Thursday, March 12, 2009

Missing my home . . .

in California.

The weather here has been remarkably reminiscent of home, the home which has my heart, namely the Bay Area. It's windy, crisp, and a little rainy. Reminds me of San Francisco. It's good for my spirit in that I can almost forget where I am, but then I remember and it sucks all over again. I really do hate Texas. So much. Last night I went for a burger and a beer at bar downtown. This was a feat for me as I hate leaving the house and hate downtown even more. A woman came up to me some time during the night and asked if she could touch my hair. *sigh* This kind of shit never, EVER happened to me in California. It's not so simple to exoticize someone when there are tons of other chicks (i.e. strange-looking mixed girls) roaming around who look just like her. But not so in Texas. The woman proceeded to tell me, "Wow, I didn't think it would be so soft! It's like a pillow. I wish I could sleep on it." I am not a violent person, but I am often tempted to thump people on the nose.

I am making very poorly chosen Mix CDs for people. It's a nice distraction. My taste in music is so bizarre. But shit, I stand behind it.

Monday, March 9, 2009

And the hits just keep on comin' . . .

My mother gave me some money. I am still broke, having no luck finding a semi-permanent gig, and am crossing my fingers that California will finally get its shit together and send me my tiny ass state refund check. Hey, I really I have nothing else to look forward to. I used some of the money my mother gave me to do something important. I went and got drunk. Alone. Again. I started out at noon and finished up at four this morning. I went from mimosas, Bloody Marys, and beer in the flash of an eye. It's a talent really. My head did its part to tell me that such mini-benders are probably not really a good idea. But I had a reason! There is always a reason.

My ex-best friend is going to be married soon. It's bringing a host of confusing emotions to the fore. The most difficult being that I'm not quite able to understand how it is I can still miss her so much. I actually sat in the shower and cried at the reality that this person, someone I would have (and probably would still) have taken a bullet for, is going to experience one of the most amazing days of her life and I can't even call her and congratulate her. I can't even tell her that I want her to have all the happiness and goodness which can be fit into a single lifetime. I can't even tell her that I am happy she has found a good, caring, funny man to cherish her and stand beside her through the rest of this crazy life. I am sad because I know I have missed out on an opportunity to be an Aunty to what I know will be an amazing kid. No, she's not with child yet, but I think of a future I'll never know anything about it and really did believe I was going to be a part of. I thought we'd grow old and stay friends. Once, we saw a movie together and a Muppet Movie clip was shown with the two crotchety old Muppets, M. turned to me and said, "That's going to be us when we get old." I really wanted it to be us. I am sad because I won't get to see her glowing and in the arms of good love. I don't want to miss her any more. Especially because I know she doesn't miss me.

It's sad to admit that I know pretty much everything about her wedding plans. I've read her blog religiously and often find myself smiling and crying at the thought of how happy she must be. When I have been with Jenna and have been drunk or depressed and found myself bringing up my ex-best friend Jenna has snapped at me. "Man, fuck that bitch! Quit dwelling on shit. She doesn't give a shit about you." I know all of this. Truly I do. Yet for some reason, losing a friend was harder, much harder than losing a lover. And considering the fact that I have pretty much run all of my friends off, it's become that much more paintful. It's been three years, when will it stop hurting?

So, that got me to drinkin'. And then there was the fact that I was stupid and made contact with a friend from high school. The stupid part was not making contact. I'm glad we are back in touch. She's a beautiful person. The stupid thing was being told about how grand her life is. She has a two year old, is pregnant again, and loves her Navy officer husband. You can copy, paste, and repeat this story and you essentially have the same story for every single person I've ever known.

I have fucked up my life. I know this. I am alone. I am lonely. And I don't like it. I am nowhere near the person I wanted to be. I could give you a whole list of the things I could have been (writer, professor, journalist, lawyer, entrepreneur, etc), but I've just seemed to lack the discipline or true verve. I did have a small bright spot to this depressive spell. It's tiny, I'm sure it won't get me through the hardest of days, but it did help a tiny bit. I realized that regardless of who has abandoned me, rejected me, or forgotten about me, I am a damn fine specimen. And no, I don't mean physically. (At one of the bars I went to a man who made a terrible drunken pass at me actually told me that he could tell that though I wasn't "physically attractive" I had a lot going on inside. Umm, thanks?) I'm intelligent, insightful, caring, funny, and am the only me that will ever be. It's so cheesy, but it's true. This is the only Tiffany Conner that will ever be this Tiffany Conner. It is what it is, and I am who I am. Any who have been fortunate enough to come into my life should realize that I never wanted more than a chance to be a good friend or partner. It's such a waste of my energy and life to keep comparing myself to other people and to strive for someone else's brand of success.

