in which i am angry

boy, it must be real easy for y'all, eh, new house majority?

i mean, hell. for your very first act to be to come in and try to get rid of healthcare reform. nice to know there are no other problems in this world. but really, what more should i have expected? see, these folks come from a magical fairyland where it's perpetually 1950 and life is june cleaver waiting for ward to come home from the office. nothing is ever challenging or broken, and if you're struggling, well, then, you'd better just work harder, because it's clearly your fault.

screw y'all. seriously. last night, i made a conscious decision to not seek emergency treatment for weird symptoms i was having because i cannot afford the outrageous $100 co-pay for my student insurance. oh yeah - and that was the co-pay for the hospital RUN BY THE UNIVERSITY I ATTEND. so screw y'all. screw everyone who thinks you're proportionally entitled to healthcare based on your net worth. i have a damn broken tooth that i can't get fixed because i can't afford $3,000 for a root canal (which is based on the cost of one in 2004 when this happened to me last). screw everyone who thinks healthcare is something that should be bought and sold. this isn't dry-cleaning. it's people's goddamned well-being. we're americans. we're supposed to have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, if the tea-baggers are to be believed. well, the right to life is meaningless if you die of a curable disease because you can't afford to treat yourself.

i'm low on words and high on venom. so i'll just say this: we are rotten in our core as a nation if we let this sorry form of reform get repealed by venal, mean-spirited skinflints who'd rather have the 100 richest americans avoid paying their fair share of taxes than see every american be able to afford the goddamn hospital when it's needed.

screw it. i'm going to bed.

clinging

it's dark. it's really, really dark. i try so hard to be positive, to muddle through the pain, the anger, the annoyance and the stress with all the resolve i can muster. but by god, this hurts. i am starting to feel the old rebellious streak rise up in me, the one who says, y'know, why the hell SHOULD life be this hard? what the hell is the point of trying to maintain, be on an even keel? this world does nothing but throw curveballs at you. and that, my friends, is a place i'd just as soon never see again.

see, i have a double-barreled challenge to overcome here: 1) my mother's serious mental health issues, many of which are supposedly genetic; 2) a history of... allowing the darkness to control me, so to speak. i have done so well over the past decade or so at keeping my head above water, managing my emotions. but with stressor upon stressor upon heartbreak upon fear piling up, my carefully-arranged psyche is starting to crack, starting to show signs of wear.

i know what i need to do. i know what i should do. but by god, i can't be the only person on the face of the earth who is seriously, intensely incensed by the fact that life has to be so much work. really. why the hell does this have to be such a struggle all the time? why is it that i have to fight so incredibly hard just to get through the day without succumbing to the forces that are trying to destroy me? i look around at most of the people in my life, who i know don't have perfect lives, but at least seem to have okay enough lives, and i am seethingly jealous. it makes me so angry. i have to try so goddamned hard just to get out of bed in the morning these days. it's so much fucking work. my emotional life is so much in tatters that it's cutting me to shreds. compounding this is the fact that i know people with real, life-threatening challenges who are so much more successful at staying... sane, i guess. the guilt of that compounds all of this even more.

so that's where i stand. it's a damn cold night, and i'm here, alone in my room, doing everything i can to keep my demons at bay and my angels close by. i will make it through this. i know. but sometimes, i get so goddamned tired. the test is whether i drop my hand from the wheel and let things go, or whether i somehow scare up enough resolve to keep it going.

type A

i will totally cop to being a borderline obsessive planner. i like things to be set up, a certain way, well in advance of actually getting there. let's just say that i'm not the kind of girl who digs a surprise party. i like to know what's going to happen.

so it really, really, REALLY grinds my gears when people who are supposed to be in charge of setting an agenda just... don't. look. it's november. the semester will be over in one month and seven days. now is just not the time to tweak your freaking syllabus! i cannot deal with... to call what this is "disorganization" drastically insults the disorganized.

