a better son/daughter

This song does a really good job of outlining how I've been feeling lately. I'm working on it. Be back soon.

sayonara Facebook, hello blog?

I recently disabled my Facebook account. All of the Trayvon Martin hate started bleeding together with photos of my friends and family having awesome times together without inviting me, and it made my heart ache. I'd like to be more attentive to this blog, but lately, I'm struggling with:

• A. the longer format, since I've become a pro at the short soundbites and re-posts of Facebook; 
• B. what I suspect is likely an extended bout with depression; and 
• C. how to blog authentically about my life without talking at great length about being bone-crushingly glum, since the Internet lasts forever and I'd prefer not to be defined as some kind of unstable sadpants.

Fortunately, stopping the steady stream of trivial updates that is the Book of Faces has forced me to actually reach out to people. Remember how telephones used to be for calling people, and not just texting, Tweeting and liking at them? I've been doing that, and it turns out that ish is dope. And the people who respond - who call back, and email, and send photos - have to actively seek me out, not just stumble across something I've said on their news feed. My original goal was to go for one month without logging on, but now I can see it being a long-term lifestyle change. Plus, our air conditioning is broken, and who wants to sit around in the heat on a laptop when you can be over at someone else's house with AC?

But anyway. I'm going to try to ratchet it up. But tomorrow, though. I've gotta hit the hay. Big day of being a thirty year old intern in front of me tomorrow.

lonely freak blues

Why all the posts lately about babies? Because pretty much every time I try to make advance plans with a friend, she ends up pregnant and cancels. It's starting to make me terrified that eventually I'm going to run out of friends to hang out with, and that something is wrong with me because I've always known I don't want kids. It's kind of hard to be happy for my friends when I'm lonely and feel like a freak.

Or maybe I can just take Nick's advice and get a bartending job; according to my husband, "degenerates" like him always hang out and make you feel like it's Cheers.

definitely not an atheist

Sometimes, when I think about the horrors of the Middle Passage, or of the Holocaust - any genocide, really - I get so angry at God that I can't help but cry. How am I supposed to put faith in a God who sits back and allows so many people to suffer? And don't talk to me about mysteries of faith and master plans: you know who else had a master plan? Hitler.

These are the moments I wish I was an atheist.

hating the help

I wish I had something more profound or thoughtful to say about it, but today, I was forced to take help from my folks. There's only one thing I hate more in the world than admitting that I need it, and that would be accepting it when it's unsolicited.

Nothing makes you feel quite so much like a big, fat failure at life as when you're busting your ass, working a job that makes you miserable - a job that pays you more than you've ever made in your life - budgeting and cutting corners, but you still can't make ends meet because the world just keeps knocking you down. And I know, I know - I'm grateful to just be broke and not poor, but man. I need a break. I need a few breaks. Then today I got one, and it feels terrible.

I know how unbelievably lucky I am to have a family who is able to help, who is willing and happy to help us out. But then the part that's worse than having your dad offer you exactly what you need to get back on your feet, without your even asking? Refusing it (I should be able to do this myself), and being forced to take it anyway, then feeling like the lowest piece of shit ever for seeming like an ingrate.

It's a bitter pill to swallow, being the helpee instead of the helper. I hate it.