This is my life. I get to live it. It's not the greatest life, but it is a chance and I need to start doing more things to acknowledge that it really can be a good thing to just be . . . alive.

I promise to work on it a little.

Oh, and with respect to M. and J's wedding, I intend to sit somewhere, alone, with them in my heart and take a shot in their honor.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Grrrrrrrr!

I am not a hateful woman. Ask anyone who knows me and I hope they will confirm this. The whole of my miserable life I have prided myself on the fact that I am among the most tolerant, sympathetic, and empathetic of individuals you will ever meet. All of that being said, I fucking hate Rush Limbaugh.

I cannot for the life of me understand why any supposedly intelligent individual would waste valuable life seconds and brain cells listening to that hypocritical slimy fat bastard. And no, my antipathy for Mr. Limbaugh has nothing to do with his recent comments hoping for President Obama's failure with regard to the president's economic stimulus plan. I have a strong history of distaste which goes all the way back to a tortured high school classroom in which I was the only somewhat progressive student in the midst of a horde of suburban fucks who actually wrote Rush Limbaugh quotes on their notebooks like he was a rock star. I shudder to think. Let's forget for now that this shithead (and Bill O'Reilly! Another who makes me want to vomit in my mouth) were adamant that opposing the president (President Bush, of course, with regard to the unjust invasion of a sovereign nation which did not attack our country) or calling for his failure was tantamount to treason and was “unpatriotic.” Let's forget for now that President Obama's stimulus plan, while not perfect, but an effort of some sort to keep people from losing their HOMES and their JOBS, does far less to chisel away at the blessed market gods than did the wizards of doom in the halls of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, or Merrill Lynch, to name a few.

Typical conservative pundit piss ants.

I shouldn't say that. Really, I shouldn't. I am not against free enterprise. I believe that healthy competition is good for innovation. Yes, the private sector often takes this to such an extreme that competition for profit's sake overrides any general proposition of innovation for the sake of any greater social or cultural good, but that's another issue entirely. I know that it's called the FREE market for a reason, but there is no harm in acknowledging the truth: Markets can fail to provide benefits for all. How many times must we hear, “Let the markets fix it! The markets must work their magic!” before we realize that these “magical markets” are in fact manipulatable, man-made mechanisms that aren't made to “fix” anything. My problem is with the fact that assholes like Limbaugh and O'Reilly propagate this idea of indifferent, efficient markets irrespective of the reality of last year's meltdowns and calamities, disasters which sit as proof positive that the contours of the market landscape are almost always shaped by someone and that's not free, unfettered anything. The advantage of free, unfettered markets was to no one's advantage. The creation of complex financial instruments which made many rich fast has made that many more poor faster.

I am not laying all of the blame on Wall Street. That is too easy, and it is wrong. But jackfucks like Limbaugh and O'Reilly claim that the president is out to cultivate a Godzilla Government and no one, not one person has thought to stop and ask them, “Well, what's your idea then shitnugget? What's your plan? Do you have a plan? I mean, other than tax cuts or bad-mouthing the president with an eye toward 2012?” (Oh and by the way, I've always loved how hypocrite conservatives can talk about "getting government out of your life" and then want to stick the government right into my uterus.) What's the plan when you have no plan? ATTACK! Consider this, when Michael Steele, the GOP's Chairman, gets taken to task for daring to take the edge off of Limbaugh's comments he is attacked by the same party he was just elected to lead. The fact that the GOP is taking commands from a fat, drug-addicted, many times divorced, bloviating shithead, rather than its elected Chair, says something worth noticing about the GOP. What happened to retooling? What happened to articulating that supposed robust message you've always believed resonant with the American people? Of course, there is something frightening about Mr. Steele's stated mission to take the GOP to the Hip Hop generation. And his being introduced at a recent conservative luncheon and being told, “You da man!” by his introducer, well, that's just whack! And weird. It's also a little weird.

This was a long, bitchy blog about nothing personal. They are my favorite kind.

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