i was not always this way. those who knew me as a teenager are consistently amused by my need to have everything set up. (they are comforted by the knowledge that my pickiness has not translated into keeping my room clean. i'm still messy.) but my new life, my newly-molded orderly and logical mind, demands a certain amount of order. i can't really function without it. and by god, it cannot POSSIBLY be that challenging to set up a semester before it starts. really.

cheap reward

"oh, i was trying to get away from the things that i always do..."
in case you missed the point of why you don't live here anymore, i'll state it again. see, you're emblematic of a pattern in my life that was, well, completely destructive. i went into things trying to remake myself in an image that you'd enjoy. sure it was stupid, but that's the way it is. too late to go back and do something about it. so i admitted i was wrong and cut the cord. but you're angry at me for realizing how wrong i was. nothing that can be done about that, either, i suppose. but my god, it's like you've gone out of your way to lash out at me every way you can. keep proving me right, my dear.

"all the sign posts on this road, they point one way."
i did my level best to make this civil. i suppose niceties were too much to hope for between us, especially when you seem so hellbent on making me feel just as bad as you do. well, i'm sorry you're hurting. i really am. that wasn't the point of all of this. but all the kindness i try to show you just ends up backfiring. that's frustrating as hell. the decline of our interactions breaks my heart.

"i'll turn the light out now, 'cause there's nothing more to say, and it's all been lost before, so there's nothing to lose..."
i think the worst part of all of this is that we used to be able to talk. that's how all this started; we talked for HOURS that first night. now, we can't even talk about anything without things escalating, getting all emotional, getting heated. it's painful. it's becoming increasingly apparent to me that all that we worked so long to build has been decimated, and further that there won't be something tenable to replace it. it's as over as it can be. and it's nothing short of unbelievable that this has happened. i tried. i failed. there's nothing more i can do, and honestly, there's nothing more i want to do. you don't want to maintain a relationship with me. i don't want to beat my head against the wall. there's nothing more to say besides the wind-up.

"lip service, that's all you'll ever get from me. how could you believe i'd take you seriously, with your cheap rewards, your blackmail, and your comical rage?"
and that means you get a version of me that you know full well isn't real. you used to know who i was. but thanks to the way you've let things devolve, you don't anymore. i've changed. you don't get to appreciate it. it's not like i didn't try. but it's all for naught, now. so you get the shell of me, the outer armor i've been forced to develop around you. i can't take this situation any other way. you lash out at me, you twist the things i say, you try to make me hurt the way you do. sorry. i don't believe in your act anymore. i can't do it. i am ready to move on.

"just remember: you'll only be the boss so long as you pay my wage." 
but it's not quite that easy. we're totally entwined financially, and it's just going to take time to get everything split up. until the time i don't need you anymore, i'm going to have to deal with it. but when i don't need you anymore, you'll still have your hooks in me, for a long, long time. i agree to this. i accept it. better than ezra once sang, "hope i never see the price of my freedom." yeah, turns out i will see the price. i'll see it until you're forty years old. but if that's what it takes, so freaking be it. and this is how it ends - writing checks, signing papers, and hardening my heart against you. that is so incredibly tragic, and in spite of my best efforts, that's just the way it has to be.

destruction [TRUE STORY]

so as i sit here today, there's a giant pile of oil threatening the state i'm about to leave. my god, it's going to be the most brutal ecological disaster we've seen in a generation, if not worse. the beaches i've spent my life on are about to get besmirched beyond recognition. the wetlands that defend this state from hurricanes are about to get wiped out for perhaps a generation. the people who run the national oceanic and atmospheric administration are SCARED. there goes tourism, fishing, the two or three things these folks have left.

