet so fragile and small.
It's not that I have any reason to doubt, especially after everything else that's happened. I sometimes wonder if the reason that people get all crazy and fundamentalist is that it's easier to hide behind structures and rules than actually deal with the interior of one's soul in relation to God and others.
I tremble They're going to eat me alive If I stumble They're going to eat me alive
Can you hear my heart beating like a hammer? Beating like a hammer? Help, I'm alive, my heart keeps beating like a hammer Hard to be soft Tough to be tender
Come take my pulse, the pace is on a runaway train Help, I'm alive, my heart keeps beating like a hammer Beating like a hammer
If you're still alive My regrets are few If my life is mine What shouldn't I do? I get wherever I'm going I get whatever I need While my blood's still flowing And my heart still beats . . . Beating like a hammer Beating like a hammer