i don't know how to articulate my rage. we've been irresponsible for a long time about energy. ah, the insouciance of the american public when it comes to something that's not an immediate crisis. "eh, no big deal. we've got time to figure this out. hey, check out my new yukon denali SUV - it holds thirty-seven people AND their hockey gear!" well, guess what. time's up. miners are dying. oil slicks are about to destroy a large portion of the south. WAKE. UP. sweet lord, something has to be done. and you know what, people out there in the teabagger toddler-ocracy that is the american electorate? IT'S GOING TO SUCK.

things will not be freewheeling and fun the way that the supply-siders told you it would thirty years ago. what we need to do as a country (and by god, this goes for ALL areas of policy, not just this) is to figure out a long-term plan to a) figure out what's wrong, b) prioritize the problems, and c) go about SOLVING THEM. politics is not supposed to be glib, sound-bite friendly, or entertaining. it's supposed to be hard. it's supposed to be smart. it's supposed to take time. if we don't stop electing idiots to office, and i call 'em like i see 'em, we're never gonna get there. you'll end up with stupid, short-sided laws like the arizona "stop all the brown people" rule, that don't SOLVE ANYTHING.

maybe it's me. i am an educated, thoughtful person. (only child much?) but i have one expectation: THINK. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, THINK. what's about to happen to my gulf coast is only the tip of the iceberg if we don't start thinking.

oh, and one more thing

re: yesterday's rant, i think coach mora said this best.

testing, 1, 2, me

oh, the woes of having to contend with others. the others, they mean well. i know they do. these are ostensibly smart people; for god's sake, they all got into law school. but why, oh why, oh WHY can't people just READ THE WHOLE E-MAIL before asking questions?

this is the major problem i have with being in positions of authority. i can't stand it when people ask me questions that (to me, anyway) have obvious answers. and i HATE repeating myself. oh, my lord, do i hate it. i expect people to listen when i talk, especially if they ask the question to which i am responding. i listen carefully, ask questions during the initial discussion of whatever's going on, then i go off and do it. if something comes up in the course of the event or project, i will at least try to figure out what's wrong before i go ask someone another question. maybe that's why i hate it when people don't do the same for me.

i am radically impatient, and i do not suffer fools well. sadly for me, my definition of "fools" is pretty damn broad as well. needless to say, my irritation gauge is pretty well spiked on a daily basis. i'm working on being more patient, on letting go of more, and generally on trying to be more tranquil. the path of the sanguine woman, though, is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the stupid and the tyranny of annoying people. it's my responsibility to stay on the straight and narrow without going all clock-tower-rifle-y on people. most days, this is easy. some days, however, the others test me. these are the days when i have to put my game face on. breathe in, breathe out - don't maim.

unmitigated chaos

traveling is so much fun... except the act of getting where you're going. air travel in particular, as we've all gotten used to in the last 8 1/2 years, has just become the biggest bitch to deal with ever. and that's on a day when the sun is shining.

enter snow-pocalypse redux. i'm in the airport right now, hearing celine dion caterwauling "my heart will go on" (over the music playing on my ipod), waiting with bated breath to get on what is probably going to be the last flight into DC for a solid three days. see, i made the apparently terrible mistake of deciding to watch the super bowl with my nearest and dearest again this year. ha, ha. joke's on me. with a potential for 26 inches of snow this weekend, i've had to reschedule flights three times. in order to make this one, the last hope i have of getting there before the snow, i had to drive for six hours to get to an airport that's two states away. GAAH.

i've been awake for 22 hours and counting. i drove in that condition. when i land at the airport, i still have to take a commuter train, then the metro (subway, for those of you not familiar with DC), and then walk about half a mile before i get home to crash. then i have to figure out when/how to take the metro to my friends' place. all while dealing with 2" of snowfall per hour for around 13 hours. this could get ugly quick.

i hate snow. i really do. when i was a kid, snow was fun. then i went through a blizzard as a working adult, and now i never want to see that fluffy white scourge ever again. there's nothing amusing about this. this is a nightmare. all i wanted to do was see my friends. it shouldn't be this hard. sigh...